Mike Crowl's Blog, page 33

A few random thoughts of Mahler's music

I finished reading Norman Lebrecht's 2010 book, Why Mahler: how one man and ten symphonies changed the world yesterday, and have done a rather hastily-written review here, so I'm not going to repeat what I said.

I just wanted to make a few notes about my experience of Mahler over a long period of time, which admittedly has been entirely through recordings. I've never actually had the opportunity, as far as I recall, of seeing his work performed live.

The first time I heard anything by Mahl...

Draft completed

This has nothing to do with writing or
wizards. It just happens to be one of
my favourite photos from when my son
was small. He and I are sharing the legs
of the overalls. Don't ask me how.I’m happy to report that as of today a complete draft of The Disenchanted Wizard has been finished. Of course there’s a good deal of work to come, but at least now there’s a framework for things to hang more securely on. 

This has certainly been a tough book to get off the ground, as my previous emails have...

Jack Reacher the movie

Having read several of Lee Child's Reacher books over the last couple of years - they're the kind of book you pick up when your brain doesn't want to have to think too seriously but still wants to be engaged - I was interested to see how the movie Jack Reacher  came off, because there was a furore from many Reacher fans when Tom Cruise was cast in the title role. 

The furore arose because Cruise is short, and Reacher is continually described in the books as around six and a half foot...

Labouring the point

Somewhere along the line I've managed to hook into the Labour Party's email system, which means that at least once a week I get an email from one or other Labour MP telling me that the naughty National Party isn't doing things properly, and that I should write to the National MP in question and tell him so. And hundreds of others are doing this as well. And we'll make them change their approach/thinking/habits/behaviour...or whatever.

Well, yes, there are some things that the National Governme...

Friends

The name of the site http://musiciansfriend.com always reminds me of another similar name: the old throat lozenge, Fisherman's Friend, which has apparently been around since 1865. 

I've never personally seen it used by fishermen, although that was who it was first sold to, but my connection with it is in its use by singers, who, at one time swore by it as a cure for throats that weren't quite doing their job when it came to singing. Like a lot of things it seems to have had its...

Something's screwy somewhere....

"Stadium Profit Forecast" proclaims a headline in today's ODT.  I thought initially - it isn't April the first is it? - sadly, it's not. When you read the whole article you discover that the 'profit' comes, yet again, at the expense of the ratepayers of Dunedin. In fact, in real terms there's absolutely no profit at all.

'We're all about delivering economic benefits', says Terry Davies. Well yes, 'economic benefits' to shareholders, maybe, when they get dividends, but the economic benefit...

Magic Flute

I went with some friends to see The Magic Flute at the Mayfair Theatre last night. Let me say firstly that I was greatly impressed for reasons I'll detail in due course. There were also some quibbles, which I'll discuss as I come to them. However the being impressed far outweighed the quibbles.

John Drummond produced the piece in a 'renovated' version. This meant that some of the lyrics were altered to a more 21st century language, and were aligned to the idea of cellphones and iPads. The...

Film catchup

Starting with Locke , a film in which only one actor is seen the entire time, and in which the whole action takes place inside a car moving down one of England's major highways. There are several other actors involved, but we only ever hear their voices, over the car phone. The interesting thing is that these 'voice roles' are so well done that we don't need to see the actors. Our imagination does all the work for us.

Tom Hardy is the only visible actor, playing a major concrete contractor, who...

How not to plot a story

I know that European filmmakers have long seen themselves as anti-story, anti-plot and the like, and sometimes this has produced some wonderful 'art' movies ('art' here meaning the film successfully does its own thing regardless of the rules of storytelling). More frequently it produces films that meander, that lose the plot at the very moment they should be maintaining the plot and that, as a result, lose their audiences.

Two such movies in the last week: one starring Michael Caine and C...

Best day of my life

I have a piece in the Otago Daily Times' The Mix weekend magazine, today. It's part of their Best Day of My Life series. I was asked about three weeks ago if I'd contribute something to it.

Initially I was a bit flummoxed: there are so many 'best' days in anyone's life, how do you choose? Fortunately I have a wise wife who came up with the 'best' idea immediately I discussed it with her. Write about the premiere performance of Grimhilda! she told me. So I did. Even had photographs to...