Starship Asterisk*

I thought it might be fun to express emotional thought or feelings via this “Open Space” medium…

One of the things I enjoy about posting is linking to something someone else has done that expresses what I think or feel… For example, I like this song today… one of REM’s many communicable works.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ijZRCIrTgQc&ob=av2e (Warner Bros… good quality video… has a lead-in commercial and doesn’t allow embedding on the internet… just linking.)

In my mind an artist is successful when he/she “speaks” to others through their work. If an artist strikes a chord residing in another’s cortex, there can be a connection deeper than surface tension. It is typically harder to put into words than it is to experience. A beautiful work of art highlights an experience between at least two people and communicates either a feeling or a memory that creates a virtual connection between the transmitter and receiver. So, how’s your day? Does anyone else express it for you?

Wow, Ed... what'd you do, look in my head??! (Don't make too much noise in there; the echo is dreadful.) I've had that song on my mind for some days now. I woke up singing "Drift Away," however, having heard a little of it yesterday.

I listened to Beethoven piano sonatas 8-11 today. Number 10 (Op. 14, no. 2 for any musical Artists who prefer opus numbering) struck a chord with me today; it made me happy to listen to it. One passage I particularly like is a run of descending thirds that occurs several times in the first movement; I don't know why that particular passage appealed so much to me today, but it did. I like the whole sonata.

Here's that first movement, with an appropriate astronomical image to go with it; this is a little languid, but lovely: And here's another performance of it; it's not very often I hear a Beethoven sonata played by someone who needs pedal extenders!

Music washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life. ~Berthold Auerbach

Hi owlice,

I think “Everybody Hurts” by REM speaks to lots of folks… it’s impossible to live and not feel pain sometimes. I thought the video was also interesting as it subtitled the “caught in rush hour” actor’s thoughts.

I appreciate your responding... and thanks for sharing! I like the sonatas you posted, it’s quite soothing... even with the Moon in the background! And the young girl is amazing! Does the run that you mention remind you of anything you might hear on a Spring afternoon?

owlice wrote:
It's not very often I hear a Beethoven sonata played by someone who needs pedal extenders!

Dudley Stuart John Moore, 5 ft 2½ in (19 April 1935 – 27 March 2002)

emc wrote:

Music washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life. ~Berthold Auerbach

Good quote; thanks for that.

emc wrote: I think “Everybody Hurts” by REM speaks to lots of folks… it’s impossible to live and not feel pain sometimes. I thought the video was also interesting as it subtitled the “caught in rush hour” actor’s thoughts.

I liked the video, and laughed when the subtitle "Stop singing. Stop singing. Stop singing." -- kid about dad -- appeared. I SO know how that is, from both sides! I miss the days when my son and I would sing together, often just songs made up on the spot usually in the car, but sometimes, made-up lyrics that we repeated set to real music. (To the opening of Carmina Burana: "O for tuna! Not for chicken! O for tuna casserole!" I've sung those lyrics so often, I can't remember the real ones most of the time.)

I had hoped as a mom to instill a love of music in my son. I didn't care what kind of music, just so long as he had music that meant as much to him as music does to me. A few years ago, we had a painful disagreement, and he slammed into his room, put "Nightswimming" in his stereo, and cranked up the volume. He listened to it perhaps five or six times in a row, and that's when I knew I'd succeeded: he had music to wash away the dust (ups) of everyday life. For all my failings as a parent, I'm glad I got this one thing right. (He listens to music almost from the time he wakes up to the time he goes to sleep, and has wide and varied, and occasionally questionable <g>, tastes; I'm glad he loves it.)

emc wrote:Does the run that you mention remind you of anything you might hear on a Spring afternoon?

Not especially. It is a coquettish little run; I know where it's going, but can't quite catch it because it doesn't want to be caught. It just trips away.

No particular music today, though if I had it handy-by at the moment, I'd be tempted to put in Satie piano music. It is raining here, and Satie and rainy days seem to me to go together. Satie and certain Bach works affect how I think, changing the mode from my usual cognition to something very different; I refer to this as "Satie-head," but can't explain it any better than that. Certain other things will also put me in a different state, but Satie and Bach are completely reliable in inducing the switch.

How's your day?

My today is good…

As I drove into the sun
Didn't dare look where I had begun
Lost among echoes of things not there
Watching the sound forming shapes in the air

Peter Gabriel, Humdrum excerpt

you did a wonderful thing for your son...

neufer, how did you sneak that in? I just noticed your post! That's a fabulous parody.

Ed, glad your yesterday was good!

Yesterday, I heard Ravel's orchestral version of his Pavane for a Dead Princess, a work which often brings me to tears, and did even before I started associating the work with the Challenger's tragic demise. This was the work I wanted most to hear after that event, and now the work is so closely tied to it in my mind that when I hear this music, I see in my head what happened all over again, and imagine the shock on teachers' faces as they come to understand what their students have just seen and what they will have to explain to them, and hurt for these kids and all the people who knew and loved the seven people on board and those who worked so hard to launch them. It is a lot to put on this little piece of music, this slow, courtly processional dance.

What a transportation device music can be! I heard something else on the radio yesterday that is also takes me back in time, this to the summer I was 16 and spent many long, hot days at the pool with my best friend. I'd just returned from a year away (at St. Brutus' Secure Centre for Incurably Criminal Boys and Girls, or so it seemed to me!), and was glad to be back. I don't especially like the song (Horse with No Name), but it got so much airplay that summer that I heard it a bazillion times and still probably remember all the words despite myself. I did not listen to the whole song yesterday; a few notes of it, and I was changing the station.

An MP3 of the original piano version of the Pavane can be found here; you're on your own for Horse with No Name!

You and I are making quite a pair… your sophistication and my more rough-around-the-edges demeanor.

Art’s comic relief is much appreciated. He’s a very entertaining scientist.

Today, I am feeling a little reflective after you reminded me of the Challenger tragedy.

Music can be a memory stimulant as well as emotional healing. I think today’s song pick from me speaks to women looking for emotional aid. But I’m not sure how long I can keep this emotional stuff up… beginning to feel a little like I need to go get greasy and work on my truck.

How bout me not blaming you for everything
How bout me enjoying the moment for once
How bout how good it feels to finally forgive you
How bout grieving it all one at a time

Alanis Morissette, Thank You excerpt

emc wrote:your sophistication

Oh, that made me laugh!! Please don't let my usual choice of music fool you.

emc wrote:Art’s comic relief is much appreciated. He’s a very entertaining scientist.

Indeed, and cute, too, what with the freckles and red hair.

emc wrote:But I’m not sure how long I can keep this emotional stuff up… beginning to feel a little like I need to go get greasy and work on my truck.

Hey, you started it! And nothing wrong with getting greasy; I'm about the do the same, but over a bicycle, not a truck.

Thank you for the Alanis Morissette.

emc wrote:I think today’s song pick from me speaks to women looking for emotional aid.

That's what my bike is: emotional aid. That's not all it is, though; it's also fun! It's horizontal flying! I feel so free sometimes when I'm on my bike that I'm surprised I'm still on the surface of the planet!

Life is a Masquerade
Josh Groban and Ben Folds

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SOkID1qz ... re=related[/youtube]

As per bystander: Life is a masquerade! True; but at home you can be yourself

BTW; one of my favorites.

I see this has turned into a song exchange. Here's a nice one for you all. Listening to this one improves any day I'm having.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2aP4GaAr ... 2-2r-35-HM[/youtube]

Rob

You are young and life is long and there is time to kill today.
And then one day you find ten years have got behind you.
No one told you when to run, you missed the starting gun.
...
Every year is getting shorter never seem to find the time.
Plans that either come to naught or half a page of scribbled lines
Hanging on in quiet desperation is the English way
The time is gone, the song is over,
Thought I'd something more to say.

owlice wrote:It's horizontal flying! I feel so free sometimes when I'm on my bike that I'm surprised I'm still on the surface of the planet!

I may want to borrow that bike of yours someday… I’ve always thought it would be cool to be able to leave the planet… as long as I can get back before dinner.

"There's a feeling I get when I look to the west,
And my spirit is crying for leaving."
Stairway to Heaven - Led Zepplin

Stars - Maxfield Parrish

Thanks for the posts bystander, People do tend to present the best they can of themselves in public… and relieve at home, like Orin says… which can be a good thing. Otherwise there might be more freeway shootings.

Pink Floyd is one of my many favorite music sources… they speak to my spirit.

Orin, Thanks for sharing… GREAT classic!

Rob, Thank you for sharing also… great tune originally from the 60's... I like Chrissie Hynde with the Pretenders, their “I’ll Stand By You” is beautiful. (BTW – your YouTube video doesn’t allow embedding but was easy to find at the website)

click here to be rickrolled:

Thanks makcents,

Strange… but it is a good remix.
Six degrees from Teen Spirit... who'd a thought... I mean, besides Rick and you

bystander...

and we run and we run
to catch up with the sun
but it’s sinking

Today is imminent...

and I'm hovering like a fly...
waiting for the windshield on the freeway

Genesis - Fly On A Windshield

Scott Wade - Windshield Artist

Today is pending… ending… depending…
and just in case…

My listening today included a bit of a Bach English Suite played by the great Russian pianist Sviatoslav Richter. I love Bach's music, and don't care whether his keyboard works are played on harpsichord or piano -- it's all good. But when this recording started on the radio, I was completely distracted by the sound of the piano, and I could not concentrate at all on the music... all I could think was, "What piano is this?" Most classical pianists record on Steinways, and this was so not a Steinway (or didn't sound like one, anyway) that the music escaped me entirely! I've asked on one of my music boards whether there's a piano credit on the recording and hope someone on that board can tell me. (It sounded like a Yamaha piano, or a brand I don't know with a similarly bright sound; this will sit in my pea brain bugging me until I find out.)

So that's how my day is... Bach-less, even though there was Bach, with one little thing rolling around like a loose marble in my head!

I know about those head marbles… they can drive us to distraction


Today I looked in the mirror and scared myself… good thing it’s close to Halloween else I would have been out of context.

Today is a good day...... my wife's birthday!
She's a long time Beatle fan. No accounting for taste.