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3 March 2014 at 16:39 #26070
As promised, two tracks of 17th century English music. (Another time, so as not to swamp the thread and bore everyone, I will share some lovely Italian and French music.) Hope you enjoy! First, a very famous lute song by John Dowland, as sung by the amazing countertenor Andreas Scholl.
And a lovely viol consort by William Lawes:
3 March 2014 at 16:09 #26068@monochromedimension I love a bit of Holst! And it’s even Who-related, being about space. 🙂 @faegrl This link should work for you. There are a bunch of versions on YouTube, and I picked this one by the Chicago Symphony, because my husband, a trombone player, always used to talk about American-style vs. European-style brass sound (now is that geeky enough for you? 😆 )
I’m really enjoying the Battle of the Doctor Who themes!
3 March 2014 at 15:48 #26065I remember being torn between admiration for the slick, contemporary look of the opening scenes (the fast edits, the overall energy, the encapsulation of Rose’s life in a few quick scenes) and concern that it might be a case of style over substance. In many ways, I still feel that it was, but I also realize that as a pilot episode, it does its job very well: it sets the scene for the remainder of the series engagingly and efficiently. The fact that I enjoyed it most the first time through, and less on rewatch, tells me that as an episode it isn’t about longevity, but about a particular moment in the show’s history.
For me, the low point was the obvious fakery of “plastic Mickey”. But on reflection, I imagine that it was partly about making it absolutely clear to the kids in the audience what was happening. I can imagine them all shouting at the TV. “No, Rose, no! It’s not the real Mickey!!”
Great point of @bluesqueakpip‘s that the Ninth Doctor is at his most charming not when he’s trying for charm, but when he is completely out of the loop. (The moment in The Empty Child comes to mind, when he stands up in the nightclub and asks about things falling from the sky.) I also agree with @thekrynoidman, that Rose was at her best in the first series, playing off the more acidic Ninth Doctor.
3 March 2014 at 03:53 #26046Well, that was a barn burner! Fullalove’s death was the moment where I had the thought, “Wow, this has gotten really dark.” But I was absolutely flattened by Roney’s death; I did not see that coming. 😥 I thought that the conversation in the pub, where Roney helped Quatermass remember himself by reminiscing about their fishing trip, was a lovely moment, really bringing the reality of their long friendship into view. Then, after Roney’s death, it took on a whole new meaning, so very sad. His friendship with Roney saved Quatermass, but he lost Roney anyway.
I found the use of the theme music fascinating. It jumped out at me when it appeared during the rioting and fleeing, as I was pretty sure that until that point, we had only heard it with the opening and closing credits. And then, the closing music this time was quite different, much more intense and doom-laden, and finally taking on an inspirational quality. Really great stuff.
The airplane scene was extremely eery, such a simple and effective way to show us the devastation that is going on. The pilot’s description of London from the air, darkened like during the Blitz, but punctuated by flames, perfectly showed us the scope of the disaster.
@bluesqueakpip wrote, about Morell’s acting: The first two shouts of ‘Roney’ when he expects to find him. The last two when he knows that he won’t. This of course, is the moment when we also know it. It was his tone more than any other evidence that showed me that Roney had really died. Brilliant.
@phaseshift Fascinating stuff from Nigel Kneale; thanks for including it (it’s a lot of typing!).
@blenkinsopthebrave Sorry to hear about your injury. You’ve can’t be too careful on those darned Canadian sidewalks in the wintertime!
3 March 2014 at 03:27 #26045@monochromedimension Love the sound effects! Good point about that original TARDIS sound, someone with a better memory than mine will have to tell us whether it was ever used again. The Dalek sound is great, so atmospheric. As a fan of the Big Finish audios, I can tell you that it really adds a lot to the audio landscape when you can only hear what’s going on; you know exactly where you are when it kicks in! And I frankly love the cloister bell, it just brings this great sense of doom with it. You know that something is really, really wrong when you hear that deep, echoing chime.
Regarding your reference to 17th century history, I should say that in our house, we’re very big on 17th century music (two people with music degrees and studies in music history makes for a very nerdy household!). I’ll have to find some to post for you on the music thread!
3 March 2014 at 03:22 #26044I responded to your post about the Doctor and Rose on the Next Doctor forum, but I realize that it probably should have been over here (don’t want the Topic Dalek after me!). But my response there led me to some further thoughts, on the ever-fascinating subject of regeneration. Ten, of course, frequently and obviously thought about Rose and missed her during his ongoing adventures. But after he regenerated, there is no evidence that he ever thought about her again, or if he did, that he thought about her in the same sorrowful way. New doctor, new rules, to paraphrase Eleven. And when Eleven finally regenerated, it was after seeing a vision of the companion whom he had not seen for a long, long time, but who was “the first face this face saw”. The Tenth Doctor, when he encountered Sarah Jane in School Reunion, was clearly delighted to see her; but he doesn’t appear to have thought about her at all throughout the long, intervening years after bidding her farewell in his fourth incarnation. It seems to support the idea, discussed here before, that regeneration is really a clean sweep in a way: that the sorrows and joys, triumphs and failures, will be, not forgotten, but washed out in a sense, like copying a photograph in watercolours. Yet another mechanism for staying sane over the course of such a long life.
3 March 2014 at 02:38 #26042@faegrl I should say that I have always experienced DW in a bit of a vacuum. I don’t have friends or family who watch the show, and only in the last year or so have I really followed things on forums (of course, there didn’t use to be forums to follow!). So it may well be that the entirety of North American fandom took that scene one way, and me another. 🙂
In my view, contrary to that of many fans, I do not believe that the Doctor was actually in love with Rose. I think he cared for her very deeply; but I never found it convincing that a millennium-old alien with the history and experience of the doctor would fall in love with any human. I absolutely believe that Rose was in love with him, for many obvious reasons; but I don’t believe that he loved her the same way. For one thing, how do we explain the fling with Reinette in The Girl in the Fireplace? For another, there is the awkward moment in The Impossible Planet, when Rose suggests that, trapped without the TARDIS, the Doctor will have to settle down. He jokes a bit about it, but when she suggests that they might settle down together, he gives her a very uncomfortable look, and she falls into an awkward silence. And of course, there is their final goodbye in Journey’s End, when he can’t say the words that she wants to hear: I love you.
I don’t expect everyone (or even most people) to agree with me on this, but that’s okay.
2 March 2014 at 17:34 #26033@confusedpolarity You’ve pretty much expressed my views on AG Series 1. Like you, I loved Dalek and the Empty Child two-parter, and also the Ninth Doctor’s BG-style regeneration. But Nine never really felt “doctorish” to me, either. Maybe Moffat felt the same way? I love @bluesqueakpip‘s suggestion that Day of the Doctor makes sense of Nine’s characterization. In a way, Nine feels more “not the Doctor” than the War Doctor does (I think it was Bluesqueakpip who mentioned Captain Grumpy’s very Doctor-like charm earlier). I like the idea that the big grins and sudden bursts of energy that didn’t feel quite right to us, were Nine’s attempts to act like the Doctor until he could become the Doctor. And then, as Bluesqueakpip says, he did. 🙂
2 March 2014 at 16:18 #26030@confusedpolarity I love the idea of dividing the Doctor into “batches”! One-Four, Five-Eight, Nine-Twelve (so far). I wouldn’t have thought of a division between Four and Five, but it’s true that Five’s era does have a different feel to it than most of Four’s. Okay, so my favourite “first batch” doctor is Four, my favourite from the second batch is Eight, and frankly, the jury is still out on batch three! I love both Ten and Eleven, but I’m not sure if either of them nailed it 100% for me. Maybe that will be Capaldi?
@faegrl I discovered DW as a young adult, and watched it at first with housemates, one of whom was a straight woman, the other a gay male. (Only you had to be reasonably old, because it didn’t come on until midnight or so!) So like you, I have never thought of it as intrinsically male. And really, Monty Python? Everyone watched that when I was young, it was gender proof!
Interestingly, after reading something about sexism in the tech fields, we asked our son (14) about the situation in his computer science class. Apparently the class does skew more to boys than girls, but as far as he is aware, the girls aren’t treated any differently. So maybe this science/tech=geek=male thing is beginning to change?
2 March 2014 at 16:01 #26029@faegrl I have to agree here with @purofilion, I always assumed that Mickey was meant in that little moment. It would have been the obvious thing to wonder, especially if, like the Doctor, the subtleties of human relationships elude you just a little. We know that Rose was never going back to Mickey, but would the Doctor have known that?
@Recky I loved Capaldi years ago in the Bill Forsyth film Local Hero, which was a big favourite of mine when it came out. He was absolutely charming, earnest, and very funny!
1 March 2014 at 20:07 #25963@monochromedimension Great look! 🙂 And yes, I see no reason why guys should have all the fun. I once went to a Halloween party in an overcoat, fedora, and long, long scarf. Well done!
1 March 2014 at 20:00 #25960@devilishrobby @bluesqueakpip I must confess that I never saw Sarah Jane’s relationship with the Doctor in that light. To me, they always seemed like great friends. She poked fun at him when he got pompous, and backed him up when he needed it. I never had an inkling of deeper feelings until the implication was made during her AG appearance, when she told Ten that, in effect, she had never married because of him. Her parting from the Fourth Doctor, frankly, was just not that fraught. She was reluctant to leave, and sorry to say goodbye, but was smiling within moments of his departure. (Nothing, I might add, like the trauma that Rose went through when she was forced from the Doctor’s side.)
Although it must be said, @bluesqueakpip, your closing line is brilliant.
1 March 2014 at 19:48 #25957@purofilion @monochromedimension I think that I, for one, would have had less problem with Martha’s infatuation if it hadn’t followed directly after the Doctor/Rose relationship, with which I had all kinds of problems; and even had I not, it felt a little annoying that yet another young woman had fallen for the Doctor (even after he made it clear to her from the outset that he was only interested in having a friend). That’s why Donna was such a refreshing, wonderful change for me; she really is my favourite AG companion.
1 March 2014 at 19:41 #25954@phaseshift For a Fourth Doctor suggestion, may I offer either Genesis of the Daleks or The Seeds of Doom? Both feature Sarah Jane, who would probably go over well; both are really excellent stories. Genesis of course has special interest because of Davros and the Daleks (also has Harry Sullivan), but I really love Seeds as well, it is an interesting, wide-ranging story with lots of excitement. My two cents (or Canadian loonie, as you see fit!)
1 March 2014 at 19:24 #25950@purofilion @monochromedimension @bluesqueakpip
My own view of Six was probably coloured by my experiences watching Five after having started the series during Four’s era. (That sentence looks goofy, sorry!) I took a long time to warm up to Five because he often felt colourless to me after Four’s distinctive, strong personality. Five did have charm, and was a very principled incarnation, but often felt a bit sober. He didn’t really start to shine for me until near the end of his run. When Six showed up, despite some rocky bits, I actually thought, “Here’s a Doctor with a bit of individuality.” I didn’t like everything about him, but on the whole, I enjoyed him, especially in situations where his righteous indignation could come to the fore. I’m not sure that Peri was the best personality match for him, either; they did tend to grate on one another. Certain of his stories were not successful, in my view, but I enjoyed many of them. And I will agree with Monochrome that, appalling as it was, the coat grew on me. It seemed a very visual expression of the Sixth Doctor’s personality!28 February 2014 at 17:21 #25875@bluesqueakpip I can’t tell you how much I enjoyed that video. Music aside, I was fascinated by the faces of the children in the audience… some of them looked a bit alarmed when the monsters showed up, but some looked rather keen (some of the boys watching the Cybermen, for instance). And of course they were all delighted to see Strax! A timely reminder, as we all get wound up about a new doctor and what we hope to see, of how big a part of DW the children really are.
28 February 2014 at 17:02 #25874@monochromedimension Its interesting to wonder what the Doctor was like on Gallifrey, we only saw his original personality for a few serials before he became a much more caring character.
I suspect that it wasn’t so much that the Doctor was uncaring as that he shared the bias of the Time Lords: that they consider themselves vastly superior to all other beings. Over and over, in the Gallifrey-based episodes, we learn that they hold non-Time Lords in very low esteem. The Doctor probably started out that way as well; we know how hard it can be for people to shake off the prejudices instilled during their upbringing.
Interesting theory about two and three! It’s true that they seemed to noticeably annoy one another, and a forced regeneration might account for some of that. Although, Six also viewed himself as a great improvement on Five. I think most of the incarnations tended to view their new selves with a certain amount of resignation (although that may have been merely a reaction to the physical appearance, rather than the character).
28 February 2014 at 16:56 #25873@whisht I do read Brain Pickings from time to time, great blog. Thanks for that article, I hadn’t seen it. I will have a leisurely read this weekend while you are winging your way to the land of rice noodles and pho. Enjoy!
28 February 2014 at 15:54 #25871@purofilion @whisht
Glad you liked Lau, they are a favourite of mine. They are Scottish and English musicians, based in Scotland I believe. I hadn’t heard “plastic paddy” before, ha. I wonder if there is an expression for New Worlders whose family hails from the region of Aberdeen? Lau came here once a few years ago to play in our summer folk festival, and I loved them at the first note. But they’ve never been back! I keep hoping…
I sympathize with Whisht regarding Leonard Cohen, I can never make up my mind whether I like him or not. Some songs I do really like, other times I find he just annoys me. And because he is Canadian, it’s considered (officially) very heretical not to be a worshipper. As you say, he’s quite obviously brilliant, but for me it depends on the song. I’m not as a rule a big existentialist, more of a “have a laugh and get on with life” sort.
Yes, Puro, I did work out how to link text, and it’s actually only a bit more complicated than embedding videos. It involves the little chain link graphic at the top of the text box. 🙂 Have fun in the air tomorrow, I’m sure it will be amazing! And Whisht, have a safe and wonderful time on your travels!
27 February 2014 at 20:20 #25845@monochromedimension It’s a very good point that all of the qualities that come and go in later doctors would have been a part of the First Doctor. It brings up the question of what personality actually is. Do we all have certain characteristics that, while dormant or mostly so in us now, might become stronger if we, like the Doctor, had the ability to regenerate? In a way, this does happen during the natural aging process. As I suggested in my earlier post, I am both the same person and a very different one now than I was as a teenager, or in my twenties, and so on and on.
And what if, for a Time Lord, personality was made up not only of what was seen in the first incarnation, but what was possible (and maybe only evidenced by what the person wished themselves to be?) The First Doctor, of course, had lived a long life on Gallifrey by the time we first met him, and we know very little about that life. On Gallifrey, there would have been no opportunity for him to become the rebellious adventurer that we would come to know and love. Perhaps the Doctor left Gallifrey because, in his hearts, he felt that he could be different– bolder, wiser, braver? Perhaps the very act of stealing a TARDIS and leaving Gallifrey was the first courageous step in a process that would allow him to become the Time Lord that he truly was inside.
I believe that with the First Doctor, we are seeing the Doctor at the beginning of his transformation. This is why we sometimes see behaviour that goes against what we expect from him based on our experience of later incarnations. He is not yet the hero that we have come to know. But he is on the way to being that hero. These are his earliest experiences with both the wonder and the evil of the universe outside Gallifrey. For the first time ever, he makes non-Gallifreyan friends. He meets true evil like the Daleks. And he begins to become the person that will leave such a mark on the cosmos that his removal from it would threaten our whole history.
(Funny, now that I think of it, that this caused no apparent problem in The Big Bang, when he rebooted the universe without himself in it? As we have speculated in other episodes, the Earth– among other places– would have been destroyed hundreds of times over if the Doctor had never existed. But I digress.)
I’ve speculated a bit elsewhere about what situations/causes might have led certain traits to become dominant in certain incarnations, but I’ve never really thought about where all those traits came from in the first place, and in the case of the First Doctor, where they were all hiding? Does experience really change us, or does it just bring different aspects of ourselves out from deep inside? The latter, I think. And I think that the Doctor’s earliest adventures allowed him to blossom, to become free of whatever restraints might have been over him from his formative years on Gallifrey. By the time of his (I agree, very poignant) regeneration, I think he was definitely ready to express the view of the line from the Bob Dylan song: “I was so much older then; I’m younger than that now.”
Essay over. Sorry it was so long. But I’ve never thought about some of this before, and it’s cool. 🙂
27 February 2014 at 19:13 #25843@monochromedimension They are indeed very different, and so we all have our favourite incarnations. What I meant was that when I think of the Doctor, I tend to see the commonalities as much as or more than the differences. So as @faegrl said, they seem to me more like part of the whole. More as I view myself: there are different aspects of me that have been stronger at different periods in my life. Only, for a thousand-year-old Time Lord who changes bodies, it is of course more complex.
As you say, regeneration is an odd thing. Isn’t it funny how much we all take it for granted… oh yes, well, the Doctor regenerates. No problem. Actually, meeting yourself from the past/future would be odd, even without regeneration to make it odder. I’m not sure how well I would deal with myself from 30 years ago, or if that self met present me. And then, throw in another me from 15 or so years down the road? Hard to say how we’d all get on, really. Then imagine hundreds of years and some face/personality changes along the way! 🙂
27 February 2014 at 18:55 #25842@fatmaninabox Now, that’s a fun birthday song! Has no one put that into a musical greeting card yet? And yes, that Imagine Dragons video is a little odd, isn’t it? I hadn’t thought about it, but of course the brainwashing would explain everything!
@purofilion Jumping out of a plane? Holy cr**! Are you mad? In case you haven’t figured it out from this OTT response, high places and falling hold such terrors for me that my stomach turns strange just thinking about it. But I wish you the joy of it, and maybe you will post us some music afterward that will convey the experience to the earthbound among us. 🙂
27 February 2014 at 18:46 #25841@purofilion Take This Waltz… that song is just so, so Leonard Cohen, isn’t it? It starts out all Kurt Weill and then suddenly becomes something vaguely country-blues, with the piano touches in the second verse. And the key set as low as he could possibly sing it, so that the gravel in his voice contrasts so magically with the women singing with him.
Here is something cooling, especially for you! 🙂
27 February 2014 at 18:19 #25838@thekrynoidman @whisht Re: the Dragonheart/Bean connection. You’re right! When the strings enter in the Bean music, they are playing exactly the same melody as the theme of the Dragonheart music. It’s even in the same key, so it really stands out. Even just before that, actually, the piano is sort of playing it as well. How funny. Because you’re right, for the first half minute or so, I was thinking, what are they on?
27 February 2014 at 18:15 #25837@purofilion Going way back here, to the other day, your remark about Perahia and the pedal. That is exactly the impression we had at the performance on the weekend, a lot more pedal than we have become used to in 18th or early 19th century repertoire. He’s actually much more a romantic than I am used to thinking of him. He was playing Bach and Beethoven in the first half, where it was quite noticeable as well. The second half was Schumann and Chopin, and it didn’t stand out for me in the same way on the later repertoire.
27 February 2014 at 18:00 #25836@faegrl @bluesqueakpip Agreed that arrogance is one of the Doctor’s definitive traits. There is perhaps a different quality to it in the post Time War Doctor(s), for the reason that there is nobody left who might potentially be his equal.
I also tend to share @faegrl‘s acceptance of the Doctor in any of his incarnations, in whatever direction they take. I may have my wish list, but in the end, it’s always the Doctor, isn’t it? I think perhaps that by seeing more of the incarnations in action, you do get a greater sense of the overarching characteristics that make him “The Doctor”. Some aspects change, some come more to the fore at times, some qualities are central often enough that we start to see them as constant, as “part of the whole”. @monochromedimension, I would say that the love of adventure, a certain anti-authoritarian streak, a tendency to mockery when under threat, and an underlying sense of justice, are reasonably constant.
(@Bluesqueakpip, I have been known in my non-forum life as a punctuation Dalek, commas and semicolons being my specialty!)
27 February 2014 at 17:51 #25835@faegrl The first Star Wars film came out when I was in high school, and I confess I absolutely adored it, and the following two. However. When the first of the new trilogy came out, I was so horrified that I never bothered with any of the others. Although for quite a while, I felt alone in my view (although not regarding Jar Jar Binks, whom even admirers of the new films mostly disliked!) I have been amused in recent times to realize that popular opinion has swung around to my point of view!
27 February 2014 at 06:58 #25810@whisht‘s birthday presents continued! The next one is by a long-time Quebecois favourite, La Bottine Souriante. It’s taken from a live album that they did a number of years ago. It always makes me bounce.
Finally, a foolishly cheerful song by the American band Imagine Dragons (isn’t that a great name?) I can’t stop myself singing whenever this one comes on.
27 February 2014 at 06:56 #25809Happy birthday, @whisht! I’ve been AWOL for a few days dealing with a sick son: I spent day one trying to get him well enough to get through some unavoidable (from his point of view) commitments, spent day two getting him through those commitments, and day three helping him recover. He looks to be on the mend, but it’s been a bit all-absorbing. So in that spirit, I will take a few minutes tonight to post your birthday links, the three songs I most want to hear right now, music to lift my spirits and calm me down!
Hope you enjoy them… and what a great idea for a birthday wish, by the way! I will definitely take time tomorrow to listen to everyone’s great offerings.
Here’s my first one, by the awesome British trio, Lau. This track is from their first CD– a certain amount of air fiddle happens whenever I listen to it! (This live version just makes me wish that they would please, please come back to Canada again!)
24 February 2014 at 17:30 #25725@ScoutTheAiredale Oh, I remember The Motels! And apparently, they are still around, how great. That takes me right back to my post-high school years, playing in pop bands and desperately hoping to actually make some money– hardly ever happened, thus leading to my next “desperately hoping” phase in the theatre. 🙂 But I do find music from the early eighties extremely evocative. I didn’t know the Burning Sensations, but that song has the same feel.
24 February 2014 at 17:21 #25724@faegrl I thought of you yesterday afternoon, as I was fortunate to enjoy a lovely piano recital of Murray Perahia. He played a lot of Chopin, among other things, including some etudes and a nocturne, and then did a Schubert impromptu as an encore. Since I love those Schubert pieces with a great love, I will post this for you and the others here who enjoy a bit of classical music! (Judging from this video, it is obviously a favourite encore piece of his!)
24 February 2014 at 17:09 #25723@ScoutTheAiredale – Hee hee. Of course, I know every Canadian ever. We Canucks have to stick together, you know! The funny thing is, that growing up, I was familiar with lots of Canadian artists but had no idea whether anyone outside Canada had ever heard of them! Of course, I would later learn that many of them were pretty famous in the big, wide world as well. I was always surprised. Nowadays, the opposite seems to be true. My son listens to music, downloads things he likes, and only later finds out, “Oh, is he Canadian? Cool!”
I’m familiar with Daniel Lanois in a general way, as his name comes up all the time, but don’t really know a lot of his work. That song is great, and you’re right, it would make a gorgeous choral arrangement, with or without actual drums. Hand drums might be cool, or vocalization of course.
24 February 2014 at 17:01 #25722Once again, I’m really enjoying this! I loved how when they showed the footage of the Wild Hunt, there was a complete lack of accompanying music or dialogue. I’m still very taken with the minimal use of music in these episodes.
I also like how the story was meant to portray actual, futuristic science. The mind-reading gizmo did look hilarious, but it was a technological gadget, rather than someone with second sight or psychic powers. And I like the biological and anthropological pieces of the puzzle as well. This is old school science fiction, speculative, but rooted in scientific and technological concepts.
23 February 2014 at 16:43 #25701@faegrl Yes of course, Philadelphia. That was a mistype on my part. I’m familiar with Philadelphia as my husband’s stepmother comes from there, although I’ve not been there myself. Yes, the eastern US is pretty highly populated from a Pacific Northwest point of view, where other than Seattle it’s a day’s journey to anywhere of size. Although it probably doesn’t seem especially confusing to our UK friends, with their bigger cities and shorter distances. (My son was absolutely floored when he realized how many Premier League football teams are based in London!)
22 February 2014 at 22:05 #25681@purofilion I get what you mean. Actually, we need a whole new set of keystrokes for writing about music. My MA thesis was the first big thing I ever did on a computer (I got through my undergrad with a typewriter), and boy was it a job figuring out how to express some things, that would have been no brainers with a piece of paper and a pencil!
22 February 2014 at 20:29 #25677Oops @craig and @jimthefish, I see I missed a post and Scotland did win. Excellent, well done. 🙂
22 February 2014 at 20:13 #25675@craig Just about two years ago, my family took a spring break trip to Rome. On arriving in the airport there, we couldn’t fail to notice a large group of men in kilts, collecting luggage and making its way through customs. For the next day or so, we kept seeing groups of them around the city, and I finally went on line to try and find out what might be going on. It was, of course, Six Nations Rugby, which the Scots sadly lost. Apparently they took the Wooden Spoon? (I know just about nothing about rugby!) Well, best of luck to Scotland, as it is one of my old world motherlands. 🙂
22 February 2014 at 20:10 #25673ScoutTheAiredale @purofilion Mexican Radio, great song! What confuses the ear at times is the shifting of the meter between duple and triple, so that the 8/8 is sometimes broken down 2x2x2x2 and sometimes 3x3x2.
And oh yes, you can’t have too much (too many?) Bare Naked Ladies. I’m not going to worry about how I’ve worded that, because there actually is no way you can express love for that band without it sounding just, well, bad. ☺ (My son, by the way, the singer and budding science geek, has been known to sing that song, as it’s his favourite show!)
22 February 2014 at 19:47 #25671@faegrl When you posted on the Sofa about moving from Pittsburgh to Minnesota and being surprised when strangers would talk to you, it reminded me of this song:
22 February 2014 at 19:06 #25667@faegrl @monochromedimension @scaryb
I attended my one and only DW convention back in the eighties. It was an eye opening event for me, as I previously had no idea that people costumed up for these events! The main guest was Colin Baker, and it was very shortly after he had been fired from DW. I remember him talking about this, and being impressed by how restrained he was. He didn’t pretend that he wasn’t angry with certain people at the BBC, and clearly felt that he hadn’t been treated fairly, but was obviously making a huge effort to focus on the positive aspects of his time with the show, and was very gracious to the fans.
FWIW, I don’t mind Sixie at all, although I’m not fond of his earliest episodes. I quite enjoyed some of the later ones, and Trial of a Time Lord is a bit of a guilty pleasure for me. Some bits are silly, but some of the guest roles are really memorable (especially in the first two serials), and I always enjoyed the Doctor letting the Time Lords have it!
22 February 2014 at 18:59 #25666@faegrl
Hee hee. Regarding these cold climates, I think it’s all supposed to be about “inner fibre”. I saw a graphic after the recent snow in Atlanta, showing the amount of snow that had to fall in different places before they would close public schools. It claimed that in the south, this amount was “any snow”, while in Canada and most of the northern USA, it would be two feet! I think that in Canada, our northern equivalent to Chicago would be Winnipeg, Manitoba, an absolutely lovely city with loads of culture and the nicest people. I was there in the summer, but I don’t think I could survive a winter there (it was famously colder than Mars around New Year!). I come from a milder clime, where anything below 0 (celsius) is considered cold. In Calgary, where I have family, they take their jackets off when it gets up to 0!However, having just come back from the weekly soccer match, played in falling snow this week (in case anyone is interested, the mighty Eagles downed their opponents 5-1), I am actually feeling fairly rugged. Although it will probably take the rest of the day to warm up. Tea, anyone?
@scaryb Re: Musical Doctors, the Eight Doctor knew Puccini– does that count? (Oh, Doctor, always the name-dropper!)
21 February 2014 at 16:32 #25592@faegrl Several years ago, our family made a road trip across Canada, and one of our stops was in Fort Frances, literally on the Ontario-Minnesota border. There was a massive fishing derby going on, and the little town was full of Minnesotans. We had a great time at the end of the day, watching them all bring their boats out of the river… these were people who had done this many times, it was well-oiled machine after well-oiled machine. Everyone seemed very nice!
21 February 2014 at 16:29 #25591@ScoutTheAiredale Yes, exactly like that! 😀
21 February 2014 at 16:25 #25589@ScoutTheAiredale Wow, some real talent went into putting that together. Very fun to watch. And I loved the chem teacher in the blue lab coat, rockin’ out with the bunsen burner!
21 February 2014 at 16:10 #25587@whisht @fatmaninabox 3:40 was where Philip Glass met the Trans-Siberian Orchestra. 🙂
21 February 2014 at 02:23 #25572@faegrl. I love the mazurkas. They are so quirky, full of interesting little surprises and unexpected rhythmic turns. I like playing that E minor prelude, too! It’s easy enough for me to be able to have some fun with expression (my piano technique, as I say, is not great, and I don’t have the reach for lots of big chords). We have a classic Rubinstein recording of the nocturnes that I really, really love. Here is one of my favourites.
21 February 2014 at 01:59 #25571@whisht @purofilion @ScoutTheAiredale The funny thing is, my sister and I grew up with a single mom and a certain amount of non-critical financial hardship, but the only thing I can really remember feeling embarrassed about was the very old car that my mother drove for awhile (a 20-year old Chevvy sedan, a classic now but a beater then) that our friends could always hear coming when we were given a ride anywhere. For some reason, that seemed a greater hardship than any lack of designer clothes or trips to Disneyland! ☺
And glad you enjoyed the harpsichord version, @ScoutTheAiredale. It’s not everyone’s cup of tea, but it’s the instrument I took at university, as it repaid my lack of technique much more generously than the piano! Also: Gould… Guaraldi… how could I have missed that? 😀
21 February 2014 at 01:46 #25570@ScoutTheAiredale OMG. You have just hijacked an entire thread with that video. I have completely forgotten everything I came on here to say. I don’t know which aspect I like best: the lyrics, the accent, the great, great topic, the video footage– it’s all brilliant! It actually makes me want to visit Cwmbran and experience its epicness for myself.
At one point, I was briefly reminded of a line from the Spirit of the West song I posted back on Robbie Burns Day, about the “Scots abroad”, where they sing about how good it has been in Canada: “We’ve all got central heating here, and most are on the phone.” Things to be grateful for, certainly!
21 February 2014 at 01:31 #25569@monochromedimension Doesn’t it just? I’m positive all of our style and beauty would be renowned throughout Time and Space with the power of the Hairdryer of Rassilon at our command!
@purofilion Yes, it’s tragically common in the arts, isn’t it? So many of the most gifted are terribly vulnerable, as DW’s “Vincent and the Doctor” demonstrated so beautifully and sadly. (There, a tie-in for the topic Daleks!)
20 February 2014 at 19:16 #25557@ScoutTheAiredale I can listen to Nigel Kennedy perfectly well so long as I don’t have to look at him: his ecstatically furrowed brow does irritate me! But a pleasure to hear. Not too sad at all, lovely and lyrical. I will ping you back with the harpsichord version of that same piece (Bach’s keyboard concertos were almost all transcriptions of other works). I don’t know who the harpsichordist is, unfortunately, but the ensemble is Musica Alta Ripa. I liked this best of the ones I found on YouTube. The 2nd movement starts at 3:43.
And in keeping with the Glenn Gould conversation, here it is again on piano! (2nd movement at 3:50.) I do love Bach so, you can perform his music in so many ways and still find the essential beauty of it.
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