Bells

02006-02-27 | Uncategorized

French Word-A-Day
Une ville sans cloche est comme un aveugle sans sa canne.
A town without a bell is like a blind man without his cane.
– Jean Fischart

And from the liner notes for The Time of Bells 2 by Steven Feld:

After twenty-five years of recording rainforest soundscapes in Papua New Guinea, I’ve started to listen to Europe. I’m struck by a sonic resemblance: bells stand to European time as birds do o rainforest time. Daily time, seasonal time, work time, ritual time, social time, collective time, cosmological time – all have their parallels, with rainforest birds sounding as quotidian clocks and spirit voices and European bells heralding civil, festive, and religious time.

Tetsuya’s

02006-02-26 | Uncategorized

Tetsuya’s – About Tetsuya
Arriving in Sydney in 1982 with nothing more than a small suitcase and a love of food, Tetsuya landed his first job as a kitchenhand at Fishwives in Surry Hills. A year later he was introduced to Sydney chef Tony Bilson, who was looking for a Japanese cook to make sushi. It was there at Tony’s kitchen at Kinsela’s Tetsuya realised that he wanted to cook, and that he could indeed cook very well. Here also he learnt the classical French technique which forms part of his style today.

‘I made a lot of things up along the way, and luckily for me, people like the way it tasted.’

It’s looking more and more as if we might tour in Australia this Summer. And that means Sydney and Sydney means Tetsuya, arguably one of the finest chefs in the world and my personal favorite. I arrived in the U.S. from Germany at the afe of 20 and became a musician and Tetsuya arrived in Australia from Japan at age 22 and became a cook. I can’t tell you how much I look forward to seeing him again.

Violin

02006-02-25 | Uncategorized

Luxist
Last year, the Lady Tennant Stradivari violin broke record by selling for $2.03 million. This May, once again at Christie’s, another Stradivari violin may well break that record. The violin, known by the indelicate name of the ‘The Hammer’ after the 19th century Swedish collector Christian Hammer, has been given a pre-sale estimate of between $1.5 million and $2.5 million. ‘The Hammer’ was made in 1707. This is significant because 1700 to 1720 was the master’s ‘golden period.’ The Lady Tennant was created in 1699 so The Hammer may bring in a little more money than that violin.

I am glad I play guitar… I wonder whether these valuable violins are loaned to top players or whether they languish in some temperatur and humidity-controlled safe somewhere. I imagine a violin is like a guitar or any instrument – if it does not get played it deteriorates.