musicians – Late to the Theater

While My Face Gently Leaks…

Still buried under personal projects, I am also sick this week. Yay me. In lieu of real content, please have:

This beautiful song from Kubo and the Two Strings, “While My Guitar Gently Weeps.” Written by George Harrison, there are many versions of this song, including one with Tom Petty and Prince, but this one includes the shamisen and other Japanese instruments.

Some Texts From Superheroes. These ALWAYS make me laugh and are a great way to lose an afternoon. If you have even a passing knowledge of the Marvel and DC movies, you’ll be able to keep up.

Check back next week for A Stop-Motion Celebration! Have a great weekend!

Brief Post on the Oscar Wilde-Janelle Monae Connection

Perhaps other people have already identified the meaning behind this hat tip and I just missed it. Googling has found nothing about it, and so maybe it’s just my imagination, but I’d like to think that the hat tip is referencing another famous hat tip.

Because I am scum, I have still not written the Eddie Murphy post. I just can’t seem to get it together to work on it, and put the appropriate amount of energy and fun into it. But I shall persevere! Probably next week, as this week is going to be busy between work deadlines and writing stuff.

In the meantime, I would like to throw this out there. I am SURE someone has already talked about the connection between Oscar Wilde and Janelle Monae, but in case not…

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“Somebody Take My Picture…”

Rather than leave things on a low note, I’d rather get things started. Let’s not let that elevator break us down.

This will be brief – there’s nothing I can write that someone else hasn’t already written, and far more eloquently.

MIAMI GARDENS, FL – FEBRUARY 04: Musician Prince performs during the “Pepsi Halftime Show” at Super Bowl XLI between the Indianapolis Colts and the Chicago Bears on February 4, 2007 at Dolphin Stadium in Miami Gardens, Florida. (Photo by Doug Pensinger/Getty Images)

Deadspin has posted the entire 2007 Superbowl Halftime show, in which His Royal Badness says “Somebody take my picture with all this rain.” During a driving Miami rainstorm, he didn’t miss a beat. He displayed his legendary professionalism and dedication to performance and hit every note, brought everything to the table and held nothing back. My heart swelled when everyone ran out onto the field, and then again when that giant sheet went up.

He was a legend, one of the titans of modern pop music.

Rather than leave things on a low note, I’d rather get things started. Let’s not let that elevator break us down.

“We Will Speak in Music.” – 1994’s Immortal Beloved

I’ll be honest – Immortal Beloved is a fierce, intense movie. And like anything powerful, it is worth the experience. It is one of the best illustrations of the artist’s interior struggle, and the ultimate tragedy for for some of the most brilliant minds: That people love who you are, or what you do, but rarely both.

Most people are familiar with Milos Forman’s powerful work Amadeus, which explored the friendship and eventual rivalry of Antonio Salieri and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Boatloads of awards, fantastic setpieces, amazing costumes and performances, and fame in the form of pop culture references are all associated with this movie. And while I love Amadeus, and love to pop it in now and then it is not my favorite biopic of a Classical musician.

That honor belongs to 1994’s Immortal Beloved.

It’s become de rigueur for award-winning biopics to explore the difficult, tumultuous lives and mental states of artists, and Immortal Beloved is one of the great examples of this. (Honestly, it’s more shocking to find a biopic about an artist who isn’t batshit crazy and emotionally abusive. For a fun experiment, watch the biopic Dark Star on H.R. Giger and have your mind blown by now normal and pleasant he is. He has a healthy long-term relationship! His friends hang out at his house all the time! This from the man who gave us the Birth Machine!) But I digress. We were speaking of Beethoven.

First, some background.

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Stay Tuned!

I’m still writing every night, and also watching things now that I have internet again. I’m really enjoying Archer, and Sunday was a huge marathon of streaming. I worked my way through:

So far, I’ve dropped about 1200 words on Immortal Beloved. After a few more edits, I’ll be posting that one tomorrow morning. Stay tuned!

In also exciting news, I dropped off my violin bow to be restrung. I’ve been meaning to do it for a while, and after watching a movie with so much emphasis on music and performance, I realized how much I missed playing my violin. I played in Middle and High school (7 years), took private lessons on weekends and even played in a youth symphony, which culminated in a performance onstage at the Kravis Center. I’ll do a bigger write-up later on that.

Upcoming posts:

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