01 Oct 08

Warrior v Big E. (by Warrior Part 1)

Warrior - Serving fourteen years for kidnapping and aggravated assault. Half Hispanic and Scottish-Irish with family still in Mexico. Brought up by a family steeped in drug commerce.
-
Guys in prison always feel they’ll eventually be able to lay their swords down, hang up their spurs, and not have to maintain the status quo when it comes to respect.
For some, their looks, size or reputation enables them to do so.
Unfortunately for me, I’ve never had such luck. It’s always been my looks that made me stand out to be tested. Even as a kid in school, I remember it being the same way. I’ve heard I look like a pushover, I’ve also heard the term “innocent." I never cease hearing, “You don’t look like you belong in prison,” even from C.O.s – whatever that means?
I know this is the reason Big E. chose me to be an outlet for his aggression.

Big E. stood for Big Ego. A Mexican cat about 6 foot 1 and 200 pounds. He had been around the system for a while. Earned his ink putting in work for the EME (Mexican Mafia). He was covered in prison ink from neck to toe. Aztec Warriors. Brown Pride. His gang shield. The traditional stuff. Old English on his back and stomach. He wore a pair of Maddoggers sunglasses that added to his disposition.

I had just touched down in Buckeye prison. Knew a couple of faces. Met some new ones.
One face I knew was a guy named Trip. Him and I did hole time together.
It’s always good to run into a familiar face you’re cool with from another unit. It helps your credibility as a solid dude when another solid dude can vouch for you. Plus it helps you get a lay of the land quicker. Who’s cool. Who’s a dope fiend. Who’s trouble. What cops are assholes, and which are cool and let us do our time.

My first day at rec, Trip and I walked a few laps.
“Damn it’s good to see you, dawg!” Trip said.
“Fuck, I know. I didn’t think I was ever gonna get outta the fuckin’ hole,” I said. “It’s good to see a familiar face.”
“I hear you, bro. Who’s still left over there?”
“Eagle, Monster, Spider are all stuck. Roy made it out to a yard though. He was happy. He’s over here around the way on a Level 3 yard.”
“Fuckin’ Roy! That’s cool,” Trip said. “The other cats stuck, huh? Tsk-tsk. That’s the name of the game though right: cops and robbers. How long you do in the hole?”
“Three fuckin’ years, homes,” I said. “I tell you, man, that last year was wearing on me mentally too. That sensory-deprivation shit ain’t no joke. A lot of hate was building up in me. I don’t know how those other dudes go ten years like that.”
“Those other dudes probably mad with hate by five years hole time,” Trip said. “By then, those fools can only function in the hole. Complete antisocial sociopaths. The really fucked-up shit is the system has no idea of the monsters they’re creating. As long as their pockets are full, all we’ll be is dollar signs.”
“I hear that. Fuck the system. It’s their Catch-22 one way or the other. Karma doesn’t discriminate. It goes after systems too.”
“Word has it a coupla dudes offed themselves?” Trip asked.
“Yeah. Four dudes in a month and a half. Two hung themselves by sheet. Two others cut their wrists. It was crazy. A youngster too. You shoulda seen it. Administration had the cops doing fifteen-minute walks to make it look good when the investigators came. But the minute the investigation was over, back to before.”
“Damn that’s dirty. That’s prison life though.”

Trip and I finished our catching up. He then introduced me to a group of dudes playing cards at the Independent Table. It was a table where all of the races go to play poker. Guys gamble money, drugs, property, even their homosexuals.

All the races had claim to one of three tables: blacks, whites, Mexicans. But the fourth was a neutral spot all the races agreed to and only meant for gambling – the Independent Table.
Gambling is big business in prison. Even in prison, green is acknowledged as the ultimate color, the color of money. Just another source of income for those “holding the keys” – the heads of the races running the yard.

At the Independent Table, all the guys had their shirts off as they took in the evening sun. By all the ink they displayed you could tell they were old numbers. Sleeved with swastikas and Vikings if they were white. Aztec Warriors and women if they were Mexican. The blacks had images of Africa and civil-rights leaders.
Trip introduced me to everyone, Big E. being one of them.
Everyone was cool and shook my hand except for Big E.. He looked me up and down, sizing me up. Everyone acted like they didn’t notice, but I’m sure they did.
I exchanged small talk with a few guys and then we were on our way.

“Hey, who’s that fool with the Maddoggers glasses?” I asked.
“Oh, that’s Big E.,” Trip said. “He thinks his shit don’t stink. I noticed him sizing you up.”
“You caught that too, huh. I can’t stand motherfuckers like that.”
“Well, you don’t look like a tough guy. That face, man,” Trip said jokingly.
“What I lack in looks, I make up in experiences, believe that!” I said, growing irritable.
“Hey, whoa, whoa…I’m not the one sizing you up there, killer. Maybe Big E. was having a bad day? Don’t take it personal, it’s too early to tell.”
“We’ll see,” I said.

I’d been down long enough to know when someone was about to test me. When it’s played out so many times, you become familiar with the signs.
I was thinking, Here we go again.I always hear from my buddies that I have this certain look that makes guys want to test me. To this day I don’t know what that look is.

I was on the push-up station doing some sets with a guy named Gangster. Just then Big E. and Ghost walked up. They started small talk with Gangster and asked to join in a couple of sets. Then the hostility talk began:
“I can’t stand fuckin’ chumps on this yard,” Big E. said, glancing at me.

If you were Warrior, how would you handle Big E.?

Click here for Warrior v Big E. Part 2

Email comments to writeinside@hotmail.com or post them below

Shaun Attwood

30 Sep 08

From T-Bone (Letter 8)

T-Bone - Radiating power and strength, this deeply-spiritual massively-built African American towers over most inmates. He is a prison gladiator with more stab wounds than Julius Caesar. A good man to have on your side.
8-10-08

Hey Brother,

What’s happening over there in the land of tea and biscuits? It’s hot here! I mean really hot in the Great Southwest, 112 degrees today so far.

Before I forget, never worry about me keeping it real with you, because I will always be there for you, brother! My friendship and honor are genuine.

Man, you can write and your ability to take people there with you is absolutely awesome. I really enjoyed the pictures you sent me.
I finally got the letter and blog I was waiting for and the reader comments were heart warming to say the least. Thank you, Suzanne!

I have a few things to say to the people who read Jon’s Jail Journal.

The most important thing you all need to know is that I am no angel. I’ve done a lot of things I wish I could take back. I’ve also done a lot of soul searching, and the choices I make now are made with the hope that I can help people who are weaker than I am. I do not involve myself in every situation because there are those in here who want to use people, for example, people who want to do dope and then come running to me for help because they can’t pay their dope bill. (Shaun knows what I am talking about.) I won’t get involved.

As for the cops, some have honor and some get involved in the crap that goes on in here. There’s this old saying that goes: “If you ever want to see the scum of the earth, go to a prison at the changing of the guard.” That saying does have merit, but then again there are a lot of sick men in here. Some sick because of this place. Others because of who they are. And those who play the games that they grew up with in their neighborhoods. They made their choices, not every situation is because of the system.

Chris H, thank you for what you said and yes I do need your help! Shaun will contact you.

I’d like to ask you all this: Haven’t we all found ourselves in a situation where we could make a difference in someone’s life for good or sometimes bad? Shaun, walked the yard with me and he saw the damage I inflicted on this one guy [indeed, Ogre’s cellmate, a big man but no T-Bone, looked like a train had hit him after provoking T-Bone] and was it necessary? Yes and no. Because of the situation, yes. But I will advise any and everyone to walk away if she or he can from any confrontation that isn’t necessary.

But know this: there are times when one has to stand up for the weaker. I’ve seen some nasty things, and most of the time it looks simple or innocent, for example, a guy walks up and gives another guy food and/or drugs or does another guy’s job or washes his clothes, and it’s all a mind game being played to rape him or to get him to have sex. To me it’s sick.
I’ve been put in so many situations to make a difference in people’s lives, you won’t believe the enemies I’ve made. But I have someone who watches my back – God!
I also keep a positive attitude and my plans are to go to work.
I am also coming across the pond to see my brother Shaun, and hopefully do some fishing and sight seeing as well as hiking.

Shaun there is so much more to say but to keep it simple stop going out and getting drunk. It’s uncool, man. You keep on keeping on and no getting drunk, brother. I do want you to understand the importance of that.
So how’s the Internet dating going, you old English hound you!
Say hi to your folks and keep up the good work, brother! You have my Love & Respect. I miss you, man!

Each one – Teach one

Strength + Honor

T-Bone

PS The fire that burns in your heart shows by the things you do. Let your mind spark you, the flame, into action!

Email comments to writeinside@hotmail.com or post them below

Shaun P. Attwood

26 Sep 08

The Royo Romance (Part 24)

Royo Girl - An intelligent and attractive criminology graduate who used to visit me in prison. Whether her interest is based on love or she is writing a thesis on my criminality is an open question. She's flying from Tucson to visit me for my birthday week in October.
Click here for Part 23.

I just got off the phone with Royo Girl:

“I’ve booked to come and see you at the end of October,” Royo Girl said.
“That’s great, “ I said. “I can’t wait to see you.”
“I’m super super looking forward to coming to England.”
“And seeing me of course?”
“On that point, I don’t know.” Royo Girl laughed mischievously. “I do know you’re fishing for a compliment so I can build up your ego.”
“Exactly. But when your ego's as big as mine, there is no room to build it up.”
“Oh, Shaun, of course I’m looking forward to seeing you.”
“Have you booked our hotel room in London yet?”
“No, not yet. But I’m going to spend three nights in London enjoying your company before we go to yours.”
“What do you fancy getting up to in London?”
“We’ll probably go out one or two nights.”
“Which entails what?”
“There’s some clubs and bars I like down there.”
“After all that hard work in Tucson, you’re coming to London to get wasted aren’t you?”
“We’ll see.”
“Did you decide what you’re going to wear for my birthday party on Halloween?”
“The official title of my outfit is Dark Angel.”
“Oo, describe it please.”
“It consists of, basically, me looking like a Goth with black wings.”
“And your makeup?”
“Black lipstick. Black eyeliner. I can’t divulge too much at this point. You might get too excited.”
“How am I going to be able to control myself when I see my favourite criminology graduate who I'm finally getting to be around after all these years and she’s all gothed-up as a Dark Angel?”
“I dunno, Shaun, I dunno. I will make you behave yourself in front of your parents. I have the utmost respect for them. I think they’re great."
“So you’re saying we get to behave like wild animals in the hotel room?”
“We’ll be lucky if we make it out of the hotel room, Shaun.”

Email comments to writeinside@hotmail.com or post them below

Shaun P. Attwood

Lisa Gerrard’s Chamber Music: Tribal World-Music, Wordless Ambient Hymns

W   hat the music I love expresses to me is not thought too indefinite to put into words but, on the contrary, too definite.”
  —  Felix Mendelssohn, letter to Marc-André Souchay, 15-OCT-1842.

W   hen you make strange music like we do, there aren’t many people with whom you can talk about it. When [Lisa Gerrard] says, ‘Music is sacred,’ try to explain that to a ‘normal’ human being.”
  —  Klaus Schulze, Farscape.

Lisa Gerrard, born in Melbourne in 1961, is a musician, singer and composer who was a co-founder of the group ‘Dead Can Dance’ with former music partner Brendan Perry. Gerrard’s versatile vocal range (contralto to mezzo-soprano) and song-writing are what she’s best known for, but she also provides instrumentals on many of her recordings, most frequently playing yangqin (Chinese hammered dulcimer). Since the break-up of ‘Dead Can Dance’ she has been doing solo work plus selective collaboration—for most of the past ten years. Gerrard received a Golden Globe award and an Academy Award nomination for the score for the 2000 film ‘Gladiator’, her collaboration with Hans Zimmer. Her soundtrack for the 2003 film ‘Whalerider’ was also widely acclaimed.

The release (about 2 months ago) of her wonderful new CD ‘FarScape’—ethereal original space-music chamber compositions, accompanied by German keyboardist Klaus Schulze—led me to recently revisit her work.


But, in fact, it was a series of emails yesterday in response to the previous two CMT blog posts about watery, atmospheric character pieces—Debussy’s Arabesque No. 1 and Saint-Saëns’s, Carnival of the Animals VII, ‘Aquarium’—that caused me to key up Gerrard’s cover of the larghetto aria in Handel’s opera ‘Serse’, from Gerrard’s 1995 CD ‘The Mirror Pool’.


    [50-sec clip, Lisa Gerrard and John Bonnar, George Friderick Handel, Serse (Xerxes) HWV 40 [1738], ‘Larghetto’ aria [‘Largo’], 1.2MB MP3]

L isa has an incredible voice. She can go down so low! When I ask her ‘Where do you get this from?’ she tells me about [Tuvan throat singers]. She can sing two voices at the same time using her belly and the overtones using chest voice.”
  —  Klaus Schulze, Farscape.

Chamber works on that recording were arranged by John Bonnar and performed by members of the Victorian Philharmonic Orchestra in Melbourne.

Having now immersed myself in that disc, how could I not notice/remember ‘Sanvean’!


    [50-sec clip, Lisa Gerrard and members of Victoria Phil, Andrew Claxton, ‘Sanvean’, 1.2MB MP3]


Sanvean’, composed in 1993 by Andrew Claxton, has been used on many film soundtracks, and between 1998 and 2003 served as theme music for the U.K. NHS MMR immunization campaign. Over the past 15 years it is increasingly frequently used for weddings, funerals and other ceremonies. Soprano Sarah Brightman recorded ‘Sanvean’ with the London Symphony Orchestra early in 2008. Have a listen to a clip from that…


    [50-sec clip, Sarah Brightman and members of LSO, Andrew Claxton, ‘Sanvean’, 1.2MB MP3]

The main point of my posting this today is to share with you my delight at ‘re-discovering’ how much I had enjoyed Lisa and her DCD and earlier solo work—in the belief that you, too, may like being reminded of Lisa Gerrard and enjoy revisiting these things as well.

But secondary reasons for posting are:

1. to draw your attention to the new 2-disc recording of Lisa with Klaus Schulze;
   
2. to provide a link (below) to Andrew Claxton and point to Brightman and others who are doing ‘covers’ of his classical vocal writing;
   
3. to suggest that these miniatures might be intriguing to insert into your own ensemble’s programs, or to use as encore material;
   
4. to initiate a thread on extended/exotic singing technique (including overtone-singing, wordless singing, countertenor, etc.);
   
5. to remind us that authenticity is what really matters, and that the Truly Authentic is sometimes Exotic/Esoteric/Extreme; and
   
6. to continue the previous CMT thread on ‘atmospheric’ chamber music, in response to those of you who emailed me about this topic.

A common piece of advice given to performers has tended to be along the lines of ‘make the piece your own.’ This is similar to the notion of Eigentlichkeit in Heidegger. To be eigentlich for Heidegger is not simply to be authentic but to ‘be yourself’. In one sense, both of these bits of advice (‘make it your own’ and ‘be yourself’) are perfectly sensible and even desirable. But one of the difficulties that performers have in approaching a piece of music that is unfamiliar is that it is difficult to ‘feel at home’ with the piece... When Heidegger says that ‘understanding is either authentic, arising out of one’s own Self as such, or inauthentic,’ it is hard to distinguish this sense of authenticity from Kant’s account of autonomy. In both cases, the Self is not merely supposed to be the principal but the sole determining factor.”
  —  Bruce Benson, Improvisation of Musical Dialogue, p. 165.

The beauty and expressiveness of Lisa Gerrard’s voice—particularly with the wordless, ambient, hymn-like pieces—are unique in the corpus of vocal chamber music. Regarding #5 above, the wordlessness defamiliarizes us and, consequently, our ordinary linguistic habits for understanding vocal music are put on holiday. The timbral changes associated with wordfulness are all there, the gestural semantic representations are there, but not the veneer of words. We perceive the meaning, but with only pre-verbal, timbral, and gestural syntax elements! We are treated to different sources of interpretation—the ordinary surface of word-processes stripped away, the once-subliminal becomes the new liminal.

Those of us who use Finale® or other programs for our composing have of course the routine experience of the sampled-waveform libraries of ‘ahhs’ and other vowels, for the instant playback of the pieces we work on. So the textures of wordless voices that regular people so seldom hear—we hear synthetic incarnations of these every day, and they ‘grow’ on us.

L isa had only two conditions: huge reverb spaces and no headphones. Now, I’m a lover of reverb, but this was almost a bit too much even for me.”
  —  Klaus Schulze, Farscape.

However, to hear live performances and recordings like Lisa’s: this is distinctly unusual. And highly authentic! Not many chamber music presenters organize programs of ‘wordless’ vocal material; not many chamber ensembles with singers offer ‘wordless’ repertoire. But there is no reason why that situation should not change. For its novelty and exoticness, it’s plausible that there would be an eager market for this...

W   e had recorded about five hours of music straight without any breaks… Lisa sang everything only once. There were only maybe two minutes that could not be used. She only said, ‘Well, at 10:22 on that one track you must cut about 30 seconds, as the intonation there was not precise.’ When Lisa works, she is completely captured in her own world.”
  —  Klaus Schulze, Farscape.

Tell you what: I will begin to assemble a list of wordless vocal music and put it up on CMT... Shostakovich’s ‘Songs on Verses by Dolmatovsky’ (for voice, wordless chorus & piano) Op. 86 comes to mind. Not instrumental ‘Lieder ohne Worte’ (Mendelssohn’s Songs without Words, [Opp. 19,30,38,53,62,67,85,102; 1830-1845]) but vocal music that is wordless. Charles Alkan, Anton Rubinstein, Ignaz Moscheles, Edvard Grieg? John Gibson’s ‘Judith and Holofernes’? Chaya Czernowin’s ‘Pnima... ins Innere’? Wolfgang Rihm’s ‘Donaueschinger Musiktage 2006 Etudes’? Other ‘New Music’ vocal compositions that are wordless lieder? Please feel free to email me or add a comment below if there are some wordless vocal chamber music pieces that you especially admire.

And we will then have more words on ‘wordless’ repertoire.

Thank you, Lisa and Klaus, for this nice new ‘FarScape’ and for your earlier atmospherics and spontaneity, which continue to please and inspire after all this time.

S pontaneity matters a lot. Many people think good music has to do with sweat and hard work, which must be continual and last for months. My opinion, however, is that if this is the case the music is [sure to be] bad.”
  —  Klaus Schulze, Farscape.

• Lisa Gerrard website
  
• Lisa Gerrard page at 4AD Records
  
• Maisey J. An enchanting evening with DeadCanDance’s Lisa Gerrard. VEER, AUG/SEP-1995.
  
• Klaus Schulze website
  
• Andrew Claxton, Director, Oxford School of Music
  
• Sarah Brightman website
  
• Handel’s Serse at Wikipedia
  
• Bruce Ellis Benson page at Wheaton College
  
• Overtone Singing page at Wikipedia
  
• Gerrard L, Schulze K. FarScape. (4AD, 2008.)
  
• Gerrard L. The Mirror Pool. (4AD, 1995.)
  
• Brightman S & LSO. Symphony. (Manhattan, 2008.)
  
• Benson B. The Improvisation of Musical Dialogue: A Phenomenology of Music. Cambridge Unv, 2003.
  
• Kivy P. Authenticities: Philosophical Reflections on Musical Performance. Cornell Univ, 1998.

More Encores: Debussy’s Arabesque No. 1 in E Major

Fiercely energised yet superfine, [Jean-Efflam Bavouzet’s] performances are not for those with comfortable ‘drawing-room’ notions of Debussy.”
  —  Gramophone Magazine, JUL-2008.

F rançois-Joel Thiollier’s soft-grained virtuosity taps into the music’s alluring sonorities and harmonic beauty, bringing out plenty of color with no more aid from the sustain pedal than necessary. As a technician, Thiollier doesn’t offer the bedrock security that typifies Pollini’s double notes, Uchida’s firmly-centered rhythms, or Gieseking’s utterly-even fingerings in ‘Pour Les Huits Doigts’. Yet while his timid chord-to-octave leaps in the daunting 12^th etude slow down when the going gets tough, Thiollier compensates with as sexy and curvaceous a middle section as you’ll ever hear. He also plays the three-against-two rhythm during the opening etude’s introduction as-written, rather than slightly rushing the right-hand triplet as nearly everyone else does... Thiollier’s gentle touch and keen ear for nuance also inform the sundry short works filling out this disc.”
  —  Jed Distler, Grammophone Magazine.

I’m not quite sure why the previous CMT post elicited a flurry of responses/requests, regarding ‘atmospheric’ miniatures. Anyhow, here is another favorite of mine, a solo piano one.


    [50-sec clip, Jean-Efflam Bavouzet, Debussy, ‘Arabesque No. 1’, 0.9MB MP3]

    [60-sec clip, François-Joel Thiollier, Debussy, ‘Arabesque No. 1’, 1.2MB MP3]

François-Joel Thiollier studied in France with Robert Casadesus and faculty of the Paris Conservatoire and with Sascha Gorodnitzki at the Juilliard School of Music. He won eight Grands Prix in international piano competitions. His recordings include the complete piano music of Debussy, the complete piano music of Ravel, and works by de Falla, d’Indy, and Franck. In 2003, Thiollier was named Officier des Arts et Lettres by the French Ministry of Culture and Communication.

Jean-Efflam Bavouzet was a student of Pierre Sancan at the Paris Conservatoire, as well as Alexander Edelman and Dimitri Bashkirov. He has won Grans Prix in various international competitions, including the International Beethoven Competition in Cologne in 1986, the Honens International Piano Competition in Canada in 1992, and the Steven de Groote Chamber Music Prize at the Van Cliburn Competition. With a style that some critics have called ‘mercurial’, Bavouzet has performed with many international orchestras. In 2002 he performed with the Boston Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Ingo Metzmacher, and in 2003 he appeared with the Berliner Sinfonie Orchester. He is presently with Orchestre de Paris and Professor in the Piano Department of the Hochschule für Musik in Detmold, Germany.

Juxtaposing these two clips gives a good idea of the performance possibilities. Jean-Efflam Bavouzet’s version averages a faster tempo, but with wider variations than Thiollier’s. And the texture Bavouzet creates in this delicate piece exhibits a more ‘restrained’ pianissimo control than Thiollier’s, but Bavouzet alternates between understatement and exuberant reverie, and the sense of Bavouzet’s account is more one of solitary reminiscence—compared to Thiollier’s recording, which comes across as more ‘story-telling-to-intimate-partner’ rather than ‘solitary-meditation-to-onesself’. Your possibilities for reasonable tempi, accents, dynamics, and balances are endless—as illustrated by these two masterful examples.

The balance of the ‘3-against-2’, RH vs. LH, is risky—heck, the entire piece is so delicate that it’s quite a ‘gauntlet’ to run, aesthetically.

Enjoy!

I am fascinated by Debussy’s ability to use tones and sounds to paint the colours of nature and convey its moods registering all its nuances of varying light, the elusiveness and boundlessness of it all.”
  —  Marie Bengtsson.

• Bavouzet at Harrison-Parrott Agency.
  
• Thiollier website
  
• Shirley H. Jean-Efflam Bavouzet and Pascal Rogé release the third volumes in their Debussy surveys. MusicalCriticism.com, 15-JUN-2008.
  
• Bavouzet J-E. Debussy: Complete Works for Piano, Vol. 3. (Chandos, 2008.)
  
• Thiollier F-J. Debussy Piano Works, Vol. 1. (Naxos, 1995.) [slow rubato, 5-min]
  
• Cherkassky S. Encores, Vol. 3. (Decca, 1993.) [much faster tempo, 3-min]
  
• Jack Horkheimer, Stargazer program on PBS (Debussy Arabesque No. 1 as theme music)

24 Sep 08

Ms. G (by Shane)

Shane - After being denied psychiatric medication by ValueOptions, Shane turned to illegal drugs he financed with burglaries. The medication in prison caused him to suffer a period of spontaneous ejaculations.
Shane is the author of the blog Persevering Prison Pages.

In prison, I dissociate myself from all of the guards and most of the inmates. So much so it’s noticeable. I don’t do it to be rude or because I am one of those diehard Us vs. Them types. I don’t think of all guards as lesser or even not human. They are human just like you and me. Of course, I like some and dislike others. I just don’t show it. In fact, there are a few guards I like better than most of my fellow convicts. Now, I’ll explain why I don’t ever acknowledge guards on the yard.

In the late 90’s, I was an intake clerk in the clothing warehouse. I kept track of clothing issued to newly-arriving inmates on the unit. My supervisor was a female guard in her 30’s. Very attractive and a real sweetheart. Ms. G was a single mother just working to survive. We grew close.

One day I showed up at 7:00 AM for work and Ms. G called me to a quiet part of the warehouse. “Shane, I’ve got a serious problem,” she stated, nearly on the verge of tears.
“What’s up?” I asked her.
“I got a note from somebody today who says I’m going to bring in a package and leave it in my trashcan here. The note was on my car window at home, Shane!” she confided in me, panic in her voice and expression.

I knew exactly who and what this was about as soon as I heard it. The Aryan Brotherhood was planning to use her to get their drugs in. It wasn’t a request either.
“Let me see what’s up. Don’t do anything,” I told her. I knew that she was in deep trouble. If she reported it, she’d put herself and her kid in danger. If she just didn’t do it, same results. I wasn’t sure what I could do, if anything, but I had to do something. An extremely dangerous choice I made.

Arranging a meeting with the yard’s shot-caller turned out to be a real pain in the ass. You don’t just walk up and talk to the Aryan Brotherhood's shot-caller. There’s a chain of command in the prison-gang hierarchy. I started at the peon level and couldn’t get any higher.

“You and her got something going. We see her bring you food in and share stuff. We know you two are screwing,” the peon told me. “We just want in on the action.”
I couldn’t argue, she did look out for me. She brought food and drinks in everyday and shared with me, but the screwing part was bullshit. We had never. It never even came up.
“Listen closely, she won’t do it. And if anybody has a problem with that, we can deal with it,” I told the peon, beyond frustrated with it all.

I’m gonna get us both killed, I worried on my way back to my cell. I was worried more about Ms. G and her kid than myself, but I did fear taking a shank in the back myself, too.

Hurriedly, I taped National Geographic magazines around my midsection. A great stab vest. While I was doing this, my next-door neighbor happened to glance in my cell. My next-door neighbor, the shot-caller for the Skinheads. “What the fuck, Shane?” he asked.
I’d never spoke to the young, bald white supremist. Skinheads and me usually didn’t get along. We have conflicting beliefs.
“You goin’ to war or what?” he questioned, coming in my cell and closing the door. His strong presence was intimidating. My natural reaction was to stand up and ready myself to fight. “We don’t have a beef, relax,” the Skin told me, “What’s the deal, Shane?”
Still on guard, I told him my situation. I knew it was risky and could make things worse, but what the hell…
“Here. Sit still. I’ll be back,” the Skin told me, handing me a shank then leaving my cell.

Ten minutes later, two Skinheads came to my cell. At first, I panicked, standing and pulling the steel from my waistband. When the two held up their hands in mock surrender, I relaxed a little. The three of us idly shit-chatted until my neighbor returned, with another Skin tagging along. The tag-along worried me. He had a bright red swastika on his head, and red lightning bolts. He was a torpedo. A foot soldier. Red inked for drawing blood. Earned I’m sure.
“Don’t worry about your problem. It’s a dead issue,” my neighbor told me. I knew that he meant it and it was true.

I went and ran the story down to Mrs. G. She was visibly relieved, but probably still worried.

The next morning at breakfast, two Skins passed me in the chow line, steel at ready. Halfway up the line, I spotted the Aryan Brotherhood’s peon I’d spoken to yesterday. Without any forewarning, the Skins moved behind him and began stabbing. People began scrambling to get out of the way and the Skins disappeared in the crowd. Seconds later they brushed past me heading back to the cells. Blood on their hands, shirts and pants. Eyes on the floor as they passed, I noticed specks of blood on their boots and bright white laces. Only then did I realize they were “Straight-laced” Skinheads. A dying breed. Skins that hate drugs.

Turns out, the Aryan Brotherhood never authorized the move on Ms. G, or at least wouldn’t claim they did, so they green lighted the Skins to deal with the peon who was behind it.

Shaken by the whole incident, Ms. G. quit a week later. The peon lived, but never returned to the yard.

The incident scared the shit out of me. I felt at fault for socializing with Ms. G and letting us become more than guard and inmate. I never heard from her again and never allowed myself to even consider such a thing again.

Did Shane do the right thing in risking his life to protect Ms. G?

Email comments to writeinside@hotmail.com or post them below

Copyright © 2008 Shaun P. Attwood

Nash Ensemble: Atmospherics and Encores

O  ur piano quintet is looking for new ideas for encore pieces. Any suggestions?”
  —  Anonymous.

The usual objective is a sparkling, novel, jewel-like ‘character piece’ that is shorter than 3 minutes in length and that is ‘approachable’ and does not make heavy demands of the listener. It should read like pungent microfiction. Additionally, you want something that conveys an intense presence—show-stopping emotionality.

One serious option is to treat the encore as a ‘tag’ or a synoptic ‘capstone’ for your program—melding with the other pieces. You choose for an encore a character piece that is light and simple, something composed about the same time as other pieces on the program and preferrably by someone whose style and compositional methods and worldview are coherent with the rest of the program. If it has those features, it can serve as a ‘tag’, and its tagness/epilogiality will be immediately evident to the listeners.

A whimsical option that aims at surprise is to choose something wholly unexpected (a polka or mazurka, if the rest of your program has been heavy going) or something that embodies a counterintuitive, dramatic contrast against the other pieces (much slower or faster tempo; different articulation or timbre)—possibly composed in a different period or by someone of disparate worldview and methods, yet arriving at a similar result or addressing a similar compositional challenge as the other pieces had done.

You can go for drop-dead flash virtuosity. You can tug on the audience members’ nostalgia. You can ‘plug’ your most recent recording or an up-coming performance with a short selection. You can capsulize your ensemble’s namesake [composer] if you’re one of those eponymously-named ensembles, provided your eponymic was thoughtful enough to write a short, sweet piece. And so on.

In any case, a good encore piece should be the musical equivalent of a bespoke chocolate truffle. [The foregoing was just a brain-dump for the anonymous question-asker (and for others who struggle with similar challenges), on ‘How We Search for Suitable Encore Pieces’.]

For sheer bon-bon-ness, you might try Saint-Saëns’s Carnival of the Animals VII, ‘The Aquarium’.

S  aint-Saëns] invents various kinds of musical masquerade and cross dressing. Furthermore, many aspects of the work suggest that it is a musical farce to be put on by the very people who are supposed to get [the jokes], evoking the spirit of carnival as described by Bakhtin... [The] musical depictions demand that the instrumentalists performing the piece impersonate themselves as ‘characters’ in the salon, just as the instruments they play represent particular animals. Essential to the work is this kind of performing ‘about’ performance, a notion that in effect literally materializes immaterial aspects of music such as melody and timbre and allows Saint-Saëns to subvert the Romantic surface-depth paradigm by taking up instrumental materiality as one possible ‘substance’ to be revealed within the context of late nineteenth century chamber music.”
  —  Erica Scheinberg.

Carnival of the Animals’ nominally is a set of orchestral character pieces, each of which is meant to describe a particular animal, usually by mimicking the sounds it makes or characterizing the way it moves or carries itself. But, as musicologist Erica Scheinberg has written, it contains many ‘inside jokes’ about composers and music. There are passages mocking Offenbach’s ‘Can-Can’, wry liberties taken with Berlioz’s ‘Dance of the Sylphs’, poking fun at Mendelssohn’s ‘Midsummer Night’s Dream’, mocking the turgidness of several Rossini arias, parodying then-current dance-hall tunes, and mocking Saint-Saens’s ‘Danse Macabre’.

It is extremely ‘meta’—today, just as it was during Saint-Saëns’s lifetime—and so is just waiting, ready to serve your own meta-purposes!

What’s more, ‘Carnival of the Animals’ has for many years been a prime vehicle for music outreach and education programs for kids (see, for example, this, from a kids’ program at Music Institute of Chicago). Consequently, performance of the piece triggers for many adults today intense and instantaneous memories of their musical childhood—of everything that has led them now to be sitting in their concert hall seats listening to you. This is a bonus that you cannot get with just any old encore selection—instant [Freudian] flashback and epiphany. To be honest, my own response to these pieces is like this—primitive and immediate, as though I were five years old once more. That alone is enough to make these Saint-Saëns movements good encore material—and it exemplifies some of the qualities that you might look for in other suitable material.

The 7^th movement, ‘The Aquarium’, is wonderfully atmospheric. For the image of water splashing (brighter, compared to deep rumbling of the sea in the cello part and the flutey undulations) we have the glass harmonica’s and two pianos’ (or glockenspiel, xylophone, celesta, or small cymbals) movements. A realistic evocation of moving water involves varying and controlling the dynamics on a short time-scale and the contrary-direction voice-leading in the different parts. Irregular intervals represent the erratic swimming of fish. Saint-Saëns creates florid kinesthetic/synaesthetic ‘visual-acoustic’ parallels.

Schoenberg’s Five Orchestral Pieces Op.16. No.3 (Faben) likewise convey ‘visual-acoustic’ parallels, and likewise mostly via short time-scale timbre changes. The Five Orchestral Pieces Op.16. No.3 (Faben) is sometimes translated to English as ‘Color Music’, ‘Morning on the Traunsee’ and ‘Summer Morning at a Lake’ by authors like Boretz and Cone. The musical progressions move in a slow and undulating manner throughout, which is similar to the ‘quivering reflection of the sun on a sheet of water’ (Dahlhaus, 1989). Schoenberg acoustically mimics the changing light on the waves by the changing timbre of instruments; the colors of the changing brightness lie in the differing timbres of the instruments. Saint-Saëns’s ‘Aquarium’ is like this, although the voice-leading in the Saint-Saëns’s string parts represents, I think, rays of light filtering down to the depths, from the point of view of the fish. The flute and pianos and glass harmonica manifest most of the surface watery features, including the sparkly play of light up top.

Insofar as ‘Aquarium’ has been used in many film soundtracks, it has the added advantage of being especially familiar to general audience members (compared with other of the ‘Carnival of the Animals’ movements). The Nash Ensemble has a particularly nice rendering of ‘Aquarium’.


    [50-sec clip, Nash Ensemble, Saint-Saëns, Carnival of the Animals VII, Aquarium, 1.5MB MP3]

The Nash’s octet version does include the flute and glass harmonica and two pianos as-scored by Saint-Saëns. But the glass harmonica is out of practical reach for most ensembles and, in any event, the instrument does not travel easily—delicate; risky. Most of the time, the orchestral incarnations of the piece have a celesta or glockenspiel or xylophone substituting for the exotic glass harmonica. And, anyhow, the anonymous emailer in the blockquote above said her/his ensemble are a piano quintet; you are not going to bring out a flute or other players to participate in an encore when the rest of your program was straight piano quintet. Right. So is there a published arrangement of this Saint-Saëns piece for piano quintet? No. So improvise one!

Here’s one way: take the string parts from the original octet score, and take the Lucien Garban reduction of ‘Aquarium’ for solo piano and put them together. Fine-sounding instant piano quintet!

Yes, some of the spectral qualities that the glass harmonica or celesta add go by the boards. If that disappoints you, then improvise some flourishes in the upper register of the piano. The Garban transcription is tough enough by itself, so your efforts to accessorize it into something even more virtuosic will be all the more dazzling. (N.B.—Whether you improvise or leave it as-is—the string parts and the solo piano reduction—the piano’s doubling of the strings does risk trampling on the string parts, so you’ll need to rehearse with care, to make sure you’re achieving a good balance.)

Yes, the first-piano part descending ‘ten-on-one’ and ‘eight-on-one’ ostinato, while the second-piano plays ‘six-on-one’, is lost in the Garban transduction to solo piano. (After all, not many human beings can totally decouple the right-hand rhythmically from the left-hand.) So some of you purists reading this blog post may object strongly to my idea of a piano quintet adaptation of ‘Aquarium’. That’s fine. If the sacrilege is too great, don’t do it. But if you try it and it ‘works’ for you, more power to you!

Tempi of various ensembles’ performances of ‘Aquarium’ vary widely, with performance times ranging from 1:50 to 2:40. In other words, your effect can be ethereal/dreamy or near-demonic, depending on your taste. You can be over-the-top lyrical; or conjuring and fantastical; or subdued and meditative; or ironical; or elegantly benign and charming—you choose! The insider jokeness and transgressiveness that were intended by Saint-Saëns provide you a very long interpretive ‘leash’ with this piece.

You may want to consider how such an atmospheric piece would ‘fit’ with other program elements from the piano quintet literature:

• Elfrida Andrée: Piano Quintet in E minor (1865)
  
• Anton Arensky: Piano Quintet in D major, Op. 51 (1900)
  
• Béla Bartók: Piano Quintet (1904)
  
• Arnold Bax: Piano Quintet in G minor (1915)
  
• Amy Beach: Piano Quintet
  
• Franz Berwald: Piano Quintets No. 1 in C minor and No. 2 in A major (1857)
  
• Ernest Bloch: Piano Quintets No. 1 (1923) and No. 2 (1957)
  
• Alexander Borodin: Piano Quintet in C minor (1862)
  
• Johannes Brahms: Piano Quintet in F minor, Op. 34 (1864)
  
• Frank Bridge: Piano Quintet in D minor (1905, revised 1912)
  
• Ernő Dohnányi: Piano Quintets No. 1, Op. 1 (1895) and No. 2, Op. 26 (1914)
  
• Antonín Dvořák: Piano Quintets No. 1, Op. 5 (1872) and No. 2, Op. 81 (1887)
  
• Edward Elgar: Piano Quintet in A minor, Op. 84 (1918)
  
• George Enescu: Piano Quintet in A minor, Op. 29 (1940)
  
• Louise Farrenc: Piano Quintets No. 1, Op. 30, and No. 2, Op. 31 (both with double bass)
  
• Gabriel Fauré: Piano Quintet No. 1, Op. 89 (1905) and No. 2, Op. 115 (1921)
  
• Morton Feldman: Piano and String Quartet (1985)
  
• César Franck: Piano Quintet in F minor, M. 7 (1879)
  
• Wilhelm Furtwängler: Piano Quintet in C major (1935)
  
• Hermann Goetz: Piano Quintet in C minor, Op. 16 (with double bass; 1874)
  
• Otar Gordeli: Piano Quintet (1950)
  
• Sofia Gubaidulina: Piano Quintet (1957)
  
• Reynaldo Hahn: Piano Quintet in F-sharp minor (1921)
  
• Heinrich von Herzogenberg: Piano Quintet in C major, Op. 17 (1876)
  
• Johann Nepomuk Hummel: Piano Quintet in E-flat minor, Op. 87 (with double bass)
  
• Vincent d’Indy: Piano Quintet in G minor, Op. 81 (1924)
  
• Erich Wolfgang Korngold: Piano Quintet in E major, Op. 15 (1921)
  
• Bohuslav Martinů: Piano Quintets, H. 35 (1911), H. 229 (1933), H. 298 (1944)
  
• Nikolai Medtner: Piano Quintet in C major (1949)
  
• Krzysztof Meyer: Piano Quintet Op. 76 (1991)
  
• Leo Ornstein: Piano Quintet (1927)
  
• Joachim Raff: Piano Quintet in A minor, Op. 107 (1862)
  
• Alan Rawsthorne: Piano Quintet
  
• Max Reger: Piano Quintet Nos. 1 and 2 in C minor
  
• Carl Reinecke: Piano Quintet in A major, Op. 83 (1865)
  
• Anton Rubinstein: Piano Quintet in G minor, Op. 99 (1876)
  
• Camille Saint-Saëns: Piano Quintet in A minor, op. 14 (1855)
  
• Franz Schmidt: Piano Quintet in G major (1926)
  
• Florent Schmitt: Piano Quintet in B minor (1908)
  
• Alfred Schnittke: Piano Quintet (1976)
  
• Franz Schubert: Piano Quintet in A major, D. 667 (Trout Quintet with double bass; 1819)
  
• Robert Schumann: Piano Quintet in E-flat major, Op. 44 (1842)
  
• Giovanni Sgambati: Piano Quintets Nos. 1 and 2
  
• Dmitri Shostakovich: Piano Quintet in G minor, Op. 57 (1940)
  
• Jean Sibelius: Piano Quintet in G minor (1890)
  
• Sergei Taneyev: Piano Quintet in G minor, Op. 30 (1911)
  
• Louis Vierne: Piano Quintet in C minor, Op. 42 (1917)
  
• Anton Webern: Piano Quintet (1907)
  
• Charles-Marie Widor: Piano Quintet No. 1, Op. 7 (1881)
  
• Yitzhak Yedid: Piano Quintet ‘Since My Soul Loved’ (2006)
  
• Ludwig Thuille: Two Piano Quintets (1885)

The Hinson and Roberts book (pp. 545-68) is the premier source of ideas as you explore your options.

It’s ideal for your encore piece to be familiar to the audience—this is a correlate of the requirement that an encore piece sparkle and divert the audience without placing large demands on them. But the competing requirement that the piece be ‘novel’ and ‘exciting’ means that your selection had best not be a familiar piece that receives excessive or clichéd airplay. I think this 7^th movement of the Saint-Saëns piece is nearly perfect from these perspectives.

Incidentally, only the movement ‘The Swan’ was published before Saint-Saëns’s death. (He was supposedly anxious that the pastiche qualities of these pieces would undermine his reputation. For 35 years (between 1886 and 1921), ‘Carnival’ was hardly even a ‘salon’ item, so cautious was Saint-Saëns about restricting its performance—obsessive, almost to the point of being paranoid about it.) After Saint-Saëns’s death ‘The Swan’ quickly became popular among cellists, and is one of Saint-Saëns’s most frequently-performed pieces. ‘The Aquarium’ is far less commonly performed live, despite its popularity as film-score material. Therefore it has an aspect of novelty that makes it a good choice for live encore presentations.

The Nash Ensemble next present a concert on 25-SEP, at Malvern Concert Club in Great Malvern, Worcestershire, with a program that includes the Mahler Piano Quartet; Mozart Piano Quartet in G minor K. 478; Dvořák Piano Quintet in A minor Op. 81. Then on 11-OCT their next concert is at Wigmore Hall in London.

A  fter 40 years and over 250 premières (140 commissions) the Nash Ensemble is still the best champion that any composer could hope to have. Its concerts are always meticulously polished, but what impressed about this heroically well-stuffed programme—two premières and four other chamber pieces, none more than four years old—was the illusion conjured by the players that they lived with this music for years, even if the ink was barely dry on the page. Perhaps it is precisely because the ensemble is not entirely dedicated to doing contemporary work, that it can radiate so persuasive a feeling of new pieces being assimilated into chamber-music heritage, stretching back two centuries or more.”
  —  The London Times.

• Scheinberg E. Performing Instrumental Transgression: Camille Saint-Saëns’s Carnival of the Animals in the fin-de-siècle salon. Columbia Univ Music Scholarship Conference, 2004. (parody and inside jokes)
  
• Nash Ensemble London website
  
• Nash Ensemble Friends
  
• Nash Ensemble concert calendar
  
• Nash Ensemble. Dvorak/Saint-Saens. (Virgin, 1998.)
  
• Visions of Light (film that uses Saint-Saëns’s Carnival of the Animals as sountrack score)
  
• Glass harmonica page on Wikipedia
  
• G. Finkenbeiner, artisanal glass harmonicas
  
• Bloch T, et al. Glass Harmonica. (Naxos, 2001.)
  
• Dahlhaus C. Schoenberg and the New Music. Cambridge Univ, 1989.
  
• Hinson M, Roberts W. The Piano in Chamber Ensemble. 2e. Indiana Univ, 2006. (Pp. 545-68)
  
• Hoffman B, et al. Music for Glass Harmonica. (Vox, 1994.)
  
• James D. Cristal: Glass Music Through the Ages. (Sony, 2002.)
  
• Lyle W. Camille Saint-Saens: His Life and Art. Reprint Svc, 1990.
  
• Nichols R, ed. Saint-Saens: On Music and Musicians. Oxford Univ, 2008.
  
• Reed E. Ovations & Encores: The Musician's Guide to Getting the Best Response from Your Audience. Aspen Grove, 2000.
  
• Rees B. Camille Saint-Saens. Faber, 2008.
  
• Smallman B. The Piano Quartet and Quintet: Style, Structure, and Scoring. Oxford Univ, 1996.
  
• Teller-Ratner S. Camille Saint-Saens 1835-1921: A Thematic Catalogue of his Complete Works Volume I: The Instrumental Works. Oxford Univ, 2002.

22 Sep 08

Weird Al At Large

Weird Al - The most unlikely bank robber you are ever likely to meet. His true story of suicide by cop gives new meaning to the power of unchecked depression. His cutting wit would make a stoic monk giggle.

I called Weird Al at his apartment in Tucson where he is on parole.

“Greetings from your favourite Limey!” I said.
“I’ve got a joke I’ve been waiting to tell you,” Weird Al said.
“What is it?”
“What’s bald, lives in a garage – with an en suite bathroom of course – and worships me like a God?”
“That’s a tricky one, Al.”
“Yes, it’s you, the bloke!”
“Life in the garage is going pretty well actually. I haven’t had any urges to commit more crimes. How about you? Planning your next bank robbery?”
“I haven’t had any big urges to commit more crimes – short of killing maybe an Englishman. You’d better look out, I’m in the process of getting a new passport.”
“What did you do on your first day of freedom?”
“Watched the football and ate ice cream.”
“What flavour ice cream?”
“Moose Tracks.”
“What?”
“Vanilla with chunks of chocolate. Then I spent my first night sleeping on an air mattress in this apartment.”
“So how does freedom feel?”
“Well, it’s overrated. For example, every time I go to a restaurant or grocery store, everyone wants money from me.”
“At least your not on the dole. Are you going to get back into real estate investment?”
“It’s probably a good time to buy. All those fools who paid five-hundred thousand and their homes are worth three-hundred thousand are sucking the hind tit now.”
“Yes, I advised my aunt to sell short, and she made a killing last week.”
“You’ll have to show me how to sell short. I am a vulture.”
"We started out shorting Bank of America."
"That's my bank, you bastard!"
"The one you robbed?"
"Er...yes. Didn't they make short selling illegal?"
"Just bank stocks, so for my aunt, I'm shorting foreign telecoms into this suckers' rally. Are you still doing Siddha yoga and becoming more enlightened?”
“Yes, I just went to the local ashram. I’m more enlightened than ever. I was enlightened enough to come home today and eat Moose Tracks and watch a film. I also went to the library and read about what’s been going on with your blog.”
“What do you think of the Arizona Department of Corrections blocking inmates from writing to me?”
“They’ve gone way too far. But I don’t think it’s come from the top. I think it’s some asshole at Tucson prison that’s taken it upon himself to rewrite the United States Constitution. The funny thing is Dora Schriro [the prison director] prides herself on preparing inmates to be released into a country founded on free speech. Censorship policy may well prepare you for life in a Communist country, but not here. Dora Schriro should take time out – she teaches constitutional law at Arizona State University – to actually read the Bill Of Rights and Constitution herself. What exactly are they afraid of by stopping your mail? Obviously not the huge amounts of readily-available heroin in the prison. Obviously not the large number of Arizona prisoners dying due to a lack of competent medical care. Why don’t they correct these problems as opposed to censoring you away. The fact is DOC doesn’t do anything competently. Try as they might, Arizona prisoners will still do this despite anything they do. You know how inventive they are. I can think of at least a hundred ways around this. Since DOC is trying to ban you from the airwaves, may I suggest you reinvent yourself?”
“As what?”
“Bertie Wooster aka Hugh Laurie comes to mind. I’ll play the role of the all-knowing Jeeves aka Stephen Fry and we can use nice British sayings like ‘Toodle-pip!’ I also like the name Gussie Fink-Nottle.”
“Very good, bloke.”
“I’ve also discovered another new saying.”
“What is it?”
“Boner shrinker.”
“Oh dear. Have you used it yet?”
“No, but I’m working on it.”
“A final question: have you noticed any major changes in the world since you’ve been inside?”
“Yes! Young women everywhere are all wearing tongue piercings. I have had it confirmed by reliable unimpeachable sources as to why they are doing this, and I’ve taken it upon myself to personally thank each one of them for caring. I’m thinking of founding a non-profit organisation to help low-income girls get tongue piercings.”
“Good idea, bloke. Toodle-oo for now!”
“Yes. Toodle-pip, blokester!”

Email comments to writeinside@hotmail.com or post them below

Shaun P. Attwood

Mendelssohn’s Premature Death

The medical basis for Felix Mendelssohn’s death at age 37 of a stroke—only a few months after his sister Fanny’s death of a stroke—has not to date been adequately described in the journal literature. But in recent years there has been intensive research on mutations of the NOTCH3 gene on chromosome 19. Might a NOTCH3 mutation have been the cause of Mendelssohn’s dying? We do not know. But the facts and family history are highly suggestive. NOTCH3 mutations give rise to a variety of hereditary abnormalities including stroke at an early age. Previously termed Familial Stroke Syndrome, CADASIL (cerebral autosomal dominant arteriopathy with subcortical infarcts and leucoencephalopathy) is associated with NOTCH3 mutation. And within the past several years there is also now a commercial laboratory offering genomic testing for NOTCH3 variants. You may like to have a look at the sources below—especially if you have a family history anything like Mendelssohn’s?

Or not (as your own preferences and insurance coverage considerations suggest to you is best), inasmuch as there is presently no cure for the NOTCH3-related disorders. But knowing that you have a NOTCH3 point mutation may at least help as regards proper care in dosing with aspirin and other anticoagulants (“blood thinners”) either in surgery or on a chronic basis. And, since the condition is autosomal dominant (AD), knowing that you have it is very important for family planning and parent-child communication.

The person [electing to undertake voluntary genomic testing or screening] may benefit in the long run from making preventive lifestyle choices that will help counteract the biological risk [that is associated with the genotype that they have inherited].”
  —  Personalized Medicine, U.S. News & World Report, 23-APR-2008.

• CADASIL Foundation.
  
• AthenaDiagnostics Notch3 genomics test for stroke syndrome (CADASIL)
  
• Chromosome 19 page at NIH.gov
  
• Chromosome 19 page at Wikipedia.org
  
• U.S. Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act of 2008 (GINA 2008)
  
• Coalition for Genetic Fairness
  
• Arboleda-Velasquez J, Zhou Z, Shin H, et al. Lining NOTCH signaling to ischemic stroke. PNAS 2008; 105:4856-61.
  
• Cherington M, Smith R, Nielsen P. The life, legacy and premature death of Felix Mendelssohn. Semin Neurol 1999; 19:47-52. (familial stroke syndrome)
  
• Dichgans M. Genetics of ischaemic stroke. Lancet Neurol. 2007. 6:149-61.
  
• Joutel A, Andreux F, Gaulis S, et al. The ectodomain of Notch3 receptor accumulates within cerebrovasculatory of CADASIL patients. J Clin Invest 2000; 105:597-605.
  
• Leib J, Gollust S, Hull S, Wilfond B. Carrier screening panels for Ashkenazi Jews: Is more better? Genet Med 2005; 7:185-90.
  
• Lina A, Basson C, Goldmuntz E, et al. Adults with genetic syndromes and cardiovascular abnormalities: clinical history and management. Genet Med 2008; 10:469-94.
  
• Oh J, Lee J, Kang S, Kang J, Choi J. Aspirin-associated intracerebral hemorrhage in a patient with CADASIL. Clin Neurol Neurosurg 2008; 110:384-6.
  
• Peters N, Freilinger T, Ppherk C, Pfefferkorn T, Dichgans M. Effects of short term atorvastatin treatment on cerebral hemodynamics in CADASIL. J Neurol Sci. 2007;260:100-5.
  
• Rice G, Boughner D, Stiller C, Ebers G. Familial stroke syndrome associated with mitral valve prolapse. Ann Neurol 1980; 7:130-4.
  
• Schmideler S, Somburg O, Steinberg H, Splett T. Felix Mendelssohn: The mystery of his early death. Fortschr Neurol Psychiatr 2006; 74:522-7.
  
• Wade N. A dissenting voice as the genome is sifted to fight disease. New York Times, 15-SEP-2008.
  
• Werbrouck B, de Bleecker J. Intracerebral haemorrhage in CADASIL. Acta Neurol Belg 2006; 106:219-21.
  
• Zicari E, Tassi R, Stromillo M, et al. Right-to-left shunt in CADASIL patients: prevalence and correlation with clinical and MRI findings. Stroke. 2008; 39:2155-7.
  
• Entine J. Abraham's Children: DNA of the Chosen People. GrandCentral, 2007.
  
• Goldstein D. Jacob's Legacy: A Genetic View of Jewish History. Yale Univ, 2008.
  
• Kleiman Y. DNA and Tradition: Genetic Link to the Ancient Hebrews. Devora, 2004.
  
• Rose C. Neurology of Music. Imperial College, 2009.

18 Sep 08

From Frankie (Letter 9)

Frankie - A Mexican Mafia hitman and leader of prison "booty bandits" who has been proposing our gay marriage ever since he saw me rubbing antifungal ointment on my bedsored buttocks at the Madison Street jail. He was there on murder charges he subsequently beat. He was recently moved from the super-maximum prison housing Arizona's death row to Tucson jail awaiting sentencing on charges he picked up in prison.

Frankie is writing from Pima County jail (not part of the Arizona Department of Corrections) in Tucson. Because he’s from a gang in Phoenix, he has to be careful of the rival gang members from Tucson who are running the Tucson jail.

9-2-08

Englandman My Friend,

I received your letter in which it’s always good to hear from you.

As for this case…yes! It has squeezed the vida loca out of me. But it’s not something you do overnight.
For example, I get here in this county jail and as I walk in a few guys come up to me and give me a hug and shake my hands. “How you doing OG?” That means Original Gangster.
Then you’ve got a couple of guys that are calling shots for the pod I’m in and looking at me like I owe them. So off the top, I already know these fools are trying to figure out who am I and what am I doing in their county if I’m from Phoenix.
I’ve been in this jail for thirteen days, and there’s been a lot of tension between us, but as usual these guys made one big mistake by not taking care of business from day one. I have now put together a four man crew, slowly but surely I’m building a wall around me. It’s no guarantee but it will help me to a certain extent.

Here we come out 3 times a day and at dinner while everyone is eating out in the run, I eat in my cell with the door open. I have been invited to sit and eat with the Mexican Warriors at their table, but no thanks, as last time I took a piece of steel in the back of my neck. At least in my cell I can see what’s coming my way and get myself ready for battle.
Frankie needs to stay a step ahead of the gang games at all times cuz it would be a sad story if you read Frankie Goes To Tucson And Gets Killed.
Englandman, would you cry for me?

As for the jail here, the food is top of the line stuff. Nothing like your friend Sheriff Joe Arpaio. Ha! Ha!
Every Friday they even give us a bag of popcorn and a R.C. Soda.
Now! The guards ain’t nuthin’ nice. They will rush you quick when they tell these guys to lock it down. The inmates will run and lock-down. One thing about here, the guards don’t play. So the best thing for that is to stay away as far as you can from the guards.

By the way, I have this white dude for my celly, goes by the name Popeye. Ain’t got no teeth and looks like Popeye. He’s forty eight years old and from Texas.

Englandman, good job on winning a prize for your shit slinger story. What’s the prize? My friend, I have the best shit slinger stories from SMU1 and SMU2 [two supermaximum-security prisons in Florence]. Did you know that I was thrown on before by those nasty motherfuckers? I will tell you some stories when I get back, okay?

My friend, I’m hoping and praying for the lesser time that I can get sentenced to. Like I said, I have had it with the vida loca. But it gets harder trying to leave it.
By the time you get this letter I should already be sentenced. I shall tell you how it all goes once I’m back at Florence cuz I honestly don’t have the stamps. I wrote one of your blog readers asking for a little help just to buy me writing stuff, and he blew me off. It’s okay, that’s life in this crazy world. Ain’t too many people that understand this life. They think we’re out to get them.
I have money at Florence. It’s that the money on my account didn’t follow me to this jail. Like I said, no biggie! Que no?

Anyway, did you send the cards to Noelle? Has she mentioned anything about writing me?

Englandman, I’m sending you my brother’s obituary. It’s for you to keep. I have one for myself.
As always, send my Love & Regards to your mom & dad and especially that beautiful sister of yours.

Much Love & Respect

Mr. Frankie!

P/S In six days I’ll know the outcome of my sentence

Email comments to writeinside@hotmail.com or post them below

Shaun P. Attwood

Razumovsky Ensemble’s Account of Mendelssohn’s Octet in E-flat

O ur soul—how like the water! Our Fate—how like the wind!”
  —  Goethe.

It is difficult to find words that could possibly enhance enjoyment of the [Op. 20 Octet] Scherzo: [it is] at once a perfect and sufficient piece of abstract music and the most vivid tone-painting of wind-swept, cloud-wracked Nature: it is all gossamer, filigree, fugitive enchantment.”
  —  Hugh Wood.

The study of Mendelssohn has been ‘hot’ in recent years, and attention has focused on Mendelssohn’s identity. Jeffrey Sposato, professor at Moores School of Music at the University of Houston, in particular discusses Mendelssohn’s response to his Jewish heritage. There are examples of cadences composed by Mendelssohn and their close correspondence to cadences in Jewish ritual chants. It is easy to be reminded of this while listening to this famous early composition by Mendelssohn, presented by the Razumovsky Ensemble tonight at Wigmore Hall in London.

The 1825 Octet] attempted to capture the spirit of the last stanza of the Walpurgis Night dream in Faust: ‘The flight of the clouds and the veil of mist / Are lighted from above. / A breeze in the leaves, a wind in the reeds, / And all has vanished.’ One feels so near the world of spirits...”
  —  Jeffrey Sposato, The Price of Assimilation, p. 111.

It is reflexive, not deliberative; the narrative trajectory of this Octet is dramatic and impulsive. There is an energy of motion that is enhanced by the power of the eight instruments. The extrovertedness of the Octet is amazing—that of the then-16 year-old Mendelssohn—and is unlike the tempered, conciliatory, non-athletic dialogues of, say, Op. 44 and beyond. Larry Todd has a nice analysis of Op. 20 in his Mendelssohn biography, beginning at page 151.

Rather than a mere doubling of a quartet, Mendelssohn approached the writing as if it were an eight-piece orchestra. That much is conventional wisdom. But, to me, it seems that the biographers and historians have, to date, been writing hagiography; none has seriously considered what it must’ve been to write this piece as a teenager.


Mendelssohn composed his Octet for strings soon after his family had moved into a big house in the Leipzigerstrasse on the outskirts of Berlin. On the grounds was a garden house which had a room large enough to seat a sizeable audience for the family’s Sunday morning chamber music performances, which involved a number of Herr Mendelssohn’s musician friends. Mendelssohn presented the Octet to his string teacher, Julius Reitz, as a birthday gift. He wrote the soaring violin phrases at the beginning of the first movement in hopes of pleasing his teacher, but he was careful to provide meaty enough parts for the rest of the ensemble as well. This is the context that is seldom mentioned, in biographies or in program notes for this piece.

Octets for strings show signs of ‘clotting’ into an orchestral style. Spohr hit upon the device of dividing the eight into antiphonal quartets: and his four double quartets are much nearer to the true style of chamber music than his string quartets … But Mendelssohn, in the wonderful Octet, does not find Spohr’s simple antiphonal scheme worth the trouble of specially grouping the players when he can instead use 255 different combinations of the eight without enquiring how they are seated.”
  —  Donald Tovey.

How badly we need a detailed exploration of Mendelssohn’s notes with Fanny or other evidence—to see what frame of mind he was in during those months when this Octet was composed! This Octet is not a narrative of Jewish assimilation into Protestant Berlin; it is instead, I believe, a narrative of a precocious and eager-to-please teen’s assimilation into Leipzig adult culture. It is a story not of Jewish identity per se so much as it is a story of teen identity. Have a look at the books by Deborah Browning and Jane Kroger (links below) to explore this line of thought.

The Razumovsky Ensemble gave an enthusiastic reading of the Octet tonight that lends credence to the contextual importance of teenage identity and exuberance. The Razumovskys are an ad hoc assemblage of different world class soloists who are convened by Kogan for particular programs, based on their individual proclivities and repertoire affinities.

In 1989 Oleg Kogan won the All-Soviet Union Cello Competition. He has performed with orchestras including the Moscow Philharmonic, the Latvian State Symphony Orchestra, the Geneva Chamber Orchestra and London Soloist Chamber Orchestra and has given recitals in France, Germany, Holland, Israel, Switzerland and the U.K. In 1998 he became founded the Razumovsky Ensemble, a group of dynamic soloists and section leaders from world-class orchestras based in London. Tonight’s beautiful and illuminating performance was just one configuration of Oleg’s many friends and colleagues.

Mainstream kids do assimilate more smoothly and easily into social situations and their own neighborhoods, but often it is the children with out-of-the-box characteristics, who have the ability to make a significant and inspiring contribution to their community and the talent and vision to change the world in a positive way.”
  —  Stephanie Lerner, Kids Who Think Outside the Box, p. 3.

• Razumovsky Ensemble website
  
• Razumovsky Ensemble website mirror
  
• Amazon.com MP3s of Mendelssohn Octet Op. 20 movements
  
• ArkivMusic.com Mendelssohn Octet Op. 20 recordings
  
• Stahl S. Felix Mendelssohn: Musical Genius and Jewish Casualty. JewishVirtualLibrary.org, 1998
  
• Braun E, Hertz D, Reimer G. Affirmation/Indifference/Assimilation. Boston College, 2005.
  
• Browning D, ed. Adolescent Identities: A Collection of Readings. Analytic, 2007.
  
• Kroger J. Identity in Adolescence: The Balance Between Self and Other. 3e. Routledge, 2005.
  
• Mercer-Taylor P, ed. The Cambridge Companion to Mendelssohn. Cambridge Univ, 2004.
  
• Reich-Morris A. The Quest for Jewish Assimilation in Modern Social Science. Routledge, 2007.
  
• Sposato J. The Price of Assimilation: Mendelssohn and the 19th-Century Anti-Semitic Tradition. Oxford Univ, 2005.
  
• Todd L. Mendelssohn: A Life in Music. Oxford Univ, 2003.