The Man who Made the Piano Sing

Today is Frederic Chopin's 200th Birthday! Chopin is one of my favorite composers for the piano--I am working on one of his preludes right now with my piano teacher. While I was working on the 2nd page (the part that starts on 1:13 of the video) my teacher told me that I needed to make the melody line sing, because Chopin always thought of the human voice when he composed for the piano, and you can hear it in his lush, lyrical works. (Beethoven always thought of strings, so that's what you have to imitate when you play his piano works.)

Chopin's work is featured in the excellent book and its movie adaptation, The Pianist, about pianist and Polish Holocaust survivor Wladyslaw Spilzman.

For some more lovely Chopin listening, try a Ballade, a Nocturne, or a Prelude

Dying to Self

As I was preparing an outline for the youth service, I thought to myself I might as well post some of what I have prepared for that on here. This is the first "sermon" (if you want to call it that) I gave at our now monthly youth service... I think this one was from the end of December. I don't usually have a lot to say off the top of my head, so I pick out Bible verses and arrange them and then pick my points based on that--I think it works out better that way. At this service, we had watched a short video about "Dying to Self," which is something that people often say and don't understand. Here's the outline I made about it.

Dying to Self: The What, Why and How

What is dying to self?

Losing our “false self.” Becoming living sacrifices. Repenting.

Romans 12:1 (NLT)

And so, dear brothers and sisters, I plead with you to give your bodies to God because of all he has done for you. Let them be a living and holy sacrifice—the kind he will find acceptable. This is truly the way to worship him

What living sacrifice can we give?

A repentant heart

Psalm 51:16-17 (NCV)

You are not pleased by sacrifices, or I would give them.

You don't want burnt offerings.

The sacrifice God wants is a broken spirit.

God, you will not reject a heart that is broken and sorry for sin.

Why should we die to self?

If we try to keep our life, we will lose it. Jesus must become more important in our lives, we must become less self-important.

Matthew 16:24-26 (NLT)

Then Jesus said to his disciples, “If any of you wants to be my follower, you must turn from your selfish ways, take up your cross, and follow me. If you try to hang on to your life, you will lose it. But if you give up your life for my sake, you will save it. And what do you benefit if you gain the whole world but lose your own soul? Is anything worth more than your soul?

John 3:30 (KJV)

He must increase, but I must decrease.

How can we die to self?

Crucifying our sinful nature

Galatians 5:24 (NKJV)

Those who belong to Christ Jesus have nailed the passions and desires of their sinful nature to his cross and crucified them there.

Colossians 3:10 (NIV)

Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry. Because of these, the wrath of God is coming. You used to walk in these ways, in the life you once lived. But now you must rid yourselves of all such things as these: anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthy language from your lips. Do not lie to each other, since you have taken off your old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator.

Questions to Ponder

Can I see any duplicity in my life? Do I ever “tweak the story” to try to make myself look good in front of others? Am I the same at church as I am at school and at home?

Am I decreasing, and allowing Christ to increase His influence in my life?

What are some ways I can decrease, so that He can increase?

What sinful desires do I need to put to death? Are there parts of my earthly nature that I am allowing to live that I ought to nail to the cross?

What are some changes I can make in my life to crucify my sinful nature?

Galations 2:20 says “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.”

Is my life lived “by faith in the Son of God”?

How can I better live out my life in accordance with this verse?

Silence is Golden

I just read this article on Boundless about silence, and was struck by it. I think too many times I jump in to correct others or disagree with them when I feel they are wrong. There is no need for me to have a retort for everything or to always argue when someone else is wrong. Sometimes, I should just silently disagree, or at least wait a bit before saying something. This is so true of most teenagers. How many arguments with parents, siblings, and friends could be avoided if the person would not needlessly contradict everything said by others?

"Silence is one of the hardest arguments to refute" - Josh Billings

"Don't speak unless you can improve the silence."

"O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console, to be understood as to understand, to be loved as to love..." - St. Francis of Assisi

"He that hath knowledge spareth his words: and a man of understanding is of an excellent spirit. Even a fool, when he holdeth his peace, is counted wise: and he that shutteth his lips is esteemed a man of understanding." Proverbs 17:27-28

Save precious time typing-LOL

http://videogames.yahoo.com/events/plugged-in/feel-free-to-lol-at-this-new-keyboard/1389626

Apparently they have come out with a keyboard that has chat shortcuts like LOL, TTYL, and others with their own buttons, so now you will save precious milliseconds by only hitting one key instead of three or four. Amazing the new things they're coming out with these days. Are acronyms not time saving enough? I think it is highly ironic that a company feels it needs to save time for typists, when the conversations in which one would be using chat acronyms are probably wastes of time themselves. While Facebook and chatting are fun, I am hardly worried about efficiency when I am using them. ROFL. It's really to bad I don't have that keyboard. By now, I could have typed 10 fewer characters in this post using it. TTYL! (Make that 13)

Television: Musings on the Plane

Right now I'm on the plane to Seattle, with nothing to do… I plan to write a post and publish it when I am able to connect to the internet. I finished my Psychology review and cannot get up to ask my mom for a book or magazine because the seatbelt light is on--turbulence I think, although I haven't felt much. On the way to the airport, Stuart didn't have anything to do, and I had just finished reading "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" in my book of the top 500 poems, so I read him three Lewis Caroll poems, "The Jabberwocky," "The Walrus and the Carpenter," and "You are Old, Father William" and then had him read "The Owl and the Pussycat" by Edward Lear, and "The Raven" by Poe. I felt like I should help him become a bit more cultured. :)

In psych right now we're learning about learning, and I just finished reading about observational learning, so I'm going to talk a little about the disadvantages of television, NOT because I am a TV hater or condemn those who watch it, but because I think it is interesting. In Freakonomics, there was a study done about TV and violence, and it compared the violence rates of different cities as they were introduced to television. When I get home (Tuesday) I'll revise this post to explain all the controls that were in place, because I don't have Freakonomics with me. Essentially, the study compared the crime rate as television was introduced to different cities and found that in each city there was an increase in crime once the invention of the television became popular there. Those of you familiar with Bandura's Bobo doll experiment will know that observational learning could have contributed to some of this, but Freakonomics hypothesizes that perhaps (because TV shows when television was first introduced were not very violent) this occurred because children were spending time in front of the TV instead of studying, reading, or interacting socially--this could have stunted slightly their intellectual growth and made them more likely to commit crime. No one really knows why this happened, but it is an interesting little correlational study :D

I haven't written another poem yet, but I'll give you one, by one of the funniest British authors ever.

Television

Roald Dahl

The most important thing we've learned,

So far as children are concerned,

Is never, NEVER, NEVER let

Them near your television set --

Or better still, just don't install

The idiotic thing at all.

In almost every house we've been,

We've watched them gaping at the screen.

They loll and slop and lounge about,

And stare until their eyes pop out.

(Last week in someone's place we saw

A dozen eyeballs on the floor.)

They sit and stare and stare and sit

Until they're hypnotised by it,

Until they're absolutely drunk

With all that shocking ghastly junk.

Oh yes, we know it keeps them still,

They don't climb out the window sill,

They never fight or kick or punch,

They leave you free to cook the lunch

And wash the dishes in the sink --

But did you ever stop to think,

To wonder just exactly what

This does to your beloved tot?

IT ROTS THE SENSE IN THE HEAD!

IT KILLS IMAGINATION DEAD!

IT CLOGS AND CLUTTERS UP THE MIND!

IT MAKES A CHILD SO DULL AND BLIND

HE CAN NO LONGER UNDERSTAND

A FANTASY, A FAIRYLAND!

HIS BRAIN BECOMES AS SOFT AS CHEESE!

HIS POWERS OF THINKING RUST AND FREEZE!

HE CANNOT THINK -- HE ONLY SEES!

'All right!' you'll cry. 'All right!' you'll say,

'But if we take the set away,

What shall we do to entertain

Our darling children? Please explain!'

We'll answer this by asking you,

'What used the darling ones to do?

'How used they keep themselves contented

Before this monster was invented?'

Have you forgotten? Don't you know?

We'll say it very loud and slow:

THEY ... USED ... TO ... READ! They'd READ and READ,

AND READ and READ, and then proceed

To READ some more. Great Scott! Gadzooks!

One half their lives was reading books!

The nursery shelves held books galore!

Books cluttered up the nursery floor!

And in the bedroom, by the bed,

More books were waiting to be read!

Such wondrous, fine, fantastic tales

Of dragons, gypsies, queens, and whales

And treasure isles, and distant shores

Where smugglers rowed with muffled oars,

And pirates wearing purple pants,

And sailing ships and elephants,

And cannibals crouching 'round the pot,

Stirring away at something hot.

(It smells so good, what can it be?

Good gracious, it's Penelope.)

The younger ones had Beatrix Potter

With Mr. Tod, the dirty rotter,

And Squirrel Nutkin, Pigling Bland,

And Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle and-

Just How The Camel Got His Hump,

And How the Monkey Lost His Rump,

And Mr. Toad, and bless my soul,

There's Mr. Rate and Mr. Mole-

Oh, books, what books they used to know,

Those children living long ago!

So please, oh please, we beg, we pray,

Go throw your TV set away,

And in its place you can install

A lovely bookshelf on the wall.

Then fill the shelves with lots of books,

Ignoring all the dirty looks,

The screams and yells, the bites and kicks,

And children hitting you with sticks-

Fear not, because we promise you

That, in about a week or two

Of having nothing else to do,

They'll now begin to feel the need

Of having something to read.

And once they start -- oh boy, oh boy!

You watch the slowly growing joy

That fills their hearts. They'll grow so keen

They'll wonder what they'd ever seen

In that ridiculous machine,

That nauseating, foul, unclean,

Repulsive television screen!

And later, each and every kid

Will love you more for what you did.

The Decline of Young Adult Fiction

Why is young adult fiction so formulaic?

It's rather depressing how YA fiction, and even children's novels, have been reduced so drastically in quality.

I walked into Barnes and Noble the other day, and there was an ENTIRE shelf devoted to vampire novels that were just cheaper versions of the Twilight series (and don't even get me started about the Twilight series!)

Even Christian YA fiction has become so so so formulaic! It bothers me to no end. If you pick up any Christian romance novel, the complete plot will be almost always be this: A Christian girl or guy (in this case lets pick a guy and call him Chris to make things simple) meets a non-Christian person of the opposite sex (let's call her Agnes). They are strongly attracted to each other from the MOMENT they set eyes upon each other. However, Chris realizes Agnes is not a believer, and knows that he cannot be unequally yoked. He has a hard time fighting his ever growing feelings for Agnes. Usually they end up going on several "unofficial" dates (either they are forced together by unusual circumstances, they are criminal investigators who are working on the same case etc) and spend time alone. Chris talks to Agnes about his faith, but she has some sort of fundamental barrier against believing in God (i.e. How can God allow suffering? or How can I trust in something I cannot see?). Finally, Agnes does become a Christian and both are extremely happy and kiss. Sometimes Chris proposes, and sometimes they just become an item.

That's why I don't read much Christian YA fiction anymore. If I want romance, I read Jane Austen. She did not write by formula.

Of course fantasy can be formulaic too! (read Dan Bergstein's hilarious post on this! http://community.sparknotes.com/2009/08/03/how-to-write-your-own-fantasy-novel). But my main problem with fantasy is authors writing themselves into a corner and then coming up with bigger magic so that they can over come their problem. Someone dies? Now we have a way to raise them from the dead. This person is then banished to the underworld and completely dead? Now there's a spell to bring them back as a ghost... and it just goes on.

Maybe that's part of the reason I'm thinking about becoming an editor... I want to be able to help authors avoid formulaic writing.

"Always read something that will make you look good if you die in the middle of it." ~P.J. O'Rourke

Fat-head poet

Today's form is the triolet, which is sort of like a baby form of the villanelle. It is only eight lines long, but three of those eight are repetitions of the first two. It is a relatively unknown and little used form. I'll give you a rather impolite example. Incidentally, it was written by Charles Darwin's granddaughter.

To a Fat Lady Seen From the Train

Frances Cornwell

O why do you walk though the fields in gloves,

Missing so much and so much?

O fat white woman whom nobody loves,

Why do you walk though the fields in gloves,

When the grass is soft as the breast of doves

And shivering sweet to the touch?

O why do you walk though the fields in gloves,

Missing so much and so much?

What makes this triolet even better is that someone wrote a retort to it. Although it is not a triolet, I had to post the reply that G.K. Chesterton wrote to Frances Cornwell, because it is hilarious (and gave my blog post its title).

The Fat White Woman Speaks

G. K. Chesterton

Why do you rush through the field in trains,

Guessing so much and so much?

Why do you flash though the flowery meads,

Fat-head poet that nobody reads;

And why do you you know such a frightful lot

About people in gloves as such?

And how the devil can you be sure,

Guessing so much and so much,

How do you know but what someone who loves

Always to see me in nice white gloves

At the end of the field you are rushing by,

Is waiting for his Old Dutch?

(Old Dutch means wife.) Now it is time for my triolet. I actually wrote this one rather quickly. I started it in photography class and finished it when I got home from drama rehearsal.

A Sarcastic Triolet

Since feeling is first and all impulse is true,
Of course you must follow your heart.
Even when reason tells you what to do,
Since feeling is first and all impulse is true,
You must must not commit any crime against art.

So ignore all advice from those wiser than you

Since feeling is first and all impulse is true,

Of course you must follow your heart.

Let me know what authors or poem forms you think I should try next. I was thinking (besides the ones I mention in my previous post) of doing a Rondeau poem or following the style of T. S. Eliot. Tell me what you think!