TYWKIWDBI ("Tai-Wiki-Widbee")

This is better than some of the ones I've seen presented at Crofts.   I can't begin to imagine the countless hours these two have spent together developing this routine.

This video has been featured widely on the internet.  I'm going to repost it here because it struck a chord with me on a very personal level, which I'll explain at the end.

This is a remix; the original video (which you can view here) shows an 8th-grade girl named Alexis participating in her first school track event.  The YouTube poster comments "This video is 6yrs old. Alexis did run the hurdles again and didn't fail. She did give me permission to post the video and all of her friends have seen it, while they do find it funny they do support her and her courage."

The remix adds the audio of the Scala and Kolacny Brothers' version of Radiohead's "Creep."

The classically trained Kolacny brothers, Steven (piano) and Stijn (conducting) have turned this Belgian girls’ choir into an international phenomenon, performing imaginatively reworked covers of Radiohead, U2, Rammstein and Nirvana songs...

One can debate whether the lyrics for Radiohead's "Creep" are totally appropriate for the hurdles video, but the rendition by this girls choir is so beautifully executed, and some phrases are so perfect that the remix really "works" for me.  The original hurdles video was time-stretched to match the audio, and the resultant slo-motion effect is quite dramatic.

I've reviewed the comments about the video at 3-4 different websites.  Not surprisingly perhaps, given the shallowness of many websurfers, the dominant theme is that this is a "fail" video.  That the girl is a loser, that she missed a hurdle, that her coaching was dreadful, that this is the funniest LOLs video they've ever seen.

I have a different viewpoint.  And for that I need to tell a story.  In 1952 I contracted polio; after recovering I was left with some residual atrophy of my right quad, so I could ambulate, but couldn't run very fast.  I attended a school where participation in sports was mandatory all three seasons of the school year.  In the spring the school also held an all-school track day in which everyone was required to participate in several events.  I was entered in the discus and the 220 yard run.  For the latter event I can still remember being in the back stretch when the leaders were crossing the finish.  By the time I got to the finish line they were setting up for the next heat.

When I crossed that finish line, the school's track coach came over to me.  Mr. Bettels was a man who knew what impairment was.  He had what I think in retrospect was severe kyphoscoliosis, but he was an inspirational coach and classroom teacher.  He came to me and very quietly and privately congratulated me on finishing the race.  I hadn't viewed my circling of the track as anything heroic; I was just doing what was expected.  He viewed it a bit differently, and it took me some time to fully appreciate the import of his commendation.  In the decades since then I've won a variety of non-athletic honors and have a smattering of trophies and plaques, but those words from Coach are one of the treasured memories of my youth.

So... I offer my congratulations to young Alexis.  I don't find the video to be funny at all - it's inspirational, and it choked me up to watch it.   It's also a good reminder that every day there are children whose bravery and courage goes unrecognized.  We all need to take moments now and then to commend the "losers."

Reposted from 2010 to commemorate the 20th anniversary of Radiohead's initial release of this, their debut song.

See also this animated version and Chrissie Hynde's cover of the song.

Brubeck at the piano, Paul Desmond on alto sax.

"Time Out" was probably the first jazz album I ever purchased, back in about 1962. I've embedded the signature piece ("Take Five") above; in 1961 it became the biggest-selling jazz single ever recorded.

The album, released in 1959, was revolutionary for its era because of the unusual times used in many of the pieces. Blue Rondo a la Turk (video here) "starts in 9/8 (the rhythm of the Turkish zeybek, equivalent of the Greek zeibekiko), but with the unorthodox subdivision pattern of 2+2+2+3 (the normal pattern for 9/8 is 3+3+3), and the saxophone and piano solos are in 4/4."

Originally posted in 2009 to note the death of Dave Brubeck at age 91.   Reposted in 2016 because I happened to hear this piece played while I was shopping in Target this weekend.

Word for the day:  "Written in the key of E-flat minor, the piece is known for its distinctive two-chord piano vamp; catchy blues-scale saxophone melody; inventive, jolting drum solo; and unusual quintuple (5
4) time, from which its name is derived."

In music, a vamp is a repeating musical figure, section, or accompaniment used in blues, jazz, gospel, soul, and musical theater. Vamps are also found in rock, funk, reggae, R&B, pop, country, and post-sixties jazz. Vamps are usually harmonically sparse: A vamp may consist of a single chord or a sequence of chords played in a repeated rhythm. The term frequently appeared in the instruction 'Vamp till ready' on sheet music for popular songs in the 1930s and 1940s, indicating that the accompanist should repeat the musical phrase until the vocalist was ready. Vamps are generally symmetrical, self-contained, and open to variation. The equivalent in classical music is an ostinato, in hip hop is the loop and in rock music is the riff. The slang term vamp comes from the Middle English word vampe (sock), from Old French avanpie, equivalent to Modern French avant-pied, literally before-foot.

Reposted from 2016 because it's been hidden deep in the blog for so long, and because today (5/4) is Dave Brubeck Day.*

*cue the rest of the world pointing out the "error" in this mm/dd/yy notation.  Let's skip those comments this time...

Pub Choir is a musical act founded in Brisbane, Australia, directed by Astrid Jorgensen.  At each Pub Choir event, Jorgensen arranges a popular song and teaches it to the audience in three-part harmony, concluding with a performance that is filmed and shared on social media.  There is no formal recurring membership; participants purchase tickets to attend each individual production, which is usually held at a licensed venue...

Jorgensen created a form of musical notation incorporating colour-coded contoured text and comedic visual cues to teach at Pub Choir, so that musical literacy is not required for audience participation...

And who by fire, who by water
Who in the sunshine, who in the night time
Who by high ordeal, who by common trial
Who in your merry merry month of May, who by very slow decay
And who shall I say is calling?

And who in her lonely slip, who by barbiturate
Who in these realms of love, who by something blunt
And who by avalanche, who by powder
Who for his greed, who for his hunger
And who shall I say is calling?

And who by brave assent, who by accident
Who in solitude, who in this mirror
Who by his lady's command, who by his own hand
Who in mortal chains, who in power
And who shall I say is calling?

The song is by Leonard Cohen, who explained it as follows:

"The melody on which this next song is based I first heard when I was four or five years old, in the synagogue, on the Day of Atonement, standing beside my tall uncles in their black suits. It¹s a liturgical prayer that talks about the way in which you can quit this vale of tears. It’s according to a tradition, an ancient tradition that on a certain day of the year, the Book of Life is opened, and in it is inscribed the names of all those who will live and all those who will die, who by fire, who by water…"

Reposted from 2019 to note that this song is currently featured in the introduction to Bad Sisters, season 2, which I'll review when I finish watching.

First I encountered this photo of an absolutely awesome cactus (at L'oeil ouvert, via).  The caption was in French, so I had to Google Translate it to find this info about the plant:

The French naturalist and historian Leon Diguet realized six scientific expeditions in Mexico between 1893 and 1913... With a few prints in the world, this picture offers a spectacular example of a species of cacti: the Giant Cardon, about 8 meters high and about 10 tons.

I still wondered if it could be a manipulated image, because these are famously-slow-growing plants - it's said to take up to 75 years to develop a single side arm.  Some take on unusual shapes; here is a cristate ("crested") crown -

"... more than any other Stevie Nicks solo moment, Edge of Seventeen has entranced subsequent generations and helped to define the singer's standing as a rock icon: not just as member of Fleetwood Mac, but as an artist in her own right. It's a song that operates on several levels – at once an instant hit of rock drama and a heady meditation on death – and seems to yield something new every time you play it. Its distinctive 16th-note guitar riff – played by Waddy Wachtel, a legendary session musician who also worked with Cher and The Rolling Stones – remains electrifying every time you hear it...

When Tom Petty's wife Jane told Nicks that she and her husband met "at the age of 17", Nicks misheard her Southern accent and thought she'd said "at the edge of 17". In that instant, she realised that she had a brilliant song title."

Related: Stevie Nicks/Fleetwood Mac - Landslide.

Reposted from 2017 because this morning I remembered this has another "seventeen" song to celebrate the blogiversary.  But the YouTube link has undergone linkrot, so I'll need to find another to substitute in that spot (later today maybe). done

Her most successful single was "At Seventeen," released in 1975, a bittersweet commentary on adolescent cruelty and teenage angst, as reflected upon from the maturity of adulthood. "At Seventeen" was a smash, receiving tremendous acclaim from critics and record buyers alike — it charted at #3 on the Billboard Hot 100 and hit #1 on the Adult Contemporary chart. It even won the 1975 Grammy Award for Best Pop Vocal Performance - Female beating out the likes of Linda Ronstadt who was nominated for the classic Heart Like A Wheel album, Olivia Newton-John and Helen Reddy. Ian performed "At Seventeen" as a musical guest on the very first episode of Saturday Night Live on October 11, 1975... Another measure of her success is anecdotal - on Valentine's Day 1977, Ian received 461 Valentine cards, having indicated in the lyrics to "At Seventeen" that she never received any as a teenager."

We'll begin with the photograph above (credit here, via BoingBoing 2006):

"...the community of Beloit, Wisconsin came together on the banks of the Rock River to recreate George Seurat’s “Sunday Afternoon on the Island of LaGrande Jatte."

They are performing a tableaux vivant to reproduce the famous pointillist painting shown here:


One difference between the photograph and the painting is that in the photograph, the woman in the foreground does not have a monkey at her feet.  This apparently reflected unavailability of one in Beloit, Wisconsin - or it may have been intentional, since the monkey symbolically represents that the woman may be a prostitute:

Furthermore, the inclusion of symbols, most obviously a monkey on a leash and a woman fishing, is indicative of the painting’s satirical nature. In nineteenth century slang, ‘singesse’ (female monkey in French) meant prostitute. The wordplay of ‘pêche’ (fishing) and ‘péché’ (sin) was a pun often made in French cartoons with reference to prostitution.  Such symbols speak to the ability of “the proletarian woman [to] become superficially bourgeois through prostitution.”  Through this subtle imagery, Seurat adds another dimension to the comparison of the proletariat and the bourgeoisie, noting the superficiality and immorality within high class society.

That was all new to me, so I searched the web for pictures of women with monkeys, and after discarding those with Dian Fossey, Jane Goodall, Fay Wray, and Jessica Lange, I found this one by Aubrey Beardsley (source):



and this one by Picasso:


- both of which presumably incorporate the monkey with woman = prostitute symbolism, as may this this depiction mocking an early American suffragette:


- both found at Infinite Thought, where there are other photos of women with monkeys (linkrot since 2010).

I got started on this topic because of a Reddit thread last month, where the best comment comparing the Beloit photograph and the Seurat painting came from UserNumber42:

"Oddly enough, both were created with very small dots, one just has better resolution than the other."

And finally, since I won't have another chance to blog tableaux vivant again, I'll close with this old but quite remarkable music video by Hold Your Horses:

The video above shows eight pianists sharing just two pianos; seven of them are previous winners of the Dublin International Piano Competition.

The one below has twelve pianists playing just one piano.

This performance has held the world record for the most pianists performing simultaneously on one piano."

"Sylvia's mother says 'Sylvia's busy. Too busy to come to the phone.'

Sylvia's mother says 'Sylvia's trying to start a new life of her own.'

Sylvia's mother says 'Sylvia's happy.  So why don't you leave her alone?'

[refrain]

And the operator says 40 cents more for the next three minutes.

Please, Mrs. Avery, I just gotta talk to her.  I'll only keep her a while

Please, Mrs. Avery, I just want to tell her goodbye

Sylvia's mother says 'Sylvia's packing.  She's gonna be leaving today.'

Sylvia's mother says 'Sylvia's marrying a fella down Galveston way.'

Sylvia's mother says 'Please don't say nothin' to make her start cryin' and stay.'

[refrain]

Sylvia's mother says 'Sylvia's hurrying.  She's catching the nine o'clock train.'

Sylvia's mother says, "Take your umbrella 'cause Sylvia, it's starting to rain.'

And Sylvia's mother said, "Thank you for calling, and, sir, won't you call back again?"

I heard that you're settled down 

That you found a girl and you're married now 

I heard that your dreams came true 

Guess she gave you things, I didn't give to you 

Old friend, why are you so shy? 

Ain't like you to hold back or hide from the light 

I hate to turn up out of the blue, uninvited 

But I couldn't stay away, I couldn't fight it 

I had hoped you'd see my face 

And that you'd be reminded that for me, it isn't over 

Never mind, I'll find someone like you 

I wish nothing but the best for you, too 

"Don't forget me, " I beg 

I remember you said 

"Sometimes it lasts in love, but sometimes it hurts instead" 

"Sometimes it lasts in love, but sometimes it hurts instead" 

You know how the time flies 

Only yesterday was the time of our lives 

We were born and raised in a summer haze 

Bound by the surprise of our glory days... (repeat)

Nothing compares, no worries or cares 

Regrets and mistakes, they're memories made 

Who would have known how bittersweet this would taste?... (repeat)

The top embed is what I understand was the first release of the song twelve years ago in 2011.  The second was recorded at the London Palladium in 2021.  I'm sure I'm not the only listener to detect a difference between the two: the first an outcry of anguish by a young girl, the second expressing acceptance and defiance by an adult woman.