You can happily say all sorts of vile things - every slur that exists - about every minority on Twitter and not face any issues. But not cis. Why do you think that is? Does that sound like free speech or a biased far right platform manipulating users?
Apparently my previous reply got shadow banned by HN. Oh the irony. To repeat: the ban of cis was a reaction to the previous ban of t_r_a_n_n_y. If you are fine with the latter ban you should be fine with the former.
Organ improvisation is a remarkable art, whether or not accompanying a silent film. In any of France's great cathedrals, the foremost musical experience is to hear the "titulaire" (essentially the headline organist) improvising on whatever theme they've selected for the day - sometimes chant, sometimes a hymn tune, sometimes something entirely frivolous and inappropriate that takes on a life of its own.
Even here in the UK, where it's not such a big thing, there's often an enjoyable few minutes at evensong where the organist improvises in the gap between finishing the prelude and the choir processing in. But France does it like nowhere else. One of the finest musical experiences I've ever known was Olivier Latry, titulaire at Notre Dame, giving a recital at Worcester Cathedral. After the appointed recital, he performed a 20-minute improvisation on the hymn chosen for evensong earlier that day (Herbert Howells' "Michael"), which he had never heard before. Superb yet entirely ephemeral - like most improvisations, it was never recorded.
There are more great improvisers, in other traditions, e.g. Sietze de Vries (1), who's Dutch and improvises mainly in Northern German Baroque style (the video has an improvised fugue), and Wolfgang Seiben (2), who's German and improvises more in late Romantic/early 20th century style.
However, these improvisations differ quite a bit from theatrical improvisations. All are virtuoso, but the classical traditions emphasizes structural elements, such as a uniting theme, counter-point, and development, whereas movie accompaniment is more fragmented, and builds on common musical experience, usually popular, to evoke the right mood, and is restricted by the visuals.
Playing styles also differ quite a bit. E.g., theatre organs have all kinds of bells and whistles (literally), a complex registration system, and sometimes extra techniques such as a "second touch" which allows to play dynamic accents, which is almost impossible on church organs.
It’s second nature very quickly. Our train into Oxford leaves at ten past the hour. You find yourself thinking “oh, I’ll aim for the ten past eleven” an hour or two beforehand and organise your morning accordingly. It’s absolutely no hardship.
So far it seems to be making a noticeable, albeit modest difference. Traffic in the city centre is clearly reduced. Buses are no longer queueing for ages at the Plain (the notorious roundabout that connects East Oxford to the city centre) - in fact, bus journey times are improved throughout. There are some knock-on effects, particularly in North Oxford in the evening peak, but generally it's working well. Footfall in the city centre remains high according to official figures, and certainly it was pretty rammed yesterday when I was doing my Christmas shopping.
It's only the third congestion charge to have been implemented in the UK, after London and Durham. (The Oxford scheme thus far is a slightly watered-down version of the full "traffic filters" mentioned in the review, because of the overrunning closure of the bridge by the railway station which cuts off one of the main routes into Oxford.)
So Tolkien was right. Ignore the conspiracy theorists. Have courage and fight back. Cars in historic city centres like Oxford are not something we have to just accept.
The bridge closure is such a big impediment to travel into Oxford I haven't even bothered applying for the residents' permit...
Congestion charge is only ever going to be a minor inconvenience to Oxford city centre visitors since it's already inconvenient to drive in and driving has very little benefit considering it's very small, doesn't sell much in the way of bulky items and has a decent bus service to the suburbs and park and ride.
For UK readers, this is eerily similar to the typeface originally used on the "Thames Turbo" trains (class 165/166) from their construction in the 1990s until a refurb about five years ago - I could believe it was the same manufacturer. Some photos:
NJ Transit uses 105-segment displays. Not only do they include lowercase letters, but the uppercase and numbers are noticeably different from MUNI's 38-segment displays.
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