Light in the darkness
In this season of holidays that feature light in the darkness of the darkest time of year, we also have the political shadows that have descended on America. I’m going to assume that most of us are doing what we can in the political sense right now. But it does no good to brood on politics twenty-four hours a day, although sometimes it seems I come close.
I’m trying to get away from it periodically – actually, for many hours every day. I already try to walk about three miles every day. I talk to friends and family on the phone, but except for two people who are also on the right I rarely discuss politics with my friends, especially now when they are breathing sighs of relief while I’m doing nothing of the sort.
One thing I have been doing a great deal of is listening to music on YouTube, reliving other musical eras. I can fall down musical rabbit holes that last for hours and hours and hours. Is this sort of near-obsessiveness good? I don’t know, but I’ll tell you one thing: it’s very very pleasurable. It makes me smile. It even makes me dance a bit, or at least sway and stomp and sing along (softly, so as not to alarm the neighbors).
At some point I’ll be writing more about some of these musical explorations. But for now: what are you doing to relax?
ADDENDUM:
And of course, I often watch dance videos. Rehearsal videos of the Moiseyev Dance Company keep being a suggestion from YouTube, and here’s a brief clip that I love (including the music). Their speed is phenomenal:
My mix on YouTube is nice with Daryl Hall “Live from Daryl’s House.”
Been watching the dance scene between Kathleen Turner and Michael Douglas from “Romancing the Stone.”
I’ve seen three movies in the last 60 days in the theater. No one there! Love “Wild Mountain Thyme.” Check out the clip on YouTube of Emily Blunt singing. I liked the movie. Very romantic. And very Irish.
Despite being so corrosive politically YouTube is an amazing place for exploring so many things that 10-20 years ago would have been impossible or at least very expensive to do.
I have also done deep dives on many performers or genres that I maybe knew a little about but not a lot. My favorite was Sidney Bechet. I’m not a big jazz fan but I’ve listened to him so many times.
I am sitting here reading your blog and have The Fat Man on my CD player, sound turned up. Up next are some good Blues.
Hi! I’ve gotten into checkers a little bit – not in a serious way, just playing around with this one computer program, which is not a very strong player by any means, but it’s an easy dopamine hit, I suppose. The same website has various other card and simple board games; sometimes I play Whist with that, which was partly inspired by the mention in the Washington biography of his liking for it.
Musically, I work on arrangements for church here and there and trying to improve on my knowledge of Byzantine chant. There’s a Zoom seminar later tonight about tips for virtual choir rehearsals, something I’d like to implement with my church choir. Sometimes I pull up some chamber music – I mentioned Brilliant Classics the other week.
And this past week or so, I’ve taken up killing gnats. I have this peculiar infestation of these little gnats in my apartment right now. They’re not hard to catch, but every time I get one, another one turns up. I wonder if it’s the same one respawning every time. 🙂 They seem to like light, so while I sit here staring at my screens, they come by. But I can’t figure out where they’re coming from. At least they’re not coming in squadrons at a time.
When I really need a break I listen to Jane Austin audio books. I have started reading aloud the new (to me) “Jeeves and the King of Clubs” to the spouse as part of our evening ritual. It is indeed funny so far. We have already read all of PGW’s works that we can find; some multiple times. I have to get back into my daily running routine (rut?); being outside in the real world, even in winter, is a restorative for our grim political times.
Hobbies to get out of mental pressure help me, some creatively that gives a pleasure
Neo:
Do not – under any circumstances – criticize Kathleen Turner and Michael Douglas dancing. I just love that scene!!
Yes, all politics, all the time… makes at best for tiresome conversation and at worst for fanaticism.
“A fanatic is one who can’t change his mind and won’t change the subject.” Winston S. Churchill
As for music and dance, despite my disinterest in much of what passes for ‘modern’ music, I recently discovered this delightfull youtube video; “Old Movie Stars Dance to Uptown Funk” https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=M1F0lBnsnkE
I also only occasionally enjoy other bands covers of original hits but this IMO is one of the exceptions; “Milk’N Blues cover of; Miss You – The Happiest Days of Our Lives – Another Brick in The Wall – by the Stones + Pink Floyd”
I find the band’s harmonica virtuoso Indiara Sfair an exceptional talent. I’m not much of a fan of the harmonica but she makes love to her instrument and led me to realize that its not so much the instrument itself but what the artist can do with their instrument that matters.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ErHo_oCkspc
Philip Sells, do you have houseplants? Your annoying little bugs might be
fungus gnats , which can get into the soil of house plants in various sneaky ways, lay eggs there by the gazillion, and, as you say, like light. I got some in the soil of a jade plant one year and tried all kinds of things to get rid of them. Nothing worked until I covered the top of the soil of all of my plants completely with diatomaceous earth. That keeps already-laid eggs from hatching and prevents adults from laying new ones. It took a while, but they disappeared.
As for how I’m relaxing, December can be tough for me for reasons entirely unrelated to politics, as it brings some painful anniversaries. That could be why I tend to get seized with creative obsessiveness every winter. I’ve been spending my evenings and weekends up to my ears in craft projects, gift-making and artwork. And even without obsessions, I find that the combination of Christmas lights and soft Christmas music on a peaceful December evening — and with any luck, falling snow outside — will help to ease almost any pain.
I’ve been reading books, things I’ve read before which I know I will enjoy. It’s a retreat.
And praying. From the [Anglican] Evening Prayer service: “Lighten our darkness, we beseech thee, O Lord; and by thy great mercy defend us from all perils and dangers of this night…”
Here are IMO some more performances of note:
“Adam Ben Ezra – AWESOME UPRIGHT BASS SOLO” https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=pyUZh_Cbw6Q&list=WL&index=33
“Rolling in the Deep – Adele (violin/cello/bass cover) – Simply Three” https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=tt2NIDtp-Ls&list=WL&index=37
“Indiara Sfair & Arthur Sowinski – Improvisation in Cm” https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=uIss2Qmmc5k&list=WL&index=43
“O come, O come, Emmanuel – (Piano/Cello) – The Piano Guys”
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=iO7ySn-Swwc
Taste differs both in food and music, hope there’s something there for every taste.
Any time I see no sickled feet and good turn-out, I am happy.
Give me big coupe grand jetes from a very strong male that consume the whole stage, and 40 fouttees from a talented female that do the same and I will try to hide massive goosebumps & use a hand to raise my jaw back into position.
Thank you, Ballet Arizona, for such irreplaceable experiences!
3D printing wheel covers for my golf cart.
Thanks, Geoffrey Britain, for “O Come.” I love Advent music.
Kate,
You welcome. That piece is IMO one of ineffable beauty.
Hi, Mrs Whatsit. I guess they could be fungus gnats at that, but I have no plants in here. I wonder if they’ve gotten into something somewhere – maybe scraps in the garbage.
Here’s a group worth a look– Foxes and Fossils. Great harmonies.
A phenomenal cover band (group). Here’s one from a few months ago.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5J_dUt7xyro
I first saw them on Youtube years ago, and the girls were much younger then.
Something from 7 years ago.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AaqTl1jLdkE
Here’s a Gordon Lightfoot tune with just the Fossils
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VL2bRtnAi6U
And keeping it Canadian, here’s a Neil Young tune.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xA0Vl0gre6U
Sorry,
Here’s one more– maybe should be the 2020 theme song. “Don’t Worry Baby”.
As one of the comments to the song said– if Linda Ronstadt sang with the Beach Boys.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8HzOQQ32Vsw
Thank you, Geoffrey Britain for the link to Oh come, oh come Emmanuel. Beautiful. Thanks for sharing. I’ll sample your other recommendations tomorrow.
My distraction is the “shop” videos on YouTube, both metal and wood. Some deal with antique tools and how to use them. I have several woodworking tools handed down from my father and presumably his father, and now I’m slowly learning to use them. The metal work just reminds of a youth who worked in a shipyard.
There is something about making things with your hands that is pleasurable, although it can be at the same time tiring.
I’ve become a fan of Luca Stricagnoli’s acoustic guitar playing. I watch his YouTube videos but sadly there aren’t enough of them.
His cover of ‘Thriller’ is my favorite.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=zJ_pDcjICtw
It’s not music but one of my most favorite things to do when I am not at work or hiking is watching bad but entertaining movies. Helps me forget about the political crap for a time. My 11 year old daughter enjoys it too and we bond while watching them.
I discovered a YouTube channel calling Good-Bad-Flicks where a guy named Cecil makes entertaining video’s talking about why some “bad” movies are so bad they’re good. Fun stuff.
Also, I listen to the History Guy a lot too. Highly recommended.
The long dark nights are hard on me, I have to admit. I tend to time my sleep and waking with light or lack thereof. When it gets dark, I’m ready for bed. And ready to get up when it gets light. I do very well between May and September, then I begin to lag. I think the best way to handle this would be travel to Chile in October and return in May. Pity my middle daughter no longer lives there. Got in some great fishing while visiting her!
Writing our Christmas letter, I realized I only made one fishing trip this year! Covid has turned my world upside down. Fortunately, target shooting can be a solitary sport, so I’m getting in a lot of target shooting. Just developed a very respectable load for my .243 Winchester. I’m learning new things, so that’s good. Problem is, components for reloading, and even commercial ammunition, is in VERY short supply right now. Every silver lining has a dark cloud.
I’ve been listening to Vashti Bunyan’s album, “Just Another Diamond Day” from 1968. She wrote the songs while walking the north-south length of England with her boyfriend behind a a horse and cart and living rough on the road. It took them a year and a half.
So the album feels quite out of time, which is a blessing these days. One listens, relaxes and thinks of the sun, the trees, the road and a simple life. Bunyan described the experience in an interview:
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It must have been a spectacular journey.
Yes! We went through some different places and it really taught me how amazingly diverse the people of the UK were. Moving from industrial to more land, the contrasts were extraordinary. Travelling so slowly the contrasts happened very slowly, and being out in the weather you don’t realise you are getting cold – it happens so slowly that you adjust. I remember many wonderful things about that time, which I am very grateful to have.
https://www.clashmusic.com/features/vashti-bunyan-interview
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When she returned to London, she made the album, it was released to good reviews but failed to sell. Disappointed, she gave up on a musical career and raised three children.
Little did she know, however, her album had become highly sought after by collectors, garnering as much as $4000 for a copy. She also had become an influence to many new folk artists. She returned to making music in 2000 to appreciative audiences.
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Just another diamond day
Just a blade of grass
Just another bale of hay
And the horses pass
Just another field to plough
Just a grain of wheat
Just a sack of seed to sow
And the children eat
Just another life to live
Just a word to say
Just another love to give
And a diamond day
–Vashti Bunyan, “Just Another Diamond Day”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2-erNldHdV8
_____________________________________
Vashti is her given middle name, from the Book of Esther.
Many good music connections out. What I like is that now there are many old vintage performances that I tend to come back and revisit.
Rosetta Tharpe – This Train
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jOrhjgt-_Qc&ab_channel=joantgv1
Melanie – Candles in the Rain
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IZ52lk9wjZI&ab_channel=Melanie-OfficialPageofMelanieSafka
Nitty Gritty Dirt Band and Friends – Will the Circle be Unbroken
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7bRJLkNqNXI&ab_channel=Kinta-Architect
Then there are some covers that I love.
Jolene – Kygo remix
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8xpbuSZGA4c&ab_channel=CrystalClearSoundMix
Battleme – Hey Hey My My
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PbeIv39s04s&ab_channel=BoonesFrry
Then so many praise songs to relate but three of my favorite at this time.
I raise a Halleluiah
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=awkO61T6i0k&ab_channel=BethelMusic
Waymaker
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cHoGEDQQ67o&ab_channel=BethelMusic
Reckless Love
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6xx0d3R2LoU&ab_channel=BethelMusic
I’m thinking more along the lines of Neronian Festive Outdoor Illumination.
But who will pay for the Carbon Offsets?
On a happier note, the great 1976 album Cantate Domino is well worth a listen at this time of year.
Stock up before it’s banned for the last track 😀
Gordon Lightfoot was mentioned above and he is another one I’ve gone deep on. My dad wasn’t a big music lover but Gordo was one he liked and I have memories of listening to ‘Gord’s Gold’ on 8 track in the car.
Anyway, he has a song called ‘Song For A Winter’s Night’ that is amazing. He is an incredible songwriter. Rick Beato did a ‘What Makes This Song Great’ for ‘If You Could Read My Mind’ which is maybe the best episode of that series.
Alas, sports have evaporated as an escape. I do some wood working, and knitting. One of my projects is a casket. I’m a single guy with family far way and children distant. I’ll have to plan my own funeral Mass. I’m thinking the Litany of the Saints for the prelude, Schubert’s Ave Maria during communion with Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing for the recessional hymn. As a Catholic “funeral” is an adjective, and I’ll just have it at a regular daily Mass.
For the Christians or lovers of Latin Medieval chant, one of the many versions from Youtube
Gaudetet – anonim, Piate Cantones, 1582
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=prMjHYFKkGM&list=RDprMjHYFKkGM&index=1
or something in Polish
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t1-U38-gLVc&list=RDAft97Qcv3xU&index=7
To relax, I sometimes listen to Mark Steyn’s music videos. One of my favorites is his version of the Ray Stevens song, “She Only Talks That Way to the Cat.” (Harold the cat is the star of this video!)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D6j-qvO4GSk&ab_channel=MarkSteyn
More seriously, Advent/Christmas wouldn’t be complete for me without Bach’s Christmas Oratorio (Weihnachts-Oratorium)– yes, it’s long (six cantatas, 2-1/2 hours), but it’s a much-needed reprieve from the gloom of winter 2020 (to top off the misery of the churches here still being under lockdown, a major winter snowstorm is predicted to hit New England tomorrow). Listening to Bach is not the same as being physically present with my church community, but it’s still good medicine for a weary soul.
You can listen to each of the six cantatas separately. This live recording was made in 2018 in Bach’s church in Leipzig, the Thomaskirche. The choir is the Thomanerchor, the same choir he conducted during his tenure as cantor (1723–1750).
Enjoy!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hvpeG7wpHuU&ab_channel=JeanSauter
I’m blessed enough to be part of the worship team at church. The full group plays for about 20 minutes on Sundays, and a pared down group on Wednesday nights. Played in various iterations of a band for about 30 years. The feeling of worship music is similar to having a great night playing rock ‘n roll to a good crowd, only much deeper, being in the presence of the Lord, doncha know.
I had dinner last night with a new friend. She told me of her mother, who was a serious Catholic and read deeply into her faith. My friend wondered about the books her mother read which she would like to someday — including Simone Weil.
I don’t know much about Weil, but I was touched by her conversion story and the poem involved. Though Weil was raised in a secular family, she was drawn to Christianity, began praying, then repeating a poem by George Herbert to herself. She later wrote:
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[This poem] played a big role in my life, for I was busy reciting it to myself at the moment when, for the first time, Christ came to take me. I believed I was merely resaying a beautiful poem, and unbeknownst to myself, it was a prayer.
___________________________________
It’s a poem I come back to when I need to be reminded of certain things. It is a prayer.
___________________________________
Love (III)
Love bade me welcome. Yet my soul drew back
Guilty of dust and sin.
But quick-eyed Love, observing me grow slack
From my first entrance in,
Drew nearer to me, sweetly questioning,
If I lacked any thing.
A guest, I answered, worthy to be here:
Love said, You shall be he.
I the unkind, ungrateful? Ah my dear,
I cannot look on thee.
Love took my hand, and smiling did reply,
Who made the eyes but I?
Truth Lord, but I have marred them: let my shame
Go where it doth deserve.
And know you not, says Love, who bore the blame?
My dear, then I will serve.
You must sit down, says Love, and taste my meat:
So I did sit and eat.
–George Herbert
Music is always a comfort in bad times. I’m a jazz guy, so:
Stan Getz, John Coltrane, and Oscar Peterson, “Hackensack” (live in Dusseldorf, 1960): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=042TqBPXkUc
Gerry Mulligan and Ben Webster, “Who’s Got Rhythm” (live on the Dinah Shore Show, 1962): https://youtu.be/kMSzRYULc7U?t=219. Henry Kissinger on drums.
Jo Stafford, “The Gentleman is a Dope” (late 1950s): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jUFO2tUBV4c
Count Basie and Helen Humes, “I Cried for You” (1950): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jUFO2tUBV4c
The Count Basie big band, “Dickie’s Dream” (from “The Sound of Jazz”, CBS, 1957): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rqmhF_p415c. Cameos by Billie Holiday and Jimmy Rushing.
Margot Bingham (“Boardwalk Empire”) and the Boilermakers, “Somebody Loves Me” (William Penn Hotel, Pittsburgh, 2013): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dkd8adM3ngk
That’s the kind of music this country used to make. Now we have Cardi B.
And for something different, Soviet-Armenian baritone Pavel Lisitsian sings Yeletsky’s aria from Tchaikovsky’s “The Queen of Spades” (1952): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ipf1ufoE7wg. Compare with Hvorostovsky (with English subtitles): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W8zKkvGB7Rw. Hvoro was better looking, but Lisitsian was the better singer.
Reading. Working on a couple of pre-“Forrest Gump” novels by the late Winston Groom. Both set in Mobile. Groom was a darn good writer.
Loading ammo. The masculine equivalent of knitting. F is right: components are getting harder to find. As for factory ammunition, forget it. Fortunately, I laid in some reloading supplies before COVID and Biden. My favorite caliber is 6.5 Swede, but I recently picked up a Carcano carbine for fun and have been experimenting with 6.5 Carcano loads. It’s easier to find components for oddball calibers. And of course handgun ammo. Spent the weekend loading 9mm, then did some .45 ACP earlier today. All going into storage.
Driving around the countryside. East Alabama is pretty this time of year. The pecan trees, the cotton waste by the roadside, the sunsets over the fields–it’s not New England, but it has its own kind of charm.
I bird watch and photograph them. I go to the enormous effort to look out the window.
This time of the year I can easily see a thousand ducks taking off in a panic because an eagle flew over. The ducks feed here, sleep here, bath here and mate here. The dabblers feed on all you can eat sand shrimp and escargot (not kidding) and whole grain, the veggie eaters eat our eel grass and seaweed, the clam eaters feast on Little Neck clams and the fish eaters on salmon and trout fingerlings and flat fish all 50-150 feet from my window.
The eagles mostly live on ducks this time of year though I have seen them drown Cormorants and Loons and then swim them ashore using their wings like oars. I usually see multiple eagle attacks every day. The duck usually outlasts the eagle about 4 times out of 5.
The day after Thanksgiving seven-swans-a-swimming came by to check out the eats (three white adults and four blue grey juvies). We don’t see that many swans since the gov returned beavers to Beaver Valley against the will of the property owners because their flooded fields are more popular with the swans and also there has been an absolute explosion the goose and duck populations in the last ten years.
Here are all the birds I have seen out the window this year (and yes my wife wrote a bird watching app):
American Crow, American Goldfinch, American Robin, American White Pelican, American Wigeon
Bald Eagle, Band-tailed Pigeon, Barn Swallow, Belted Kingfisher, Black-headed Grosbeak, Brewer’s Blackbird, Brown-headed Cowbird, Bufflehead
California Gull, Canada Goose, Common Goldeneye, Common Loon, Common Merganser, Common Raven, Common Tern
Dark-eyed Junco, Dunlin
European Starling
Gadwall, Glaucous-winged Gull, Golden-crowned Sparrow, Great Blue Heron, Great Horned Owl, Greater Scaup, Greater Yellowlegs, Green-winged Teal
House Finch, House Wren
Killdeer
Lesser Scaup
Mallard, Merlin, Mew Gull, Mourning Dove
Northern Flicker, Northern Harrier, Northern Pintail, Northern Shoveler
Osprey
Pacific Wren, Pelagic Cormorant, Pileated Woodpecker, Purple Martin
Red-breasted Merganser, Red-tailed Hawk, Red-throated Loon, Ringed-billed Gull, Rock Pigeon, Rufous Hummingbird
Sharp-shinned Hawk, Song Sparrow, Spotted Towhee, Steller’s Jay
Tree Swallow, Trumpeter Swan, Turkey Vulture
Varied Thrush, Violet-green Swallow
Western Grebe, Western Gull, White-crowned Sparrow, Winter Wren
Thank you all for the respite.
Here are some lights actually shining in the darkness.
Intel’s Holiday Show.
I don’t normally hide links, but the URL gives away the secret of how it’s done, and I think you might have fun trying to guess.
The music is more modern than I am, but perhaps I will watch again while riffling through the playlist suggested by Geoffrey.
This is a very timely and good post. I am still working full time so that keeps me busy on stuff other than politics most of Monday through Friday. In the evenings my wife and I usually watch an episode or two of shows we are currently into (Queen’s Gambit (finished) and Undoing). I also watch shows that she does not have an interest in (Wayne). And I read, currently on Erik Larson’s Churchill book, “The Splendid and the Vile: A Saga of Churchill, Family, and Defiance During the Blitz”.
During the day on weekends we usually take a trip up to assess the progress on the house we are having built. We also go for walks along the shore here in southern Maine. Living in a rental, with all my tools in storage, I miss disappearing into my workshop for hours at a time.
Getting out for a walk of some length every day helps with my mood and allows me to maintain a positive attitude.
Brian E: Foxes and Fossils are great! I discovered them about a year ago. If, and when, things return to “normal” I’m going to encourage my daughter who lives in Atlanta to go see them.
For myself, I spend more time playing guitar than watching videos. I played in college and have spent the last year getting back into it. I play about 40m-hour a day trying to get songs down, and taking on the occasional new one. And yes, most all are from the the 60s, 70s, early 80s though with some more recent country thrown in; classic Boomer stuff. I have a Martin acoustic and Fender Strat. My best that I can play without major mistakes are Cinnamon Girl (Neil Young) and Nights in White Satin where I can proudly play the flute solo in the middle break on the guitar. Working hard, and getting close, to getting The Boxer down.
My other escape is flight simulation. I was briefly a private pilot 40 years ago until it was too expensive and have been flying on the computer since. I spent about $300 two years ago for time on a level-C 737 sim to test what I could do and successfully landed an ILS approach. Tied into that I volunteer at the New England Air Museum (neam.org) as a docent. We just installed a level-D C172 sim which I am now head docent.. All great distractions from the shit storm brewing around us.
Chases Eagles,
I am no bird watcher but about a month ago, the Ball and Chain and I watched a movie called ‘Big Year’*. I loved it, she didn’t: I tend to like quirkier things while she likes thrillers or crime procedurals.
It introduced me to a whole culture of birding that I had no idea existed! Fascinating.
On my weekends, my son and I hike frequently and far. I also lead hiking excursions in the Adirondacks. I see quite a few bald and golden eagles. I once saw an owl (with a massive wingspan) dive bomb a hiker’s head and miss it by about an inch. The resulting wing flapping and wind terrified the poor girl. I don’t know why it did it nor do I know what kind of owl it was, since I am no bird expert. But the time was dusk and we were all just about to get our headlamps out. And then this silent shadow moved over the hikers on the trail and dove. It was nuts. Never seen anything like it.
*For the non-birders or bird watchers, it is about a yearly competition by enthusiasts to get their Big Year and see and document, on the honor system, as many unique bird sightings in North America as they possibly can. The Big Year thing is for real while the movie is kind of a weird romantic-comedy based around the competition.
1) This is just a personal position, but I am endlessly amused when I go through music and find some, well, “fuddyduddy” who says, “They don’t make good music like that any more…”. I usually quip about how Plato said the same thing about the music of Aristotle’s generation… The simple fact is, that every generation produces a lot of Pop garbage. There was Pop garbage even in Mozart’s time… The problem is, if you aren’t looking for something better, what you HEAR is… the Pop garbage. As we get older, we stop visiting the music store, our friends stop visiting the music store (or Spotify, Or Alternative Music web pages — whatever you like to use today), and so we lose the connection with better grades of music… and most forget that they had to LOOK for great music to find it… It seems we adults have other things — family, work, life in general — which take up that time we spent formerly looking for Great New Stuff in the music catalogs. Keeping Up in music is generally tough, but it can be done somewhat. But you shouldn’t assume that the garbage of today is representative. Even the sixties had garbage, and that was probably the best decade for garbage. “Sugar Sugar” is pop garbage. It’s not awful pop garbage, it’s *fun* at least, but… it’s still garbage. Hall and Oates, in the 80s, was similar… fun, but still pop garbage (don’t get me wrong, I enjoy both The Archies and Hall and Oates)
2) To that end, I will offer some “newer” bands or songs I think you might try out (90s & 00’s. Haven’t found a reliable source for stuff post 2010, really — “open to suggestions”). They are stylistically all over the place. I’ve noticed that I do like something called “breakbeats” (look it up) but even that is only a segment of what I like. It’s a pretty seriously eclectic list, so, if you dislike one, don’t assume you dislike others.
Chances are, you’ve never heard of any of these. AGAIN: They vary all over the place. Deadbolt is “Voodoo Rockabilly”. FC Kahuna is electronic. Madrugada is the best band to ever come out of Norway. Blur is better known for being the main part of Gorillaz, a “virtual” band (one of Blur’s songs was a popular commercial jingle for Toyota) . Conjure One and Kosheen are both strong on those breakbeats I mentioned. Hafdis Huld, Leigh Nash, Marie-Claire D’ubaldo, and Poe are all great female singers.
Good luck finding things you like.
Madrugada
Conjure One
Kosheen
Blur
Morphine
Cake
Poe
Tool/A Perfect Circle
The Cardigans
Deadbolt
Delirium
Eels
FC Kahuna
Five Finger Death Punch
The God Machine
Hafdis Huld
Idlewild
Interpol
Kashmir
Kings of Leon
Eagles of Death Metal
Leigh Nash
Mark Lanegan
Marie Claire D’Ubaldo (she has one song that is like Miami Sound Machine. The rest is much more distinct)
Mew
Midnight Choir
Monster Magnet
Motorpsycho
Muse
Nick Cave
Pavement
Queens of the Stone Age
Sixpence None The Richer
The Soundtrack of Our Lives
Turin Brakes
The Walkabouts
Amazing dancing !!!
Have always wondered how the Russian male dancers have all not exploded and destroyed their knee caps.
OBH:
Fuddyduddyism: guilty as charged! Thanks for the suggestions, especially the contemporary female vocalists. Some of them I do know about; will explore the others. One you didn’t list is Jane Monheit:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p_glfkvxvJ4
BTW: corrected the fuddyduddy link for Basie and Helen Humes:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=psP_6qn360o
Still good stuff.
Physics Guy-
When I was a kid my mother forced me to piano lessons– but she finally gave up. I wanted to be out playing baseball, not sitting doing finger exercises! Alas, I reduced to listening to music rather than making it. (I did sing in the church choir for years).
All the good music is written for tenors, and I’m octave challenged to baritone, so there’s that. My dream was to sing Keith Green’s “Prodigal Son Suite” as I was a prodigal son.
I’m a Moodie, so good for you. One of my favorites is “Melancholy Man” on their seventh album (I think). It was a shame when Pinder left the band. He was a very talented guy.
I took flight lessons when in college (I went to the local community college for a couple of quarters and they had an aviation program). I got 30 hours but then moved on. They wouldn’t let anyone take their private until 60 hours to discourage folks from just signing up for that, since it was really cheap at the time.
I had to look up what a c and d simulator are. Quite impressive! I have several friends with planes and they say it’s not that expensive– but I think they bought the back when they were affordable. I never thought I would use the license so I never pursued finishing getting my license.
I’m more of a car guy and years ago raced hobby stock cars at the local circle track. It was great fun– though I spent more hours every week keeping the car running than driving.
I discovered autocross 15 years ago, and I do have an XP car (allows lots of modifications). The car is broke and I started remodeling house on the side, so that’s cut into my racing.
F and F are amazing. Even though you can listen to the originals, it’s remarkable how accomplished they are and their arrangement make the songs new again.
Merry Christmas
So ballet includes tap?
Re: fuddyduddy…
OBloodyHell, Hubert:
Sure, some good music and much bad music will always be with us, but that doesn’t mean all eras are equal. The peaks vary and the valleys too.
Has there been any classical music composed in the past 100 years that compares with Bach or Beethoven? Likewise rock in the past 20 years with the Beatles or Stones?
Not really.
Which doesn’t means one shouldn’t branch out and try newer stuff (I do) but don’t expect to find the latest Bach or Beatles in the batch.
Simple music.
https://youtu.be/d4nD9WTLao4
We won’t be sleeping on our own tonight.
The star that guides us is still shining bright.
In the darkness there will always be a light.
I think I know now what is wrong and what is right.
huxley said, “Has there been any classical music composed in the past 100 years that compares with Bach or Beethoven?”
I believe John Williams has composed some symphonic music for film scores that will some day be looked at in much the same way we look at Bach, Beethoven and Mozart. Or listened to, as it were.
Lately I’ve been comparing different versions of Rimsky-Korsakov’s “Scheherazade.” Amazon Prime gives me free access to several of the top-rated recordings. In the past I didn’t want to spend the money on multiple versions, so I didn’t bother.
Truth to tell I don’t notice that much difference between classical recordings except for the more eccentric versions or mediocre ones. For instance, Glenn Gould’s 1983 “Bach: Goldberg Variations” is so slow at times I find myself on the edge of my seat in a good way. (And then there’s Gould’s humming, which only he could get away with.) On the mediocre side — those $6 Naxos CDs which in the 1980s were definitely budget items.
Anyway it’s a fun exercise for the pieces you love.
As to R-K’s “Scheherazade” — the new kid on the block is the Valery Gergiev/Kirov Symphony (2002) which is impressive, but seems overwrought at times and I go back to the more conventional Ormandy and Beecham versions. I might change my mind though.
huxley:
Here’s my 2016 post on Gould, his humming, and his two different versions of “The Goldberg Variations.”
I believe John Williams has composed some symphonic music for film scores that will some day be looked at in much the same way we look at Bach, Beethoven and Mozart. Or listened to, as it were.
Fractal Rabbit: Could be. Though I was thinking of classical classical music, if you take my meaning.
One answer to the decline of the novel and classical music is that much top talent was lured to Hollywood for the pay.
“Fractal Rabbit: Could be. Though I was thinking of classical classical music, if you take my meaning.”
I understand. However, it has long been my theory, and it has made it into two of my novels, that in about 500 years, certain quality music will all be ‘classical classical’ if you catch my meaning, whether its symphonic or not. A music teacher might mention Bach and John Williams and then swing over to someone like Brian Wilson.
Anyone who uses YouTube, Facebook, Instagram or Google, or any of the other “social” media is an accessory to the corruption of America via the censorship these media exercise. Convenience in accessing the (!) Bolshoi Ballet is a seduction.
Sorry to be blunt, Neo, but even Hillary said talking to Zuckerberg was talking to an authoritarian.
huxley: listen to Brahms’ double concerto for cello and violin and be awed!
Yes, first performed in 1887 so does not pass your 100 year milepost.
But Benjamin Britten does, dying in 1976.
neo:
Great Gould Goldberg in the morning! Excellent post.
There is a company, Zenph Studios, which has come up with an intriguing technology to recreate music from old recordings, not by massaging the old audio, but by turning it into a sort of digital music roll which can be “played” on a current piano then recorded. Incredibly sophisticated stuff.
One of the first demos Zenph did was giving Gould’s 1955 Goldberg the treatment. That’s one way to get rid of Gould’s humming! But other than that I can’t tell much difference. (I do not have audiophile ears.) Still, quite a feat.
–“Is It Live … or Yamaha? Channeling Glenn Gould”
https://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/12/arts/music/12conn.html
–Bach Goldberg, Gould (1955). ZENPH Re-performance (2006). Remaster (2017)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LNOD1p4dGbs
Huxley:
“Has there been any classical music composed in the past 100 years that compares with Bach or Beethoven?”
Well, since you ask: I would rank Richard Strauss’ Four Last Songs (1948), Howard Hanson’s Symphony No. 2 (1930–getting close to the 100-year mark), Leonard Bernstein’s Fancy Free (1944), Shostakovich’s Piano Quintet Op. 57 (1940), and Arvo Part’s Fratres (1976) and Tabula Rasa (1977) pretty highly. Not as highly as Bach, Beethoven, Mozart, or Schubert, but in the same constellation.
“For instance, Glenn Gould’s 1983 “Bach: Goldberg Variations” is so slow at times I find myself on the edge of my seat in a good way.”
Thanks to Neo for linking back to her 2016 post on the two recordings. As a true fuddyduddy, I still prefer the original 1955 recording (harrumph).
Fractal Rabbit:
“I believe John Williams has composed some symphonic music for film scores that will some day be looked at in much the same way we look at Bach, Beethoven and Mozart.”
Good reminder about film music. I’d add Bernard Herrmann’s Hitchcock scores to the list, especially the score for “Vertigo” (1958).
huxley:
Wow, that’s interesting.
Cicero:
It’s not ballet and it’s not the Bolshoi. It’s the Russian folk dance troupe the Moiseyev that I’ve written about several times.
I understand your point about YouTube. But I still use it and it has brightened my life tremendously. I don’t use any form of social media, however.
I tend to agree since I am not sure how you would even define “classical” music in order to comport with Huxley’s tentative definition unless you defined it around compositions related to the invention of the pianoforte/forte piano through to the modern instrument. But … as Huxley said “Bach”.
And I would drop the bears-comparison-with-Beethoven standard for the most part as some phenomena simply have no exact peer being triggered in part by some new turn of events or potentials. For example, what philosopher have the centuries produced to compare with Aristotle or Plato? What philosopher did the ancient world produce to compare with them?
So then …. many people. like yourself I would suppose, and if so I would join you, would broaden the term “classical” music, to “symphonic music” having a certain, if subjective, seriousness of compositional purpose, in order to address the question.
Absent that, it becomes difficult -at least for me – to figure out what could become a “classic” in the sense of spanning the ages, in less than 100 years.
Huxley indicates that he figures that Hollywood sucked some of the oxygen out of the classical music field; and depending on whether you would include Hollywood adapted compositions as potentially classical or not, he might well be right.
But for my money entire swaths of serious music, i.e. modern “classical” music are not worth listening to apart from didactic purposes anyway. That includes not only Eastern European Anxiety music [not for any reason], those “studies” for the classical guitar so beloved of John Williams [the guitarist not the composer], and atonal music, but also masses of solo piano performances.
I guess in order to clarify somewhat we might ask ourselves if Tchaikovsky, or Brahms qualify as classical, as they are not, to my limited knowledge anyway, groundbreaking in their techniques or compositional structures, but were squarely within the European symphonic tradition.
Brahms -admittedly 19th century and not in the last 100 years – certainly “compares” somewhat in sound to Beethoven, and has probably sent many others than myself scrambling through the Beethoven catalog trying to discover which Beethoven symphony that movement was from
If then, Brahms 1st symphony 4th movement https://youtu.be/JWuVEFwT5fw?t=169 … is “classical”, then Concierto de Aranjuez in the last 100 years, and for my money comparably serious and professional, probably can be considered to be so too.
Then, maybe, eventually, movie themed compositions such as William Walton’s, Richard III [ who might be who you were actually thinking of as you typed John Williams] or even Prokofiev: Troika – Lieutenant Kije https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mq3hRVAC1GE
And what does one do with Tchaikovsky? It’s nearly Christmas and time for the Nutcracker Suite. Light classical? Just symphonic fun for kids? If you put it in the “classical” category -though not comparing it in power to Beethoven, what then are you to do with Victor Herbert’s March of the Toys? hahahaha
My guess is that there has never been a period in human history that produced as much quality popular music as that which was produced in the western world between 1850 and 1970. And that some of that music, orchestral jazz songbook standards maybe, will be eventually considered core and “classical” if our civilization survives the barbarism of the grunting nihilistic morons currently setting the social tone.
huxley; DNW; Fractal Rabbit:
Does “Rhapsody in Blue” (1924) or the opera “Porgy and Bess” (1934-1935) count?
Neo:
forgive my hasty “ballet” error. I do not like ballet, so zipped right past.
YouTube does NOT run on empty. In that sense, harvesting and selling personal information, it is one of the social media. It knows all about you!
Re: …classical music, Bach, Beethoven, etc.
Keep in mind that I was using B&B as peak examples of the early strength of classical music with an eye on the gradual, but steady decline of the form. Not to say that nothing notable ever came after B&B.
Speaking for myself, I love the Russians into the 20th century — Tchaikovsky, Rimsky-Korsakov, Rachmaninoff, Stravinsky, Khachaturian, some Prokofiev. Also Satie, and the later minimalists like Philip Glass, John Adams and Terry Riley.
Though I don’t quite see them in the same league as B&B.
I was addressing the fuddyduddy point that just because there’s always some good music versus lots of bad music, that doesn’t mean all eras are pretty much the same in distribution.
Otherwise, there would be equivalents to, say, Bach and Beethoven in the past 100 years. There have been some high notes, here and there, but nothing like the sustained genius of B&B.
For some time I have puzzled over what seemed to me the steady decline of the arts, not just classical music. I first noticed it in poetry, then I saw it happening in rock.
I found this quote in a college text that everyone was carrying around in the 1970s.
__________________________________________
But in art, a school once established normally deteriorates as it goes on. It achieves perfection in its kind with a startling burst of energy… But once it is achieved, there is a melancholy certainty of decline.
–R.G. Collingwood (quoted in “A Concise History of Modern Painting”, by Sir Herbert Read)
__________________________________________
Anyway, it’s fun to kick this stuff around. I appreciate hearing other people’s favorites.
@ Hubert
Good catches. Hansen’s piece reminds me of Holst (Jupiter bringer of Jolity) or maybe Mussorgsky: insofar that it is through one part of one work that most of us – not saying you – would recognize the composer.
And in my case, I probably would never have come across either Hansen or Holst but through Hollywood soundtracks. Well Holst, through classical radio maybe.
Mussorgsky, like Debussy too, though best known to many by one or two works, most of us have probably heard played live and in concert, if only in H.S. or college or something.
Last time I heard Clair de lune played was two and a half years ago on a Sunday afternoon; played by a volunteer, a young – Chinese I think she might have been – woman on a piano in the 4 story atrium of the hospital where my father lay dying. I had gotten a coffee at the ground floor Starbucks and was returning to his room with it, when passing by, I paused to listen as she began. She played strongly and with feeling, though from sight and with almost imperceptible hesitations – which somehow, someway, seemed to add to the power of her performance. I was mightily impressed.
Along with her relatives, an audience of half a dozen, I quietly applauded her as I moved to leave, giving her a thumbs-up as well. She smiled back, placed her hands in a “prayer” attitude, and bowed.
neo on December 16, 2020 at 6:57 pm said:
Yeah for my money the first, and maybe even the second. Strange how the reputation of Rhapsody has plummeted in the last decades according to the knowing knowers I read some few years ago. I don’t remember why. Probably judged as too accessible, too white, too triumphantly American and somehow appropriative or derivative in inspiration.
Speaking of appropriation and showboating. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vPR3X9AjhaU
neo, DNW: Count me in for “Rhapsody in Blue.”
I suspect DNW’s take is accurate on its loss of reputation. Or maybe it was contaminated by Woody Allen’s decision to use it in “Manhattan”!
Yeah. I put this link up before. But with Neo’s indulgence …
https://youtu.be/HKdUMNdUHBo?list=RDHKdUMNdUHBo&t=1880
Huxley,
Re. R.G.
No more references to the great unknown man, the largely unrecognized genius of philosophical/historical thought, please. There may be unworthy visitors to this site who will see his name, read, repent of their stupidity and avoid intellectual damnation. Let them die in their ignorance.
Here’s an interesting list of American composers, which I found while I was trying to remember Samuel Barber’s marvelous “Adagio for Strings” (1936). The list contains straight classical plus movie classical and modern classical.
https://www.classicfm.com/music-news/pictures/composer/4-july-tribute-americas-greatest-composers/morten-lauridsen/
And here’s the Barber:
–Samuel Barber – Adagio for Strings
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=izQsgE0L450
There may be unworthy visitors to this site who will see his name, read, repent of their stupidity and avoid intellectual damnation. Let them die in their ignorance.
DNW: That’s what Jonah said when God told him to preach to the Ninevehites! Which is why Jonah fled and got swallowed by the whale.
The ending is wonderful. God provides Jonah a castor oil plant to give Jonah shade. Jonah loves the plant for its comfort. Then …
______________________________________________
7. But at dawn the next day, God ordained that a worm should attack the castor-oil plant, and it withered.
8. Next, when the sun rose, God ordained that there should be a scorching east wind; the sun beat down so hard on Jonah’s head that he was overcome and begged for death, saying, “I might as well be dead as go on living.”
9. God said to Jonah, “Are you right to be angry about the castor-oil plant?” He replied, “I have every right to be angry, mortally angry!”
10. Yahweh replied,
`You are concerned for the castor-oil plant which has not cost you any effort and which you did not grow, which came up in a night and has perished in a night.
11. So why should I not be concerned for Nineveh, the great city, in which there are more than a hundred and twenty thousand people who cannot tell their right hand from their left, to say nothing of all the animals?”
–Jonah 4:7-11
I love the way God leaves Jonah to choose between life and self-righteousness. It’s a deep question, very applicable to our times.
I recommend folks go a bit out of the way to hear Barber’s Adagio in its original setting as the second movement of his String Quartet in B minor, op.11.
https://youtu.be/MgZlwbLt8UQ
Also can recommend people listen to Heitor Villa Lobos’ entire Bachianas Brazilieras series (9 suites, I think), and then his 5 Preludes for guitar.
Heck, for kicks some Tom Jobim too, say Aguas de Marco with Elis Regina!
https://youtu.be/E1tOV7y94DY
DNW:
Probably ye olde cultural appropriation.
I think it’s also envy. Too much genius.
Neo, DNW and huxley,
Definitely ‘Rhapsody in Blue’!
Gershwin is always welcome on my stereo…er…iPhone playlist. ‘Porgy and Bess’ is a tough sell for me but only for personal reasons. Like much music (jazz and blues for example), I can objectively understand why people enjoy it even while it does nothing for me. If we’re talking opera, my favorite will always be ‘La Traviata’ with ‘Carmen’ a close second.
Now, the one musical genre that I have always unreservedly loved, more than any other (even classical) is Big Band. At 45 years old, my playlist always gets odd looks from my peers, but I never get tired of the Big Band. Makes me feel like I was born way too late.
Cicero:
YouTube certainly knows my viewing habits. It probably also knows about where I live. I’m not sure what else it knows, though, since I don’t have Facebok and I generally use Yahoo for email.
I just assume that a lot of internet behemoths know a lot about me.
But not everything 🙂 .
Yes, well, I don’t want God to have a whale swallow me or be accused by flitting devils of being the selfish, indifferent to the suffering of others bastard that I am. So, ok.
Although I do not know that I would agree with everything the man wrote, at the time I took my degree and came across his writings from two and more generations before, it was if he had anticipated, analyzed, and integrated coherent responses to the acidic problems in historical interpretation and metaphysical construction left by the radical empirical reductionists years before more modern theorists began their fumbling attempts to “save the appearances”, i.e., of the human agent and product of mind.
Reading R.G. Collingwood, Michael Oakeshott, and J.L. Austin was a revelation to me in the face of what seemed to be an irrefutable and triumphant nihilism at the time I graduated. There, even if you did not fully agree were men who had minds to be reckoned with.
They had some of the same intellectual impact on me many people presently get less formally from the writings of C.S. Lewis, or Etienne Gilson when they find themselves confronting the intellectual tyranny of received and unquestioned secular wisdom.
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/collingwood/
Totally ignored in the discussion is the Opera or Operetta or Musical.
My favorite musical is The Music Man, partly because I had a huge crush on Shirley Jones. Great music, entertaining story line– and what’s not to like about the Hawkeye state.
Meredith Wilson never duplicated that triumph. I didn’t know until I started listening to old time radio that Wilson’s band was on the Burns and Allen show for years. Good arranger, and I think he often wove Gershwin into the intro for the band’s weekly offering.
And I always thought of Rhapsody in Blue as the American version of classic symphony. But then I only took Appreciation of Music 101.
He borrowed too many jazz elements for today’s wokeness?
Also, isn’t symphonic music just centuries old version of amplified music today?
This was a long thread to get through. I was glad to find some mention of music I liked, eventually, Interpol in particular, then at least some mention of Prokofiev, Adams, Riley and Glass.
Bela Bartok and Olivier Messiaen are notable omissions, from my point of view.
I tuned out on politics when the Netflix series I’m involved with got into post-production a couple of weeks ago. The main exception I make is checking the Bloggingheads weekly podcasts of Robert Wright and Mickey Kaus, plus the less-frequent pairing of Glenn Loury and John McWhorter. I don’t entirely agree with any of them, but… close enough.
I still check this blog, Neo, but almost never comment anymore. The character and tenor of the blog has really changed from what it was a few years ago.
DNW: I’ve only seen excerpts of Collingwood. I’ll check your link.
“Metaphilosophy”! Yummy.
I just appeared to drop this link, https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1998/10/misunderstanding-gershwin/377252/, and then disappear for the night.
But lo and behold Miklos, who I have long been wondering about, finally reappears … and for the good in my estimation; despite the fact that we have never been pally by any stretch of the imagination.
But because I have almost always enjoyed reading his relatively rare contributions, I hereby promise to do my part to make Neo’s site more inviting and improve the tenor of the discourse. I hereby promise, to forgo a comment, or even two, for each one that miklos000rosza contributes.
Being as morally autistic, insensitive, and thick skinned as I am, he could call me insulting names and demand I forgo four, is that’s what it would take.
Seriously … he could do Neo’s blog some good.
Re: Big band…
Fractal Rabbit:
An Ellington piece, “Fleurette Africaine,” has haunted me since the first time I heard it in 1977. There are many versions, including big band, but it’s the solo piano which got me. It’s only four minutes long; I could listen to it for hours.
–Duke Ellington, “Fleurette Africaine” (live in Paris 1971)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=axRbLC-U10Q
So cool that Ellington was still performing in the 70s. I didn’t know.
sdferr, miklos000rosza:
Good to hear from both of you again!
OBloodyHell, at your suggestion I listened to Madrugada. They are good. Bullfight on the fjords? 🙂
huxley
So cool that Ellington was still performing in the 70s. I didn’t know.
I heard Ellington at Newport @New York Jazz Festival in 1972, and at Newport @Newport in 1968. Also Mercer Ellington leading the Ellington band in Tucumán, Argentina in 1980. I’ll never forget the name of Ellington’s singer in 1968: Fire Red.
(I went to the Tucumán concert with friend A, who courtesy of an usher friend, got us into the concert without paying. Not that I intended that- I was along for the ride. The next day, in talking w Friend B, who didn’t know Friend A, he mentioned to me that he had also snuck into the concert. These were university students. Perhaps this is an indication of the Argentine affinity for the vivo, the sharp operator…he who cuts corners. Definitely saw it in their business practices. And politics.)
Ko Ko is one of my favorite Ellington songs.
The Mooche is another. There is plenty more, but I better stop.
An aside on John Williams: his dad Johnny was the drummer in Raymond Scott’s “Quintette” (which here for flavor — https://youtu.be/YfDqR4fqIWE ) and worked with Scott for many years. Williams heard band practices and performances throughout his youth. Little doubt where his StarWars cantina scene music came from.
“I love this family.”
miklos:
Welcome back.
As for the character and tenor of the blog changing, do you mean in general or something specific, the posts or the comments or both? One change I’m certainly aware of is that times are far more depressing, and the blog – posts and comments as well – can’t help but reflect that fact to a certain extent. But I’m not sure if that’s the sort of thing you’re talking about.
Take a look at the Virsky dance group from Ukraine. We were breathless after their show in Kyiv. So much fun!
Griffin says,
Since this is a test, and no cheating … “Rose of Picardy”, if I recall. I’m trying to think of who he – I think it was Bechet – had a famous duet recording with. Armstrong? Grappelli? Maybe not.
Cornhead said,
I should probably spare everyone the report of how much as a late teen I actively despised, as violently as I did Elton John, Hall and Oates. Must have been mid 70s. First time I saw their albums anyway. But that sets the turn, up.
Imagine my own surprise then, when I stumbled across Cornhead’s discovery for myself, and upon recognizing Todd Rundgren’s name and noting the beautiful scenery backdrop, clicked on the “play” arrow. Apart from an urge to shout at Todd to get himself a pair of trousers intead of wrapping his loins in an “afghan” or sofa throw, I found the “I saw the Light” video pretty impressive, with good, and good natured musicianship, and real production values. Same goes for Feliciano-as-guest videos, and still another video of Hall performing “Our Day Will Come”. That is about all I watched, but the channel might repay a visit.
Glad to have something positive to say about the guy after all these years. And what a great house site …
DNW:
Though I’m a Glass fan, I missed “The Photographer,” — about Edward Muybridge wiki tells me.
–Philip Glass – The Photographer ( HQ)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HKdUMNdUHBo
Lovely YouTube comment from Bobby Watson:
______________________________________________
The best compliment I can pay Philip Glass is my 3yo daughter dancing to this like crazy and screaming with sheer joy
______________________________________________
Somehow Glass manages to thread the needle between satisfying the high avant-poobahs and ordinary listeners. He does so IMO with decent melodies, rhythms and orchestration hypnotically framed by minimalist repetition.
This is a good time of year for watching movies. My movie recommendation for 2020 is “Hamilton: An American Musical” – streaming on Disney Plus since July.
What a year! Impeachment, covid, lockdowns, George Floyd riots, the 2020 election. “Hamilton” is good entertainment about the past, a source of perspective on the present, and a wellspring of wisdom for the future.
How about that 1800 election? That was a wild one! Story told in “Hamilton.” Is America racist? Not according to “Hamilton.” How should we run the country going forward? “Hamilton” reminds us to ground ourselves in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.
Sure, “Hamilton” isn’t perfect. It treats Thomas Jefferson unnecessarily poorly. The creators of the musical aren’t perfect. They showed their flaws when they lectured Vice President Pence for attending. No one is perfect. President Trump has done great things, but he has faults, too. Alexander Hamilton wasn’t perfect. In spite of all that, there are lessons in “Hamilton” that can help the country through this difficult time. Both the left and the right can benefit from the lessons in “Hamilton: An American Musical.”
More thoughts here:
https://switchelphilosopher.blog/2020/07/16/hamilton-an-american-musical/