User talk:Antandrus

Greetings, welcome to my talk page. Please leave me new messages at the bottom of the page; click here to start a new section at the bottom. I usually notice messages soon. If I think it is important to keep a thread together I will respond here; otherwise I may respond on your talk page. Or maybe both. A foolish hobgoblin little minds consistency.

A typical winter day in my home town.
Haec dies quam fecit Dominus. Exultemus et laetemur in ea.

Talk page archives: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36

Louise Bertin

Thanks for fixing this up. I created a stub on her over four years ago. I didn't realise I hadn't put any sources for the article. Not sure how this was an "unsourced BLP" (per the AfD nom) though! Anyway, not to mind now. Cheers. --Folantin (talk) 16:52, 30 December 2010 (UTC)

You're welcome. I was just starting to root through some very dusty parts of my library for some hard-copy sources. Somewhere I have an anthology of women in music that has some musical excerpts and a bio. Fortunately you can get the whole of the François Joseph Fétis Biographie universelle des musiciens et bibliographie générale de la musique online now through Google Books; that has a bit on her (though someone will object that it's too old to be a secondary source). Cheers and happy new year! Antandrus (talk) 17:09, 30 December 2010 (UTC)

Invitation to join WikiProject United States

Hello, Antandrus! WikiProject United States, an outreach effort supporting development of United States related articles in Wikipedia, has recently been restarted after a long period of inactivity. As a user who has shown an interest in United States related topics we wanted to invite you to join us in developing content relating to the United States. If you are interested please add your Username and area of interest to the members page here. Thank you!!!

--Kumioko (talk) 02:13, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

Welcome to the project. Please let me know if you have any questions, comments or suggestions. --Kumioko (talk) 02:06, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

Turning Ten

On Saturday January 15, 2011, Wikipedia will turn 10 years and people all over the globe will be celebrating Wikipedia on that day. No event is currently planned for Orange County Wikipedians, so I am leaving a message with some of the currently involved editors listed in "Wikipedians in Orange County, California" and "Wikipedians in Southern California" to see if we might want to meet on that day, lunch, dinner, group photo or other ideas welcomed? I will start a "Turning Ten" discussion thread on my Talk page to see if any interest can be planned for and determined. I am located in Old Towne Orange off the circle.Tinkermen (talk) 20:10, 5 January 2011 (UTC)

Thanks!

Thanks for the help on my talk page. You must have had it cleaned up pretty quickly.. I never got a notice of a new message. Thanks again! Wikipelli ^Talk 17:40, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

You're welcome -- another admin dropped him down the memory hole as I was working on my block message. All in a day's work... :) Antandrus (talk) 17:42, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

Mathis der Maler

Grüßen! Could you please check the correct name for the opening movement of the symphony? Is it Engelkonzert or Engelskonzert? Viele Danke! --Wspencer11 (talk to me...) 18:39, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

Funny, I can visualize a score, but can't find it on my shelf -- either I'm making it up or someone borrowed it. My Wolfgang Sawallisch/Philadelphia Orchestra recording on EMI has singular, i.e. Engelkonzert. Google shows Engelkonzert over Engelskonzert by a bit, but not a blowout. It's interesting that Amazon lets you download my version here but misspells it. I'd go without the "s". (Talk page stalkers welcome to chime in!) Antandrus (talk) 20:11, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

Oh, and http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mathis_der_Maler#Sinfonie also has it spelled without the 's'. Cheers, Antandrus (talk) 20:44, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

Thank you! Now that I'm home and can look in my own score, it's definitely Engelkonzert. But in the wonderful Internet age, it will be next to impossible to expunge that rogue S... --Wspencer11 (talk to me...) 02:47, 8 January 2011 (UTC)

Thanks, Antandrus, for fixing my userpage :-)

I did not even see it had been messed up until I saw you had fixed it. betsythedevine (talk) 04:58, 9 January 2011 (UTC)

You're quite welcome! Was just idly looking at recent changes and spotted that. I left a "test1". Cheers, Antandrus (talk) 05:03, 9 January 2011 (UTC)

User:Orthodoxbush

You know this white supremacist guy? He's been resurrecting 3-years old socks of late and his range is softblocked right now. What's the deal? - Alison ^❤ 04:55, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

You've got mail. :) Antandrus (talk) 04:58, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

As do you ;) - Alison ^❤ 05:01, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

And more-- :-p Antandrus (talk) 05:08, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

New Years Message for WikiProject United States

With the first of what I hope will be monthly newsletters I again want to welcome you to the project and hope that as we all work together through the year we can expand the project, create missing articles and generally improve the pedia thought mutual cooperation and support. Now that we have a project and a solid pool of willing members I wanted to strike while the iron is hot and solicite help in doing a few things that I believe is a good next step in solidifiing the project. I have outlined a few suggestions where you can help with on the projects talk page. This includes but is not limited too updating Portal:United States, assessing the remaining US related articles that haven't been assessed, eliminating the Unrefernced BLP's and others. If you have other suggestions or are interested in doing other things feel free. I just wanted to offer a few suggestions were additional help is needed. Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions, comments or suggestions or you can always post something on the projects talk page. --Kumioko (talk) 02:35, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

Request

If you're up for it, I could use some help expanding a new article I just created - Hurrian song. Raul654 (talk) 06:47, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

Interesting! Do you have JSTOR by any chance? (I do not; I'm yet to find a way in for people like me no longer associated with a university -- incredibly, they don't even allow you to buy access, which I would cheerfully do.) If you do I'd like a copy of "The Babylonian Musical Notation and the Hurrian Melodic Texts," Music and Letters 75 [1993-94] 161-179. I see some information in the online New Grove, and I may have some more scattered around in my library; I'll have a look (not tonight though). Antandrus (talk) 07:02, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

I do have access to Jstor. I've emailed the document you requested to your r...@yahoo.com email address. Raul654 (talk) 07:08, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

Thank you! Wow -- impressive work; I've never read about Assyrian music or musical notation before. Deciphering that has got to be nightmarishly difficult. I'll see if I can add something intelligible. Antandrus (talk) 14:51, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

It hurts my eyes.

Is this a joke and or can it be played? Move down to "Faerie's Aire and Death Waltz" under Bass Driver. Bielle (talk) 23:38, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

Oh man, where to begin ... it's a great joke and has been around for a while. Haven't seen this in a long time! "gradually become agitated" "have a nice day" "Moon walk"... "remove cattle from the stage" -- lol! There are pieces that are almost this hard to read that are intended to make sense; some of Brian Ferneyhough's music, for example. Makes my head hurt. I think one of the hardest gigs I ever did was one where I wasn't even playing -- I was a page-turner for a minimalist piece. Antandrus (talk) 03:30, 15 January 2011 (UTC)

Looks like the results of an orgy involving Harry Partch, LaMonte Young and a player piano. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 03:38, 15 January 2011 (UTC)

From what I know of those three, the piano probably got the worst of it. Conlon Nancarrow may have been a participant as well ... one of his mensuration canons is at proportions square root of two, cube root of three ... Antandrus (talk) 03:44, 15 January 2011 (UTC)

Ah yes, Conlon Nancarrow -- couldn't think of the name. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 03:50, 15 January 2011 (UTC)

My art tends to be visual, rather than aural, so I rather liked some of the patterns. Once, in an earlier life, I was the editorial director of a textbook publishing house. We produced music texts for schools and some of the music was done by the art department. It didn't occur to us to ask if the artist assigned knew anything about music. (It is still hard for me to believe that anyone could get to the age of 20 and not know anything about its written form, but there was at least one . . .) The artist didn't like the balance on the page and randomly (to a musician's eye) turned tails, closed whole notes, added notes, moved bar lines, and generally made it all quite unplayable. It looked good, though. I wish I had saved it. Thanks for the information. Bielle (talk) 03:49, 15 January 2011 (UTC)

I looked at a Ferneyhough score. It made me seasick. Bielle (talk) 03:59, 15 January 2011 (UTC)

Wasn't there some early 20th c Russian composer who actually had markings for the musicians to play "with ecstatic horror" and such? Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 04:03, 15 January 2011 (UTC)

Possibly Alexander Scriabin? He was a nut. Love his music though. One of the great tragedies of music history was his spectacularly gifted son, who was already writing brilliant and complex music as a child but drowned in the Dneipr at the age of 11. Antandrus (talk) 04:07, 15 January 2011 (UTC)

I think Boris means Nikolai Obukhov (no article on en.wikipedia!). "With ecstatic horror", along with "in the anguish of death", "with the dread of remorse", etc., are all instructions to a singer. Another one is "avec un parfum inconnu". Found in Larry Sitsky, Music of the Repressed Russian Avant-Garde, 1900-1929, (Issue 31 of Contributions to the Study of Music and Dance, Greenwood Publishing Group, 1994, ISBN 9780313267093) which also compares Obukhov's imaginative performance directions to those of Scriabin and Lourié. ---Sluzzelin talk 05:22, 15 January 2011 (UTC)

Oh this is marvelous -- I didn't know this composer -- there's quite a good article in the online New Grove about him (spelled "Obouhow"). Apparently he marked large portions of the 2000-page score of his "Book of Life" in his own blood; his wife attempted to burn the damn thing. (Had a lovely dinner with Larry Sitsky once; he told good stories. Obukhov didn't come up, I don't think.) Antandrus (talk) 05:49, 15 January 2011 (UTC)

Terrific! Can't wait to find out more about this guy. You should plagiarize employ these sources to come up with an en.wp entry. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 05:59, 15 January 2011 (UTC)

I had forgotten about Scriabin's son. And, of course, Scriabin himself died very young as a consequence of a shaving cut which became infected. Funny to think of how the musical landscape could have been altered by a life jacket and a bottle of cephalexin... MastCell ^Talk 06:12, 15 January 2011 (UTC)

Fortunately I haven't shaved since August 1982. No point in taking unnecessary risks. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 06:16, 15 January 2011 (UTC)

Antandrus, you and I have something in common. I also once spent an evening in close quarters with Larry Sitsky. His wife Magda and my then wife were also at our table; not to mention the roomful of people at the Russian ball at which he was the guest of honour. This would have been in late 1984, because my ex was heavily pregnant with our child, who was born in February 85. I met him again briefly in 2001, but he obviously had no memory of me. Fame is so fleeting ...  :) -- Jack of Oz [your turn] 06:28, 15 January 2011 (UTC)

Indeed it is. Good thing he got out of China when he did -- did he tell you any stories of life during that turbulent time as Mao was coming to power? Oy! He was a marvelous conversationalist; long time ago, though, and I doubt he remembers me either ... :) Antandrus (talk) 06:32, 15 January 2011 (UTC)

As is typical at Russian balls, the guest of honour makes an after-dinner speech. He did indeed talk about life in China, his early days in Australia, etc, but the only specific thing I can remember now is him saying his given name was Lazar, and when he came to Oz, nobody here had ever heard such a name, so he was dubbed Larry and the name stuck. -- Jack of Oz [your turn] 06:39, 15 January 2011 (UTC)

Btw I think an article on Nicolai Obouhow (Obouhov, Obokhov, Obukhov) is doable. The article in Slonimsky is under Obouhov; I've found Sitsky's book (1994) and can grab it next time I get to the library. Can any of you folks read Russian? There's some good sources there, as well as several articles in French. Apparently in his "Book of Life" he put in the barlines in his own blood. Antandrus (talk) 00:48, 16 January 2011 (UTC)

User:JackofOz reads (and speaks) Russian. Bielle (talk) 01:07, 16 January 2011 (UTC)

Increasingly less, and increasingly less well, on both scores. But yes, I am familiar with a few selected Russian words. That's what a university education can do for you.  :) -- Jack of Oz [your turn] 01:23, 16 January 2011 (UTC)

Thank you Bielle for sharing that, I'd not seen it before. Made me hoot. I like the directions "use smooth side of the violin" and "this is actually unplayable" towards the end. Erik Satie's Gnossiennes, which is definitely real music, include directions "Postulez en vous-même", "Ne sortez pas", and "Munissez-vous de clairvoyance". Satie definitely had his tongue in his cheek, though. And Antandrus's mention of Ferneyhough reminds me that his Time and Motion Study II for solo cello and electronics, where I don't think Ferneyhough is joking, contains a separate stave for each cello string, and one for each foot. --RobertG ♬ talk 07:06, 15 January 2011 (UTC)

I love Satie's directions, almost as much as I love his music. The craziest directions I've ever had to follow in performance were probably in the collected works of P.D.Q. Bach, especially the (notated and pitched!) parts for bassoon reed alone. (Then there is the "Sonata Abassoonata", where a single player must play the bassoon and piano lines at once--but as I can barely play the piano when it gets my full attention, I am not quite skilled enough to pull it off!) As for the original posting, I remember first seeing it when my high school band director had it hanging up on his office wall; somewhere in my collected papers is a wrinkled photocopy... Kat Walsh (spill your mind?) 06:47, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

While both pages are by John Stump, they're from two unrelated pieces. The page on the right is from his string quartet, "composed" after he switched to Finale, sadly, which severely limited the types of engraving he was able to do. (On the other hand, all the notes there are theoretically playable). -- Michael Scott Cuthbert (talk) 05:19, 16 January 2011 (UTC)

"Many Voices"

Have you read Alex Ross's article "Many Voices" in the Jan. 10 New Yorker? (Here's a link to the abstract. I only have hard copy.) There are a half dozen new CDs I must have. (And if CA wanders by, I did get this edition after all.) Bielle (talk) 17:14, 15 January 2011 (UTC)

No, I hadn't seen that before -- thank you for the link! I think they're right about the significance of the music -- well, obviously, since I spent so much time on Wikipedia writing about it -- but that view has not always been the predominant one. I have William Manchester's A World Lit Only By Fire, a readable and fascinating account of the time of Magellan, but which contains (in my opinion) the single most ignorant paragraph ever scribbled about music by a "major" historian. He clearly didn't get it at all, presenting an embarrassingly 19th-century view of old music as "primitive". Anyway -- I need some new CDs too now! Antandrus (talk) 17:26, 15 January 2011 (UTC)

If you would like the full list of reviewed CDs from the article, let me know and I will type it out here for you. P.S. Historians ought to be enjoined from making judgements in fields where they lack competence. (So should the rest of us, come to think of it.) Bielle (talk) 17:35, 15 January 2011 (UTC)

Little Shop of Horrors (musical)

An editor threatens to resume his/her edit war at this page. See [1] and [2]. See this previous comment by, apparently, the same user under an IP: [3]. Can you give him/her a warning? If you read the talk page discussions here, you will see a pattern, I think.... Thanks for any assistance. Best regards, -- Ssilvers (talk) 06:18, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

Looking at his contribs, both as "Taco Wiz" and as the multiple IPs (all obviously the same person, even though one geolocates to Reno, while most go to northern Maryland), this looks like an editor who doesn't quite get the concept of "collaborative project". I'll try leaving a polite note, but my optimism is limited on this one, as his instinctive reaction seems to be to insult people who try to talk to him reasonably. I also added LSOH to my watchlist -- I'll check back to see if anything has gotten out of hand. Antandrus (talk) 18:40, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

I can vouch that there's at least one other distinct person who's agreeing with him - I'm from a forum the two of them frequent. 24.152.189.91 (talk) 02:27, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

Interesting -- there was one cluster of IP locations in northern Maryland-West Virginia, and another in Reno that tracerouted to San Francisco before hitting a firewall. OK. Antandrus (talk) 02:30, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

My mistake. It seems the person on other forum is most likely not one of the random IPs, as he's just stated that he finds the edit war to be pretty stupid. So I have absolutely no idea who the other random IPs are. 24.152.189.91 (talk) 06:12, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

Thanks very much. I hope that this editor has an epiphany and joins in the spirit of WP, but if not, I am very glad that you are watching the page. All the best! -- Ssilvers (talk) 18:34, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

Help with OP template

Hi Antandrus. Per this conversation at the OP [4] we need an admin to edit Template:WikiProject Opera to remove unwanted parameters. Here's what you neeed to do...

Under the line:

|MAIN_CAT = WikiProject Opera articles

Remove the following:

|attention={{{attention|}}}

|infobox={{{needs-infobox|}}}

Best, Voceditenore (talk) 18:46, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

Done -- let me know if that's ok -- WP Opera is on my watchlist, but I haven't been following every thread ... (Actually haven't had a whole lot of time for Wikipedia in 2011 yet.) Antandrus (talk) 18:54, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

It's great, thanks so much. And a belated Happy New Year too! Best, Voceditenore (talk) 20:10, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

Removal of spammed image

You might also take a look at 69.114.193.75 (talk · contribs) — I think it's the same guy, at least judging by the images he added to Ten Mile River (California) and Mendocino County, California. —David Eppstein (talk) 00:45, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

Ah, yes, thank you. I would have no problem with this if the person weren't in every picture -- someone went to a great deal of trouble to photograph every public location on the California coast -- but with the sock farm behind this, and the aggressive spamming on multiple Wikimedia projects, I think the good-faith assumptions of a lot of people have passed the breaking point. Antandrus (talk) 00:56, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

Thanks :)

Thanks, Tofutwitch11 ^(TALK) 23:59, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

Quite welcome! I always have to laugh when some anonymous person makes a throwaway account to tell one of us we "have no life". Alas they are always deaf to the irony. Cheers, Antandrus (talk) 00:12, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia Ambassador Program is looking for new Online Ambassadors

Hi! Since you've been identified as an Awesome Wikipedian, I wanted to let you know about the Wikipedia Ambassador Program, and specifically the role of Online Ambassador. We're looking for friendly Wikipedians who are good at reviewing articles and giving feedback to serve as mentors for students who are assigned to write for Wikipedia in their classes.

If that sounds like you and you're interested, I encourage you to take a look at the Online Ambassador guidelines; the "mentorship process" describes roughly what will be expected of mentors during the current term, which started in January and goes through early May. If that's something you want to do, please apply!

You can find instructions for applying at WP:ONLINE. The main things we're looking for in Online Ambassadors are friendliness, regular activity (since mentorship is a commitment that spans several months), and the ability to give detailed, substantive feedback on articles (both short new articles, and longer, more mature ones).

I hope to hear from you soon.--Sage Ross - Online Facilitator, Wikimedia Foundation (talk) 18:46, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

Interesting; it's possible. I'm busy in that "real world" place and haven't had big slabs of time for Wikipedia so far in 2011, but it does seem like a worthy project. Antandrus (talk) 01:24, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

Guardian Angel

You know, it really is comforting to know that Antandrus is keeping an eye on articles (such as Elgar) in which one has had some input. Your eagle eye and shrewd judgment constitute a great blessing for editors like me. I get in a tangle when trying to do barnstarish things, but pray accept this message as a warm thank-you for your superb pastoral care. Best wishes. Tim riley (talk) 17:58, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

Hey, thank you! Appreciate that. Likewise -- thank you for your work on Elgar, Holst, Delius ... Elgar's long been one of my favorite composers, and a lot of his music we don't get to hear all that often on my side of the pond. His Symphony No. 2 is just unbearably moving, that tender Götterdämmerung for the whole Edwardian era. And I think Delius is one of the most underrated of all the major composers, and has long deserved a better article. (Didn't care for his music much when I was young; it's coming open for me in middle age.) Keep up the good work! Cheers, Antandrus (talk) 23:00, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

Brook Taylor

Can you please change the status of this page to Semi protected, with all due respect to Brook Taylor he never received a Sir and there is someone who consistently corrupting his page in all the languages.

thanks — Preceding unsigned comment added by Someone98 (talk • contribs)

I don't see any obvious evidence that he was either knighted or was a recipient of one of the honours that confer "Sir", so I took it out. I left a note on the talk page; someone can put it back if they have a cite. (I can't really semi-protect unless there's an ongoing edit-war, and the edits are several weeks apart; see our semiprotection policy.) Let me know if the problem returns and I miss it. Cheers, Antandrus (talk) 15:09, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

Turtle cookie

For your service in increasing the amusement value of my day by finding the long-deleted List of people who died with tortoises on their heads, I hereby award you this turtle cookie.^[5] - 2/0 (cont.) 17:37, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

Made me laugh out loud; what's scary is they actually make me hungry ... time to eat something with my coffee ... but hey, thanks! Oh, and as a side to the conversation on your page, and related to an article I'm working on in my user space, I think maybe I need to start a List of composers who wrote their music in their own blood. Antandrus (talk) 17:50, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

That may be too specialized. I would go with List of composers who crossed the invisible but very real line between eccentricity and insanity. That list would be much easier to populate. MastCell ^Talk 19:59, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

Dunno about composers, but schizophrenia appears somehow conducive to highly creative pop music, like this guy and this guy and this guy and this guy and... More than a few are "out there" if not quite clinically certifiable. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 20:09, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

The invisible but very real line between eccentricity and insanity looks like it belongs at List of ships (The Culture) (nobody mention the last half of Surface Detail, please, I am behind on my reading). Composers are a bit outside my forte (har), but I put out the call to my quirky music friends. - 2/0 (cont.) 20:26, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

MastCell's category starts with Carlo Gesualdo, not when he murdered his wife and her lover (first making him dress in women's clothing), but when in later years he paid his servants to beat him daily as he sat on the pot. He also wrote his most splendidly weird music during that period of his life. (It was only during the neurotic 20th century that anyone began to think it had any value; before the modern age it was just perceived as crazy.) I'd also put Scriabin in the crazies list -- when he died he was working on an enormous piece, which brought together all the senses; it was contrived to bring about the end of the world, the universe, and cause the Second Coming. Antandrus (talk) 21:52, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

Perhaps close to crossing the line, what about Kaikhosru Shapurji Sorabji (born Leon Dudley in Chingford), who would require suspension of disbelief if he appeared in a work of fiction. He can't have lacked self-confidence, because he wrote a huge amount of long difficult music (for example Opus Clavicambalisticum takes over 4 hours, Fredrik Ullén is recording his 100 Transcendental Studies) that out-Alkans Alkan, but he was notorious for not allowing anyone to perform it and became a recluse. I used to think Sorabji was a mere curiosity until I heard Marc-André Hamelin's recording of his first sonata. --RobertG ♬ talk 08:51, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

You don’t have to be mad to be a composer. RobertG ♬ talk 14:01, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

Could you do me another adminly favour?

I just created an article on Schulhoff's opera Flammen/Plameny. I gave it the title under which it was first performed (in Czech), Plameny, with a redirect from Flammen (Schulhoff). I now realize that it's much more widely known and written about as Flammen (its German version). Is it possible to move the article to Flammen (Schulhoff) over the redirect? Best, Voceditenore (talk) 19:22, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

Certainly -- done! Antandrus (talk) 19:25, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

Wow! You're fast! Thanks a million, Voceditenore (talk) 19:36, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

No problem! I'm busy researching an article that I'm building in my user space -- saw the message bar light up.  :) Antandrus (talk) 19:52, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

so nice

So nice to see so many important changes to the articles on my watchlist recently. You know, changing WPBiography to WikiProject Biography using Project++, adding cleanup tags via AWB, etc.  :-) -- Michael Scott Cuthbert (talk) 01:41, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

Ah, I hear you. Bots are starting to overwhelm humans; we may need this book in all our libraries before it is too late. Antandrus (talk) 02:30, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

Obukhov

Hi, mate. I said I'd get to the translation in a day or so, but I found it too interesting to put down. It's still a bit rough and ready in places, but it's an order of magnitude better than google. I found it easier to separate it into discrete sentences, since the original had virtually no punctuation. As with all Russian text, it's sometimes very difficult to know the precise meaning because they employ indirect and idiomatic expressions to a very high degree, and the dictionary translation is no help whatsoever.

Please don't stake your life on it. With those caveats, here goes:

• His father was a hereditary nobleman, Captain Boris Trofimovich Obukhov; his mother was Ekaterina Alekandrovna.

• Obukhov's family had throughout several generations exhibited a rare musicality.

• His paternal grandmother Elizaveta Obukhova (née Baratynskaya) had a beautiful voice.

• His father’s brothers - Alexander and Andrey Obukhov (the father of Nadezhda Obukhova) - possessed beautiful voices and sang; Sergei, who had studied singing in Italy and appeared there in opera, after 1906 was manager of the Imperial Theatres in Moscow.

• Nikolai spent his childhood and youth in Moscow; he received a home education from his family.

• Much attention was paid to his musical education.

• From the age of 6 he played the violin and piano, at 10 he attended the opera, and at home he often presented concerts and musical performances.

• At age 19 he graduated from High School, and from 1911 he studied at the Conservatory with A. Ilinsky then N. Strahov.

• In the autumn of 1913 he entered the St. Petersburg Conservatory, where he studied theory and composition with N Tcherepnin and M. Steinberg until the summer of 1916.

• The early piano pieces and songs of this period, among them - "I'll wait for you "(1913) and" Do not Wait "(1918) – were still far from his definitive style.

• Obukhov’s harmonic language later became that of Scriabin. (???)

• Around 1914 Obukhov formulated for himself the notion of" absolute harmony "- the harmony of 12 tones without doubling," which was commensurate with the discoveries of Schoenberg, Klein, Hauer and Golyshev, but which he discovered completely independently.

• "I forbid myself every doubling – Obukhov wrote - my harmony is based on 12 sounds, and none of them should be doubled. Repetition creates the impression of light without power; from this harmony dies, loses its purity "

• In 1915, Obukhov invented a new way of notation, which is a direct consequence of his 12-tone harmony: the composer felt that every sound of the 12-tone scale should have its own name and an independent position on the stave notation

• Subsequently Obukhov’s notation wasa taken up by others, such as the French composer A Honegger and various Czech composers.

• Naturally, all Obukhov’s works from the creation of this notation were written using this modernised method.

• His first works in which he consistently embodied his new system of notation were the three poems: "The Lamb and our repentance" (1918); "Shepherd and our consolation" (1919) and "Let there be one shepherd and one flock" (1921) to the words of K. Balmont.

• The third poem is remarkable in that, along with voices, it required new electro-acoustic instruments, invented in 1917 by the composer, called "Crystal" and "Ether" - which became famous predecessors for the future «Croix sonore» («-sounding cross"), an instrument of sound radioelectric waves.

• Obukhov was a deeply religious artist, and most researchers consider him a mystical musician

• In him were assimilated and adopted the fundamental ideas of the new Russian religious philosophy, his direct spiritual source being the doctrine of Vl(adimir?) Solovev.

• Hence his attitude to the idea of composing

• The composer’s legacy is one of extraordinary integrity.

• His works, not excluding those that have an independent status, are as if fixed to a single centre.

• Obukhov could be called a composer of a single work: this is the “Book of Life "- an oratorio conceived by the composer as a mystery, a huge piece for large orchestra, chorus, soloists; it remained unfinished

• The composer began preliminary work on sourcing and text in May 1917 and worked on it until his death

• In 19180 (?? 1918), along with his family (in 1913 he married Countess Xenia Komarovskaya; had two sons) he left Russia

• Their path led through Constantinople, and his journey ended in Paris

• Arriving in France, the 27-year-old composer showed his works to M Ravel and expressed a desire to learn orchestration from him.

• Ravel was struck by what he heard and in addition to lessons and advice on orchestration, often repeated his high praise, interceding for Obukhov before publishers and other interested people ready to give support to the young composer

• About Obukhov’s life in France, little is known.

• The only sources are notices about his concert performances, which are hard to come by.

• The first performance of excerpts of the "Book of Life" was held in the spring of 1925.

• A private audition, held in the salon of Rene Dubos under the auspices of the journal « La Revue Musicale », was attended by many musicians and critics, both Russian and French.

• The composer presented these excerpts arranged for voice and piano; he himself played the piano part and provided necessary comments.

• The first public performance, organized by the Theosophical Society, was held 15/6/1925

• The most important event was the performance on 3/6/1926 of "Introduction to the Book of Life", which resembled a symphonic poem, lasting about half an hour, for four voices and symphony orchestra conducted by S Koussevitzky at the "GrandOrbga" (?? Grand Opera)

• A new page in the musician’s biography was that of the 1934 concerts, remarkable for Obukhov demonstrating his instrument «Croix sonore», somewhat similar to the "Theremin", and also to the «Ondes Martenot».

• Obukhov considered that with the acquisition of the «Croix sonore>> he found his true instrument, full of mystical meaning

• Works for «Croix sonore »-« The Almighty blesses the world, "" Eternal Life "," Coronation " and others - were very successfully performed in February 1934 at the Brussels Conservatory, and on 15/5/34 at the Salle Gaveau; participating in these concerts were the singers Susan Balgere, Luis Mata and pianist Marie Antoinette Osenak de Broglie, brilliantly mastering the playing «Croix sonore» and became a convinced follower and collaborator of Obukhov’s.

• After his death in 1954 at his grave in Saint Cloud she placed a monument in the form of a «Croix sonore»l later, she was an organizer of the international composers’ competition named after the composer

• Among the most important events of Obukhov’s biography are the performance of works: "God blesses the world" at the tomb with holy relics; "Duamon" on the night of 14/7/1936; and "World Anthem" made at the international exhibition in Paris in 1937

• Then the war forced a break in his creativity.

• At the end of 1949 Obukhov suffered a blow of fate – he was deprived of his major compositions

• This happened in tragic but still not clear circumstances: a late night return, an attack, and the theft of his portfolio, which contained his manuscripts.

• The composer got to a hospital. Although he survived this severe shock, from that time onwards he composed no more, although he lived for another 5 years

• It is now hard to judge Obukhov’s true place in the music of the 20th century, and what response his ideas, which were linked in time and place to the Russia of the early 20th century, had in France.

• In October 1934 in Italy, with the assistance of the Institute of Rome, «Croix sonore» was filmed,

• In February 1935 there was a scientific conference entitled "From Beethoven to Obukhov"

• In 1947 Durand republished Obukhov’s "Treatise on the tonal, atonal and total harmony”

• In the 1970s there was an attempted reconstruction of the score of the “Book of Life ", its individual parts were recorded,

• But even though these facts tell us a lot, is Obukhov really understood?

• Much of his ideas, going back to the Russian cosmism of the beginning of the century, remained unrealised, and his religious mysticism, a misunderstood but important work, is lost

• An article by B Shletsero, written back in the mid-1920s, contains a sad prediction about the fate of Obukhov’s heritage: "It is not without a sense of fear I proceed to sketch Obukhov’s works. His thoughts, feelings and desires are far from our habits, of our aesthetic, moral and religious ideas, and they do not fit into the framework of modern psychology, they are incomprehensible to the world of art today, they are not accepted in France, England, or even in Russia; so it is difficult to find words that would convey to the reader's mind this peculiarity, such that he felt such a strange and unusual form of vivid beauty and deep meaning "

• -- Jack of Oz [your turn] 05:13, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

Fantastic!!! Thank you!! That's extremely helpful. That biography contains details of his early and late life that do not exist in the other sources (I've got his time in Paris pretty well fleshed out -- Slonimsky's reminiscences in Perfect Pitch are full of juicy details). I'm still trying to understand all the Orthodox religious references in some of my other sources; e.g. two resurrections? I'm a little out to sea on some of that. Maybe a question for the Reference Desk. -- It's hard to write about his 12-tone method without doing forbidden "original research" because it seems no one has really studied it in depth -- Sitsky maybe more than anyone else -- I really want to look at one of the scores. Now if only I had a public domain illustration or two ... Anyhow now I can cite that biography, thanks to you! I'm presuming that the "World Encyclopedia" in Russian is a reliable source. (Everything sounds right, and matches up with Grove and the others I've got.) Cheers, Antandrus (talk) 05:22, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

You're welcome. I can offer no more assistance on your other questions. I had never come across мир словарей before so I can't help there either, but what I can tell you is that it means "World of Dictionaries", not "World Encyclopedia".

This subject has prompted me to dig out my copy of Perfect Pitch and read it again. It's been too long. Cheers. -- Jack of Oz [your turn] 05:35, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

I'm impressed! Bielle (talk) 05:37, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

Me too! I have a lot to work with now ... :) Antandrus (talk) 05:43, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

Good stuff. BTW I now recall that I first became aware of Obukhov through a short piece on him in a book called Songs in the Key of Z. Not exactly a scholarly reference but maybe it has something you can use. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 17:07, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

Excellent -- I like these books on "outsider" culture, even if they're not meant as scholarly works. Searching through the book (as much as they allow on Amazon), I see they have a chapter on the charming Harry Partch (how can anyone not like the man who made all his own instruments, using castoff brake drums, artillery shells, and Lawrence Berkeley Labs cloud-chamber bowls?) -- and I see the Afterword begins with this sentence: "If you've read this far, it's safe to assume you're a fairly unusual person..." I can't see the whole book so can't find the Obukhov reference, but oh well. I have to say thank you for the lead -- researching and writing about this guy is some of the most fun I've had on Wikipedia for a while now. Antandrus (talk) 17:16, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

Your user page

Hi Antandrus,
I really like the layout of your userpage. do you mind if I copy the code and use the basic layout on my userpage?
Thanks,
Thomas888b (talk) 11:02, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

Hi Thomas -- go right ahead! It was designed by User:Phaedriel several years ago; she used to do a lot of user pages on request. Unfortunately she's left the project, but this particular design has become rather popular. She was talented at page design. Cheers, Antandrus (talk) 14:24, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

Another admin favor for WP:WikiProject Opera

Hi Antandrus. Would you mind deleting the following categories per Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Opera#Changes to opera cats. The cats have now been empty for more than 4 days as per speedy deletion guidelines. They are:

• Category:American operatic countertenors
• Category:Australian operatic countertenors
• Category:Belgian operatic countertenors
• Category:Brazilian operatic countertenors
• Category:Canadian operatic countertenors
• Category:English operatic countertenors
• Category:French operatic countertenors
• Category:German operatic countertenors
• Category:Scottish operatic countertenors

I could not speedy nom the following cats because they had the above empty sub-cats in them. But they also should be deleted:

• Category:American countertenors
• Category:Australian countertenors
• Category:Belgian countertenors
• Category:Brazilian countertenors
• Category:British countertenors
• Category:English countertenors
• Category:French countertenors
• Category:German countertenors
• Category:Scottish countertenors

Likewise those were a sub-cat of this otherwise empty cat which should be delete:

• Category:Countertenors by nationality

Thanks for your help. It is much appriciated by the whole opera project.4meter4 (talk) 18:06, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

Done! Cheers, Antandrus (talk) 18:18, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

Spurious edits

Hi. An anon user has been inventing recordings and "important premieres" that don't exist, see (Special:Contributions/79.39.119.34) Opera Project members have been reverting these, but (s)he keeps coming back and re-adding them. It's all very annoying. Have a look, for example, at [[6]]. What are the chances of an indefinite block? Best. --GuillaumeTell 12:06, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

See also the section Spurious "Performance history" additions on Talk:L'Orfeo and the multiple warnings/invitations to discussion at User talk:79.39.119.34. It's a real pain. Voceditenore (talk) 14:24, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

I did a few quick searches and found the same thing; these premieres / performances don't exist. I blocked the anon for a week; let me know if you see this popping up again under another IP, or if the person makes a comment somewhere. IP traces to Italy. Antandrus (talk) 14:40, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

Thanks! Maybe they'll get bored. --GuillaumeTell 17:07, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

New WikiProject United States Newsletter: February 2011 edition

Starting with the February 2011 issue WikiProject United States has established a newsletter to inform anyone interested in United States related topics of the latest changes. This newsletter will not only discuss issues relating to WikiProject United States but also:

1. Portal:United States
2. the United States Wikipedians Noticeboard
3. the United States Wikipedians collaboration of the Month - The collaboration article for February is Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution
4. and changes to Wikipolicy, events and other things that may be of interest to you.

You may read or assist in writing the newsletter, subscribe, unsubscribe or change the format in which future issues will be delivered to you by following this link. If you have an idea for improving the newsletter please leave a message on my talk page or the Newsletters talk page. --Kumioko (talk) 20:30, 4 February 2011 (UTC)

Idea for Wikiproject Free Music

Hello. I have an idea for WikiProject Free Music but decided to propose it to you since the project seems quite inactive and you appeared to be one of the contributors still active in wiki editing.

I was thinking that an admirable (but extremely challenging) goal for WikiProject Classical Music would be to work with the Free Music project to attain basically the same goal Musopen is shooting for - free recordings of all public domain music. However, to achieve this goal, it would be helpful to have a listing of current progress toward this goal, perhaps with tables for each composer, a listing of all their compositions, and the status on recorded versions of those compositions. This would allow the teams to see what exactly has been recorded by every composer and how much they need to get that composer's complete works available. The list here seems useful for cataloging a bunch of songs, but not as a tool to tell what music is available and what isn't by each composer.

So I made a small mockup of this idea in my sandbox here. The meat of the idea is in the Layout section. Would it be a worthwhile endeavor to set up a page with this idea in place, but with a range of composers and all their compositions? I ask because doing so would be a fair amount of work that could be wasted if people don't find the idea useful. Or perhaps I should bring this up on a community discussion page? Not sure heh.

Thanks in advance,

atallcostsky talk 03:57, 5 February 2011 (UTC)

It seems to me you should try to get as many eyes on this as possible to recruit those interested. Some will see it here (at last count my talk page had 286 watchers); but I'd suggest posting at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Classical music, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject_Music, and maybe even Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Opera (which has lots of public domain recordings of famous singers, for example). You're right -- it would be a lot of work and it's smart to assess interest before getting too far in. (I don't have as much time this year as I have in some past ... so goes "RL" ... ) Cheers, Antandrus (talk) 04:05, 5 February 2011 (UTC)

Awesome, thanks for the advice. I'll give those projects a try and see how things go :). Thanks, atallcostsky talk 04:09, 5 February 2011 (UTC)

Note

I've sent you an e-mail re info on a composer. Cheers. --Folantin (talk) 16:02, 6 February 2011 (UTC)

Greetings! Thanks. Yes, I just filled in another redlink -- Nikolai Obukhov. They're getting harder and harder to find. One maddening thing is the lack of public domain photographs. Do you have any idea if a photograph taken by an unknown photographer, in France, say in the 1930s, could be licensed in a free manner? I don't think so. The picture here shows a guy of what -- maybe 35? 40? 45? He was born in 1892. I really want to use that picture but hate to upload anything "fair use" ... Cheers, Antandrus (talk) 17:49, 6 February 2011 (UTC)

I'm sorry, I don't have a clue about that kind of copyright law and I've never uploaded a single image to Wikipedia (don't have the technical know-how). --Folantin (talk) 18:33, 6 February 2011 (UTC)

No problem -- in the last thirty minutes or so I've been picking around and I'm pretty sure I'd have to make a fair use claim, so I'll just let it go.

How I wish I were within day-trip range of Paris ... gotta make a trip to the Bibliothèque nationale (presuming they'd let me look at the guy's manuscripts). Antandrus (talk) 18:42, 6 February 2011 (UTC)

Not within day-trip range? Ah, we do miss the Concorde, don't we? Bielle (talk) 01:04, 9 February 2011 (UTC)

Indeed! I never did get to ride on the thing. -- Unfortunately the research I'd try to do at the Bibliothèque nationale would be banned "original research" -- though I'm increasingly thinking that a journal article on Obukhov might actually be doable. There's not much out there in real depth. Antandrus (talk) 01:31, 9 February 2011 (UTC)

Spouse had done the flight several times: 4(?) hours out from New York to London, a 2-hour meeting and back the same day. Finance people are crazy. Bielle (talk) 02:32, 9 February 2011 (UTC)

I think that beats my best - leave Iowa on a Tuesday for Taipei, attend meeting, back in Iowa on Friday. And we don't even have the excuse of making real money like finance people do. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 04:31, 9 February 2011 (UTC)

Alas I never get to do this any more -- too expensive, too much cost-cutting in the corporate world at the moment. Ten years ago it was another thing entirely. Antandrus (talk) 05:14, 9 February 2011 (UTC)

Thanks so much for the Obukhov article!!! It's fascinating to read about this character. A long shot, but do you know if it's possible to get a schematic of the Croix sonore? I'd like to compare it to a Theremin. According to this it seems their principles of operation are similar (heterodyning oscillator). That's to be expected since Obukhov got his inspiration for the thing from the Theremin, but I'd like to see if there's more to the croix sonore than just a repackaged theremin. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 04:47, 9 February 2011 (UTC)

You're welcome -- that was a lot of fun to pull together. I didn't encounter a schematic of the croix sonore, but everything I read indicated it was very similar to the theremin. here are some pictures of the thing -- possibly a version by someone else -- and here is an image of the real thing (unfortunately neither is free use). As far as I know, only one was built during Obukhov's lifetime, and it was in rather poor shape when rediscovered in 2009; I don't know if they repaired it into a working version for the version in the Paris Music Museum. Unlike the theremin, you control the volume with a knob in your left hand, connected to the orb with a wire. The vertical antenna is theremin-like, and the principle of heterodyning oscillators appears to be the same. Obukhov never meet Leon Theremin, incredibly, and no relationship has ever been established; he seems to have come up with the idea independently. I had high hopes for an article in MIT's Leonardo Music Journal (Rahma Khazam, 2009) but it was short and gave few technical details. There might be more out there; a couple bibliographic references from the early 1930s I didn't track down (in French and Russian, if I remember correctly). Antandrus (talk) 05:10, 9 February 2011 (UTC)

Vandal

Thanks for catching that vandal on your eponymous page! Ajcee7 (talk) 00:52, 9 February 2011 (UTC)

You're welcome -- and thank you for having the expertise to put a proper article there! I've always been fascinated with the ancient, ruined cities lining the coasts in that part of the world. Antandrus (talk) 01:29, 9 February 2011 (UTC)

Faerie's Aire and Death Waltz

Has appeared as an article. See the original edit for the full fractured spelling and syntax. The image needs a fair use rationale, which I doubt will be supplied, given the condition of the original article. Acroterion _(talk) 01:48, 11 February 2011 (UTC)

Yeah -- it's not likely to survive long -- I'm quite familiar with the thing; it may even be the most famous single piece of ridiculously-unplayable-good-for-a-laugh music of the 20th century, but as far as I know it's only circulated informally. Who know though; maybe some significant critic or author has written about it somewhere. Antandrus (talk) 01:54, 11 February 2011 (UTC)

Already nommed for a speedy; didn't realize there were two previous AfDs. Acroterion _(talk) 01:58, 11 February 2011 (UTC)

Spurious edits redux

Hi Antandrus. As soon as your block on 79.39.119.34 expired, he started in again at Verdi Requiem discography. While he was blocked, he had turned his attentions to the hapless Italian Wikipedia with these bizarre additions to it:Messa di requiem (Verdi). Best, Voceditenore (talk) 12:08, 12 February 2011 (UTC)

Interesting. Have a look at this -- one of his additions to the Italian Wikipedia comes from that page, and it's an April Fool's joke. I have reverted the anon there and blocked again, this time for two weeks. Antandrus (talk) 15:03, 12 February 2011 (UTC)

[Sigh] 79.39.119.34 is at it again.--GuillaumeTell 11:08, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

Blocked -- see below ... Antandrus (talk) 14:56, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

User:USMC212

Some interesting vandalism on the Barber of Seville page, also via his IP address -- reverted now. Might a block be a good idea? -- Michael Scott Cuthbert (talk) 04:51, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

Yah, but he couldn't keep his theme consistent, and after a while got too excited about being able to type dirty words and press "save". Come to think of it I've seen some productions of Rossini that looked (or sounded) like vandalism. I blocked him. Antandrus (talk) 04:59, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

Troll alert

Hey Antandrus! Per User:Antandrus/observations on Wikipedia behavior#7, this troll's contribution history just deviated a wee bit, care to give him a warm welcome? --Dave ^{♠♣♥♦™№1185©♪♫®} 16:18, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

Your welcome is perfect for now ... I'll keep an eye on him. (Wish we could watchlist "contributions" rather than just pages.) Antandrus (talk) 16:36, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

It looks like we can RSS them, though, using the button under Toolbox at the relevant Special:Contributions/ page. - 2/0 (cont.) 17:07, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

Cool! Learned something new ...:) Antandrus (talk) 18:00, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

Editor's noticeboard?

Apropos of WP:CODGER -- For a proposed editor's noticeboard, which should be a pleasure to use and a source of support for editor-enthusiasts, see User:Sj/EN. –SJ+ 11:04, 21 February 2011 (UTC)

Seems to be a good idea; if it gets some attention/use it could go in the WP space. Have watchlisted for now -- I'll post if I can think of something. Btw I think those graphs show a downward trend, in general, because the encyclopedia is mostly built, and there's less exciting work for newbies to do -- while plenty of work remains, little of it is as fun as building an article from scratch, and now you almost need to be a specialist to do that (or someone with a COI writing about a topic of marginal notability). Heck I'm having trouble finding redlinks even in my area of expertise, and for a lot of the ones I know about I only have a single source to work from. Antandrus (talk) 14:58, 21 February 2011 (UTC)

David Horvitz

Your edit created a grammatical problem. Thank you for correcting the part about 'the Wikipedia adminstration'. I think this makes it pretty clear that the majority of the editors thought the images were of poor quality (not you, I am sure). On the reason for the deletion this refers. The reason isn't very clear. Was it a presumed copyright violation? Or a spamming campaign, as your own comment suggested? Or using Commons as an art gallery? If the latter, is it only permissible to use Commons for unartistic images? By the way, I have nothing to do with Horvitz, never met him nor communicated with him, but I admire his work. Can we continue discussion on the article talk page? I am turning in for tonight. PS from the photo on your user page, you live quite close to where some of this took place! Alan Baring Brown (talk) 22:49, 26 February 2011 (UTC)

Greetings, and no problem -- I can discuss some of this on the article talk page, but per our WP:BLP policy the discussion there has to be focused strictly on article improvement using reliable sources, and our own deletion discussions, weirdly enough, are not considered to be reliable sources (interpreting them will be construed as "original research" by one or another Wikilawyer). However I can comment here. I took out the reason for deletion from the article as it wasn't unanimous or even particularly clear. Personally I don't find the images to be poor quality at all -- some of them, such as the Pelican Beach image, are hauntingly beautiful, and I saw the Caspar Friedrich allusion as well. I'm tempted to put that one back (a cropped version, anyway, showing just the original photo). I voted for deletion primarily because unless we could verify that owner of the photos was the uploader there was a copyright violation, and additionally the project seemed like a spam campaign or prank, made worse by the multiple identities assumed by the uploader; "performance art" never occurred to me, but it makes sense now, reading the commentary on several other websites. Yes, he passed right by where I live, and I corrected one of his locations. Some of the discussion was unnecessarily insulting and I wish people would attempt to keep their own commentary within the domain of our own civility policy, or at least the Golden Rule. All the best, Antandrus (talk) 23:12, 26 February 2011 (UTC)

If the mainstream media (or the arts community) picks up on this then presumably it does become notable, then. Let's wait and see. Meanwhile I will round off the article with some other detail if I can find it. I drove up the 101 (at least the LA-SF bit) many years ago. We had a drink at the Biltmore, which was about all we could afford. Best Alan Baring Brown (talk) 07:48, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

Spurious discographer is at it yet again

79.39.119.34 Just came off his second block and off he went to L'Orfeo with a host of bogus performances. Sigh! Voceditenore (talk) 11:36, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

Oy gevalt. Why is this person doing this?? Blocked him for six months this time. Sorry I've been too busy in RL to do anything on Wikipedia but check my watchlist once a day or so. Antandrus (talk) 15:01, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

Thanks! You're always here when we need you. Best, Voceditenore (talk) 16:23, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

Ceci n'est pas une pipe

I'll have you know, I am Dr. Nielson of Brigham Young University, and my research is of vital importance to my university, Brigham Young University. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Thedestroyer1 (talk • contribs)

Every time you vandalize Wikipedia, God kills a kitten, and He will be starting on puppies next. Antandrus (talk) 04:59, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

WikiProject Free music

Please see Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:WikiProject Free music. Thanks. --Kleinzach 23:28, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

Happy Wikipedia Birthday

Do you have the itch yet? Bielle (talk) 14:43, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

• In case he really does, here's something for him to scratch them itch with. Best. --Dave ^{♠♣♥♦™№1185©♪♫®} 18:26, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

This editor is a Master Editor
and is entitled to display this
Platinum Editor Star.

This editor is an Illustrious Looshpah and is entitled to display this Book of All Knowledge.

Master Editor

Thanks guys! Appreciate the ribbons! Yeah, haven't written anything for a while -- I think Nikolai Obukhov was the last -- so I guess that counts as a bit itchy. Maybe we need a Missing Article Noticeboard (or just a "Sucky Articles without OWNers Noticeboard", i.e. ones where you are welcome to edit and no one will get bent out of shape about it). Antandrus (talk) 19:43, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

Congratulations (or commiserations) on seven years in this place. Cheers. --Folantin (talk) 14:07, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

Thank you. It's a strange hobby, isn't it? Antandrus (talk) 05:11, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

April 2011 Newsletter for WikiProject United States

The April 2011 issue of the WikiProject United States newsletter has been published. You may read the newsletter, change the format in which future issues will be delivered to you, or unsubscribe from this notification by following the link. Thank you.

 
--Kumioko (talk) 17:03, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

California Oil Fields

Hi, The pages on various oilfields in California is quite helpful. I'm trying to replicate the oil field maps but can't quite figure out what information you pulled into ArcGis. ( also I'm using Google Earth which may be part of the problem). Is it possible to include the source of the map info? Hope this is the appropriate place to post this question. thanks. ˜˜˜

Greetings and thank you! I used the field boundaries from DOGGR, and also in the cases where I show individual wells I also got them from that agency (see the links on this page). For the other layers I used the standard public domain stuff -- streets from TIGER files, hillshade from USGS, boundaries from US Census. Once in a while I digitized from hard copy if I couldn't find a shape file or geodatabase. Cheers! Antandrus (talk) 20:03, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

Barnstar

		The Defender of the Wiki Barnstar
		Thank you for your work on the September 11 attacks article! MONGO 23:22, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

Thank you! I remember that day. We were on a conference call with Cantor Fitzgerald when the first plane hit. The least we can do to honor the memory of those who died is to keep the lunatic, hateful bullshit out of that important article. Thank you as well for your efforts there. Antandrus (talk) 01:34, 13 April 2011 (UTC)

CT's seem to grab ahold of what are otherwise quite sane people...that in itself is an interesting discussion...(List of conspiracy theories)--MONGO 02:47, 13 April 2011 (UTC)

Help pls

Hi Antandrus, Sorry to take you away from building infoboxes, but can I ask a quick favour. We are having a discussion over an OR, SYNTH article here which is the result of a vigorous backdoor campaign of an editor. Can you protect the redirect for a few weeks until we can sort this out? You'll see form the talk page that there is common agreement on the danger posed by the existing content. Ta! Eusebeus (talk) 17:05, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

Yes, it looks like you have consensus to keep it as a redirect. I protected it (better than blocking someone); if anyone complains that this is overkill I can unprotect (and also if Ret.Prof promises not to change it back against consensus I can unprotect). Sorry, I have been busy in that "RL" place and haven't edited much except for watchlist rollbacks for a couple months now. Antandrus (talk) 18:02, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

A, you are getting slow in your old age ;) Can you put up the protected rd? (I assume we'll still have access to the content through the history, right? That way we can salvage what is worth salvaging.) The worry, of course, is that readers are looking up this topic and getting this load of nonsense.... Appreciate the help, aye! Eusebeus (talk) 21:12, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for protecting this article. Notwithstanding the discussion, there was agreement with John, myself etc that an AfD is the way to go. I am now stepping back from Wikipedia. Cheers Ret.Prof (talk) 18:42, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

Pindar

Happened to see that great quote from Pindar on your page while examining the issue of the redirect on the Canonical Gospels' page. Thank goodness he's still read. Thought you might like the original, which as usual, is far more complex than what we are given in various translations:

μή, φίλα ψυχά, βίον ἀθάνατον
σπεῦδε, τὰν δ᾽ ἔμπρακτον ἄντλει μαχανάν.
Nishidani (talk) 07:18, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

Thank you! Unfortunately I've never learned enough Ancient Greek to read these things in the original; and I'm not joking -- learning that language has been on my life to-do list since I was a teenager. Reading Sophocles and Homer and the Greek Anthology in English translation is like peering in to the Louvre through a dirty tinted glass window. Antandrus (talk) 13:38, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

The translation you use comes from Justin O'Brien's English translation of a French translation of Pindar in Albert Camus's Le mythe de Sisyphe: essai sur l'absurde, (1942). Camus quoted it in his epigraph as: 'Ô mon âme, n'aspire pas à la vie immortelle, mais épuise le champ du possible.' Camus probably got it from Paul Valéry who used the original Greek quotation to head his great poem 'Le Cimetière Marin' (1920). Here's a rough crib so you can at least figure it out word by word, and less through a glass darkly!

μή (negative =don't), φίλα (dear) ψυχά (soul), σπεῦδε (seek, strive eagerly for), βίον(life) ἀθάνατον(immortal)

δ᾽(but) ἄντλει (bale out (the bilge water)/drain, exhaust) τὰν (the) ἔμπρακτον (practical) μαχανάν (device, means). Regards, Nishidani (talk) 14:12, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

That is quite helpful. Did you study Greek formally? Is it doable without a tutor or a rigorous program? It's just one of those things I'd love to do. -- Never enough time to pursue everything one loves, I suppose. Cheers, Antandrus (talk) 00:38, 22 April 2011 (UTC) (Oh, and you're correct -- I pilfered the quote, from memory so possibly inaccurately, from my Camus' Myth of Sisyphus, which is by the way a powerful read itself.)

Maximus Aurelius

Sorry, I got mixed up. you're absolutely right. Commodus WAS his son. i knew that i just got mixed up

Caligula

Caligula was still born in Germania though wasn't he? That's probably where i got mixed up. Sorry again and i'm very thankful that you corrected me

According to Suetonius, his birthplace is disputed; one source (Pliny) gives Ambitarvium, which is near the junction of the Moselle and the Rhine, which is indeed in Germania. Another source names Tibur. But he's sure of the date (31 August 12 AD). Cheers, Antandrus (talk) 03:35, 22 April 2011 (UTC) By the way, you might want to ask either on the article's talk page or on the Humanities Reference Desk; I'm no expert -- I just pulled my Suetonius off the shelf to look it up. Antandrus (talk) 03:36, 22 April 2011 (UTC)

Speedy delete article

I need an adminstrator's help to check this article out Grady Warren the article is currently tagged for speedy deletion as db-bio. However that edit was made by a bot. My edit before tagged the article as [db-attack as I felt the article was heavily biased toward the subject and was libel. Now I wanted to undo that edit, however I might trigger and edit war with the bot and end up get blocked. I am not sure what to do. Please give me some advice on my talk page and examine the article and decide on wheather it should be speedy deleted. Thanks. KeeperOfTheInformation (talk) 01:41, 24 April 2011 (UTC)

Greetings. I agree with you, and nuked it. Someone may object and take it to WP:DRV but I think we need to be cautious with our BLP policy; a little bit of aggressive purging of crap articles isn't a bad thing. Cheers, Antandrus (talk) 01:54, 24 April 2011 (UTC)

The final version of that article included nothing libelous. It was all factually based information supported by primary sources about a minor public figure who has announced plans to run for United States President. Why you would delete the article, rather than tag it as biased, is irresponsible.