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Why did Nixon and Kissinger undermine the Secretary of State?
Kissinger undermined Rogers at every opportunity because he was profoundly insecure. Kissinger would yell at anyone available (quite often Haldeman) for hours about slights, real and imaginary. The story of Kissinger’s time as National Security Adviser was a story of constant tussling with Rogers, and making sure Rogers was kept in the dark.
Nixon initially undermined Rogers so that the White House, not the Secretary of State, would have control of foreign policy, which was all that he really cared about. It’s why he deliberate chose a former business partner who knew nothing of foreign policy. Of course, once Kissinger became too big for his boots, Nixon found he needed to undermine Kissinger too, and very rarely he would side with Rogers against Kissinger.
What is your favorite Mahler movement, and why?
It’s an awful question to pose, to pick just one (or even several). I’m forcing myself to limit myself to five:
- The 2nd movement of the Ninth: a dialectic of nostalgia and dissolution, of wistfulness and nihilism.
- The 1st movement of the Ninth: an astonishing accomplishment both formally (everything is in the first two bars) and emotionally: a full symphony in itself, suffused with resignation and struggle.
- The Andante movement of the Sixth (though they’re all amazing): all that is great and lofty about passion and sorrow.
- The scherzo of the Fifth: music to create universes by (and watch them perish as quickly as they materialised).
- The 1st movement of the Fourth: a joyful, lilting, classical-sized whirlygig (and again, a great formal construction).
If I’d allowed myself 10: the 3rd movement of the First; the 3rd and 4th movement of the Second; the 1st movement of the Third; the last movement of the Ninth. (Or of the Third. Or of the Sixth. Not easy….)
What is it about Mahler’s first two symphonies that keeps making me hit the repeat button over and over again along with breaking down and weeping?
The first four Mahler symphonies are called Wunderhorn symphonies for good reason: they all draw inspiration from songs in the Des Knaben Wunderhorn collection, including quotations or rearrangements of song settings that Mahler had done.
That correlates with the structure of the Wunderhorn symphonies, contrasted with his later work: more songlike, more scene-painting, more focus on single musical ideas, more overt programmes. The later works, the 5th, 6th, and 9th, are greater (not by far), and certainly more sophisticated, but the first four are more accessible. Which makes it easier for them to tug at the heartstrings.
Mahler never wore his heart on his sleeve as much as in the Funeral March of the 1st. He probably intended nothing Klezmer about it—he thought of the band as Bohemian, rather than Jewish, and his mental picture was about a band marching in and out of earshot; but the simple melodies and violent clashes in mood have a special resonance for me, one that the Yiddishkeit of the march (from our post–Austro-Hungarian perspective) enhances.
And the bit that gets me crying without fail is the yearning for heaven in Urlicht, from the 2nd symphony. Again, because of the contrast—in particular, the contrast with the cynicism of St Anthony’s Sermon to the Fishes, which precedes it, and swallows it up afterwards.
What are your favorite movies and why?
Oliver Stone’s Nixon.
It may be an eccentric choice. It may be the choice of someone who does not understand film at all. But it’s my favourite movie. Grand Shakespearean tragedy, operatic, intense, cinematic tour-de-force, encompassing the world like a Mahler symphony. And not that this matters anywhere near as much to me, but historically more accurate than you might think.
A surprise, because the biopic is justly maligned as an incoherent and/or formulaic genre; but Stone had great subject matter.
I had little time for Natural Born Killers or The Doors, so falling in love with Nixon surprised me too.
Fun fact: on my first date with my future wife, when we were in the infuriatingly cutesy stage of identifying common interests—
—What’s your favourite city?
—Vienna.
—Me too! What your favourite cake?
—Black Forest.
—Me too!
… and when it came to favourite movie:
—What’s your favourite movie?
—Nixon!
—Me too!
Only by Nixon, Tamar did not mean Oliver Stone’s Nixon. She meant Frost/Nixon (film).
And Frost/Nixon is in many ways the anti-Oliver Stone’s Nixon. It’s intimate, focussed, stagey, and somewhat conventional; a chamber piece.
We’ve watched Frost/Nixon together, and we’ve watched Oliver Stone’s Nixon. (For limited values of “we”.)
I guess we’ll always have Vienna…
How do you improvise on violin with your eyes closed?
Dexterity in playing a musical instrument is all about muscle memory, not looking at the fingerboard. After all, you’re meant to play the violin while reading a score. And the fingerboard is in a rather awkward position to be staring at all the time anyway.
So, if there is no score around to be read, having your eyes open or closed doesn’t make any difference to how you play; and having your eyes closed helps with concentration, and figuring out what you’ll do next.
What are the best clarinet concertos ever?
Well, this will be an odd response.
Clarinet Concerto (Nielsen). Which is a companion piece, to my mind, to Symphony No. 5 (Nielsen).
Is Charlie Chaplin’s “The Great Dictator” a good watch?
This has already been answered by Mark Blanchard in the negative, in: Mark Blanchard’s answer to Do any credible scholars consider the speech given at the end of the “Great Dictator” to be one of the best in history?
I put The Great Dictator on Hulu last night, with high expectations: I’d known of the film since childhood, particularly the dancing with the globe scene, and my childhood in Greece had been fed on a steady diet of Charlot. (And it will always be spelled Σαρλώ with an omega, dammit!)
Reluctantly, I must agree with Mark.
Pros of the film:
- The Jews are portrayed as just regular folk, and not exoticised.
- There is indeed Esperanto on those shopfronts.
- Given the Hays code wilderness of American film in 1940, the film is daring in its satirical content.
- Paulette Goddard is easy on the eyes. (And I thought she was easier on the eyes before she scrubbed up; but then, I haven’t seen Modern Times (film), where she’d played the same character.)
- I was going to say Paulette Goddard did not look plausibly Jewish; good thing I checked Wikipedia (her father was Jewish).
- I was also going to say there’s no way it was believable that the visibly 50 year old Barber could be going out with Paulette’s Hannah. Oops: Chaplin and Goddard were married at the time.
Cons of the film:
- It’s not that funny. I have laughed out loud at several films from the 30s; this was not one of them.
- It is sloppily plotted; the similarity of the Barber to Hynkel and the deus ex at the end is an afterthought, the scenes are incoherently strung together.
- The mix of satire, slapstick, and political advocacy is not inspired, it is incoherent.
- The satire is pretty dumb. Not for making light of concentration camps, something Chaplin can’t be blamed for when noone knew what concentration camps were like, and years before the Final Solution. But because it’s not particularly pointed or perceptive.
- The music, unlike the acting, does exoticise the Jews.
- Esperanto in Fraktur… does not look recognisably like Esperanto.
- The final speech… like Mark (again) says in Mark Blanchard’s answer to United Nations: Should The Great Dictator’s final speech be made at the opening of every UN session ? .
Maudlin, over-long, preachy rather than persuasive.
Much better in the YouTube version with modern visuals and EDM tinkling in the background, than in the original.
Why is the heliocentric model still attributed to Copernicus?
For the same reason we don’t attribute the Atomic theory to Democritus (or Jain cosmology), but to John Dalton.
Democritus came up with a theory that there are indivisible atoms of matter. Heraclitus that fire was the first principle of all things, and Thales that it was water. These philosophers were philosophising; what they were not doing was science as we understand it. They were throwing up ideas and seeing what might stick, but without what we would consider empirical evidence. If Democritus and not Thales turns out to have been right, it was entirely by accident.
Same with Aristarchus and Copernicus. Even if Copernicus had read up on Aristarchus (e.g. Aristarchus and Copernicus; see also Gingerich, O. “Did Copernicus Owe a Debt to Aristarchus?” Journal for the History of Astronomy, Vol.16, NO.1/FEB, P. 37, 1985, cited in Wikipedia), Copernicus based his work on observational data (De revolutionibus orbium coelestium). The real work cementing it all, as Wade Schmaltz points out, came later with Galileo and Kepler; yet even what Copernicus did was in a different paradigm from the idle ideations of the ancients.
Dimitra in the lab
I was in my first year of my PhD. It’s that time when you try sooooo hard to impress your supervisor. You are so eager to prove yourself. You are the first one to get into the lab and the last one to leave.
So, it’s my birthday and I’m not feeling all that well (PMS) but still I go to work early and start working but nothing works. I am preparing an SDS-gel for an electrophoresis and I break the glass plate. Try a second time, break a second one. You should know these were rather expensive back then. Finally, on the third try, I get it right, set up the equipment and plug in the power supply. Puff, it short circuits and dies. I am close to tears but I still want to run my gel. I take a second power supply, plug it to a different socket and puff! second power supply short circuits and the lights go out in the lab. A fuse or something burned. Now, I have to leave because I’m close to having a melt-down.
First, I have to report to my boss. He was a 65yo professor, very distinguished looking, tall, a bit on the heavy side , full mane of white hair. He had a reputation for being very strict. So, I go into his office and stand in front of his big desk literally shaking from suppressing my tears and tell him my story. He looks at me over his glasses for a moment, gives me a reassuring little smile and says: “Oh, dear! Why ever did you stay after breaking the second glass? Next time you’re having a day like this, tell me and i’ll give you the day off. Now run along and go home and forget about everything.”
I was so thankful, I could have kissed him.
P.S. His daughter was about 10 years older than me and I was about the 40th (and last) PhD student he had supervised.
https://www.quora.com/Whats-the-…
*Rummage rummage*
Why yes. I do think I have a picture of this incident…
Note if you will the evolution from Dimitra’s infancy hairstyle…
Where did you meet your spouse, what were your lives like when you met, and what were the key events and circumstances that led to you being together?
Well, Anon, I was 39. Had had two and a half girlfriends, and had just been dumped by one of them after a six month relationship. I’d pretty much resigned myself that I was going to hit 40 without a partner, and that would be the end of it.
People at my workplace heard too much about all of that. Including one Tamar E. Tamar E. was an annoying corporate presence at work, who’d pilfer my Bach CDs and talk about her dog and get on my nerves. As, I gather, I got on hers.
Time came, eventually, for one Tamar E. to leave my workplace. The last day she was at my workplace, she dropped her guard, and talked about her fears and feelings, which got my attention. I made sure a couple of us took her out to dinner, and walked her back to her car, which got her attention.
And over the next few months, we’d catch up for lunch or dinner every couple of weeks, and chat. To the surprise of everyone that knew us both.
Tamar one evening was feeling down in the dumps, at the house of the colleague who we went to dinner with. The colleague said that she was too young to be hanging out with old-timers like her; she should be out having a good time, and enjoying herself while she could.
So, inspired by her colleague, she went through her contact list. X was out of town, Y was on a date, Z she hadn’t seen in too long… right after the archly gay M, who decided he had better things to do that evening, she fell on Nick’s name.
So Tamar randomly called Nick, and asked if he wanted to go for a drive.
And it was random alright. She was driving erratically, she was nervous, she was talking too fast. By the time we’d left the café, Nick could totally tell. She was into him.
Which was the furthest thing from Tamar’s mind. (Remember, she’d called the archly gay M before Nick.)
So. Tamar had to get home from the café, and Nick was kind enough to drive. Halfway there, Tamar needed to go to the bathroom. Could Nick stop at a pub or something?
“Well… I’ve got a bathroom at my place.”
When Tamar came out of the bathroom, there were two shot glasses of Croatian walnut brandy waiting. Because, well, Tamar’s a visitor, and that’s what you offer visitors. Only, Tamar, don’t scull…
*gulp*
By the time Tamar retired into the guest bedroom, in no state to drive, Nick had decided this was so, so going to happen.
It so, so didn’t. The next morning, Tamar ran out in a mild panic.
And Nick invited himself along for breakfast.
And after breakfast, Nick tried to kiss Tamar, and Tamar ran out in a less mild panic.
Reader, I married her. (Three and half years later, to the day.) We got together the following week.
What is the takeaway lesson for you, Anon?
If Tamar hadn’t decided to take a chance that night, and just live a little, nothing would have happened.
If Nick hadn’t decided to take a chance, and totally misread the cues Tamar was sending (or at least, interpret them prematurely), nothing would have happened.
If Tamar hadn’t decided to take a chance, and ask me if I meant to kiss her a week later, nothing would have happened.
If Nick hadn’t decided to take a chance, and said, yes I did, and then do it, nothing would have happened.
Take a chance. How much, truly, do you have to lose?