Hassagot השגות

Music I enjoyed in ... 2021

A silver lining of Covid Time in my life:  The opportunity to explore some Baroque music.

Domenico Scarlatti, The Complete Keyboard Works (555 Sonatas, almost all for solo harpsichord).   Performed by the late great Scott Ross.  I have also enjoyed recordings by Christoph Ullrich, Vladimir Horowitz, Yevgeny Sudbin, Ivo Pogolerich, Avi Avital (on mandolin), Alexandre Tharaud, Marcdelle Meyer, Lucas Debargue, Martha Argerich, Pierre Hantaï, Jean Rondeau, and - yes - Chick Corea.  I spent many hours listening and listening again.  I selected my favorite individual sonatas as well as playlists of favorite sonatas as they appear in the groups of 2 or occasionally 3 related sonatas (see Ralph Kirkpatrick's book on Scarlatti).

J. S. Bach, The Art of Fugue; Musical Offering; Orchestral Suites; Goldberg Variations; Brandenburg Concertos

Henry Purcell, Suites for Harpsichord. Yes--harpsichord, more harpsichord, and yet more harpsichord

Handel, Complete Harpsichord Music

Girolamo Frescobaldi, Keyboard Works (a selection recorded by Hank Knox in 2006)

I have enjoyed Jean Rondeau's collection of Italian and English harpsichord works, Melancholy Grace  (issued this year) - appropriate for a year of plague.  

A remarkable discovery:  the music of Thomas Adès (United Kingdom, b. 1971). I am particularly interested in his In Seven Days for piano and orchestra (2008).  I have also heard his Arcadiana for string quartet (1993-4).

 

Noodles

He entered the car at Stadium, one of a party of three: two black men and a white woman.  The other guy was short and slim, with a large dog on a leash.  He was tall, heavy, with a head of dreadlocks.  His dog was small.  The small guy sat to my left; he sat on a seat opposite mine.  The woman stood with her back to the train wall, opposite the small guy.  She kept her eyes on the large dog and issued orders for it to stay in its seat.  He fixed his gaze on the floor.  His motions were noticeably slow.  He drank a bottle of water.  At Mount Baker, the other guy with his dog and the woman quickly left the train.  He rose slowly, taking his dog and the bottle of water.  He was on his way to the door of the train when he turned back quickly to pick up one of a number of noodles that a previous passenger had left on the floor.  He spent a few seconds trying to gain a purchase on it.  The train doors slid shut audibly.  He stood erect and walked quickly to them.  He pushed the red button on the left door in the hope that the car would open for him.  From the platform side, the white woman banged against the right door.  The doors did not open.  The train resumed its southerly journey to the airport.  He stood by the doors, his head down, his dog by his side.  I wondered if I should have said, "Sir, the door is about to close.  Don't worry about the noodle."   I don't even think he managed to pick it up.

At Columbia City, the doors opened.  He hesitated to leave.  He seemed to be considering something.   I wondered if he would successfully make his way through the opening or find himself riding one more stop to Othello.   He and the small dog managed to step forward in time.  Did he have money to get back to Mount Baker?  Would his friends still be there when he arrived?

I turned to a woman sitting to my right with her legs on her carry-on.  "This isn't the first time.  This kind of thing happens to him a lot."  She said, "He was really stressing me out."  The train had forgotten him, as it would forget us.  Only the noodles would remain.

The Amazing Disappearing Pregnant Woman

We thought that she was a person / then we learned that she was the wrapping of the fetus within

We thought she had agency / then we learned that she had one single task: to gestate and deliver

We thought she could be trusted to make decisions about her body / then we learned that she was to be held in unending suspicion of jeopardizing the life in her womb

We thought she existed / then we saw that she disappeared.

After Roe

In response to the publication of a draft decision by Justice Samuel Alito of the Supreme Court of the United States to overturn the courts 1973 decision in Roe v Wade.  See

https://www.politico.com/news/2022/05/02/abortion-draft-supreme-court-opinion-key-passages-00029470 and https://www.politico.com/news/2022/05/02/read-justice-alito-initial-abortion-opinion-overturn-roe-v-wade-pdf-00029504 .  

1

If one were to hold that the fetus in the womb is a human being, a person, then feticide would be homicide.  Abortion would be manslaughter and perhaps murder.

If so, how could one permit abortion in cases where pregnancy resulted from rape or incest?  How could one permit abortion in cases where the fetus represents a threat to the health of the mother?

Some opponents of abortion articulate such a position.  Shouldn’t they, if they think that the fetus is a person?

Shouldn’t they be worried that a pregnant woman might elect to abort?  What could they do to ensure that this won’t happen?  Should they check her mail to ensure there are no abortifacients there?  Should they hack into her email and track her phone calls?  

Shouldn’t they be concerned that women of childbearing age might be pregnant?  Once she shows signs of puberty until she is 50, should they subject her occasionally - perhaps monthly - to an ultrasound?

If she is determined to be pregnant, should they control her movement, activities, diet, and medications?  Should she be allowed to play sports? To take painkillers?  To work?

2

If one holds with Justice Alito that the reasoning of Roe was ‘egregiously wrong from the start,’ what of other cases that share some of the same reasoning?   Granted that Justice Alito takes pains to limit his draft decision to the issue of abortion, why stop there?

Why not call into question the right to purchase contraceptives?  The right to have same-sex marriage?  

If we are in the business of calling into question the wisdom of those who preceded us, why not reconsider the question of interracial marriage?  Why not question the constitutionality of the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act?  Why not revisit Brown v Board of Education?