Floral

One of the flowers noticed at reference 1 has now come out, with the telephone doing much better in close-up mode, partly because I was able to reduce wind action by holding the stem in one hand while holding and working the telephone (not as hard as it sounds) in the other.

A sort of miniature thistle flower on top of a plant which looks nothing like a thistle otherwise.

The neighbouring stems continue to host long lines of blackflies. Or at least flies which are black. But there is no black carpet of the things and I am no longer sure that they are the regular black flies, the things which go for the growing tips of broad beans and roses.

PS: some days later: now thought to be nothing more exotic than common knapweed.

Reference 1: http://psmv3.blogspot.co.uk/2017/06/unhappy-snaps.html.

Group search key: kwa.

Late convert

For a long time I have believed that paintings of the sort included left were largely content free and that the extensive homage paid to them and their creators was a conspiracy of US art dealers to extract money from the rest of the world. More important as a test of the parable of the emperor's new clothes, as an experiment in social anthropology than as anything else. With the publication date of the parable - 1837 - telling us that this sort of thing has been around for at least two hundred years.

However, over the past few days, I have been trawling around in the world of tri-chromatic colour. Through the helpful reference 1, to the quaintly produced reference 2 (in the May 1959 number of Scientific American) and then yesterday, more or less by chance, in Epsom Library, to reference 3, for a more arty take on all this. Well, not altogether by chance, as Epsom Library, with all the students at the University of Creation, has quite a good art section.

In which I come across the work of Josef Albers and others, clearly interested in the mysteries of colour vision and perception. With the painting or print above (I think the property of a San Fransisco art gallery. The white border is the frame, not part of the work itself) being part of a long series of similar paintings and prints called 'Homage to the Square'. Paintings which, on a sample of two, appear to give rise to interesting subjective effects, at least in their paper versions. Effects which may not have been produced to order, but which were certainly produced using methods & principles which were likely to produce odd effects of one sort or another. No doubt I shall learn more when reference 4 turns up from abebooks.

So while I do not offer a opinion on the place of Albers in the history of western art, I do withdraw the allegation that his work is content free.

PS: I had thought that Seurat was interested in dots, without paying him or his work that much attention. So I have also learned that he only used eleven pure colours, that is to say the colours of eleven narrow spectral bands of light, for his dots, on a white ground, on the not unreasonable grounds that this would result in far more vibrant colours than could be obtained by the then conventional techniques for mixing paints.

Reference 1: http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/vision/colper.html.

Reference 2: The Retinex Theory of Color Vision - Edwin H. Land – 1979.

Reference 3: Colour - Zelanski and Fisher - 1989. 

Reference 4: Interaction of Color - Josef Albers – 1963.

Woyzeck two

We watched our new DVD of Woyzeck last night, the DVD of the film produced by Herzog and starring Kinski, among others. A film which might be encapsulated as an arty costume drama set in a German garrison town, on a large river, in the middle of the nineteenth century.

Also by saying that I am swinging in behind the donnish lady of reference 1. The Old Vic adaptation might have taken the bones of the original story, but that was about all. A 'West Side Story' to 'Romeo and Juliet', without achieving the power of either.

In the film, Woyzeck is an old sweat. An older, long service man who had not risen above private, and presumably apt to be shoved into all sorts of odd jobs which younger men, better able to cope with extended drill in full kit, would disdain. From the point of view of the ladies of the garrison town, a bit of a failure. But maybe steady, and good enough for a meal ticket. To my mind an important change from the play.

Both Woyzeck and the captain are prone to philosophising, in both the film and the play. In the case of the former, brought on, at least in part, by the bizarre diet imposed by the doctor - another character who appears in a much more rounded version in the film than in the play. With the philosophising in the film being both more interesting and more plausible that than in the play.

A more satisfactory ending, with a frenzied stabbing of his wife, by a shallow lake out in the woods, and his just wandering off. We don't know what happens to him. And the film actually closes with a nice touch of black humour, one of a number scattered along the way, which I leave as a surprise to those readers who have not already watched it. The play did include humour, often coarse, but did not rise to the level of Herzog's delicately executed black humour.

Oddly, Woyzeck's common law wife in the film reminded me of the wife in the play, in a way that the other members of the ensemble did not. An ensemble of about a dozen in the play and about the same number, but not necessarily in the same roles, in the film. In both cases, rather good, but film version was better. A much stronger sense of a poor, but attractive girl, making the best she could of things in a world which could handle both women and the poor rather roughly.

All in all, the film was a much more substantial affair than the play, while managing without excess of language or flesh. The donnish lady was right.

Next stop, the unfinished play itself, sitting ready to go on the kindle.

PS: there is also a 1995 film, but I am not going as far as the £25 or so which seems to be required. On the other hand, I learn that the same Herzog/Kinski team also did Fitzcarraldo, which we may still have, in which case we will give it another go

Reference 1: http://psmv3.blogspot.co.uk/2017/06/woyzeck.html.

Reference 2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woyzeck_(1979_film).

Information received

Since the middle of April, maybe two months ago, I have been wondering about the cable recovered and noticed at reference 1.

The view of an Openreach engineer from Tooting some weeks ago was that it was a two part cable. The big part carried the weight from pole to pole, while the small part carried the signal. Not convinced, but that was the best that we could do at that time.

While the more convincing view of an Openview engineer (retired) from Ewell today was also that it was two part cable, known in the trade as a figure of eight cable. But the sort of thing that people like Virgin used to connect your house to their green box down the road. The shielded, insulated, copper plated steel wire in the big part carried your internet signal while the twisted pair in the small part carried your telephone signal. Steel for strength, as you could not rely on copper not to break when bent too many times,

While BT, with their investment in twisted pairs, were content to use their twisted pair to carry both signals from their green box to your house - with signal technology having moved on so far that they can pump their 20Mb/s - or whatever - down said twisted pair, and split them into internet and telephone on arrival. However, the BT site is oddly coy about their data rates, beyond saying that theirs are better than anyone else's - while reference 2 claims that in my area they do 20MB/s, while Virgin do 50Mb/s. A bit of a mystery, but for the sort of stuff that I do, 20Mb/s is more than enough: I can download more pdf in a second than I can read in a week. What on earth are all these other people up to?

Reference 1: http://psmv3.blogspot.co.uk/2017/04/useful-cable.html.

Reference 2: https://www.uswitch.com/broadband/speedtest/streetstats/.

Volga

I mentioned the Volga at Nizhny Novgorod in the last post (reference 1) and I have now been moved to look it up on StreetView.

StreetView alive and well in this part of the world, but the local authorities there do not seem to have been concerned to provide views of the river for the google cameras. They have been on plenty of roads which must have been very close to the river, but they got very few views. The river is mostly screened by trees, industrial buildings or continuous hoardings at the side of the road. This snap being taken from a gap in said hoardings.

Clearly have to go there in person to get the full experience.

Reference 1: http://psmv3.blogspot.co.uk/2017/06/ultimate.html.

Ultimate?

Earlier in the week to hear the tail end of Levit's cycle of Beethoven's piano sonatas. Headed ultimate in part because it may turn out to have been the last such outing of the season. This morning is presently slated to be the last, but what with the failure of the Epsom trains and the strength of the sun we may not make it.

An outing which was also intended to celebrate the return of hearing, after a run of concerts with improper hearing. Unfortunately, on this occasion I managed to be in the middle of a short cold, so up and running, but not running so very well. Clearly getting older for such matters to loom so large!

Something of a gala concert, the last of the cycle, possibly performed in the natural order, with this one being the last three, Op.109, Op.110 and Op.111. I had had it in my mind that Goode had played the last of the these the week before at the RFH, but closer inspection of the programme after the event revealed that he had played Op.110. See reference 1. Also gala in that it was broadcast live on BBC Radio 3 with the help of what I counted to be ten microphones, six of which were in the central cluster hung from the ceiling.

It turned out to be a tremendous performance, although, as someone said on the stairs on the way out, maybe the dynamic contrasts were a bit overdone - but maybe we have to excuse that in such a young pianist, with Levit being just 30. And for me, the dynamic range which works in a concert hall, compared with that which I get on my hifi and which works in my study, quite a small room (although a substantial double bedroom in estate agent speak), is very much part of why we bother to hear music live. That aside, most of the music was very familiar, but not so familiar that I didn't get into a muddle, as will be recounted.

Levit's playing style was to play without score with his face quite close to the keyboard for much of the time. And he gave himself quite long pauses at beginnings, while he cranked himself back up to concert pitch. So while there was such a pause between the first two sonatas, there was no standing up and no clapping. But there was a proper pause between the second and third of the three. So, despite wondering vaguely at the length of what I though was the first sonata, I completely failed to realise that it was the first two. Very enthusiastic clapping at the end of the third, with plenty of people in the audience who looked as if they knew the sonatas a lot better than I did. Then everyone got up, leaving us wondering what was going on. The programme said no interval.

Eventually it dawned on us what had happened, with the whole business being confused by Levit having decided to repeat the whole concert at 2200 for the benefit of those who had not managed to get tickets for the 1930 concert - with the seats that they have given us, despite very early booking, suggesting heavy demand. We still wonder how he got on: an hour's rest then a second round of 90 minutes premier league action. Perhaps something that only a young pianist should attempt.

Slightly irritated by there not having been a proper break between the first two sonatas. I like my concerts to be structured into works and movements and I like to keep my place. The structure is the framework on which I hang the experience. Clearly something which is important to me, as I bear grudge against Imogen Cooper for doing something similar in one of her concerts, with my simple view being that if the pianist doesn't want clapping at this or that point in the proceeding, either he, she or someone else should simply say so, rather than rushing from one work to the next to stop it that way. See reference 2. I wonder today whether she is running her professional life down a bit - given that we hear a lot less of her than we did five years ago and she is almost exactly the same age as me.

Managed the 2128 from Vauxhall, where the best I could do was a few singles. Single aeroplanes that is.

PS 1: Levit comes from the depths of old Russia, from Nizhny Novgorod on the Volga. Which gmaps suggests is about a kilometre wide at this point, hundreds of miles inland. A rather more serious river than the Thames.

PS 2: checking some more, it seems that we probably first heard Levit in October 2013, possibly in the Festival Hall and noticed at reference 3. The very same concert and the very same lack of break business. And at some point, I forget when, I acquired a couple of Radio 3 CD's of Levit playing the last six sonatas - seemingly something of a speciality of his.

Reference 1: http://psmv3.blogspot.co.uk/2017/06/goode.html.

Reference 2: http://psmv2.blogspot.co.uk/2013/02/schubert.html.

Reference 3: http://psmv2.blogspot.co.uk/2013/10/beethoven-sonatas.html.

Unhappy snaps

A mysterious weed has sprung up in the new daffodil bed, now getting on for three feet in height, with half a dozen or more flower shoots. With the top four or five inches of each decorated with neat vertical lines of black flies, with the flies perhaps a millimeter or so apart from each other. Not the dense black mass, of the sort one gets on broad beans, at all. Maybe the ants from the nest visible at the base of the plant have got the situation under control and have the black flies in farm. The nest once noticed at reference 2.

No idea what the terminal brown balls are going to turn into, if indeed they are going to progress to proper flowers at all.

The telephone could not manage the bright light of the morning, in which this snap was taken, and did no better in the dull light of the afternoon. Not least because it makes the lawn adjacent look more like a badly dug over vegetable patch. Perhaps Russ, the chap first mentioned at reference 1, has a point when he says that no machines can yet match the eye in dealing with big ranges of brightness.

Reference 1: http://psmv3.blogspot.co.uk/2017/05/roseview.html.

Reference 2: http://psmv3.blogspot.co.uk/2016/08/ants-progress.html.