#works like syncing dark side of the moon to the wizard of oz

[deadpanwalking]

A Cooking Egg by T.S. Eliot

    En l'an trentiesme de mon aage     Que toutes mes hontes j'ay beues

Pipit sate upright in her chair Some distance from where I was sitting; Views of the Oxford Colleges Lay on the table, with the knitting.

Daguerreotypes and silhouettes, Her grandfather and great great aunts, Supported on the mantelpiece An Invitation to the Dance.

. . . . .

I shall not want Honour in Heaven For I shall meet Sir Philip Sidney And have talk with Coriolanus And other heroes of that kidney.

I shall not want Capital in Heaven For I shall meet Sir Alfred Mond: We two shall lie together, lapt In a five per cent Exchequer Bond.

I shall not want Society in Heaven, Lucretia Borgia shall be my Bride; Her anecdotes will be more amusing Than Pipit's experience could provide.

I shall not want Pipit in Heaven: Madame Blavatsky will instruct me In the Seven Sacred Trances; Piccarda de Donati will conduct me …

. . . . .

But where is the penny world I bought To eat with Pipit behind the screen? The red-eyed scavengers are creeping From Kentish Town and Golder's Green;

Where are the eagles and the trumpets?

Buried beneath some snow-deep Alps. Over buttered scones and crumpets Weeping, weeping multitudes Droop in a hundred A.B.C.'s.

[notesofaninsignificantmusician]

Today In Music History—March 1st, 2022:

On this day 49 years ago, in 1973, Pink Floyd released their eighth studio album, “The Dark Side of the Moon.” To this day one of the top three albums in music history, the album debuted at #95 on the US Albums Chart, but quickly climbs up the ladder, and became the album with the most weeks on the tally. A conspiracy theory has arose in the past few decades, when it was discovered that “The Dark Side of the Moon” when played alongside the classic film “The Wizard of Oz” syncs up scarily perfectly. My family has taken part in this experiment, and not only does it work, but it does not matter the song nor the album by Pink Floyd, nor even the movie in question. We have synced the band’s classic movie from both “Dark Side of the Moon” “The Wall” and much more to classic films such as “Mary Poppins” “Wall-E” “Inglorious Basterds” “O Brother Where Art Thou” and many more without a flaw in the conspiracy. Just another reason why this album paved the way for music history

If you’d like to see my copy of “The Dark Side of the Moon” on vinyl, you can find it here on my series, “Vinyl Fridays”

I also challenge you all to take your favorite movie, and push shuffle on your Pink Floyd library, and see what happens!

[joecial-distancing]

2019 in review in review:

A few years ago I started tracking yearly goals, books read, movies watched etc in a year, along with overview blurbs, in private posts. End of 2019/beginning of 2020 I was really frazzled/burned out about a lot of stuff and just never finished up making the thing. 8 months later, got the urge to read back what I’d got done, then figured I’d maybe go ahead and see about finishing. 

Media tracking below the break. thoughts/blurbs written in 2020 italicized, 2019 not.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~_____________________________~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Didn’t do so hot on explicit personal goals, but had a lot of stuff go ok around them this year.

School’s been fine/better than fine.

Job’s probably the biggest failing. Still with same job, haven’t made the firm moves to jump off, dragging my feet too much on exploring stuff w/ Columbia/NASA GISS.

Did not get better with covid, lol

Dating life still non-existent, but I’ve registered on apps, gotten more comfortable with selfies, improved general social life dramatically, been flirted with, updated my wardrobe, and generally started to get comfortable accepting that I’m a hot person.

Somehow got extremely better during covid.

Books

Grant (finished)

We stan a taurus legend

Guy was good at exactly one job, and was fortunate enough to have been in the right place/right time to get to do it.

Mort (discworld)

Definitely best discworld I’ve gotten to so far.

Don Quixote p. II

Really entertaining in a way that part 1 wasn’t; I was shocked how much the meta element landed for me.

Consider the Lobster (DFW collection)

had zero context on who DFW is/was when I read, and still don’t exactly tbh. Wanted to wait for a pause in The Discourse before diving into more of him, but dunno if I’m ever going to get that.

Crime and Punishment (revisited)

Weirdly didn’t get much more out of this than I did the first time I’d read it

Better Than Sex (HST Gonzo papers)

Xerox/widespread fax accessibility opening citizen access to mass media in a manner really reminiscent of what social media would go on to do at a much larger scale. Has a much more deliberate narrative arc than the other gonzo papers collections, also has that excellent HST richard nixon eulogy

The Brothers Karamazov

SPQR

Slouching Towards Bethlehem (Didion collection)

Pet Sematary

Not my favorite King, but not bad

Sourcery (discworld)

still funny/charming, but Mort really made clear/reminded me how much the hapless sadsack Rincewind mold of protagonist wears on me after a while.

The Devil's Teeth

My Year of Rest and Relaxation

Liked it a lot more once I realized it was doing a Fear and Loathing thing.

Homage to Catalonia

This should be the Orwell that gets taught in schools. Make it a followup to All Quiet on the Western Front or something, jeez.

Lyndon Johnson I

Having now finished all of them, this one’s probably the least-interesting but sets up a bunch of important context that the others still then feel the need to retread.

The Razor's Edge

Recommended to me as a “white guy discovers eastern mysticism” book, but also is more interesting in its treatment of that than I’d expected (helps it was written in the 40s). 

Cat's Cradle

There’s a part in this where Vonnegut’s making fun of people who try to bond with strangers over being Hoosiers, and my dumbass immediate thought was “ooh, Vonnegut’s a hoosier? Me too!”

Lyndon Johnson II

Robert Caro felt compelled to apologize for spending so much words lionizing Coke Stevens, segregationist opponent to Johnson’s senate run. His goal was pretty clearly to show lbj’s lack of campaign charisma by contrast, definitely definitely overcommitted in his own narrativising.

Libra

I want to go back to this after reading some more De Lillo.

Gravity's Rainbow

This book absolutely kicked my ass

Overstuffed and referential in a specific way that really keeps me hooked in instead of put off. When I learn about some piece of cultural context that I retroactively recognize as being referenced in this, I want to go back and reread the entire thing.

From Caligari to Hitler

Kind of fails both as film criticism and cultural analysis, but absolutely made me want to run for the hills when considering current relationship between mainstream movies and demands of pop culture.

I took a class on Weimar cinema in undergrad that I now realize was probably biting pretty heavily from this and never once referenced it.

Movies

Venom

Movie itself is not as fun as the Tom Hardy hype coverage. PG13 was the absolute worst space to aim for, PG- or R- versions of this could have been a blast.

Harryhauser Argonauts

Was tripping when I put this on, and it was all kinds of fun.

2001: a Space Oddyssey

First time seeing this, all-time classic for a reason!

A Good American (the NSA doc)

Dr. Strangelove

Mel Brooks History of the World p. I

Not my favorite Brooks, best joke was at the beginning.

In Bruges

Had been a while since I saw a proper dark comedy.

Spiderverse

Fukkin awesome!

Visually great, and extremely better than usual superhero stuff for being aimed at PG instead of PG-13.

You Only Live Twice

Highlander (Revisited)

I watched The Old Guard on netflix recently and it mostly just made me wish I was watching Highlander instead, because at least Highlander knows exactly how goofy it is

Moonraker

The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly

Much like The Shining, I though this would have been 100% spoiled for me by cultural osmosis, but turns out it wasn’t, and even the scenes I had seen *totally landed* in-context still.

Kung Fu Hustle

Ichi the Killer

Really gross, really fun

Matrix Reloaded (watched thru highway scene) (Revisited)

The highway scene was not nearly as cool as I remembered it being.

John Wick 3*

Probably dumbest plot of all of them, best choreography. I like how every single fight had its own distinct flavor. “Knife museum fight” “horse fight” “halle berry dogs fight” 

Akira

A classic

Pet Sematary * (ugh, bad)

Why can’t john lithgow be in good movies anymore

The Revenant

MCU Spiderman

Fuck this was awful.

MCU Spiderman 2*

Really weird, complete Rorschach Test of a movie: it’d be totally valid to read into this that global warming is Fake News, for instance.

Lmao this was completely awful

Rites

Dredd (non-stallone)

oh hey Lena Headey’s in this

For All Mankind!

Watched in honor of moon landing anniversary

Lion King *

Watched it way too stoned, was like dark side of the moon + wizard of oz except instead it’s a lion king script reading + nature footage edited for lip syncing.

Once Upon a Time in Hollywood *

Many scenes of very long setups for really stupid shaggy dog jokes, which sometimes worked and sometimes didn’t. I do kinda want to rewatch now knowing more about manson, which I knew pretty much nothing about beforehand

Blowout

A good john lithgow movie

also I think I like travolta in things.

Lord of War

A Good cage movie

I like when Eamon Walker shows up in stuff.

Taxi Driver

A classic

Snowpiercer

Watched in a bar with only one speaker working, which is the correct way to watch. Weirder and funnier than I thought it was going to be, which still doesn’t make it good, but,

dbz big green dub

Exorcist III

Brad Dourif just tearing it apart

Deep Red (argento)

Suspiria (1977)

Watched the remake in 2020, which was ok, but nothing tops the Goblin score.

Elf Bowling

Thanks, Gnome

Parasite *

Interesting to me that this one seems poised to hang around people’s good esteem for a while

TV

FMA: B

Rick & Morty

Saw some episodes, generally pretty funny, some misanthropy that’s probably appealing to a certain type of teen al a something like House, but ultimately I don’t totally Get the intensity of discourse about it.

Leterkenny

Mob Psycho 100

One Punch Man

Deadwood

Watchmen

Only watched like half of it. Was playing around with a lot of hefty imagery/thematics, but didn’t really seem ready to rise above playing (tho also I feel like it’s weird on some level to *expect* them to rise above that in the first place)

Music

New Avantasia

HEALTH/ show

lol remember concerts

King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard/ show

Just learned about King Gizz in 2019 and got completely obsessed with them. I don’t tend to expand my music selection very readily, and a lot of what I currently *do* know is old/inactive stuff, so it was/is incredibly exciting to have an active group with good momentum just immediately win me over like that.

Mistimed the edibles and ended up with a really good finale and a really long subway ride home.

New Yeasayer

Sad they split up

Steve Wilson Tull remixes

Aqualung’s a good album and the sound mixing’s kinda bad, so I liked this project.

Stonefield

Opened for Gizzard. Really good as studying music

Video Games

Civ VI: Gathering Storm

Hades

Turns out Supergiant’s design proclivities all work *extremely well* on a roguelike

Baba is You

Untitled Goose Game

Cute, if maybe a bit overhyped

finally fucking finished Pillars of Eternity

Had fun with it, but too long, and really dour for how long it is.

Pillars II

Kinda drifted off it eventually, but I do genuinely like that the flavor of the fantasy is colonial era rather than medieval.

There’s a Balancing Bastard Factions element where it’s like the writers are just being smartasses after a while. Having to go extremely out of their way to make siding with colonizers seem like a competitive option.

Pokemon shield

Cuphead

pisses me off, which was a nice outlet when I was stranded by flight cancellations during thanksgiving

Celeste

Also very difficult, but really easy to stay patient with, which is nice.

Disco Elysium

None of the discourse made me want to play this, but people talking about the mechanical stuff it did got me extremely interested. Mostly Delivered IMO.

Breath of the Wild

You can approach the nodes of the main quest in the order you choose, and the second one I chose made ninjas start fucking spawning everywhere when I’m just trying to explore, and there’s no way to make it stop. May go back to it one day.

Podcasts

Relentless Picnic Patreon feed

The treats really helped me start distinguishing individual personalities, compared to the regular eps.

Picnic Discord!

<3

FatT Counterweight

Fun, but also I think Mechs are not my shit.

FatT Spring in Hieron/ end of that particular world

8 months since I’ve last tuned into FatT. ah well.

Law School

He’s in everythiiiing!

You Must Remember This: Manson family

*There’s* the context

Misc.

Kindle train guy

Times Square sleeping guy + kids taking selfies w/ him

toddler singing along after Psycho killer (a, ya, ya ya, ya)

drunk and dragged to a drag show

Central park football family

Soft Steel Drum Subway Busker

Weird old lady going to grand central for oysters

2018 in review (cards):

MySelf (CC)

Self: Tower

Blocked: 10 Cups

Ethereal/subconscious: 8 Swords

Material: 3 Swords

Past: Justice

Future: Page Wands

Attitude: Sun

External: King Swords

Hopes/Fears: 5 Coins

Trajectory: High Priestess

Also Self:

Hierophant

7 Cups

7 Coins

Blind Spot:

(self & others): 5 cups    ||    (others not self): High Priestess

(self not others): Moon   ||    (nobody): 3 Cups

[1ff]

Scene-by-scene analysis of Inception (spoilers)

We have begun a group project to create an album that syncs up with the movie Inception (similar to how Dark Side of the Moon supposedly syncs with The Wizard of Oz, except intentionally). The working title for this soundtrack album is Incite.

I have chosen to contribute by creating a chart of every significant scene cut and visual cue, timed as accurately as possible. I have so far watched the first 7 minutes and 56 seconds of the movie over the course of roughly an hour and created 36 lines of detailed notes cross-referenced with keywords.

It is fascinating, when you are pausing the movie and going back and forth over scenes frame-by-frame, what you start to notice.

I have seen two close-ups of watches so far. The shot that occurs in a dream is upside-down. I will be watching to see if this is a pattern.

Also, I find it interesting that early in the movie Cobb ties a rope to a chair that Mal is sitting on, and rappels out the window. Since I have been using keywords I have noticed that chairs associated with falling are a repeated motif (which is stated outright, but also seems to be subtly inserted in several places). Mal then leaves the chair and Cobb falls again. Originally I assumed this was malicious, but now it looks like Mal was intentionally trying to wake Cobb out of the larger dream she insists he is still in. (In the previous scene she asks if she would die if she fell.)

-Prog

[ihearthisto]

Do you have any tips for how to study histology? I'm about to begin and really nervous!

Every picture tells a story

Thanks for your question anon!

There is a short answer to your question - and that is that there is no magic bullet that works for everyone. You have to find what works best for you. Having said that, I have never been one for short answers so here is something much more lengthy that will hopefully help you.

It isn’t a trick or a mnemonic. It isn’t a method to improve your memorization capacity. It is merely a shift in the way you think about histology. For many, a simple adjustment in the way you think about the subject can bring into focus a whole new world from what was once was vague pinky purpleyness.

Think of it like this. Every histological image you look at is a work of unique biological art. Instantly recognizable by experts (even at high magnification) based upon the patterns, shapes and colors of its constituent connective tissue and cells.

Take another look at the pictures I posted above:

I bet you recognized the Mona Lisa from a highly magnified shot of those brow-less eyes? Or the album artwork for Abbey Road by the Beatles from a close up shot of that pedestrian crosswalk? Or Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of The Moon from that ‘prism’?

Those patterns are instantly recognizable - iconic.

Histology is the same (except the club is more exclusive). Every image has unique features that make it what it is. Can you instantly recognize the cartilage of the ear in its highly magnified state? Maybe not, but with practice you will be able to.

The first time you saw Mona Lisa you probably had no clue who she was but seeing her image in countless magazines, art class, on TV, in museums made even the tiniest details of her face instantly recognizable.

So my first tips for learning histology are:

1. Pattern recognition. Learn to see those unique histological patterns that make that tissue that tissue. Patterns don’t lie.

2. Expose yourself. Not in the Friday night nudity get arrested kind of way. But expose yourself to as many images of the same tissues as possible. Pattern recognition skills only improve with plenty of varied (look at different slides not the same one) practice.

Very soon you will see that the Pancreas and Parotid gland are as different as a Da Vinci and a Van Gogh.

But remember, histology is not just about identifying tissues…which brings me to my last piece of advice (promise).

Every one of the images above tells a story…

a. Mona Lisa’s story

Some say that Mona Lisa is Lisa del Giocondo a member of the Gherardini family of Florence and Tuscany the wife of wealthy Florentine silk merchant Francesco del Giocondo. The painting is thought to have been commissioned for their new home, and to celebrate the birth of their second son. Others say that this is actually a Da Vinci self portrait which explains the fact that the more I look at this painting the more I see her more masculine features.

b. The Abbey Road story

Did you know that Paul is not wearing any shoes? Or that the VW Beetle car was owned by the guys in the flat opposite Abbey Rd studios? After release of the album the cars license plate was regularly stolen! It is now on display in a museum in Germany. The distracted man in the image is an American tourist in London, his name is Paul Cole. He died in 2008 forever immortalized on this iconic album sleeve. And stoutly disliked the music of the Beatles. [Whether Mr Cole was telling the truth or lying is debated, either way it is a great story and I feel there is a novel in this somewhere…]

c. The Dark Side story

The spectrum (missing indigo) from the prism is said to represent the magnificent light shows the Floyd wowed crowds with at their live shows. But at the same time it could be a rainbow…which feeds the theory that if you start playing the album at the same time as you start watching The 19439 Judy Garland classic ‘The Wizard of OZ’ the lyrics sync with the events on screen. Full version here. Maybe there is something over that rainbow?

d. The Ear story

The ear is pretty flexible. Those jug handles protrude from the sides of our head and are at risk of being torn off every time a kid pushes his/her head into a tight space where a head is not meant to go. Think about how many times a dog or cat does this. To avoid this, those black filaments you see make sure that the ear bends and springs back into its original position - they are elastin fibers. Like those in the waistband of your pants. The cells are chondrocytes, beady eyes peering at you. they make the cartilage matrix which is lightweight (so our heads aren’t overly heavy), flexible (so the ears can bend) but really strong (so they can take some abuse before they get damaged).

So my second tips for learning histology are:

1. Learn the tissue’s story. The reason the patterns exist in the first place is because the components play a distinct functional role in that tissue that make that tissue that tissue. If you make this link between structure and function histology will make much more sense.

2. Enjoy it. If you enjoy science/biology/medicine then embrace histology. It is the story of your body. How it is put together, how it works. It is not often you get to gaze into the building blocks of your own soul and marvel at them in full vivid color. And for those of you who don’t have that insatiable curiosity about how your own body works then…maybe…maybe medical science is not the wisest career path to venture down.

I wish you the very best of luck with your studies in histology.

i♡histo

[ymoviesuk-group]

Was The Shining Stanley Kubrick admitting he faked the moon landing?

As part of part of our series on mind-blowing movie fan theories, we're changing the way you watch some of Hollywood's most famous films. This week: 'The Shining', whose source book by Stephen King turns 40 this year.

The theory

There are several bonkers theories on 'The Shining', nine of which are detailed in the excellent documentary, 'Room 237'. 'The Shining' is the perfect film onto which to project such theories, because a) Stanley Kubrick was incredibly detail-oriented and never left anything to chance, and b) Stanley Kubrick is dead, therefore unable to disprove any of the crackpot conspiracies you'd care to sling at his movies.

Read more: Shia LaBeouf’s anti-Trump project Sir Ian McKellen had the best sign at the Women’s March Rogue One crosses $1 billion at the box office

Several theories detailed in 'Room 237' are interesting, including a claim that the Native Americans on the hotel's food cans suggest an underlying theme of American imperialism, and an interesting dissection with a dolly cam that proves that the spiralling architecture of The Overlook Hotel is, in fact, impossible. One theory, however, outdoes all the others in terms of lunacy: theorist Jay Weidner claims that Stanley Kubrick littered 'The Shining' with clues to suggest that he filmed the fake Moon landing for NASA in 1969.

I'll just let that breathe a little. It's a conspiracy wrapped in a riddle wrapped in an enigma. But is it true? Humour us.

The evidence

Deep breath. Weidner believes that NASA were so desperate to beat Russia in the space race, they contacted director Stanley Kubrick to shoot a fake landing, so they could at least appear to have beaten them to the surface of the Moon. The evidence for this, says Weidner, is that there are apparent signs of the lighting technique known as 'front projection' in the infamous NASA Moon landing video, which Kubrick had pioneered for use in movies like '2001: A Space Odyssey'. 'The Shining', released 11 years after Neil Armstrong walked on the 'Moon', is heavy with symbolism that suggests Kubrick was confessing his 'secret'. Symbolism like...

- Little Danny Torrance is wearing the film's biggest clue: a jumper with the Apollo 11 rocket knitted right into the pattern. It's hardly subtle and suggests that Kubrick really wasn't doing such a great job at keeping quiet.

- One change from Stephen King's book that Kubrick saw fit to make was to change the number of the iconic room in the Overlook from Room 217 to Room 237. The reasons for this are obvious, apparently: the average distance between the Earth and the Moon is 237,000 miles. Room 237 represents the fake lunar landing set, The Overlook Hotel represents America and Danny, who approaches the room, represents Stanley Kubrick's artistic side. Still following? Good. Because it gets weirder.

- The page that Jack leaves behind at the typewriter? Cast iron proof that Kubrick faked the Moon landing. Where you see the word "All", as in 'All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy', Weidner sees "A11", short for Apollo 11. Apparently, this line is an insight into Kubrick's mental condition: that working on the Apollo 11 'project' and having to keep it a secret has made him go a little crazy. Obvious, really.

- If Jack Torrance represents Kubrick, then Shelley Duvall's Wendy represents Kubrick's own wife, Christina. The scene in which Wendy confronts Jack about his behaviour and suggests he has to quit has parallels with Kubrick's own secret. Jack's response? "That is so typical of you!… I've made an agreement… I have obligations to my employers!" It's so blatant! Wake up, sheeple!

- Weidner also claims the iconic hexagonal pattern found on the carpets in the Overlook Hotel were designed specifically to reference the Apollo 11 launching pads. This is how Kubrick effectively owns up to his engineering of the biggest fakery in human history: via carpet samples.

- Weidner didn't stop at room numbers and carpet patterns. He claims that the fact Danny sees the corpses of twins is a reference to 'Gemini', the NASA missions before Apollo. There were seven Apollo space missions, but only six landed; in the hotel lobby, there are six crates of soft drink 7-Up. Dick Halloran comes from Florida, which is where Apollo 11 was launched. The owner of the hotel has an eagle on his windowsill; the Apollo 11 lunar module was nicknamed 'The Eagle'. The truth is out there! If you look hard enough!

The verdict

It's tempting to instantly dismiss this as twaddle, and… well, we are going to dismiss it as twaddle, because it's a flagrant case of over-analysing – if you search long and hard enough for something, you'll start seeing the results you want to see. Rather like how some claim Pink Floyd's ‘Dark Side Of The Moon’ syncs up perfectly with 'The Wizard Of Oz' (it doesn't, at all), the idea of the Kubrick Moon landing theory is so much fun you can't help but entertain it. Once you open yourself up to the idea, your findings are coloured.

But yes. No. Obviously Stanley Kubrick did not fake the Moon landings for NASA while shooting '2001: A Space Odyssey' and did not confess his secret in the form of 'The Shining'. We feel we can say this with no small amount of conviction.

Read more Who should win the VFX, according to VFX experts Can anything beat La La Land at the Oscars? Jimmy Kimmel reveals Oscar host wages

Watch a trailer for ‘Room 237′ below...

Photos: Press Association/Rex/Warner Bros.

[changterhune]

RED DESERT Re-IMAGINED by Cathode Ray Tube

I first discovered the film Red Desert on a cold winter’s day after watching several documentaries. It seemed like a perfect addition to the day’s viewing as well as expanding my knowledge of Italian new wave films which is woefully inadequate. 

Red Desert is the story of a woman trapped in her own mind’s terror following a car accident. The bleak industrial landscape of post-war Italy is reflective of her fractured mind and nervous state. As we follow her through the film her situation becomes more and more troubled especially after meeting “L’uomo” played by Richard Harris. It ends inconclusively with our main character in no better place than when she started which is about as much as you can expect from an Italian art film. 

It’s gorgeously filmed with each scene framed beautifully. The landscape is as much a part of the film as the actors. Monica Vitti is as stunning as she is skilled at her portrayal of a woman slowly going mad. The color is vivid even when so many scenes are of the bleak industrial landscape of early 1960’s Ravenna, Italy.

Someone much more versed in film could say so many things about it better than I can so if you want to read more about it check out these fine write-ups:

Criterion: https://www.criterion.com/current/posts/1491-red-desert-in-this-world

Film Stage: https://thefilmstage.com/a-closer-look-at-michelangelo-antonionis-red-desert/

The New Yorker: https://www.newyorker.com/culture/richard-brody/dvd-of-the-week-red-desert

Red Desert is a spacious film both visually and aurally. There’s lots of landscape even in the cramped, industrial passages. There’s sparse dialogue for the most part. And the soundtrack is virtually non-existent but for some passages of exquisite electro-acoustic synthesized warblings of Vittorio Gelmetti. I fell in love with it immediately and watched it a few times over. And the more I viewed it I noticed certain things about the film, how the soundtrack was for one thing so sparse as to be nonexistent. The more I watched I was intrigued by the idea of creating a score for it. 

Sacrilege, I know.

And yet… I couldn’t stop myself. So, I began to imagine who might create a soundtrack for it and what they’d do. Then again if anyone’s going to do it I suppose it’d have to be me, right? 

Not gonna lie: it takes balls to dare and re-score a classic film with an already renowned (if extremely minimal) score. As I wrote in the liner notes for the Bunnyhead OST on Component Recordings (LINKY) I love soundtracks. It’s always been a dream of mine to score a film all by myself. So taking a classic film and creating my own score is the next best thing while also highly unorthodox (and possibly illegal though I claim fair use in this case).

Re-imagined soundtracks are nothing new, of course. Queen, The Grateful Dead, Cabaret Voltaire, and Jack Dangers of Meat Beat Manifesto to name a few have taken on re-writing the scores of classic films. And I wanted to go somewhere different and weird with Red Desert (as if those two words weren’t already firmly embedded in the descriptions of the film). Eventually I settled on this highly unlikely but very amusing premise:

What if Richard H. Kirk and Rammellzee were to steal a time machine then go back to 1970’s Dusseldorf, break into Kraftwerk’s infamous Kling Klang studio and record the score for Red Desert 

Sure, I know, The Simpson’s already did this. Or was it an episode of The Sopranos? No? Well, after that well it practically wrote itself. 

Not. 

But it gave a me a framework to start from. It was an interesting challenge to create music to fit the tone of the film and various scenes. For instance, a long time ago I read an interview in The Wire with Jim O’Rourke where he talked about interpreting what “gestures” or sounds might mean spooky, sad, scary, happy, etc. based on social agreement and common fears, phobias, etc. I often think of that but especially when I was composing music for Red Desert.

Then I expanded on these ideas further by incorporating some different versions of my existing material which I felt worked well with the film. I tend to think most of my music is the score to scenes of my life, anyway. What was even more interesting was some of the original files for tracks were lost so either I had to re-write them entirely which yielded new tracks or worked the older versions into the score.

For the purpose of this collection I’ve chosen the full versions of songs as opposed to pieces of them (“cues” as they say in the biz). There’s so much happening in these that one would never get to hear otherwise so enjoy the full monty (This also means if you want to try and view the film whilst playing the soundtrack alongside it ala Wizard of Oz and Pink Floyd’s Dark Side Of The Moon you’ll be out of sync and playing the movie a few times over)!

In a few places I’ve left the original score intact out of respect for the director and composer as they are critical to the film as a whole. That may seem a little odd but then so am I. 

Overall it’s been an interesting experiment which I hope others will enjoy. Call it sacrilege, call it defamation. I call it a loveletter to film and original scores. 

Here is as good a place as any for acknowledgements so without further ado, thanks be to:

- Deftly-D for wanting to put this out on Voidstar and believing in the insanity of this project. 

- My pal Jay for hearing me out despite being a diehard fan of the original film as is without some yahoo messing it up with his beep-bopp-boop soundtrack.

- My wife Alice and my kids Sophia and Ellen for enduring multiple viewings of my rough cuts of the film with my score. Not easy considering it had no subtitles and is entirely in Italian. 

- Robert Galbraith for his excellent mastering work.

Be well and rock on!

- CRT

August, 2020

Scarborough, Maine, USA, Earth Planet

[laurenh-art]

There’s No Place Like ... Knowing Yourself

Alien: “differing in nature or character typically to the point of incompatibility.”

Since the solar eclipse a few weeks ago, I have felt a huge drain of my energy. Perhaps a combination of intense cosmic activity and extreme heat, like an alien laser gun, my energy level the past couple weeks seemed to have been completely zapped to the point that anything beyond the basic necessities of living day to day have felt exhausting. 

The full moon this past week began to recharge my energy a bit, enough to get back in the kitchen and back some cookies - chocolate chip oatmeal cookies that it. 

Click Your Heals 3 Times and Repeat: 

There’s Nothing Like Homemade Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies

Ingredients

2 1/2 cups flour

2 cups old fashion oats

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 teaspoon salt (optional)

1 cup coconut oil (melted)

1/2 cup granulated white sugar

1/2 cup brown sugar

2 flax eggs (1 tablespoon ground flaxseed mixed with 3 tablespoons water = 1 flax egg)

1 teaspoon vanilla

1/2 cup dairy free chocolate chips

Optional: 1/2 cup walnuts or 1/2 cup shredded coconut

Directions

Preheat over to 350 degrees.

In a small bowl or cup, mix ground flax with water. Let set for a least 5 minutes. You want the flax to have absorbed most of the water and be kind of a jelly consistency. (see below)

In one bowl, mix together flour, oats baking soda, and optional salt.

In a small sauce pan, melt coconut oil on low. 

In a second bowl, or mixer (however this recipe is easy to mix the old fashion way with a spoon or your hand), mix together sugars with melted coconut oil. Then add flax eggs and vanilla. 

Add wet ingredients to dry ingredients. Stir dry and wet ingredients together in a mixer, using a large spoon, or get your (clean) hand in there. 

Add chocolate chips and any other optional add ins, nuts and/or shredded coconut. If using a mixer, I recommend just using a spoon or your hand for this part.

If at this point, the mixture is too dry, add a little more oil, or if it feels too wet, add a little more flour. It should stick together pretty easily, but still have a little crumbly feel to it. 

Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Now I really hate using parchment paper because it seems so wasteful, however I have yet to find a replacement that works as well for keeping perfectly good cookies from sticking to the baking sheet. I do reuse the parchment paper 2-3 times when making the same cookies. I just label a corner of the paper so I know which sheet is for which flavor. 

Form the dough mixture into 1″ balls, and place in oven once sheet is filled (see below)

Bake for 10 minutes, then open oven and slightly (very gently) press cookies down using a spoon or folk, close oven and let cookies finish baking for another 2-3 minutes. 

Remove cookies from oven and let cookies cool for 20 minutes. Yeilds about 20 cookies. 

Side note: because these cookies are made with coconut oil and not butter, they will not be big and flat, they will more so hold the ball shape and be super dense and bursting with flavor!

Step by Step (in photos)

Flax egg ready to be added to other wet ingredients. 

Dry ingredients mixed together.

Wet ingredients mixed together. 

Mixing all ingredients together.

Before going into the oven.

Don’t forget to set your timer!

And just as quick as Dorothy returned back to Kansas, your cookies are done!

“Food which entails cooking in its preparation should only be eaten when it has been cooked with mantra and/love.” - Ram Dass

…………………………………

There are many things that I associate with home, and chocolate chip oatmeal cookies are certainly one of those things. Good food, feeling safe, comfortable, and loved are also things that remind me of home.

Where The Dark Side of the Moon ends, the yellow brick road begins, a phrase that popped into my mind not too long after moving to LA. Perhaps because The Wizard of Oz was my favor movie as a child, and I just so happened to move across the country for the first time, right down the street from where that movie was filmed. Right down the street from that film studio, is now where I call home.  And while it was a long, painful and fearful journey to get here, there are times when I stare out at the pacific ocean and it almost seems as though I just clicked my heels 3 times, repeat the mantra, and here I am, home. 

Home doesn’t necessarily need to be a single place though. It could actually be a couple places, or no place at all. Ultimately, home is a feeling, or things we remember that remind us of a feeling we once had. Going inward, feeling safe, comfortable, and loved within ones self without external factors is really the true home. 

If you start the record Dark Side of the Moon on the lions 3rd roar at the beginning of the Wizard of Oz, the record syncs with the movie so well, it almost seem intentional. It is what Carl Jung called, synchronicity, “a phenomenon in which coincidental events seem related but are not explained by conventional mechanisms of causality." 

Maybe it was intentional. Maybe not. However, what I find even more interesting is where the record ends. It ends not too long after Dorothy meets the scarecrow and they begin their journey down the yellow brick road together with the track entitled Eclipse playing. 

Perhaps though, oh just perhaps, an Eclipse was exactly what I need to just get on with it, so get me, to get the world for that matter back on the path. 

“With, without. And who’ll deny it’s what the fighting’s all about?” - Us and Them by Pink Floyd 

Embrace the ebbs and flows of the universe with grace. During the times when the tide is high, and the endless waves of life seem to be relentless against the vibrations of your being, don’t fight a battle you can’t win. Embrace the ebbs and flows of the universe with grace. Go inward and find your home. 

Eventually, the seas will once again calm, and clarity will slowly beginning to reappear through the fog of worry and doubt. 

This is all a set up, setting up your own base that is. Building a strong set of roots, so that the tree which is your life can grow to its fullest potential. 

"Eclipse" All that you touch And all that you see All that you taste All you feel And all that you love And all that you hate All you distrust All you save And all that you give And all that you deal And all that you buy, Beg, borrow or steal And all you create And all you destroy And all that you do And all that you say And all that you eat And everyone you meet And all that you slight And everyone you fight And all that is now And all that is gone And all that's to come And everything under the sun is in tune But the sun is eclipsed by the moon. (There is no dark side of the moon, really. Matter of fact, it's all dark.)

…………………………………

Reading - The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell

Listening - A Deeper Understanding by The War on Drugs

Watching - Your favorite childhood movie