Tuesday, June 30, 2009

Science and Music, No Let Up

Just minutes ago, I watched PBS' Nova Musical Minds, where neurologist Oliver Sacks explores how the brain deals with music. Turns out that Sacks' brain seems to have the same relative emotional reaction to Bach that I must have -- we both greatly prefer Bach to Beethoven, and in his case, he can measure or map the difference with an MRI, a FMRI (functional magnetic resonance image) to be more precise. Watch it online and check out the online extras!

By the way, I have my old and dear friend Ann to thank for bringing Oliver Sacks to my attention quite some time ago. His Musicophilia book is on my Amazon wish list, just waiting for me to get after it. Ann also highly recommends Sack's The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat: And Other Clinical Tales.

And in my final sidebar, you should know that Ann -- Ann Nietzke -- is a wonderful and highly acclaimed writer herself, about whom I will try to have much more to say before long.

UPDATE 13 JULY 2009: Today I was surprised to find a package on my doorstep containing a copy of Oliver Sacks' Musicophila sent to me by dear niece Gabrielle! You can guess how I will spend the evening ...

Saturday, June 27, 2009

Science Talks Music and Vice Versa

One of the best things we have seen this summer on TV was PBS' special this past week, The Music Instinct: Science and Song. It paired up Bobby McFerrin (who captured Ivi's imagination at the Idaho Jazz Festival earlier this year) and scientist Daniel Levitin in an exploration of what the heck sound and music are really all about. Lots of great performances, or at least snippets thereof, by McFerrin himself as well as Daniel Barenboim, Yo Yo Ma and lots more. Watch interviews and other chunks at the site linked above.

Tuesday, June 23, 2009

The Death of Kodachrome

Kodak will no longer produce Kodachrome, once its flagship film offering. Many of us grew up with Kodachrome. Paul Simon famously sung about it. While I mostly shot black-and-white Tri-X in my film days, I can feel the sense of loss that is being expressed in many reports around the Web -- like this one -- and other media. I will try to update this entry by making a search to post the earliest Kodachrome image I can find in my personal slide archives.

Monday, June 15, 2009

Olivier Laban-Mattei


Friend and fellow photographer John just helped me discover a great photojournalist in AFP's prize-winning Olivier Laban-Mattei of France. See a sample of his work at http://portfolios.afp.com/photographer/olivier-laban-mattei.html. Also, his images from Iran following the recent election are appearing almost everywhere, including here.

Saturday, June 13, 2009

D-Day, Another View

This week we commemorated the 65th anniversary of D-Day in Europe. Most of us are familiar with the Omaha Beach landing photographs of Robert Capa, regarded as perhaps the greatest war photographer of the era. One of my very favorite blogs, DesignObserver, has unearthed some rare documentation from that time by a soldier-artist named Manuel Bromberg. Go there and see more and read the fascinating back story.

Thursday, June 11, 2009

Besting Hemingway


Friend John sends along a link -- passed to him, I gather, by a participant in the photo shoot -- of Felice Arenas' portraits, coupled with appropo Ernest Hemingway quotes, that try to go beyond Hemingway's challenge of avoiding big words to convey emotion.

Tuesday, June 9, 2009

Coming Your Way: Neil Young

Just happened to notice that PBS TV's American Masters is doing an hour of Neil Young tomorrow night, featuring performances from his personal archive. Neil Young is probably the musician Kim and I most share as emblematic of our 60s-70s-and-beyond experience, and we will NOT miss this one. Warm up your Tivos for this one. In the meantime, see some perhaps rare 70s live footage of this Canadian gift to the world at http://www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/episodes/neil-young/video-live-at-massey-hall-1971/1156/.

UPDATE 10 JUNE 2009: Disappointment. While some of the live interviews were a value-add and I enjoyed seeing old footage and hearing some of the old music, there was only one hour to cover Neil Young's expansive career, and whole chunks of it were never even mentioned. You could get the feeling that the production ran short of budget somewhere along the line and just tried to patch together whatever they had up to that point. One of the less masterful American Masters productions, imho; an artist of Young's caliber deserved better. Yet, if you are interested in his music, you will want to watch.

Thursday, June 4, 2009

Rumi and Barks

Last night I chanced to see a nice piece on Afghan poet Rumi and translator-poet Coleman Barks while watching the evening news on PBS' Newshour:

Wang Dang Doodle

Koko Taylor and her big, big voice passed on this week. Here she is in 1967, doing her signature piece, "Wang Dang Doodle".