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Music
Nov 27, 2022 11:57:22 GMT
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Post by Séamus on Nov 27, 2022 11:57:22 GMT
Vale: Irene Cara. Having reached the top worldwide singing the line "Remember my name", few would have foreseen her glorious reign being as short as it was. For those of us who were too young for the Fame-movie but old enough to remember a weekly dose of the resultant tv show, it might have almost seemed anomalous that a different Coco sung to the opening credits than the super-personality-ed actress of the small screen, who possibly didn't sing at all (one of the criticisms of the early 2000s movie of the same title was an apparent lack of characters with any personality at all.)
Like the Paris Olympics preparing for the inclusion of competitive breakdancing (it'll be odd to see them spinning on their heads just as other sports codes start examining more and more the connections between brain damage,Alzheimer's and head-impacts), so too Cara is representative of an era,her passing bringing back a dreamy memory or two,whether positive or not,for many.
"I hear the music, close my eyes, feel the rhythm."
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Post by Séamus on Feb 16, 2023 2:49:55 GMT
"(T)heatre bosses slapped a misogyny and racism warning on A Midsummer Night's Dream... Theatregoers buying a ticket on the Globe's website will be given a trigger warning for potentially sensitive themes in the 16th century play. It reads 'content guidance: the play contains language of violence, sexual references, misogyny and racism'....In recent times the Globe has sought to address the more troubling aspects of Shakespeare's plays with anti-racist seminars" cf Paul Jeeves international express
I was given a miniature sleeping St Joseph the other day,such as has been popularised by the current Pope. I'd been thinking about him in the dreaming-Joseph aspect over Christmas,the Magi's sleep-visitations also, reading it in my own mind in the light of Adam's primeval deep sleep.
I hadn't heard of composer Max Richter until I came across a 2015 recording recently, excerpts from a suite named Sleep, inspired by dreams and space. In the 1990s it would have been labelled as part of the new age genre,but the cd now nestles in the classical section, despite the blend including synthesiser,by Richter himself, alongside organ, piano and some other musicians contributing string instruments and an ethereal soprano. The quotes from the sleeve are a good summary: 'sleep is an eight-hour lullaby'/'a soul submerged in sleep is hard at work and helps make something of the world'. A worthy and unexplored muse.
Life may have been a bad dream for Titiana but I suspect she'd find 2023's obsessions a total nightmare.
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Post by Maolsheachlann on Feb 16, 2023 9:05:12 GMT
"(T)heatre bosses slapped a misogyny and racism warning on A Midsummer Night's Dream... Theatregoers buying a ticket on the Globe's website will be given a trigger warning for potentially sensitive themes in the 16th century play. It reads 'content guidance: the play contains language of violence, sexual references, misogyny and racism'....In recent times the Globe has sought to address the more troubling aspects of Shakespeare's plays with anti-racist seminars" cf Paul Jeeves international express I was given a miniature sleeping St Joseph the other day,such as has been popularised by the current Pope. I'd been thinking about him in the dreaming-Joseph aspect over Christmas,the Magi's sleep-visitations also, reading it in my own mind in the light of Adam's primeval deep sleep. I hadn't heard of composer Max Richter until I came across a 2015 recording recently, excerpts from a suite named Sleep, inspired by dreams and space. In the 1990s it would have been labelled as part of the new age genre,but the cd now nestles in the classical section, despite the blend including synthesiser,by Richter himself, alongside organ, piano and some other musicians contributing string instruments and an ethereal soprano. The quotes from the sleeve are a good summary: 'sleep is an eight-hour lullaby'/'a soul submerged in sleep is hard at work and helps make something of the world'. A worthy and unexplored muse. Life may have been a bad dream for Titiana but I suspect she'd find 2023's obsessions a total nightmare. G.K. Chesterton's favourite Shakespeare play, incidentally.
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Music
Mar 2, 2023 14:33:38 GMT
Post by Tomas on Mar 2, 2023 14:33:38 GMT
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Music
Mar 11, 2023 11:55:00 GMT
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Post by Séamus on Mar 11, 2023 11:55:00 GMT
Looking through a newspaper today I came across a two page spread in the travel section about Tom's Restaurant, known also as Tom's Diner. Not sure why one would fly 'direct to New York from Singapore' just to see it,but it was indeed Suzanne Vega's Tom's Diner- I've never been familiar enough with Seinfeld to mentally identify the building's images by the show,which her original composition predates,while I was a bit too young when Bionic Woman was aired to consider it from a scene that predates the song.
One line of the article is of note: "... toast and coffee that just gets poured and poured and poured." No need to argue about half full cups like Vega's (said to be real) character. Perhaps because he didn't also buy eggs and toast or maybe the generosity has been forced since, and because of, the song?
My mother once remarked,looking up from her Bible while reading Genesis (about Jacob's family in particular), that "there's not much religion in it,is there?". Whatever her point, the domestic lives of patriarchs do often take centre stage to their devotional lives, except when a plea-prayer for fertility or the like is recorded. It might remind us,strangely enough, of the distant bells of St John's Episcopalian Cathedral mentioned at the end of Tom's Diner song. Many edifices that were meant to inspire never got people humming a tune for decades;while we need the inspiring or the remarkable, most of our lives take place in the less-remarkable. The simple eating place. The primeval family's daily fight for faith and survival.
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Music
Apr 26, 2023 11:55:23 GMT
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Post by Séamus on Apr 26, 2023 11:55:23 GMT
Vale- Harry Belafonte. I can remember learning Island In The Sun as a ten- or eleven- year old during a music class, decades after it was a hit for him. This didn't always work- when it comes to teaching methods there are few things as irritating as being fed whatever was meaningful or hip to Mrs Who-ha when she was in her teenage bloom. In this case it had had undisputed classic status for several generations. At a time when we hear reports of Agatha Christie novels possibly being edited or cancelled because she suggested that someone of colour was harder to spot in the dark,one wonders whether shining a light on Belafonte's Day-o Day-o is opportune- will it now seem derogatory and exploitative for AfroJamacan/North Americans?
Only learnt today that he and his co-star mimed more opera-trained singers for the Carmen Jones numbers. In recent years a production of Carmen ran into trouble with a sponsor who felt that tabacco products were being glorified. There's probably plenty of other objections they can find in either the play or modern set-in-War-era film...'you go for me and I'm taboo'
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Music
Apr 29, 2023 4:05:27 GMT
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Post by Séamus on Apr 29, 2023 4:05:27 GMT
The President of South Korea, with his decent voice, is one of the few politicians who didn't make a complete eejit of himself with a party-piece. I can sort-of understand people's ongoing fascination with American Pie,but really how can a number continue being evocative through the decades when the writer has never really told us what we're exactly being evocative about?
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Music
Apr 29, 2023 8:54:35 GMT
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Post by Maolsheachlann on Apr 29, 2023 8:54:35 GMT
The President of South Korea, with his decent voice, is one of the few politicians who didn't make a complete eejit of himself with a party-piece. I can sort-of understand people's ongoing fascination with American Pie,but really how can a number continue being evocative through the decades when the writer has never really told us what we're exactly being evocative about? It's Garth Brooks's favourite song. I too find the vagueness unsatisfying.
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Music
May 28, 2023 2:24:02 GMT
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Post by Séamus on May 28, 2023 2:24:02 GMT
"Among performers at the Coronation Concert, rock legend Steve Winwood boasted a strong royal link of his own. The Birmingham-born singer's daughter Mary-Clare is married to Ben Elliott, former chairman of the Conservative party and nephew of Queen Camilla. Winwood's grandson Arthur Elliott was a page of honour at (the coronation)" international express column
Higher Love is one of those songs I retroactively took to- it (and Winwood) seemed painfully boring when it first came out (as in "change the station over"). In the 2000s I heard it playing in a post office and had an epiphany as if actually hearing the movements for the first time. Or maybe it just sounded better in contrast with all the thump-thump at the time. For me VALERIE had taken into the mists of obscurity until I was curious enough a few years ago to trace the song and artist (I couldn't actually make out either words or title or artist despite the song having always had a mysterious background existence). Certainly one of the most powerful choruses in pop history. Must be hard to replicate as he gets older.
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Music
Aug 7, 2023 3:44:06 GMT
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Post by Séamus on Aug 7, 2023 3:44:06 GMT
I noticed today an obituary for an English-French entertainer who died recently at 76. Of note was a memory that "the 1969 duet that helped make her famous was forbidden in Italy after being denounced in the Vatican newspaper". Hard to imagine L'Osservatore Romano having influence today- hard to imagine anyone with quasi-Vatican employment caring too much at all. A few pages away from the obituary there was listed the current top ten songs (something I haven't seen in print for years)- whether of the nation or city I don't know- 7/10 were 'explicit versions', including one from Barbie-film.
Little wonder that,when walking in on someone's tv viewing last week,it hit me that three songs adapted as jingles in the course of one session of ads were released during my teenage years;two by other singers,one sounded like the original Jim Kerr version. Obviously better to play safe sometimes.
Still, the recent scientific naming of a small African catfish as chiloglanis frodobagginisi (unlike the poor reclassified butterfly that got Sauron's name earlier this year) and the peoples flocking to Fatima and Lisbon in the heat,show that there's still an abstract,at least, appreciation of templates of goodness fighting evil. Aníron
(I desire).
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Post by Tomas on Aug 7, 2023 8:36:02 GMT
Looking through a newspaper today I came across a two page spread in the travel section about Tom's Restaurant, known also as Tom's Diner. Not sure why one would fly 'direct to New York from Singapore' just to see it,but it was indeed Suzanne Vega's Tom's Diner- I've never been familiar enough with Seinfeld to mentally identify the building's images by the show,which her original composition predates,while I was a bit too young when Bionic Woman was aired to consider it from a scene that predates the song. One line of the article is of note: "... toast and coffee that just gets poured and poured and poured." No need to argue about half full cups like Vega's (said to be real) character. Perhaps because he didn't also buy eggs and toast or maybe the generosity has been forced since, and because of, the song? My mother once remarked,looking up from her Bible while reading Genesis (about Jacob's family in particular), that "there's not much religion in it,is there?". Whatever her point, the domestic lives of patriarchs do often take centre stage to their devotional lives, except when a plea-prayer for fertility or the like is recorded. It might remind us,strangely enough, of the distant bells of St John's Episcopalian Cathedral mentioned at the end of Tom's Diner song. Many edifices that were meant to inspire never got people humming a tune for decades;while we need the inspiring or the remarkable, most of our lives take place in the less-remarkable. The simple eating place. The primeval family's daily fight for faith and survival. Her songs had a sense of real life tempo and no little cup of melancholy to them. I remember the album where the tragic neighbour Luka was depicted, sung in restrained but not strained manner. To hear tunes and lyrics around daily lives can be like looking ahead, trying to find ways, in a mist of weak prospects for "better times" nearby (hopes that the last line didn´t sound like a pathethic Jerry Seinfeld line itself).
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Post by Tomas on Aug 7, 2023 8:42:10 GMT
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Music
Dec 12, 2023 3:03:31 GMT
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Post by Séamus on Dec 12, 2023 3:03:31 GMT
"What (Bob Geldof and Midge Ure) failed to understand (when writing Do They Know It's Christmas Time?) was that Africa is a large place and the generalisation is dangerous that all people who come from the continent require help from “the white man” to survive because otherwise, God forbid,they won't know it's Christmas (part of a religion brought over by colonisers and one that many Africans don't celebrate anyway) or indeed know happiness."
"A group of deaf and hard-of-hearing Coldplay fans say they were let down at the rock band's Perth show after paying $220 for what they believed was an Auslan accessible ticket that included a number of services which were late or never provided. Ms Campbell said she understood the $220 ticket included (sign language) interpreters who would be visible for the entire show, including the three supporting acts, a seat in a special section where she could view both the concert and the interpreter and the use of haptic vests, known as SUBPACS." (ABC News)
I'm all in for giving people with any disability the fullest of opportunity, as I care very much that people understand the African continent (better not say 'in toto'!), but you do wonder how much becomes too much? I know a lady who, with husband and youngest son, is an enthusiastic sports fan- she has a height phobia and can't sit in the stadium mentioned above; ground level seats probably bring all but impossible to get. While father and son go in she watches on Fox Sports in the carpark, dressed in team colours. Certainly, if people were promised a haptic vest (hadn't heard of it but it's to be assumed that the gizmo vibrates with the beat) they should get their refund. Oddly in this case they're fans of one of the few early millennial groups that don't base themselves on a mad thumping sound.
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Post by Maolsheachlann on Dec 12, 2023 13:51:08 GMT
"What (Bob Geldof and Midge Ure) failed to understand (when writing Do They Know It's Christmas Time?) was that Africa is a large place and the generalisation is dangerous that all people who come from the continent require help from “the white man” to survive because otherwise, God forbid,they won't know it's Christmas (part of a religion brought over by colonisers and one that many Africans don't celebrate anyway) or indeed know happiness." "A group of deaf and hard-of-hearing Coldplay fans say they were let down at the rock band's Perth show after paying $220 for what they believed was an Auslan accessible ticket that included a number of services which were late or never provided. Ms Campbell said she understood the $220 ticket included (sign language) interpreters who would be visible for the entire show, including the three supporting acts, a seat in a special section where she could view both the concert and the interpreter and the use of haptic vests, known as SUBPACS." (ABC News) I'm all in for giving people with any disability the fullest of opportunity, as I care very much that people understand the African continent (better not say 'in toto'!), but you do wonder how much becomes too much? I know a lady who, with husband and youngest son, is an enthusiastic sports fan- she has a height phobia and can't sit in the stadium mentioned above; ground level seats probably bring all but impossible to get. While father and son go in she watches on Fox Sports in the carpark, dressed in team colours. Certainly, if people were promised a haptic vest (hadn't heard of it but it's to be assumed that the gizmo vibrates with the beat) they should get their refund. Oddly in this case they're fans of one of the few early millennial groups that don't base themselves on a mad thumping sound. Oversensitivity indeed seems to be epidemic. We have instituted a "sensory study room" in the library for students who prefer dim lights, or bright lights, as well as a "transition room" in which students can transition from the sensory study room to the ordinary study spaces. There have been constant complains about access and other problems with the sensory study room. I find myself wondering, uncharitably perhaps, what those students complaining did before it. I've had a telephone phobia all my life (once intense, now rather mild) but I just had to find some way of accommodating myself to social expectations, or to pay the price for it. Is that a completely unreasonable approach for society to take? As for Feed the World, yes, cultural sensitivities are also gone beyond a joke now. I see nothing wrong with finding foreigners 1) funny and 2) exotic. Or with foreigners finding us funny and exotic. It adds to the mystique and variety of life. But now this has become "othering". In a society that is always flaunting its commitment to diversity, "othering" is somehow a bad thing. I don't get this at all. Why should we call Kiev Kyiv if we are speaking in English? Etc.
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Music
Apr 12, 2024 9:52:13 GMT
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Post by Séamus on Apr 12, 2024 9:52:13 GMT
' Authorities in the Russian republic of Chechnya are banning music they consider either too fast or too slow, effectively criminalizing many genres. The Chechen Ministry of Culture announced the ban on its website last week, by the order of Culture Minister Musa Dadayev and with the agreement of Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov. "Musical, vocal and choreographic" works will be limited to a tempo of 80 to 116 beats per minute (BPM) to "conform to the Chechen mentality and sense of rhythm," said Dadayev, according to the Russian state-run news agency TASS. "Borrowing musical culture from other peoples is inadmissible," Dadayev said, per a translation by The Guardian. "We must bring to the people and to the future of our children the cultural heritage of the Chechen people. This includes the entire spectrum of moral and ethical standards of life for Chechens. ' recently on a news service
The subject of music and social fabric had come to mind recently. A passage from HV Morton was interesting because it was written in the early days of Atatürk's secular and progressive Turkey. Dervishes were often disallowed in places, but the author was present at a private wedding feast where the young dancer waved sharp daggers dangerously close to passive faces. I'm unaware of even Irish republicans having had a significant element trying to ban English language ballads or music that had strains of foreign-ness
"The only account known to me of the ceremony at Konya is one written in 1918 by Walter A. Hawley in his book, Asia Minor: "After the beating of drums and a barbaric chant that had all the plaintiveness of a dirge," writes Mr. Hawley, "nineteen dervishes, some still with the flush of youth, others with wan, ascetic faces, marched with funereal tread several times about the room, paying homage before the tombs of their departed chiefs, before the Chelebi and before each elder. Then, separating, they turned, at first slowly, with a look of vacancy in their eyes, as if their minds were sunk in profound repose. But soon they turned faster and faster, until they whirled like spinning tops, passing and repassing one another in their revolutions, but never colliding.... soon they appeared to pass beyond the realm of communion into an abstraction leading to complete ecstasy. 'The day without was shortened by the heavy clouds'." cf Footsteps of St Paul
Mr Hawley lacks the charm and appreciation of Mr Morton and one imagines that the clouds was welcome.
I had only discovered, following the death of Louis Gossett jr, that Jennifer Warnes had spent time as a Catholic Sister before her singing career- with the very controversial Immaculate Sisters who have been a primary example of the tumultuous times in religious life- up to the recent sale of their LA house. The fact that Warner launched her career in Hair musical after giving up the novitiate surely adds another ounce of oddness to their whole history, not to mention one's general reflection on ethics,religion,society and music.
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