Well, dear readers, I am sitting here like so much fish, listening to Alan Silvestri’s nice score to the film Contact – it’s very much an 80s score in a 1997 film. Silvestri was certainly no pioneer in film music – his influences are not hard to discern, but he has an appealing sense of melody and I like many of his scores. The 90s were really the last years where film music actually to any extent functioned as film music is supposed to. As we moved into the 2000s, unless the score was by someone like John Williams or one of the old guard, scores began to function as wallpaper – music laid onto the film more as sound design rather than functioning to enhance the story and characters. Prior to that, I watched the first two-thirds of some Spider-Man movie called The Amazing Spider-Man, a reboot of the earlier series, not many years later. I didn’t care for the original movie much so never had any interest in seeing this. I guess it’s typical in its way, but I enjoyed the first half okay – only with the introduction of the villain and his transformation did I become antsy and bored. I just thought it was typical and ham-fisted. I can buy the notion of Peter Parker and his transformation because it makes sense, whereas someone turning into a giant lizard is just stupid, at least for me. The film looks good and contains James Horner’s final score before his untimely passing. I’ll gird my loins (no mean feat) and try and finish it this evening.
Yesterday wasn’t much of a day. I slept two hours, got up, went back to bed and slept another seven hours or so, not arising until three. I probably could have just stayed in bed another three hours, but I got up, answered e-mails, and then moseyed on over to the nearby Panda Express, where I got the three-item meal – two orange chicken helpings and one mushroom chicken thing (they were out of the string bean chicken thing and I didn’t feel like waiting ten minutes for it to be ready). I came home and ate it all up – it’s not gonna win any awards as food, but it was fine. That was my food intake for the day, save for a fruit bar and some red licorice. And that was about it – I watched two-thirds of a movie, did some work on the computer, and listened to some music. Oh, and as it does every two or three weeks, the computer completely froze up and behaved badly. I always know when it happens because the background desktop image goes to black and even though the desktop comes back, from that point on nothing works properly and you just have to manually shut the damn thing down, which I did. Then it takes about fifteen minutes to get everything back to where it was. Very annoying, but it is what it is, and what it is is, well, annoying. And now playing is the first symphony of the appealing French composer Alberic Magnard, whose music is very appealing, in case you were wondering. Yes, when I shut down the computer, it automatically brings the music app back to the A’s. Everything is alphabetical by first name. I skipped Mr. Alban Berg because I needed tuneful and pretty, rather than angular, edgy music designed to turn people into serial killers.
Today, I’ll be up when I’m up, I’ll do whatever needs doing, if Grant Geissman is around I’ll go check out his new OLED TV – he bought the model I recommended and I’m really interested to see it – we’d then have a meal. If that doesn’t happen it will at some point this week. Otherwise, I have Indiegogo details to deal with all day and I also have to prepare the other CD release – I have to get those tracks into the Music app and also to the mastering guy. The packaging is already done and at the pressing plant, so it’s just a question of announcing it. I’ll hopefully pick up some packages, and then at some point after doing all that needs doing, I’ll watch, listen, and relax.
The rest of the week is more of the same, some meetings and meals, and gearing up for the Indiegogo campaign, which then becomes a full-time job for the next four weeks.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, be up when I’m up, do whatever needs doing, perhaps see an OLED TV and have a meal, do Indiegogo prep and also prep the last of this week’s CD announcements, hopefully pick up packages, and then watch, listen, and relax. Today’s topic of discussion: What was the first superhero comic book you read – and which were your favorites, growing up? And what are your favorite superhero TV and movie adaptations? Let’s have loads of lovely postings, shall we, whilst I hit the road to dreamland, happy to be listening to pretty music rather than music designed to turn people into serial killers.