Bonangs and More

Prairie Oyster?!

2007-11-17T23:49:00.000-08:00

I have been watching some Cowboy Bebop recently, especially for the music and references to music. Many of the characters are musicians or have certain music associated with them, which makes the show doubly interesting. Spike, the main character, has a tendency to drink regularly. Tonight I indulged a bit myself and looked up the recipe for Spike's hangover cure.

The site I found it on, Drinkstreet.com, posted the following as the recipe for the infamous Prairie Oyster Spike uses as to cure his hangover in the episode Heavy Metal Queen.

Prairie Oyster

1 teaspoon Worcestershire Sauce
1 tablespoon Tomato Juice
1 whole Egg Yolk
2 dashes Vinegar
1 dash Pepper
Pour in order in a wine glass taking good care of not breaking the yolk.

Some readers disagreed about the various included ingredients, and I think the following contributed recipe is probably the closest thing to both what might actually work, and what is used in the show. Many readers claim to have heard of the drink previously from older relatives, leading one to believe that the shows' writers incorporated outside knowledge in their construction.

A reader writes:
Yes the BeBop Prairie Oyster
By Spike

Yes i feel i should put you guys at ease. I remember that drag queen, i mean Heavy metal queen. one of the few ladys i get along with. My recipe is as follows Prairie Oyster:Dry gin, yolk with no white, tomatoe sauce (even kethup will do), a little vinegar which wasn't what i used that day,werchestershire, a spice of some sort (chile pepper) or plain pepper, and top it with water. you can add lemon or lime to ease the taste and theres no soy sauce because that's taken care of with werchestershire or the salt from the egg which are really high in sodium. also if you don't believe theres vinegar instead of water just look at the clear glass, one can see watER and not vinegAR. see ya space cowboys and hopes this helps for the drinkers out there.

I have not tried this one myself, but I would buckle my seat belt before taking it for a spin. Check out Cowboy Bebop for some excellent blues and jazz music, as well as a good space western.

Recent Celebrations of Life

2007-09-23T23:35:00.000-07:00

In the past few months our planet has lost not a few wonderful souls, among them Robert Jordan, Luciano Pavarotti, and Mstislav Rostropovich. The first is an author of fantasy books, most known for his Wheel Of Time series. Pavarotti was probably the most famous operatic tenor of our age, well known for both his size and his vocal prowess, in addition to his generosity. Rostropovich was probably the greatest cellist in the latter part of the twentieth century, helping to set the bar for everyone who calls him or herself a cellist.

Rostropovich was probably the closest to home of these three great people. Having studied the cello for over fifteen years, I have listened to many recordings of his playing as well as reading articles about his accomplishments. I recently listened in awe to his recording of all five of Beethoven's Sonatas for Cello and Piano, one of which I have been fortunate enough to play during my college years. He worked with several contemporary composers, such as Shostakovich and Britten and premiered their works for the cello. Not only his skill with the cello, but also his work as a conductor of the U.S. National Symphony for several decades was outstanding.

Let us continue to honor these great creators of beauty by listening and reading their life's works.

Chopin + Harps = Fun

2007-09-23T23:26:00.000-07:00

This weekend, I attended a few local recitals that were rather entertaining.

The first, on Friday night, was a recital at a local university of piano faculty. performed were several works by J.S. Bach, Albeniz, Poulenc, Gershwin, Chopin, and Dvorak.

The Poulenc was quite nice. He really is growing on me as a composer. Above is a picture of him with his contemporary French composing buds, Cocteau and Milhaud. Milhaud you might know as the composer of La Création du Monde or Le Boeuf sur le Toit.

The big highlight of the recital was the performance of all 24 of Chopin's Preludes, although the performer was sick. She managed to get through them all twenty plus minutes of music, but I found her interpretation lacking in the rubato area. The final piece was a nice Dvorak duet with lots of cool Bohemian folk melodies. Overall, a great recital.

Morals...

2007-09-23T22:59:00.000-07:00

A friend of mine asked me to write about morals. Being a musician, I must discuss how morals apply to music.

First and foremost of morals is the keeping of one's word. What you say you will do, happens. End of story. "Yes, I will be at rehearsal at 5pm" means arrival at 5pm is impending. Signing a contract denotes obligation to one's contractors.

Being a ubiquitous topic in today's world of internet freedom, I must breach the matter of piracy of copyrighted materials. A recent college student, I am all too familiar with how easy it is to acquire copyrighted materials. A few clicks here, a couple of commands there, and voila!, instant piracy. Students even celebrate their freedoms with something called International Talk Like a Pirate Day, where everyone and hopefully their mother will below a hearty "Ahoy!" at the sight of a comrade.

The real question is: does this sort of celebration encourage or condone piracy of the digital variety or otherwise? Of course, with all the hype recently concerning the Pirates of the Carribean films, everyone wants to talk or dress like their favorite swashbuckling Johnny Depp character. Now where did I put my eyeliner?

Silly titular typos

2007-09-17T20:36:00.000-07:00

So there is this song that keeps coming up on my winamp's shuffle play about every other time I sit at my computer for a while. It is called Anna (Go To Him) by The Beatles. A bit of wiki-research (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anna_(Go_to_Him)) reveals that it is from an early song from their album Introducing... The Beatles in 1963.

Anyways, what really bothered me was that in the song the words are "go with him" and never "go to him," and yet the title contains these words. Either way, Paul McCartney sounds great.

Hello!

2007-09-08T23:13:00.000-07:00

Welcome, friends and not-yet-friends, to my new blog! I intend to discuss both musical and thoughtful matters here, and perhaps learn a few things about myself.

A little bit about me: I have recently graduated from college and am searching for my next path to take, and in the meanwhile, I am obsessed with music. (Luckily, it was my major.) I am a cellist and vocalist, and I possess other musical skills as well. I am interested in many kinds of music, from orchestral to opera, blues to post-punk and new-folk just to name a few.

Thanks for reading, and I hope you stop back soon!

-Alex