The Man With the Big Sombrero
I like this song. This song, previously unreleased, is from Pink Martini’s compilation album “A Restrospective”.
New Amsterdam and The Silver Lake
Recently I got to know Pink Martini’s song “Sympathique”. Well, don’t laugh at my ignorance, since what I listen to is almost all classical music. I liked that song, so I looked up more their songs in YouTube and ended up getting all their albums.
I have lots of things to say about Pink Martini, but here let’s stick with the topic. When I first heard of “New Amsterdam” from “Splendor In the Grass” (2009), I noticed something familiar… I heard similar melody before. What was it? I identified the composer from my mental search and then it only took me a little time to find out that song.
Language Learning – Using Anki with GoogleTTS
Even though I mentioned Anki (first and later) back in 2008, but not until 2009 I first tried it out for learning French. At that time it was already a pretty good learning tool based on space repetition method. It provides cross-platform desktop and mobile softwares and AnkiWeb with synchronization between them , so that you can learn your topic anywhere.
I typed the French phrases or sentences I learned from Pimsleur so that I could practice later. From typing them, I could also check the spelling part. The only drawback was that I couldn’t practice listening and speaking. Anki does have option to let you add audio files to each card. If you have a phrase book that comes with mp3 files, then it is not a big issue. But what if you don’t have? What if you just want to learn whatever text you input (such as new words from a book or an article)?
Google Translator can translate the text from one language to another and it offers “text to speech” option below the text box. It’s very handy and I use that option sometimes. Mr. Fragoso wrote a small program (GoogleTTS, i.e. Google Text to Speech) to let you generate audio files (mp3) from the text in each card, or play it on the fly (connected to the internet).
This is exactly what I need. 
Happy Sweet Seventy
June 5 was Argerich’s 70th birthday. Someone celebrated her birthday by posting three video clips from recent performances and rehearsal.
Below is “Les Moulins de mon coeur” arranged for two pianos, harpe and violin from July 21, 2010 in Ramatuelle, France, with Martha Argerich (piano) & Michel Legrand (piano) & Catherine Michel (harpe) and Geza Hosszu-Legocky (violin)
You can see the other videos from the poster. (Thank you! )
[Update] Too bad that this account was deleted later. 
Slow Update & Shifting My Focus
Currently I’m focusing on a different matter more than anything else. That’s randonneuring. My goal this year is to complete the 1200k event in France this August. I’ve spent most of my time on this, so I have no time to frequently update my blog here. Until the end of the summer then.
I Think It’s Too Fast
As said at 2 min 11 sec. (the link with specific time doesn’t work in WordPress.com)
Compete With Computer in Rock-Paper-Scissors
Can you beat the computer in rock-paper-scissors game?
Well, this interactive feature from New York Times can show you how the computer can beat you.
Bill Cunningham New York
Last night while I browsed the trailers at Apple site, found this.
I first noticed Bill Cunningham’s works was his report on Cyclists/Pedestrians’ day on Park Ave in New York City. Since then, I have enjoyed watching his On the Street slideshows. Even though I don’t go after the fashion but love to see how real people actually wear in the city.
Therefore this documentary is interesting for me to see who Bill Cunningham, besides the voice over the On the Street, really is. And I love his bikeļ¼
Top Ten Composers
Anthony Tommasini, the chief music critique of New York Times, explores what makes a classical-music composer great in his series of videos. You can also vote your top ten composers there.
Currently, the top three from NYT readers’ votes are Beethoven, Bach and Mozart. It’s still too early to call Beethoven as number one, since their votes are pretty close. The fourth, far behind the top three, is Brahms.
Among these top ten picks by readers, Haydn and Debussy are not my favorites. I have few recordings on Haydn:
- Piano Concerto played by Argerich & FaerberĀ — but I like Shostakovich’s in this album
- Cello concertos by Harrell & Marriner — I bought this to expand my cello concerto collection. I found something interesting in one Adagio.
- Two songs performed by Janet Baker from her Philips & Decca recordings (1961-1979)
- Piano Sonata by Richter
I have more recordings in Debussy, mostly in chamber music and piano works through my favorite performers. However, I still cannot appreciate his music much. At least, for now; I might change my tastes when I grow older.
I have read Anthony Tommasini’s book about opera. It’s not bad for an opera newbie for me. But some reviewers in Amazon don’t agree with his choices of recordings.
Scali Bread
I have been baking bread every Saturday for a while. Tried the 100% whole wheat sandwich bread three times. Last week I used the regular recipe of 33% whole wheat for small batards. I found that I am pretty bad in handling wet dough.
This week I wanted to do something different. While browsing in The Fresh Loaf, I noticed SylviaH‘s posts about Scali bread and decided that this would be this weekend’s task.
