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shadowkatRIP Stephen Sondheim...apparently the lyricist and composer died today at the age of 91, they were mourning his death on Twitter. Sondheim is best known for the musicals West Side Story, Into the Woods, Sweeny Todd, Company, Sunday in the Park with George, and A Little Night Music. He also was the inspiration behind the music in Buffy episode Once More With Feeling.
Rainy, gloomy day, and I've gotten nothing much done. Except fending off anxieties, and eating more pumpkin pie than I should. It's gone now, so that's no longer an issue at least. It was a small pie.
Also watched the first episode of The Wheel of Time - hopefully it gets better as we go, because I kept dozing off during it. Compelling its not. Also the major fight scene takes place at night, and its hard to see what is happening, or care. And the lead character is played by that cool actress from Gone Girl, which I'm not certain is the best choice? I've not read the books, so I wouldn't know.
And episode 2 of Peter Jackson's Beatles Documentary "Get Back". Apparently this was co-produced by the remaining members of the Beatles, and the family members of those who died, such as both Yoko Ono and Scean Ono Lennon, and the Eastmens and Harrisons. They worked with Peter Jackson in editing the footage and providing background information on what happened.
It drags in places - because basically there are sections in which all we're doing is watching musicians jerk around in a recording studio trying to figure out a bunch of songs, and punch them into shape. They do get rolling after a bit - and jump from song to song, riff to riff, some of which aren't even songs they are planning on doing. So we're basically watching a jam rehearsal session - not the most entertaining thing on the planet.
But there are some rewarding sections in there, and we do get to hear fully fleshed out numbers. The Beatles are aware they are being filmed, and almost used to it. They kind of make fun of it. With Lennon and Ringo mugging at the camera. Lennon keeps stating - "And tonight your host will be The Rolling Stones," then giggles. I have no idea what this inside joke refers to - but he obviously finds it hilarious.
The second episode picks up where the first one left off - George left, and they don't know when he's coming back. Paul and Ringo show up the next morning, along with the producers, but John doesn't. At one point, it looks like the band and the entire project is falling apart, and Paul is struggling with how to deal with it. He talks about how John is pulled more towards Yoko right now, and they aren't collaborating as much any longer. And that it isn't Yoko's fault, John just wants to be with her all the time, and he shouldn't tell him not to be. Apparently at the meeting that fateful Sunday, which hadn't gone well at all, Yoko spoke for John, then they left. Linda and Michael (the doc film producer in 1969) discuss how they both want to see the Beatles perform, but it doesn't look likely.
John does show up at lunch time. Paul and John go to the cafeteria to have a "private" conversation, but unbeknowest to either - the film producers put a hidden microphone in the flowerpot at their table. So it wasn't private. (Oh, how I'd love to be a fly on the wall when they found out.)
The conversation is basically John reaming Paul for being the Boss, and trying to control everything, although he does take some of the responsibility for it. And admits to helping Paul shut down George's ideas.
And how, for this to work - Paul is going to have to let go of the control.
John: "You're afraid of letting us to do it our way, because it won't sound the way you want it to sound...and in the past, we didn't get a say in many of your arrangements and were afraid to say anything, because we didn't want it to be bad."
Paul: But you've always been the boss. I've been a secondary boss.
John: Not Always.
Paul: No, Always. Look, Listen (John tries to talk over him) Listen, I think the problem is we're each going our own way. George want to go his own way, you want to go yours, and I want go mine...and it's not working.
John: We should be able to do it our way though, and not have to compromise on our songs. We need to be able to play it as we want, and have a say.
Paul: Look at some point when we're old, we'll get together, play again, and be happy.
Paul states earlier that they need to reach a compromise of sorts, and he's going to have to compromise first, because the others aren't going to.
After that, they meet with George again, and come up with compromise. It's simple - leave Twickerham Studios, move to EMI or their new Apple recording studio in London, scrap the television show - and just do a live concert and album, also turn the documentary into a film. This sounds like a neat compromise - but the EMI studio's sound system isn't working, and they have to fix it - which takes a few days setting them back further in their schedule. Also, turning a documentary which is filmed on 16 mm television stock as opposed to 35 mm film stock isn't really going to work. And the Primrose Hill Concert location falls through. It's too late to schedule another venue.
Everyone but Paul is okay with all of this. Paul is upset because he's not getting the payoff. As he puts it, "we're just recording yet another album in a studio."
George wouldn't mind performing on stage with an audience, just not television with all the cameras and the work entailed. John also doesn't mind the audience so much, but is kind of ambivalent. (John clearly would like to just go off with Yoko and experiment with his own stuff.) But everyone but Paul is happy just recording another album. The pressure is off, and they can just riff. George is grinning throughout. And for the first few days at the London studio, Paul is rather subdued and doesn't say much. George even states at one point - that he prefers spontaneous performances, not being overly planned, and loose recording schedules. Recording at their own place, not at Twickerham under all that pressure has loosened him up, he can actually play now. I don't think Ringo cared either way. But John and George both prefer the recording studio.
To appease Paul, whose understandably upset about everything falling through, the producers come up with alternative plan. Maybe they can do a
rooftop concert - this idea cheers Paul up considerably. But first they have to figure out if they equipment is okay for the roof and not too heavy. They are planning on having it on the roof of their own building, as an impromptu style concert. The other concern is noise ordinances. Ringo suggests doing another roof - but that could result in the cops kicking them off the roof. If it's their own - that's less likely to happen. It's not easy to get up on the roof, they have to climb up on it via fire escape.
Watching this explained a lot about the Beatles - and why they have a thicker and wider song-book than a lot of bands during that time period who toured constantly. Part of it is more freedom to experiment, they were doing it in recording studios. Also a lot of their songs have complex arrangements - a product of a recording studio. And when you tour - you tend to have set group of songs the audience wants to hear constantly, and a few new songs filtered in. If you aren't touring at all - and creating everything in recording studios - you are more likely to write more new songs and experiment more. The Beatles didn't cater to their audience that much if at all. They wrote what they wanted to sing and perform, and what worked for them. One the issues I have with a lot of live music - is it is repetitive. I get bored. The Beatles weren't repetitive and jumped around.
The other things it explained was why they broke up. McCartney liked touring, he liked performing in front of a live audience, doing the touring Band thing. He was bored of doing the recording studios. That's apparent here. But everyone else preferred the recording studio. They could come in whenever they wanted to, still have a life outside of it. It was a 9-5 job at times. Looser scheduling deadlines. Paul liked having a set schedule, a pre-determined set of songs, and organization. George didn't want any organization at all, and wanted things to be looser more spontaneous. And John, honestly, was siding with George. He saw what Paul was doing as work and he didn't want to work any longer.
The reason they broke up really had to do with the clash of George, Paul and John's conflicting desires, and performance styles. Ringo didn't matter as much. They pull in Billy Preston for the piano - because John and George decide they need a full time piano player, which Paul goes along with. George had brought up using him earlier, but Paul discounted him as being a jazz pianist, this round, he goes along with it.
The sheer talent of these musicians is on display here- they jump almost seamlessly from instrument to instrument. Changing how they play the instruments to fit the song. Turned a piano into a hokey player piano stye by putting newspaper between the chords, and John picked his guitar like a ukele or dolcimar. They also hear the fluctuations in vocalizations, and instruments. How certain lyrics are singable and others aren't, what makes sense, what doesn't, how the lyrics fit with the composition. The only weak link appears to be Ringo. George, John and Paul are the main collaborators, although I'd say it is mainly John and Paul, which may explain why George got annoyed. To be fair, John and Paul recognize this and work hard to remedy it.
As an aside, I never realized until I watched this and saw them play around with "Get Back" constantly, that GET BACK has a verse about a transgender man. This was in 1969. They have some odd lyrics. It was supposed to be a protest song about the UK's anti-immigrant policies.
Overall, I found it fascinating and do recommend, but it does drag at times.
***
Per mother...
Mother: Your niece has the week off from school, because her school is on strike. I don't know why they are on strike but..
Me: The London School of Economics?
Mother: Yes, I've no clue why. So she's decided to go to Sicily with a friend.
Me: Sicily??
Mother: It's in Italy.
Me: Yes, I know but why Sicily?
Mother: I asked the same thing, wondered if her friend was from there...but she's from Chicago.
Me: Okay.
Mother: I think they were hunting some place warm with sunshine. Plus there were really cheap flights. But my concern is - what if the strike ends early and they are stuck in Sicily?
Well, Wales got stuck in Dallas.
ME: Did you make it home safely?
Wales: No, I'm stuck in Dallas, the one state I swore never to enter again.
Me: Oh dear. Hope it works out. (Later) Did you ever make it?
Wales: Yes, I got in at 1 AM on Thanksgiving, but hey, I'm here.
Also...GH FanBoard Likes to Give Out Superlatives or Thank You Awards. (I was hoping they'd bypass me this year...that maybe saying less on the board and jumping to Twitter this month would enable them to forget I exist? No such luck. They gave Mother an award.)
GH FB: "We have a member who isn't on Facebook but we have to acknowledge her - it's shadowkat's mom - they discuss the show and shadowkat chimes in on her mom's opinion and tells her about the spoilers and our group. We are glad to have her as an honorary member."
So I tell my mother this.
Me: You remember that GH Fan Board that I'm on with the spoilers? Well it gives out awards to members every year (I laugh) and this year -
Mother: You got an award!
ME: No, you did.
Mother: What? I did???
Me: Yup, they made you an honorary member. I really need to talk less on these boards about things. They don't think you are on FB - which of course you are, you just don't the fan boards.
Mother: Oh how sweet of them. That's very thoughtful.
Me: Yup. I thanked them. I wanted to laugh, but I decided not to let them know I thought it was hilarious.
Soap Twitter doesn't think much of Soap FB, it calls it Granny FB. The two media platform's main participants hate each other. It's hilarious.
Soap Twitter was all-a-twitter by some poor random person's comment about a NY Times article on actors leaving a soap because they aren't vaccinated. The nitwit made the following tweet:
Wait, we still have daytime soap operas?? Who knew? I read books, newspapers and don't watch TV. Why is this in the NY Times?
That's fighting words. You don't post that on social media without people coming at you from all corners of the globe. Also over 10 million people of all genders, races, creeds, ages, etc worldwide watch daytime soaps, and have been doing so since they popped up on radio in the 1950s. Do not generalize about people.
Then she got all huffy when Soap Twitter ratioed her ass. Worse, she pulled the victimized race card. And told people to watch "Queen Sugar" (so apparently she does watch soapy television shows? She's just annoyed people aren't watching her shows.) And, in response to someone telling her that she should watch soaps before bashing them, she posts..."Wait, I forgot, black women aren't allowed to ask questions." Be nice if you didn't ask dumb questions, you're studying for your PH.d, you should know better.
I restrained myself from tweeting - honey, we didn't know you were a black woman until you pulled that card. Also being black doesn't mean you can ask idiotic questions on the internet and not get reamed for it like everyone else. You don't get a "get out Twitter jail free card" based solely on your race. And how do you know the person commenting isn't a Person of Color? I can't tell. They are Canadian with a picture of cute puppy dog.
Anyhow...mind is a blank...so leaving with...random picture of the evening.
Rainy, gloomy day, and I've gotten nothing much done. Except fending off anxieties, and eating more pumpkin pie than I should. It's gone now, so that's no longer an issue at least. It was a small pie.
Also watched the first episode of The Wheel of Time - hopefully it gets better as we go, because I kept dozing off during it. Compelling its not. Also the major fight scene takes place at night, and its hard to see what is happening, or care. And the lead character is played by that cool actress from Gone Girl, which I'm not certain is the best choice? I've not read the books, so I wouldn't know.
And episode 2 of Peter Jackson's Beatles Documentary "Get Back". Apparently this was co-produced by the remaining members of the Beatles, and the family members of those who died, such as both Yoko Ono and Scean Ono Lennon, and the Eastmens and Harrisons. They worked with Peter Jackson in editing the footage and providing background information on what happened.
It drags in places - because basically there are sections in which all we're doing is watching musicians jerk around in a recording studio trying to figure out a bunch of songs, and punch them into shape. They do get rolling after a bit - and jump from song to song, riff to riff, some of which aren't even songs they are planning on doing. So we're basically watching a jam rehearsal session - not the most entertaining thing on the planet.
But there are some rewarding sections in there, and we do get to hear fully fleshed out numbers. The Beatles are aware they are being filmed, and almost used to it. They kind of make fun of it. With Lennon and Ringo mugging at the camera. Lennon keeps stating - "And tonight your host will be The Rolling Stones," then giggles. I have no idea what this inside joke refers to - but he obviously finds it hilarious.
The second episode picks up where the first one left off - George left, and they don't know when he's coming back. Paul and Ringo show up the next morning, along with the producers, but John doesn't. At one point, it looks like the band and the entire project is falling apart, and Paul is struggling with how to deal with it. He talks about how John is pulled more towards Yoko right now, and they aren't collaborating as much any longer. And that it isn't Yoko's fault, John just wants to be with her all the time, and he shouldn't tell him not to be. Apparently at the meeting that fateful Sunday, which hadn't gone well at all, Yoko spoke for John, then they left. Linda and Michael (the doc film producer in 1969) discuss how they both want to see the Beatles perform, but it doesn't look likely.
John does show up at lunch time. Paul and John go to the cafeteria to have a "private" conversation, but unbeknowest to either - the film producers put a hidden microphone in the flowerpot at their table. So it wasn't private. (Oh, how I'd love to be a fly on the wall when they found out.)
The conversation is basically John reaming Paul for being the Boss, and trying to control everything, although he does take some of the responsibility for it. And admits to helping Paul shut down George's ideas.
And how, for this to work - Paul is going to have to let go of the control.
John: "You're afraid of letting us to do it our way, because it won't sound the way you want it to sound...and in the past, we didn't get a say in many of your arrangements and were afraid to say anything, because we didn't want it to be bad."
Paul: But you've always been the boss. I've been a secondary boss.
John: Not Always.
Paul: No, Always. Look, Listen (John tries to talk over him) Listen, I think the problem is we're each going our own way. George want to go his own way, you want to go yours, and I want go mine...and it's not working.
John: We should be able to do it our way though, and not have to compromise on our songs. We need to be able to play it as we want, and have a say.
Paul: Look at some point when we're old, we'll get together, play again, and be happy.
Paul states earlier that they need to reach a compromise of sorts, and he's going to have to compromise first, because the others aren't going to.
After that, they meet with George again, and come up with compromise. It's simple - leave Twickerham Studios, move to EMI or their new Apple recording studio in London, scrap the television show - and just do a live concert and album, also turn the documentary into a film. This sounds like a neat compromise - but the EMI studio's sound system isn't working, and they have to fix it - which takes a few days setting them back further in their schedule. Also, turning a documentary which is filmed on 16 mm television stock as opposed to 35 mm film stock isn't really going to work. And the Primrose Hill Concert location falls through. It's too late to schedule another venue.
Everyone but Paul is okay with all of this. Paul is upset because he's not getting the payoff. As he puts it, "we're just recording yet another album in a studio."
George wouldn't mind performing on stage with an audience, just not television with all the cameras and the work entailed. John also doesn't mind the audience so much, but is kind of ambivalent. (John clearly would like to just go off with Yoko and experiment with his own stuff.) But everyone but Paul is happy just recording another album. The pressure is off, and they can just riff. George is grinning throughout. And for the first few days at the London studio, Paul is rather subdued and doesn't say much. George even states at one point - that he prefers spontaneous performances, not being overly planned, and loose recording schedules. Recording at their own place, not at Twickerham under all that pressure has loosened him up, he can actually play now. I don't think Ringo cared either way. But John and George both prefer the recording studio.
To appease Paul, whose understandably upset about everything falling through, the producers come up with alternative plan. Maybe they can do a
rooftop concert - this idea cheers Paul up considerably. But first they have to figure out if they equipment is okay for the roof and not too heavy. They are planning on having it on the roof of their own building, as an impromptu style concert. The other concern is noise ordinances. Ringo suggests doing another roof - but that could result in the cops kicking them off the roof. If it's their own - that's less likely to happen. It's not easy to get up on the roof, they have to climb up on it via fire escape.
Watching this explained a lot about the Beatles - and why they have a thicker and wider song-book than a lot of bands during that time period who toured constantly. Part of it is more freedom to experiment, they were doing it in recording studios. Also a lot of their songs have complex arrangements - a product of a recording studio. And when you tour - you tend to have set group of songs the audience wants to hear constantly, and a few new songs filtered in. If you aren't touring at all - and creating everything in recording studios - you are more likely to write more new songs and experiment more. The Beatles didn't cater to their audience that much if at all. They wrote what they wanted to sing and perform, and what worked for them. One the issues I have with a lot of live music - is it is repetitive. I get bored. The Beatles weren't repetitive and jumped around.
The other things it explained was why they broke up. McCartney liked touring, he liked performing in front of a live audience, doing the touring Band thing. He was bored of doing the recording studios. That's apparent here. But everyone else preferred the recording studio. They could come in whenever they wanted to, still have a life outside of it. It was a 9-5 job at times. Looser scheduling deadlines. Paul liked having a set schedule, a pre-determined set of songs, and organization. George didn't want any organization at all, and wanted things to be looser more spontaneous. And John, honestly, was siding with George. He saw what Paul was doing as work and he didn't want to work any longer.
The reason they broke up really had to do with the clash of George, Paul and John's conflicting desires, and performance styles. Ringo didn't matter as much. They pull in Billy Preston for the piano - because John and George decide they need a full time piano player, which Paul goes along with. George had brought up using him earlier, but Paul discounted him as being a jazz pianist, this round, he goes along with it.
The sheer talent of these musicians is on display here- they jump almost seamlessly from instrument to instrument. Changing how they play the instruments to fit the song. Turned a piano into a hokey player piano stye by putting newspaper between the chords, and John picked his guitar like a ukele or dolcimar. They also hear the fluctuations in vocalizations, and instruments. How certain lyrics are singable and others aren't, what makes sense, what doesn't, how the lyrics fit with the composition. The only weak link appears to be Ringo. George, John and Paul are the main collaborators, although I'd say it is mainly John and Paul, which may explain why George got annoyed. To be fair, John and Paul recognize this and work hard to remedy it.
As an aside, I never realized until I watched this and saw them play around with "Get Back" constantly, that GET BACK has a verse about a transgender man. This was in 1969. They have some odd lyrics. It was supposed to be a protest song about the UK's anti-immigrant policies.
Overall, I found it fascinating and do recommend, but it does drag at times.
***
Per mother...
Mother: Your niece has the week off from school, because her school is on strike. I don't know why they are on strike but..
Me: The London School of Economics?
Mother: Yes, I've no clue why. So she's decided to go to Sicily with a friend.
Me: Sicily??
Mother: It's in Italy.
Me: Yes, I know but why Sicily?
Mother: I asked the same thing, wondered if her friend was from there...but she's from Chicago.
Me: Okay.
Mother: I think they were hunting some place warm with sunshine. Plus there were really cheap flights. But my concern is - what if the strike ends early and they are stuck in Sicily?
Well, Wales got stuck in Dallas.
ME: Did you make it home safely?
Wales: No, I'm stuck in Dallas, the one state I swore never to enter again.
Me: Oh dear. Hope it works out. (Later) Did you ever make it?
Wales: Yes, I got in at 1 AM on Thanksgiving, but hey, I'm here.
Also...GH FanBoard Likes to Give Out Superlatives or Thank You Awards. (I was hoping they'd bypass me this year...that maybe saying less on the board and jumping to Twitter this month would enable them to forget I exist? No such luck. They gave Mother an award.)
GH FB: "We have a member who isn't on Facebook but we have to acknowledge her - it's shadowkat's mom - they discuss the show and shadowkat chimes in on her mom's opinion and tells her about the spoilers and our group. We are glad to have her as an honorary member."
So I tell my mother this.
Me: You remember that GH Fan Board that I'm on with the spoilers? Well it gives out awards to members every year (I laugh) and this year -
Mother: You got an award!
ME: No, you did.
Mother: What? I did???
Me: Yup, they made you an honorary member. I really need to talk less on these boards about things. They don't think you are on FB - which of course you are, you just don't the fan boards.
Mother: Oh how sweet of them. That's very thoughtful.
Me: Yup. I thanked them. I wanted to laugh, but I decided not to let them know I thought it was hilarious.
Soap Twitter doesn't think much of Soap FB, it calls it Granny FB. The two media platform's main participants hate each other. It's hilarious.
Soap Twitter was all-a-twitter by some poor random person's comment about a NY Times article on actors leaving a soap because they aren't vaccinated. The nitwit made the following tweet:
Wait, we still have daytime soap operas?? Who knew? I read books, newspapers and don't watch TV. Why is this in the NY Times?
That's fighting words. You don't post that on social media without people coming at you from all corners of the globe. Also over 10 million people of all genders, races, creeds, ages, etc worldwide watch daytime soaps, and have been doing so since they popped up on radio in the 1950s. Do not generalize about people.
Then she got all huffy when Soap Twitter ratioed her ass. Worse, she pulled the victimized race card. And told people to watch "Queen Sugar" (so apparently she does watch soapy television shows? She's just annoyed people aren't watching her shows.) And, in response to someone telling her that she should watch soaps before bashing them, she posts..."Wait, I forgot, black women aren't allowed to ask questions." Be nice if you didn't ask dumb questions, you're studying for your PH.d, you should know better.
I restrained myself from tweeting - honey, we didn't know you were a black woman until you pulled that card. Also being black doesn't mean you can ask idiotic questions on the internet and not get reamed for it like everyone else. You don't get a "get out Twitter jail free card" based solely on your race. And how do you know the person commenting isn't a Person of Color? I can't tell. They are Canadian with a picture of cute puppy dog.
Anyhow...mind is a blank...so leaving with...random picture of the evening.
no subject
Date: 2021-11-27 06:30 am (UTC)And yay for your mom getting an award! Cool! :-)
no subject
Date: 2021-11-27 02:25 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-11-27 11:08 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-11-27 11:41 pm (UTC)Thank you for the commentary on the Beatles documentary, you make a lot of sense, especially about Paul, John, Yoko, and George. They indeed sound like good people, just not all going in the same direction.
no subject
Date: 2021-11-28 07:52 pm (UTC)I may try a second episode though, it could just be the first episode...
no subject
Date: 2021-11-28 08:16 pm (UTC)Your welcome. The Beatles documentary was kind of eye-opening in some respects. (I hadn't seen the Let it Be documentary which was the previous one done with some of the footage by Michael Lindsey-Hoog who is shown in the Jackson Get Back version. But from the commentary that selenak provides in her journal - I think this version is the most accurate.)
no subject
Date: 2021-11-28 11:18 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-11-29 01:24 am (UTC)People depend on their pensions, they don't often have any other savings.