Brian Leiter, on the great deal of impolite criticism of him throughout the right-blogosphere (here is Leiter's blog):

I suppose if I were nicer to right-wingers, there'd be less of this stuff...but I just can't help myself. Stupidity and venality drive me crazy.

There's this great scene: it's book nine of the Aeneid, and it's war. Euryalus and Nisus are dead, and Numanus/Remulus, brother-in-law to none other than Turnus himself, who just humiliated the Trojans/Teucrians has been killed by the boy-soldier Iulus/Ascanius, young son to Aeneas. And then, I like to think, there's a pause: and we reconsider just a little. Apollo, as Butes, speaks:

[...]“Sit satis, Aenide, telis impune Numanum
oppetiisse tuis; primam hanc tibi magnus, Apollo
concedit laudem et paribus non invidet armis:
cetera parce, puer, bello.”[...]

Josh, whom I'm sure none of you know, and who has difficulty reproducing even the most famous of the Beethoven symphonies with such acumen, is able to deftly, proficiently and excitedly (albeit essentially amelodically) reproduce something like the opening measures of Shostakovich's 5th symphony (Shosti 5) at the drop of a hat.

This all comes from a tawdry affair he had with a trumpet in high school.

Shosti 5 is good for high school. In fact, I was in high school when I first heard the work--it was after school, and I was bumming around the band room with Ken Potts and Andrew Cuneo (and some other people, I think). They were sitting around talking about the program for the Chicago Youth Symphony Orchestra (CYSO)--I wasn't part of the orchestra--and they started talking about Shosti 5. I'd never heard it before, and Ken immediately played a recording of it on the speakers in the band room.

How intoxicating: sixteen years' hormones and angst pounding out of ratty old speakers.

Shostakovich isn't the only good one--Mahler, Wagner, Tchaikovsky, the list goes on.

Maybe I shouldn't trivialize--this is hard music. Hard in some non-trivial-extra-technical sense. This is difficult music on an emotional level. Yes, Beethoven and Brahms are epic too, but there's something psychologically penetrating about Mahler considering his own death, or Tchaikovsky strong statements of fate that require teenagers who are going through the trivialities of their latest existential crisis to put all that aside. Their performances should give us pause:

There's been a recent rash of these. Of note, Mahler 6 has been performed by the New York Youth Symphony, and will be performed this Friday by the NEC youth symphony. The MIT Symphony Orchestra has already traversed these fields, performing Mahler 6 last year, and Mahler 7 this year. The point of the matter is this: this music is not written (technically, emotionally, temporally) for people this age, necessarily.

The music, I feel, requires some depth and maturity from its performers, which (I'll say it) is somehow understandably lacking from youth symphonies. Music does this all the time. It's ridiculous for a twenty-something-year-old to perform Schubert's An die Musik, or even the Wintereisse cycle, it's inappropriate for ten-year-old prodigies to be performing Liszt or Kabalevsky--on some level, it's not believeable--disingenuous.

But, despite my misgivings and naysayings, sometimes, I'm proud to say, it works: sometimes, even though there are mistakes in the performances, or technical deficiencies, or lapses in the understanding of certain passages, it somehow manages to cut through and edify and mature the performers, and this tranformation in itself is portrayed to the audience: that the bright-eyed children who go into the performance walk away changed; a little older and wiser after the experience.

NEC's Youth Symphony is performing Mahler 6 this Friday. I, for one, can't wait.

As we walked down Florida to make sure that my car had not yet been stolen or towed (so far, so good), my girlfriend remarked that it was too bad there was noplace within walking distance of my apartment that sold good single-serving baked goods in the late evening. I pointed out that given her high standards for dessert (higher than mine) this was not terribly surprising.

Then, just after I declared that there no good baked goods on U street, we stumbled across Cakelove, a dedicated from-scratch cake-bakery at 15th and U. It was small, full of obviously well-used machinery, and looked genuine. Unfortunately, it was not pumping out cakes at 9 p.m. However, across the street was its companion cafe ("The Love Cafe") which is open lateish, has a cozy space, and (most crucially) serves Cakelove baked goods. We split a chocolate-on-vanilla cupcake with buttercream frosting, which was the real deal. (The Cakelove website informs me that we should have let our cupcake sit unrefrigerated for 15-30 minutes, but since the D.C. health code requires the cupcakes to be stored refrigerated, that would have taken a great deal of fortitude on our part. More than we had.)

The Cakelove website, which I am exploring for the first time as I compose this post, is also a trip. The King of Cakelove is a lawyer turned baker named Warren Brown (a career path that I can imagine one ex-Crescatter pursuing someday too). And he has a rather odd blog.

My main reaction to this discovery is enthusiasm, but I will close with one skeptical note. Cakelove apparently will sell 9" cheesecakes for $55. Who pays $55 for a cheesecake? I am not a dynamite baker, but even I can make a darn good cheesecake at home. Then again, I am almost tempted to find 15 curious folks to split one with me, just to sate my curiosity.

Well, one final note. I almost bought, and now regret not buying, a slice of "sassy" cake, which is apparently orange-mango cake with a hint of cayenne. I am dreaming of it even now.