02010-01-20 | Uncategorized
Maybe you have heard about Governor Schwarzenegger’s (in)famous veto letter to the California State Assembly? You can google it for more information – “Schwarzenegger Veto Letter” will do.
The letter is claimed to contain a hidden message. It becomes quite obvious when you read the words formed by the first letter in each line of the two main paragraphs… yes?
Well, in a strange way this letter inspired the title for my next album. However, my album will spell something altogether more pleasant, of course. With the help of friends I have been working on creating short poems with three lines, in which the first line begins with a “P”, the second line starts with an “O” and the third line with another “P’. As in POP or Pop-Music.
Here are a few of these poems:
Pale moonlight reflected
on the water.
Poetry of the evening.
Peonies
Of my Little Garden
Part of Heaven
Pausing to listen-
Overture in the moonlight
Perfect symphony
Petals from a red rose
On the ground, at dusk
Path to your house
Petals float
On the water in the
Pale moonlight
And my current favorite is one that a friend sent to me, cutting down this poem I wrote:
Petals from a red rose
On the ground, at dusk
Path to your house
to a mere four words:
Petals
On the
Path
The advantage of something that short would be that it could actually serve as the title of the album. Any longer and I would have to abreviate the album title to P-O-P and that might get confusing, albeit interesting. If I use a longer poem, the poem would not feature in the title, and would only be found on the cover.
The album cover could be DM-Vision of the stepping stones of a path, with a few red rose petals strewn on the gray stone.
Maybe something like this, but with a few flower petals:
02009-08-04 | Uncategorized
Here is a photo I took in Amarillo yesterday. (((Amarillo = Yellow in Spanish)))
I used a 99c app called ShakeItPhoto that turns the iPhone into a Fauxlaroid (fake polaroid) camera.
Speaking of iPhones (((on our bus 8 people carry 3 iPhones + 2 iPods))), what if someone created an iPod/iPhone application that contained a new album of music in mp3 form, a few nice video clips and a browser that could connect to a server to view or download the latest photos? I believe the maximum size for an iPhone app is 2GB – plenty of space for an album of high quality 320kbps music plus some video! (((maybe even Apple Lossless files!!)))
I think it is an interesting concept. Files could be locked to the application and yet they could be played anywhere one can attach an iPhone. It seems like an obvious idea – has anyone made such an app? I don’t mean apps that stream music, I mean an actual iPhone music album in app form.
More High Definition download stores are popping up.
Here is trumpet player Jon Hassell’s excellent album Fascinoma in form of a 24/88.2 FLAC file.
The Boston Symphony is selling AIFF files that are 24/88.2
You can find my posts about 24/88.2 here, here, here, and here.
I knew that “Soiled Dove” (((the name of the venue we played in Denver))) was some kind of UK slang. A brief search brought to light that “Soiled Dove” means “Prostitute”, which, you have to admit, is an interesting name for a venue in a city that has always struck me as being quite conservative. :-)
By the way, I heard from three Ottmar-Friends subscribers that went to the shows at the Soiled Dove that they like venue, that the sound was very good (((Alan’s got good ears!))) and that they enjoyed the performance. It’s nice to read comments like this:
I was at the second show. It was superlative.
I was glad the audience gave you a standing ovation. You (collective “you”) deserved it. The show definitely reinforced the idea that no matter how high-def one records a performance, it’s never as high def as the live concert.
There is just nothing as great as a live concert.
Thanks! That comment illustrates once again the need for a plural you in the English language, a problem solved by New Yorkers, who might use Yous! and Southerners, who use Y’all, but what about everyone else? :-) (((I may have had too much coffee today…)))
Alan likes to hear that it sounded great:
I read this quote somewhere recently:
One of the symptoms of an approaching nervous breakdown is the belief that one’s work is terribly important.
– Bertrand Russell
That’s the contraction of the self… and here is the expansion:
deep blue sky « neo bohemia
What is the true self?
It is brilliantly transparent, like a deep blue sky,
and there is no gap between the true self and all sentient beings.
– Kodo Sawaki
I am going to enjoy my day off in Dallas. Every once in a while we get to stay in a nice hotel, when the price is right. For example, the Teatro hotel in downtown Denver gave us nearly the same rate as the La Quinta in Salt Lake City the day before, and I think it is a very nice hotel – see the photo I took from the roof, right outside my room.
02009-04-08 | Uncategorized
I think this would make a very nice album cover.
Watched this interesting report on Californian wineries catering to two powerful critics instead of the terroir or their customers. For years I have said to anyone who cared to listen that I think Californian wines are often too big and have to much alcohol. Glad to find that quite a few people agree. Or, as one man says in the report, these wines are made for tasting and spitting (tasting and rating), not for drinking.
I like the feeling of words doing as they want to and as they have to do.
– Gertrude Stein
Ah, and could hat not be said about music as well? I like the feeling of music doing as it wants to and as it has to do.
Found that quote in the book Autobiography of Red by Anne Carson, which a friend gave me to read. I am only a few pages into the book, but I love what I am reading.
Another book I am looking at is A Day at elBulli, an amazing book about the best chef in the world… the recipes are called formulas and they read like something one might encounter in the world of Anathem. The food looks findishly hard to make, but even the descriptions are evocative and poetic.
If you have a Mac and sometimes lose sight of the tiny cursor – on the busy ProTools screen for example – here is a solution, a big green target you can turn on and off. Nice!
In Japan, Buddha’s Birthday is celebrated on April 8, but is not a national holiday. On this day, all temples do celebratory events/festivals called 灌仏会 (Japanese: Kanbutsu-e), 降誕会 (Goutan-e), 仏生会 (Busshou-e), 浴仏会 (Yokubutsu-e), 龍華会 (Ryuge-e), 花会式 (Hana-eshiki) or 花祭(Hana-matsuri, meaning ‘Flower Festival’). The first event was held at Asuka-dera in 606. Japanese people pour ama-cha (a beverage prepared from a variety of hydrangea) on small Buddha statues decorated with flowers, as if they bathe a newborn baby.
– Wikipedia
And then there is this news item from Saudi Arabia, a bit funny actually:
Saudi Arabia Claims Climate Talks Threaten Their Economic Survival : TreeHugger
On the sidelines of recent climate change talks in Bonn, Germany, Saudi Arabia expressed concern that any major global shift from fossil fuels to renewable energy would threaten its economic survival, Reuters reports. Calling itself one of the most vulnerable countries economically, it said that it wants support for developing alternative sources of energy, specifically developing its vast solar power potential:
[Climate change] is a matter of survival for us, also. […] Saudi Arabia has not done that much yet to diversify.
We have a lot of sun, a lot of land. We can export solar power to our neighbors on a very large scale and that is our strategic objective to diversify our economy; it will be huge.
We need the industrialized countries to assist us through direct investment, transfer of technologies.
Transfer of technology and investment is one thing, but the idea that Saudi Arabia classifies itself in the same tier of countries, such as Bangladesh, the Maldives, any of the Pacific Island nations, or countless places in Africa, which could well be thrown into environmental turmoil and have far, far less domestic capacity to deal with it seems utterly ludicrous to me.
Hmmm, maybe more diversified investment into the country and less Bentleys and golden taps in every bathroom?
02009-02-21 | Uncategorized
Friday afternoon I spent in the studio working on a new mix of Sao Paulo from The Santa Fe Sessions (currently out of print and no longer available from download sites – although we do have a few in stock). I am taking a look at the whole album for re-release in 2010, re-arranging, editing, adding and subtracting. I think I took a nice step forward with the next album I released, 2004’s La Semana, and would like to apply some of that sound to TSFS.
This morning I did a drive-by delivery of the data for Sao Paulo when I slowed down just enough to throw the data-CD into Jon’s yard. Jon will have a fresh listen to the song (sans acoustic upright bass) and will add new fretless bass guitar and synth parts.
02009-02-13 | Uncategorized
I love the old envelope I showed here. Would make a beautiful album cover. Album title could be “Red Seal”.
Could be too antique looking. Maybe I can add a very modern element.
