recording / Solaris remake

I was pretty slow today - unpacked and set up electronic stuff.

Eventually I did do what i wanted to do today and that was to clock in at the studio and start recording again - the India project this time. Tho late in the afternoon I got quite a lot doen in 2 hours laying down on a new track 2 synth arpegiators, 3 tin whistles and one bamboo flute. It;s an old Rain Garden tune from 15 years ago we never recorded. Nice minimal mandala piece. Just needs arranging, some guitar, soem percussion - and Carl's sitar of course.

Yay - sold an Earth Rising CD at CDBaby.
Yay 2 - actually heard back from a record company - Tzadik - I sent a demo to ... gasp. Tzadik boss John Zorn himself (wll known in the improv music world) emailed me himself with as nice a rejection as you could get for Yttrium.

My attempts to get national radioplay for 3 albums of different genres I sent to different shows has not succeeded so far.
 I aint holding my breath,

I got into a nice quiet clear internal space this evening. I also have a nice new sound in my head which I hope leads to something.

Decided to treat self to a Chinese takeaway - something I haven't had for 5 years or so. I watched a Voyager episode, then I decided to watch at last the Solaris remake with Clooney. I;'ve put this off for years as the Tarkovsky original is pretty close to religion with me, as are most Tarkovsy's. The Soderbergh version was better than i thought it would be - the soundtrack was nice. Clooney was OK, the rest of the cast, no match for the original. Still - a nice mood piece. But Natascha McElhorne is certainly no Natalya Bondarchuk when it comes to being enigmatic. It wasn't bad tho - kinda like Solaris Lite.

Blofeld story

one of the fun stories Henry Blofeld told the other night - probably an old chestnut to some but new to me keeps coming back to tickle me.

It was one told to him by the Queen Mother's head servant who he met at his club.

The servant told the Queen mum that they needed a new television. She said "What's wrong with my old telly?". He replied that it wasn't for her - the servants tv below stairs had broken and were complaining and needed a new one. She told him to get one for them.
The new tv was a bit flash, so he put the new one in the Queen Mother's living room and put her old one in the servants quarters. He explained what he'd done. She asked why, and said that she'd liked her old telly, but he pointed out that the new one came with a gadget. Demonstrating, he said  "Look - the new one comes with a remote control - see - press a button - the channel changes, press another button - the channel changes again."
She replied "How marvelous - what will they invent next?"
After a moments thought she added, "Though, you know, I think I'll still prefer to ring the bell"