Learning Bach to play Beethoven

I'm back on a piano playing kick. The urge has taken me and I feel the need to do something productive, but non work related. So I've dusted off the ivories and am trying to get a good half hour to an hour's practice in a day.
My long term goal is, as it has been for the past decade, to play the entirety of Beethoven's Moonlight sonata. It's been some years now that I've been able to play the first two movements passably to well (depending on time of day, phase of the move, and state of my motor neurons). But the third movement is this:

Technically, it's a very different beast to the previous two. Rapid finger movements in both the right and left hands, and essentially a style that is more baroque (and reminiscent of the harpsichord) then the other two movements. From a simple physical performance stand point, my hands cannot yet handle that sort of athleticism.
A few years later my mother sent me some pieces to practice that her piano teacher had recommended for me. One was a book of basic exercises I was familiar with, and hated. The other was Bach prelude #2 in C minor from his Well Tempered Clavier series, which is a series of preludes and  fugues written, in part, as exercises for the harpsichord. Unlike the other book of exercises however, these pieces are actually fun and pretty on their own.

So I'm putting aside the Beethoven, and focusing on this prelude (at quarter tempo, let's be honest). And while my aim is to be able to play the whole prelude, I'm also using it as a learning tool. I'm focusing on my finger work, and practicing my sight reading (which is terrible). I'm working on strengthening the little finger on my left hand, and making my movements quick and precise. These are all skills that will be vital for eventually tackling the 3rd movement of the Moonlight, but I'm working on them in a context that brings more immediate rewards.
In many ways, much of what I'm doing as a postdoc (though not all), is playing Bach. I'm funded out of my PIs R01 for now, so that means I didn't design this project. And my long term goals (by definition, as a postdoc is a training position of determinate length), are not going to be realised here. So much of what I am doing here is learning skills that I will need to fulfill my long term goals. Yet, on the other hand, I am also doing something that is important and interesting in and of itself in the science I am doing here. If that were not the case I would be as bored and resentful as I was playing scales on the violin. Finding the balance here, between learning what is needed for the future, and doing what is needed for the project now, is key.
Ultimately, I will move on from the Bach when I feel there is nothing more for me to learn from it, and I will tackle what I planned. But I will enjoy learning to play Bach (and who knows, maybe I'll take another detour, and another). And ultimately, I will move on from this postdoc and do my own, other thing. But I will enjoy doing this science while I learn. 

Beauty and the Beast better ending

"I want to do something for her" said Beast on the first day, watching as Belle fed the birds in the walled courtyard.
"Well," said Cogsworth, who knew a thing or two about rules, "there's always the usual: flowers, chocolates, promises you don't intend to keep"
That afternoon, the Beast led Belle to the hot house on the castle grounds. "Open your eyes!" he said, excited. Belle opened her eyes. Around her were dazzling flowers, orchids from every corner of the globe, tall luscious ferns, flowers whose names she did not know. (But no roses. The Beast had been very clear to his watering can gardener on this. No roses).
Belle looked at the flowers, trapped in their pots, trained and tied to their trellises, bound within the glass walls.
"Do you like it?" asked the Beast.
"They are very pretty" said Belle.
"Then they're yours, all of them!"
"Thank you" said Belle, but she did not smile. And the Beast was angry in his heart, though he had learnt to control his temper and did not show it.

"I want to DO something for her" said Beast on the second day, watching Belle as she untied the orchids from the stems to which they were tied.
"Well", said Lumiere, who knew a thing or two about pleasing, "There is something special you could do".
That afternoon, the Beast led Belle to the library. "Open your eyes!" he said, nervous. Belle opened her eyes. Before rose books, thousands of books, tier upon tier of books in a room flooded with light. Overjoyed, she smiled with delight. How many stories to read! How many places to run to!
"Do you like it?" asked the Beast.
"It's wonderful!" said Belle.
"Then it's yours, all of it!"
Belle stopped.
"Thank you" she said, and though she smiled, it did not reached her eyes. And the Beast was sad, and he showed it, but this sadness Belle did not notice.

"I want to do something for HER" said Beast on the third day, watching Belle as she sat by the window, turning page after page of her book.
"Well", said the feather duster, who knew a thing or two about being a woman, "perhaps you should give her back what you took from her"
"And what's that?" asked the Beast, rounding on the feather duster.
"Her freedom" said the feather duster.
The other servants froze at those words, or hid. But the feather duster, who knew a thing or two about men, kept dusting.

That afternoon, the Beast went to find Belle. "If you would walk with me, I would like to show you something" he said. "Must I wear a blindfold?" she asked. "No longer" he said.
He walked with her to the courtyard. Philippe, her horse, stood there saddled and bridled. The gates of the castle were open. She looked at the Beast, and waited.
"Some months ago, I imprisoned your father for doing nothing more than asking for shelter. I was wrong to do that. You came to rescue him, and offered yourself in exchange for his captivity. I was ashamed at your bravery, but rather than release you both and beg forgiveness, I imprisoned you. In my shame, I wished to humiliate you."
She turned her head away, and bit her lip.
"Later, I threatened you and you fled the castle. I went after you, and finding you beset with wolves, I defeated them and fell in the snow. You carried me back to the castle, and tended to me until I was healed. I was ashamed at your compassion, but rather than release you, I bound you with guilt. In my shame, I hoped to keep you by my side."
Belle lifted her head, and looked at the Beast. Her face was set. Her eyes unreadable.
"I had no right to imprison you, or your father. And once you had reclaimed your freedom, I had no right to keep you by my side. I have done you wrong, and taken from you what was yours by force and by coercion." The Beast took a breath, and hand Belle the reins of her horse.
"I return to you what I stole, and I tell you to leave this place. I give you no magic mirror to watch me, no token of this place, only food and water to get you home. The gate are open, and will never close until you leave here".
Lumiere and Cogsworth leapt up.
"But master, what of us? Shall we remain forever trapped in this form? Keep her here for our sakes at least!"
Beast turned to his servants.
"I am sorry, my friends, but I do not think that true love can bloom from imprisonment."
He turned to Belle, and was silent. And she bowed to him, and bad him farewell, but did not thank him. And she rode through the castle gates, and the wood, and over the river. She rode and rode and never looked back. She reached the door of her father's house, and found him by his maps planning to rescue her, and she held him in her arms while he wept and wept for relief and joy.

Every so often, years later, sat in her own library (modest, perhaps, but hers) on cold, dark nights, she would find herself thinking of the magnificent library so full of light, and the huge fireplaces so full of warmth, and the great halls so full of splendor. And she would gaze out of the window to the distant mountains.
And then she would remember her father's ice cold hands, and the heavy door with iron bars, and the beautiful room that was her prison.
And she never went back.

Silly Blog Challenge: rescue me

@IHstreet challenged me, among others, to name five characters I'd most want to come to my rescue in a bad situation form TV or movies. I don't watch too much of either so my list has a bias:
1) Lin Bei Fong. I mean seriously, who else?

2) Lana Kane. As long as she can get away from the other idiots at the agency

3) Louise Belcher. Mostly because I never want her not to be on my side.

4) Valeria from Conan the Barbarian (the original movie with Arnold).

5) Bond, James Bond. Daniel Craig's James Bond. But only if I'm Bond girl number 2 the one that lives

 

Thanks for watching!

The language of science

This is a post I've been elaborating in my head for a long time. The recent retraction of a PLoS ONE paper with unusual language that may have been a translation error, and the associated debate, has prompted me to get it written down. It does not directly address the so called  #creatorgate, but it may help think about issues of language and power in science. If science is truly to be an international collaborative enterprise, then we need to become more conscious of what conducting that business in a language that is not the native one of many scientists means.

Languages matter to me. Like my siblings, I was raised fully bilingual. I can read and write fluently in both English and French, and at one point was an in-house translator for the channel-spanning company I worked at. Yet, when it comes to science, I am functionally monolingual: I cannot write about the work I do in French with any confidence that the words I use are correct, and that my explanations are meaningful.
Oddly, it was not always that way. My entire schooling up through highschool was in French, so I went to University knowing all my scientific words and concepts in French, not English. I had to cobble together an English science lexicon quickly, and for the longest time, there were certain things (integration and differentiation in particular) that I would do in French in my head. Yet, after 15 years of doing science exclusively in English, the French has been displaced. At this point, the only thing I do in French is long division, which is a skill I maintain much as one might practice fencing with a rapier. And here is the point: there is no incentive, professionally, for me to learn to do science in French. I already do science in the de facto lingua franca.
When I joined my PhD program, my advisor lamented that previous students had successfully campaigned for the  abolition of the language requirement. At the time I was saddened, because I am always sad when people pass up the opportunity to learn a second language (and because I had just missed out on an easy credit). Now I am irritated. Irritated at the myopa of native English speakers decreeing that language requirements are unnecessary for PhD programs that demand English as Second Language certifications for all non native-English speaking applicants.
Because, when we get down to brass tacks, science today does have a language requirement: speak English. I want you to let that sink in for a moment. If you want to work where the jobs and money are, if you want your work to be cited, you have to speak English. So hegemonic is English's position as the language of science that, in many Universities with global ambitions, one can be hired as a professor there without speaking the local language, as long as one speaks English. Before you tell me that this is a sign of the internationalism of science, let me point out that the converse is not true. Anything but.
Let us take a minute to think what it means that a language that is spoken natively by 6% percent of the population is a sine qua non of doing science. If you've ever tried to master a foreign language to the point of being able to travel in that country, you know it's hard. Imagine doing it to the point of being globally competitive in your field. And let's add that we offer no help: no science societies, or universities, or journals, pay for translation services, or language classes. And, in fact, we scoff and are suspicious of letters by applicants from those countries as not having been written by the applicant (as if English-speaking applicants did not get their application documents heavily edited). We grimace when people have trouble clearly expressing themselves in English, without acknowledging that this is a challenge we will never have to face with anything like the same consequences (jobs, publications) for butchering a talk we might choose to give in Japanese or Mandarin or Hindi or Urdu (which we would only ever do as an outreach exercise anyway). Now, I want you to realise that every single foreign postdoc or grad student or faculty member in your department has put in the work to be good enough in English that she can just about communicate science with you. If you tried to order lunch for her in her native language, how far would you get?
Yet, beyond the obvious dreaded-P-word that is attached to being a native English speaker, and the obvious selection bias for people with ressources that it places on scientists from non English speaking countries, there is a more insidious effect, which I alluded to in the beginning. When certain fields are conducted only in one language, other languages loose out. For example, my mother speaks Alsatian (the Germanic dialect of her region of France). As a dialect, Alsatian is a language that important humanistic scholars (and Goethe's mentors) would have used. But, as French and Hochdeutsch became the languages of French and German nationalism, Alsatian, along with other dialects, was squeezed out of law, administration, science. Recent censuses put current Alsatian usage at about 60 to 70% of the population of Alsace, huge for a regional language in a country whose relationship to regional languages is ambivalent at best. And yet, my mother, who learnt her Alsatian from a woman born in 1870, knows words no one now knows. As the sphere of topics discussed in Alsatian has shrunk over the centuries, all the language associated with abstract or technical constructs has been lost. Yes, many people still speak Alsatian, but only when discussing the most mundane of topics.
As a Franco-British person growing up in England, France's often ham fisted attempts to promote French neologisms against English borrowing were often lampooned. And certainly there is a contemptible side to a former imperial power lashing out against another imperial power that has awkwardly gained ascendancy. Yet there is something equally contemptible in the tendency of Native English speakers to view the hegemony of English as a "natural" process. If we stop to consider the historical forces that have lead to this state of affairs, is this something to which science truly wishes to unequivocally yoke itself?
Because there are other models. At least two international organisations, the UN general assembly and the EU parliament advocate multilingual systems with active translations, because they recognise that equal participation cannot require someone learning a whole new language. And yes, both the UN and the EU translation administrations are hugely expensive. But if, as a publishing company, you're making billion of dollars in profits while maintaining a 40% profit margin, maybe translation services could be part of the added value you offer? And, if you're fighting for the creation of publicly funded open access repositories, and repeatedly tell me (because I've asked this question) that you have the long term digital archiving question all handled, then maybe you can also find money to broaden participation by supporting translation services?
Because, if not, and you're a native English speaking academic talking about how you're broadening access while requiring an ESL certificate from overseas grad students in your department? Then don't conflate the dregs of 200 years of imperialism and naked political power play with internationalism.

Harper, Maya, and me

This is a post about my growth as a person through encounters with books. I make no claims about how what understanding of American race relations translates into my activities challenging racism, and acknowledge I am still learning.

Harper Lee's "To Kill A Mockingbird" became my favorite book midway through my teens, dethroning Tolkien's "Lord of the Rings" with its resonant message about parenthood, precocious children, and difficult worlds. I read that book in school (it is one of the handful of great American books, with Gatsby and either Grapes of Wrath or Of Mice and Men, but not both, that have been allowed onto British school reading lists). I read it dutifully in the right way, as a story about injustice and segregated America, but that was only part of what captivated me. I preferred the story of Scout and Jem and Dill, their growing up, growing apart. I was captivated by Lee's evocative language, her rich complex female characters (to this day Miss Maudie Atkinson tops my list of fictional characters I would like to meet). In truth, I didn't yet have the historical knowledge or the analytical tools to understand all the parts of the story of Tom Robinson, or understand the monumental nature of Calpurnia's decision to take the children to First Purchase. Even back then, when I decided (to show how smart I was) to write an essay on "racism as a theme in To Kill A Mockingbird" i quickly felt ill equipped. My arguments were weak and I knew it. I should have written about " parenting as a theme in to Kill a Mockingbird" instead.
I've revisited that book so many times I can recite it. I have come to relish its depth more and more with every reading. The intelligence of Lee's device (to have an adult Jean Louise tell the story from a child Scout's point of view) allows such flexibility, deftly used. It allows the narrator to know things Scout would not have known. It allows the future to be alluded to. And it also leads to one of the great, and perhaps most questionable ellipsis in litterature. In the key scene where Atticus goes to sit outside Maycomb jail by night to protect Robinson from the lynch mob, at no point does Lee's adult Jean Louise spell out what is happening. We are told that the child Scout doesn't realise until later. But why does the adult Jean Louise hide from stating what is at stake, plainly, and clearly? Is it perhaps because the horror of that truth would make that scene's denouement hard to stomach, and make Atticus's pronouncement the next day sound hollow?
It was my encounter with another great American book that made me see the limits in Lee's novel as a tale of Southern Racism, and that made me see how much of a fiction even that book's limited victories were. While at University I read Maya Angelou's "I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings". I do not know if Angelou had to Kill a Mockingbird in mind when she wrote her autobiography, but the parallels are very striking. Against fictional smart, white Scout, we have real smart, black Maya Angelou. Against fictional too good, too perfect Calpurnia, we have the Real Grandmother. So many of the scenes in Caged Bird echo scenes in Mockingbird, but tear down what little Lee left worth saving in white Maycomb.
Perhaps the key scene for me is the one where she describes how, one night, as a lynch mob is rampaging through town, the white sheriff rides up to the Grandmother's store to warn her, and tell her to hide her crippled adult son from them. The grandmother thanks him, and Angelou describes her uncle painfully squeezing himself into the space under a fruit display. Angelou concludes with a searing accusal of the sheriff that struck me forever (I am writing this from memory so forgive any error):
"If I came before God in Heaven and had to say a good word about that man I could not do it. He did nothing to oppose, and in fact supported, the system that made my uncle hide that night"
Through that book, I began to see all that was missing from To Kill a Mockingbird, that made it both a fairy story, and a flawed depiction of the Jim Crow south.
I still love to Kill a Mockingbird. But I am fiercely grateful to Maya Angelou, and all the other black writers who have helped me move past viewing as more than what it is: an exquisite piece of fiction, but no more a definitive portrait of the South than Gone With the Wind.

When lightning strikes a crowded room

When I met my first boyfriend, lightning struck. We had never met before, but the moment he walked into my friend's kitchen, he was my sole focus that night. It turned out to be mutual. We talked to each other, and for each other all through dinner. We walked to the bus stop for me to catch a bus, he wheeling his bike so he could keep talking to me. It was only the part of my screaming "you're not out yet! To anyone! Do not make any rash decisions!" that stopped me from kissing him that very night.
We texted incessantly, and began a rapid, dramatic courtship. We went on dates, walked through London at night, kissed, fought, made up, spilled our hearts to each other. It was passionate and powerful and joyous and liberating and melodramatic in a way only the first encounter with those feelings can be. I have no regrets about that relationship.
It lasted three months. We broke up (with much elegant drama), saw each other a couple more times, then went off on our separate lives once again. The only fallout from that relationship was a bruised heart, and some lessons about how to treat other people.
I was young, and single, and my boyfriend was a stranger. Lightning struck us, and it was exhilarating. If any of those parameters had been different, the lightning strike would have been at least inconvenient, at most terrifying.
There is a reason Anna Karenina flees the ball after her encounter with Vronsky. There is a reason Olivia's response to meeting Viola/Cesario is "Soft, even so swiftly may one catch the plague?" There is a reason Elinor Dashwood will not speak of her feelings for Edward Farrars, when she does not know (and has reason to doubt) that any good may come of it.
The lightning strikes of love guarantee nothing: not that the lightning strike is reciprocated, not that the fit is good, not that happiness will befall. To use them as the sole guide of behavior is foolishness. To claim they are the pathway to goodness and happiness and should be given special consideration above all other factors is adolescent petulance that results in real pain.
People take risks for love yes. They sometimes must. And they sometimes pay a heavy price. You probably know several people who've moved for love, only to have it not work out. They rebuild their lives in a new place, alluding only rarely to the circumstance that brought them there. We often, if we are friends with people making those choices, have misgivings, fears. "Are you sure? Is this wise?"
Literature and personal history tell us that lightning love is a poor guide of behavior. And yet, when some suggest that, in situations were abuse of power is easy, where all outside factors conspire to suggest that following the guides of Eros's arrow is foolish and dangerous, and enables much worse behavior, how quick we are to demand that love be given primacy.
How many of you would counsel a friend or daughter to run off with someone they'd met only once? How many of you would counsel a married friend to start an affair because of a moment on chemistry, rather than to make quite sure they were never alone with that person again? And yet you would not counsel someone not to start a relationship with their subordinates? And yet you would not tell them that is ill advised? And yet you would not tell them to protect both themselves and the one they claim to love? I call shenanigans.
Edward Farrars, as it turns out, was as enamoured of Elinor as she of him. But he had gotten engaged to Lucy Steele much younger, and to break that engagement (because of the fucked up social mores of Austen's time) would have ruined the young woman. Edward chose to honor his promise to Lucy (until circumstances relieved him of it). Had he not done so, not only would he have ruined Lucy, he would not have been the honorable, kind man that Elinor fell for in the first place.
In contrast, Willoughby, the Villain of sense and sensibility, pursues Elinor's sister Marianne. Here is the point though: Willoughby's love for Marianne is not insincere. But because he is selfish, he does not recognise that pursuing that attraction can only harm Marianne. This is what Elinor cannot forgive in him: that he put his own pleasure ahead of her sister's wellbeing. Austen understood only too well that to be in love with someone, is not the same as to care for them.
If you wish to do well by people, you cannot rely on the lightning strikes of passion to guide you to goodness. Austen knew this, Tolstoi knew this, Shakespeare knew this. Scientists should remember it too

On hard choices

A propos of nothing in particular.

My mother keeps her accounts in hand written double entry tables that would make medieval Venetian auditors weep. Her financial discipline is legendary (only a portion has come down to me). My mother's planner is similarly detailed, with colored blocks delimiting her time into discrete clusters. My mother is disciplined, strong willed, organised, and has been since she left her parent's house at 14 to go to a boarding school she was only able to attend because of her excellent grades.

At least five times in my mother's life, someone (her mother, her employer, her ex husband, her employer again, her landlords) has tried to take her livelihood away. Each time, my mother has doubled down on her organization and discipline. She has built a successful small business as a private tutor, and when necessary has expanded it to fill all available time so she could get money. She saves, she scrimps. She budgets her money and her time to the last penny and the last second. She doesn't give up, and so far, she has won every time.

I have learnt a lot from my mother's handling of tough choices, both from what she told me, and from being around for three of them. I have learnt to calculate compound interest, to track every penny, to scour sales. I have learnt patience. I have learnt to read the fine print, to check for myself, to ask questions. I have learnt the importance of rigor and discipline in getting anything done, and to never assume that things will sort themselves out.

I have also learnt other things. I have learnt never to trust what is not in writing. I have learnt never to put too much faith in the future. I have learnt that you should show up in court calm and collected in a sensible, freshly pressed suit you can barely afford to listen as your husband's lawyer explains that the house you both lived in and the education you both gave your children is too extravagant. I have learnt that you should not, under any circumstances, betray any emotion at this, though you may spend the next night raging into your pillow. I have learnt that when your employer looses track of ten years of your retirement contributions, they will tell you there is nothing to be done. I learnt that when you then spend two years tracking down pay slips from forty years ago, the lady handling the file that you have reconstructed will congratulate herself, and suggest that she really should come on a trip to London. I have learnt that you should say you would be glad to be her guide should she ever choose to do it.

I have learnt that knuckling down takes a toll. That going into crisis mode can become a habit. I have learnt your sleep can go to pot, and then your health. I have learnt that repeatedly getting screwed by people who are supposed to be looking out for you leaves deep wounds that stay fresh a very long time.

My mother never made us work as teenagers, and is always generous with her money. I have asked her why, and her reason is simple: no one was there to help her, and doing it on her own was hard. As she once observed to me when discussing her discipline and rigour "it might have been nice to know who I could have been if I hadn't had to be so disciplined and rigorous".

Mostly, what I have learnt from my mother is this. Tenacity, rigor, discipline, financial nous will help you in times of crisis, or when other people try to screw you over. But those efforts come at a cost, and one should not mistake the ability to endure adversity, with the adversity being a good thing. My mother is an amazing woman, but she would be the first to say that parts of her would have been better off without having to fight all these fights.

Pragmaticism is a necessity, but it is neither itself a virtue, nor a begetter of virtue. And tough choices, unavoidable as they may be, remain tough, and may leave us hard and hurt.