瞧这只狗是怎么坐的！图片引自海归土摩托日记
Showing posts with label 抄书，引用. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 抄书，引用. Show all posts
Thursday, March 01, 2007
Thursday, February 15, 2007
Aftermath of Nasty Storm
H's car resting (i.e. stuck) on an icy snow bank
rear tires are inches (a foot, H's word) above ground
Photo credit: H and H's Mom
Meanwhile last night I spent an whole hour digging tracks (only tracks, yes) in thick-ice-covered heavily-packed deep-frozen snow for my car to park off street.
Oh how I miss the fluffy light snow! How I hate snow banks!
Tuesday, January 30, 2007
Words That Shocked Me
"At bottom, you see, we are not Homo sapiens at all. Our core is madness. The prime directive is murder. What Darwin was too polite to say, my friends, is that we came to rule the earth not because we were the smartest, or even the meanest, but because we have always been the craziest, most murderous motherfuckers in the jungle."
"Mankind's intelligence finally trumped mankind's killer instinct, and reason came to rule over mankind's maddest impulses. That, too, was survival."
Excerpts from Stephen King's novel Cell. pp206, 207
This novel is a crazy story, but so far these are the most shocking words I've read (only half way through the book). I have to agree there is some sad truth in it.
想起前几天看王朔说他内心有无限的黑暗与光明。我读的肤浅，不知所云黑暗与光明是何意。Troubadour说，“we are our own angel and demon.”看来王朔和Stephen King有异曲同工之效。
"Mankind's intelligence finally trumped mankind's killer instinct, and reason came to rule over mankind's maddest impulses. That, too, was survival."
Excerpts from Stephen King's novel Cell. pp206, 207
This novel is a crazy story, but so far these are the most shocking words I've read (only half way through the book). I have to agree there is some sad truth in it.
想起前几天看王朔说他内心有无限的黑暗与光明。我读的肤浅，不知所云黑暗与光明是何意。Troubadour说，“we are our own angel and demon.”看来王朔和Stephen King有异曲同工之效。
Monday, September 25, 2006
Thursday, April 27, 2006
A Witty Judge
British Judge Peter Smith's ruling in favor of "The Da Vinci Code" removed the obstacle to the release of the movie with the same title, which I expect to see very eagerly. Today I learned about Judge Smith's "Smithy Code" from an article in New York Times. Since articles on NYT website do expire after some time, I took the liberty of copying it here. Also provided is the link to the ruling in pdf on an official British government website.
I like this judge. His might be the only ruling I will ever read in my whole life. Haha.
_________________________________________________________________
Puzzle Embedded in 'Da Vinci Code' Ruling
By SARAH LYALL
Published: April 27, 2006
LONDON, April 26 — Justice Peter Smith's 71-page ruling in the recent "Da Vinci Code" copyright case here is notable for many things: the judge's occasional forays into literary criticism, his snippy remarks about witnesses on both sides, and his fluent knowledge not only of copyright law but also of more esoteric topics like the history of the Knights Templar.
But there is more to it than that. Embedded in the first 13½ pages of the ruling is Justice Smith's very own secret code, one that when partly solved reveals its name: the Smithy Code.
"The key to solving the conundrum posed by this judgment is in reading HBHG and DVC," the judge writes in the 52nd paragraph of the ruling, alluding to his code and referring to the two works at issue in the case —"The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail" and "The Da Vinci Code" — by their initials. (In the United States, the book is called "Holy Blood, Holy Grail.")
On April 7 Justice Smith ruled that Random House, publisher of the megaselling "Da Vinci Code," did not violate the copyright of "The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail," a nonfiction work published in 1982 that spins an elaborate theory about how Jesus married Mary Magdalene and how their descendants still live in southern France. Two of the book's authors contended that Dan Brown, who wrote "The Da Vinci Code," lifted the central "architecture" of their book and had thus violated their copyright. (The third author of "Holy Blood, Holy Grail," Henry Lincoln, did not participate.)
The decision was a resounding slap in the face to the two plaintiffs, Michael Baigent and Richard Leigh. But it was also an opportunity for Justice Smith to indulge in a flight of judicial and cryptological fancy.
The first clue that a puzzle exists lies in the typeface of the ruling. Most of the document is printed in regular roman letters, the way one would expect. But some letters in the first 13½ pages appear in boldface italics, jarringly, in the midst of all the normal words. Thus, in the first paragraph of the decision, which refers to Mr. Leigh and Mr. Baigent, the "s" in the word "claimants" is italicized and boldfaced.
If you pluck all the italicized letters out of the text, you find that the first 10 spell "Smithy Code," an apparent play on "Da Vinci Code." But the next series of letters, some 30 or so, are a jumble, and this is the mystery that needs to be solved to break the code.
In a brief telephone interview on Wednesday, Justice Smith declined to provide a solution for a puzzled reporter. Nor would he explain how he had put the code in his ruling, or how long it took him to figure out how to do it.
"I can't discuss the judgment until after I retire," he said.
But in a series of brief and ultimately frustrating e-mail messages during the last couple of days, the judge provided a series of intriguing clues. First he said that the different ways codes are broken in "Holy Blood, Holy Grail" and "The Da Vinci Code" should be considered. The idea for the italicized letters, he suggested, came from "Holy Blood, Holy Grail."
He then suggested moving on to "The Da Vinci Code" and applying one of the code-breaking methods used by its protagonists to solve the mystery of the jumbled letters. "Think mathematics," he wrote at one point. He drew attention to his own entry in Who's Who — in which he lists an interest in the history of Jackie Fisher, an admiral who modernized the British Navy, a possible reason that his e-mail address contains the word "pescator," implying fisherman — and said that the date 2006 was significant.
He even mentioned a page number in "The Da Vinci Code" by way of trying to help. But he declined to go further, saying that "anything else gives it on a plate."
It has been nearly three weeks since he handed down the ruling. Probably disappointingly for Justice Smith, nobody seemed to notice anything unusual about it when it was first released. But he alluded to the possibility that there was something more soon afterward as a throwaway line in an e-mail exchange with a reporter for The New York Times, saying, "Did you find the coded message in the judgment?"
On vacation in Florida, the judge then declined via e-mail to elaborate much further, other than to refer to anomalies in the typeface. "Start with 's' and keep looking up to Page 18 approximately when the fonts stop," he wrote.
Meanwhile, back in London, Daniel Tench, a partner at the law firm Olswang, was reading the ruling and noticed something odd about the type. "At first I thought it was a mistake," he said on Wednesday. "It's not usual practice for a High Court judge to issue a ruling in which he has hidden an encrypted message."
Not knowing if there was anything there, though, Mr. Tench mentioned it to a reporter who compiles a column about legal affairs for The Times of London. After that paper printed a small item quoting him discussing the typeface, Mr. Tench was nonplussed to receive an e-mail message from Justice Smith confirming that yes, there was indeed a code, but that Mr. Tench had missed the first letter "s."
"It is always best to start at paragraph 1!" the judge wrote.
Speaking to the Bloomberg news service late on Wednesday, Justice Smith once again declined to provide any answers. Explaining why he made up his own code, he said it was "a bit of fun."
________________________________________
Added April 28, 2006: Today came the report that the code had been broken. Lawyers in the Olswang law firm deciphered the "Smithy code" as “Jackie Fisher who are you Dreadnought.” Of course this took almost two days of precious (lawyer) time, and many hints from Justice Smith Peter. The Justice confirmed it and also explained that the code is based on letter substitution by applying the Fibonacci Sequence, through the number 21 (1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21). Thus "JAEIEXTOSTGPSACGREAMQWFKADPMQZVZ" becomes "JAFKIEFISHERWHOAREYOUDREADNOUGHT". Of course Justice Smith intentionally left a typo in the third letter to confuse the codebreakers.
I found this code even harder than all the puzzles in DVC and Dan Brown's other book, Digital Fortress.
I like this judge. His might be the only ruling I will ever read in my whole life. Haha.
_________________________________________________________________
Puzzle Embedded in 'Da Vinci Code' Ruling
By SARAH LYALL
Published: April 27, 2006
LONDON, April 26 — Justice Peter Smith's 71-page ruling in the recent "Da Vinci Code" copyright case here is notable for many things: the judge's occasional forays into literary criticism, his snippy remarks about witnesses on both sides, and his fluent knowledge not only of copyright law but also of more esoteric topics like the history of the Knights Templar.
But there is more to it than that. Embedded in the first 13½ pages of the ruling is Justice Smith's very own secret code, one that when partly solved reveals its name: the Smithy Code.
"The key to solving the conundrum posed by this judgment is in reading HBHG and DVC," the judge writes in the 52nd paragraph of the ruling, alluding to his code and referring to the two works at issue in the case —"The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail" and "The Da Vinci Code" — by their initials. (In the United States, the book is called "Holy Blood, Holy Grail.")
On April 7 Justice Smith ruled that Random House, publisher of the megaselling "Da Vinci Code," did not violate the copyright of "The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail," a nonfiction work published in 1982 that spins an elaborate theory about how Jesus married Mary Magdalene and how their descendants still live in southern France. Two of the book's authors contended that Dan Brown, who wrote "The Da Vinci Code," lifted the central "architecture" of their book and had thus violated their copyright. (The third author of "Holy Blood, Holy Grail," Henry Lincoln, did not participate.)
The decision was a resounding slap in the face to the two plaintiffs, Michael Baigent and Richard Leigh. But it was also an opportunity for Justice Smith to indulge in a flight of judicial and cryptological fancy.
The first clue that a puzzle exists lies in the typeface of the ruling. Most of the document is printed in regular roman letters, the way one would expect. But some letters in the first 13½ pages appear in boldface italics, jarringly, in the midst of all the normal words. Thus, in the first paragraph of the decision, which refers to Mr. Leigh and Mr. Baigent, the "s" in the word "claimants" is italicized and boldfaced.
If you pluck all the italicized letters out of the text, you find that the first 10 spell "Smithy Code," an apparent play on "Da Vinci Code." But the next series of letters, some 30 or so, are a jumble, and this is the mystery that needs to be solved to break the code.
In a brief telephone interview on Wednesday, Justice Smith declined to provide a solution for a puzzled reporter. Nor would he explain how he had put the code in his ruling, or how long it took him to figure out how to do it.
"I can't discuss the judgment until after I retire," he said.
But in a series of brief and ultimately frustrating e-mail messages during the last couple of days, the judge provided a series of intriguing clues. First he said that the different ways codes are broken in "Holy Blood, Holy Grail" and "The Da Vinci Code" should be considered. The idea for the italicized letters, he suggested, came from "Holy Blood, Holy Grail."
He then suggested moving on to "The Da Vinci Code" and applying one of the code-breaking methods used by its protagonists to solve the mystery of the jumbled letters. "Think mathematics," he wrote at one point. He drew attention to his own entry in Who's Who — in which he lists an interest in the history of Jackie Fisher, an admiral who modernized the British Navy, a possible reason that his e-mail address contains the word "pescator," implying fisherman — and said that the date 2006 was significant.
He even mentioned a page number in "The Da Vinci Code" by way of trying to help. But he declined to go further, saying that "anything else gives it on a plate."
It has been nearly three weeks since he handed down the ruling. Probably disappointingly for Justice Smith, nobody seemed to notice anything unusual about it when it was first released. But he alluded to the possibility that there was something more soon afterward as a throwaway line in an e-mail exchange with a reporter for The New York Times, saying, "Did you find the coded message in the judgment?"
On vacation in Florida, the judge then declined via e-mail to elaborate much further, other than to refer to anomalies in the typeface. "Start with 's' and keep looking up to Page 18 approximately when the fonts stop," he wrote.
Meanwhile, back in London, Daniel Tench, a partner at the law firm Olswang, was reading the ruling and noticed something odd about the type. "At first I thought it was a mistake," he said on Wednesday. "It's not usual practice for a High Court judge to issue a ruling in which he has hidden an encrypted message."
Not knowing if there was anything there, though, Mr. Tench mentioned it to a reporter who compiles a column about legal affairs for The Times of London. After that paper printed a small item quoting him discussing the typeface, Mr. Tench was nonplussed to receive an e-mail message from Justice Smith confirming that yes, there was indeed a code, but that Mr. Tench had missed the first letter "s."
"It is always best to start at paragraph 1!" the judge wrote.
Speaking to the Bloomberg news service late on Wednesday, Justice Smith once again declined to provide any answers. Explaining why he made up his own code, he said it was "a bit of fun."
________________________________________
Added April 28, 2006: Today came the report that the code had been broken. Lawyers in the Olswang law firm deciphered the "Smithy code" as “Jackie Fisher who are you Dreadnought.” Of course this took almost two days of precious (lawyer) time, and many hints from Justice Smith Peter. The Justice confirmed it and also explained that the code is based on letter substitution by applying the Fibonacci Sequence, through the number 21 (1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21). Thus "JAEIEXTOSTGPSACGREAMQWFKADPMQZVZ" becomes "JAFKIEFISHERWHOAREYOUDREADNOUGHT". Of course Justice Smith intentionally left a typo in the third letter to confuse the codebreakers.
I found this code even harder than all the puzzles in DVC and Dan Brown's other book, Digital Fortress.
Tuesday, April 18, 2006
A Newspaper Review of Li and Lang
Thanks to Sharon for sharing this article with me. I really enjoyed reading it.
So now to end the duel once and for all, here it is
________________________________________________________________________________
Protege pianists Lang and Li need to cool the duel: Time to extinguish
destructive flames of meaningless competition
Mark Swed
Los Angeles Times
5 April 2006
Vancouver Sun
Copyright (c) 2006 Vancouver Sun
In one corner, Lang Lang. Born in 1982 in Shenyang, China, he has
knocked out Rachmaninoff on countless occasions. Tchaikovsky,
Mendelssohn and Chopin never have a chance once he gets his mitts on
them. Last month in Los Angeles, he gave Bartok a going-over not soon to
be forgotten. Charismatic poet and flashy dancer, Lang Lang's the champ.
In the other corner, the steely challenger, Yundi Li -- who plays here
Friday at the Orpheum. Also born in 1982 and from Chongquing, China.
He's a world-class Chopin and Liszt slayer. He's fast as lightning, and
his aim is deadly.
Each fighter has in his corner bloodthirsty music management. The
record label Deutsche Grammophon is the match sponsor. The stakes are
high, and the gloves are off -- they have to be, the contestants are
pianists. Somebody's bound to get hurt, and I can hardly ....
Hey, wait a minute! It's not supposed to be like this!
The rivalry between two young pianists just out of protege puberty has
gone too far. Nothing good -- unless you think short-term record company
profits are all that matter -- can come from it.
That Lang and Li are adversaries is no secret in the music industry.
Lang is the hottest young pianist around and has been for some time. But
the ambitious Li is doggedly nipping at his heels.
It can seem cheap to bring up such matters in polite classical-music
society, and most musical journalists have tried to be as circumspect as
they can be. It is all too easy to slip into cultural stereotyping, to
wound fragile young egos. Two years ago in the Boston Globe, Richard
Dyer did courteously confront Li with the question and Li just as
courteously skirted it, noting that the pianists had met only recently.
"I think we are friends," he said.
The fact is, whatever these young men feel about each other, a
commercial rivalry is being fuelled by their keepers. San Franciscans
hardly could have been expected not to notice when the pianists played
back-to-back recitals over two nights in 2004. But by then both were
high-profile Deutsche Grammophon artists, so the spirited scene was well
set.
This year the ante was raised substantially with DG's competitive
release of recital discs by Lang and Li that include the same Mozart
sonata -- K. 330 -- and very similar programs. Lang plays Schumann's
Scenes From Childhood, Li takes on Schumann's Carnaval. Lang concludes
with fingers flying through Vladimir Horowitz's arrangement of Liszt's
Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2. Li races through Liszt's Rhapsodie Espagnole.
The main difference in repertory is that Li plays two sparkling
Scarlatti sonatas, whereas Lang tackles the more substantial Chopin
Third Sonata -- but he needs a bonus disc to make all that music fit.
The bigger name, he gets it.
Lang's, it turns out, is his least interesting recording, while Li's is
his finest by some measure. Comparing them, Li, a normally less
compelling (although no less accomplished) player than Lang, might be
closing in on his opponent. But both pianists are at awkward points in
their careers, and frankly we need neither disc.
Let's start with Lang. He is, without doubt, a tremendous talent and an
abused one. His big break came in 2000, when he substituted at the last
minute for Andre Watts in a performance of the Tchaikovsky Piano
Concerto with the Chicago Symphony. The critical response was ecstatic.
He looked younger than his 17 years. He was adorable, and his technique
was beyond belief. Managers wanted a piece of this action. Why wait for
him to undergo the long and uncertain process of growing up and finding
out who he really was as an artist? He wouldn't stay cute forever, after
all.
Before long, Lang began playing up the endearing factor, seeming happy
to do anything for audience approval, grimacing and gyrating, stretching
musical phrases like taffy, or playing so fast his fingers were all a
blur. But now Lang's early champions were repulsed. Growing up fast, he
wasn't quite so cute anymore.
For his next recital album, Memory, which was made in the studio, Lang
has gone in the opposite direction, toning it down too far. The program,
he notes in the booklet, is a personal exploration of the music he grew
up with. But Lang's youth was not that long ago, and he hardly shows
himself ready to be rethinking music that he does, in fact, need to
rethink. Rather a kind of sentimental preciousness creeps in. Tempos
tend to be slow and dreamy, which is particularly toxic in Mozart.
But his tone is pure gold, and his liquid phrasing still approaches
poetry. His flamboyance shows through now and then, as in the
ferociously difficult Horowitz/Liszt arrangement. It is a lot of shallow
fun.
Lang should stop reading his press, this example included, and stop
listening to money men and women and begin relying more on his own
pianistic instincts. Yundi Li, too: He, more than anyone, should stop
reading Lang's press.
Apart from being the same age, growing up in an obscure Chinese town,
recording for the same label and playing a lot of the same Romantic war
horses, Li is nothing like Lang. His big break came a year after Lang's,
when he won first place in the Chopin Competition in Warsaw in 2000. Two
years later came his first DG recital disc, all Chopin, with the
20-year-old pianist photographed to look younger and androgynous. The
selling of Li had begun.
It's a dry recording. His tone is hard and clear. The precision of
attack is startling, but the music-making is ultimately mechanical. It's
reminiscent of Horowitz without the oddities.
From the start, Li has presented himself as an unusually serious young
man, who would never sink to Lang's grandstanding, while making sure we
noticed that he has the technique to do so if he wanted. A Liszt CD that
followed his Chopin recital was just as flat.
In a clear effort at Langian one-upmanship, Li's latest recital was
recorded live at the Musikverein in Vienna, Austria, the one concert
hall even more glamorous than Carnegie. And some of the playing here is
smashing. The Scarlatti sonatas are scintillating. Li's Mozart is crisp,
quick, transparent. But in Schumann, Li reverts to his earlier type.
Each movement is meant to reveal a distinct pianistic personality, but
with Li they all sound the same. Liszt's Rhapsody Espagnole shows
superhuman meticulousness and speed, but somehow it is not much fun.
It's time to turn the heat down on both pianists and to stop feeding
the destructive flames of their meaningless competition. And their own
label might be doing just that, though no doubt inadvertently.
Colour Photo: Chinese pianist Yundi Li performs at the Orpheum on
Friday.; Colour Photo: Photo courtesy Deutsche Grammophon / Lang's big
break came in 2000, when he substituted at the last minute in a
performance with the Chicago Symphony. He looked younger than his 17
years. He was adorable, and his technique was beyond belief.; Colour
Photo: Photo courtesy Deutsche Grammophon / Li has presented himself as
an unusually serious young man, who would never sink to Lang's
grandstanding, while making sure we noticed that he has the technique to
do so if he wanted.
Document VNCS000020060405e24500026
So now to end the duel once and for all, here it is
________________________________________________________________________________
Protege pianists Lang and Li need to cool the duel: Time to extinguish
destructive flames of meaningless competition
Mark Swed
Los Angeles Times
5 April 2006
Vancouver Sun
Copyright (c) 2006 Vancouver Sun
In one corner, Lang Lang. Born in 1982 in Shenyang, China, he has
knocked out Rachmaninoff on countless occasions. Tchaikovsky,
Mendelssohn and Chopin never have a chance once he gets his mitts on
them. Last month in Los Angeles, he gave Bartok a going-over not soon to
be forgotten. Charismatic poet and flashy dancer, Lang Lang's the champ.
In the other corner, the steely challenger, Yundi Li -- who plays here
Friday at the Orpheum. Also born in 1982 and from Chongquing, China.
He's a world-class Chopin and Liszt slayer. He's fast as lightning, and
his aim is deadly.
Each fighter has in his corner bloodthirsty music management. The
record label Deutsche Grammophon is the match sponsor. The stakes are
high, and the gloves are off -- they have to be, the contestants are
pianists. Somebody's bound to get hurt, and I can hardly ....
Hey, wait a minute! It's not supposed to be like this!
The rivalry between two young pianists just out of protege puberty has
gone too far. Nothing good -- unless you think short-term record company
profits are all that matter -- can come from it.
That Lang and Li are adversaries is no secret in the music industry.
Lang is the hottest young pianist around and has been for some time. But
the ambitious Li is doggedly nipping at his heels.
It can seem cheap to bring up such matters in polite classical-music
society, and most musical journalists have tried to be as circumspect as
they can be. It is all too easy to slip into cultural stereotyping, to
wound fragile young egos. Two years ago in the Boston Globe, Richard
Dyer did courteously confront Li with the question and Li just as
courteously skirted it, noting that the pianists had met only recently.
"I think we are friends," he said.
The fact is, whatever these young men feel about each other, a
commercial rivalry is being fuelled by their keepers. San Franciscans
hardly could have been expected not to notice when the pianists played
back-to-back recitals over two nights in 2004. But by then both were
high-profile Deutsche Grammophon artists, so the spirited scene was well
set.
This year the ante was raised substantially with DG's competitive
release of recital discs by Lang and Li that include the same Mozart
sonata -- K. 330 -- and very similar programs. Lang plays Schumann's
Scenes From Childhood, Li takes on Schumann's Carnaval. Lang concludes
with fingers flying through Vladimir Horowitz's arrangement of Liszt's
Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2. Li races through Liszt's Rhapsodie Espagnole.
The main difference in repertory is that Li plays two sparkling
Scarlatti sonatas, whereas Lang tackles the more substantial Chopin
Third Sonata -- but he needs a bonus disc to make all that music fit.
The bigger name, he gets it.
Lang's, it turns out, is his least interesting recording, while Li's is
his finest by some measure. Comparing them, Li, a normally less
compelling (although no less accomplished) player than Lang, might be
closing in on his opponent. But both pianists are at awkward points in
their careers, and frankly we need neither disc.
Let's start with Lang. He is, without doubt, a tremendous talent and an
abused one. His big break came in 2000, when he substituted at the last
minute for Andre Watts in a performance of the Tchaikovsky Piano
Concerto with the Chicago Symphony. The critical response was ecstatic.
He looked younger than his 17 years. He was adorable, and his technique
was beyond belief. Managers wanted a piece of this action. Why wait for
him to undergo the long and uncertain process of growing up and finding
out who he really was as an artist? He wouldn't stay cute forever, after
all.
Before long, Lang began playing up the endearing factor, seeming happy
to do anything for audience approval, grimacing and gyrating, stretching
musical phrases like taffy, or playing so fast his fingers were all a
blur. But now Lang's early champions were repulsed. Growing up fast, he
wasn't quite so cute anymore.
For his next recital album, Memory, which was made in the studio, Lang
has gone in the opposite direction, toning it down too far. The program,
he notes in the booklet, is a personal exploration of the music he grew
up with. But Lang's youth was not that long ago, and he hardly shows
himself ready to be rethinking music that he does, in fact, need to
rethink. Rather a kind of sentimental preciousness creeps in. Tempos
tend to be slow and dreamy, which is particularly toxic in Mozart.
But his tone is pure gold, and his liquid phrasing still approaches
poetry. His flamboyance shows through now and then, as in the
ferociously difficult Horowitz/Liszt arrangement. It is a lot of shallow
fun.
Lang should stop reading his press, this example included, and stop
listening to money men and women and begin relying more on his own
pianistic instincts. Yundi Li, too: He, more than anyone, should stop
reading Lang's press.
Apart from being the same age, growing up in an obscure Chinese town,
recording for the same label and playing a lot of the same Romantic war
horses, Li is nothing like Lang. His big break came a year after Lang's,
when he won first place in the Chopin Competition in Warsaw in 2000. Two
years later came his first DG recital disc, all Chopin, with the
20-year-old pianist photographed to look younger and androgynous. The
selling of Li had begun.
It's a dry recording. His tone is hard and clear. The precision of
attack is startling, but the music-making is ultimately mechanical. It's
reminiscent of Horowitz without the oddities.
From the start, Li has presented himself as an unusually serious young
man, who would never sink to Lang's grandstanding, while making sure we
noticed that he has the technique to do so if he wanted. A Liszt CD that
followed his Chopin recital was just as flat.
In a clear effort at Langian one-upmanship, Li's latest recital was
recorded live at the Musikverein in Vienna, Austria, the one concert
hall even more glamorous than Carnegie. And some of the playing here is
smashing. The Scarlatti sonatas are scintillating. Li's Mozart is crisp,
quick, transparent. But in Schumann, Li reverts to his earlier type.
Each movement is meant to reveal a distinct pianistic personality, but
with Li they all sound the same. Liszt's Rhapsody Espagnole shows
superhuman meticulousness and speed, but somehow it is not much fun.
It's time to turn the heat down on both pianists and to stop feeding
the destructive flames of their meaningless competition. And their own
label might be doing just that, though no doubt inadvertently.
Colour Photo: Chinese pianist Yundi Li performs at the Orpheum on
Friday.; Colour Photo: Photo courtesy Deutsche Grammophon / Lang's big
break came in 2000, when he substituted at the last minute in a
performance with the Chicago Symphony. He looked younger than his 17
years. He was adorable, and his technique was beyond belief.; Colour
Photo: Photo courtesy Deutsche Grammophon / Li has presented himself as
an unusually serious young man, who would never sink to Lang's
grandstanding, while making sure we noticed that he has the technique to
do so if he wanted.
Document VNCS000020060405e24500026
Saturday, October 08, 2005
CNN Offbeat Images 合肥的小猪运动会 及其他
Hogwash
Pigs swim in a pool during a piggy sports contest Wednesday in the Yaohai Park in Hefei, capital of Anhui province in eastern China.
今天看到这么可爱的照片，真为咱合肥骄傲。咱也有这么别出一格的创意。这些小猪的耳朵上都还带着钉，或者那是最新的计时器呢。
瑶海公园在哪里？
Follow the leaderCircus elephants from Africa saunter beside the Charles River in Cambridge, Massachusetts, as they are led from their trains Thursday to the TD Banknorth Garden in Boston in preparation for the Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus.
这张是我现在的“前院”。就是前天的事儿，我却没看见。可惜了。马戏团的大象从火车站走到剧场。蔚为壮观。
Photos and captions are from CNN.com, Offbeat Images.
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