The Pink Panther 2

a film by Harald Zwart

Honestly, I did not expect much from The Pink Panther 2. I only watched it because Yuri borrowed the DVD from the library — and I am glad he did. It’s a good old-fashioned slapstick comedy, in (many) parts very silly, with refreshingly little violence. Inspector Clouseau is easily the best Steve Martin’s role in years.

Duxford concert and Milton gig

At the annual Members Concert yesterday, Timur played The Moon Walk on the recorder, with Junior Music Club I. Yuri performed Pink Floyd’s Brain Damage with Intermediate Guitars and Inishere with Beginner Violins. And yours truly, as one half of Beginner Trombones, did the most embarrassing rendition of Colonel Bogey March (I think I hit less than half of the notes), to the rapturous applause of the audience. Still, I feel relieved about the whole thing.

This weekend Arco Iris played astounding four gigs! The gig today was to support Cambridge Oxfam Walk at Milton Country Park. We played two 30-minute sets. The sun was shining, the Oxfam people were dancing — and we’ve been even treated to free tea and ice cream!

Festive Minor

by Gerry Mulligan

I learned couple of further LilyPond tricks:

1. To group staves, just place << >> around the staves:
   

   << \new Staff { music A } \new Staff { music B } >>

2. To print chord names over the notes, add \chords { chords } to the score. The chord symbols, like notes and rests, have to include durations. For instance, aes1 in the example below corresponds to A♭ that lasts as long as semibreve. The chord names can be further modified in the following way: f1:m = Fm, ees1:7 = E♭⁷, c1:9- = C^7/♭9 and so on.
3. What to do if a chord lasts longer than one bar but you want to show it only when the chord changes? Use \set chordChanges = ##t.

I chose Festive Minor as an example. The theme starts as a wonderful call-and-response of two instruments. It is written in F minor (I suppose the pun was intended) but of course you always can transpose it. Note that each staff is a self-sufficient bit of music, which can be modified (e.g. transposed) independently.

% **************************************************************** % Festive Minor (Gerry Mulligan) % **************************************************************** \version "2.12.3" \score { << \chords { \set chordChanges = ##t r4. | f1:m bes1:m f1:m bes1:m f1:m bes1:m ees1:7 aes1 ees1:7 c1:9- f1:m f1:m g1:7 g1:7 c1:9- c1:9- g1:7 bes2:m6 c2:7 f1:m bes2:m6 c2:7 f1:m f1:m } \new Staff { \key f \minor \partial 4. c''4 aes'8 | \repeat volta 2 { f'2 r8 f''4 des''8 bes'2 r8 c''4 aes'8 f'2 r8 f''4 des''8 bes'2 \times 2/3 { r8 b'8 c''8 } \times 2/3 { des''8 c''8 aes'8 } f'2 r8 f''4 c''8 ees''8. des''16 c''8. des''16( des''8.) a'16 bes'8. ees''16( ees''2.)( ees''8) des''8 des''8. c''16 r4 r8 aes'8 \times 2/3 { aes'8 bes'8 c''8 } des''2 bes'4. aes'8 g'2 e'8. g'16 bes'8. des''16 c''8. aes'16 bes'8. c''16 r2 r2 f'8. g'16 aes'8. c''16 } \alternative { { b'1( b'8.) d''16 f''8. g''16 aes''8. aes''16 g''8. f''16 g''8. e''16 r4 r4 e''8 des''8( des''4) r4 r8 c''4 aes'8 } { b'2 f'4. b'8 bes'8 f'8 aes'8 bes'8 ces''8 bes'8 aes'8 f'8( f'2.) r8 b'8 bes'8 f'8 aes'8 bes'8 \times 2/3 { b'8 bes'8 aes'8 } f'8 f'8( f'4) r4 r2 r1 } } } \new Staff { \key f \minor \partial 4. r4 r8 | \repeat volta 2 { r8 c''4 aes'8 f'4 r4 r8 f''4 des''8 bes'4 r4 r8 c''4 aes'8 f'4 r4 r8 f''4 des''8 bes'4 r4 \times 2/3 { r8 b'8 c''8 } \times 2/3 { des''8 c''8 aes'8 } f'4 r4 r8 f'4 c'8 ees'8 des'8 bes8 g8( g2.)( g8) bes8 bes8. aes16 r4 r8 c''8 \times 2/3 { c''8 des''8 ees''8 } f''2 des''4. c''8 bes'2 g'8. bes'16 des''8. e''16 ees''8. c''16 des''8. ees''16 r8 c'8 ees'16 aes'16 d'8( d'1) } \alternative { { r2 des'4. f'8 \times 2/3 { d'8 ees'8 f'8 } b4 r2 r4 \times 2/3 { aes'8 g'8 f'8 } \times 2/3 { e'8 des'8 c'8 } r4 \times 2/3 { des'8 c'8 bes8 } \times 2/3 { g8 f8 e8 } r2 } { r1 r2 r4 f'8 ees'8( ees'2) d'2 des'2 c'4. c'8( c'4) r4 r2 r1 } } } >> }

And here’s the result:

Wishbone Ash @ The Junction

Two words: Wishbone Ash.

Although only Andy Powell remains of the original line-up, the band sounds as if they all were jamming together since 1970s. That’s The Quality. You can’t get classic British prog-rock more classic than that. Incidentally, of the four rockers, my favourite musician tonight was a Finn, Muddy Manninen.

The Opposite House

by Helen Oyeyemi

You know what, if you want to talk about your original country, if you want to be serious about it, fine. But you don’t need to pretend that you love the place. People need to stop using love of some country that they don’t live in as an excuse for their inability to shut up about it.

Honestly, I wanted to like this book, I did. I went as far as actually finishing it. And was it worth it? No. Reading should be a pleasure, not a struggle. Sometimes I had to re-read a page two or three times to extract some minimum of sense. The worst bits are those about “somewherehouse”: pretentious writing reminiscent of Salman Rushdie but without an interesting (or, rather, any) story to tell.

And it is a shame. Her writing betrays Oyeyemi to be a very talented author. It would be great if she cared about her readers too.

L’amore in città

a film by Michelangelo Antonioni, Federico Fellini, Alberto Lattuada, Carlo Lizzani, Francesco Maselli, Dino Risi and Cesare Zavattini

Of six short films that comprise L’amore in città, the obvious winner is Un’ agenzia matrimoniale. The dream-like search of the marriage agency in a huge house (only children appear to know where it is) and the scene with the former police officer who works in the agency are classic Fellini. The final segment, Gli Italiani si voltano by Alberto Lattuada, is a hilarious observation of, well, Italian men who stare at beautiful Italian women. It gets a bit creepy toward the end. There are some charming moments in Paradiso per 3 ore by Dino Risi and Zavattini’s Storia di Caterina but, all in all, this movie did not age well.

Welsh Encontro 2010

Yes! We did it to Welsh Encontro 2010 in Cardiff — and back. Arco Iris played two slots, on Sunday in front of Kemi’s Café Bar and on Monday near Techniquest. I think today’s busk was better, maybe because of sun, maybe because, just after it, we had a jam with Samba York. On the contrary, the mass busk (“Sambadrome”) at 2 pm today was a bit of an anti-climax: it looked (and sounded) like too many people had quite enough of samba and just wanted to go home.