Messenger vs Pandora

[Original post on my Blog | My Blog]

The phrase “don't shoot the messenger” can be abused to absolve one from any responsibility.

Arguing against the abuse needs to be done with a minimum effort. After all, I certainly don't want to speak until my mouth dry, only for my opponent to simply retort with “ah, but I'm only a messenger. So please, don't shoot the messenger”. That's where we need to counter with another short metaphor...

And one that I have, so far, is “Blame not the box but Pandora”.

So what's the story behind this Pandora-esque phrase? In the Greek mythology, Pandora is a woman tasked by Zeus (head of gods) to guard a box. Zeus doesn't tell her what's inside, but only cautions her to never open the box at all cost. Sadly, Pandora succumbs to temptation. She opens the box which then unleashes all sort of evil stuffs: hatred, envy, anger, etc. Because her act causes a dire consequence unto the world, Pandora is often portrayed as the person to blame.

Side note: Actually there's a bright side in the story. Unknown to Pandora, after the box is opened and left unattended for quite a time, a small butterfly comes out. It's said that the butterfly symbolizes “hope”.

“No, I like women.”

[Original Post at my Blog | My Blog]

...thus said Diego Armando Maradona, the manager of the Argentina football team, during the post-match press conference on 15-Jun-2010 after beating South Korea 4-1.

In a matter of hours, his Argentina team will play Germany in one of the most eagerly waited quarter-final showdowns of WC’10. Therefore, it seems befitting to write about the man who has brought and is still bringing cheerful colors to the footballing world.

A writing about the man who becomes the best example to illustrate how a particular technician is slowly, but looks surely, changing from a utopian to a pragmatist (i.e., a cold blooded calculating b*st*rd).

[I hope my c.b.c.b analogy won't bring me any serious implication in the future. I've heard and seen too often unexpected consequences of publications, in any form, on the ’net.]


The Utopian Technician, in the Past...
the technician had a rigid view on footballers. The view that as role models, they must be perfect in all their conducts.

No flaws are allowed, at all.

Therefore, it becomes strikingly obvious this technician had paid no admiration to Maradona (still a player at that time). He’s not fit to be a role model. He “cheated” with his hand-of-God goal. He was totally messed up with drugs. He was completely out-of-order for firing an air gun to journalists. And so on.

Mention Maradona, and the technician was left wondering how could this player be idolized by many people. He has, afterall, the most screwed up life...


The Pragmatist Technician, Now...
after years of seeing various things happening, the technician is becoming less and less utopian. Instead, the technician becomes more and more realistic in viewing circumstances. That...

footballers are just humans. And no human is perfect.
Therefore, flaws are the norm, while perfection is the most impossible exception.

That’s how the technician accepted that Maradona should be a solely judged by footballing standards — playing and managing. His flawed character does not in any way deny his greatness as a footballer. Whatever his weaknesses are, they do not take away his right to be admired as one of the greatest footballers ever grazing this world.

Besides, how can he, as a manager now, not be liked for being a refreshing droplet in the desert of “football managers”?

He dared to get back passionately (read: swear/curse) at his detractors (i.e., journalists, commentators, and a host of arm-chair critics) when his Argentina team had managed to barely qualify to the final-round of WC’10

He who cheekily yelled at a paparazzi “What an ***hole you are. How can you put your leg there where it can get run over, man?” after accidentally drove over the paparazzi's leg.

And when asked by a journalist why he always hugged and kissed his players after games, he responded candidly (scroll to the bottom): “No. No, I like women. I still prefer women. I am dating Veronica who is blond and 31-years-old. No, I have not gone limp wristed. But I like to acknowledge and congratulate my players when they play as well as they did today. ” And his facial gesture when hearing the question? Priceless (click here if you don’t see the video below).


Original Video - More videos at TinyPic


Epilog
This is the man, the football manager, who is coloring the footballing world with his imperfection and flaws and weaknesses. [See also the top-10 Maradona’s crazy moments in WC’10]

It’s extremely rare to find such a spirit among football managers nowadays. Probably only Jose Mourinho is on par. Of course, Mourinho has been in the business longer, so he might have a few more tricks under his sleeve. Nevertheless, give Maradona enough time, and I’m sure he’ll equal Mou (in terms of character, that is). Just imagine the banters that will occur, if both ply their trade in the same league...

By the way, if you’re still reading ’til this point, then allow me to wholeheartedly offer you my eternal gratitude. And not only that. I also congratulate you for reading my one rare post on football, after “retiring” from it (club & international) nearly a year ago.

Linguistic Problem

[Original Post at my Blog | My Blog]

This morning I met a visitor from Jakarta in my office. And that produced the final-nail-in-the-coffin moment for me. Why? Because it confirmed my own suspicion...

that...

...my command of Indonesian for formal communications is deterioriating!

I first realized this problem back in Feb this year (2010). At that time, I was preparing a talk for my old university in Depok. And it took a huge effort just to write the abstract & my biography in Indonesian. I even abandoned my attempts to convert my existing English slides to Indonesian. And during the actual talk, I was constantly worried whether my audience understood what I was saying!

That made me realize that after living in this English-speaking country for about 8 years, I now think in English and then translate my thoughts to Indonesian. It's a complete opposite of what I used to do, where I thought in Indonesian and then translated to English.

So, gone are the days where I could proudly brag to my Indonesian friends about my excellent (yeah!) command of Indonesian. I thought that a proof of my mastery is by still pronouncing HDB as “ha de be” instead of “āch di bi”, ASP as “a es pe” instead of “e es pē”, and so on — some were even abit surprised that I managed this even after staying four years in this English-speaking country.

I hope there never come the day where my Indonesian is only barely enough for non-formal communications, i.e., the lu-lu gua-gua kind of conversations.

There is no Free Lunch

[Original Post at my Blog | My Blog]

Before its premiere, Tchaikovsky's violin concerto was deemed “unplayable” by Leopold Auer, a famous violinist and pedagog. To paraphrase his words, playing the concerto is like “beating the violin left and right, over and over again”. Ironically, it's Auer whom the concerto was dedicated to.

Brahm's violin concerto suffered a similar fate. Pablo de Sarasate, a virtuoso, refused to play it on the basis that “the only proper melody was by the oboe”. And that's basically saying that only 1/3 page, out of 20 pages of scores, is worth listening!

Rachmaninoff's 1st symphony fared better where it made its first premiere. But then began the not-so-fun story: it's criticised by César Cui as “a symphony based on the Seven Plagues of Egypt composed by a student of a conservatory in hell”.

And yet, the above mentioned are now widely accepted as acclaimed pieces of work.

Of course, it's not happened just by a snap of fingers. Lots of things happened: revisions, etc. The old adage “there ain't free lunch” aptly sums up the situation. In the case of Rachmaninoff, he paid by suffering a great depression for several years.

A Messy Mess

The latest KMess (v2.0.3), a 3rd-party MSN client, is supposed to properly set-and-retain the friendly name.

However, I still encountered a situation where the friendly name is always reset to the MSN ID (e.g., abc@def.com) which is an email address. Guess that's the price to pay for messing around with different 3rd-party clients.

Luckily the situation could be salvaged, somehow. This was after a series of trials-and-errors (coupled with frantic login/logout sequences). Talking about having too much time with nothing to do!

Anyway, enough with the babbling. Here's how to sort out that messy mess:

1. First, change the friendly name from abc@def.com to another (random, meaningless) email address such as xxx@yyy.com.
   
2. Logout and re-login.
   If the friendly name is still the new email address xxx@yyy.com, then this is a good sign.
   
3. Now, change the friendly name to whatever wished.
4. Logout and re-login, and hopefully the name stays intact.
   

Tuesday Water Cooler: 9-Mar-2010

[Original Post at my Blog | My Blog]

“For 37 years I've practiced 14 hours a day, and now they call me a genius”, Pablo de Sarasate, violinist and composer (1844-1908).


Sarasate, apart from being a virtuoso, is perhaps best reknown for his composition, Zigeunerweisen (Gypsy Airs). Apparently, he composed that song specifically to showcase his mastery (much like Paganini's motivation for his concerti).

Surprisingly, there aren't many videos of Zigeunerweisen by top-tier violinists in Youtube. The cleanest one found is by Zino Francescatti. For the impatients who thirst only for fast-paced virtuosity, please jump straight away to 5:22 onwards and enjoy all the left-hand pizzicatos. Left-hand pizzicatos is analogous to playing a guitar with left-hand fingers only.

Actually, I wanted to put Anne Sophie-Mutter's, but it's audio only aka. no video. Well of course I could've put Perlman's yet again, but I thought this time should be by somebody else, for a change — still, check it out at least for the banter in the beginning.

Finally, I see a Video Footage of Young Yehudi Menuhin

[Original Post at my Blog | My Blog]

I've been hearing or reading how “young” Menuhin (1916-1999) is a wonderkid of his generation. But I've never really find his video footages. Well, maybe I wasn't looking hard enough.

Until I encounter a DVD titled “The Art of Violin”. There's him, playing a fragment of the 1st movement of Mendelssohn's violin concerto, performed in Hollywood in 1947.


The “Young” Menuhin
What's so special about this “young” Menuhin? Well, young may not be the most exact word. It should be: “prior to being ravaged by a serious injury”.

That injury nearly caused him to forsake violin for the rest of his life. That is, until he underwent a yoga treatment in India — that's how he started his collaborations with Ravi Shankar.

Some said that his injury is (partially) attributed to overstressing his body for performances. Performances that he believed as an act of reconciliation between the Jews and the Germans, done straight after the WW-2. This stirred some controversies, considering both the timing and that Menuhin himself is a (American) Jew.


The Art of Violin
And now, back to the DVD. I'm still going through the 1st part (out of 3). You'll see modern musicians (e.g., Perlman, Hillary Hann) discuss how each of the so-called greatest 20th century violinists are unique in their playing & musicality. Menuhin apart, there're Kreisler, Heifetz, Stern, Francescatti, Ricci, Rabin, and many more.

Listening to their explanations puts me in awe, for they just have the rich and beautiful vocabularies to describe the subtleties among those legends.

Now, before I mislead anybody into thinking how clever I'm, let me be the first to confess that I don't understand at all what they are talking about!

[I saw some parts of the DVD uploaded to youtube, but haven't had the time to check them]

A Tale of a Technician (with no Ending)

[Original Post at my Blog | My Blog]

[Let me start by saying that this writing is tagged “serious” three times. This signifies it as the most thought-provoking piece (according to my so-so standard) that I've ever written in this blog to date.]


Prolog
If I'm allowed to make a satire about technicians (which I loosely use to refer to engineers and scientists), then perhaps one possibility is to depict them as extremely methodical people; those who uphold objectivity and impartiality above anything else.

[Before continuing, I offer my sincere apology should any engineer/scientist is offended by my remark! Trust me, I have not the slightest intention to offend any of you.]


A Stubborn Technician !
I know one technician who has his own prime example of absolute objectivity. His is about a certain finalist of a popular singing-and-showmanship competition, whom the technician thought to deserve to be crowned as a winner.

Why pick this as an example?

Because the technician thought that this finalist had top-notch vocal and showmanship skills, even though the finalist's personality may court controversies. The technician insisted that in a singing-and-showmanship competition, socio-religious-political aspects shouldn't be the decisive factors (assuming that the rules of the competition are still observed).

Inline with this principle, even though the technician disagrees with certain aspects of the finalist, still the technician deemed the finalist as the worthy winner solely based on his vocal and showmanship. And considering the technician's upbringing, his stance may be arguably controversial, not least within some of his own circles.



A not so Stubborn Technician ?
And yet, in this season of the same competition, the technician is consciously re-assessing his stubbornness of absolute objectivity. All because of one contestant who was cut yet the technician would like it not be the case.

Why does this worth a dedicated writing?

It's because the technician didn't base his preference on vocal and showmanship anymore! Not that the technician deemed the contestant to be a bad performer. No, far from that; the technician didn't catch the show on that particular week, so he's not in a position to judge anyway.

Instead, the technician wanted the contestant to do well because of the contestant's predicament unrelated to vocal and showmanship at all. A predicament where the technician is very fortunate to be blessed with countless opportunities for first-hand observations (and for a prolonged period of time, somewhat).

While the technician's experience is nothing compared to the said contestant's (i.e., it's like comparing an armed-chair critic to a man-in-the-field), the technician seemed to get a timely reminder that extreme impartiality and objectivity is not necessarily appropriate for every practical situation.


Epilog
“... will come back to haunt me.” — perhaps this phrase nicely describes the technician's dilemma (if it may be called so). What was believed as “right”, is being shaken by what had been denounced as “wrong”.

Sometime, unexplained bias is just unavoidable, at all...

Tango

[Original Post at my Blogs | My Blogs]

A (rather) senior aerospace engineer pointed me to the Schindler's List theme in youtube played by Perlman. It's a beautiful piece — there's absolutely no doubt about that. But I find it a bit too ... dark, and too ... grim. I really can't explain, but it somehow reminds me to the kind of music played right at the end of an enforced battle between two good friends/siblings/etc.; a battle where the winner wins loses as much as the defeated; a battle where the winner feels empty and full of resignation; where the winner just wants to completely wipe out the undeniable historical fact of his/her hollow victory.

Fortunately, I managed to spot the video of Perlman playing Por una Cabeza, a Tango. And I find this one to be much much lighter and cheerful for my ears, my head, and my heart. Here's the obligatory video on youtube which you could also find below. [PS: Don't be intimidated by the first 20-25 seconds, in case you're not used to classical instrumental songs.]




Perlman played the same piece for the Schindler's List movie, albeit with a different arrangement. I found two audio recordings on youtube, supposedly the original soundtracks: 1st version and 2nd version. Some how I prefer the 1st version than the 2nd, even though it's repetitive. It just sounds ... more cheerful. Might be due to the more upbeat tempo and more variations in the tempo itself [ha, me at my f.k.k.b.l. best]. In any case, the 1st version is also embedded below.

The Young Prodigies

[Original Post at my Blogs | My Blogs]

These have been in my locker for quite sometime (yeah, I blame myself for procastinating): two video footage of renowned violinists, born in the early-to-mid of 1900, performing at their (later stage of) childhood. These footage come from circa 1950-ish and therefore, are still in black-and-white.

• Michael Rabin (1936-1972) — he who (tragically) lived for only a short period of time of ~36 years. Here's the video of Rabin performing at the age of 15, in case the youtube video is not embedded below.
  
  
  
  
  
• Itzhak Perlman (1945-present) — he who overcome polio and defied the odd to become one of today's most celebrated violinists. Here's the video of Perlman performing at the age of 13, in case the youtube video is not embedded below.