Super Bowl Ads

Well, it looks like I'm one of the few who enjoyed the Burger King commercial on the Super Bowl. Apparently it had one of the highest scores for reducing people's perception of the advertised brand's quality.
I thought is was clever, funny, fun, and well done. Their website lets you build your own Whopper just the way you like it, and it's plenty fun to watch those "condiments" leap onto one another on their way to finishing that Whopper.
Just thought I'd share.

Privacy

We netizens seem to be a bit schizophrenic on the topics of privacy and its relative, identity theft.

• We get outraged at the idea that the government can see the aggregated searchings of us all through Google (although they're fighting the subpoena at this time), Yahoo!, MSN, et al.
  
• We quake with fear before sending our credit card numbers or Social Security numbers across an encrypted connection to buy or confirm something.
• We lie about our ages, incomes, pretty much everything except a valid email address when registering for access to various websites.
• We post the most intimate details about our lives, loves, hates, bodies, friends, whatever; seemingly with no thought for the fact that anyone in the world might run across that stuff.

It's a bit frightening to realize just how easy it is to learn something that you'd just plain rather not know about people with whom you're acquainted.
I suppose this has some relationship to the general coarsening of our society. When "family hour" programs persist in showing us precocious kids explaining the ins and outs of sexual relationships to their peers and parents, it probably shouldn't be surprising that kids think that's normal. Frankly, there are plenty of things I'd never put out here in my blog, and I don't know that anyone ever really reads this stuff anyway. I just wish I didn't feel so square / old-fashioned / out of it for thinking this way.

As the saying goes, grr.

Mozart

You know, I kind of understand the fascination with Mozart - quite wonderful music written from the age of 3 months or whatever - but good grief! OK, 250 years is impressive, but he lived for less than forty of them. I've never been that big a fan (I much prefer Haydn in that school, and Bach or Beethoven are very clearly far superior to Mozart), but the CBC is driving me crazy. I want my Vinyl Café, my I Hear Music, my Sound Advice. Oh well, I guess the consolation is that this won't happen for another fifty years.
Nonetheless: grr.

B-minor Reflections

Well, it's been a few days since we performed the Bach B-minor Mass, but it's still going through my head.
On the way out of the dress rehearsal, one of the other singers mentioned that she was looking forward to the next piece (the Mozart Requiem, in case you're interested), as there would finally be different melodies stuck in her head. I don't know - we haven't started in on the Mozart yet, but the Bach seems awfully well lodged in my head.

Anyway -

This was simply the best music I've ever performed. It's trite to say that Bach was a genius, but it's still true. This man was gifted beyond comprehension, and still signed all his compositions SDG - to God alone be the glory. Now, I'm at least as humble as the next guy, probably more so, but that's a level of humility that demands respect.
Singing those glorious lines with a pretty darned good orchestra (the flautist was spectacular, and the 1st violin and the trumpets shone as well) was a highlight of my musical life, and one that won't soon leave me.

If you have the opportunity to stretch beyond your normal levels of activity, whether it's music, athletics, writing, cooking, whatever, go for it - no one ever got better at something by standing still.

Bach Bminor

Well, it's just a few days (and a few rehearsals) until we get to present the Bach Bminor Mass. This is the most amazing music I've ever sung. Not only is it perfectly suited to the text, but it's singable, in an extremely difficult, yet rewarding kind of way.
It's interesting to realize that much of the best church music ever written for the Catholic church was written by a Lutheran!
ah well, SDG
Amen

What movie did they see?

I just read a review of the Chronicles of Narnia in Time, and I can't figure out what the guy's talking about. Maybe it all comes down to having movie reviewers who are illiterate. If they can't read, then they certainly haven't read the books on which the movies they review are based. This would at least give a reason for their thinking that Narnia is a rip-off of Harry Potter.
I mean, good grief, these books were written in the 1950s - unless C.S. Lewis had some amazing psychic powers, I'm pretty sure he never read any of the Potter books which weren't written until decades after his death.
As to the similarities (?) to Tolkein, they were friends who read their books to one another as they were writing them. These guys knew each other's work, and also knew the original backgrounds of the mythic elements they were using.
OK, now you're (perhaps) wondering what I thought of the movie. I found it spectacular. Unlike the Time critic, I found the child actors to be quite excellent. Perhaps he's never experienced emotions beyond fear of explosions and the joy of destruction in a film, but Lucy actually portrayed a very wide range of emotions very well. The special effects were quite special, and the changes made to the story line from the book were quite acceptable to me. By that I mean that I understood that they had only a 2hr period to give us all the background that the expository text of the book would normally convey, so they added a scene or line here and there to give us a quicker glimpse into the relationships among the siblings.
About the only thing I missed (and they almost gave it to me) was the part where the children ask the beavers if it's safe to be around Aslan. The response is that of course he isn't safe - he's not a tame lion, after all - but he's good. They came to it at the very end when Lucy and Tumnus are watching Aslan leave, and I felt it worked well there, but it was still missed at its original spot.
All in all, I loved the movie, and would happily go see it again. I certainly hope they've had enough box office success to assure us at least the next installment in the Chronicles!

Narnia

At last! The Chronicles of Narnia - The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe is opening today, and I'm there! Got my tickets bought, now it's just a matter of waiting and eating popcorn.
I have heard only one even slightly disappointing review so far, and from what the guy said, I don't think he knows the books, so I'm still going in figuring this is going to be spectacular.
Aslan Rocks!