Art Nouveau Ho

My local cinema is showing Bergman's The Seventh Seal, and last night I went to see it with the ever lovely fracture242.

Bergman's own recent checkmate by Death saddened me. I loved so many of his films: in addition to Seventh Seal, I adore Smiles of a Summer Night (which Stephen Sondheim adapted for his musical A Little Night Music) and of course The Magic Flute, which to this day is one of the best examples of opera on film.

Seeing The Seventh Seal in all its monochrome glory on the big screen, the overall effect is one of terrifying clarity. On the one hand, the gaps in the production values are more obvious-- yes, they're wearing faked-up knitwear chainmail-- but on the other, moments like Death's appearance in the blinding light on the stony beach have about ten times the impact.

What filmmaker today would dare portray Death without using CGI? Or the dream-visions of the actor Jof? Bergman does it all with acting: the story is told on the faces, in merciless close-ups which are all the more revealing on the big screen.

In the opening scene, Death asks the Knight why he wants more time. The Knight replies "To accomplish one meaningful thing." In the Knight's case, he means seeing his wife again after ten years on crusade-- but in Bergman's, I think, that thing was this film. It's amazing in so many ways.

Last time I went up to Oxford to run through Scotland repertoire with my accompanist Guy, I arrived in town a little early, so I went (fatally) into an antique shop.

I was doing all right at resisting the shiny things and the bladed things and the things with barrels, but I was completely broadsided by a shelf full of music books. Specifically, by a collection of ribald songs from Pills to Purge Melancholy. As a connoisseur of historical filth, I couldn't pass it up.

Wit and Mirth: or, Pills to Purge Melancholy was a title broadly given to several collections of popular song published between 1698 and 1720. Things really perked up once Thomas d'Urfey took over as editor: sure, he took the opportunity to publish a lot of his own song lyrics, but he also showed a rare dedication to collecting the latest hits heard in streets, theatres, pubs and club-rooms around the country.

The songs themselves are witty, bawdy, funny, lyrical and topical. Today some of them fall flat, but a good many of them are still worth hearing. The political ones have dated, of course, but the ones about sex are still quite, er, relevant.

I discovered Pills in my first year at university through this CD, and quickly infected my Stateside friends. Somewhere, there still exists a recording of speedlime and fatbuttsheep singing The Jolly Tradesmen in a school concert in the Washington Cathedral. Meanwhile I was making a modest name for myself singing classics like Oyster Nan in Oxfordshire pubs. (I had fallen among folk musicians at the time. A girl's got to have a hobby...)

When I got to London and began music college, I left the folk scene to focus on classical music. Fortunately, classical musicians can still access the vast archive of historical filth-- they just have to refer to it as "early music." For example, this book of filthy catches, edited by serious early-music heavyweight Paul Hillier, also has pride of place on my shelves.

So when I saw a book entitled "Sixty Ribald Songs from Pills To Purge Melancholy," complete with rather naughty cover illustration, I knew it had to come home with me. It has guitar accompaniments rather than the figured bass of the original, but I can work around that. Mostly I want to keep it for reference, and as a souvenir of my ill-spent youth.

As a reward for reading so far, do please enjoy this text. If you saw the Globe's 2003 production of Edward II, you'll remember it being sung by a half-naked Gerald Kyd.
( NSFW, especially if you work in or around 1720 )

Happy Fourth of July, everyone! Today it is our patriotic duty to MAKE THINGS EXPLODE. Here in DC, being the nation's capital, we have something of an obligation to make our explosions bigger, louder and generally more explodariffic than anyone else's. ( KABOOOM )

Tonight I'm going down to the Washington Monument to see the fireworks, where I fear irony will be in short supply. But I'll go with friends and we'll bring a picnic, and when darkness falls there will be ... yes... EXPLOSIONS. Government-sponsored explosions, at that: finally, they do something sensible with our tax dollars.

So, orkamedies, wyte_phantom, rosenkavalier and anyone else who feels inclined: If you were to cause any explosions, say, tonight, you can always claim you were acting on the instructions of the U.S. government. I'll just leave you holding that thought, shall I?

Meanwhile, credit for my splendid patriotic icon goes to albertbbun and myriadim, to whom I doff my mobcap in humble appreciation.

The coolest piece of internet news I've heard in a while (via Metafilter) has to be this story: the oldest extant copy of the Iliad, a tenth-century manuscript known as Venetus A, is being scanned in 3-d, so that web users will be able to do the equivalent of tilting their heads and putting their nose right up to the page to decipher the damaged parts, read the marginalia and look at the cool drawings.

A transcription to go with the scan will also be produced this summer-- and that part is happening in my hometown! Eventually the whole thing will go up online as part of the Homer Multitext Project. Rock.

In other cool historical news: wolfinthewood alerts me to the existence of a 1780s Georgian theatre in Richmond, Yorkshire-- not terribly far from Whitby. Anyone fancy a frock-coated invasion/pilgrimage in October?

Finally, a word about wolfinthewood herself. She's an author, translator and historian with an eye for the colourful; I first found her through her excellent Outlaws and Highwaymen website, a fascinating collection of primary sources on the English highway robber (plus one memorable ancient Roman.) She uses her LJ as a sort of running anthology of bits of text she finds interesting: up there right now are a description of Bedlam beggars from 1612 and an account from 1188 of a household steward who turned out to be the son of a demon. I highly recommend friending her: all manner of interesting things will turn up on your Friends page if you do.

I've just come from a mellow and merry dinner with my neighbour Yvonne. A while back, the building manager remarked upon the number of single women living in the building; as for me, I'm rather blown away by the fantastic stories my neighbours all seem to have.

In the course of conversation over trout, salad, strawberries and some truly mindblowing sloe gin, Yvonne let slip some few details of her past. For example, she USED TO FLY SMALL AIRCRAFT. ( I think I'll fit into this building just fine )

Up in Oxford for a rehearsal yesterday, I walked by a large, smiling group of people having their picture taken in Christ Church Meadow. Nothing extraordinary there, except that they were all holding serpents.

Not the reptiles, you understand, the Renaissance wind instruments. The very rarely played Renaissance wind instruments. I did not know there were as many serpents in the world as I saw that afternoon in the meadow. I said as much to one of the merry crowd; he replied "Oh, we've had more in the past." It turns out that once every two years, in the month of May, a Gathering takes place of serpent players from many nations. Yes, I had stumbled upon Serpentarium 2007-- and they were headed to the Music Faculty to rehearse, as was I.

The serpent is a strange beast: it's got a brass instrument's mouthpiece, but finger holes like a woodwind. Its sound is similar to a modern euphonium, but with more treble, a bit like a nasal voice: it's got that strident, in-ya-face quality we associate with early wind music. Plus, it looks cool-- wicked cool. Carrying a serpent officially makes you an early-music badass. Those fluffy-haired lute players are not going to fuck with you, lest you unleash the wrath of George.

The typical period band contains only one or two serpents. I sat down in the foyer to wait for my accompanist, and watched 40 or so serpents of various sizes file past into the rehearsal hall. Then they started to play. I quickly learned two essential facts about serpents:

1. They are very loud.

2. No two are tuned at exactly the same pitch.

My accompanist was late-- very late. By the time he showed up, I was beginning to acquire a new understanding of why the serpent had seen such extensive use in war.

Guy and I rehearsed for quite awhile, but as we headed for the door, the serpentists were still hard at it. Let me just say that you haven't lived until you've heard a roomful of serpents playing the 1812 Overture.

OH LOOK, HERE'S A FREE DOWNLOAD. I love the internet.

My encounter with the brave band of serpenteers only strengthens my theory that early music geeks are the best geeks. May they march into the future with their weirdly-shaped horns held high.

In conclusion, let me give some love to a few other period wind instruments: the sackbut, the zink and its cousin the lizard, the shawm, and my personal favourite: the krummhorn. Enjoy!

EDIT: the twisted path I took through the Web to get the links for this article brought me to a wholly new instrument: the Hosaphone. Go for the sound samples, stay for the FAQ.

Flushed with the excitement of Saturday night's Eurovision Song Contest, I sent the following text message to mothninja, who is Swedish (but grew up in the UK and now lives in Italy-- go figure.)

Congratulations on Sweden's entry in the Eurovision Song Contest!
I wish to marry him.  Can this be arranged?

I received the following email in response:

[...] On behalf of the grateful Nation of Sweden, I hereby award you the Entry 
to the Eurovision, of whom I sadly have no direct knowledge, but if you say he's 
worth it, he's all yours. Your traditional wedding helmet with optional 
Valkyrie plaits is in the post.  The King salutes you, the blue-and-yellow flag 
flies ever free, and there's herring for dinner. Huzzah!

I am fortunate enough to number among my close acquaintance many individuals of taste and style, who shudder at the very mention of Eurovision. However, I am an American, and one of the bonuses of this proud heritage is that taste and style have no place in my universe. ( Read on if you dare )

So I have a cousin who works for the FBI. One thing you can say for him is that he tells good stories. Tonight over dinner he was talking about the guy who was his legal instructor when he was in training. As an agent, my cousin said he might be interviewing a bank president one day and a drug dealer the next, and he relayed this advice that his instructor had given him:

"Treat everyone you meet the same way, treat 'em like a million bucks-- but always have a plan worked out to kill 'em if you have to."

Today I went, as I'd planned, to the UK Web and Minicomics Thing. This Thing took place at Queen Mary and Westfield College: I haven't been there since the summer of 1995, when I directed a play in their theatre starring the always excellent mothninja and a host of other talented people. The terrain around there is greener and cleaner, but there still isn't a decent pub for miles.

QMW is a huge campus, and the Thing took some finding. The day got a lot better once I pushed open a door into a room full of interesting people with art to display and stories to tell. ( Come with me to the Thing... )

We live surrounded by good stories; they hang, like ripe fruit, within easy reach. Occasionally they contain wasps or worms, but part of art is learning to expect the unexpected: to love it, indeed. So verily I say unto ye, support your local webcomic artist. Here endeth the blog entry.

Busy week, so today I've been having a Day Off: a turbulent odyssey of laundry, dishwashing and plant maintenance. And vegging out watching random TV, which is how I came to be watching the BBC's coverage of Crufts tonight.

(Non-UK readers, Crufts is Britain's, and some say the world's, biggest dog show. They televise this stuff here. Cool, eh?)

In a possibly related vein, there was a question on Ask Metafilter recently in which the questioner wondered why she got emotional over dog shows and whether anyone else had the same response. It turned out to be a really interesting thread, in which people revealed that they do, indeed, get emotional over dog shows and other strange things, and that nobody can watch that episode of Futurama in which Fry tries to clone his old dog that waited for him outside his pizza parlour for years. (Here are the last three weepy minutes on YouTube.) Great thread, great links. ( More dogs, and a few cats, under here )

In other animal news, I hear from my downstairs neighbour that Puss, the neglected cat she used to look after, is happily settled in a new home where he's well loved and treated like a prince. Happy endings, for once.