Mark Steyn: Requiem for the counterculture -

Western Standard - Canada ^ | February 12, 2007 | Mark Steyn

[dljordan]

"I listen to a lot of classical music. Yet, I have no idea what an experimental cellist plays or does."

I remember learning the Cello in grade school. Every time I got "experimental" the music teacher threw a book at me.

[eureka!]

marking

[Publius6961]

The population of New Orleans has never recovered, demographically speaking, from the hurricane. Pre-Katrina, the city proper had about half a million inhabitants. Evacuated and scattered across the land in September 2005, 50 per cent or so decided they had no urge to return.

So New Orleans currently has some two hundred-and-something thousand residents--or about what it had in the 1880s. What segment of the citizenry was it that opted to go home? You can glean a clue from one intriguing statistic: although the population has halved, the number of murders in the city each month has stayed pretty much the same.

Which means, in effect, the murder rate has doubled. Presumably because the kind of people who find a one-party welfare swamp conducive to perpetrating crime came back to New Orleans, while the kind of folks who'd been on the receiving end were grateful to have gotten out.

This paragraph is a keeper!

Which, of course means that it will sink from memory forever at least from the MSM.

Not if I can help it!

[Eva]

Evidently, Helen Gillet is a New Orleans style celloist. Experimental cello seems to mean "jazz" cello.

Helen currently performs jazz, original compositions, french chansons and musettes in her own band entitled Wazozo, electronic in Josh Scalf's Kilowatt, country-rock for the Luke Allen Band (Happy Talk Band) and classical music with the Frenchman string Quartet. She has recently performed in venues such as Snug Harbor, D.B.A., King Bolden, the Big Top, Dragon's Den, The Ogden Museum, Cafe Brasil, the Sound Cafe, Zotz Coffee Shop and at the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival. She is also a member of jazz bassist James Singleton's 3now4rkestra, NONME (New Orleans New Music Ensemble), Mathilda (all-waltz-all-string band) and Musica de Camera (Medieval Music). She has also collaborated with Mineapolis puppeteer Daniel Polnau both in New Orleans and in Mineapolis. She plays at the Confederacy of Dances at the New Orleans Contemporary Arts Center each spring (www.confederacyofdances.org) She has lived in Belgium (birthplace), Singapore, Japan, Chicago, Madison, and New Orleans. Her cat's name is Lilly and she has just bought myself a boss loop pedal obsession. Current inspirations include Minneapolis, sweet potatoes, martin's curry, the various sounds of snoring, zodiac, home, vines, french chansons lyrics, rhythm, frogs, crickets, making new orleans safer, springs (the boingy kind), mac and cheese from the joint, soundtracks, grandmother's teeth and pagodas. Helen Gillet plays on Leroy Jones' new album "Soft Shoes," coming out in the spring of 2007. This profile was edited with myspacegroove Editor

[LonePalm]

There's always gloom for cello.

Garde la Foi, mes amis! Nous nous sommes les sauveurs de la République! Maintenant et Toujours!
(Keep the Faith, my friends! We are the saviors of the Republic! Now and Forever!)
LonePalm, le Républicain du verre cassé (The Broken Glass Republican)

[Publius6961]

There's always gloom for cello.

I've got to say "hold it!" right there.

The Swan , and Meditation, from Thais are two of the most glorious pieces of music ever written.

Not for the experimental, however.

[COBOL2Java]

I listen to a lot of classical music. Yet, I have no idea what an experimental cellist plays or does.

Being an amateur musicologist, this is the best I could come up with:

Yes, I have the album. I assure you, it's definitely an acquired taste... :-)

[Blind Eye Jones]

Bach wrote for experimental cello but most of it was lost or kept in a trunk in his attic.

[Rummyfan]

They went to Harvard, which would make them "smart" at least for the purposes of job application. They had the finest education money can buy, yet they were wholly deluded about the nature of the world they lived in.

Over-educated idiots! Hope the child is okay - they should have never put him in such a dangerous situation.

Reminds me of the guy who hobnobbed with the bears in Alaska. I don't care that he got killed - he was too stupid to live. But he had to get his girlfriend killed too.

[Bonaparte]

Considering their suicidally self-loathing philosophy and their penchant for killing off their progeny, is it any wonder that the left has to recruit its voters from graveyards?

[Bonaparte]

"Yet, I have no idea what an experimental cellist plays or does."

The cello is a difficult instrument to master. I suspect an "experimental" cellist is someone who is not a cellist but nonetheless plays one on TV, especially on PBS.

[Oztrich Boy]

"Do you like Kipling?"

[NZerFromHK]

I'm quite dismayed at the quality of tertiary/university/college teachings especially as it comes to political and moral issues. Believe it or not, I have encountered US-based college kids who are evangelical Christians (that makes them about 7-8 years my junior). They are all firmly Bible-believing even to the Jerry Falwell level, and then talking like man-made global warming is proven beyond reasonable doubt, and who really has no American patriotism apart from the vague "Yes, I like my country because it is simply where I'm in" and are never quite proud of the country.

[Interesting Times]

"Do you like Kipling?"

"I don't know, I've never kippled."

[decal]

Looks like it's time to resurrect an old tagline...

[Victoria Delsoul]

Great article, thanks.

[HitmanLV]

STEYNAHOL!

[Dr.Deth]

I have an idea what grindcore is. Usually the most interesting thing about it is the band names.

[sd-joe]

>> "Current inspirations include ... the various sounds of snoring," <<

This I can believe.