Cetaceans: to display or not to display

I'm thinking about Josh's request that we sign a petition to ban the display of cetaceans.

I'm sure he's right that they're poorly treated.

I'm sure he's right that my desire to see them displayed is wrong, in view of the suffering they go through to get to be displayed.

Still, I do want to be able to see them.

Let me pose throw out some other ideas.

For instance, if there were not such displays, how would the general public come to know that cetaceans are especially worthy of protection?

Some years ago, there was a big to do over dolphins being killed in nets that were intended to catch tuna. I wonder if Josh is old enough to remember those events.  There was a huge nation wide campaign to boycott tuna, because of dolphin deaths. School children all over the country helped organize this campaign.

Ultimately, the campaign was successful. The tuna industry was forced to change its fishing practices. Tuna caught with the new dolphin safe procedures was marked dolphin safe on the label.

In order to capture broad public attention like that, you have to have a sound byte, something over simplified that unsophisticated people can grasp. In this case the sound byte was "They're killing Flipper. "

Again, I don't know if Josh is old enough to remember Flipper.  Flipper was a domesticated dolphin, featured in a television show. I suppose the real dolphin playing Flipper was abused, much the way contemporary ones are, maybe worse.

Yet, the slavery of this one dolphin was the motivating factor in saving the entire species from decimation in tuna nets.  I'm sure the display of dolphins in places like Sea World had an influence as well.

Of course any displayed animals are being abused, as compared with their natural state.  Still, given the prevalence of habitat destruction, there are species that can no longer survive in the wild, or whose wild populations are being replenished by breeding captives.

Again, how many less people would care about the well bring of animals if there were no zoos?  There is amazing footage of Josh, himself, starting with rapt fascination into an aquarium in his music video for "If I Walk Away."  I'm sure that whatever sea creature he was starting at would have been happier in the wild.

One justification for allowing hunting in Africa is that the income from hunting tourists motivates the local people to create game parks, without which many of the hunted animals would go extinct.  Many people feel that hunting is immoral, and, yet, without it, the game parks might not exist.

Then there's the whole discussion of whether people should be vegetarians rather than eating meat, which seems related.

I'm not saying not to sign this petition. I don't know. Still I'm not sure I'm going to sign.

I'm also still eating meat and wearing leather shoes.

Curiously, though, I’m still a Quaker and a religious pacifist.  Meanwhile, I believe that not all vegans are pacifists.

Ethics is a funny domain.

On putting a chess rook next to my twitter handle

I just want to put in my two cents about adding a chess symbol after my twitter handle on twitter.

I started seeing all the Grobies putting that next to their name, so I inquired as to what it meant.

One person told me that it shows solidarity behind Josh.  Someone else said that it symbolizes wanting him to bring Chess back to Broadway.

Now I want Josh to do something on Broadway, but I'm not in favor of Chess.  

First, he's already done it twice, and there is a DVD that lots of us already have.  

Second, while I love Josh's performance in that musical, and the music *is* beautiful, and there are some funny points, the plot is odd -- particularly given the casting.  In the musical, as cast, Josh's character leaves the spectacularly beautiful Russian wife for the much less attractive Idina Menzel, abandoning his country in the process.  The motivation is very unclear.

Unfortunately, I did not like the voices of most of the other singers on the DVD, though those aren't necessarily the ones who will be singing in whatever Josh does.

I personally like a lot of the songs that Josh has written himself, like "Remember When It Rained," "Now or Never," "Voce Existe em Mim," "False Alarms," and "February Song."  He has a particular sound to some of the music he writes.  The ones with Dan Wilson have a much more traditional sound.  Because of the unique sound to the pieces I have listed, I have categorized Josh as the first mainstream New Music singer, though really I think of this as a new genre that is a fusion between pop and New Music.  This music tends to be complex and intellectual, unlike the highly simplified stuff that makes up standard pop music fare.

Another thing that I note about these songs is that the lyrics are complex, beautiful, poetic, and thought provoking.  

I suppose the intellectual level of Josh's music is part of what makes it less popular.  I sometimes characterize it as music by and for nerds.  Since I am a nerd, I like this stuff.  Perhaps that makes my advice more suspect.

I would like to see Josh get together with people like Imogen Heap, Eric Mouquet, Lester Mendez, and Carlinhos Brown to create a new musical in this pop/New Music fusion genre that Josh has created -- though maybe it could also have some more classical songs in Italian.

Maybe such a musical shouldn't open on Broadway.  Perhaps it should start in a smaller venue.  Maybe it wouldn't be so wildly popular as a "Lion King" or a "Wicked," but maybe it would be a unique contribution to the history of music -- and those of us who are nerds would get a lot out of it.

So, for now, I have the symbol, but I'm not sure if I should keep it.

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Addendum 10/24/13

Here's a further explanation
http://t.co/FWQiqBRwaJ

role of social networking/autism in success in poster contest

OK, so I submitted an entry to the poster contest.  Here is the link

http://www.talenthouse.com/creativeinvites/preview/a706ca90ef153c7fe2439266b963c457/5188

I chose night sky colors, because the concerts were at night, and also because the inside of the arena is dark.

Later, when I started seeing concert videos, I saw that purple was a dominant color in the lighting.  That was serendipitous. One of my friends said my Josh meter must have been working.

I used the tour date information to surround Josh like the audience in the In The Round tour.

The work was all done by hand, tho using a computer tablet and stylus device.

A lot of people told me they liked this.

Still, I'm not in the top 50.  

It occurs to me that being a mildly autistic person without a lot of close friends could hurt in a contest like this.  People are going to vote for their friends, or, of course, themselves.  

I am slightly suspicious that the poster that wins this contest will be that of the person who is the best social networker rather than the best poster.

This is not to say that my poster is best at all.  I have no clue, really, what is best.  Still, given that you have to register for this website, and get presumably spam afterwards, it's going to take a certain amount of hardiness to brave the thing.  I doubt that very many casual fans are going to go in and vote objectively, though I do see that 453 people saw my entry.

Anyway, I had fun designing the poster whether I win or not

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Copy of the poster

The colors look different here on this blog.  It's better to look at the Talenthouse website.  In particular the spray paint layer in the middle is more subtle in the original and creates more of a 3D effect.  Also, this looks bluer than the original, which is more purple, but I'm posting a copy anyway. 

It was a disadvantage that I designed this by hand on my computer, because it's sideways compared with a normal poster.

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Aside:

I did some drafts in other colors.  If you're interested, I posted them on twitter

http://t.co/Nj9HDLfQ3g

http://t.co/hCzOFODgVm

I also did a blue one at one point and tried different shades of red and yellow.

I designed this with Autodesk Sketchbook Pro 

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November 2017

I'm going to upload some more drafts here

Rufus Wainwright Tarrytown Music Hall 10/4/13

This is the link to the Tarrytown Music Hall http://tarrytownmusichall.org/

I first heard of Rufus Wainwright in July of 2010.  I was in Los Angeles for the World Service Convention of Overeaters Anonymous.  I was a very new Josh Groban fan, and I knew that Josh was from L.A. and likely to be there, though I couldn't be sure.  While I was there, he tweeted that he had gone to see Rufus Wainwright.  I was able to get a newspaper and actually see the notice of the concert he had gone to. That was before the BWB concerts and I had never yet seen Josh in person, so I was frustrated that had I been prescient I might have run into him -- not that I would otherwise have had any reason to go see this musician.  The name of Rufus Wainwright sure stuck in my mind afterwards, though.

It was only later that "Illuminations" came out and I learned that Rufus Wainwright had written the lyrics for "Au Jardin des Sans-Pourquoi" with his mother shortly before her death.  I'm sure we all remember Josh's dramatic telling of the story of learning that that was the only song that Rufus had co-written with his mother.

I love that song.  It's definitely one of my favorites on that album, maybe second after Voce -- though I also very much like War at Home and London Hymn.  I usually like the ones where Josh writes the music, and this one is in French, which I am fluent in and adore.  The lyrics are very moving to me, as well.

So, I decided that I would go see this concert.  

Now, let me say first about this concert that I did not have to put on ear plugs, or plug my ears with my fingers.  That puts the concert well into the above average category right away, for me.

We started out with Rufus's aunt Sloan (sp?) opening for him, along with an instrumentalist who played guitar, ukulele, and one other instrument (maybe a mandolin or lute?)

She sings in a strong alto voice.  For the most part, she has a nice voice, though sometimes the lower notes sounded a bit forced into a hollow sound, maybe a bit the way Jackie Evancho does.  She has a good sense of humor and sets up the songs well.

Rufus performs solo, both with guitar and piano.  Some of the piano pieces he played were quite complex and I was definitely impressed with the speed with which he played them.  He has a strong baritone voice and his timing is excellent.  There's something about a really great musician, that things just click well.  He definitely had that.

Sometimes he got a sort of lackadaisical, nasal sound to his voice, but other times he sounded very good -- not as good as Josh, of course, but still good.  I would say that as the concert went on his voice seemed to warm up more and he sounded better the longer he sang, so probably the encores were the best he did.

Rufus did a duet with his aunt, with the other musician playing along.  I really liked that piece.  Both singers stopped trying to belt or sing heroically and worked on blending, which they did extremely well.

Rufus told us that he lives out in Montauk with his husband, and is working on an opera and a "Greatest Hits" album.

He also said that he has been touring in Latin America.  Now how does he get to go to Latin America and Josh doesn't?  Odd.  I guess since he does a solo show it's less of a production for him to go there.

Still, I can't say as I fell in love with him.  

The great thing about the Tarrytown Music Hall is that the audience there is very supportive, and the place is usually pretty full.  They don't have any employees there. The ushers, ticket sellers, and refreshment sellers are all volunteers.  It's a community project, really.   Everyone wants it to work, so they give a good showing and people are enthusiastic.  Rufus got a standing ovation and lots of cheers.

It is an older building, and operates on a shoestring budget, so I do often wonder if that old balcony is going to collapse some day.  Hopefully not when I'm in it.  I usually get the balcony seats, because they're cheaper, but so far the sound has always been good up there, and the place is small enough that you can see the stage pretty well, even from the back.  Still if that collapse were to happen, I suppose it would be better to be in the balcony than under it.  OK, I'm a worry wart. Maybe you had noticed that before?

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Addendum: Unfortunately, I only recognized one of the songs that he sang.  That was Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah"

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one blurry photo