The difference between Israel and the Palestinians

This is
Matthew B. Tepper's
Home Page!

Yawn!

This site was chosen Geek Site of the Day for 9 October 1995!
Like anyone cares!

Hoo hah!

It was mentioned in the February 1996 issue of Advanced Imaging.
Ancient history!

This site is proudly free of browser-crashing useless things (frames)
and time-wasting gray rectangles (Java).

As seen in BBC Music Magazine!

Extra! Extra!

Have you had it up to here with "Best of 2007" lists by record reviewers in the supposedly-legitimate press? Take the antidote by looking at my picks!

Mission Statement

The purpose of this Web site is just to Have a Good Time. While I believe in free speech, I'm not really very much of a ribbon-wearer and I definitely don't believe in parrotting other people's words when I can make my point by example. This Website has been very carefully edited for content. It may contain absolutely no cuss words, descriptions of or incitements to violence, or even anything of a ~~naughty~~ sexual nature, but don't let that fool you! While it may be considered not harmful to children for that reason alone, there is heavy use of sarcasm, irony, bitterness and cynicism here. My own feeling is that one ought to be at least twenty years old before trying to deal with some of the contents here -- but kids of that age tend to have pretty awful taste in music, and so they won't be hip to some of my primo stuff. So what are you going to do? Just consider yourself warned, and above all, Proceed With Caution!

Now that that's out of the way....

Welcome to the World Wide Web page that quacks at you! I'm trying to add something new to this site from time to time, unlike some commercial Web pages that start off really gung-ho and then kind of forget about it for a while.... You know who you are! So far, there aren't very many spiffy graphics or other things, but we'll try awfully hard to have as much fun as possible anyway.

So if you don't know who I am, who am I? Just this guy, you know. I am a Los Angeles native, yet another one of those typical computer types living in Southern California. I'm a Webhead and computer professional living in North Hollywood, the heart of the motion picture and television industries. I am a straight single male (a commodity as common as dirt, and valued nearly as highly), and I received my college education in San Francisco and Minneapolis before returning to Los Angeles. By day I provide tech support, including mostly Windows systems, but some Mac. Among my interests are classical music, science fiction, and ducks, and there is a sampling of all of these among the links on my special Links Page. Can you dig it?

In case you're curious, here's what I look like, greeting famous filmmaker Ray Harryhausen. (Photo by Chaz Boston Baden.)

Photo of
Matthew B. Tepper taken 3 February 2005

Note: These pages are enhanced (slightly) for Netscape. Yeah, yeah, it'll also work just fine in Internet Explorer, Opera, and Mozilla. There are no frames here; I certainly know how to write them, but I don't have any particular need for them here. Looking for my fabulous list of annotated links? It's on a separate page so that this home page will load faster.

Here's What There Is So Far:

Los Angeles classical music shoppers, rejoice! From Usenet (which some would prefer to call "Uselessnet"), I have now made a Web version of Mr. Tepper's Threatened List of Los Angeles Area Classical Record Stores.

At long last, my quirky commentary on the seminal science-fiction-spy series "The Prisoner" is now online, a provocative essay entitled simply, Who is Number 1? My theory.

The main attraction is still The Hector Berlioz Page, a Web site devoted to the amazing French composer Hector Berlioz (1803-1869), his life, his writings, and his music. This includes the entire text of my 1983 M.A. thesis from the University of Minnesota on performance practice of his Grande Messe des morts (also known as the Requiem). The current version of this page also includes GIFs of the composer and of his tomb, along with my recommendations of recordings of the Requiem. I have even added a complete list of the 51 recordings of the work which I own. And there will be yet more to come (someday, in my copious spare time)!

Looking for my fabulous list of annotated links? It's on a separate page so that this home page will load faster.

We Also Have:

Many other links and essays in general regarding classical music, including orchestral, concerted works, solos, chamber music, Lieder, and opera. Since I collect recordings (especially historical ones) of classical music, there will be a certain emphasis on this sort of thing. For a peek at my current record wantlist, click here. Or to see the complete text of a bylined article I had published a few years ago in the Los Angeles Times, click here.

Some select and slightly outré science fiction links, including some regarding Isaac Asimov (1920-1992), the great polymath who created several of the great classics of the field, practically in his spare time while he wasn't writing something else. If you will be satisfied with something far more modest, check out my brief review of Forward the Foundation.

All kinds of political and social ramblings. Wow! Aren't you just quivering in anticipation? Topics will include the ethical poverty of so many American politicians (with particular attention to the Republicans, and not merely because they seem to be in power right now); the plan for world domination by the purveyors of rock and so-called "popular" music; and anything else that I happen to like to rant about. (What, controversy on the World Wide Web? What is this world coming to???)

There is some much tamer content, too. For example try looking at a simple series of reviews.

John Brunner: A Remembrance, an essay written on the occasion of the passing (in August 1995) of the great English science fiction writer. Brunner, as you may know, was the first to warn us (in his novel, The Shockwave Rider, published in 1975!) of the potential dangers of world-wide computer connectivity, to wit, the computer "worm," or what we today would call a virus. And he has never been given his due by the dumb media as the true proto-founder of "Cyberpunk" literature, years before the much better-publicized William Gibson and the rest.

And speaking of things British, I found an old diskette containing a detailed journal of a trip I made to England, Scotland and Wales back in 1985. I had taken copious notes on that trip (not something I usually do) and later wrote it up as a journal entitled Happy and Glorious, and distributed this to family and friends. This is probably the single largest chunk of my writing in existence, if that matters to anybody. It is now offered here for your enjoyment.

Links to the sparse resources on the Internet regarding our web-footed friends, members of the family Anatidae, those cute little flat-billed birdies that we all know as ducks. Again, expect some pleasant pics of these charming quackers if I can get someone else to host them and help me keep my ISP from charging me extra!

The list won't end here, of course. If there's anything else I haven't thought of, rest assured that I'll eventually put it up here, so check back from time to time.

Looking for my fabulous list of annotated links? It's on a separate page so that this home page will load faster.

Looking for pictures of me? In heaven's name, why? But go ahead and try the Picture Page!

Last updated: 17 January 2009.

This page and all other original material at this site Copyright © 1995, 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010 by Matthew B. Tepper (oy@earthlink.net). All opinions are those of their author, and do not in any way reflect those of my employer.

Quack!

This is Matthew B. Tepper's Home Page!