It’s funny how we long to visit places that are far away, and yet we so often don’t know what’s in our own backyards. Years of living in Western New York, and I didn’t know anything about this place until today. Share This PostDown the rabbit hole….
The Simpsons delivered its best episode in quite some time last night, a hilarious take on three classic stories: The Odyssey, the tale of Joan of Arc, and Hamlet. As is usually the case in these types of episodes, the Simpsons themselves play the main characters with the regular townsfolk rounding out the supporting cast. Having Mayor Quimby as Zeus and the Old Sea Captain as Poseidon were brilliant touches, as was Moe as Claudius in Hamlet. The show doesn’t hit these heights nearly as often or as consistently as it used to, but it’s nice to see that theyDown the rabbit hole….
The second installment of NPR’s annual survey of Oscar-nominated filmscores is here. This week’s discussed scores are Harry Potter and the Sorceror’s Stone (John Williams) and The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (Howard Shore). Share This PostDown the rabbit hole….
I finished Aaron Copland’s book What To Listen For In Music today. It is an excellent volume, designed to introduce laypeople to the inner workings and complexities of classical music. Copland’s language is never overly technical, and people wishing to start digging beneath the appeals of mere surface beauty to find deeper pleasures in music will be hard-pressed to find a better starting point. It would be interesting if an edition of this book could be released that includes a CD of some of the works Copland discusses, because as he himself notes many, many times: proper enjoyment of musicDown the rabbit hole….
I’ve added a permanent link to The Berlioz Society, dedicated to the greatest of all French composers. His bicentennary is approaching next year. (Mini-rant: As much as I love the Impressions de France film at Epcot, it annoys me that it purports to include music from France’s great composers, and yet includes not a note by Berlioz.) Share This PostDown the rabbit hole….
The Man With the Golden Gun is probably the most problematic of the James Bond films. It has moments when it is very, very good; it also has moments when it is bone-chillingly awful. On balance, I have to say that I like it; its photography is too beautiful, John Barry’s score is excellent, Roger Moore settles into the role much more nicely than he did in Live and Let Die, and Christopher Lee makes a wonderful Bond villain. We always talk about “chemistry” as it applies to two romantic leads, but there also has to be a kind ofDown the rabbit hole….
SFSite‘s mid-March update has taken place. The highlight is an interview with author Gene Wolfe, one of SF and Fantasy’s finest writers. Share This PostDown the rabbit hole….
Random complaint #489: Can we come up with a new metaphor for a sports team that plays beyond expectations and earns a shot at the title? Today I saw a headline in the sports page: “Wyoming Steals Gonzaga’s Slippers”. I think it’s time to officially retire the “Cinderella” metaphor from sports writing. (And besides, Gonzaga is playing — or was playing — in its fourth consecutive NCAA Tournament. At what point is a team no longer a Cinderella team, and just a regular old, garden-variety good team?) Share This PostDown the rabbit hole….
It’s a good month for lovers of Miklos Rozsa’s film music: new remastered releases of King of Kings and Lust For Life. Rozsa is one of the greatest of all film composers, up there with John Williams, Erich Wolfgang Korngold, and Bernard Herrmann. Any new release of his music is cause for celebration. Share This PostDown the rabbit hole….
Remember that stunning photograph of the Afghan refugee from National Geographic Magazine in the mid-1980s? It has arguably become National Geographic‘s most famous photograph, being featured in many retrospectives of the magazine since then. Well, the woman — who was anonymous at the time — has been found again, alive in Afghanistan. She is older now, and a mother, but her eyes are still that same piercing green. Read the MSN article here. Share This PostDown the rabbit hole….