![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Sunset. London, November 2014.
Dec. 7th, 2014 02:06 pm
( Read more... )
I went to see "2001: A Space Oddity" this afternoon, for the first time in forty years. I saw it more than once c 1970, a young boy obsessed by space.
I've also read the book, though I don't remember it.
So. It looked amazing. Given that CGI didn't exist then, it looked incredible. It is also rather compelling - very watchable.
But it doesn't make any sense. The first part was shorter than I expected, and kind of worked. (But leopard with shining eyes? Why?)
The music worked really well. Powerful music and images combine very effectively. The middle sequence was full of humour (who knew Leonard Rossiter was in it? Well, everyone but me, I expect) - though much of it with hindsight (PanAm? I wonder what happened to them...). The moon sequence was superb.
The trip to Jupiter looks great. HAL is suitably scary. The (probable) tedium of space travel comes across well. And again, it just looks right.
The final sequence is of course bonkers. I have no idea what was going on (which I'd what I thought forty years ago, too). I can't help but wonder how much acid Kubrick had taken.
But all in all, a great movie.
I've also read the book, though I don't remember it.
So. It looked amazing. Given that CGI didn't exist then, it looked incredible. It is also rather compelling - very watchable.
But it doesn't make any sense. The first part was shorter than I expected, and kind of worked. (But leopard with shining eyes? Why?)
The music worked really well. Powerful music and images combine very effectively. The middle sequence was full of humour (who knew Leonard Rossiter was in it? Well, everyone but me, I expect) - though much of it with hindsight (PanAm? I wonder what happened to them...). The moon sequence was superb.
The trip to Jupiter looks great. HAL is suitably scary. The (probable) tedium of space travel comes across well. And again, it just looks right.
The final sequence is of course bonkers. I have no idea what was going on (which I'd what I thought forty years ago, too). I can't help but wonder how much acid Kubrick had taken.
But all in all, a great movie.
The Bridge
Dec. 3rd, 2014 04:36 pmToday I walked on water. Sorry. I mean I walked over water.
A couple of weeks ago, I sat on a train as it crossed the Forth Bridge, and I thought it might be interesting to walk across the Forth Road Bridge. Mostly to get some novel views of the rail bridge. I have been over the bridge many, many times, but never walked it.
Surprisingly given that climbing mountains is a hobby and I spent much of my student years up ladders in theatres, I'm not great with heights. The Forth Road Bridge is high above the water. And it shakes. It shakes a lot, as lorries and buses pass by. It is pretty stable at the two pylons (where people have strangely been putting padlocks expressing their undying love - but uniform, engraved, standard padlocks; clearly someone is performing a service, having them engraved and put on the bridge - probably the bridge authority), but in between the footpath, a separate structure but attached to the roadway, moves up and down. A lot. It was good to get back on solid land. Walking from south to north, I really didn't want to walk back again, though I had to. At the end, my legs were shaking.
But the views of the Forth Bridge were excellent. There'll be lots of photos to follow, and I want to go back under different light and weather conditions.
A couple of weeks ago, I sat on a train as it crossed the Forth Bridge, and I thought it might be interesting to walk across the Forth Road Bridge. Mostly to get some novel views of the rail bridge. I have been over the bridge many, many times, but never walked it.
Surprisingly given that climbing mountains is a hobby and I spent much of my student years up ladders in theatres, I'm not great with heights. The Forth Road Bridge is high above the water. And it shakes. It shakes a lot, as lorries and buses pass by. It is pretty stable at the two pylons (where people have strangely been putting padlocks expressing their undying love - but uniform, engraved, standard padlocks; clearly someone is performing a service, having them engraved and put on the bridge - probably the bridge authority), but in between the footpath, a separate structure but attached to the roadway, moves up and down. A lot. It was good to get back on solid land. Walking from south to north, I really didn't want to walk back again, though I had to. At the end, my legs were shaking.
But the views of the Forth Bridge were excellent. There'll be lots of photos to follow, and I want to go back under different light and weather conditions.
Bookshops.
Nov. 19th, 2014 01:20 pmI thought I had done very well. I was feeling rather smug with myself: I had walked past my favourite bookshop and not gone in, and not bought anything!
Sadly, it wasn't to last. After coffee with a friend, we popped into another bookshop, which had a very varied and impressive stock, where we had a long conversation with the bookseller. And I seem to have acquired books by Hilary Mantel, William McIlvaney and Ian Rankin...
Sadly, it wasn't to last. After coffee with a friend, we popped into another bookshop, which had a very varied and impressive stock, where we had a long conversation with the bookseller. And I seem to have acquired books by Hilary Mantel, William McIlvaney and Ian Rankin...
Today I have... Been to Tuttle for the first time in nine months, had some great conversations (including two in depth discussions on my feelings on indyref), walked from the RFH to Shoreditch (and back again), crossed the Millennium Bridge (twice), been to two jazz gigs (OK, I'm waiting for the second to start - and a third coming up after that, later tonight), had a conversation with a musician I follow on Twitter (who last time I saw him play made me promise I'd chat next time I saw him. I think I came across as a socially inept baboon...), had lunch with a friend by accident (we bumped into each other in the street), explored Shoreditch and Spitalfields, realised I wasn't too far from the Tower,went to look at the poppies being removed, and walked back to RFH along the river. Again.
I went to two gigs on consecutive evenings last week, something I try to avoid - but the second was arranged long ago, and when I learned about the first I didn't want to miss it. They were sufficiently different not to clash.
The first was eyeshutight at the JazzBar. A piano trio, they played with passion and intensity; the first number - or maybe several pieces concatenated - lasted over half an hour. The pieces - or perhaps sections - twist around their themes, as the musicians shift rhythms and tempo. The trio have that second sense built up over lots of gigs, I imagine, happy to follow each other wherever they may go. A very engrossing, enjoyable gig. (I picked up their latest CD at the gig, "Resonance", which I reviewed for LondonJazz. It's well worth a listen.)
The following evening I headed down to Peebles, where a friend of mine had grabbed me a ticket to see Tommy Smith and Brian Kellock in duet. I realised that I first saw Tommy play as a teenager - thirty years ago, before he left Scotland to study at Berklee. I have seen him, many, many times since - including with Brian Kellock. They've just released a second CD of their duets, "Whispering of the Stars", a companion piece to their earlier outing "Bezique".
Playing a set consisting solely of standards - most going back to the 1920s and 30s (only a Chick Corea piece and Ellington's "Single Petal of a Rose" came from the second half of the twentieth century). "The Surrey With The Fringe on Top", " I Want To Be Happy", "Stardust" and many others filled the two sets.
Whilst the tunes may have been dated, the music was timeless. It seems like Kellock and Smith are playing better than ever. Kellock impresses me more each time I see him, and the duo setting with Smith gives him freedom to really explore the tunes; his left hand keeping the rhythm going and allowing Smith to stretch out. That just two people can create such good music from what might be considered hackneyed sources is impressive.
The first was eyeshutight at the JazzBar. A piano trio, they played with passion and intensity; the first number - or maybe several pieces concatenated - lasted over half an hour. The pieces - or perhaps sections - twist around their themes, as the musicians shift rhythms and tempo. The trio have that second sense built up over lots of gigs, I imagine, happy to follow each other wherever they may go. A very engrossing, enjoyable gig. (I picked up their latest CD at the gig, "Resonance", which I reviewed for LondonJazz. It's well worth a listen.)
The JazzBar managed something quite spectacular that evening: both a very sparse crowd and people determined to talk over the music! To be fair, it was only one table of six who chatted through the first half, and they decided the music wasn't for them; but that left only six of us in the audience. We were very appreciative, though! I hope eyeshutight give Edinburgh another go - we'll have to see if we can get more people out next time!
* * *
The following evening I headed down to Peebles, where a friend of mine had grabbed me a ticket to see Tommy Smith and Brian Kellock in duet. I realised that I first saw Tommy play as a teenager - thirty years ago, before he left Scotland to study at Berklee. I have seen him, many, many times since - including with Brian Kellock. They've just released a second CD of their duets, "Whispering of the Stars", a companion piece to their earlier outing "Bezique".
Playing a set consisting solely of standards - most going back to the 1920s and 30s (only a Chick Corea piece and Ellington's "Single Petal of a Rose" came from the second half of the twentieth century). "The Surrey With The Fringe on Top", " I Want To Be Happy", "Stardust" and many others filled the two sets.
Whilst the tunes may have been dated, the music was timeless. It seems like Kellock and Smith are playing better than ever. Kellock impresses me more each time I see him, and the duo setting with Smith gives him freedom to really explore the tunes; his left hand keeping the rhythm going and allowing Smith to stretch out. That just two people can create such good music from what might be considered hackneyed sources is impressive.
Interstellar
Nov. 11th, 2014 07:57 pmI went to see Interstellar this evening. It was very good. Absolute hokum, of course, and at times overly sentimental (and it worked every time!), but essentially very good.
It looked amazing, and I thought all the leads were particularly good, too. Very impressive.
It was possibly 45 minutes longer than it needed to be, and could easily have been cut without damaging the story (which frankly makes no sense anyhow!) and it has the same flaws that just about any fiction about time has.
Still, I thought it was brilliant. I was somewhat disappointed to emerge from the cinema and discover that I was still in Edinburgh, rather than somewhere in deep space...
It looked amazing, and I thought all the leads were particularly good, too. Very impressive.
It was possibly 45 minutes longer than it needed to be, and could easily have been cut without damaging the story (which frankly makes no sense anyhow!) and it has the same flaws that just about any fiction about time has.
Still, I thought it was brilliant. I was somewhat disappointed to emerge from the cinema and discover that I was still in Edinburgh, rather than somewhere in deep space...
I regularly look at my Flickr stats - maybe three or four times a day. I generally get around four hundred hits, sometimes as low a two hundred, occasionally a couple of thousand, if I've been taking pictures at a wedding or something. I think the most hits I've ever had was about 3,000.
Until today. Today, so far, I've had 7,500 hits. I have absolutely no idea why, not where they've come from, aside that they're nearly all via Flickr.
It's somewhat unsettling.
ETA. the top search on my flickr account today was for "interstellar", presumably on the back of the movie launch.
Which amuses me no end because they will have found images of Jerry Dammers' Spatial AKA Orchestra, which I had tagged with "interstellar space" (after Sun Ra's subject matter)!
ETAMy flickr hits now top 9,500 [c 3pm]. It is very strange - when it was at 6,000 this morning, I didn't expect it to carry on all day!
Until today. Today, so far, I've had 7,500 hits. I have absolutely no idea why, not where they've come from, aside that they're nearly all via Flickr.
It's somewhat unsettling.
ETA. the top search on my flickr account today was for "interstellar", presumably on the back of the movie launch.
Which amuses me no end because they will have found images of Jerry Dammers' Spatial AKA Orchestra, which I had tagged with "interstellar space" (after Sun Ra's subject matter)!
ETAMy flickr hits now top 9,500 [c 3pm]. It is very strange - when it was at 6,000 this morning, I didn't expect it to carry on all day!
"Mr Turner".
Nov. 2nd, 2014 02:16 pmI went to see "Mr Turner" last night. I was thought it might be brilliant, but I was worried I might be disappointed.
( Cut because you might not want to know what I think before you see the film! )
( Cut because you might not want to know what I think before you see the film! )
Four gigs in a week; two jazz, and two - strangely - spoken word. Or poetry, if you like. Which I don't. I don't like poetry. Or rather, I don't like reading poetry. But hearing it read in a performance is something difference.
Last Sunday I went to Neu!Reekie!, a regular spoken word and art event which I have been meaning to go to for ages, but kept missing. Last week it was held at the Fruitmarket Gallery, one the closing evening of the Jim Lambie show. It was a very good evening, but being able to see Zobop so close (I was sitting on the floor) definitely made the evening.
Tonight I saw Kate Tempest perform. She also sings - if I hadn't heard her records on 6Music, I wouldn't have gone tonight.
She was very, very good. Her sense of rhythm and the lucidity of words - the pictures she painted and the stories she told - were amazing. The energy with which she spoke - she had her poems written down, but she didn't read them - was impressive. She was spellbinding. Very special. And very enjoyable. And very funny.
Last Sunday I went to Neu!Reekie!, a regular spoken word and art event which I have been meaning to go to for ages, but kept missing. Last week it was held at the Fruitmarket Gallery, one the closing evening of the Jim Lambie show. It was a very good evening, but being able to see Zobop so close (I was sitting on the floor) definitely made the evening.
Tonight I saw Kate Tempest perform. She also sings - if I hadn't heard her records on 6Music, I wouldn't have gone tonight.
She was very, very good. Her sense of rhythm and the lucidity of words - the pictures she painted and the stories she told - were amazing. The energy with which she spoke - she had her poems written down, but she didn't read them - was impressive. She was spellbinding. Very special. And very enjoyable. And very funny.
