Reposted by gregorNicolas Leblanc @ngrl.bsky.social · 17/07/2026Here is a worthwhile read: substack.com/home/post/p-...substack.comOn the decline of sumptuousness in cinemaPart 2: Polyester, Pink Floyd and props. 032
gregor @mothwater.bsky.social · 04/07/2026Impeccable read of the audience by Kael. Yep, the audiences of 1978 sure did hate blood and violence. Total softies. Even the kids movies were softer than usual that year. 020
gregor @mothwater.bsky.social · 25/05/2026Since some people are griping about how there isn't enough posting going on, here are a couple videos by composers who had birthdays last week. The first is from Sarah Gibson who died from cancer in 2024 at the stupidly young age of 38. A terrible loss. youtu.be/m-hHbGPtQQc?...youtu.beSoak Stain by Sarah GibsonYouTube video by Chicago Center For Contemporary Composition 110
gregor @mothwater.bsky.social · 11/04/2026Stumbled on to a Charles Bronson marathon on cable during my current dogsitting adventure and White Buffalo came on. Hadn't seen it in decades, so giving it a rewatch. Nice thing about a workman director like J Lee Thompson is he isn't an 'auteur', he's realizing the script he was given. 120
Reposted by gregorSabzian @sabzian.bsky.social · 02/04/2026New on Sabzian: a collection celebrating 100 years of André Delvaux, who according to Luc Dardenne was “the greatest and perhaps the last Belgian filmmaker.” Texts by Jonathan Rosenbaum, Michel Ciment, Adolphe Nysenholc, Johan Daisne and Bram Van Beeksabzian.beCOLLECTION: André Delvaux, a Belgian FilmmakerAndré Delvaux (1926-2002) is counted among the most important filmmakers in the history of Belgian cinema. Although he started making films relatively late and without a formal education, Delvaux mana... 034
gregor @mothwater.bsky.social · 04/01/2026On a roll with my second movie watch of the year and already the mood has been perfectly captured. 110
Reposted by gregorGreg Gerke / Socrates on the Beach @greggerkesocrates.bsky.social · 26/10/2025The twelfth issue of Socrates on the Beach is live. Thank you to the authors and the translator and those who helped with the issue. socratesonthebeach.com 0206
gregor @mothwater.bsky.social · 15/10/2025Damn, birthday boy Mathias Spahlinger killed it with this piece. Listened twice, now I have to check out his other works. youtu.be/T2VQmnHq1IY?...youtu.beMathias Spahlinger - Passage/paysage [w/score]YouTube video by Four-hobbies-man 142
gregor @mothwater.bsky.social · 12/10/2025Some mad skills in engagement bait. Creates a weak dichotomy between 'good' taste & writing, which doesn't really make sense on its face, how can writing that's "crowdsourced" & incurious be good? Then flips the construction to say incurious isn't good, denying the viability of the initial claim. 110
gregor @mothwater.bsky.social · 11/10/2025This is the kind of counterintuitive reporting that keeps The Economist one big step ahead of their competitors in the marketplace of non-ideas. 110
gregor @mothwater.bsky.social · 28/09/2025Spending the evening on the important business of deciding which of Lucas Cranach's paintings of Melancholia is most true. I lean towards the first one, but wouldn't argue with opting for the third either. 130
gregor @mothwater.bsky.social · 25/09/2025Shosty's birthday, as good a time as any to get around to this one. (Kinda feel like 13 symphonies are too many big thoughts for anyone to really need to have. What's wrong with a nice chamber piece? But the Soviets did like the large scale, so we'll see.) youtu.be/_VHrV0f8WyE?...youtu.be13 SHOSTAKOVICH Symph No 13 Babi Yar in B flat min Op 113 Dir Valery Gergiev Mariinsky OrchestraYouTube video by Вадимович Плотников 220
gregor @mothwater.bsky.social · 24/09/2025Dang, I just found this dude was pulled up on one of my many tabs and I have no idea why. As painter? As composer? Did someone mention him? Whatever the case, I can't bring myself to close it or navigate away from a guy with such an impressive name and bio. Just gonna open another new tab instead. 120
gregor @mothwater.bsky.social · 21/09/2025Eh, it's not like news organizations need editors. I'm sure this is fine. 010
gregor @mothwater.bsky.social · 20/09/2025Oh, hell yeah. The Dakota, a local jazz venue, is holding a block party today for their 40th anniversary and it's adjacent to my usual hang out and read spot on the street by Orchestra Hall. A great way to spend the day. 000
gregor @mothwater.bsky.social · 16/09/2025Dang, this Marc Cuyper guy has game. He posts images of paintings and has a dedicated group of other accounts/bots respond with critical praise, all in the same fashion, but they all also are accounts that repost & occasionally comment on other, possibly connected posts. Impressive organization! 120
gregor @mothwater.bsky.social · 13/09/2025Virgil Thomson relating a Henry Cowell anecdote about Carl Ruggles: 000
gregor @mothwater.bsky.social · 12/09/2025Big day for the music listening, started off with Ana-Maria Avram, who would have celebrated her birthday today. Dense and somewhat foreboding music, drawing on concrete/programmatic sounds that at times suggests connection with some metal music interests. youtu.be/AFRPAK19XUo?...youtu.beAna-Maria Avram - Voices of the Desert (w/ score and performance video)YouTube video by belanna000 100
gregor @mothwater.bsky.social · 10/09/2025It's Henry Purcell's birthday today, but since I already posted Dido's Lament on that other site, I'll make oblique reference to Henry's song by posting something by another birthday boy I've suddenly become very interested in; Gordon Kampe. youtu.be/FUBA7K2R3HQ?...youtu.beGordon Kampe »remember me«YouTube video by Kampe 010
gregor @mothwater.bsky.social · 05/09/2025Just watched the Fennell Wuthering Heights trailer people are chattering about and all I can say is I'll be eagerly looking forward to all the debates on reader response theory next February. 010
gregor @mothwater.bsky.social · 04/09/2025By luck, I Brucknered over the weekend, so I can spend my time going through the quartets of Milhaud, which, really, is gonna tale a lot longer than a day to finish since I see they number into the 400s, but this one seems appropriate for the today, Milhaud's 133rd birthday youtu.be/GW-x_9YEiOk?...youtu.beDarius Milhaud: Quartetto per archi n.10 op.218 "Birthday Quartet" (1940)YouTube video by Wellesz Theatre. 010
gregor @mothwater.bsky.social · 04/09/2025It was a Shoista Mullojonova listening day today on the 100th anniversary of her birth. youtu.be/b1Un2-Jft7A?...youtu.beShoista Mullojonova - "Ba Dilbar (Beloved)" [Uzbek]YouTube video by Dwight Swanson 000
gregor @mothwater.bsky.social · 01/09/2025Going through the Debussy catalog & my feeling about almost every piece still remains, "Very nice, but what does that have to do with me?" but then I sometimes ask the same about some Impressionist painters as well. Not all perspectives translate readily & theirs may just be too removed from my own. 210
gregor @mothwater.bsky.social · 31/08/2025Came across this aside from Virgil Thomson on the vagaries of taste just after having posted something similar on that other site and figured I'd repost it hear w/the chatter so as to rob you fine folks of my esoteric inanity. Left off the person I was replying to & the last image is my prior post. 110
gregor @mothwater.bsky.social · 29/08/2025Just finished this nifty book that collects the writings of around 50 different Hollywood directors on the craft & sometimes art of making movies, & a great little amusement is seeing how often all the pieces make offhand remarks that use John Ford as example. 110
gregor @mothwater.bsky.social · 28/08/2025Today's birthday notable is the composer, professor, and former president of Croatia, Ivo Josipović. youtu.be/dX-5id3MG3w?...youtu.beIvo Josipović: Dernek, for two pianos, percussion and stringsYouTube video by Danijel Detoni - Topic 110
gregor @mothwater.bsky.social · 27/08/2025Dang, not been a great day with the earphones, classical birthdays were largely a miss, tried the new Deftones and Ethel Cain and didn't fare much better, down to my last shot with In "Jane from Occupied Europe" from Swell Maps to save my listening day. Wish me luck! 000
gregor @mothwater.bsky.social · 27/08/2025Here's an example of programmatic music, pleasant enough but doesn't appear to do anything more than capturing what is noted in the title to my hearing of it. This is the 2nd movement, the first being Dry Spell & the 3rd & final Petrichor, which complete the musical 'story' youtu.be/3HYpdHatOQw?...youtu.bePetrichor - DelugeYouTube video by Barry Conyngham - Topic 110
gregor @mothwater.bsky.social · 26/08/2025Peaking of deserved crossover appeal, Canadian composer Nicole Lizée certainly deserves more of it. Just heard this barn burner when it pulled up after Sally Beamish's nifty Hive piece for Proms. youtu.be/wFO1hGfi2UA?...youtu.beNicole Lizée - Blurr is the Colour of My True Love’s Eyes (European Première)YouTube video by fiveagainstfour 100
gregor @mothwater.bsky.social · 26/08/2025Sorry. Forgot the age thing, not sure who/what passes for reasonable expectation of knowledge with popular culture anymore. Just looked at RYM and saw Loverboy's hugely popular 1980 album has fewer ratings than the avant prog Familjesprickor by Zamla Mammaz Manna, so I guess all bets are off now. 010
gregor @mothwater.bsky.social · 25/08/2025Today's workday music time was spent trying to figure out some things about Pretenders, Pavement & Stefan Wolpe, not sure I found the answers, or can even decide if the questions were useful, but, hey, there are worse ways to spend a day. 130
gregor @mothwater.bsky.social · 25/08/2025A worthwhile read but the final paragraph, I think, does need some added consideration: "Now, if I were a thoroughgoing Baudillardian, I’d have to interrogate whether or not my antifascism itself is a kind of simulation and simulacrum of an older, more meaningful world." 010
gregor @mothwater.bsky.social · 22/08/2025Althought I've been quiet about it, composer birthday listens are still going strong. So a Happy Stockhausen Friday to all. youtu.be/NJfI_wwLbQs?...youtu.beKarlheinz Stockhausen -- FREITAGS-GRUSS (WELTRAUM 1/2)YouTube video by Sebastian Ars Acoustica 110
gregor @mothwater.bsky.social · 31/07/2025If you love bassoons, like any right minded person would, then you should really enjoy this piece for seven of them. youtu.be/EYcilf495hQ?...youtu.beMetafagote (2015) for seven bassoonsYouTube video by Release - Topic 030
gregor @mothwater.bsky.social · 31/07/2025In a must be something in the air kind of thing, I was just thinking about the way Copland's (what an appropriate name for the sensation) kind of muscular free ranging Americana no longer reads the same, regardless of who is riffing on it. Virgil Thomson uses it as did many others last century 110
gregor @mothwater.bsky.social · 21/07/2025Spent much of the morning commemorating the birth of "The Elvis of Punjab", Amar Singh Chamkila born on this day in 1960, assassinated in 1988 at age 27. youtu.be/33WqdSE-qeU?...youtu.bePehle Lalkaare Nal ChamkilaYouTube video by JIMMYMANN 000
gregor @mothwater.bsky.social · 18/07/2025Since I already had them at hand, a couple choice quotes from Roger Shattuck's The Innocent Eye on fragments. Flaubert standing resolutely against, Coleridge intrigued by their elusive suggestion, at least from certain personages. 110
gregor @mothwater.bsky.social · 18/07/2025The current trend among the bluecheck bots on the for you tab kinda fascinates me. An incredulous "reply" to a short scene from randomly selected movies, not necessarily popular ones, essentially acting as if the events were real to get you to watch. We're very deep into fragment aesthetics now. 210
gregor @mothwater.bsky.social · 08/07/2025Of course the previously mentioned multimedia events aren't the only thing the Walker offers, one of the most famous works in their collection is the "iconic" & "whimsical" Spoonbridge & Cherry by Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen, which has interested me a great deal of late. 110
gregor @mothwater.bsky.social · 07/07/2025Trying not to be so grumpy, so when I saw posts on if De Palma is more like Godard than he is like Hitchcock, decided it was a good time to log off and go to a museum. So I went to the Walker & enjoyed some multi-media productions by Cabello/Carceller, Sky Hopinka & Pan-Daijing instead. A solid win. 121
gregor @mothwater.bsky.social · 03/07/2025Feel bad for all those who left X and are missing the great cinephile content there. 110
gregor @mothwater.bsky.social · 30/06/2025A excerpt from Roger Shattuck's book The Innocent Eye regarding those "young phosphorescents"; the Surrealists. 110
gregor @mothwater.bsky.social · 26/06/2025Thinking about mock drafts/trades as possibly the most popular type of fantasy aligned fiction and now I'm wondering if there have been any studies on how so many people turn to sports in their later years as essentially a replacement for the arts, following the socialized acceptance of life. 100
gregor @mothwater.bsky.social · 25/06/2025Roger Shattuck responding to the quote in the first image regarding alphabetization of knowledge. Taken from The Innocent Eye published way back in 1985, before the logic of "convenience" had revealed the extent of its monstrous imbecility. 010
gregor @mothwater.bsky.social · 25/06/2025Google's AI assist is an abomination in all its manifestations. 010
gregor @mothwater.bsky.social · 24/06/2025Reading Virgil Thomson, a charming writer, & was amused to read his offhand comments on how he turned down working with Joyce, out of loyalty to Stein, Pound, who was too much, and Picasso, who was too old. Stein was his only muse, so to keep the mood, 4 Saints in 3 Acts is my music of the day. 120
gregor @mothwater.bsky.social · 23/06/2025The art bots are really the only thing that makes twitter bearable. I think I'm following like a hundred or more of them and browse them regularly. Might just be a way for someone to make a little extra cash setting them up, but that's okay by me given the alternatives of Tiktok videos and the like. 020
gregor @mothwater.bsky.social · 19/06/2025Thinking about 'taste' and Claes Oldenburg, something I might post about later, but it called to mind his artist statement/manifesto, I Am For..., one of the better examples of that vainglorious genre. 100
gregor @mothwater.bsky.social · 17/06/2025Last night was the second time in the last couple months I woke up due to a word being used in my dream that I'd never before said or wrote, causing me to wake up in anxiety, as if from a nightmare, over whether it was used correctly or not. *sigh* can't even dream like a normal person. 010
