Alan Jacobs has had a few riffs on laments of art-deaths, lack of religious literacy in academic publishing (on a musical topic, no less), and I have a few thoughts on the failures of conservative philosophers when it comes to the arts

https://blog.ayjay.org/the-wisdom-of-sturgeon/

It seems that literary fiction is dead — it even has a gravestone. Capitalism? Also dead. Tradition and conservatism apparently achieved a murder-suicide pact, which I guess makes it inevitable that the Judeo-Christian tradition is equally defunct; the fact is pushing up daisies; a consensus of some kind has shuffled off its mortal coil; the metabolic processes of socialism have long been history; liberalism joined the Choir Invisible some time back; even Trumpism has expired and gone to meet its maker. At this point, wouldn’t it be simpler for someone to write to tell us what isn’t dead? Maybe something out there is merely pinin’ for the fjords? 

It’s a regrettable rhetorical tic, closely related to others, like the claim that “the internet” — all of it! All trillion pages! — is no fun any more, or the even vaster claim that “culture” — all of it! Everything that humans do together! — has come to a standstill. These vast sweeping hand-wavy universal assertions … is there no end to them? Why can’t they come to a standstill? Why can’t they shuffle off their mortal coil? 

You need a generalization you can rely on, and I’ve got one for you. It’s called Sturgeon’s Law: “Ninety percent of everything is crap.” You can do the hand-wavy thing and moan the words “over” and “dead” and “no fun,” or you can follow a better path: sift through the cascade of human productions that come your way to find, and then preserve, the small percentage of it that’s golden.

My name for that pursuit is the Gandalf Option, and I recommend it to you, because (to shift metaphors) it is always better to light a candle than curse the darkness. 

 

revisiting a title game, some more song title mashups besides "We've Only Just Begun Burning Down the House"

Last year I felt like playing a title game a bit.  What started off as a joke among siblings on how there could be mashup remake movies like Sleepaway Camp Highlander and I Spit on Your Grave of the Fireflies mutated into riffs on song titles.

https://wenatcheethehatchet.blogspot.com/2022/08/a-riff-on-title-mashups-for-films-and.html

Hold Your Head Up Ben 

We’ve Only Just Begun Burning Down the House

Kiss Me Deadly Man on the Corner

You Need to Calm Down, Mama

You Can’t Hurry Love Midnight Rambler

Truckin’, Space Trucking 

When Doves Cry "TV Dinners"  

Physical Bodies  

Hit Me With Your Best Shot Horse with No Name

Head Games Without Frontiers

Welcome to the Machine, Intruder

Well, Well, Well , Almost Paradise

Lovin’, Touchin’, Squeezin’ Fish Heads

Suite: Judy Blue Eyes Without a Face 

 

A few additions

One of These Nights in White Satin

Lyin’ Eyes Without a Face (I had to go with the Paul Anka cover this time)

You Won’t See Me Dancing on the Ceiling

Unbreak My Heart-Shaped Box

Express Yourself Godzilla

Blank Space Oddity

Hey Mister Tamborine Man, Jump

a newer one from late July 2024

Slow Hand Cold as Ice

Lennox Berkeley Sonatina for guitar (w read-along score)

with a read-along score

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WZE_XH8IICw

I've tended to be more of a fan of the repertoire composed for Julian Bream than Andres Segovia over the course of my life.  I know that's taken as an offense by some Segovia fans but, fortunately, many Segovia fans can appreciate that there are guitarists out there who just dig the Bream commissioned and dedicated repertoire more.  I like Castelnuovo-Tedesco, for instance, but Bream was the one for whom Britten's Nocturnal, Takemitsu's All in Twilight, and Walton's Five Bagatelles were written and I love those pieces.  

The Berkely Sonatina is not "quite" as well-known but it's a fairly established staple in the classical guitar literature if you haven't already heard it/heard of it.