I read a very interesting little book this past year that reflects upon sacred space. It was written by a lay Roman Catholic fellow named Joseph Pieper, and offers much to be reflected upon when considering the notion of sacred space. At one point he says why he goes to church and it struck me as quite similar to my own reasons these days.

"I attend Church, not because of all the talking and preaching but because something happens there." - Joseph Pieper, In Search of the Sacred, 125

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The NY Times ran an article today that raises important questions for gender studies in urban centres.  As researchers have begun to process recent census data, an interesting trend has emerged: Young women in New York and several of the nation’s other largest cities who work full time have forged ahead of men in wages, according to an analysis of recent census data.

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Last Sunday Manchester's Bridgewater Hall hosted the BBC Philharmonic's performance of William Orbit's "Orchestral Suite" which he wrote for the inaugural Manchester International Festival. For those unfamiliar with Orbit's work, he's mostly known for bringing "electronica into the mainstream and gave Madonna back her cool. Now he's ditching the synths altogether in favour of an orchestra" (the Guardian). 

Orbit's transition into orchestral composition was a mix of contradictions. On the one hand it was everything I had hoped for.  Moments of beauty and ethereal repetitions bordered on the transcendent.  However, these moments of profundity were sometimes accompanied by cacophonies and dissonances which didn't always work. 

When attempting the genre of minimalist orchestral music in the foot print of Terry Riley's seminal "In C" or Steve Reich (iTunes) there is always a risk that the fine line between genius and naivety will be crossed.  At times, Orbit's repetitions and dissonances appeared as monotonous experimentalism. This was only worsened by the lack of confidence in which the sopranos in the choir executed their parts.  The trumpet faired little better and this deeply detracted from the beauty of the opening movement in particular.  I can only guess that this was due to a lack of preparation or some last minute additions which were not thoroughly ironed out. 

To cite a few examples of this mixed performance, the opening movement was beautiful and left me deeply hopeful for the rest.  But soon through the third I literally began to count the movements to keep myself engaged with where it was all going.  I began to contemplate the whole point of contemporary orchestral music these days and realized that more often than not it often follows the narrative of a film opens a TV show. Granted I'm not big on contemporary composers and claim no expertise, but I suppose I attended this event with a little bit of hope for a populist feeling which it did at times deliver. For instance, Orbit's work seemed to echo the opening of Six Feet Under and American Beauty.  As if to wake the audience up however, the raucousness of the sixth movement was more visually stunning than anything else and created as much noise and movement on stage as possible in order to reach that final moment when all the frenzied string sections' bows stopped leaving the predictable echo to reverberate. But just as my hope for this performance was beginning to wane Orbit closed the ninth movement in with a wonderfully warm hug which almost thanked the audience for listening through his experiment. 

What did I leave thinking? Was all Orbit's efforts worth it? I think, in the end, I sincerely hope that he will continue refining and polishing his talent for the ethereal and popularist sounds we've come to know and love him for. Whether that's with an orchestra is another question, but I believe there is great potential if he does continue in this direction.  "Orchestral Suite" was a fledgling work and I'd bet that once Orbit gets his wings he could really soar.

The local Mancunian painter, L.S. Lowry was a brilliant observer of people.  One of the most striking things about Lowry's paintings is their almost cartoonish transfiguration of impressionism.  From a distance you get the feeling that he doesn't know how to paint and has just scribbled some dribble on the canvas.  Or maybe he is purposely presenting his subjects as rather naive simpletons.  This suggestion raises an important question in my mind which has haunted me since reading another brilliant set of observations about English people, Kate Fox's Watching the English.  Is Lowry painting his subjects as naive to make a class commentary?  If so, what kind?  Could it be that Lowry's depictions of naivete have something in common with what Paul Ricouer meant by second naivete?

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In all the cities I've lived in over the last decade I've tried to seek out and explore their lovable bits which demonstrate their unique genius.  Far and away one of the best examples of Manchester's genius can be found on the canvases of L.S. Lowry.

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Last week I visited the Manchester Art Gallery.  There are a few pieces there which have haunted me since first seeing them, and so I haunt them back.  Manfred on the Jungfrau by Ford Madox Brown is one such piece.

Manfred is a figure from one of Lord Byron’s poems which can be found by clicking here. 

Here, Brown depicts Manfred at the point in the poem as he is about to jump to his death.  Just then a passing hunter happens by and stops him. 

I will cite this moment here from the poem from Act I, Scene II, Lines 362ff:

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I was doing some late night reading and came across a series of blogs for the New York Times by Steven Johnson.  This one is on how cities are the best birth control.  http://johnson.blogs.nytimes.com/2006/12/08/bigger-cities-fewer-people/ . The whole series however, is a good bit of insight on the urban trends and i'm glad to see journalists giving new urbanism attention.  It reminded me of some other articles I've read on new urbanism over the past few years.

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