Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
What are you listening to? Part III
- Thread starter S.B.G
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
No, it's not, actually, not if you cause possible distress and discomfort - and display such discourtesy and disrespect - to someone else.
I scored [most of] their back catalog and have had The xx on pretty constant rotation here at the World HQ. They're pretty fantastic, it's indie/rock/pop, that's teeters between keyboard vs. guitar driven, backed by really lucious arrangements with an R&B flavor that sometimes opens into a more dreamy pop type sound (and even goes full on dance/electronic) - and all this wrapped up in the beautiful intertwined vocals from the male/female leads.
Here's a review of the most recent record (spoiler: it's highly rated) that might give you a sense of the band:
https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/22727-i-see-you/
Here's a review of the most recent record (spoiler: it's highly rated) that might give you a sense of the band:
https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/22727-i-see-you/
That is your own opinion and I respect it. I often don't agree with many things you do or say, and often have to correct you only for you to repeat the mistaken things again in future. At which point I've firmly given up correcting you.
Let's agree to disagree (completely) on this subject, then.
As we may disagree on others, while retaining the right to occasionally concur.
For now, I am listening to the Dance of the Hours by Amilcare Ponchielli.
Needed a little kick in the pants this morning (again) and well this was just what the doctor ordered!
Fear Factory - Slave Labor
Fear Factory - Slave Labor
the bolding above is mine...
tbh what crossed my mind was a scene in season 2 of The Wire where Ziggy the son of the union boss took a selfie of his underparts and posted it as screensaver on the computer of one of the guys charged with monitoring the movement of containers on the docks... while the guy was on his lunch hour....
@Zenithal we're gonna start callin' ya Ziggy if ya don't look out.
I admit he was one of my favorite characters... I mean... the pet duck with the diamond collar in the bar? "Duck? This is my legal counsel, give him a drink."
Frank Sobotka? (Chris Bauer)
Season 2 might be my favorite in that series. Season 4 a runner-up.
===
Moving on....
Revisiting Maki Namekawa's recording of Philip Glass piano etudes. Mesmerizing tour through decades of his life, evolving, distilled into two hours...
"Non, je ne regrette rien", Edith Piaf.
[doublepost=1566315978][/doublepost]
Ah, now that does look (and I am willing to bet that it sounds) most interesting.
[doublepost=1566315978][/doublepost]
Ah, now that does look (and I am willing to bet that it sounds) most interesting.
So deserving of it's constant praise as "The best show on TV" (I mean, I would argue for The Sopranos, or Deadwood as better, but you get the gist ...). I know S5 isn't anyone's favorite, but I also prefer the S1-S3, Stringer, that whole plot vs. the stuff with the kids in S4, and I'd rank those first three 3, 1, 2 though it's a clearly a cohesive whole.
I forgot David Costabile was in S5, he's terrific, Wags on one of our new favorites Billions (and of course, his amazing run as Gale on Breaking Bad).
Sorry, wrong topic for this thread
[doublepost=1566317831][/doublepost]
It's the show with this handsome devil ...
So deserving of it's constant praise as "The best show on TV" (I mean, I would argue for The Sopranos, or Deadwood as better, but you get the gist ...). I know S5 isn't anyone's favorite, but I also prefer the S1-S3, Stringer, that whole plot vs. the stuff with the kids in S4, and I'd rank those first three 3, 1, 2 though it's a clearly a cohesive whole.
I forgot David Costabile was in S5, he's terrific, Wags on one of our new favorites Billions (and of course, his amazing run as Gale on Breaking Bad).
Sorry, wrong topic for this thread
[doublepost=1566317831][/doublepost]
It's the show with this handsome devil ...
The Wire is the one series I won't delete off my laptop... no matter what. I've even moved whole rafts of Beethoven off my machine once in awhile when I wanted to have that series on there even though I was currently trying to make room for another pass through Downton Abbey.
I'm still listening to Philip Glass at the hands of Namekawa but there are only 17 minutes or so that are left and then it's a complete switch-up to Susan Tedeschi, some tracks from her album Wait for Me.
I almost destroyed my ability to listen for quite awhile to certain fairly representative works of assorted eras of classical music one year at school. I had an evening job in the music library, and for extra bucks took on the tutoring of some football players in a required course in music appreciation.... they had to be able to identify the composer of a track when the professor played 90 seconds of it in their final exam. There would be 20 "questions" and there were 40 tracks of music that were played and discussed in the classes meanwhile.
Right so some of the guys just couldn't get a grip on stuff from the baroque period. I finally settled on making up nonsense lyrics to the front ends of the tracks. Stuff like "Shake it up for this courante baby" and "We jumpin' jumpin' jumpin' this cantata jelly beans' and so forth. Oy. It worked like a charm but ruined those works for me. There was one for a track in a Brandenburg Concerto that's so NSFW that I won't cite it here but I still can't even play that thing with a straight face after all these years. I didn't make them all up... but once I had offered a few instances, the guys got interested and started suggesting their own ways to remember this or that work. I had created a monster. Always wondered what would happen to me if the head of the music department dropped in to see how things were going some night during those tutoring sessions. Never had to find out, thank god.
Sounds like they had fun with it
- Yes you are lucky the prof did not get curious about how you were "helping them out" - he/she might have earmarked you for the "Banjo Room"
That crew was fun to work with. What I sometimes wonder about now is whether and how any of them later developed an actual appreciation of classical music. I remember one guy was very taken by Prokofiev's War Sonata, the 3rd movement, he asked a lot of questions about how 7/8 time "worked" and said he could remember that one without making up hokey lyrics "because it just never quits".
That is a brilliant story; I couldn't imagine destroying Baroque for myself in this way, but a brilliant story, nonetheless.
Right... I definitely didn't think that through at the time. I was desperate to find some way to help the guys learn enough to get through that course. Desperation does tend to color one's view of a "perfect solution" to a pressing problem. It's interesting that they picked up on the lyrics idea and set about making their own for the rest of the tracks. In doing that, they really did have to listen to the beat and cadences and so forth, so they were learning much more than if I had just fed them lyrics for all of the required works. They ended up saving their own necks in the course which is as it should have been. In supervising the sessions I just ended up paying a higher price than I had imagined, can't get a few of those lyrics and tracks out of my head.
Oh, I totally get it from a pedagogical perspective: The challenge of getting a class (chiefly of males) interested in something that they need to know (to pass the course) but have little interest in, or any sort of background that would allow them to make a connection to the material, can be considerable.
That is your challenge as a teacher - to craft the connection in a context that they can relate to.
One of the reasons I returned to following soccer (I had been keen as a kid but lost interest in my teens) was to have football examples to hand if I needed them when teaching (male) students political (and historical) stuff. It worked wonders, and sort of served to sugar-coat the rest of the material so that it was easier for them to relate to it and recall it.
Giving soccer examples as a way of illustrating a point of history, or politics, or political culture, was an invaluable teaching tool, and it is very satisfying (professionally and personally) when it works and you can see it in the students, they become enthusiastic about the subject matter, too.
But, fortunately, I never had to plunder my own internal treasury of Baroque music in support of this sort of teaching.
Last edited:
It's one of a small handful of my recommended must watch, I guess you would call "dramatic prestige" shows (that doesn't include 1/2 hour, sitcoms, and fantasy/scifi):
The Wire
The Sopranos
Breaking Bad
Deadwood
The Shield
The Americans
Fargo
Though clearly you have to have some tolerance for violence (and sex) in these shows.
Then in a highly recommended, but cross into more "genre" type shows:
The Leftovers
WestWorld
Lost
Twin Peaks
That are very dependent on your appreciation for more fringe concepts, speculative fiction, etc.
I think The Leftovers is a spectacular series, it's complex, but in the end, boils down to a very simple idea, and it's just beautiful.
Hmm, since we're in this thread, and I mentioned The Leftovers, allow me to post this piece from the show, by the brilliant Max Richter:
Amazon has the CD as a reissue, I think, is it this?
Yes, it is, isn't it?
And - still with Gare du Nord, this time for the album Kind of Cool, the track "Dark Chill".
This is kind of a fusion of French café, electronica and some slight element of funk.
Cool when you are in the mood for something of the sort.
[doublepost=1566344264][/doublepost]And now, listening to Paris Combo and their track "Living Room" from their album Living Room.
A modern take on traditional French café music.
Actually, I first heard this song in a genuine (French owned, French run) city centre bistro/restaurant in the capital around twelve years ago - while dining with my mum - and requested the name of the song and group from the staff when I was paying the bill.
They scrawled it down on a piece of paper, and, but, of course, I subsequently ordered the CD.
Last edited: