The supporting pillars, ornate in red and gold, glimmer dully in the dark. Icons of the Church Fathers line the walls. An elaborate altar, framed by stained-glass windows, is upstaged metaphorically and downstaged literally by a gaudy Christmas tree, every decoration glittering in the light from a small rig. Several young people stand at the […]
Author Archives: Maddie Lay
… is a freelance arts writer based in Oxford, England.
Posted inReport
Grokipedia Is A Terrible Way To Learn About Music
One week ago, Elon Musk took a break from his busy schedule of defunding pediatric cancer research and paying other people to play video games for him to launch Grokipedia, an LLM-generated and LLM-edited online encyclopedia explicitly designed as a competitor to Wikipedia. Musk’s rationale for launching this tool is based on his perception that […]
Posted inBarTálk
Fluid and Amorphous
A new autumn brings with it a new season from Vache Baroque, les nouveaux enfants terribles of Baroque opera. This year’s offering is André Campra’s 1699 opera-ballet “Le Carnaval de Venise,” which received its UK premiere 326 years overdue. Directed by James Hurley and conducted from the harpsichord by Vache’s cofounder Jonathan Darbourne, this production, […]
Posted inRankings & Roundups
I Listened to 31 Recordings of “Parsifal” in a Month
David Blaine sat in a Perspex box for 44 days. Sir Ranulph Fiennes crossed Antarctica on foot. When one isn’t athletically gifted, one’s endurance stunts must take a different form. So I listened to every recording of “Parsifal” on Spotify. Though “Parsifal” is Wagner’s slowest and oddest music-drama, I love it dearly, and I wanted […]