Shakespeare's Twelfth Night

Shakespeare's Twelfth Night: 30th October

January Music

Music in January :
15th January - weve booked tickets for nearly anything which contains Tango music in the area, but Otros Aires was unexpected. The concert was short, but packed in 6 different sets, including a local schools music and dance project which was mentored by the Band. We hadnt seen Otros Aires before, and though it started with Bandoneon and a sultry Red Dress Tango dancer, changed into a multi-media show with projection, electronica seamlessly segued into dance from an ever changing cast. Pity we didnt get more time with each group. The show was over by 9.30 and we were inspired to pick up the CD. More please!
Otros Aires Live




21st January in Old Town Pasadena - Dewberry playing in 72 North. Old friend Mike invited us to his gig at this bar. Sleepy from the 11 hour flight we enjoyed the show, met all the band and were probably a little too sober.. The evening turned rather surreal later, as we experienced old town pasadena's law and order service in action, but we at least made our way out ok.

Local Jazz concerts in 2010

Asaf Sirkis - Friday 24 September 2010

I wasnt quite so thrilled by either half of this concert at Bedales. Asaf Sirkis percussion and sense of atmosphere was fine, Yaron Stavi is brilliant to watch on bass, but i didnt find any memorable composition and the solos became repetitive. The second half had Steve Lodder extending Organ soundwash over the audience. Again it lost me. Liked it for a time but had me fidgetting for something a bit more gutsy. Still its good to get musicians of this quality out to our neck of the woods.

http://lnk.ms/JqMWf

Music Shows - October

A few more plugs for local concerts
22nd October 2010
Mike Dawes and Amy Turk, and Thomas Leeb at the Phoenix in Bordon - Mostly instrumental guitar to about 60 people in the audience. Thomas Leeb seems confident and quoted Ben-Susan as a mentor. Dawes and Turk are Bath based - thanks and best of luck to all the performers!

The Mike Dawes Amy Turk Website is:
http://www.mikedawesamyturk.com/dates.html

and you can see what Thomas Leeb can do below:

Anxo Lorenzo concert last night at Chichester. Well attended and enthusiastically received. Joy to be there

Kazakh Eagle Hunt - BBC Human Planet

Film from Human planet

Music today

i just looked at the music today thing on the right of this blog page, and glanced at what CDs are lying around the room.

• Crooked Still - Some Strange Country
• My Brightest Diamond
• Yo Yo Ma
• Sufjan Stevens - Adz
• Aimee Mann - Dodo
• Zum
• Grayfolded

i think i'll leave the list as it was..

Thelonious Monk Off Minor

Ive been swapping over to a new laptop. All mod cons and tons of disk space, so one of the jobs has been to move across all the music ive got elsewhere. As you can guess, theres always a challenge to get rid of duplicate files, so for the last couple of days ive been through the entire library. Found a load of Jazz!
ive switched to media monkey rather than itunes. seems ok at present, though it has one annoying habit of linking to a webpage for the song track if it gets a chance. And thats how i found out aboiut Off Minor by Thelonious Monk. on an album called the Black Box of Jazz..

Its not a show off track. but its a classic line-up. Left me speechless, so for more words...

Heres a page of appreciation from the Daily Guru.

The Daily Guru: February 17: Thelonious Monk & John Coltrane, "Off Minor"

so dredging among the gigabytes im going to find a lot more tracks ive never listened to. looking forward to it... Thanks Black box of Jazz for a splendid potted jazzography

The Age of Adz

The new Sufjan Stevens record - The Age of Adz is out and its consuming me. Its not something to put on in the background and ignore: yet another acquired CD to make up the set and graze on while wandering round the house. And its certainly not your standard americana,

Theres electronic drums, bass and vocoder filling up the space around the songs and far removed from Seven Swans. Theres a much more raw emotion in the songs, such as a i want to be well. SS's heavenly harmonies contrasting against the electronic maze and false reality of synthesized sound.

So listening through the first time, it swallows me up, more and more snatches of songs and refrains, repeating phrases, what am i thinking? what am i thinking? And we get to the last track "Impossible Soul" and glide through 25 minutes of introspection and beseeching, more, more immersed in SS's vision, to its diminuendo end.

I'll play it through again soon, but next came a day of web searches to find live recordings of the songs on You Tube from concerts SS gave last year. Not really disappointing to see the music played to an audience, more understanding of the way the songs are made up and improvised. You get to see what sort of musicians SS is working with, the instruments they are using and how they can cut up the songs afresh. But the record itself, very different. bleak, seems more .. final.

So its a record thats impossible to just upload to ipod and wait to appear on random playlists, its also a record that shouldnt just be treated as another mediafire grab to fill up the Gigabytes. The CD packaging was a bit shocking too, illustrations by Royal Robertson, an artist ive not heard of but compulsive and apparently schizophrenic. No lyric sheets, no cluees to who played on the record. Nothing to clasp to but the CD music itself

So my resolve is - leave it off my itunes, listen to it alone, all the way through, study it and enjoy the ownership of something unique. I recommend it, of course, but not as an introduction to Sufjan Stevens, but perhaps as an example to musicians who think too much about explaining their music and less about reaching inside

Stina Nordenstam

I bought a Stina Nordenstam EP Called Something Nice about 8 years ago on a whim in a second hand CD shop in Epsom. Apart from knowing it would probably be Scandinavian and a bit etherial, and I thought not very well known . Since then, I only played one track, but the CD was so scratched i never got it to hear the rest. Now miraculously, the CD has been i-tuned and i can hear every song without a stutter. Very whispery. and etherial and strange. And now i hear about her again in other places. So i will probably go searching for more of Stina.

Newcastle upon Tyne

More work this week in Newcastle - after visit one i know what to expect. I can plan better for the long train journey. This time i'm planning to stay in a B&B away from the city centre. Curious to think that that 6 weeks ago i had no idea where i would work, and that i cant predict where i'll be going in 6 months time. Impermanence of my way of life needn't be a stress. Someway i can trust to the next change, adapt again.

BBC News - Push for 'Great Green Wall of Africa' to halt Sahara

found this article – considering its about something that would completely tranform the planet its surprising it hasnt had enormous publicity.

Sign of the times, but currently the focus of the world seems to be on the short term economics of BP oil spill rather than long term initiatives 

BBC News - Push for 'Great Green Wall of Africa' to halt Sahara

April

Finished my contract in North London and now at home. seems every day has been clear sky and peace and quiet. plenty of time to reflect and look ahead. Spending some time each day in the garden, chopping and clipping, removing weeds. I'm reading more everymorning , usually till about 7.30am. Seems the pace of life can be much slower and less rushed. Less opinions, less food, less load. less driving, less travelling,
Went up to London yesterday, prospecting. Not really satisfying, although RB suggests i work on a book. I can feel the pressure to involve and start things. But for now, i'm declining the opportunity to be in the race. lets leave it behind for a few more days..

The American West - Dee Brown

Another 3 week book just nearing the end - The American West by Dee Brown
As well as filling my head with facts and stories of Texas, Kansas, Wyoming and Montana it
has a fantastic bibliography - titles referenced include
Triggernometry
Davy Crockett - American Comic Legend
Helldorado
Hot Irons - Heraldry of the Range
Marquis de Mores at War in the Bad Lands
The works of Sitting Bull
Lead and Likker
Let 'er Buck - a story of the passing of the old west
Last of the Bad men - Tom Horn
The Ghost-Dance religion
A Lone star bo peep and other tales of texan ranch life
And of course a number of biographiies including Billy the Kid by Pat Garrett and the book on Wyatt Earp by Stuart Lake. Then the autobiographies such as Them was the days by Owen P White and
Gun Smoke by Sarah Grace Bakarich - published in Tombstone in 1947

wouldnt it be great browse them all.

particularly poignant were the chapters on the Sioux and Cheyenne wars. The book is full of detailed maps of the battles leading up to little big horn, the river crossings and movement of the tribes as the buffalo were slaughtered. Two weeks ago it was the tribal leaders - Sitting Bull, Crazy Horse, Crazy in the Lodge, Red Cloud, Swift Bear, Spotted Tail. Dull Knife, Captain Jack of the Modocs and the great Joseph of the Nez Perces. LAst week it was the Goodnight-Loving ranchers in Texas, setting up the giant cattle empires and spreading northwards. culminating in the Billy the Kid Legend in 1881. Today i read about the Blizzard Winter in Montana at the end of 1886. Montana Ranchers had already evolved into Stuart's Stranglers, a vigilante group set up in 1884. Then after the devastation of the herds in the winter the feuding between Cattle ranchers and rustling homesteaders that culminated in the Johnson County War

So only about 40 pages to go including the life of Geronimo. - who died only in 1909. Wyatt Earp survived him until 1929. So much evocative history sprawling across the landscape of the States from 1850 to 1900.
Hope others can follow and try this ramble across the wild west with me

California at Last

Staying in Half Moon Bay, its about 9am and we have already been up and spent time in the Jacuzzi. Nice peaceful place, so pleased with the choice of Hotel. Yesterday was long travelling via Vancouver with the highspot a view of the Rockies from the plane.

Clive Sinclairs True Tales of the Wild West

Another find from the Fiction section of the library - What struck me was the elaboration he uses in the stories. You need to pay attention when you read Clive Sinclairs short stories. for a couple of pages you can drift, he even includes photos, then he'll have you reaching back for an allusion to a character that you nearly missed.

I enjoyed the second story in the book - Calamity Jane turns the tables even more than the first one about Custers last stand and wounded knee. And of course its hard to tell where the autobiography stops and the fictionalising begins. The hint at the start of the story that the Observer/Artist and Subject/Model roles interact takes on a rather surprising turn at the end, and I'm looking forward to more convolutions of character and observer in the next section

so a 5 star find for me - Clive Sinclair - i suppose its a style of literature i like - Annie Proulx, Murakami and David Mitchell all seem in a similar vein



and a quick postscript. Ive kept up the 19th Century reading as well. This evening i made it half way through a Henry James short story published in "the Yellow Book 1894 called "the Death of the Lion". This one is hard work not only because im reading a facsimile edition as a PDF. the language really doesnt say much at all. You have to work out the drama almost as a side issue. The style is so allusional so many references i couldnt understand - i suppose thats what attracts me to it is the attention it needs

early on Monday and going for another week on the train - reading a mixture of science, novels and poetry again. Last weeks Victorian Poetry was inspiring. particularly the mix of Christina Rossetti's "Goblin Market", then flipping the page to "In the bleak midwinter"

why i'm interested in 19th century right now

Heres some first thoughts on why I'm interested in the 19th Century, Science, Victorian Art and then start twittering on Nanotechnology and Genetics
I did my degree in History and History of Art, after originally studying Chemistry. At the time I was concerned that the future was heading towards the industrialisation of the world and increasing commericalisation. I switched to Art History to learn about Surrealism, Leonardo, Renoir and Photography and for a few years my scientific interest was submerged. Gradually i reawakened my interest and now revel in the connectedness of science, from genetics to quantum physics. I still dread the dominance of science by business : the promethean implications of modern possibility when linked to human weakness.
At the end of the 19th century there seems to have been a general respect for Science, as well as a mystery and risk about it. The early science fiction of Jules Verne was linked to the adventure fiction of Conan-Doyle and Rider Haggard. Writing about things that seemed "incredible". Scientists were independent and focussed on finding out "why". If they received an income it was as a lecturer, but there was a competitiveness about them and a desire for glory and recognition. Its also hard now to imagine the mystery of finding out the interconnectedness of the infinitely small. Atomic Particles, Rays, Chemical Elements were all being investigated with a care and attention to detail.
Theres such a breadth to what is encompassed in 19th Century Science and the eminent figures themselves bridge disciplines They explored technique in the same way that a traveller would a landscape. Painters such as Cezanne would look for new ways to make pigment (philip ball's book on Colour) . Darwin would grow seeds in his potting shed. Travel had broadened the mind, Darwin, Dickens, Stevenson, Gauguin,
Subjects weren't dumbed down. daily life was influenced by the commercial product - wrights coal tar soap, mass produced goods available, train travel. The range of possibility continued for year.
Then the interest in what it was possible to discover, either by endless repetitive experiment - Darwin, or using new techniques in chemistry and academic discipline in measurement in physics - Kelvin. engineered Microscopes, Vacuums in glass tubes. Electricity. i suppose im less interested in the mathematical reasoning of Einstein and the philosophic logic of Russell. The real mountain the late victorians climbed was to take on the world around them and measure it in the lab.
So back to what fascinates and inspires me. Could Marconi have imagined the world connected by mobile phones carried everywhere by 2 billion people?. The first recording of sound by Alexander Bell has now transformed into music on demand. The electronic word has replaced the hand-written text and notebooks the 19th Century genius's used. But theres also a greater disconnect. We cant conceive the historic innnovations that have gone in to transforming a few rare minerals and metals into minute electronic components, being manufactured in world wide supply chains controlled by computer networks themselves built of millions of electronic machines. When you take this back to a 19th century starting point, you wonder how such evolution and revolution comes about.
But has art improved in the same way? I remember the Art History lectures on Mannerism as an artistic evolution of the Renaissance Painting. The theory that as the technique gets popularised, so the subject matter and content become more bizarre and off-key. I wonder: Has the direction of travel be positive for Music, Painting and Literature in the last 100 years? Im not convinced. The Art of Noise by Alec Ross was a book i expected to read and enjoy. Instead i found it lacking a real sense of pleasure in the Music of the twentieth century, reciting details of 20th Century composer's lives and the reactions of the critics to their work didnt really inform me enough to make me want to hear the works.. But i can play recordings of Brahms and Mahler, and they are different to hearing the music fresh in the concert hall. The fact that musicians use recorded medium hasnt necessarily improved the content, though one can now hear it in any location, not just a concert hall or a music room.
So, "whats there to like" in the late 19th century? - for me there are unexplored poets and novels and coherent pieces of music that are 20 minutes long, with no simplified guide to decode them. I could embrace it with more passion, but now i'm dabbling to find out more of an arcane world which has left its remains just below ground.
and we're now at the twentyfirst century! From Twitter I get news of new products, inventions, created and broadcast to me. But im sceptical that nanotech is already being treated as a commercial and investment subject: enabling better beauty products and building up expectations in another financial bubble. The marketing of new toys and gadgets is apparently to access electronic media that are dominated by celebrity cults. And nothing now lasts or seems designed for permanent ownership. The art has no frame. The music exists only mp3, the words are generated in hours and read, then discarded as papertrash. Twitter in fact seems in total contrast to the way that knowledge was shared in the 19th Century. A mass of people get access to snippets of information which has no permanence and gets overcovered by a snowstorm of vanity networking and commercial exploitation. The 19th Century use of knowledge focussed on disciplined individuals, with a genuine interest occasionally collaborating with a few other individuals. Their approach was personalised and not necessarily efficient, but it required a greater focus and attention, and im convinced that those whos discoveries and inventions we now rely on were supremely able scientists.
Well this is a blog. i could write anything here. I have no dependence on it and it can be dissolved into electrons in a keystroke. It passes time while on the train but my time could instead be spent reading Coventry Patmore or Arthur Hugh Clough. One final thought is that i think we gain by some form of recycling of other knowledge. This is at the heart of Consilence the main theme in www.siev.co.uk.




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Reading on tuesday morning

A day at home so i start by finishing "Gun - with occasional music" excellent turns of phrase and wit throughout. at the end the whodunnit plot does seem completely superfluous and you want a few more wisecracking pages to appear.
then time for a change - Victorian verse by Christopher Ricks an anthology. Started today with a very short poem by Matthew Arnold on Old Age - Destiny - then another called Growing Old - both written when he was less than 50. I read the rest of MA's poems in the anthology. Sense of melancholic distance in them all. I felt an empathy to him, particularly in his search for feeling and desire to link the present and the past. They are not "inspirational" poems, but left me seeking more about him.
So more to come of the poems - see if i can find a link to a web site with them on

the rest of the day stretches ahead. A visit to opticians, then a trip to Goodwood Races,