- Bella Notte
- Nuvole bianche
Bit Tiersen-esque, in buildup and dynamics. Good reminder.
Wednesday, 29 January 2014
Devotchka - "Firetrucks On The Boardwalk" (Live With The Colorado Symphony)
(Soma.fm's Indie channel)
Instrumental? It's amazing. Strong Yann Tiersen feel, while they usually play much more gypsy.
(And a choir... this is turning into a film.)
Judged by a quick search, this is the very original, not preceeded by a version without orchestra.
Instrumental? It's amazing. Strong Yann Tiersen feel, while they usually play much more gypsy.
(And a choir... this is turning into a film.)
Judged by a quick search, this is the very original, not preceeded by a version without orchestra.
Tuesday, 28 January 2014
Julie Doce - "Qtevayasatrabajar" (This Is Red Robot Volume 1)
Strange electro with even weirder voices.
Monday, 27 January 2014
Sunday, 26 January 2014
The Wrong Mans
Amusing enough miniseries. Still don't get the 's' in Mans, but fun enough.
It isn't unique or particularly original, but well executed.
It isn't unique or particularly original, but well executed.
Carlos (miniseries)
Not the best of best, but intrigued by the storytelling, its pace (not too MTV, not too slow) and the actual history of which I do not know a lot.
Gerrit Komrij - het uur van de wolf
Over de verscheurdheid van Nederland haten en tegelijkertijd een trotse Nederlander in het buitenland te zijn: "dat is dan toch een verscheurdheid. Maar het is een heel verdragelijk verscheurdheidje in vergelijking met anderen."
Butthole Surfers - misc
Supposedly they hate the Flaming Lips for stealing their style. Then again, with the shock songs and words, it seems partly their own choice.
- Perfect - know this one, parlando-ish. Okay. Supposedly their big hit.
A Penny Dreadful For The 21st Century - "One Eye Grey" - Stories from Another London - Last of the Chelsea Smilers
Short collection of short stories about "another" London; a strange, mysterious, sometimes fantastic one.
Particularly interesting:
Particularly interesting:
- Josh Leob - "I Don't Go South"
- Martin Jones - "Erasebook"
Chuck Palahniuk - "Tell-All"
I don't understand this. I have read 15 pages and the bold name-dropping irritates me. I do not see its purpose, its style- or storytelling merits.
E.M. Forster - "Aspects of the Novel"
"The primitive audience was an audience of shockheads, gaping round the campfire, fatigued with contending against the mammoth or the woolly rhinoceros, and only kept awake by suspense. What would happen next? The novelist droned on, and as soon as the audience guessed what happened next they either fell asleep or killed him."
"'I only saw her for five minutes, but it was worth it.' There you have both allegiances in a single sentence. And what the story does is to narrate the life in time. And what the entire novel does - if it is a good novel - is to include the life in values as well."
"Unlike the weaver of plots, the story-teller profits by ragged ends."
"...he [french critic Alain] asserts that each human being has two sides, appropriate to history and fiction. All that is observable in a man - that is to say, his actions and such of his spiritual existence as can be deduced from his actions - falls into the domain of history. But his romanceful or romantic side (a partie romanesque ou romantique) include 'the pure passions, that is to say, the dreams, joys, sorrows and self-communings which politeness or shame prevent him from mentioning'; and to express this side of human nature is one of the chief functions of the novel."
"So let us think of people as starting life with an experience they forget and ending it with one which they anticipate but cannot understand."
"'I only saw her for five minutes, but it was worth it.' There you have both allegiances in a single sentence. And what the story does is to narrate the life in time. And what the entire novel does - if it is a good novel - is to include the life in values as well."
"Unlike the weaver of plots, the story-teller profits by ragged ends."
"...he [french critic Alain] asserts that each human being has two sides, appropriate to history and fiction. All that is observable in a man - that is to say, his actions and such of his spiritual existence as can be deduced from his actions - falls into the domain of history. But his romanceful or romantic side (a partie romanesque ou romantique) include 'the pure passions, that is to say, the dreams, joys, sorrows and self-communings which politeness or shame prevent him from mentioning'; and to express this side of human nature is one of the chief functions of the novel."
"So let us think of people as starting life with an experience they forget and ending it with one which they anticipate but cannot understand."
Ashes to Ashes (series)
The follow-up on "Life On Mars" (yes, both David Bowie albums, very well!)
Nice enough, but as of yet it fails to capture the spirit of its predecessor. Perhaps it'll change, there are 3 seasons after all. Third one is airing now I think.
(months later)
Started watching it again. Halfway season 2. Entertaining though it still doesn't feel on par with Life On Mars. The Gene Genie drinks less? Everything too serious? Who knows.
Great ending. Rounds "Life on Mars" up really great.
Nice enough, but as of yet it fails to capture the spirit of its predecessor. Perhaps it'll change, there are 3 seasons after all. Third one is airing now I think.
(months later)
Started watching it again. Halfway season 2. Entertaining though it still doesn't feel on par with Life On Mars. The Gene Genie drinks less? Everything too serious? Who knows.
Great ending. Rounds "Life on Mars" up really great.
Oxford American 11th Edition - Southern Music
- Andre Williams - "Cadillac Jack" ; swing, jazz, half parlando, groovy
Gustav Meyrink - "The Golem" (Der Golem)
His love for the Kaballah, the mysticism and the occult twinkle through the descriptions of words and letters, their power hinted at but never openly acknowledged.
Amazing sensory descriptions: I picked the book up from the table. I had a curious sensations as of not touching it, and the same thing happened when I tried to pick up the box. It was as though my sense of touch needs must flow through a long, dark stream of nothingness before it merged into my conscious self, as though betwixt me and inanimate objects yawned a great gulf of time; as though they belonged to an age past and gone, of which I had once been part.
Intriguing, but difficult to read.
Amazing sensory descriptions: I picked the book up from the table. I had a curious sensations as of not touching it, and the same thing happened when I tried to pick up the box. It was as though my sense of touch needs must flow through a long, dark stream of nothingness before it merged into my conscious self, as though betwixt me and inanimate objects yawned a great gulf of time; as though they belonged to an age past and gone, of which I had once been part.
Intriguing, but difficult to read.
Gerard Manley Hopkins - "The Leaden Echo & The Golden Echo"
(encountered him in one of Leonard Bernstein's lectures. 19th century! Reminds me of Beckett constantly. Amazing.)
THE LEADEN ECHO
How to kéep—is there ány any, is there none such, nowhere known some, bow or brooch or braid or brace, láce, latch or catch or key to keep
Back beauty, keep it, beauty, beauty, beauty, ... from vanishing away?
Ó is there no frowning of these wrinkles, rankéd wrinkles deep,
Dówn? no waving off of these most mournful messengers, still messengers, sad and stealing messengers of grey?
No there ’s none, there ’s none, O no there ’s none,
Nor can you long be, what you now are, called fair,
Do what you may do, what, do what you may,
And wisdom is early to despair:
Be beginning; since, no, nothing can be done
To keep at bay
Age and age’s evils, hoar hair,
Ruck and wrinkle, drooping, dying, death’s worst, winding sheets, tombs and worms and tumbling to decay;
So be beginning, be beginning to despair.
O there ’s none; no no no there ’s none:
Be beginning to despair, to despair,
Despair, despair, despair, despair.
THE GOLDEN ECHO
Spare!
There ís one, yes I have one (Hush there!);
Only not within seeing of the sun,
Not within the singeing of the strong sun,
Tall sun’s tingeing, or treacherous the tainting of the earth’s air,
Somewhere elsewhere there is ah well where! one,
Oné. Yes I can tell such a key, I do know such a place,
Where whatever’s prized and passes of us, everything that ’s fresh and fast flying of us, seems to us sweet of us and swiftly away with, done away with, undone,
Undone, done with, soon done with, and yet dearly and dangerously sweet
Of us, the wimpled-water-dimpled, not-by-morning-matchèd face,
The flower of beauty, fleece of beauty, too too apt to, ah! to fleet,
Never fleets móre, fastened with the tenderest truth
To its own best being and its loveliness of youth: it is an everlastingness of, O it is an all youth!
Come then, your ways and airs and looks, locks, maiden gear, gallantry and gaiety and grace,
Winning ways, airs innocent, maiden manners, sweet looks, loose locks, long locks, lovelocks, gaygear, going gallant, girlgrace—
Resign them, sign them, seal them, send them, motion them with breath,
And with sighs soaring, soaring síghs deliver
Them; beauty-in-the-ghost, deliver it, early now, long before death
Give beauty back, beauty, beauty, beauty, back to God, beauty’s self and beauty’s giver.
See; not a hair is, not an eyelash, not the least lash lost; every hair
Is, hair of the head, numbered.
Nay, what we had lighthanded left in surly the mere mould
Will have waked and have waxed and have walked with the wind what while we slept,
This side, that side hurling a heavyheaded hundredfold
What while we, while we slumbered.
O then, weary then why should we tread? O why are we so haggard at the heart, so care-coiled, care-killed, so fagged, so fashed, so cogged, so cumbered,
When the thing we freely fórfeit is kept with fonder a care,
Fonder a care kept than we could have kept it, kept
Far with fonder a care (and we, we should have lost it) finer, fonder
A care kept.—Where kept? Do but tell us where kept, where.—
Yonder.—What high as that! We follow, now we follow.—
Yonder, yes yonder, yonder,
Yonder.
Sam Watson - "The Kadaitcha Sung"
subtitle: a seductive tale of sorcery, eroticism and corruption
Never finished it. Couldn't really be bothered. Perhaps missing the significance of the beliefs and culture of the people.
Never finished it. Couldn't really be bothered. Perhaps missing the significance of the beliefs and culture of the people.
Haruki Murakami - "Tsukuru Tazaki"
"Iemand die van zijn vrijheid is beroofd gaat gegarandeerd iemand anders haten."
Voltaire: originaliteit is niets anders dan oordeelkundig plagiaat.
p124. "Iedereen met wie hij ooit op goede voet had gestaan was uiteindelijk weer bij hem weggegaan. Ze hadden naar iets in hem gezocht, maar dat hadden ze niet kunnen vinden, of misschien hadden ze het wel gevonden maar was het hun tegengevallen, en toen hadden ze het maar opgegeven (of waren ze wanhopig gewordne, of kwaad) en waren ze ervandoor gegaan. Op een dag verdwenen ze opeens - zonder een woord van uitleg, zonder zelfs behoorlijk afscheid te nemen. ...
Diep in hem was er vast iets waar andere op afknapten. 'Tsukuru Tazaki, zonder kleur,' zei hij hardop. Als puntje bij paaltje komt, heb ik helemaal neits wat ik aan anderen kan geven. Als het erop aankomt, heb ik mezelf misschien zelfs niets te geven!
Niets te geven. Geen kleur (zelfs geen grijs). Maar de naam was 'echt' van hem, zijn vader had er goed over nagedacht, het was niet willekeurig geweest. (maar dat was z'n voornaam, niet zijn familienaam)
Aardig genoeg, maar, zoals bij vele anderen, de taal / Nederlandse vertaling zat me erg dwars.
Voltaire: originaliteit is niets anders dan oordeelkundig plagiaat.
p124. "Iedereen met wie hij ooit op goede voet had gestaan was uiteindelijk weer bij hem weggegaan. Ze hadden naar iets in hem gezocht, maar dat hadden ze niet kunnen vinden, of misschien hadden ze het wel gevonden maar was het hun tegengevallen, en toen hadden ze het maar opgegeven (of waren ze wanhopig gewordne, of kwaad) en waren ze ervandoor gegaan. Op een dag verdwenen ze opeens - zonder een woord van uitleg, zonder zelfs behoorlijk afscheid te nemen. ...
Diep in hem was er vast iets waar andere op afknapten. 'Tsukuru Tazaki, zonder kleur,' zei hij hardop. Als puntje bij paaltje komt, heb ik helemaal neits wat ik aan anderen kan geven. Als het erop aankomt, heb ik mezelf misschien zelfs niets te geven!
Niets te geven. Geen kleur (zelfs geen grijs). Maar de naam was 'echt' van hem, zijn vader had er goed over nagedacht, het was niet willekeurig geweest. (maar dat was z'n voornaam, niet zijn familienaam)
Aardig genoeg, maar, zoals bij vele anderen, de taal / Nederlandse vertaling zat me erg dwars.
Ferenc Karinthy - "Metropole"
The difficult adventures of a man arriving in a city where he doesn't speak the language, doesn't understand anybody...
It's interesting, but the majority of the book lists his various ways of trying to learn the language, and at some point this becomes a bit cumbersome.
Never a true explanation is given. It is not a stretch to consider it a parable of (modern) every day life, with its chaos, its mis- and nonunderstanding, but it failed to truly grasp me.
It's interesting, but the majority of the book lists his various ways of trying to learn the language, and at some point this becomes a bit cumbersome.
Never a true explanation is given. It is not a stretch to consider it a parable of (modern) every day life, with its chaos, its mis- and nonunderstanding, but it failed to truly grasp me.
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