and while we’re recommending music

Also, listen to these…

*Beethoven’s late string quartets

*all six of Bartók’s string quartets (though the first is my favorite)

but something even better by Wagner

If you’ve never heard Act III of Tristan und Isolde, that’s the very peak of Wagner’s art as well as some of the most powerful music ever written. It’s the kind of music that can shake you to the core to some extent, and make you long remember the first time you heard it. (I still remember the exact date that I listened to it for the first time– July 28, 1986.) Nietzsche was quite moved and disturbed by it as well.

[ADDENDUM: OK, the exact Nietzsche quote is “The world is poor for anyone who has never been sick enough to enjoy this voluptuousness of hell.” Two conductors dropped dead while conducting it, and Gabriele d’Annunzio had to be carried weeping from the Bayreuth Festpielhaus. That’s powerful!]

Melchior and Lotte Lehmann

A good musical way to shut down the blog for the night… Melchior and Lehmann in 1935 with the Vienna Philharmonic. Gorgeous love duet (though of course it’s a case of brother/sister incest and adultery rolled into one; but cut the lovers some slack– it’s just medieval Nordic mythology).

Wagner’s Ring Cycle

That norns reference by Badiou puts me in the mood to listen through the Ring Cycle again. Žižek is on record as being a big fan, and man so am I.

I suppose my ranking of the four Operas is fairly conventional– I like Die Walküre the best and Das Rheingold the second best.

However, I can’t help cringing with embarrassment whenever we get to “The Ride of the Valkyries”, which has been ruined for me by pop culture overexposure. For me, the peak of the entire cycle is the first act of Die Walküre, which has perhaps the most ominous musical opening and (for me at least) most beautiful ending of any act in opera. Put a couple of really good singers in the Siegmund/Sieglinde roles and that can be an unbelievably moving piece of music. I’ve misplaced my old LAURITZ MELCHIOR recording of it, but the last 20 minutes or so are stunning, and I probably just need to go back to iTunes and I’ll find it in a hurry.

another birthday coming up

On the 9th of May.

I’m now the same age that my father was when I graduated from college, which is a mind-blower. I didn’t fully realize at the time how young he was.

taking off from the previous post

It would be interesting to compile a list of the harshest things ever written by all philosophers against their most important predecessors: the harshest things written by Aristotle about Plato, Scotus about Aquinas, Spinoza about Descartes, Hegel about Kant, Nietzsche about Schopenhauer, Heidegger about Husserl, etc.

My suspicion is that a surprising number of them would have been written (if not published) while the predecessor was still alive (Badiou’s remark about Lacan as a norn was written though not published during Lacan’s lifetime). It might seem easier to trash somebody after they’re deceased, sure. But the touch of resentment against the vast shadow of a living mentor, which is so often mixed in with the gratitude as the younger person seeks to assert some individuality at any price, makes it more likely that offhand seminar remarks while the master is still alive are likely to be the harshest of them all. Just a hypothesis.

the harshest thing Badiou ever said about Lacan?

Lacan is “the norn of his own errancy” (Theory of the Subject, p. 234). (This is the point at which Badiou turns to Heidegger’s critique of onto-theology as a better remedy against the ravages of structuralism than anything done by Lacan.)

I wish there were actually norns we could consult about our fates, grim though such consultations might be.

something that was not a mistake, but is now a mistake

Saying yes to almost every request I get for an article, lecture, etc. I don’t remember the last weekend I simply had free without something hanging over me. It’s tiring.

I’m booked pretty solid through October, and I think after that will change my default answer to “no” rather than “yes.” It’s just always so nice of people to ask, and I well remember the long student years of never being asked to do anything, so there’s always an impulse to seize every opportunity. And I do have plenty of energy for multiple simultaneous tasks, but it would be nice to be a little less tired and a little less fully booked.

eating and eating

All this kitten does is eat. Wow, it’s a lot!

“babycat milk”

Perfect for a babycat like this one. She loves this stuff, which is what the vet told me go to to Sami Pet Shop (Zamalek’s pet supply hub since the 1950’s) and acquire to replace the normal cow’s milk I’d used for the first few days. “Babycat milk” is powdered, to be mixed with water. Little Tamanya drinks it constantly; her appetite is almost shocking.

She must be getting bigger, though I can’t say I’ve noticed it. What I have noticed, however, is how smooth and shiny her fur has become over the course of the week, so I guess I must be doing something right here.