Comments on: I like the direction this is going in.

By: Michael Bérubé

Michael Bérubé — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 21:29:47 +0000

You were not in moderation. Your comment was being cubed.

By: christian h.

christian h. — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 18:39:08 +0000

Dang in moderation again… this makes it impossible to participate in this highly enlightening conversation.

By: christian h.

christian h. — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 18:37:30 +0000

Sorry Bill but my offense-o-meter is broken. Cube away, if that’s your thing. Michael, on the other hand, clearly is a square.

By: Michael Bérubé

Michael Bérubé — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 13:17:25 +0000

The triplets against the dotted eighths would be Shubert’s “Doin’ it to Death,” especially the part where he tells the band they got to get in D.

By: Kenny Easwaran

Kenny Easwaran — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 06:51:52 +0000

I always found the funky and sublime aspect of that Schubert sonata to be the triplets against dotted eighth note rhythms. Assuming I’m thinking of the correct Schubert sonata in B-flat.

By: rm

rm — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 04:57:30 +0000

Alas, robbed of first by an Ezra-Hound-bot.

By: Bill Benzon

Bill Benzon — Sun, 06 Dec 2009 22:26:55 +0000

The Fondue Foundation? After all, you always were such a cheeze wiz, Michael.

By: Michael Bérubé

Michael Bérubé — Sun, 06 Dec 2009 22:05:28 +0000

didn’t the mathematicians get embroiled in a beef with the Butcher’s International Benevolent Association and the Bouillon Brewers Cooperative over who had rights to the cube offense?

Yes, yes they did, but I find this characterization of that blogspat to be carnicentric (a “beef,” indeed) because it overlooks the entirely legitimate complaints of the cheesemakers. Or was it dairy producers in general?

By: Bill Benzon

Bill Benzon — Sun, 06 Dec 2009 21:50:44 +0000

Yeah, I remember that Michael. But didn’t the mathematicians get embroiled in a beef with the Butcher’s International Benevolent Association and the Bouillon Brewers Cooperative over who had rights to the cube offense?

In any event, I believe christian h is a mathematician. We could hook him up to an Official Internets Offense-0-Meter and see whether or not he rings the bell on that one. If so, I’ll donate a copy of Brother West to the Bourbaki Home for Imaginary Maths.

By: Doctor Science

Doctor Science — Sun, 06 Dec 2009 20:18:04 +0000

I can't wait to see the bad Photoshop version of "Silas Lapham", presumably in the style of Wondermark.

By: Michael Bérubé

Michael Bérubé — Sun, 06 Dec 2009 19:57:48 +0000

If you can do this for “The Rise of Silas Lapham”, the world will be the mollusc of your choice.

I think this is all I need to persuade Norton to publish a second edition of What’s Liberal. Kthxbai!

Bill, as you probably remember from that MySpace pileup of 2004, references to “cubing” are potentially offensive to mathematicians. Though in fairness I’ll admit that Rubard started it with that “o’course” remark. Unfunny, indeed.

By: Bill Benzon

Bill Benzon — Sun, 06 Dec 2009 19:44:07 +0000

@1: sublimerrific and funkalicious, cubed

By: Doctor Science

Doctor Science — Sun, 06 Dec 2009 19:31:03 +0000

The Sparkledammerung posts are not just parody, they are the best explication yet of the Mormon elements in the Twilight series. The combination of mockery + literary/critical exegesis + deliberately bad Photoshop + religious/social insights = THE FUTURE OF CULTURE CRIT. Take notes, Michael. If you can do this for “The Rise of Silas Lapham”, the world will be the mollusc of your choice.

By: Michael Bérubé

Michael Bérubé — Sun, 06 Dec 2009 18:46:14 +0000

Ah, I see that this thread has a whole new beginning: apparently Mr. Rubard’s comment had been in moderation for some reason. I presume he was trying to out-absurd that other thread in just one go, with extra extra “jazz” stylings for flavor.

By: Daniel Wolf

Daniel Wolf — Sun, 06 Dec 2009 10:53:54 +0000

While, as a musician, I may well be missing something in the Wuthering angle, the Sonata in Bb has definitely always been considered sublime, funky, and tempestuous. This is due in part to Schubert’s profligate use of mediant and semitonal functional harmonic relations (the most familiar is probably the lowered submediant in the opening of the first movement), to the unorthodox tonal layout of the movements (the second movement is in c# minor), as well as to the references to some of the composer’s own songs and perhaps even Schubert’s autobiographic story Mein Traum. But most of all, the work (like all three late sonatas) invests its constrasting elements of statis, continuity, and sudden shifts in tonality held together by cyclic elements in holding a thread — and perhaps a narrative thread at that — throughout the work. The tempestuous journey taken by that thread makes it abundantly clear that Schubert had his funky on.