Spam Roundup December, 2016

There's spam, and then there's spam so oddly written it's somewhat amusing. Here's a roundup of some of the "best" comments I received this month from spambots around the world. 

And we'll keep torturing the English language until it talks

 - I think every one is getting more from this web page, and your views are nice designed for new viewers. [I prefer to think of my views as intelligent designed.]

 - Quality articles or reviews is the key to invite the vistors to pay a quick visit the website. [As opposed to, say, this blog?]

 - What I don't realize is actually how you are not actually a lot more well-preferred than you may be right now. [Actually?]

 - Attractive section of content. I just stumbled upon your website and in accession capital to assert that I get in fact enjoyed account your blog posts. [It's like talking to my broker -- and I don't understand him either.]

See that lumber truck in the foreground? That's what
all the excitement's about.

The post that keeps on giving

It was just a short post in an obscure series about vintage Japanese tin toys. It didn't even had that much useful information. But The Straco Express Layout, Part 23 - Lumbering Along continues to be a popular place to leave fake comments. 

 - I do believe all the ideas you've offered to your post. They're really convincing and will certainly work. [You are sooooo gullible.]

- Right here is the perfect web site for anybody who wants to understand this topic. You realize so much its almost tough to argue with you (not that I really will need to ...HaHa). [HaHa.]

 - Such clever work and reporting! [Yes, my investigative reporting about 1950s Made in Japan friction toys holds nothing back!]

 - So nice to discover someone with genuine thoughts on this subject. [Yes, there are so many poseurs writing about vintage Japanese penny toys.]

A Fastidious Finish

Fastidious Spam continues to draw comments from the very subject of the post -- spambots. 

 - Incredible quest there. What happened next? [Well, your fake comment got featured in a Spam Roundup post.  The End.] 

That's a wrap for 2016. We'll actually be continuing this series next year with actual spam comments that actually don't make actual sense. I promise it will be nice designed. Happy New Year, everyone!

The Value of Twitter (cont.)

When I first wrote about the value of Twitter in 2009, most people thought of it simply as a platform for narcissists to tweet their every meal. After the 2016 campaign, many now view it as a cesspool of hatemongering and disinformation.

Well, both views are true to a certain extent. There are still some who tweet about everything (although most have migrated to Instagram), and there are plenty of folks on their worst behavior as they tweet.

But like any other social media platform -- or indeed, any real world social interaction -- it's really what you make of it. Imagine a reception in a large ballroom. You don't have to stand next to the ugly drunk and put up with their abuse. You can move to the opposite corner and discuss more pleasant topics. Perhaps you can connect with others who support your favorite sports team, or are from your old hometown, or share your hobbies.

One of the ways I use Twitter is to converse with fellow classical music enthusiasts. And, as a result, I've learned a thing or two. For example -- in December 2016 a few of us started using #BeethovenaDay hashtag. The rules were simple: for the month of December, post a link to a performance of a Beethoven piece.

In the process, I've been exposed to a number of great performances I wouldn't have otherwise discovered -- and so have others. To my post sharing a vintage recording of Beethoven's Serenade Op. 8, a colleague replied "Hindemith on viola? Oh my! Must hear" (the 1934 recording featured composer Paul Hindemith when he was still primarily a performer). He got to hear something new for him (and his tweets often expose me to exciting performances I hadn't heard before).



Here's another example.

The #BeethovenaDay discussion included this conversation:

Q: For #BeethovenADay, how about nominations for the greatest Beethoven-inspired Symphony?

Reply 1: Off the top of my head Brahms 1, Sibelius 1, Dvorak 9, Bruckner 9, Mahler 2, Harris 1. Will think of others.

Reply 2: Villa-Lobos's inspiration for Choros no.10 was Beethoven's 9th.

Reply 3: The slow movement of Ives' Concord Sonata uses motifs from Beethoven's 5th.

I had no idea that so many works were directly inspired by Beethoven. And secondly, I now have another list of works to explore, listening for those connections.

Of course, while we were having these #BeethovenaDay conversations, there were plenty of horrible, nasty, racist, misogynistic tweeting going on. But I saw very little of it. My Twitter feed follows a different crowd -- and yours can, too.

Choose what you want to share, choose your tone of voice, choose who to interact with. And don't be shy about blocking. Tweets can be used to transmit humanity's basest emotions or share our highest aspirations. I strive to contribute to the latter.

Weinberg's Symphony Trilogy "On the Threshold of War" Completed

This release includes the world premiere recording of Mieczyslaw Weinberg's 1950 Suite for Orchestra. And what a delight. The Suite includes a Ravel-like Romance, a Rossini/Tchaikovsky hybrid Humoresque, a Prokofiev-inspired Polka, and concludes with a raucous circus band Galop.

While enjoyable for its own light-hearted merits, the Suite also provides a welcome emotional balance to the other work on this release, Weinberg's Symphony No. 17.

Symphony No. 17, "Memory," completes Weinberg's massive symphonic trilogy, On the Threshold of War. The three symphonies process the emotional trauma the Russian people suffered during the  Second World War. The title, "Memory," references a poem of Anna Akhmatova. "...in the treasure-house of the people's memory, there will always remain the incinerated years of war."

The symphony begins somberly, with ambivalent tonality. Over its 45-minute span, the symphony relentlessly builds to its climax. Explosive outbursts disrupt but never derail the momentum of the music. And then, after it reaches its conclusion, the symphony doesn't provide a coda lower the energy and stop the motion. Rather, it just abruptly stops, letting the sound dissipate into the air -- much like memories of unresolved issues.

To my ears, the work resembles Shostakovich's "Leningrad" Symphony in its depiction of conflict, but in a more polished and tightly organized fashion. Yet, as with the "Leningrad," the raw emotional content is never far from the surface. Weinberg experienced the horrors of the Great Patriotic War firsthand. Though he composed the trilogy in the 1980s, the pain seems little dimmed four decades later.

Vladimir Lande and the Siberian State Orchestra perform this powerful work with commitment and energy. And with sensitivity, giving Weinberg's introspective passages the delicate poignancy they need. Lande and the SSO have also recorded the other parts of the trilogy: Symphony No. 18, "War -- there is no word more cruel" (Naxos 8.57190), and Symphony No. 19, "Bright May" (Naxos 8.572752).

Each work is an effective and complete musical statement. But now that all three parts have been released, I feel compelled to sit down and listen to this trilogy from beginning to end. Only then, I think, can I fully appreciate what Weinberg is trying to communicate.

Mieczyslaw Weinberg: Symphony No. 17, Op. 137 "Memory"; Suite for Orchestra (world premiere recording)
Siberian State Symphony Orchestra; Vladimir Lande, conductor
Naxos 8.573565

Dick Tracy's Dream

Mike Curtis and Joe Staton continue to expand the world of Dick Tracy world into other comic strip universes. They've established that Little Orphan Annie exists in Tracy's world, as does Gasoline Alley, Terry and the Pirates, Popeye, Fast Track, and more.

They've even created an alternative version of Fearless Fosdick for Tracy's world in the form of Straightedge Trueworthy (created byVera Alldid). Now Al Capp's original character parody joins the Tracy universe in an innovative way, beginning with this sequence from June 28. 2016.

It's important to remember that Fearless Fosdick was always a fictional character. In Al Capp's strip L'il Abner, Fearless Fosdick was a comic strip that L'il Abner read. The comic within a comic was a send-up of Dick Tracy, carrying the tropes of Chester Gould's strip to the extreme.

And in the sequence started above, Fosdick remains a fictional character. In this case a dream creation of Dick Tracy. So where does that leave L'il Abner and the denizens of Dogpatch in the Tracyverse? I'm not sure -- but I'm going to keep reading to find out.

Diabelli Project 139 - Piece for Solo Oboe

The Diabelli Project is about offering my weekly flash-composition sketches freely to all. Like Antonio Diabelli's theme, these sketches aren't great music. But perhaps (as in Diabelli's case) there's a Beethoven out there who can do great things with them.

This is the third flash composition sketch I've done for solo oboe. Looking back at the other two, I can see some similarities, but there are some major differences (see Nos. 74 and 65. Sometimes I wonder if sketches made for the same forces are bits of a larger work. In this case, I don't think so. It seems that this sketch is more of a development of the earlier ones. And that's one of the points of this exercise -- to get more comfortable creating.

As always, you can use any or all of the posted Diabelli Project sketches as you wish for free. Just be sure to share the results. I'm always curious to see what direction someone else can take this material.