THE CHURCH OF SAINT MARY THE VIRGIN (EPISCOPAL)
CHRISTMAS EVE
Choral Music & Carols 10:30 PM
O Magnum mysterium – Gabrieli (c. 1554/1557–1612)
Salve regina – Poulenc (1899–1963)
Sing lullaby – Howells (1892–1983)
Procession & Solemn Mass 11:00 PM
Sermon by the Reverend Stephen Gerth
Missa ‘Laetatus sum’ – Victoria (1548–1611)
O Magnum mysterium – Gabrieli (c. 1554/1557–1612)
Bethlehem Down – Warlock (1894–1930)
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Burgess Meredith's narration of To That Night In Bethlehem on The Chieftains' Bells of Dublin Christmas album (1991) is so good, I almost don't even think of The Penguin. Or Rocky.
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Praise for The Rap Guide to Evolution:
“…by and large, he proselytizes about evolution not by attacking its deniers, but by revealing the subject’s scope, from natural selection to the evolution of human culture and language. At the same time, he teases the audience, sends up post-modernism, mocks himself and satirizes the genre of hip-hop, all with fizzing energy and spell-binding charisma. Like I said, astonishing.” - The New York Times
“Brilliantly conceived and effervescently performed…not only is it factually correct, it’s also dazzlingly intelligent…after seeing this show, you'll never look at a hip-hop music video in the same way again!” ★★★★ - The Scotsman, Edinburgh
“One of the world’s great intelligent rappers…what Baba does is amazing - his knowledge of rap genres and styles is encyclopaedic…a flash of verbal fireworks!” ★★★★ - BroadwayBaby.com, Edinburgh
“The juxtaposition of hip-hop with Darwin is striking. By boldly making use of hip-hop in a most unusual but still provocative way, Brinkman harmoniously fuses art with evolution.” ★★★★ - Time Out Magazine, Hong Kong
“A work of genius. Never since Charles Darwin have we had a more eloquent exposition” ★★★★
Dr. Mark Pallen, author of The Rough Guide to Evolution
“With lyrics that were sometimes sly, often hilarious, and always smart and thought-provoking, Brinkman married the fast, complex, literate delivery of Eminem with the evolutionary expertise and confrontational manner of Dawkins… Anyone provided with an open mind and a hint of musical rhythm should rush out to see this show if they’re fortunate enough for it to make an appearance nearby.” - Science Magazine, Cambridge
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(Yes--basketball was created by a Canadian, James Nismith. And, yes, it's true, Henry Woodward sold the share of his Canadian patent for a light bulb to Thomas Edison in 1885. Thomas Edison invented a carbon filament, then a bamboo one lasting 1200 hours. He did not invent the electric light bulb per se, but the practical use of one. Actually, Humphry Davy, an English chemist, invented the first electric light by connecting from a battery two wires with a charcoal strip between their ends--the carbon glowed: the first arc lamp.)
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I recently came out as a hardcore electronic dance music fan, including hardstyle, which is about as slow of a tempo as I like for hardcore (140-160 bpm). One fun off-shoot of hard core ended up being jumpstyle dancing, which sprang from Belgium. Jumpstyle music tends to less industrial and dark, as well as a bit slower (140-150 bpm). Here's a good jumpstyle video, and another featuring Patrick Jumpen.
The largest promotion and production company of hardcore dance is Q-dance, based in The Netherlands. Hard dance in general started in the UK, but the hardcore scene is now in The Netherlands, Germany, Belgium, Poland, Switzerland, Japan, the UK, Australia, Denmark, Sweden, Italy, Spain, and--apparently--Malaysia (I'm guessing due to the proximity to Australia....I've no idea).
How'd I find out about hard dance? Making mixes of music for listening to on the treadmill at the gym. I hated the cheesey and, to my mind, too lyrical and not hard-edged enough dance music I knew was popular at clubs in NYC that I never went to, like the Roxy. Then, later on, I discovered BBC Radio 1's DJ Kutski (Radio 1 page). I used to copy and paste Kutski's tracklists from his broadcasts into a Word document and then hunt down as many of the tracks that I liked as I could on iTunes.
Here's an after video of Defqon 1 (2005), a major hardcore event. I'd like to go to Qlimax 2010 in Arnheim in November. (Photo: Qountdown - The Q-Dance Awards - 2009-2010 at the Heineken Music Hall - Amsterdam © Mittnick.nl/Kevin Verkruijssen - www.mittnick.nl)
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Transcript of an extended section of Tim Minchin's 2008 performance of, "Storm," a "9-minute beat poem," which is now being animated as well. This section of "Storm" is not only a humorous but incisive jab at the ridiculous canard that rationalists are "fundamentalists" when it comes to science, but it follows on to proper mud-slinging at homeopathy and other faith-based pseudo-sciences, and ends with life-affirming realism. (Science by definition can't be like fundamentalism because it involves a mechanism by which old orthodoxies can at any time be refined, updated, amended, or entirely rejected; that mechanism being verifiable observation subject to peer review processes which reward debunking and contradictory findings as much, perhaps more so, as corroborative ones.)
Storm, a vaguely New Age-y type neo-hippie keen on spirituality and whatnot, has just mis-quoted Shakespeare in her attempt to convince fellow dinner party guests that science is a kind of closed-mindedness. Tim replies:
....Science adjusts its views
Based on what's observed.
Faith is the denial of observation,
so that belief can be preserved.If you show me that, say,
Homeopathy works,
I will change my mind,
I will spin on a fucking dime.
I'll be as embarrassed as hell,
Yet I will not run through the streets yelling,
'It's a MIRACLE!
Take physics and bin it!
Water has memory!
And whilst its memory
Of a long-lost drop of onion juice is infinite,
It somehow forgets all the poo it's had in it!'You show me that it works,
And how it works,
and when I've recovered,
from the shock,
I will take a compass and carve
'Fancy That',
On the side of my cock......
Life is full of mystery, yeah,
but,
there are answers out there.
And they won't be found,
By people sitting around,
Looking serious,
And saying: Isn't life mysterious?
Let's sit here and hope,
Let's call up the fucking Pope,
Let's go on Oprah,
And interview Deepak Chopra.If you must watch telly,
you should watch Scooby-Doo,
That show was so cool!
Because every time
There was a church with a ghoul,
Or a ghost in a school,
They looked beneath the mask.
And what was inside?
The fucking janitor,
or the dude who ran the water slide!
Because,
throughout history,
every mystery
ever solved,
Has turned out to be -
Not Magic!Does the idea that
there might be knowledge frighten you?
Does the idea that
one afternoon on Wiki-fucking-pedia
Might enlighten you,
Frighten you?
Does the notion that there might not be a supernatural,
so blow your hippie noodle,
that you'd rather just stand in the fog of your
Inability to google?Isn't this enough?
Just,
this world?Just,
Beautiful,
Complex,
Wonderfully Unfathomable,
Natural World?How does it so fail to hold our attention
That we have to diminish it
with the invention
of cheap man-made
myths and monsters?
If you're so into your Shakespeare,
Lend me your ear
To gild refined gold,
To paint the lily,
To throw perfume on the violet,
Is just fucking silly
Or something like that.
Or what about Satchmo?
I see trees of green,
Red roses too...And fine, if you wish to,
Glorify Krishna and Vishnu,
In a post-colonial,
Condescending,
Bottled-up-and-labeled
kind of way,
Whatever, That's okay.But, here's what gives me a hard-on:
I'm a tiny, insignificant
Ignorant bit of carbon.
I have one life,
And it is short and unimportant,
But thanks to recent scientific advances...I get to live twice as long,
As my great-great-great-great
uncleses and auntses.Twice as long!
To live this life of mine,
Twice as long,
To love this wife of mine.
Twice as many years,
Of friends, of wine,
Of sharing curries and getting shitty,
At good-looking hippies,
With fairies on their spines,
And butterflies on their titties.'And if perchance, I have offended,
Think but this, and all is mended,'We'd as well be ten minutes back in time
For all the chance you'll change your mind.
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