Art and other things...

(Clasping your shoulder gently)

Beethoven’s “Hammerklavier” sonata, first published over two hundreds years ago, is notoriously considered one of the most difficult-to-play piano pieces of all time.

In particular, when Beethoven sent it to his publisher in 1818, he allegedly said, “Now you have a sonata that will keep the pianists busy when it is played 50 years hence!”, and much has been made of the fact that it wasn’t publicly performed in its entirety until eighteen years later, by Franz Liszt himself.

Except that’s a bit of a deceptive statistic. See, when Beethoven published Hammerklavier, public solo piano recitals/concerts weren’t really a thing yet. Symphonies, sure; concertos, definitely. But sonatas were “parlor” music—a thing played by amateurs, often skilled amateurs, but amateurs nonetheless, in little sitting-rooms for a bit of entertainment after dinner, or at private salons with a guest list in the low dozens. (And mostly they were meant to be sight-read! The culture of obsessively polishing a piece to make it “performance-ready” wasn’t as much of a thing, back then.) People bought these things the way they bought novels, and, just as someone might buy a copy of Joyce’s Ulysses today and enjoy puzzling over the thing, even if they never read the whole thing or feel like they fully “get” it, well… some folks would enjoy sonatas the same way.

So yeah, Hammerklavier didn’t have its first public performance until Liszt played it in the Salle Érard. But also, Liszt basically invented the format of “star virtuoso pianist hogging the stage for two hours” in order to get a public audience at all.

But in the meantime—I think about how wonderful it must’ve been, tooling around on the piano during that 18-year-span where there was no evidence that thing even was playable, or that, if playable, that the thing even made sense. Beethoven was nearly totally deaf by this point, after all, a fact that was publicly known—had he totally lost it? people had to wonder. And the only way to find out would be… well, trying it out yourself!

It has the sound of a gimmick. And I’ll bet it was, at least a little bit—but just because something’s more interesting to play than listen to doesn’t mean it’s failing in its goal. (Though fwiw it is very interesting to listen to.)

It also has the sound of, like, Dark Souls, to be honest. Proto-video game culture. A new game drops and people are asking each other: can anyone beat this boss? can you beat this boss? do you still consider your time on the game well-spent even if you never 100% it?

Biographies generally agree that Beethoven’s metronome markings (which only appear in his later work, and only *some* of his later work) are preposterous—often borderline-unplayable, and certainly not very musical. I couldn’t find a recording of anyone trying to play Hammerklavier at the marked 138bpm tempo, so I got a computer to do it—and burst out laughing at the result because, yeah, 138bpm is fucking NUTS. But whether intentional or accidental, I love the audacity of its being there, like a taunt: I dare you to do more. I dare you to do better. I dare you to try.

Much has been made of how difficulty’s a way of keeping people out—but it’s also a way of inviting people in, I think. It says: do this hard thing and you will be rewarded. You will be rewarded in the trying. Because the trying is the thing that makes the music live; there is no music without you.

Here’s an old bit from an interview with the game designer Porpentine:

“The purpose of a puzzle [in a game] is to provide resistance. For me, that resistance doesn’t need to be coercive or challenging, just interesting and aesthetic. My mechanics are to be touched. Games are perhaps the most intimate art because the player must remain touching at all times. They must touch or the game does not exist.”

Anyway, this is my first dip into big comics. Later today. Please be gentle on me.

1.

Green grows the grass upon the bank, The willow-shoots are long and lank. A lady in a glistening gown Opens the casement and looks down. The roses on her cheek blush bright, Her rounded arm is dazzling white; A singing girl in early life And now a careless roué's wife … Ah, if he does not mind his own, He'll find someday the bird has flown!

2.

Blue, blue is the grass about the river And the willows have overfilled the close garden. And within, the mistress, in the midmost of her youth, White, white of face, hesitates, passing the door. Slender, she puts forth a slender hand And she was a courtezan in the old days, And she has married a sot, Who now goes drunkenly out And leaves her too much alone

3.

青青河畔草 - green, green is the grass by the riverbank

by Unknown (202 BCE - 220 CE), second of the Nineteen Old Poems

青青河畔草 鬱鬱園中柳 qīng qīng hé pàn cǎo yù yù yuán zhōng liǔ Verdant is the grass by the riverbank, luxuriant, the willows in the garden.

盈盈樓上女 皎皎當窗牖 yíng yíng lóu shàng nǚ jiǎo jiǎo dāng chuāng yǒu Graceful is the lady there on the upper floor, luminous before the window -

娥娥紅粉妝 纖纖出素手 é é hóng fěn zhuāng xiān xiān chū sù shǒu lovely in her rouge and powder, delicate fingers on her fair hand extended.

昔為倡家女 今為蕩子婦 xī wèi chàng jiā nǚ jīn wéi dàng zǐ fù Once the daughter of a performing House, now the wife of a wayfarer -

蕩子行不歸 空床難獨守 dàng zǐ xíng bù guī kōng chuáng nán dú shǒu a wayfarer who has not returned, with an empty bed hard to mind alone.

Side note: Wondering what a house which allows one to stand at the window to both be seen by the passers by outside and observe the garden would look like, I looked for Han dynasty tomb rubbings and grave good miniatures as examples. Here is one excavated in Henan!

(Source)

The first translation with its vaguely medieval - or at the very least trying for amorphously historical imagery through words like glistening gown, casement, roué - seems to be adapted for readers who have never watched a cdrama in their lives and cannot imagine what a Han dynasty setting might look like. The translator probably swapped out the context for a more localized feel to their own culture’s historical settings... Making every sentence’s middle and end rhyme was a little silly and creates this funny sing-song effect when read aloud, but then so is the unserious tone of the original and the doubled words in its first three lines has a similar effect. Anyway, I’m not a fan of the localisation, but it was interesting to see the scene transplanted thus.

It was amusing to see 盈盈, which elsewhere in the Nineteen Poems is indeed used as a descriptor for the silver river (aka the milky way), envisioned by the translator as ‘glistening’ here. They also might have understood it in the brimming/overflowing sense and associated it with her figure as they pictured her ‘rounded arm’. There’s no other logical explanation and place to derive it. 纖纖 can only mean slender! I also don’t believe ‘careless roué’ is the description for a 荡子 in this context, but can understand the choice.

Overall I appreciated ‘Ah, if he does not mind his own, / He'll find someday the bird has flown’ the most because it shows his own understanding of the poem (It’s a Han Dynasty suggestive pop song and he knows it!). And locking in is always a fun choice to make when translating!

The second one is a piece of work…🤣 I’m not sure it can be called a translation because it has remixed nearly every line, but not quite in a manner creative enough to be considered derivative? They’re writing an AU where ‘the mistress’ is a lonely little nightingale in a cage with a drunken owner by funhouse mirror style paraphrasing. Unlike the first one, I can’t tell what they’re going for at all here? It’s like someone gave them one of those word by word lists of definitions of each sentence for beginners, and they cherry picked what they liked to construct a story. Taken as a translation, what a mess! LOL. Downvote! Downvote! 

Special callout to the most choices of choices, ‘Blue, blue is the grass…’, ‘courtezan’ spelled with a z (it’s giving 1700s) and ‘a sot’. 

The only quarter point for effort I’ll give is for the bending over backwards to nod at the original’s structure xD 青青 blue, blue / 鬱鬱 willows, overfilled (????) / 盈盈 mistress, midmost / 皎皎 white, white (really????) / (娥娥 line was skipped entirely -0.25pts) / 纖纖 slender, slender hand. 

What to say about the third one. 

I mentioned the word-for-word for learners earlier, this is like that, except certain ‘definitions’ seem completely pulled from thin air, with no corresponding words in the original. ‘Sad, sad’ is an invention. ‘Casement’ is an invention.

It’s not trying to be a creative work, but it’s also not being entirely faithful.

High-level stats for week of 2026-06-16 - 2026-06-22

Total works categorized F/F on AO3: 11240 (+200 from last week)

Works I classified F/F: 5948 (+101 from last week) (2738 new, 3210 continued)

0.57% of all 1040567 AO3 works I've classified F/F were updated this week

A few callouts this week:

Another best-ever for web series The Amazing Digital Circus, which reaches rank 3 this week. I don't know anything about this web series or its fandom; can any readers fill me in?

Supergirl returns after last week's chart exit, replacing Boku no Hero Academia.

Chart anniversaries: Stranger Things reaches 30 consecutive weeks (of 128 total appearances), Addams Family reaches 190 consecutive weeks, and Project SEKAI COLORFUL STAGE! is at 210 consecutive weeks!

supergirl_tv is running a summer prompt meme to celebrate the new movie.

June Joust, a femslash exchange centered around sparring, revealed this week with 40 F/F works. The V for Victory V-shaped polyamory exchange revealed, with 15 F/F works (11 of which are not tagged F/M).

Full top-20 table and description of methodology after the jump.

Came by just to drop this Merthur study I did

Jaap Nieuwenhuis

Discovered last year I couldn’t look at my 2015 MacBook Air without it triggering nausea and migraines, and figured the screen died. Have been getting by on my phone, but concluded I really need a laptop again.

Saved up, realised I could afford a brand new MacBook Neo, and got one.

-And I couldn’t spend more than five minutes looking at the screen without massive eye strain, nausea, vertigo, and if I pushed it, I-need-to-lie-down-in-a-dark-room-for-hours migraines.

Looking up MacBook and Eyestrain explained what is going on. The liquid retina displays that Apple currently has uses Pulse Width Modulation or PWM. In order to give the screens a deeper depth of colour and contrast, PWM flickers between several hundred to thousand times a second.

And there is currently no way to turn it off. There are settings and apps to reduce it, but there is no way to stop the screen from flickering. Checked Apple forums, called Apple Support, and the time I could look at the screen kept shrinking. Got the laptop Tuesday, returned it Friday, today is Sunday and I’m still dealing with a vertigo migraine.

For MacBooks, it seems to vary on the computer model and the software it uses. In retrospect, the issue with my MacBook Air started after a major software update.

And it’s not just an Apple thing. Current Windows and Android screens do the same thing. There’s even a Reddit for people who are sensitive to PWM flickers to help find computers and screens that won’t trigger eyestrain and headaches.

So, yeah. This week has been a learning experience. But for those who are prone to headaches and migraines, this may be something to be aware of, cause I was not.

Black Menswear modelled by Black Men

LOOK AT THIS MAGNIFICENT GOTH-ASS SHIT

EGADDDDDDD

THE IRON-COPPER SOLUTION USED TO DYE THE PAGES WAS SO CORROSIVE THAT THERE ARE VERY FEW SURVIVING EXAMPLES

THESE BOOKS WERE LITERALLY TOO METAL TO LIVE

tech news today is that Mullvad VPN has gone mask-off about being the major funding source for the Swedish Orebro party, who are racist nationalists. unfortunately all discussion of this is occurring on fucking Mastodon instances i can barely load

if you are a mullvad customer (as i am) and want to get out, here is guidance from this guy