Classical Music, Poetry and stuff

[robertlouis]

Story of Cinema sounds interesting, does it cover Japan and India or is it mostly Europe and America? I can't get much on tv now so I assume it will make it to C4 sometime in the future. Potemkin is so over-rated; Ivan the Terrible is Eisenstein's masterpiece. Vertov's The Man with a Movie Camera must be one of the best silent films ever made -? Did anyone see the restored version of Abel Gance's Napoleon?

It's all-embracing, Stavros, every culture and influence you can think of. And one of the things I'm finding most interesting is that he's charted the first time that a particular technique was used. Taken for granted now, but so innovative - the reverse-angle shot, shifting scenes to ramp up a narrative, the tracking shot etc. Utterly enchanting.

But oh, that vocal delivery. Given the subject, maybe they should have gone for onscreen titles and a pianist instead.

[Stavros]

So if you don't like clutter you don't care for Breughel?

It may sound like a contradiction, but I don't see clutter in Breughel or Vermeer for that matter, I see details that inform and which are integral to the scenes being painted. LS Lowry I cannot connect to at all, by comparison. Clutter to me is stuff that could easily be taken out and not be noticed as an omission; I can understand the importance of Poussin but rarely connect to his work. There is a lot of detail in some Goya and Velasquez but again it makes sense, well it does to me.

Has anyone seen that legendary Japanese film with a transexual/transvestite, I think its called The Black Lizard -?

[Stavros]

The Guardian reports that McCartney's Ballet Ocean Kingdom has been slated heavily by the critics; apparently the choreography is poor, but is trying to make sense of this scenario, quoted from the paper (link below)

"Princess Honorata and her single parent King Ocean are living a happy sub-aqua life when they're invaded by King Terra and the Terra Punks. King Terra lusts after Honorata, but she prefers his brother Prince Stone. Aided by the wicked Scala, a mole in Honorata's camp, Terra kidnaps Honorata. But Scala, who turns out to be not so wicked after all, whips up a catastrophe in which many Terrans die, herself included, allowing the lovers to live happily ever after beneath the waves."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/stage/thea...cean-s-kingdom

[robertlouis]

The Guardian reports that McCartney's Ballet Ocean Kingdom has been slated heavily by the critics; apparently the choreography is poor, but is trying to make sense of this scenario, quoted from the paper (link below)

"Princess Honorata and her single parent King Ocean are living a happy sub-aqua life when they're invaded by King Terra and the Terra Punks. King Terra lusts after Honorata, but she prefers his brother Prince Stone. Aided by the wicked Scala, a mole in Honorata's camp, Terra kidnaps Honorata. But Scala, who turns out to be not so wicked after all, whips up a catastrophe in which many Terrans die, herself included, allowing the lovers to live happily ever after beneath the waves."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/stage/thea...cean-s-kingdom

The Liverpool Oratorio and Standing Stones, Macca's previous attempts to gain credibility beyond the pop music universe, were both derivative, mildly melodic (he always did have the knack of writing a good tune) but immediately forgettable.

While I don't buy the view that he has stagnated completely since 1970, and I do applaud his enterprise in trying his hand at other art forms, the best advice to Sir Paul would be to stick to what he knows best.

[Erika1487]

What are your thoughts of Lisa Gasteen? I just came across her 2005 BBC PROMS preformance. Good stuff.
I am a big Wagner lol

[Prospero]

McCartney: "Stick to what he knows best?" Trouble is that is silly ditties with banal words and la la choruses - to judge by his output over the past 30 years. His attempts at orchestral or oratorio are derivative and banal. Sorry. i used to love the group he was in before... what was their name now?

[robertlouis]

At last, an art exhibition which doesn't involve a schlep into London, queues and an exorbitant fee.

The Fitzwilliam in Cambridge is putting on an exhibition of Dutch portraiture and interiors from the 17th and 18th centuries, with a heavy emphasis on Vermeer and his contemporaries. Runs from tomorrow to mid-January.

If anyone fancies a visit, drop me a pm and we can do lunch at Browns across the road as well!

http://www.fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk/what...icle.html?2793

[Stavros]

I would have expected you to walk further up Trumpington St to Loch Fyne to enjoy your Scottish heritage...

Meanwhile the bookies have slashed Bob Dylan's odds of winning the Nobel Prize for Literature from 100/1 to 10/1. I have never rated literary prizes, plenty of the best writers in history never won a prize, and winning a prize doesn't suddenly make a poem or a novel better than it was before. But, I mean, Dylan...!

[robertlouis]

I would have expected you to walk further up Trumpington St to Loch Fyne to enjoy your Scottish heritage...

Meanwhile the bookies have slashed Bob Dylan's odds of winning the Nobel Prize for Literature from 100/1 to 10/1. I have never rated literary prizes, plenty of the best writers in history never won a prize, and winning a prize doesn't suddenly make a poem or a novel better than it was before. But, I mean, Dylan...!

The Loch Fyne's in Elton just outside Peterborough and in Woburn are favourite haunts - and you don't have to deal with Cambridge's traffic either!

Dylan? Ye Gods. As a songwriter, peerless. His poetry, well, execrable. Chronicles was a fun read, but how on earth does his prose oeuvre compare with the so far unrecognised giants of global literature? If the Nobel jury goes with this one, then celebrity culture has won and we can all pack up. Presumably it will go to Katie Price next year.....

[robertlouis]

I should have added that the exhibition features Vermeer's Lacemaker, one of his most delicate portraits, worth going to see that alone.