Scott D. Strader – Page 20 – An Echo That's Reversing

The Jan 6 hearings, 27 Jul 2021, day 1

10:20 AM

Started late, maybe 15 minutes ago, because of work. Watching will be intermittent throughout the day.

Representatives:

Bennie Thompson (D), chair
Elaine Luria (D)
Jamie Raskin (D)
Stephanie Murphy (D)
Pete Aguilar (D)
Adam Schiff (D)
Zoe Lofgren (D)
Liz Cheney (R)
Kinzinger (R)

First testimony from four officers:

Sgt. Aquilino Gonell, U.S. Capitol Police
Officer Michael Fanone, Metropolitan Police Department
Officer Daniel Hodges, Metropolitan Police Department
Officer Harry Dunn, U.S. Capitol Police

image via @MikevWUSA, 9:56 AM, 21 Jul 2021

The Two Gladiators (1964)

*I Due Gladiatori*, image from Poster Museum

The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938)

I don’t know when I first watched this, but somehow it imprinted on me and every X years I must re-watch and re-live the absolute joy of seeing the Merry Men drop from trees in absurd synchronization, Errol Flynn look with furtive slyness as King Richard’s despot brother’s archers advance on him, and Marian (I can never remember it’s with an “A”) play the haughty-then-human royal ward. And the movie’s Technicolor goodness is a perfect presentation of the mood. That and Korngold’s soundtrack make it an absolute classic.

Moving on from my 60s/70s Italian and Iron Curtain sci-fi obsessions but continuing my Japanese pink film and peplum obsession, I’m now obsessed with Robin Hood and man is there a lot of research to dive into. I’ll also start watching the many good (but mostly bad) tellings of Robin Hood in the cinematic cannon.

String Quartet No. 1 – Slow, and keeping my sanity

Today I spent an hour and a half writing three measures the second violin. The time I put towards composing each day is minimal but it also helps me reset. For the past month I’ve had to put in 12-hour days at work, so any time I can put towards composing is valuable. I don’t let my work life bleed into my music life and, ignoring all keen psychological analysis to the contrary, I feel that I’ve kept it separate.

String Quartet No. 1 – Pausing the first movement, beginning the second, stealing

The value in writing a complex rhythm such as, say, a dotted quarter followed by a dotted eighth followed by a dotted sixteenth, is not for the exactitude of the performance but for the communication to the performer that these are all notes of diminished length that should feel like dotted notes. That is: notes that have not-quite-finished and are expecting another note to rhythmically appear just before the end of their time.