Leonard Bernstein (August 25, 1918 – October 14, 1990) was an American composer, conductor, author, music lecturer, and pianist. He was among the first conductors born and educated in the United States of America to receive worldwide acclaim. According to The New York Times, he was "one of the most prodigiously talented and successful musicians in American history."To celebrate this day, I will share a recording of a piece I first heard when I was in junior high school: Prelude, Fugue and Riffs (1949). The All Music Guide to Classical Music offers this description:
His fame derived from his long tenure as the music director of the New York Philharmonic, from his conducting of concerts with most of the world's leading orchestras, and from his music for West Side Story, as well as Candide, Wonderful Town, On the Town and his own Mass.
Prelude, Fugue and Riffs is scored for a standard dance-band instrumentation of solo clarinet, saxes and trumpets in fives, four trombones, piano, string bass, and drums, to which Bernstein adds a second percussion part. It is one of the most frequently performed of Bernstein's shorter concert works, and has been widely embraced by wind ensembles in particular. While it was intended as a sort of crossover piece that combines jazz and classical elements, the material in Prelude, Fugue and Riffs leans more heavily in favor of the jazz aspect. Stravinsky's jazz-inspired music is an obvious point of reference for this work, and the similarity is felt most strongly in the opening Prelude, scored for the brass. This is followed by the Fugue for the saxes. In the Riffs section the solo clarinet is heard over the whole ensemble, which concludes with a riff reminiscent of Count Basie and of Kansas City-style ensemble jamming.And with that out of the way, here is the recording (also H/T to Adam Bear):
Hong Kong’s air pollution index reached “very high” levels today as a tropical storm that passed through Taiwan trapped pollutants and blanketed the city in haze, triggering a government health warning ...In other words, things aren't as good when the wind doesn't send your problems elsewhere.
“Because of the typhoon, we don’t have any wind, the air now is like static, pollutants accumulate and they can’t get out,” Kwong Sum-yin, chief executive officer at Clean Air Network, a non-profit advocacy group, said by phone today. “Central is pretty bad, exactly because we have so many skyscrapers.”
The former British colony, which will raise its air quality standards, has never met its targets since they were adopted 26 years ago, according to a government audit in November. Hong Kong relies on the wind to help sweep away choking emissions from Chinese factories and vehicles.
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| The view to the north from Jingshan Park in Beijing |
Dewey provided the following update to her post:More recently, Dewey edited her post again:
Samuel Wade at the China Digital Times points out that, while Google formally follows local censorship laws, it also quietly redirects Chinese users from Google.cn to Google.hk — which helps them avoid mainland filtering.Hmm... I'll just say that the biggest impact of redirecting users in mainland China to Google's Hong Kong site is it allows Google to legally not censor search results as required by mainland Chinese law. However, the Great Firewall selectively filters those searches. Google offers encrypted search, which would be difficult for the Great Firewall to filter, but that's often entirely blocked by the Great Firewall. I just tried the encrypted search now and was able to successfully search for a typically blocked query. However, I was soon blocked from continued use of Google. This "messy" sort of blocking is very common with Google in China.
Correction: This post originally stated that Google formally complies with government censorship laws in China. While that is the company’s policy in other countries, it has not been Google’s policy in China since 2010. The post has been corrected.Ah...
Google: Google has a long and complicated legacy in China, which has put it on both sides of the censorship debate. Since 2010, however, Google’s Chinese search has been based out of Hong Kong, where Chinese censorship laws don’t apply. (Outside of China, the company has a policy of removing pages from search as required by law — in Germany, for instance, the site takes down pages that glorify Nazism.) In January, Google China removed a feature that told users when their results were censored.Dewey still does not mention that Wikipedia's encrypted version is currently blocked in China. This provides important context for her point that "Wikipedia offers an encrypted version of the site to help users evade the firewall" and another example of how Wikipedia is not "alone" in China.
In his book, Han characterizes my generation as a “disconnected” one. Communist ideals, together with its unifying power, waned in the 1980s and never took root in our hearts; new barriers such as widening income inequality and stalled social mobility further erode the generational cohesion. Better education, unprecedented access to the outside world and increasing domestic transparency facilitated by social media have enabled us to identify the issues discussed in Han’s writing, but many have chosen to focus on the narrow path immediately ahead. Bogged down by the pressure of living, denied a free channel of speech, and thus locked in our individual worries, what to do but to, say, calculate how long it might take before you can save enough for a down payment on your first apartment?And Mei Fong reviewed the collection of pieces My First Visit to China, edited by Kin-ming Liu:
Han’s writing won us over for so vividly capturing the thin layer of commonalities shared by my generation and the mood born out of this social environment: a dash of irony, a sprinkle of resignation, and a pinch of self-loathing.
At times dispiriting, these accounts of initial ignorance and then dawning awareness are nonetheless the book’s chief strength. To these Sinologists, linguists, ethnic Chinese returnees, that first visit to China represented humility, the recognition that their years of study or cultural heritage were, in the end, inadequate preparation for understanding modern China. Those initial trips were for many the spark that led to years of distinguished work interpreting and explaining China to the world.Of course, the two reviews need not be the end of the story. If you choose to read them, enjoy the books as well.
“Our first encounters with China […] are rarely as grand as we hope,” writes Pulitzer-prize-winning contributor Ian Johnson. “That is the nature of exploring foreign countries; all we can hope for is that our first steps are sturdy enough to carry us forward.”
Most of the sites that operate in China obey censorship rules, which ban information on politically sensitive topics such Tibet, the spiritual movement Falun Gong, and the 1989 protests and crackdown most commonly associated with Tiananmen Square.However, Google does not filter "results on its search platform within China". As Google announced on March 22, 2010:
When it comes to defying censors outright, Wikipedia is an exception, though China’s Great Firewall also blocks a number of prominent American sites. (That doesn’t necessarily imply a stance against censorship on the blocked site’s part — YouTube and Blogspot are both owned by Google, for instance, which already filters results on its search platform within China.)
1. Google: Google China complies with government censorship laws and does not surface pages related to to banned topics. In January, Google removed a feature that told users when their results were censored.
... earlier today we stopped censoring our search services—Google Search, Google News, and Google Images—on Google.cn. Users visiting Google.cn are now being redirected to Google.com.hk, where we are offering uncensored search in simplified Chinese, specifically designed for users in mainland China and delivered via our servers in Hong Kong.As far as I can tell, this remains true today.
Wikipedia doesn’t censor its content in China, regardless of language, though China’s Great Firewall automatically blocks controversial pages. Wikipedia offers an encrypted version of the site to help users evade the firewall.As Dewey notes, selected "sensitive" articles are indeed blocked in China -- similar to how Google Search is now selectively blocked by the Great Firewall. But this is not all that is blocked. Wikipedia’s entire encrypted version is now blocked in China.
Samuel Wade at the China Digital Times points out that, while Google formally follows local censorship laws, it also quietly redirects Chinese users from Google.cn to Google.hk — which helps them avoid mainland filtering.Hmm... I'll just say that the biggest impact of redirecting users in mainland China to Google's Hong Kong site is it allows Google to legally not censor search results as required by mainland Chinese law. However, the Great Firewall selectively filters those searches. Google offers encrypted search, which would be difficult for the Great Firewall to filter, but that's often entirely blocked by the Great Firewall. I just tried the encrypted search now and was able to successfully search for a typically blocked query. However, I was soon blocked from continued use of Google. This "messy" sort of blocking is very common with Google in China.
Having so much fun collecting Chinese restaurant mistranslations for language column. "Dry pan the ass of hunan," "Overlord grilled fish."
— Eveline Chao (@EvelineChao) August 9, 2013
The Chinese name of the dish in question is zhá guànchang 炸灌腸, which is a kind of sausage made of wheat flour stuffed into hog casings and fried. The last two characters, pronounced guàncháng, also have a completely different meaning, viz., "enema" or "give an enema" (literally, "to irrigate the intestine").Mair apparently discounted the possibility that restaurants do indeed fry up enemas and serve them to customers. Seems reasonable to me.
This is a good example of the spoken language being clearer than the written language — at least when one is relying on not-very-good machine translation.
Google Translate renders 炸灌腸 correctly as "fried sausage".
Hundreds of people flocked to an exhibition, centered on failed relationships and their ruins, in downtown Taipei Saturday to take part in a hugging event that organizers hope will heal locals who have experienced broken relationships.The exhibition began in Croatia and according to its website:
The visitors, mostly young girls, held cards reading "Can I hug you?" or "Can you hug me?" during the event, in which strangers are expected to share stories about their previous relationships.
Organizers of the exhibition, titled Museum of Broken Relationships, also had an elephant mascot on standby for those who were too shy to ask for hugs from humans.
The Museum of Broken Relationships grew from a traveling exhibition revolving around the concept of failed relationships and their ruins. Unlike ‘destructive’ self-help instructions for recovery from failed loves, the Museum offers a chance to overcome an emotional collapse through creation: by contributing to the Museum's collection.If you are interested in attending, the exhibition will remain in Taipei until September 1 (details here).
Whatever the motivation for donating personal belongings – be it sheer exhibitionism, therapeutic relief, or simple curiosity – people embraced the idea of exhibiting their love legacy as a sort of a ritual, a solemn ceremony. Our societies oblige us with our marriages, funerals, and even graduation farewells, but deny us any formal recognition of the demise of a relationship, despite its strong emotional effect. In the words of Roland Barthes in A Lover's Discourse: "Every passion, ultimately, has its spectator... (there is) no amorous oblation without a final theater."
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| China Central Television (CCTV) Headquarters in Bejing |
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| Prisonbreak Tattoo in Shanghai |
One, it is a fantastic example of how technology can be used to find new ways for people to express themselves - even when the subject is an old masterpiece. Another reason is it features instruments from an older period of music unfamiliar to many. Finally, and not least, the performer is a friend of mine who I first met while studying at the Peabody Conservatory of Music of Johns Hopkins about a decade and half ago.For similar reasons, I would like to now share another recording by James Howard Young. The piece performed, Canzon Primi Toni à 8 by Giovanni Gabrieli, is not a fugue but an earlier form of contrapuntal music. I doubt Gabrieli ever imagined his music would be performed in the manner James chose. And who knows how (or if) today's music will be performed in the year 2429. So lose yourself for a few minutes in a piece from 1597 that even after hundreds of years continues to receive new interpretations.
The Chinese is one of the post popular and well known breeds of domestic goose. Unofficially, there are two kinds of Chinese geese: those that hate the world and everything that moves within it, and those which have to be picked up and carried to their shed. They are so tame that they prefer to stand around your feet and won't be driven. The sort you end up with depends partly on the strain, but mainly on how you rear them and treat them. They can be wonderful watchdogs - tame and real pets with their owners, but noisy when anything unusual is around.Unlike the geese mentioned in the previous post, I saw no signs these two geese were employed by the local police. Nonetheless, the geese seemed more than willing to serve as watchdogs. Based on the above description, I believe I fitted into the "everything that moves" and "unusual" categories since they raised quite a ruckus when I approached. After listening to their eloquent protests and photographing them (which didn't seem to please them either), I left them in peace so I could enjoy lunch in a traditional setting.
Dr. David Ludwig, the director of the New Balance Foundation Obesity Prevention Center at Boston Children’s Hospital, said that sugar consumed in fruit is not linked to any adverse health effects, no matter how much you eat. In a recent perspective piece in The Journal of the American Medical Association, he cited observational studies that showed that increased fruit consumption is tied to lower body weight and a lower risk of obesity-associated diseases.See the blog post in The New York Times here for more, including why the following holds true in terms of health benefits: fresh fruit > dried fruit > fruit juice. I have found that the last claim can easily rile some fruit-juice lovers.
Whole fruits, he explained, contain a bounty of antioxidants and healthful nutrients, and their cellular scaffolding, made of fiber, makes us feel full and provides other metabolic benefits. When you bite into an apple, for example, the fruit’s fiber helps slow your absorption of fructose, the main sugar in most fruits. But fiber is not the full story.
Almost no one in America has heard of the Alaskan village of Kivalina. It clings to a narrow spit of sand on the edge of the Bering Sea, far too small to feature on maps of Alaska, never mind the United States.I'm not sure if the "forever" is a foregone conclusion. There could be another ice age in thousands of years, right? Whatever the case, see the article on BBC News Magazine here for more about the plight of the indigenous Inuit people who live in Kivalina.
Which is perhaps just as well, because within a decade Kivalina is likely to be under water. Gone, forever. Remembered - if at all - as the birthplace of America's first climate change refugees.
Law enforcement agents described the geese as a new “highlight of stability maintenance work” and said they had proved themselves “better than dogs” in tackling crime.See the article on The Telegraph here for more about the heroics of the police geese.
“Geese are very brave. They spread their wings and will attack any strangers entering [someone’s] home,” said Mr Zhang, the local police chief. The birds were like “a radar that does not need power”, he added.
Cambodia becomes the 51st country on the planet to embrace Street View and, like many others, tourism is among the driving factors. Google says it is working closely with the Ministry of Tourism of Cambodia, the APSARA Authority (ANA), and the Phnom Penh Municipality to make the program happen.Although I would be surprised if Google's cameras make it to where I explored in Kampot's Fish Isle, it may soon be easier for people to track down some of what I saw in Phnom Penh, whether it is the iPhone jailbreaking stand, the restaurant which serves tasty spiders, or even the Facebook Ice Cream store. Russell reports that the famous Angkor Wat historical site is a target for Google's Street View cameras and that government officials see it as an opportunity for Cambodia to showcase itself to the world. In that sense, even if many Cambodians cannot afford to own the technology required to use Street View, they might benefit from it encouraging people to explore Cambodia.
Street View cars have started whizzing around capital city Phnom Penh capturing images and, as is common with Street View projects, they will expand to cover other cities, town and areas of interest over “the next few years.”
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| I don't have any photos of a Street View car in Phnom Penh, so instead here's someone who might like to ride one. |