Never watched Amadeus today 

I got on a cleaning jag. Maybe tomorrow. It's a vacation week for me starting tomorrow, and I deserve it -- the time off, the movie, whatever I want, right?

Message links are back 

I put back links to the latest messages on the community volunteer site in my sidebar here. I had commented out the block when there was one message with a long raw URL pasted in, pushing my blog layout all out of whack.

Latest messages in the community discussion group:

Long URLS and NewsRiver templating 

I have the same problem with NewsRiver, especially when I'm subscribed to comment feeds. The long URLs widen the table for the whole page.

Speaking of NewsRiver layout, I haven't done any more on the CSS. I'm thinking the http include method would be best. Something probably would have to be built into the menu. It would be nice if there was some kind of templating system for 1.0, both for blogs and NewsRiver. I'm not sure if it's considered a priority for the release. I know my personal priority is the support site.

Tricky tricks 

Les is up to all manner of new tricks in suspension: XOXO-OPML conversion, PHP community server, OPML editing in the browser. Not that I understand all that would be happening under the hood, but it sounds very clever.

Mozart 

When Les talks about not yet having committed to "paper" some of the work held in his brain, it reminded me of a scene in Amadeus. Simon Callow's character, who is producing The Magic Flute as a low-class vaudeville, demands the score and first is delighted to hear Mozart say it's finished. "Where is it?" he asks, and Mozart points to his head. "Here, it's up here," he explained. "Now it's all just scribbling. Scribbling and bibbling and bibbling and scribbling."

Not all of Amadeus was factual, but that aspect was, according to authoritative biographies. He was able to hear complete new works in his head, not just piano pieces or string quartets but full choral and orchestral pieces. Then it was only a matter of writing them down as though taking dictation.

The ability is shown or mentioned three or four times in the movie, the most thrilling one when he recruits Salieri to be his stenographer for the Requiem. Mozart is impatient that his nemesis can't scribble fast enough. That scene is an encapsulation of the whole plot of the movie (earlier a play): Salieri in obsessive and destructive awe of Mozart's complete originality. At one point Mozart describes that an instrument section (don't remember which) should map to a theme sung by the tenor section in the chorus. Salieri first doesn't even get it because it's so out of the box. Then you see the recognition dawn on his face. He sees what is meant. Beat. He's blown away by the genius of it. He's honored for the opportunity to be present at the creation, but all the while it's also about Mozart being what Salieri knows he never can be.

Can you tell I kind of like that movie? Now I want to watch it today. Want to come over?