Wednesday, February 22, 2012

Sitters


Few persons who have ever sat for a portrait can have felt anything but inferior while the process was going on.

British Novelist Anthony Powell
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5 comments:

  1. tony68February 23, 2012 2:49 PM

    From THE AMPHISBAENA WHISPERER, March, 2012

    THE “ASIAN” JIHADIST WHO LOVED LIBERACE

    (New York, NY)

    On January 4, 2012 the FBI announced that it had scrubbed from YouTube a series of 24 video segments, averaging about ten minutes apiece, featuring the late American pianist Wladziu Valentino Liberace playing English composer Kaikhosru Shapurji Sorabji’s “Opus clavicembalisticum,” in a live concert that had been recorded at Radio City Music Hall in 1980. The Feds reported only that these 24 segments had been labeled “toxic” and that they had all been uploaded to YouTube last September by Amine Dar al-Hijrah, an “Asian” living outside London.

    TAW has learned directly from al-Hijrah himself that he had uploaded the four-hour video with the sole purpose of murdering classical music lovers living in the West; indeed, TAW has confirmed from an FBI source that over 1,400 mysterious deaths around the world between October 6 and December 24, 2011 have been officially attributed to the “toxic” nature of the Liberace YouTube ‘ments.

    All the documented deaths were ruled the result of cerebral hemorrhage. In all cases the victims had watched nearly the entire concert, up to at least segment number 22. Our FBI source revealed that (now deceased) agents had discovered levels of toxicity to be highest in segments 1-3, after which the danger decreased rapidly during segment 4, in direct proportion to the accelerated rise (in decibels) of audience palaver mixed with the sound of shuffling shoes; toxicity then rose again to fatal levels after segment four.

    This reporter was met with censuring (and censoring) rage when he tried to ascertain why the New York Times had not reported anything about these murders. A spokesman for the Times responded, “This is exactly the kind of stupid crap that happens when profiling runs amok! There was NO jihad attempt, see! – it was all RANDOM . . . it was unintentional, you [. . .] moron! Do your own homework: Not one single person in the 64 related deaths in New York had ever once been a Carnegie Hall subscriber!”

    TAW’s FBI informant told this reporter that al-Hijrah had purchased the Liberace video on E-Bay, along with artwork planned for an album cover commissioned by Ninnyhammer Records, the outfit that had produced the Radio City Music Hall recording.

    Scheduled for release in 1982, the record never came out, however, on account of a restraining order filed by pianist John Ogdon, who claimed that Ninnyhammer Records was planning to dub the video soundtrack with his own recorded performance of “Opus clavi – whatever.” The litigation was never resolved (Ogdon died in 1989; Liberace two years earlier).

    This reporter has seen the original master tape of the concert – with original soundtrack – and also the proposed album cover artwork, a glistening portrait of the Pianist, smiling ear-to-ear, garbed in rhinestones and purple feathers, with title overhead: “LIBERACE PLAYS SOROBJI.”

    “Incidentally,” the informant said to me while we both gazed at the portrait, “did you know that almost a quarter of those who died were DEAF? Thank God this hellish thing never came out! You know . . . with a face like THAT . . .”

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  2. Drew80February 24, 2012 1:07 AM

    Aside from the album’s lethal qualities, it is regrettable that “Liberace Plays Sorobji” was never released. The album might have proved a sensation.

    You are not going to believe this, but I know someone who visited the Liberace Museum in Las Vegas, and actually enjoyed it.

    Is the rumor about Liberace ghosting for Peter Serkin in the recording studio true? Many insiders have claimed, for years, that all Peter Serkin recordings made before Liberace’s death were actually the work of Liberace.

    Serkin’s RCA disc, “ . . . In Real Time”, was obviously the work of a pianist of Liberace’s quality, no matter who actually made the recording.

    I’d check out the cover of that disc if you want a laugh.

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  3. tony68February 24, 2012 11:55 AM

    I can't imagine a sight more effective in inducing vomiting than the Liberace Museum, with its diamond-studded Baldwins and feather capes . . . (wait, I just thought of another sight even more effective, so don't watch your TV tonight).

    But what do I know, right? As someone has informed me today, I invoke "things that don't exist."

    Enjoy your concerts this weekend. I adore Elgar's "In the South" and the Walton Symphony No. 1.

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  4. Drew80February 24, 2012 2:57 PM

    The Elgar and the Walton are important to me, too.

    We really don’t expect much, because the concert will be conducted by the Resident Conductor of the Minnesota Orchestra.

    When you have time, you should look at next year’s Minnesota Orchestra programs, which are available on the orchestra’s website. The programs are not good, the guest conductors are not good, the guest soloists are not good.

    My parents may not renew their subscription—a subscription they have held since the mid-1970s.

    In the last year, Minnesota Orchestra attendance has taken a ten per cent nosedive.

    My analysis of the situation: regular concertgoers have tired of Vanska, and have very little enthusiasm for the minor figures the orchestra engages as guest conductors.

    By the way . . .

    I just got rid of word verification for comments. Blogger’s new two-word requirement is too much bother to tolerate.

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  5. tony68February 24, 2012 3:34 PM

    Bless you!

    ReplyDelete