I listened to this song by Laura Marling called "New Romantic" and even though the melody on this song is quite simple - what I mean is that the chords she plays on her guitar are repetitive - yet, when she mixes in her voice the melody becomes quite pleasing.
The video itself seems simple at first - a gal sitting in a stark room with just her guitar, but then I noticed the shadows making patterns & words behind, below and above her illustrating her lyrics. Listening to the lyrics I found that she's quite a storyteller and I felt myself drawn to what she was saying. "Maybe I should give in, give up trying to be thin, give up and turn into my mother, god knows I love her."
So I find myself now intrigued and wanting to hear what else she has written because I find that her music & lyrics are enhanced by her vocal ability. She's another example of a someone that I find intriguing. And what I find most pleasing about her is the tone of her voice.
It makes one wonder - if her words & melody were sung by someone else would they be as lyrical and pleasing to the ear?
Sunday, August 16, 2009
Saturday, August 15, 2009
Bad Boy of Opera - Ki Fitzgerald
I find the photo below most appealing! I love the reflection coming off the water and that it's in black and white.
I don't know much about this artist - per his "tweets" on Twitter he seems to be working on a debut opera CD. And he seems like a nice enough "bloke" I believe is the word that is used in the UK. :-)
Perhaps when it comes out I'll be able to find a video of him performing to post along with this picture. Good luck to you on your debut!
Photo from BBOO twitpic page. http://twitpic.com/76ue3
I don't know much about this artist - per his "tweets" on Twitter he seems to be working on a debut opera CD. And he seems like a nice enough "bloke" I believe is the word that is used in the UK. :-)
Perhaps when it comes out I'll be able to find a video of him performing to post along with this picture. Good luck to you on your debut!
Photo from BBOO twitpic page. http://twitpic.com/76ue3
Wednesday, August 12, 2009
Zoe Keating Most Fascinating Cellist
You can listen to & download three of her compositions at the link to her website below.
Most fascinating cello playing I've ever heard!
http://zoekeating.com/projects.html
Now why do I find her music fascinating? Well it goes back to my first post. I want to explore why music is so appealing to us. Her music is difficult for me to describe other than it is so compelling. Not quite what one would expect from a cello.
Info on her site tells us that she plays each layer of music and mixes it on a computer to get the sensory pleasing sounds that come out of her instrument. (Oh, hell that sounded dirty didn't it! HA) But as I said, difficult to describe. You have to listen to it.
Most fascinating cello playing I've ever heard!
http://zoekeating.com/projects.html
Now why do I find her music fascinating? Well it goes back to my first post. I want to explore why music is so appealing to us. Her music is difficult for me to describe other than it is so compelling. Not quite what one would expect from a cello.
Info on her site tells us that she plays each layer of music and mixes it on a computer to get the sensory pleasing sounds that come out of her instrument. (Oh, hell that sounded dirty didn't it! HA) But as I said, difficult to describe. You have to listen to it.
Tuesday, August 11, 2009
My Immortal
Okay, this video will probably get me in trouble - don't pay attention to the title on the video - the music is My Immortal by Evanescence- but the gal who put this together merged two things that I love - this song with visuals from Pride & Prejudice with Kiera Knightly and Matthew Macfayden.
The lead singer's vocals are lovely in this song. The sound of her voice is exceedingly pleasing. The visuals from the film - especially on the big screen often gave me chills - the good kind! I loved the scene where Mr. Darcy is walking toward Lizzie in the early morning - he appears out of the misty fog and as the scene plays out the sun starts to rise. What can I say - hopeless romantic - that's me.
So enjoy while it's still up.
The lead singer's vocals are lovely in this song. The sound of her voice is exceedingly pleasing. The visuals from the film - especially on the big screen often gave me chills - the good kind! I loved the scene where Mr. Darcy is walking toward Lizzie in the early morning - he appears out of the misty fog and as the scene plays out the sun starts to rise. What can I say - hopeless romantic - that's me.
So enjoy while it's still up.
Sunday, August 9, 2009
John C Mayer - Curiously Surprising
I find myself often curiously surprised by this young man. I have heard his music in the past and enjoyed many more of his songs than I realized. What I mean is often I have heard a song I liked but did not realize he was the musician.
But his exploits as reported in the press gave me the impression that he was just another musician hell bent on living the good life and his music was just a means to an end. That end seemed to be (again per press reports) partying & dating famous actresses.
And then I find something like this video. It's film he took in Japan a few months ago. It's quiet and reflective and shows a much deeper understanding of human nature than I would have given him credit for in the past. He shows the things that are truly beautiful in this world are often just simple things; the small enjoyments we can derive from each day and from viewing and observing the passing world around us. It fascinates me to find this type of knowledge in one so young.
So perhaps I will have to re-examine and re-evaluate my opinion of this young man. How refreshing - someone who can surprise you by their wisdom and express it so beautifully. I look forward to seeing and hearing more of this young man's art.
Enjoy.
But his exploits as reported in the press gave me the impression that he was just another musician hell bent on living the good life and his music was just a means to an end. That end seemed to be (again per press reports) partying & dating famous actresses.
And then I find something like this video. It's film he took in Japan a few months ago. It's quiet and reflective and shows a much deeper understanding of human nature than I would have given him credit for in the past. He shows the things that are truly beautiful in this world are often just simple things; the small enjoyments we can derive from each day and from viewing and observing the passing world around us. It fascinates me to find this type of knowledge in one so young.
So perhaps I will have to re-examine and re-evaluate my opinion of this young man. How refreshing - someone who can surprise you by their wisdom and express it so beautifully. I look forward to seeing and hearing more of this young man's art.
Enjoy.
Friday, August 7, 2009
Perception: A True Story
Washington, D.C.
Metro Station on a cold January morning in 2007.
The man with a violin played six Bach pieces for about 45 minutes. During that time it was estimated that thousands of people went through the station, most of them on their way to work.
After 3 minutes a middle aged man noticed there was a musician playing. He slowed his pace and stopped for a few seconds and then hurried to meet his schedule.
4 minutes later:
The violinist received his first dollar: a woman threw the money in the hat and, without stopping, continued to walk.
6 minutes:
A young man leaned against the wall to listen to him, then looked at his watch and started to walk again.
10 minutes:
A 3-year old boy stopped but his mother tugged him along hurriedly. The kid stopped to look at the violinist again, but the mother pushed hard and the child continued to walk, turning his head all the time.
This action was repeated by several other children. Every parent, without exception, forced their children to move on quickly.
In the 45 minutes that the musician played, only 6 people stopped and listened for a short while. About 20 gave money but continued to walk at their normal pace. The man collected a total of $32. When he finished playing and silence took over, no one noticed it. No one applauded, nor was there any recognition.
No one knew this, but the violinist was Joshua Bell, one of the greatest musicians in the world. He played one of the most intricate pieces ever written, with a violin worth $3.5 million dollars. Two days before Joshua Bell sold out a theater in Boston where the seats averaged $100.
This is a real story. Joshua Bell playing incognito in the metro station was organized by the Washington Post as part of a social experiment about perception, taste and people's priorities.
The outlines were: in a common place environment at an inappropriate hour, do we perceive beauty? Do we stop to appreciate it? Do we recognize talent in an unexpected context?
One of the possible conclusions of this experience could be: If we do not have a moment to stop and listen to one of the best musicians in the world, playing some of the finest music ever written, with one of the most beautiful instruments ever made.... How many other things are we missing?
_________
FYI - The story above was sent to me via email today. I checked it on snopes.com and found some additional information. The Washington Post was awarded a Pulitzer Prize in the feature writing category for Gene Weingarten's April 2007 story about this experiment.
Josh Bell - playing in the Metro Station:
Monday, August 3, 2009
A Life Without Left Turns - Michael Gartner In USA TODAY
Right off the bat I want to say that I am merely posting here the link and text of the editorial by Michael Gartner in USA TODAY, June 15, 2006.
The text of this was sent to me in an email today over three years later and it touched me so much I decided to post here. The original can be found at the following link:
http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/columnist/2006-06-15-gartner_x.htm
A life without left turns
Posted 6/15/2006 9:57 PM ET
My father never drove a car.
Well, that's not quite right.
I should say I never saw him drive a car. He quit driving in 1927, when he was 25 years old, and the last car he drove was a 1926 Whippet.
"In those days," he told me when he was in his 90s, "to drive a car you had to do things with your hands, and do things with your feet, and look every which way, and I decided you could walk through life and enjoy it or drive through life and miss it."
At which point my mother, a sometimes salty Irishwoman, chimed in:
"Oh, bull——!" she said. "He hit a horse."
"Well," my father said, "there was that, too."
So my brother and I grew up in a household without a car. The neighbors all had cars — the Kollingses next door had a green 1941 Dodge, the VanLaninghams across the street a gray 1936 Plymouth, the Hopsons two doors down a black 1941 Ford — but we had none. My father, a newspaperman in Des Moines, would take the streetcar to work and, often as not, walk the 3 miles home. If he took the streetcar home, my mother and brother and I would walk the three blocks to the streetcar stop, meet him and walk home together.
Our 1950 Chevy
My brother, David, was born in 1935, and I was born in 1938, and sometimes, at dinner, we'd ask how come all the neighbors had cars but we had none. "No one in the family drives," my mother would explain, and that was that. But, sometimes, my father would say, "But as soon as one of you boys turns 16, we'll get one."
It was as if he wasn't sure which one of us would turn 16 first.
But, sure enough, my brother turned 16 before I did, so in 1951 my parents bought a used 1950 Chevrolet from a friend who ran the parts department at a Chevy dealership downtown. It was a four-door, white model, stick shift, fender skirts, loaded with everything, and, since my parents didn't drive, it more or less became my brother's car.
Having a car but not being able to drive didn't bother my father, but it didn't make sense to my mother. So in 1952, when she was 43 years old, she asked a friend to teach her to drive. She learned in a nearby cemetery, the place where I learned to drive the following year and where, a generation later, I took my two sons to practice driving. The cemetery probably was my father's idea. "Who can your mother hurt in the cemetery?" I remember him saying once.
For the next 45 years or so, until she was 90, my mother was the driver in the family. Neither she nor my father had any sense of direction, but he loaded up on maps — though they seldom left the city limits — and appointed himself navigator. It seemed to work.
The ritual walk to church
Still, they both continued to walk a lot. My mother was a devout Catholic, and my father an equally devout agnostic, an arrangement that didn't seem to bother either of them through their 75 years of marriage. (Yes, 75 years, and they were deeply in love the entire time.) He retired when he was 70, and nearly every morning for the next 20 years or so, he would walk with her the mile to St. Augustin's Church. She would walk down and sit in the front pew, and he would wait in the back until he saw which of the parish's two priests was on duty that morning. If it was the pastor, my father then would go out and take a 2-mile walk, meeting my mother at the end of the service and walking her home. If it was the assistant pastor, he'd take just a 1-mile walk and then head back to the church.
He called the priests "Father Fast" and "Father Slow."
After he retired, my father almost always accompanied my mother whenever she drove anywhere, even if he had no reason to go along. If she were going to the beauty parlor, he'd sit in the car and read, or go take a stroll or, if it was summer, have her keep the engine running so he could listen to the Cubs game on the radio. (In the evening, then, when I'd stop by, he'd explain: "The Cubs lost again. The millionaire on second base made a bad throw to the millionaire on first base, so the multimillionaire on third base scored.") If she were going to the grocery store, he would go along to carry the bags out — and to make sure she loaded up on ice cream.
As I said, he was always the navigator, and once, when he was 95 and she was 88 and still driving, he said to me, "Do you want to know the secret of a long life?" "I guess so," I said, knowing it probably would be something bizarre.
"No left turns," he said.
"What?" I asked.
"No left turns," he repeated. "Several years ago, your mother and I read an article that said most accidents that old people are in happen when they turn left in front of oncoming traffic. As you get older, your eyesight worsens, and you can lose your depth perception, it said. So your mother and I decided never again to make a left turn."
"What?" I said again. "No left turns," he said. "Think about it. Three rights are the same as a left, and that's a lot safer. So we always make three rights."
"You're kidding!" I said, and I turned to my mother for support. "No," she said, "your father is right. We make three rights. It works."
But then she added: "Except when your father loses count."
I was driving at the time, and I almost drove off the road as I started laughing. "Loses count?" I asked. "Yes," my father admitted, "that sometimes happens. But it's not a problem. You just make seven rights, and you're okay again."
I couldn't resist. "Do you ever go for 11?" I asked.
"No," he said. "If we miss it at seven, we just come home and call it a bad day. Besides, nothing in life is so important it can't be put off another day or another week."
My mother was never in an accident, but one evening she handed me her car keys and said she had decided to quit driving. That was in 1999, when she was 90. She lived four more years, until 2003. My father died the next year, at 102. They both died in the bungalow they had moved into in 1937 and bought a few years later for $3,000. (Sixty years later, my brother and I paid $8,000 to have a shower put in the tiny bathroom — the house had never had one. My father would have died then and there if he knew the shower cost nearly three times what he paid for the house.) He continued to walk daily — he had me get him a treadmill when he was 101 because he was afraid he'd fall on the icy sidewalks but wanted to keep exercising — and he was of sound mind and sound body until the moment he died.
A happy life
One September afternoon in 2004, he and my son went with me when I had to give a talk in a neighboring town, and it was clear to all three of us that he was wearing out, though we had the usual wide-ranging conversation about politics and newspapers and things in the news. A few weeks earlier, he had told my son, "You know, Mike, the first hundred years are a lot easier than the second hundred." At one point in our drive that Saturday, he said, "You know, I'm probably not going to live much longer." "You're probably right," I said. "Why would you say that?" he countered, somewhat irritated. "Because you're 102 years old," I said. "Yes," he said, "you're right." He stayed in bed all the next day. That night, I suggested to my son and daughter that we sit up with him through the night. He appreciated it, he said, though at one point, apparently seeing us look gloomy, he said: "I would like to make an announcement. No one in this room is dead yet." An hour or so later, he spoke his last words:
"I want you to know," he said, clearly and lucidly, "that I am in no pain. I am very comfortable. And I have had as happy a life as anyone on this earth could ever have."
A short time later, he died.
I miss him a lot, and I think about him a lot. I've wondered now and then how it was that my family and I were so lucky that he lived so long.
I can't figure out if it was because he walked through life.
Or because he quit taking left turns.
Michael Gartner has been editor of newspapers large and small and president of NBC News. In 1997, he won the Pulitzer Prize for editorial writing.
The text of this was sent to me in an email today over three years later and it touched me so much I decided to post here. The original can be found at the following link:
http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/columnist/2006-06-15-gartner_x.htm
A life without left turns
Posted 6/15/2006 9:57 PM ET
My father never drove a car.
Well, that's not quite right.
I should say I never saw him drive a car. He quit driving in 1927, when he was 25 years old, and the last car he drove was a 1926 Whippet.
"In those days," he told me when he was in his 90s, "to drive a car you had to do things with your hands, and do things with your feet, and look every which way, and I decided you could walk through life and enjoy it or drive through life and miss it."
At which point my mother, a sometimes salty Irishwoman, chimed in:
"Oh, bull——!" she said. "He hit a horse."
"Well," my father said, "there was that, too."
So my brother and I grew up in a household without a car. The neighbors all had cars — the Kollingses next door had a green 1941 Dodge, the VanLaninghams across the street a gray 1936 Plymouth, the Hopsons two doors down a black 1941 Ford — but we had none. My father, a newspaperman in Des Moines, would take the streetcar to work and, often as not, walk the 3 miles home. If he took the streetcar home, my mother and brother and I would walk the three blocks to the streetcar stop, meet him and walk home together.
Our 1950 Chevy
My brother, David, was born in 1935, and I was born in 1938, and sometimes, at dinner, we'd ask how come all the neighbors had cars but we had none. "No one in the family drives," my mother would explain, and that was that. But, sometimes, my father would say, "But as soon as one of you boys turns 16, we'll get one."
It was as if he wasn't sure which one of us would turn 16 first.
But, sure enough, my brother turned 16 before I did, so in 1951 my parents bought a used 1950 Chevrolet from a friend who ran the parts department at a Chevy dealership downtown. It was a four-door, white model, stick shift, fender skirts, loaded with everything, and, since my parents didn't drive, it more or less became my brother's car.
Having a car but not being able to drive didn't bother my father, but it didn't make sense to my mother. So in 1952, when she was 43 years old, she asked a friend to teach her to drive. She learned in a nearby cemetery, the place where I learned to drive the following year and where, a generation later, I took my two sons to practice driving. The cemetery probably was my father's idea. "Who can your mother hurt in the cemetery?" I remember him saying once.
For the next 45 years or so, until she was 90, my mother was the driver in the family. Neither she nor my father had any sense of direction, but he loaded up on maps — though they seldom left the city limits — and appointed himself navigator. It seemed to work.
The ritual walk to church
Still, they both continued to walk a lot. My mother was a devout Catholic, and my father an equally devout agnostic, an arrangement that didn't seem to bother either of them through their 75 years of marriage. (Yes, 75 years, and they were deeply in love the entire time.) He retired when he was 70, and nearly every morning for the next 20 years or so, he would walk with her the mile to St. Augustin's Church. She would walk down and sit in the front pew, and he would wait in the back until he saw which of the parish's two priests was on duty that morning. If it was the pastor, my father then would go out and take a 2-mile walk, meeting my mother at the end of the service and walking her home. If it was the assistant pastor, he'd take just a 1-mile walk and then head back to the church.
He called the priests "Father Fast" and "Father Slow."
After he retired, my father almost always accompanied my mother whenever she drove anywhere, even if he had no reason to go along. If she were going to the beauty parlor, he'd sit in the car and read, or go take a stroll or, if it was summer, have her keep the engine running so he could listen to the Cubs game on the radio. (In the evening, then, when I'd stop by, he'd explain: "The Cubs lost again. The millionaire on second base made a bad throw to the millionaire on first base, so the multimillionaire on third base scored.") If she were going to the grocery store, he would go along to carry the bags out — and to make sure she loaded up on ice cream.
As I said, he was always the navigator, and once, when he was 95 and she was 88 and still driving, he said to me, "Do you want to know the secret of a long life?" "I guess so," I said, knowing it probably would be something bizarre.
"No left turns," he said.
"What?" I asked.
"No left turns," he repeated. "Several years ago, your mother and I read an article that said most accidents that old people are in happen when they turn left in front of oncoming traffic. As you get older, your eyesight worsens, and you can lose your depth perception, it said. So your mother and I decided never again to make a left turn."
"What?" I said again. "No left turns," he said. "Think about it. Three rights are the same as a left, and that's a lot safer. So we always make three rights."
"You're kidding!" I said, and I turned to my mother for support. "No," she said, "your father is right. We make three rights. It works."
But then she added: "Except when your father loses count."
I was driving at the time, and I almost drove off the road as I started laughing. "Loses count?" I asked. "Yes," my father admitted, "that sometimes happens. But it's not a problem. You just make seven rights, and you're okay again."
I couldn't resist. "Do you ever go for 11?" I asked.
"No," he said. "If we miss it at seven, we just come home and call it a bad day. Besides, nothing in life is so important it can't be put off another day or another week."
My mother was never in an accident, but one evening she handed me her car keys and said she had decided to quit driving. That was in 1999, when she was 90. She lived four more years, until 2003. My father died the next year, at 102. They both died in the bungalow they had moved into in 1937 and bought a few years later for $3,000. (Sixty years later, my brother and I paid $8,000 to have a shower put in the tiny bathroom — the house had never had one. My father would have died then and there if he knew the shower cost nearly three times what he paid for the house.) He continued to walk daily — he had me get him a treadmill when he was 101 because he was afraid he'd fall on the icy sidewalks but wanted to keep exercising — and he was of sound mind and sound body until the moment he died.
A happy life
One September afternoon in 2004, he and my son went with me when I had to give a talk in a neighboring town, and it was clear to all three of us that he was wearing out, though we had the usual wide-ranging conversation about politics and newspapers and things in the news. A few weeks earlier, he had told my son, "You know, Mike, the first hundred years are a lot easier than the second hundred." At one point in our drive that Saturday, he said, "You know, I'm probably not going to live much longer." "You're probably right," I said. "Why would you say that?" he countered, somewhat irritated. "Because you're 102 years old," I said. "Yes," he said, "you're right." He stayed in bed all the next day. That night, I suggested to my son and daughter that we sit up with him through the night. He appreciated it, he said, though at one point, apparently seeing us look gloomy, he said: "I would like to make an announcement. No one in this room is dead yet." An hour or so later, he spoke his last words:
"I want you to know," he said, clearly and lucidly, "that I am in no pain. I am very comfortable. And I have had as happy a life as anyone on this earth could ever have."
A short time later, he died.
I miss him a lot, and I think about him a lot. I've wondered now and then how it was that my family and I were so lucky that he lived so long.
I can't figure out if it was because he walked through life.
Or because he quit taking left turns.
Michael Gartner has been editor of newspapers large and small and president of NBC News. In 1997, he won the Pulitzer Prize for editorial writing.
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