Another Strange Day

Well it has been another strange day here around the house.  We managed to have water come springing froth from the light fixture in the kitchen right about the time I was sitting down to write.  So necessarily, that little event took priority.  We had to wait two hours for maintenance to show up and I am not sure they fixed anything as the people upstairs are not home.   I think all they did was shut off the water under the sink to investigate further at a different time.  Needless to say, my process has gone by the wayside again, ao luckily I already had the Music and the Men ready to go.  

One of the composers featured on last week's 'French Week' on Exploring Music was Camille Saint-Saëns who I have not featured in a while.  Therefore I dusted off a couple of old favorites to share with you today.  Down below is a play list of 5 works by Saint-Saëns, mostly featuring the Cello, also one of my favorites.  The play list includes: Cello Concerto 1; Cello Concerto 2; La Muse et le Poète; Suite for Cello & Orchestra Op.16 and Prayer.  Today's performance in by the London Symphony Orchestra under Michael Tilson Thomas with your Cello Soloist, Steven Isserlis.  Over on my tumblr, The NDR Sinfonieorchester under the baton of Paavo Jaarvi perform Saint-Saëns Symphony Number 3 in C Minor, Opus 78 "Organ", with Thierry Escaich as you Organ Soloist.  

Then to go with the random events of hte day, there is lots of Random Hotness posted down below.  Over on my tumblr, the Hottie of the Day! is all about "Puppy Love".  Thanks for the visit, see you again soon.  until next time as always, Enjoy!

More Maintenance Misadventures

In case you did not notice, time and circumstances conspired to prevent my getting a post put together for you yesterday.  I did not sleep well on Wednesday night after staying up much too late being there for a friend in need.  When I did try to return to the sleep state, the maintenance man comes knocking on the door and therein lies the tale.  You guys remember this post last Thursday where I told you about Corporate Maintenance coming to properly install the water heater to bring it up to code.   At the same time, they pointed out the A/C unit was also not up to code and would have to be repaired.  Unfortunately this task was assigned to on-site maintenance rather than Corporate and they have yet to affect repairs.  When they told us they were going to make those repairs which would take the A/C off line for a period of time we put one of the two window A/C units we have into Will's window to keep the computers cool when they do the repairs.  The maintenance man when I answered the door yesterday handed me a notice of lease violation for having the window unit in.  The notice said I had to contact management within 24 hours.  

I called the office this morning and spoke with la bruja malvada del oeste who is the manager about this notice.  She tried to tell me window units were not allowed.  I told her we could not find any thing in the lease specifically stating the prohibition of window units.  She then tried to bully me saying that as long as the A/C was working properly the window unit was not allowed and asked me if my A/C was working properly and I said yes but you guys said it does not meet code and needed to be repaired and you have not done it.  Then she uped the ante and said well the city does not allow them.  I said "I don't believe that to be true, we have had window units in other apartments when the A/C was a problem."  I did not point out that just across the street in another complex there are clearly window units installed.  She replied the city would be out here this morning and we will see what they say.  I said OK.  

I said that knowing that the code officer was coming to my apartment this morning to look at the situation.  The code officer just now left my place, the window unit is staying in the window, the repairs must be made by Tuesday, and la bruja malvada del oeste will not harass us about the window unit.  Will is overjoyed and I have a smirk on my face knowing that la bruja will be furious that she could not intimidate or bully us into accommodating her capricious whims and petty power plays.  The bonus is that we now have a time table set by the city for the repairs to be done and there is nothing la bruja can do about it (evil laughter ensues!).

Turning to more entertaining subjects, I received an email this morning from Canadian Cellist Stéphane Tétreault which read:

	Stéphane Tétreault has sent you a message You can reply to this message by visiting your messages. Hi, Take a look at an excerpt from my first performance in France. The full concert is available for free on Medici.tv. Hope you enjoy! Stephane My first CD "Stephane Tetreault - Saint-Saens & Tchaikovsky" with the Quebec Symphony Orchestra is available for download on iTunes! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fXmf1GQdw70

I have posted the clip below and you can click over to medici.tv for the performance at your leisure. 

Because I did not get a post up yesterday, your Musical Moment play list for today features the Opus 1 Trio Sonatas of Arcangelo Corelli performed by Musica Amphion that was planned for yesterday and you may hear his Opus 2 Trio Sonatas over on my tumblr. 

Also because I did not get a post up yesterday, your Man Art collection for this Friday is a combo affair of  muscly Men in Jeans and fabulous Fantasy Fuel all rolled into one.  You will find theses sizzling hot works of art on display below the play list.  You may also wish to take a Wilderness Adventure with today's Hottie of the Day! over on my tumblr.  Thank you for the visit, be sure to join me for the Saturday at the Symphony Evening Concert tomorrow night.  Until next time as always, Enjoy!

Maintenance, Music & Men

I have a lot of activity going on at the house today.  In addition to my Pay Day chores and errands (which are thankfully complete now), Corporate Maintenance is in redoing the piping leading to and from my water heater.  There is also work to be done on the air handling portion of the AC unit.  This all came to light when Corporate Maintenance paid us an inspection visit yesterday.  Apparently, prior to our leasing this unit, the water heater was replaced.  However, the installation was not exactly up to code.  Now that the city inspection is coming up, this needs to be corrected.  Corporate stepped in because the onsite staff was not getting the job done.  I am glad to see that someone at least is paying attention to maintenance issues around here.  After all the hubbub of the day, I still have to work tonight from 5-11.  Hopefully by the time I get home, all will be quiet and I will finally be able to chill.

For your Musical Moment today, I have a wonderful classic recording of 4 'books' of music by Spanish Pianist and Composer Isaac Albéniz.  These 'books' were recorded in Iberia between 1951 and 1953 by Pianist José Echániz.  Echániz (1905-1969), a Cuban-born child prodigy, studied at the Falcon Conservatory in Havana, where he was awarded the title "professor of piano" at age 14. During the 1920s, he appeared at Carnegie Hall, toured U.S. cities, and appeared in Paris, The Hague, Amsterdam, and Madrid. During the 1930's, he was a featured soloist with orchestras in Philadelphia, Chicago, Minneapolis, St. Louis, Cincinnati, and New Orleans. he appeared under the batons of such distinguished conductors as Iturbi, Mitropoulos, Kleiber, Leinsdorf, and others. Echániz joined the Eastman School faculty in 1944. As a teacher, he believed in a solid grounding in the classical repertory. His students commonly undertook the entire Well Tempered Clavier or, as a class, the 27 concertos of Mozart. Throughout his 25-year teaching career, Echániz maintained an active career as a recitalist in Europe, the United States, and the Caribbean, as an orchestral soloist, and as a recording artist.  Included in today's play list are (en Espanol):

Livre I (Les trois pièces ont été dédicacées à la femme d'Ernest Chausson).
0:00 : Evocación
4:38 : El Puerto qui est le port de Sainte-Marie dans la province de Cadix
8:10 : Corpus Christi en Sevilla décrivant une procession, rythmée par les tambours, puis s'éloignant progressivement.

Livre II

15:57 : Almería

27:24 : Rondeña, possiblement une évocation de Ronda, dans la province de Malaga, ou encore une danse inspirée du flamenco

23:02 : Triana reprenant une danse inspirée du flamenco sévillan.

Livre III
33:38 : El Albaicín : il s'agit du quartier gitan de Grenade
39:32 : El Polo, quartier populaire de Madrid, mais aussi le nom d'une danse d'Andalousie.
45:14 : Lavapiés, autre quartier populaire de Madrid, la seule pièce dont le titre ne s'inspire pas de l'Andalousie, mais reprenant tout de même une rythmique de tango andalousien.

Livre IV
51:05 : Málaga
55:23 : Jerez
01:00:56 : Eritaña qui est une auberge située hors les murs de Séville

Meanwhile over on my tumblr, there is a study of Art: Music and Painting.  A collection of classical music while Claude Monet’s masterpieces run on the screen. Strauss’ finale is performed by Donetsk Orhestra and Chorus conducted by Silvano Frontalini.  Beethoven’s concerto is performed by Slupsk Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Silvano Frontalini. Paola Volpe plays the piano.  Mendelssohn’s Speranza is performed by the pianist Saulis Dirvanauskas.  

Now that we have the music all mapped out, let's talk about Art of a different breed with a heaping helping of callow colts and studly stallions all decked out in denim in this week's edition of Men in Jeans.  You will find them lounging about the page below the play list.  Be sure to check out Superman in Denim, Your Hottie of the Day! over on my tumblr.  Thanks for the visit, see you again soon.  Until next time as always, Enjoy!