Posts

It’s a rare enough thing that television offers art of remarkable quality, but (imho) Battlestar Galactica — the “reimagined” series which aired beginning in 2003 — did just that. Not only in its scripts, cinematography, visual effects and acting, but also the soundracks scored by Bear McCreary and (for the pilot) Richard Gibbs. Exquisite stuff…

And some stuff you just love from the very first chord … timbre, qualities of its attack, sustain and decay, the authority with which it’s played, the key it’s played in, the instrumentation and even their arrangement, the way all these elements come together in that brief moment when sound establishes itself as music. You…

I have to admit, I’m still a bit miffed that Al Pacino won the Oscar for Scent of a Woman, essentially robbing Robert Downy Jr, who had so exquisitely channelled Charlie Chaplin that same year. But, hey, Pacino had his moments.

This is, I am So beautiful and fierce This is, violence And holy words And I swear fealty To smile beyond dignity To be kissed and salted To be kissed and salted Oh to kiss and be salted By love extreme This is Veda Hille. A pianist friend tells me her style is ‘percussive’.…

Matthews is a hell of a showman. I have a number of live versions of this song done fully-kitted out with a full complement of musicians. He and his band let it all hang out on stage and, as they say, the crowd goes wild. Which makes the essential power of this live rendition, featuring…

A high-school chum, storm-bound in DC due to the recent blizzard, posted this image on my Facebook timeline. Thinking of you! — at Capitol Lounge. Of course, it tickled me like foam on my mustache. But it also jogged loose a memory. I can’t believe it was over a decade ago. Another friend was in…

I’ve done something I haven’t done in a while. At a beautiful cabin in the remote British Columbia Chilcotins, I’ve picked up a Maclean’s news magazine. January 28, 2013 edition. A few pages and article skims in I discover a photograph of the disgraced former Prime Minister of Canada, Brian Mulroney. It spans two pages.…