Romeo and Juliet

(Today will be the last ‘daily’ post on STEPHENVARADY_BLOG’.  Due to other commitments, my future posts will happen ‘weekly’ or when I have something of interest to share.)

Today’s ‘Heart Balloon’ (painted on a timber panel) comes courtesy of Banksy.

Two years ago this piece turned up in a Sean Penn Charity Auction for Haiti, and was bought by Chris Martin from Coldplay for $650,000.

Continuing the musical thread, Dire Straits released their ‘Making Movies’ album in 1980.

The album contained the gem of a song, ‘Romeo and Juliet’. Using the Shakespeare characters as inspiration, Mark Knopfler wrote a song rumoured to refer to his breakup with a fellow musician. The song is beautiful and clever, as the lyrics weave the double story around a gentle melody while also making reference to the song ‘Somewhere‘ from ‘West Side Story’ by Leonard Bernstein and Stephen Sondheim (which was also based on Shakespeare’s ‘Romeo and Juliet’), and the song ‘My Boyfriend’s Back‘ by the girl-group The Angels from 1963.

If you’d like to hear the song, check out the Romeo and Juliet video – but beware, it has a very 80’s feel!

Returning to the song ‘Somewhere‘ – it has been covered by many artists including The Supremes, Barbra Streisand and the Pet Shop Boys, but for me the definitive version (apart from the original film version) is by Tom Waits on his 1978 album ‘Blue Valentine’.

Waits’ gruff voice meeting that sensitive symphonic song is pure genius. Enjoy.

Somewhere (from West Side Story) by Tom Waits

For those of you in Australia, you may like to see the ‘real thing’ and attend a night at Bell Shakespeare’s production of ‘Romeo and Juliet’, including new ‘old’ costumes, beginning in Sydney on 20 February 2016 at the Sydney Opera House, before moving on to Canberra and Melbourne.

May you all have a wonderful day. Until next time…

 

Maya Lin (and where that led me…)

Today I decided to have a look at Maya Lin’s website.  I hadn’t looked at her work for a few years, and am still disappointed that she declined my invitation ten years ago to be a speaker at my National Australian Institute of Architects Conference in 2006.

I was very pleased to find an amazingly sophisticated yet simple site – totally reflective of Maya Lin’s work. A series of little colourful lines run along the lower part of the screen. As you scroll across these lines they play some simple notes, like a minimalists keyboard. You can play with All of these notes, or click on Art, Architecture or Memorials for a more limited set of keys (and projects to view).

What kind of score will you compose for yourself?  And which projects will take your fancy?

Maya Lin Website

So when I got to the page titled About I found that the site was designed by Knowawall so of course I had to have a look. There I found that they were currently upgrading the David Byrne Website so then I had to have a look at that too. On that page I read David Byrne’s explanation of what was happening to his site and found a ‘pop-up’ at the bottom of the page for a newer post called Content Dictates Form.  This turned out to be a longer piece that begins with Stephen Sondheim’s songwriting, goes on to Dickens in original serial form, and on to making a living on the internet touching on TV and CDs along the way.  I’m still digesting it all.  Knowing a little about David Byrne and his writing, I have hours of reading ahead of me if I choose to dive in even further.

Where will your journey take you…?

I’ll finish with a short piece by Paul Goldberger in Vanity Fair published in 2012 on the 30th anniversary of Maya Lin’s Vietnam Memorial in Washington.