Reviews for The Art of Bassoon Playing

The average rating for The Art of Bassoon Playing based on 2 reviews is 4.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2020-11-18 00:00:00 Cassie Horton ON GROWING OLD In Britain there's a radio show that's been running since dinosaurs roamed the earth called Desert Island Discs. Persons of note get invited on the programme and are asked - if you were cast away on a desert island, which eight gramophone records would you want to take with you? The concept was rendered quaint by the invention of long playing records, never mind ipods, but no matter, every week they plough on with the formula. At the end of the show the guest is asked which book they would want to take to the island - and here's the thing - the silkyvoiced interviewer tells the guest "the Bible and the complete works of Shakespeare are already provided". It's so obvious that any literate person from the West would never in their wildest dreams consider being wrecked on a desert island without making damned sure that they have their Bible & Shakespeare strapped to their person that it would be an affront, it would be ill-mannered, it would be ffrankly grotesque to imagine someone like Sir Fortescure Mainwairing-Ffrench-Blenkinplonker, Keeper of the Queen's Underthings, cast away all alone for five years without being able to reread The Merry Wives of Windsor or The Book of Revelation whenever he wished. Sir Fortescue is running about in a loincloth made of wombat skin and is eating small animals he has to manually strangle and has some ghastly skin condition and is quite insane from the relentless heat but he has his Bible and Shakespeare, so all is not lost. Oh, right, this show is a polite smarmy middleclass fantasy! I nearly forgot. Well, whenever anyone asks me what eight gramophone discs I would take to a desert island I never mention The Beatles and I never mention Bob Dylan. Because as far as 20th century popular music is concerned, they're the Bible and Shakespeare. They were the boys who built the house that everyone then moved into. Yes, it was Chuck Berry and Elvis and Jimmie Rodgers who - working as a committee - decided on the location where the house should be built - it was between two great rivers and just on the wrong side of town, seemed quite unsuitable at the time (but look at it now) - anyway, hats off to the committee but they didn't actually build the house. Time rolled along and by the 1990s the people who the BBC invited onto Desert Island Discs were no longer Sir Fortescue because they'd all died. The movers and shakers were now people like Malcolm Maclaren and Vivian Westwood, and people like that were inclined to say to the silkyvoiced interviewer "look mate, you can take your Bible and Shakespeare and give em to Oxfam, I hate all that crap, I got all that in school, my favourite book is Trainspotting by Irvine Welsh so stick that up your Pringle sweater" - I heard sentiments like that a few times. Just like now, to my pained ears, I hear modern day youth say Look mate, the Beatles and Bob Dylan? Overrated tossers. I've had it up to here with old gits like you telling me what's good. We all live in a yellow submarine? That's great music is it? The answer my friend is blowing in the wind? So profound. They built the house? Get back in your old fart's home. Like the guy in Kafka's story, it's been my experience to wake up and find myself transmogrified. I am now Sir Fortescue, Keeper of the Queen's Underthings. But I have an escape plan. I'll bring the complete set of Beatles singles (oh my god, original Parlophone and Apple pressings too) and melt em all down in the relentless sun, and turn the resulting black plastic glop into a speedy raft. And then I'll paddle back to civilisation. And I'll reconnect with what's happening. I believe it's called Hippety hop. And I'll be young again. I can't wait.

Review # 2 was written on 2013-12-04 00:00:00 Dan Durocher 1.75. A few of the essays are good but there's a steep drop between those and the rest. I mistakenly just thought since I liked stranded I liked this and maybe that just made my expectations to high.