text:
Biden officials have considered trying to remove the head of the World Bank David Malpasswho took office during the Trump administration, because they believe he is weak on the climate, according to people familiar with the matter.
why does it matter: Administration officials are deeply concerned about Malpass’ not answering This week when asked if climate change is human-caused. His response provides ammunition for officials who want Biden to spend some political capital trying to impeach him.
- But officials know that replacing Malpass will be a messy process, and they are unsure how — or even if — the United States could orchestrate his ouster.
- Malpass was confirmed by the bank’s Board of Executive Directors, which is not controlled by the White House.
playing condition: The Biden administration had been looking suspiciously of Malpass, a Trump district, from the start. This suspicion has now been confirmed. It has been on fluffy ice for months.
- Malpass’ refusal to admit that fossil fuels are warming the planet has caused an international outcry, including Calls to resign.
- Malpass went to the damage control department on Thursday, emailed a clarification to staff and says on CNN: “Obviously greenhouse gas emissions come from man-made sources, including fossil fuels… I’m not a denier.”
Reality check: The fact that Biden made no change suggests that there was some internal resistance to Malpass’s ouster.
context: The Washington-based World Bank uses capital contributions from member states to provide loans to the developing world to help alleviate poverty and boost economic growth.
- In the past several years, the Bank has increasingly shifted its focus to financing projects that will reduce carbon emissions. Critics, including Gore, want the bank to do more about climate change.
Between the lines: Announcing the head of the World Bank could upset a delicate balance – the US traditionally chooses the head of the World Bank, while the European Union chooses the head of the International Monetary Fund.
- The presidency of the Bank lasts for five years. So often the president of the United States inherits bank heads from the other side.
- Malpass is a former Bear Stearns economist and Treasury official in the Trump administration. His term expired in 2024.
What we are watching: In the New York Times Climate event This week, former Vice President Al Gore called for Changing the World Bank, saying it was “ridiculous to have an atmosphere in denial about the World Bank’s president”.
- Some Biden officials have gone so far as to toy with potential replacements — including Gore and former Secretary of State John Kerry, now Biden’s climate envoy. Biden’s thinking is unknown.
- Kerry has been a vocal advocate of increasing the World Bank’s focus on climate. When asked at the Times event if management trusts Malpass, Kerry oblique: “I cannot comment on the situation of the individual – that is the decision of the president.”
- A Gore spokesperson told Axios: “VP Gore strongly believes there must be new leadership at the World Bank, but has no intention of pursuing the role himself and would not accept it if offered.”
Other possibilities for a Malpass job Including former New York mayor Mike Bloomberg and Raj Shah, president of the Rockefeller Foundation and former head of the US Agency for International Development.
The plot: The countries of the so-called “global south” were looking for an opportunity to get the top job of a candidate from Africa, Latin America, Asia or Oceania.
- Biden officials debated who might fit into this bill. Options include Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, a Nigerian-American economist who now heads the World Trade Organization, and Minosh Shafik, an Egyptian-born British-American economist and director of the London School of Economics.
what are they saying: “We expect the World Bank Group to be a global leader in climate ambition…we have done it [made] A Treasury spokesperson told Axios: – and they will continue to provide – to clarify this expectation for the leadership of the World Bank.
- Mark Malloch Brown, president of the Open Society Foundation and a former World Bank official, said Malpass’s comments were “considered harmful, there is no doubt about it”.
- “It’s a big problem,” he said. “These institutions do not serve their leader’s agenda, but ultimately the owners of governments. Their clear priority is to combat climate change.”
Editor’s Note: This story has been updated to include a statement from former Vice President Spokesperson Al Gore.

domain: politics


President Donald Trump has acknowledged that Mike Pompeo talked to him about leaving he Trump Administration to run for Senate, but said the Secretary of State told him he’d “rather stay” in Washington.
TIME reported on Tuesday that Pompeo has recently told three prominent Republicans that he plans to resign and run for Senate in Kansas in 2020. Pompeo had originally planned to stay in the Administration until early spring of 2020, but his involvement with the House impeachment inquiry has damaged his relationship with President Trump and hurt him politically. Sources told TIME that Pompeo is now trying and leave the Administration in the smoothest way possible.
But in an interview Friday morning on Fox & Friends, Trump appeared to give Pompeo a green light to run. “Mike would win easily in Kansas, great state, and it’s a Trump state,” he continued. “He loves what he’s doing… [but] he came to me and said look, ‘I’d rather stay where I am,’ but he loves Kansas, he loves the people of Kansas. If he thought there was a chance of losing that seat, I think he would do that. And he would win in a landslide.”
Trump said Pompeo assured him he’d rather stay in his job as Secretary of State and would only run if necessary. Pompeo’s aides have previous denied to TIME that he was planning a run, and declined to comment for the story on Tuesday. “Secretary Pompeo is only focused on executing President Trump’s foreign policy goals and completing the mission for the American people at the State Department. Anyone who says otherwise is just wrong,” a person close with the Secretary told TIME for the story.
Although originally from California, Pompeo made his money in Witchita, Kans., and represented Kansas in the House of Representatives between 2011 and 2017. He’s been in the Administration since first days Trump took office, previously serving as Trump’s CIA Director.


text:
William J Kozersky, Philatelist
Philatelist and dealer in collectible Charity Seals such as U.S. Christmas Seals and U.S. Easter Seals, Foreign TB Charity Seals, Boys Town Charity Seals, Charity Seal Literature, Topical and Foreign Stamps, Stamp Albums, and Postcards.
We donate 10% of all U.S. Christmas Seals & U.S. Spring Seals sales to the American Lung Association
|Christmas Stamps: Many countries issue Christmas Stamps, which are regular postage stamps with a Christmas theme, that are intended for use during the Christmas season, although they are valid for postage year-round. Please see Worldwide Christmas Stamps List 1991-2012 by Patricia Prevey, a member of the Christmas Philatelic Club (CPC). Also, History of Christmas Stamps.|

domain: hobby


Meet the Luxembourgers
Let’s break the ice! Artists and bands are welcome to attend this networking event where they can meet bookers from a selection of venues, festivals or collectives from Luxembourg in order to establish a first contact, present their project and develop their professional network.
For bands & artists only.
Capacity limited to 12 participants. Registration closed!
More About the Speakers
- ASSIDEMusic ManagerStephanie Baustert is a Luxembourg-based music manager driven by the desire to help artists build their career and reach their full potential. She provides full service management, career development and booking to both local and international jazz and improvised music artists. In addition, she offers a wide range of services…ASSIDETun Biever is guitarist and manager of Luxembourgish independant pop band Tuys and co-founder of TWO STEPS TWICE music collective. Havin g founded TUYS at the age of ten, Tun's career as a musician took him all around Europe, playing shows at well-established festivals such as M.S Dockville, The Great…ASSIDEPaul has been working as a booker/promoter in Luxembourg in various venues for the past 9 years and the Rockhal is happy to have him for almost 3 years now. He has also been fairly active in the local music scene, playing in different bands such as Actarus, Treasure chest…ASSIDEIn 2014, Daniel joined the team of the cultural department of the City of Differdange. With his experience as a musician in several local DIY bands, he has since been in charge of the musical programming of Aalt Stadhaus, a venue which opened in 2014. Since 2015, he is also…ASSIDEIn 2006, Marc Hauser started as a project manager for Luxembourg 2007 - European Capital of Culture and as booker for the temporarily born venue EXIT07 - Luxembourg city's finest venue for cutting-edge music - where he carried Tom Jenkinson's bass guitar, filled the fridge with 'Bofferdings' for Luxembourg's cult…ASSIDELuka first got an insight into the music and event business by managing (quite badly) the Luxembourgish rock band INBORN! (2005-2011). During the same period, he progressively got involved into the organisation of the Food For Your Senses Festival before taking over its lead in 2013. In December 2014, together…ASSIDEVéronique balances her time between the communication department of a cultural institution and the booking team of Last Summer Dance, combining her passion for promoting and organising cultural events. One of the founding members of the music and arts festival Last Summer Dance, she is always on the look-out for…Back To TopASSIDENicolas Przeor is mostly known as a guitarist in math-rock band Mutiny On The Bounty, with which he has been touring Europe for the last 15 years and played everywhere, from China to America, and nearly everything in between and big festivals, such as Primavera, Roskilde, Arctangeant or Melt. When…ASSIDEJohn Rech is mostly known as the singer of Luxembourg’s 90’s pop icons T42 and his current solo project Dream Catcher. He has toured Europe for many years and is a real music all-rounder. He ran his own concert & touring company from 1996 to 2006, has been promoting gigs…ASSIDEFrancisco Sassetti was born in Lisbon, Portugal, in 1982, and lived in Luxembourg between 1986 and 2000. He studied Music and Arts Management at the University of London and European Studies at the Université de Genève. He then worked for various cultural organisations in Lisbon and Vienna. In 2015 he…ASSIDEMarc Scheer is music booker at the legendary Kulturfabrik in Esch/Alzette since last september. Before he was program coordinator at the cultural center Prabbeli in Wiltz, which includes the Brandbau Club, the Nuit des Lampions Festival and the Festival de Wiltz for more than 10 years. A music passionate, raised…ASSIDEBesides working as a teacher in everyday life, music and concerts have always been Laurent's passion. Since almost 20 years now, he has been following the great development and professionalisation of the Luxembourgish music scene. After organizing several cultural events he ended up in the booking team of the Koll…ASSIDEMichel Welter graduated in 2003 with a Master of Arts in Music Business from the New York University. He worked in numerous cultural institutions in Luxembourg such as the 'Centre Culturel de Rencontre Abbaye de Neumünster' where he started in 2005 as an assistant of the cultural programming. He later…


Just weeks after the Supreme Court largely reaffirmed the Obama administration’s immigration enforcement powers in its legal battle with Arizona, federal officials are facing a new, politically tricky clash with local authorities over immigration, this time in Chicago.
At a news conference on Tuesday, Mayor Rahm Emanuel said he would propose an ordinance that would bar police officers from turning over illegal immigrants to federal agents if the immigrants do not have serious criminal convictions or outstanding criminal warrants.
In contrast to the Obama administration’s long-running confrontation with officials in Arizona, who are mostly Republicans, the latest challenge to the president’s immigration policies comes from Mr. Emanuel, his former chief of staff, and from other Democratic allies in President Obama’s hometown.
“If you have no criminal record, being part of a community is not a problem for you,” Mr. Emanuel said, speaking at a high school library in Little Village, a Latino neighborhood. “We want to welcome you to the city of Chicago.”
The mayor said the proposal was part of his goal to make Chicago the “most immigrant-friendly city in the country.”
While Arizona sought to authorize the state and local police to enforce immigration laws more strictly than federal policy, officials in Chicago and surrounding Cook County want to ease the impact of enforcement on immigrant neighborhoods by restraining the local police and restricting the action of federal agents. The Supreme Court ruled on the Arizona law on June 25, striking down most of the controversial parts.
Mr. Emanuel’s initiative came as a senior administration official in Washington stepped up the heat on Cook County, a vast Illinois jurisdiction that includes Chicago and nearby suburbs, where commissioners adopted an ordinance last September that sharply limited local police cooperation with federal immigration agents.
Testifying before a subcommittee in the House of Representatives, John Morton, the director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, said Cook County’s ordinance was “inconsistent with the terms of federal law.”
That law generally bars county police and jails from detaining illegal immigrants to turn them over to federal agents, unless the agents have a specific warrant. It is the strongest of the “sanctuary” ordinances adopted by a handful of cities and counties nationwide, which have spared illegal immigrants from being held for deportation if they have committed only minor civil immigration violations.
Republicans in Congress have accused the Obama administration of a double standard, since it sued Arizona over its immigration efforts but has taken no action against Cook County.
“I am quite confident their approach is ultimately going to lead to additional crimes in Cook County that would have been prevented,” Mr. Morton said. He said the administration was discussing “legal options” against the county, and was likely to cut federal funds that reimburse Cook County for detaining illegal immigrants in its jails. In 2011, the county received $2.3 million in those funds, according to official figures.
Chicago is governed separately from Cook County. The city’s ordinance would give its police department more power to decide which immigrants to turn over to federal agents, but it would not curtail most cooperation as Cook County has done.
Behind the disputes in Illinois is a federal program called Secure Communities, under which local police and jail authorities share fingerprints with federal immigration agents of everyone they book. The Obama administration has rapidly expanded the program across the country, with Illinois being one of only two states — the other is Alabama — where it has been implemented in some jurisdictions but not statewide.
Many immigrant organizations have bitterly resisted the program, saying it erodes trust between their communities and the local police. A coalition of groups on Tuesday announced a national campaign to try to persuade more localities to ban or restrict the program.
Mr. Emanuel did not pose his initiative as a challenge to Mr. Obama. Rather he laid blame on Congress for inaction on immigration. The City Council will consider the ordinance this month.
Mr. Emanuel and police officials have been under fire for a gang problem in Chicago, with homicides up 39 percent from a year ago. The mayor said the proposed ordinance would encourage some immigrants to help the police without fear of being deported. “If you’re a good citizen, immigration status is not a pause button for you to call the police department,” he said.


text: BACKGROUND: The older population increases all over the world and so also does the number of older psychiatric patients, which manifest certain specific and unique characteristics. The aim of this article is to provide a comprehensive review of the international literature on unipolar depression with onset at old age. METHODS: The authors reviewed several pages and books relevent to the subject but did not search the entire literature because of it's overwhelming size. They chose to review those considered most significant. RESULTS: The prevalence of major depression is estimated to be 2% in the general population over 65 years of age. The clinical picture of geriatric depression differs in many aspects from depression in younger patients. It is not yet clear whether it also varies across cultures and different socio-economic backgrounds. Biological data suggest that it is associated with an increased severity of subcortical vascular disease and greater impairment of cognitive performance. Many authors consider the existence of a somatic disorder to be related to the presence of depression in late life, even constituting a negative prognostic factor for the outcome of depression. Most studies support the opinion that geriatric depression carries a poorer prognosis than depression in younger patients. The therapeutic intervention includes pharmacotherapy, mainly with antidepressants, which is of established value and psychotherapy which is not equally validated. CONCLUSION: A significant number of questions regarding the assessment and treatment of geriatric depression remain unanswered, empirical data are limited, and further research is necessary.

domain: medical


JUDE - NAVY
Navy ribbed socks with large mottled blue and red stripes.
A nod to the fraternities of the Ivy League and the very chic young people of Long Island, this ribbed striped model is inspired by the "old school" socks offered by tailors to their sporty and elegant customers.
- Height: 25cm.
- Fine and solid remeshing.
- French made.
- 80% Cotton
- 18% Polyamid
- 2% Elastane
Cotton is soft against the skin. Elastane gives ease and comfort. The polyamide surrounds the elastane yarn and reinforces its mechanical properties. The socks comply with Oeko-Tex Standard 100. Yarn non-toxicity guaranteed.
To keep your socks soft for as long as possible, we strongly advise you to wash them inside out in a short cycle and at 30° maximum. Do not tumble dry.


We pulled to the curb behind them. Scott and I jumped off while Andrew milked the throttle, sustaining the engine's life support. We agreed to follow them in search of a place to stay.
On the first uphill they pulled away, far enough that it became the job of Scott and I to keep tabs on them. It felt like we were tailing them, staying back far enough that we could still see them, but not getting so close that we would be obvious. Our lack of lights made it that much more authentic.
Of course, any proper tail would have a decent vehicle. On one cobbled street, the engine died. Scott and I jumped out and started to push, hoping the cobbles wouldn’t sprain an ankle. Once up to speed, Andrew popped the clutch. The taxi's momentum turned the engine over, and the spark caught again. We piled in and continued down the street, our mark lost in the night.
"Just keep going straight. They'd notice we weren't behind them."
We coasted through intersection after intersection after intersection, eyes peeled, uncommitted to any direction. Maybe this was hopeless. Maybe we should have been searching for a place to park the mototaxi for the night instead of Barry and Gerald. For all we knew, they were still moving.
Scott pointed to our right. Down the street perpendicular to ours stood Barry, next to their parked mototaxi. Andrew wrenched us around the corner and pulled behind them, the engine dying as we came to a standstill.
"I thought we lost you guys."
Gerald appeared from a door way. "No good." He rested hands on hips. "Not enough room for all of us. But they said something about a traveler's hotel just down the road there." He pointed down the hill.
"We'll just keep following."
Gerald and Barry loaded up and started down the hill. Andrew tried the electric starter…nothing. The kick starter…nothing.
"Andrew!" Scott pointed at the ground. "Kill the fuel!"
The carb again. Fuel squeezed past Andrew's makeshift seal, and sprayed from the seam. It spilled onto the road, washing dirt and oil from the ancient cobbles before being funneled down the hill by the mortar channels holding the surface together.
"Well…" Andrew leaned back. "…now what?"
We stared down the hill, to where the Aussies had vanished from sight.
"Screw it. Let's coast."
"They said this place was just down the road. What if it's literally down this street? We can coast it."
After a quick discussion to hash out the details, Scott and I abandoned the sofa to stand on the rear cargo rack so we could dismount in a hurry and push the taxi if necessary. It was also nice knowing I could bail at any second. Ready, Andrew slipped the transmission into neutral, eased off the brakes, and let gravity takes us.
Before the end of the block, we had picked up enough speed for the lane’s cobbled rhythm to be dampened by our suspension. The warm night air dropped a few degrees as it accelerated past us, tousling our hair. The rush of air, the squeaked compressions of old suspension springs, and the clatter of chain links spinning their sprockets was the only sound in the dormancy of our engine.
"Wooooooo!" To my right, Scott was leaning back, arms straight, chin pointed to the sky. My face relaxed into a cheek-bulging smile and I yelled with him. Our taxi achieved a speed impressive for being accelerated by gravity alone. Then again, the yelling drove our steed faster, past its limits.
The city's culture was instilled into the air, like incense. It energized us. We leaned off the taxi, ignoring the potential traffic at each intersection. Our bent knees took every bump the taxi could not, our calves absorbing and recoiling with the energy. We glided near the ground, with no lights, like a predator in the dark. No flight could have been better.
Our bird of prey cried out, the brakes squealing. Scott and I stood straight again. On the sidewalk, Barry and Gerald both pointed to a large garage door. We lost momentum in the corner and on the incline of the garage entrance. Scott and I hopped down and helped the mototaxi to where the Aussies had left their own.
"We lose you fellas again?"
At the passing of each new milestone, my destination only seems farther away.
“Manuscript finished!” This was the most recent milestone. But instead of passing a broad-numbered and reflective marker on the roadside, this was more of an emotional collapse in which I flopped back from my desk and into my chair declaring, “Screw it! It’s time to move on with my life!”
More than three years have passed since the experience this book is centered upon and in that time was an inconsistent availability of time, effort, and discipline on which I could draw for the sake of this project. Despite the shortage of those resources though, I’ve finally made it!
And that’s the ironic part. Now I find myself wondering if it will ever get finished.
Currently, I’m seeking out a freelance editor. But I find this process to be paralyzing. I posted a job description and the first 7000 words on a freelance website–at 12 am. By the next morning I had already received 20 replies complete with cover letters. That was encouraging.
I began to read through the letters and resumes, trying to keep in mind the importance of the writer/editor relationship and how it can impact blah, blah, blah… Whatever! After the first 10 candidates, there was an obvious divide.
On one side were the professionals, the lifers with the headshots and the experience and the cover letters that followed direct response copywriting forms to a T (That’s right! I studies that stuff, too. I can see how you’re trying to manipulate my emotions for the sake of the sale!).
On the other side are the less than professionals, the young and up-and-coming people whose resumes aren’t the greatest, work histories not the longest, and portfolios not the fullest.
Seems like an easy decision, right? Well, I have a practiced ability to turn every decision into an existential crises.
I like the professionals. Even the copywriting meant to sell me. It’s a demonstration of the discipline, the knowledge, the keen eye which I’m seeking. These are the people who sent back the Prologue with a sample edit. Of course, they got all the misspellings and grammar mistakes that I intentionally made (That’s right, I’m testing you!). They also caught some mistakes I hadn’t made intentionally, thus the necessity.
The problem though is that I self-identify with the less-than-professionals, because let’s face it, I’m one of them. Hell, half of their cover letters linked to travel blogs in better shape than mine. Oddly though, that does not inspire my confidence.
So that’s where I’m at, stuck between going with the professional, potentially stick-up-the-rear suit I’m concerned will take the fun out of my writing with their underdeveloped sense of humor or the less than professional who will laugh the whole way through editing my work, all the while forgetting to find any mistakes just because I think I’d like to get a beer with them.
My one saving grace though is this: I try not to take this writing too seriously. Don’t get me wrong, it’s very important to me. But this current project isn’t my end game. In my mind, it’s just practice, a way for me to develop my own skills and knowledge. So should that practice be extended out of the writing realm and into the business domain? Is this whole editor selection process just to be practice as well?
I guess we’ll find out…
Andrew sat on his knees, legs folded underneath him. Next to him sat a tray I had retrieved from the grassy patch of water filled containers. It had held all the loose bits during disassembly, cleaning, and reassembly. It was nearing empty…for the second time.
"Scott, can you hold this?" Andrew didn't look up. He was focused, determined to get the mototaxi running.
"You bet!" Scott's perpetual positivity was my source of hope now.
Andrew had been right–the carb was filthy. Near as bad as the first time the halves had been cracked apart. Andrew performed the cleaning. He had been attentive during the process, his moves deliberate, his process thought out. Someone had paid attention to our mechanics.
Andrew had also been correct about the water. With the gas tank free from the frame, we had dumped the lid’s moat and opened it for inspection. The seal looked great. And with no water flowing through the lines, we assumed our fuel was water free.
"Feed that cable right through this hole, Scott."
"Here it comes."
Seeing our carb, we had assumed it had been the problem. But after the first reassembly, the mototaxi didn’t start. It took twenty minutes of kicking to fire it up. The engine had gasped and took a drink of fuel, slowly winding up. But this initial climb of the RPMs surpassed our set idol. The RPMs kept climbing, faster and faster. In the four seconds the engine had run, the RPMs rose to a dangerously high pitch.
"Ok." Andrew leaned back on his heals, taking one last look before moving on. "Nathan, we're ready for the gas tank."
Our hearts had jumped at the sounds of combustive life, but were left frozen by that new sound. Fortunately, it had been Andrew on the bike when it had started. He had used the kill switch before the engine could blow up. None of us knew what the sound meant, so we started over and tore everything apart a second time.
I waddled the gas tank over to the frame. "Here it comes." I slipped the front end into the frame.
Now, we were almost back together for the second time.
"Scott, can you guide the fuel line through the frame as Nathan sets the tank down?"
"Here we go," I warned, lowering the back-end of the tank. I lined up the tank's single bolt flange with the bolt hole in the frame. The tank nestled with a thunk, gasoline sloshing inside. "Down," I said while I spun the bolt finger tight.
Scott kneeled on the left side of the engine. "Got the fuel line connected."
Andrew was still on the right side, doing one last visual inspection. He nodded, rolling back on to his feet. "Go ahead and turn the gas on."
Scott turned the valve and I secured the seat. Andrew gave us a tight-lipped look as he folded out the kick starter. It took several attempts, but the engine did fire up, and much quicker this time.
The engine purred back to life, raising itself to a steady idle, forcing the moisture out of the cylinder. But the upward trend didn't stop. Just as it had the first time, the engine revved up higher and higher. Andrew hit the kill switch.
We exchanged glances.
"Well, now what?"
Andrew shrugged. "I don't know what's causing that," his head nodding to the motor. "I think it's safe to say a third attempt would be a waste of time."
Scott and I nodded. Less than two hours earlier, we had been filled with hope. We had had a problem. We had formed a plan. It had been empowering to act independently. Now that independence was squashed beneath our lack of troubleshooting experience.
"I can drive it," Scott said.
Andrew and I gave a simultaneous, "Huh?"
"It sounds like it’s at full throttle, right? I can drive it. Use the clutch like crazy." Scott looked back and forth between Andrew and I. He saw the skeptical look we exchanged. "What?"
"I don't know, Scott," I said. "Seems…dangerous. Plausible, sure, but what if something goes wrong?”
Andrew nodded. "I agree. Besides, it could be bad for the engine. We don’t want to fry our motor."
Scott conceded. "So if driving isn't an option, are we talking about a tow?"
"How far did away did you say the next town was?"
"About 15 miles."
We turned to the road. There had not been a ton of traffic, but several cars had passed since we had stopped.
"Scott…feel like flagging someone down?"
"I can try." He paused, eyes on the ground. "Actually," he looked up at Andrew and I, "it would probably be better if you guys tried."
Andrew grimaced while I suppressed a chuckle. "Uh…Scott, we don't speak Spanish."
He nodded. "Exactly. It's harder to turn down someone who's hopeless. People will probably just say 'no' to me, because they can say 'no.'"
"Let's all go," Scott said. "And try to look miserable."
"Shouldn't be too hard."
A blast rang out behind us.
My eyes shot to Andrew. He had already turned to me. Our eyes met for a split second, confusion between us. Then we grabbed the back of the sofa and wrenched our bodies around.
Several car lengths back was a semi truck and trailer. Gray smoke poured from the trailer’s left side, from the wheels on the inside of the road. A blowout. In the smoke, a dark mass pulsed, in rhythm with the truck’s speed. The shredding tire was rolling off its rim and with each rotation of the wheel, the distended rubber flapped more wildly. Within the first ten turns of the wheel, the rubber came off, the driver not even having had a chance to slow down.
Andrew and I had been so focused behind us that we gave no thought to oncoming traffic. There hadn't been any. But at the pinnacle of rubbery discharge, that precise instant the rim threw the tire, a motorcycle–traveling in the opposite direction–appeared.
The tattered tire was in motion, vicious and cyclonic. Its trajectory looked to intersect that of the motorcyclist. Did he have any idea what was about to happen? Smoke rolled out from under the trailer, distracting, obstructing. He wouldn't know to look for a chunk of rubber flying for him. How could he know he would need to dodge one?
The paths intersected. The projectile was true to its target. The man was struck by the rubber.
At that exact moment, the motorcycle and its operator vanished into the trailer’s cloud of smoke.
The rubber reappeared, spinning along the far side of the road, its momentum altered.
"What's going on, guys?" Scott called back.
We ignored him. We didn't have an answer. We were still waiting to see the outcome.
A break in the smoke. The motorcycle was still up, the operator's feet still poised on the pegs while his hands had a death grip on the bars—he was caught in the dreaded wobble. The bike gyrated between his legs, too far left, too far right, too far left, too far right, like a spinning top about to topple.
Caliente: Spanish for "hot." Though advertised as a hot shower, a more appropriate claim would have been agua no mucha fría, or "not so cold water." Still, it was one of the best showers of my life.
That water–there was a reason it was only not-so-cold. Like most Peruvian hotels untouched by a mass of gringo tourists from the west, this one was not plumbed with hot water. But the showers had been retrofitted with a head that had an integrated heating element.
I had anticipated an immediate shower, so after I christened the toilet I had not been that thorough in my cleanup. My cheeks were rubbed raw, so I stepped into the shower extra filthy. I reached for the valve of salvation, the one that would cleanse me of my digestive system’s sins, but my hand was stilled. Not by the appearance of a messenger or some other holy apparition; not by divine intervention or some other remote will; but by a gray tube that ran out of the ceiling and into a small breaker box next to the shower’s plumbing. The box had been painted to the wall—not glued or screwed, but painted. And the small gauge wires with the loose wrap of electrical tape that emerged from the box–they disappeared into the shower head. Electricity and water mix right? Isn’t is just that sometimes people get the recipe wrong?
I turned the tap. If the flow was too slow, the circuit broke. So for five minutes, I alternated between adjusting the flow density and resetting the breaker. I bounced, rocked, and gyrated under the water’s thermal awkwardness, and twitched, pulsed, and ticked with the electric current that flowed through my fingers. But the water was too fast to be heated before it rained down. It did take the edge off though, and for those next five minutes I did work with my bar of soap.
The drain looked awful. Water spiraled and concentrated the filth: the dust of the road, my residual fecal debris, my general negativity and loathing, all down the drain. Salvation. I dried, then collapsed into bed.


text:
A/N Hello All!
This story has been completely edited over and a few scenes have been added to further improve it's quality.
I hope you all enjoy ;)
Chapter 1 - Start of an Adventure
While I'm off chasing my own dreams,
sailing around the world,
please know that I'm yours to keep,
my beautiful girl
It was a particularly busy evening in New York City. Although it always seemed to be filled with cars honking and people hurriedly attending to whatever business they may have.
Even the harbors stretched across the long city were hectic. Men were loading boats with goods and supplies for journeys to far countries and voyages across the ocean. Ships and steamers, big and small could be seen up and down the shore, smoke pouring out the tall stacks. Most of the men lining the harbors were older and looked rough and dirty, although there were a few younger men working among them.
A disruptive horn rang through the bustling dock.
"Two thousand...c'mon Englehorn, it's a deal! Will you take a cheque?" A short and slightly rounded man was arguing with a taller and rougher looking man.
"Do I have choice?" The other man replied dryly, a German accent gracing his words. They stood in front of a rather small, beat up steamer. Compared to the other ships around them it definitely wouldn't be anyone's first choice.
The words 'Venture' were placed on the side of the ship.
Dehnam turned bright red and looked slightly embarrassed as he turned to the beautiful scarlet waiting patiently behind him. She looked rather intrigued by the ongoing argument between the two older men.
"Can we talk about this later?" He asked him in a higher voice, "Can't you see we're in the company of a VIP guest?"
Englehorn bowed his head slightly, "Ma'am."
"Ann Darrow," She responded hesitantly.
"So, are you ready for this voyage, Miss Darrow?" He asked, glaring ever so slightly in the Dehnam's direction.
"Sure," Ann replied shyly.
"Nervous?" He suggested, striking a match and lighting his cigarette.
"Nervous? No," She paused, confusion written on her face, "why should I be?"
"Not every woman would take such a risk," Englehorn informed her, an all knowing smirk on his face as he exhaled the smoke from his lungs.
Ann looked uneasily to Dehnam, who now looked desperate for an escape from this conversation.
"Preston!" He called out to a young man standing nearby, he wore glasses and looked a little too clean to be a regular in these areas.
As if reading his mind, he introduced himself to Ann and swept her aboard the ship before she could ask another question.
"Phew," Dehnam sighed in relief. That could have ended badly.
Englehorn opened his mouth to say something nasty to him, but was interrupted by an angry voice behind him.
"You better have a good explanation for this Dehnam."
Standing behind Englehorn was a young woman, who could be no older than seventeen or eighteen. She had long dark brown, with loose curls, that reach her mid-thigh and wide blue eyes, the color of the ocean. They complimented her pale face beautifully. She wore a long light violet dress and a dark grey jacket that looked as if it had seen much better days, but it certainly was appropriate for the chilly winter weather. She held two very large suitcases in each hand and look severely pissed off.
"May! How wonderful to see you again," He laughed nervously and walked over to help her with her luggage, "Where's Thomas?"
"He already went on, looking for Mike I think," She explained harshly.
Englehorn raised an eyebrow to the strange young woman, "And who might this be? Mr. Dehnam we never discussed bringing these woman aboard."
May gave him an angry glare, clearly not happy by the way he referred to her, "Why am I here if I am not wanted here Carl? I would be more than happy to go back home."
"No, no, no, no!" He exclaimed in protest, "We need you here May!"
Englehorn looked on, unimpressed, "Besides, I do not think your bags will fit in your room."
May, now looking even angrier, began to turn around. But Dehnam walked in front of her and put his hands up, "Please, without you our movie will not become what it is meant to be, we need you May!"
She sighed in defeat, she hated when he guilt tripped her doing things.
Dehnam looked around her shoulder to a very confused Englehorn, "This is May Beaulieu, she's the photographer, best in the entire city!"
"You only like me because I'm cheap," She muttered angrily, turning now to face Englehorn, "These suitcases are mostly filled with my equipment; I would have brought less but..." She glared at Dehnam once more.
"We need to make sure we get great shots!" He exclaimed, raising his hand in defense, "Now Englehorn! Time for us to go! Cast off! Hoist up the man sail; raise the anchor, whatever the hell it is you do. We gotta' leave!"
Englehorn, too annoyed to continue arguing simply nodded. "I hope you have a good trip Ms. Beaulieu." He said quietly to May as he walked by her, a strange look of warning set deep in his blue eyes.
May did not know what to make of this, so she ignored it. She said her final goodbyes to New York and followed Carl onto the steamer.
"Does anyone know where Jack is?" Carl yelled as soon as they were aboard, he rushed away and was soon out of sight.
May sighed, "This is going to be a very long trip," she was sure of it. Standing on the deck of the ship, facing the city, the engines of the steamer began to move and soon enough they were drifting farther and farther away.
She was not sure if she was going to miss the city, she had lived there all her life, but her life had not exactly been a wonderful one. She reached down, unbuckled one of her suitcases and pulled out one of her favorite cameras, The Vollenda, a German made camera from Nagel. She adjusted the lens and arranged the camera to face the bright city. A sharp click echoed throughout the deck.
'I wonder what Singapore is like,' She thought peacefully. Perhaps this would be an amazing trip; she would get to see the wonders of the world. There would be no tall dirty buildings and pollution. The ongoing depression would seem practically inexistent. Maybe she wouldn't want to return.
It was then that May decided that she was glad she was leaving.
But her thoughts were rudely interrupted by an angry voice cursing loudly beside her.
May turned to see a man with a terrified look on his face. He actually looked like he was going to jump in the water for a minute, but he seemed to decide against it. Suddenly Dehnam came up behind him.
"I keep telling you, Jack, there's no money in theatre." He said knowingly, with a smirk on his face, "You're much better off sticking with film."
The man gave Dehnam an exasperated look, "I don't do it for the money, Carl, I happen to love theatre."
Carl gave him a mocking look of disbelief, "Oh you don't," He looked with more seriousness out to the docks, "If you really loved it you would have jumped."
Looking out to the shore once more, May noticed that police cars now seemed to be lining the docks.
She shook her head in disbelief, 'Typical.'
May picked up her luggage and walked over to them both, "What exactly did you do this time Carl."
Jack turned when he noticed her approaching, but Carl just stood with a wide smirk on his face, looking out to the men cursing loudly on the dock, which was now very far away.
"Jack did I ever introduce you to May?" Carl asked enthusiastically.
Jack gave a small smile to the young woman, who looked slightly concerned for Carl's sanity.
She sighed, ignoring Carl for the moment, "May Beaulieu," She said warmly, with an attempted smile, "I'm the photographer."
He held his hand out and shook hers momentarily, "Jack Driscoll, I'm the writer," He informed her sadly.
She stared at him with wide-eyes, "You're Jack Driscoll?"
Jack looked surprised by her reaction, "Yes, have you heard of my work?"
"Yes, I have seen a few of your plays," May grinned, "They were spectacular."
Jack chuckled quietly, "Thanks, its nice to know some people still appreciate theater." He glanced in Carl's direction, where he was now smoking a pipe.
"The world of film is bigger and better than ever!" Carl announced dramatically, "And my film..." He looked to them both, "Our film, will make history!"
May sighed, too tired and annoyed to put up with him. "I'm going to go find my room, I'll see you two later," She looked to Jack and exchanged a small smile, before picking up her luggage and walking to the door that went below deck.
"You shouldn't have dragged her along Carl, shes young, she should be going to school and doing whatever else it is girls do at that age," Jack mumbled the last part, before shaking his head with a chuckle, "Am I really that old?"
"Older!" Carl smirked, raising a finger in the air, "She finished school early, smart one she is. Besides, I'm doing her a favor! She's being respectively paid for her photography services, believe me, she'll get any client after this film." He inhaled from his and puffed out rings of smoke.
"Yeah yeah," Jack sighed, waving the polluted air around his face, "I wish you wouldn't smoke those things around me."
"You truly are a strange man, my friend," Carl laughed, before succumbing to a vicious cough.
He raised an eyebrow at him, before turning to the door that May had just disappeared down, "Might as well start on the rest of that script, where's my room?"
"Oh, uh, Preston should be down there, he'll show you your room!" Carl explained with a nervous grin, "Tomorrow I'll introduce you to the star of m-, our film!"
"Already met him," Jack raised his lip in disgust, "Worse than I imagined he would be, all actors are the same," He shook his head and pulled a hand through his hair.
Carl responded with a creepy chuckle, "Oh no, Jack, the lead in this film is a woman."
Jack turned back around, "What? You brought another woman on board? Fantastic, I bet you the crew will love this."
"And so will you! Beautiful and smart, the perfect women, you'll realize this when you meet her tomorrow."
"There's no stopping you is there Carl?" Jack smiled weakly before turning around and heading down to meet Preston.
May looked out the small window in her cabin, admiring the clear night sky, full with stars and the moon shining brilliantly.
She had found Thomas, her assistant, or rather mentor, standing in the empty hallway below deck. He had been one of the most helpful people in her difficult life at the moment. He helped her with her suitcases and showed her too her small cabin that reeked of fish and tobacco. After wishing him a goodnight, she emptied her suitcases and decided to get some sleep. But she had found it difficult with the constant movement of the ship waking her up.
Finally, May came to the conclusion that we was not going to be sleeping anytime soon. So she left her room, a camera in her hand, and made her way back up to the deck.
There weren't many people on deck in the late night. Only a few of the men were still working on the ship.
May walked across the deck, in her flannel blue nightgown fluttering in the cool breeze, her old grey coat wrapped snugly around her shoulders. She walked slowly, until she found a small area away from all others, facing the beautiful crescent moon. She appreciated the beauty of this world far more than any other stuck up city girl ever would.
She held up her camera and took a few shots of the sky.
"Too bad I have to wait until we get back to develop them," She muttered in disappointment, "I can't wait to see how they turn out." She took a couple more shots.
"Oi! Who's down there?"
May jumped at the loud voice echoing through the quiet ship. 'Where did that come from?' She thought.
Suddenly, she looked up to what she assumed was the crow's nest and noticed a dark figure sitting way up there. It was slightly difficult to see him because of the darkness engulfing the ship.
"Um, I'm sorry, I couldn't sleep." She called out nervously, she was afraid of how the men on this ship would react to her being on board.
It was silent for a couple of minutes, until she could hear the loud laughter of a young man. She raised her eyebrow in confusion.
"I thought you were a ghost!" The voice said softly after the laughter died away, "I didn't know any women were coming along." His voice sounded younger, and not as rough as the men she heard speaking earlier.
She couldn't help but giggle at the thought, "A ghost? Why would you believe it to be a ghost?"
"This ship's really old, who knows what kind of spirits haunt the deck," His voice sounded menacing.
"Oh really?" She smiled brightly, "Well in that case I guess I'll have to watch out."
He laughed once more, although softer this time. "Anyways, I really should be going back to bed, Dehnam will be furious if I'm not up tomorrow morning." May told him sadly.
"I'll see you tomorrow then? My name's Jimmy by the way," He offered, she could almost hear the bright smile on his face.
"Yes I do hope so," She chuckled, "My name is May."
"Well g'night May, don't let the bedbugs bite." His chuckled again, although she was pretty sure he was serious.
"Goodnight Jimmy." She whispered.

domain: literature


text:
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domain: psychology


text:
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domain: health


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Nothing on tumblr has made me this instantly emotional.
he lookkS SO SAD NOOOOOOOO
I wonder if people do realize this sometimes. Police and Military Dogs are not treated as just animals or pets, they are literally treated as fellow officers/servicemen. If you attack or shoot or whatever a police dog, you will be likely arrested and sentenced with attacking a police officer.
They are seen as a fellow man to a police officer/serviceman.

domain: sociology


text:
A young fan has enjoyed a surprise visit to meet the stars behind a rating winning documentary series which focuses on the country’s longest road.
Jack Ryding, who is 12 and lives near York, is an avid viewer of the BBC documentary A1: Britain’s Longest Road which features Highways England traffic officers helping people on the A1.
Traffic officers who patrol the A1 organised the visit to the regional headquarters in Wakefield for Jack and his friend Freddie Marshall (12) to let them see for themselves what really goes on behind the scenes.
Series 3 of the show – which is currently airing on BBC1 at 11am and attracts around 1.5 million viewers per episode – focuses on the people working round the clock on Britain’s longest and most iconic road.
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Jack said: “I really love watching the documentary and coming to the North East control centre and meeting the team involved has been a great experience.
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Jack got to sit in the traffic officer vehicle, visit the control room and chat to the camera operators.
He also got a miniature traffic officer vehicle to take home as a souvenir of the day.
Highways England regional director Richard Marshall said: “The series has really captured the imagination of millions of BBC viewers of all ages, but at just 12 years old, Jack must be one of our youngest fans.
“Like so many other viewers, I am delighted that Jack is enjoying the programmes and appreciating the fantastic work which Highways England traffic officers and the rest of the team play in keeping the A1 safe on a daily basis.”
The series is airing each day on BBC1 at 11am and will be on until Friday 12 October.

domain: news


text:
I remember saying to someone a few years ago that the distance between you thinking of an idea for a project, and someone else coming up with the same idea independently and actually doing it is about twelve months, and today’s find just goes to prove my point. The bastards have only gone and done the thing that I wanted to do more than a year ago, which is to start a podcast series consisting of interviews/discussions with the great and the good in this weird corner of the musical universe, the world of playing for ballet classes.
The bastards in question are all wonderful colleagues, so I wish The Ballet Piano Podcast the best and warmest of luck with this great venture, and please get on and do some more. The first episode is a roundtable chat with Chris Hobson and his wife Akiko, the lovely Matt Gregory, and equally lovely ballet teacher David Yow. To actually get three pianists AND a teacher talking in the same room, on the record, is a miracle, and it says a lot about the people involved that they’ve managed to do it.
A packed and interesting programme of lectures/events at the DANSOX summer school in Oxford coming up (6th–8th July 2019), including a joint 2-hour presentation by me and Susie Crow based partly on our doctoral research into ballet classes. That’s on Sunday 7th, 4-15–6.15pm. I promise you, there’ll be a piano, dancing, and no PowerPoint, plus, I hope some interesting conversations about our nerdy interest in ballet class as a hot topic for discussion.
There’s a nice short video here about DANSOX by Prof. Susan Jones
Not content with just one reworking, some exercises, like Op 335 No. 6 have six.
Czerny Op 335 No. 6: reworked in six different versions by Rudy Apffel
In the wrong hands (what a great metaphor for a pianist-related post!) this kind of music can sound so drab, just the kind of thing that should be banned from ballet classes forever. But Apffel’s reworkings are witty and clever, and hold a mirror back to the original that make you hear it differently. There’s one in the style of Prokofiev’s “Dance of the Knights,” for example, but my favourite is the jazz waltz rendering. If you didn’t know it was based on Czerny, you could believe it had been a No. 1 chanson in Paris in the 1950s. Sometimes when you come to rearrange things like this you realize that the underlying composition is cleverer than you realized, obscured by a patina of tired familiarity.
This is such a magnificent labour of love, but I fully understand Apffel’s fascination with Czerny. I think it’s Taruskin who said that there are two Beethovens (or Bachs? Or Mozarts?—I’ll correct this if I’m wrong another time) —there’s Beethoven, and “Beethoven.” The one in scare quotes is the composer that comes with all the baggage—the music appreciation classes you hated, the feeling that you had to like the music even if you didn’t, the way that people look in concert halls as they’re listening to his music. Without the scare quotes, you might feel quite differently about the music (for good or ill, as it happens, with some of the great names).
Likewise, with Czerny: there’s Czerny the fun composer, Czerny the man who worked like crazy, with so many simultaneous projects on the go that he reputedly set them all out on different desks in his study, spending an hour at each in succession in order to make progress on them all (even if the story isn’t true, I love it); Czerny whose exercises dance and sing and convey drama. Then there’s “Czerny,” the scourge of young pianists, who are handed the books of exercises as if they were not really music, but “merely” technical machines to improve technique, like those things 19th dancers used to splay their feet in to improve their turnout. “Czerny” the abandoned sheet music in the Oxfam shop, with a stained cover, musty smell, and pencilled ticks and music teachers’ fingerings in. I feel sick just thinking about it.
Take away the scare quotes, and there’s a joyful, imaginative composer here with a staggering wealth of material, and that’s what Rudy Apffel is mining with his new arrangements and reimaginings. There’s a danger that you might miss Apffel’s humour and ingenuity if you just turn on a single track and think “I wonder if I could use this for tendus?” Get inside the music, listen to them as a series, compare one with the other, and this is a wonderful musical journey. One of the things I especially like is the use of technology to do the impossible—freely admitted by Apffel!— as in this Schubert-Impromptu-Meets-Czerny-Op 335 No. 18.
When I first learned to drive, I read a book about the police driving test, in which you had to do a “commentary drive,” which involves describing to the examiner (while you’re driving) what you are observing on the road ahead, explaining the decisions you’re making, the precautions you’re taking, and so on. I often think of this during ballet class, because as any ballet pianist will tell you, although we seem to “just” play when the exercise starts, there’s a whole series of observations, analyses and decision-making processes going on before we lay a finger on the keyboard, and then a dozen more as we’re actually playing, some of which are so quick as to seem unconscious and instantaneous. For the novice pianist trying to learn something about how to play for class, watching another pianist has limited use, because you don’t know why they’re doing what they do. Sometimes, they don’t know either, or have forgotten by the time class is over. That’s why the video below by ballet pianist Joshua Piper (aka heavypiano) is really useful: he’s filmed a real class, with him playing, put it on YouTube, and put a short text commentary over it, usually at the beginning and ends of exercises, so you can see why he’s doing what he’s doing. [If you can’t see the embedded video, click here to see it on YouTube]
He explains, for example, that at a certain point in the barre, the teacher likes a “less is more” approach to the music, so he holds back, avoiding too much subdivision, playing chords in light touches, which gives the dancers space to move, so to speak; elsewhere he talks about trying to maintain tempo, and create a feeling of ebb and flow, of introducing a bit of stride, but not too heavy. It’s a great lesson on making your repertoire stretch, too—adapting tunes according to the tempo and feel of the exercise, so that you only just realise by the end that you know the tune, but in a different form (I’m thinking here of his styling of Korobeiniki, a.k.a. the Tetris theme.
He emphasises that what’s happening in this class at times is fairly unusual: the teacher wants him to play quiet, thin, and spacious music for exercises that would often be accompanied by more robust, circussy stuff. But that’s why the video is so useful—it demonstrates how a particular pianist adapts his style to a particular teacher and the dancers, rather than making any claims that you can apply the same musical template to every ballet class in the world. It’s the necessity to adapt that is what makes the job difficult, but also rewarding. One of my favourite comments is where he says he’s trying to “imply round movement with my LH pattern” in ronds de jambe,an exercise that’s normally taken in 3/4, but which he’s playing in 4. Finding ways to trick people’s ears into thinking they’re hearing three when they aren’t is one of my tactics, too, as I’ve described in another post.
This is a great video, and Joshua Piper plays beautifully—but I also have to say he’s lucky to have this teacher, and that class (I’m guessing it’s Ballet Austin, but I’m not sure). There are other videos to be made, where the pianist—like a police driver explaining how he is going to manoeuvre a skidding car out of a muddy ditch while pursuing criminals— shows how they try to make the eternal fondu-tango-that-is-too-slow or the ronds-de-jambe-stirring-porridge-waltz still feel like music against the most challenging odds.
The more I watch and listen to this video, the more I love the way Joshua Piper plays, his repertoire, stylings, and commentary—and the video itself, too: it makes such a nice change to have a static, wide camera angle, and a focus on a good quality recording of the sound, rather than a body mic given to the teacher, and fetishistic close-ups of dancers’ feet and sweaty faces. Ballet on TV is so darn predictable. This video gives you a feel for the calm, peaceful concentration that you get in a ballet classes, and an idea of just how exposed and focal the music can be when you’ve got a teacher who isn’t screaming over the top of it.
Film clips of ballet pianists playing for class are so rare. There are films (such as the World Ballet Day online classes) where pianists play for a class that is being broadcast, but that is quite a different thing. The pianists are usually already in place in their corner, expertly making the class work, the piano mic’d and mixed in with a mic feed from the teacher, so that you never hear what a class sounds like as a natural observer, from a particular corner of the room. You don’t see the moment the pianist walks into the studio, whether they have music with them or not, how they are greeted (if at all) by the teacher, or what kind of people they are when they are not playing the piano.
So it was great to find this short clip, (starting at 28:20—should start playing there automatically) in The Children of Theatre Street (1977) a feature length documentary, with Grace Kelly, about what is now called the Vaganova Academy.
The voiceover intones mournfully, “Maria Ioseyevna Pal’tseva has walked these halls for 40 years. Like Madam Frankopolo [?], she has become part of the fabric of the school. The dancers come and go, but Pal’tseva remains, going from class to class with her purse and her old bag of music.”
Meanwhile, Pal’tseva is filmed walking down the corridor; the camera shifts to behind the piano, and shows her ambling slowly towards it. There is an almost embarrassing wait—as if editing hadn’t been invented in 1977— while the pianist puts her “old bag of music” on the floor, and places her right foot on the sustain pedal almost before she has finished sitting down properly. And no wonder: without a second thought, she provides a tinkling flourish to accompany the entrance of the teacher into the room.
There then follows a short interaction where the teacher explains to Palt’seva what the exercise is, and what music she wants for it. It’s a noticeable contrast to the 2007 film about the young English dancer Henry Perkins who studied at the Bol’shoi, where the pianist was invisible, and just supplied music on demand as the teacher barked “AGAIN” repeatedly at his student.
Both may be fictions. I doubt whether such interactions ever happened in quite that way in real classes in 1977 (any more than they do now). Documentary makers seem to swing between portraying idealized forms of collaboration, or cherry-picking tense moments which they may even have induced themselves, so I am likewise cautious about drawing any conclusions about the status of the pianist in the Bolshoi documentary. But that’s precisely why I find these clips interesting. You have to unpick so many strands of fiction to get at any kind of truth, and to do so would involve a lot of difficult work.
In a previous post about the so-called “lyrical waltz” (a term sometimes used by some ballet teachers) I took a long time to come to the conclusion that perhaps “lyrical” in this instance is not so much a quality of the music, as of what may be done to it. The more I think about this, the more I am convinced of that explanation, and am enjoying developing the idea further by applying some theory to it.
I think that for the teacher who asks for a lyrical waltz, the boundaries between the properties of the music, and what it affords, are blurred. You could go further: music has only the properties that we assign to it, using whatever categories and terms we happen to bring to it; so for the teacher, if music affords lyrical movement, then the music itself is deemed to be lyrical. A nappy bucket, likewise, is so called for the things that it affords, or is commonly used for (washing nappies) but there is nothing inherently nappy-like about the bucket.
Think of music as a bucket, and it’s easier to see that there no such musical object as a waltz in the sense of something that has intrinsically waltz-like properties, but there are “waltz buckets”: pieces of music that you can fit the movements of waltzes to. This is much clearer with contemporary ballroom dancing, where the waltz-like qualities or propensities of music that you’ve hitherto only been able to hear as a ballad become evident when you see waltzing done to it, as in the example below from Strictly Come Dancing, where waltzing to Hallelujah points up the three-ness at one level of the metrical structure. Having said that, what happens on Strictly is so far removed from the practicalities of everyday ballet classes that it’s not a great example, frankly.
What confuses the issue is perhaps the fact that there are so many musical compositions called waltz that seem to “call forth” waltzing, as if it was something about the properties of the sounds themselves that did the calling-forth. But if you have ever stood unmoved and unmoving while some dance music played that seems to be animating people around you into joyful, seemingly spontaneous dancing, you’ll probably have to admit that enculturation is important (unless you’re the kind to say that there was something better about the waltz than there is about whatever is being played in clubs now).
Enter Tia DeNora, and theories of affordance and perception
This has been articulated theoretically by the music sociologist Tia DeNora in After Adorno (2003), in relation to music, obviously, rather than nappy-buckets:
Music comes to afford things when it is perceived as incorporating into itself and/or its performance some property of the extra-musical, so as to be perceived as ‘doing’ the thing to which it points. (DeNora 2003, p. 57)
Earlier, she has explained this with reference to marching music:
Music may also afford the imaginative projection of bodily movement, as when one ‘pictures’ a type of movement when hearing a type of music. The example of marching music serves to illustrate these points. On hearing march music one may (but not automatically—see below) be reminded of or begin to imagine—to ‘picture’ marching. One may, in other words, become motivated or aroused in relation to a type of agency—marching—to a particular movement style, and one associated with a particular set of institutional practices and their particular agent-states, such as bodily regulation, coordination, and entrainment. One may ‘become’ (produce one’s self as) a ‘marcher”—that is, on the occasion of music heard, one may adapt one’s self to its perceived properties and so become, via the music, a type of agent, in this case, one imbued with march-like, militaristic agency. (DeNora 2003, p. 47)
A ballet teacher asking for a lyrical waltz is a rather strange reversal of this, in that she is in effect saying “Play me a piece of music in waltz rhythm that will enable me to picture myself moving lyrically, so that when I hear it, I and the class will then be motivated or aroused to move in that way.” Or perhaps, more accurately, the subtext is: “I have been told by my teachers that if I use the term lyrical waltz, you will play me a piece of music in waltz rhythm that will enable me to picture myself moving lyrically” etc.
The trouble is, the teacher usually does not know how to define a lyrical waltz in terms that have any meaning or currency for musicians, and cannot cite or sing any examples of one; but like Justice Potter Stewart and hard-core pornography, she will know it when she hears it. (In Jacobellis v. Ohio, 1964, giving his reasons for deciding that something should not be considered hard-core pornography, the judge said, in a statement which has since become famous, “I shall not today attempt further to define the kinds of material I understand to be embraced within that shorthand description; and perhaps I could never succeed in intelligibly doing so. But I know it when I see it. . . “).
Implications for teaching
It is things like this that make playing for ballet so wretchedly difficult at times. At the same time, trying to unpick the problems theoretically fascinates me, particularly when this has implications for the way that music is taught or thought about in ballet training. For example, the teacher who says “Can’t you hear it in the music?” may be barking completely up the wrong tree. DeNora speaks (in the quotation above) about institutional practices and movement styles, and how the conventional association of particular music with such practices is what enables us to perceive (or perhaps tricks us into perceiving) a certain piece of music as “march” music, or whatever. That being the case, what will enable the student to “hear” music as lyrical is to do lyrical movement to it, in the style and manner encouraged by the teacher. The music alone holds no clues, no “information” on its own.
To a limited extent—and I’d be interested to know if the experiment could be repeated elsewhere with the same results—my late colleague Holly Price and I discovered this in relation to teaching about “dance rhythms.” You could chalk-and-talk til you were blue in the face about the properties and characteristics of dance rhythms from a musical point of view (e.g. the waltz is in three four time, the polka has this rhythm, the hornpipe has these characteristics), but it was much more effective to just get a class of students to polka, waltz or hornpipe or whatever, around the studio for a couple of minutes to the relevant kind of music.
The lyrical waltz and the not-so-grand allegro
An associated problem, though, is that both music and movement are adaptable. You can do the same movement to different kinds of music, and the same music will fit different kinds of movement. Only in the last few weeks—and I’ve been playing for class for over 30 years— I realised that a certain kind of grand allegro is ideally accompanied by the kind of (wait for it) lyrical, 6/8 music that opens the pas de trois in Swan Lake, or the entrée of Odalisques from Le Corsaire.
The pas de trois from Act I of Swan Lake by Tchaikovsky.
The entrée of the “Odalisques” in Le Corsaire. It’s more allegro than it looks
I realised about Odalisques because I was playing for a repertoire class where the teacher explained to the students the amount of energy and dynamics they needed to put into the movement, which made me realise how “allegro-y” it was, contrary to the way it looks on the page and feels under the fingers. As for Swan Lake, this was a rare example of a teacher (the wonderful Romayne Grigorova) citing the prime example of what she was after.
In both cases, the music may not seem to be dynamically the equivalent of grand allegro (which is the test that I think a lot of us ballet pianists would apply) but it affords a certain kind of grand allegro, and the music would be associated in the minds and bodies with the choreography customarily done to it. It seems counterintuitive at first glance, but it makes sense: this is about doing energetic movements with grace and lyricism (there, I said it again).
It’s been a bit of a week for finding things. I had a lovely email from a visitor to my site following the last few posts, asking if I knew where to find a piano score of La forêt enchantée which provides some of the material for the Grand pas des éventails in Le Corsaire (see clip below—it’s not in all Corsaires). The only one I knew of, from the wonderful www.balletmusic.ru site, was incomplete, and frustratingly, it’s some of the best bits that are missing. But it niggled me: I had had a score of the waltz once, with all the pages intact—I’ve even recorded it—so like a dog with a bone, I pursued it. Sure enough, here it is, a complete, downloadable piano reduction of La forêt enchantée from the Sergeyev collection at Harvard. As if that’s not enough, it’s got the dedication “to my dear friend Nikaloi Grigorovich Sergeyev from Riccardo Drigo, St Petersburg, 20.1.1910” on the inside title page, in the most elegant cyrillic script.
The Pygmalion solo
The beginning of the “Pygmalion” variation: click the score to download
There’s a solo from the Grand pas des éventails (at 13’15” in the video clip above) from another ballet, Pygmalion that I just happen to have done a piano reduction of. It’s short and sweet, and you can’t use it for much else except the variation, because it soon hares off into a coda, but it’s rather nice. And I can guarantee someone will ask you to play it and there won’t be a score anywhere in sight.
If I ever get to play what I think of as “a waltz” for class (you know, the rollicking, flowing, swaying kind that has a pendulum swing in it that propels you forward without ever getting tired) , I mentally crack open the champagne. Ninety percent of the time in class, you’re trying to find something that is waltz-like, but not exactly “a waltz.” I suspect the problem is that the waltzes we know from the concert repertoire were made more for ears than legs. I have rarely, if ever, found a suitable moment in a ballet class to play Léhar’s Lippen schweigen (“The Merry Widow Waltz”), yet that’s one of the first tunes that comes to mind when someone says “waltz.” Over ten years, many of the posts on this site have hovered around this topic in one way and another, to the extent that I’ve now created a page listing the “waltz problem” posts.
The sound of three heads turning
Much of the music you’re asked for in class has zen-like conundrums in the specifications. A colleague said he’d been asked by one teacher for a “melting march.” Sounds familiar: I tried to solve a similar problem with what I called a “chameleon-like March by Granados). Waltzes for multiple pirouettes are similarly taxing: you need something slow, but not too squidgy. Rhythmic, but with space for allowing more turns without sounding naff. Elastic and steppy for balancés, but then with three sharp beats that can signify three “heads” for a triple pirouette.
If there’s a model for the tune that can accommodate all this, then perhaps it’s the opening theme of Kaiserwalzer Op. 437 by Johann Strauss II:
But it doesn’t last long, and it’s played so often for classes, you can only use it sparingly.
That’s why Dvořák’s Prague Waltzes is such a find. Like the old slogan for Andrex toilet paper, it’s soft, strong, and very, very long. If you’ll forgive the comparison, the design problems of pirouette music and toilet paper are not so dissimilar. Beats in waltz music need a softness combined with a tensile strength such that they can hold together and stretch without breaking, but also separate with a quick tug when you need them to. And here you have it: pages and pages of pirouette music that does all the right things (though I’ve made a few minor cuts to make it class-ready).
Prague Waltzes is a useful model of what “waltz” can mean. This composition is evidence that waltzes don’t just go “1 2 3 1 2 3” — there’s a whole world of varied accents and tempos and rhythms within a single phrase. Most significantly, in my view, there’s a lift/accent/length/weight, call it what you will, in the middle of the bar rather than beginning, and often a sense of direction towards the third beat, not the first; sometimes there are three separate gestural beats in a bar, not three subsumed into one. Prague Waltzes also provides many examples of how to vary and extend a waltz idea when you’re improvising.
I also love the title, having spent every 14 of the last 15 years playing for the International Ballet Masterclasses in Prague. It’s a city I will associate forever with ballet, playing for some of the best and nicest people in the ballet world. I wish i’d had this music for some of them, however, considering how many hours of pirouettes I must have played for.
Tempo for Prague Waltzes
I left the allegro vivace on this arrangement out of deference to the orchestral score, but to me this doesn’t sound right given what’s on the page, and so the metronome marking range is mine. I like the tempo that Jirí Belohlavek takes it with the Prague Symphony Orchestra (I also like to think they must know what they’re doing with this Czech music). For class, you could take it even slower, and pull it about in different ways as necessary. Belohlavek plays around with the tempo quite a lot for the sake of concert interest, but the opening sections are the kind of tempo which works well for a lot of pirouette exercises.
You’d think that if ballet teachers have a mental model of how a polonaise goes, this would be a distillation of all the polonaises they’d ever heard, the top of the bell curve, just as when you go to buy a door, you expect that the shop will have a selection of them that resembles your idea of what a door is, even if the panelling and materials are different. Polonaises like the teacher’s model should be a dime a dozen in the repertoire, you’d think.
But they’re not. As I’ve written elsewhere there’s hardly a polonaise in the ballet repertoire that you can play for class straight out of the box. They have all kinds of little annoyances in them—2 bar fills, 10 bar phrases, four bar phrases, 5-phrase sections. They’re too slow, or too fast, too lyrical, or too complex rhythmically. So you hunt again, and find another breed of polonaise that, if it was a food product, would have the ominous word flavour on the label. Polonaise flavour. Contains polonaise flavouring. A teacher wrote to me recently, asking why it was that the grand battement on a polonaise she’d tried out for class didn’t work—she wanted to cross-phrase it so the leg went up on 1, 3 and 5 across a two-bar phrase (i.e. 1 2 3 4 5 6—a hemiola, in musical terms). She knew exactly what she was doing, but it didn’t work. I wasn’t there, but I would put money on the reason being that the pianist used a polonaise-flavoured room spray, rather than the eau de parfum.
Triple meter and the polonaise —(trigger warning: meter theory, including some hemiola)
Metrically speaking, the eau de parfum of the ballet teacher’s polonaise is one in which all the beats of the bar are equal, so that if you want to cross-phrase, hemiola fashion, you can. The classic case from the pianist’s repertoire is the opening section of Chopin’s A major “military polonaise” Op. 40 No. 1, or the final polonaise in Tchaikovsky’s Suite No. 3 (used in Balanchine’s Theme and Variations). But many polonaises aren’t like this. They tend, like the middle section of the Chopin polonaise I just mentioned, towards a kind of unequal meter, with the first part twice as long as the second (2+1). Even if you try to play with metronomic accuracy, there’s going to be a pull towards unevenness, either on the part of the performer or listener.
This is a much bigger issue than it might appear on the surface. In Beating Time & Measuring Music in the Early Modern Era ,Roger Grant devotes a chapter to “a renewed account of unequal triple meter” which sets out the problem. Somewhere in the 16th century, triple meter became “grounded in a basic inequality.” Beating duple time consisted of an equal lowering and raising of the hand, whereas triple time involved a lowering (i.e. a downbeat) of double the length of the upbeat. In this form, “triple meter was an unequal meter, similar in nature to the unbalanced meters in five or seven with which we are familiar in the twenty-first century” .
Now get this:
In theoretical writings of the past forty years, however, triple meter no longer garners special treatment. It has become, for the most part, an equivalent of duple meter with different cardinality (that is, a different number of beats per measure). In these theories, triple meter is an isochronous meter—all of its parts are equal in length. This is the result of recent scholarship’s heavy theoretical investment in the properties of equal division and graduated hierarchy. .
Although Grant is here comparing theoretical perspectives, as a ballet pianist, you see this played out all the time in practice, and the polonaise problem I outlined above can be analysed in precisely these terms. The teacher has a conception of triple meter—in the polonaise, at least—in which the 3/4 bar is an isochronous meter, i.e. three equal beats. A lot of music in 3/4 isn’t like this. There is an unequal ebb and flow in the bar, a proportion of 2:1. Even if the pulse you’re playing to is even, the rhythm of the music draws you into this pattern, so that if you’re trying to cross-phrase your grands battements, the music pulls in another direction. Nonetheless, there are some polonaises which are examples of isochronous triple meter, and Tchaikovsky, when he’s polonaising, tends towards this pattern. The trouble is, most of them aren’t good for class for one reason or another (including overfamiliarity if you’re playing for a company).
Enter Nápravník, on an isochronous triple meter
This one by Nápravník is one of the rare pieces I’ve found in years of searching that comes close to the model of the ballet teacher’s polonaise without sounding like it’s been knocked together out of two-by-fours and MDF. Czech by birth, Eduard Nápravník was principal conductor at the Mariinsky Theatre, and conducted many of Tchaikovsky’s works, including the first performance of the 1st piano concerto, and the posthumous performance of the Pathètique. At the double bill premiere of Iolante and The Nutcracker, Nápravník conducted the opera, Drigo the ballet.
The date of Nápravník’s opera Dubrovsky, 1895, suggests that if there’s any influence, it must have been from Tchaikovsky to Nápravník. But with Tchaikovky’s documented respect for Czech composers—he “unreservedly praises Saint-Saëns, Delibes, Massenet, Grieg, Svendsen, Dvořák, and in the latter’s train Zdeněk Fibich, Karel Bendl, Karel Kovařovic, and Josef Bohuslav Foerster” and for Nápravník, it’s not inconceivable that perhaps some of the influence flowed in the other direction.
Like so many other polonaise composers, Nápravník doesn’t write in blocks of 4 x 8 bar phrases, so I’ve had to cut it in places, and double up a four-bar phrase in another to make it usable for class. It was very hard to decide how to do this without committing a crime against music, but I think it’s worth it. Some of the cuts and repeats feel criminal to me, but I think of all the times in real life productions where choreographers have cut or repeated, and once you’ve heard it a couple of times, you get used to it. Cuts, like murder, get easier after the first time.
I haven’t simplified the arrangement, as if the exercise is slow, you might be grateful of having something to play while you wait for the next beat to arrive. There’s no getting away from it, polonaises are just difficult to play, particularly this kind. There’s a rather lovely trio section in the middle which has echoes of one of the servant girls’ chorus (“Dyevitsy krasavitsy”) in Onegin. Given thatNápravník conducted the first performance of that opera, and would have known it well, the similarity is perhaps not surprising.
I’ve just had an email from a teacher, asking me what I understand by the term “Lyrical Waltz.” Short answer, I don’t understand anything by it, but the long answer is that I’m rather fascinated by how a term like this can gain such currency over a long time, without apparently having much meaning.
Lyrical waltz: a potted personal history
The first time I heard the term “lyrical waltz” was when I started work at the RAD back in 1986. I think it was something that teachers had been told was a meaningful musical term to use to pianists. I used to improvise waltzes that started with a dotted quarter note + three eighth-note pattern (as in the Sleeping Beauty lilac fairy attendants example below). I soon ran out of ideas. I think the reason I associated this pattern with “lyrical” was because somewhere in a syllabus book there was an exercise that had “lyrical waltz” as a tempo indication, and that’s roughly how the music went.
Lilac fairy attendants from Sleeping Beauty (Tchaikovsky). When I hear “lyrical waltz” I think of this rhythmic pattern of dotted quarter note + three eighth notes. But I’m not convinced that’s good enough.
What—if anything—is a lyrical waltz?
Over the years, I have tried to work out what, if anything, a “lyrical waltz” is in musical terms, but have only come up with more questions.
Does it mean something that has the quality of a song? That doesn’t really work, because there are plenty of songs that have a bombastic quality.
Does it have a melody that is song-like, rather than being motif-based like the Act 1 waltz in Swan Lake, or the opening of waltz of the flowers in Nutcracker, where you can hear the composer at work, rather than the singer. However, as soon as you start singing these tunes, they have a song-like quality, they’re singable. Back to square one.
Does it mean something that has more eighth-note motion than 1-in-a-bar feel? Not an infallible criterion, because there are 1-in-a-bar waltzes which could be described as lyrical, and eighth-note ones which aren’t.
Does it just mean slow? I don’t think so, because teachers who have ever asked for this didn’t (I think) want something ponderous
Does it mean something where the melody takes precedence over the accompaniment, i.e. something like La plus que lente by Debussy? Up to a point, but if teachers use the word “waltz” at all, I presume they’re expecting more rhythmic predictability than this.
Lyrical waltz—a pedagogical category only?
By “pedagogical category” I mean a term that has arisen from a teaching context, but has little relation to the world outside, but has somehow stuck. Whoever started using it may have had a particular waltz in mind, like the “Lyrical Waltz” of Shostakovich, from which they extrapolated a category, without giving it much thought. I think this happens a lot—where people like a single tune, not realising that what they like about it is particular, not generic. Take La cumparsita which people have sometimes used as a generic template for “tango” — when it’s about the only tango that goes like that, and in fact, was never a tango in the first place, but a march. As an illustration of this in practice, a colleague told me of a class where the teacher had sung a tune while she marked the exercise, and then said “But don’t play that. Play something similar.” You guessed it: after a few try-outs, she said “You know what, just play what I sang.”
Incidentally, this is the opposite of that odd, ballet-only scenario where a teacher will ask for “The same thing” by which they don’t mean literally the same thing, but something that is in metre, tempo, style and feel the same, without being, you know, the same. This is where the everyday German distinction between das Gleiche and dasselbe is useful. There might be an interesting intersection here between musicology and everyday ballet class practice. In Music, Imagination and Culture (1991), Nicholas Cook writes of the tendency to “hear works as individuals rather than as exemplars of a type” (p. 147) and that this is a “defining principle of the aesthetic attitude,” citing Dahlhaus’s Analysis and Value Judgement (1983, pp. 13-14). In my experience, ballet pianists are much more attuned to attuned to what dance forms are as a genre than classically trained musicians. Ask the latter for “a polonaise” and they’ll play an exemplar, of which they probably only know a couple of the Chopin compositions, without being aware of the things that make it a polonaise in the first place.
Lyrical waltz—or little waltz?
One teacher I play for often asks for “A little waltz” and for some reason, I know exactly what she means, though it could also be the tone of voice and gesture that conveys the idea. “Little” to me here suggests something in moderate tempo, moderate volume, not bombastic, not grand, with a smooth melody line, perhaps like the Tchaikovsky E flat major waltz Op. 39 , or the Little Waltz by Teresa Carreño. A piano piece, rather than an orchestral number reduced for piano. A miniature. Little is a more productive and meaningful term for me than lyrical, though I’m still not convinced it helps. I’m also referring mentally to particular pieces that have an overall quality elicited in performance more than composition.
Lyrical—just a name, rather than a category?
I searched around for “lyrical waltz” on Google, and then for Valse Lyrique. Once you exclude Shostakovich or Sibelius, it’s not a huge list, so the idea that there was once a whole category of waltzes called “lyrical” is suspect (though you’ll find quite a few of them on ballet pianists’ albums, which supports my theory that it’s a pedagogical term, not a real-life one).
In the US Library of Congress Catalog of Copyright Entries 1945 (Music) New Series Vol 40 Pt 3 No 10 there are more compositions in the index with the word “Valse” in the title than “waltz,” and only a handful with the term “lyric.” When you look at the list of adjectives associated with “valse,” (see below) apart from lyrique including erotic, beige, parfumée, you begin to wonder whether any of them have much meaning, except as a way of flogging a generic composition as if it might be particular. Perhaps lyrical is doing the work of organic, natural, new, advanced, healthy, free-from! in food-labelling. If we’re fooled by food labels, I’m sure we can be taken in by sheet music covers.
Extract from the Catalog of Copyright Entries (Music) 1945, compositions with the title “Valse”
Postscript: Is “a lyrical waltz” something to do with the body, not music?
Once I’d written this, I began to wonder whether the term “lyrical” has some purchase with dance teachers because of the genre of lyrical dance, in which case maybe it means “the kind of music I can do emotionally charged slow bendy dance to.” That opens the field up more, without the need to get too metrical-technical about the music.

domain: artistic


text:
The Diet passed a 79.69 trillion yen budget for fiscal 2006 on Monday with the backing of Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi’s ruling coalition.
With the approval of the budget for the year starting April 1, lawmakers are expected to shift their focus to the upcoming race for the next prime minister and a government blueprint to restore Japan’s debt-ridden finances as well as bills for medium-term reforms to curb administrative and public medical expenses.
“Now that the budget’s passage during the (current) fiscal year is realized, I will work for its smooth implementation from April to consolidate the economic recovery,” Koizumi later told a news conference, adding he hopes to end deflation as soon as possible.
The fiscal 2006 general-account budget is 3.0 percent smaller than the initial fiscal 2005 budget due to spending cuts in a range of policy areas and projected growth in tax revenues for fiscal 2006.
It marks the first time in eight years that an initial general-account budget has fallen below 80 trillion yen. A key feature of the budget is a drop in the issuance of new government bonds below 30 trillion yen for the first time in five years.
Koizumi reiterated that he intends to serve until the end of his term as head of the governing Liberal Democratic Party in September, and voiced hope that someone with a sense of responsibility, insight into policy priorities and passion to realize them succeeds him and his reform path.
The approval process was completed when the House of Councilors voted on the budget Monday evening. The budget, which will cover the new fiscal year that begins Saturday, had already been approved by the House of Representatives.
The revenue-expenditure reform blueprint, to be unveiled in June, may touch on specific levels of spending cuts for key fields, including social security. They could also call for tax increases, including a hike in the consumption tax from the current 5 percent.
Finance Minister Sadakazu Tanigaki has said that along with drastic cuts in government spending in inefficient areas, the consumption tax needs to be raised from the current level, especially given that the rapidly aging population will expand social security costs — the biggest chunk of policy-related expenditures — by 1 trillion yen a year from now.
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domain: economics