Bookworm

Five Years Ago: Blackout (August 14, 2003)

"A surge of electricity to western New York and Canada touched off a series of power failures and enforced blackouts yesterday that left parts of at least eight states in the Northeast and the Midwest without electricity. . .  In an instant that one utility official called ''a blink-of-the-eye second'' shortly after 4 p.m., the grid that distributes electricity to the eastern United States became overloaded. As circuit breakers tripped at generating stations from New York to Michigan and into Canada, millions of people were instantly caught up in the largest blackout in American history."
NY Times; August 15, 2003 edition

A picture of the front page of the 8/15/2003 Times can be seen here.

My husband and I were getting ready to go to an orchestra concert at SPAC in upstate New York. While we were getting ready, the power dipped to “brownout” conditions. We thought it was a little odd, since it hadn’t been storming, but didn’t think much about it. Our journey was uneventful. When we arrived in Saratoga and stopped at a restaurant for dinner, we were turned away because of a power outage. Wendy’s was still dispensing salads, so we noshed on those, still not really connecting the brownouts at home with the outages in Saratoga. Then we arrived at SPAC, and found our seats in the open air theater. Since it was summer, it wasn’t dark yet. I don’t recall the details now, whether SPAC had a back-up generator and/or battery-powered lights for the music stands, but the concert took place and was wonderful. Martha Argerich played Prokofiev’s Piano Concerto No. 3 and the Philadelphia Orchestra played Shostakovich’s 5th Symphony. It wasn’t until later that we realized the magnitude of the blackout.

The Idol Effect

Top songs selling on iTunes as of this morning.  Kind of impressive that the new American Idol winner is currently outselling Coldplay and Rihanna.  I must admit to having bought #1, 3, 5, and 8.  I like these songs, but my favorites were from earlier in the season.  In a way, these will serve as placeholders on the iPod until he releases an album.

Actually the only songs on the top ten with no Idol influence at all are the Coldplay and Rihanna singles.  (Although I believe Rihanna appeared on Canadian Idol in the past.)  Leona Lewis was discovered by Simon Cowell and sang on the show; Natasha Bedingfield was recently on the show, and #9 and 10 are from Idol runner-up David Archuleta.

I actually find most of the music I end up buying as a result of the TV shows I watch.  The songs I bought this week were either heard on Idol or Grey's Anatomy.  I very rarely listen to commercial radio; most of my radio presets in the car are set to NPR stations.

Yes, another post about Idol

"Sometimes the snow comes down in June. Sometimes the sun goes 'round the moon. And sometimes -- every once in a while -- the people who vote for "American Idol" get it right.   On Wednesday night, they got it right. They anointed the smartest, most intriguing, most authoritative performer this program has seen in many a season, and in the same stroke, they made a case for "American Idol's" relevance, at a time when it was seriously in doubt." [Salon]

"It took 4 months, 42 episodes, 24 semifinalists, 3 intermittently infuriating judges, a small army of Swaybots, a handful of botched lyrics, 97.5 million votes, and one particularly soul-crushing bit of promotion on behalf of Mike Myers' latest (alleged) comedy, but American Idol's seventh season has finally come to an end. . . [I]f I'm being completely honest, shortly after dabbing the tears from my eyes over David Cook's undeniably touching victory — and after fielding a phone call from my happily married sister, who is nonetheless planning her wedding (!) to the season 7 champ — I grabbed the calendar off my wall and did some deeply dorky calculations. Yes, fellow Idoloonies, only 237 days (by my best calculations) till the start of season 8! . . [O]n nights like tonight, when Idol gets it mostly right, it's a beautiful distraction from the mundane concerns of our workaday lives, from our laundry lists of tasks not yet finished (or perhaps not even started), from the relentless weight of our current news headlines." [EW]

Congratulations, David Cook, American Idol champion 2008!

Performances from 5/20/2008 show on YouTube

Viva la liberta

Robert L. Marshall writes a letter to the editor in response to Charles Rosen's recent review of Abert's W. A. Mozart, recently translated into English. Mr. Rosen responds. The two music scholars esoterically debate what Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart intended to express through his music. They agree that the composer reveled in being original, but don't entirely agree about the meaning of the line "Viva la liberta" in the opera Don Giovanni -- was this a shout out to the "sexual liberty" of the Marquis de Sade, as Marshall asserts, or political liberty, which Rosen thinks more likely?  [Link to their exchange in The New York Review of Books]

R.I.P Luciano Pavarotti

I will update this post later with more details and links, but ran across this great story about Pavarotti and wanted to share.

"I expected Pavarotti to listen to them, say a thing or two, then pick a winner and head off to the next party. But he surprised me. He was deeply involved in each singer's performance. And he got onstage and worked with EVERY one of them, offering suggestions on everything from practice regimen to fashion. He was occasionally blunt, but he was never cruel, and these singers were in heaven. He was actually interested in helping them become better singers in the short time he had with them." [LiveJournal: deadmoviestar: Lucky Luciano]

American Idol, Season 6, Final 9

Last night -- 4/3/07 -- Tony Bennett songs

Gina Glocksen -- Better than I expected.  This is so far outside her usual comfort zone that I didn't think it would be great.  Her performance was a little boring, but showed off the quality of her voice.
Haley Scarnato -- She's a pretty girl and had a good performance a few weeks ago, but last night's was just. . . ordinary.  She's obviously hoping to capitalize on her physical attractiveness by the outfits she's choosing.
Jordin Sparks -- I really like this girl.  She is one of my favorites because she combines personality, and youth, and energy with a very good voice that she is able to control very well.  Her intonation is always spot on and her song choices have shown her versatility. 
LaKisha Jones -- LaKisha has a gorgeous voice with such a lovely, warm quality to it. This style was out of her comfort zone and it wasn't my favorite performance of hers, but she definitely deserves to still be there.
Melinda Doolittle -- A consummate professional.  I agreed with the judges' comments last night, that watching her perform is like a master class in how to interpret a song.  Absolute best vocal control in the competition.
Blake Lewis -- I thought he chose a really good song, but one that was difficult to interpret given the lyrics.  [Side note: I think Tony Bennett was the best celebrity guest yet, in terms of giving concrete advice about how to style or interpret the songs.]
Chris Richardson -- Way better than I expected, just because this style of music seemed pretty far removed from his comfort zone.  Best male performance of the night.
Phil Stacey -- Phil might get voted off this week.  Last week he did well with the Police song, but this week his performance felt weak to me. I don't know if it was just vocal fatigue or poor song choice --  I've heard him sound much better.
Sanjaya Malakar -- I've been hoping Sanjaya would get voted off for weeks, but with various anti-Idol factions promoting him, he'll probably still be around for another week.  I do agree with Paula's comment that last night he was somewhat entertaining.  And he didn't have a ridiculous hairdo for a change.

The Album, R.I.P.?

"To the regret of music labels everywhere. . . fans are buying fewer and fewer full albums. In the shift from CDs to digital music, buyers can now pick the individual songs they like without having to pay upward of $10 for an album.

Last year, digital singles outsold plastic CD’s for the first time. So far this year, sales of digital songs have risen 54 percent, to roughly 189 million units, according to data from Nielsen SoundScan. Digital album sales are rising at a slightly faster pace, but buyers of digital music are purchasing singles over albums by a margin of 19 to 1.

Because of this shift in listener preferences — a trend reflected everywhere from blogs posting select MP3s to reviews of singles in Rolling Stone — record labels are coming to grips with the loss of the album as their main product and chief moneymaker." [New York Times]

I'm not always someone who follows the crowd, but my music buying habits are in line with this article.  I occasionally buy albums, but more often I buy singles -- songs I heard on Grey's Anatomy or American Idol or the Grammies, etc.  I don't listen to a lot of commercial radio, so I tend to find out about new songs or artists from television. 

New Norah Jones album out

If you're a fan and haven't heard that there's a new album out, here's your heads up.  And here 's a Susan Stamberg interview with the artist: NPR : Norah Jones Back with 'Not Too Late'.

NPR : Does Age Quash Our Spirit of Adventure?

"Robert Sapolsky, a distinguished neuroscientist in his 40s, had a young assistant who played different music every day, from Sonic Youth to Minnie Pearl. That made Sapolsky crazy -- and curious about why his aging ears still crave the music he loved in college. Is there a certain age when the typical American passes from the novelty stage to utter predictability?" [NPR]