Happy Birthday Le Sacre...

Diaghilev: Will the music continue like that for a very long time?

Stravinsky: To the end, my dear.

95 years ago today, Le Sacre du Printemps premiered at the Paris Opera. Ballet riots! Nijinksy! If I only had a time machine...

This morning, Silas and I have been listening to The Rite of Spring (both with Bernstein and Stravinsky conducting). I offer no analysis (because, frankly, I know nothing about music, really). Instead, I crib from others...

like, the Chicago Symphony (you may know as CSO):

...when the score was suggested to Walt Disney for his film Fantasia, he asked “The Sock?" clearly never having heard of Le sacre. ...

May 29, 1913, the night The Rite of Spring opened at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées, is one of the dates historians cite as the start of the modern age, like 1907, the year Picasso painted Les Demoiselles d'Avignon, or 1922, when The Waste Land and Ulysses were published.

and NPR, where you can listen to a detailed analysis of the Rite or Stravinsky conducting the ballet in 1960.

and Alex Ross' great The Rest is Noise. This book is way more interesting than a book about classical music should be. From p. 92...

When Charlie Parker came to Paris in 1949, he marked the occasion by incorporating the first notes of the Rite into his solo on "Alt Peanuts." Two years later, playing Birdland in New York, the bebop master spotted Stravinsky at one of the tables and immediately incorporated a motif from Firebird into "Koko," causing the composer to spill his scotch in ecstasy.

YouTube has some great clips, both of the ballet (a Joffrey production from, not sure, the 60s?) and of Stravinsky,

like this super geeky documentary: .
(think pictures of instruments with text "ribbons", and Star Warsian titles)

And this short interview on a ship. Someone commented that Stravinsky looks drunk, but it seems more likely that he was bewildered by questions like, "Who created music?" (Huh? Where's my interpreter?) Bonus: this 1965 documentary seems to be narrated by Orson Welles, or maybe all 1960s narrators sounded like Orson Welles.

If we only lived in London, I could have seen three different dance companies' interpretations in the last year (from Robin Grebson's blog... I have no idea who Robin Grebson is, but this person likes dance and music, so I like this person):

"The Rite of Spring was, quite simply, awesome. For somebody who doesn’t really do “classical” this managed to be the 3rd version of The Rite that I have seen in a year, and although the Michael Clark and LPO/Julia Mach versions were both great in their own ways, this was something else altogether."

This was written about a performance of Frühlingsopfer by Tanztheater Wuppertal. According to their spielplan I can see their company if hurry to Paris by mid-June.

I don't love the 90s: brewpubs killed my nostalgia buzz

I went to Pull-Mo last week, that's the Palouse, land-grant country, the country... to cover the state FFA convention, so I got to spend one night in my old college town. Anyone familiar with Moscow will be sad to know that Gambinos (home of the fish bowl) is no more. Instead, it's the Coeur d'Alene Brewing Company with a tricked out deck and expanded seating.

On a brighter note, we found out from our friend Amo last week that some UI architecture profs have been trying to save this old granary... much more of a Moscow fixture. When I asked the guy at the BBQ bus in the motel parking lot, he said they didn't know what was happening to it. Condos? Office building? At least it won't be a brewpub.




I stayed at the Royal Motor Inn, the only motel downtown and one that, incidentally, my parents managed in college. (The Fifth Dimension stayed there once; I think they had the same room decor that I had.)


I knew from reading online reviews that the sheets at RMI were tie-dyed, but it is impossible to imagine the impact of seeing mauve and green liquid-stained sheets until you pull back the covers.

The next morning, when I walked out the front door of my room and saw the store across the alley, all became clear...



There's not much else to report from my trip. On Friday night, I walked by the SUB, my old apartment, and the ATO house, the non-official entrance to G.R., where I got a little sad and creeped out (it was dusk). I was lame and working and did not stop in John's Alley for a Black Label or the Garden Lounge for a g&t. I was deep in FFA/reporter mode, plus it seemed a little weird and creepy to "go out" in bars where I used to pick people up (or try to pick people up) so many years ago.

Saturday morning, I enjoyed one of several downtown healthy bakeries and the farmers setting up for the outdoor market but missed out on the handicrafts store that now occupies half of what used to be Ken's Stationery, where I worked in college. (I was in charge of the crepe paper and Post-it notes.)

So, Moscow's changed, and it hasn't. I've definitely changed--maybe it's because of Silas, I don't know. I do know that nostalgia sucks. It always did, I just never noticed before.