Yes, yes, no updates. Much wailing and ululations of reprobation. I’m a baaad blogger.

Much going on in my life. For one, I’m buying a townhouse, which scares me cold. I’m going to have to pay several thousand dollars just to perform the financial transaction. That’s without actually paying for the thing. And I feel bad when I spend more than a hundred bucks on anime.

I know that this is the right thing for me to do right now, because for months now I’ve been unhappy with the fact that my rent isn’t really getting me anything other than a roof over my head. I’d rather that money go into a mortgage on a property, which I can always sell and at least get the money back.

I’m overwhelmed at the enormity of it. I have to spend several thousand dollars, which I don’t really have. I’ll have to deplete my savings. Fortunately, my parents can loan me the rest, but still….This is the biggest financial transaction of my life.

Pretty cool, really.

For the past several months, I’ve been reading Aaron Copland’s What to Listen For in Music. It’s a difficult book to read in one sitting, as it cover so much musical territory. I finally pushed through the last half of it this week.

It’s an amazing work, really. Copland manages a concise overview of many major classical music styles and a guide through the process of musical composition. But running throughout every chapter is a constant thread of the lay listener’s reaction to all of this. Copland is always answering the question, “How can the lay listener better appreciate and understand music?”

For example, his description of the rondo form (which, using letters to denote each distinct musical section, might be written as ABACADAEA…), is accompanied by exhortations to listen to rondos with this form in mind, to hear exactly how the composer is using the form. Understanding the underlying form gives the listener a fuller understanding of exactly what the composer has been able to do with the form.

And fortunately, Copland also encourages the reader to listen to new types of music. Rather than disparaging new and experimental styles, Copland points out that any dislike of a musical style is usually caused by insufficient exposure to that style. One must spend time listening to electronic music, for example, becoming used to its forms, before one can judge it.

He repeats the importance of listening to music, too, and the fact that nothing can improve our appreciation of music more than that practice. So, I’ve begun integrating that into my life, spending a little time each week listening closely to a classical piece. No distractions. I listen for the instruments being used at any given time, the overall melody being played, the accompaniments that bolster the melody, and the overall melodic line of the piece. And it’s exhausting. I listened like that to Beethoven’s first symphony, and had to stop after fifteen minutes, overwhelmed with musical input.

A little knowledge can change everything.

(Sorry I’ve been forgetting to post the VR story. I plan to start posting more again next week.)

Wow, are my legs and feet sore. But, y’know, it’s a good kind of sore. (Cue the Far Side cowboy punctured with about two dozen arrows who, in a daze, is saying to his partner, “Yeah, Clem, it hurts, but y’know, it’s a good kind of hurt.”)

Tuesday night, I decided to act on some information I’d read in Runner’s World about running barefoot. Apparently, a lot of current research suggests that the benefits of running with shoes aren’t significantly outweighed by the benefits of running barefoot. And the benefits of running barefoot? Our feet were designed to provide us with a lot of feedback, and shoes muffle that feedback. As a result, it’s much harder for our feet to tell us when we’re running in a way that’s damaging to our knees or legs.

And you know all those African Olympians who run barefoot? Apparently, they have don’t get knee problems or leg problems nearly as much as those who run with shoes.

So, I figured that running barefoot was at least worth a try. I stripped off my socks and shoes, changed into my running outfit, and hit the pavement for a two-mile jog.

The sidewalk was mostly clear of debris, so my sharp eye was enough to keep me away from twigs and fallen nuts. For the first few minutes, I put on quite a spectacle for anyone watching at such a late hour, as I was practically prancing from one foot to the next. I wasn’t used to it, so I placed each foot with the care of a wary deer.

But after a few minutes, I settled into a natural gait that was fairly similar to my regular running gait, and after about ten minutes I was really jogging. At that point, I began to appreciate the sensuous pleasure of every footfall, feeling the texture of the sidewalk. Some bits of concrete were slightly rougher than others. A few steps onto the cool wet grass was like a mouthful of whipped cream, delightfully smooth and refreshing.

By the time I returned to my apartment, my feet were complaining as though I’d been whipping them, and I headed straight for the shower. To my surprise, upon inspecting the bottom of my feet, I found that they were merely dusty. There were no blood-filled cuts or cratered gouges in my skin.

After a few hours of rest, my legs are still very sore, although that must be partially due to a general soreness in my legs over the past few days. My feet are a little sore, too, but considering the sensations I experienced tonight, it was well worth this.

I don’t know if I’ll run barefoot every time I run, but I certainly can’t wait to do it again.

One of the great advantages of moving out of one’s parents’ house is the ability to go back.

My parents hosted a neighborhood party on Sunday, and I decided to go. It was a fun opportunity to see neighbors that I hadn’t talked to in years. And, I could bring deviled eggs.

The eggs were a bit of a chore, as I’ve been working for awhile to perfect a system of baking the eggs instead of boiling them. I could put them on the racks of the oven (which was set for 325 degrees Fahrenheit), and they’d cook fully, but each had two large brown marks where the egg had rested against the grill. I finally solved the problem by stopping after fifteen minutes, five minutes, and another five minutes to rotate the eggs slightly. After the last rotation, five more minutes in the oven (thirty minutes total) cooked the eggs through. Then it was just a matter of tossing them in cold water and peeling them. Two of the eggs burst in the oven, but one was okay so I ended up with ten deviled eggs. Mixing mayonnaise and sugar with the yolks to taste was all else I needed to do.

Then, after arriving early and helping my parents get ready, I chatted with old neighbors for several hours. It was great. When we moved in twenty-five years ago, most of the families had young children, so I was used to hearing the shouts of kids playing as I grew up. As time went on, they all grew up and the new families were either much older or much younger—new couples who didn’t want children—and the shouts of children faded from the streets. But a few families with children have moved in recently, so I had the pleasant experience of chatting with joking acquaintances while children roamed the property, shouting and squealing to each other.

Afterwards, I stopped by Blockbuster’s and rented The Maltese Falcon, as part of my program to watch Ebert’s Great Movies. I watched it almost immediately after returning home.

The Maltese Falcon was completely different than I’d expected. It’s amazing how much I thought I knew from short clips and sly references.

For one, Sam Spade is incredibly slick. As someone in the film puts it, he has a fast mouth. He’s not necessarily smart, but he can always come up with some explanation or justification or line of questioning on the spot. That’s probably what elevates the character into greatness; he has a unique power.

Morever, Spade—like every other character—has strange, hidden depths to him. I was never quite sure what was going on within each character’s head. Even at the end, characters betray surprises about their motivations.

John Huston did a masterful job with the camera, zooming in or out—sometimes just slightly—to emphasize a plot point or keep the actors in the frame without resorting to a cut. It’s the sort of camerawork that’s often overused in Hong Kong filmmaking, where the camera will rapidly zoom in on a character’s face from a long shot, to heighten tension. In Hong Kong, it was exaggerated; here, it is used with supreme finesse.

Overall, I was as impressed as I hoped I’d be for a Great Film.

Lileks agrees with me about Spider-Man 2‘s music:

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