Indian sitar virtuoso and composer Ravi Shankar wrote the music of "O Aalok Putra Agyani" for the 1986 opening of the Baháʼí House of Worship in New Delhi, India. This was one of 10 Hindi songs the maestro wrote for the dedication. Years later, choral arranger Tom Price adapted the music to the sacred words of Bahá'u'lláh and The Báb. The result is the glistening "O My Servant!", performed on this video mashup by The Toronto Baháʼí Chorale.
THE PROFESSOR starts off well: a dying upper-middle-class English professor decides to be nonconforming in the few months he realizes he has left in his life. Unfortunately, the movie's suspense dies ahead of its main character. What could have been an emotional roller coaster turns out to be a meandering train of many promising twists and turns, none of which leads anywhere.
FACT AND fiction collide in Seth Grahame-Smith's otherworldy novel, causing hilarious sparks of adventure and horrifying flashes of gore. The collision is delicious and so difficult to avoid. The Last American Vampire (along with Mr. Grahame-Smith's first book, Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter) will entrance those who love Elizabeth Kostova's The Historian. This is not at all for fans of vampire romance and other supernatural light fare.
THIS IS the majestic "Dastam Begir, 'Abdu'l-Bahá (Hold My Hand, 'Adbu'l-Bahá)" performed by Narges Nouhnejad Fani and the Bahá'i World Congress Choir at the Second Bahá'i World Congress in New York City in November 1992. The song was written by Nikki Manevi with lyrics based on a poem by Habib Mu'ayyad. It is an exquisite melding of eastern vocal music and western classical and choral traditions.
2020 marks 60 years since Barbra Streisand sang live for the first time. Since then, her stage performances in clubs, concerts, television shows, and fund-raisers have become unparalleled channels for showcasing her bounty of grace and warmth, her dedication to excellence, her passion for truth, and her gift of song.
FOLLOWING UP on my earlier post about Jim Chappell's Acadia, I must share another piece that has always stayed with me. Mr. Chappell's Spotify playlist is on permanent playback during the lockdown, and topping it is the magnificent "Field Day" from 1990's Saturday's Rhapsody. No other song on Mr. Chappell's 1990s catalog exemplifies the breezy Chappell melodiousness better than this track.
THE AMERICAN composer and pianist Jim Chappell is quite famous in the Philippines, where several of his albums received heavy airplay on smooth jazz radio stations in the late eighties and nineties. The poignant song "Gone", from his sophomore album Dusk, became a huge hit in Manila in the aftermath of Mount Pinatubo's cataclysmic eruption in 1991. Afterwards, the Chappell sensibility never left the country. He held a series of sold-out concerts in Manila in the summer of 1993, and released a contemporary jazz album with the quartet HearSay titled Manila Nights in 1994.
ONE OF the joys of video-on-demand services is the immediate access to must-see movies that flew under the radar. Kingsman: The Secret Service has been on my shortlist since its release in 2015, but I never managed to view it. Netflix finally gave me that opportunity this weekend.
I MISSED watching Mission to Mars during its theatrical run in 2000. After finally seeing it on Netflix tonight, I was disappointed. Nothing is remarkable except for the fact that Brian De Palma allowed himself to aggrandize a very lame plot. It gets worse with an imperiously dated and soggy soundtrack and a predictable and soggy ending.
I should have kept missing it.
THE 2010s were an incredible decade for technology. As we welcome the 2020s, we look forward to how technology will continue to impact our communities and industries in positive ways. Speaking of technology, I can't believe it's been 20 years since the Y2K bug!
This year also marks the 60th year of Barbra Streisand in the entertainment industry. The passing decade was an era of Ms. Streisand giving back—to her fans and to the benificiaries of her many philantrophic contributions and advocacies. Here's a video of the decade's highlights.
Happy new year and new decade, everyone!
ON 22 JUNE 1969, Judy Garland passed away, ending a lifetime of personal struggles and career crises. She has been called one of the greatest entertainers of all time, with a legacy influencing the artistry of several generations of performers. In remembrance of the 50th anniversary of Ms. Garland's passing, here is Barbra Streisand performing "Over the Rainbow".
I FELL in love with Anne Rice's gothic fiction after seeing the film adaptation of her first novel, Interview With A Vampire, in 1994. Her writing was both sensuous and sensational, endowing her undead characters with nobility and munificence while plunging them into the insalubrious depths of horrifying and eventually tragic existence. I collected the first six volumes of The Vampire Chronicles, and stopped after moving to Israel in 2000. Physical bookstores eventually disappeared, making it tough to find the new volumes unless I went online. I never had the chance to go back to Ms. Rice.
THIS IS Michel Legrand at his purest cinematic self, back in the sixties when film music was in its most uninhibited. His youthful exuberance on the conductor's dais is matched with his vibrant training in jazz and film scores, with strings reaching up to gloriously stratospheric levels to deliver that signature Legrand sound.
BARBRA STREISAND's new studio album, the lush and variegated Walls, showcases the triumph of two voices. One is that unmistakable singing voice, unchallengeable since 1962, now sounding almost outworldly with its surprisingly pliant crescendos, effortlessly intuitive phrasing, and dramatic resonance. The 76-year-old icon proves on this album that she remains the singular force of nature in pop vocal music.
THE SECOND release from Barbra Streisand's upcoming album Walls is a medley of John Lennon's "Imagine" and Louis Armstrong's "What a Wonderful World". This is vintage Streisand—or at least the Streisand we all knew way back with recognizable singing traits. The impeccable breathing. The much-copied full-octave glissando. The grammarian's phrasing.
PENGUIN BOOKS' new imprint, Kokila, focuses on diverse books for children and young adults. According to Penguin, the imprint's mission is to “add depth and nuance to the way children and young adults see the world and their place in it.”
FIFTY-SIX YEARS after she recorded her first album, Barbra Streisand releases a single (the first from her upcoming album Walls) that continues to place her squarely in the front and center of contemporary pop music affairs. "Don't Lie To Me" is a thumping pop anthem with catchy hooks that could have been written by Adele, Lady Gaga, or Mick Hucknall. The vocal and instrumental arrangements sound so modern, one is left to wonder why Ms. Streisand’s last two albums, despite a slew of pop-music collaborators, didn't leverage on her uncanny ability to still sing on the beat.
BARBRA STREISAND's larger-than-life entertainment persona has always been defined by the way she wore her costumes, hairstyle, and makeup on screen. I've always been impressed with the production values of her film and television projects, and I'm even more fascinated with the manner that she keeps her identity intact even through the various clothes that she wears on screen.
THIS YEAR marks the 100th anniversary of the birth of anti-apartheid leader Nelson Mandela. In commemorating the event, his family has partnered with WeTransfer to reveal previously-unseen illustrations by Mr. Mandela. They are sketches done after he retired from the presidency in 1999 as a way of making sense of his historic life.
IN WHAT is probably one the most metaphorical poems ever, Philippine National Artist Jose Garcia Villa (1908-1997) provides a beautiful sonnet to romance . . . and to the art of poetry.
LYRIC 17
First, a poem must be magical,
Then musical as a sea-gull.
It must be a brightness moving
And hold secret a bird's flowering.
It must be slender as a bell,
And it must hold fire as well.
It must have the wisdom of bows
And it must kneel like a rose.
It must be able to hear
The luminance of dove and deer.
It must be able to hide
What it seeks, like a bride.
And over all I would like to hover
God, smiling from the poem's cover.
Happy National Poetry Day, everyone!
