Monday Morning Music Break: First Edition and Computers !@#$%^ Argh!

This is how my mind feels sometimes:

You Tube:  You Can't Download Vinyl

It felt loudly like this last Thursday night
when I was trying to finish my northern post.

The Ever-Patient Terry had headed off to bed
biting his tongue to avoid saying,
"Don't stay up late; you know what condition you're in."

He was thinking medically and psychologically.
Some battles can't be won, and he wisely
pulled the covers up over his head and went to sleep.

I was at the counter tearing my hair out
as I tried to upload a Wikipedia map
and mark Lansdowne House on it.
I had managed to do something like that once before,
but I couldn't remember how.

After a lot of cursing, chocolate, and ginger,
more than a few tears,
numerous counter pounds, 
and shenanigans I managed this:

Location of Lake Attawapiskat

Inland from Akimiski Island in James Bay

Wikimedia   edited

Eventually even I figure out the battle is lost,

so I gave up, scheduled my post, and went to bed.
!@#$%^   Argh!

Friday morning:  

With a brand new, sunny day

and a fresh burst of optimism, 

I knew there had to be a better way.

I started searching on Google and found this promising lead:

How to Add Text to Photos Easily Using Preview in Mac OS X.

Now, if you're not challenged by computers, 

i.e. LD in computers, 

nor intimidated,
impulsive, 

easily frustrated,

anxious, 

panicked, and 

know you're stupid, Stupid, STUPID with technology,

you probably would have started with that simple search

long before 10:30 p.m. when you're trying to get a post out.

But that's not me.

So I this morning I started in somewhat 
slowly, calmly, methodically,

and voilà:

Wikimedia   edited

On a roll, I kept experimenting:

Location of Lansdowne House

Wikimedia   edited

Now, it's not as if I don't know better.

After all, my Apple trainers and

the geniuses at the Genius Bar

have all told me that I go way too fast 

overwhelming my computer so it freezes or crashes, 

don't see things in front of me,

and am too rough with the mousepad and keys.

"Slowly, calmly, gently," Kimberly would say.

I forget all of that when I'm frustrated.

But now I feel brilliant!

Beat you again, Computer!

I figured it out!

Slowly, but surely, I'm making it work!

Now if I can just remember!

On a time-pressed day, Dad could manage this:

Dad's Quick Sketch

© M. Louise (MacBeath) Barbour/Fundy Blue

All Rights Reserved

But with more time and computer help, I can do this:

My Sketch with Preview Help

© M. Louise (MacBeath) Barbour/Fundy Blue

All Rights Reserved

I am a happy person!
But one of these days, I'll find The Perfect Map.
In the meantime 
my new maps are stashed in my photo library.

Sheldon would understand!

Google

Monday Morning Music Break ~ Anthem

Do you ever have a maddening musical phrase 
running through your mind?

Maddening because you can't remember
what piece of music it is or where you heard it.

An example of a rhythmic pattern used in heavy metal. 

The upper stave is a palm-muted rhythm guitar part.
The lower stave is the drum part.

wikipedia 

Well, for a number of nights,
an unidentifiable brainworm
was burrowing through my dreams,
and it kept busting through
the music in my head when I was awake.

The violins looped around and around
filling my mind with gorgeous sound,
but I couldn't grasp the rest of the piece.

And then I realized that an organ
was coming into the snatch of music
after a few seconds.

Bam!  Slam!  
Deep Purple!
Anthem

Downstairs to my CD Collection.
Gotcha!!!

Deep Purple ~ Anthem

You Tube ~ Claudio Benvindo de Medeiros   

I've been a fan of the English rock band Deep Purple
from its beginning in the late 60s.

The band began with a progressive rock sound, 
and over time its music morphed 

into hard rock and heavy metal.

Deep Purple along with Led Zeppelin, and Black Sabbath, 
became known as the "unholy trinity 
of British hard rock and heavy metal."
 wikipedia

Throughout its successful four-decade run as a band, 
Deep Purple's line-up changed repeatedly,
and it showcased successful hard rock stars of the era.

The musicians performing on Deep Purple's 
first three albums were:
Rod Evans - lead vocals
Ritchie Blackmore - guitar
Jon Lord - Hammond organ, keyboards, backing vocals, strings                                        arrangement on Anthem
Nick Simper - bass guitar, backing vocals
Ian Paice - drums

Ritchie, Jon, Nick, Ian, and Rod

 deep-purple.net

Those first three albums 
contained some well-known favorites of mine:
Shades of Deep Purple (favs:  Mandrake Root, Hush)
Book of Taliesyn (favs:  River Deep, Mountain High, Kentucky Woman, Anthem)
and Deep Purple (fav:  Laleña).

Anthem is on The Book of Taliesyn.
The song stands out as one of the first 
that fused rock and classical music.  
Jon Lord composed a baroque section featuring 
an organ and a string quartet for the middle of Anthem.
wikipedia

But Anthem was much more than its music.
Its lyrics capture the intense feelings of love rejected
and of those dark nights of the soul 
spent spinning around in twisted sheets. 

The refrain expresses a futile hope 
filled with longing.
Chances are, if you've ever loved and lost,
that you have felt like this.

"If I could see you
If only I could see you
To see if you are laughing or crying
When the night winds softly blow"
Source:  metrolyrics     
Songwriters:  RICE, TIM / ANDERSSON, BENNY GORAN BROR / ULVAEUS, BJOERN K.

Sadly, Jon Lord died of pancreatic cancer on July 16, 2012.

Lars Ulrich of Metallica commented after Lord's death:
"We can all be guilty of lightly throwing adjectives 
like 'unique,' 'one-of-a-kind' and 'pioneering' around 
when we want to describe our heroes 
and the people who've moved us, 
but there are no more fitting words than those right now 
and there simply was no musician like Jon Lord 
in the history of hard rock. 
Nobody. Period.

There was nobody that played like him. 
There was nobody that sounded like him. 
There was nobody that wrote like him. 
There was nobody that looked like him. 
There was nobody more articulate, gentlemanly, warm, 
or fucking cooler that ever played keyboards 
or got anywhere near a keyboard. 
What he did was all his own."
wikipedia


If you have time for a second cup of coffee or tea
on my Monday Morning Music Break,
here is a second track from The Book of Taliesyn:
River Deep, Mountain High.
It features Deep Purple's gorgeous heavy sound
and showcases Jon Lord on the organ.

Deep Purple ~ River Deep, Mountain High

youtube ~ wutaidreams

Have a good week!

Monday Morning Music Break: Brother Louis ~ Stories

"What does matter to me is truth."
I wrote those words in a comment
a couple of days ago
on an imaginative blog I almost never miss:
Pat Hatt's "It's Rhyme Time."

Pinterest

And since then 
this post has bothered me ~
the one I wrote 
in October last year
and didn't publish;
the one I wrote "flying on one wing"1
after an evening at Parkway.

Digging a little too deep in the muskeg.










Unpublished October Post ~

Friday Night Date Night.
Parkway Bar and Grill.
It's the Ever~Patient's and my standing date for years now.

I was feeling really good at Parkway.
I had written well earlier today, 
even if it was painful.

I even told some of the regulars 
I was writing a book.
That's how good I was feeling.
Writing a book!
I admitted it ~ at the bar!

Parkway has a fun game called Buzztime.
I'm always calling out the answers to the questions.

Google

So the Ever~Patient Terry and I 
got in this big discussion  
about a question that popped up tonight 
on one of the TVs above the bar.

The question was about dirty song lyrics that weren't.  
I immediately knew the answer to the question:
the Kingman song.

But suddenly, 
all I could think about was
a different Louis Louis song: 
"Louie, Louie, Louie, Louis ~ 
Louie, Louie you're gonna cry!"

Sadness billowed
as I tried to remember the lyrics,
"Blah-bah blah-bah, when you taste brown sugar. . ."

Wikimedia

The E~P kept trying 
to tamp me down.

He had me parked 
between him and the
lemon/lime/orange/olive 
drink station
at the end of the bar.




He wanted me all for himself.
I can so get engrossed in conversations
with others at the bar.

But I was on a creative high,
buzzed and bopping from person to person,
and there was no subduing me.

Funny how a few sips of merlot can slam you 
on a sad, creative high
sharpened by a song you had buried deep.
Sad and high is more than possible.

The feelings have nothing to do with now.
Nothing to do with who you love now
with everything in you.

But once, 
when there was no place in time or space 
to love somebody who loved you,
this song felt so good.

Copper and white,
not black and white.
It doesn't matter.

Sometimes it just feels right 
to drown in a song.

You Tube ~ Stories ~ Your Music Jukebox - The 70's

1  I had had a dangerous third glass of wine,
    rather than my customary and safer two.

    Refers to a Maritimes saying when on a tear:
    "You can't fly on one wing."
    (excuse after an odd number of drinks to have another)

    Followed by:
    "I need one for the road."
    (excuse after an even number of drinks to have another).

    Repeat ~ until you feel invincible.
    Then stop!  
    (Usually you forget to stop.)