Programs

                                             Portrait of Hector Berlioz by Pierre Petit
SIX IN THE BOOKS: We officially finished with the lectures and tests for week 6 of our Introduction to Classical Music class. Today was all about  19th Century Program Music.  We learned that program music is an instrumental piece designed to relay a story or evoke a specific idea and atmosphere. An example would be Vivaldi's "The Four Seasons." (The kids listened to Itzhak Perlman and friends play "Spring" while they did math today.)

One of the works we learned about was Hector Berlioz's "Symphonie Fantastique. I'll let Annabelle tell you more about it.

Today I learned a lot about a symphony by a man named Hector Berlioz that tells the story of a young musician who falls in love with a beautiful woman. The symphony was actually based on Berlioz's crush on a real-life actress named Harriet Smithson. The symphony was five acts with a reaccuring theme of the Idée Fixe, a short musical idea.

Act 1 is called Rêveries – Passions, and this the the act where the musician falls in love. The constant melodic image that haunts him is almost like a double Idée Fixe! The music changes from joy to passion, fury and jealousy, tenderness and even tears, all in one act!

Act 2 is called, appropriately, "Un bal" (a ball), where the musician finds himself at a dance but cannot help but notice his beloved across the room. This act has the music of a waltz with beautiful sights. However, the Idée Fixe and the musician's thoughts disrupt this waltz at least 2 times during the act.

Act 3, "Scène aux champs" (Scene in the Fields), takes place in the countryside, where the young musician listens to a pair of shepherds playing their Ranz Des Vaches, which is a musical duet of sorts: the two shepherds take turns in playing the song. After a while, one shepherd plays a final note as the other does not respond. This leaves the musician in silence and sadness.

Act 4 is where the symphony takes a rather dark turn. The musician believes his love is unappreciated, and he poisons himself with opium. While the opium is not enough to kill him, it sends him into a coma-like sleep, where he dreams he is being executed. The music also features one last bit of the Idée Fixe before a loud crash is heard as his head is chopped off.

After our protagonist dying, you would not expect there to be more. But act 5 is the musician's dream continuing as he descends into hell! The act is titled "Songe d'une nuit du sabbat" (Dream of the Night of the Sabbath). The music descends until he reaches the bottom of hell, where he sees his former love, but in a grotesque form with a uglier riff of the Idée Fixe playing. He even comes across a Witches' Sabbath, where many witches are dancing in a circle cheering and celebrating his arrival.

Overall, the symphony tells an amazing story, without any lyrics! The music is dramatic and fits whatever is happening according to the program. Our Coursera professor even noted that Berlioz and Harriet even got married and lived miserably ever after in real life.

IN REVIEW:  The Oscars are on Sunday, and we're playing catch up, trying to check out some of the nominees before the awards are announced.

Last night, we screened "The Theory of Everything."  I'll let CJ tell you a little bit about it.

"The Theory of Everything" is a documentary about the life of Stephen Hawking, a British theoretical physicist who seeks to learn the "Theory of Everything," a hypothetical idea or equation that could answer everything in the universe. The film begins in 1963, when Stephen Hawking meets a woman named Jane Wilde at a party, and tells her about how he seeks to find out "The Theory of Everything."

Unfortunately, after a while, Stephen's muscles start to become difficult to control and it becomes hard to do something such as hold a pen for an extended period of time. At one point, he falls and is brought to the hospital, where he is told that he has Lou Gehrig's disease, which will make it very difficult, if not impossible, to do things such as walking, and has approximately 2 years to live. Stephen marries Jane Wilde, and several years later, they have a baby.

Eventually, Stephen, not wanting to, has to get inside a wheelchair that was bought for him. Following that, however, Stephen gives a lecture with his professor about the nature of black holes and what came to be known as "Hawking Radiation"

I am not covering the entire story here, but I would seriously recommend watching "The Theory of Everything."

His review is a bit truncated, but I agree with his recommendation. "The Theory of Everything" is worth checking out.

Annabelle felt compelled to make a pony version of Stephen Hawking. I think it's rather adorable.

MOVING IN:  This afternoon, the kids and I finally checked out where they'll be taking classes a couple of days a week. It's on the north side of Queen Anne hill, less than 10 minutes from us, which is super convenient. 

We ended up spending nearly 3 hours there, helping Annabelle's art teacher. We covered some large bulletin boards in the hallway and did an art installation of about three dozen bird-themed pieces.  Inside the room, we hung a posters featuring famous artists and info about the elements of art. The kids are looking forward to starting classes there next week.

Crayontastic

SEW WHAT?: After several months (perhaps even a couple of years) of talking about it, today we took on an artsy craftsy project that was big fun. We made a crayondolier, or a crayon ammo belt, or an artistic bandoleer.  Whatever it's called, it was about making a sling-style holster to hold crayons so Annabelle can be ready to draw (not as in a weapon, but as in a crayon) at a moment's notice.

I think the first time I saw something like it was on ThinkGeek, a web site we LOVE. But I'm also super cheap and I didn't want to spend $25 to buy one. 
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So, today we used some cute fabric leftovers and about 90 minutes of our time (for engineering, fitting and all), and we made our own.

CJ helped with the ironing ... 

Annabelle did the trimming ...

and they both did some twisting and turning. 

We had to do some math for sizing ... 

and in the end it all worked out!

We're already thinking of ways to improve the design, of course. 

RIGHTS ON: We spent a rather heady morning all up in the Magna Carta and contemplating human rights. 

We're in our last week of our Magna Carta class, and the 'final' for the course involves having to propose a new clause for the charter and have darn good reasons to support it. 

To that end, we watched course lectures today, and read all sorts of supplementary articles, including information about the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.  Adopted by the United Nations back to 1948, it proposed a standard of achievement for all peoples and all nations, the document's drafting committee was chaired by Eleanor Roosevelt. 

Aware that other additions or amendments to the Magna Carta might involve economics, we were also pointed to a fabulous animated illustration academic David Harvey's take on capitalism and the need for a new social order. 

It's straight up economics, and the kids were absolutely rapt for the entirety of the video. (WAY more than I can say for the economics classes I took in college!)

I absolutely adore our Coursera classes. Yes, this one is about the Magna Carta, but today the kids got a history lesson involving the United Nations, Eleanor Roosevelt, the perils of Reagonomics and much more.

Roll over Beethoven

                      Painting by E. H. Schroeder. Original in archives at Bergen Public Library
MUSIC MASTERS:  We watched many a lecture about classical music today. Several were about the life and music of Ludwig van Beethoven.  He's widely credited with inventing the stereotype of a wild-haired mad genius.

There were wild stories about the squalor in which he lived (think crusted over plates and overflowing chamber pots, for starters). As I was listening, I could only imagine how thrilled people were to have him for a neighbor. I mean, picture the preceding and then add in his deafness and pounding on the piano. Yowza.

    Photo: Daderot a via Wikimedia 
His former apartment in Vienna looks downright serene today, however. 

We listened to Beethoven's most famous composition, Symphony No. 5 in C minor. Its distinctive "short-short-short-long" four note intro is highly recognizable, and dramatic. We wondered if perhaps Beethoven's hearing difficulties was one of the reasons he introduced a number of additional instruments to the orchestra for his music (everything from piccolos to contrabassoons).

Here's a life mask of Ludwig. There's also a death mask, but this is ever so much more interesting to me.

When Beethoven died in 1827, some 20,000 reportedly turned out for his funeral procession in Vienna, a huge number per capita. He was a "rock star" of his day and time. 

Our lectures also moved on to the Romantic period of music, generally thought of as 1820 to 1900. We listened to some Johannes Brahms, Franz Schubert and learned about and Robert and Clara Schumann, the first "power couple" of classical music. 

Clara's father was a musician and she was a piano prodigy as a child, and wrote music as a young woman. She met and married Robert, about 10 years her elder. They had eight children in short order.  Meanwhile, Robert battled manic depression, and threw himself into the Rhine in a suicide attempt. He spent his last three years in a mental hospital, before dying in 1856, at age 46.

                                            Robert Schumann in an 1850 daguerreotype

Somewhere along the line, poor Clara's confidence and creative juices dried up. She's famously quoted as saying, "I once believed that I possessed creative talent, but I have given up this idea; a woman must not desire to compose — there has never yet been one able to do it. Should I expect to be the one?"

Bummer.

Fortunately, Clara did keep performing, and lived until 77.

                                     Clara Schuman photograph by Herbert Rose Barraud.
IT'S A TRAP(EZOID):  We don't talk about it much, but we do actually do math here at MPA on a regular basis.  Today, we were working on figuring out interior angles of trapezoids.  We read up on the properties of a trapezoid on coolmath.com and we watched a math teacher's short lecture on YouTube about how to calculate trapezoid angles, thanks to Mr. McLogan's math channel!  We heart the Internet!

Water Weekend

BRAIN GAMES:  Anyone following our blog knows we love thrift shops. Many/most national holidays are also 50 percent off days at Value Village, so of course, we had to go there today.

We found CJ and Annabelle some fancy duds to wear to an Oscars party on Sunday, but we also found some books and games, including a vintage version of Mastermind.

While we were pawing over it at the store, a woman appeared out of nowhere. She said she heard us talking about it and had to come see. Likewise, a bit later, when we were at our favorite ale-and-ice cream place playing it, it was a magnet for people of a certain age. A classic game - simple, challenging logic.

Mastermind was the very first computer program Christian ever wrote, circa 1982 on a Commodore 64. It was saved it on a cassette tape (archaic!).  As I write this, Annabelle is working on writing a Mastermind program for Scratch (https://scratch.mit.edu/).

ON THE WATERFRONT: We had a fun Sunday afternoon, out on a boat on Lake Union.

Specifically, we had a Groupon to burn for an electric boat rental.  Electric boats are so great! Sure, you're not going to set any speed records, but they're quiet and environmentally friendly and totally not stinky (the exhaust on gas-fired boats I've been on makes me green). 

We had a grand old time. Here's CJ, oblivious to the Aurora and Ballard bridges, enjoying a Mountain Dew. :)

We had a couple of hours to putter around. It was not super warm, but clear, so we couldn't complain! We kept the clear plastic window flaps down and were plenty comfortable.

We saw lots of working boats. ...

and many houseboats  ...

of all shapes and sizes.

We saw a dragon boat practicing off Gasworks Park's Kite Hill ...

and all kinds of birds attracted to the water, like these cormorant.

Different people took turns piloting the boat. ...

And we admired other boats we passed.

All in all, it was a lovely two hours.  

SKETCHY: Talk about paper gold! Loved this post I found on Facebook today of NASA-owned images. The first one is the handwriting of none other than Wernher Von Braun. What a treasure this is - von Braun's words and ideas regarding converting a Saturn V rocket to a space station, as well!

 In this 1964 sketch, Saturn V designer (and NSS founding father) Wernher von Braun imagines converting the rocket's 2nd stage into a space station.