Things we like VI (I think? I've lost count)

1) Sarah Vowell: for many many reasons, like: having the same passionately ambiguous relationship to America that I do; for expressing said relationship much more eloquently than I could; for being a frustrated idealist; for being a nerd; for being the most reliably witty live person I can think of:

Heaven, such as it is, is right here on earth. Behold: my revelation: I stand at the door in the morning, and lo, there is a newspaper, in sight like unto an emerald. And holy, holy, holy is the coffee, which was, and is, and is to come. And hark, I hear the voice of an angel round about the radio, saying, “Since my baby left me I found a new place to dwell.” And lo, after this I beheld a great multitude, which no man could number, of shoes. And after these things I will hasten unto a taxicab and to a theater, where a ticket will be given unto me, and lo, it will be a matinee, and a film that doeth great wonders. And when it is finished, the heavens will open, and out will cometh a rain fragrant as myrrh, and yea, I have an umbrella.

— “The End is Near, Nearer, Nearest” from Take the Cannoli

2) Yo-Yo Ma, especially in the most recent issue of Gramophone magazine, in which he is interviewed by Lang Lang, and proves himself entirely wonderful:

YM: Menuhin used to say that certain composers are less exportable than others. This reminds me of Chinese food. Do you know the Chinese delicacy, the thousand-year egg?

LL: The pidan! I tried to get my American friends to eat it and they told me to get lost.

YM: No one likes it int he West because it’s stinky. Yet Peking Duck is very exportable because it looks beautiful with its crispy skin. Someone told me yesterday that in Vietnam they drink a liqueur whose bottle contains a snake. I think it would be a little hard for me to do that. Certain things travel well, other things travel less well. I wonder if music is a bit like that.

LL: You choose the final question, Yo-Yo. Would you like to talk about Bach or about how Chinese culture has influenced Western music?

YM: Why not both? One of the things that I’ve learnt about Bach and about music in general is that there is no such thing as purity. ... It’s good for music that composers and musicians are exposed to different things, that people try to understand what they don’t understand. People need to get to a point where they feel that the thing that they don’t understand is part of them.

3) Snarky biographies, namely Harold C. Schonberg’s The Lives of the Great Composers (3rd ed.), in which the author demonstrates his apparent disdain (= jealousy!!) for certain composers near and dear to my heart:

If Bruckner’s music arouses fanatical devotion in many listeners, Mahler’s creates an actual frenzy. Again there are doubters, those who find Mahler’s music too neurotic and often too banal for enjoyment. The dedicated Mahlerian regards these unregenerates the way St. Paul regarded the heathen. It is hard to think of a composer who arouses an equal loyalty. The worship of Mahler amounts to a religion. Any music critic will attest to the fact that a response of anything except rapture to the Mahler symphonies will bring long letters of furious denunciation.

I, for one, was surprised to find out that Mahler heathens even exist. I mean ... really?