Wednesday, September 10, 2008
Supermarkets hate empty shelves, so when advertised items are sold out they routinely fill the space with similar full price items, leaving the sale signs. It's an especially effective practice for the frozen food section, where windows are fogged & frosted, shelf tags difficult to read, & nobody likes holding the fridge door open & sticking an arm inside for any length of time. A customer might be in a hurry & thinking ahead to the strawberry-banana yogurt & half & half in the next aisle & tryng to remember to pick up a heavy jar of tomato juice on the way to checkout. Which is how I bought the two packages of Bird's Eye Premium Select Brussels Sprouts at twice the price of Pictsweet sale brand. It was only a couple of bucks, & they are swell frozen veggies, but I was annoyed at myself.
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Ordering a piece of classical music I already have. Except for a few major works by favorite composers, I try to avoid this. & I don't even care for the composer, Richard Strauss. Everyone knows his fanfare from "Also sprach Zarathustra" used in the movie 2001, & would recognize the cartoony motif from "Til Eulenspiegel." Those tunes are from tone poems. I don't like the idea of tone poems that tell "stories." I can imagine my own stories, thank you. When I want stories I listen to country music & blues. I've always enjoyed "Death & Transfiguration," a tone poem by Strauss from 1889. Forget the 'story" of some German guy on his deathbed remembering his life & expiring slowly at the end - "transfiguring" - & the piece sounds like first rate movie music from the 1950's. I have a so-so version that was sufficient for a long time. Last night, listening to it through earphones, I thought, this is played too slowly, there's important instrumental parts in the large orchestra I can't hear, I appreciate this music, it gives me pleasure, the only thing by Strauss that does, why don't I have a really good recording? Some of best ones are under $8.
"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be." Thomas Jefferson
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Ordering a piece of classical music I already have. Except for a few major works by favorite composers, I try to avoid this. & I don't even care for the composer, Richard Strauss. Everyone knows his fanfare from "Also sprach Zarathustra" used in the movie 2001, & would recognize the cartoony motif from "Til Eulenspiegel." Those tunes are from tone poems. I don't like the idea of tone poems that tell "stories." I can imagine my own stories, thank you. When I want stories I listen to country music & blues. I've always enjoyed "Death & Transfiguration," a tone poem by Strauss from 1889. Forget the 'story" of some German guy on his deathbed remembering his life & expiring slowly at the end - "transfiguring" - & the piece sounds like first rate movie music from the 1950's. I have a so-so version that was sufficient for a long time. Last night, listening to it through earphones, I thought, this is played too slowly, there's important instrumental parts in the large orchestra I can't hear, I appreciate this music, it gives me pleasure, the only thing by Strauss that does, why don't I have a really good recording? Some of best ones are under $8.
