The God Emperor calls out Murderer on Twitter

The main stream media douches are getting all upset about the God Emperor's tweets attacking Joe Scarborough and mentioning his dead intern problem.

It is a Congressional tradition to fuck and murder their interns and Scarborough was involved just as most of them are.

Congress critters are scum. Low lifes. Worse than the people who work the peeps on the Deuce. Now they not only abuse interns but they have three ways with them and get caught.

Nothing you can come up with about Congress people can be worse that what they actually do.

Scarborough thought it was a big joke with the I man and now he is playing holier than thou with that schank he left his wife for and broke up his family.

Stick it too him Mr. President. Just the way he did to that dead intern.

Bach for an overcast afternoon

Some time ago I heard a piece played by Alicia de Larrocha entitled Bach-Busoni - Chaconne in D minor. It sounded curious to me - not really very Bach-like. I listened to it a few times, time moved on, but I recently decided to learn more about where it came from and why it sounds like it does.

The history is fascinating, and it all goes back to an Italian guy who decided to transcribe works by Bach for a modern piano. His name was Ferruccio Busoni and he had a real knack for creating music that remained true to Bach's original score while making great use of the capabilities of a piano.

For more about Ferruccio, check out this Wiki link. There is much information in there, including a lot of German words used to describe what he did. He laid out his philosophy, methodology and goals and now that I have slightly increased my understanding of who he was and what he was going for I have a much greater appreciation for his work.

First off, Itzhak Perlman playing BWV 1004. The chaconne starts at 13:50 for those of you who want to cut to the chase. Do his friends call him "Itzy"?

Once you have a passing familiarity with the source material, one can move on to what Signor Busoni wrote. This is a version played by Helene Grimaud, and I really like how she played it:

That is all - no tall tales today.

Sunrise

Some Bach to go with the picture.

Happy birthday Domenico Scarlatti

It is said that he wrote 555 keyboard sonatas. I have listened to only a small fraction of them, but I do like this one:

A YouTube search on Scarlatti K. 159 will produce dozens of versions. Here is a harmonic analysis of the work played on some midi something or other, perhaps by a robot.

I'm sorry, Dave, I can't do that.

Interestingly enough even though Scarlatti was Neapolitan he worked in Spain and Portugal. I can hear the Spanish influence in his work.

More on Scarlatti's life.

Here are a big ol' mess of sonatas played on a harpsichord.

But speaking of 555, and I think we were, did you know that the listed height of the Washington Monument is 555 feet? Coincidence? I think not.

Overheard at Lem's

It is cold right this minute and I should be working but I am waiting for it to warm up a bit. Chip Ahoy mentioned The Raft of the Medusa, a painting by Théodore Gericault. It is a large painting and once seen not easily forgotten.

One of my sons is a genius when it comes to painting and while he was in school he painted this:

The minute I saw it I cracked up - it is a painting of articles of clothing arranged so that the composition and light mimic Gericault's painting. My son is a funny guy, just sayin'. I keep trying to buy the original from him but somehow that never happens. No inheritance for you!

This requires water music.

Another sunrise

Yay!

Needs moar Bach.

The story of a white oak tree

Back in 2015 a friend told me she had some oak pieces in her back yard and asked if I wanted any. "Red oak, right?" "Nope, white oak - it was struck by lightning the other night." "Did that wake you up?" "Yep, it was only 30 feet from the house."

So I went and investigated - by the time I got there most of the good pieces had been split for firewood, but I did manage to get a couple of nice pieces:

I rough turned it, coated it, set it aside to dry and this week set about finish turning it. Here's what it looked like after drying for three years:

I took the picture at that angle to show how much the piece had distorted while drying. It was a real struggle to turn - I used the Jumbo Jaws (tm) to hold it while I turned the foot round - it had ovalized to the point that it was close to a half inch longer than it was wide:

The bowl also had a hole clean through it:

You can see daylight through it!

At this stage the piece weighed 5.15 pounds - heavy!

So I put it on my lathe, used a grinder to turn down the foot, and once that was done, reversed it and gripped the foot with the 4 jaw chuck. Then I used my 7" Makita body grinder to smooth it out enough so that I could begin turning it. The piece was so out-of-round that even a tool as benign as a scraper would cause it to fly off the lathe - can't have that.

After hours of grinding I was finally able to use my bowl gouge and get it to near net shape. Rough deal, I'll tell ya what!

But I persisted and this is what I got:

Top view:

Finished weight 3.75 pounds - still not light, but at least there is over a pound of white oak sawdust in my shop now.

All because lightning struck a white oak tree back in 2015.

I can handle it.

July 4/2

I have been trying to find a good bit of music to post on the theme of the idea of the concept of using the letters in Bach's last name to write a motif in a piece of music. I hear some things that sound like B-A-C-H, but research fails to match up with what I am hearing.

Some background - in German music notation they have an "H". That is what we call "B". They call B-flat "B". Confusing, nein? The good news is that allows composers, including Johan Sebastian himself to write music using his last name for four of the notes. Totally excellent. Except it sounds weird. So it would go something like this - start with b, our B-flat, go down a half tone to A, up a third to C, then down a half tone to B. Excellent plan, now all we have to tune up are our ears. When I hear that sequence of interval in a symphonic work I think "Bach" even if it starts on a different note. I should get a grant to do more research.

More on the German system of notation.

Here is a short piece with the letters BACH highlighted in the middle.

B-A-C-H

I swear I have heard better, but I'll keep listening and report back at a future date.

Speaking of date, today is July 2nd and we got another sunrise:

This musical selection is not Bach based, and I have posted it before but I wanted to get cookin' early on this beautiful, hot, sunny July morning - start cookin' guys!

Look out Memphis - I might show up.

My alliums are blooming

I had no luck propagating either my alliums or my leopard lilies - they seem to do fine on their own but I would really like more of them in places that I select. I guess left to their own devices they will eventually take over.

These are about four feet tall currently - so they are eye level.

Scarlatti Fandango and pictures of my last back yard get together.

Music notation explained by Lenny

And played by the incomparable Glenn Gould.

Happy birthday, George!

We can Handel it.

But wait, there is more!

That's a picture of my back yard back in the early 18th century.

Keep America out of Dutch!

This is not the usual Seldom Sene I listen to. This is something completely different.

Sonority

Get Bach.

I like long form music.

When is a leg not a leg?

When it is a stick. I was sawing leg blanks today and one of them fell off my workbench. My dog grabbed it and ran off - she thought it was a game. So I chased her around the yard and eventually she dropped it. Work and dogs make for a wonderful life.

What can I say, 1685 strikes again.

1685 on the AM dial...

Without further comment.