The Tardis: Bigger on the Inside
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It’s bigger on the inside
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What’s that sound? ~ All Along the Watchtower, Bear McCreary style.
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 which produced my favourite cover of Bob Dylan’s “All Along The Watchtower” (Yes, even eclipsing Hendrix’s own definitive effort — though this effort borrows largely from it.). It’s scored by McCreary and performed by an ensemble including former members of the LA band Oingo Boingo.
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I can love that tune on the very first chord ~ Donny Hathaway
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 know that if this song doesn’t come together then the composer, or the musicians, or both, have done this chord — this perfect moment of music — an injustice.
A big blissful yes, to Donny Hathaway for I Love You More Than You’ll Ever Know. And thank you, Donny, for carrying forward what began so perfectly in a single moment. By the very first rap of the snare drum, I knew this song was there.
Normalizing Celebrity ~ On the beauty of being vs. the glamour of fame.
If Madonna were just like normal people
A fellow film colleague posted a link to a set of celebrity images. Some of those images had been photoshopped by Danny Evans to give his “artist’s impression” of what these celebrities might have looked like without makeup, hair stylists, fashion stylists, diets, personal trainers, botox and a battery of cosmetic surgery or korean plastic surgery.
The only thing that matters about celebrities to me is what kind of human being they choose to be when I work with them in the films and TV we create together. Everything else I know about them individually comes through a filter of gossip, their personal PR reps and a media hungry to cash in on their stories. Half truths and fabrications, mostly, outright lies often. I don’t pay much attention to celebrity media, so most of what I know about them is through personal interaction.
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You’re not bad. You’re just in pain ~ Scent of a Woman
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.
To be kissed and salted ~ here is a picture
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
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’. Yes. And particularly with this song, 26 Years, percussive is metaphorical. The words pound in my head, creating disparate images I make no sense of.
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Don’t Drink The Water ~ A troubadour of the first order.
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 just two acoustic guitars and Dave’s evocative voice, all the more astounding. How can just two men, Matthews and the hugely talented Tim Reynolds, in a large venue create so much energy? It’s a quality of the performers, especially Matthews, a troubadour of the first order, a true minstrel, and something of a force of nature. In the song’s quieter moments — there are just a couple — listen for the un-mic’d audience’s roar.
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Lager
Beer is Proof that God Loves Us
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 New Orleans while I manned the fort during a dreary Vancouver March. It’s a singularly moist, grey and cold month, March in Vancouver. Sometimes a several-days-long hint of summer makes a foray into March which, rather than the reprieve it might otherwise be, only makes the return of cold wet seem all the more, well, cold and wet.
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I Miss the Adulation, he said. I do not miss him, at all.
A cabin on Tyaughton
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. The headline reads simply, “He’s back.”
Brian Mulroney is out of political purgatory, and only too happy to tell Canadians (and Stephen Harper) what real leadership is.
Jethro Tull’s Journeyman ~ Kick back and enjoy the ride
I’m not sure a more fascinating and inventive song — both lyrically and musically — has ever been created about the simple act of commuting home on the train. What I really love most about Jethro Tull’s Journeyman (Heavy Horses, 1978), is the way the bass drives both the melody and cadence, right from the opening notes. Once Ian Anderson’s vocal chimes in, continue following that bass line as it takes you on merry, syncopated journey off the beaten track.
This song is richly layered in composition, instrumentation and voice (listen for Anderson’s extra gravelly voice layered over his own more sonorous takes for a wonderful vocal depth). The bouncy thematic rhythm is infused with a variety of changes and tempo riffs, a temporal temptress always keeping your attention on the periphery of the beat. All this activity makes Journeyman one of those musical pieces that provides endless hours of active listening play — there’s always some new relationship between notes, phrases, instruments to discover — but it’s also fun to just kick back and enjoy.
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