Japanese ambient

For a few days I've been trying to find some background Japanese music on YouTube ... and failed. Oh, there are loads of it - but not the kind I was after - something that would make a good backdrop for a leisurely stroll in an ornamental garden (Japanese or not) or some similar situation, the way some Baroque music can. I know it exists (occasionally I hear fragments in this or that TV documentary), but all I could find was at best good for meditatiton, and mostly too soporific even for that.

My fifteen minutes of Twitter fame

I basically never tag anybody on Twitter, even if I talk about them. But the other day a wisecrack alluding to the lyrics of Dreamers occurred to me; when I later tweeted it, on a whim I did tag Neon Waltz, the band responsible. Somehow I felt it might amuse them. And lo and behold, they retweeted it, which resulted in its accumulating 30 likes by midnight.

I know, I know. But I've probably not received so many likes for all my other tweets put together, and during the year I've been on Twitter I must have posted a few dozen.

Listening to an album

Insomniac on Sunday night three weeks ago, I opened a beer can, put earbuds in my ears and listened to Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band the way music (other than ambient music) should be listened to: sometimes mouthing the words, sometimes just listening, sometimes taking a gulp, sometimes puffing on an e-cig, sometimes reclining, sometimes in ardha padmasana, but always concentrating on the music. I hadn't done that for months, if not years, and it elated me accordingly.

Hats Off

Just listened again – after a few years – to the whole Hats Off to the Buskers album by The View and still think it’s the best debut album ever released. (Well, there’s Traveling Wilburys Vol. 1, but that wasn’t a real debut album for any of the Wilburys involved).



(originally posted probably on Tumblr, or maybe on WordPress)