Friday, May 30, 2014

Me and Ken Burns







The luthier made a truly stunning thing - a baroque instrument, a viola da gamba. He diligently took photographs of the entire process from the rough bits of wood to final completed instrument. I gathered up the shots and made a wee film of it with iMovie. It was a fantastic process. I didn't really know what I was doing, but nutting out how to crop shots and drop in music and lengthen clips and zoom and all was really fun.  Jane Campion, eat your heart out! Well, maybe not quite yet.


What the luthier does never fails to astound me. His work is superb and sculptural and fine. This instrument, with its beautiful Baroque quirks, caught my heart. The size (smaller than a cello), shape (flat backed with sharp edges) and its extraordinary range (7-gut strings of sound, - and when they say gut, they do mean gut) and its unique, sweet feur de lys embellishment, handpainted with love by the luthier, all came together to make an incredible objet d'art. 


So, if you would like to see how to make a viol in 4 and a half minutes, please do watch this little film, cropped and edited with love by moi. 


iMovie. So good!

I do just have one question though. Why do they call that zoom-y, croppy effect "Ken Burns"? Who is this Ken Burns? Anyone?

I obviously have no idea, but his natty, zoom-y effects are quite jazzy. Thanks Ken!






Thursday, May 29, 2014

And Still I Rise - Maya Angelou



















You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may tread me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I'll rise.


Does my sassiness upset you?
Why are you beset with gloom?
'Cause I walk like I've got oil wells
Pumping in my living room.


Just like moons and like suns,
With the certainty of tides,
Just like hopes springing high,
Still I'll rise.


Did you want to see me broken?
Bowed head and lowered eyes?
Shoulders falling down like teardrops.
Weakened by my soulful cries.


Does my haughtiness offend you?
Don't you take it awful hard
'Cause I laugh like I've got gold mines
Diggin' in my own back yard.


You may shoot me with your words,
You may cut me with your eyes,
You may kill me with your hatefulness,
But still, like air, I'll rise.


Does my sexiness upset you?
Does it come as a surprise
That I dance like I've got diamonds
At the meeting of my thighs?


Out of the huts of history's shame
I rise

Up from a past that's rooted in pain
I rise

I'm a black ocean, leaping and wide,
Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.
Leaving behind nights of terror and fear
I rise

Into a daybreak that's wondrously clear
I rise

Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,
I am the dream and the hope of the slave.

I rise

I rise

I rise. 


Saturday, May 17, 2014

Saturday Life

 
 

I love rain on a Saturday.
Staying in bed is legit on a rainy Saturday.
My bed is my favourite place in the world and the heart of Saturday morning Smith family life. 

This morning I have lain in state, me and my tablet, while the family has moved about me. 


I wish I had set up a time lapse film of this morning. It would have gone like this:
the kids coming in and out,
two little snugglers curling up next to me to watch a video of cute dogs,
then bustling out to play,
then coming in fighting
and being chased out by their father,
the Luthier bringing in coffee,
then breakfast
and the local rag or "two minutes silence" as a friend's father dubbed it,
the dog curled up on the end of the bed,
then next to me on the Luthier's side,
then curled up beside a kid on the end again,
barking to go out,
kids loom binding together on the bed,
Killing themselves at their own jokes,
the teen guy looking through catalogues and remarking "Oooh, carpets!
- said no thirteen year old boy ever.

Now the teen is beside me watching Tripod and Doc Brown comedy videos on YouTube and the two smalls have sorted all their loom bands into colours.

And what have I been doing all this time,  I hear you ask? Well, while sitting on my flat ass, propped on pillows, shifting occasionally when my legs go to sleep and happily watching the family flow in and out and all around me, I have done some research for the Luthier's trip to Malta. And may I say, She looks alright, Malta. My Mum lived there in her teens in the 50s. Can you imagine that? 1950s frocks and hand bags, dos and shoes on a tiny picturesque rock in the middle of the Mediterranean. What a romantic adventure for a teenage girl from post-war Plymouth! Her father was in charge of the Supply office for the British Navy under Lord Mountbatten and she attended a Catholic girl's school where their uniforms were individually tailored. She tells us stories of weekends out on yachts with officers and aristocratic girls with improbable names brought back from the Raj.

"If you love culture, history, and excellent weather you’ll love living in Malta. The Mediterranean Sea, a warm and sunny climate, a peaceful lifestyle waiting to be lived–that’s what to expect if you choose to live in Malta." http://internationalliving.com/countries/malta/living-in-malta/

I just mentally moved to Malta.

The Luthier has been invited to be the Violin Maker in Residence and a Juror at the Malta International Music Competition.   One of his bows will be donated as a prize for the Violin competition. Competitors, musicians of many kinds of instruments, come from all over Europe, Asia and the US for the week. The opportunity for Phil to attend came through his profile on LinkedIn - who knew that LinkedIn would workpiece that? Exciting times!

A time lapse film of me and the Luthier packing up and heading to Malta for a week of Mediterranean-culture-soaked-bliss is my next wish. Fingers crossed for tonight's mega draw.

I don't imagine my bed would be my favourite place if I were in Malta.




This island's bedscape is now covered in toys, catalogues, a wet towel, kid's pyjamas and dressing gowns and my bedside table has collected an ex-breakfast bowl and a couple of dirty, empty coffee cups.  My teen is onto "Wicked" and Hugh Jackman-in-musical-theatre videos on his laptop  next to me now. And the dogue has returned, to curl up cat-like at my feet.

I love my bed and I love the internet - it makes my bed even better.
 
 

Tuesday, May 13, 2014

Sting


We Work The Black Seam

Sting
This place has changed for good
Your economic theory said it would
It's hard for us to understand
We can't give up our jobs the way we should
Our blood has stained the coal
We tunneled deep inside the nation's soul
We matter more than pounds and pence
Your economic theory makes no sense

One day in a nuclear age
They may understand our rage
They build machines that they can't control
And bury the waste in a great big hole
Power was to become cheap and clean
Grimy faces were never seen
Deadly for twelve thousand years is carbon fourteen
We work the black seam together
We work the black seam together

The seam lies underground
Three million years of pressure packed it down
We walk through ancient forest lands
And light a thousand cities with our hands
Your dark satanic mills
Have made redundant all our mining skills
You can't exchange a six inch band
For all the poisoned streams in Cumberland


One day in a nuclear age
They may understand our rage
They build machines that they can't control
And bury the waste in a great big hole
Power was to become cheap and clean
Grimy faces were never seen
Deadly for twelve thousand years is carbon fourteen
We work the black seam together
We work the black seam together



Our conscious lives run deep
You cling onto your mountain while we sleep
This way of life is part of me
THere is no price so only let me be
Should the children weep
The turning world will sing their souls to sleep
When you have sunk without a trace
The universe will suck me into place

One day in a nuclear age
They may understand our rage
They build machines that they can't control
And bury the waste in a great big hole
Power was to become cheap and clean
Grimy faces were never seen
But deadly for twelve thousand years is carbon fourteen
We work the black seam together
We work the black seam together