Saturday, November 25, 2006

Love

I bought Love the day it came out, and it's very interesting. Some of the mash-ups are great--for example, the melody/vocal track of Within You Without You backed by the rhythm/drums of Tomorrow Never Knows. Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds is backed with something I don't quite recognize yet, but it sounds great, too. Also, the demo vocal of While My Guitar Gently Weeps (which appeared in the Anthology) with additional orchestration by George Martin.

I thought the idea was preposterous when I heard about it about a month ago. Then I heard the four tracks available online (Octopus's Garden, While My Guitar Gently Weeps, Lady Madonna, and Strawberry Fields Forever) and the Drive My Car/The Word/What You're Doing mash-up.

Love is all I've been listening to since the day it came out.

I bought the regular CD, because I have only "above average" speakers, but for those with "home entertainment system speakers," I would buy the special two-disk set with DVD audio. From everything I've read, the Dolby 5.1 mix is AMAZING! Which all argues for a complete re-mastering of the whole Beatles catalog by EMI. (The Beatles catalog was originally mastered for CD in 1987 and 1988, with some re-mastering done for the new versions of Yellow Submarine, Let It Be...Naked, 1, and the American albums boxed sets.) It's sorely needed, and lets hope George Martin stays alive long enough to do it!

Saturday, November 11, 2006

Veterans' Day

Dulce Et Decorum Est

Wilfred Owen (1893 - 1918)

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of tired, outstripped Five-Nines that dropped behind.

Gas! Gas! Quick, boys!-An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling
And flound'ring like a man in fire or lime...
Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light,
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.

In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,-
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.

Tuesday, November 07, 2006

Who Will Be the First Adminstration Official to Be Subpoenaed?

Monday, November 06, 2006

Vote Against Evil

Vote Democratic