feathery and fragile fingers reaching out, fumbling for something which isn’t there, not anymore. a scenery emblazed by glaring light, soon being drowned by utter darkness. melancholy hovering like leaves in the chilly air, seizing me. exposing me.
posts for 2008. (page 2.)
well. today i did my first outdoor tests with my new toy. here are some of the results, which i like .
landscape.
i took the following pictures in the nature protection area next to the place where i’m staying at the moment.
trees
i like trees, as some of you probably already noticed :)
university.
two views on the more beautiful part (which happens to be the part where mathematics and natural sciences are located) of the carl von ossietzky university oldenburg.
zoom.
besides trees, i also like my new telephoto lens.
today i stumbled about a song called gloomy sunday, originally composed by the hungarian pianist rezső seress. there are probably as many urban myths about this song, which is also known as the hungarian suicide song, as there are cover versions… i like the original lyrics the most; you can read them here (both the original hungarian version and a literal translation). reads like a typical doom song, just written around 50 years too early…
for me, it seems like a really strange idea to kill yourself because of listening to a song, and in particular, it seems really strange to blame a song for making people commit suicide. for me, it sounds like an excuse for not having to search for other reaons… maybe it was the last straw to tip people off, or suicideers decided to listen to it on or shortly before their suicide because it expresses their feelings.
but anyway. i’m somehow wondering whether a doom metal band has covered this one, too; the only metal band i found who did this is a german black metal act called negator; a video of a life performance can be seen at their homepage (don’t watch it if you don’t like black metal); they are performing sam m. lewis‘ english version of the song. i didn’t like it too much, first of all because i don’t think black metal fits here and, secondly, i’d prefer something more close to the original lyrics.
it is autumn and the leaves are falling
all love has died on earth
the wind is weeping with sorrowful tears
my heart will never hope for a new spring again
my tears and my sorrows are all in vain
people are heartless, greedy and wicked…literal translation of the first stanza taken from phespirit.info.
just listened to ayreon‘s latest prog metal opera 01011001 (binary ascii representation of the letter y). it features, next to fifteen other singers, ex-the gathering singer anneke van giersbergen and katatonia‘s jonas renkse and also features, besides some other solos, a synth solo by keyboard virtuose derek sherinian, who also played with dream theater for a few years. featuring a story on loss of emotions and rediscovering, on messing with peoples destiny, of attempts to help which make everything worse, which lead to ultimate destruction. it’s a great story, with great music, and great vocalists. what else do you want?
“face the facts, there is no way back
arise, it’s time to act
face the facts, our future is black
arise, we’re on the wrong track”from beneath the waves by ayreon.
just more or less finished a project. well, it’s done except actually receiving the last part (which i don’t have to do myself), putting everything in an envelope and sending it off. that feels really good.
and my todo-list is clearing up, too. just kicked out five organizational points i wrote down, and one i forgot to write down. this feels even better.
now it’s time to concentrate on getting some interesting things done :)
yesterday, we had the third rendition of the try to bring the north western german tradition kohlfahrt (literally: cabbage tour; a description in english can be found here) to switzerland. (actually i missed the two previous renditions…)
i’d guess that for everyone except the people living in north west germany, it must seem utterly strange to see a group of people going around with a hand cart, playing a strange game involving two balls rolling around, and drinking hard and soft booze all the time. whatever. we had fun.
actually, this was probably the first kohlfahrt featuring a view on the alps! (at the first rendition, one couldn’t see the alps from the place where it took place, and even though the second was at the same place than this time, the weather was too bad apparently…) here are two shots of our view on the alps:
finally a view on the beautiful sunset we were able to watch:
well, after doing a random cover, i decided to do a not so random one. and here it is, the cover of orchid‘s on love and despair:
unfortunately it’s purely imaginary.
ps: a friend just informed me that in fact there exists a band called orchid. my cover is completely unrelated to them. i just came up with the name orchid while i was listening to opeth‘s album named orchid.
ok, now i finally managed to catch the baton kornel threw up into the air, which is about creating random album covers. the rules are as follows:
well. it didn’t turned out to be a real doom album, but i think it’s still somehow cool (the right half is the back side of the album):
it’s work on in despair by plaka. the photo is this one by lynnmwillis. this image is, as the original, under the creative common 2.0 generic license.
i can’t stop listening to ascension, a song on the isa (ᛁ) album by enslaved. pink floyd style prog fusing with black metal, creating an intense, beautiful, somehow strange but yet so neat stream, switching between mellow, dreamlike sequences and brutal riffs.
“never in need of sleep,
nor in need of truth
i would never have stayed in this darkness,
and we would ascend”
just saw 臥虎藏龍, which translates to crouching tiger, hidden dragon (imdb). not the usual version though, but one with live music added by a conductor with an “orchestra” of three djs, and a singer. shown in a ewz powerhouse. i haven’t seen the movie before, so i can’t comment on how this version compares to the original one.
but i can say that this one was really good. both the movie, a chinese martial art movie, and the new background music, featuring noise, strange beats, even swiss folk music, are good, in their own, and especially as a composition. i liked in particular most of the noise parts, which seem to make the scenes more intense.
and it made me think about the concept in general. reminds me a bit of dead man, one of my favorite movies, whose soundtrack is what neil young improvised on his electric guitar while watching the movie. and it makes me think how a movie featuring a sound track made by sunn o))) would be… must be fantastic…
