brain droppings 25.5.2023

Real talk: I'm not really a fan of Being Alive anymore. I originally thought it was too corny, then I started to like it, but now I think it's kinda silly. While Finishing the Hat I thought was trite, but I came around on that song.

Generally, I think that Company is a very 1970 piece and that it's impossible to update it convincingly.

But then, I'm not a theatre person; I'm speaking from a moviemaker's perspective.

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Passione d'amore is quite an interesting movie, though I think Lapine based his libretto on the novel. I thought it was quite funny, but Sondheim disagreed and thought Ettore Scola's movie was humourless. It's set in Milan and Turin, so that's where I grew up.🥝

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Here's a fun tidbit for the musicals world [yeah.. it's a global thing - I'm surprised you all read me 👋]: one way I'm like Sondheim is that I organise my life around the movies that I watch.

For example, famously he remembered something because he saw All About Eve that day.

So yeah... if someone asks me about a movie I've seen, that's sort-of my equivalent to what other people say smell is like. -

Getting stoned reduces my anxiety, and booze helps to loosen my tongue.

I also tend to think my body relaxes better when I'm high.

Apparently the current weed isn't very strong. That's good for me. 👍

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I've enjoyed playing the Sondheim tunes on guitar, but I'm not really in the mood to make another Broadway album.

I'm feeling the patriotic vibes about Aotearoa quite strongly, so I really want to focus on that for a while.

I bet all my socialist friends are thinking .. 'patriotism... that's a funny idea' - but yeah, I do feel patriotic about Aotearoa-New Zealand. My father was very glad when we returned from Italy. I think that's why I'm a patriot. -

Aotearoa-New Zealand is totally what I think we should call the country when we achieve independence.

It's funny: I never listen to music when I study. Seriously -- that's the only way I can focus.

If I'm listening to music, my mind tunes out everything else; at Isentia, I never listened to music. 👍

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I started listening to music and 'studying' when I was on the jobseeking course, and kept it up at RNZ.

I was composing and animating at the jobseeking course: I wrote Pan's Preludes, most of the first Weeded Out episode and animated the talkie.

I'm a touch-typist who stutters: this is easier for me, but that's a generational thing. Seriously -- https://studyfinds.org/millennials-gen-z-communicate-texting/ - I think the weed is also a superstition for me. My peak physical condition was when I was tripping every other weekend and stoned all the time. 👍 And the entire routine was born from my first LSD trip. I loved watching me blur on the Dawn video -- yes, I'm that fast. The drinking is why my coordination is shot. That's part of the blues style, though. I've always dug blues, funk and soul. I have a Grade 7 Rockschool certificate as well as my ATCL and my BMus and PGDip.