Here’s a photograph I took with a borrowed camera during the Easter weekend. It came out rather dark, so please view the picture in full screen mode after sunset with the lights off. Any light reflecting off your computer screen will ruin it for you.
The big event this Easter is that my sister returned from overseas. Beginning before Christmas, she spent several weeks in India followed by several weeks in Papua New Guinea as part of her training to become a medical doctor. I have told her that if she wants to write something about this for a general audience then I am happy to publish it on this blog, and I understand she’s thinking about it.
Regular visitors to this blog will have heard or seen some of the music I’ve created, such as this audio file of the tune that I dedicated to my late grandmother at her funeral last year, or this sheet music of the piece that I wrote years ago (as a teenager) inspired by the concept of musical modes. I repeat these examples here as a sort of introduction for new visitors.
A few years ago (around 2004 or so) I was working on an instrumental composition with the working title “Floating Seeds in Mountain Rivers“, but somehow I got distracted with life and never finished it. Anyway, I have decided to make the portion that I wrote available to musicians, and you can click here to read it. If this inspires you to write a bit of your own, please get in touch and arrange some way to share your ideas with me (not that I need any help, as I can improvise any number of endings, but just that I would find it interesting).
Perhaps some day I’ll get around to completing the composition for myself.
This is my final post about the things I’ve seen at the Adelaide Fringe Festival this year, because Friday was the night of the last Fringe event that I’d booked to see. The event was Mediaeval Magic by the Lumina Vocal Ensemble, a choiral presentation of music from Europe in the Middle Ages. I went with a friend who I had invited to the show.
Alioth recently recommended a web page on speeding up Firefox. I am trying out the suggested settings (except that I’ve set maxrequests to eight instead of thirty) and there seems to be some improvement but not a dramatic one. It’s hard to tell for sure. Anyway, I’ll keep the new settings unless they seem to cause problems later on.
This seems as good a time as any to discuss the themes and extensions that I’ve installed for Firefox (actually, that’s the real point of this post; the bit above is simply an excuse). What I won’t discuss are my gripes with the software (of which I have several), except when they are relevant to my choice of extensions. One of my gripes can be found in a comment I wrote on Alioth’s post above.
As previously anticipated, I went with Dad to a couple of performances at the Fringe on Friday, and to Womadelaide on Saturday. See the aforelinked post for details on performers.
Quite some time ago, I had an idea for the wall tiles that I’d consider ideal for my kitchen.
Unfortunately, none of the people who actually manufacture tiles seem to have come up with the same idea, which involves a vine pattern made up of two types of square tiles that can be combined in arbitrary ways. The best way to explain this idea would be with some pictures.
It’s been a long but enjoyable day. The final major event for the evening was the performance by Cecile Corbel, as mentioned previously. It was most enjoyable, and a nice small venue too. I went with Mum, who earlier in the evening took me to a Cycology performance. I enjoyed both performances, but apart from the fact that both involved music they couldn’t have been more of a contrast. I bought a Cecile Corbel CD.
Earlier in the day someone from Uzit came to take measurements of my kitchen and discuss ideas for an upcoming renovation. This was at nine in the morning, which is why I feel I’ve had a very long day, especially as I’ve been sleeping in until about midday recently. Speaking of kitchens, I got a new fridge this week, the old one having suddenly stopped working, and speaking of electrical appliances, I got an air conditioner installed last week.
All is good.
THIS photograph was posted to an Internet forum recently. It’s got to be the coolest tattoo I’ve ever seen (or do I mean it’s the only cool tattoo I’ve ever seen)? I just hope the joke doesn’t wear thin after a few decades.
Today I booked tickets for various performances at the Adelaide Fringe Festival and Womadelaide. Most of my choices involve folk/world music by artists that are new to me, but sound great. For each performance on my list, I’ve invited a relative or friend to come with me.
