“Happy 254th anniversary of European Romanticism! - Democratic Underground.com” plus 4 more |
- Happy 254th anniversary of European Romanticism! - Democratic Underground.com
- Inside Vince Lombardi's debut season - Delaware Online
- March madness: The rise of rock club marching bands - Denver Post
- Gourmet on a budget: Eric Ripert's roast chicken - United Press International
- Turn over a new leaf - WGNtv.com
| Happy 254th anniversary of European Romanticism! - Democratic Underground.com Posted: 01 Nov 2009 12:00 PM PST On this date in 1755, the Romantic Era in Europe was ushered in. Effect on society and philosophy The earthquake had wide-ranging effects on the lives of the populace and intelligentsia. The earthquake had struck on an important church holiday and had destroyed almost every important church in the city, causing anxiety and confusion amongst the citizens of a staunch and devout Roman Catholic city and country, which had been a major patron of the Church. Theologians and philosophers would focus and speculate on the religious cause and message, seeing the earthquake as a manifestation of the anger of God. The earthquake and its fallout strongly influenced the intelligentsia of the European Age of Enlightenment. The noted writer-philosopher Voltaire used the earthquake in Candide and in his Poème sur le désastre de Lisbonne ("Poem on the Lisbon disaster"). Voltaire's Candide attacks the notion that all is for the best in this, "the best of all possible worlds", a world closely supervised by a benevolent deity. The Lisbon disaster provided a salutary counterexample. As Theodor Adorno wrote, " The concept of the sublime, though it existed before 1755, was developed in philosophy and elevated to greater importance by Immanuel Kant, in part as a result of his attempts to comprehend the enormity of the Lisbon quake and tsunami. Kant published three separate texts on the Lisbon earthquake. The young Kant, fascinated with the earthquake, collected all the information available to him in news pamphlets, and used it to formulate a theory of the causes of earthquakes. Kant's theory, which involved the shifting of huge subterranean caverns filled with hot gases, was (though ultimately shown to be false) one of the first systematic modern attempts to explain earthquakes by positing natural, rather than supernatural, causes. According to Walter Benjamin, Kant's slim early book on the earthquake "probably represents the beginnings of scientific geography in Germany. And certainly the beginnings of seismology." Werner Hamacher has claimed that the earthquake's consequences extended into the vocabulary of philosophy, making the common metaphor of firm "grounding" for philosophers' arguments shaky and uncertain: "Under the impression exerted by the Lisbon earthquake, which touched the European mind in one The earthquake had a major impact on Portuguese politics. The prime minister was the favorite of the king, but the aristocracy despised him as an upstart son of a country squire (although the Prime Minister Sebastião de Melo is known today as Marquis of Pombal, the title was only granted in 1770, fifteen years after the earthquake). The prime minister in turn disliked the old nobles, whom he considered corrupt and incapable of practical action. Before 1 November 1755 there was a constant struggle for power and royal favor, but the competent response of the Marquis of Pombal effectively severed the power of the old aristocratic factions. However, silent opposition and resentment of King Joseph I began to rise, which would culminate with the attempted assassination of the king, and the subsequent elimination of the powerful Duke of Aveiro and the Távora family. --more--
This content has passed through fivefilters.org. |
| Inside Vince Lombardi's debut season - Delaware Online Posted: 01 Nov 2009 10:56 AM PST You don't need to be a football fan to know Vince Lombardi's immortal line: "Winning isn't everything, it's the only thing." The legendary coach relied on that philosophy 50 years ago to turn the Green Bay Packers from a raw, undisciplined squad into the near-flawless team that went on to win the first two Super Bowls. Plenty of books have been written about Lombardi and his career, but author John Eisenberg was interested in just one year -- 1959, the year the coach first came to Green Bay. That's the focus of "That First Season: How Vince Lombardi Took the Worst Team in the NFL and Set It on the Path to Glory" (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 288 pages, $25). Even with seven future Hall of Famers on the roster, the team was coming off a 1-10-1 record that included a humiliating 56-0 drubbing by the Indianapolis Colts. Under Lombardi's iron-fisted rule, the Packers posted a stunning turnaround the next season to finish 7-5. To document what happened that year, Eisenberg interviewed dozens of former players, pored over newspaper records and studied more than a dozen biographies and autobiographies. The result is often engrossing. He provides detailed play-by-play highlights of all 12 games, and he gives us keen nuggets about what the players were thinking and feeling. Certainly, Lombardi was a no-nonsense coach who dictated a my-way-or-the-highway philosophy from Day One. He demanded perfection, he enforced discipline like a drill sergeant and he motivated through fear. But deeper questions remain. If all it takes to produce a winning team is to constantly berate players, insult them in front of the team and force them to repeat drills for hours, surely every coach would do exactly that. There must have been something else, some additional intangible. But we don't get a whiff of what that secret was. This content has passed through fivefilters.org. |
| March madness: The rise of rock club marching bands - Denver Post Posted: 01 Nov 2009 12:07 PM PST The most unexpected trend seen in rock clubs over the past few years? The emergence of the madcap marching band. Yep, that high-school aesthetic of geeky uniforms, bulging horn sections, pep-rally spirit and booming drum collectives is on the scene in clubs and bars — not to mention parades and adult bookstores and festivals and art galleries and pizza shops and house parties. The marching band is a jubilant outpouring of sound and emotion, and it's an unusual treat to run into a party-crashing band like Denver's own Boba Fett and the Americans at the First Friday art walk on Santa Fe Drive — or go to an actual rock show to see Portland, Ore.'s March Fourth or Chicago's Mucca Pazza. In honor of March Fourth, which plays a show Wednesday at Cervantes' Masterpiece Ballroom, and Boba Fett, which announces surprise musical attacks via its Twitter feed (twitter.com/ allamericanband), here is a look at three of North America's hippest, most indie-spirited marching bands.Ricardo Baca: 303-954-1394 or rbaca@denverpost.com MARCH FOURTH MARCHING BAND.March music. Cervantes' Masterpiece Ballroom, 2637 Welton St. Wednesday. 8 p.m. $10. cervantesmasterpiece.com March Fourth(answers by bass player John Averill) Hometown: Portland, Ore. How many members: 25-35 Signature song: "Gospel" (an original song that contains "Rise Up" lyric that is title of our new album) Marching style: We have no formation, unless you want to call it the "amoeba." Generally, we just try to walk without falling down (a technique involving putting one foot in front of the other, and then repeating until the destination is reached; sometimes we get the whole band to do it at the same time). Most unique venue played: On the top deck of a ferry in Vancouver, B.C. We were late for a gig and decided to play on the ferry instead. It was a spontaneous moment, and we sold 40 CDs in less than an hour. Another unique venue was playing a cappella on a subway train in Hamburg, Germany. We also played at the dog track once (that was weird).Band philosophy: "Eat first, drink second, sleep third and march fourth." We have other mottos, but none that are fit to print. How do you travel together? Tour bus What's more important, drums or horns? They are equally important. Why? Because we're a band, and the sound of the band is determined by the sum of its parts. Without horns, there is no melody; without drums, there is no rhythm. The electric bass is what glues them together. We also have dancers and stiltwalkers that add to the visual presentation. We are not a "traditional" marching band by any stretch of the imagination. Why a marching band? We were created to play a Mardi Gras party. It seemed like a good idea at the time. Boba Fett and the Americans(answers by Boba Fett) How many members: The mandalore's got band galore — so many, in fact, that it's difficult to pin down a true count. Tuba Steve counts as at least three, and I'll rock it a cappella sometimes. So probably somewhere between one and 324. Signature song: The "BFATA Theme Song" is our signature song because it's called "BFATA Theme Song." Marching style: We rock your pants off with a good, old-fashioned American dance-off! Most unique venue played: Famous Pizza? Kitty's? Vitamin Cottage? Sarlac Pit? The DMV? The venue of Colfax Avenue for one lonely and previously sleeping homeless woman? Band philosophy: Enthusiasm Trumps Talent. Rock Pants Off. I do believe in Tuba Steve. What's more important, drums or horns? Which is more important, the bounty hunter or the bounty hunted? Would one exist without the other? Why a marching band? Well after Lucas kind of played me for a sucka in "Jedi" I decided to get out of acting. You know, really stretch my self creatively. Anyway, I decided to try my hand at music. I toured with the Max Rebo Band for a while, opening for them a cappella on the megaphone and selling merch, but it just wasn't going anywhere. Homeless and destitute, I stumbled upon a lonely trumpeteer (I know it's supposed to be trumpeter, but this cat is more of a trumpeteer, rhymes with funkateer, trust me) on the 16th Street Mall, and it just clicked. Together we recruited the best players we know in the boundless universe, and the rest is history.Sometimes, a stage is just too smallMucca Pazza which is Italian for Crazy Cow/Mad Cow Disease (answers by guitarist Jeffrey Thomas) Hometown: Chicago How many members: Up to 30 Signature song: We have two that reflect our musical/ theatrical sensibilities. One is called "Peace Meal," written by our mandolin player, Gary Kalar. The "Meal" is comprised of many of our favorite dishes: Some gypsy melodies complemented with a little Egyptian tonality, cooked up by John Bonham drunk on 40s, served up by the Wu-Tang Clan. The other tune is called "Alarm." It is our first collaboration as a band. We wrote this one practicing at our favorite rehearsal space, a parking lot in a steel refinery here in Chicago. It was inspired by a sound we hear constantly in Chicago, the car alarm. It is basically our arrangement of the melodic fragments of different car alarm "alerts." Marching style: It varies on the situation. We were asked to march in the Derby Days parade in Louisville, Ky. We marched past the news coverage booth doing a step in 9/8, a sort of square wheel on a wheelbarrow step, then broke off into the audience playing random "honking" noises like a swarm of bees. The TV anchor, assigned to anchor the parade, said something like "and here is Chicago's own Mucca Pa . . . um. . . I'm not sure I've seen anything like this." Most unique venue played: Performing in canoes on the Chicago River. We worked out some formations with rowers, and floated down the river playing our music. Gorgeous! How we travel: We've been renting vehicles, but this year we have saved our money and are planning on buying a bus. If we are doing local gigs, weather permitting, we strap our equipment on bike trailers, and bike our equipment around town. We are usually wearing our uniforms, so it looks like a funny bike trailer parade. What's more important, drums or horns? We also have an electric guitar, an electric mandolin, an electric accordion and an electric violin . . . and cheerleaders. Band philosophy/motto: There have been a lot of mottos that have entered our band's lexicon that no one outside would understand. Philosophically, the band is a reflection of many individual performers/personalities working as a musical community. Why a marching band? Many of us had worked together in the music community and/or the theater community in Chicago. A marching band seemed like the perfect form to explore our musical and theatrical ideas. It was important for us to feel unrestricted to being just a stage band. Sometimes a song just sounds better when the horns are on the bar, the drums in the audience, the electric instruments (played through speakers mounted on hockey helmets) jammed into a microphone. Not sure that the typical indie rock band could accomplish that. This content has passed through fivefilters.org. |
| Gourmet on a budget: Eric Ripert's roast chicken - United Press International Posted: 01 Nov 2009 12:00 PM PST This content has passed through fivefilters.org. |
| Turn over a new leaf - WGNtv.com Posted: 01 Nov 2009 10:42 AM PST There's a new food trend simmering, but if you want to give it a try, you'll have to revise your grocery list. Meat, poultry and fish? Out. Milk, cheese, eggs and dairy of any kind? Gone. Oh yes, and that bear-shaped container of honey in your cabinet? History. Instead, you'll be stocking up on fresh fruits and vegetables, grains, nuts and soy products, all mainstays of a vegan diet. But forget the things you've heard about this type of cooking being boring and tasteless. Vegan gourmet is in, and that's no tofu baloney. Vegan cookbooks, complete with glossy, gastro-glam pictures and sassy attitude, are sprouting like wheatgrass. BabyCakes, a high-profile Manhattan vegan bakery, and other upscale vegan confection shops have propelled the vegan baking movement into the mainstream. Ecorazzi.com, a "green" gossip website, just named Ellen DeGeneres, Ginnifer Goodwin, Alicia Silverstone, John Salley and Emily Deschanel the "top vegan celebrities" of 2009. Vegans, it seems, are the latest high-profile foodies. The beginning and end Donald Watson might be surprised by all the attention. Convinced that a diet completely free of animal products, including dairy and eggs, was the "beginning and end" of a true vegetarian lifestyle, Watson coined the term "vegan" in 1944, using the first two and last three letters of the word "vegetarian." Shortly afterward, the quiet Englishman founded the Vegan Society, a group of about 25 like-minded individuals. Things have changed over the past 65 years. These days, about a million Americans identify themselves as vegan, according to a 2008 Harris Poll commissioned by "Vegetarian Times." While contemporary vegans share the same philosophy as Watson and his followers, their diet and message have become more mainstream. The change is as well-timed as a perfect, egg-free soufflé. According to Publishers Weekly, the interest in eating locally has led to a rise in vegetarian and veggie-oriented cookbooks, including vegan titles. "We're trying to overcome the crunchy-granola reputation," says Priscilla Feral, national president of Friends of Animals in Darien and author of "The Best of Vegan Cooking" (Friends of Animals Nectar Bat Press, $19.95). "Our image needs to be polished. People think that a vegan diet is a sacrifice, that it's tasteless and unappealing. It's not. They think you can't get enough protein, calcium or iron. You can." Feral, a former chocolate recipe designer for Godiva, explores the diversity of "plant-based cuisine" and includes recipes by New York food columnist Mark Bittman, restaurateur Susan Wu and other high-profile chefs in her collection. The book's intro includes a brief explanation of Watson's philosophy of living in harmony with the planet, but the overriding message is one of healthful eating and fresh, well-prepared dishes. No longer so radical "As recently as five years ago, a vegan diet was considered alternative and radical," says Mary Lawrence, owner of Well On Wheels, a Connecticut-based personal-chef service that provides vegan meals prepared in clients' homes. "Now, with the new emphasis on healthy lifestyles, people are more open and interested." Lawrence, who also teaches vegan cooking classes, says the availability of ingredients and meat alternatives has made vegan eating an easier choice. "You can find vegan options at Whole Foods," says Lawrence. "Even restaurants are adding vegan dishes to their menus." Along with Feral, a number of other cookbook authors have released trendy vegan titles.
This content has passed through fivefilters.org. |
| You are subscribed to email updates from Philosophy - Bing News To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now. | Email delivery powered by Google |
| Google Inc., 20 West Kinzie, Chicago IL USA 60610 | |
0 comments:
Post a Comment