Author: Tim Jarrett

Useful time waster

Dejavu.org is a web application that claims to emulate different browsers from the original line mode browser from 1991, through NCSA Mosaic, beta Netscape, Netscape 1.0, IE 2.0, and HotJava. I’m pleased to report that my page is quite readable and almost looks like it was designed for all those browsers—if you ignore the fact that all my navigation links show up at the bottom of the page.

Esta gets better comments

I will say nothing more about how the conversations between me and the anti-Win Without War folks are going save to note that the fine art of the ad hominem attack is alive and well.

Esta seems to be luckier. Her post about same-sex marriages attracted a thoughtful and responsibly articulated opposing view, in her comments rather than in email so it could be easily publicly shared. And so she started a real dialogue. This just goes to show that her language skills are more advanced than mine, I suppose…

BTW, happy belated BlogBirthday® to Estaminet. When I lost a guest blogger over a year ago I gained a keiretsu. Not a bad tradeoff.

My loving readers, warring without win

True confession: posting the “win without war” petition link has gotten me a ton of traffic over the next two days; mostly because I’m the number 2 hit for that search on Google and the number one hit exceeded his ISP’s traffic quota. So far there has been a minimal amount of feedback on the piece, though: no comments, two emails, one for and one against.

The one that didn’t like what I was doing—well, I hesitate to say this reader opposed the petition because it’s not apparent that the reader read it.

It is amazing to me how this was not a petition when Clinton went on his “little” bombing runs.  It would do you and the people that think like you to realize that President Bush doesn’t want to go to war.  We are dealing with a man that is providing weapons and funding to people that don’t want to hug us.  They want us dead.  Have faith in this President and believe he has evidence to support his position.  He will release prior to any war action.

I have a brother, brother-in-law, and many friends that are active military and would definitely be called up.  I would rather not go to war.  However, they all volunteered are proud and willing to do what it takes to support their country.  The victims and families of the WTC didn’t have that choice.  Thank goodness our fore-fathers had a stronger backbone then you and the people like you.  Thank goodness there was no Hollywood when this great country you live in and benefit from was founded!

Hmm. Last time I checked there wasn’t a reference to Hollywood in either the petition or in anything I wrote. Last time I checked, I didn’t suggest anything more radical than that President Bush let due process take its course. If I, and the signers of this petition, display a little cynicism about whether Bush has sufficient evidence to go to war and are reluctant to trust him without seeing it, I would argue it’s only a natural consequence of this administration’s reluctance to trust the American public with other information about its workings, such as the records of meetings with energy industry executives while creating the Bush energy plan. Or why Cheney is blasting big holes in the grounds of the Naval Observatory, in a residential and ambassadorial neighborhood.

Finally, my reader claims higher privilege by invoking friends and relatives on active duty. I have friends on active duty too, and I don’t presume to speak for them. But you might want to have a gander at the words of Lawrence Kida (son of a twice wounded WWII Marine) in the Seattle Times editorial page, who points out: “Can someone please explain to me why I am being told there is distinct proof of Iraqi involvement in ‘weapons of mass destruction,’ yet when the State Department is queried as to specifics, the reply is that the burden of proof rests on the government of Iraq?”

Esta updates

Esta hits two topics this morning that are near and dear to my heart: Trent Lott’s retraction of his idiotic statement saying the country would have been better off with a segregationist president and churches that are supportive of gay and lesbian rights.

The latter is particularly close to my mind right now, as we are in the process of trying to find a church home out here in Seattle. Lisa and I didn’t find too many Presbyterian churches in Boston and went Congregationalist there. Trying to find a Presbyterian church out here, I’m butting up against the growing divide in the denomination over gay rights. (There’s a really good history of the church’s positions on gays in ministry here; it doesn’t cover an amendment to the PCUSA constitution from last summer that is in the process of being considered by all the churches in the denomination.) I have too many gay and lesbian friends who are better Christians than I to consider membership in a church that would not accept them as a minister, elder, or deacon. Accordingly, I’m having to scrutinize each church’s website and weed out the ones that have taken actions such as joining the Confessing Church Movement.

I feel a little sick having to go through and do this, and tired of having to use this issue as a litmus test. But I feel I’ve been given little choice. These churches don’t represent the same faith I grew up in.

About the Te Deum

I’ve referred to the Pärt Te Deum a few times but haven’t written much detail about it yet. It’s a difficult piece to write about. Almost a half hour long, much of it consists, as Steve Schwartz writes, of variations on D modality—major to minor and back. Many of the individual vocal parts do little more than oscillate around the notes of a ringing triad, from the third to the octave to the fifth and so on. But the music as a whole is a magnificent statement of faith. How does Pärt arrive from such simple materials at such a high spiritual peak?

The answer is partly structural, partly tonal, partly something else. The entire piece hovers around D, and Pärt makes it explicit with a D drone that begins in a low organ (or wind harp!) note, moves up to the basses and cellos, disappears in the middle, then returns in the violins and moves back down the octaves. Pärt’s deep faith is well documented, and my reading of the D drone is that it functions as a reminder of eternity, that regardless of the iterations of voicings and time, there are eternal truths.

The voicing tells the story of faith against this background. The entire piece is a colloquoy among plainchant, orchestra, and triadic singing. I read the melodic plainchant, which is ever changing, as humanity, and the triadic voicings (the third, antiphonal choir), which weave a more static melody from D major and D minor triads, as a choir of angels. One conductor I’ve sung under reads the orchestra as a kind of Greek chorus that comments on the interaction between the two.

With this framework, the piece can be read as a long striving of humanity to reach the perfection of the angels. So the first Sanctus, uttered in a unison D minor plainchant by the tenors and basses, is echoed in a D minor triadic Sanctus by the antiphonal choir. The entire piece is built on groupings of three: three choirs, three contributions of three part phrases from the orchestra, building blocks of chant + triadic song + orchestra, and so on, that Pärt varies for dramatic effect. Accordingly, there are three dramatic moments of unison between the plainchant choirs and the antiphonal choir. The first two are followed immediately by plainchant advancing the argument of humanity, while the third is followed by a chanted Amen and an echo of the Sanctus by the antiphonal choir that fades into infinity.

I may find more to write about in the Te Deum as we continue to work on it. I continue to learn more about the piece each time I sing it or listen to it.

Brightening the corners

I feel inexplicably good this morning. Rain came last night and scrubbed the fog out of the corners of the fields and valleys. And we had a great rehearsal.

To my Seattle area readers: you owe it to yourself to check out the Cascadian Chorale concert this Sunday. We rehearsed the Pärt Te Deum last night with the string orchestra for the first time and it’s sounding really really really good. I can’t wait to hear how the Górecki sounds on Wednesday.

My euphoria probably started around the second runthrough of the piece and was capped when, after rehearsal, one of the sopranos started playing “Autumn Leaves” on piano. I was moved to contribute a vocal walking bass line, someone else joined in on vocal percussion, and we improvised our way through the whole thing. I haven’t done anything that musically spontaneous in a long time. There’s something about just playing or singing from the top of the head that reaffirms my faith in the power of music.

Blog roundup

Quick and necessarily incomplete keiretsu check-in:

All Messiah’d Out

Not much blog yesterday because I was pooped. After Friday night’s housewarming party (good crowd, good food—Lisa made an amazing ragu Bolognese for gnocchi with melted mozzarella, and I made a pan of meatballs which we served with a plain tomato sauce and more mozzarella, plus wine), I dragged myself out to the Sammamish plateau for the dress rehearsal for the Cascadian Chorale’s guest appearance with the Sammamish Symphony. The music? Messiah.

I had never sung the Messiah all the way through before, though I had sightread parts of it many years ago in my Glee Club days and had done individual choruses. I soon found that my experience was as close to singing the whole piece as catching a connecting flight in Rome’s Fiumicino Airport is to seeing Italy. If there are no other signs of the presence of a higher power, consider this: not only did Händel take the time to write this hulking monstrosity of a piece (in twenty-four days), but it’s performed every year—and people still come to hear it, though sitting through the entire performance must be exhausting even as an audience member.

I can attest that, as a performer, it’s a bit like what I imagine running a marathon must be. Pacing is key, for instance, so as not to blow out one’s voice totally before the final Amen. There are long stretches where one, exhausted, wishes for the kisses of nubile young Wellesley students—or anyone, for that matter, so that blood flow will leave the vocal chords and be restored to the feet and to the left arm, which has lost all feeling about an hour ago from holding up the score. And after the final fugue on “Amen,” a curious euphoria descends, at least if one has hit the notes correctly. It feels like entering heaven. Or just extreme relief that one has escaped the piece with vocal cords intact.

So that was Saturday. On Sunday after church I drove back out to do it again.

And we have another concert next Sunday, with music of Tavener, Górecki, and Pärt as well as some more Messiah. Can hardly wait…

Quick tasting: Sam Adams Winter Lager

My friend Andrew brought a taste of Boston to our housewarming last night: a six-pack of Sam Adams Winter Lager. Like most lagers, this one is a lot lighter than its winter ale brothers—the taste is mostly hops with very little malt. There’s a slight hint of ginger and a very small hint of caramel but not much of anything else. Not bad, but not great either. Disclaimer: I’m not a big lager fan, particularly in winter.

Win without war–petition

I’m generally skeptical about the usefulness of Internet petitions. However, I think the organizers of the petition to Let the Inspections Work at MoveOn.org have the right idea about how to make a petition useful. They’re taking out a full page ad in the New York Times on Monday, and they’ll be including the number of petition signatories in the ad.

Take a minute and go to the petition. I think the petition letter below and at the link sends a balanced message about the situation in Iraq:

TO: President Bush
CC: Secretary of State Powell and U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan

SUBJECT: Please Let the Inspections Work

Dear Mr. President,
On October 11, the U.S. Congress passed a joint resolution on Iraq that authorizes you to use war as a last resort — if and only if diplomacy fails to accomplish the U.S.’s national goals.

We are concerned that you found Iraq’s response “not encouraging” when the inspectors had only been at work for a week and so far had not encountered Iraqi obstruction.

In this context, we are also concerned by your Administration’s repeated attempts to frame Iraqi anti-aircraft fire within the no-fly-zone as a material breach of the resolution. As U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan and other U.N. diplomats have pointed out, the resolution clearly excludes such events from its jurisdiction.

The United States has made a commitment to approaching the danger that Saddam Hussein poses through the international community. The resumption of the inspections regime is a triumph for the U.S., international law and multilateralism. But the United States will lose all credibility with its allies if it appears that it will go to war regardless of the inspections’ success. And by alienating and infuriating allies through unilateral action, the U.S. could throw the success of the campaign against terrorism into jeopardy.

Mr. President, it appears that your administration is looking for an excuse to go to war, when a peaceful and just solution may be at hand. We ask that you live up to your word and give diplomacy a chance.

We can win without war.

A farewell to arms, specifically, economic loose cannons

The only possible question that can be asked about the resignations of Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill and White House economic advisor Lawrence Lindsey today is: what took so long? Did our president wake up this morning and say, “The economy is in the toilet. Guess I better do something”? Was that news to him?

I like the New York Times’ coverage best, including the list of O’Neill’s gaffes. “If you set aside Three Mile Island and Chernobyl, the safety record of nuclear is really very good.” Is that like saying, If you set aside unemployment, deficit spending, and recession, the economic record of the second Bush administration is really very good?

Virginia Bowl Watch

It’s getting to be that time. That time when almost all the games have been played. When Virginia has played Virginia Tech (and the less said about that game the better). When all’s over but the shouting. And the bowls.

Ah yes, the bowls. The great holiday tradition: pissing off one’s spouse by parking immobile in front of the tube for several straight days to see the best in college football. Why do we care?

Why, because there’s a chance the Cavaliers might come to Seattle. Yes, Virginia, there is a Seattle Bowl. And right now it is one of the bowls that might extend an invitation to the Cavaliers.

Now the rest of the Virginia fans might not be happy about this—in fact, according to the fan poll on the Virginia Sports page (no permalink, look in the right nav at the bottom and vote), Seattle is about the last choice for a bowl for Virginia to go to. But it’s my first choice. Instead of ticking off my wife by sitting at home in front of the TV, I could freeze my ass off at the football stadium and cheer on my team instead. You bet I’m keeping my fingers crossed…