Apr 28, 1996	L.A. Galaxy v NY/NJ Metrostars + A History Lesson (Ariel Mazzarelli)
Apr  1, 1997	Literature, The Anglo Monolith, etc (Ariel Mazzarelli, "Snaps")
Mar 26, 1998 	Classical Music and Football (Ariel Mazzarelli, Sheen Ikegaki)


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L.A. Galaxy v NY/NJ Metrostars + A History Lesson
======================================================
Subject: RSS Off-topic Post of the Week
From: mazzare@primenet.com (Ariel Mazzarelli)
Date: April 28, 1996

Sometimes one must escape the narrow confines of RSS. Other times, they just
waltz in through your door and drag you out for a bit of fresh air. For
whatever reason, it is clear that the salary here is just not high enough to
command full-time attention.

On top of that, on April 15 Prime Deportiva was installed on my local cable
loop. Among the games that I've seen were the live Barcelona culeadas by
Bayern and Atletico Madrid, which once again demonstrate that in futbol
nepotism must be handled with care and restraint--or if you prefer, it is
sometimes a good thing to throw out the baby with the D.T.'s bath water; the
UEFA semifinal games (ok these were on ESPN), several Libertadores games,
and even something called the Rugby World 12 or somesuch, a sort of
international superclub league which was pretty cool. Bite me envious ones.

I also managed to catch the opening match of the L.A. Galaxy. Of course the
organizational staff was severely incompetent, causing a sizable portion of
the crowd to find their seat only after half the game was finished (hassles
with parking, getting tix, and standing in line to enter). On the other hand,
the late arrivals were spared 45 minutes of absurdly poor futbol. I could
not even find the heart to start a hearty "Cobi sux" chant (although I did
suggest to the boy that he get a haircut, which amused some bystanders that
glanced at my ponytail).

I must admit however that Cobi made a good play when he scored his goal. I
suspect that a curl got stuck in his eyeball and improved his aim.

Incidentally I still have not been able to decide whether the stochastic
target selection passing technique was due to the usual motive, or whether
it was a brilliant Drillo tactic based on the observation that your odds as
an attacker were better if you received a pass from the opposing defender
rather than your teammate. Drillo is not returning my emails lately so we'll
just have to live with this doubt.

There was an excellent play by Campos in the second half. The New York
'Metros' (if they are that well hung btw it would explain their clumsy ball
handling) had brought another rousing sally to a close by crossing the ball
from the left side, about 45 meters out, to the opposite top corner of the
penalty area; a Galactico was standing there ready to return the favor when
Jorge stepped out saying

CORRETE PENDEJO

and proceeded to sprint down the field with a concerted effort by the Metros
to stay out of his way (except for a couple of midfielders whose defensive
technique justified the non-engagement heuristics of their teammates). For
some reason Jorge did not feel like dodging the last man and instead passed
it to an unmarked Galactico who proceeded to do a rugby thing with the
pelota.

In the end, the best part of the game was the crowd. In the USA there is
this tradition that when you purchase your ticket it says "Row such Seat
such" and you proceed like a lemming to Row such Seat such no matter what.
Although this is nice in some ways, it is dreadful if your friend shows up
out of the blue and says "hey I'd like to go to the game too". That was our
situation, but the Galacticos came through with flying colors. Since the
seating at the Rose Bowl is on bleachers (i.e. long planks) rather than
individual seats, one can slide around and basically determine things on the
fly. Some folks who showed up after the game started were going to do the
usher-fetch on this one, but the seated folks always managed to talk them
into finding a nearby seat (I must emphasize that this was done far more
courteosly than the anal-retentive-I-paid-for-this-seat-and-I'm-getting-an-
usher-dammit subtext warranted). After a while, we were all one happy multi-
lingual Riverside Police-free family. I even saw a 12ish english-only girl
ripping up a newspaper into little bits and tossing it towards the field,
which was a nice contrast with Obberweltcuppenfuhrer Al's dictum in Foxboro
'94 ("now kids get out there on that field and pick up every piece of paper
thrown by those druggy Argentines").

After the game, there was an *excellent* fireworks show, complete with this
new (to me) non-linear projectile thingy... you know the usual firework
projectile that shoots up about a hundred meters as a single speck of light,
and then breaks up into a big ball--well this one did the same thing except
that the fragments spread out in helical rather than radial paths. It was
very cool. Oh and last but not least the crowd did the pitch invasion and
vuelta olimpica, and there was even a late entrant that used a big Mexican
flag to play toreador with a security guard.

Now in keeping with my subject line, let me offer you a post from another
newsgroup. It is rumoured that the following essay was written by a college
sophomore (that's 19 years old for those of you unfamiliar with USA edus).
Despite the vehemence of the poster from whom I stole this, I tend to
believe it is either brilliant or apocryphal, rather than "unwitting".

------

History, as we know, is always bias, because human beings have to be studied
by other human beings, not by independent observers of another species.
During the Middle Ages, everybody was middle-aged. Church and state were
co-operatic. Middle Evil society was made up of monks, lords and surfs.
After a revival of infantileries in the countryside. Mideval people were
violent. Murder during this period was nothing. Everybody killed someone.
England fought numerously for land in France and ended up winning and losing.
The Crusades were a series of military expaditions made by Christians
seeking to free the holy land (the "home town" of Christ) from the Islams.
Finally, Europe caught the Black Death. The bubonic plague is a social
disease in the sense that it can be transmitted by intercourse and other
etceteras. It was spread from port to port by inflected rats. The plague
also helped the emergance of the English language as the national language
of England, France and Italy. The Middle Ages slimpared to a halt. The
renasence bolted in from the blue. Life reeked with joy. Italue of their
human being. Man was determined to civilise himself and his brothers, even
if heads had to roll! It became sheik to be educated. Europe was full of
incredable churches with great art bulging out their doors. renaissance
merchants were beautiful and almost lifelike. The Reformation happened
when German nobles resented the idea that tithes were going to Papal France
or the Pope thus enriching Catholic coiffures. An angry Martin Luther nailed
95 theocrats to a church door. Theologically, Luthar was into reorientation
mutation. Calvinism was the most convenient religion since the days of the
ancients. The Popes, of course, were usually Catholic. Monks went right on
seeing themselves as worms. The last Jesuit priest died in the 19th century.
After the refirmation were wars both foreign and infernal. Louis XIV became
King of the Sun. He gave the people food and artillery. If he didn't like
someone, he sent them to the gallows to row for the rest of their lives.
The enlightenment was a reasonable time. Voltaire wrote a book called Candy
that got him into trouble with Frederick the Great. Philosophers were
unknown yet and the fundamental stake was one of religious toleration
slightly confused with defeatism. The French revolution was accomplished
before it happened. The revolution evolved through monarchial, republican
and tolarian phases until it catapulted into Napolean. Great Brittian, the
USA and other Europeans countrys had demicratic leanings. The middle class
was tired and needed a rest. The old order could see the lid holding down
new ideas beginning to shake. Among the goals of the chartists were
universal suferage and an anal parliament. Voting was to be done by ballad.
A new time zone of national unification roared over the horizon. Nationalism
aided Itally because nationalism is the growth of an army. Here, too, was
the new Germany: Loud, bold, vulgar and full of reality. Culture formented
from Europe's tip to its top. Wagner was master of music and people did not
forget his contribution. Other countries had their own artists. France had
Chekov. World War I broke out around 1912-1914. Germany was on one side of
France and Russia was on the other. At war people get killed and then they
aren't people any more, but friends. Peace was proclaimed at Versigh, which
was attended by George Loid, Primal Minster of England. President Wilson
arrived with 14 pointers. In 1937 Lenin revolted Russia. Communism raged
among the peasants, and the civil war "team colours" were red and white.
Germany was displaced after WWI. This gave rise to Hitler. Germany was
morbidly overexcited and unbalanced. Berlin became the decadent capital,
where all sorts of sexual deprivations were practised. A huge anti-Semantig
movement arose. Germany invaded Pland, France invaded Belgium and Russia
invaded everybody. War screeched to an end when a nukuleer explosion was
dropped on Heroshima. A whole generation had been wipe out. According to
Fromm, individuation began historically in mediaeval times. This was a
period of small childhood. There is increasing experience as adolescence
experiences its life development. The last stage is us.

------

May your life reek with joy,
Ariel



=============================================
Literature, The Anglo Monolith, etc
=============================================
From: mazzare@primenet.com (Ariel Mazzarelli)
Subject: Re: last news...
Date: April 1, 1997

Snaps (Snaps@kavana.u-net.com) wrote:
>Ariel Mazzarelli wrote:
>>If literature is your paramater, then Ireland would have to be it.
>Get thee to a library, Mosca. Joyce, Wilde and Heaney pale before our Legion.

I go to libraries all the time, silly.

The anonimity that you have chosen prevents us from using the crack corps
of Oliver to unearth your academic records, so our estimation of your
literary culture will have to be based on what you post here. Those are
fine names you cite, and perhaps inevitable--Ulysses is to literature as
Godel's incompleteness theorem to math, a constructive measure of the
limitations of the medium. Like Godel's result, it would be in bad taste
to rank it against other works because one is missing a rung on the
evolutionary ladder without it.

Wilde is an obvious choice, as he is very witty and delightful.
Perhaps you are more like him and less like the Dorianesque portrait
you exhibit here.

Heaney I have not read. I suppose that should not stop me from
rendering an opinion, but it will.

You did not mention Shaw, Swift or Yeats. This is sad. Swift, specially,
could teach you much about the shortcomings of your... prose. I must
conclude that the voice that prompted you to send me to a library was
actually your inner Dorian, and I was not the object of its imperative.

Now I'll be the first to say that there are many fine writers in what you
term your "Legion". Far too many of them, unfortunately, suffer from a
pathological monarchism that turns much of their work into a mild emetic.
A stronger emetic is perhaps exemplified by Kipling--a compulsive need
to affirm the exemplary character of the English that, alas, is not
confirmed by an impartial observer. It would be a more digestible Legion
if its typical standard bearer was Horace Rumpole.

>Not that you have any room to squawk on the subject of social
>advancement. As we all know, the original Anglo Monolith, uncovered
>aeons ago, has the geometrically perfect dimensions of 1:4:9,
>representing at a primordial base level the science that lies within.
>This caused much confusion in Buenos Aires, 1983, where a recently
>discovered little brother Monolith was found only to have dimensions of
>1:4:6. It took a painstaking investigation by the UN to solve the riddle
>by eventually discovering that one-third of the Argentine artefact was
>buried in a shallow grave.

The sequence 1, 4, 9 is, in all likelihood, intended to be the beginning
of the sequence n^2. It takes some sophistication to understand this,
and it is good to see you are up to it. With this function one can
establish the notion of area, which is essential in the development
of the notion of "rent"--a central pillar of English economics, in
contrast with the notions of "efficiency", "fairness" or "compassion"
that characterize contributions to economics from other cultures.

1, 4, 6 is a little tougher though--and the attempt to reconcile it
with the English experience may have led Reuters to send you that
additional bit of misinformation about a shallow grave. Really, Snaps,
haven't we told you many times about the perils of trusting Reuters?

In fact the Buenos Aires sequence is of the form 2 * p_n. Perhaps it
was the inclusion of "1" as the first prime that threw you. Its
significance at the present time has not gone beyond its central role
in the proof of Fermat's last theorem, but many mathematicians expect
that it will be equally crucial in the resolution of the conjectures of
Riemann and Poincare. We can only speculate about why the Monolith Makers
chose to send the more complicated of the Monoliths to Buenos Aires,
but perhaps it is not difficult to guess why they sent the simplest
one to Great Britain.

>>If lawyers and accountants, ah, then you can have your Monolith.
>>Unfortunately, the Monolithic effect has been misinterpreted by the futbol
>>heads of the island. But who knows? There are still four years left for the
>>prophecy to be fulfilled: a Do-Si-Do sequence rings out, and a new dawn
>>shines down on Wembley, as a short chubby Arsenal player trots out onto the
>>pitch, looks across to the goals, looks up at the sky, looks down on the
>>ground, kicks it softly once, and again, and a third time, and then
>>softly says
>>
>>"gambeta"
>
>Huh??

The prophecy will not be fulfilled through you, it seems.

>Maybe Karel can translate this for me. The ability to circumnavigate the
>more surreal of your laudanum-inspired freeform, self-evolving
>ponderings is not chief amongst my talents, O Child of the Stars. You
>and those ill-gained World Cups are marooned in a geosynchronous orbit
>around the wrong planet, I think.

Karel has already everted you on this particular paragraph:

: Better two ill-gained World Cups than one ill-gained World Cup, surely?
: As soon as England makes the final anywhere away from home you may talk.
: Meanwhile, you can always start counting "World Club Cups", of course.

so I will simply add that laudanum is, to say the least, antiquated.



================================
Classical Music and Football
================================
Subject:  Re: South America does not deserve any more WC spots than what it
 already gets (was: Re: Why
Date:  26 Mar 1998 05:17:03 -0700
From:  mazzare@primenet.erase2mail.com (Ariel Mazzarelli)

Sheen Ikegaki wrote:

>Mozart: A+
>Stravinsky: A
>Mahler: B-
>Beethoven: D

This worries me a little. I have to assume that you have heard Beethoven's
Pastoral symphony, the Moonlight sonata, and the Kreutzer sonata. Yet you
give him a D. But you have been a nice man through the rest of this thread
so I will not push this.

Mahler, I assume nothing. The 4th symphony stands apart. You give that
anything less than an A+? That is not possible. The long high note on
the adagio is a musical representation of the old adage that the
unexamined life is not worth living.

If all we went by from Mozart were his symphonies, I don't know if he gets
more than a B+. But the rest! Ah, the rest. Operas, arias, oratorios,
concertos, sonatas, trios--the trios! Ah. I think I will put on a CD now.

Lately I love Schubert. His symphonies are not where he is at. Solo piano,
that is Schubert. The Impromptus! The second impromptu, for example, has
a kind of knotted structure, where two long voices are sequentially played
with a little knot where the one ends and the other begins; these sequences
sandwich a pretty, chaotic midsection that on first hearing may seem unrelated
but is less so as familiarity grows. And of course the songs. The Ave Maria
is to songs as Diego's second goal against Belgium is to futbol:
unpredictably predictable, as simple as possible and as complex as
necessary, with the certainty from its very start that you are about to
be given a beautiful present.

Stravinsky had the gift of making the ugly modern music sound playfully
pretty. However, he was in the 20th century, the century where music was
gobbled by the machine. I have not heard many of his compositions, and I
don't know if that is because that machine did not allow much for him to
compose or whether it just won't play his stuff.


------------------------------------------
Subject:  Re: South America does not deserve any more WC spots than what it
 already gets (was: Re: Why
Date:  Fri, 27 Mar 1998 01:31:42 -0500
From:  Sheen Ikegaki (sikegaki@sprintmail.com)

[...]

I was a bit too harsh on Mahler. Yup, I should give him B+ at least.

But I disagree with you. His best essence should be found in Symphony No.2:
Resurrection. The maestoso is beyond the universe.......and fleeting. He tried to
overcome death in vain, yet beautifully.

But No.8 and 9 are incredibly dull. After all, he loved Beethoven, and it was his only
and crucial mistake......

Schubert is genius. As far as solo piano is concerned, I think Debussy is
 the only
one who can overshadow him. Suite Bergamasque is to piano music as Cruyff is
 to football.

> Stravinsky

"Music was gobbled by the machine"? Nah, music was *killed* by Stravinsky!
 There is
nothing left in music after Stravinsky, or to put it more precisely, after
 the Rite of
Spring. He put the fragments of the history of music together and created
 something
totally new, impossible and genuine. He is both a creator and a destroyer
 just like
Maradona.

People say:

"Jazz music killed classical music."

"Rock music killed jazz music."

"Kraftwerk and their followers killed rock music."

Blah, blah, blah.......

No, music itself has already been dead. On May 29, 1913, at the Theatre des
Champs-Elysées, Stravinsky killed it gently, as Maradona murdered football
 in Mexico by
denying Pasolini's assumption. (Footballers' ultimate dream is to dribble
 all through the
opponents' territory and.........it is impossible....it is a daylight
 dream....that is
football.....)

On second thought, he certainly deserves A+.