Let It Snow, Let It Snow, Let It... Oh, Shut Up

Quotation of the day: Sinclair Lewis --Winter is not a season, it’s an occupation.

We had the first snow of the season here today.  I was outside having my first cigarette break of the morning at around 8.30 when it started.  And it snowed -- not heavily, but steadily -- for most of the day.  It all melted as soon as it hit the ground, but it's here.

Future posts to this blog may well be influenced by the fact that i'm going to be cold for the next six months :o(

Spriggsblog Goes To The Movies

Quotation Of The Day:  Van Morrison -- I'm nothing but a stranger in this world

 I watched the DVD of "Oceans" last night, and it was brilliant.

It's a documentary, distributed in North America by the Disney
Corporation, but was actually made in France, and it's a gorgeous study of oceans and ocean life.  Unforgettable scenes of dolphins stampeding, cormorants dive-bombing sardines, men swimming beside sharks, and film of the unbelievable creatures who live on the sea floor (in one instance, swimming around a shopping cart!).  My only complaint was about the narration -- by Pierce Brosnan and presumably added by the Disney folks and thus "dumbed down."  It was discursive at best and incoherent at worst.


















But never mind, it's a feast for the eyes!

And, speaking of feasts, here's one for the ears:

I am, even as we speak, listening to Van Morrison's album "Astral Weeks."  If this isn't art, i don't know what is....

Carpe Diem!

Quotation of the day:  Fran Lebowitz -- Very few people possess true artistic ability.  It is therefore both unseemly and unproductive to irritate the situation by making an effort.  If you have a burning, restless urge to write or paint, simply eat something sweet and the feeling will pass.

It's my diem off today and carpe it i certainly did!  Life is to be embraced, i always say.  No, really, i do.  I know several people who have promised to punch me in the throat the next time i say it, they're so fed up hearing it.

So here's how i seized it:  got up at 3 a.m., listened to the radio (94.9 The Rock, of course) until around 9, had a bath, went out for breakfast, listened to last Sunday's episode of "The Beatles Universe" (at www.streamingoldies.com), and then listened to CDs by The Mississippi Sheiks, J.B. Hutto, and Robert Wyatt.  Then i did last night's dishes and a load of laundry and watched two (2!) episodes of the second series of "Between The Lines."  Oh, look!  There's the National Portrait Gallery's portrait of Francesca Annis, who's a recurring character in series two....

I have raved about this before, suggesting that it was the best police drama ever, but i have changed my opinion.  I now think it was the best television programme ever.  I was crying real tears at the end of the second episode i watched today -- you don't get that with "Friends" ....

...Not With A Bang

Quote of the day: T.S Eliot -- This is the way the world ends,
Not with a bang but a whimper.

So that's the end of the holiday, ruined completely by the fact 

that my Internet connection was down for most of the day

I started to listen to The Beatles Universe -- a great radio 

program that airs on 94.9 The Rock every Sunday morning but the 

connection went down after fifteen minutes, and stayed down. FAIL

Here was the playlist for the day:

Walter Trout, No More Fish Jokes
Mark Knopfler, Shangri-la
Wazmo Nariz, Things Aren't Right

And i watched yet another episode of "Between The Lines."

And that's the end of a holiday 

Day 6, Part Two

I've been reading this book (to my left there), Margaret Atwood's latest, all week, and i'm having a real problem with it.  I used to love her work, she began life as a poet and her first few novels had the poet's gift for le mot juste.  Now she just seems verbose.

I'm having a great deal of trouble absorbing what i'm reading, it's very disappointing, it's as though she aspires to be Canada's answer to Marcel Proust but without the gift for detail.

Anyway, i did, as promised, watch another episode of "Between The Lines," such a powerful one ("Manoeuvre 11" it was called) that i was weeping real tears at one point.  (The child dies.) (Ha, ha, now i've ruined it for you.)  And then i watched (most of) disc 2 of the 4-disc deluxe expanded extended exploded edition of "The Return Of The King."  Fabulous stuff.  Literally!

And now i'm doing laundry (no, really) and  listening to Bruce Springsteen's CD "Magic."

Vacation Diary, Day 6

Quotation of the day: Earl Wilson -- A vacation is what you take when you can no longer take what you've been taking.

This may be difficult to believe, but i've actually been productive today (shock, horror).

I am, as i'm sure you're all aware, a huge fan of Rory Gallagher -- the best blues-rock guitarist ever.  I'm also a member of an Internet discussion group devoted to him, The-Loop (named after one of his tunes).  For the past six months, i've been running a weekly series on The-Loop called "The Roots Of Rory," in which i will upload a song by one of the people (usually early blues singers) who influenced him.  But this week, because i had the time, i tried something different....

This week's song was "Tobacco Road," which was written by John D. Loudermilk, but which was a top ten hit for The Nashville Teens in 1964 (long before i was born, of course!) (ahem...).  Rory never officially recorded it, but sometimes, in concert, he would interpolate it into his own song, "Seems To Me."  So what i have just done, is, i put together a .zip file of four versions of the song:  Loudermilk's original, The Nashville Teens' version, plus two (bootleg) versions of Rory's Seems To Me" -- one with, and one without the "Tobacco Road" interpolation.  If you're at all interested, you can download the file (it's 19 MB) here: http://www.mediafire.com/?gf8cn747c0sps4z

Normally, i wouldn't have the time to organise something so relatively complicated (especially as i had misfiled one of the CDs i needed and it took me a while to find it).

Otherwise, today's playlist has been:

Kathy Mattea, "Roses"
Peter Hammill, "In A Foreign Town"
Rush, "Retrospective II" (sorry, Helen!)

And i'm just about to watch yet another episode of "Between The Lines" -- love that program so much...

More later, i expect

Vacation Diary, Day 5

Quotation of the day: Camille Paglia -- Leaving sex to the feminists is like letting your dog vacation at the taxidermist.

Beer and clamato juice for breakfast -- well it is the most important meal of the day!

I watched "Lethal Weapon 2" last night.  Oh! There's its picture to the right, how did that get there?  Just sheer entertainment, nothing profound, but one can't -- or, at least, i can't -- watch Kubrick, Antonioni, Almodóvar or even Ridley Scott every day....

Well, i did a bit of cleaning, scrubbing 'n' scouring in my kitchen  today but i wasn't able to get terribly enthusiastic about it

Here's today's playlist:

I listened to the radio (94.9 The Rock) til 11 o'clock or so, then:
Roy Wood,  "Starting Up"
Jeff Beck, "You Had It Coming"
Paula Cole, "Ithaca" (her new one)
The Move, "Message From The Country" -- such a brilliant album that is!
 Kathy Mattea, Roses
Then i watched "Between The Lines" (series 2 episode 5)  but then:



Right, ABBA, and this may well be my favourite ABBA song and these harmonies break my spine.  These are the voices of angels, this is what i want to hear when i die and go to heaven.

Course, with my luck i'll probably die and go to Sebringville or something