Wednesday, December 30, 2015

Click this link if you dare





https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pXkBzTLOyjc&list=RDpXkBzTLOyjc#t=2

Click this if you dare! It kept me up all night.


Not the Proust questionnaire




Since we're in that dreadful  existential hole known as Crimbo Limbo (the useless week between Christmas and New Years), I'm going to take a questionnaire I just found on Facebook.

1. Are you doing what you truly want to do?

Right now? No. Right now I'd like to be riding a white Arabian horse under a pure blaze of sunlight beside dazzling turquoise waters.  In the Greek isles.  And I'm not.

2. How many promises you have made and how many of them you have fulfilled?

So this says "how many promises you have made/you have fulfilled". Let me see. Just my wedding vows, though I think they were written a little more grammatically than this.

3. Will you break the rules because of something/someone you care about?

 The rules? Not sure which ones, but yes.

4. Is there anything you can't let go of but you know you should?

I don't deal in "shoulds" because they immediately make me want to do the opposite. So, no. I can't let go of anything because I don't want to.

5. Do you remember anyone you hated 10 years ago? Does it matter now?

My sister. Yes.




6. If you'd die now, would you have any regrets?

"If you'd die now" can mean several things: "if you had die now", "if you did die now" or "if you would die now". So I have a creeping regret that I even started this. But, to answer the question , yes! I'd have all kinds of regrets. I really wish I could go right back to the beginning again, but be born into a different family and thus purge off all this genetic horror.

Then again, if I really died NOW I'd have no regrets, and you know why.

7. Are you afraid of making mistakes even though there's no punishments at all?

"There's no punishments at all"?   Let me mention a few mistakes that may or may not lead to "no punishments at all".

You cheat on your spouse.

You're the driver in a hit-and-run accident.

You embezzle money from your workplace.

You leave your kid in his car seat while the car is running, nip into the liquor store for a quick purchase, come back after (I swear) only 15 minutes or so, and the car is gone.

When talking about mistakes and how wonderful it is to make mistakes because they teach you about life, people must mean things like "forgot to give back that Bic pen I borrowed" They can't possibly be referring to things that might leave us morally compromised or full of a gnawing, secret guilt that lasts a lifetime and blights any chance at happiness.

So yes.

8. What's the difference between you and most of the other people?

Most of "the" other people? WHICH other people? Specify if you want me to answer this!

9. Are you doing what you truly want to do?

No! I'd rather be working in a salt mine. Look at my answer to Question One, you flaming idiot!

10. If today'd be the end of the world, what'd you do?

"If today'd be the end of the world", I wouldn't be doing anything because I'd be dead like everyone else (see question 6).

Note: "today'd" can mean "today did", as in "if today did be the end of the world, or "today would", as in "if today would be the end of the world" (both nonsensical). It might even mean "if today had be the end of the world," which is totally ludicrous.

"What'd" means "what did", as in "what did you do?", or "what would", as in . . . oh never mind.

CONCLUSIONS. This is not the Proust questionnaire.



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Wail: one bar that changed musical history




"The Rhapsody was performed by Whiteman's band, with an added section of string players, and George Gershwin on piano. Gershwin decided to keep his options open as to when Whiteman would bring in the orchestra and he did not write down one of the pages for solo piano, with only the words "Wait for nod" scrawled by Grofé on the band score. Gershwin improvised some of what he was playing, and he did not write out the piano part until after the performance, so it is unknown exactly how the original Rhapsody sounded.

The opening clarinet glissando came into being during rehearsal when; "... as a joke on Gershwin, [Ross] Gorman (Whiteman's virtuoso clarinettist) played the opening measure with a noticeable glissando, adding what he considered a humorous touch to the passage. Reacting favourably to Gorman's whimsy, Gershwin asked him to perform the opening measure that way at the concert and to add as much of a 'wail' as possible."