monoceros blogsA bunch of guys - several of them were friends of mine - re-enacted this scene somewhere in Europe while we were on a school trip. It was very entertaining.
You've Lost that Lovin' Feelin, by The Righteous Brothers
I read this essay in the anthology The Best American Non-Required Reading 2008 a while back but it was Olduvai who recently pointed out the online version, which has accompanying videos. Soon after, I chanced upon a follow-up article (I love follow-ups and things that connect!); more on this later.
The main article features Joshua Bell playing his fiddle incognito - Joshua Bell! That alone had my attention. For the experiment, he plays plenty of Bach - Bell and Bach, a lethal combination for me. That aside, the novel idea of placing a virtuoso disguised as a busker in a subway station during peak hour makes the article a terrific example of creative journalism (it won the Pulitzer). It explores the perception of beauty and brilliance, the context for such perception, and priorities in modern life. Would people "stop and stare" at the violin player? How much would a virtuoso earn as a street musician? Would you have stopped? Even if it made you late for work?
But it's really the second piece that's truly inspiring. I cannot recommend the second article enough. Read it, and you'll marvel. You know how there seems to be some pattern in the world that we can't grasp, but sense is there? It's almost as if history has a sense of humor. Whatever it is, I'm very glad I get to witness it on such rare occasions.
Joshua Bell's playlist for L'Enfant Plaza:
Estrellita (Ponce), by Joshua Bell
Meditation From Thais (Massenet), by Joshua Bell
Ave Maria (Schubert), by Joshua Bell
Chaconne (Bach), by Hilary Hahn (my other favorite violinist)
Gavotte en Rondeau (Bach), by Hilary Hahn
All five pieces zipped up here.
Joshua Bell's thoughts on Bach's Chaconne, which he plays twice during his performance at L'Enfant Plaza.
I realized only yesterday that the guy conducting the orchestra in Mariza's concert is Jaques Morelenbaum, who also produced and arranged the music for her album "Transparente." I know of Jaques Morelenbaum mainly because of his collaborations with a favorite film music composer of mine - Ryuichi Sakamoto. One of their most famous works is "Bibo No Aozora," which Gustavo Santaolalla (another wonderful film music composer - "21 Grams," "The Motorcycle Diaries," and "Brokeback Mountain") used in the film "Babel." Sakamoto wrote the piece years ago and recorded it with Jaques Morelenbaum on the cello and Yuichiro Gotoh on second cello.
I don't believe it's often a composer uses someone else's instrumental work in a film for which he scores but I love Santaolalla's selection of "Bibo No Aozora," which plays at the close of the film and leaves you weighted with both sadness and hope. The piano part is especially melodic, and the strings (two cellos in the studio version, a cello and a violin in the live performance) add a haunting counterpoint, and in one particular section is both beautiful and difficult. Its sudden turns make you uneasy, preventing you from relaxing and falling into a lull. Rather, it quickens the pulse with that strange harmony, deliberately jarring the listener and suggesting that every beautiful thing, even a piece of music, is not without complexity. Soon, even the piano's melody becomes equally strange and pointed. And then it ends - as all things must - whereupon you feel bereft of something unspeakably precious even though you remember how it bewildered you too.
Sadness and hope, these are what I heard in "Bibo No Aozora" and what I felt after seeing "Babel." Both are intertwined in the melody and harmony, as they are in the stories in the film. The world has become a global village, and the one the film shows us is harsh, often brutal. Despite the connectedness we're supposed to experience via technology and travel, tragedy, frustration, and anger remain.
Beneath the cover of advancements, we are still a mess, caught in a terribly human disarray of honesty (too little of it) and communication (seldom effective). And the random things that do connect us unexpectedly - like the bullet that demonstrates its alarming consequences in Morocco, Japan, the United States, and Mexico - reveal the terrible divisions among us, the result of politics, economics, class, and culture.
There's an overt but difficult beauty in the butterfly effect that the film explores, that is, the idea that everything in the world is inexplicably linked. In the case of humans, we may be linked but there's often friction whenever we bump up against each other because of our inability to communicate. This recalls the story in Genesis, Chapter XI (which probably explains the film's title as well), in which God grew angry because humans united to build a tower (The Tower of Babel) that might reach heaven, and as a result, he cast them to four corners of the earth and "confounded their language, that they may not understand each other's speech." Language barriers certainly prevent us from communicating easily. But then, two people could speak the same language and still fail to communicate effectively and honestly. Ironically, this inability is something that cuts across most cultures. We're all guilty of it. Too terrified, complacent, or plain unwilling to do so.
Where does hope lie then? Is there nothing else that we recognize as common between ourselves? Perhaps it's the universal emotions and realities that we experience - love, pain, loss, aspirations, dreams, imagination. And one more. The film doesn't address it, but it's well-known: music. Which is why this particular music selection for the ending of the film is so poignant (to me, anyway). "Bibo No Aozora" is composed by a Japanese man, recorded with a Brazilian and a fellow Japanese musician, and then selected by an Argentine composer for a film written and directed by Mexicans.
Bibo No Aozora/04, by Jaques Morelenbaum (cello), Ryuichi Sakamoto (piano), and Yuichiro Gotoh (cello)
A year or two ago, I wanted to learn Portuguese so I could go to Lisbon and listen to fadistas sing in dimly lit fado houses. (And to understand what they sing, of course.) Someday, maybe. For now, I'll satisfy my melancholic-music craving with my fado playlist.
I once wrote about fado, about Dulce Pontes, the only fado singer I knew at the time. Since then I've discovered Ana Moura and Mariza, and listened to a number of wonderful songs. But there are three I love best - "O Que Foi Que Aconteceu," "Garca Perdida," and "Chuva." All three songs strongly evoke saudade, a powerful emotion that can't easily be expressed in English. At best, the descriptions on the Internet suggest a form of tragic nostalgia, a deep yearning for something that's lost, something irretrievable.
I didn't think I could appreciate these songs more than I already did (short of mastering Portuguese or hearing them live), but I was wrong. I'd forgotten about Youtube. Over the weekend, an Amazon music critic wrote about fado and put up a video of Mariza singing "Chuva." I hit 'play', and was floored. I couldn't take my eyes off her. It seemed as if she had lived through and perfectly understood all the emotions pulsing within the song, and every expression on her face moved in tangent with each line, each word.
Chuva (live), by Mariza
Garca Perdida, by Dulce Pontes
I don't believe Dulce Pontes ever sang "Garca Perdida" live, but here's another singer, Maria Fernandes, who performs it wonderfully.
O Que Foi Que Aconteceu, by Ana Moura
Lyrics after the jump.
"Chuva" - Rain
Things which are distasteful in life
Leave us with no longing
Only the memories which hurt
Or make us smile
There are people who make history
In the history of people
And others we can't even
Remember their names
They are emotions that give life
To the longing I carry
Those which I had with you
And ended up losing
There are days that mark the soul
And life of people
And the day you left me
I cannot forget
The rain drenched my face
Cold and tired
The streets of the city
Each one I have wandered
Oh, my lost child lament
Cried out to the city
That love's fire under the rain
Had died instants ago
The rain heard and kept
My secret from the city
And listen to how it beats on the glass
Bringing that nostalgia back
===================================================================
"O Que Foi Que Aconteceu" - What Happened
It happened
I was not waiting for you
You were not looking for me
Nor did you know who I was
I was there
Just because I had to be
And you came
Because you had to come
I looked at you
the whole world stopped
That moment my life changed
Everything was to be eternal
And you forever mine
Where did we get lost
What happened?
It happened
Call it good luck or misfortune
I was not waiting for you
But you came by again
I have never felt my heart beating
As I did
When I felt your hand
In your mouth
Time went backwards
Went crazy with this lunacy
This lunacy as peace
Everything was to be eternal
And you forever mine
Where did we get lost
What happened?
If you haven't already seen this video from Belgium, you should.
What took place broke the monotony of a train station and it certainly knocked me out of my otherwise restless and pensive mood. Julie Andrews and a flash mob can do wonders at a time when the newspapers seem more depressing than the novels on my bedside table. The stunned and delighted reactions of the people in the station are priceless, and you gotta love the suit guys breaking out in coordinated dance moves!
Could we pull off something like this in Singapore? Maybe at Orchard MRT station? Would the transport officials allow a horde of dancers to take over the floor for a few minutes? It seems unlikely, but I'd love to be proven wrong!
A few minutes of rummaging around the Internet and I found this -
What a little music and dancing won't do for the soul! And synchronized dancing? Makes me all nostalgic for my junior college days.
Don't Cha, by Pussycat Dolls
Get Down On It, by Kool & The Gang
Do You Love Me, from "Dirty Dancing"
For the past four years, tango's been the only dance that interested me but now I'm tempted to stray. Last December, in a narrow aisle of a music store in Argentina, I danced the cumbia (definitely a vacation highlight, even if I was such a beginner compared to the guy I danced with) and found it loads of fun, but forró looks even more thrilling. If forró is what they're doing in the video, I'm a fan already.
It was my friend H, who told me about forró, and how her first lesson has turned her into an enthusiast. She's taking lessons with her new friend, N, who's from Brazil. Listening to her, I could tell how hooked she is, especially since N translates lines from the songs for her as they dance. Many of them, I understand, are love songs.
I think I'll wait for the next round of classes; I have no wish to be a light bulb. *grin*
Note: In Chinese, "light bulb" means "third wheel," or "getting in the way of a couple." Similarly, there's an Italian expression, "mi sembra di reggere il moccolo," which translates to "it appears to me like holding up the candle."
Tango (milonga) - Milonga De Mis Amores, by Juan D'Arienzo
Cumbia - Un Amor Entre Dos, by Los Palmeras
Forró - Utopia Sertaneja, by Flávio José
I've been meaning to blog about this song since last October but the idea fell by the wayside with time. Today, though, it turned up on iTunes and it seemed a perfect moment to write about it.
My friend, D, was the one who introduced the song to me, describing the lyrics as "gut-wrenching" and telling me how they hit him hard every time he listens to the song. I was impressed.
So I watched the video and succumbed even before the song began - Elvis Costello introduces the song briefly, but so expertly, speaking of it as a story. And the best songs are really riveting stories set to music, the ones that leave you thinking and wondering long after the singer is done with the last line. This song is one of them, melancholic and full of yearning - the kind that comes only from loss - but what I love best about it is the woman's point of view, her voice that comes in at the end, like a coda.
Someday, the man may find his own coda. And that would mean giving up the dream he has each night, the very thing, as Costello says, "that's all that's left of her."
*edit: Uncannily, on the day I choose to write about this song, D writes to tell me a little about his life. Perhaps, then, this post is meant for him, who, I just learned, is finding the song more wrenching than ever.
My Thief, by Elvis Costello
...is difficult to perfect.
Always Something There To Remind Me, by Shea Breaux Wells
It seems like everyone's talking about the film, "He's Just Not That Into You." There's even a debate going on at Salon.com. Is the six-word phrase (makes for a six-word memoir too, as DSD observed!) a disparaging remark that implies a woman's inability to comprehend the actions of men? Or does it applaud her smart decision to admit the truth and move on to someone else, someone who actually *is* into her? Are those six words empowering or insulting?
Even Scarlett Johansson's cover of Jeff Buckley's "Last Goodbye" - featured on the soundtrack - provokes argument. Still, the words echo the film's stories of people coming together and apart. Scarlett hasn't quite won me over with her debut album of Tom Waits covers, but I'll confess this song is getting under my skin.
Last Goodbye, by Scarlett Johansson
Last Goodbye, by Jeff Buckley
A friend mentioned this song a while ago, reminding me how special it is. Once upon a time or somewhere among the days that have yet to pass, we all have our enchanted evenings.
"Some enchanted evening
You may see a stranger.
You may see a stranger
Across a crowded room
And somehow you know,
You know even then
That somewhere you'll see him
Again and again."
Some Enchanted Evening, by Jo Stafford
I wish the days wouldn't run so quickly. I wish there weren't so many things to process and interpret and understand. But while time's quicksilver quality leaves me grasping for things that slip from my fingers and feeling doubtful, bewildered, and pensive, it also brings my recess week closer. When the end of February arrives, I will be free, for a time.
Bach's Prelude & Fugue #2 In C Minor (from The Well-Tempered Clavier, Book 1), by Sviatoslav Richter
La Recoleta Cemetery, Buenos Aires. December 2008.
"The End and the Beginning"
After every war
someone has to tidy up.
Things won't pick
themselves up, after all.
Someone has to shove
the rubble to the roadsides
so the carts loaded with corpses
can get by.
Someone has to trudge
through sludge and ashes,
through the sofa springs,
the shards of glass,
the bloody rags.
Someone has to lug the post
to prop the wall,
someone has to glaze the window,
set the door in its frame.
No sound bites, no photo opportunities,
and it takes years.
All the cameras have gone
to other wars.
The bridges need to be rebuilt,
the railroad stations, too.
Shirtsleeves will be rolled
to shreds.
Someone, broom in hand,
still remembers how it was.
Someone else listens, nodding
his unshattered head.
But others are bound to be bustling nearby
who'll find all that
a little boring.
From time to time someone still must
dig up a rusted argument
from underneath a bush
and haul it off to the dump.
Those who knew
what this was all about
must make way for those
who know little.
And less than that.
And at last nothing less than nothing.
Someone has to lie there
in the grass that covers up
the causes and effects
with a cornstalk in his teeth,
gawking at clouds.
~ by Wislawa Szymborska (translated by Stanislaw Baranczak and Clare Cavanagh)
Tim Tamashiro is a Japanese-Canadian singer who does standards with a deep, rumbling voice that reminds me of butter...and velvet.
This is how we met. In 2003, I was having a manicure for the very first time in a small nail salon in Chinatown, near my old office at Kreta Ayer Road. When the manicurist asked me for my name and I gave it, she brightened, saying the owner had the same name. She also told me that the wonderful music playing was chosen by my namesake, who loved jazz vocalists. I liked what I was hearing, so after the manicure, I found a Gramophone store and bought the album.
I loved it so much that I took it with me to graduate school in Michigan, and after countless listens, it was time to return with it to Singapore, but the jewel case for the CD went missing, so I had to place it with another CD. When I got home, I couldn't find it, not till two years later in 2007 when I was organizing my music on newly arrived shelves. I was thrilled. Tim still didn't have a case of his own so I put him with yet another CD.
Clearly, I hadn't learned my lesson. He went missing again. With four fully filled shelves, looking for Tim would be akin to looking for a needle in a haystack. It would turn up again one day, I comforted myself.
Last week, something stirred within me, and I remembered my favorite song from that album. I determined to hunt for it. Staring up at my four shelves, I vowed to open up every CD until I found Tim's. Yesterday, I found two other missing CDs tucked in the soundtrack and classical sections. That felt good, but Tim still hadn't turned up. He was somewhere in there; I was sure of it. Today, I was near the bottom of the third shelf when I finally found that elusive CD.
How ironic that the song I really wanted to listen to is called "It Never Was You."
I've been searching through rains
And the wind that follows after
For one certain face
And an unforgotten laughter
I've been following signs
I've been searching through the lands
For a certain pair of arms
And a certain pair of hands
Yes, I looked everywhere
You can look without wings
And I found a great variety
Of interesting things
But it never was you
It never was any way you
An occasional sunset reminded me
Or a flower hanging high on a tulip tree
Or one red star hung low in the west
Or a heart-break call from a meadowlark's nest
Made me think for a moment
Maybe it's true
I found her in the star
In the call
In the blue
But it never was you
It never was any way you
Anywhere, any way you
It Never Was You, by Tim Tamashiro
...and two celebrations later, they now live in the same country, city, and apartment. Together at last.
Valentine by Donald Hall
Chipmunks jump, and
Greensnakes slither.
Rather burst than
Not be with her.
Bluebirds fight, but
Bears are stronger.
We've got fifty
Years or longer.
Hoptoads hop, but
Hogs are fatter.
Nothing else but
Us can matter.
Make You Feel My Love, by Adele (the song that accompanied S as she walked into church)
Crazy Love, by Aaron Neville & Robbie Robertson
Getting an interview on NPR is akin to hitting gold. Sales of books or albums usually rise after the author or musician appears on NPR. But in the case of Ximena Sariñana, excitement in the indie world began a little earlier when iTunes offered one of her songs as a freebie. Her debut album is called "Mediocre," but the lyrics - I read a translation, of course - of the title song are anything but so; they pointedly express the tragedy of mediocrity and a lack of individuality.
As an indie singer-songwriter who's on the crossover path, Ximena has a nice mix of influences in her music - jazz, rock, and a little pop (but minimal; it's almost subversive pop). Her voice, sans vibrato, packs a wallop, which may come as a surprise because Ximena is a pretty small person. Perhaps I like her all the more because of it. And I certainly like how she makes this quirky rendition of "Volare" completely hers. She just about eats up the song.
Mediocre, by Ximena Sariñana
Un Error, by Ximena Sariñana
While working on the Proust Questionnaire (more on this later), I surfed over to The Late Greats, whose latest post was about Jake Shimabukuro. It inspired me to answer the question "What is your idea of perfect happiness?" with this statement - to have Jake Shimabukuro play his ukulele for me in Central Park. I eventually wrote a different answer, but that's another story.
Still, the wild beauty in his playing is no small thing. The video below is a treasure. I watched it dozens of times when a friend first sent it to me. That was about three years ago; today, Jake and his weeping ukulele still leave me reeling.
Last week wasn't a good one, but I felt infinitely better yesterday night when I attended the first performance of the YST Conservatory orchestra series. My friend, Peiming, who has been pregnant for the past two years (a few months after bringing sweet Paige into the world, she became pregnant again with Mitch, due in December), performed for all of ten minutes on the harpsichord to accompany The Conservatory Orchestra. She'd given me a complimentary ticket, which I would gladly have paid for because the music selections were simply wonderful. Faculty members also performed, so that meant I was treated to the T'ang Quartet playing Edward Elgar's sublime "Introduction and Allegro Strings, Op. 47." To my amateur's ears, the performance was spirited and evocative, and I had to resist the storm of emotions welling up within me. And then there was Richard Strauss' "Mondscheinmusik" from the opera "Capriccio." By the intermission, my heart was in pieces.
After the performance, we went for a late dinner (for her) and dessert (for me) at PS Cafe. We had a delicious salad with seven kinds of mushrooms and a generous slice of cheesecake with berries and chocolate. We talked of many things - music, books, books about music and the mind, teaching music to toddlers, my writing, her paper that she'll present in Houston in October (which I promised to help proofread), her children, my journeys, the startlingly youthful appearance of the T'ang Quartet members (whom she promised to introduce me to), and the mushroom salad. I went home full - of music, food, memories, dreams.
Introduction and Allegro, Op.47, by Edward Elgar; performed by the Allegri String Quartet and the Sinfonia of London, conducted by Sir John Barbirolli
Today, I wish I could step into a place and have someone talk to me as gently as Charlotte Kendrick's bartender addresses a dejected customer. But it's hard to keep believing such a place exists.
Someone's Looking Out For You, by Charlotte Kendrick.
Going through my iTunes playlists is like reading my musical autobiography, especially when I actually have one that's titled "Soundtrack of my life." I was looking for Kermit's "The Rainbow Connection" when I came across the song, "I Will." When I was a teenager, I used to sing (or hum, if other people were around) the song a lot. It was written by that beloved songwriter, Paul McCartney, though the version I have isn't the original. Instead, it's by a famous musical pairing - Tuck and Patti. He plays guitar, she sings. (And if one needs to dwell on the race factor, well, he's white and she's black.)
People think it's a love song between a couple, but it isn't. It's about a person in your imagination, one you dream of meeting. It's also the one that chance shoves at you or sneakily offers up and then takes away - you could be walking down a street, racing to join the line for donuts, or searching for a book in your favorite bookstore, and right then, you pass the person you're meant to be with (if you believe in that kind of thing) without knowing it. It's altogether possible you'll meet the person later - properly, as in, you get to have a conversation - or never see him again. Fate is funny, and fickle. So songs like these make you feel better about it. It gives a nice shiny layer to something that could be potentially heartbreaking.
I Will, by Tuck and Patti.
In my youth, whenever I was particularly tired, my fatigue manifested in a propensity to laugh too much and say bizarre things that I didn't always understand. In short, if I was tired, I appeared tipsy. Today, I've lost the ability to laugh when I get tired. Instead, I just spout strange statements that I still don't understand. In addition, I've noticed a mis-use of vocabulary and also a higher chance of saying things without thinking, which alternates with a moody silence. I'm not sure which of these is the worst.
Sleepdriving, by Grand Archives.
Because I don't listen only to sad music (despite what music selections on this blog suggest), and because it's Friday.
Friday I'm In Love, by The Cure.
Some of the best lines from Adrienne Shelley's "Waitress" are addressed to an unborn baby. In a journal she's planning to give her daughter, Jenna writes:
"Dear Baby, I hope someday somebody wants to hold you for 20 minutes straight and that's all they do. They don't pull away. They don't look at your face. They don't try to kiss you. All they do is wrap you up in their arms and hold on tight, without an ounce of selfishness to it."
When I heard those lines in the film, I thought immediately of tango. At a milonga, if a person holds you just right, it's a wonderful feeling for about 12 minutes, if not 20. As Jenna writes, he doesn't look at you or overwhelm you; he just holds you tenderly, protectively. And no one has to say a word. The sensation isn't about romance (though it could be for couples); rather, it's about connecting with another person, which is a rare event these days.
Last night, I listened to two pieces of music that reminded me of Jenna being held by Dr. Pomatter when she was particularly vulnerable. In the right embrace, a person can easily reach the state of forgetting, of oblivion. It's a good place to be, because sometimes we need to forget. And, sometimes, we just need to be held.
Oblivion, by Pablo Ziegler.
Magic Hour, by the Ahn Trio.
This is what I learned in music theory a long time ago: the passacaglia is an Italian music form. It can be quick and lively; it can be slow and grave. Either way, its hallmark is a repetitive pattern, line, or melody, that is, a melody that repeats almost unchangingly throughout the length of the piece while other lines vary freely. The passacaglia is also an ancient triple-time Spanish or Italian court dance based on this type of music. Listening to various pieces with passacaglia elements, I can imagine solemn dances held in grand, kingly halls; straight-backed men moving amongst bejeweled women in elaborate gowns, the sound of cloth and feet sweeping in time with the music.
The music, though, was allegedly played by musicians who belonged to the street and not in grand courts. They were wandering musicians; passacaglia originates from the Spanish words pasear (to walk) and calle (street). Musicians throughout history have often been wanderers, taking their music and instruments across lands and countries, enriching their repertoire with strange and stirring notes they hear from peers who look and dress differently, but who possess the same secret nerve that awakens when chords and phrases weave stories and pictures. Today, musicians and poets still embark on journeys to find new material, to widen their horizons and experiences in the hopes that doing so will make them better artists.
If the passacaglia marks the work of a wandering musician, I like to imagine the varying lines as the new and unfamiliar experiences the musician collects on his journeys, and the unchanging melody or bass line as the core within him, the self that remains true and unshaken while everything else is in flux. Similarly, we have a unique, constant rhythm within our minds, even if around us everything is topsy turvy, helter skelter - unpredictable. That rhythm can occasionally build with urgency or delight, or tumble with disappointment - just as heartbeats that quicken or slow - but it seldom varies beyond recognition, and sometimes that's all we can ever depend upon.
Here are three samples of the passacaglia. The first is by Handel, or rather, inspired by a theme of his and attributed to Norwegian Johan Halvorsen (this is arguably the most famous piece of music in the form of a passacaglia). The next is a composition by Luigi Boccherini, the fourth movement ("Passacalle") in a work titled "Musica notturna delle strade di Madrid." I saved my favorite for the last, "Passacaglia" by Bear McCreary. Boccherini's piece appeared at the end of the film "Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World" and McCreary wrote "Passacaglia" for the TV series, "Battlestar Galactica." It comes as no surprise that both the film and series are about characters and their journeys, whether they are taken across oceans or galaxies.
"Passacaglia," performed by Quartetto Gelato (Handel/Halvorsen).
"Passacalle," performed by Richard Erdoes, Michael Fisher, Simon Oswell, Timothy Landauer, Bruce Dukov (Boccherini).
"Passacaglia," performed by the Royal Scottish National Orchestra (McCreary).
There have been mornings when I'd wake with an inexplicable sense of dread, a harbinger of some unpleasant event or an unwanted development. On most occasions, I was able to shake off the feeling, glad to be rid of it, though having felt it somehow prepared me for whatever happened later. Should I be grateful for these premonitions, made better for their warning? I rose twice this week with that heavy feeling in my stomach. It should have been a grand week - last week of the term, the end of grading, the beginning of some time at last to write and read, time for walks, time to clear and pack - but something was wrong or about to be very wrong, and I couldn't name it.
This too shall pass, by Justin Rutledge
Rant: I expected the months of March and April to be packed with work, but not this packed. The tasks are still the same, just more difficult to get through and taking longer than I'd planned. Plenty of grading, of course, which I was prepared for, but the editing is increasingly frustrating for reasons I shouldn't say. I'm already behind schedule as it is! And everything has to be clean and perfect or the software won't read the files. So I can't do a speedy job either; I'm very sore about the situation. I also have a task to complete in less than a week for my CELTA application, and application essays from my students to read and comment on, which I agreed to do since no other instructor would help them. Why can't I say "no" to people? Why does "bad timing" have to be the subtitle to my life?
Balm: Of angels and angles, by The Decemberists
Things I've read or heard during brief breaks:
It is impossible to convey the life-sensation of any given epoch of one's existence; that which makes its truth, its meaning, its subtle and penetrating essence. It is impossible. We live, as we dream - alone. ~ Joseph Conrad, from Heart of Darkness
If man does not live by bread alone, a nation does not survive in the long term by material prosperity alone. I’m going to risk being churlish and say that as long as Singapore’s leaders do not pay heed to the fundamental needs of the human spirit, they can never be called wise, only clever, and as long as the nation they lead is admired only for its material achievements, it can never be called great, only successful. ~ Catherine Lim, from "A challenge for the future: Democratising the Lee Kuan Yew model of governance?"
In Italy for 30 years under the Borgias they had warfare, terror, murder, and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, and the Renaissance. In Switzerland they had brotherly love; they had 500 years of democracy and peace, and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock. ~ Harry Lime, from "The Third Man"
A song was playing in the car over a month ago, and my friend, B, said it was good advice.
Keep breathing, by Ingrid Michaelson
A quick search on iTunes unearthed many more songs about breathing, most of which are from "Grey's Anatomy," a show with a number of extras and guest stars whose characters eventually stop breathing.
Breathe me, by Sia
Breathe in, breathe out, by Mat Kearney
Breathe (2 AM), by Anna Nalick
...definitely a thrill that Dario Marianelli received the Oscar for Best Score. His work in "Atonement" is marvelous; the pairing of the staccato of typewriter keys and a lush score is novel but it works very well for the film.
I first heard Marianelli's work in "I Capture the Castle," which stars Romola Garai (also seen in "Atonement"). And of course, he wrote the dreamy, romantic score for "Pride and Prejudice."
Here is a sample from the rare score of "I Capture the Castle."
A break with (or "from"?) tradition: here are a couple of upbeat songs. And they're about grammar.
Oxford Comma - by Vampire Weekend. Neil Gaiman put this up on his blog. A cool pick.
My Egpytian Grammar - by The Fiery Furnaces. I can't remember where I got this.
On Saturday, a dead bird lay somewhere between the front door and the coral tree in my garden. It wasn't a muscular crow or a small black mynah, nor was it an arrestingly beautiful sort of bird. It was unusual though; I'd seen tiny yellow birds darting about the neighborhood before, but never a green one before. My bird - in less than a minute, I'd already grown a sense of responsibility towards it - had dark green and gray feathers, though the ones on its head were snow-white. I'd like to think that when it was alive, its feathers were shiny and glinting in the sun. Like a fallen gladiator, now it was a still, dark shape among the bright red petals of the coral flowers on the ground.
Despite it being one of the least pleasant tasks I could ever wish for on a Saturday morning, I had to remove it before any stray cat came by to stake its claim. As it was, a trail of industrious ants were already on the scene. Who knows what they'd already taken. The eyes, maybe. I shuddered at the thought of picking up a dead body, even if it wasn't large or heavy. Even if it was just a bird that I'd never seen before till that morning.
I couldn't decide which made me more uneasy - the physical presence of this dead weight or the awful thought that the life had gone from a creature that had always made me think of joy and journeys and freedom. It was just a bird, someone might say, but it had once breathed and eaten and drank of this world, and though I had seen an unusual number of deaths in my youth, mortality and death and all the permanence linked to it have yet to become any easier to accept.
I was thirteen when I first touched a dead body. My aunt was 18 when she died of an aneurysm. I was at the hospital the morning they took her off the life support machine, and though I knew her body was still warm after she was declared dead, I was afraid to touch her. Because I'd grown up with her, seen her laugh, heard her sing, let her tickle me till I teared, and I couldn't quite believe that her vibrant spirit was gone from her, and her body, so warm and familiar beside mine when I was a child, would soon grow cold and then be taken away from us forever. I lay only a finger on her forearm for a second, and then I walked away from her, ashamed and certain that I never wanted to touch a dead body of someone I loved if I could help it. I didn't want to remember that instant of knowledge, the tangible proof that the life had gone from her, sensed through mere layers of skin, mine and hers.
But I still remember it, and I did again when I felt the weight of the bird as I attempted to push it into a bag. I was using a rolled-up newspaper, which proved too large and clumsy, so I used a slipper, and even then, despite the lack of contact, I could feel the bird's sinking deadness through the tips of my fingers, and I had to walk away several times, leaving the body half in and half out of the bag, and feathers falling away from the bird's wings in all directions. Finally, I returned, inhaled deeply, heaved it into the bag as far as I could, and pulled the bag up so the body would fall to the bottom.
As I tied the bag, I wondered if the bird was on its way home to a nest somewhere in the neighborhood, or if it was on its way out to look for breakfast, or maybe it was leaving its nest in search of a better one someplace else. I'd like to think it was out on a new journey, but that it wasn't meant to be, and that if there were a heaven for animals, then it was in a far better place now, where the skies are endless, worms are plentiful, and trees are tall and lush and perfect for building nests.
Back in my study, I pulled out three songs that use birds as metaphors, very good metaphors. I listened to them and thought of real birds - black birds, blue birds, and a green bird - and also of the people who yearn to be like them, to go off on long journeys, to leave a place forever, who fail to do so but still dream that they can.
Black Winged Bird - by Nina Persson
Homebird - by Brian Kennedy
Bye Bye Blackbird - by The History Boys; they sing it for a beloved but often misunderstood teacher who finally left on a journey of his own.
Last week, I spoke to my students about using fresh metaphors in modern songs and poems. We'd spoken before about tired metaphors and symbols like roses for love, doves for peace, but it hadn't occurred to me to refer to contemporary writing to show them how new images can startle and affect a reader. When I read online versions of the Guardian's booklets on Greek legends, I thought of a song that cleverly uses a scientific law to represent attraction. The class was thrilled about the song, though I suspect much of their excitement came from getting to listen to music instead of having to read or write.
It was Germaine Greer's foreword for "The power of love," that mentioned the comparison of love to gravity, or rather, she reminds us that gravity is just another word that means the force of attraction. Immediately, I thought of Sara Bareilles's interpretation of gravity, which had initially struck me as a conceit - something I used to encounter often enough in metaphysical poetry (John Donne, Andrew Marvell). Despite my initial resistance to the idea, it eventually grew on me and transcended the level of fanciful-metaphor-by-writer-trying-to-be-clever. Given Bareilles's genuine emotion when she sings, the haunting words and phrasing, the song easily made my list of top 25 most played songs. It's a song about falling in love, being unable to resist the force of it. The speaker wants to escape the pull, but says she can't, or perhaps she doesn't wish to.
dimsumdolly likes the song too. She writes a poignant entry about it.
Here is Sara Bareilles's "Gravity."
Here too is the a cappella version that she recorded with her former group from UCLA, Awaken.
Bonus: Awaken does a beautiful version of Billy Joel's "And so it goes," a song about keeping silent.
To complete the circle, here's another Sara (Gazarek) with a version of "And so it goes."
Since it's the first day of a brand new year, I figured it'd be good to listen to songs that cheer and inspire the spirit. I can't think of a better song than Feist's (one of last year's "it" female singers) contribution to the film "Paris, je t'aime."
Here are the English and French versions:
(dancing dragon, if you're reading this, know that I still think of you whenever I listen to the song. Hope you're doing well.)
Another song that gets plenty of airtime in my study is Peter Mayer's "Now Touch the Air Softly," which manages to sound traditional and romantic and timeless all at once. It's a song I like listening to late at night when it gets quiet and I sit by an open window dreaming of distant worlds and other lives. I love how the lyrics conjure up images that start from the small spaces of a home - a country house - then widen to rivers, mountains, and an open sky awash with stars.
However, Mayer didn't write the lyrics; William Jay Smith, a poet, did. In 2004, he wrote -
"As a lyric poet I have been pleased also to find that my poems have for many years attracted the attention of composers, jazz musicians, and folk singers. Recent concerts in Rome at the American Academy and in Paris at the Atelier de la Main d'Or by Ned Rorem, Liz Peterson, Donna Kelly Eastman, and Stephen Berg have presented prominent singers in settings of my poetry for both adults and children. This development has given me particular pleasure since I like to think of myself as part of the Southern oral tradition. One of the poems that has been a favorite with composers and is frequently sung at weddings is the following:
Now Touch the Air Softly
Now touch the air softly,
Step gently. One, two …
I'll love you till roses
Are robin's-egg blue;
I'll love you till gravel
Is eaten for bread,
And lemons are orange,
And lavender's red.
Now touch the air softly,
Swing gently the broom.
I'll love you till windows
Are all of a room;
And the table is laid,
And the table is bare,
And the ceiling reposes
On bottomless air.
I'll love you till Heaven
Rips the stars from his coat,
And the Moon rows away in
A glass-bottomed boat;
And Orion steps down
Like a diver below,
And Earth is ablaze,
And Ocean aglow.
So touch the air softly,
And swing the broom high.
We will dust the gray mountains,
And sweep the blue sky;
And I'll love you as long
As the furrow the plow,
As However is Ever,
And Ever is Now.
It's been three days since I returned from Japan, but I've yet to sort out my pictures and buckle down to write a detailed review of my trip. At least the luggage has been emptied, though some of its contents are scattered across my living room floor. I've also got to clean up the mess I left before I went on my trip, which includes mail, school handouts, CDs, books.
Of course, the CDs and books should be a pleasure to deal with. One of them is Stacey Kent's first Blue Note Records album, "Breakfast on the Morning Tram." There are two beautiful French covers, "Ces petits riens" and "La Saison Des Pluies" but the track that I play on repeat is her cover of Stevie Nicks' "Landslide." It's a sad one, and if you've read this blog long enough, you'll know that sad songs are the kind that hit me hardest.
I love the questions the speaker in the song asks, because I know so many who've asked the same ones -
Oh, mirror in the sky - What is love?
Can the child within my heart rise above?
Can I sail through the changin' ocean tides?
Can I handle the seasons of my life?
I don't know, I don't know
Listen to it here and make of it what you will.
And since I love coincidences and roundabout connections, I have to mention that one of the lyricists Stacey Kent selected for her album is novelist Kazuo Ishiguro, who wrote four songs about relationships, all narrated by travelers. In Japan, I read his recent work, Never Let Me Go. And while I was away, I received in the mail a DVD of "Remains of the Day," the 1993 film based on Ishiguro's novel.
A favorite music blog of mine (The Late Greats) often puts up homonym posts, listing songs with the same title or that have the same word in the title or singer's name. It's inspiring to hear these songs that sound exactly the same in title but differ so greatly in music and lyrics. Very much the way two (or three or four) people might have the same name, but have personalities as different as say, iron and wine, incidentally a band that appears on the playlist of homonymic songs I created this afternoon.
It began when I was looking for Sia's "Breathe Me." I typed "Breathe" in the search bar and found five songs with the word "breathe" in their titles. After that I went a little crazy and began typing random words that popped into my head just to see what songs my library would chuck at me. It was nice enough to find a handful of songs for each word and then put them into a playlist, but I soon noticed that the words I chose started to sound like a strange poem when I lined them up.
breathe gravity drive sway bird lonely everything broken gone crash arms save grace superman words lost goodbye afternoon secret away
Words (and numbers) I'll try later: garden, living, daughter, eyes, tonight, call, tomorrow (I'm sure a number of "Annie" songs are going to turn up in this search), 95, 100
I've been swamped with papers, and am having a trying time at work. No time to write, no time to read, no time to think much about anything really. But when my father sent me this link about a bird performance, it made me sit up and smile. I haven't seen a show this good since...since...well, I don't know. It starts out a little slow and screechy, but then really gets good.
Go here to watch and listen.
Let's add Travis' "The Boy With No Name" to the list of May music releases.
Here is the video for "Closer" (fun cameo included). The supermarket setting reminded me of a classmate at my MFA program who was fascinated by grocery stores in America. I remember a story of hers set in a supermarket. Quirky and captivating. Now I'm missing my balm-for-the-spirit late-night shopping at the 24-hour Kroger.
This isn't a May but June release. But since I've mentioned the band, Travis, I should add that my thoughts always go to this fellow workshopper (he was a year ahead, a classmate of EK's) when a song of Travis' appears in the iTunes window. Part of his novel was one of the first pieces I got to read in at the start of the program. It's lovely to see that work come so far.
Pink Martini's third album, "Hey Eugene," is arriving in May. It's just one of the slew of new albums from popular musicians, singers, and bands coming out that month. Among others, there are Maroon 5 ("It Won't Be Soon Before Long"), Tori Amos ("American Doll Posse"), Erasure ("Light at the End of the World"), Michael Buble ("Call Me Irresponsible"), and Rufus Wainwright ("Release the Stars") - he's not so popular or widely known but he ought to be! I suppose May's the time for new music since school's out and summer beckons, the season for long road trips or lemonade afternoons at the park (prime music-listening occasions).
On a personal note, in May, three close friends celebrate their birthdays, and another will depart for a year-long adventure. Much celebration, anticipation, and farewells. I can't decide if I'm going to love or lament the coming of May.
After sampling tracks from Pink Martini's new offering, I'm pretty sure it's going on the shopping list the next time I visit the music store. They haven't changed their recipe much, but it's that tried-and-tested-and-loved recipe their fans adore and want a lot of anyway - distinct flavors from across the globe, capable switching between gentle and vigorous vocal stirrings. More importantly, given the long production period between the first two albums, it's a thrill that the third one's coming out this soon.
You might not have heard of Patty Griffin, but you probably know the singers who've sung her songs, who admire her as a singer and a songwriter. The Dixie Chicks, Jessica Simpson, Linda Ronstadt, Martina McBride. One of her songs even appeared in a mainstream Hollywood film - "We Were Soldiers," performed by Mary Chapin Carpenter.
I found Patty Griffin's own version of "Dear Old Friend" a while ago, and it set off a flood of thoughts and emotions. It's a song to listen to if you've ever lost a friend to illness, war, graduation and moving away. Though the last stanza sounds hopeful - "how will we smile ever again / i'm asking you sincerely, my dear old friend / the moon on the hill says we probably will" - it's a wistful sort of hope, even fleeting. It's very much like the final scene in "Once Upon A Time in the West," when Jill asks Harmonica to come back again. He has a look in his eyes that says he's already miles away, and when he says, "Someday," you know that "someday" will never come to pass.
"Dear Old Friend" by Patty Griffin (13 Ways to Live)
how will we smile ever again
i'm asking you sincerely, my dear old friend
what do you say, is there a way
my dear old friend
how will we laugh just like before
when there's water rising up to our door
and we may never see each other again
my dear old friend
will there be someone to remember
a little place that we loved
how the music played all night and day
through the windows up above
how the birds sang in the morning
how the dog barked in the yard
i guess that's nothing much but everything to us
and that's what seems so hard
how will we smile ever again
i'm asking you sincerely, my dear old friend
the moon on the hill says we probably will
my dear old friend
Jessica Simpson's album A Public Affair is mostly upbeat. You can tell she's moved on from her divorce, her grief; all determined to have a grand time. But one song stands out in its spare yet breathtaking rendition, and it's the closest reference to the recent events in her life. Though I didn't care much for the other songs on the album - or any of her earlier music, for that matter - I thought she nailed this one. Beautifully.
"Let Him Fly" by Patty Griffin (performed by Jessica Simpson in A Public Affair)
Ain't no talkin to this man
Ain't no pretty other side
Ain't no way to understand the stupid words of pride
It would take an acrobat, and I already tried all that so
I'm gonna let him fly
Things can move at such a pace
The second hand just waved goodbye
You know the light has left his face
But you can't recall just where or why
So there was really nothing to it
I just went and cut right through it
I said I'm gonna let him fly
There's no mercy in a live wire
No rest at all in freedom
Of the choices we are given it's no choice at all
The proof is in the fire
You touch before it moves away
But you must always know how long to stay and when to go
And there ain't no talkin to this man
He's been tryin to tell me so
It took awhile to understand the beauty of just letting go
Cause it would take an acrobat, I already tried all that
I'm gonna let him fly
I'm gonna let him fly
I'm gonna let him fly
I've never flown a kite before, but I liked watching people fly them. When I lived right by Bedok Reservoir, I often took walks there and sometimes stopped to admire several avid kite fliers, their arms deftly maneuvering the kites like soaring puppets. They reminded me of the one red balloon that, as a child, I lost hold of one Saturday afternoon. I'd stared hard at it then - just as I stared at the kites - watching it drift farther into the sky, thinking that it was heading straight for the land of lost balloons, where they bobbed eternally and held balloon parties for newcomers.
It's been ten years since I went to the reservoir, and I wonder if they still fly kites there. And listening to Rosie Thomas's "Kite Song" brought back all those images. The gentle bobbing of balloons; the sharp, graceful swerves of kites as they traverse the sky. Of course I learned eventually that balloons fall back to earth and sag into forlorn swatches of rubber, but kites...a kite may fall, lie low for some time, and then the wind will find it again and pull it skyward for a new journey.
"Kite Song" by Rosie Thomas
Oh, tie me to the end of a kite
So I can go on, I can go on with my life
Every marigold I pass below will be my guiding light
I just want to go away from here
Oh, tie me to the end of a kite
So I can go on, I can go on with my life
Every time the wind blows stronger,
I will feel my spirit rise
I just want to go away from here
Oh, tie me ever tightly by your side
So I may go with you wherever you reside
And anytime the road looks dimmer
I will be your guiding light
I just want to go away with you
I just want to go away with you
It's been nearly impossible to blog for the past month. I moved, and the new place did not have an Internet connection for an extended period of time. Then my desktop at my parents' crashed, so what little online time I got became next to nothing once I lost my only computer with online access.
I finally signed up for a Singnet account last week, solved further problems that prohibited online access, and here I am blogging on a Dell laptop at my new desk. The experience is exquisite.
Other experiences -
In January, I got to have an old friend stay for a few days. Ice-cream and coffee and cookies and ideas about which is more amazing: that there is life beyond our planet, or that we are completely alone in the universe?
In January, I also started teaching at a particular university in Clementi. I'm teaching English to students from China, and dare I say, loving (and loathing...on some days anyhow) it. Since many of the other lecturers in the department are much older, I dress corporate in a bid to gain a measure of respect from my students. However, it seems I can't run from my baby face; in the washroom, I've noticed the quizzical looks from Singaporean girls (all dressed in the latest fads - knee-length leggings, belted tunics, babydoll tops which are on the return) who probably wonder why a university-going kid dresses like an office girl.
I get to have lunch with my old Michigan crony, Peiming, who teaches at the Conservatory, and we commiserate about being the youngest and looking the youngest (of course, she has a height advantage which I dismally lack). I get to walk around the bazaar area, taking in the sights and sounds as a tourist would. Today, I bought souvenirs. Two hand-painted wooden doll-magnets - the boy's dressed in a yellow shirt and blue shorts with suspenders and the girl's got on a red Hawaiian dress.
Two days ago, I found an old CD that marked my last undergraduate days in Ann Arbor. During that time, I had attended a few ceremonies, done my reading for the writing program, and had one final essay to complete. One afternoon, I left my brother to entertain my parents, and drove in the pouring rain towards the graduate library. I found relevant books on Percy Bysshe Shelley and his poem "Ozymandias," selected a carrel, and set to work.
Back then, I had my Creative discman constantly at my side, and on that afternoon, I was playing a CD my father had brought over for me. Jacintha Abisheganaden's "Autumn Leaves." She made several pleasant renditions of Johnny Mercer songs, but it was the final bonus track that I kept on repeat mode - "Here's to Life" which Jacintha sang for the film "Play it to the bone."
Staring at the rain falling over the roofs of the university buildings, knowing it was the last essay I would write as an undergraduate, wistful about my departure of a town I'd come to love very much, I spent more time listening to the lyrics of the song than analyzing the lines of "Ozymandias," which itself is a great poem about the passage of time and the inevitable fading of human life and all things material. It was a favorite poem of mine, but music has a slightly greater power over me and I gave myself over to the melancholic strains of the song.
Of course, a few years later, I returned to the same university for graduate school. Much had changed by then (in the town and in myself). But I was glad to be back and doing what I'd always wished to do: read and write. And then the time to leave came by again. It was harder the second time round. And what did I return to? I'm still not sure. Perhaps I'll leave it at a life that's been good and painful.
Here's to life by Jacintha Abisheganaden
I've had two tracks from the self-titled album for quite a long time now, but it wasn't till I caught the youtube video of R and G playing "Diablo Rojo" that I was blown away by their playing. The songs are certainly giddy, delightful marvels but I didn't know it required that kind of playing to produce that kind of sound (I thought someone else was doing the percussions, not the guitarists themselves).
The song's on my "Morning music" playlist, and it certainly gets me moving on the hardest days of the week. The strong beats, the lighting-quick playing. It makes you sit up, learning their the album made it to no. 1 in Ireland; but then you learn also that Dublin has a reputation for taking in struggling musicians and then it's little wonder that an album by two not-very-ordinary guitar-playing Mexicans got that no. 1 spot.
Rodrigo y Gabriela played in Singapore some three, four years ago, at Womad, and I hope the folks who loved them then will remember to get their new album now. It's a studio recording but reputedly captures the magic of the duo's live performances. Listening to "Tamacun" and "Diablo Rojo," I'm more than convinced of it.
Here's a listen. (You might want to hold on to your feet once the song starts.)
So I haven't seen the film yet, but I plan to do so next week with Dimsumdolly. We'll most likely schedule a viewing of the original Italian version when Tiggie, aka Ms Overacuppa, returns with the DVD in December. As of now, she has it in her apartment in bitterly cold Minnesota! Thank you, Tiggie, for helping me get hold of the DVD.
In anticipation of the films, I thought I'd put up two songs, one from each version. From the American adaptation - Imogen Heap's string mix of "Hide and Seek," a song I like not least because it has a favorite phrase of mine, "what the hell." The string-less version is what you get on the soundtrack, though both are equally surreal, as are unexpected betrayals and disappointments. It's a wonderful contrast, the ethereal vocals and the sharp, angry lyrics.
And from the Italian version - "L'Ultimo Bacio." Carmen Consoli's voice is a dream.
Someone asked me about the lyrics to Carmen Consoli's "L'ultimo Bacio." My translation skills are sketchy at best, so I chose only a few lines that I knew I understood.
"L'ultimo bacio mia dolce bambina
brucia sul viso come gocce di limone
l'eroico coraggio di un feroce addio
ma sono lacrime mentre piove
piove"
"The last kiss, my sweet girl,
burns on the face like drops of lemon
the heroic courage of a ferocious goodbye
but there are tears as you cry
you cry"
Sicilian elements, political lyrics, smoky Italian vocals - these are things that Carmen Consoli offers in her latest album. I'm plesantly surprised that an Italian singer is getting publicity in the US, where few foriegn-language singers receive such entry into the market, unless it's opera or classical crossover work by Andrea Bocelli and Josh Groban and the like. The most successful Italian songstress I can think of is Laura Pausini, but even then, many of her songs are sung in English (several in Spanish).
Carmen Consoli's music has been mainly rock but this recent album is very acoustic, understated, even traditional in the instruments used. It reminds me of a rather famous song of hers, "L'ultimo Bacio" - the last kiss (in the video, look for the lovely Italian actress, Giovanna Mezzogiorno, who plays the protagonist's girlfriend; the long-haired brunette). It was the theme song of the Italian film of the same name, which has been made into the Zach Braff-starring American version, The Last Kiss (opening in Singapore on November 30).
"Eva Contro Eva" is fully Italian, though the track list has been translated for non-Italian speakers/readers. The titles are small beauties indeed -
1. Tutto Su Eva (Eve Against Eve)
2. Maria Catena (Mary Chain)
3. Dolce Attesa (The Sweet Awaiting)
4. Sulle Rive di Morfeo (On Morpheus' Shores)
5. Pendio Dell'abbandono (The Slope of Abandonment)
6. Preghiera in Gola (A Prayer in the Throat)
7. Piccolo Cesare (Little Caesar)
8. Madre Terra (Mother Earth)
9. Signor Tentenna (Mr See-Saw)
10. Sorriso di Atlantide (Atlantis's Smile)
Here is yet another music post, but it's one I must write because Tally Hall is a band from Ann Arbor, a band from my alma mater, the University of Michigan! Go Blue!
I always find out about the good stuff only after it becomes far less accessible. But at least I find out about it, thanks in no small part to Lim Jia, trumpet and harpsichord player who's in town to obtain her German student visa (she's about to begin harpsichord classes in Berlin). Her main squeeze, Jake, is friends with Andrew Horowitz, a former music student from U of M. Andrew and four other fellows make up Tally Hall, named for a closed-down strip mall in Farmington Hills, Michigan.
They don't have any particular style - that is, they do all styles - and they like to call their music "wonky" or "fabloo." A quick listen of their debut album confirms that you can't really pin them down to a certain type of music. There's the rap-like "Welcome to Tally Hall" and the Jamaican-sounding "Banana Man," whose lyrics are quite absurd but still catchy. It's a head-bopping, danceable song, like many of the others on the CD, and I cannot get the tune out of my head. And the music video is something else. It's filmed in Ann Arbor, and you really feel that the guys are tripping on something. Okay, probably tripping on the fun of it all. It helps that one of the band members was a film student; the short films on their website are hilarious and very strange.
They do enjoy what they're doing, and according to Jake, they got their degrees as sensible young men are supposed to, but they weren't afraid to indulge their crazy, talented sides, which have taken them pretty far. They've had appearances on national TV - MTV and late night shows - and had one of their songs play on an episode of "The O.C."
I also found out that although Andrew Horowitz was primarily a pianist at college, he also wrote collaborative pieces for tuba and piano, and alternative, world, folk music and rap. Those works go under the name of Baker Broz or (Bros). He's also won Hopwood prizes for fiction and poetry, and Hopwoods are the writing awards to win when you're at UM.
So the band writes their own music, makes their own videos, gives rad live performances, and have a made-up name - fabloo - for their particular style of music. And as much as I'd like to watch them in concert, I'll have to make do with their CD, which I begged a friend traveling to the US to bring back for me.
A little over a year ago, my friends Lim Jia and Jake sent me a link to a video of a Japanese-Hawaiian ukulele player named Jake Shimabukuro. The playing, the energy near winded me. I couldn't take my eyes off him, or my ears away from the music, which was at once beautiful and wild; his right hand on that ukulele moved like a circular razor in motion. He didn't just draw out music from the instrument, he whipped the notes into beings, and what spectacular ones they were. I'd never heard "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" played with such sensitivity and gusto before. He plays with such heart, as my friend Jake once said.
I sent the link to noob, who, resourceful fellow that he is, emailed in return a high-res file of the video. It's been over a year since I last watched it; life and other business got my attention, and the file stayed hidden for a time. So it was with much cheer when I spotted a feature on him during my evening visit to the NPR website. His latest album is an acoustic one, and in my opinion, the kind worth getting because previous studio albums had him record with a band, which distracted from his playing and diluted much of the energy that he's known for, the energy he seems to display best in live performances.
So thanks again to my friends for sharing their musical finds with me - Lim Jia and her Jake, the tuba-playing Jake, who can be seen below embracing a large red clock in Iowa.
Photo courtesy of Jake
Postscript: I'd like to think that if I could one day start living my life with say, even just half the energy and passion of Jake's as he plays his ukulele (see above-mentioned video), then it'd be a pretty good life. Dimsdumdolly and I had dinner yesterday and we spoke of how we didn't want to be typical - and this is a sweeping generalization - Singaporeans who are defined only by their work. We didn't want to just work, go home, go to work, go home, work, get home...you get the idea. Life's more than a job, more than fulfilling duties, and existing drearily. There's a world beyond making a living - unabashedly pursuing quirky interests; gushing about a perfect paragraph or a damn fine song; learning about the world and its history; going on adventures, walks, or hugging a red clock; seeking out the unusual; relishing big ideas and gargantuan things, and the little ones too; traveling to places that I've always wanted to see and really seeing them. Sure, having a job and being good at it does matter, but I'd like to be in love with life too. I'd like to think I am, and that I still have a sense of wonder about this world. But then, there are too many people I know who have lost that. And it saddens me.
Perhaps this entry should be titled "The game of improvisation." Gabriela Montero is a Venezuelan pianist who's got the chops not just for classical piano performance but also improvisation. An NPR feature has her listen to the song "Take me out to the ballgame" and then improvise it on the spot. In another broadcast, she improvises the theme for the show "All Things Considered." My favorite is a piece titled "Beyond Bach: Improvisation on a Bach theme."
On iTunes, I downloaded a podcast (this is supposed to be a series of five shows, but there's been only once since May) and I love what she did with "Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring." The podcast is mostly an interview (and Ms. Montero has a lovely voice and accent) and ends with the interviewer's request of an improvisation on a theme of childhood. Gabriela doesn't just improvise themes by other composers; give her an idea or an emotion, she interprets it on the piano and then improvises immediately after. Her improvisation on the theme of childhood made me very wistful.
Since I was in a wistful mood all morning and afternoon, I went to her website and put in a request (the interviewer said they were taking them, though I'm sure they're very selective). I asked for an improvisation on the theme of lost futures - the lives we might have led, but didn't.
Tonight, I played a song I haven't heard in nearly three years. I bought Lisa Thorson's CD, "Out To Sea," in my first semester at grad school. Listening to it brought me back to my Willowtree Apartment, back to the Serta bed where I sat and read each night before falling asleep. I remember reading Wicked and listening to Thorson's soft humming. Three years. A lot has happened since then, and I realize, a little sadly, how I've come to accept many things I never thought I would. Is it defeat, resignation, or just another form of endurance?
Part of me longs for that time three years ago. Oh, if I knew then what I knew now. But I am here now, sitting by my desk editing proofs, half a world away from that tiny apartment with the tree outside my window, that tiny apartment where someone else now reads and sleeps. The more Thorson's songs play here in this room in Singapore; the more it plays as I do different tasks and read different books, the more I will forget the nights I first listened to them in Ann Arbor. As Christina Rossetti wrote once upon a time, "Better by far you should forget and smile / Than that you should remember and be sad."
So I was looking for a particular jacket on nikewomen when I heard the stirrings of a song that made me feel like bopping my head to its beat. I usually mute music players that load up when I hit a webpage or visit a blog but I decided to give Nike's workout mix a listen. Not that I really workout or when I do, I don't really work out to music but some of these songs are actually addictive. I particularly like Junior Boys's "In the morning" and Elf Power's "An Old Familiar Scene."
What's nice - if I'm guessing correctly - is that Nike changes the mix every month and you can download about half an hour's worth of funky beats to flex your muscles to.
Both Sides Now
Rows and floes of angel hair
And ice cream castles in the air
And feather canyons everywhere
I’ve looked at clouds that way
But now they only block the sun
They rain and snow on everyone
So many things I would have done
But clouds got in my way
I’ve looked at clouds from both sides now
From up and down, and still somehow
It’s cloud illusions I recall
I really don’t know clouds at all
Moons and Junes and Ferris wheels
The dizzy dancing way that you feel
As every fairy tale comes real
I’ve looked at love that way
But now it’s just another show
You leave ‘em laughing when you go
And if you care, don’t let them know
Don’t give yourself away
I’ve looked at love from both sides now
From give and take, and still somehow
It’s love’s illusions that I recall
I really don’t know love at all
Tears and fears and feeling proud
To say “I love you” right out loud
Dreams and schemes and circus crowds
I’ve looked at life that way
Oh but now old friends, they’re acting strange
And they shake their heads and they tell me that I’ve changed
Well something’s lost, but something’s gained
In living every day
I’ve looked at life from both sides now
From win and lose and still somehow
It’s life’s illusions I recall
I really don’t know life at all
I’ve looked at life from both sides now
From up and down, and still somehow
It’s life’s illusions that I recall
I really don’t know life at all
This week's free download on Itunes is a laidback acoustic ditty called "Put Your Records On" by Briton, Corinne Bailey Rae. A song for the summer; a song for the girls; a song to keep me company as I work tonight. This world isn't going to let us off easy; we should all put our records on sometime.
"Three little birds, sat on my window.
And they told me I don't need to worry.
Summer came like cinnamon
So sweet,
Little girls double-dutch on the concrete.
Maybe sometimes, we got it wrong, but it's alright
The more things seem to change, the more they stay the same
Oh, don't you hesitate.
Girl, put your records on, tell me your favourite song
You go ahead, let your hair down
Sapphire and faded jeans, I hope you get your dreams,
Just go ahead, let your hair down.
You're gonna find yourself somewhere, somehow.
Blue as the sky, sombre and lonely,
Sipping tea in the bar by the road side,
(just relax, just relax)
Don't you let those other boys fool you,
Gotta love that afro hairdo.
Maybe sometimes, we feel afraid, but it's alright
The more you stay the same, the more they seem to change.
Don't you think it's strange?
Girl, put your records on, tell me your favourite song
You go ahead, let your hair down
Sapphire and faded jeans, I hope you get your dreams,
Just go ahead, let your hair down.
You're gonna find yourself somewhere, somehow.
Just more than I could take, pity for pity's sake
Some nights kept me awake, I thought that I was stronger
When you gonna realise, that you don't even have to try any longer.
Do what you want to.
Girl, put your records on, tell me your favourite song
You go ahead, let your hair down
Sapphire and faded jeans, I hope you get your dreams,
Just go ahead, let your hair down.
Girl, put your records on, tell me your favourite song
You go ahead, let your hair down
Sapphire and faded jeans, I hope you get your dreams,
Just go ahead, let your hair down.
Oh, You're gonna find yourself somewhere, somehow"
Boy, an update is long overdue. I'll get to that in time (which may mean never), since I wrote this post mainly to rave about today's offering on NPR's Song of the Day. Rose Melberg sounds decidedly folksy; her voice makes me think of the long branches of willow trees and the smallest and softest of dandelions. But no matter how light or mellow her music sounds, there's a palpable sadness to it. "Take some time" has the sort of softly lilting melody that's best heard on a slow day on the porch or a leisurely drive in the back lanes, but the words are something else. I like what Stephen Thomson had to say about the song - "It surveys miles of emotional wreckage, yet the scene it sets seems oddly sweet."
Thanks to noob who sent me the link to a song, "Thanks Again" by Georgia Murray. I've played it so often I can't get it out of my head. Written by James Rushing, re-interpreted by Murray. It's a cover but what a cover. Her deep, resonant voice, a solo guitar and lyrics that have their way with your emotions.
Peter Ho Davies, my advisor at grad school, once named a story collection "Equal Love," questioning if love between parents and children could ever be equal. For how can we ever repay our parents for the years of love and devotion - in my case, the goodnight songs, late-night feeds, homemade cakes and cookies, trips to the library, sewing clothes for my dolls, carrying me down the streets of Hong Kong when I couldn't walk anymore, letting me go away to school even though it was the hardest thing to do.
I think about how wonderful that each of us was a child once, and that one day, we might become parents. Perhaps we'll understand many things only then. Thank God for parents, the ones who try so hard and who love unequivocally. It isn't easy to let them go. Last week, in the large columbrium near Upper Thomson Road, I watched my mother anxiously hunt for the urn holding my grandmother's ashes. My brother and I stood by her as she spoke private words to a small picture of our grandmother. April 16th was her death annivesary. 18 years have passed, but my mother still tears up before the saffron-colored urn. Her mother was her best friend, she once told me.
"Thanks Again"I've sent bouquets for Mother's Day,
For Father's Day, a shirt and card.
While they came from the heart,
They all fell short of saying how special you both are.
It wasn't ' til I was up and gone,
Married with a couple of kids of my own,
Doing what mamas and daddies do,
That I realized what I must have put you through.
So thanks again for the love in the cradle,
And all of the changes that kept me dry.
And thanks again for the love at our table,
And tannin' my bottom when I told you a lie.
For takin' me fishin' and flyin' my kites,
And tuckin' me in, yes, night after night:
To my beautiful life-long friends,
Hey, Mom and Daddy thanks again.I'm still a young girl, least I think I am,
But I'm watchin' my own hair turn gray.
And your call last Sunday brought to mind,
That I owe you a debt I can never repay.So thanks again for worryin' and waitin',
When I started datin' on weekend nights.
And thanks again for the help with my homework,
And sittin' up with me till I got it right.
Your car for the prom, your letters in 'Nam,
But most of all, Daddy, for marryin' Mom:
To my beautiful life long friends,
Hey, Mom and Daddy thanks again.To my beautiful life long friends,
Hey, Mom and Daddy thanks again.
"Don't Wait Up" by Colin Hay
Don?t wait up
For her tonight
Coz she won?t be coming home
Don?t wake up
Till it gets light
And by then she?ll be long gone
Her restless heart
Has set its sail
She can feel the waves washing over
She knows what life
With you entails
Love her strength, you despise your weakness
Don?t wait up
For her tonight
Coz she won?t be calling home
Don?t wake up
Till it gets light
The dogs are scratching at the door
Your jealous heart
Has won the day
You can feel the darkness creeping over
She paid the man
And sailed away
Leaving you your incompleteness
It's so clear tonight that I stood in the garden looking at the stars for a few minutes. Orion's Belt. Check. Little cluster of stars. Check. Large stand-alone stars. Check. (I don't have a whole lot of background in astronomy.)
This was quite a contrast to last evening's entertainment. Yes, I attended my first rock concert. Franz Ferdinand at the Indoor Stadium. Mogan had complimentary free-standing tickets, and since his girlfriend is back in Germany for a while, I was the backup date. We had some adequate fried rice for dinner and then cold sake to get us buzzed for the concert. I downed quite a few until I was red in the face and neck.
We were a little late getting in and had to push our way to somewhere near the left speakers. They were huge speakers with the bass booming so loudly I would have been blown away had it not been for the billion bodies that rocked and shook violently beside me, so close that I couldn't tell whose sweat it was on my bare arms. It's hard not to be sucked into the music. Those wicked rhythms. There was a fair amount of headbanging and beating the air and shaking fists above the heads. I mean me, of course. Yeah, I had a good time. And the crowd was literally hopping mad.
It was a brief concert. Just a couple of hours, but there were good moments. Like when three of the guys (I couldn't really see who was who; most of the view was obscured by persons taller than me, which was nearly everyone around) started playing on the same drumset. And then there was a minute when a shirtless white guy got lifted or had his friends lift him so that he rode above the crowd not too far from me. I was taken by the band's genuine happiness at being in Singapore. They even invited all of us to an informal after-concert party at the foyer of the Hotel Intercontinental. "Bring food," Alex Kapranos said. And if we had any problems getting in, we were to look for the general manager, who was now a pal of Alex's.
Mogan and I had our left ears facing the speakers, which resulted in our being hard of hearing on that side. Mogan said he felt a little wounded by the blast from the speakers. My ears did hurt during the concert but after that, it felt more like someone had stuffed cotton wool - loads of it - deep inside. We decided to bow out and let the youngsters have all the fun at the party.
On our way out, I watched teenagers - Asian, Caucasian, South Asian - whip their drenched locks with the fury (or glee) of wet dogs. A few sets of parents had accompanied their children. A few guys looked like they'd probably been around long enough to have attended a few Rolling Stones concerts back in the day. I felt a little old myself, especially during the performance when I got into the whole hopping thing for a few seconds and then my knees started hurting.
We decided to wait for the traffic to clear, taking a walk to Kallang Bridge and airing our ears out. It seemed the after-concert party had already begun at the back of the Indoor Stadium where screaming youths had waylaid the band and demanded autographs.
Later, we had more drinks at Blooie's, a laidback, airy bar very near my home. I slept quite soundly after that. It isn't too hard when your ears are temporarily out of order.
I miss Scrubs. I really do. Season 5 is showing in the US right now. The only thing I can do to satisfy the craving is re-watch old episodes. Oh, and listen incessantly to my "Scrubs" playlist and read episode guides on the latest episodes.
I've had the two DVD boxsets on my wishlist (on two separate websites) for the longest time (even though I have most of the episodes, courtesy of noob). I'm not sure what's stopping me. I love the writing, the acting, the fact that it stands apart from all other comedies, those with the laugh tracks, the live audiences and multiple cameras.
I also love the music (which explains the playlist; again, courtesy of noob). Colin Hay, the Cary Brothers, Keren DeBerg, Josh Radin. So I was checking out this week's free downloads on Itunes when I spot a new release by Mr Radin, his first full-length CD (incidentally, another Scrubs musician - Shawn Mullins - has an album out too). I sample all 11 tracks and wonder how I should get the music. I could buy it off his official site (I want an actucal CD!) or Itunes. I could wait and see if it will reach Singapore. I could wait for noob to get hold of it and then pester him for a music dump the next time I'm in Ann Arbor. I could buy it off Itunes. Yeah, I guess I could.
He has a blog too, which I could read as I listen to his new music. That would be nice.
Here are lyrics to the favorite track, which played at the right moment on a particular episode of Scrubs.
"Winter"
I should know who I am by now,
I walk the record stand somehow,
Thinking of winter
Your name is the splinter inside me
While I wait.
And I remember the sound
Of your November downtown,
And I remember the truth,
A warm December with you,
But I don't have to make this mistake,
And I don't have to stay this way
If only I would wake.
The walk has all been cleared by now.
Your voice is all I hear somehow
Calling out winter
Your voice is the splinter inside me
While I wait.
I could have lost myself
In rough blue waters in your eyes,
And I miss you still.
I enjoyed the soundtrack of Motorcycle Diaries very much and was delighted when I learned the composer/guitarist, Gustavo Santaolalla, planned to work on a quite-little-but-look-where-it's-gotten project called Brokeback Mountain. His music tends to be Argentine-influenced, the guitarwork is always amazing, and the melodies very much enhance and even define the scene it was written for. And yes, the score for Brokeback Mountain got nominated for an Academy Award, but why isn't "A Love That Will Never Grow Old" by Emmylou Harris up for Original Song? Or "I Don't Want To Say Goodbye" by Teddy Thompson? Those songs made a lot of people cry.
Another recent work of Santaolalla's is 21 Grams, a film I didn't watch though I did catch bits of the OST. It's considerably more haunting and darker than Santaolalla's other scores but what surprised me were the titles of the tracks on the album. They're arresting, to put it simply, all very large and pregnant sort of questions. Here they are:
1. Do We Lose 21 Grams?
2. Can Things Be Better?
3. Did This Really Happen?
5. Should I Let Her Know?
6. Can Emptiness Be Filled?
8. Can I Be Forgiven?
10. Is There A Way To Help Her?
11. Does He Who Looks For The Truth, Deserve The Punishment For Finding It?
12. You're Losing Me
13. Can Dry Leaves Help Us?
14. Can We Mix The Unmixable? (Remix)
15. Can Light Be Found In The Darkness?
16. When Our Wings Are Cut, Can We Still Fly?
The last track is performed by the brilliant Kronos Quartet.
I've been listening to David Gray lately. His album Life in Slow Motion is a nice piece of work. Piano-driven songs and ever poignant lyrics like the one from the song Lately below -
That the sky would lift
That I'd find my place
That I'd see your face in the door
And the sun would glint
On a time well spent
On a time that ain't no more
Taste the broken hearts
In the vacant lots
See the fruit that rots on the trees
Try to turn my head
Leave it all for dead
But it's in my mind always
Honey lately I've been way down
A load on my mind
Honey lately I've been way down
Load on my mind
Someone tell me where did it go
Darling I'm damned if I know
I seen that look in your eye
No-one ever gave it a chance
I could have said in advance
You saw it all in a glance
And goodbye
Drag a salted kiss
From this cup of bliss
Watch a new lie twist on the breeze
You can paint it red
Leave it all for dead
But it's in my head always
Goodbye
Honey lately I've been way down
Lately
Some of the music is deceptively upbeat. The lyrics tell a different story. Such good lines like - "Taste the broken hearts / In the vacant lots" and "Watch a new lie twist on the breeze" and "Now I'm leaking life faster / Than I'm leaking blood."
Unfortunately, the album - at least in the US - has been listed as one of the CDs affected by Sony's malevolent anti-piracy software. Read more here and here. What to do then? Get it off an online store.
Sometimes music is so tied up with a film that it makes the movie or surpasses it. As far as blogging goes, I can't figure out how to classify some of my posts. A good score may lead me to the film (I have a habit of buying soundtracks before seeing the film - at times not seeing it at all - because I know and love the composer's work) or a movie will introduce an previously unknown scorer, musician, or singer.
And trailers are terrific vehicles for doing all of this - introduce the movie, showcase some of the score (or bring to attention the beauty of another film's score; trailers often use existing music), and highlight new songs written for the movie.
Bee Season is a terrific book written by Myla Goldberg, and now it's a little movie opening this fall (so little that I wonder when - or if - it will reach Singapore). Are you tired of seeing Richard Gere in those Visa ads? This time he gets to pull some dramatic weight along with Juliette Binoche and newcomers, Max Minghella (son of Anthony, the director), and Flora Cross, who plays the little girl who seems ordinary for the first several years of her life and then stuns everyone around her with her spelling talent. From the trailer, her character appears sweet and homely, thoroughly genuine, without the indulgent cuteness that often accompanies young actors.
After seeing the trailer a couple of months ago, I couldn't get its song out of my ahead. When the soundtrack got released (look for it on Itunes for sampling), I was hoping it would contain the song, "What are we made of." Although the score itself - written by Peter Nashel - sounds promising (I'll probably pick this up), I was disappointed that the only vocal on the album is Ivy's "I'll be near you," not bad either, but not quite the loveliness that is the trailer song.
But never mind all that, you can easily download it here, thanks to the generosity of Scott Mallone, the performer.
And for the movie - watch the trailer and then the movie if it ever shows near you.
I took my final nap in the office today, and I also turned in grades for my students. And then I cleared out my books. It was a little wrenching.
I cheered up in the evening when I attended my friend's saxophone recital. Tom is a writer, musician, and fluent in Italian. Also a fan of Astor Piazzolla, though he's taken his interest a step further by actually taking Argentinian tango lessons.
I'm not familiar with classical saxophone pieces, but what I heard was quite spectacular. Mostly contemporary work by composers like Paul Ben-Haim, Paul Hindemith, and Francis Poulenc. Alexandre, Glazounov, Debussy, and then two lovely arias by Puccini.
The recital just got better and better, and when Tom got to the two arias, I was ready to give a standing ovation. (I didn't though.) Tom was accompanied by Kathryn Goodson on piano for the arias. Both were beautiful duets, though my favorite was "Vissi d'Arte" (I Live For Art) from the opera, Tosca.
The food at the reception was terrific. Crabcakes, cheese, dips, and other great munchies. I hung out with Andrea, the lady who works in the Hopwood Room, the one who brought me to the dog show last year. Andrea, Tom, and I flock together because of our overlapping interests in Italian, Italy, music, and books. We're always huddling together at the teas. But well, not anymore, since Tom and I are both graduating.
I had Easter brunch with one of my favorite couples, Leslie and Noella. It was Polish and Hungarian fare at a small eatery called Cafe Amadeus. We talked about weddings, rooms at the Beaufort in Sentosa, dowries, future plans, Leslie's book that's due in 2007, the kinds of dogs we'd like to have. I'll miss them, and I'll certainly miss lazy brunches like the one we had today. Pretty soon, we'll all be starting new lives elsewhere - Peiming will start a position at the Yong Siew Tong Conservatory back in Singapore, Leslie has a tenured position at Melbourne, Noella will find work there soon, Jake is auditioning all over the world, and I'll either be in Michigan for another year or move home in August.
I hope Noella keeps performing after she moves to Melbourne. Her recital at University Commons last Saturday reminded me what a spectacular musician she is. My friend, Irene, and I were late, of course, since I was the designated driver. We arrived in time to hear half of Bach's Adagio from Toccata in C Major. I enjoyed Peteris Vasks' Das Buch "Dolcissimo", for which Noella had to sing while playing the cello. The last piece, Tangoella, was composed for and dedicated to her by Andre Myers, a DMA student at the music school. It was a beautiful piece, perfect for Noella.
How shall I put it? Noob is an evil influence, but I'm still grateful that he supplies me with excellent music and graphic novel recommendations. Latest music in the player - Howie Day, a twenty-something song-writer, singer, and guitar-player from Maine. He's very good with the writing and singing, and remarkably adept at looping and mixing in live shows. With two sets of complicated dials, pedals, buttons and what-not, he creates percussions and layers guitar and vocal parts all on his own.
You'll have to watch the splendid DVD and see for yourself the ease and style with which he loops phrases, echoes, guitar strumming etc. And the songs are very, very good. "Ghost" and "Madrigals" are my favorites, and of course, the very addictive "Collide" that got me started on Howie Day's music, which is a little more haunting, a little more rock than John Mayer's own stylings but still terribly listenable.
If you're in Singapore, and you love jazz/classical tango music, I recommend you attend the concert by Quadro Nuevo, an Austrian quartet, at the Esplanade. And if you purchase tickets with a Citibank credit card, you get a souvenir CD. I've got an album of theirs - Canzone Della Strada (Song for the Road) - and it's lovely work.
I am never home at the right time.
...do not agree. I seem to have great difficulty getting things done ahead of time. I stayed at the music school till three this morning, typing out my teaching philosophy. Collapsed in bed at four, got up at 8:30 in the morning (much thanks to my faithful morning caller, LK, who was out shopping on a Friday night) and began writing and revising. I finished two cover letters and then raced to school. My job applications were submitted fifteen minutes before the deadline.
Now I'm too exhausted to do much else. I did manage to clear the mess on my living room floor and also put some gas in the White Rabbit.
I'm now listening to Nat King Cole. I remember listening to an album called The Love Songs of Nat King Cole on my first discman (my brother gave it to me after my "O" Levels) in Istanbul. It was December 1995 and I had made my first trip to Europe. Winter, choral singing, my warm Limited coat. I was 17 and happy and wrinkle-free.
I lost the cd a few years later and felt a little guilty since it belonged to my father. I recently purchased it again - $9.99 on Amazon. Oh, the memories.
Spring break is here. It's really here! A year ago, I was furiously editing several ELT books for my old boss. I couldn't believe I wasted half of my spring break editing non-stop. I could hear my neighbors watching DVDs while I made so many proofreading marks that I dreamed of them at night. This year, spring break is mine. Well, I'll be grading and writing and reading and preparing for the next six and a half weeks of the semester. But still, it's wonderful just to say "Spring break is here!" LK has warned me not to get caught on any programs that vaguely resemble "Girls Gone Wild." Heh. The wildest thing I might do is watch Constantine and scare myself silly.
Last evening, Peiming had her first of three recitals for the semester. I'd have to say my favorite was Camille Saint-Saens' Piano Concerto No. 5 in F Major, Op. 103. Peiming was accompanied by a 35-piece orchestra, which was brilliant on the ears and eyes. The music was by turns lyrical and rousing and my heart certainly rose in line with the ascending notes on the piano and violins. A few of our friends were among the players; Noella was lead cello and Lim Jia played in the trumpet section. No tuba for this work, so Jake was part of the audience this time. He'd just returned from a conference in D.C. where he purchased a new tuba which he let me try playing after the performance. Needless to say my diaphragm was too weak to produce a nice brassy sound on the tuba. I barely managed two toots and that was it.
A nice spread of food courtesy of Peiming's aunt and uncle, who drove down with their children from Buffalo, New York that day and were driving back after the recital. Her uncle was in computer science before picking up theology and is now a pastor at a Chinese Christian church. Very nice people. I picked up the sushi from Saica which was slow in the making and then worked on putting little eclairs and cream puffs on silver trays. A few pieces disappeared, of course.
Although I hadn't planned to stay long, I was one of the last to leave, having indulged in conversation with old friends I haven't seen in a month. Noella, Leslie and I talked wedding, even deciding to make a trip to Chicago during spring break for Noella to find her dress. I've also promised to find a sea-themed poem for their wedding card. Yew Hoe related how he wouldn't be headed to Shanghai after all. And Boon and Isabel had to witness my painful stint with the tuba.
A delightful evening with music and friends, and now I'm back to work. I hope I can manage. Too many eclairs.
Sad melody, even sadder lyrics. I'm a sucker for such stuff. At some point in our lives, we all could play this song and think, she's singing my lines.
Sheila Nicholls's "Fallen For You"
~ from the movie High Fidelity
Fallen for you.
Did you ever see me
Watching from periphery?
I was playing another game,
I hoped you catch on all the same.
Fallen from view.
Did you ever touch me,
Floating through your potpourri?
I thought I felt your fingers once
After waiting all these months.
But I was wrong, so wrong.
That was just another song
You wrote for another girl.
And I hoped the day could be
When you'd write a song for me.
But it never came.
I thank you all the same,
But I'll go now, so you won't know how much I've
Fallen for you.
Boy who's trying to be a man,
Boy who don't know if he can.
I thought I knew you well enough
But your walls are still too tough.
But I was wrong, so wrong
That was just another song
You wrote for another girl.
And I hoped the day could be
When you'd write a song for me.
But it never came.
I thank you all the same,
But I'll go now, so you won't know how much I
Thought about you all the time,
Walking round the Guggenheim.
Like a rhyme in my mind,
There you are in my car,
But we don't drive very far
To the beach, out of reach,
Next to me... my fantasy.
Fallen for you
Did you ever see me,
Watching from periphery?
I was playing another game
I hoped you catch on all the same.
Both these titles are English translations of the originals. La Finestra di Fronte is an Italian film and Xin Dong, a Taiwanese/Hong Kong one. (I have to resort to hanyu pinyin since I don't have Chinese script on my computer).
Both these films have theme songs set to pop music that instead of coming across as cheesy, work really well for the movies.
I won't list the lyrics but the gist of the Chinese song is about remembering a love from the past and wondering where he or she is now. It goes roughly like this: He lives only in my heart now, and his memory accompanies each breath I take (which sounds like another song, but I'm going to ignore this; the song really is a lot nicer in Mandarin). What else: the pain of not being able to recall his smell, his voice. Hmm, maybe someone else should be doing the translation. I think I'll have to ask LK to help me out. Thank goodness I married a fellow whose Mandarin far surpasses my own.
The movie is a terrible (as in too effective) tearjerker, starring Gigi Leung and Takeshi Kaneshiro. And I got suckered into watching it after my godsister and FatGirl said it was one of their favorite films. The airport scene at the end really broke my heart.
The English title for La Finestra di Fronte is Facing Windows, and the film has a nice subplot about two neighbors with facing windows, played by Giovanna Mezzogiorno (her last name literally means mid-day) and Raoul Bova. Raoul Bova, I repeat! Even with those Clark Kent glasses, he is a dream. Then again, so is Giovanna Mezzogiorno, who really lights up the screen with her face. Those eyes, that hair. To continue, the main plot is about Giovanna's friendship with a strange old man her husband finds wandering the streets of downtown Rome. That story is the more compelling one. The one with Raoul Bova, (again) is a heartbreaker, but less interesting.
Anyhoo, I really like the soundtrack for the film, composed by Andrea Guerra. It has an old Spanish tune, "Historia De Un Amor" or "story of a love," and a terrific end credits track, "Gocce di Memoria," which means "drops of memory." The English titles sound really corny, but the songs are great. I wish I could offer a link, but there weren't any I could find.
Movement III of Jonathan Elias's The Prayer Cycle is featured on the trailer of Kingdom of Heaven, and it's great. Moving, haunting, all the good things to be expected of choral music. An unusual ensemble of guest singers - Alanis Morrissette, Linda Ronstadt, James Taylor. But the one voice that stands out belongs to a young male (who sadly remains unnamed) whose vocal chords remind me slightly of Ben del Maestro's. Ben del Maestro can be heard on the soundtrack of The Fellowship of the Ring and the other two titles in the trilogy.
In the mean time, I've also been listening to the Children of Dune soundtrack. It's been a week and I haven't taken it out from the player. I'm even tempted to hunt down the dvd to watch the montage scene, the very one in which the song, Inama Nushif, is playing.
But, I have some writing to get done. And 372 pages to read this weekend - Isak Dinesen's Out of Africa. I could just watch the movie, but that'd be cheating.
One of my favorite past-times as a kid was to sit beside my brother as he played PC games. I eventually played several of those games myself - 7th Guest, Leisure Suit Larry. But most days, I would just watch him play. One of those games was based on Dune, the world that Frank Herbert created in a series of books. In the computer game - a strategy one - my brother would build cities and monitor the spice flow. My sole task was to alert him of the great Worm that appeared every now and then, and off he'd go, rescuing his buildings and the people of Dune.
It was noob who got me hooked on the song "Inama Nushif," written in Fremen, the native language in Dune, by Brian Tyler. The young composer's dedication led him to plough through Herbert's novels so that he could learn enough of the language to put lyrics to one of the 174 tracks that he'd written and recorded in six weeks. The result of those six weeks is a startingly majestic TV mini-series score that is available on CD. Alas, it contains only 36 of those original cues.
So noob had (or still has?) the song on repeat mode in his car (a neat feature to have), while I recently got hold of the rest of the score. I put it on the Ipod, brought it with me to the Commons on Friday night, where I read Don Lee's novel Country of Origin while listening to the entire score. Didn't even have to skip a track. It's that good.
Tyler has scored some other films; he started small and then he got bigger jobs. His latest project is the film, Constantine. Children of Dune has really impressed me. I listen to it before going to school - the music gets me into the right mood. Very rousing.
Inama Nushif
Inama nushif (She is Eternal)
Al-asir hiy ayish (No malice can touch)
Lia-anni (Singular and ageless)
Zaratha zarati (Perpetually bound)
Hatt al-hudad (Through the tempest)
Al-maahn al-baiid (be it deluge or sand)
Ay-yah idare (A singular voice)
Adamm malum (speaks through the torrent)
Hatt al-hudad (Through the tempest)
Al-maahn al-baiid (be it deluge or sand)
Ay-yah idare (A singular voice)
Adamm malum (speaks through the torrent)
Inama nishuf al a sadarr (Forever her voice sings)
Eann zaratha zarati (through the ages eternally bound)
Kali bakka a tishuf ahatt (Sacrifice is her gift)
Al hudad alman dali (one that cannot be equaled)
Inama nishuf al a sadarr (Forever her voice sings)
Eann zaratha zarati (through the ages eternally bound)
Kali bakka a tishuf ahatt (Sacrifice is her gift)
Al hudad alman dali alia (that Alia will one day equal)
Inama nushif (She is eternal)
Al-asir hiy ayish (No malice can touch)
Lia-anni (Singular and ageless)
Zaratha zarati (Perpetually bound)
It's 1842 hours on Christmas Day, and it's still terribly dark and grey out there. But I keep company with myself, books, music, and candles (specifically, Yankee Candle's Ocean Water).
On Itunes, John Pizzarelli is singing "Da Vinci's Eyes," and I'm reminded of how I was first introduced to Pizzarelli's guitar-playing and warm, nasal warbling. Years ago, Mogan, my old pal from junior college and emcee at wedding, was telling me about recent purchases he'd made at Tower Records, the old one at Pacific Plaza (yeah, it was that long ago). Of the singers he listed, Pizzarelli's name stayed with me though I'm not sure why. I later found out my father had several albums and I listened to every one. And of all the songs, "Da Vinci's Eyes," was the prettiest. A gentle melody, really sweet lyrics, and tasteful name-dropping - Shakespeare, Mozart, Da Vinci. A modern love song with a whimsical, old-world feel.
You can get a free download from Amazon right here - Da Vinci's Eyes.
Shirley Verrett, a luminous opera singer who's been a professor at Michigan's School of Music since 1996, was the highlight of our musicology class yesterday. She's 73 but doesn't quite look it. Every inch of her is glamor, grace, and confidence.
She was one of the first African-American singers to achieve success in the world of opera. My own professor sought her as special guest for our class so we could learn firsthand about the difficulties of being an "Other" while playing lead roles that aren't ethnic. We began by introducing ourselves; everyone in the class is a music student except me, and I was the last to announce myself. When I said "creative writing," I suppose that made her easier to notice me and my name. I felt a little embarrassed about my non-music field, so I added that I studied in Italy where I got to watch my first few operas. Prof. Verrett brightened immediately and asked wherabouts. She said she'd made her debut in Florence so the city is dear to her as it is to me. Because her role was Queen Elizabeth, I asked her how the makeup process went; they had to put fat layers of foundation on her since Queen E. wasn't just Caucasian, she also wore that ghastly white paste on her face.
Prof. Verrett also spoke of her debut - Carmen - at the Metropolitan Opera in New York City. She prepared for each role by reading books about the time period and viewing paintings from that time and place. Acting is equally important, she said, which reminded me of a comment my professor once shared - "Park and bark." It refers to the old-style opera singers, who were also pretty large and refused to move around a lot so they would stand in one spot and just sing.
What I liked best was hearing about how she came into singing. She'd been singing since she was a small child, and her parents had always wanted her to be a singer. But she never felt she was ready until she was in her twenties. She went to college, took Law 101, Economics 101, and worked in her businessman father's office, handling the book-keeping and taking notes in shorthand. Later, she sold real estate around California. When she began to tire of making sales pitches, it occured to her that she should be singing instead of selling houses. She found herself a voice instructor and eventually got a place at Julliard, won several competitions, then went on to a wonderful career that saw her working with Placido Domingo, Zubin Mehta, and other great singers and conductors.
Unfortunately, she didn't sing anything for us. She did show us her "limp" for one of her roles and her manly stride that she used when she played Leonora in Fidelio. I truly enjoyed listening to her speak. She's incredibly eloquent and vivacious. When she mentioned how people accused her of singing "white," that she didn't sound black enough, she became a tad indignant at the memory. To this she said, "I don't care. I sing with a voice God gave me. This is a country that's a melting pot, and our voices are influenced by all kinds of people and cultures."
When the class ended and she left the building, the place seemed poorer for it.
I've been trying hard to finish grading papers and writing several of my own. Since it's Thanksgiving weekend, the school of music has been relatively quiet with just a few die-hard musicians and one desperate writer. I've been using one of the seminar rooms - no distractions, no food, no comfortable futon to nap on (although I did manage just one power nap while slouching in the chair).
I met up with Frank, who's been practising Bartok, and enlisted his help with some argumentation questions that arose while I was grading. After that, I got him to play Chopin's Berceuse just so I could hear it being played properly for once. I don't quite do enough justice to the piece on my own so it was nice to hear Frank perform it. I also requested some of Ennio Morricone's music, and watching him sight-read the scores (without errors, of course) made me appreciate my friendships with musicians. It's always nice to listen to recordings but to watch a musician perform before you (and now I'm reminded of the time I watched Peiming and Noella rehearse Astor Piazzolla's Le Grand Tango) is a real treat. I'm very much looking forward to the recitals lined up for next semester.
Frank also introduced to me Chopin's Barcarolle. What did he call it, a piece of gondolier music? It's very pretty and I'm going to hunt for my own recording. Becuase I'm going to graduate and leave Ann Arbor one day, and then I won't be surrounded anymore by musicians who I can bully into playing my favorite music. Of course I could always holiday in Melbourne and ask Noella to play something just for me, or I could ring up Peiming and have her visit under the pretext of tea and egg tarts, and then point out the piano, how about some Debussy? But she'd probably see right through me.
A classmate in my musicology course - a retired piano teacher and wife to the saxophone professor in the music school (oh, and her son happens to play drums for Alanis Morissette) - once mentioned to me how she loves being retired in Ann Arbor. She gets to take up university courses (without having to write the papers) and she is never far from the music scene. Large scale performances or student recitals, the events make retirement a joy, she said. Something's always going on. What better way to fill the autumnal years? Attending football games? Oh, she goes to those too.
As I listened to her, I tried not to appear envious. There's plenty to look forward to when graduation rolls around, but I'm probably going to miss Ann Arbor very much when it's time to leave. And then there're the friends who'll be staying on or moving away. I don't think I'll go into that today. Still got another semester. Still got to finish that Carmen paper.
The evening started out with a nice gathering at Kay's place. Great food and company. As I was talking to Lim Jia and Sophie, the two mentioned they had to leave for a concert. When I heard it was Dave Brubeck's concert, I near jumped out of my seat. I knew about his visit, but I didn't think I'd go since I hadn't bothered to ask around if anyone else was keen to go. I was reluctant to tag along since I might not get a last-minute ticket, but Lim Jia assured me that I'd have no trouble. Plus she had an extra ticket which might not be used at all. I felt bad for jumping ship but I couldn't give Dave Brubeck a miss now.
The three of us left at five minutes to eight, with me holding a plate of my half-finished food. We got to Hill Auditorium as the first song was starting up. Lim Jia and I dashed in (after I'd finished and disposed of my plate of food), and from the first notes that reached my ear, I knew I'd made the right decision. You just don't get live jazz like this very often, if at all.
Four white-haired men playing like they were in their twenties. When Dave Brubeck began speaking, the age showed in his voice. But it didn't matter, his hands moved incredibly on the keyboard. His drummer, Randy Jones, probably has arms stronger than men far younger than himself. His percussions displays went on and on; just when you think he was done, he'd start another round of whipping those sticks like weapons. Bassist Michael Moore was stylish as he plucked and bowed his instrument. Bobby Militello played both saxaphone and flute, and did really amazing things with the flute. For a Japanese-inspired Bebop piece, he created a sound very similar to one made by a Japanese kind of flute (the name eludes me). Eventually he got to humming while he played the flute. He was singing into the instrument, and the force of his singing kept the flute going, so he was actually harmonizing with the notes he played on the flute. I'm not sure if I'm explaining it clearly enough. His fingers would be creating one tune and his voice another.
One piece titled, Elegy, was dedicated to a friend of Dave's who was in the audience that night. An army buddy whose picture is in the album notes (or maybe the cover itself?). Caught behind German lines in World War 2, they contemplated their fates. His friend, John, told him all the awful things that would happen if Dave didn't remember the password. Well, they're both still here today. I'm not sure how many people in the audience wondered at the miracle that Dave never got the shakes from the horror of war; that his ability to play the piano was never taken from him.
Another piece that I remember rather well - London Flat, London Sharp. Recently the band had to play in the UK for some time, and when they finally thought the tour would end, Dave was told that he'd have 15 more one-nighters. The first involved a 7 and 1/2 hour bus ride. After that he was put in a flat and driven two hours to the venue each night where he'd play for two hours and then be driven back to the flat. He was better off on the bus. So in the piece, his left hand goes down chromatically, and the right hand goes up in sharps. Pretty cool stuff.
Blue Rondo A La Turk was the last piece. The crowd favorite, of course. They must be awfully tired of playing it so many times in so many years. But nice improvisations certainly spice things up each time.
Dave Brubeck first played at the "Hill" 50 years ago. Looking around him, he commented how wonderful it now looks, and added that he hopes he'll make it back again. There was something really poignant about that statment. This guy has seen a lot in life. (He's 84.) And he spoke so slowly and looked so fragile as he walked that I wanted to say, you need to retire and enjoy some time off, Dave. But then, it occured to me that he's already enjoying himself, performing exuberantly for an enthusiastic audience and re-visiting old haunts. He really meant it when he said he wanted to return, and everyone in the audience wanted him to.
The night ended with two encores. One was a tune recorded here 50 years ago. The second was a lullaby - the popular traditional "Go to sleep..." - and the drummer was beginning to nod off. He didn't even finish the last beat. They all shrugged off the music towards the end, stood up, grinned, and left the stage. It was bedtime for everyone. What a way to go.
Tonight was the first reading of this year's Webster series, the series that features all the second-year MFA students, a coming-out party, if you will. Mark Webster was an MFA student here in 1989, a poet. He died at age 29 in the middle of the program, leaving behind a wife who was five months pregnant with their daughter. It was something to do with his heart. The series lives on in his name.
My friend Joel was reading tonight. Everyone admired him for being noble enough to go first. He'll be introducing me when I read in three weeks' time. When I asked him how he felt, he said it was fun to read. Now he's done and can enjoy the party. The party that's after tonight's reading, but I didn't feel like doing any partying. I'd rather come to the Media Union, mess around with the Ipod, complete my lesson plan for next week, brood about my reading, and maybe try and work on some critiques.
I have a life, but it just doesn't get very interesting past ten o'clock on a Friday night. And it's because of my own doing. Well, that's okay. I just learned that Pink Martini is finally releasing their sophomore album which is called Hang On Little Tomato.
In the fall of 2000, I was in Paris roaming the aisles of Virgin Records. I came across Pink Martini and thought they were a French jazz band. They're actually based in the Oregon, though the members come from all parts of the world. I thought purchasing Sympathique would be a nice souvenir of Paris, only to learn that they actually have the cd in Singapore, and the Singapore version even has an extra track, as my father pointed out to me. Still, the cover has the Eiffel Tower, and I thought it was pretty cool to be buying the cd within so many kilometers of the structure. Even though most of the songs are in languages other than French, I'll never hear Amando Mio, for example, without remembering how I was lying on my creaky bed in the hostel and watching the wind blow the cheap, white curtains while I dreamed up my next walk on another bridge on the Seine (I also imagined all the Tintin figures I would find in the quirky comic stores near the hostel; I actually left Paris with Asterix figures).
Their first cd is fun, bright, and boasts tunes so catchy I always feel like getting up to dance. And this is coming from someone who's become more of the wallflower type in recent years. I certainly hope their second album tops the first; it has, after all, taken four years reach the market. Most of the members from the first Pink Martini have left, but China Forbes, the female vocalist, is still around. October 19th is the release date. And three days after that, I take the stand and read before an audience, who I hope, won't fall asleep in front of me.
Thursday night, end of the school week. I wanted to do some work, but I was too lazy. I surfed the web as usual, and then I thought I'd better get cracking at that lovely Ipod LK gave me. I'd been putting it off because I was afraid I'd get too caught up and forget about the work I was supposed to do in the week.
So I charged it, read the instructions, updated my Itunes to the latest version, and then plugged the IPod into the PC. It came alive! I felt like Dr. Frankenstein, yelling, "It's alive!" Or rather, I virtual-yelled at Van Tan who was online chatting with me. Yeah, Van Tan, the other Ipod (and all Mac-related products) fanatic.
This morning, I noticed all the fingerprints decorating the back of the Ipod, so I shopped around for a case. Finally settled on the Iskin Evo2, which is made specially for the 4th Generation Ipod. I chose the model called "Ghost": it's white under normal light, but when it gets dark, it glows an eerie blue. I hope I made the right choice. It's far too time-consuming to hunt for other great covers.
Van Tan once said I should name my Ipod. Hers is the Vanpod. I know a cute dog called Peapod, but it doesn't suit me. I thought of having the free engraving: "Small, bright, and fierce" to reflect the gadget (small, bright - and white - and fierce in a cool way). But I might save that for when I go home. In the mean time, this Pod is incognito.
This is a Morricone year for me - being in the US lets me hunt down the obscure Morricone recordings and even purchase piano scores for his music.
I was visiting the usual websites for news on soundtracks when I came across a very interesting review on a soon-to-be-released CD. It's called "Yo-Yo Ma Plays Morricone." I did read about the possibility of such a recording a while back from a website for Ennio Morricone fans. I just didn't think it would be released this quickly. I'm not complaining though!
I went straight to the Sony Classical website and there it was, track excerpts and the release date - 28 September. All my favorite movie themes and that wonderful cello sound.
Yo-Yo Ma and Ennio Morricone met at the Oscars ceremony three years ago (Morricone had been nominated for his work in Malena, and Yo-Yo Ma was performing the theme song for Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon), and that was when they contemplated a collaboration. I'm really enjoying these collaborative works Morricone does - first with Dulce Pontes, the fado singer, and now with Yo-Yo Ma.
The reviewer wrote: why hasn't this happened before? Well, it's happened at last and I'm looking forward to hearing the work of two great masters.
LK sent me a present. It was on my Amazon.com wishlist for a while, but then I took it off after Amazon.com said it wasn't selling it in the near future. Weird. I've been waiting around for an online coupon to get it cheaper but nothing has turned up so far. Today, the thing itself turned up at my apartment.
It's one of those, you know, Ipod thingys.
*whooping around the living room*
The highlands and the lowlands
Are the routes my father knows
The holidays at Oban
And the towns around Montrose
But even as he sleeps
They're loading bombs into the hills
And the waters in the lochs
Can run deep but never still
I've thought of having children
But I've gone and changed my mind
It's hard enough to watch the news
Let alone explain it to a child
To cast your eye 'cross nature
Over fields of rape and corn
And tell him without flinching
Not to fear where he's been born
Then someone sat me down last night
And I heard Caruso sing
He's almost as good as Presley
And if I only do one thing
I'll sing songs to my father
I'll sing songs to my child
It's time to hold your loved ones
While the chains are loosed and the world
Runs wild
But even as we speak
They're loading bombs onto a white train
How can we afford to ever sleep
So sound again
~ by Everything But The Girl
Boon and I had Greek food for an early dinner, and we still weren't the first in line to The Ark where Vienna Teng was to perform. Well, we weren't too far behind either so things weren't so bad. It was very cold though. I'm glad I came prepared with my thick winter coat.
When the doors opened into the little cosy theater, I found Boon and myself some decent seats near the stage. I took the aisle seat for myself since I had my camera with me, which, for the first time, failed me! It usually does night shots without the flash rather well, but this time, Vienna's lovely face eluded it, and the only decent shot I have is this blurred one. Well, stylized, if you will.
In any case, Shane Nicholson from Sydney, Australia opened the show with four songs. He was pretty good and I enjoyed his guitar work and smooth vocals.
Finally, Vienna came on stage with the rest of her trio, Marika Hughes on cello and Alan Lin on violin. After reading reviews about their performances in other cities, I couldn't help but feel a little star-struck that Vienna, Marika and Alan were really here in tiny Ann Arbor. However, they were all casually dressed, the room was small and intimate and there was the air of a warm get-together between friends. Vienna is no diva, but you can really feel her talent, and how bright and tremendous her spirit is. No fancy clothes, no seriously-styled hair (I imagine she simply put a hairbrush to it), just some nice sandals and a wide smile for her audience.
She performed 14 songs (no break!) and 2 encores. The first bars of "My Medea" opened the show, and then she explained how she wrote the piece with the frightening Greek figure, Medea, in mind. I'm pleased to say she played all my favorite pieces. "Mission Street," "Unwritten Letter #1," "Homecoming"... maybe I'll just list all the songs she did. In terms of order, I can only remember the first two songs and the last one, the rest of the songs are jumbled in my list.
1. My Medea
2. Hope On Fire
3. Shasta
4. Homecoming
5. Mission Street
6. Eric's Song
7. Drought
8. Anna rose
9. Gravity
10. The Tower
11. 1000 Oceans (by Tori Amos)
12. Unwritten Letter #1
13. Feather Moon
14. Harbor
Encore #1: Soon Love Soon
Encore #2: Green Island Serenade/L?dao Xiaoyequ
The best things about live performances are that the singer plays songs which aren't on the albums, improvises the songs which are, and makes the audience feel as if they have something special during the show. Vienna asked if we'd mind her playing a cover. Since so many comparisons have been made, she thought she might as well do a Tori Amos song. And the very one that I like - 1000 Oceans.
I can safely say that she played every one of the pieces with incredible emotion and truly enjoyed singing for us. The same goes for Marika and Alan. The three played and sang wonderfully, Marika and Alan doing backup vocals occasionally. A piano, violin and cello make a beautiful acoustic performance. Unadorned; no showy production elements; just pure sound from the instruments. I was smiling like a fool through most of the show. I was so happy to be there. I only wish you were all there to experience it too, such a terrific performance that this post can't describe vividly enough.
Vienna involved the audience too, getting us to sing when she did "Soon Love Soon" as her first encore. Her second piece was the lovely traditional tune which most of us know - L?dao Xiaoyequ. You may not recognize the title, but you will the tune. She explained a little about its meaning - someone mourning the loss of affection from a person or a place. Her parents sang it to her as a child, and now she sings it with them in mind. The song could be interpreted as a political, patriotic tune, given the current political climate in Taiwan, but she sees it more as symbolizing the loss her parents embraced in order to gain a new life when they left Taiwan for the US; that their children would grow up as Americans and not Taiwanese. Vienna confessed to dropping out of Chinese class at 5th grade and apologized if her Chinese pronunciation faltered during the song. But she sang it beautifully and I was swept back to my own memories of childhood. Lost times indeed.
After the show, Vienna stood in a corner signing CDs - she's left-handed! And she's certainly prettier than in the pictures. Very lovely features - large eyes, smooth skin. She said she was happy to be so warmly welcomed in Ann Arbor and I told her she's always welcome here. *hint - come back soon!*
I just found out a little late that Vienna Teng is visiting Ann Arbor next Monday to perform at The Ark. The good seats are reserved already, but maybe I'll just get a general admission ticket and try my luck with the random seating or floor space. I've heard good things about her live performances and how laid-back she is about photography, and even recording! I'll probably pick up a ticket this Tuesday when I'm in school.
After my enthusiastic review about her albums, I should certainly grab the opportunity to watch her live.
I rose early Friday morning so that Leslie and Noella could give me a lift to the music school where Noella and Peiming were to rehearse for their Piazzolla piece, Le Grand Tango.
For weeks I'd been pestering the duo to let me attend their rehearsal. We settled in a classroom with two grand pianos. The two musicians, Peiming and Noella, readied their instruments - Noella tuning her cello and Peiming warming up on the keyboard - got out their digital metronomes which look like pocket calculators and then jumped straight into the piece. The acoustics of the classroom weren't great of course, but it was still a delight to listen to the two parts of cello and piano come together. Even better was watching the two musicians digging into the piece and refining their interpretation. Noella often played with her eyes closed (having memorized most of her part) in an attempt, I presume, to hear better the notes emanating from the cello. I'd say that a cellist tends to be more dynamic in performance - the facial expressions and body movements echoing the rise and fall of the melody.
Leslie, Noella's fiance, and I sat quietly, taking in the music. To my left, a large window provided a lovely view of the large pond next to the music school. A light, constant snowfall lent more beauty to the panorama. It was a good morning to be listening to Piazzolla.
Half an hour into the rehearsal, Peiming asked if I could turn pages for her. I'd seen her wrestling with the pages during the practice so I immediately agreed. My first page turning task! I've always felt that I would be a great page turner. Precision of timing, it goes without saying, is the most important attribute of a page turner. Unobtrusiveness is the next. Slight and vertically-challenged, I fit the bill, especially next to Peiming, who stands in the 1.7-something range.
I was worried at first about getting lost in the music and not knowing when to turn the page, but I found myself reading the notes, glancing at Peiming's hands and just knowing when to turn the page. Of course, it's hard to know when exactly she'd want the page turned, so I hazarded my guesses - perhaps just before the final measure on the page ended. I would stand up in the middle of the page to be turned, place my fingers on the top of the sheet, and wait for Peiming to reach the final measure, and then I'd turn the page and sit back down. It is pressurzing because you have to keep up, you can't get lost and you mustn't panic. Once, I did get lost, and was searching for the right measure while the music kept getting further and further from me. Peiming was nodding, and then nodding more vigorously until I caught on that I had to turn the page; I'd thought she was nodding to keep rhythm!
Some notes:
1. Pages to be turned should have their upper corners turned down in advance, this makes the fingers grip the page easily, and not fumble and accidentally take hold of two pages instead.
2. The pianist should nod once to indicate to the page turner when he or she wants the page turned.
3. It helps if the page turner is familiar with the music.
4. It helps if the page turner doesn't have horrifically-polished nails that would distract, slivers of bright colors against the busy black notes on a white page. (No, I'm not guilty of this.)
5. If female (or even male), the page turner shouldn't overdo on perfume, which would cloy, and the pianist would wrinkle his nose, irritated, and possibly sneeze. (No, I'm not guilty of this either.)
I've been working on a short story about a cellist and I approached my friend and member of my cooking group, Noella, since she's a graduate student in Cello performance at the music school.
I learned about the different parts of the cello, the various cases, the make of her cello, a Charotte-Millot (from 18th century Paris), how to hold the instrument, how to bow with it, the importance of coordination between ear and fingers/wrist/arm movement and a dozen other important things, I'm sure. That was the theory part. On Monday night this week, I went to her apartment for dinner and it wasn't till the end that we realized she might as well give me a demonstration on her cello. After all, she's also been rehearsing Astor Piazzolla's Le Grand Tango, for the opening ceremony of the Old Parliament House in Singapore at the end of March. When she played the first note, I was astounded by the power of the sound. It's not simply loud; the instrument just resonates with a rich, glorious sound. She put the mute on so I could listen to the difference and then she broke into the Piazzolla piece.
A woman once said that there is a tender nerve that connects the ear to the ankle, and boy, did I feel that nerve that night. Piazolla's compositions are full of melancholic and vivid melodies, wonderful stuff that urges you to dance. I've loved many recordings of his work. To have it played before you is something else. I've never been more moved by another instrument. The notes come out strong, low, beautiful, and when Noella's fingers slid up and down the fingerboard, playing either vibrato or harmonics, I was just spellbound. Noella was playing standing up, leaning against the back of a sofa in a casual position since this wasn't a real rehearsal, but I could already sense the skill involved, and the joy she has each time she plays. It was one of those moments when the music enters you, changes something inside, though you're not quite sure what it is, and when the music ends, you're left beggared.
Okay, I guess it's obvious I was very moved. It's different from watching a pianist. With string instruments, the process of creating the sound, the music through touch and feel is just wonderful to watch. Noella told me you hold the instrument in your embrace and you pour everything you feel and think about the music into your arms and wrists and fingers. The playing is harder because you have to listen more to tell if you've got the right note. It was an experience to watch, and it must be a wonderful experience to play. (May, I'm sure you will agree!)
I count myself pretty lucky to have discovered or been introduced to an amazing range of music. The leaps I've made from one singer or musician to another has been great fun, like how I found Dulce Pontes after her collaborations with Ennio Morricone and how I picked up Mich En Scene's CD after watching the movie, Tadpole. I also came to love Coralie Clement's style of singing and realized her brother Benjamin Biolay had written and produced all the songs on her CD, and his CDs aren't bad either. A couple of Coralie Clement's songs are featured on the soundtrack of Something's Gotta Give, and I was evilly smug about how I had her album for a whole four months before the rest of the world - excepting France and Montreal where the folks, I'm sure, were already on to her - came to know her after watching the recent romantic comedy.
My recent find is a singer-songwriter-pianist called Vienna Teng. I was on the National Public Rado (NPR) website looking for information about another indie singer, Grazyna Auguscik, a jazz vocalist, when I saw Vienna's picture on the front page. The two main details that made me sit up: her lovely name and her race. An Asian-American singer. I went to the NPR page on her and learned that she studied engineering with a minor in music at Stanford, worked for Cisco Systems in Silicon Valley and then decided to become a full-time musician. Lucky for us, because her two albums are wonderful collections of thoughtful lyrics and inspired melodies. She is a classically-tranied pianist, which anyone who has taken the ABRSM exams can lay claim to but Vienna takes her piano-playing further by using her technique to support the beautiful works she composes. In addition, there are cellos and guitars, instruments which always get my vote, on several songs, .
She's been compared to Sarah McLachlan and Tori Amos, two singers she confesses to have influenced her, and even Norah Jones. Perhaps because I'm rather disappointed by Norah's latest album, which has a strong country feel (I don't dislike country; there're certain types of country I take to, and Norah's blend doesn't quite work for me), I find Vienna's music far more favorable. The songs aren't as quirky and difficult to access as some of Tori Amos's tunes, and she doesn't yodel as extensively as Sarah McLachlan. Her voice is sweet, unadorned and strong when the song calls for it. Her speaking voice is actually a deep alto, surprisingly.
Those who are familiar with Corrinne May will probably make comparisons, but again, I think Vienna has an edge over Corrinne's song-writing. At times, Corrinne's lyrics are a little on the fluffy side ("cotton candy clouds" or something close to that effect features in one of her songs), and although I do like some of her music, I didn't find myself as drawn to her words as I am to Vienna's, which tell interesting stories about people and places. I also like that Vienna adds in one or two unusual tunes, one of which, Unwritten Letter #1, has a distinctively Latin let's-tango feel, and it's supposed to be a sad song! It makes the lyrics all the more poignant. There's no self-pity or overly despairing tone and you admire Vienna for the intelligence and style of her music. On her second album, there's an uncredited track, which is a Taiwanese traditional song, "Green Island Serenade," and she does sing it in Chinese (her parents are migrants from Taiwan; Vienna grew up and has spent all her life in Northern California). When I heard it, I was swept back to my own childhood when I used to watch tons of Chinese and Taiwanese serials with my grandmother.
I suppose if you're still reading, you'd like to have a listen. There are a few links I thoroughly recommend. The NPR pages, and you can and should listen to the interviews with her (her speaking voice is lovely too).
The latest interview - click on "Weekend Edition - Sunday audio." You'll also notice a few audio samples from her latest album. I like "Mission Street."
The first interview about her debut album. Again, there are audio samples.
And if you're still reading and want to know more about Vienna, you can visit her website here and download clips of all her songs. Her albums are the kind which don't compel you to skip a track. I'm really impressed, and she must be the first Asian-American I know of to break into the American-vocalist-song-writing scene. Brava!
You know you're in for some fun and whimsy when a quartet names itself after the Italian dessert. Quartetto Gelato, however, is not Italian, and neither are they amateurs. They're classicaly-trained muscians, and they play classical music, with strong elements of spontaniety and improvisations. The quartet (two violins, one cello, one accordian) is actually Canadian and their music covers Baroque to classical tango (Astor Piazzolla) to Neopolitan songs. One of their violinists is also a capable tenor, and his voice adds another dimension to their music.
They've got a new album out, and the site to check it out is fun, fun fun! The album's music is inspired by the stops the Orient Express made when it first ran through Europe. So they play the music of Turkish, French and English composers.
The cool thing is that they're headed to Singapore to perform at the Esplanade next March. The not-so-cool thing: I won't be in Singapore to attend! Yet another performance I'll have to miss.
My great love for Ennio Morricone, ultimate film composer of over four hundred film scores, has led me to another wonderful artiste. Dulce Pontes from Portugal has been heard before on a more popular CD, sharing a duet with Andrea Bocelli on Sogno. However, I only learned of her recently when checking up on Morricone's latest releases (and boy, does he have a lot: two albums of remixes to mark his 75th birthday, more film soundtracks, more contemporary musicians playing his compositions, a live concert CD, and a couple of albums in which he orchestrates non-film compositions).
Focus is a collaboration between Morricone and Pontes. They met years ago when she was asked to sing on one of the soundtracks that Morricone was working on. Morricone is known for his use of the human voice as an instrument and Pontes was the voice, and a lovely, haunting one at that. He told her that he hoped to record an album with her one day, but that she should wait until she hit thirty years old. I believe he wanted her to mature and be able to express the rawness of emotions, emotions that come only with age. Her thirtieth birthday came and went, and now at last, Focus, is out, although it's a little hard to find.
Morricone allowed several of his famous movie themes (think Once Upon A Time In The West, Cinema Paradiso, The Mission, Lolita) to be set with lyrics. He also wrote new songs for Pontes. A most beautiful album with orchestration, acoustic intruments and that soaring voice.
Pontes is famous in her home country for her modern interpretations of fado. Fado is a Portuguese musical genre in which a man or woman (usually the latter) sings songs of melancholy, expressing the pain of life and loss felt by the people of Portugal. A fadista usually dresses in black with a black shawl in her hands or round her shoulders and is accompanied by a guitarist. She stands motionless as she sings and only moves her hands to express the feelings within the song and within herself. Perhaps the experts could tell you better. Go here to read more.
What I like about Pontes's music is that it's traditional and modern. Her recent release, O Primeiro Canto, has the classic fado songs as well as new compositions. The new works feature poetry by Portuguese poets, and though I understand none of it, I love that powerful voice and the simple acoustic instruments (guitars, violins, cellos). Here is one song whose English translation moved me:
The Heron (Garca Perdida)
Darkness fell
across my eyes of sorceress,
of starfish, of sky, of full moon,
of lost heron in the sand.
Darkness fell across my eyes,
lost my feathers, cannot fly,
I left nests and fledgings,
cares, affections, in the sea...
I only fly internally,
and dream of embracing
the endless sky and sea, the whole earth!
And I take the sea inside myself,
and the sky alive and dreaming,
and I will dream, until the end,
until I can awake no more...
And then I shall return crossing over sky and sea,
I'll fly, I'll fly endlessly around the world entire!
Nests I would build from the full moon, and then
I would go to sleep in the sand.
This evening, Peiming got us "rush" tickets (tickets bought an hour and a half before the concert, and at half price) to Hilary Hahn's performance at Ann Arbor's newly renovated Hill Auditorium.
For the first half, we were seated on the mezzanine level. The sound was good and my only wish was that I could watch Hilary's facial expressions as she produced such silvery notes of Bach. Well, I got my wish. Jake and Lim Jia (tuba and trumpet player respectively) told Peiming and me that there were vacant seats right before the stage, just three rows from the front! We rushed down and made ourselves comfortable during the intermission. Well, I really got to see Hilary up close, but the sound was a lot more raw. Then again, it was interesting to be right there, watching the violin player, seeing the gold tip of her bow flash and catch the light.
A grave, mature girl with intellectual and senstive playing. Her body swayed with each phrase and when she stopped for the pianist to extend the line, she lifted her heel as if to echo the rise of each swelling phrase. It really was wonderful to see her and listen to that music.
She played a lovely encore, Bach's Siciliano, and dedicated it to her pet mouse which died three days before.
Later, the bunch of us went down to talk with her and beg for autographs. I asked her accompanist, a lovely Chinese-American girl (very good, according to Peiming, and she would know), to sign my program too. I gave my condolences to Hilary about her mouse. She must have been tired, the poor girl. But she was lovely and composed and spoke with everyone.
I'm not sure she'd want to return to Ann Arbor to play again though. Every time the music stopped, the whole auditorium was filled with unmuffled coughs and other terrible noises. At first, she'd wait until everything died down before beginning the next movement, but after quite a bit of such rudeness, she didn't bother to wait, so the rest of us would miss the first few notes that were drowned in the cacophony of "ahems." Very rude audience.
Oh well, just another day in the life of a concert violinist.
Bagdad Cafe...anyone seen the movie? I haven't, but would like to. A German middle-aged lady tourist gets thrown out of the car by her husband in some Californian desert, and she heads towards a cafe, the Bagdad Cafe, where she proceeds to carve a space for herself, working together with the African-American owner to turn the cafe around. Soon, her visa expires and she has to decide where her life is headed.
The only other thing I know about the movie is its famous song, "Calling You." It was originally sung by Jevetta Steele, and then covered by many other artists. And I mean many. Holly Cole, Barbra Streisand, Lara Fabian, Sissel, Jeff Buckley are some of the more recent singers to have done so. It's a haunting song that fans the dark and buried emotions; stasis, emptiness, visions of wide spaces, the endlessness of time, dreams and desires. Here are the lyrics:
A desert road from Vegas to nowhere
Some place better than where you've been
A coffee machine that needs some fixing
In a little caf? just around the bend
I am calling you
Can't you hear me
I am calling you
A hot dry wind blows right thru me
The baby's crying and can't sleep
But we both know a change is coming
Coming closer sweet release
I am calling you
I know you hear me
I am calling you
I found an MP3 version of Geroge Michael (featuring Queen) singing it here. Just right click on the "download" button and then "save as".
Over the years, I've built up quite a repertoire of shower songs. I recently noticed that a large number of songs in the collection involve the moon or have some mention of the moon. These include:
In The Moonlight (sung by Sting on the OST of Sabrina)
Brazil ("...we stood beneath an amber moon...")
Moon River
I'll Be Seeing You ("...I'll be looking at the moon, but I'll be seeing you.")
The Moon's A Harsh Mistress
These are the only titles that come to mind now, if only because they're on the current singing list. Looking at these songs, it also occurs to me how ballad-like these five are. I mean "ballad" in the original sense, a song that tells a tale. "In The Moonlight" has no chorus, and every verse - or stanza, if you will (Sting was a Literature teacher, after all, and well-versed - oops, pun alert - in poetry) - tells something new. The song romanticizes the meeting of two strangers who spend the night together and hope that the morning will not bear away the magic they felt the night before, under the moonlight.
"Brazil" is another tale of two lovers. In Brazil, of course. The narrator, or singer, is singing in the present, recalling a love affair years ago that ended when he or she had to leave the country (after a nice vacation, I presume). On the last night, they stand beneath the moon and cling to each other. The song ends with a promise to return to Brazil.
Who wouldn't fall under the spell of "Moon River"? Who wouldn't conjure up the image of Holly Golightly strumming her little guitar, sitting on the window sill, and singing of going to see the world with her moon river? The theme song of "Breakfast At Tiffany's" always leaves me wistful, partly because I was an ardent admirer of George Peppard (he looked spectacular in that movie, and is now resting in peace somewhere in Michigan), and partly because I share that same love of seeing the world.
As a student in Florence, Italy, I attended a talent show (also a farewell concert) organized by my American program mates. One girl, Erin, sang a lovely rendition of that World War II song, "I'll Be Seeing You." I was very moved. Two lovers part in Paris as the young soldier has to go to the frontline, and the girl sings of how she'll find him in the morning sun, and when night comes, she'll be gazing at the moon, but will see only him. I was also sad that I'd be leaving Florence soon, and that I might not see some dear friends for a very long time.
There have been very many versions of "The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress." It was written by Jimmy Webb (former member of "America" and who wrote the songs from the animated film, "The Last Unicorn") and made famous by Judy Collins and Linda Ronstadt. Less of a story here, but the words are poetry nevertheless. Go here to see the lyrics. Jimmy Webb personifed the moon and gave her a cold, imperious air. It certainly reminds me of how we can reach for the moon (and stars) but always fall short of reaching her, thus the ultimate fascination for the wondrous orb, at least on my part.
I've gone moon-crazy today, I suppose. Rather late actually, since the lunar new year was last week. I can't really see much of the moon where I am, and also because I'm terrified of looking out the window in case I find the walkways and roads buried under snow. The apartments around mine block most of the sky, but at home in Singapore, I used to step out the house or stand on my brother's balcony and look skyward. The moon was always there, and even a few stars, gleaming quietly in spite of the city lights that threatened to stub them out.
Image by Alan Bean, former NASA astronaut
Confession: I had a secret desire to watch Josh Groban in concert next February 14th, when he swings by Detroit to perform at the Fox Theater.
I had the opportunity to buy tickets pre-sale, I had a good idea of how happy I'd be to watch him (when LK can't be around for Valentine's Day, the next best thing is watching a boy-toy crooner in concert), but I had no one to go with me. For all who have never been to Detroit but have heard about the shady alleys, the steam pouring out of potholes at night, the empty streets, the shifting darkness that threatens to swallow you, the lone silhouettes that lurk around corners - they're all true. I didn't want to go to Detroit alone, and because none of my friends here are remotely interested in Josh Groban, I had to abandon my great plan. Now all the concerts around the country are sold out! (Including the one in shady Detroit.) Mr. Groban sure pulls in the crowds. I'll have to be content with his recently-released CD (I have the Internet-only special edition with four extra songs, geek that I am).
Some concerts that I did get to:
- As far as maestros go, Itzhak Perlman commands our attention with both his playing and conducting. I managed to see Itzhak Perlman perform with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra three Saturdays ago. Yes, Detroit, but I had three companions, so I felt safe as a duckling. It was heart-wrenching to watch him maneuver himself from the conductor's position to off-stage and than on-stage again with each round of applause. Perlman has suffered from polio for many years, but he takes each awkward step with great strength and dignity, and when he moves his arms and fingers to either bend notes from his violin, or command music from the orchestra, he is the equal of all the great men that the history of music has known.
- John Logan Skelton is my friend Peiming's piano professor at the University of Michigan, whom I met at a recent Thanksgiving gathering. Last evening, he held a recital that featured new music he'd composed for the poems of Tennessee Williams and E.E. Cummings, poems set to song. Skelton played on a large, dark piano as a soprano and baritone carefully and always respectfully used the words as lyrics that fit beautifully with the music. Most members of the audience were music students who were delighted with the poetry, some of them having read E.E. Cummings previously, although their ears were perhaps tuned more to the lines of music than of words. An occasional piano player, I was impressed how easily poetry melded with another art form. Well, I really shouldn?t have been, since words are essential to vocal music and many song lyrics can be considered poetic. My own delight came about because I had known those words as only written lines or words said aloud at a poetry reading. That evening, they were accompanied by haunting and fitful melodies. The lines soared and wavered in a way I?d never heard them move before; they were borne on voices so smooth and beautiful that the voices became paths for the words to glide and meander with a grace, a quickness, a startling leap. While the words had always set the imagination free, music now lent these poems wings and they traveled further into the listening body to engage more than just a single sense.
Now, if only I can translate these ideas into my mini essay on combining an art form with prose that's due Tuesday. I need a muse!
Two recent releases in soundtracks are Mona Lisa Smile and Love Actually. The chick flicks and dramas always produce the soundtracks with winning songs and signature tunes. The epic movies bring some of the most riveting and rousing scores (listening to the Pirates Of The Caribbean soundtrack on my morning drive to school makes me feel like a hero - swash swash buckle buckle! - all ready to face the day) to show off the best sound systems.
I'm eagerly awaiting my copy of the Return Of The King soundtrack to blast on my sound system, but until then I'll enjoy the chick flick CDs. Mona Lisa Smile is Julia Roberts's latest outing with three up-and-coming actresses, Kirsten Dunst, Julia Stiles and Maggie Gyllenhaal. The decade is the 1950s, the location is Wellesley College (the best liberal arts college - females only - in the US; Hillary Rodham Clinton is an alumnus), Julia Roberts's character is a Mr. Holland-like (of Mr. Holland's Opus fame) teacher who inspires the girls to fulfill their potentials.
What makes the songs work is the choice of 1950s tunes covered by contemporary recording artistes like Tori Amos, Seal, Mandy Moore, Lisa Stansfield, Kelly Rowland, Macy Gray, Alison Krauss, Chris Isaak, and yes, Celine Dion, among others. Celine doesn't demonstrate any of her trademark histronic vocals though, and handles her version of "Bewitched" very tastefully. Mandy Moore uses her sweet voice to give the haunting music of "Secret Love" a wistful finish. Tori Amos gives us two songs; she does swing very well! Very fun music that fits a Julia Roberts movie. Her movies have produced some of the more successful soundtracks - My Best Friend's Wedding and Notting Hill are two.
Love Actually - ah, where do I begin? The three live versions of "Christmas Is All Around," "All I Want For Christmas Is You," and "All You Need Is Love" are on the soundtrack, and perfect for the fan who enjoyed the versions in the movie. The UK and international releases have a longer tracklist than the US one. From what I've heard, the score composed by Craig Armstrong is impressive and make three wonderful additions to the former versions.
Joni Mitchell's "Both Sides Now" is the most moving song on the soundtrack - the melody is wrenching, the lyrics are pure poetry and Mitchell's voice is beautifully controlled and so very poignant. Listening to it on its own (without having seen the movie) moves you, listening to it play in that particular scene with Emma Thompson's character will bring tears. You'll never think of anything else when you listen to that song again - the painful realization of how clouds, life and love are more than what you thought them to be; in the later years of your life, when your youth has long passed and the dreams a little broken, how do you read the signs, how do you cope with the intense knowledge that you know so little even now?
Go here to listen to samples of the Love Actually OST.
Listen to the Mona Lisa Smile OST here.
At the age of 55, film music composer Michael Kamen has died after suffering from multiple sclerosis for several years, although his death is believed to be caused by a heart attack. In the 1970s, Kamen served as musical director for David Bowie's "Diamond Dogs" tour, and then began writing film scores. Most will recognize the films whose music Kamen created - the Lethal Weapon series, the Die Hard series, Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, Mr. Holland's Opus, and X-Men, among some 80 films and TV shows.
My favorite Kamen work is the score for HBO series Band of Brothers. I initially bought the soundtrack for Lin Kiat, knowing how much he enjoyed the series. But after I gave it a few listens, and watched the series myself, I made a copy of it so I could listen to the opening and closing themes on repeat. One of my choice tracks is the music played when Lieutenant Winters rides the subway in Paris. Kamen composed some of the most moving pieces of music ever for a war-themed series, or movie, for that matter.
Go here and here for reports on Michael Kamen's death.
Visit Michael Kamen's official website here and learn more about his music.
Go here to sample Kamen's music for Band of Brothers.
Go here for my over-enthusiastic entry on Band of Brothers. I thoroughly recommend that anyone who hasn't seen the series should do so. The acting, directing, and score all come together to create a very successful work based on Stephen E. Ambrose's book.
Annie Lennox's song, "Into The West," for The Return Of The King has been unveiled on AOL. Naturally, Theonering.net has it also for non-AOL users. Go here and look for the entry, 'Into The West' Unveiled. Save it, you'll want to listen to this haunting song on repeat.
Listening to it in its entirety nearly brought tears to my eyes (yes, I'm that affected by the books!) because I know precisely the scene that this song refers to. I have a painting at home of this scene and that painting alone was enough to move me. I was initially unsure of how this song would turn out. It's the theme song of the final movie to a great trilogy. Plenty of pressure. But the music and lyrics rise to the occasion and the significance of the ending. I can't wait to witness the end. Most of the fans will be saddened that the journey for the characters and actors (and also ours) will finally wrap and pass out of the present. I'm happy though that this song pays homage to such an end as this.
Here are the lyrics (probably not arranged in the correct verses - my apologies):
Lay down
Your sweet and weary head.
Night is falling,
You?ve come to journey?s end.
Sleep now
And dream of the ones who came before.
They are calling
From across the distant shore.
Why do you weep?
What are these tears upon your face?
Soon you will see
All of your fears will pass away.
Safe in my arms
You?re only sleeping
What can you see
On the horizon?
Why do the white gulls call?
Across the sea,
A pale moon rises -
The ships have come to carry you home.
Dawn will turn
To silver glass.
A light on the water,
All souls pass.
Hope fades
Until the world of night
Through shadows falling
Out of memory and time.
Don?t say
We have come now to the end.
White shores are calling,
You and I will meet again.
And you?ll be here in my arms
Just sleeping.
What can you see
On the horizon?
Why do the white gulls call?
Across the sea,
A pale moon rises -
The ships have come to carry you home.
And all will turn
To silver glass.
A light on the water,
Grey ships pass
Into the west.
Michael Buble goes to Singapore to perform. And I'm in Michigan. Life has an offbeat timing that doesn't always work for me.
My god-sis (aka best assistant to have on your wedding day), Ai-Mai, went to the concert and she's smitten. She's smitten, I'm envious.
It's a wonderful thing to fall in love with a new song. Sometimes you know on the first listen, sometimes you won't till the second or third time. I came upon "Touch her soft lips and part" unexpectedly. Unaware at first of how much the song would mean to me.
Here's how it went: I watched the movie Tadpole, really liked the soundtrack, especially the French songs; since the movie has no soundtrack available, I did some research on the singers involved and found one of the French singers, a group of musicians and vocalist called Mich En Scene; their cd is available on a website called CDBaby, which sells only independent music and I chanced upon a jazz vocalist called Lisa Thorson, sampled the music files, and purchased her CD along with Mich En Scene's album.
The sixth song on Lisa Thorson's CD is "Touch her soft lips and part", composed by William Walton who wrote it in classical form for the 1945 film version of Shakespeare's Henry V. Since then, it's been played in the classical circles and more recently picked up by jazz artistes. The music accompanies a scene in which a soldier leaves his lover to go to war. There are no lyrics, but Lisa Thorson's voice bears the tragedy in a haunting arc that begins and ends with such sad, beautiful notes.
Go here to listen to Lisa or look up some great work by independent musicians.
My friend Peiming, a PhD student in piano at U of M, told me she was inviting a couple of friends to dinner at Great Lakes restaurant, where she and I had arranged to meet. She mentioned that one of them is a Singapore violinist, and I, being used to Peiming's usual description of music school students as pianist, cellist, flautist etc., assumed that this would be your average, talented U of M music school undergraduate. When I met Min Lee, I was startled to find myself shaking hands with one of Singapore's most famous music prodigies, also known as Lee Huei Min.
Min has performed around the world, has recorded with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra for her debut album, is armed with a master's degree from Yale, and had spent four years at Michigan during the early nineties in the pre-college division of the music school. I wondered why in heaven's name would this gifted musician be in Michigan as a student again. It turns out that she needs to have a completed bachelor's degree to qualify her master's degree, which she received at the tender age of sixteen. So she decided to return to Michigan where she will spend two years playing violin - but will still be able to travel and hold performances - in order to receive her bachelor's degree. She is a junior this year, probably the only junior who already has a master's under her belt and many more accolades.
View these and more on her website here.
Did I learn anything particular about Min? It's rude to stare and scrutinize (and worse to write it down for all to read; ahem, not that I stared much in the first place), but I did notice that the attractive and articulate violinist is left-handed (though she plays the violin as a right-hander would), like many bright, talented people I know. Peiming is one, and she's an excellent pianist. And there's Lin Kiat too, the left-hander I know well and love.
This is a not-so-long-ago photo taken of me when I was having my groupie moment, chatting up Mimi of Neri Per Caso and making full use of my two years of Italian lessons.
This is a quirky little movie with an unfortunate opening date of May 16th in the US, the very same weekend of the opening of The Matrix Reloaded. Renee Zellweger and Ewan McGregor, both alumni of the reincarnated genre of movie musicals, star in Down With Love, which will open in Singapore on August 21st.
The movie pays tribute to the 1960s movies that starred Doris Day and Rock Hudson. These were filmed with eye-popping, brightly-colored sets and painstakingly-painted backdrops. The director of Down With Love wanted to create a movie that looked as if it were filmed in 1962, so backdrops were painted to achieve the same effect and everything is decked in color and that inimitable 60s style.
I've seen the trailer and both leads look passable for Doris and Rock. David Hyde Pierce, my favorite actor from Frasier, plays the boss of Catcher Block, Ewan's character. Pierce received good reviews for this role and a few critics thought Ewan should be in the supporting role and David in the lead. The tale is about Barbara Novack, a feminist writer, whose book ruins the lives of many men as wives rebel and finally begin making decisions that benefit themselves and not their husbands. Catcher is the fellow in the movie who must suppress and defeat Barbara. He's egged on by his boss to write a story on the lady who swears she's ousted love (but not sex) from her life and encourages women around the world to do the same. Apparently, there's supposed to be a unique twist at the end and that's enough to persuade me to go see the movie. Or at least rent it.
Ewan McGregor should certainly please female movie-goers and if Renee isn't your type, there's Jeri Ryan who plays Catcher's Swedish ex-girlfriend. I understand that she's got a significant part to play in the praised (but I shall judge for myself) twist.
If the movie bores you, well there's always the soundtrack, which features swinging music by Sinatra, Astrud Gilberto, who does a cover of Fly Me To The Moon (In Other Words), and a newcomer called Michael Buble. Buble is a 25 year-old Canadian and the latest gem being touted by David Foster. Foster will make Buble big, the way he's made Josh Groban big, in the platinum sense. Michael Buble has a strong Sinatra quality, his voice is resonant and very, very seductive. (He also looks as good as he sounds.) He's jazzed up George Michael's Kissing A Fool and made it his own. Put the soundtrack into your PC and gain access to the music video of Kissing A Fool, it's a nice little animated video of Catcher wooing Barbara, with Michael appearing as a crooner in a bar.
Visit the movie's website here, and go listen to Michael Buble at his site here.
Well, I guess I've risen to higher levels in geekdom - my three Cowboy Bebop cds arrived in the post today (from Ebay seller in Singapore - low shipping cost!). Very fun, very cool. Although I've temporarily switched to distracting myself with the Band of Brothers series, I haven't forgotten the whimsical joys of Cowboy Bebop.
Okay, this isn't a very thoughtful, insightful post. I just wanted to write something while I'm in this lazy mood. Languorous, dreamy, weighted with inertia.
Where're the bosses today? Off to their own adventures while I navigate the grim, wordy fields of a series called Grammar Builder.
See you Space Cowboy...
Cowboy Bebop is a wonderful anime series that I've discovered recently, albeit a little late. The series of 26 episodes is set in 2071, an age when bounty hunters traverse the galaxy trying to make ends meet. Spike Spiegel, the anti-hero, and his motley crew repeatedly attempt to capture the bounty and repeatedly lose the bounty at the end of each episode. His partners include Jet Black - a gadget expert with a mechanical arm - who pilots and does most of the cooking on the Bebop, the spacecraft that races them to new adventures; there's also Faye Valentine, a smart and sassy poker player and bounty hunter who spends occasional periods on the Bebop; Edward, the premature hacker, becomes a part of the group in a later episode. No successful team is without a mascot, and Ein, a clever data-dog whose worth is reputedly as high as the stars, serves that role.
The world of Cowboy Bebop is punctuated with fantastic space vehicles and casinos that spin temptingly amid the stars. Cosmic adventures and much entertainment to be had. The action is enthralling, the humor wicked, and the animation impressive and convincing enough to produce smoothly integrated CGI space-flight elements.
Now I must mention the music. I'm quite the fan of films and shows that deftly build music into the storyline. Every episode is named after a song, which is composed specially for the series by Yoko Kanno, and performed mostly by her band the Seatbelts. Cowboy Bebop is rife with interesting tunes and instruments, the music set to styles that escape any genre. African or Latin beats, funk, jazz, blues harmonica, sax riffs, operatic vocals, piano pieces, quirky lyrics - it's all there on the soundtrack.
All 26 episodes can be viewed on Cowboy Bebop The Pefect Sessions, a three-disc DVD easily available in Asia. I regret to say that the three-disc version is actually a bootleg, but since the originals are pretty tough to locate (unless one is living in Japan or the US, and able to order the set of 6 DVDs from Amazon), getting the bootleg is the easiest way to view this amazing series.
In any case, here are some links for anyone interested in the series. If you do begin watching the series, do note that there's quite a bit of violence, profanity, and implied drug use - your average dark material. Not suited for those below 13 maybe?
This site appears to be a very popular one - lots of information and a worthy place to begin one's entry into the universe of Cowboy Bebop.
Go here for a good episode guide, although it contains many spoilers.
When I was ten years old, my grandmother passed away from liver complications. Around that time, my father had been playing the soundtrack of Once Upon a Time in the West, a film or spaghetti western by Sergio Leone. The opening theme features a woman's haunting voice singing without words and accompanying the music's beautiful phrases and arcs. There is nothing like it, nothing better (unless it's another Morricone composition, be it The Mission, Cinema Paradiso, or Love Affair). For years, every time I heard that music, I thought of my grandmother and nursed the dull ache of loss and loneliness, just as Jill in the movie must have felt when she found the man she was to have married and his family slaughtered and left lying about their home.
That's how it began, but from there, I cannot seem to trace my musical acquiantance with Morricone. I only know the various scores that are now in my collection - Cinema Paradiso, Love Affair, The Mission, The Legend of 1900, Malena and of course, Once Upon a Time in the West. Some became familiar to me before I even watched the film itself, others I picked up after watching a movie and learning the music composer was Ennio Morricone.
I saw Cinema Paradiso when I was at university (I had the soundtrack long before my viewing though) and was amazed at how the music was just as important as the wonderful screenplay by Giuseppe Tornatore. This was the first of Tornatore's and Morricone's joint efforts in film. And what a perfect pairing it was. The movie is about a young boy's friendship with the local movie projectionist and the unflinching and powerful influence films have on their lives. The music - certainly the supporting role or even co-star in the film - is, in one reviewer's words "a virtual musical love letter to the power of films and their music." Cinema Paradiso the film did very well in terms of movie awards, earning the Grand Jury Prize at Cannes and an Oscar for Best Foreign Film. But I was shocked to learn that Ennio Morricone didn't even get nominated for the score that has become legendary (vocalists like Karrin Allyson, Josh Groban, Opera Babes have added lyrics to the tunes and made them their own, musicians have covered the themes over the years). Ennio Morricone has been nominated five times at the Academy Awards, but has never won once.
Last year, my parents and I paid a visit to the city of Verona for a day, and as we passed by the Arena amphitheater - a Roman theater that's used for concerts now - I saw a poster and learned with great dismay that Ennio Morricone was holding a concert there two days later! I would have left Verona by then! I wished I'd known he would be there, then I would have certainly planned our trip around that performance. Although I doubt I would have been able to secure tickets to a famed location where a famed composer would be performing.
The Italian music composer is perhaps the most prolific, the most talented, and the most versatile composer in our day. He's written over 400 scores for Italian and American films. Some of the American films include: A Fistful of Dollars, The Untouchables, Once Upon a Time in America, The Good, The Bad and The Ugly, Lolita, Bulworth and Mission To Mars.
You'll find many of his albums here. Footlight.com has the widest range of his music available, although the prices aren't the lowest and shipping costs quite a bit if you're shipping outside the US. However, they do stock many titles that Amazon.com lists as out of stock. Japan seems to have several titles produced specially for their own market and if you're ever there, it'll be good to pick up the exclusive titles.
Here is a nice site that lists his film compositions.
The official site is in English and in Italian.
There are many Morricone scores, and fans cling to some but turn away from others. I don't believe I'll ever get to hear them all or even half of his repertoire, but I'm fortunate to have listened to a few of the great ones. My favored choices are Cinema Paradiso and Once Upon a Time in the West, perhaps because of the images they constantly create in my mind, two of which have been, and still bring great meaning to my days - movies and a grandmother I lost too soon.
There are French singers and then there are French-Canadian singers. I don't mean Celine Dion, but ladies like Lynda Lemay, Isabelle Boulay and Lara Fabian, although Lara is going down Celine's path and crossing over into the mainstream world of English pop. She's known for the vocal songs in the movies Final Fantasy and A.I. and a couple of her songs have made it to the soundtracks of Dawson's Creek 2 and Meteor Garden 2. Her recent French album, Nue, is excellent, and I'm glad she still records in French.
Isabelle Boulay records only in French and isn't widely known outside of the French-speaking world. Her latest release is a live album titled Au Moment D'Etre A Vous. I don't particularly like live albums but this is an exception as it contains previously unreleased songs and these are real gems. Backed by the famous Montreal Symphony Orchestra, the russet-haired singer deftly channels her strong emotions through truly beautiful songs. The lyrics are delicious to the ear (even if you don't know French), and her voice delivers them perfectly to the point.
Her albums are easily found here.
Visit her official site here and have a listen to select songs from her albums - head for the discographie (paroles for lyrics and extrait for the audio). My favorite pick is her album Etats D'Amour.
Lin Kiat and I once had an agreement that he could run away with Ashley Judd or this very sweet girl we discovered working at the Breadtalk shop in Paragon, and I would settle down with Jim Caviezel (actually, both Ashley and Jim are married to other people, but that doesn't matter as far as our imaginations are concerned. No idea about the Breadtalk girl). I think I'd like to add another to my list - Massimo de Divitiis, the only blond member of Neri Per Caso.
Well, maybe he wouldn't go on the list but he sure is nice to look at and listen to. Then again, so are all his cousins and friends who make up the multi-talented a cappella group, Neri Per Caso, which means "black by chance".
Their first concert in Singapore was a fabulous performance. Marred only by unreliable microphones and awkward volume levels that went too high at times. But these setbacks didn't faze the six-member a cappella group from Salerno, Italy. Their voices blended together with the famous, fine quality that is beyond description. Each man took his turn in holding the melody, percussions and counterparts. Versatile. Mi Mi, the fellow I spoke to on Sunday, sang in various styles - jazz, rap, pop, opera. He did a Sting cover, breezed through two Gershwin pieces and rapped (and jumped) in perfect tempo.
They sang Le Ragazze - the song that made them famous, from the album that went platinum over and over again. They did their own version of An Englishman In New York (or An Italian in New York), and danced and skipped cavalierly about the stage, making that space their own and making us want to keep them there the whole night through.
Among my favorites were But Not For Me - arranged specially for the 100th anniversary of Geroge Gershwin's birth in 1998 - and Michelle. The arrangements were clever and original - well done, Ciro and Diego!
Interestingly enough, they had a local girl translate some Italian for them on-stage. If I may say so, it wasn't the best or thorough translation. I should've been up there! Then again, if meeting Mi Mi - just one member - made me forget half of my Italian, being up on stage with all six guys would have made me forget I even had Italian lessons once upon a time!
Anyway, I would recommend their two a cappella cds - Le Ragazze and Neri Per Caso. The other albums have background instruments, which take away from their awesome voices and harmony. I do like Un Angelo Blu though, if only because it was the album I bought while I was living in Florence, and to which I listened often. The songs from that cd still conjure up the memory of a small music store and everything else I love and remember from Italy.
Unfortunately, the official Neri Per Caso site is down or dead. It was pretty good the last time I visited it in 1999.
It's hard to find good English sites about Neri Per Caso but here's one. You can choose to view in English, Italian or Indonesian Malay (big fan base in our neighboring country). Read more.
If you can read Italian, go here.
I'd like to add that Lin Kiat and I were very pleased to see our emcee - or the fellow who will be the emcee at our wedding - and his group, Akatones open the night for Neri Per caso. Bravo, Mogan!
Sunday at Scotts - With help of friend Mogan, I approach Mi Mi of Neri Per Caso (famous Italian a cappella group) and strike up conversation in Italian! Bravissima!
Well, it started off in English at first, because I was so star-struck I forgot most of my Italian vocabulary! Thank goodness all returned in a while and I managed to have a nice chat with Mi Mi and welcome him to Singapore.
More on Neri Per Caso after I attend their performance tomorrow night.
I won a bid on Ebay for the Final Fantasy X Piano Collection cd. The buyer is from Singapore so I save big time on shipping. Excellent. Some of the best news I've had all day. Much of the music from the OST is piano-based so the piano collection shouldn't be out of place, although I've heard that the music has been arranged so differently one has to listen hard to locate the original themes.