Just as it looked like the Spring was getting closer wouldn’t you know that the temperature would drop again, flirt with the -6° to -12°C (21° to 10°F), encouraging all the show that fell on Saturday to stay put and freeze up the town some more instead of politely melting away like I wish it would.
Sunday woke with the sun but not of the let’s melt all that snow kind, more like the: “…sun is shinning, don’t forget your sunglasses it’s really bright out, hey it’s freezing! Where did you put my gloves?” kind. Brrrr!
E. said: you go out and freeze if you want too, I have work to do!
The funny thing with photographs, even low quality cellphone shots like these is that they link you with the past, a day somewhere sometime. A successful picture carries enough information with it to tell you its story, however most don’t so the viewer needs to fill in the blanks. No problem when it’s family, friends, landscapes or other subject matters you know well or are interested in. Otherwise the picture can lose some, or all, of its potential to involve you.
Like these two pictures from my Sunday afternoon walk, where’s the icy wind, the sensation of deep freeze, the little sparkles of snow dust in the air…
I was trying to make sense of the Wood Rhythm Bones Home Made page, have somewhat edited it as well as finally figured out how to allow comments there too.
Then to make this post a bit more entertaining I checked to see if any new Rhythm Bone videos had been added over at YouTube and sure enough, along with some new videos presenting rhythm bones made with different materials and how they sound by “bonedrymusic” (check these out if you haven’t yet, and even so: it’s a growing collection), was this excerpt from a Bones Instructional Video by “bonesmanplunkett” which I’m happy to have bought last fall and recommend wholeheartedly.
Considering the statistics of it all, you have most likely already heard Mr. Plunkett play the bones, that is if you saw the box office hit “TITANIC”, since he performed the Irish percussion tracks (Bodhran – “Celtic Drum”, Spoons and Bones) in that movie’s soundtrack.
The guy’s an awesome bone player!
More information can be found at his website: World Beats
Funny how some design thumbnails look good on the screen and others, like this one, kind of so-so. Not sure what I was thinking when I stuck a washtub bass and a jug in the same band either. Mutter, mumble, grumble… obviously they need a kazoo player too… grumble, grunt, moan…
The Blurb:
Four skeletons play their washboard, jug, guitar and washtub bass with the funny saying: It’s never too late to jug band!
Friend, artist and art historian Mark Staff Brandl has posted the video of a 55 minute speech he presented at the CAA (College Art Association, art historians organization) annual conference, as well as at the Kunstschule Lichtenstein, in 2010. It concerns description and criticism of the standard conceptions and models of fine art history and the history of comics, while offering a new one model for conceiving of and teaching these histories: Post-Hysterical: Timeline, Comics and a Plurogenic View of Art History.
If you’re like me and art history always made you want to puke, it’s probably because you had one – or more (I had three of ‘em!) – of those horrible teachers that unfortunately seem to pollute the trade; …and just look at how luscious the fruit bowl is in this painting… Ugh!
And it’s too bad because it could have been both fun and fascinating, plus if someone had actually presented you with something besides too many yellowish slides of the better known masterpieces from our western culture and, for instance, attempted to explain exactly why they were presenting art’s “history” in that manner, then perhaps we wouldn’t be completely stuck in the one sided, narrow minded and misleadingly labeled Duchampian, first degree populist pseudo philosophy found in much of today’s curatorial academia.
But it’s never too late to be less dumb (which goes for me too), check out Mark’s speech, it’s worth your time!
Last Thursday I took as an excuse the of meeting an art consultant who had recently contacted me to head down to Geneva and check out the jam at the BAG – Geneva’s Blues Association – something I had been wanting to do. As luck would have it however I hadn’t really checked out who was participating and earlier in the week had already learned that the few I knew wouldn’t be there. Never mind, to late to change the art appointment and in any case I was planning to eat with and old friend and hoped he would tag along for company.
Of course or perhaps out of habit I also visited a few galleries and as one little chat lead to another, ended up late in meeting my friend. We had a beer but he wasn’t interested in listening to a blues jam, and in fact dragged me to the Les Enfants Terrible, a curious furniture creation/repair and wine shop/bar that has a live act every Thursday too, and could possibly be a place to play with CBB. Two acoustic guitarist where singing inaudible songs due to atrocious acoustics and a noisy crowd... Looked like fun to me so it was with some disappointment that I left him and dragged myself across town in the rain to pick up my gear at the station before heading over to the Brasseurs des Grottes; into the backroom where the BAG has their Thursday night jam and concerts.
It was early, 20h45, a few musicians where sound checking, a few more where lurking in the dark corner tables. I did likewise.
As the room slowly filled and the pressure to play grew, the sound check turned into jam as the two guitarists exchanged some electric blues licks over a repetitious groove.
Is there a drummer in the room? No, guess not, at least no one volunteered. Until I did, warning that I wasn’t but could “play the washboard and stomp on the bass drum… maybe.” Which I tried to do for a couple of “patterns” (what do you call it when the drums and bass groove in circles so that the guitar players can show off their chops?).
Anyway.
…Here were two very different worlds trying to fusion and not succeeding. They needed a steady snare drum beat and I needed a song…
So the guy who wasn’t a drummer but who could play the drums came back to replace me and I returned to the corner to lick off my pride, before asking around to see if there was an acoustic guitar player in the room, but no such luck. So after a bit it just seemed obvious that getting blurry with an old friend was the better way to end the evening.
And it was!
;-)
PS. Sorry no pictures to post besides this one from Friday morning walking along the lake end/Rhone river edge downtown. When I was an art student in this fine city way back when, I sunk all the bank buildings on the right there into the water with a photomontage…
Ah, those were the days!
If you happen to be in Auckland why not check out our favorite Crawfish Blues Band band leader and diva who will be giving a few concerts here and there. Two are mentioned in this flier and there are more to come.
Meanwhile while the cat travels the mice play, and so it is since Blaise and I will be joining up with bassist Nik Works in order to participate in friend Bonny B's Blues contest which if nothing else will hopefully give us something to work towards. Especially if I’m supposed to learn how to play the drums… But fun’s fun!
Just as it looked like the Spring was getting closer wouldn’t you know that the temperature would drop again, flirt with the -6° to -12°C (21° to 10°F), encouraging all the show that fell on Saturday to stay put and freeze up the town some more instead of politely melting away like I wish it would.
The funny thing with photographs, even low quality cellphone shots like these is that they link you with the past, a day somewhere sometime. A successful picture carries enough information with it to tell you its story, however most don’t so the viewer needs to fill in the blanks. No problem when it’s family, friends, landscapes or other subject matters you know well or are interested in. Otherwise the picture can lose some, or all, of its potential to involve you.
