Featuring: Jack B. and Bark M.
Despite the old adage, “If it works, don’t fix it,” I have never been able to keep my hands off of things that aren’t broken. That’s bit me in the ass more times than I’d like to admit, something I was well aware of when I decided to “improve” our new Nissan Versa. I’m not sure if that decision makes me fearless or just stupid, but whichever it is I went in anyway. I guess it’s time to talk about what happened. Continue Reading →
Nearly a year ago, I wrote that “Sexual harassment has been weaponized. There can be no doubt about it, no discussion required. Anyone, at anytime, can be accused, and the accusers’ testimony must be believed, even if it is questionable.” But I don’t come before you today to pat myself on the back for my Nostradamus-like prediction. Rather, I wonder if the Democrats and the Soros machine played their hand too soon, or perhaps with the wrong cards.
Before I continue, I want to be crystal clear on a few subjects. Rape is abhorrent and wrong. Sexual assault is abhorrent and wrong. There are no exceptions to this. No justifications. If Justice Kavanaugh had been an actual rapist or assailant, there would have been no voice louder than mine in demanding his immediate withdrawal from candidacy for the court. Of course, it turns out that he wasn’t.
Had Christine Blasey Ford been a more credible witness before the Senate—if any of the vast, vast number of inconsistencies with her story hadn’t been so blatantly obvious—I think it’s quite possible that Kavanaugh’s nomination could have been derailed. If there had been one corroborating witness, for example, or if she’d been able to remember where the house was, how she got there, how she got home, how many people were at the party, etc., Ol’ Kav might have been kicked back the the district court, regardless of his guilt or innocence. Hell, even after Ford’s testimony (but before Kavanaugh’s), some conservatives, like Ben Shapiro, were still convinced that Kavanaugh should have removed himself from consideration. Thankfully, both Justice Kavanaugh and President Trump conducted themselves as they should have—Kavanaugh replying with furious, seething anger at being falsely accused, and Trump allowing an FBI investigation to take place.
But now that the sexual harassment/rape card has been played, Democrats will find it difficult to play it again with any degree of success.
A friend of mine died this week. Died in his asleep, presumably alone. He was 42.
In this age of social media, maybe I’d call him a former friend, because he deleted me from Facebook a long time ago, but if he had called me needing $100 to make it to his next paycheck, I’d have given it to him without a second thought. The reason I use that particular example is because, knowing his story, it’s probably the mostly likely reason that he would have contacted me.
I won’t use his real name, because I’m going to tell his story in true Speaker For The Dead fashion. Let’s call him “Bob.” Bob was a musical compatriot of mine for a few years, and we toured much of the midwest together in an Econoline van that had a penchant for eating alternators at the most inconvenient times. He was a brilliant guy, easily my intellectual equal and maybe even then some. But Bob’s life was, to put it mildly, a trainwreck.
Perhaps because I have done it so often, I sometimes forget that the great American road trip is a dying tradition. Some of my earliest memories are tied into those long drives from our home in the cool, tree covered hills of Western Washington to visit my grandparents on the hot, sun baked plains of Eastern Kansas. The recollections play out in my mind like a disjointed movie – a memory of our overheated Oldsmobile station wagon on a mountain pass shooting out a geyser of steam as my father adds water collected from the melting snow, an image caught through the window of a canopy on the back of our Chevy truck where my brothers, sisters and I made another trip atop a pile of blankets, and still another, when my older three siblings had been deemed too old to be forced to make the trip, where my sister Connie and I luxuriated in the spacious backseat and the air-conditioned comfort of my dad’s Delta 88. Eventually I too aged out of that particular journey, but as an adult I still embrace the road trip and have spent more than my fair share of time using the interstate to traverse the vast distances between our nation’s shores. I’ve done it probably a dozen times now and it’s become an old trick. Perhaps that was why I felt so little trepidation over using a 27 year old Nissan to do it yet again. Continue Reading →
Starting with the November issue, I’ll be writing about luxury automotive for Indulge Magazine. It’s a lifestyle-oriented magazine that has a subscription circulation of about 60,000 in the Miami-Dade market, with readership of about 280,000. It’s specifically targeted at higher income/net worth individuals, so my first piece is going to be about some of the exotic hybrid sports cars on the market, and driving them around Miami and taking pictures at iconic locations. Neat, right? Also, this will probably be the first time that I’m just plain ol’ “Mark Baruth” in the byline.
Unless you live in Miami, you won’t ever see the articles in print, but I’ll link to them when they’re online.
That’s all!
I didn’t know it was going to be the last ride of my ill-advised, midlife return to motocross, but that’s the thing about last rides – they don’t care about your plans. I had a long second over the finish line jump to ponder the fact that no part of my body was connected to my KTM, and that my children are likely to still need me around for a while longer. Why the hell am I doing this? My body survived the landing, but my hobby did not. I’d been riding beyond my diminishing abilities, and the risk was no longer acceptable.
The bike was gone after a quick wash and Craigslist ad, but the void that only speed and competition could fill remained. I’d been wanting to try autocross and track driving, but my Ford Flex wasn’t welcome at either. My girlfriend graciously offered to drive my dad-mobile so I could get a suitable sports car; it should come as no surprise she is now my wife. But I needed more than a track car, this was going to be my daily driver and kid hauler. I needed something that could do it all, and for about $20,000 used.
You can tell just how dangerous our gatekeeping media mandarins think Dr. Jordan Peterson is by the number of hit pieces in establishment media organs on the man and his new book, 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos. NBC called him part of the “alt-right” even though he explicitly denounces identitarian politics and has counseled young men away from that particular abyss. “The Stupid Person’s Smart Person”, he’s been called, taking a swipe at both Peterson and the people he disclaims are his “fans”.
To be honest, students or maybe even disciples would be more accurate, as Peterson’s message is fundamentally a moral one, telling people that they’re best off being as honest and responsible as possible.
Stile Antico:
Tomás Luis de Victoria, Tenebrae Responsories for Holy Week
CD Harmonia Mundi HMM 902272
Downloads (24-bit/88kHz AIFF, ALAC, FLAC, and WAV stereo) available from HDTracks.
Streaming available from Tidal and Apple Music.
Recorded at All Hallows’ Church, Gospel Oak (North London) England, February 13-17, 2017. Robina G. Young, producer; Brad Michel, engineer.
The British early-music group that calls itself “Stile Antico” once again proves that they are, without doubt, one of the most impressive vocal ensembles before the public today. I Imagine that their group name just might be a bit of an insider’s joke—stile antico is a musical term used (from the early 1600s on) to characterize the continued creation of new but historically-conscious “old style” music.
The composers of stile antico music declined to embrace the emerging Baroque stylistic trends of increasingly elaborate ornamentation and more complex (and freer) counterpoint. Stile antico composers regarded the works of older composers (especially Palestrina) as ideals that could not be surpassed—a position that was still being put forward (believe it or not) even as late as the 1870s (at least in the realm of sacred music)… .
The group Stile Antico’s “Unique Selling Proposition” is that they work without a conductor or music director, in this regard being more like a chamber-music instrumental ensemble than an orchestra. While this might seem a very daunting prospect, I think that with so much of the repertory being four-part scores (two high voices and two low voices), hashing things out should be no more difficult than, say, when a string quartet’s members decide among themselves how a movement (such as the slow movement of Beethoven’s op. 127) should be played. (Irony alert.)
I was rather agog at Stile Antico’s 2006 début SACD Music for Compline when I wrote about it for Stereophile magazine, and they have continued at that high level for more than 10 years. Their articulation, phrasing, and ensemble work are among the best; but what really sets them apart is the lush richness of their vocal sound. Arkivmusic.com has Stile Antico’s Music for Compline on offer at $9.99, which I gather is a 10th-anniversary non-SACD CD reissue. That one’s a no-brainer. Just buy it. The o.o.p. SACD version is available from third-party sellers on Amazon, at prices ranging from market-correct to delusional. (But I did tell Stereophile‘s readers to just buy that, more than 10 years ago.)
After the jump: a making-of video of Stile Antico’s Tenebrae Responsories, some background and commentary, and a few sound bytes. Continue Reading →
“Everyone,” as Mike Tyson famously said, “has a plan until they get punched in the mouth.” It’s a good quote, but I think it vastly overestimates the majority of the human race. In my experience, most people don’t have a plan. In fact, punch in the mouth or not, most of us don’t even have a consistent direction. No, I’m afraid, the truth is that most of us are winging it all the time.
Planning is a uniquely human skill set and the ability reliably do so was so important to our ancestors that they devoted an immense amount of labor constructing sites like Stonehenge in order to predict the best days for planting or harvesting crops. Their efforts helped humanity to achieve dominance over nature and while it can be argued that animals like wolves can cooperate to spring cunning traps, that certain birds and chimpanzees can make and use primitive tools, and that beavers can work to shape the natural environment, no other animal can plan for the future with the thoroughness of mankind. Why then, do so few of us do it? Continue Reading →
This Christmas, my sister sent my kids $25 Amazon gift cards. Given the absolute bounty my children received, I promptly set these cards aside and, I am ashamed to admit, forgot about them until late last week when I finally thought to mention them. The results were entirely predictable. My son, who has a surprising amount of money in his piggy bank, calculated the amount as a part of his overall tally and, after considering his options, decided that the satisfaction of having so much cash outweighed the pleasure of anything that he might actually purchase. My middle child, meanwhile, demanded that I immediately log into Amazon so that she could spend every last cent as quickly as possible while my youngest, still unclear on the concept of money, was just happy to sit beside her sister and examine the various toys that popped up. In the end, however, no money was spent as I decided to use the opportunity for what I like to call, “a teachable moment.”