The Orenda

Didn’t get a chance to finish this book or to get a picture with it, but that’s fine. I was over halfway through and it’s one of those books that I didn’t particularly feel like I had to know what was going to happen next. Meh. Too bad though. I saw that it’s been getting rave reviews lately. I do appreciate the Canadiana of it all though.

La campanella — Franz Liszt

I first studied this piece during my History lessons for music theory and it wasn’t until I actually listened and eventually watched it on youtube that I was able to grasp and see for myself just how difficult and demanding this piece is.  It doesn’t sound all that hard and is in fact an ARCT piece (my piano teacher asked jokingly if I wanted to learn it and I flat out refused) but the most obvious thing watching videos of people playing is the “little bell” part in the right hand.  The piano player has to pivot between the octaves really quickly, which, just watching videos, hurts and tires my hand.  I’m impressed by anyone who manages to play this one.

Yundi Li plays this version:

30 Day Movie Challenge: Day 14: Favourite documentary

Those who read my blog know that I have my own category dedicated to documentaries, so picking one out of everything I’ve seen was difficult.  My first thought was something from Michael Moore, either Fahrenheit 9/11 or Bowling For Columbine as they are up there on my list of favourite docs.  But I had to go with the truly affecting Hearts and Minds.

I think part of the reason Hearts and Minds was more affecting for me was because I was learning about the Vietnam War in my History class so I was better able to grasp everyone involved and the background of how it all developed.  There’s a scene in the film that really disturbs me: a solider is in the street in Vietnam and he shoots a man in the head.  As the man collapses on the ground, blood releases from his head like a fountain, and at the time, I was in so much shock because I had seen this happen in Hollywood movies before but this was real — a man just got shot in the head.  There was no special effects, no pouch of blood exploding.  It was all real.  This was reality.

It still haunts me today.  Reality is horrific.  Take a lesson from that, modern horror movie makers.