Oak Ridge Community Orchestra, May 2011 Concert

These recordings aren't by ORCO, although the ORCO concert is being recorded.

Gabriel Faure, Pelleas et Melisande. Like Peer Gynt, this music was composed to accompany a play.

I.

Watch at YouTube.

II.

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III.

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IV.

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Jacques Offenbach, Orfee dans l'enfer, an overture arranged at a later date than the first performance in 1858. Get out your clutching pearls -- someone's not taking French opera seriously!

Watch at YouTube.

Ravel, Pavane pour un enfant defunt. There is only a hypothetical, conceptual dead infant involved, as Ravel composed this as a conjectural piece, something that might have been performed in the Spanish court.

Watch at YouTube.

Claude Achille Debussy, Prelude a l'apres-midi d'un faune

Watch at YouTube. Dancing by Rudolf Nureyev.

Georges Bizet, Carmen Suite No. 1. And now, excerpts from one of the most famous operas ever.

I. Prelude

Watch at YouTube.

Ia. Aragonaise

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II. Intermezzo

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III. Seguedille

Watch at YouTube. Up tripods!

IV. Les dragons d'Alcalla

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V. Les Toreadors

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One Year Shy of a Century

And it doesn't seem that much has changed.

No one wanted to pay life insurance on the band members aboard the Titanic.

White Star said they were private passengers, because they were contracted out through the talent agency C.W. & F.N. Black, which had a monopoly on entertainment the British Atlantic steamships at the time. Although each band member was given a 2nd-class ticket, they were housed in crew's quarters.

The Blacks routinely took out insurance policies on their talent, and told the families to contact their insurance agent.

The insurance agent refused to pay out, and got a judgment in its favor. The families were finally beneficiaries of a public charity -- The Titanic Relief Fund.

This is a runaround all too familiar today. One is tempted to draw reference to dead peasants' insurance, the practice of large companies to pay life insurance policies on their employees with the companies as beneficiaries, except it seems that the Black talent agency didn't get a payout, either.

WHAT IS THIS I DON'T EVEN

Behold!

I bring you good tidings of great joy, which will be to all people.

(Image copyright (c) 2010 Tom Williams)

Ahh, Suburbia

Watch at YouTube.

Vanity Plate

Lovely to LOL at, perhaps not so much to own.

It's a Little Dimmer Today

Leslie Nielsen has passed away.

I hadn't really thought about it very much, but I think his Commander Adams in Forbidden Planet is as much an influence on a certain, much more popular starship captain from a decade later as anything else from the science fiction of the previous eras.

Of course, later in life Nielsen turned into a lovable goof.

But he was always an entertainer. He shall be missed.

Edit: Mr. C. has closed his restaurant.

And also Irving Kershner, who directed The Empire Strikes Back and Never Shay Never Again, one of the rare non-Broccolli James Bond movies, has passed away.

And Then There Was The Time ...

... Huey, Louie and Dewey's gag turkey fell flat.

Image once again shamelessly lifted from (postmodern barney).

White Wine in the Sun

Watch at YouTube.

Truths for Mature Humans

5. How the hell are you supposed to fold a fitted sheet?
7. Map Quest really needs to start their directions on # 5. I’m pretty sure I know how to get out of my neighborhood.
13. I’m always slightly terrified when I exit out of Word and it asks me if I want to save any changes to my ten-page technical report that I swear I did not make any changes to.

Here.