(no subject)

When I was young, I loved the 18th- and 19th-century repertory to the exclusion of 20th-century music, both classical and pop. Then, once I acknowledged the force of dissonance, I went from Schoenberg to Messiaen to Xenakis, and, following the path of noise, moved on to the post-punk sound of Sonic Youth.

Ross perfectly captures my own discovery experience, there, though the names are very slightly different: Messiaen and Xenakis were later discoveries, but I certainly grew up with Schoenberg and Bernstein and Stravinsky once I moved on from Haydn and Mozart and Beethoven. And the Sonic Youth are unquestionably, for the type of person that Ross and I both seem to be, the place where you go to discover the purpose of rock and roll. "NYC Ghosts and Flowers" was revelatory for me at 16, though today it just seems like a good noise album.

I think Ross makes an excellent point, though, about the sense of feeling trapped in your seats by an unpleasant work of modern classical music. For this reason, I think it's often not inappropriate to moderate initial encounters with this music by listening to recordings. This is perhaps something for me to keep in mind, not necessarily for myself (I don't mind the occasional failure to enjoy the music) as for friends I bring along.



In Yuletide, I am nowhere near as accomplished as naraht, but my draft is up to 500 words, which is good considering I didn't finish my source text reread until yesterday. I have so many ideas that I suspect I will overflow into several stories in this fandom, though it remains to be seen how many of those stories will develop to the point of being ready by Yuletide.

Yuletide is so much fun, people who aren't doing Yuletide! The #yuletide chat has on occasion reminded me pleasantly of Eternalcove. The writing is joyful, the dreaming about unusual source materials is joyful, the hoping for awesome fic is joyful.