Everybody Knows (1988) – Leonard Cohen

Posted on January 11, 2022 by observationblogger — 4 Comments
Leonard Cohen in Venice 1988

This song is for those who like to maintain appearances and feel secure that their secrets remain in the closet. I think this song poetically is one of Leonard’s finest and sung below by his good friend Rufus Wainwright which just wreaks havoc on the superficial premise above that many of us hold to be true. It’s transformational how it undoes what we think about ourselves in the bigger picture and how we think others understand us.
I always found it ironically liberating to listen to.

And everybody knows that you’re in trouble
Everybody knows what you’ve been through
From the bloody cross on top of Calvary
To the beach of Malibu
Everybody knows it’s coming apart
Take one last look at this Sacred Heart
Before it blows
And everybody knows

Everybody Knows is the second song to appear from Cohen’s 1988 studio album I’m Your Man. It has often been covered like many of his songs and used in soundtracks. Cohen doesn’t waste any time with tact or restraint, setting the tone for the song- “Everybody knows that the dice are loaded/Everybody rolls with their fingers crossed/Everybody knows that the war is over/Everybody knows the good guys lost.”

I think personally this song resonates so well with me because I wanted to believe that I was a private person and could maintain that. But we are social creatures and it took effort and caused me stress to maintain my facade and you end up understanding that people and society know you better than you think including many of your secrets. This song taught me, well ‘Everybody Knows‘ and who cares?

Below is Rufus Wainwright’s version of Everybody Knows at the Leonard Cohen Tribute concert for the I’m Your Man 2005 Music-Documentary. It remains one of my family’s favourite performances.

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3/1/22 – 9/01/22 Deadliness of COVID, 100 Best Songs 2021 & My Girlfriend

Posted on January 10, 2022 by observationblogger — 8 Comments

news on the march

Welcome to Monday’s News on the March – The week that was in my digital world.

How Deadly is COVID? – Jay Bhattacharrya and Lex Fridmen
Video at Lex Clips

Jay Bhattacharya is a professor of medicine at Stanford University and co-author of the Great Barrington Declaration.

From 11:00 minutes gets to the crux of it..….(Watch entire video excerpt here)

Top 100 Songs of 2021
Article at Eclectic Music Lover

I was telling Max at Badfinger Powerpop Blog how I was missing out on the new music coming through and he vouched Eclectic Music Lover’s blog to get the latest.

‘Time seems to fly by at an increasingly faster clip as I get older, and it’s hard to believe we’re now at the end of the second year of the third decade of the 21st Century. That means it’s time for my annual year-end list of my Top 100 favorite songs. As a music blogger, I’m exposed to a tremendous amount of music. In addition to all the artists and bands I already follow, I often receive 5-10 submissions a day from artists, PR reps and labels for possible reviews, so I listen to a lot of albums, EPs and singles from a lot of artists and bands over the course of a year….’ (Read the list here)

My Girlfriend and My Life – Intellectual Shaman
Article at Intellectual Shaman

‘She told me, ‘A woman needs to smell you – You Must have a seductive scent’.

She gassed me with one perfume, after another, like an intoxicating toxin that would linger for hours, like a loitering prostitute.

“What’s wrong?” She asked.

“Nothing.”

“You’re tearing up. It’s okay for a man to express his feelings. What’s going on? It’s toxic to keep emotions bottled up.”

“We should keep them in the bottle. A man needs to keep himself, to himself.”

“That leads to suicide.”

“Suicide is okay—then he can die with honor. Take that away, and he’s got nothing.”

She screamed, and cried, and pounded my chest with her fists. “It’s not okay to say that!”

“There, there—I didn’t mean to say anything.”

“But you did—and it hurt me!”

“I’m sorry.”…..(Read entire article here)

news on the march the end

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Posted in Health, Music, News, Reading, Reflections

Every Grain of Sand (1981) – Bob Dylan

Posted on January 8, 2022 by observationblogger — 19 Comments

I familiarised myself with Every Grain of Sand after hearing it on 1991’s The Bootleg Series Volumes 1–3 (Rare & Unreleased) 1961–1991 (version below) featuring Jennifer Warnes on backing vocal. I was in complete awe of it when I first heard it and I still am to this day. It evokes allusions to Jesus, Judaism, Faith and Spirituality. The commercial, but weaker version (in my opinion) was released on Dylan’s Christian record Shot of Love. Every Grain of Sand by Bob Dylan contains some of the best lyrics I have heard in any song;

In the time of my confession, in the hour of my deepest need
When the pool of tears beneath my feet flood every newborn seed
There’s a dying voice within me reaching out somewhere
Toiling in the danger and in the morals of despair

Don’t have the inclination to look back on any mistake
Like Cain, I behold this chain of events that I must break
In the fury of the moment, I can see the master’s hand
In every leaf that trembles, in every grain of sand

The song was well known for its haunting imagery, which has been compared to that of William Blake. Although it is filled with numerous Biblical references, it may also have been partly inspired by the following lines from William Blake’s Auguries of Innocence:

To see a world in a grain of sand
And a heaven in a wild flower,
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand
And eternity in an hour.

“Every Grain of Sand” is “perhaps his most sublime work to date“, wrote Clinton Heylin, “the summation of a number of attempts to express what the promise of redemption meant to him personally“.
This is a difficult song to write about since I have written so much about Dylan and it’s better to let this song rest with the listener. It’s a spiritual epiphany of sorts and will affect people in different ways. What can you say about this song that expands on his lyrics? Almost zero..

Reference:
Every Grain of Sand – Wikpedia

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The Autopsy of Jane Doe (2016) – Andre Ovredal (Friday’s Finest)

Posted on January 7, 2022 by observationblogger — Leave a comment

Friday’s finest continues down the horror- supernatural trail after last week’s Young Frankensteen and before that Hereditary. This week’s movie The Autopsy of Jane Doe is about father-and-son coroners who experience supernatural phenomena while examining a body. The movie went under the radar just grossing 6 million at the box-office. Currently sitting at 6.7 on IMDB, and Metacritic 65%. This Jane Doe corpse in the movie f/&ked up the scores and I’ll tell you why.

It’s sad to break it to people and critics, but sometimes stories don’t have a fuzzy-duddy happy ending. This small-budget modest production produced wonders, being very smart and creepy and at times funny. Even Stephen King spoke openly of his favour for the film. Actor Emile Hirsch is the son of the coroner here and I admired from his role in Sean Penn’s Into The Wild. By golly was I rooting for him in this movie.

IMDB Storyline:
While investigating the murder of a family, Sheriff Sheldon and his team are puzzled with the discovery of the body of a stranger buried in the basement that does not fit to the crime scene. He brings the corpse of the beautiful Jane Doe late night to the coroner Tommy Tilden and requests to have the cause of death until the next morning to have an answer to the press. Tommy’s son and assistant Austin Tilden is ready to go to the movie theater with his girlfriend Emma, but he decides to stay to help his father in the autopsy. Along the stormy and tragic night, they disclose weird and creepy secrets about Jane Doe.

The role of the corpse, for the most part, was played by actress Olwen Kelly. Øvredal (the director) felt that it was necessary to have an actress for the part to help connect the audience on a human level and that she did indeed. One of the reasons she was selected according to the director was her knowledge of yoga, which helped her control her body and breathing.

References:
1. The Autopsy of Jane Doe – wikipedia
2. The Autopsy of Jane Doe – IMDB

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Evermore (2004) – Hillsong

Posted on January 6, 2022 by observationblogger — 3 Comments
Hillsong – For All You’ve Done Concert at the Sydney Entertainment Centre

After I became baptised at Mornington Baptist Church I couldn’t hear enough of the 2004 Hillsong album – For All You’ve Done which peaked at No1 on the Australian album charts. A lot of the songs from that album will feature here starting with today’s track Evermore. Hillsong is a global charismatic mega-church based in Sydney, Australia. I would now consider myself more of an agnostic-christian who holds dear ‘The Logos‘, archetypes, meta-heroes and spiritual truths of the bible. I remain very fond of Christian music.

Today’s song Evermore is one of the more high-spirited songs from the album and it excites me every-time I hear it. It’s a supercharged song where each verse builds momentum until releasing a stand-out chorus. I think if I had to choose just one song from the album to have on repeat then it would be this one as I’ve never grown tired of it after perhaps a 100 listens. The singer of Evermore – Marty Sampson does a sterling job and gives it a rich texture by his tone and passion of voice.

Lost for words with all to say
Lord, you take my breath away
Still my soul, my soul cries out
You are holy

And as I look upon Your name
Circumstances fade away
Now Your glory steals my heart
You are holy
You are holy
You are holy, Lord

The video of Evermore below isn’t the greatest quality, but you’ll get a sense of the fervour of this concert back in 2004 which took the country by storm. I wore out the dvd – that’s for sure! Mainstream media were interviewing the Hillsong leaders and lead-singer Darlene Zschech (pictured centre above) to know what all the fuss was about and how this music made number 1 in mainstream charts in Australia. Hillsong music is also very popular in evangelical circles in Latin America and other Western countries.

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The AnkiDroid Collection (Part 9) – Bosons, Zeitgeist & Ludwig Boltzmann

Posted on January 5, 2022 by observationblogger — Leave a comment

Ankidroid additions related to Science, History and Philosophy.
You can find more information about Ankidroid in my post – Learning a Second Language and Ankidroid.

Bosons

Bosons are a type of force field of nature which can oscillate wildly, so they can effectively pile up on top of each other. They describe forces or acting on between ‘Fermions‘ such as gravitons. For more information about this subject I can point you to this presentation by Sean Carroll – What is Higgs Boson? – Sean Carroll discusses the God Particle. The discovery of the Higgs Boson was made in 2012 in the the Large Hadron Collider in Geneva. In the above video Sean talks about this greatest machinery ever built at 21.00 minutes onwards.

Zeitgeist

Zeitgeist is an 18th – 19th century German philosophical term referring to the ‘spirit of the age’. It’s an invisible agent or force dominating the characteristics of a given epoch in world history. Eg..the free love, progressive thinking of the 60’s.

Ludwig Boltzmann (1844 – 1906)

Ludwing Boltzmann was an Austrian physicist and philosopher who predicted how the physical properties of atoms (such as mass, charge and structure) determine the physical properties of matter (such as viscosity – thickness, thermal conductivity and diffusion). The second law of Thermodynamics (entropy) is due to to his view that the second law is probably a world of mechanically colliding particles and disordered states.

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Even Flow (1991) – Pearl Jam

Posted on January 4, 2022 by observationblogger — 15 Comments
Pearl Jam – Ten

Even Flow is the third song to appear here from Pearl Jam’s debut masterpiece record – Ten. More information about my connection to this music and the founding of Pearl Jam is in my article on their debut single ‘Alive‘. Today’s track Even Flow is the second single from the record and features lyrics written by vocalist Eddie Vedder and music written by guitarist Stone Gossard. It peaked at No.3 on the Billboard Rock Tracks.

Even flow, thoughts arrive like butterflies
Oh, he don’t know, so he chases them away
Oh, someday yet he’ll begin his life again
Life again, life again

It is one of the first Alternative-Seattle music songs I remember hearing. I was blown away by the rawness of it. Even Flow, like the rest of the record presented a cutting-edge new sound that stripped all the varnish off the ostensible music which preceded it. It paved the way for others to follow a similar ‘grunge’ sound in their recordings. The contrast between what we were accustomed to hearing in the late 80’s to this groundbreaking new sound on Ten couldn’t be more stark. My bohemian friends and I way back then were sold and we listened to little else than Pearl Jam, Alice in Chains, Nirvana, and Sound Garden.

Despite Even Flow’s huge success as a single, the band members recall doing upwards to a hundred versions of the song, but none were completely satisfied with any of them. Guitarist Mike McCready stated, “We did ‘Even Flow’ about 50, 70 times. I swear to God it was a nightmare. We played that thing over and over until we hated each other. I still don’t think Stone is satisfied with how it came out.“

Even Flow was first performed live at the band’s October 22, 1990 concert in Seattle at the Off Ramp Café. Pearl Jam performed the song for its appearance on MTV Unplugged in 1992. It has gone on to become the band’s most performed live song, having been played more than 800 times.

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27/12/21 – 2/01/22 Survival Shelter, 2021 Movie List & Advice for Young People

Posted on January 3, 2022 by observationblogger — 2 Comments

news on the march

Welcome to Monday’s News on the March – The week that was in my digital world.

Building complete and warm survival shelter – Bushcraft earth hut, grass roof and fireplace with clay
Video at Cyprien Outdoor Adventures

It was a nice surprise to receive this video in my YT feed.

‘I built my little mud house to hide in nature,I used dead wood for the structure,clay and stones for the fireplace and grass for the roof. Here there are a lot of wild boars,I settled on their territory!‘
I was fascinated to watch this from start to finish. It was kind of a meditation watching the entire process. A video without music, just the sounds of nature, which was good fuel for the brain..….(Watch entire video here)

Reely Bernie’s Top Ten Movies of 2021
Article at Reely Bernie

I’m a frequent reader of Reely Bernie’s movie reviews. He has a unique and provocative voice and I respect his opinions about movies although we don’t see eye to eye all the time. Here is a list of his favourite movies from 2021:

‘For me, 2021 was all about raising a wonderful baby daughter and being a goofball dad and supportive husband. Movies were far and few between, but they continued to be dependable coping devices during the ongoing pandemic (and rare evening off). More theatres were opened and maintained safely, the promised releases of 2020 played catchup, and the cinematic quality accompanied the quantity.

Below is my humble Top Ten of 2021. As with any list, it is subjective, nonsensical, and extremely personal. These movies fulfilled the “3 E’s” Reely Bernie looks for in any movie – Empathy, Entertainment, and Escape‘. (Read entire article here)

Elon Musk: Advice For Young People – Lex Fridmen podcast clips
Video interview at Lex Clips

Elon Musk is the CEO of SpaceX, Tesla, Neuralink, and Boring Company. This part of the interview was so insightful and interesting. There are lots of great quotes here, but I particularly liked: “The people you want as leaders are the people who don’t want to be leaders.” and “Try to have a positive net contribution on society.”

Lex Fridmen has improved substantially as an interviewer in the last few months. He used to waffle a lot and talk in circles. Now he is more succinct and allows the interviewer to express themselves freely. (Watch entire interview excerpt here)

news on the march the end

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Posted in Movies and TV, News, Reflections, Sport and Adventure

Eugene Onegin Overture (1879) – Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky

Posted on January 1, 2022 by observationblogger — 4 Comments

It’s raining again here in Bogotá and by golly did I need this tune on New Years Day to lift the spirits! Tchaikovsky was a Russian composer of the Romantic period. The Eugene Onegin Overture is the second featured Tchaikovsky piece here. This is from the opera of the same name where he organised the libretto himself constructed from Alexander Pushkin’s 1825-1832 dramatic novel. The story concerns a selfish hero who lives to regret his blasé rejection of a young woman’s love and his careless incitement of a fatal duel with his best friend.

Tchaikovsky believed that its performance required maximum simplicity and sincerity. With this in mind, he entrusted the first production to the students of the Moscow Conservatory. Outside of Moscow the performance wasn’t overly well-received, but in Prague 1892 Tchaikovsky got curtain calls and in October a bit later in England. It didn’t make the US until 1920 at the Metropolitan Opera.

Tchaikovsky was initially trained as a civil servant, but entered the Saint Petersburg Conservatory and received a more western-oriented teaching in music than his predecessors, but formed a unmistakeable Russian style and counter to those that governed Western European music. Despite his successes, his life was dogged by depression including his mother’s early death and of a close friend.

Wikipedia states also: ‘His homosexuality, which he kept private, has traditionally also been considered a major factor though some musicologists now downplay its importance‘. Really, I didn’t know about this until now and what does his sexual proclivity have to do with anything? Also Tchaikovsky’s music has always been popular in western classical circles as long as I have known it.

References:
1. Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky – wikipedia
2. Eugene Onegin (opera) – wikipedia

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Young Frankenstein (1974) – Mel Brooks (Friday’s Finest)

Posted on December 31, 2021 by observationblogger — 18 Comments

I can’t believe this comedy classic was made the year I was born. This is my favourite from Mel Brooks and he even said in this documentary it was his best picture. It is the second feature from Mel to feature here on Friday’s Finest. Young Frankenstein or as its pronounced Frankensteen is a joint favourite amongst my kids starring Gene Wilder, along with Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. Interestingly Elon Musk told in 2020 of Gene Wilder’s house which he had procured and just recently sold, ‘And there’s doors to nowhere, and strange corridors and tunnels, and odd paintings on the wall‘. Very Frankensteenish if I must say‘.

IMDB Storyline:
A young neurosurgeon (Gene Wilder) inherits the castle of his grandfather, the famous Dr. Victor von Frankenstein. In the castle he finds a funny hunchback called Igor, a pretty lab assistant named Inga and the old housekeeper, frau Blucher -iiiiihhh!-. Young Frankenstein believes that the work of his grandfather is only crap, but when he discovers the book where the mad doctor described his reanimation experiment, he suddenly changes his mind.

The movie was co-written by Brooks and Wilder. Its has a stellar cast many appearing in other Mel Brooks movies including the previous entry here High Anxiety. The standout in Frankensteen is Marty Feldman as the hunchback with misaligned eyes, but all co-stars are superb.
For trivia buffs, much of the lab equipment used in the movie was created for the 1931 film Frankenstein. Mel adopted the aspects of earlier films including to do it black and white and a 1930’s stylised opening credits and fades to black between scenes to name just a few.

Despite it being a big box-office and critical success, this film is scantily mentioned in recent times. I don’t think many younger generations are even clued onto it. Brook’s later movies got a bit juvenile and cheap, but Frankensteen I can see again and again. It is wonderfully loopy, naughty and an ingenious send-up of universal horror clichés. Who can forget the scene with Igor behind the book-shelves when they were looking the skulls? The facial expression and the breaking into song kills me every time. Below are some of the best 5 minutes of the movie.

References:
1. Young Frankenstein – Wikipedia
2. Young Frankenstein – IMDB

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Posted in Movies and TV

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