The Runner-Up for Stupidest Traffic Control Situation has to be the two-lane highway on which I once had to drive across California's Mohave Desert.
There was one lane going in each direction. The highway ran as straight as a sunbeam and as flat as a roadkill as far as the eye could see; that is, as far as the range of mountains that looked the same distance away for three hours until, suddenly, they were on top of you.
Every mile or two, this crappy little east-west highway intersected some crappy little north-south road. For about 100 feet on each side of each intersection, the road widened to four lanes - a "going straight" lane and a "passing on the right" lane. I suppose there may also have been a left-turn lane, but that isn't what bothered me. What bothered me was that at every single intersection there was a traffic jam, caused by certain people jumping into the right lane (before going through the intersection) in order to speed past all the people in the center lane, who were at a standstill because 100 feet past the intersection, all the people in the right lane were trying to force their way back in.
In other words, the people who designed that highway were a lot like the people driving on it. Idiots.
During my many wanderings, I have encountered some really stupid, local attempts to control traffic. I mean "stupid" in the sense of "that which makes you hopping mad at the time, and which makes you laugh later."
I think the all-time Grand Prize for Stupid Traffic goes to a small town in southeastern South Dakota, where part of the main drag had been torn up for resurfacing. At least temporarily, to manage the congested traffic during this construction project, the town put up an interesting combination of signs at one, central intersection. On the north-south road there were yield signs; on the east-west road, stop signs.
Now think about it. Which is more restrictive: a stop sign or a yield sign? You would think the answer would be a stop sign, because it requires you to stop when you come to it, every time; the yield sign only requires you to stop if there is oncoming traffic. But when you put a stop sign and a yield sign in direct opposition to each other - as I have seen only in that one instance - the result is that everyone on the road with the stop signs has to stop; and everyone on the road with the yield signs has to stop and wait for the people at the stop sign to go on.
If you follow the "food" thread on this blog, you already know that, when it comes to dining out at restaurants, I spoil myself terribly. To a lesser degree, I also spoil myself at the grocery store. I say "to a lesser degree" because I am not much of a cook, as you must also realize if my proudest achievement is combining red clam sauce with Velveeta Shells & Cheese. Nevertheless, I like to have adventures with food, so I am often trying new things.
Lately, I've realized that several of the flavor adventures I enjoyed the most are Cajun specialties. For example, your grocery store may carry a condiment you have never tried, called Chow Chow (above, left). Don't worry, it's not made out of dogs. It is sort of like a combination of pickle relish and mustard, only it contains chopped up pieces of squash, zucchini, onions, peppers, and maybe cauliflower, plus a unique blend of spices. It's chunky yet spreadable, tart and spicy but not overpowering (if used judiciously)...a very creditable alternative to ketchup and mustard!
I think I have previously mentioned the wonders of the muffuletta sandwich. Muffuletta bread (right) is a flat, round loaf of dense bread, in some cases sourdough. Sliced in half horizontally, it becomes the backbone of the sandwich that shares its name, a sandwich that (in its authentic, Louisiana-born form) contains several kinds of cold cut meat, cheese, and a condiment which few of us outside Cajun or Italian-American culture can identify. But they are all wonderful, and together they are miraculous.
Today I made a very heterodox muffuletta for lunch. Actually it wasn't anything like a muffuletta sandwich, but it had two of the key ingredients, plus sliced cheddar, between two long, oval slices of so-called "St. Louis Sourdough Bread." The first ingredient was a concoction called Black Olive Tapenade (left), which contains black olives, tomatoes, garlic, capers, and other flavorful stuff, ground up into a chunky, oily paste. You can also get Green Olive Tapenade, as well as other kinds of tapenade containing such things as artichoke, but the key to a good muffy is a spreadable olive salad, and I went with black.
The other special touch was capicola (below, right), a cut of dry-cured, cooked meat from the neck and shoulder of a pig. Thin-sliced, rubbed with a delicious blend of spices and paprika, it has a texture vaguely similar to corned beef and a flavor all its own. Italian Americans pronounce the word "gabaghoul" and eat it on pizzas, salads, and sandwiches. A proper muffy is made of gabaghoul, olive tapenade, and muffuletta bread, plus salami, provolone, Swiss cheese (or rather, emmentaler), and bologna (or rather, mortadella: another wonderful Italian cold cut, from which bologna evolved).
My grocery store, particularly the deli and imported foods sections, has exposed me to a world of meats, breads, cheeses, and relishes that have distinctive flavors, textures, and appearances, compared to the homogenized and impoverished varieties American shoppers know better. Just think what eating adventures may await you in the aisles of your neighborhood supermarket!
Mozart wrote his 39th Symphony in E-flat in the same summer of 1788 as his 40th and 41st symphonies, a time of poverty and distress for the composer that seems strangely unconnected to this trilogy of works. The 39th is particularly full of joviality and polished craftmanship. It's a pity Mozart never got to hear it performed.
The first movement begins with a slow introduction consisting mainly of running scales and majestic dotted rhythms. The opening of the sonata proper is comparatively quiet, though this first theme contrasts with more dramatic material. The movement dazzles with its wealth of attractive musical ideas, an array of contrasts brought together in a beautiful harmony.
Movement II is a slow sonata without a development. The first theme is graceful and delicate, not to say just short of soporific (I do admit that Mozart sometimes loses me in his slow movements). The second theme strikes me as brusque and stern, though some may hear tragedy in it; the music mellows out, however, in a lovely synthesis of the above material.
Movement III is a Minuet with a Ländler trio. The Minuet part is very forceful, in contrast to the gentler trio with its gorgeous woodwind writing.
Movement IV is yet another sonata, built on a theme that rapidly runs up and down the scale (mi-fa-sol-fa-mi-re-do, etc.), igniting a machine that motors along pretty well throughout the movement. Nevertheless the development section includes a surprising pause, some disturbing harmonic maneuvers, and a sinister concluding passage (leading up to the recap) that brings me out in gooseflesh. Both halves of the movement (first the exposition, then the development and recap) are repeated, with the mi-fa-sol-fa-mi-re-do run bringing the movement to an unusual but effective close.
The E-flat Symphony doesn't get the press the G Minor (No. 40) and C Major (No. 41) get. In fact, lesser symphonies by Mozart, such as the "Prague" (No. 38) and "Linz" (No. 36) Symphonies, seem to get more air time than the 39th, though the latter shows Mozart in the full maturity of his genius. Nevertheless, when one does hear the 39th, it all comes rushing back. Or rather, having once come to live inside you, it awakens again with a joyful and familiar greeting.
EDIT: In the video below, Karl Bohm conducts the Vienna Symphony Orchestra in the first movement of Mozart's 39th. Interestingly, the video begins with a close-up of the tympani:
In a day and age when a tiny computer device, small enough to stick in your ear, can take voice commands such as "Call Mom" (using your cell phone to dial her number), it is amazing how backwards certain parts of the phone industry can be.
For example, I don't understand why the phone company insists on blaring a deafeningly loud error message into my sensitive, musician's ears, simply because I dialed a "1" and then the area code (even when it's a different area code from where I am calling from) because the number isn't long distance, or because I failed to dial a "1" (even when it's the same area acode as where I am calling from) because it is long distance. Am I a computer? Must I know exactly which numbers are and aren't long distance in this crazy, mixed up telephone system? If they have a computer that can decide whether or not to deafen you with an error message (based on whether you correctly chose to dial or not dial a "1"), couldn't that same computer also decide whether or not the number was long distance and simply make the connection? And must the phone company make such a loud noise directly into its customers ears?
We have reached an age when you can talk on the phone without holding anything in your hands and without trailing around a cord connected to a land line. We have lived to see days when you can store speed-dial numbers and call favorite people at the touch of two buttons. We have blue tooth devices and software sophisticated enough to recognize voice commands. We can take pictures, listen to music, send and receive text messages, play video games, and even surf the internet with our phones. But we can't get over the dilemma: "To dial 1 or not to dial 1." Here's an idea whose time has come: If the computer knows whether or not you should have dialed 1, why bother?
Two more of Joseph Haydn's most overplayed works, and therefore works you should know by name, are the 100th and 104th Symphonies.
The 100th, in G major, has the nickname "Military," owing to the references to Turkish military music in the second and fourth movements, and the trumpet fanfare in the second movement. It begins with a slow introduction that has a stately melody. After a loud outburst, this intro comes to an emphatic end. Then the flutes introduce the sprightly main theme of a "very lively" sonata movement. The second theme, full of teasing good humor, leads off in the development, followed by minor-key fragments of the first theme in which the bassoon plays an important role. A condensed recap and an energetic coda close the movement.
The second movement repeats the same noble tune several times, alternating between a "straight" orchestral version that makes remarkably sensitive use of the woodwinds, and a "janissary" version in which bass drum, cymbals, triangle, and Turkish crescent are used to create the majestic effect of Turkish military music. This style was in vogue in those days (perhaps you recall Mozart's "Rondo alla Turca") and was regarded as both exotic and awe-inspiring. It certainly makes an unusual impact in a Haydn symphony! After going back and forth between these two styles, the peaceful and the military, Haydn begins to mix them up. Then a dramatic trumpet call and drumroll trigger a brief but severe climax, after which the Turkish-colored pomp-and-circumstance ending seems quite cheerful.
Movement III is a dignified, fluent Minuet of relatively broad proportions. Its trio is quieter and lighter, with a skipping rhythm; together they make a very charming movement. Get a good earful of it, because if you listen to a lot of fine-art music, you will probably hear this piece so often that it will all but fade to inaudibility.
Movement IV is another lively sonata, this time with a jig rhythm. Even so, the development has some meditative and serious moments. After a while, the jig rhythm takes on the aspect of a woodpecker's hammering - an impression reinforced when the timpani picks it up. Toward the end, the janissary band rejoins the ensemble to add an exotic, military sparkle to the final bars.
In the 104th or "London" Symphony, the first movement - like the finale of the 100th symphony - is a monothematic sonata. That is, instead of having a full-blown second theme, it modulates to the dominant where we hear the first theme all over again. The great thing about Haydn is that he could get away with this without being thought a cheat or a bore.
First there is a slow introduction in D minor, beginning with a strong unison statement that outlines the tonic note and the dominant at a fifth above and a fourth below. Between returns of this unison passage there is other material, some of it quite poignant. The last return of the opening phrase sets up a transition to the D major sonata. This is a strong, confident, cheerful movement whose one theme breaks up into two parts. The development section builds on the second part of this theme, to exciting effect.
The Andante has a gentle, hesitant, mincing melody, full of refined pathos and a single very dissonant note that marks it as a prominent pimple marks an otherwise beautiful face. This theme seems to grow in character and charm each time it returns, again showing Haydn to be a master of orchestral color and delicate phrasing. The movement is not without drama, however, having a central section full of harmonic searching and a tragic climax, and added character facets toward the end, such as a wry flute solo and a chuckling countermelody.
Movement III is a minuet with a strong tendency toward hemiola, or changes in the pattern of rhythmic accents, and surprise pauses. The Trio gives an impression of measured haste, like a long-distance runner who knows how to pace himself; it also has freak pauses and turns of chromaticism that lend it an air of gentle pathos.
The finale - the final Finale of Haydn's enormous symphonic oeuvre - lays out a drone bass under a tune that might have been taken from Croatian folk music. When it isn't kicking up its heels, the movement leads us through unexpected chord progressions and a graceful second theme with a fourth-beat accent. Haydn breaks these ideas and more into fragments and develops them, letting in more and more of a spirit of abandoned celebration until the bright, strong, characteristically manly conclusion.
I love Haydn. Perhaps, in listening to these symphonies, you will begin to see why. To truly appreciate Haydn, you may have to immerse yourself in his world for a while; in so doing you may develop a "palate" for his work. Why bother? Well, it has been a couple hundred years since many people thought in his musical language. What you hear, as you listen to Haydn through ears fresh off a Mahler symphony, may not seem very weighty or emotionally deep. But to those who have ears to hear, they are far more than testaments to the order and grace that typefied his time. They are, rather, extraordinary statements of conviction and sentiment that can still, to this day, speak to the heart as well as the mind. They are the expression of a bright, jolly, independent-spirited man who knew more of the world than most people of his class and generation, and reveled in it. They are works of refined genius that can both thrill a come-and-go dabbler and enlighten a patient disciple.
EDIT: In the video below, Mariss Jansons conducts the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra in the first movement of Haydn's 104th.
The Runner-Up for Stupidest Traffic Control Situation has to be the two-lane highway on which I once had to drive across California's Mohave Desert.
to speed past all the people in the center lane, who were at a standstill because 100 feet past the intersection, all the people in the right lane were trying to force their way back in.
