Let me just say it was a rough day....
But happy 311 day anyway!
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Now playing: 311 - 07.Creatures (For A While)
via FoxyTunes
Thursday, March 11, 2010
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
Phantom of the Opera
I've always liked the musical. It has everything: action and adventure, love and loss, mystery and intrigue, and great music. I learned quite recently that it is based on a book. Yes, I should have assumed as much, but I did not, and so was surprised when I saw it. That was a week ago. I just finished it this morning. It is amazing.
Gaston Lebroux writes the novel as an historian who has done a large amount of research in order at last to shed light on the whole of a great mystery--or rather several great mysteries that turn out to be one and the same. Take everything you know about the Opera Ghost and Christine Daae, and add an extra 5 layers of depth. (One for each cellar in the Paris Opera House in which the majority of the story takes place.) It's older English, translated from French, which lends beauty and character to the structure of the writing not found in our common language today. Due to this it is not a particularly easy read, but it is indeed a rich one. The tragedy of the story is especially expanded from that of the musical. He is uglier, more pitiful, and of a much more complex background. Meanwhile he is far more genius than Mr Webber gave him credit for, and not just when it comes to music. I found myself feeling great pity for him, despite the monstrous things he did, as did Christine and the Persian (a very important character in the book, omitted from the broadway production).
Too often, when you read the original work behind an adaptation, the latter deteriorates, sometimes so far that it's no longer enjoyable. In this case I love it more than ever. Consider this my recommendation to each of you to find a copy.
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Now playing: Andrew Lloyd Webber - The Music Of The Night
via FoxyTunes
Gaston Lebroux writes the novel as an historian who has done a large amount of research in order at last to shed light on the whole of a great mystery--or rather several great mysteries that turn out to be one and the same. Take everything you know about the Opera Ghost and Christine Daae, and add an extra 5 layers of depth. (One for each cellar in the Paris Opera House in which the majority of the story takes place.) It's older English, translated from French, which lends beauty and character to the structure of the writing not found in our common language today. Due to this it is not a particularly easy read, but it is indeed a rich one. The tragedy of the story is especially expanded from that of the musical. He is uglier, more pitiful, and of a much more complex background. Meanwhile he is far more genius than Mr Webber gave him credit for, and not just when it comes to music. I found myself feeling great pity for him, despite the monstrous things he did, as did Christine and the Persian (a very important character in the book, omitted from the broadway production).
Too often, when you read the original work behind an adaptation, the latter deteriorates, sometimes so far that it's no longer enjoyable. In this case I love it more than ever. Consider this my recommendation to each of you to find a copy.
----------------
Now playing: Andrew Lloyd Webber - The Music Of The Night
via FoxyTunes
Saturday, March 6, 2010
Blood
Blood? Blood. Crimson copper-smelling blood, his blood. Blood. Blood. Blood. And bits of sick!
Friday, March 5, 2010
Humanity's Greatest Achievment
As it turns out all of humanity reached it's peak when this video was made in 1976. There is nowhere to go but down from here. If this is the quality entertainment brought about by communism, maybe I'll give it a try after all!
Thursday, March 4, 2010
the tricks they play
Have you ever been on the news? It's happened to me twice now; The Reporter and his trusty sidekick Cameraman hiding around a corner, waiting to ambush the next passerby with a barrage of questions asked so quickly and worded so craftily that you can't help but support they're story no matter what you really think. Then you spend the next part of your day thinking of hundreds of things you could have said that would have been a whole lot better. I tried to find the story so I could link to it, but I was unsuccessful. Too bad to, they got a great shot of Bryce and me crossing a street after our interview.
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Now playing: Ides of March - Vehicle
via FoxyTunes
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Now playing: Ides of March - Vehicle
via FoxyTunes
Tuesday, February 9, 2010
Expansion
Something strange has happened in the past few months. I've always enjoyed classical music, some more some less, but it's always been quite a passive enjoyment. My father frequently listens to various movie soundtracks while working away in his office. We used to blast the local classical station with the windows down in my high school parking lot, but that was just for the reaction of the other students. Once or twice we turned on the same station and narrated what we imagined the story of the current piece to be. It has never been a large part of my life though.
Last year we got the Twilight soundtrack. A few months ago we added New Moon. Both include some very lovely piano pieces. Muse's last album has a Chopin Nocturne as a song's outro, and Matthew Bellamy has incorporated classical piano into his songs on several occasions. That is where my craving began. It started with just piano, anything I could get my hands on, be it Rachmaninov, Beethoven, or even David Lanz. From there it has expanded. Last week my Mrs watched Pride and Prejudice while I did chemistry homework and I couldn't stop thinking about the music for days. I downloaded the soundtrack and gave it a number of spins over the subsequent days. I just can't get enough.
Never have I wished more that I could play the piano.
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Now playing: Various Artists - Dawn
By "Various Artists" they mean Jean-Yves Thibaudet
via FoxyTunes
Last year we got the Twilight soundtrack. A few months ago we added New Moon. Both include some very lovely piano pieces. Muse's last album has a Chopin Nocturne as a song's outro, and Matthew Bellamy has incorporated classical piano into his songs on several occasions. That is where my craving began. It started with just piano, anything I could get my hands on, be it Rachmaninov, Beethoven, or even David Lanz. From there it has expanded. Last week my Mrs watched Pride and Prejudice while I did chemistry homework and I couldn't stop thinking about the music for days. I downloaded the soundtrack and gave it a number of spins over the subsequent days. I just can't get enough.
Never have I wished more that I could play the piano.
----------------
Now playing: Various Artists - Dawn
By "Various Artists" they mean Jean-Yves Thibaudet
via FoxyTunes
Thursday, February 4, 2010
I hate college kids
They drive me crazy. There are 3 main breeds:
The Career Student--
These are the ones who take one or two classes per semester, often working in no particular direction, and who will likely never earn an actual degree. They do this firstly so they can utilize the school as a social realm, mingling with others of their kind, having never moved past the high school state of mind, and secondly so they can avoid any actual responsibility in the world. "I can't get a full time job, I'm in school!" is a common thing to hear from them. They are also more often than not loud, obnoxious, and greasy/foul smelling.
The College Conformist--
These are the ones who live in a strange paradoxical world where nothing is more important than individuality, and individuality means being and thinking exactly the same as the rest of the herd. It is from this group that you find the blind "activist" preaching peace with Mao's Little Red Book in one hand and the Communist Manifesto in the other and wearing a Che t-shirt and never even blinking at the irony. You're likely to hear them say something like "the right are a bunch of fascists because they shut down free speech; we need to shut down Fox News and talk radio." This is also the group that includes the indie rocker, for whom quality of music comes secondary to the attitude with which it was written. You will overhear this explanation from one of them: "My favorite band is The Pants That Go On Pink. I'm sure you've never heard of them, they're totally underground. I know about them cuz I'm in college. They recorded their album gathered around a hand held tape recorder, it was such an amazing artistic idea. They never actually learned how to play their instruments either, that's what makes them such brilliant musicians." Finally this is the group containing the nebulous drifter. This is the one who just goes where the wind takes them. Their favorite music is whatever happens to be on the top 20, they wear whatever the TV tells them to, and speak with all the currently hip colloquialisms. They will say "did you see what that celebrity said on the reality show last night? I wouldn't have a life if I couldn't watch other people pretend they were living their normal life in front of cameras. I need to go potty, can someone please hold my hand?"
The University Type--
These ones are the extremely arrogant type who do things like write in the school newspaper but can't spell, punctuate, or construct a proper sentence, let alone string two together coherently. Yet they are far smarter than the rest of humanity. They comment too frequently in class, but don't have enough genuine wit or wisdom to spit at. This is the group I'm particularly upset with today. Let me tell you why. My chemistry teacher is perhaps lacking in social skills and charisma, but he knows chemistry very well, and clearly loves it. He is very meticulous in writing down everything we need to know. Yep, it can get pretty boring, but it's better than him moving so quickly through the subject matter that no one can possibly keep up. Occasionally he'll write something down incorrectly, and send all the "smart" kids into a frenzy. Today the problem was that his periodic table gave the atomic mass for flourine as 18.99 and ours was an even 19.00. It was pretty easy to see, since each piece of the equation was .01 grams off. Yet they all went nuts. In his most condescending voice one asked "how could the two flourine molecules have an atomic mass of 37.9 g when flourine is exactly 19 g? 19x2 is 38." He went on to do it every time it happened through the entire class. I wanted to shake him and yell "He's not an idiot, he's just looking at a table that didn't round the way ours did! Think for yourself man, or are you only the self proclaimed smartest person in the universe when the answers are being written down on the white board? Good job, you know 2nd grade math, here's a sticker! Did it ever occur to you that the guy with the Master's degree and a decade of experience also knows how to add?"
They're idiots, the lot of them.
The Career Student--
These are the ones who take one or two classes per semester, often working in no particular direction, and who will likely never earn an actual degree. They do this firstly so they can utilize the school as a social realm, mingling with others of their kind, having never moved past the high school state of mind, and secondly so they can avoid any actual responsibility in the world. "I can't get a full time job, I'm in school!" is a common thing to hear from them. They are also more often than not loud, obnoxious, and greasy/foul smelling.
The College Conformist--
These are the ones who live in a strange paradoxical world where nothing is more important than individuality, and individuality means being and thinking exactly the same as the rest of the herd. It is from this group that you find the blind "activist" preaching peace with Mao's Little Red Book in one hand and the Communist Manifesto in the other and wearing a Che t-shirt and never even blinking at the irony. You're likely to hear them say something like "the right are a bunch of fascists because they shut down free speech; we need to shut down Fox News and talk radio." This is also the group that includes the indie rocker, for whom quality of music comes secondary to the attitude with which it was written. You will overhear this explanation from one of them: "My favorite band is The Pants That Go On Pink. I'm sure you've never heard of them, they're totally underground. I know about them cuz I'm in college. They recorded their album gathered around a hand held tape recorder, it was such an amazing artistic idea. They never actually learned how to play their instruments either, that's what makes them such brilliant musicians." Finally this is the group containing the nebulous drifter. This is the one who just goes where the wind takes them. Their favorite music is whatever happens to be on the top 20, they wear whatever the TV tells them to, and speak with all the currently hip colloquialisms. They will say "did you see what that celebrity said on the reality show last night? I wouldn't have a life if I couldn't watch other people pretend they were living their normal life in front of cameras. I need to go potty, can someone please hold my hand?"
The University Type--
These ones are the extremely arrogant type who do things like write in the school newspaper but can't spell, punctuate, or construct a proper sentence, let alone string two together coherently. Yet they are far smarter than the rest of humanity. They comment too frequently in class, but don't have enough genuine wit or wisdom to spit at. This is the group I'm particularly upset with today. Let me tell you why. My chemistry teacher is perhaps lacking in social skills and charisma, but he knows chemistry very well, and clearly loves it. He is very meticulous in writing down everything we need to know. Yep, it can get pretty boring, but it's better than him moving so quickly through the subject matter that no one can possibly keep up. Occasionally he'll write something down incorrectly, and send all the "smart" kids into a frenzy. Today the problem was that his periodic table gave the atomic mass for flourine as 18.99 and ours was an even 19.00. It was pretty easy to see, since each piece of the equation was .01 grams off. Yet they all went nuts. In his most condescending voice one asked "how could the two flourine molecules have an atomic mass of 37.9 g when flourine is exactly 19 g? 19x2 is 38." He went on to do it every time it happened through the entire class. I wanted to shake him and yell "He's not an idiot, he's just looking at a table that didn't round the way ours did! Think for yourself man, or are you only the self proclaimed smartest person in the universe when the answers are being written down on the white board? Good job, you know 2nd grade math, here's a sticker! Did it ever occur to you that the guy with the Master's degree and a decade of experience also knows how to add?"
They're idiots, the lot of them.
----------------
Now playing: South - Loosen Your Hold
via FoxyTunes
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