Going Cafe To Cabaret

It’s that time again. I’ve handed the keys to the SJ doublewide to wunderkind, David Meyer-Lindenberg and wished him the best, while Dr. SJ and I sip wine and think happy thoughts.

Consider this an open thread, to discuss amongst yourselves whatever is happening in the world, whatever interests you, whatever needs to be discussed, but without me. Have fun. Be kind to each other. Don’t make anyone stupider. I’ll be back. Eventually. Probably. Please don’t wreck the place while I’m away, and nobody touches the Healey. Thank you.

36 thoughts on “Going Cafe To Cabaret

      1. Beth

        You’re making me blush.
        But be careful. Say too many nice things and they’ll take away your misogynistic asshole card.

  1. Hunting Guy

    Enjoy yourselves.

    Robert Heinlein.

    “Everything in excess! To enjoy the flavor of life, take big bites. Moderation is for monks.”

  2. Noel Erinjeri

    Just got back from Paris. If you stop by Harry’s New York Bar, swipe the Michigan banner and I’ll definitely make it worth your while.

    Noel

  3. Jake

    I highly suggest Robert et Louise on Rue du Temple in Le Marais for a rustic, steak dinner. Don’t make reservations, and you’ll get some great conversation out of the deal as well.

  4. Joe

    I’ve been drinking Negronis lately. Four years ago I had one and was repulsed. I don’t know what has changed, but I’m now down with Campari.

          1. Hunting Guy

            Humphrey Bogart.

            His last words were, “I should never have switched from Scotch to Martinis.”

            Mark Twain.

            “Too much of anything is bad, but too much good whiskey is barely enough.”

            1. David Meyer Lindenberg

              These are admittedly two very difficult people to disagree with. But that never stopped a Millennial.

      1. Joe

        “I just love a good martini last night. The olives each had a different cheese. It was quite something.”
        “You should try it with bourbon! Yeeehaaw!”

        🙂

  5. Fubar

    … while Dr. SJ and I sip wine and think happy thoughts.

    Paris in Autumn, sipping wine and thinking.

    Here in the SJ doublewide, we can still hear a digital recording made by one of Paris’ most beloved pianists and composers in 1914.

    You read that right. Piano rolls are an inherently digital medium. The best roll recording pianos recorded 16 bits or more information for every note the pianist struck. That’s enough to reproduce a player piano performance that is audibly difficult to distinguish from a live performance.

    The great Cécile Chaminade in 1914, performing her Concert Etude, op.35 no.2, En Automne (1886):

    1. Guitardave

      Mr. Beyond-All-Recoginition …that was F’in cool! …i wanna see it play with the front cover off… (don’t we all?) Its a gear-head/musicians wet dream. As a half-assed musician it kinda makes me think the only reason guys like me exist is because we’re a bit more agile than that there pie-ann-o.

      1. Fubar

        i wanna see it play with the front cover off…

        Long story short: player pianos of the era were pneumatic. The holes in the piano roll allowed air to flow through a pipe for each particular key, and a pneumatic mechanism caused a hammer to strike a string.

        The best player pianos also decoded note velocity (the force with which a hammer strikes a string) for each keystroke, and pedal action as well. The best were from Welte-Mignon and Duo-Art. The piano in the video is a Duo-Art.

        On the roll in the video, a few rows of holes on extreme left of the roll encode note velocity and pedal action. The keystrokes are the holes covering the rest of the roll toward the right. When the hole appears, the key is pressed, and a hammer strikes the string. When the hole ends, the key is released, and the damper felt falls and silences the string. The pneumatic mechanism to control note velocity is more complicated.

        The hammer and damper felts, and the mechanisms that move them, operate about the same on player pianos and ordinary pianos. The pneumatic mechanisms just drive them.

        Wikipedia has an overview of how player pianos worked. Just search for “player piano”.

        Because working pneumatic player pianos are rare these days, and complicated to maintain, a movement formed to make scanning devices to encode existing piano rolls into standard Musical Instrument Digital Interface (MIDI) files. Canadian Terry Smythe, and an international host of other mechanical music preservationists developed scanning machines for the purpose.

        Today, thanks to their entirely volunteer work, piano performances of late 19th and early 20th century masters can be faithfully reproduced on any piano or synthesizer capable of reading a MIDI file.

  6. Hunting Guy

    Another Mark Twain.

    “Anywhere is better than Paris. Paris the cold, Paris the drizzly, Paris the rainy, Paris the damnable. More than a hundred years ago somebody asked Quin, “Did you ever see such a winter in all your life before?” “Yes,” said he, “Last summer.” I judge he spent his summer in Paris. Let us change the proverb; Let us say all bad Americans go to Paris when they die. No, let us not say it for this adds a new horror to Immortality.“

    1. Morgan O.

      Paris can be lovely, but on the whole I agree with Mr Twain. Marseille, on the other hand…

      But then, as a Canuck maybe I am just butthurt at how the Parisians dont respect my franco dialect.

  7. bobo

    Make sure you get to St. Germain where the art show has started today (African art) in all the small store fronts there. See Jariwala gallery and excellent Italian restaurant because you swim against the tide.

  8. John Barleycorn

    In fact the esteemed one can’t do French, let alone Italy or Spain.

    The cafe thing gives him hives perbaps?

    Does he even know that the Dr. might know what a “holiday” is? She might unstuck him one of these days.

    Until then, stay away, stay away, assimilation is natural and foreign to you at the same time

    Don’t look for it, nor reason it, just fucking is!

    Do it more often! The flavor is getting a bit off….

    I blame the American Bar!

    Enjoy and let it happen. Don’t be you.

    https://youtu.be/lNMA0_FyfXU

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