8303. wonkers2 - 8/31/2006 4:20:27 PM
Django Reinhardt Lives in Detroit!
8304. Ulgine Barrows - 9/4/2006 10:39:24 AM
well, I forget where I am supposed to post about music I've just discovered
I have the key in my hand
All I have to find is the lock
8305. wabbit - 10/13/2006 12:54:42 AM
Spamland!
8306. thoughtful - 10/27/2006 7:38:43 PM
I had an opportunity to visit the corcoran gallery recently. I'm not one much for modern art. This despite the fact that my threshold for calling it art is pretty low....it should look like something that required more effort and talent than a 3-yr old would put forth. Granted, that eliminates a lot of art.
I find it most frustrating when looking at a piece of 'art' for which i have not a clue as to what the artist could possibly be thinking only to find it's labeled, "Untitled". Thanks.
Of course, that may be more sensible than the one labeled "rectangle" on which there wasn't a single right angle, let alone a 'rectangle'...unless the artist was punning me "wreck tangle", I've not a clue.
To me art should trigger more than just an emotion or sense in me...it should help communicate something of what's on the artist's mind. But I find a lot of contemporary art fails to do that.
So after walking the gallery and finding a few pieces that were at least colorful or clever or very creative, I decided that the only way to approach it is with a sense of humor....the laugh being on the gallery who shelled out $$$ for this crap.
Always remember the time john & yoko put a store-bought apple on display in an art gallery as commentary on the whole thing....
8307. wonkers2 - 11/2/2006 3:21:34 AM
R.I.P. William Styron
8308. judithathome - 11/2/2006 5:43:41 AM
Ahh, poor guy...I hope he's out of the dark now and at peace.
8309. wonkers2 - 11/3/2006 2:00:48 AM
Me too! He wasn't a happy guy.
8310. wonkers2 - 11/17/2006 2:22:37 AM
View Fernando Botero's Abu Ghraib Paintings
8311. judithathome - 12/3/2006 4:34:46 PM
Who is Nino Rota?
He wrote the soundtrack music to War and Peace, Romeo and Juliet, The Leopard, The Godfather, Waterloo, Death On The Nile, Hurricane and literally hundreds of other film soundtracks.
At the age of 12, he conducted a 250 piece orchestra in a production of his own oratorio, The Childhood of St. John the Baptist. He composed hundreds of compositions for orchestra, ballet and the stage. He was friends with and a student of the legendary conductor, Toscanini.
The New York Times anointed him, the Mozart of the 20th Century, in 1923.
But he is most remembered for composing the scores for 19 Fellini films from 1951 until his death in 1979. If you love Fellini films, how can you not adore the melodies of Nino Rota.
For 30 years he shared a piano bench with Maestro Fellini who would describe a vague idea and, voila! - Nino would miraculously find the notes that Fellini wanted, almost as if they already existed!
In Fellini's own words, Nino was gifted with a limitless inventiveness and inexhaustible musical wealth and at the same time a scholarly humility.
One has only to recall the haunting themes of
La Strada, Nights of Cabiria, La Dolce Vita, 8 1/2, Juliet of the Spirits, Roma and Amarcord
to understand why Fellini felt this way.
His late in life compositions for Casanova, Orchestra Rehearsal and, the Oscar winning, Godfather themes are among his most enchanting.
Nino Rota was born on December 3, 1911, making 2006 the 95th anniversary of his birth. I urge you to seek out the many wonderful recordings of the Milanese, musical maestro that played such an integral part of Fellini¹s films.
Here's a toast to the memory and music of Nino Rota!
Don Young: Felliniana Archive
8312. tmesis - 1/2/2007 7:09:48 PM
Classical music fans -
Has anyone watched Leonard Bernstein's The Unanswered Question? It's a DVD set of Bernstein's 1973 Norton Lectures at Harvard, six in all. I've been watching rented discs of the lecture series from Netflix; I seem to have struck gold. Pretty electrifying stuff - in the first lecture he draws analogies between the then new theories of Chomsky's universal grammar, and aspects of music. There's a certain dilettantism to this that is made palatable by Bernstein's musical erudition, wit, and charisma. He also doesn't condescend to his audience -- in the first or second of his Young People's Concerts series, he plays a Webern piece for an audience of mostly children, respecting them and trusting their ability to perceive his point. A memorable segment from the first lecture illustrates the why and how of the melodic line of the classic children's taunt "Neener neener neeeener" (eg "sakonige has hairy balls!"). The lectures are delivered with lay people in mind. I'm looking forward to finishing the series.
