the whole blog

A blog, like many things, is easier to start than to finish. They all must end sometime though, and I've decided to put hella frisch to rest.

I've had a great time connecting with people and sharing memories in this blog - I don't pretend to be any sort of great writer, but somehow I've attracted many fantastic readers, and all of your comments, messages, and compliments have delighted and sustained me through the past couple of years. If I've annoyed, irritated, or squandered the time of some of you, I apologize.

The reasons I'm quitting the blog are several. The main reason is that I'd like to make better use of my own time. Practicing and performing on the double bass have always been my focus and greatest time commitment - if I hope to make a permanent occupation of it, though, I need to advance my career through even more committed work.

I've also been reading a book of essays by Wendell Berry, The Art of the Commonplace. If anyone wants to read the book that killed hella frisch, this might be the one. (I don't know if that's a reason for praise or condemnation - probably the former.) It's one of the most eloquent and persuasive books I've read, and what Berry has to say about modern culture and economics should give everyone pause. I'll quote a rather long passage from an essay defending his abstention from computers, since it has so influenced my thinking:

Some of my critics were happy to say that my refusal to use a computer would not do any good. I have argued, and am convinced, that it will at least do me some good, and that it may involve me in the preservation of some cultural goods. But what they meant was real, practical, public good. The meant that the materials and energy I save by not buying a computer will not be "significant" They meant that no individual's restraint in the use of technology or energy will be "significant." That is true.

But each one of us, by "insignificant" individual abuse of the world, contributes to a general abuse that is devastating. And if I were one of thousands or millions of people who could afford a piece of equipment, even one for which they had a conceivable "need," and yet did not buy it, that would be "significant." Why, then, should I hesitate for even a moment to be one, even the first one, of that "significant" number? Thoreau gave the definitive reply to the folly of "significant numbers" a long time ago: Why should anybody wait to do what is right until everybody does it? It is not "significant" to love your own children or to eat your own dinner, either. But normal humans will not wait to love or eat until it is mandated by an act of Congress.

- "Feminism, the Body, and the Machine" by Wendell Berry, p. 78-79

I'm not sure if Berry's ideal of zero computer use is possible or desirable for everyone, but it struck me that I could at least reduce mine. The impact on worldwide energy use may not be significant, and I'm fortunate enough to not pay my own electricity bills; but in conserving time and energy, I can make a very positive impact on my own life. Writing this here is no doubt the height of hypocrisy; the last few weeks, though, I have cut down my computer use considerably, and the change has been a good one, I think.

I probably would not be writing this post if I didn't see this as cause for celebration, not sadness. Of course, there are many people who I wouldn't have met without this blog, and I hope we can continue to keep in touch. If anyone would like my phone number or mailing address, please e-mail me and I'll send them. I'm hoping to return to letter writing, having abandoned it the last few years. And so it would be wonderful to turn some of my blog visitors into pen pals.

Best wishes and thanks for reading!

where's the frisch?

The last two weeks I've been delinquent here at hella frisch, but I've made a couple of contributions to the Big Bottom website: Who's your Gary Karr? and Eine Kleine Bassmusik? I'm not quite sure why all my titles seem to end in question marks - maybe I've got a little mannerism going. (?) Anyway, I'm still perfecting the art of double bass journalism. I need to get some work done on my double bass playing as well, though, which is why things here haven't been quite so frisch lately.

headbutting etiquette

A week after the World Cup Final, soccer fans are still buzzing over Zinedine Zidane's crushing cranial blow to Marco Materazzi's chest. Why would a seasoned competitor like Zidane release his anger so impulsively, prompting his removal from the last game of his career? What could have provoked such a senseless act of violence? Has Materazzi even met Zidane's mother? Both footballers' parents apparently share a love for alliterative names - could they be related?

I don't have answers to any of these questions - but I do believe the world is sorely in need of a comprehensive grammar of head-butting etiquette, and I am ready to begin that conversation here. We need to decide when a violent forehead punch is appropriate conduct, when a sock to the sternum may be overstepping boundaries, and when it's just clearly out of line. I have provided a series of hypothetical situations to consider, and color-coded them to show my own opinions: in red where head-butting may be appropriate, yellow for borderline situations, and blue when you might want to just turn the other cheek. It may be too late now for Zidane, but I hope to spare others the pain and humiliation (as well as penalties) of any future head-butting faux-pas.

A vet calls your dog a bitch.
An Italian calls your mother a whore.
A senior administration official calls your wife a secret CIA operative.

A protester burns your nation's flag.
A Klansman burns a cross on your lawn.
An arsonist burns your house down.

Petty theft.
Grand theft.
Identity theft.

You're fouled but it isn't called.
Your doctor amputates the wrong toe.
You're sent to Guantanamo Bay without a trial.

I'm pretty sure there are countless other principles of headbutting etiquette to explore. Even with just these few examples, though, it's apparent that with a little thought almost any situation can be addressed productively without leveling the other guy. So I would just encourage everyone to think these things through; to pause and consider your options; to use your head, before you use your head.

Thom Yorke on the dodgy circus

I've just been listening to an interview with Thom Yorke, the lead singer of the band Radiohead who just released his own solo album. Yorke's conversational style is occasionally maddening - he says "blah blah blah" a lot, for instance. But one thing he said about playing an unsatisfying tour struck me.

Mostly it was just not interesting. It just got boring, which sounds incredibly selfish, but why would you just carry on playing these tunes? I mean, the trouble was that by the time we had done that record we were so sick of those tunes. And then you're faced with the prospect of having to play them for another year and a half. Which, you know, you've got to do because you've got to let people know what it's about and one of the things that we're good at is playing the tunes and blah blah blah. But there just sort comes a point where you're going through the motions, and as soon as you realize that "I am going through the motions, this is sounding tired," that's it. This is rock and roll, there's no point in you being there. It ceases to be rock and roll and just becomes some sort of dodgy circus.

Most of us have been there I'm sure - just not inspired or motivated. And the recognition that things aren't working sometimes seems only to make them worse. It's a trap we set for ourselves. The only real solution, I think, is to seek out new ideas, new inspiration - new tunes, probably.

Anyway, I know I haven't been writing much here lately, and I want to let you know I'm fine, I just haven't felt inspired to blog about anything much. And I'd rather not turn hella frisch into a dodgy circus. Thanks for visiting!

one great loss, many links

The Standing Room has collected many tributes, stories, and remembrances of Lorraine Hunt Lieberson, as well as a nice photograph by Richard Avedon. I'm only now finding out who she was and realizing what a great musician we've lost. On a Fresh Air interview which aired last evening she tells Terri Gross how she got her break from freelance violist to opera star - a very funny story which takes place in a prison. A 2004 New Yorker profile by Charles Michener, "The Soul Singer", also discusses that transformation:

[Emmanuel Music conductor] Craig Smith, whom she has known since her student days at the Boston Conservatory, in the early nineteen-eighties, told me that he regards her training ... as the key to what makes her so special as a singer. “A viola is a middle voice—it has to be alert to everything around it,” he said recently. “There’s something viola-like about the rich graininess of her singing, about her ability to sound a tone from nothing—there’s no sudden switching on of the voice, no click. And, like most violists, she is also self-effacing: without vanity as a singer. When we first performed the Bach cantatas, she just disappeared as a person.”

That she died without many knowing, at home with her family, seems only in keeping with her humble character. Even so, she is being missed keenly and will be remembered for a long time.

a bass by Gasparo da Salo

This is a picture from Raymond Elgar's book Looking at the Double Bass (1967). To read my commentary on the book, visit the double bass news site Big Bottom. I recently joined that site, reporting on classical bass topics. I never thought I'd call myself a Big Bottom contributor.

Lorraine Hunt Lieberson

This past March the New World Symphony was to accompany Lorraine Hunt Lieberson, the American mezzo-soprano, in songs by Mahler. Lieberson had to cancel and another singer took her place, a fairly common occurence in the world of operatic performers. However, I was sad to learn that she had died this Monday of breast cancer at age 52. We've surely lost a beautiful voice and a great artist.

NPR's Performance Today features a recorded performance by Lorraine Hunt Lieberson today. She sings a setting by her husband Peter Lieberson of a poem by Pablo Neruda, which host Fred Child translated:

If your eyes were not the color of the moon
Oh my dearest, I would not love you so.
But when I hold you I hold everything that is,
Everything is alive so that I can be alive;
In your life I see everything that lives.