Thomasina’s last waltz

Getting “into” classical music

The other day FK of Classical Review posed the question: “Would more people get ‘into’ classical music by hearing it first on CD or in a concert hall?”

I’m assuming the question is about getting into classical music generally, as opposed to getting into specific musical works. And since it’s a hypothetical question as it stands, I’m going to turn it into something more personal if not necessarily more scientific:

What got you “into” classical music?

Was it hearing the music on recordings, was it hearing the music in the concert hall, was it hearing the music used in some incidental way (soundtracks, advertisements…),  or was it something else?

This post is my answer. You’re invited to share a response in the comments, or to write your own blog post and leave a link here. (Does that make it a meme? Maybe.)

*****

I got into classical music as a kid, when I was too young to be taken to formal concerts, but not too young to ask for my favourite records to be put on.

The family record collection was probably 75 per cent musical theatre and 25 per cent classical (orchestral) music.  So strictly speaking, the musical genre that I first got “into” was musical theatre and I got into that solely via recordings, since I was in late primary school before I saw any musicals on the stage. (By contrast I’ve never been interested in recordings of opera and my interest in that genre is solely from performances.)

Anyhow, classical music. Recordings first. No prepping or priming or earnest guidance from my parents. The music was there simply to be listened to and enjoyed. I didn't particularly identify what I was listening to as “classical” music. It was all just music, from Scheherazade to Eagle Rock. I knew I preferred the Rimsky-Korsakov by a long shot, but I wasn’t making any particular genre distinctions with the exception of one: singing and no-singing.

But recordings were only part of the picture. There was a piano in the house, my big sister was taking lessons, and at some point I began fooling around, trying to work out notation with the aid of one of those paper charts that sit at the back of the keyboard and improvising what I called “fairy music”. This was probably maddening, formal lessons were in order!

But there’s more, and if this next factor wasn’t the real reason I got “into” classical music, it certainly has influenced my taste in the long term. It’s dance, specifically ballet. I first heard live orchestral music not in a concert hall but in the theatre, in a production of Giselle that I saw when I was about 6 or 7. The first accomplished pianist I heard play regularly was the ballet school accompanist. The music I most liked to listen to, I realise now, was often ballet music or at least well-suited to dance. My favourite mode of “listening” involved moving. There were plenty of concert works I heard for the first time in the theatre, for example Ravel’s Piano Concerto in G (which I loved, aged 9) and Webern Opus 5 (which I hated, aged 14). And I grew up revelling in the colour and buoyancy of Russian and French music and the elegant rhythms and phrases of baroque music.

All in all, it was a gradual immersion that began at a very young age, first with recordings and then through the theatre. My attraction to classical concerts is really part of a bigger love for live performance generally, and it seems to have emerged as much from a childhood of going to plays and ballets as from the music itself.

To my shame, the memory of my earliest classical concerts is really hazy. There was my first studio concert, in which I played some little beginner piece in the midst of a program of lieder and advanced repertoire (the other students were all much older and mostly singers). My teacher also conducted the Western Sinfonia, and I recall going to a couple of those concerts, probably when I was in primary school. Around the same time there was the SSO concert in the Sydney Town Hall to which I was taken in fervent anticipation of seeing and hearing a harp. There was a harp, but not as soloist; I was very disappointed.

The first orchestral concert that I really remember was the SSO, in the Opera House, with Jean-Pierre Rampal as soloist. I was at least 12, because I’d begun learning flute. Mum and I set off with the primary goal of hearing Rampal play Mozart. I remember the concert so vividly because I emerged from it having lost all interest in Rampal, and Mozart – I had just heard Lutoslawski’s Concerto for Orchestra. Woah! Now that was exciting stuff. But by that time I was well and truly “into” classical music, I knew that was its name, and I also knew that I belonged to a nerdy little minority. And I didn’t care because I was in love.

Peter Grimes

Others are way more qualified to write about opera than I am, but I want to enthuse a little. You’ve been warned.

Here’s the scenario: someone who’d done a half-show at the previous OA production he attended raved to me about Peter Grimes. Enthusiastic reports came from one, two, three other trusted sources. So I knew I had to go, especially since I still bear the bruises from kicking myself for missing Billy Budd. The final prod came in the form of an attractive rush price. Now there were no “barriers”, as the marketing bods would say. It turned out to be one of those nights where I saw a lot of familiar faces. Heaps of industry acquaintances and colleagues, performers, various “important people”, the odd composer. This was good to see: an audience full (literally full) of the kind of people whose opinions are likely to hold sway.

I’d not seen this opera or listened to it in its entirety before. Like many orchestrally biased music-lovers, my appreciation is for the Passacaglia and Four Sea Interludes. But I’m not sure I’ve seen any Opera Australia production that I’ve liked better, has been better sung and played, or made more musical and dramatic sense.

The storm-painted curtain opens on a period piece, a town hall in all its sturdy detail, an interior not from the early 19th century but c.1940. It’s Britten’s era, in other words, not Crabbe’s, and Britten’s sympathies emerge unhindered. The hall becomes the set for the whole opera, shifting easily from indoor to outdoor communal spaces with just the subtlest of variations (some of them carried out by possibly the most illustrious stage-hand ever: Peter Carroll as the silent Dr Crabbe). There are basically no private spaces in this opera, barring one, which I’ll get to.

The set conveyed no real sense of the sea, and you could argue that this is a (minor) weakness when the music so overpoweringly redolent of the sea. But there’s reason in the madness, I think. First, the music needs very little help; its evocations are even more powerful for not being mirrored in any literal or naturalistic attempt to represent the sea or the shore. Second, and more important, it allows us to step back slightly from the plot and see the theme: this is an opera that ultimately is about community, public opinion, and gathering together vs social isolation and rejection. I think we can be sympathetic to Britten’s Grimes in a way that it’s nearly impossible to feel for the Crabbe Grimes because he’s recast as the dreamer and an outcast, battling futilely against an implacable, tight-knit community. Crabbe, on the other hand, portrays a Grimes whose sole motivation seems to be the desire to exert power over a weaker character. You don’t go all weepy when he goes mad with despair. You do when Stuart Skelton does.

The one truly private space is Grimes’s hut, in Act II. Here Neil Armfield proved that less is more. There’s an interlude. Dr Crabbe methodically clears the stage, then moves to the curtained platform at the rear of the hall and beckons it forward. And the whole wall moves, slowly, inexorably to the front of the stage proper. It’s the simplest thing, really, but the effect was oppressive and somehow damning. Shudder. 

From Britten himself came tiny discoveries and exquisite pleasures. Some of the text setting in Widow Sedley’s part is astonishingly effective, with such striking colours in the accompaniment. Her amateur sleuthing and predictions of doom are clearly meant to be a pain in the proverbial, but I didn’t want it to stop.

There was no faulting the cast: Skelton as Grimes; Peter Coleman-Wright as Balstrode; Susan Gritton as the one character I can’t quite understand, Ellen Orford; some serious-looking casting in the supporting roles and an adorable pair of “Nieces”. Aside from the mad scene (or the scene in which the orchestra switches off its sconces and Grimes’s life totally falls apart), Skelton had me wowed with his amazing pianissimos. At one point he was singing so softly while projecting so unerringly, that, as was commented to me, it was as if he was singing from offstage. And then to bloom from that into a perfectly shaped crescendo. Stunning. Is there nothing he can’t do? But always in the service of the music. The same is to be said for Coleman-Wright.

I’m not sure how to sum this one up, because everything seemed so right and so wonderful and so moving. Let’s just say it was, without hesitation or question, a “stay to the end” evening at the Opera House. And that’s high praise.

Ambition

Other little girls wanted to be ballerinas (this I understood) and nurses (this I didn’t). My first serious ambition was to be a pirate.

This was thanks to Robert Louis Stevenson and my dad, who read Treasure Island to me on Saturday afternoons while sitting on the stoop of his workshop, with the result that tales of the high seas and buried treasure will always be accompanied for me by the faint aroma of sawdust. (Oh, and thanks also to whoever wrote that very detailed and fabulously illustrated history of piracy, which I devoured as a child.)

Then I was taken to a Navy open day. Now I knew: I wanted to be a submarine captain. The romance of being able to sail undetected beneath the waves clearly outweighed the discomforts and cramped conditions. The grownups thought it very amusing to remind me that I wanted to be a pirate; I informed them I would be a pirate in a submarine. 

And so it remained until later, having read rather more Biggles books than is good for anyone, I decided that I wanted to be a pilot. [Insert Pirates of Penzance quip of choice here.]

[The tall ship above is a replica of Captain Cook’s vessel, the Endeavour. Both photos taken at the Australian National Maritime Museum.]

Beethoven numbers and the mind of the people

I was responding to a comment from yesterday’s post and was reminded of the Omniscient Mussel’s exercise in Beethoven numbers. What had begun as an informal personality test (the speedy, musical alternative to the Myer-Briggs) became the source for a statistically invalid but entertaining assessment of the popularity of Beethoven symphonies. (This was in response to a post from Ben, the Classical Convert, who had been examining the view frequencies of Karajan’s Beethoven symphonies on YouTube.)

At question in yesterday’s discussion was the ascendency of Beethoven 9 and whether it would score the No.1 spot.

My reaction was “please no!” For all that I recognise the importance and significance of this particular Beethoven symphony, it’s not one that I ever feel the urge to listen to and I would be unlikely to pay to hear it in a concert. (The Seventh, on the other hand, I find irresistible; it appeals to my sensibilities and ways of responding to music. My Beethoven number, incidentally, is 736521489, allowing for small shifts in the internal rankings.)

As you’ll glean from my comment on Miss Mussel’s post, I suspect that we have a self-fulfilling prophecy going on with the Ninth. Concert promoters would perhaps like the Ninth to be “the one”, and so we’ve all been complicit in building a mythology around it. But I suspect that many in regular concert audiences actually prefer other Beethoven symphonies more, and I’m quite certain that most musicians prefer other Beethoven symphonies more (not because they’re jaded but because the other symphonies give greater satisfaction).

That said, in ABC Classic FM’s original Classic 100 (any genre) Beethoven 9 was the top ranked of any of the symphonies, at No.3. The Pastoral came next at No.6, after that the Eroica and the Fifth, way down at No.40 and No.42; the highest ranked non-Beethoven symphony was Mahler 5 at No.43. (Apparently we don’t like symphonies all that much.)

If this were our guide, then the top ten in the Classic 100 Symphony should be Beethoven 9, 3, 6, 3, 5, Mahler 5, Saint-Saëns’ Symphony with Organ, Dvořák’s New World Symphony, Mahler 2, and Mahler 8 and at No.10 Beethoven 7, would be the runner up and making the chances of my favourite reaching No.1 very slim indeed.

But interesting things can happen. At No.1 in that original survey was Mozart’s Clarinet Concerto – a well-deserved accolade for a sublime piece of music. The adagio from this concerto was also the top ranked “favourite Mozart moment” (or rather, “Which moment of Mozart’s music can’t you live without?” as the question was put). So you’d reasonably expect the Mozart Clarinet Concerto to be at the top – or at least in the top five – of the Classic 100 Concerto. Not so. The leaders there were Beethoven’s Emperor, Rachmaninoff Second Piano Concerto, Beethoven’s Violin Concerto, Bruch’s Violin Concerto No.1 (he wrote others, you know) and Elgar’s Cello Concerto. The poor Mozart Clarinet Concerto had been relegated to No.6, which wasn’t all that surprising unless you knew of its earlier triumphs.

And this is what makes me think that Beethoven 9’s original success won’t necessarily carry over to the Classic 100 Symphony. What listeners choose when they’re asked to focus on a particular genre may be quite different from their generalised favourite “piece of music” or “musical moment”. Perhaps narrowing things down, and comparing apples with apples, encourages us to be more objective, slightly less concerned with what simply moves our spirit or gives us pleasure (what we like) and slightly more concerned with concepts of “greatness” and the intrinsic value or importance of a work. Clearly what turned up as simply our favourite piece of music didn’t do so well when we make it part of a comparison of concertos. And perhaps the iconic and mythological power of the “Ode to Joy” – which is what I suspect many people were really voting for in that first survey – similarly won’t stand the test as we pronounce upon our favourite symphonies.

At least, says Thomasina wickedly, I hope not!

(An astute twitterer from the Melbourne choir scene has come to the conclusion that Beethoven’s Ninth will not be the No.1 symphony, since the MSO Chorus has not been booked for the concert in which the top symphony will be performed live in its entirety. This seems like a pretty smart as well as appealing conclusion.)

Transient since 1947 – the ugliest building on campus

Sydney University has the most beautiful campus in the country.*

That is, unless you’re studying Linguistics.

The Linguistics professor at Sydney Uni is Bill Foley. He’s an expert in a New Guinea language called Yimas. (The only thing I really remember about Yimas is that it has the ability to fold the meaning of an entire sentence into a single-word construction. The Germans have nothing on these guys.) In the first lecture for Ling 101 he began by announcing where we could find the department: “In most universities the architecture** department has the ugliest building on campus. Here it’s the linguistics department.”

That building is the Transient Building, a corrugated fibro-clad blight on Fisher Road at the top of Physics Road.

It’s not strictly true that it’s the ugliest building on campus because there’s a nearly identical and equally ugly building*** on the perimeter overlooking Parramatta Road. But it’s ugly nonetheless:

As the name suggests, it was probably never intended to be still standing in 2009. It’s the university equivalent of the enduring high school demountable (although I suspect mosquitoes don’t breed in its power points as they did at a certain high school in Carlingford). Or, as one of my friends said the other day: “Transient since 1947.”

Meanwhile, some imaginative linguists and ethnomusicologists have decided that the Transient Building “symbolises” the impermanence of language. Surely the symbolism goes deeper than that? If this building symbolises anything it’s the sheer tenacity of language.

* I’ll grant that parts of Melbourne University, and the University of Western Australia with its Spanish Mission style buildings and Juliet balcony, both give Sydney Uni a run for its money, but Sydney still wins.

** According to the Sydney Architecture site, buildings such as this [what’s depicted as the Transient Building is in fact the Ross Street Building***] are “much-beloved” for their simplicity and flexibility and “should be heritage listed”. Hmm, perhaps that’s why the architecture department usually has the ugliest accommodation.

Typos I have known and loved

Back in the old days – well, 13 years ago – the Australian orchestras’ program notes were often scanned from the previous published use, treated to an optical character recognition process, and re-typeset.

Proofreading was much more entertaining in those days.

Foreign words and characters proved especially interesting, and OCR misinterpretation of these is the source of my favourite madeupical: Die Schopfling [a shopping spree], from Haydn’s long-lost retail therapy oratorio.

But the very best was this one – not so much for the error itself, but the correction applied to it by a colleague in one of the orchestras:

The overture, it was claimed, “begins with an orchestral tutu” [tutti].

P couldn’t resist an insertion:
“…and ends in a strapless evening frock.”

Larger than life

This is why I love the theatre!

Slonimsky: plot master

Ok, so it’s more than 140 characters, but it is in one sentence. A masterly Rosenkavalier “operaplot” from the inimitable and ageless Nicolas Slonimsky:

26 January 1911
Der Rosenkavalier, “Komodie für Musik” in three acts by Richard Strauss…full of sophisticated waltzes and ironically sentimental arias, to Hugo von Hofmannsthal’s tale placed in 18th-century Vienna, in which a conniving dowager designates her young lover as the bearer of a symbolic silver rose sent from her aging cousin to a young coquette in proposing marriage, with a characteristic reversal of roles as the cavalier of the rose woos and wins her after many a transvestiture (in the third act the Rosenkavalier, a mezzo-soprano, is disguised as a maid thus reverting to her natural sex), the score containing 118 identifiable leitmotivs, according to officious exegetes, is produced at the Dresden Opera, Ernst Schuch conducting.

Love those “officious exegetes”.

And another priceless gem for an opera rather less well known:

17 February 1900
Anton, opera in three acts by the 27-year-old Italian composer Cesare Galeotti, wherein a young Libyan, whose pagan mistress slays his early Christian concubine known as the “Flower of the Catacombs”, flees to the Egyptian desert, suppresses his sensuous memories, resists a series of diabolically contrived temptations and becomes sanctified as Saint Anthony, to a musical score gushing out crimson floods of curvilinear melos, is produced at La Scala, Milan. [italics mine]

Source: Nicolas Slonimsky – The First Hundred Years (1994)

Nutcracker: the reminiscent review

The Australian Ballet has launched a new, communally written blog, Behind Ballet. It hasn’t really settled yet, and some of the writing is very amusing in its earnestness. But the variety of themes and diversity of voices is excellent. More important, today’s post, “Universal Genius: How Tchaikovsky became Australian”, reminded me that I had to put my ticket for Nutcracker in my bag for tomorrow!

I saw Graeme Murphy’s Nutcracker when it was premiered in 1992. I have two vivid memories from it all. First was seeing the season brochure or perhaps a feature article explaining that Murphy was going to create an “Australian Nutcracker”.

I admired Murphy’s work tremendously – Beyond Twelve was a long-standing favourite, for example – but at that news my heart sank. Terrible visions came to mind of cringe-making attempts to Australian-ise classic masterpieces such as Carnival of the Animals, attempts that always seemed to be trying too hard and going in too strongly for some overtly “Aussie” flavour. So of course I anticipated the worst. And hence came one of the most delightful evenings I’ve ever had in the theatre, as Murphy’s Nutcracker demolished my fears and prejudices.

One of the factors behind the success of this version is that the original libretto is in many ways quite weak and it lacks the satisfying dramatic arc of Swan Lake or even Sleeping Beauty. The essence of the action is all over by the end of Act I and Act II becomes a pretext for spectacle and a lot of pretty dancing. Then there’s the mismatch in the relative importance of the dramatic leads versus the real (dancing) leads. Which is a long way of saying that there is room for dramaturgical improvement on the original. And Murphy achieved this by constructing an ingenious story line that makes its logical way through Tchaikovsky’s music.

But really, what I loved most about the Murphy Nutcracker was the brilliance with which it injected the Australian flavour. He avoids all clichés with the masterly exception of the Hills Hoist. (A prefiguring of the Sydney Olympics opening ceremony perhaps?) And instead he’s dug down for some genuine Australian ties to this Russian ballet and found them in the touring De Basil Ballets Russes and the Borovansky company, who gave this country a taste for what the Australian Ballet does now. The connections all made perfect sense and they map beautifully onto the original drama of the music. And – very important – there’s no loss of fantasy or magic.

What’s bookmarked on my DVD of this? Among other things:

The battle with the rats. These are the Bolsheviks to Clara’s White Russian officer, but they are still rats and in costuming and movement they are by far the most fearsome rats I’ve seen in a Nutcracker production anywhere.

The tai chi scene. This is remarkable for being danced in a slow-motion silence for a good minute or so. Only when it’s over do the touring dancers come bustling through in their rickshaw to the sounds of Tchaikovsky’s Chinese Dance (Tea): foreigners bringing foreign impressions.

But these are just clevernesses. The thing I can’t “bookmark” is the overall emotional impact of Murphy’s retelling – convincing and moving in every way, nostalgia without sentimentality. Tchaikovsky would be pleased, I think.

The journey

 “I liked the metaphorical notion that every time you went into the place to see a play, you went on some kind of journey.”

Richard Wherrett

When the Sydney Theatre Company staged its first productions at the Wharf Theatre in 1985, the thing that formed the strongest impression on me was the sheer distance from street entrance to the actual theatre (about 200 metres). Richard Wherrett, quoted above, is right about the effect the walk has. And what I found most intriguing about this long walkway were the floor boards, which are set diagonally. I was told or read at the time that this feature was a legacy of the site’s history as a working finger wharf: diagonal boarding was best for rolling barrels and wheeled trolleys. I’ve never tried to verify this but it seems plausible, and the thought inevitably comes to mind whenever I go to a production there. Occasionally, when I’ve been running late, I’ve fantasised about being able to literally “barrel” along to the end.

Photo note: the “faded” patches in the foreground are a trick of light created by a gobo mounted high on the wall. They enact the STC’s new logo: three follow spots loosely gathered on a central point. I confess it took me a while to “get” this logo, mainly because there is a much-used simplified (solid) version, which doesn’t look like lights falling on a surface so much as three random ellipses.

What the composer wrote

Last month I mentioned a young composer who’d knocked my proverbial socks off with an intelligent, engaging program note. My reaction was subsequently confirmed by three separate proofreaders. “If only all composers would write like that,” was the common sentiment.

But now you can read it for yourself [PDF]. And come hear the piece, of course.

Phil Jameson’s piece is called Pebbles and Stuff, which for some inexplicable reason I kept typing as “Pebbles and Things”. [Bad keyboard!]  Even at the eleventh hour, as the presses were about to roll, I spotted an errant “Things” in the fine print. Fingers crossed I found them all…

My favourite essay question

I’m reminded this morning, for reasons I won’t go into, of my favourite essay question of all time:

Why is Beethoven’s bad music so much more incredibly worse than his good music?

This was thrown at us in, I think, second year uni. If I’ve kept my essay, which is possible, it will be buried in a box somewhere, so I can’t quote from my undergraduate insights. I do recall thinking it would be a fun essay (true) and therefore easy to write (wrong conclusion). As a result I left it till very late and ended up focussing on the shortcomings of the Choral Fantasy and the truly dreadful [but I like you] Wellington’s Victory battle symphony. I think I wrote about genre pieces, function and intent, the changing role of the composer and the nature of ambition in shaping musical works, and a relative lack of sketches (for Beethoven). The good Dr R’s comments suggested that I, too, had suffered from a lack of sketches.

I don’t think I’ve ever found a satisfactory answer to the conundrum: why is it that when Beethoven is “bad” (ordinary, uninspired, dull even) he really is “bad” in a way that, say, Mozart never is?

A few of my favourite blogs 2

Today’s selection represents practising musicians who blog.

First up the Bass Blog, written by Michael Hovnanian. He never identifies his mid-western orchestra by name but, well, you only have to look at the URL… Bass Blog has an appealing dry wit and plenty of entertaining insider anecdotes. Better still, there’s no bitterness or cynicism.

Thirteen Ways, the blog of Eighth Blackbird, could probably count as an orchestra/ensemble blog. But this Chicago-based contemporary music group is small and the tone closer to a bunch of musicians blogging than anything remotely institutional. Tim Munro never fails to make me laugh (but of course, he’s Australian, and a flutist).

I have a friend who jokes about “organ bores”: organ enthusiasts (invariably organists themselves) who can recite specifications of various instruments for hours on end and who, when they go missing on tour, will invariably be found checking out the local church organ. This might be amusing but it’s dreadfully unfair. If you share this view of organists then This Blog Will Change the World will change your mind.

In her own words, composer and performer Elaine Fine has had a “rich and varied life”. Some people might just say that because it sounds fine. Fine says it and it’s absolutely true. What’s also nice is that she thinks about music deeply and experiences it keenly. As a result, Musical Assumptions makes for interesting and often thought-provoking reading.

A few of my favourite blogs

I’m beginning an occasional series – the category tag will be “favourite things”. First up, blogs.

Classical Convert: A beginner’s guide to classical music, by someone who switched at 23

I just love it when really bright, intelligent people get into classical music as adults and begin exploring it in their own ways. That the Classical Convert (Ben) chooses to share his journey and discoveries with others is wonderful.

I’m reminded of concert intervals spent in the corporate lounge of a former orchestra. One of the regulars, the spouse of a staff member, had no formal musical training, but he was as observant as they come and possessed a very discerning ear. He often didn’t have the conventional vocabulary for articulating what he’d noticed, but he sure as anything could zero in on what was working or not in the performance. I often wondered whether he heard and noticed more because he wasn’t encumbered with the theoretical training that most classical musicians receive. Just a thought.

Ben’s pieces on nerds and switching are a special treat.

The next two blogs form a pair in my mind: two lawyers, two musicians, two concertgoers, two insightful writers with wide-ranging interests. There’s nothing better than when MK of Tonic Blotter and Marcellous of Stumbling on Melons go to concerts. MK, from Chicago, also captures birds with his camera; Marcellous has the advantage of attending concerts in Sydney.

Then there’s Inside the Classics from the Minnesota Orchestra. This is, so far, the very best “official” orchestra blog I’ve come across. I love its candour – the two contributors are very open about the process of making music and preparing concerts and their thoughts about the music world; I love that it’s really well written and the tone is just right. I don’t live in Minneapolis (sometimes I wish I did – their music director is one of my favourite conductors and the weather’s colder there right now) and I’ll never attend one of their concerts, but it’s still compelling reading and that says it all.

In case you think all I care about is music, here are some other blogs that have earned a place high on my feed list:

A Dress a Day – lexicographer Erin McKean wears and makes dresses [see her redefine the dictionary in one of said dresses on TED]. I do neither of these things at present, but she’s a super-engaging writer with a great sense of humour so I follow her blog. She also tweets words of the day and naturally I stole the idea.

I Love Typography – indeed I do!

And Ampersands – if there’s a character I like more than the ampersand it’s a well-formed capital Q.

Swiss Miss is a Swiss designer in New York. Her discoveries make me smile.

Futility Closet is my refuge from productivity, ’cause every girl needs one of those.

Indexed is a simple concept cleverly and diligently executed. A model to us all.

And Andrea Joseph posts exquisitely detailed drawings on her sketchblog. Never again will I sneer at the humble biro.

This is barely scratching the surface. And especially in the area of music and the music business there are many more blogs that I follow assiduously and admire greatly – I really need to get my blogroll assembled!

Delight

A lot of things make me happy: books, words, an aesthetically pleasing writing hand, theatre...

This is one of Prospero's lines from The Tempest.

Oh wombat, you wicked animoil!

After an illustration in Ruth Park's Muddleheaded Wombat. The Australian Broadcasting Corporation broadcast an endearing radio adaptation of the stories in the 1970s. Mouse was my favourite character.

Nostalgia 2

More serendipitous discoveries in the process of winnowing and tidying...

If you grew up in Australia in the early years of the 20th century, you probably knew the Cole's Funny Picture Books. Edward William Cole's grandson, Cole Turnley, devised a third volume in 1951. I'm too young for all that, but the "new century edition" of Cole's Funny Picture Book No.3 was published in 1992, just in time for some youthful nostalgia and the discretionary income of yours truly.

It doesn't stand up to description: it's dated, it's quirky and eclectic, and deliciously Australian.

My favourite turns up on page 74, just where it always was:

DO NOT READ BELOW THIS LINE
---------------------------------------
But you are reading, or you wouldn't have your eye on these words. Well, as you've disobeyed the above instruction and have read this far, you may as well know that the only "catch" in all this is that you're not going to get anywhere. You're reading about nothing. Nothing is going to be said, and you're silly to go on reading. So why go on?

Well, why go on? Why persist in continuing to read when you've been warned that it's getting you nowhere? Stop. Now.

Do you call this stopping, letting your eyes sneak down to see what this next paragraph contains? You can rest assured that it contains nothing of greater importance than the paragraphs above. Utter drivel, save for that one eminently sensible note: Stop reading.

You're not starting another paragraph? You're incorrigible. Look, this whole piece, from that line above to the bottom of the page, is about nothing. Can't you understand that? Nothing.

See if you can't understand it better this way: Yammer, yammer, yammer, yammer, yammer, yammer, yammer, yammer. Does that make sense? Well, it makes as much sense as everything else you're going to read till you finish this page.

Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of the party. The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog's back. It's pointless, continuing to tell you of the folly of going on if you won't stop. Sheer gibberish will serve just as well. Ukly muckly. Abra kadabra. Eeny meeny miny mo.

Well, this is the last paragraph, and you must have realised by now that there will be nothing in it worth reading. Are you a man or a mouse? You've got nothing to lose by breaking off right here and now. Nothing to lose and everything to gain. Nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing. Yet here you are right at the finish, having got yourself precisely nowhere.