Ernst Ottensamer and his son Daniel are principal clarinets at the Vienna Philharmonic; baby brother Andreas is principal at the Berlin Philharmonic. Together, they’re the Clarinotts, and they’re commissioning new triple concertos and releasing an album.
Author: Matthew Westphal
Top Posts From AJBlogs 05.25.16
Things Mingus Revisited (+)
Occasionally, Rifftides reposts something from the past that still has relevance. Charles Mingus is relevant. From August 24, 2007: “2007 is turning out to be a bonanza year for a Charles Mingus sextet that existed …” read more
AJBlog: RiffTides Published 2016-05-25
Frick Flick: CultureGrrl Video Tour of Off-Limits Upstairs Living Quarters at Frick Collection
One of my favorite parts of the Frick Collection’s controversial expansion plans was the commitment to opening to the public the historic upstairs rooms where the Frick clan lived 100 years ago. Now that I’ve … read more
AJBlog: CultureGrrl Published 2016-05-25
In search of lost time
I just finished One-Man Band, the third volume of Simon Callow’s Orson Welles biography. It’s the first new book I’ve read from cover to cover since … read more
AJBlog: About Last Night Published 2016-05-25
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The ’80s Were Wonderful And The ’90s Ruined Everything, Says Dale Peck
“If the angst reached its zenith in the 1970s (Watergate, the fall of Saigon, gas lines, the hostage crisis), its nadir came in the 80s. Enervated by the tremors of punk and disillusioned by the failures of the Congressional class of ’74 and the impotence of the Carter presidency, America sighed a collective ‘What the fuck’ and decided to ring out the end of empire/end of days with the indulgence of third-century Romans.”
Tracey Emin Explains – Seriously – Why She Married A Stone
“It’s beautiful, it’s paleolithic, it’s monumental, it’s dignified, it will never, ever let me down. It’s not going anywhere: it’s a metaphor for what I prefer to live with. I prefer to be single, doing everything I want to do and how I want to do it. … If I feel really low – anything from ‘I shouldn’t have said that’ to ‘I don’t feel very well’, to ‘I feel a bit lonely’ – I think about the stone and it actually makes me feel better.”
The Redemption Of David Hume
“In 2009, he won first place in a large international poll of professors and graduate students who were asked to name the dead thinker with whom they most identified. … This is quite a reversal of fortune for Hume, who failed in both of his attempts to get an academic job. In his own day, and into the nineteenth century, his philosophical writings were generally seen as perverse and destructive.”
Working Actors Recall Their Days As Waiters
“People would order these decadent desserts all the time and not finish. We were a bunch of poor actors, and we’d bring them back to the kitchen and eat them. I especially remember a banana cake soufflé. I probably ate a dozen or so famous people’s desserts in the half-year I worked there – I’m not ashamed to say.”
‘We Design The Stuff You Feel, Not The Stuff You See’
Environmental design firm Atelier Ten has developed ingenious schemes like a thermal air storage system inspired by ancient Roman ventilation networks that sent naturally cool air from caves into villas.
Philosophy Gets Its Version Of Alan Sokal’s Great Hoax
“Somewhere in the latest issue of Badiou Studies, a multilingual, peer-reviewed journal dedicated to the thinking of the philosopher Alain Badiou, lives an article entitled, ‘Ontology, Neutrality and the Strive for (non-) Being-Queer.'”
How William Faulkner Can Help Us Understand Trump Nation
“Abner, he was every stereotype of a poor white that has ever permeated the American story. … Faulkner doesn’t want us to laugh at Abner. He wants us to ask, what would it be like to be him? To feel as though destruction was your only path to dignity.”
‘Thelma And Louise’ Feels Like It Could Be Made Today – And This Is Not A Good Thing
“‘No one would believe us’ runs like a refrain through the film’s taut dialogues … The fundamental fact of Thelma & Louise – the one that ultimately drives its plot, and the one that makes it feel so disappointingly fresh today – is the women’s recognition that they can’t trust the law, because the law doesn’t trust them.”