Migration

A word on logistics: this weekend the address of this blog will be changing. Blogger is no longer allowing you to use FTP publishing, which has been my method of choice these past few years. I actually like the Blogger interface (I know everyone loves WordPress, but, eh...) but regardless of which platform I use, there's no getting around the fact that in the switch I have to move from the directory /blog/ to using subdomain nomenclature.

So if you wouldn't mind kindly updating your links to this humble blog, I would be much obliged. A pointer will remain here, but nobody likes a redirect. The new address will be:

http://blog.pmgentry.net/

Although again, I won't be switching over until this weekend. Just giving my devoted readers advance warning.

Virtual Oscar Pool

Oscar time! I meant to post this earlier and encourage a blogger Oscar prediction pool with a fabulous prize. But, a little late for that. Maybe next year.

These are predictions for what films will win awards, not what I think should. I haven't even seen half these movies.This year is particularly hard to predict, given the expansion of the Best Picture category and the use of the preferential voting system--history will be less of a guide. Remember, ballots were due last Tuesday and many were mailed in much earlier, so events of the past few days (such as the lawsuit against Hurt Locker) won't have an effect.

Best Picture
I'm sticking with Hurt Locker. James Cameron is widely disliked in the Academy, Hurt Locker is topical, would be the first for a woman director, and was riding the zeitgeist during the voting period. The one unpredictable element is the smear campaign, which had a random assortment of veterans complaining of inaccuracies in the film, and the leaking of an email in which a Hurt Locker producer had urged his friends to not vote for Avatar (it's technically illegal to disparage other films, even just in a private email.) While these accusations could be damaging, my feeling is that they were so patently the result of maneuvering on the part of rivals that I suspect voters won't be swayed. Also, not that it matters, but it was a pretty good movie too.

Best Director
This is solidly for Kathryn Bigelow.

Best Actor
Jeff Bridges is by all accounts a lock. I finally saw Crazy Hearts last night, and it is indeed exactly the sort of performance the Academy loves.

Best Supporting Actor
Very tricky one; I would say pretty much a toss-up. Look for this category to go as a consolation prize to films like Invictus, Lovely Bones and Inglorious Basterds that aren't going to win much else. If pressed, I suppose I'll guess Christoph Waltz.

Best Actress
Also wide-open. Meryl Streep and Helen Mirren are the types that win Oscars just for sneezing, but I have a hunch that won't happen this year. My money is on Carey Mulligan. If Sandra wins, I will shoot myself.

Best Supporting Actress
The Up in the Air vote will presumably split. Nine was panned, and between Maggie Gyllenhall and Mo'Nique, I think I would bet on the former.

Best Animated Feature Film
One of the best rosters for this category ever. Up was a good movie, but not one of the best, and I think there is definite Pixar fatigue out there. It might win if Coraline and Fantastic Mr. Fox split the vote. But I'm going to go out on a limb and say that Coraline's loyal base might see it though. Again, though, what a great year for animation.

Best Screenplay
Perhaps The Hurt Locker, but I think this might be Inglorious Basterds main prize for the night.

Best Adapted Screenplay
Similarly, I think this will be allotted as the consolation prize to Up in the Air, although Oscar votes do like a literary name, and Nick Hornby wrote An Education. Still, I bet on Reitman and Turner.

Best Song
When will Disney learn that offering up more than one song means you split the vote? Apparently not this year. I presume this is a lock for the theme from Crazy Heart.

The rest I leave up to you--tune in next week to discuss the results!

Grim Times at the Public University

It's been a rough few weeks (well, decades) for public education. First, the University of California spirals further into flames, spilling over from the constant battles over funding into paroxysms of student-on-student violence. Them another flurry of articles about the ongoing determination of some administrators to trade SUNY Binghamton's well-known academic success for a paltry, feeble attempt at pushing one (not all, just one) of their athletic teams to success. Now, this news from down here in Virginia. From the Post:

Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli II has urged the state's public colleges and universities to rescind policies that ban discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, arguing in a letter sent to each school that their boards of visitors had no legal authority to adopt such statements.

In his most aggressive initiative on conservative social issues since taking office in January, Cuccinelli (R) wrote in the letter sent Thursday that only the General Assembly can extend legal protections to gay state employees, students and others -- a move the legislature has repeatedly declined to take as recently as this week.

I strongly believe in public education, and find abhorrent the trend towards the privatization of public institutions, a particularly popular approach in this state. But at moments like this, it's hard not to wish for more independence from the state legislature. Back in California, privatization meant limiting marginalized students from access to higher education. Ironically, here in Virginia, the opposite might be true.

A Missed Opportunity

Via the NY Times blog ArtsBeat:

The topic was weighty: how music can save the world.

The talk ranged across the role of conservatories, the definition of art and music’s capacity to heal.

The World Economic Forum convened a panel discussion at Carnegie Hall Thursday on arts leadership. The focus? “The role and responsibilities of cultural leaders and institutions in the collaborative process of development solutions to a number of challenges affecting the world.” . . .

They all wanted to make the case for why music is important. When all is lost in a natural disaster, say, all that is left is the spirit, Ms. Ochoa-Brillembourg said. “The arts nurture the spirit,” she said. Conversely, dictators try to suppress and control the arts, pointed out Klaus Schwab, the forum’s founder.

If you check out the program for the event, you'll see that the panelists included various arts administrators, a business school professor, some philanthropists, and so on. Can you guess what profession is not represented? If you guessed those of us who actually study these issues for a living, you'd be right. Not a musicologist in sight.

I don't necessarily blame the Davos crowd for missing an opportunity to lend the event historical perspective and a general de-mystification of the role of music in society. One of the ironic things about our discipline is that although we spend an inordinate amount of time asserting our authority over music, we hardly ever assert that authority out in the public sphere where it might actually do some good!

Selling Silence

Just in time for Kyle's new book, an Acura advertisement in this week's New Yorker shows that silence can mean all sorts of different things.


No word yet if C.F. Peters or the John Cage Trust will be filing a claim. Then again, the versions of 4'33" available from Peters only include the famous "Tacet" edition, and then what they call the "proportional notation" version, the so-called "Kremen" manuscript that uses a rudimentary graphic notation. Instead, Acura is here ripping off the version used by David Tudor at the premiere, which was regular empty manuscript paper carefully measured out into the correct proportions.

Theater in Williamsburg

Although it's easy to make fun of the Colonial Disneyland that surrounds William & Mary, the resources of Colonial Williamsburg have been a real boon to my American music class this semester. Did you know that the first purpose-built public theater in the British colonies was in Williamsburg, constructed in 1716? I didn't, before I moved here.

I was luckily to be able to invite Sterling Murray to give guest lecture on the subject to my class. Sterling, if you don't know him, taught at West Chester University and has now retired here to the "'burg," as the kids call it, and is now one of a number of scholars looking into the history of 18th century musical theater in this town. There were, in essence, three theaters built over the course of the 18th century, from the first in 1716, to the last which was torn down in 1773. There were no permanent companies in these buildings, but a fairly regular succession of touring companies came through, part of a theater circuit that included a winter stay in Jamaica, and the stops in Charleston, Williamsburg, Annapolis, etc. The repertoire more or less mirrored London theater tastes, from The Beggar's Opera to later pasticcio comic operas like those of Thomas Arne.

The theaters were mostly built next to where the Capitol building once stood. Unlike, the Capitol, however, the theater has not been reconstructed, despite extensive archaeological research that gives us a pretty complete picture of its contours. The design was based heavily upon London theaters, complete with pricey box seats--Washington sat there on occasion--and the notorious row of spikes around the pit to keep the audience from abusing the performers too much. (You can see them in the Hogarth print above.)

Why hasn't the theater been restored? Money is a problem, I am sure, although apparently there have been some successful fundraising attempts. I am told, however, that the major problem is the worry that nobody would want to go see 18th century British musical theater in its four-hour rambunctious glory, mostly viewed from wooden benches crammed together. Plus, you'd have to worry about fire codes, wheelchair access, etc.

Which is too bad. It's typical of many public history projects that buildings representative of public, official culture--the Capitol, the Palace, the Church, etc.--are restored and reconstructed, while the more complicated and marginal parts of eighteenth-century society are deferred. Colonial Williamsburg, however, has made it part of its mission to showcase the daily life of colonial Virginia, and it seems like if anyone should value the theater, it would be them. And I would give tourists more credit--re-staging a night at the theater, completely with bits of Shakespeare, dancing dogs and jugglers, as well as John Gay, could be quite fun. Four hours is definitely a lot to ask, as is the problem of a crowded flammable theater having only one exit, but you know, it's not like any of these reconstructed buildings are truly authentic, and I bet with a little imagination these problems could be surmounted.

Memories

From yesterday's New York Times:

The fleur-de-lis will be showcased in Sunday’s Super Bowl as the symbol of the Saints.

But it is much more than just the logo of a modern-day football team. Throughout history, the fleur-de-lis has represented many things, including royalty and religion. The symbol, an artistic representation of a flower (a lily or an iris), has been found on ancient Greek and Roman coins.

Like an inkblot in a psychological test, the fleur-de-lis of the Saints can have several interpretations. Some may see it as a most aggressive flower or as the tip of a spear or an arrowhead.

New Orleans players like it but vary in their awareness of its meaning. Linebacker Jonathan Vilma said he did not know of its floral origin. Linebacker Marvin Mitchell called it a “fleur-de-leaf.” ...

Jonathan Casillas, another linebacker, said of the logo, “I love it, man” and called it “very powerful.” He also said he was impressed to see women with fleur-de-lis tattoos.

Darren Sharper, a defensive back, said that if the Saints win the Super Bowl, he will get a fleur-de-lis tattoo, “so I guess I’ll be a New Orleans Saint forever.”

Apparently, neither the Times nor these players remember one of the most potent uses of the fleur-de-lis in New Orleans history. As part of the French code noir which governed the treatment of enslaved Africans, the branding of the fleur-de-lis on the backs of slaves was part punishment, part record-keeping. After one runaway attempt, a slave received the brand on one shoulder, in addition to losing an ear. After another runaway tempt, another fleur-de-lis would go on the other shoulder, and the individual's hamstring would be cut. A third runaway attempt, and the penalty was death.

Check out the comments to this story for some examples of how the symbol is still much contested in New Orleans.

The Ice Dog Cometh

Politeness, Again

Zoe Lang, over at amusicology, has a thoughtful post up looking at the recent discussions in our field over threatened cuts at many schools--most vividly, the elimination of the important Department of Paleography at King's College. She has several good points about the need to have a diverse "musicological toolbox" available. She also notes that there is a certain undercurrent of hostility in some of the discussion towards what is called "critical studies," a term left somewhat undefined, but which I think can be taken to mean those of us who use methodologies and theories common in the humanities at large, like feminist theory or postcolonial studies or what have you. Zoe very rightly points out that it is exactly in these approaches to studying music that connections with other disciplines are most often found, and that we need as much engagement as we can get.

I promised myself I wouldn't get baited by the AMS-l discussion--not even when my own former but dearly-beloved graduate program was described as full of "contemptible levels of narcissism, waste, and entitlement." Alas, I succumb. Luckily, Zoe says it very well. I would only make it a bit bolder: faced with severe economic pressures as we are, defensively circling the wagons around one's own small corners of musicology is exactly the wrong approach. Frankly, paleography of the sort studied at King's doesn't make an ounce of difference to my scholarship. A lot of musicological scholarship doesn't. If I read Jonathan's new book on Chopin's Op. 38, it would only be out of curiosity, not because I need to. But it would never occur to me to suggest that these other approaches and subfields of study are somehow not worthy of study, and not valuable to the discipline at large. They are both. They are exactly what make our field so unusually rich.

Making the case for musicology, like any humanities discipline, is not easy in the era of the rapidly-privatizing university. There are plenty of folks out there who would love to see the performing arts relegated to extracurricular activity, and the liberal arts banished entirely. Those are the attitudes that need changing, not the fact that you might not like someone applying feminist theory to Beethoven. Bashing the work of your colleagues strikes me as an obviously wrong-headed manner in which to articulate the important of our field. Perhaps we could instead chill out and let each other take our own scholarly paths, respectfully disagreeing when those paths cross. Save that anger for the endowment fund managers and state legislatures. The word, I believe, is "pluralism," and it is the sign of a healthy discipline.

</sermon>

NAACP at the LoC

If you've never checked out the NAACP papers at the Library of Congress--I blogged about them a little while back--here's a chance to do so without leaving home. The Library has put a bunch of materials in an "online exhibition." The selection of documents (70, with more to come) is only a tiny fragment of what's available, but it should be enough to whet your appetite. There's also an online collection of primary sources aimed at secondary school educators, which is pretty cool. If you're unable to get to DC, remember that most of the collection was microfilmed awhile back, and is in many a research library collection. I prefer the actual ink-on-paper myself--microfilm is no proper replacement for holding W.E.B. Dubois's hand-scrawled letters in one's greasy little hands.

And yes, I learned about this exhibition because I'm a "fan" of the LoC on Facebook. Which is only slightly less nerdy than being a fan of JSTOR, which I also am.