Everything goes to shit…literally Please know that the following may not be something you want to read so if you’re grossed out, maybe wait for Day 10. NSFW as they say.
Month: February 2016
Riley goes to Colombia Day 8 – February 17, 2016
This morning we had a flight to Medellin. We were sitting in the airport wondering why everyone was lined up for their flight 2 hours too early. We decided “well, I guess that’s what they do here” and got in line. Only once we were in line did we realize it was for the earlier …
Riley Goes to Colombia Day 7 – February 16, 2016
This morning we went to Playa Blanca. There was more than a little confusion: Nobody picked us up despite the pledge yesterday that we would be picked up. We could have walked four times before we finally got in a cab. First, our hotel called them and they said they were on their way. Then …
Riley Goes to Colombia Day 6 – February 15, 2016
The day before, we were hoping to figure out how to get to a beach, but we had contacted a tour group but had not heard anything. (The beach situation: beaches a few miles away in Bocagrande, on the same peninsula – rendered an “island” by a canal – but in a Miami Beach-type setting. …
Riley Goes to Colombia Day 5 – February 14, 2016
Valentine’s Day. One of the cool things about this hotel was the breakfasts. Every morning we had a choice of “American” or local breakfast, and I ate the local every day: empanadas, arepas, a local sausage and limes. Plus, fresh fruit juice! Good stuff. This morning we walked over to Castillo de San Felipe, which …
The Yes Album (1971)
For most of my prog-rock listening life, I have not fully gotten Yes. I don’t know what it is about them, but of the Big 6 they were long my least favourite. This has changed as I got older, as I have come to find ELP extremely inconsistent and Tull to be more than a …
Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon (2006, Scott Glosserman)
Riley Goes to Colombia Day 4 – February 13, 2016
The first two mornings at the hotel, we’d had regular food for breakfast: eggs, waffles. But today we got tamales! They were pretty good. We had a super fast ride to the airport, as it was a Saturday morning and apparently the awful traffic virtually disappears on the weekends. So we got to the Bogota …
Riley Goes to Colombia Day 3 – February 12, 2016
This morning we took a cab ride to Monserrate, a mountain that overlooks Bogota. For the first few minutes of the cab ride, we worried he was driving us up the mountain, as we had to go up high to get on a beltway that runs along the hills. The cabbie took us to the …
Riley Goes to Colombia Day 2 – February 11, 2016
After breakfast, we took another long cab ride to a mall, where we met Loon, our guide, for a tour of one of Bogota’s big food markets. We tried the following over the course of the morning: 1.Breakfast Sancocho de pescado Fish soup made with plantain, yuca and potatoes. Arepa de queso – Colombian arepa filled …
Riley Goes to Colombia Day 1 – February 10, 2016
We got up sometime after 4 AM, though I was up from 1-something until 2-something, due to my usual anxiety about leaving for a big trip, and because I was anticipating the alarm going off any minute.
The Departed (2006, Martin Scorsese)
Note: I haven’t seen the original film.
The Best Offer (2013, Giuseppe Tornatore)
There isn’t much to say about this film that won’t give away the ending. It’s about an idiosyncratic but respected art and antiques auctioneer and his obsession with his latest client. And now: SPOILER ALERT
Riley Goes to Colombia – Prologue
I spent most of the last two weeks in Colombia; it was my first visit to South America.
On Writing (2000) by Stephen King
I have never read a single Steven King novel or short story – I know, I know – and I don’t write fiction, but this book was recommended highly, and I figured I would give it a try given the struggles I am experiencing with my current project.
Millions Now Living Will Never Die (1996) by Tortoise
Whether or not Post Rock actually began in 1994 with Hex is something we can argue about, but you could say that Post Rock, for Americans, started with Tortoise. Now, I’ve never heard their earliest albums, but it’s hard not to look at this record – with its suite-like 20 minute opener, and its genre …
Face Value (1981) by Phil Collins
Phil Collins has had one of the weirder careers in pop rock, starting out as a prog rock / art rock drummer (who even played jazz fusion, at times) and then becoming a massive pop star. It’s an unusual arc to be sure, and this is the record that began the shift from the one …
Humperdinck: Königskinder (2012) by Frankfurter Opern- und Museumsorchester, Chor der Oper Frankfurt, conducted by Sebastian Weigle et al
My initial impressions of Humperdinck were not great, even though I started with his most famous work. This one though, the opera version of a “melodrama” he wrote in 1897 – because the author of the original story wouldn’t consent to an opera – is really great. All the attempts at “big tunes” with the …
Trumpet Concertos (2008) by Alison Balsom, Die Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen
This is a collection of Classical and Baroque trumpet concerti, and it’s a good selection of these pieces, giving a good idea of how the music progressed…only the sequencing is, um, kind of backwards.