Goldberg Variations & Other Favorites (W/L/R)

This week’s Watch/Listen/Read brings us from Baroque music such as Bach’s Goldberg Variations to modern LGBTQ+ Poetry. Leave a note in the comments below to let us know what you have been watching, listening to, or reading!

Netflix and Sleepless Nights

Nights where I’m awake in the middle of the night because things hurt are usually the most unpleasant. I’m tired and would rather be sleeping, but I’m not. I can’t concentrate on anything enough to read, which also means anything with subtitles is out, too. And that also limits what I might watch, too. I had one of those nights last night–I was awake in the middle of the night because my bones hurt. Not joints–I’m used to that. My bones. And while I could have done without the pain, and would have been happy to wait a few more hours, I ended up putting on Netflix and starting the series Heartstopper. It’s adorable and sweet and charming and now I absolutely want to read the graphic novels it’s based on. I’m about halfway through it and can’t decide if I want to binge the rest or savor it slowly.

With the cancellation of Bonding, the end of Grace and Frankie and months to wait for more episodes of Big Mouth and more episodes of Never Have I Ever, I’m looking for things to watch. Heartstopper is a sweet, charming story about teenagers coming out. I like the way it addresses bisexuality. I like the way it acknowledges that there is a trans character (who is, by the way, played by a trans actress) but whose story isn’t about depression, dysphoria or desperation. She’s a joyful character whose story is about more than transness. 

International Film

Confessions of an Invisible Girl

It’s kind of been an international week of viewing anyway–I’ve watched Confessions of an Invisible Girl (a Brazilian film) which was okay. It was predictable (there really aren’t that many actual stories to tell… the variety comes in the characters laid over the plot sometimes,) but still nicely done. Although the ending felt a little rushed.

The Invisible Thread

Next, I went to Italian cinema to watch The Invisible Thread. A little slow on the pacing here, too. I wasn’t expecting the ending to twist quite the way it did either. It was a warm and charming look at what it really means to be family. The plotines dealt mostly with marriage and adoption, at the intersection between religion, politics and law. I will say though, about both of those films: Does every story with a bully have to have a redemptive story arc for that bully? One where our protagonist is the one who helps lift up the bully? Really?

Bollywood

The last stop on our film tour this week is India. I’ve been wanting to watch the film Cobalt Blue for a couple of weeks, but I haven’t yet. I’m kind of hoping Adam will find time for a movie night soon–there aren’t exactly many people in my life who would sit down and watch a Bollywood movie about bisexuality with me, and even fewer who would really appreciate it.

Badhaai Do

We haven’t gotten around to movie night yet, but while I’m waiting, I watched Badhaai Do (Felicitations Due) which is a story about a lavender marriage. In the US, this isn’t something we really hear much about anymore, except as a relic of history. In other countries, it’s still very much a reality, and it did generate some criticism in India with concerns that it would do harm to the growing movement for LGBTQ rights. (Homosexual activities were only decriminalized in India in 2018.) 

The music from Badhaai Do is incredible, too. I’ve listened to it several times and I can see how it’s messing with my music algorithms on YouTube. I’ll deal, for now, because I’m sure it will change again in a few weeks when something else is on repeat. Really though, as Adam pointed out last week, some things change very little from week to week, and for me, that’s the music I listen to. As is often the case, I’m listening to the Indigo Girls–still stuck in the 90s, it’s been a mix from Nomads Indians Saints, Swamp Ophelia and Shaming of the Sun.

Vivaldi’s Spring Concerto

I put on Vivaldi the other day, too. Spring (from the Four Seasons) was the background music on something I watched and I realized it had been a very long time since I’d listened to it. And it was just as I remembered it. Considering how I’ve been feeling this week, it was also just what I needed. I’ll do my best to duck all of Adam’s barbs about it and relish the memory of learning to play Vivaldi, not because it was my favorite piece to play but because it felt like a real accomplishment in the level of repertoire. There was just something about it that seemed so much more challenging than other things. As a violist, I played it transposed into d minor, but here’s Itzhak Perlman’s performance of the original. Best out there or not, it’s sentimental, and sometimes that’s reason enough to love it.

Reading Poetry… Trying to read other things. 30 Days, 30 Poems: Andrea Gibson, Pat Parker, Allen Ginsberg…

The poetry festival here continues, too. I’m really enjoying the 30 Days, 30 Poems project, and I am looking forward to doing it again. Perhaps even to explore other themes or tropes over the course of a month. We’ll see. This week I’ve read Andrea Gibson, Pat Parker and Allen Ginsberg to start. Today is GLSEN’s Day of Silence for LGBTQ Youth, and I’ve been trying to pick something out to feature for 30 Days, 30 Poems. It’s also Earth Day, which meant trying to find a poem to feature in honor of that, too. I flipped through a copy of The Great Gatsby and Little Women this week as well. I haven’t really had the energy to read much this week.

Well. I wanted to pick up Sense and Sensibility. Between fatigue and pain, it’s been distracting. I look forward to feeling better, to pleasant weather and books, soon. I do need to explore more audio books. But when the fatigue is high, I sometimes fall asleep and lose my place. I keep going back to familiar, well loved books. They’re soothing, and if I miss a few words or fall asleep, it’s okay. I think this is part of what propels my love for middle grades and YA fiction. They’re things I have the energy to enjoy on the bad days as well as the good ones. And it’s felt like a string of more challenging days lately, for sure.

The most important thing this week-more important than anything I’ve watched, listened to, or read this, the thing that I wish everyone would listen to is this week’s episode of The TryPod–”Why Don’t We Care About Disabled People?” Please listen to this, share it, and take it to heart. This is what really matters.

Adam Writes:

I have been experiencing a bit of writer’s block lately. And for some reason, something that helps is the Penguin Podcast. 

Yes, I Suffer from Writer’s Block

I think that there is something about listening to writers talk about their books that reminds me that writers are people. That they sit down and write. And that’s it. Yes I know that I co-founded a website called 2 Rules of Writing and that the 2 rules in question are meant to defeat writer’s block. So shouldn’t I be past this sort of thing? Not suffering from writer’s block?

Well. I’m human. So there’s that. But also. Think about it. If a person founds a site devoted to combating anxiety, the logical deduction would be that they suffer from a lot of anxiety and that part of their self-treatment involves sharing strategies with their fellows on how to combat what they’re feeling.

So that’s where I’m at. Being able to talk about my struggles with writer’s block essentially means I’m not as deep in it as I could be. Especially if I’m able to talk about it in writing.

Variation on a Goldberg?

It almost wouldn’t be a Watch/Listen/Read without me mentioning some Bach recording I’ve been listening to. This week it’s a Hungarian person playing the Goldberg Variations on the guitar. 

The Goldberg Variations is a monster of a piece. Most “variations” are based on a melody that repeats throughout the work. This piece is based on a bass-line. Which in some ways is the most difficult way to write variations. Because it means that each piece has to have essentially the same arc. The bass line determines the chords. The chords determine a lot about the character of the piece. Bach doesn’t give himself a lot of wiggle room. So you can imagine that you wouldn’t want to keep a piece like this going for too long. A single instrument, a single chord progression. How long can you keep that up before it gets dull?

The Goldberg Variations lasts about ninety minutes. It’s glorious.

This version is an hour. I think it might leave out some repeats. But honestly it might leave out some variations entirely and I’d be none the wiser. There’s a lot of math that goes into a back piece. Each movement builds on the one before in a way that I could explain to you if we have about thirty minutes and a decent bottle of wine. But as much as I know what is going on in a piece like The Goldberg Variations, I can’t intuit it. I couldn’t, for example, say what kind of canon I’m listening to just by ear.

By the way, if I were related to the guy who pitched the TV show The Goldbergs, I’d tell him he had to call his show The Goldberg Variations, then repeat until he got annoyed at me. Which would have happened fast.

Do you Need Sophisticated Understanding of a Sophisticated Piece (Like the Goldberg Variations)?

I’m not sufficiently learned in the ways of this piece to judge the quality of the transcription. Transcription from piano to anything is difficult because you have to choose which notes to keep. Piano and guitar are very different instruments. A guitarist can usually play, at most, half as many notes as a pianist. And that’s particularly limiting given that, in the Goldberg Variations in particular, Bach liked to have three or four lines going at the same time. Though of course he did arrange them so that a different voice was moving at any given time. Too many voices at once and the texture of the music gets too muddy. The Goldberg Variations are never muddy.

So, no. I can’t tell you if this is a good transcription. I can tell you it’s excellent playing. The whole performance is beautiful. And more surprising is that the lines of melody sound like they’re being played by different hands. Which, as I’ve said, is surprising because that sort of thing is already difficult on a keyboard (or on 2 keyboards which is the instrument the Goldberg Variations was originally written for). Anyway, give it a listen.

All About that Bass

I find that when I want to write, I prefer a lower-pitch instrument. I do love me some solo violin. But when I’m writing, I find the high notes irksome. So it has to be cello or guitar. This piece might as well be called Adam’s Writing Music:

Those deep, low sounds just make me feel grounded.

Have a good weekend, everyone!