Pictures!

I currently have reliable internet access and am not on the battery clock, so im posting like a madman, First, Porto, Portugal








I c












Voici, Coimbra
















et Lisboa!

























Alright, im not going to add anymore due to the bizarre nature of blogger, or "old-blogger" and its photo handling abilities...

huh?

Im not good with distilling down the origins of my changes in attitude or ideas down to one book or one piece of music, or even my preferred works, so i will, in my typical flamboyant disregard for the rules, go about listing as much as i feel fit.

Name (1) a book that you want to share so much that you keep giving away copies,-

America - The book. For christmas, i bought this book for no less than 3 people (who didnt know eachother) and for myself. Im not stepping down from my position, that book is a masterpiece of satire, and i would prefer it anyday, even on my most-baby-hating humor day, to a modest proposal.

It should be a text book, damnit.

(2) a piece of music that changed the way you listen to music,-
Debussy- Reflets Dans L'eau, Beethoven- 9th et piano sonatas, Dirty Projectors-Slaves Graves and Ballads, Sibelius- 6th, Stravinsky- Dances of the young girls, Apollo, Berg- Lyric Suite, Cage- Prepared piano pieces, Glass- Music in 12 parts et Einstein, Reich- Piano phase, Music for 18 musicians.

(3) a film you can watch again and again without fatigue,-
uhh... I dont think there is one. Films bore me more often than not.

(4) a performer for whom you suspend of all disbelief
-cirque du soleil.

(5) a work of art you'd like to live with-
A Barbazon School landscape. Or Corbet's Paris, Anything by Kadinsky, or a big Rothko, if i had space. or Canaletto, Durer is sweet too.

(6) a work of fiction which has penetrated your real life-

Are you my mother?

and... whats-his-face and the purple crayon.

(7) a punch line that always makes you laugh.-"Mes enfants ont besoin du vin!" (my children need wine!" not really a punch line, but a phrase that always makes me laugh.


Forward this to three people.

screw that.

Philip Glass -String Quartet #5

This is the first work of contemporary music I remember being interested in. I was 13 or 14 and in my English teachers room before class. Knowing that I was a pianist he showed me some of the tracks from the kronos quartet’s recording. I even remember the track, it was the 4th movement of the 5th, and in listening I paused, “wow, that’s gorgeous, and…. interesting… and…. contemporary (?)” how could contemporary music be all three of these things? I couldn’t understand, but I was fascinated.

I went about hunting down some more Philip glass recordings, even listening to my English teachers cd in full. To be honest I was disappointed. I didn’t get all the repetitions I didn’t understand why he insisted on repeating the same phrase 4 times in a row, and so I sort of dropped my hunt for classical music recordings, and read about it instead. I remember being frustrated for years because I really wanted to get my hands on some Steve Reich, but I wasn’t able… within my means. (20 dollar CDs were out of the question, especially for something I might hate)

Im still feeling far too limited, I have practically the complete works of reich and enough (read: a ton) of glass and a lot of adams, dutilleux, I know some stockhausen, a little boulez and xenakis, and I enjoy late Coltrane quite a bit, I love me the George Crumb, my only riley is In C and the only La Monte Young piece is his well tuned piano, Im enjoying the aggressiveness of John Zorn and Animal Collective, along with the surrealism of The Dirty Projectors, Godspeed you Black Emperor and Broken Social Scene Meridith Monk has some wonderful pieces, I am familiar with a little Nyman and I love Berio’s symphonia, Messiaen is usually cool, John Cage’s prepared piano warms my heart, I also enjoy his tape works but Varese bores me, and is there anything at all interesting in Feldman’s string quartets? The Kronos Quartet is always reliable source of interesting music, Aphex Twin, Bjork and even (this is clownsilly’s fault) The boards of Canada have my interest, A Silver mount Zion, Red hot chili peppers and Nirvana often keep me company as do Sonic Youth and Radiohead. I may be in love with Michael Gordon and Julia Wolf. I love Arvo Part’s atmospherics and the Books subtle humor. I only know Ligeti’s etudes, and they honestly disappointed me. Theres a ton more out there though, that I haven’t gotten to.

Any suggestions?

...please?

Akhenaten!

Ahkenaten!

Here he is at the louvre.

















Returned from my Paris museum tour. I saw all the museums I hadn’t seen in a while. The Louvre, of course, the Pompidou, the D’Orsay and the Rodin museum, I also got to see the interior of Soufflot’s masterpiece, St. Genieve, or as its now known, the Pantheon who’s crypt holds the bones of Voltaire, Rousseau, and a whole bunch of over guys who probably wouldn’t like people staring at their coffin. Soufflot was there too. I saw the church of st. Sulpice and some other random neo-gothic one while walking around. I walked around the marais and latin quarter. In my last hour of paris, before my train, I saw the near-by Montparnasse cemetery. I couldn’t find anyone I had heard of… I tried to find Satre’s and Baudelaire’s but in my rush I didn’t find them. Saint- Saens , D’indy, Chausson and Franck are all there too.

The only one I really like is Franck anyway. But no big deal. Now I know where they’re buried.

I returned to Nantes the 26 after 10.5 days in Portugal and one in London. All went well. Portugal is a beautiful little country, and for a small country it has a lot. It would kick Belgium’s ass in a beauty contest.

My mother and I started in Porto, Portugal (the name of the country comes from this, portugal’s 2nd city) And spent two relaxing days there. It’s a diamond in the rough. Sprucing it up would send tourism into crazy mode, since its has an array of spectacular churches, picturesque backstreets and grand squares. im actually quite glad they’ve let it be the working town that it is

Then, Coimbra, where I ended up with a nice tee shirt. There was a beautiful old university there, and with it, amazing baroque Versailles-style library. I ended getting to go up inside it and the guy working there showed us a book from 1560 something. Pretty sweet.

I heard Fado, traditional Portugese music, at the local house of fado in Coimbra. It was striking music, evocative and bittersweet, consisting of a small guitar ensemble (maybe 2 or 3, Portuguese guitars of different types) and a singer. In Coimbra its traditional a male who sings, but elsewhere its usually a woman.

Lisbon Followed, and we spent some 5 days there. It was a great city. Surprisingly. it reminded me a lot of San Franciso, and even felt like san fran does in the winter. Sun, clear skies and high 50s. Not terrible by any means but not particularly warm. We were there during a cold spell so it didn’t really get to the 60s, which, for me at least, was disappointing. Better than Nantes though, or back home.

Saw the good sites in Lisbon, Some beautiful old neighborhoods. Went out to Sintra for some fairytale castles, it was spectacular if a little bit ridiculous. Saw a overly-restored Moorish castle. I at least I saw a few authentic walls.

Went to Evora for some Alentejo scenery. God it reminded me of California. The vegetation (palms, washingtonia Filifera and a few washingtonia robustas, and many phoenix species, as well as oaks, cork trees, open grassland and eucalyptus) Very sparsely populated for western Europe. Gorgeous landscape though. A warm sun, but not real warm temperatures, and an authentic roman temple, or whats left of it, as well as ruins and an old roman gate and tower. The town itself oozed the picturesque from its whitewashed, blue and yellow trimmed walls and red tile roofs.

I think I like the Iberian Penninsula.

theres an error in the last post. i thought i saw something i didnt. The word Berlioz said was "voisinage" which is, i gather, means neighboring (voisin = neighbor) so Berlioz actually said "i grew up neighboring this great city" which makes much more sense.

French is hard, it a good time to say this. Im not going to pretend im somehow knowledgeable about the language, i cant at all write it, not even close. Its pathetic... i could write, "my name is blah im from blah and i like to ride my bicycle ... blah" but thats about the highest level of language i can acheive. I can speak it with a mild degree of proficiency and a pretty decent accent, a lot better than most americans, at least. God i hate the american accent in french... its so freakin annoying. Oh, and i can understand it, which is important, and i can converse. The whole explaining-philosophical-concepts thing i havent quite gotten down, but i think i can get most of the day without that.

Uh, what else. Im going to portugal for the holidays, Porto to Lisbon and the south coast, but ill probably be back in nantes by the end of december. Then for the new year im headed off to paris. its been rather slow around here, these parts for the last week. Did the exams business... my mother is coming into town... No more classes for me, which is awesome.

And just another non-sequiter....A good joke i know:

IN Heaven - the chefs are italian, the police- british, the lovers- french, the mechanics - german and its all orginized by the swiss.

IN Hell- the chefs- british, the police- german, the lovers- swiss, the mechanics- french and its all orginized by the italians.

So i went to Lyon last weekend. Nice town, the weather was great. I didnt go inside but i liked the design of the contemporary remodel of the opera house. (above)

The roman ruins and the museum for them were the highlight of my time there. The art museum came in second. Two fine museums... even if the design of the museum of roman ruins was evocative of a parking structure. really, the interior looks like the ramps of a concrete car park stuffed with ancient statues and mosaics. The town itself is elegant, the old town even reminded me a little of prague.


Berlioz had this to say about lyon...














"I was born in the visage (face) of this great city" (unless dans has another meaning here im missing out on)