Ask yourself a question

This posting, about the question authors would most like to be asked, amused me. I particularly liked Umberto Eco's response:

Umberto Eco, is this a question? Yes.

Very Eco.

Two Finnish Violin Concerti

My revision has been soundtracked by a rather wonderful new CD of Finnish violin concerti, recorded by Lisa Batiashvili, the Finnish Radio SO and Sakari Oramo. The first concerto is, of course, the Sibelius, recorded live in Helsinki in May. It's a nice recording of a work that I've long wanted to get to know better. The first has such a nice extended opening with the soloist doing the heavy lifting of the development and that really nice, dark second theme that turns up later on. Staggering, it transpires that Sibelius wrote the bulk of the adagio whilst suffering from a three day hangover after one of his drinking binges, but it doesn't seem to have done the music any harm.

The second concerto on the CD is one of Magnus Lindberg's latest pieces — it was premiered at the Mostly Mozart festival in NYC in August 2006. One interesting result of this is that Lindberg chose to use a small Mozartian orchestra rather than a full on symphony orchestra, but it's not obvious, given the sounds he manages to coax out of it. Stylistically, the Violin Concerto seems to have quite a lot in common with the Clarinet Concerto, in that the themes seem to emerge from the texture in a way that seems inevitable and, to my tin ear at least, baffling, but baffling in a good way.

The science of getting it up

Via denailism via pharyngula — I just want to stress that I don't go out looking for this sort of stuff — I found this quite astonishing account of a pivotal moment in the history of the treatment of erectile dysfunction.

A word of warning though: don't try to read this in public unless you want to spend time explaining to your family, friends and colleagues why you're laughing hysterically.

( Are you sitting comfortably? No? Then I'll begin... )

Talk about pioneering!