Good Morning

Shop Cat

I was in town today before i caught the bus to Sheerness. I walked past Hatton Hall,the record,movie and musical instrument shop,and their shop was outside ,not taking much of shoppers walking past, until i stroked him.He gave me that indignant look of being disturbed from slumber.

The Friday Five

For the last Friday of August, let's take a look back on the Summer(or Winter for the other side of the world) that Went Way Too Fast (at least to my way of thinking).

1. So, how was your summer/winter?

2. Did you get everything accomplished that you wanted to?

3. What would have made it better?

4. What would you have like to be able to do over?

5. Was it hot/cold enough for you?

Autumnal Feeling

I was in a rather lacklustre mood this morning , and did not feel like going out.Then i mustered myself to have that shower, finish off another coffee and a smoke, and then i felt more attuned to the day ahead. I guess i'm not the only one to get this slouch groove malaise,but after hitting the town and stroking the aforementioned cat in the previous post , i was ready to haul myself over the island to do a travel agent visit.

The weather , whilst dry, felt a lot cooler and now it does feel autumnal. The nights are drawing in,and there is a very different air recently. Seems that summer has gone by way too quickly.

So, what have i got planned for this bank holiday weekend.More visits,including the deferred chocolate shop visit over at Westwood Cross,and a charity shop visit in Folkestone, as well as a few more supermarket visits in Chatham and Kings Hill. It will be a fun filled weekend.

What are your plans?

Poems Of The Week

I have not done any poem posts for quite awhile. My bad. Nothing inspired untill now.

Fair Weather
by Dorothy Parker

This level reach of blue is not my sea;
Here are sweet waters, pretty in the sun,
Whose quiet ripples meet obediently
A marked and measured line, one after one.
This is no sea of mine. that humbly laves
Untroubled sands, spread glittering and warm.
I have a need of wilder, crueler waves;
They sicken of the calm, who knew the storm.

So let a love beat over me again,
Loosing its million desperate breakers wide;
Sudden and terrible to rise and wane;
Roaring the heavens apart; a reckless tide
That casts upon the heart, as it recedes,
Splinters and spars and dripping, salty weeds.


Weather Report
by Bernard Shaw


Today it's raining cats and dogs,
Tomorrow it might be raining frogs.
If I should drink some syrup of figs,
perhaps tomorrow it will rain some pigs.
Last week we had lots and lots of snow,
My snow-mans joined the Navy you know.
Soon it will be time for April showers,
Will this help to paint the flowers.
Now I'll put on my sou'-wester,
And catch a boat that's going to Chester.
I might even make a telephone call,
To ask the sun to shine on us all.
A man I know wants to hire a boat,
Will this help him to keep afloat.
One of these days very very soon,
I'll catch a bus that's going to the moon.
In Burma I'm told they get monsoons,
They eat curried rice with wooden spoons.
There was also a man in China town,
That built his house upside down.
Now this poem is not a weather report,
And if it rains tomorrow, It's not my fault.

Gloria Coates

One composer that i feel should be known better for her output is Gloria Coates. I have a couple of CD's by her on the excellent and cheap Naxos record label that features one of her string quartet and symphonic works. (Thanks to the best music mag for bringing her to my attention - Wire of course.)

Her music features canonic structures and prominent, sometimes exclusive, glissandos, being "characterized by extremely strict, even rigid technical procedures (canonic structures), which are often worked out with unusual musical materials (glissandi)". Her music is postminimalist, marked by the tension "not only between material and technique (...an attempt to give structure to chaos), but even more so between what would have to be termed 'sober-technical' compositional principles and the genuine direct expressive power and emotionality of the music".

As one interview describes:
For Gloria Coates, artistic expression is a spiritual necessity. She has great interest and significant participation in painting, architecture, theater, poetry, and singing—but it is through composing that she taps into a wellspring of abstracted emotionality that the others cannot reach. Whatever the veiled expressions of her work may be, there is an undoubted emotional richness present, which if not concretely knowable is at least viscerally felt by the audience. Canons constructed of quartertones and glissandos evoke gloomy instability, but also unearthly beauty.



Gloria Coates (*1938) - String Quartet No.7 ''Angels'

Gloria Coates, String Quartet no.5 (1/3)

Gloria Coates: Symphony No.15, "Homage to Mozart"

1. Iridescenses
2. Puzzle Canon
3. What Are Stars?

Radio Symphonie Orchester Wien diretta da Michael Boder.

Good Night