Quote from The Composers- Frederich Chopin

Frederich Chopin (1810-1849) is yet another iconic symbol who died all too young at age 39, which means as a 40-year-old I've already outlived him. But, despite his very short life, he left behind classic works like "The Revolutionary Etude," "The Minute Waltz" and "The Funeral March."

The cause of Chopin's death has been a source of controversy. At the time, it was believed to be tuberculosis, which Chopin believed he was dying from, but more recent research suggests it may have been cystic fibrosis which took him to an all too early grave.

Chopin was also a great master of Romantic music, and since he had parents who were Polish and French, both Poland and France claim him as one of their own.

Here is his quote, which we initially forgot to put in for the first draft of this entry:

"Simplicity is the final achievement. After one has played a vast quantity of notes and more notes, it is simplicity that emerges as the crowning reward of art."

SIDEBAR: As for some radically different kind of music, we reported on our other blog that we were actually contemplating going to a concert from the heavy metal band GWAR while we were in Washington, DC, at the fabled 9:30 Club in late December. As it turns out, the band will be performing at The Lincoln Theatre in Raleigh, NC, which is closer to home, on Feb. 17, but alas, I have to work that night. And, I'm not sure my soon-to-be-41-year-old ears could handle the noise!

Quote from The Composers- Richard Wagner

Ah, yes. Those of us who live between Smyrna, Ga., and Floyd, Va., were snowed in over the last two days due to a fluke snowstom which really hammered Spartanburg, SC, of all places, as well as the Atlanta and Charlotte metro areas.

This gave me a chance to catch up on reading as I somehow read the late Swedish author Steig Larsson's "The Girl Who Played with Fire" (the second book in the series) in its entirety, and it is a 750-page novel! I also watched all 13 episodes of the third and last season of "Arrested Development" which was on the air from 2003-05 (loved the part where they went to Mexico!).

So, this brings us to our quote of the day from a late, great composer. And, we are going with the ever-controversial Richard Wagner (1818-1883) who was admired by none other than Adolf Hitler because der fuhrer felt that Wagner's music embodied his imperial view of Germany. Thus, there have been misgivings about conducting Wagner's music live in Israel.

Wagner is also known for "The Ring Cycle," a series of four operas based on Germanic mythology. "Gotterdammerung/Twilight of the Gods" is the final opera in the series, and Wagner also composed the famous opera "Parsifal" in 1882.

Here is his quip:

"Achievements, seldom credited to their source, are the result of unspeakable drudgery and worries."

Classical music fans in the Greensboro/Winston-Salem area might be interested to know that violinst Yura Lee will be giving two performances in the Gate City with The Greensboro Symphony on Jan. 20 and Jan. 22.

One can go to the sympphony's web site greensborosymphony.org for more information.

Quote of the Week- Gustav Mahler

Wow, a lot has happened since we lost blogged on Wednesday of last week. Our thoughts go out to Cong. Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ) and her family. I will have more on that later. The incident was made all the more disturbing to me because I heard an interview on NPR during a broadcast of "All Things Considered" just last week.

Today, we are focusing on quotes from composers (we will have another quip from another composter tomorrow since we were not able to post a quote last week) which will be our focus throughout January.

We start with the Austrian-Bohemian composer Gustav Mahler (1860-1911). According to Steve Holtier of 'Culturecatch.com,' Mahler was known for transforming the symphony into its more modern form. His famous works include "The Youth's Magic" and "Wunderhorn."

Here is today's quote from Mahler:

"A Symphony must be like the world. It must contain everything."

If you are in the DC area, be sure to check out WETA (90.9 FM), an NPR station which focuses on classical music. Oh, I forgot, it's not 1989. You can listen to them online too!

DC Diary- Michelle Obama's Inauguration Gown

When we posted an entry with a quote from former president George H.W. Bush, aka Papa Smurf, we mentioned that there was an exhibit of first ladies gowns at his presidential library in College Station, Tex.

Thus, I was quite surprised when we stumbled a similar exhibit at the Smithsonian American History Museum during our family trip to Washington, DC, in the first phase of our excursion.

There were two gowns which stood out. One was surprisingly the purple inauguration gown worn by Laura Bush, Papa Smurf's daughter-in-law.

The other was the amazing white gown by our current First Lady Michelle Obama, which neither a Romanian gymnast nor a contestant on "The Biggest Loser" could possibly fit into. The dress illustrated just how tall Michelle Obama is as well as how tight her figure is. I am certainly no fashion expert, and as a heterosexual man my interest in such things is fairly limited. But, this gown, complete with the white Jimmy Choo high heel shoes, left quite an impression.

Later in the trip, we went to the Smithsonian National Science Museum where we saw an exhibit with ancient artifacts from the politically divided island nation of Cyprus, located between Greece, Turkey and Lebanon.

My sister and I were really intrigued by the digs especially since we had been to the Turkish/northern part of Cyprus back in 1993. We even saw a photo of a cathedral that had been converted into a mosque that we visited in the port city of Famagusta, where I almost got hit by a car since the Cypriots (Turks and Greeks alike) drive 'The British Way,' which is quite challenging for pedestrians!

A funny moment happened when I was looking at a female nude statue and a guard yelled. I thought it was Orwellian mind-reading at its best, but the culprit he was after turned out to be a Japanese tourist who was sneakingly taking a photograph of a bronze statue behind me.

This concludes my special series on our adventures and misadventures during our week in Washington, DC, which took place between Christmas and New Year's Eve.

There are more entries about the trip on my other blog "Politics, Culture and Other Wastes of Time."

Just for the record, my brother-in-law and my sister are not named Sven and Eva Thomasson, nor do they reside in Goteborg, Sweden. This was meant to be a bit of an in-joke between my sister and I, but when my mother heard about my little prank, she pretty much threatened to sell the family cat on Craig's List (that is a joke too!).

DC Diary- Kamikaze Time

Today, we discuss Day Five of our National Lampoon's DC Vacation which was actually the last day of the trip, but we will have a final entry on both blogs tomorrow with some added reflections.

Day Five featured a very limited schedule because my sister and my brother-in-law had to make their British Airways flight back to London (not where they actually live) from Dulles, so we simply focused on the second part of the National Air and Space Museum which is located near Dulles International Airport.

For me, the most interesting plane on display was a Japanese kamikaze plane. Anyone who has regularly watched the Larry David Show "Curb Your Enthusiasm" assuredly remembers the episode where Larry yells "Banzai," which was what these suicidal pilots did when they crashed into American battleships.

While researching this piece, I found out that Ensign Kiyoski Ogawa, who was 22 or 23, killed himself on an attack of the USS Bunker Hill which also killed some 400 American troops. Some of the kamikaze pilots were as young as 17. The planes were quite devastating because they carried bombs, torpedoes and explosives on them.

The other displays on the site included the Enola Gay, which dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan, and certainly makes one ponder the devastation it caused. An Air France Concord plane which could take passengers from New York to Paris in about three hours (they have since been retired), Nazi German war planes, Soviet planes and a boat plane!

Afterward, we took my sister and her husband to the airport and waved "Arivederci," or however, it's spelled in Italian. I jokingly asked my sister back at the museum gift shop if she wanted a pilot Barbie. She said no.

As for the kamikaze drink (we couldn't find a good image to use of a kamikaze plane), you might be able to find one at Jack's Restaurant in DuPont Circle. No promises! And, of course, don't drink and drive....

DC Diary- The Map Art of Guillermo Kuitca

Argentinian artist Guillermo Kuitca, 49, took up much of our attention on the fourth day of our family excursion to Washington, DC, which was Thursday. His works, which include two striking paintings of airport baggage merry-go-rounds, are on display at the Smithsonian Hirshorn Museum of Art until Jan. 16.

I was most awe-struck by Kuitca's paintings of maps, one of which was for the entire state of North Dakota (the image is a standard map of the state). Like the baggage carousel, one would think such a subject might be way too mundane to make an elaborate painting out of, but Kuitca managed to pull it off by illustrating how arbitrary lines that divide states, counties and even international borders can be.

Kuitca did something similar with a grander map painting that made Fargo seem close to Chicago and Philadelphia seem close to Kansas City, which made one realize that our lives are indeed shaped by these lines and they can be rearranged without any logical sense of geography, especially in a world where we can now get emails from Karachi, Pakistan, as well as our friend who might live in the next town over from us in a place like Welch, W. Va.

According to Wikipedia, Kuitca has said that he believes our notions of place are always evolving.

As for North Dakota, which is quite far from Washington, DC, it is the 19th largest state in size, but it also has the third lowest population. North Dakota also has the highest density per capita of any state for churches, which makes it all the more amazing that Barack Obama almost captured the vote for the state against the McCain-Palin ticket (or should we say the Palin-McCain ticket).

There were 920 Muslims and 730 Jews in North Dakota according to the 2000 Census (as stated in Wikipedia) and assuredly those numbers might well have radically changed. Interestingly enough, there are many famous Jews from neighboring Minnesota, including Sen. Al Franken and Bob Dylan.

Perhaps, the famous person ever from North Dakota was the late band leader Lawrence Welk, born in the hamlet of Strasburg, N.Dak. His tv specials still air on PBS stations around the country.

SIDEBAR: A great tweet that we read tonight from The Kansan, who we presume is a progressive college student in Lawrence, Kan., was the following: "That doesn't make sense. Where does the bible say you're free to let your neighbor die so the super rich profit?"

Happy New Year from Tintin

Happy New Year from all of us here at The Daily Vampire and our beloved Belgian comic book reporter Tintin. Though we hate fessing up to mistakes here, we must admit that we wrongly identified Tintin's white fox terrier dog earlier this week. For the record, the mutt's name is Snowy, not Fluffy.

But, since Tintin's creator Herge (1907-1983) we may not get yelled out for making this blunder. Titin debuted in 1929, and it has been translated into 80 languages.

I discovered Tintin back in 1978 when I was eight years old and we were living near Zonguldak, Turkey, and I came across "Tintin Tibet'te" which was a Turkish translation of Herge's 1960 book "Tintin in Tibet, a book that remains a favorite among Titin fans.

While researching this, we found out that The Tintin Shop in London (there are other Tintin stores in Belgium and France) will be closed in May of this year, but it will be replaced by a coffee house called Haddock's, which will pay homage to the Tintin character Captain Archibald Haddock.

The New Zealand '80s New Wave band Thompson Twins ("Hold Me Now") also took their name from Tintin characters.

A museum devoted to Herge was opened up near Brussels, Belgium, in 2009.

SIDEBAR: One can still see photos of deep-fried turkeys, a specialty of my friend and fellow blogger Chris Knight of Reidsville, NC, on his blog "The Knight Shift" (http://www.knightshift.blogspot.com).

Today is also the birthday of my friend Devrim Kale in Edirne, Turkey.

And, we wish to congratulate Jocelyn Skye Jimenez of Elizabeth, NJ, Keegan Lee Kinzel of Huntington, WVa, and Roxana Santos of Rockville, Md. Each of these New Year's babies were among the first babies born after midnight in their respective localities today.