Here Comes Sunshine

6.21.2007

Plugs.

546 of 8 1/2 By Eleven is up as is number 43 of Sunshine. As for Sunshine, Hex has give me 4 - 5 emergency Sunshines, so I will be interrupt starting tomorrow with these, and they are extra weird.

An Interesting Debate.

Christopher and I were discussing digital manipulation today, and how people like me, artists have a personal bias against it. My arguement is that that type of work, relys more on your programs than artistic skill. Pieces like at left, this took me about 15 minutes to put together using various filters, and art media type stuff.

Yeah, I guess I have a personal bias. It's cool and all, but was rather simple for me to do. Part of the debate was could someone get paid selling image like this? I am not totally sure, but I don't think so.

Any other opinions? Again, I am probably biased being a traditional artist.

You are listening too . . .

Here Comes the Sun, off Abbey Road, another extremely popular George Harrison composition. Interestingly, out of the three hits off of Abbey Road, Harrison penned two of them, the other we already explored with Something.

The songs genesis began with a songwriting collaboration Harrison had with Eric Clapton on the song Badge (you can hear that by clicking me), which was recorded by Clapton's groups Cream. Both songs feature a similar guitar rift. The final version of Here Comes the Sun was written in Eric Clapton's Garden while Harrison was avoiding Apple Records meetings. '69 was a difficult year for Harrison; he was arrested for marijuana possession, he had a severe case of tonsilitis, and he had also quit the band for a extended period. He wrote a song as an ending to this period, and perhaps could see the future of the Beatles in front of him. Many believe Harrison was inspired by the grueling Abbey Road shifts, and his sabbatical from Abbey Road Studios during those stressful sessions. At the time, everyone was just trying to get the album done, before their inevitable break up.

Harrison did the lead vocal, acoustic guitar, moog synthesizer, and the handclaps; McCartney: backing vocals, bass, and also handclaps; Ringo of course did the percussion. Lennon did not contribute, at the time he was recovering from a car accident. Various uncredited muscians played many of the backing orchestral instruments.

Here Comes the Sun is argueably Harrison's most beloved song and was voted so in 2006 by GeorgeHarrison.com. Harrison, who's songs before that had a fairly melocholy dourness to them, reversed with this song (and some of his later solo stuff). It was a very positive, upbeat song, without shmaltzy. Also, as the begining of the second side of the album, it made a nice fresh start (something that is lost with the CD age).

The Mood of Red Sox Nation.

Day off . . . and the Yanks lost three in a row, to fall back to 10.5 behind. And Clemens lost again. There is also a interesting article here about Carl Pavano; man does he make the Matt Clement signing look good.

Holy Crap.

I been on these things a number of times . . . mental note, look for cables wrapped around body parts.

What has Malach always told you.

The state motto is "Live Free or Die" and I am serious, there are no laws up in New Hampshire.

Uhh, yeah sorry.

The all powerful Malach has a great and mighty thirst.

Ok.

There seems to be a AWFUL LOT of trust involved here.

Happy Summer Solstice.

Malach would be there, but my druid robes are being cleaned.

Mother Paris.

She wants to change!

Malach's Quote/Video of the Day

I am Malach and lil' darlin' it seems like years since it's been here.

The Walrus was Paul!?!?!

5.26.2007

No Plugs Today.
Sorry Buckos.

So Malach has realized something about himself.
So, today was yet another beautiful pre-summer day, almost 90 degrees. So, I am out in my studio painting, while the kids are playing in their wading pool and with the hose, with the large double doors open watching them while I paint. My 4 year old daughter keeps coming over to help and give advice. I am playing The Beatles album Love. Get into a conversation with my 5 year old son about the meaning of the song All You Need is Love. So, what does Malach realize? I am closet hippie.

So is the a phrase for a geek/hippie? A Gippie?

Speaking of the new painting.

Since I haven't done a painting since the last commission a few months ago. And since so many people liked following along with the painting and what I think about and do while I paint; I decided to do it with this one. Unfortunately, I did not photo my pre-canvas creation process which I will do next time.

So, at left is what I worked on today for about 2 hours. I wanted to do a painting about my kids, but I got inspired by one of the Beatles songs we were listening too, so this painting is about my 4 year old daughter and will be entitled Livy in the Sky with Diamonds.

First is in kind of hard at this stage to see the textures that were applied to the canvas from some of the junk I keep around my studio. It will be a bit more obvious once I begin to work on the piece and highlight some of it. You will also notice, once again, a strange shaped canvas. This is just two similarly sized canvases, put together, but instead of brackets, like usual, I actually just screwed the top canvas onto the bottom, throught the stretcher bars, so the top canvas is raised from the bottom about 1". I then made this haphazard cover up between the two from assorted pieces of fabric, canvas, plastic, and netting. Also added, a some paper (you can see the fringe hanging off the canvas at the right of the image) a gate handle, a squirt gun, and a few other odds and ends including a dredel.

The first 2 hours of this piece is basically blocking in the image, color and composition, very rough, but you can see the basic form of what I am going for. I use fairly straight forward color for this process. I will be building up the star and diamond patterns, adding more light, and defining the figure a bit more next session.

So, later.

Playing baseball with the boy, the boy's got a pretty good swing for a 5 year old. Using a fairly heavy padded bat, and a practice baseball. Line drive up the middle on the old man. This is the first time I have ever taken a ball in the groin, all the years I played. Luckily he's only 5, and I was back to speed in 10 minutes.

Something is stalking my garbage.

So, I live in the suburbs, on a dead end street, in a semi wooded area. We get skunks, raccoons, possum, rabbits, the occasional woodchuck, and occasional deer and coyote. I have a fairly long yard (about 180' which ends in a fence, beyond that fairly dense woodland, slightly swampy, and the about 200' later the highway.

So last night, something dragged my locked garbage can (the one with two bags of fairly heavy garbage in it) about 75' until the top popped open and went to town on the two bags. Now, I am unsure what could have done this. As far as I know there are no bears anywhere near where I live . . .

You are listening too . . .

Glass Onion, off The White Album. A interesting Lennon composition, said by Lennon as a response to those who dug for meaning in his lyrics. He basically did this song to fool around with those kind of people. The song references other lines from other Beatles songs. It references I Am the Walrus, Strawberry Fields Forever, There's a Place, I'm Looking Through You, Within You Without You, Lady Madonna, The Fool on the Hill, and Fixing a Hole.

The line "The Walrus was Paul" became a huge lynchpin for the later "Paul is Dead" conspiracy that developed in 1969. According to Lennon, "Glass Onion was a throwaway song, much like I Am the Walrus. "I threw the line in—'the Walrus was Paul'—just to confuse everybody a bit more. It could have been 'The fox terrier is Paul.' I mean, it's just a bit of poetry. I was having a laugh because there'd been so much gobbledegook about Pepper—play it backwards and you stand on your head and all that."

Musically the song has a killer Ringo drum rift, and is one of the more experimental songs off The White Album in terms of studios wizardy, and sampling. This song in turn has been sampled numerous times by the hip hop community. It also features strange little song samples from each of the songs it references. I like it alot.

The Mood of Red Sox Nation.

After a long rain delay, Dice-K only pitching 5 cause of a stomach bug, they still won last night. Yanks have lost 2 in a row, and Cashman in now on the hot seat. Of of this moment they are 11 up, and they are up right now 6 - 4 in the top of 6. The Mood: I hate to say this, but the Division in over.

Oh Dana Plato.

OK, what's the over under before Lindsay Hoehan appear in Playboy?

Hehehehe.

Hey, you guys could always try hanging light up signs around Boston.

Malach's Quote/Video of the Day.

I'm not going to deny the fact that I've tried pot. I hated it. But I've never tried cocaine. I've seen my father, I've seen how it messes with families, and, you know, it fucks your life up. If I hadn't experienced that, I may have gone a different route. I don't know. But I've seen how it literally tore my parents apart. - Lindsay "Dana Plato" Hoehan

I am Malach and my groin feels much better thank you.