Loose Ends 2019
Here is my annual foray into stuff from this year that I didn’t blog about.
I enjoy a good documentary. Great ones are rare, of course. So far in the 21st century I have only seen three that I would rank a solid 10. The Fog of War (2003), Citizenfour (2014), and now Leaving Neverland (2019). This most recent documentary is a four-hour look at Michael Jackson’s alleged pedophilia with talented young boys, featuring mind-blowing interviews with two of his alleged victims and their mothers. The style and the amount of detail in Leaving Neverland are as exceptional as its topic is disturbing. But what really makes this one engaging despite the revolting revelations is the superbly articulate capacities of the two moms and the (now adult) victims. Jackson obviously was highly discriminating in his tastes for “sleepover” buddies.
Although the documentary makes it clear that Jackson by no means abused the majority of the children he befriended and mentored, he was most attracted to intelligent, artistic children. Thus, the two victims (supposedly there several more), possessing a high degree of creativity and ability to articulate, capture in often simultaneously revolting and discerning detail not only the acts of Jackson but the motives for and techniques of the alleged abusive behavior. By the end of the four hours you will easily see how these bizarre events transpired through a course of events that made the abuse almost physically and emotionally invisible at the time it happened. You will be enraged and captivated by this film. Highly recommended.
A documentary series I got in to and still enjoy even now is Explained, produced by Vox on Netflix (some episodes are also available on YouTube). Unlike the prodigious length of the previous documentary, Explained episodes usually last between 15–20 minutes, perfect of watching just before bed. They cover a wide array of topics from pandemics to pirates to beauty, cults, diamonds, the stock market and political correctness. Two highlights for me were the episodes devoted to the sport of cricket and to unequal pay between men and women.
The cricket doc was welcomed by me because, for years, I have watched highlights of cricket and attempted to read sports news about cricket and I was just left scratching my head. Reading about cricket was like peering into a foreign language for me. I couldn’t find anything familiar to latch on to in order to begin to understand what it was all about. All the phrases were alien to me. The Explained episode corrected this with its usual erudite brevity. Now I can see (and understand) why it is such a global phenomena.
The documentary about unequal pay is a great example of how Explained surprises the viewer in almost every episode. There is obviously worldwide pay discrimination between the sexes but it isn’t quite the stereotypical story you might expect. Turns out it is not primarily a man versus woman issue. A career-minded man and a career-minded woman make very close to the same amount of money and have the same opportunities in many countries (even though men still have the edge). Where the discrepancy becomes more pronounced is with career-minded men/women versus mothers. Generally speaking, the cross-cultural expectation is that women should care for the children they bear and that expectation results in dramatically lower pay and fewer opportunities for those women.
Another surprise comes in learning about two of the countries where the pay differential is the smallest – Iceland and, of all places, Rwanda. The reasons for this could not be more different, however. In Iceland, there is mandated paternity leave, which goes a long way toward balancing things out. When a new employee is hired, it does not matter if they are male or female. Either could end up rearing children, so the inherent discrimination of a sex-based bias is balanced, minimizing the sex-specific future pay and advancement discrepancy.
But, to me, Rwanda has the more interesting story. Due to the 1994 Rwandan genocide, about 60% of that country’s surviving population was female; women had to fill the employment gaps in police, military, manufacturing, and agriculture. So they naturally became better paid because, by necessity, their participation was valued higher than it was before the genocide. It is a strange world where one of the worst mass killings of the 20th century has led to more equitable pay and opportunity for women. But that’s the fact.
Late in the year one of my favorite bands, Coldplay, put out a new, rather experimental (for them) double album, Everyday Life. Fans and critics don’t know what to make of it. As of this writing 21% of consumers who reviewed it on amazon gave it a one or two-star rating, which is pretty bad of one of the world’s premiere bands. I have been listening to it constantly in December and am at peace with it. A lot of Everyday Life does not sound like Coldplay. It has classical, gospel, big band and early-rock tracks that take the record all over the place. The songs attempt to address the political issues of our time, something Coldplay is not very good at. And, at just 53 minutes, it makes for a good CD, but a bit light-weight for a double vinyl version.
Nevertheless, I enjoy listening to this music. If you ignore a lot of the lyrics, it mostly sounds like a “feel-good” album, which is what Coldplay does best. It is minimalist in its approach as far as the traditional Coldplay “sound.” Jonny Buckland’s guitar is understated throughout, for example. Many of the tracks themselves have little instrumentation at all. The best song is “Arabesque” which is fun, quite catchy, and indicative of how the band explores different musical expressions compared with their previous body of work.
My classical music collection grew slightly with new music in 2019. I reviewed Esa-Pekka Salonen's excellent Cello Concerto back in April. Wolfgang Rihm's fine assorted works for violin were reviewed in June. I received Saariaho X Koh (2018) for Christmas and have enjoyed it several times. I already owned the violin concerto featured on the record but 2009's Cloud Trio was new to me and definitely a highlight. In fact, it is one of the best string trios I have ever heard. I have probably listened to this 16 and half minute piece a dozen times by now. It is a highlight of classical music in the 21st century.
I have admired the work of Kaija Saariaho for many years. Her compositions are often shimmering and vibrant with energy, yet just as often measured and contemplative. She toys with the edges of tonality, often times affording a dreamy, meditative, almost hypnotic effect upon the listener. A Saariaho composition, particularly for strings, attempts to make the instrument(s) sound unique in the vast landscape of classical music. She frequently succeeds. She is a rare, powerful feminine voice in the world of contemporary composition.
As of this post, I’m up to 4,940 followers on Flipboard now. I experienced a modest surge in regular readership during the holiday season. It is part of my morning routine with coffee. To discover new information on a myriad of topics that interest me and to share this with other readers who, apparently, have similar interests. New eMags this year are Notice: Buttigieg, covering the presidential campaign of the person I support for president in 2020, and Religion, Or Not covering all religions and atheism and everything in between, another topic of life-long interest. Here are my top five mags in order of readership:
1) Sex and Intimacy
2) Notice: Art
3) Eros (over 1.2 million page flips)
4) Notice Magazine
5) Brain and Psyche
About midway through the year, I began an attempt to stimulate my brain in a more structured way by using the “Elevate” app. As usual with these sorts of games/tests, I score far higher on the math, reading, and writing categories than I do on the speaking category. Most people who know me would be as surprised by that as I am. There is something about how these tests and programs are designed that do not accurately capture my oratory talents. I recall that way back when I took the SAT I scored higher on the math portion than the verbal portion. Whatever. “Elevate” is now part of my daily routine as I attempt to keep my mind sharp as well as my body going into my 60’s and beyond. As apps go its $21.99 annual subscription is rather pricey but it is worth it to get the variety of games/tests and the details on what exactly I can improve upon.
The World Series was a dandy this year. The Washington Nationals defeated the Houston Astros in a historic Series that went seven games. It was historic in several respects. The Nationals were a mere 19 – 31 after the regular season’s first 50 games. No team in modern major league history has ever started so badly and gone on to win the Series. Pitchers Stephen Strasburg and Max Scherzer were a perfect 10-0 in postseason starts, the best in history. Remarkably, all the wins in the Series took place on the road. It was the first time that the home teams went 0–7 in baseball history. Pretty cool.
I retired this year. Due to that I set a personal record. Thanks to global warming’s extended weather conditions and the fact I no longer particularly cared how I looked, I went from May 24 to October 17 without wearing pants – just shorts. Even when I was a kid I didn’t get to do that. I wore pants to school and church. I also have not cut my hair and only minimally trimmed my beard since May. It is a fun experiment. At Thanksgiving, my daughter Avery was able to put my hair up in a short ponytail for the first time. She and Jennifer like it. Is a man bun in my future?
What else? Oh, by happy coincidence the BBC produced a superb radio dramatization of Marcel Proust’s In Search of Lost Time which aired online just as I finished reading the novel back in the late-summer. I enjoyed listening to this 10-part series, which faithfully captured the complex narrative and many of the nuances of the novel in a condensed format. Each episode lasted a little less than an hour. Unfortunately, it was only made available online for a few weeks. I was lucky to have known about it and to get the chance to appreciate it, especially coming as it did on to coattails of completing the novel for the third time.
Here are some articles I read (and one video I watched) during the course of the year that I found to be of exceptional merit:
The Atlantic: The Idea That Whites Cannot Refer to the N-Word
Vox: Capitalism is Turning Us Into Addicts (another example of what I mean by "Function")
Foreign Policy: Donald Trump is the President America Deserves (an older article but new to me and still relevant)
The Conversation: The Trump presidency [is] a symptom of our cultural malaise
Salon: Steven Pinker, Sam Harris and the epidemic of annoying white male intellectuals
Motor 1 (UK): This epic Russian 'Gymkhana' video deserves an Academy Award
New Year’s resolutions include seriously looking into becoming a certified Life Coach (no firm decision on that yet), purchasing a new hot tub and enjoying it, seeing a large exhibition featuring the work of Gerhard Richter in New York City, visiting more Civil War battlefields, and re-reading Tolkien’s The Silmarillion. Anyone who knows Tolkien knows that this was his personal literary quest, of which The Lord of the Rings story forms only the tiniest part, just a few pages at the very end. Tolkien’s world encompasses many thousands of years and hundreds of characters that are never mentioned in his famous trilogy. To call The Silmarillion an epic tale is an understatement. Nothing compares to it, except maybe the Old Testament or the Mahabharata.
Don’t forget I’m running for president in 2020. (Wink wink.) With the economy doing so well Trump will be especially difficult to beat. My advice to democrats is that they 1) nominate a moderate candidate [ie. Biden or Buttigieg] and 2) let Trump beat himself. He’s perfectly capable of that.
Hard to believe this century is two decades old. I can remember sitting in class in elementary school and thinking “Wow! I’ll be 41 when it’s the year 2000!” Now that year stands half way back from the present and me being a college senior. Oh well, onward!
I enjoy a good documentary. Great ones are rare, of course. So far in the 21st century I have only seen three that I would rank a solid 10. The Fog of War (2003), Citizenfour (2014), and now Leaving Neverland (2019). This most recent documentary is a four-hour look at Michael Jackson’s alleged pedophilia with talented young boys, featuring mind-blowing interviews with two of his alleged victims and their mothers. The style and the amount of detail in Leaving Neverland are as exceptional as its topic is disturbing. But what really makes this one engaging despite the revolting revelations is the superbly articulate capacities of the two moms and the (now adult) victims. Jackson obviously was highly discriminating in his tastes for “sleepover” buddies.
Although the documentary makes it clear that Jackson by no means abused the majority of the children he befriended and mentored, he was most attracted to intelligent, artistic children. Thus, the two victims (supposedly there several more), possessing a high degree of creativity and ability to articulate, capture in often simultaneously revolting and discerning detail not only the acts of Jackson but the motives for and techniques of the alleged abusive behavior. By the end of the four hours you will easily see how these bizarre events transpired through a course of events that made the abuse almost physically and emotionally invisible at the time it happened. You will be enraged and captivated by this film. Highly recommended.
A documentary series I got in to and still enjoy even now is Explained, produced by Vox on Netflix (some episodes are also available on YouTube). Unlike the prodigious length of the previous documentary, Explained episodes usually last between 15–20 minutes, perfect of watching just before bed. They cover a wide array of topics from pandemics to pirates to beauty, cults, diamonds, the stock market and political correctness. Two highlights for me were the episodes devoted to the sport of cricket and to unequal pay between men and women.
The cricket doc was welcomed by me because, for years, I have watched highlights of cricket and attempted to read sports news about cricket and I was just left scratching my head. Reading about cricket was like peering into a foreign language for me. I couldn’t find anything familiar to latch on to in order to begin to understand what it was all about. All the phrases were alien to me. The Explained episode corrected this with its usual erudite brevity. Now I can see (and understand) why it is such a global phenomena.
The documentary about unequal pay is a great example of how Explained surprises the viewer in almost every episode. There is obviously worldwide pay discrimination between the sexes but it isn’t quite the stereotypical story you might expect. Turns out it is not primarily a man versus woman issue. A career-minded man and a career-minded woman make very close to the same amount of money and have the same opportunities in many countries (even though men still have the edge). Where the discrepancy becomes more pronounced is with career-minded men/women versus mothers. Generally speaking, the cross-cultural expectation is that women should care for the children they bear and that expectation results in dramatically lower pay and fewer opportunities for those women.
Another surprise comes in learning about two of the countries where the pay differential is the smallest – Iceland and, of all places, Rwanda. The reasons for this could not be more different, however. In Iceland, there is mandated paternity leave, which goes a long way toward balancing things out. When a new employee is hired, it does not matter if they are male or female. Either could end up rearing children, so the inherent discrimination of a sex-based bias is balanced, minimizing the sex-specific future pay and advancement discrepancy.
But, to me, Rwanda has the more interesting story. Due to the 1994 Rwandan genocide, about 60% of that country’s surviving population was female; women had to fill the employment gaps in police, military, manufacturing, and agriculture. So they naturally became better paid because, by necessity, their participation was valued higher than it was before the genocide. It is a strange world where one of the worst mass killings of the 20th century has led to more equitable pay and opportunity for women. But that’s the fact.
Late in the year one of my favorite bands, Coldplay, put out a new, rather experimental (for them) double album, Everyday Life. Fans and critics don’t know what to make of it. As of this writing 21% of consumers who reviewed it on amazon gave it a one or two-star rating, which is pretty bad of one of the world’s premiere bands. I have been listening to it constantly in December and am at peace with it. A lot of Everyday Life does not sound like Coldplay. It has classical, gospel, big band and early-rock tracks that take the record all over the place. The songs attempt to address the political issues of our time, something Coldplay is not very good at. And, at just 53 minutes, it makes for a good CD, but a bit light-weight for a double vinyl version.
Nevertheless, I enjoy listening to this music. If you ignore a lot of the lyrics, it mostly sounds like a “feel-good” album, which is what Coldplay does best. It is minimalist in its approach as far as the traditional Coldplay “sound.” Jonny Buckland’s guitar is understated throughout, for example. Many of the tracks themselves have little instrumentation at all. The best song is “Arabesque” which is fun, quite catchy, and indicative of how the band explores different musical expressions compared with their previous body of work.
My classical music collection grew slightly with new music in 2019. I reviewed Esa-Pekka Salonen's excellent Cello Concerto back in April. Wolfgang Rihm's fine assorted works for violin were reviewed in June. I received Saariaho X Koh (2018) for Christmas and have enjoyed it several times. I already owned the violin concerto featured on the record but 2009's Cloud Trio was new to me and definitely a highlight. In fact, it is one of the best string trios I have ever heard. I have probably listened to this 16 and half minute piece a dozen times by now. It is a highlight of classical music in the 21st century.
I have admired the work of Kaija Saariaho for many years. Her compositions are often shimmering and vibrant with energy, yet just as often measured and contemplative. She toys with the edges of tonality, often times affording a dreamy, meditative, almost hypnotic effect upon the listener. A Saariaho composition, particularly for strings, attempts to make the instrument(s) sound unique in the vast landscape of classical music. She frequently succeeds. She is a rare, powerful feminine voice in the world of contemporary composition.
As of this post, I’m up to 4,940 followers on Flipboard now. I experienced a modest surge in regular readership during the holiday season. It is part of my morning routine with coffee. To discover new information on a myriad of topics that interest me and to share this with other readers who, apparently, have similar interests. New eMags this year are Notice: Buttigieg, covering the presidential campaign of the person I support for president in 2020, and Religion, Or Not covering all religions and atheism and everything in between, another topic of life-long interest. Here are my top five mags in order of readership:
1) Sex and Intimacy
2) Notice: Art
3) Eros (over 1.2 million page flips)
4) Notice Magazine
5) Brain and Psyche
About midway through the year, I began an attempt to stimulate my brain in a more structured way by using the “Elevate” app. As usual with these sorts of games/tests, I score far higher on the math, reading, and writing categories than I do on the speaking category. Most people who know me would be as surprised by that as I am. There is something about how these tests and programs are designed that do not accurately capture my oratory talents. I recall that way back when I took the SAT I scored higher on the math portion than the verbal portion. Whatever. “Elevate” is now part of my daily routine as I attempt to keep my mind sharp as well as my body going into my 60’s and beyond. As apps go its $21.99 annual subscription is rather pricey but it is worth it to get the variety of games/tests and the details on what exactly I can improve upon.
The World Series was a dandy this year. The Washington Nationals defeated the Houston Astros in a historic Series that went seven games. It was historic in several respects. The Nationals were a mere 19 – 31 after the regular season’s first 50 games. No team in modern major league history has ever started so badly and gone on to win the Series. Pitchers Stephen Strasburg and Max Scherzer were a perfect 10-0 in postseason starts, the best in history. Remarkably, all the wins in the Series took place on the road. It was the first time that the home teams went 0–7 in baseball history. Pretty cool.
I retired this year. Due to that I set a personal record. Thanks to global warming’s extended weather conditions and the fact I no longer particularly cared how I looked, I went from May 24 to October 17 without wearing pants – just shorts. Even when I was a kid I didn’t get to do that. I wore pants to school and church. I also have not cut my hair and only minimally trimmed my beard since May. It is a fun experiment. At Thanksgiving, my daughter Avery was able to put my hair up in a short ponytail for the first time. She and Jennifer like it. Is a man bun in my future?
What else? Oh, by happy coincidence the BBC produced a superb radio dramatization of Marcel Proust’s In Search of Lost Time which aired online just as I finished reading the novel back in the late-summer. I enjoyed listening to this 10-part series, which faithfully captured the complex narrative and many of the nuances of the novel in a condensed format. Each episode lasted a little less than an hour. Unfortunately, it was only made available online for a few weeks. I was lucky to have known about it and to get the chance to appreciate it, especially coming as it did on to coattails of completing the novel for the third time.
Here are some articles I read (and one video I watched) during the course of the year that I found to be of exceptional merit:
The Atlantic: The Idea That Whites Cannot Refer to the N-Word
Vox: Capitalism is Turning Us Into Addicts (another example of what I mean by "Function")
Foreign Policy: Donald Trump is the President America Deserves (an older article but new to me and still relevant)
The Conversation: The Trump presidency [is] a symptom of our cultural malaise
Salon: Steven Pinker, Sam Harris and the epidemic of annoying white male intellectuals
Motor 1 (UK): This epic Russian 'Gymkhana' video deserves an Academy Award
New Year’s resolutions include seriously looking into becoming a certified Life Coach (no firm decision on that yet), purchasing a new hot tub and enjoying it, seeing a large exhibition featuring the work of Gerhard Richter in New York City, visiting more Civil War battlefields, and re-reading Tolkien’s The Silmarillion. Anyone who knows Tolkien knows that this was his personal literary quest, of which The Lord of the Rings story forms only the tiniest part, just a few pages at the very end. Tolkien’s world encompasses many thousands of years and hundreds of characters that are never mentioned in his famous trilogy. To call The Silmarillion an epic tale is an understatement. Nothing compares to it, except maybe the Old Testament or the Mahabharata.
Don’t forget I’m running for president in 2020. (Wink wink.) With the economy doing so well Trump will be especially difficult to beat. My advice to democrats is that they 1) nominate a moderate candidate [ie. Biden or Buttigieg] and 2) let Trump beat himself. He’s perfectly capable of that.
Hard to believe this century is two decades old. I can remember sitting in class in elementary school and thinking “Wow! I’ll be 41 when it’s the year 2000!” Now that year stands half way back from the present and me being a college senior. Oh well, onward!
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