Twelfth Day, More Masters, and Music
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Well, we've had the
twelve nights of Christmas, and now it's the twelfth
day, so we really should take down our decorations and cards - it's supposed to be bad luck if you don't. Not that I'm
superstitious! But I rather like the little angels, and we've got three different ones. Let's keep
them up on the mantlepiece.
Alice has
finally got the hang of downloading
Kermode and Mayo's film review "podcasts" (what a profoundly silly name that is!) from their
Radio 5 website, to our
iTunes, then "synching" her iPod, which she links to the sound system, so we can listen to it either in the sitting room
or the kitchen while we work away. That was some clever wiring she did when she was still young and carefree, and used to have parties...
It
would be much easier just to listen to the radio on Friday
afternoon, but then she's either at an oldies' cheap matinee showing at
our favourite
Arthouse cinema, or reading a
Shakespeare play with her
U3A cronies. Now she's sniffing at me. Sorry, I shouldn't have said "oldies", I mean "Senior Citizens" of
course.
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| The Holly Man, one of characters from a Mummers' play, carrying a wassail bowl. (Original photo by Dean Ayres) |
Today is traditionally the day the
Three Kings arrived to see the baby Jesus. It is variously celebrated, often going back to more heathen traditions, with maybe
wassailling and
mumming, or even cooking a
special fruit cake. There's lots of
wassail songs, and recipes to try out online. Just
Google away for more.
Where were we, before all this Seasonal stuff took over? Ah yes...
Meetings with Masters 2: The Master (the film)
If you scroll down to the end of 20th December 2012 (or leap to it here) you'll see that we met with Yoda, the Jedi Master, to start off this Masters theme, before Alice was struck down with a bug, then overtaken by The Festive Season and all that entails. Sounds a bit like road traffic accident? She says it felt like it.
So now: the film! Well, despite the
mixed reviews, we thought it might be worth a go.
Philip Seymour Hoffman isn't exactly your typical heart-throb star, but as "The Master" of
The Cause cult, he was as brilliant as he always is. He plays a dubiously sincere charismatic leader. Who they all tell us is
not meant to be
L Ron Hubbard, since the film is
not really about
Scientology. Which is a weird religion-cum-therapy, having both
ardent adherents and
fierce detractors. (You can read even more details at
Ex Scientologist or
Bare Faced Messiah.)
But
Joaquin Phoenix was pretty awful, in
my opinion. He spent almost the whole time with his fists on his hips, thumbs back, so he looked like a kid's impression of a squawking chicken. Alice says that may unfortunately be true, but nevertheless he
did do a good job of playing a very tortured individual, who temporarily falls under the spell of a Master, yet never quite manages to become the ideal disciple. See this enthusiastic
review by the Guardian.
Alice thought it was psychologically both enthralling
and horrifying to see the sort of mind games inflicted on the followers. I'm not that much into psycho-babble myself. However, if you want an excellent movie about a cult, then we'd both go for
Martha Marcy May Marlene any time.
Meetings with Masters 3: a little history
It was almost the Solstice, and guess where I was?
The
next photo gives it away.
OK,
that's right - it's an original wind-up gramophone with horn! It
belongs (now) to our Harvieston friend, who got it from eBay.
This is more of a side view, so you can see the needle arm.
What a beautiful object...
It's a windup! Well, it was, actually, as he said it needs a bit of repair.
More of that later.
Do you see the HMV logo on the side?
That's His
Master's Voice!
Which takes us to the little bit of history.
If Alice can cut down on her endless surfing, that is.
And why
Surfing? I thought you did that on the sea, not the web, or even the "cloud".
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Trust her! She's just Googled
that, and came up with this answer from
Yahoo! Answers:
Imagine surfers on a beach: When they catch a good wave (site) they ride it as far as they can, until, one they reach the shore, (get bored) or two they wipe out (can't find anything). Then they go back out into the water (web), catch another wave (site) and do the same thing, over and over, that's surfing the ocean (net).
The cartoon, by the way, is by
ShoeboxBlog. And, yes, I had to laugh, even though it isn't altogether part of this tale, but a typical Alice digression. What,
me! Digress? Never...
Now, can we get back to the main story, please?
HMV
His Master's Voice was one of the best known companies involved in the production of records and the means by which to play them, and their logo is still famous. The dog was a real one called Nipper, and his owner,
Francis James Barraud was a painter. The Nipper painting to logo story is
quite a saga.
Nipper was
re-created for Christmas 2012, to put a zing into
HMV's seasonal advertising. They added a new character - an animated Gramophone, somwhat reminiscent of
Wall-E, methinks. (
That was a super film!) The set of brief videos are at
Nipper & Gramophone’s Christmas Tales (also on YouTube). Great fun!
But did you know that before we had Sound Systems, Hi-Fi and turntables, there were a host of other attempts at
recording sound for playback? And objects called Phonoautograph, Phonograph, Graphophone, and Victrola, were manufactured.
See here.
How about our friend's antique gramophone?
Well, it didn't actually work as such, but he
has also aquired one of those "Turn-your-old-78s-&-LPs-into-CDs" machines.
So Alice brought along a precious family heirloom. It certainly played all right, and you should have watched the delight spreading over her face.
You see, it's a private recording, made in 1948, by her father's
Skiffle band,
The Bunkhouse Boys.
But when we had a go at converting it, Alice mucked about with the controls, as she didn't want to use up a whole blank CD on just a few minutes of track. So it didn't work at all, and then it was time to trundle down the Harvieston drive for the bus back to town.
But we'll have another go soon.
That's Alice's Dad in the check shirt on the left of this photo, with the
washboard. He was very keen on playing music, usually the drums
. He had a huge collection of Jazz records, too, and taught Alice to appreciate the Blues. But that's another story. And in case you're wondering, she's no idea who the little boy was.
You can look any of these up for yourself on either IMDb or Rotten Tomatoes. Some will also have websites all of their own. For forthcoming films, you can try Film3sixty. We like to watch the BBC's Film 2013, STV's Moviejuice and The Review Show on BBC2 as well.
* Shadow Dancer 
David Lean's masterpiece has been painstakingly restored for the fiftieth anniversary of its original release. Utterly breath-taking: Peter O'Toole's piercing blue eyes, Omar Sharif, the camels, the music, and the most compelling character of all - the desert. We scarcely dare to mention the light it throws on the betrayal of the Arabs ...
