Yearly Archives: 2024

Has the meaning of “refute” changed?

This entry was posted in Writing and tagged language usage vocabulary writing on by

This week I came upon a bizarre claim in an Associated Press article: “The federal law that President Joe Biden signed at the end of 2021 followed allegations of human rights abuses by Beijing against members of the ethnic Uyghur group and other Muslim minorities in Xinjiang. The Chinese government has refuted the claims as lies and defended its practice and policy in Xinjiang as fighting terror and ensuring stability.” If AP was using the established meaning of “refute,” it was claiming that these allegations were lies and China had proven they were. The article didn’t say what this proof was.

However, it was called to my attention that some dictionaries give a new, second meaning for “refute.” Merriam-Webster gives two definitions: (1) to prove wrong by argument or evidence : show to be false or erroneous. (2) to deny the truth or accuracy of. Dictionary.com, on the other hand, gives two definitions that both entail proof: (1) to prove to be false or erroneous, as an opinion or charge. (2) to prove (a person) to be in error.
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October 9 streaming silent film: The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari

This entry was posted in Movies and tagged silent movies on by

On Wednesday, October 9, at 8 PM Eastern US time, I’ll livestream the 1920 silent film, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, with my live accompaniment. This early horror film deals with a showman who controls a sleepwalker, making him commit murders. Or at least it seems that way. Nothing is quite real in this movie, which is as famous for its bizarre landscapes and buildings as for its story. Conrad Veidt, who plays the sleepwalker, is probably best known to modern audiences as Major Strasser in Casablanca.

As usual, I’ll improvise most of the music. However, there’s one classical piece which suits the movie so well that I’ll incorporate an excerpt from it.
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Silent film review: La Roue

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On September 28 I saw a presentation of Abel Gance’s 1923 silent film, La Roue, in its newly restored version, nearly seven hours long. Jeff Rapsis provided live accompaniment for the whole thing at the Brattle Cinema, and he made it to the end in fine form. Not a lot of people have seen the movie, especially in its full-length form, so I should say a few words on it even though I don’t often write movie reviews.

Gance is best known for Napoleon, another silent film of astonishing length. La Roue is divided into four parts or “epoques,” so perhaps the original idea was to present it in four sessions. It was presented in Cambridge with short intermissions after the first and third parts, and a longer break to eat after the second part. The focus is mainly on three characters, yet the movie doesn’t drag. It’s just depressing as hell. It starts with a train wreck, spectacularly presented for the time, and things just get worse from there. There is a certain amount of consolation at the end.
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Silent Movie Day

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September 29 is Silent Movie Day, and I’m participating with a short Méliès movie, The Haunted Castle or Le Manoir du Diable, for which I’ve provided improvised accompaniment.

And don’t forget my livestreaming of The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari on October 9 at 8 PM. I’ll also accompany it for a live audience at the Plaistow Library on October 11. Hopefully many of you will be able to make it for one or the other.

The march of Internet censorship

This entry was posted in Censorship Commentary and tagged censorship Internet on by

Legislation all over the USA is attacking freedom to communicate over the Internet. Some states have enacted age-verification requirements that endanger anonymous speech and limit minors’ access to information they may urgently need. Others are enacting bans on “deceptive” information, leaving open the questions of just what will be deemed deceptive and how people can defend themselves against such claims. An example of the latter is California’s AB 2655, recently signed into law. FIRE and the First Amendment Coalition have issued statements against it, while left-wing media sites have often been sympathetic. I posted earlier about how AP gave Harris’s call for “oversight” and “regulation” of websites as merely wanting “increased accountability.”
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Two Warner cartoons with racial issues

This entry was posted in Commentary and tagged cartoons history racism on by

Just a quick post on two Warner Brothers cartoons from the forties and their reception today. They’re from the 1940s, and both present black people in ways that would be unacceptable today. One is much worse than the other, but it’s the less nasty one that takes all the heat.

“Coal Black and de Sebben Dwarfs” is a spoof of Snow White with all-black characters. This isn’t a problem in itself, or we’d have to protest against The Wiz. The difficulty is that WB cartoons always drew characters as caricatures, and the ones in this cartoon draw on minstrel-show blackface. It wasn’t done to be offensive; it’s just what the Termite Terrace cartoonists did whenever they drew people. “So White” is quite sexy, and the jazz music makes for a lively short. The dwarfs are “in the Army now.” In a twist ending, it’s a dwarf rather than the prince who awakens So White with his kiss, insisting that how he did it is a “military secret.”
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Please don’t spread misinformation: Part 2

This entry was posted in Commentary Writing and tagged ethics Internet on by

A few weeks ago, I discussed the mostly innocent spreading of misinformation through jokes and satire. A person on Mastodon said I should have called them lies, but a lie means intent to deceive. A lot of widespread claims start without malice. That seems to have been the case with the story of Haitian immigrants stealing and eating people’s pets in Springfield, Ohio. It now appears to have started with a Facebook post that posted a garbled version of a neighbor’s claim without expecting anything significant to come of it. Others picked it up, embellishing it from vague stories they’d heard or from their imagination. Another source was claims of immigrants poaching on waterfowl, which may or may not have been true but is in a far different category from killing pets.
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A culture of free speech 1

This entry was posted in Commentary and tagged censorship liberty on by

Freedom of speech has a cultural dimension as well as a legal one. Legally, it means that the government must not punish people for their expression, except when it violates the rights of others (e.g., clear threats). Cultural respect for free speech is also important. Where it exists, people have room to express their opinions, even when most people disapprove of them. If it goes away, legal protections for free speech are likely to follow.

Cultural freedom of speech doesn’t mean an obligation to grant a platform or to refrain from criticism. The best way to describe it is going after ideas rather than people when possible. Saying that an idea is horrible is one thing. Saying that the person who said it horrible is a stronger charge and can do more damage. This doesn’t mean we should never condemn people for what they say, but it should be reserved for the most serious cases.
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Spohr’s opera Faust

This entry was posted in Music and tagged Faust music opera spohr on by

Spohr and Faust. You knew I couldn’t resist writing about that combination, didn’t you? The delay was in finding an adequate recording. Years ago, I got a CD set where the opera was so heavily cut it was incomprehensible. Since then, I’ve gotten a CPO recording of the 1852 version by the Bielefeld Opera. It’s complete or nearly so, but the download from Presto Music doesn’t include a booklet. I need a libretto to follow along, and there’s a libretto for reading or downloading here. It’s got a lot of typos, as if it was made from an uncorrected scan, but it will do. The Capriccio recording has brutal cuts, and I can’t recommend it.
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