Education, Once Again

I have just endured another minor flurry of "statistical analyses" of unemployment; this time (once again) trying to correlate (1) unemployment and (2) average starting salary of a new graduate with (3) his or her undergraduate major (and possibly post graduate degrees). 

Most of us want to shake our heads at the mere idea of encapsulating a person's education with his or her undergraduate major.  Certainly the choice of major (and the grade point average) gives a prospective employer a lot of information about the education of an applicant.  Obviously, also, two applicants with majors in, let's say, psychology, could have very different undergraduate experiences and skills.  Majors with better prospects for employment include chemistry and physics.  Well, two chemistry majors, even from the very same school, could have vastly different skills and coursework, and their worth to an employer should reflect those differences.  (But employers are often lazy, and reporters and bloggers flipping through easily available data on the Internet, are curious about correlations that might catch the attention of casual readers.  So statistics can easily breed monsters.)

But look at the facts.  It is not easy for a youth and his or her parents to decide on educational objectives.
* In a good economy, it is more important to awaken new interests, and sharpen existing interests in the young person.  The field is not important; it is more important to engage the young person with the world and with society, and inspire the developments of his or her talents.  In an ideal world, keeping body and soul together should not be a major concern.
* In a bad economy, it is important to train the young person in whatever skills employers may be looking for.  Employers, much of the time, are not very good at narrowing down the skills they need and want in a new employee.  They often focus too heavily on skills that almost any applicant would have to a sufficient degree, or focus too little on skills they assume applicants would have.  Employers sometimes delegate hiring responsibility to a junior member of the administrative staff, who may succeed in hiring a number of incompetent employees before his or her own incompetence is revealed.  Society (via the fruitful imaginations of new "educational institutions") generates new and wonderful Boutique courses of study (which we shall call "Majors") such as Online Marketing Administration, or Prison Cafeteria Maintenance, which attract students, who are fiercely specialized in these new "fields", in which there has been no time to establish a canonical set of studies and skills.  (In Computer Science, for instance, the discipline struggled for decades, trying to decide exactly what should go into the Computer Science major.  With the enormous success of personal computers in the 1980s, new programming paradigms arrived just in time to throw the entire process off course, and it has remained that way for several years.)

It looks very much as though higher education is in trouble in a very structural sort of way.  If it suits the purposes of American Society to lay the choice of educational objectives (read choice of a major) in the lap of the student --and of course it does, or Society would be responsible for the student's failures, and who wants that?-- then young people essentially have to gamble that a particular choice of study will pay off in employment.

Our society is all about gambling.  Affluent businessmen who have gambled and essentially won, are well known for egging on everyone around them to gamble.  College Professors, who have also gambled and won, are notorious for encouraging their best students to go into Academia.  It's high-stakes gambling that resulted in the Stock Market meltdown of 2007, but high-stakes gambling has not gotten tarred by public disapproval.  It suits society to forgive the excesses of Wall Street, and once again regard it with adoring eyes, as the coming Messiah of the American Economy.  Conservatives who are totally against a planned economy of any kind are obliged to support the gambling tradition in economics.  It's called Entrepreneurship.  Those who know what they're doing can gamble with the money of other people; that's what other people are for.

As for myself, I have seen too many wonderful students living a life of drudgery, pouring their all into teaching bright young kids who are too lazy to back up their ability with work, or into hardworking zeroes who are convinced that more work will make a genius of them, and into helping children of resentful parents who prefer political blackmail to helping their children with their homework.  (And who has the time?  The "successful" parent is probably working a 12-hour day to bring in that $1000 a week that qualifies them to call themselves successful.)  A teacher's job is no sinecure.  I decided to stop encouraging kids to go into Academia about 15 years ago. 

Asking students to gamble on their futures is inhuman.  So the present model of education only makes sense in a good economy.  We can cling to this model only if we can ensure that the economy remains good (and that's a frightening thought; no wonder conservatives want a strong Military ...) or if we believe that it's going to be good (and that's a frightening thought, too; no wonder conservatives tend to be people of blind religion ...), or we must think more sanely about higher education.

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What is going on in that score fragment?

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Heh heh!

Any of you who have had a little musical training know that most of the time, music is written in four parts (or fewer).  In the Mendelssohn Octet, of course, there are eight instruments, and what could they all be doing, considering that an ordinary chord only has three notes, and in 4 parts, one of those (at least) is doubled, usually at an octave.  So I thought I'd make things a little more transparent by showing you what's going on in just these first several bars!

Three of the instruments are just alternating notes.  This adds nothing to the harmony, but it does add to the texture.  It's a little like strumming a guitar in a pop song; you get a certain rhythmic excitement out of it.  (In a classical ensemble, without a set of drums, you can imagine that every bit of rhythmic support is well appreciated.)

The lowest part is Cello 2, which simply holds a low E Flat.  The whole tune starts off, and stays in, E Flat for a couple of bars, so that makes sense.  I'm not going to give you that note separately.

The second lowest part is cello 1, which alternates E Flat and B Flat.  (The E Flat chord is -- going from the bottom -- E Flat, G, and B Flat, but of course you can add as many octaves of these as you like.)  Here it is:

This produces a sort of sawing sound that you can hear if you listen carefully!

Meanwhile, violins 2, 3 and 4 are doing the same sort of thing, producing a rather frantic alternating chord.  ("4 Violini" simply means four violins, and "Cresc." is short for crescendo : getting gradually louder.)

The violas, not to be left out, are playing a sort of syncopated 2-note chord:

The First violin plays the melody we hear most prominently.  I really don't need to present the whole thing, which you can hear here.

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Mendelssohn's Legendary Octet for Strings

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Felix Mendelssohn, the child of a wealthy Jewish merchant family (which was pressured to convert to Lutheranism) was a musical prodigy.  His wealthy parents were patrons of the Arts, and encouraged young Felix (and his older sister Fanny) to pursue their musical talents from a very early age.  The engraving on the right is the representation of him that is most convincing to me.

Felix began composing as a child, and at around the age of sixteen, produced one of the greatest jewels of German music, namely the Octet for Strings, for four violins, two violas, and two violoncellos ('cellos).  This is all I'm going to say about Mendelssohn; suffice it to add that he was instrumental in the revival of interest in Johann Sebastian Bach (who had died in 1750), with a performance of Bach's St Matthew Passion in Leipzig.  [More about Felix Mendelssohn at a later time.]

The Octet is an interesting piece in many ways.  Its performance generally requires two string quartets to cooperate, and given the busy lives of modern music professionals (and their competitiveness), this is a lot to expect.  [Some quartets, for instance the Emerson Quartet, have chosen to double-track themselves, playing all eight parts.  This seems a choice of doubtful wisdom.]  However, the music is so sublime that despite the fact that it has been performed by such great musicians that it is ever harder to contribute something new and different to the many treatments the work has received over the years, performers cannot resist trying.

I recently put a (copy of) my own Octet CD in my car stereo, and my ears complained.  I have been a fan of authentic period performance for many years, and I had bought the best performance I could afford, namely that by Hausmusik.  But now, because of age or the characteristics of my car speakers, I wanted something a little more mellow.  Gut strings are all very well, but it seemed to me that the idiom of Mendelssohn's Oktet would be equally well served by modern, steel-strung violins, violas and 'cellos, as well as it has been with period instruments.  (Often, with music, one sees a composition to do justice to which one needs a new kind of instrument.  At other times, one looks again at a composition, and wonders whether the old instruments might have been better, after all.  You have to keep searching.)

At any rate, I went to the Amazon website, where I could compare different recordings, and here is what I found.

Auer & Kodaly String Quartets (Naxos, paired with Max Bruch Octet)
Good sound; first movement a little slower than most (14:16); mellow sound; excellent playing all round.

Jascha Heifetz & Co. (Sony, paired with the Mozart G minor Quintet)
Good sound with extraordinary stereo separation; brilliant phrasing. Mellow sound, simply because it is an older recording, and the frequency range is smaller.  Still, an exciting performance, and the one I chose to buy.

Academy of St Martin in the Fields Chamber Ensemble, with the late Iona Brown (Philips, paired with one of the Mendelssohn String Quintet, also a wonderful piece)
Good sound, and excellent playing as always.  (The Academy rose to prominence with their recordings with amazing string playing with modern instruments, and later their interest in historically informed performance albeit still with modern instruments.)  Very reasonable speeds; e.g. the first movement is almost as deliberate as the Naxos recording (13:56).  The composer's speed indication is "Moderato, ma con fuoco" which means, as you might guess, "At a moderate speed, but with fire."  Unfortunately, the idea of fieriness is often conflated with the idea of high velocity, and it's interesting how different ensembles deal with the composers apparently conflicting indications.

Hausmusik (EMI, paired with two Mendelssohn Quintets, and Quartet No. 2)
I might not have exactly this recording, but I do own Mendelssohn's Octet by Hausmusik.  The playing there (and in the little Amazon website clip) display an edgy playing to which I was trying to find an alternative; hence this exploration.  On a large stereo system, the edgy playing sounds plausible and interesting, but in the car (where I do a lot of listening) the playing sounds just a little more harsh than I would like.  Given that the sound is a little harsh (as if they were playing close to the bridge, for extra brilliance), the playing is excellent.  After all, Monica Huggett and her troops must have reasoned, Mendelssohn played melodiously is a bit of a cliché.

Melos Ensemble of London--Is there another one? (EMI, Paired with Beethoven Septet and Octet, and the Schubert Octet for wind and strings)
A great recording and performance.  I'm just beginning to notice that these more traditional performances manage to allow the first violin to soar just a bit more than the more modern (authentic) performances such as that or Hausmusik.  In the Hausmusik performance, all eight parts are defiantly equal, while my ear seems to prefer that the first violin should be allowed a little space (in complete contrast to my usual preference in most matters).  The first movement here is the most restrained in pace of all: 14:47.  This double album might be the choice for people with a conventional ear and taste.

Whew.  There are so many recordings that I'm running out of steam.

Some of the recordings on Amazon are of orchestras playing the Octet.  This one is an transcription of the first movement.  The Octet --in particular the third movement Scherzo-- is so popular that it has been transcribed for full string orchestra (which is not hard; you just need to give one of the 'cello lines to the Basses) and even full orchestra, with flutes and clarinets and stuff.  The Academy has recorded it this way, and it sounds fabulous, but of course it's not the same.  Here's a transcription of the third movement:


The Russian string orchestral version is a little wild; I guess they took the "con fuoco" to heart.  (But is it Art?)

I'll possibly add more to this post, but this is an exhausting topic, and probably of interest only to a few readers!  Go to it, kids; you can't go wrong with one more copy of The Octet!

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Edgar Rice Burroughs: John Carter of Mars

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An artist's conception of John Carter

As some my readers are sure to know, Edgar Rice Burrough's (ERB's) John Carter of Mars story has been made into a movie; we went to see it just a couple of days ago.

It was spectacular in many ways, though anyone who knows the least bit about science will be well aware that ERB wrote fantastical stories that had absolutely no basis in science, and the John Carter stories are no exception; in fact, they're more fantastic than almost any of the other ones.  (His stories about journeying to the center of the Earth may come a close second.)

The movie stars actors not familiar to me: Taylor Kitsch as John Carter, Lynn Collins as Dejah Thoris, Willem Dafoe as Tars Tarkas (a member of a Martian humaniod species which has four arms), and Samantha Morton as Sola, the daughter of Tars.

[To be slightly continued heh heh heh ...]

OK.

Movie conception of John Carter and Dejah Thoris

The story is of the "This diary has come into my possession, and the facts recounted therein are so fantastic as to defy belief ..." variety; in fact ERB is a master of the genre.  So, at any rate, brother John Carter, a Confederate soldier, finds himself magically --mysteriously, rather, because ERB believed that scientific forces existed that he did not understand, and which therefore could be invoked ad libitum-- transported to the planet Mars, which, in the story, is called Barsoom by the residents.  ERB must have sincerely believed that the Martian gravity was vastly less than that of Earth, and this is one of the chief conceits of the story: John Carter, having been born and raised on Earth, with its heavy gravity, was immeasurably stronger and had a denser body than the native Martians of most species.

A piece of sculpture representing Dejah Thoris

At the outset, Carter cannot understand the native speech of the Martians whom he meets almost immediately, but that is rectified by being fed some milk-like substance by his captors, specifically by Sola, a female of the race of Tars Tarkas, a green-skinned humanoid with four arms, and two legs.  Tars Tarkas, had encountered John Carter soon after the latter arrived on Mars, and somehow taken him into custody.  Sola's action (in giving Carter the means of understanding their language) complicates Tars Tarkas's plans for Carter, but they are each won over by the other's good points, and John Carter becomes essentially one of their fighters, albeit on probation.

Meanwhile, in another part of the planet, we find that there is a civilization of people who are almost human, a species essentially indistinguishable from Earth humans (except for their wild tattoos), and in the original novel, the conjecture is that they were actually descended from stock from Earth.  A being with super powers (called a Thern) is manipulating the rulers of two nations to make a marriage between the daughter of one ruler and the other ruler.  The girl, Princess Dejah Thoris, is vehemently opposed to the plan.  Dejah T. is not only a single-minded girl of action and a fair fighter, she is also a scientist.  She has just discovered a light frequency that has magical powers, but one of the Thern (who are shape-shifters) manages to sabotage her experiment.

Dejah Thoris before the Wedding

In Edgar Rice Burroughs's inimitable style, John Carter and Dejah Thoris meet, and after many amazing adventures, manage to --temporarily-- defeat the Thern who is trying to unite the two nations by the political marriage of Deja and the enemy ruler (whose name I forget).

The movie is worth watching, simply for the sake of the visual beauty of it.  John Carter and Dejah Thoris are certainly quite a handsome pair of protagonists, but the fauna of Mars has been represented graphically in beautiful detail.  There is a dog-like creature Woola, a pet of Sola, who is particularly cute.  Furthermore, there are aircraft that are powered by sunlight, which are amazingly graceful.  Unfortunately, I was not able to tell the aircraft of the good guys from those of the bad guys.

Woola

So there you have it: one thumb enthusiastically up.  Most times, we would like to see movies that are a little more scientifically plausible.  This one belongs squarely in the same category as X-Men and Incredible Hulk, and so forth.  In fact, exporting the scenes of incredulity to Mars seems almost unfair and unforgivable.  Why not invent an alternate universe where these things happen?  Unfortunately, Edgar R. Burroughs has the copyright, and we've got to stick with the script.

Dejah Thoris was portrayed in ERB's time (and in subsequent reprints of his fantasy novels) as a scantily-dressed young woman, sometimes more of an ornamental type, and sometimes as a forceful young woman who was no shrinking violet.  Rice Burroughs himself described her as not being heavily clothed; none of his protagonists were very much into modest dress.  Somehow, the movie designers have chosen, in my opinion, a reasonable style of costume for the story; the humans are all heavily tattooed, and dressed more for action (with the exception of the shawls and cloaks some of them wore) than for warmth.  The implication was that Mars is a hot place.  (The same was true of how ERB represented Africa in his Tarzan novels.)  The image that follows compares an artist's impression of Dejah Thoris, with the movie representation.  The movie costume is clearly a plausible one, combining the sort of body ornamentation that we would, at the present time, imagine in a savage society, without the gratuitous near-nudity that artists for book covers depicted as a means of selling their product.

[Added later:
It turns out that the entire book "A Princess of Mars" is available online, for free.  In the story, Rice Burroughs describes Dejah Thoris as wearing only body ornaments, and being otherwise absolutely naked.  Nowadays, of course, we are able to pack quite a lot of excitement into a movie without going to the extreme of complete nudity.  As a result of this eccentricity on the part of the author, I wouldn't be surprised if he lost a great many women readers who just did not have time for that sort of silliness, but might have been sympathetic to the character of Dejah Thoris as represented in the movie.  The movie is an immense improvement on the original in many details, though it does bring out some of the implausibility of the story in many ways.]


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New-To-Me TV series from Britain (or the UK)

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Last week, I sent out for a DVD of a TV series based on P. G. Wodehouse's Jeeves stories, starring Bertie Wooster, and his man Jeeves. As a kid I read these stories avidly, trying not to be too admiring of the social class represented by Wooster. (He was a member of the Drones Club, which really says it all.) Still, I recognized that the banter in those books, and the characters, formed a background for the later series by Leslie Charteris, who wrote the highly successful Saint novels (for our younger readers: a sort of Robin Hood-type character who stole from crooks). The Saint often called the Chief Inspector of Scotland Yard "Aunt Agatha," a clear reference to Wodehouse (or rather, one of Wodehouse's characters, Bertie's hatchet-faced Aunt Agatha).  The series, I forgot to mention, is called Jeeves and Wooster.

I had expected to receive from Netflix a show featuring Terry Thomas, but instead got a series made in 1990 [I had previously said "around 2001", and I had been in error] starring Hugh Laurie and Stephen Fry (a modern-day team comparable to Peter Cooke and Dudley Moore). I was very pleasantly surprised. Hugh Laurie's delivery of Wodehouse's lines was brilliant (and you must hear it to understand just why; it was the custom to use rather Baroque imagery to convey the simplest ideas, and it was not pompous verbiage, but brilliant extrapolation of pseudo- American-style slang), and Stephen Fry's face was just a tiny bit more mobile than one imagined the face of a typical valet must have been in the roaring Teens, making it just a little more palatable for 21st century audiences.

But the most wonderful thing about the series was the style. The clothes, Hugh Laurie singing silly limericks at the piano, the paper plane-throwing at The Drones, but most of all the jazzy theme music by Anne Dudley, were all consistent with the New Yorker style of the production, capped off by the outstanding title sequence.  Wodehouse was all about style (well, style and humor, I must admit, but stylish humor), and the series captures the spirit of Wodehouse perfectly.

The second [To be continued; talk among yourselves, please ... OK, I'm back] pleasant surprise was recommended to us by my own Aunt (who shall remain anonymous, to protect the innocent), who said: "You have to see this!  It is ... what is the word? ... Shakespearean comedy!" in a sort of hushed voice, as if she was talking about something wonderful and holy.

It is a series called As time goes by, starring, of all people, Judi Dench, Geoffrey Palmer, Moira Brooker, Philip Bretherton, and Jenny Funnell. All of them (except Mr Bretherton, and possibly he, too) are utterly charming. Perhaps what's most delightful about the series is the opportunity to see Judi Dench in a non-dragon-lady role.

The acting is wonderful, even if Geoffrey Palmer being a curmudgeon is slightly annoying at first. The writing, above all, is excellent, and sit very comfortably on the lips of the exceptional cast. We've watched about 8 half-hour episodes, by now, and just as I think I'm too tired to watch anymore, I see a really cool ending, and I'm hooked again.  (The clothes are fabulous, as BBC clothes invariably appear to be--at least the shows I watch.)

The one terrible negative is: the music. Just as much as the Wooster music was good, the music of this series is god-awful. It features the title song recorded by Joe Fagin, who ... let's just say that I don't like what he does to the song. It reminds me of the slimy theme from The Love Boat, which was appropriate and good for that show, but whose style does not fit the delicacy of As time goes by.  (I'm especially captivated by Moira Brooker and her adorable dimples, but I have to go slow on dimples out of wedlock.)

Well, hope you choose to see these series, and hope doing so does not interfere with your daily battle for truth, justice, and the rest of the stuff.

P.S. if you acquired the Big Bach Box from Amazon and started listening, and heard an intermittent rumble, especially at high volumes, you're not alone. You have to turn the bass somewhat lower than you normally would. I apologize for having urged you to consider this slightly flawed piece of merchandise, but I think it is still a worthy investment. (I understand that the rumble is caused by jet planes taking off from a field near the studios.)

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