Scenes from Dartmouth

The Plane Ride

So, in my last post about my trip to Dartmouth, I didn't really say much about the plane ride over, although a few interesting things occured. The first and most important was I listened in its entirety, all the way through, from start to finish, in one sitting, Philip Glass's epic "Einstein on the Beach", recently shot to me by Math Rock. A hefty undertaking. It measures something like 2 hours and 45 minutes. And it's no ordinary 160 minute opera. It's fucking Philip Glass, which means endlessly repeated segments, more flute and synthesizer than you can imagine, and a chorus, when they're not simply counting the beats in the measure, they're singing nonsense syllables, or speaking in random phrases, about the virtues of Toyota or Mr. Bojangles. But I quite liked it, I think. It's highly impressive. Especially the final "Knee Play", which is absolutely gorgeous, after the hugeness of the piece that went before it. It begins with a simple statement of the knee play themes, and about 2/3rds of the way through, a solo violin enters, and a male voice reads the following excerpt:

Two lovers sat on a park bench, with their bodies touching each other, holding hands in the moonlight.

There was silence between them. So profound was their love for each other, they needed no words to express it. And so they sat in silence, on a park bench, with their bodies touching, holding hands in the moonlight.

Finally she spoke. "Do you love me, John?" she asked. "You know I love you, darling," he replied. "I love you more than tongue can tell. You are the light of my life, my sun, moon and stars. You are my everything. Without you I have no reason for being."

Again there was silence as the two lovers sat on a park bench, their bodies touching, holding hands in the moonlight. Once more she spoke. "How much do you love me, John?" she asked. He answered: "How much do I love you? Count the stars in the sky. Measure the waters of the oceans with a teaspoon. Number the grains of sand on the sea shore. Impossible, you say?"

That bit is really quite touching.

If I had to make one critical comment, I would say that Glass absolutely murders the high register. Unlike Koyaanisquatsi, which I think is much more balanced, he rarely ventures below middle-c. I would have liked to see one of the movements with, say, a bari-sax and low register organ doing the Philip Glass thing, but c'est la vie.

House of Dick

The first night at the conference, we walked to a boathouse on some pond for dinner; it was only a few blocks from the conference site. Anyway, along the way was an enormous colonial style mansion, really impressive house. Any other place, I would guess it's the president's house, or some other really really important residence. But this particular mansion had written above the door in HUGE black letters: "Dick's House."



Possible explanations, ranked in order of plausibility (highest to lowest):

1. Dick could have been the name of some huge donor, who wanted some house dedicated to the university. Problems: why would this person want their names tatooed all over the front of the, otherwise gorgeous, mansion? And usually, if a building is going to be named after a donor, it would usually be, say, "The Horace Q. Dick Memorial House" or some crap, not "Dick's House."

2. The residence of the campus private detective. Problems: usually, if a campus is going to hire a private detective, it would likely be covert, rather than horribly conspicuous. Also, this thing is a mansion. And it's pretty rare to come across a private dick who's also incredibly wealthy. Unless he's, you know, Poirot, or something, but he probably wouldn't be called "Dick."

3. It could actually be Dick's house. Problems: though this isn't a problem with plausibility, Dick would have to be one arrogant guy, to plaster an advertisement of his house ownership on a huge mansion for all to see. Now, I could see people calling it Dick's house, but that's a far cry from Dick actually throwing it up on his front porch that it's his (Dick's) House.

The mystery remains unsolved.

Sleepers

It's natural, during any philosophy talk, to have a few people in the audience drift off, potentially have one fall asleep, especially at a long conference like this one. What's unusual is for the same person to drift off to sleep in every session. And what's even more unusual is for there to be two people who are sleeping in every session. No names, but one of them I recalled from the last conference like this, when he was actually running the thing. He would be sitting up on stage, with the keynote speaker, falling asleep in front of everyone. I guess he's an equal opportunity sleeper; on stage, off, etc.

Kappa Kappa Lewis

Since it's the summer, there's decreased activity on most college campuses, so I didn't think it would be a big deal when I saw a fraternity house right next to the conference building. No worries, the kids are all gone. Apparently not. My evidence for this? Everytime I walked to a session, I got an earful of the gigantic speakers they had going, pointing OUT. And apparently, these speakers were connected to a stereo system that had the Greatest Hits of Huey Lewis and the News set on ad nauseum repeat. Instead of listening to the speaker during one session, I was desperately trying to get "Do you believe in love??" out of my head. As I walked to lunch, I happened to catch the intro bars of "The Heart of Rock 'n' Roll."

They say New Hampshire can be a strange place. And from what I've seen, I believe 'em.