Saturday, November 11, 2006

Mug Mug Shots (A Purely Technical Question)

This doesn't bear--at least directly--on the bare reality of mimesis, the implications of interdividuality, or the role of the Church as salt and light in the midst of a disintegrating cultural epistemontology, but how did you two get your mug mug shots into your profile?

6 comments:

David Nybakke said...

Porthos,

If Athos has not yet provided you with the instructions, I hope that I can be of assistence to you. In the blog, double click on Porthos the mug and copy the address line. Then go into Edit Profile and under the Photograph and URL paste the address. Make sure to save the edit.

I believe the address for your mug is: http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/3739/4180/1600/Porthos%20mug.1.jpg

You are going to have to fill me in on some of your favorites Porthos. I have so little and sheltered music exposure and I would like to broaden that with more, not acid rock, but classical, Baroque and others that you listed. But aahhhh that Herbie Hancock...Watermelon Man and Chameleon from the Head Hunters album, yeah. Boy, that brings back the memories of getting one with the chair.

Clearing my throat, I try to stay clear of those places today.

Aramis

Porthos said...

Good Aramis, I have succeeded! All 4 1 & 1 4 all! I thank thee!

Yes, the Head Hunter's album represents a kind of, erm, formative period for me, too, one that I'd rather not dwell on, BUT "Tell Me a Bedtime Story" is from a different, sort of interim period in Herbie's career. I looked long and hard just to find this song, and finally did, on a double CD collection of the Herbie Hancock sextet called Mwandishi. I must say, the CD itself (though pretty darn expensive!) isn't worth much--a lot of drawn out musical pomposity. I do not recommend that CD at all. But "Tell Me a Bedtime Story" is a beautiful track--poignant, evocative, urban, emphasis on horns--and represents a period just before a slight funk element in jazz became "fusion" (Head Hunters, etc.).

Music is such a matter of taste. People either like Mahler or they don't. In my view, nobody writes music for huge orchestra (and sometimes with huge chorus) better than Mahler, but some people just think it sounds like movie music, and they're not entirely wrong.

I'm thinking of editing out "Acid Rock" because maybe Jimi Hendrix covers it, but there is a beautry to some of that music.

Eric Dolphy was a genius and is under-appreciated, a master of every kind of saxaphone and untouchable on flute--nobody even comes close on flute. But not everyone's cup of tea.

Here he is on You Tube (ignore visuals). Check out flute solo 3:00 minutes in. Oliver Nelson's "Stolen Moments":

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2vFKLML-TN8

David Nybakke said...

Dear Porthos,

You are looking soooo good, like one of us now.

David Nybakke said...

Dear Porthos,

Love Birdland of Weather Report's Heavy Weather. But time is so much more precious today where I feel that I need to be sooo much more selective. In years past I over-stimulated my system/body/mind and soul that now I really do try to bring into it only those things that will brighten and heal.

Not that jazz, blues and a good dose of rock aren't enjoyable, but anymore the only time I have to listen to music I need it to be soothing as in chants, instrumental that focus on a religious theme, etc.

Porthos said...

Still there, Aramis? I'm pretty much in the same place. A lot of the stuff I listed I haven't heard in years. New acquisitions (relatively few and far between) are considered according to how good they would be as background music to devotions. I'm leaning hard toward Renaissance plainsong in that department. One thing I've noticed (with some suprise), though, listening to classical music radio in the car, is that a fair number of Romantic period composers go well with prayer.

Porthos said...

Weather Report . . . it was their first album that I really, really liked. I think it was just called . . . Weather Report. It was more accoustic, less "virtuoso" oriented, less "look how multi-ethnic WE are," and more just sort of like probing, avante garde (sp?) crossover stuff that had not lost the tonal center. Haven't heard that album in ages, though . . . Also, Ornette Coleman, _The Shape of Jazz to Come_ (not very prophetic, as it turns out) free jazz before free jazz meant total cacaphony. There's a song on the first WR album called "Orange Lady" that I really liked, and a song on Ornette Coleman's called "Lonely Woman" that I really liked. Are we seeing a pattern here?