h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Rules? I'm not an expert on that. All I can do is try to stay within a few hundred miles of the original topic.

Did you hear of some change in how things are run here?

It was a (mainly ) whimsical comment relating to what can be put in the thread title and who can and can't start certain types of thread.

You may be thinking of the "Talking point" issue. Am I right?

Such a potentially complex and revealing thread
deserves an occasional slap up the side-o-the-head.

http://youtu.be/1I2gmT3rarY

And now if you'd like to turn the other cheek
we can add insult to injury.

http://youtu.be/Tr6WidQqhu4


~jwf~

I don't do musical genres; I have catholic tastes...but my present absolutely favourite piece of music is Zadok the Preist....the most overwhelming wonderful optimistic piece of music ever written in my opinion.

Frederick Handel

http://grooveshark.com/#!/s/Zadok+The+Priest/2HSau0?src=5

Apologies that site has suddenly gone down.

A brilliant version for literal musical imagery is the version at the BBC proms. The close-ups of the actual playing of the instruments are brilliant...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=omMndHP4tp4&feature=BFa&list=FL6aWOq9wuPolYhSv1-G8jiA&lf=mh_lolz

You can't beat live music IMO.

"my present absolutely favourite piece of music is Zadok the Preist....the most overwhelming wonderful optimistic piece of music ever written in my opinion" [Effers]

I love it, too! Handel's Chandos Anthems always pick up my spirits when I hear them.

Beethoven was quite a fan of Handel too.

'"Handel was the greatest composer that ever lived. I would uncover my head, and kneel before his tomb."

http://www3.telus.net/st_simons/digest73.htm

I love all his stuff to distraction...I'm in good company apparently...no wonder we gave him citizenship

Joseph Haydn said,"Handel is the master of us all." Haydn's visit to England exposed him to a lot of Handel's music, and influenced what Haydn would write thereafter.

One of my favorite recordings is handel's opera "Julius Caesar," with Beverly Sills singing the part of Cleopatra. It gives me goosebumps.

Listening to fav's on iPad shuffle- Steve Goodman's The Dutchman is playing; 4:32 pm Canuk time in Nancy Land; the sun is close to setting, and is casting a soft pink glow. Roo(my only shepherd) has just come in, it is -22 c here at the moment.... Brrr chilly.
Fav music, strange it always depends on my state of mind. I did wander my wild woods singing Madame Butterfly with a past Beau. Someday I'll figure out why minor keys are my favourite! Oomh Sprinstein's Spirits of the night is playing... Must go

Right now I'm listening to a couple of mob guys singing "Brush up your Shakespeare." It's a CD of the film soundtrack for "Kiss me, Kate." The imagery in my mind is these tough guys dancing as they sing (I saw the film on a DVD player, and loved it].

Out walking, in the wild woods, out to the tea house ( bare bones) and all was silent , no wolves, only smalls I.e. (Roo listening to smalls i.e. mice, rabbits etc. ) what a marvelous night for A moon dance.

I just finished listening to the original London cast recording of "Les Miserables."

Okay, so it's not music.

Alexander Scourby reading the New Testament.

I've been listening on the drive to and from work for the last several weeks, and I'm up to 1 Corinthians. I will say this: Scourby's understated use of inflection made the Gospels come alive for me, and I've gotten a whole new focus on Jesus Christ. I could clearly see the situations and the landscapes, the dress and the expressions of the people, the mob scenes and the quiet interludes. It made me search for application of the principles he put forth; easy enough if you have a heart to do so.

I think it would add just a wee bit of ambience if there was a low-key musical track to back the readings. Just don't know what genre or artist would be appropriate. I'll give it some thought...

B4myusualeclecticfareofsongssurfacesagain

>>..could clearly see the situations and the landscapes, the dress and
the expressions of the people, the mob scenes and the quiet interludes. <<


Yay! Audio! Radio! The theater of the imagination!

Greatest medium ever! You prove my theory that the
best communication is often done in media that do
not involve all the senses. You give me hope for
radio and print! Both have been shuffled off to the
side since the advent of TV, Cinemascope, 3D and
interactive video formats. These all overwhelm and
leave nothing for the individual thought process.
Thank you.

~jwf~

~ jwf ~,
When I was a young tyke, in my mid- to late teens, I did some 'pro bono' work for an older gentleman named Lou Zocchi. He was the first board game designer to use a 'hex grid' map overlay to provide more natural and accurate movement across terrain in his game, "The Battle of Brittain," a WWII dogfight scenario simulation. http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgamedesigner/1485/lou-zocchi

We (several geek friends and I) painted multi-sided dice, punched out chits, stuffed bags, and filled boxes on quite a variety of games he sold from his home. While we worked, he let us listen to his collection of old radio broadcasts on cassette tape. We often sat in rapt attention to the exploits of The Lone Ranger, The Shadow, or Buck Rogers. Yes, we sat in the back room surrounded by mounds of gaming supplies, but our imaginations transported us to the high sierra of the Wild West, into the dimly lit backstreets of the Big City, or even into the starlit realms ruled by the evil Emperor Ming.

Lou often paid us for our work with some of his supplies, and if we saved up our hours, we could even take home an entire boxed game! He also hosted Game Nights at his place on weekends. There'd be a dozen or more of us crowded around a ping pong table draped in green cloth (with bits of foam underneath to provide terrain) and we'd play a game of Starship Troopers with jumpjet-equipped lead figurines. Shortly after Star Wars hit the screens, he'd developed the rules for a vector-based three-dimensional space battle into the trench of the Death Star, as taped off on the floor. We used miniature X-wing, Y-wing, and TIE fighter on sticks and stands, and kept track of velocity, vector, altitude, armaments, and damage on sheets of graph paper. Hitting the shielded exhaust port was done with a set of percentile dice, factoring in all the above parameters and the flyer's inate 'Force.' Ah, yes; good times...good times!

B4isteerthethreadback2theoriginalideaofwhatimagesweconjurewhilelistening2musicfromourfavoritegenre

>> let us listen to his collection of old radio broadcasts on cassette tape. We often sat in rapt attention to the exploits of The Lone Ranger, The Shadow, or Buck Rogers. Yes, we sat in the back room surrounded by mounds of gaming supplies, but our imaginations transported us to the high sierra of the Wild West, into the dimly lit backstreets of the Big City, or even into the starlit realms ruled by the evil Emperor Ming. <<


~jwf~

Emperor Ming? As in Ming the Merciless, the nemesis of Flash Gordon?

Yes, that would be the one...

...which means it wasn't Buck Rogers we listened to, but rather the Flash Gordon serials.

Perhaps we should get back to talking about "MUSIC" that stirs our soul and provides vivid mental imagery.
B4imixanymoremetaphors

Earlier this morning I was listening to the Broadway original cast recording of "42nd Street," starring Tammy Grimes and Jerry Orbach. It was based on a movie musical that came out in the early 1930s. So many iconic songs -- "Lullabye of Broadway," "Shuffle off to Buffalo,"We're in the Money," "42nd Street," etc. It's hard to imagine a movie having so many songs that have become standards.