Sunday, April 29, 2012

Secular Religion


We are just in from a great performance of Haydn's "Seasons" here in Fred'ton.  The work was performed in a large wooden church which may have inner buttresses causing acoustic issues.

Regardless, I got to wondering about how many of us miss choirs.  Here was a piece which could be performed on Sundays through the year: Spring for 3 months, then Summer and so forth.

The problem is with the arrangement for the close of Winter.  At my age, it is already striking in how the work moves inevitably to this end.  The finale is a trio with double choir.  It begins with the baritone/bass and then the tenor and finally the soprano. The Trinity.  No question.

The Trinity, like physical ascension, like Divinity of a man - all of these are deal-breakers.  Not to mention the virtuous maidens, the plowman in the furrow. But, oh, that verdant Spring, verdure and then praise of Sun and praise of Wine !  And ending with the traveller, salvation, and the final Amen.

Just think what a small city Vienna was in 1801 !  Not even the Vienna of Musil's Ulrich and the suburbs.  So it is sad to think that even in Papa Haydn's work, a work so close to nature, the secular cannot quite find even seasonal anthems and processionals and recessionals and some more regular occasion for the diapasons, the dithyrambs, the recitations, high, piercing clarabellas - all of which we miss in secular life - between concerts.



Friday, April 27, 2012

Study Kanjidic2's Henshall Kanji dictionary entries


I have an app up at http://kanji.aule-browser.com/ for reviewing/studying/learning the entries in the Kanjidic2 which are numberwed for Henshall's "Remembering the Kanji" book.


 
I will add a Heisig equivalent today or tomorrow depending on how this grippe progresses ...




Monday, April 23, 2012

Firefox Perapera for Kanji


I am finding that my two pages testing edict and edict2 as UTF-8 encoded text are also a great test of the Perapera Japanese-English dictionary plug-in for the Firefox browser.

Of course, the plugin required the compilation of the dict ... but it clearly hints at more uses for the content of EDICT2 than as some single text file out on a server.

I have posted two versions of each of EDICT and EDICT2 as HTML pre text:
edict white-on-black
edict black on white
edict2 w/b
edict2 b/w
Kanji dict plugins to read an English gloss are available for your web browser.

Note: each page may take a moment to load as there are some 162,000+ entries.


Monday, April 2, 2012

Ezra Pound's periplum for periplus?


Is Pound's 'periplum' merely for Greek periplus ?

An article misses prunus (also cherry) and the orchid of Mauberley - a different view when comparing Zh "plum" and Zh "sea"

as in    and    not to mention venom   毒液   -  or even  poison  毒藥   - and then there is perineum.

Note that 'sea' may also serve as 'beach', depending upon point of view in a poem.

Pound has his fun with us when we fail to look for the symbol, or 符號 .

Note the frequency of the "peri-" prefix in Russian ... and our occasional reliance on prunes.

Casual gardeners insist on distinctions of cherry and plum ( compare prunus and the  malus  of the Romans) ; see rank and "apricot".

I await  a scholar to correct me, leaving me road apples as the itinerant master rides off to another skirmish or recent hanging.

Defeated, having given his ear, 
his wound unbound,  he went unshod,
avoiding the road and the inns.