The day after. Congress did the thing, finishing in the early morning, but not until the sedition caucus had their bit of fun gumming the works for hours in a fit of performative political theater.

Afterwards, Congress adjourned until January 19th. Cowards. Congress should be working today and into the future on impeachment proceedings on a President that incited sedition against the government of the United States. Expedited proceedings. 

Josh Hawley and Ted Cruz should be kicked off this bus to wander the wilderness with only the clothes on their backs as penance for what they are doing to our politics. And Louis Gohmert and all the other flying monkeys of the GOP House should be joining them. 

A question I've been pondering today. Say that Trump pardons the Capitol mob. Would those pardons be invalid because Trump could be considered to have incited the mob invading the Capitol? Can a President do that?

Music for 2020

 
As I look back over 2020, no music has given me more pleasure than Robert Fripp's Music for Quiet Moments, a series now up to 35 entries, released every Friday since back in the spring. No. 6, subtitled Seascape, stands out among many excellent entries. You can find it on all the streaming services. This series comprises some of the finest ambient music I've heard in years, and that is saying something.

The Tallis Scholars finished their magisterial cycle of Josquin masses with a beautiful performance of the Missa Hercules dux Ferrariae and two other masses. The whole cycle, three decades in the making, is worth your attention

The Berlioz Requiem: A few thoughts

Berlioz, who was a non-believer, was nonetheless so moved by the text of the Catholic Requiem that he jumped at the chance to compose a setting for it. Berlioz being Berlioz, the Grande Messe des Morts is sui generis: there really is nothing else like it in the history of music.

I have listened to well over half the recordings ever made of the Requiem, and I have seen it performed twice: the performance conducted by Sir Colin Davis at St Paul's in London, in July of 2001, stands as one of the two or three greatest experiences of my life.

Recordings of the Requiem used to be quite rare. Understandably so; since a performance requires huge forces, including a choir numbering in the hundreds, and four extra brass choirs positioned separately from the rest of the orchestra. When Colin Davis recorded his benchmark performance, in 1969, there were few other disks in the catalog---Munch, Abravenel, Bernstein, Ormandy. All of them (except the Ormandy) clocked in at well over 80 minutes (Davis's is close to 90 minutes). Now, I notice that conductors are speeding up the Requiem. Ozawa's Boston reading and Spano's Atlanta performance both fit easily onto one CD (and I hope that tempos weren't chosen with the intention of squeezing onto a single disk). More recent excellent performances by McCreesh and Nelson offer more reasonable tempos that breathe as the music demands. For my money, the Offertorium gives one more musical magic per unit time than any other music I've ever heard, and the range of interpretations is very broad with regards to tempo: Ozawa is well under eight minutes, while Davis's last recording runs well over 11 minutes. McCreesh and Nelson in their recent recordings strike a good balance around 10 minutes.

The Campaign of Magical Thinking

We've been having this argument for 30 years, and the evidence was in long ago: tax cuts do not by themselves spur economic growth. This really is magical thinking. That we are still discussing this is appalling.

No, Not Trump, Not Ever

So, David Brooks is on about Trump again. This time he's admitting to errors in his past approaches to Trumpism, which is all to the good. The issues that have gotten under the skin of Trump supporters are all too real; but it has been all too easy to dismiss these concerns while focussing on the train wreck that is Donald Trump. The hope lies not in Trump but in Hillary Clinton assimilating much of the Bernie Sanders critique and following through after the election. Even so, HRC would probably govern as her husband did: as what would be considered historically a moderate Republican. Despite what the right-wing fever swamp would have you believe, we have lived in a supply-side, tax-cutting Republican world for decades now, and I don't see that changing any time soon.

FA Cup vs NCAA Tournament

Yesterday's incredible day of upsets in the NCAA Basketball Tournament reminds me of the FA Cup in English football, where it's always possible that a Watford can take out a defending champion (Arsenal) in the quarterfinals. This year we have Crystal Palace, tanking in the Premier League yet in the FA Cup semis. Middle Tennessee State, anyone?

Odd goal in seven

I heard this wonderful construction again just now: "....by which Stoke won by the odd goal in seven." Ah, the English.

What Went Wrong In Flint

As you would expect from FiveThirtyEight, lots of data.

Friday cat blogging

Max and Purdy are snoozing their way through the blizzard of 2016. 

Elisa Pegreffi has died

She was the last surviving member of the Quartetto Italiano, one of the greatest chamber music ensembles of the mid to late 20th century. I learned my Mozart quartets listening to their recordings. No ensemble has captured the merry-go-round flavor of the K499's second movement as they did. As I listen again to their recordings, not only of Mozart but Beethoven, Schubert, and Brahms, I'm impressed once again by how their chosen tempos allow the music to breathe in such a natural manner. RIP.



Last member of a legendary quartet has died – Slipped Disc:

Voting for a dictatorship

There's this story that when Kurt Gödel, the logician, was studying for his US citizenship exam, he explained excitedly to friend Albert Einstein that he had found a flaw in the US Constitution, to wit, that it was possible for the electorate to vote for a dictatorship, thus negating itself.



Now, we have this news that a South Carolina lawmaker wants to "register" journalists. Hey, just like the Kremlin! All ahead flank!

The New Politics of Frustration

This is a fascinating and sobering appraisal of where we stand by Elizabeth Drew.