Riffage

Mr. Zebra by Tori Amos sounds like an Edward Gorey drawing would sound, if it made any sound. Dotted-rhythm bass piano vamps, muted brass, and Tori's voice hopping up and down on the scale like a doubtful guest not certain of where it wants to settle for the night.

Through hands-on experience in opening international graduate program applications, I have come to the conclusion that the People's Republic of China makes the sturdiest envelopes -- read "sturdiest" as "thickest, hardest, paper to open, even with a razor blade." Someone told me that cardboard is one of our highest exports to P.R.C. and that there's a whole underground industry of people who collect cardboard to sell overseas for great profit. I'm not sure I believe that, but I'm amused by the idea of a cardboard cabal, people being knocked off so other people can steal their flattened soda 12-packs and department store boxes and make a fortune.

Riff doesn't seem to have a recorded etymology. It does, apparently, have a definition: it's a repeating motif that's often a background for a solo. I was thinking in terms of jazz, and the examples I found were rock and roll (Inna gadda-da-vida or however you spell that, You Really Got Me, etc.). So when we talk about someone "riffing" in a verbal or intellectual sense, they can be seen as the soloist who is building on the ostinato of, well, whatever the idea was that set them off. The suggestion was made that "riff" is somehow spun off from "refrain," which, in absence of any compelling evidence to the contrary, sounds good to me.

It is possible that A Bargain for Frances is the best book ever. Along with To Kill A Mockingbird, the Alice books and Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell.

Aria 3: Metamorphosis contains, among other things, "Chi Bel Signo di Doretta" from La Rondine done up with a kinda techno beat. I'm not so sure what I think of this, exactly... I sort of liked it, but I also felt sort of dirty after listening, like I'd been catting about behind Puccini's back. Hmmm...

Posted on January 19, 2005 to horticulture

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