Top 10+ Music, Movies, and Visual Art of the Week (2023) - Music Diaries

TiggaTrigga

So about that debut Faust album...could you help me understand the meaning behind the songs' titles? 'Miss Fortune' I MAYBE understand, but 'Why Don't You Eat Carrots?' and 'Meadow Meal' -- I'm completely lost of the song titles' meanings, despite listening to those songs at least 5 times.

geologist

TiggaTrigga wrote:

So about that debut Faust album...could you help me understand the meaning behind the songs' titles? 'Miss Fortune' I MAYBE understand, but 'Why Don't You Eat Carrots?' and 'Meadow Meal' -- I'm completely lost of the song titles' meanings, despite listening to those songs at least 5 times.

'Why Don't You Eat Carrots?' Hint: is this a question or the answer? Smile

To be more serious, you probably could read it as a WWII thing (like the WWII myth of carrots improving your eyesight), though track titles don't mean much anyway.

AfterHours wrote:

Re: 1/1 Music for Airports ... One key point I forgot to mention that I was reminded of upon revisiting the album is that all the notes could be said to be played in such a careful, light, "lunar", gentle and "impressionistic" way so as to give the impression of both the gentle touch (of material/space) and, simultaneously, a detaching from the same things into the ethereal, mental, spiritual, metaphysical. This is, technically, the (rather profound, moving) development across the whole album in that all notes, instruments, voices, effects have this "detached" connotation so that the whole "physical" sensation of the music rises just as instantly/simultaneously into the "metaphysical" sensation as soon as it is touched. They are "brought into being" but just as soon (or almost just as soon for those notes that linger a little longer) as that, are detached, gone, never completely emphasized or "substantiated", "not being" just as soon as it is on the cusp of "being".

For a change of pace... how about Morton Feldman ‎- Piano, Violin, Viola, Cello? For some reason after reading this description I'm suddenly thinking of that work. Of course, you gave a beautiful description of the perfectly gentle 1/1, but the phrase "lunar" makes me think of the Feldman work in particular. I know it's very vague with these descriptions sometimes, but I like thinking of the background synth swells as being beams of yellow afternoon light coming through a window, moving softly with the clouds. And each note is something small, like dust floating in the air, beautifully ordinary. It's very contemplative, but... also appreciative. Questions, but the kind you like answering, like making small talk with the universe. I dunno, it's the Feldman ‎piece that makes me think of the night sky, of existential quandary. And the Feldman is definitely much more tense, but reaches amazing, blissful peaks. If there's one gap in your (admittedly very comprehensive and impressive) log of art, it's probably modern classical. I'm just getting into it now, very recently, but I feel like there are plenty of masterpieces to be found.

theredkrayola

After Hours - or anyone else - Did you cry when Beefheart (or Schulze, or whoever else) died? After all, celebrity worship seems to be more focused on the celebrity than the art, hence one who is focused on the art wouldn't have too extreme a reaction to the "celebrity" who created the art dying, right?

AfterHours

Gender: Male
Location: originally from scaruffi.com ;-)

TiggaTrigga wrote:

So about that debut Faust album...could you help me understand the meaning behind the songs' titles? 'Miss Fortune' I MAYBE understand, but 'Why Don't You Eat Carrots?' and 'Meadow Meal' -- I'm completely lost of the song titles' meanings, despite listening to those songs at least 5 times.

I'm with geologist. Much of the album is Dada-ist, absurdist, so I don't know if there is anything very important (if at all) about the titles. They might have meanings like that of a pun, but they're probably of the "in-joke" variety or similarly obscure, and I doubt if they would have any improved bearing on 'getting' the music more than otherwise.
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AfterHours

Gender: Male
Location: originally from scaruffi.com ;-)

geologist wrote:

For a change of pace... how about Morton Feldman ‎- Piano, Violin, Viola, Cello? For some reason after reading this description I'm suddenly thinking of that work. Of course, you gave a beautiful description of the perfectly gentle 1/1, but the phrase "lunar" makes me think of the Feldman work in particular. I know it's very vague with these descriptions sometimes, but I like thinking of the background synth swells as being beams of yellow afternoon light coming through a window, moving softly with the clouds. And each note is something small, like dust floating in the air, beautifully ordinary. It's very contemplative, but... also appreciative. Questions, but the kind you like answering, like making small talk with the universe. I dunno, it's the Feldman ‎piece that makes me think of the night sky, of existential quandary. And the Feldman is definitely much more tense, but reaches amazing, blissful peaks. If there's one gap in your (admittedly very comprehensive and impressive) log of art, it's probably modern classical. I'm just getting into it now, very recently, but I feel like there are plenty of masterpieces to be found.

Thank you geologist and excellent notes on this. I have actually listened to this and some other Feldman. I don't recall it much offhand (it's been years...), but your description brought me back to the general sorts of thoughts/feelings I had. There are many (hundreds) of works I've heard (more pre-Modern than post) that are yet to be listed on my "Greatest Classical" list which is more "in progress/under representative" than any of my others. For most of them, I simply listened to them before I was ever seriously rating Classical so I feel like I need to revisit them before making that sort of decision. But yes, even with that said and even if I listed all of them, Modern would still be the most under-represented and the area I have the most work to do.

The ratings too, are certainly less conclusive (for many of the selections) than I would consider (on avg) the ratings/rankings across my other lists. ESPECIALLY for larger scale vocal and/or opera works. Almost all of those ones are VERY loose and should not be considered final at all. All of the classical ones are "less" final than any of my lists, but especially those. Infact, some of the large scale vocal/opera selections, I rated/ranked based half on my own (inconclusive) opinion and half on Scaruffi's (current, not final) rankings, in cases where I wasn't yet ready to decide myself -- just to get them on there and have them listed in an order roughly resembling my thoughts about them (but again, far from conclusive -- all need revisits). Many of them are 2, 3, 4 hours (or more sometimes) and require a lot of time plus WATCHING them in performance on video (mainly for opera, because of the theater aspect, not so much the others), so are for sure the most time consuming of any music works in order to make any sort of conclusive determination on. So, without doing it this way (the requisite number of times it may take to feel ready to rate them; several of the opera/large scale vocal that I've only listened to 1-3 times), it would probably be years before I listed more than a few of them and I just wanted to get them up there to give an approximate idea (before that I just didn't list them, except for a few). This is also why they have "***" asterisks on them (on that list this means they're far from conclusive, are tentative, approximate, need revisits).
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Last edited by AfterHours on 09/10/2022 22:55; edited 2 times in total

AfterHours

Gender: Male
Location: originally from scaruffi.com ;-)

theredkrayola wrote:

After Hours - or anyone else - Did you cry when Beefheart (or Schulze, or whoever else) died? After all, celebrity worship seems to be more focused on the celebrity than the art, hence one who is focused on the art wouldn't have too extreme a reaction to the "celebrity" who created the art dying, right?

I didn't cry or have any real tears for those (no disrespect intended) though I felt a mild sense of loss for a brief period. I am not the type to have celebrity worship for, really, any one I can think of, even artists I've rated masterpieces of. And in general I would agree with the principle that focusing on the art doesn't necessarily lead to much of a reaction to the celebrity beyond a fondness or admiration for their work (not always so much for the person beyond whatever direct relation and admiration to the art work itself). Infact, there are tons of artists whose works I may rate high (some very high) but who, in life, I might not like or agree with all that much and some that I wouldn't want to associate with at all (a band like Type O Negative, for instance, would be at or near the top of that). Others, if I were around during their death, even if pretty flawed as individuals, I probably would've been more shaken by their death and definitely would've wanted the opportunity to meet them above just about anyone (Michelangelo, Beethoven, Coltrane, Orson Welles [too young and unaware of him when he passed]). I suppose there is pretty good shot I would feel a bit overwhelmed if I were to meet those figures (not sure if I would call that celebrity worship or not, but perhaps a similar affect on my ability to speak and cohere my thoughts! Laughing

). Bob Dylan is one that, whenever it eventually happens, might hit me more than most. But it also can depend on how it happens, how surprising, how shocking, how devastating, and what-not.

NBA legend Kobe Bryant was the relatively recent celebrity death that hit me more than usual when it happened, certainly influenced by how shocking it was, how many people died (including his daughter) and how it happened. But also, he was my favorite basketball player after Michael Jordan and I had watched his whole career basically (most of Jordan's too). I don't mean every game of course, just that I grew up watching Jordan and then Kobe. Even though Bryant had his flaws as a person, I was impressed by his work ethic and dedication, will and determination (and the aesthetics and craft in his game, similar to Jordan's) and by how he seemed to push himself past his earlier mishaps (despite enormous pressure from media, "haters", etc), and just his effort to become a better person I found admirable (regardless if one considers him entirely successful here or not, he made a real attempt and constantly seemed to be chipping away at it). The amount of people he had affected by the end (from who was at one time, a VERY divisive figure) was rather extraordinary and quite a shift from earlier years, and made his death something of a wide-scale cultural loss (especially to sports fans) well beyond the norm.
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Last edited by AfterHours on 09/10/2022 19:48; edited 1 time in total

DelBocaVista

Forgot to ask a while back
- why is She Said She Said only in the middle of the pack on Revolver for you?
- why do you rate Blowin In The Wind so highly, almost as high as A Hard Rain?

theredkrayola

AfterHours et. al.: I agree - I don't think any celebrity death could affect me all that much (I wasn't into Beefheart/Scaruffi yet when he died and I've never liked Klaus Schulze as much as most Scaruffists seem to, hence those two don't apply to me).

Kobe didn't upset me as much as shock me - it was impossible to process as reality when it happened. Interestingly, it was more jarring to read about his death than the death of, say, Roky Erickson - who I admired far more than Kobe Bryant. Despite my admiration for Roky Erickson and relative lack of admiration for Kobe Bryant, Erickson's death just didn't emotionally register for me - whereas Kobe Bryant dying felt like getting punched in the gut.

It's also intriguing that you (AfterHours), me, and Scaruffi himself all seem to like baseball less than other sports. Is there something about baseball that doesn't align with Scaruffist ways of thinking? It would be fascinating (in my opinion at least) to conduct a poll asking Scaruffists what their least favorite sport is, perhaps there is a reason baseball is maligned.

AfterHours

Gender: Male
Location: originally from scaruffi.com ;-)

DelBocaVista wrote:

Forgot to ask a while back
- why is She Said She Said only in the middle of the pack on Revolver for you?
- why do you rate Blowin In The Wind so highly, almost as high as A Hard Rain?

I don't know what to say about She Said She Said at the moment. It's mildly psychedelic, interesting rhythm, novel. But a far cry from so much of what was happening already or contemporarily in other psychedelic music, jazz and just after (like Piper at the Gates, etc). Maybe if I were listening to the Beatles right now, I could give some reasoning to the selection... but I too often just find them kinda boring to talk about. There's like 5 songs just barely above it in those ratings that one could switch out with it.

Also, there is a clue that the ratings may change (all/most with small upgrades) in upcoming updates, with (if one scrolls below 2.5) Rubber Soul's proposed (not final, undecided) updates. I was also considering upgrading Revolver and Rubber Soul up to the 5.5+ range. My views on 2.5-5.9 ratings range was gradually changing as I was listening to more when I was going through all those tracks (again, more and more upgrades across the board was where my thinking was heading). But that may or may not hold up, which is why I didn't make them "official" at the time and just left them as notes below 2.5 off the main list. This would likely affect the song ratings of course and could push all those 4s-4.5s bundled more or less together up to 4.5-5ish. Still don't know if I would put She Said above the others just above it though. They're all super close.

With Blowin in the Wind, it is in the subtle, hinted "pacifism" / "detachment" in the phrases (how he pulls back, gathers himself, during or on the ends of the pronunciations of words). It is a "protest" song, but unlike, say, Masters of War, it is not only a sustained stream of determined, finger pointing, angry (purely protest) laments. It is pained, upset, angry but all of it is reserved into a touching, withheld, resigned, bottled up struggle between the "protest" and (countering, perplexing, this urge) feelings of resignation, shaken "pacifism". Its feelings are accentuated by the shy guitar (not uncommon on that album, but fitting) and the especially delicate, "pacified" harmonica play. These details in mind, it is rather unique in Dylan's discography among his protest songs, more subtle or ambiguous, split in its allegiance or the sort of fight it wants to pick (one might say), not assured like his others, representing the angry young person that demands change but yet (at the same time) is (inside) resigned, devastated and pacified to know he can't really do anything about it and is broken apart by this fact into a nearly apathetic state and shaken solitude (all the phrases are "shaken" in addition to their reserved "anger and pain" and their subtle "resignation/pacifism").
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AfterHours

Gender: Male
Location: originally from scaruffi.com ;-)

theredkrayola wrote:

AfterHours et. al.: I agree - I don't think any celebrity death could affect me all that much (I wasn't into Beefheart/Scaruffi yet when he died and I've never liked Klaus Schulze as much as most Scaruffists seem to, hence those two don't apply to me).

Kobe didn't upset me as much as shock me - it was impossible to process as reality when it happened. Interestingly, it was more jarring to read about his death than the death of, say, Roky Erickson - who I admired far more than Kobe Bryant. Despite my admiration for Roky Erickson and relative lack of admiration for Kobe Bryant, Erickson's death just didn't emotionally register for me - whereas Kobe Bryant dying felt like getting punched in the gut.

It's also intriguing that you (AfterHours), me, and Scaruffi himself all seem to like baseball less than other sports. Is there something about baseball that doesn't align with Scaruffist ways of thinking? It would be fascinating (in my opinion at least) to conduct a poll asking Scaruffists what their least favorite sport is, perhaps there is a reason baseball is maligned.

Thanks, totally get it on Erickson, a (rather unknown) legend of psychedelic rock.

I follow baseball a bit more during the playoffs, and very casually during the season. But yeah, I've always enjoyed the more physical and intense sports of basketball and American football.

I don't know and wouldn't think that sports views could realistically be attributed to "Scaruffist ways of thinking". For Scaruffi, he is Italian and (I assume) grew up on football (soccer) so that is probably the simple reason for what he cares about.

I may be wrong but I think baseball has experienced a gradual decline in popularity since post-steroids era (when -- during the "steroids" era it had temporarily recovered and hit a peak) and perhaps other factors since then (though my guess is that it is recovering now "post-pandemic"). Until its playoffs it just might find it harder than ever to compete with the faster pace of basketball, NFL and college football. Especially with its 162 game season where the games don't start feeling hugely important (if you're not a die hard fan) until we hit the home stretch of the season and teams are battling for playoff positioning. Basketball experiences this (to some degree) during its regular season of 82 games. But probably compensates more because its media and stars add so much more "personality" and "drama" and "conflict" to keep people interested. Baseball has very few real stars and big personalities (especially on the level of those in basketball). Basketball also tends to have a much more exciting off season where interest is sustained and this follows into the next season. If it hasn't officially passed MLB yet, it is bound to sooner or later, because it has a near continuous momentum year in year out. NFL has the draft (which I personally don't get excited about -- just some mild interest with some higher picks -- but is apparently very popular across the US). Baseball has a pretty unexciting off season, so between that and the playoffs several months later there may be just too long of a layoff in excitement (for more casual fans, and to gain new ones).
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Last edited by AfterHours on 09/11/2022 19:30; edited 1 time in total