Friday conundrum

Monteverdi or Star Trek on Sunday?

This:



or this?



(or this)

Friend or fan

Yesterday morning, it was all so simple. I was going to spend Saturday walking to Mitchell's Fold (a Bronze Age stone circle on the Shropshire Hills), then go to the Monteverdi concert on Sunday with my mother.

Not any more. Film Four are having a Star Trek Marathon. All ten films, with introductions and discussions. Oh my. Even the rubbish films (III, parts of IV - which was nominated for four Oscars - all the Next Generation ones) are sorely tempting.

Hm. Daddy or chips?

Your thoughts? Or abuse…

The Silence of Sound

For a change in the summer months, I'm not alone in the office. It's rather pleasant - we're all quite relaxed, the place is in turmoil as offices are moved, and there's an end of term atmosphere, though term ended weeks ago. Our least favourite student, a serial cheat, has finally been defenestrated and it's raining - all in all, a perfect day.

One difference is the silence. I usually have music playing, but one of my office colleagues is a punk rocker (he's been in The Prefects and then The Nightingales for 30 years, and the other is an early music fan (Monteverdi for preference). I swing both ways in the this regard, but can't please both of them, so I've opted for silence. Perhaps it's a good thing - over-familiarity may breed contempt for everything other than the absolute best (e.g. The Field Mice - how do you like them apples, Cynical?, Reich, Tallis and Gorky's Zygotic Mynci), so perhaps playing less but paying more attention would be a useful exercise. I listened to Let's Active before they turned up this morning and was highly impressed. They're Mitch Easter's early-80s band, while he was producing seminal REM albums. Imagine indiepop mixed with Southern Gothic.

Sarah's just come into the office and presented me with another book! Hurrah! Archie Brown's The Rise and Fall of Communism, which was on my list.

Five finger shuffle

I've downloaded the iPod OS 3.0, for very little purpose other than being a Mac obsessive, though shake-to-shuffle is quite cool. So I'm taking a few minutes to change what's on the iPod, and it's a bit strange. I'm happily chopping albums up, dumping old favourites, and generally doing things I would normally consider philistine - like losing the 3rd movement of Elgar's Cello Concerto because it's weaker than the other 3 even though structurally the piece needs them all. Of course, the iPod's normally on shuffle, so I wouldn't notice, but it is interesting to note how listening habits have been changed by technology. I do still listen to complete pieces at home and work though - Monteverdi's Vespers today (the Gardiner recording).