About Me
Hi, I'm James, and I sometimes do programming.
Social Links
Here are some of my online profiles:
If you would like to get in touch by email, email me at chat at this website's domain.
I am also interested in starting an essay reading club – this would be a fairly slow-paced club where we vote on and read through essays (both simple and complex) and meet virtually to discuss them. If this sounds like something you would be interested in joining, click this essay reading club Discord invite link.
Favourite Things
For the vanishingly few people who might be interested, below are some of my favourite things. If you give some of these a go, let me know what you think of them.
Novels
George Orwell, Coming Up for Air (1939)
Coming Up for Air is a humorously pessimistic novel detailing the vaguely disappointing life of George Bowling, a 45-year-old insurance salesman, and is set just before the start of World War II.
At risk of admitting the dullness of my life publicly, I think about
this book and George Bowling often. The ceaseless dull disappointments
of lost nostalgia, endless sensationalized news, and, in the words of
Sam Melville the experimental chemistry of food
are all
painfully relatable.
The motif of the legs gets called to mind often – a
sensational news story in the novel where a woman's legs were found in
a railway waiting-room. Bowling reflects and what with successive
editions of the papers, the whole nation was supposed to be so
passionately interested in these blasted legs that they didn't need
any further introduction.
At time of writing, I have been growing
increasingly tired of the news sorties of the hour – the asbestos in
childrens' play sand: Who's to pay? How could this have
happened? More play sand found laced with asbestos! Human
rights lawyer demands urgent investigation! swinging to a recent
sewerage overflow into the ocean: Warning: sewerage spill smell
could get worse! Beaches closed! Mayor calls for investigation!
Music
One of my favourite genres of music, if it could be considered a genre in and of itself, is modern classical music featuring spoken voice or narration. Thankfully, there are composers who specialize in this, for example:
- Kate Soper
-
A composer and vocalist who often composes with herself in mind as
the performer. Soper's works often include spoken voice, soprano,
ensemble, and electronics. Some of my favourite works are:
- Ipsa Dixit
- A series of works exploring philosophy by adapting text from the likes of Aristotle and Wittgenstein (who coincidentally features in another of my favourite songs: The Most Unwanted Song).
- Voices From the Killing Jar
- A collection of pieces depicting or adapting text from or about women stuck in hopeless situations – in other words, their own proverbial killing jars.
- Missing Scenes
- Music exploring the offstage scenes and conversations that are left for readers to ponder. Missing Scenes adapts and expands on James' The Wings of the Dove, Shakespeare's The Winter's Tale, and lost Greek Tragedies.
- Frederic Rzewski
-
Rzewski's works often have political themes and adapt other political
works or texts. Some of my favourites:
- De Profundis
- A work adapting text from Oscar Wilde's De Profundis – a letter Wilde wrote in prison.
- Coming Together
- A work that adapts text from a letter sent by Sam Melville shortly before the Attica riots.
- Barbara Kolb
-
Kolb's music is impressionistic with a rich texture. Some favourites
are:
- Chromatic Fantasy
- A work for narrator and six instruments, adapting a poem by Howard Sten
- Three Place Settings
- A triptych featuring texts about food.
Other pieces featuring spoken voice that I like are Eric Wubbels' Auditory Scene Analysis, part I, and Louis Andriessen's De Stijl .
There are, of course, other composers who don't use spoken voice who I quite like such as:
- Sofia Gubaidulina
-
- Chaconne
- St John Passion
- Nicolai Obukhov
-
- The Third and Last Testament
- Five Prayers
- Morton Feldman
- Galina Ustvolskaya
-
My favourite composer. Ustvolskaya has an almost unparalleled mastery
of polyphonic sound with a laser focus on a truly unique musical
style. Ustvolskaya was forced to compose more traditional musical
works on commission; however, she did not consider these works as part
of her true works of which there are only about 30. Some of my
favourite works and performances of Ustvolskaya's work are:
- Composition no. 2 for eight double basses, wooden box, and piano. I like this performance by the Asko|Schönberg Ensemble and Reinbert de Leeuw
- Sonata no. 4 performed by Frank Denyer
- Symphony no. 4. I am conflicted on performances of this work there is this performance with the amazing contralto of Helena Rasker – however, this performance also features a somewhat unfortunate trumpet. Oh well.
- Grand Duet performed by Rostropovich and Lubimov