Octfalls est le nom de cette installation audiovisuelle réalisée par l’artiste japonais Ryoichi Kurokawa. Dans le cadre de la 54ème Biennale de Venise, il a imaginé l’insertion de 8 écrans à l’intérieur de l’Arsenale Novissimo sur lequel apparaissent des cascades d’eau. Un rendu très réussi à découvrir en vidéo.
Weather is a powerful muse in a number of ways, and when it comes to music, it seems to fall into four categories: songs that evoke weather or seasons, but does not mention them directly; songs that uses weather as a metaphor for the themes of the song; songs that use weather as part of the background of a story of scene; and lastly, songs that are simply about the weather.
Earlier this year, the Weather Channel had a tournament, NCAA style, matching 64 weather-themed songs against one-another to determine a weather music champion. Readers voted on songs in head-to-head matchups, and after 63-such matchups, The Beatles Here Comes the Sun was crowned champion. While the reader-voted aspect of the competition was always going to favour mainstream classics (like other contenders Over the Rainbow, Singin’ in the Rain, and White Christmas), it’s a little disappointing that more contemporary music wasn’t featured, even in the early rounds. I think U2’s Beautiful Day and Adele’s Set Fire to the Rain are the only pieces from the last decade featured. One can also question whether some of the songs are really songs about weather. Is Ice Ice Baby a ‘weather’ song in any sense of the word? I’ll save you the trouble of googling the lyrics: it’s not.
So, with the weather channel having taken care of the mainstream selections, what are your favorite underrated weather-themed music?
I think one could probably identify an entire bracket of 64 Tom Waits songs that feature weather imagery in one way or another, with the comic musings of Emotional Weather Report (with tornado watches issued shortly before noon Sunday, for the areas including the western region of my mental health and the northern portions of my ability to deal rationally with my disconcerted precarious emotional situation); and the simple observations of Strange Weather (All over the world / It’s the same / Strangers talk only of the weather) being a couple top contenders.
So, share some of your favorites in the comments!
There are two types of roadtrips: the purposeful roadtrip, and the roadtrip for its own sake. The purposeful roadtrip has been around for as long as there have been roads. But the roadtrip for its own sake is a relatively recent phenomenon. Some link it to the idea of the Grand Tour—a renaissance idea that young men of wealth should, at a certain age, travel throughout the continent, absorbing all of the cultural offerings available. As transit opportunities diversified, class ceased to be such a barrier and touring the continent grew in popularity.
The North American roadtrip his a very different history, as the earliest travel was rarely about cultural enrichment but instead about industry. The development of Route 66 in 1926 combined with the rise of the automobile around the same time cemented the roadtrip as part of American culture. An Oklahoma businessman chose the route number, because he thought it would be easy to remember and had a pleasing sound to the number; the R&B standard—covered by musicians from Nat King Cole to Depeche Mode—has proved him right on that account. The anthem has become the unofficial anthem of the American roadtrip. In recent years, increasingly wide and busy freeways occupy a major role in American travel and transportation, but a true road-trip requires at least some time spent getting off the freeways and enjoying the smaller highways that connect one town to the next, and the song perfectly captures the spirit of this.
The quintessential Canadian roadtrip is the Trans-Canada highway, which wasn’t officially completed until 1971. In contrast to Route 66, the unofficial anthem of the Canadian roadtrip is the austere and haunting Northwest Passage by the late Stan Rogers. Rogers focuses on the wilderness and a link between modern travellers and the early explorers of the country; it’s about the spaces between the towns, just as Route 66 is as much about the towns themselves, and it helped the relatively new highway become a source of national identity.
Hats off to Eric Hamelin and his jazz ensemble ‘No More Shapes‘ who received a shining review in the New York Times.
Hamelin’s drumming genius and jazz experimentation was featured in the AudioVisual section of the Winter issue of UPPERCASE magazine, so if you’re a subscriber, be sure to check that piece out (page 22)!
If you are living in Calgary, the band is playing this Wednesday (March 31st) at Cafe Koi.
Their newly released album ‘Creesus Crisis‘ is available for purchase here.
If you’re in Calgary this weekend, don’t miss the chance to see Jean-Luc Godard’s 1965 masterpiece, Pierrot le fou. A highwater mark of the French New Wave and the road film.
The film is presented by Calgary Cinematheque and shows Saturday, March 6 at 12pm at the Plaza theatre in Kensington.
If you’re looking for a film fix of mob heaven that includes some dynamite big hair and other 80s fashion tips, I highly recommend Jonathan Demme’s Married to the Mob.
From start – check out the stylin’ credit sequence below
to finish – don’t Michelle Pfeiffer & Matthew Modine make a fabulous pair?
this has to be one of my all time favorite 80s romances. Long live the mafia.
Mark Hamilton, founder of the band Woodpigeon, has been generously lending his talents as a writer for many issues now. (thanks, Mark!) Woodpigeon is playing tonight at Broken City in Calgary. Their poster is illustrated by Jeff Kulak, who was part of the first edition of Work/Life in 2008. His full page illustration for Work/Life has always been one of my favourites:
I’m planning a new edition of Work/Life to be released by the end of the year. The details are being worked out and the website prepared, but if you’d like first notice of the call for participants you can sign up here.
I am the sentimental type who goes joyful to the sounds of Christmas music but each year it gets harder to find that rare gem of an album, old or new, that pricks up my ears.
This year my pick is ‘The Animals’ Christmas‘ an 80s concept album composed by Jimmy Webb, performed by Art Garfunkel with Amy Grant and backed by the London Symphony Orchestra and the Kings College School Choir.
The concept of this cantata is to ‘tell the story of the Nativity from the perspective of the animals who were there.’
To listen to sample tracks, click here.
And if you have recommendations for other special Christmas albums or songs, please share them!
Reading Dylan Thomas‘s A Child’s Christmas In Wales is a holiday tradition for many. The story’s lush evocation of sights, sounds, smells and tastes of his childhood experience gives one a sense of being there among the cats and the snow, rhum tea and butterwelsh, dodgy Uncles and elderberry wine.
I am such a fan of the book that each year I delight in buying it, giving it a pre-love read and then wrapping it up and gifting it to a friend or family member. Last year I gave it to my sister Lani who read it on her flight home and immediately wrote me to sing its praises.
Can’t think of many things finer than listening to Dylan read it himself and it looks like some of the old lps (image above) are kicking around on ebay!
For a quick feel of the story’s charm, click here. Of course, I urge all to buy the book — or the album!
Sadly Harrison Ford is not among us… but the work continues here at UPPERCASE.
Love this 80s movie to bits and Carly Simon’s theme song, ‘Let the River Run‘ inspires.
This is site is run by Sascha Endlicher, M.A., during ungodly late night hours. Wanna know more about him? Connect via Social Media by jumping to about.me/sascha.endlicher.
