Procrastination....
Yeah, my essays for the Idyllwild Arts Academy are due tomorrow, and I'm just about to start the third of three essays. I've got everything else they want though, so I'm not worried. It's only Prep-school, right? But anyway, my girlfriend told me that procrastination is usually the by-product of the fear of evaluation, which makes total sense. I mean, of course there's the procrastination where you just don't feel like doing work in general. But what about when you have three papers the next day, it's 9 pm, and you haven't started? I know many of you can relate.
So basically, this Blog manifests my procrastination. But it's all good.
In AP World today, our teacher did the most interesting thing. We musicked. We listen to Tchaistovsky's (i'm not totally sure if that's his name) "Overture of 1812", which was a musical interpretation of the war between Napoleon and Russia. It was pretty interesting, as we read the description of the song and how each section represented certain portions of the battle. Reminded me of the TASP days.
Anyone ever done anything similar?
Herbivore
posted by Henrik Herb at 10:21 PM
18 Comments:
That's so exciting! My history teacher did the exact same thing when I was taking "The Napoleonic Wars." We listened to a Beethoven piece at the beginning of the course, another in the middle(which I've forgotton), and then the Tchaistovsky piece at the end, which also had to do with Napoleon.
On the Beethoven:
"In May 1804, Napoleon declared himself emperor. Ferdinand Ries, Beethoven's pupil at the time, claims to have been the first to give Beethoven the news, upon which he flew into a rage declaring 'So he too is nothing more than an ordinary man. Now he will also trample all human rights underfoot, and only pander to his ambition; he will place himself above everyone else and become a tyrant!' He then ripped up the title page upon which he had written the dedication "Buonaparte" and produced another giving it the new title Sinfonia Eroica - the 'heroic' symphony, a title with a whole new set of resonances."
Our final paper was the compare and contrast the pieces of music and how it reflected the changing face of Napoleon throughout the wars, from triumph to defeat, etc.
10:52 AM, February 15, 2006
Describing Napoleon as "no more than an ordinary man" reminds me of Crime and Punishment. You know? How Raskolnikov alludes to Napoleon as the 'extraordinary man'? I wonder if there are any connections...
5:25 PM, February 15, 2006
ew bacon sucks.
7:38 PM, February 15, 2006
Ooooh, I hadn't thought about that. Raskolnikov's idea of the super man... Dostoevsky was born into the post-Napoleonic world, if I recall correctly, so this idea of man trying/succeeding in moving beyond his definition as the man, moving to the superman, as Napoleon strove to do, could very well be very influential in what FD was writing. The Napoleonic Wars did have a far reach, after all.
Definitely update us on other cool stuff your class does.
7:45 PM, February 15, 2006
Let's just standardize the spelling at tchaikovsky, okay? ugh, some taspers, lol :)
And I think pretty much everything refers to our friend Rask. Good book, I almost finished it.
Yeah, 1812 Overture is great. You should try Beethoven 6, another good one for the shrimpy emperor.
And good luck on the prep-school app. You shouldn't have a problem. (managed to recycle any tasp essays?)
8:44 PM, February 15, 2006
I definitely think more pieces of music need to involve pyrotechnics as part of the score, if just so that the instrumentation can sound really funny. Concerto for violin, orchestra, and hydrogen bomb anyone?
9:36 PM, February 15, 2006
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10:41 PM, February 15, 2006
Gasp! I hadn't even noticed that my spelling had taken a turn for the entirely wrong. I will pay more atenshun in the future ;)
And bacon is awesome.
10:42 PM, February 15, 2006
I'm with Samyu. Bacon is awfully salty, and the whole cross section of fat and muscle never fails to remind me that I am, in fact, eating flayed pig flesh.
9:51 AM, February 16, 2006
What? When the bacon's tender surface slides between my teeth and makes an almost squeaky noise, and the fat bubbles on my tongue, I smile at the fact that I'm eating pig flesh. Salty goodness
11:31 PM, February 16, 2006
what else by vanilla chai-cough-ski is good? (like the spelling slayter)
11:32 PM, February 16, 2006
that is the most disgusting, nausea-inducing description of eating i have EVER heard! geez henrik.. and i was eating when i read it too.
ew
ew
ew
i hate bacon!!!
Meat in general!!
ok chicken can be nice sometimes.
but only in very small quantities.
like ONE popcorn chicken piece..
ONE.
to all who read this blog: vegetarianism is the way to live.
3:34 PM, February 17, 2006
Bacon is good, but only when cooked right. Chewy, cold bacon is pretty unappetizing.
I never knew that the 1812 Overture was so Napoleonic. Cool! Tchaikovsy fans should have a listen to Professor Peter Schickele's (aka P.D.Q. Bach's) rendition of the 1712 Overture, complete with pop-guns and crows for the sound effects.
4:00 PM, February 17, 2006
link is way better than patty sausage (here, have a disk of pig parts!)
11:00 PM, February 17, 2006
Oh, but there are so many types of sausages. Some types are miles ahead of bacon - andouille sausage, italian sausage, bratwurst. But bacon does beat patty sausage hands down.
10:56 AM, February 18, 2006
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10:51 PM, February 19, 2006
Sausage dominates. Not your typical American sausage, but those European sausages. Being a German and knowing my sausages (but not sausage vocabulary, unfortunately) i'm with sam. Kielbasa? Lord of meat...
10:53 PM, February 19, 2006
*snap snap*
Europeans know how to do sausage.
7:15 PM, February 22, 2006
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