clogs, kangaroos, penguins and the strangeness of foot...

please: if anyone else is destined for a little 'snuff' of the candle this week is there any chance it could all be over by Monday? Just so that we can mourn in our holidays. Have a little excuse for a drink. sorry Robin..) Not having to host or appear on talk shows in tears or bravery once September is back. We don't want to curtail creativity but..really it is all a little hard for a little bear to bear. And SHAME on you Robin Williams. YOU should still be making the jokes, not putting up with me treading water.

Anyone remember Lauren Bacall: brave bitch to have acceded to a Lars von Trier film;) And like Robin Williams, she never rested on laurels. The Forger looks interesting.

Australian composer Peter Sculthorpe popped off this week.
Two obits from Oz press.

Somewhere in one of my unopened ‘peripatetic’ boxes is an original CD of his Burke & Wills 1995 soundtrack that, stranger than fiction, was found from a ‘bootlegging’ street seller in an obscure Italian town on the Adriatic. Now how appropriate is that!

p.s. who knew 'Mumble' loved YouTube.... (though not its genuflecting attitude to copyright. But: Mumble will be very pleased with the royalties of his new Glob Warm, Bam Mam No Thanks Chum,We Loves Ice album released reluctantly by New Murdoch News Inc in 2020 and much to their chagrin earning more than... (well as Steve Sondheim once wisely wrote "don't finish that sentence")...Mumble is quoted as saying: "...sure beats having your ****__*** stolen at the American Bar in the Hamptons"

now...who stole my beans....?

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Very beautiful BBC 2014 Proms performance of Mahler’s 4th Symphony from conductor Bernard Haitink and the London Symphony Orchestra. What maestro Haitink (now 85) doesn’t know about conducting Gustav Mahler is probably not that important. (as the BBC Prom link has expired, I'm sure Maestro Haitink wouldn't mind me handing the baton to the late great Claudio Abbado (28min in - before and after is equally !!!). The slow movement of Mahler’s 5^th Symphony (the Death in Venice soundtrack) is very familiar yet in so many ways the 3^rd movement of the 4^th Symphony is even more soulful and scary. It’s as if a church from a Lyonel Feininger painting is manifested on a teetering clifftop and all the animals bow their heads joining forces out of hiding to pay respects to the dead creature amongst them under the clear blue sky. That’s until…

The BBC's Mahler page