by P. D. Baccalario
Recommended Ages: 12+
+++ REVIEW IN PROGRESS +++
Saturday, May 18, 2013
The Cat Who Used Figures of Speech
My 11-ish cat Tyrone demonstrated, at four o'clock this morning, that he knows how to use a figure of speech.
We have worked out a little vocabulary between us, mostly in body language. For example, when I'm reading on the couch with a blanket over me, or sleeping in bed likewise, he may climb up on my chest and paw at the hem of the blanket, purring loudly. This means he wants me to lift the hem and let him crawl under the blanket with me. Adorable cuddling ensues.
Sometimes he does this when I'm not under a blanket. Instead, he paws at the neck-line of my T-shirt. I generally take this to mean Drunk Kitty has forgotten the difference between a blanket and a shirt, and wants to snuggle up inside my shirt. This usually proves to be awkward, because there really isn't room for him to crawl down the neck of my shirt while I'm wearing it. Sometimes he tries crawling up from the lower hem, but usually stops halfway to play the "attack the hand through the fabric" game, favored by cats worldwide.
This morning, however, Tyrone found me sprawled in bed with neither a blanket nor a shirt covering my hairy mountain of flab. Nothing dismayed, the cat stood on my chest, purred, and pawed at my collarbone until I woke up. I correctly interpreted this gesture as a request to pull the sheet and blanket over us both. A minute later, Tyrone was curled up next to my knee, snoring. And I was wide awake, thinking: "My cat just used a figure of speech to communicate with me. Metonymy, to be exact. The bare chest for the blanket that covers it..."
We have worked out a little vocabulary between us, mostly in body language. For example, when I'm reading on the couch with a blanket over me, or sleeping in bed likewise, he may climb up on my chest and paw at the hem of the blanket, purring loudly. This means he wants me to lift the hem and let him crawl under the blanket with me. Adorable cuddling ensues.Sometimes he does this when I'm not under a blanket. Instead, he paws at the neck-line of my T-shirt. I generally take this to mean Drunk Kitty has forgotten the difference between a blanket and a shirt, and wants to snuggle up inside my shirt. This usually proves to be awkward, because there really isn't room for him to crawl down the neck of my shirt while I'm wearing it. Sometimes he tries crawling up from the lower hem, but usually stops halfway to play the "attack the hand through the fabric" game, favored by cats worldwide.
This morning, however, Tyrone found me sprawled in bed with neither a blanket nor a shirt covering my hairy mountain of flab. Nothing dismayed, the cat stood on my chest, purred, and pawed at my collarbone until I woke up. I correctly interpreted this gesture as a request to pull the sheet and blanket over us both. A minute later, Tyrone was curled up next to my knee, snoring. And I was wide awake, thinking: "My cat just used a figure of speech to communicate with me. Metonymy, to be exact. The bare chest for the blanket that covers it..."
Thursday, May 16, 2013
The Well Between the Worlds
The Well Between the Worlds
by Sam Llewellyn
Recommended Ages: 12+
+++ REVIEW IN PROGRESS +++
by Sam Llewellyn
Recommended Ages: 12+
+++ REVIEW IN PROGRESS +++
Tuesday, May 14, 2013
The Secret History of Tom Trueheart
The Secret History of Tom Trueheart
by Ian Beck
Recommended Ages: 10+
+++ REVIEW IN PROGRESS +++
by Ian Beck
Recommended Ages: 10+
+++ REVIEW IN PROGRESS +++
Sunday, May 12, 2013
Beethoven Week
My best excuse for not blogging much lately is that, besides working a "day job," I've been rehearsing and performing fine-art music most of the last few weeks. There was "Brahms Week," in which the St. Louis Symphony Chorus (yours truly included) performed the Schicksalslied (Song of Fate) and Gesang der Parzen (Song of the Fates) under the baton of up-and-coming young conductor Ward Stare, formerly the St. Louis Symphony's resident conductor. Then there was a "Bach Week" (really more of a weekend) with the American Kantorei ("Bach at the Sem"), performing two whole cantatas and choruses from two others, led by guest conductor Scott Hyslop of Frankenmuth, Michigan. And now I have just touched ground after seven glorious days, including a full concert-order rehearsal and four nearly sold-out public performances, of Beethoven's 9th Symphony, with the celebrated "Ode to Joy" in the fourth movement.
The program began with an a capella choral number by Anton Bruckner, "Christus factus est" (Christ is made obedient unto death), for a middle-sized group of singers selected from the Symphony Chorus. This work, appropriate for the week of Ascension Day, focuses on the humiliation and glorification of Christ—more than half of it being devoted to the Latin words for "which is above every name" as a reference to the honor to which Christ has been exalted. Bruckner's short piece led without a break into Act 3 of Alban Berg's expressionist opera Wozzeck, in which a smaller select group of chorus members sang briefly. Berg, whose reputation is tied to the serialist school of Schoenberg, used the orchestra to powerful effect in portraying scenes of madness, murder, despair, suicide, superstitious anxiety, and the sociopathic egotism of a child who goes on saying "Hop-hop, hop-hop, hop-hop" when told that its mother is dead. And all this, drawn from a real-life drama that unfolded at about the time Beethoven was writing his Ninth, sets the background for his amazing testimony of faith in the brotherhood of man and the unifying power of humanistic ideals.
David Robertson conducted the hell out of this program. Based on his interpretation of the Ninth Symphony's four movements, I have distilled my thoughts down to a two-word description of what aspects of Beethoven's character each movement reveals. So, Movement I: the monumental sonata whose opening theme, based on a spare interval of a fifth, emerges out of a nebula "without form and void," represents Beethoven's fierce intelligence. Movement II: the scherzo driven by insistent rhythms, given to rude interruptions, pointed pauses, and sudden arbitrary changes of key, and ending in a joke—that shows the exuberant willfulness in Beethoven's character. Movement III: the slow, tender variations on an alternating pair of themes, painted in lush colors by his mastery of the orchestra (albeit a bit soporific to some exhausted participants in this afternoon's performance) demonstrates Beethoven's sincere humanity. But when he caps it off with a huge finale that makes the orchestra speak like a human voice, then unprecedentedly introduces the human voice to the symphonic form, he does so in a way that points up his revolutionary instinct. And there in bold type, o Freunde, you have my analysis of B9 in eight words.
The program began with an a capella choral number by Anton Bruckner, "Christus factus est" (Christ is made obedient unto death), for a middle-sized group of singers selected from the Symphony Chorus. This work, appropriate for the week of Ascension Day, focuses on the humiliation and glorification of Christ—more than half of it being devoted to the Latin words for "which is above every name" as a reference to the honor to which Christ has been exalted. Bruckner's short piece led without a break into Act 3 of Alban Berg's expressionist opera Wozzeck, in which a smaller select group of chorus members sang briefly. Berg, whose reputation is tied to the serialist school of Schoenberg, used the orchestra to powerful effect in portraying scenes of madness, murder, despair, suicide, superstitious anxiety, and the sociopathic egotism of a child who goes on saying "Hop-hop, hop-hop, hop-hop" when told that its mother is dead. And all this, drawn from a real-life drama that unfolded at about the time Beethoven was writing his Ninth, sets the background for his amazing testimony of faith in the brotherhood of man and the unifying power of humanistic ideals.David Robertson conducted the hell out of this program. Based on his interpretation of the Ninth Symphony's four movements, I have distilled my thoughts down to a two-word description of what aspects of Beethoven's character each movement reveals. So, Movement I: the monumental sonata whose opening theme, based on a spare interval of a fifth, emerges out of a nebula "without form and void," represents Beethoven's fierce intelligence. Movement II: the scherzo driven by insistent rhythms, given to rude interruptions, pointed pauses, and sudden arbitrary changes of key, and ending in a joke—that shows the exuberant willfulness in Beethoven's character. Movement III: the slow, tender variations on an alternating pair of themes, painted in lush colors by his mastery of the orchestra (albeit a bit soporific to some exhausted participants in this afternoon's performance) demonstrates Beethoven's sincere humanity. But when he caps it off with a huge finale that makes the orchestra speak like a human voice, then unprecedentedly introduces the human voice to the symphonic form, he does so in a way that points up his revolutionary instinct. And there in bold type, o Freunde, you have my analysis of B9 in eight words.
Saturday, May 11, 2013
"Is THAT How You Say" 3
Further to this and this, here are a few more instances of words whose "correct" pronunciation surprised me when I heard an audio-book actor speak them in the Queen's English...
Vicissitude—I have always taken this to be a Mississippi word, with three short is: "vis-Sis-sit-tood." As prolific audio-book reader Nadia May pronounces it, however, the first i is long: "vye-Sis-sit-you'd." There is a ring of rightness to this.
Sinecure—This word mainly appears in British prose, such as the novels of Anthony Trollope, describing a career situation exacting light labor for a heavy salary. So the Brits probably have the right of it when, as in the above example, they make the first i long: "Sign a cure," rather than "Sin a cure." Still, it's a bit of a surprise for a self-taught Yank who guessed how to pronounce most of his vocabulary after acquiring it in books. I'm used to that kind of thing by now.
Meanwhile, the Latin phrase vice versa—whose vulgar American pronunciation makes possible my pun about a late-model Nissan being used as a narcotics undercover vehicle—comes over from across the Atlantic as "Veet-say Vair-sa." Clearly, our (classical) education has been sadly neglected.
Amenities—I'm pretty sure this word, in America, is pronounced like "a Men it ease," where it usually has something to do with cable TV, clean towels, and a continental breakfast. I'm pretty sure I heard Nadia May, just today, saying it with a long e: "a Mean it ease." And given that she was reading George Eliot, I doubt that she had the same examples in view.
Atelier—This word for an artist's studio is one I can't remember ever hearing spoken aloud until today. And so I have had the gravest misgivings about attempting to use it, not having the faintest idea how to say it. Wiktionary is no help, apart from hinting that it rhymes with "day." I wouldn't have even guessed the right number of syllables. Nadia May gives it as "At-lee-ay." Or, if you prefer a stronger mnemonic, it sounds like what you might say after discovering who was British Prime Minister at the end of World War II: "Attlee, eh?"
Distribute—In American English, the stress goes on the second syllable: "dis-TRIB-yoot." And although you would think denizens of the cradle of the English language might be onto something when they stress the first syllable—"DIS-trib-yoot"—I can't help feeling that they've blundered, somehow. It strikes my ear as clumsy and foreign, like an attempt by someone who speaks English as a second or third language to cover his or her ignorance. I think it must sound even more unwieldy with "-ed" and "-ing" suffixes added. It seems to run counter to the principle of euphony that made my late professor's pronunciation of "adversary" and "controversy" sound so right.
Merino—this word designates both a breed of sheep and the wool that it produces. Both sheep and wool are more of an English thing than an American, so I'll take their word for it when I hear British actors read the word with the stress, and a short e, both in the first syllable. I was just a little surprised by this, though, because I've met people with the family name Merino, who pronounce it "muh-REE-no." But coming from a country where the word "chops" is not automatically understood to mean mutton chops, they may be as mistaken as I was.
Vicissitude—I have always taken this to be a Mississippi word, with three short is: "vis-Sis-sit-tood." As prolific audio-book reader Nadia May pronounces it, however, the first i is long: "vye-Sis-sit-you'd." There is a ring of rightness to this.
Sinecure—This word mainly appears in British prose, such as the novels of Anthony Trollope, describing a career situation exacting light labor for a heavy salary. So the Brits probably have the right of it when, as in the above example, they make the first i long: "Sign a cure," rather than "Sin a cure." Still, it's a bit of a surprise for a self-taught Yank who guessed how to pronounce most of his vocabulary after acquiring it in books. I'm used to that kind of thing by now.
 |
| Nothing to see here. Move along. |
Amenities—I'm pretty sure this word, in America, is pronounced like "a Men it ease," where it usually has something to do with cable TV, clean towels, and a continental breakfast. I'm pretty sure I heard Nadia May, just today, saying it with a long e: "a Mean it ease." And given that she was reading George Eliot, I doubt that she had the same examples in view.
 |
| Winston who? |
Distribute—In American English, the stress goes on the second syllable: "dis-TRIB-yoot." And although you would think denizens of the cradle of the English language might be onto something when they stress the first syllable—"DIS-trib-yoot"—I can't help feeling that they've blundered, somehow. It strikes my ear as clumsy and foreign, like an attempt by someone who speaks English as a second or third language to cover his or her ignorance. I think it must sound even more unwieldy with "-ed" and "-ing" suffixes added. It seems to run counter to the principle of euphony that made my late professor's pronunciation of "adversary" and "controversy" sound so right.
Merino—this word designates both a breed of sheep and the wool that it produces. Both sheep and wool are more of an English thing than an American, so I'll take their word for it when I hear British actors read the word with the stress, and a short e, both in the first syllable. I was just a little surprised by this, though, because I've met people with the family name Merino, who pronounce it "muh-REE-no." But coming from a country where the word "chops" is not automatically understood to mean mutton chops, they may be as mistaken as I was.
Tuesday, May 7, 2013
The Humming Room
The Humming Room
by Ellen Potter
Recommended Ages: 12+
+++ REVIEW IN PROGRESS +++
[Seriously. I'm ready to write these reviews. My schedule is just too tight this week. Come back next week, and you'll see!]
by Ellen Potter
Recommended Ages: 12+
+++ REVIEW IN PROGRESS +++[Seriously. I'm ready to write these reviews. My schedule is just too tight this week. Come back next week, and you'll see!]
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