wouldn't you think my collections complete....

Andrew listening to the 2016 Proms- a cold tent in ....???? (He's looking 'happy' - trust me!)

The BBC Proms were upon us. 1st Night: The BBC Symphony Orchestra conducted by Sakari Oramo. Sol Gabetta played Elgar's Cello Concerto as if a Japanese garden! Exquisite lines. Sad dark shallow pools...

Listening to the Haitink Proms Mahler 3rd: Andrew's looking sad...ummmm....well...sad/happy the yin/yang dingiddy/dong ting....somewhere in the Catskills me thinks....

Roger Norrington's there somewhere: alive today thanks to an NYC doctor. So there's swings and roundabouts!

When yous figure it all out let me know!....GADZOOKS! It's a cat thing. Or maybe raccoon...there is something every night trying to steal my toes!  Listen up!  Not that I ever wish to promote misanthropic elf-induldulgent films about writers or, or , or indeed CATS! Who -the latter- have but no choice to love and sleep and love and eat and sleep and ...sleep and eat alone with their memories.......

Funny story about Betty Buckley and her Cats debut: she was struggling to find the CAT in her. And then she walked out into the streets of New York. A homeless woman. There was Grizabella; in all her gorgeous dignity. Sounds all like a cliche. As with every single cliche, though, there is the resilience of truth.

I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each. 

Maybe: they are finally singing to me...

Amy Winehouse

Is this a twee bit weirdly morbid posting a tribute/obit to Amy Winehouse 5 years on? Well what the heck. Ms Winehouse did something very silly ending in her death- probably totally unpremeditated (she was to be attending one of her best friends wedding the following day).

Always the support has been there for Amy when all around there seemed to be a sea of ridicule when she happened to ‘fell’. I’ve had some very interesting conversations in NY-totally happenstance- about the Oscar winning documentary. What I would agree upon is that it would have been so much greater if interviews were attainable with both police and paparazzi. As with life, there are many reprehensible individuals but there are also humans just doing their job (with a conscience), moreover a tiny few doing their job trying to change things with far more than just a conscience: people who cared about Amy as a human being.

I often wondered (and indeed Amy seemed healthier and somewhat happier in the United States) whether if she’d moved (or at least spent more of her life in America) whether she’d have lived longer. Lived happier. Even had a baby Winehouse;) ! Even another musical incarnation! America’s weird irony is that it can indeed be soul destroying; equally if not more so, be soul giving if you are that talented.

This song link may seem sentimental tosh to some (and is indeed often ‘trotted out’ by award show orchestras when they don’t know what else to play;). But it is a beautiful poignant song sung here by the great Tony Bennett-a wondrous gentleman talent- who loved Amy’s contribution to the world of music far beyond death.

………..

I could’ve bought a Steinway grand and a recording studio. Nothing wrong with that. Would that have made me any more creative? Not, I think. Riffing here: I totally admire Marvin Hamlisch but the guy who wrote Kiss Today Goodbye (A Chorus Line) in C major is the same guy who wrote The Way We Were in A major. A lot of great songs have been written in C major. Twinkle Twinkle Little Star You’d think C maj had run out of possibilities. Well, maybe. But put some great lyrics with that key and you’d never really know the difference. Funny story: Burt Bacharach had French composer Darius Milhaud as a teacher. Milhaud told him: Never be ashamed of something that's melodic, one could whistle. The great great Adagio of Mahler’s 9th Symphony is in D major. Of course he totally screws with the tonality but you can do so too in C major. Of course, Herr Mahler screwed with everything. That’s why we still adore him.

Weird shit: you start out by writing about Amy Winehouse and Tony Bennett and and and one one way ends up in interstellar Mahlerian travel! Holy sweet smellin’ mackerel!  Or is that/this just an ‘Andrew’ thing. I don’t flatter myself that much…

My out of tune Young Chang piano (totally my fault neglected it for 3 winters and summers- minus 10 degrees to 96 degrees)- just goes to show how resilient and good a piano it is;) !!

Abbado (Mahler)

Andrew......

no comparison Nintendoed....:

July 14 2016- Nice, France

Charles Aznavour chante What Makes a Man

Antidote for Night

There’s the moon, in the high window, her wall-eye
glancing off me, and a few bobbing stars,
every tawdry shining thing

I’ve identified Venus more times
than I can count as an agent for insomnia,
a broad sail that catches the wind and slides away.

Not even halfway through the hours,
his fitful sleep, wheeze of a saber saw,
waves receding on a rocky shore,

breath whip-snaking down a chute, until his body
forgets—how still, how close the kingdom,
one stalled-gulp away,

and I jostle his dying shoulder—he recoils, yes,
rebels, back now, mouth full of silver,
What? he moans to darkness, what?

(Jalaluddin Muhammad Rumi) (1207-1273)

Love: The Joy That Wounds: The Love Poems of Rumi

I won't iron his shirts...nor...no...tomorrow,,,....

Prime Minister David Cameron is no more. (Well he is ever more because he will be sitting there in the Houses of Parliament) watching you! He knows more than most of you will ever know. So: if that is not worth knowing…

Britain could have done a lot LOT worse than Cameron. Come on! Did Labour do any better? Did Cameron do any worse? I’m on an island here posting from America the Great (that really has ever less protein than the Brits: hello Independence Day….:)) So what the ‘fff’ do I know!

Prime Minister David Cameron was a decent fellow. He may, indeed, not be your fellow or indeed mine. But: living in NYC I find it hard to find ‘fellows’ anywhere unless they want money, promotement, shoulder rubbing for free….

There’ no free ‘back rub’ nowadays/anymore for free!

There was a Brit phrase ‘common decency’! I wrote/quoted/reported David’s ‘pitch’ to the Conservative Party way back when: not that I was…anything…! Or anything. But impressed! Such an uninterrupted 45min speech (no notes all from memory) demanded attention. To be a world leader one needs foremost to command! You could be the greatest Maynard Keynes 100times over but without the leader ‘bling’! !!!  And of course ‘bling’ means nothing everywhere. Alas, always, somewhere. A little sparkle often can go a very long way. Excess can be blinding: akin the frog in boiling water not knowing it should escape.

The United Kingdom grows in the stature of one’s mind in absence. In a sense it is total ‘bs’!  What has that ‘union’ ever done for Scotland, Ireland, Wales….

And yet: when you live in America you realize the world is not that much different. Let alone the U.K. None of us agree with the ‘puppetry’. But do we want another Mussolini? !!! Clearly not. He was democratically elected! Yet! You want democracy…? !

50% (Ballroom)
Jimmy's Hall (Ken Loach)

You and I......

ME. YOU. I. THEY. US. THEM. THE...
You know what is ffffffrustating interesting about America is how unnnnfnn-interested they are in the recent Brexit vote. Americans still think of Europe as somewhat of a Louis XVI Disney movie. No offence. I/we love Louis and Dizy!

It took Andrew almost 3 fff years to get his UK citizenship. No queue jumping. All legit. By that time he was totally beleaguered and couldn't apply for any jobs in Europe. Full circle. Now. I don't know what else to say about all that. Funny/horrid/despicable. Life. That perhaps the same would/world now.

When I wrote for The European in the ‘90’s I received nil expenses: slept on floors, trains. ..Rarely, very rarely slept on or against any humans ! They trusted me and one hopes the trust was reciprocated.

Crossed the Berlin Wall to watch Die Volksbühne perform Bulgakov‘s The Master and Margarita (and gave my friends tickets to a so-called sold out Communist house. Favors must be…I …should have just given the tickets to the desperate East German thesps who begged me for a ticket. Fool me…

Where is all this going? Well, we all (well maybe not quite…) want to be part of THAT world. Is it now a bigger world? Did/does/ doesn’t now make a bigger world for the U.K..? Like the United Nations. The European Union is a fantastic idea that came to fruition. But did it ever offer, in reality, that much to anyone. Significantly. Especially the U.K. ? Occasionally. The facts speak for themselves. I ain't sittin' on a fence here. I totally applaud Cameron's bravely in screwing his colours to a sticking place...Yet: was the idea – as great as it is/was greater than the sum of its parts?

Prime Minister David Cameron was very brave to leave a/that decision to democracy. VERY! Wasn’t it a famous Brit PM who spoke a great spake re: democrats….! Democracy..the worse of....
President Obama almost got not elected! Perhaps that will be true for…..

Feel sad that with all the technology possible in one human hand the world has not yet got bigger but significantly decreased in stature! All the great photographs that could be but yet never are. Walter Benjamin. Umberto Eco. Please don't rise from heaven or the grave to be both disappointed and conformed in your brave distopia...

time has told me...

Judging from the ecstatic reviews/commentary on Olivia Chaney‘s website I am way way behind in discovering this folk singer/songwriter/Purcell/Nick Drake lover’s talents. But as she admits/opines about her career, she wasn’t ever exactly ‘zeitgeist’. She performs at the London Festival of Baroque Music on Sunday.

Architect Zaha Hadid is dead

I just read that Zaha is no more. Well: she will ever be more because that was who she was/is. Enough was never a word attached to her work ethic. I often joked (well it was no joke) that I would love a Zaha bungalow at the bottom of my garden. A little out of my price range, alas. As should be any great talent who has fought so hard and become a name on the world stage of their craft. Sorry to 'float' a conspiracy theory but she did die of a 'normal' heart attack in Miami didn't she? I can well imagine that for some many people a long long respite in the netherworld would make them....
sorry for that- but you know why I wrote it. (Anyone ever seen The Parallax View- great movie [and of course a total work of fiction,,,,,////,,,,,,,/,,......)......./.....)

I used to be an architecture 'cat' roaming the 'buzz' of the Architectural Association in London. I know the 90s buzz became a bit of a 'purr' in the new millennium but Zaha Hadid's ghost forever roamed the windmills and corridors of those students' minds. And will mine as well...

لتكن القوة معك 

we are talking architecture NSA- not something any of you know anything about. (Well- one or 2 of you know structural engineering- but you pale into insignificance compared to Zaha's intel...) - well she's gone now. Good night and good luck. 

Both Sides Now (originally was linking to Shadows and Light but there's something quite 'personal' about the former song that is probably somehow in a very unusual way more apt for Dame Zaha Hadid).

Zaha Hadid. The Peak Project, Kowloon, Hong Kong, China, Exterior perspective.1991. Medium: Synthetic polymer on paper mounted on canvas (©2016 Zaha Hadid) 

Maggie's Centre Fife