I thought I had appendicitis and ended up at UChicago’s emergency room 😔 Note: I’m not a doctor. If you aren’t feeling well do get professional help and I hope you would get well soon :) Funny enough, I had a nearly identical scare during undergrad in Shanghai — same deal, unstoppable stomach pain. So I have an accidental side-by-side comparison to offer. Shanghai: I was ambulanced to Changhai Hospital’s ER on a weekday afternoon. Within a few hours I’d had blood drawn and a CT scan done. My symptoms stabilized, and I was discharged later in the evening. ...

I’m in ER. Ariana’s blog take a break today :) Here’s Scriabin’s Black Mass (Sonata No. 9) for how I’m feeling:

Business insider has a video explaining, and trying to figure out why beef price raise so much. It echos. I feel smoked salmon price raise by about 20% over the last year since I came to Hyde Park :( The monopoly problem feels somewhat like a minimal cut problem in the supply chain network.

This is my boyfriend’s favourite violin concerto played by his favourite violinist. The pinnacle golden standard for this whirlwind force of a concerto! Perfection does not exist in reality but this version to me is near godly perfection! (comment @shijoejoseph2011) Fine…

Un poco di Chopin (Op. 72, No. 15). Clear as crystal, cleanly executed like a ballerina with perfect technique, effortless off-beat rhythm, a bit lonely and melancholy hidden veiled by Tchaikovsky’s parody humor, brought to alive by Richter:

Tonight at the CSO: Brahms’s First Piano Concerto, the Rosenkavalier Suite, and Ravel’s La Valse. Martin Helmchen at the piano; David Afkham on the podium, standing in for Nikolaj Szeps-Znaider, sidelined by an injury that “doesn’t yet allow for international travel.” I think CSO’s hall has its quirks: the acoustic quality vary seat by seat. My seat today had a fine view, but the layers came out muddled, and I lost the piano for much of the concerto. Afkham might have balanced it better. ...

The leading single of Ariana Grande’s 8th album comes out today (technically tmrw). It’s pleasantly instrumented and ornamented with luxury, sophisticated harmony. Timed to begin at the bridge — listen if you haven’t before. It’s kind of fancy. The 2nd verse got fancy adlibs. The bridge is surreal until it got break down by the chorus' plain melody, the repetitive "i, i, i...". It's not a bad song even as to AG's standard. I do hope though the upcoming album got more (good) surprises.

My Youtube personlizations are well trained that I am discovering interesting music scrolling through reels Legend has it the Trois morceaux [en Forme de Poire] was Satie’s tongue-in-cheek response to Debussy’s advice that he should “pay more attention to form” in his music. Conductor Vladimir Golschmann recalled Satie telling him that “All I did…was to write Pieces in the Form of a Pear. I brought them to Debussy, who asked, ‘Why such a title?’ Why? Simply, my dear friend, because you cannot criticize my Pieces in the shape of a pear. If they are en forme de poire they cannot be shapeless.” ...

We often talk about an t indentity, especially for pop singers. They want to be iconic. But ego and iconic are different. Because art progress is often “a continual self-sacrifice, a continual extinction of personality” (Elliot). More concretely When the two gases previously mentioned are mixed in the presence of a filament of platinum, they form sulphurous acid. This combination takes place only if the platinum is present; nevertheless the newly formed acid contains no trace of platinum, and the platinum itself is apparently unaffected; has remained inert, neutral, and unchanged. The mind of the poet is the shred of platinum. (Eliot) ...

Tchaikovsky has the most cute piano pieces that are the most authentic sketches of his artistic appeals. Listen to Richter playing Rêverie du soir (Reverie of the evening): Richter is a great Tchaikovsky & Rachmaninoff intepreter!!!