Book Meme Tag

April 18, 2008April 18, 2008 / still a dreamer / 4 Comments

Ahhh – that Sheri – tagged me again! Problem is – I still don’t know anyone who has a blog!

But I’m going for it and I have an idea … here’s what Sheri’s site says –

To play blogger tag, here’s what you have to do.

Grab the nearest book.
Open to page 123.
Find the fifth sentence.
Post the next three sentences.
Tag five people and post a comment to Sheri once you’ve posted your 3 sentences.

I’m in my office so chose something from a bookcase downstairs. It’s from a short story, “The Little Room”, written by Madelene Yale-Wynne in 1895. The story is from a favorite collection of mine called “Haunted Women.”

5th Sentence: “I know you will like Hiram, Roger; he is quite a character in his own way.”

Next 3: “Mamma said she remembered, or thought she remembered, having been sick once, and she had to lie quietly for some days on the lounge; then was the time she had become so familiar with everything in the room, and she had been allowed to have the shell to play with all the time. She had had her toast brought to her in there, with make-believe tea. It was one of her pleasant memories of childhood; it was the first time she had been of any importance to anybody, even herself.”

Now since I am not in the larger blogging community, what I can do is e-mail 5 people who write, (but have no blogs), and ask them to add to my site if inspired. And we’ll see what we see!

Good TV Music

April 9, 2008April 10, 2008 / still a dreamer / 3 Comments

Music has the phenomenal power to totally alter our moods, to make us laugh or cry, and to make us experience what a director in movies and TV want us to feel. Only because there is just one current show where I feel the music is truly memorable do I write this today. (But there were others in the past.)

That show is Boston Legal. Each time I watch it, I am always struck by the blues-y singing bringing us back from commercial or leading us in, the soulful guitar solos underpinning the points a cast member is making in court, or the yowzy upbeat notes when Gerry does a happy dance. For me, the music just underscores the juxtaposition of wackiness and dead serious attention to compelling issues that makes Boston Legal the show it is. I think it’s actually part of why I watch — the music is an extraordinary element of the show itself.

Perhaps no coincidence that the producer of Boston Legal – David E. Kelley – was also the producer of Ally McBeal, another show that was a favorite of mine, and again totally immersed in music. The unforgettable dancing baby that appeared in hallucinations to Ally to “I’ve Just Got A Feeling”, (or whatever the real name might have been), has made history, but her dancing to the song was every bit as memorable. Music was totally integrated into Ally McBeal and in part, why it was such a draw. Vonda Shepherd made a name for herself from Ally McBeal, but again, well-chosen music underscored the wackiness of the show and gave it tremendous appeal.

But perhaps the most memorable use of music in a TV show for me was in Twin Peaks; I can hear the opening music to this day, 18 years later. The music was all written by Angelo Badalamenti, and while dark and brooding, it set the tone for a mystery set in an eerie town with unusual, (to say the least), characters in bizarre situations. Twin Peaks was far ahead of its time as a television show, but again, the music created a mood that deeply enriched our experience of this series.

I keep listening, but I’m not hearing much nowadays on TV where the music is drawing me to a show the way these did, and how Boston Legal does currently. Then again, I don’t watch a lot of TV, so don’t bother with scores of cable stations. I’d like to think there’s more innovation and creativity out there in engaging our ears as well as our eyes.

Moods of the Delaware

March 9, 2008August 29, 2011 / still a dreamer / 4 Comments

It was a long, grey, stormy day in which torrents of rain fell hour after hour. Puddles swelled into small lakes in the streets. There was no point in getting the mail. Each momentary letting up was quickly followed by sheets of rain cascading from the sky. It had been predicted to end around 5 pm, and indeed small patches of brightness blew in and right on out, chased by more, though shorter, bursts of rain.

In one of those brief intermissions, I caught sight of the Delaware River at the end of my block. Lying between her banks, as there often is in damp weather, was a cloud. No fog brushed the earth, just a cloud exhaling on top of the waters. I ran down with my camera – it was nearly gone by the time I got there, but still visible.

And then came the wind. No sooner had the rain stopped and pushed in an obligatory patch or two of sun, than extraordinarily high speed winds whipped through the trees, dislodging anything not secured on the ground. Electrical failures began switching off lights all over the area. I was thankful – mine stayed on. Between the rain and the winds, the Delaware was predicted to reach flood stage at some points along its banks nearby.

Here, late Sunday afternoon, the sun was heading down in the blue western sky and the Delaware rushed madly by. Brown-ish blue, the water was very high and its speed dangerous. But in all its moods, whether languidly dreaming or racing to the sea, the river is a richness and a gift to be near.

Just in … my friend who had been up visiting last year had also taken a beautiful photo of the river. It was summer and the Delaware was in her glory.

Jeanne

iTunes – A Wonderful Thing

March 7, 2008March 9, 2008 / still a dreamer

Who knew?

Was this on my previous Mac and I just never knew? I always had iTunes, but wasn’t aware I had a zillion different radio stations that I could listen to from all over the world. So as I sit working on a graphics job, I’m listening to an all-acoustic folk radio station – new stuff so far, but constantly streaming. The other day I listened to music with Celtic roots, another day Indian (as in American …) music.

Wow – what a joy. Here I sit in a valley where on the ground floor my cell phone only gets 1 bar, (inside the house anyway), and about 5 radio stations. And now I have the world. No doubt I sound like a naif at best, but hey – better to discover late than never. Thanks, Apple!

Jeanne

Once

February 21, 2008 / still a dreamer

It was all about the music and a romance that grew and was in part denied. Reviews hailed it as a modern day musical; it won honors at the 2006 Sundance Festival.

I became very quickly enthralled by the music and by this street singer who was so earnest in his songwriting and singing. But what REALLY drew me in, aside from his talent – and hers – was the collaboration – no, that would be the wrong word – the joy, the magic, that happened when two or more people began playing music together. In an early scene, he (Glen Hansard) and she (Marketa Irglova) sit down in the music store, he giving her the basic tune lines on guitar and vocal, and she picks them up on the piano. Then they play together and it does become magcial. Later they go to what would seem to be an open mic of sorts in Dublin, and again, people begin to just play and sing together.

It took me back to college. I was in a NYC art school, known for art and architecture, and packed with creative people of all sorts. I remember sitting around at night over one of our places, always by candlelight – Michael, Kenny, Tom and Susie playing acoustic guitar, Wendy and I singing. We sang Dylan, Peter, Paul and Mary, Ian and Sylvia, Baez, Ochs, Joni Mitchell … whoever inspired us. On guitar – 6 and 12 string – they played off one another, inventing and spurring each other on. And we all sang. Whenever we got together this way, it was always amazing … and magical. No one was formally trained – we just did it, and long hours into the night. And laughter … there was lots of laughter.

And that’s what Once brought back to me. Pretty powerful. It was a romance in its own way, and it wasn’t clear where it was going between the two – you never really even heard their names – that wasn’t the point. But where it was going was the mutual sharing of each other through music, how they each grew and what they did with it.

I guess you could say it was a “small” film – I don’t remember ever seeing it in local papers. The music was great, and it was all written by the two people in the movie, who are in fact, musicians, not trained actors. About 60% of the movie was music – not Hollywood grand style – spontaneous and real. The filming was casual, using whatever light there was. At times, it was hard to understand what he said with the Irish accent. That didn’t matter much either.

I’d recommend it to anyone who loves music, who knows what it’s like to play music with others or has wanted to, and who is happy with a small, intelligent film. I’ll see it again.