Sunday Serendipity

From Wikipedia

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart‘s Clarinet Quintet, K. 581, was written in 1789 for the clarinetist, Anton Stadler. A clarinet quintet is a work for one clarinet and a string quartet. It was Mozart’s only completed clarinet quintet and is one of the earliest and best-known works written especially for the instrument. It remains to this day one of the most admired of the composer’s works.

Performed by Sharon Kam, Clarinet and the Schumann String Quartet

Enjoy, Jack

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53 thoughts on “Sunday Serendipity”

  1. jack, too beautiful to ruin with crass comedy but no choice what with the week that was.  it calls for the silliness of SNL

    Weekend Update anchors Colin Jost and Michael Che tackle the week’s biggest news, like George Santos being the sixth member of Congress to be expelled, a BLM co-founder coming out in support of Trump and Melania Trump attending Rosalynn Carter’s funeral.

    Weekend Update anchors Colin Jost and Michael Che tackle the week’s biggest news, like Sports Illustrated writing articles using AI, the first Lifetime Christmas movie featuring a sex scene and a three year long cruise cancelled due to a lack of a ship.

  4. Yep PatD, no choice but to track wacky news alongside Jack’s fine tunes, maybe it takes the edge off. Watched Trump’s speeches in Iowa yesterday. Nice try, I’d say. His answer to fears he is a threat to Democracy? Flip the script…

    Reuters — “Even as he faces criminal charges over his efforts to reverse his 2020 loss, Trump attempted to flip the script and paint the winner, President Joe Biden, as a dangerous autocrat, calling him a communist, fascist and a tyrant.”

  5. also for the fun of it, a wild haired observation that

    ‘Populism is all about hair’: what rightwing leaders are trying to tell us with their wild coiffures | Men’s hair | The Guardian

    Over the last decade, the global stage has become crowded with rightwing populist politicians seeking attention. It’s a development that has been subject to economic, social and historical analyses, but one aspect of this phenomenon has been neglected: the critical role of the haircut. The former Tory minister Rory Stewart acknowledged this fact last week on The Rest is Politics podcast when he declared: “Populism is all about hair.”
    […]
    Look at me, the hair seems to say, you can see I’m a laughing-stock, a narcissistic triumph over self-knowledge, yet here I am, unabashed. It’s like a bomb-proof pompadour. Why hasn’t it damaged Trump’s allure, as it would in almost any other walk of life? “I think you’d have to draw a parallel with the way that telling out-and-out untruths would normally incur some kind of sanction in other realms,” says Bale, “but when we’re talking about these populist politicians, it almost adds to their lustre with their supporters. Their hair is a kind of visual fuck-you to the establishment.”
    Populism, after all, is primarily concerned with fostering the idea that an exceptional person – or at least a person with exceptional hair – can cut through all the boring procedure of democratic governance and transform a nation through sheer force of personality.
    Hair has been a signifier of virility and masculinity since the days of Samson, and in the TV age its absence has been viewed as a political weakness, a kind of electoral kryptonite. It’s surely no coincidence that, while 40% of men over the age of 40 show signs of male pattern baldness, America has not voted in a bald president since Dwight Eisenhower in 1956. In the UK, there has not been a bald prime minister since Winston Churchill in 1951.
    In the age of social media, when people are turning away from established, perhaps more analytical media, the visually arresting becomes increasingly important. “The ability to appeal to people in very clear, simple terms, both in terms of policy and visual brand, makes it more likely that populist politicians are going to be with us for the foreseeable future,” says Bale.
    [continues]

  7. craig, your masterpiece is quite a production.  must take good part of day to make.  i liked the beef ribs suggestion having used a ham hock in past at times – BTW called that chili “donner party delight” and won a cookoff, probably more for the title and the bone than the chili.

    suggestion for a very filling hefty meal: chili over rice topped with the requisite cheeses, crumbled tortillas and decorative jalapeno.

  8. Ds, it’s time to turn around and look on the bright side of things. beware self-fulfilling prophecy — doom and gloom begets more doom and gloom.

     

    Attribution: Mr. Blue Sky by Pat Bagley, The Salt Lake Tribune, UT

  10. Pat, thanks, we’re all waiting with bated breath.

    Pogo & Ivy,
    congrats and watch out for a possible FSU challenge according to ESPN

    Florida State has the fewest turnovers in the entire country this season with five. Even with a freshman quarterback, the Seminoles somehow avoided giving the ball away. Florida State has allowed negative yardage in the fourth quarter of back-to-back games. It is the first team to have done that in at least the past 20 years.
    So now, it is a waiting game for the ACC champions. There has never been an undefeated Power 5 champion left out of the playoff. Even with a third-string quarterback, Florida State did enough to finish 13-0 — with two wins against SEC opponents. Its defense put forward a resounding statement not only Saturday night, but last week in a win over Florida, too.

    my ‘Noles might just roll y’all’s Tide.
    that is if they get the chance.
     

  11. Craig, thanks for the chili. As chance would happen, Mr. Ivy was supposed to make a pot of chili last night after the game. Plans changed and we went out for Chinese instead. So the chili will be tonight, now with your recipe. 🌶️

  14. The crowd always screams for Barabbas.  
    “What about this decent guy over here?”
    ”Put him up on the cross!”
    “You really want us to tie him up on the cross??”
    ”No,  NAILS!  Ropes don’t hurt enough! We demand that you set free the philandering thief!”

    Afterwards, in a bar: “I mean, Whaddya gonna do wid a guy who freakin’ feeds the poor people?”
    Yeah, he really had it comin’. The very idea of giving away wine!”

  16. I had a Music Appreciation prof tell the class that the clarinet was the “fastest instrument”.  

  19. Is it the handle to a honing tool to sharpen knives? 

    Love the chili recipe (with a side quest to make your own tear gas!), and will try making a veggie version with Quorn on Christmas Eve.   

    Remembering the Burgoo recipes of aught-six.

  22. Florida State’s denial is a disgrace for the College Football Playoff (msn.com)

    When the College Football Playoff was created, it was intended for the top teams who go undefeated and win their conference to get a shot at winning the national championship. The goal of going undefeated in a Power Five conference was meant to have the ending reward of having a shot at the national championship.
    In the final year of the four-team playoff, the CFP committee decided that none of those things matter at all.
    The committee selected Michigan, Washington, Texas and Alabama as their four teams in the College Football Playoff, leaving out Florida State, who went undefeated in the ACC and won the ACC championship while playing their third string QB. The grim history that the committee has made is simple: FSU is the first team in the CFP era to go undefeated in a Power Five conference, win their conference and then miss the playoff. It’s simply a disgrace and a disservice to what the four team playoff actually was for.
    What does playing the games even mean anyway? Florida State did everything the committee asked of them. Big win over ranked opponents? They took down LSU (and the potential Heisman winner Jayden Daniels), beat Clemson on the road and then held a Louisville team that was averaging over 30 points a game to six in the ACC Championship Game, dominating defensively in a way that reflects one of the four best teams in football.
    And yet they find themselves on the outside looking in because criteria from a committee that changes on every whim. Like what does this even mean?
    It shouldn’t matter who you want or don’t want to play in a hypothetical. Alabama did win the SEC, yes, but lost—handily—to Texas at home in Week 3. What’s the point of playing the games if you can just decide at any point that being undefeated in a Power Five conference doesn’t actually matter. As long as teams “don’t want to play you hypothetically” you should make the playoff. It’s not even like there’s no precedent for an undefeated team, or a team on their third string QB making the playoff! In 2014 third-string QB Cardale Jones and Ohio State made the playoffs and won the whole thing.
    […]
    I get wanting the four best teams in the playoff, but Florida State was one of the four best teams, and not losing a game is their proof of concept. At some point being undefeated has to matter, and with this decision they made it null and void. We reward hypotheticals and Vegas lines over actual concrete results, and the results say that the Seminoles should be in the playoff.

  26. Pat, I know your pain. The Houston Oilers used to be my team. 
    (The current incarnation of Houston is not my team.) 

  27. We were living just north of Baltimore when the Colts snucked off in the middle of the night.

  28. From Twitter:

    BREAKING: Mark Cuban blasts Elon Musk, accuses Musk of being “disingenuous” when he claims that “Twitter is the home of free speech when he chooses to often put his thumb on the scale of reach” to promote far-right bigotry and conspiracies. But Cuban didn’t stop there… Cuban continued, declaring that Musk “isn’t pushing for free speech” because he has “the ultimate reach and control on Twitter.” Cuban finished by calling Musk some helpful advice, telling Musk that “rather than saying Twitter is the home of free speech,” he should instead “call it like it is. Twitter is his platform and he is going to use it to support and influence the positions he wants to support and influence.

  29. I still wonder why Cuban has sold a majority share of the Dallas Mavericks and he’s leaving Shark Tank.  He says he’s doing it to spend more time with family, but I wonder if that’s all there is to it? 

    https://www.huffpost.com/entry/mark-cuban-run-president-elective-office_n_65696c5ee4b066e398b7222c

    “Mark Cuban told Axios Thursday he will never run for elective office, ending speculation the billionaire could one day unveil a bid for the White House.”

    Would these business moves free him up in some other capacity that wouldn’t be available/ethical if he hadn’t made them?

  30. Statement from Michael Alford, Vice President and Athletics Director, Florida State University
     
    “The consequences of giving in to a narrative of the moment are destructive, far reaching, and permanent. Not just for Florida State, but college football as a whole.”
     
    “The argument of whether a team is the ‘most deserving OR best’ is a false equivalence. It renders the season up to yesterday irrelevant and significantly damages the legitimacy of the College Football Playoff. The 2023 Florida State Seminoles are the epitome of a total TEAM. To eliminate them from a chance to compete for a national championship is an unwarranted injustice that shows complete disregard and disrespect for their performance and accomplishments. It is unforgiveable.”
     
    “The fact that this team has continued to close out victories in dominant fashion facing our current quarterback situation should have ENHANCED our case to get a playoff berth EARNED on the field. Instead, the committee decided to elevate themselves and ‘make history’ today by departing from what makes this sport great by excluding an undefeated Power 5 conference champion for the first time since the advent of the BCS/CFP era that began 25 years ago. This ridiculous decision is a departure from the competitive expectations that have stood the test of time in college football.”
     
    “Wins matter. Losses matter. Those that compete in the arena know this. Those on the committee who also competed in the sport and should have known this have forgotten it. Today, they changed the way success is assessed in college football, from a tangible metric – winning on the field – to an intangible, subjective one. Evidently, predicting the future matters more.”
     
    “For many of us, today’s decision by the committee has forever damaged the credibility of the institution that is the College Football Playoff. And, saddest of all, it was self-inflicted. They chose predictive competitiveness over proven performance; subjectivity over fact. They have become a committee of prognosticators. They have abandoned their responsibility by discarding their purpose – to evaluate performance on the field.”
     
    “Our players, coaches, and fans – as well as all those who love this sport – deserve better. The committee failed college football today.”

  33. Watching Kristin Welker get DuhSantis keyed up because he can’t answer a straight question honestly.  He’s a blinking, little bobblehead when he gets pressed.  Maybe he can govern Florida, but he’s not equipped for anything bigger.  And, it still sounds like he’s afraid of Orange Adolf and will lick his boots.

  35. Personality-wise, Dull-Santis is too far over on the introvert spectrum and he has no compensatory traits or skills. He thinks blustering is a skill but it isn’t.

  36. He’s seems pretty neurotypical, but not very honest nor confident.  He knows the truth, what he needs to say to win, and what he can’t say or it’ll set off tRUMPsky and his MAGAt hoard creates  a Venn diagram of his campaign hell.  It’s anxiety. It doesn’t look very Commander-In-Chiefy. 

  37. I keep seeing pregnancy test ads that let you know six days before a missed period, and read a story about a saliva test, so it looks like science is doing it’s best to fight the Republican attempt to control women’s bodies. 

  38. He’s seems pretty neurotypical, but not very honest nor confident. 

    Hurt people hurt people

  39. https://www.cnn.com/2023/12/03/climate/cop28-al-jaber-fossil-fuel-phase-out/index.html

    “The president of the COP28 climate summit, Sultan Al Jaber, recently claimed there is “no science” that says phasing out fossil fuels is necessary to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, in comments that have alarmed climate scientists and advocates.”

    “He continued that the 1.5-degree goal was his “north star,” and a phase-down and phase-out of fossil fuel was “inevitable” but “we need to be real, serious and pragmatic about it.”

    “In an increasingly fractious series of responses to Robinson pushing him on the point, Al Jaber asked her “please, help me, show me a roadmap for a phase-out of fossil fuels that will allow for sustainable socio-economic development, unless you want to take the world back into caves.”

    “Al Jaber’s presidency of the COP28 summit has been controversial. The Emirati businessman is the UAE’s climate envoy and chairs the board of directors of its renewables company, but he also heads the state-owned Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC).”

    When the fox runs the henhouse.

    ps – Gas was $2.79/gallon this morning. My gasoline bill last month was $0, and this month under $11.

  41. just saying the kind of cruelty required to bus migrants unwittingly or disseminate misinformation during a pandemic is learned behavior, compensating for something 🤷‍♂️ 
     
    i suppose he could just be evil

  43. …and then if you like football i can appreciate that but the coach protesting with such strong verbiage is very trumpy, “i don’t like the results, therefore invalid”
     
    Meanwhile, there are real problems that aren’t about sports tv contracts 

  44. they didn’t like the bowl system, “wahh suits in offices deciding results”
     
    so they made a playoff system, “wahh suits in offices deciding results”
     
    just congratulate the team that “got FSU’s spot”

  45. https://www.cnn.com/2023/12/03/politics/cheney-says-a-republican-house-majority-in-2025-would-present-a-threat/index.html

    “Republican former Rep. Liz Cheney said she believes a GOP majority in the House in 2025 would present a “threat” to the country.”

    “..,the Republican Party of today has made a choice and they haven’t chosen the Constitution. And so I do think it presents a threat if the Republicans are in the majority in January 2025,” Cheney said in an interview that aired on “CBS Sunday Morning.”

  46. https://www.texastribune.org/2023/12/02/texas-gop-antisemitism-resolution/

    “Two months after a prominent conservative activist and fundraiser was caught hosting white supremacist Nick Fuentes, leaders of the Republican Party of Texas have voted against barring the party from associating with known Nazi sympathizers and Holocaust deniers.”

    “In a 32-29 vote on Saturday, members of the Texas GOP’s executive committee stripped a pro-Israel resolution of a clause that would have included the ban. In a separate move that stunned some members, roughly half of the board also tried to prevent a record of their vote from being kept.”

    So, the boys aren’t proud of their votes.

    In October, The Texas Tribune published photos of Fuentes, an avowed admirer of Adolf Hitler who has called for a “holy war” against Jews, entering and leaving the offices of Pale Horse Strategies, a consulting firm for far-right candidates and movements.

    “Pale Horse Strategies is owned by Jonathan Stickland, a former state representative and at the time the leader of a political action committee, Defend Texas Liberty, that two West Texas oil billionaires have used to fund right-wing movements, candidates and politicians in the state — including Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick and Attorney General Ken Paxton.”

    “Matt Rinaldi, chairman of the Texas GOP, was also seen entering the Pale Horse offices while Fuentes was inside for nearly 7 hours. He denied participating, however, saying he was visiting with someone else at the time and didn’t know Fuentes was there.”

    ps – BS! Rinaldi is an authoritarian, little creep.

    “Rinaldi abstained from voting on the ban, but briefly argued that antisemitism is not a serious problem on the right before questioning what it would mean to “tolerate” those who espouse it. “I don’t see any antisemitic, pro-Nazi or Holocaust denial movement on the right that has any significant traction whatsoever,” he said.

    See?

  47. “You knew them in high school. They haven’t changed.”   

    It was eventually revealed my entire fellow classmates of State championship-winning football team was a drug ring. 

  49. https://www.fastcompany.com/90989900/kiss-final-concert-avatar-virtual-band-pophouse

    “Saturday night was supposed to be the end for rock icons KISS—the final night of the final tour, the end of the End of The Road World Tour…”

    “And then came the holographic rapture.”

    “Luminous and levitating, the members of KISS ascended. Not those earthly forms known as Gene Simmons, Paul Stanley, and the “newbies” Eric Singer and Tommy Thayer; they’d vanished, presumably backstage. It was time for their avatars—Demon, the Starchild, Catman, and Spaceman—to take over the performance as colossal figures that, through a combination of LED screen projection, lasers, and heavy metal smoke and pyrotechnics, appeared three dimensional and much larger than life.”

    “KISS had been transfigured into that higher form: licensed intellectual property. Their avatars could now roam into the multiverse, the metaverse, and with any luck, some kind of an extended run in Vegas.”

    “The financiers and producers, meanwhile, are founders of the Swedish company Pophouse Entertainment, which is behind the wildly successful ABBA Voyage show in London. Another avatar collaboration with ILM, that show has been watched by 1.9 million visitors since its debut in 2022 and reportedly grosses $2 million every week.”

    “In addition to ABBA Voyage, the company created an ABBA museum in Stockholm in 2013. It opened the Avicii Experience, also in Stockholm, in 2022, the same year that it purchased a 75% stake in the late DJ’s music catalog.”

  51. very trumpy, “i don’t like the results, therefore invalid”

    bink, the trumpys in this case aren’t the ones upset over FSU not getting to be in the playoffs even though no top unbeaten team has ever before been denied a playoff berth, the trumpys here are the ones deciding that established rules don’t apply anymore.

    kinda sounds similar to overturning a fair and square won election imho.   

     

  53. https://247sports.com/article/college-football-playoff-chair-boo-corrigan-explains-alabama-over-florida-state-fsu-is-a-different-team-222174224/

    “Player availability was really important,” Corrigan said. “You could lose a running back. You could lose a wide receiver. But a quarterback as dynamic as Jordan Travis changes their offense in its entirety. That was really a big factor for the committee as we went through everything. I feel horrible for Coach Norvell and the players. They’re a different team now than they were earlier in the year. It’s been a long couple of days.”

    “One of the questions that we ask from a coaching standpoint is, ‘Who do you want to play? Who do you not want to play?'” Corrigan said. “We are looking at where we are today. Not where we were three weeks ago or eight weeks ago. [The former coaches] got a significant voice in the room. We went around and around late last night and came back again this morning to do it again. We came back with Florida State at No. 5.”

    The Chiefs aren’t even the same team that they were at the start of tonight’s game.

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