Sunday, April 24, 2011

Mystery, Sure

I have added another song to my ATTAXAS myspace site.  It's kind of a jazzy thing that I began as a response to the death of a friend last year.  Been sitting on it for a while, but was having an issue or two with a decent enough vocal line/melody.  I am pretty happy with the end result, and in the mix you can hear the odd bit of extra breath before a line which I have deliberately kept in - it kind of makes it sound a little more live, or real.  You can check it out here at the ATTAXAS myspace site.  Hope you like it.

A warning:  I have discovered that Myspace won't play a song in it's entirety unless you are logged on as a user, so if you do have a Myspace account, make sure you are logged in so you can hear the whole song.  (I think the first 30 seconds or so of the tune is the double bass intro!)

Tuesday, April 19, 2011

Splendour & Squalor

Had to stop, Jason, sorry.  Half-way through and it just gets more and more depressing...

I have moved on to Helen Garner's far more uplifting and entertaining Joe Cinque's Consolation.  A joke, by the way.  As in, not uplifting at all.  Ah sheesh...

Saturday, April 2, 2011

Books

Having finally finished Don Watson's marvellous Recollections of a Bleeding Heart, I have moved on to John Baxter's insightful and funny Stanley Kubrick:  A Biography.  The Year of the Biography is going well, though I have been tempted by some friends to get back on the crime fiction and scifi bandwagon.  So far, I stand firm...
Brilliant, if a little long, Don Watson's book is well worth the read - especially if you are a fan of the good old days when parliamentarians could string a sentence together...

There are two quotes attributed to Kubrick that I have always loved, and that have made me interested in the character of the film maker.  The first, 
 "Perhaps it sounds ridiculous, but the best thing that young filmmakers should do is to get hold of a camera and some film and make a movie of any kind at all,"
is so very obvious, and in a sense, zen, that it's kind of like the old parable of the priest and the acolyte discussing the nature of reality.  The acolyte, attempting to come to grips with this, says to his teacher, "At last!  I understand!  There IS no reality!"  The priest, disgusted with his student's attempt at existentialism, slaps the young man hard in the face and says, "Then there is no pain!"  It's kind of like a "duh!" moment, which is really what (as far as I can gather, anyway) what zen is all about.  The second quote is one that characterises my own reckless and impulsive motto for living:
Brilliant, eccentric, and (unfortunately) gone.
" If you can talk brilliantly about a problem, it can create the consoling illusion that it has been mastered." (Bold added.)  
That is, you better be careful when talking bullshit.  Ha ha!
These insights, and his films (obviously) make him a fascinating character, and his works The Shining and Full Metal Jacket are amongst my favourites.  As crazy as these auteurs usually are, or at least seem, they add to the wealth of human culture, and their value is incalculable.