BellGab.com Archive

Quote from: K_Dubb on October 21, 2020, 01:41:45 PM
^See?  Here they come with their dangerous physical relativism.  Fixate on some grotesquely swollen animate blob and you have license to laze about and shove your mouth with hogslop because at least you aren't that bad.

That is unjust. We fixate on two grotesquely swollen animate blobs.

Quote from: AZZERAE on October 21, 2020, 01:10:33 PM
I wonder how many hairs Srednu has left on his head ... or what he looks like, for that matter. Thoughts?

I shall save the full details for my forthcoming autobiography 'Sredni: The Untold Story' (place your order today at the BellGab bookshop!) but there was a time when the tonsorial situation was decidedly perilous. Fortunately it all grew back.

Quote from: AZZERAE on October 21, 2020, 01:30:16 PM
Maybe. I'm not a small guy, but there's way fatter fuckers out there than me. The nice thing about being big is you can fuck people up physically. Its pretty cool.

Do you have massive upper-body strength like Falkie?

#Mini-Senda

Quote from: AZZERAE on October 21, 2020, 01:10:33 PM
You really think its brave? Hahaha, there are more important things to concern oneself with than some limey calling you bald. Hmm. I wonder how many hairs Srednu has left on his head ... or what he looks like, for that matter. Thoughts?

To be fair I also called you fat.

I no longer waste time saying you smell like a baboon's jockstrap. That has been well established.

Quote from: K_Dubb on October 21, 2020, 10:10:19 AM
It is not true he showed us his hair!  I think I can get him to take his shirt off, too, but give the sugar-free red bulls a couple months at least.  I think it is moving into summer down there and some vigorous frolicking in the sunshine can do wonders for a physique.

Not even a widow's peak? Whenever I see someone with a doo rag I assume it's because they don't have much to show off.

Quote from: Dr. MD MD on October 21, 2020, 08:34:44 AM
FIFY

What an odd little man you are. Forever trying to hump someone's leg.

Quote from: Tootsie on October 21, 2020, 08:07:54 AM
cutie pie 

You and K_Dubb can gobble him up with a spoon. Start at separate ends and meet in the middle. If you need me I'll be in the corner throwing up.

The ChubbyBunnyCast!

He's doing the bald guy bandana move. Slaphead ahoy!

Quote from: K_Dubb on October 20, 2020, 02:47:00 PM
This is a great recipe!  The sourdough starter plus baking soda suggests an old recipe that has been modestly modernized maybe to avoid a day-long rise.  With the tiny amount of flour (1/2 cup plus what is in the starter) and lots of fruit, it has to be related to the spiced fruit breads and birnenbrots you get at German Christmas markets (which also use a starter sometimes, and rise for a full day or more, being extraordinarily dense and heavy) with the added eastern, Russian twist of apricots, reflecting the influence of Ottoman Black Sea trade.  Nice find, thank you!

I thought it stretching credulity to imagine the Russians didn't do fruit cakes. Easter's their big time of year, I'm sure they bake up a storm then.

PKaiser often mentioned Bob and Tom, some would say obsessively. Maybe Bob would know what happened to him;or possibly Tom, as he claimed to have worked with them over the years. I have no idea who Bob is, or Tom, but PKaiser hinted they were big radio stars and we should be so lucky to have someone like PKaiser dirtying his suede shoes in our presence. I remember him being a sort of hideous hybrid of chefist and jackstar.

Quote from: Walks_At_Night on October 20, 2020, 01:20:50 PM

Clumsily not answering the question, eh?  Ok.  Well one more. Do suck your thumb as you drift off to sleep at night gazing upon King George?

I can afford to have someone suck my thumbs for me , you rabble!

Quote from: Walks_At_Night on October 20, 2020, 12:49:42 PM
My question is did SV ever get his floating cuck shack dried out after that mishap?

I live quite close to one of those. I bet you couldn't operate a lock to please a dying grandmother. You'd be a sweaty mass of fingers and thumbs while Mrs Walks looks on while furtively scanning Tinder.

Quote from: K_Dubb on October 20, 2020, 12:45:15 PM
This is a myth, as any linguist knows.  Just like fashion, language changes far faster in the capital than in the provinces so we speak the more-conservative version.  Cf. any of my discourses on rhoticity which is retained in American English as it was in Shakespeare's time while the UK has been steadily abandoning it for the past 200 years or so.  Within our lifetime!  Just ask DH who confessed to a conscious effort to drop her rs for class reasons.

Her arse dropped a long time ago.

Quote from: AZZERAE on October 20, 2020, 12:29:05 PM
Don't play hard to get. C'mon ... the first thought that flashed across your mind when you saw his face ... is?

Oddly enough, I'm halfway through a biography of the guy by Joachim Fest and it reminded me I haven't finished it. That was my first thought.

Quote from: Dr. MD MD on October 20, 2020, 12:26:36 PM
Isn’t that what the queen did to your manhood?

Aww, he's trying to troll me. How sweet.

Quote from: AZZERAE on October 20, 2020, 12:18:10 PM
For whatever it's worth, that P. Kizer guy seemed a tad self important, and full of himself...

Any tall poppies are immediately scythed. That's the BellGab promise.

Quote from: AZZERAE on October 20, 2020, 12:18:39 PM
I'm just curious.

Well, it was (like K_Dubb at a bachelor party) a trifle open-ended. I'm not sure what to say unless you're a bit more specific.

Quote from: K_Dubb on October 20, 2020, 12:16:47 PM
They very well may have had one before but it did not survive the revolution.  The closest I have seen is the stolichniy cake which is a plain unspiced raisin pound cake whose austerity and lack of ambition might just serve as a metaphor for Communism itself.  Still, I would not turn it down.

It's not the source of the Nile, you soppy tart! Just Google 'Russian fruit cake' like what I did.

http://www.ruscuisine.com/recipes/desserts/n--474/

Quote from: AZZERAE on October 20, 2020, 12:13:35 PM
What do you think of this guy?

You only ever get asked these sorts of questions on BellGab.

Quote from: Hog on October 20, 2020, 11:22:17 AM
I remember when another Gabcast hosts "thought" they had chemistry with MV.  It was the guy with the chest that could explode at any moment. PKaiser was his name. Check out his last posts.

peace
Hog

His 'talk to the hand' dismissal probably finished the poor old guy off. They don't call him Liberace for nothing. When you've seen him without his wig you think you two are tight. The next thing you know, you've gone off to your mother's funeral and he's buggering some blonde waif behind your back.

Quote from: K_Dubb on October 20, 2020, 11:45:45 AM
It is not.  As if it wasn't clear enough I shall state that aggressively promoting the Fruitcake Agenda is the whole of my aim here.  We must make it safe for lovers of fruitcake to stroll about with a piece in hand without the dark looks and sniggers that could so quickly lead to hatred and violence.

You do not fool me one bit, you nasty little man.  Fifty years ago, when Johnny Carson first joked about how bad fruitcakes were, you probably roared in agreement and would have  been all on board with banning them and criminalizing their enjoyment.  Now, though you have been forced, grudgingly, to treat them as inevitable (as though the simple pleasure of a cake needs an endorsement of any kind) you secretly resent it and would presume to sit on your fat ass and opine on what makes an acceptable fruitcake-lover.  Fuck That Shit.  I will savor my fruitcake boldly in front of you and, if you dare say a word in opposition, I will shove a giant piece down your throat until you choke on it.

It is not that I wish to convert people who don't like fruitcake -- it is an adult flavor, after all, old and rich and dark and spicy and boozy and not attuned to the bubble-gum saccharine soft-drink funfetti palates of today -- but I would have everyone at least understand its appeal, much as they would any other rarefied pursuit like log-rolling or pole-vaulting, acknowledging that, while they themselves might not be log-rollers or pole-vaulters, there is something in the endeavor that is noble, skilled, and worthwhile.  Only then will fruitcake assume its proper role as the prince of cakes, bathing even lesser dainties in the old, warm, golden glow of its ambrosian delectability and ancient history.

I think your claim that Russians don't have a fruitcake is utter balls. You were probably fed this libel by some bitter Pole you were sweet on and broadcast it ever since.

Quote from: AZZERAE on October 20, 2020, 10:58:18 AM
There was the Anglo-Boer War, which the English won, and some Afrikaners are still salty about that. Which is understandable.

Yay us! They had it coming, those pig-faced bastards. Now sing this and STFU!


https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=akbzRuZmqVM

Quote from: AZZERAE on October 20, 2020, 06:16:07 AM
C'mon, Doc. You'd be great. We all know that.

Computer says 'no'.

Quote from: K_Dubb on October 20, 2020, 10:17:40 AM
You are a great cohost, bunny.  You are current on what is happening on bellgab, laugh adorably at all the right times, introduce germane content of your own, and are actually curious, asking questions in what would otherwise be a flood of opinion.

I would have preferred you to have more interest and expertise in the area of fruitcake, however...

Isn't being an actual fruitcake enough for you?

Also, blowing a note at pitch isn't simple at all and requires a great deal of skill. Vibrato allows you to get away with dodgy intonation because you're not on the note but fluttering around it. I refer you to St Roger of Norrington and the 'pure tone' style of playing.

Quote from: K_Dubb on October 18, 2020, 03:10:21 PM
Absolute horsefeathers, proving once again that you haven't the slightest idea what you are hearing.  Your appreciation for music is closer to the kind of person who purchases Relaxing Classics thinking classical music is calming, not the musician who tenses his breath as tessitura is strained and tightens his sinews along with each bow-stroke, feeling intensely the mastery of the effort required to produce such tones.

We are talking about vibrato which, in brass-playing, requires steadier, firmer, more-confident breath and lip control than simply blowing a note at pitch, especially if you are bending the pitch above the note as they often do, i. e. making it sharper.  Reduced long capacity might produce tremolo, which is variation in the loudness of the note but it would sound ragged rather than the even pulses of a skilled player in control of his instrument.

Pay attention, darling. I said 'wobbly vibrato'. I can tell a hawk from a handsaw when the wind's in the right direction. And I have actually heard most of the great orchestras live, not the third-stringers you're forced to put up with. You're talking arrant balls, as usual!

Quote from: albrecht on October 18, 2020, 02:04:33 PM
Could this be related to less smoking? And the relative strength and/or lack of filters for cigarettes in those countries formerly? The places you point out in which brass is "partial to wobbly vibrato" are also places where people love(d) to smoke in general more than most Western nations currently and proudly, or simply due to cost, smoked their own national brands- that were more harsh than English and American cigarettes. Maybe they were simply gasping for air hoping the conductor will finally let them stop the sound. A non-police related "I can't breathe" type of situation?

The oboe player in that recent K_Dubb vid recently certainly doesn't look like he holds back on the vodka, borsch, and herring and I suspect Belomorkanals.

That's a very interesting point which I haven't considered before. Certainly people like Mravinsky didn't linger over lyrical passages for the brass very much. Maybe he knew they didn't have the lung capacity after sucking on all those papirosi. Those Eastern bloc countries also had very distinctive woodwinds because they couldn't afford better reeds.

Quote from: K_Dubb on October 18, 2020, 12:19:49 PM
The best Mendelssohn overture, a great favorite of Victorian-era concert programs:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fEkm0WD1IHE

It is good to see the Russian school of brass playing, which forever eschews the sonorous blend in favor of individual blare and the occasional questionably tasteful vibrato, is alive and well among the youth of today.

That's also true of East German brass, and French, both partial to wobbly vibrato. It's a pity that quirky playing is being gradually ironed out these days, everybody is told they have to sound like the Berlin Philharmonic. Even the Czech Phil isn't what it was during the days of Karol Ancerl. You wouldn't know all this, being stuck in a cultural backwater, frowsting in your own ignorance.

Quote from: K_Dubb on October 17, 2020, 11:25:24 AM
Something new (old) for Halloween if you are tired of Night on Bald Mountain, Danse macabre, and Le Chasseur maudit:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oIVmJAi53R8

Some program to do with Wills-o’-the-Wisp I forget exactly what.

Chasseur Maudit? The Mussorgsky gets played to death but the CF is a rarity. At least, it is in my atonal neck of the words. Don't you have any Xenakis there? Or Ferneyhough?

Quote from: Dr. MD MD on October 15, 2020, 02:09:07 PM
You mean because Tootsie is obviously a man?

I'm sure its just a trick of the light. And people of your age are in no position to be fussy.