2.12.2005
woah
Some people have too much time on their hands, as evidenced by the comments posted on two previous blog posts. That's insane.
Tonight's a nice big concert for the Oxford University Orchestra - Tchaikovsky's Rococo Variations and Berlioz' Symphonie Fantastique. I know it's a favorite among the top-notch youth and collegiate orchestras in the US, but I'd honestly never even heard it before being assigned to play it this term. It's going to be an interesting concert - due to scheduling conflicts, last night's sort-of-final rehearsal was not attended by the second bassoon, the first and second trumpet, and the first trombone, and second horn. I'm not sure you get by playing Berlioz without a full company of brass, but it didn't sound like we were last night.
Yesterday's crew outing was pretty grueling - five standing starts up to twenty strokes, two major 3:30 pieces at full pressure and full race pace, and then, just to hammer home the point, a five minute piece at full pressure. The five minute piece closely approximated the full length of the racecourse for the Torpids regatta. We do not, of course, plan on racing the entire five minutes.
Rowing is huge here in Oxford, and also at Cambridge. Anthropologically, this is an interesting thing because the rivers in Oxford are decidedly not. Nor at Cambridge, evidently. In the history of human civilization, what a peoples has more of will most likely be used more often. What a peoples has less of will most likely be used less often. Duh. It's like when I'm say that the Plains Indians didn't have much of a seafaring culture, there's a pretty good reason why. So what on earth allowed rowing to get so massively popular here at Oxford when the rivers barely support any such endeavor at all? No idea. But Oxonians are resilient and they are innovative, and instead of boat vs. boat races, they hold what are called bumps races. Torpids is a bumps regatta.
This is why we don't plan on rowing the entire five minute course of Torpids. A bumps regatta is where all of the boats line up single file with a good amount of open water between them in a predetermined order (usually the standings from the last race, even if that last race was last year). They are all started simultaneously and the race involves your boat trying to bump the boat in front of it while avoiding being bumpted by the boat behind it. And if you bump or are bumped, you drop out of the race and get the heck out of the way as fast as possible. So we plan on bumping everything or everyone that comes across our path, and not having to row very far at all.
Tomorrow's race at Bedford, however, is a head race, which means it's just a time trial. Nothing special about it; just a time trial. Which we could do from the comforts of our own respective boat clubs instead of having to give up an entire day to ship off to Bedford. I don't even know where Bedford is.
My Princeton Alumni Weekly came today. Someone's head is going to roll down at the Princeton Alumni Weekly, and it will roll soon. On the cover of the PAW is, naturally, the word Princeton. It appears a few times, but it's small, and it's tasteful. On the back cover is usually an advertisement for the Princeton University Store. Unfortunately, in this issue, it was replaced by an ad for the Yale MBA program, with the word "Yale" in huge type emblazoned across the back of the magazine. It takes a special type of guts, a special type of hubris, to advertise your school on the back cover of your rival school's alumni magazine.
Tonight's a nice big concert for the Oxford University Orchestra - Tchaikovsky's Rococo Variations and Berlioz' Symphonie Fantastique. I know it's a favorite among the top-notch youth and collegiate orchestras in the US, but I'd honestly never even heard it before being assigned to play it this term. It's going to be an interesting concert - due to scheduling conflicts, last night's sort-of-final rehearsal was not attended by the second bassoon, the first and second trumpet, and the first trombone, and second horn. I'm not sure you get by playing Berlioz without a full company of brass, but it didn't sound like we were last night.
Yesterday's crew outing was pretty grueling - five standing starts up to twenty strokes, two major 3:30 pieces at full pressure and full race pace, and then, just to hammer home the point, a five minute piece at full pressure. The five minute piece closely approximated the full length of the racecourse for the Torpids regatta. We do not, of course, plan on racing the entire five minutes.
Rowing is huge here in Oxford, and also at Cambridge. Anthropologically, this is an interesting thing because the rivers in Oxford are decidedly not. Nor at Cambridge, evidently. In the history of human civilization, what a peoples has more of will most likely be used more often. What a peoples has less of will most likely be used less often. Duh. It's like when I'm say that the Plains Indians didn't have much of a seafaring culture, there's a pretty good reason why. So what on earth allowed rowing to get so massively popular here at Oxford when the rivers barely support any such endeavor at all? No idea. But Oxonians are resilient and they are innovative, and instead of boat vs. boat races, they hold what are called bumps races. Torpids is a bumps regatta.
This is why we don't plan on rowing the entire five minute course of Torpids. A bumps regatta is where all of the boats line up single file with a good amount of open water between them in a predetermined order (usually the standings from the last race, even if that last race was last year). They are all started simultaneously and the race involves your boat trying to bump the boat in front of it while avoiding being bumpted by the boat behind it. And if you bump or are bumped, you drop out of the race and get the heck out of the way as fast as possible. So we plan on bumping everything or everyone that comes across our path, and not having to row very far at all.
Tomorrow's race at Bedford, however, is a head race, which means it's just a time trial. Nothing special about it; just a time trial. Which we could do from the comforts of our own respective boat clubs instead of having to give up an entire day to ship off to Bedford. I don't even know where Bedford is.
My Princeton Alumni Weekly came today. Someone's head is going to roll down at the Princeton Alumni Weekly, and it will roll soon. On the cover of the PAW is, naturally, the word Princeton. It appears a few times, but it's small, and it's tasteful. On the back cover is usually an advertisement for the Princeton University Store. Unfortunately, in this issue, it was replaced by an ad for the Yale MBA program, with the word "Yale" in huge type emblazoned across the back of the magazine. It takes a special type of guts, a special type of hubris, to advertise your school on the back cover of your rival school's alumni magazine.
