the girl in the car (no backseat driver here)

[theladyrose]

FOMF was fairly productive today; we found a bunch of useful print sources and had much frustration with microfiching machines. The Brit lit teacher ended up giving us a tour and hung around for a bit before leaving. His daughters are adorable. The Green group slowly dwindled down as we went for lunch, and Chrissie, Rachel, Thea and I ended up being the only ones to stay behind. Still, we had a good time just talking. I met Chrissie's sister's roommate, which was kind of interesting.

I ended up walking to Tressidor Union after the majority of the group left to go research at the home base because I was feeling bored and unsettled. I kept staring over at the old complex where we had our meals during that bohemian writing camp and thinking about what if Cathy were still alive. And then it suddenly popped into my head that I ought to go get a strawberry milkshake for old times sake as a sort of tribute, so I marched over to the place that serves the best milkshakes I've ever had. And wouldn't you know, but the place had been replaced by Peet's Coffee. Can you believe it? I swear I'm never stepping into one of those places ever again. I ended up getting a smoothie which was the next best thing and felt vaguely ironic for a few minutes. Things just change, and it struck me to stop being so damned nostalgic. Thea, Rachel, and I ended up having a nice little chat afterwards.

I'm a semi-lousy driver when I'm driving by myself. If it's late at night/in the afternoon and I'm in the downtown Palo Alto, I'm absolutely terrible. I drove down two streets in the wrong direction twice. Oy, was I lucky not to collide into anyone! And I tried trailing Chrissie and Thea back to school from Green, but I ended up tailing some other random couple into downtown PA. Thankfully I've got a pretty good sense of direction so I found my way back. I ended up leaving FOMF at around 5:30 just because I didn't want to try my luck with driving.

I got in the rest of my soundtrack shipments today! Joyous joy! Now I have the Prisoner Files Volumes 1-3, Get Carter, Eternal Echoes, the Phantom of the Opera, and Vertigo (remastered version conducted by Joel McNeely). Actually, Eternal Echoes is only a freelance orchestral album of John Barry's, the followup to the Beyondness of Things which rumor has it contains parts of his rejected score to the Horse Whisperer. Needless to say I am very happy with new musical material to attempt to analyze. Out of everything that I've gotten this week, Phantom of the Opera is the weakest album; oy, my opinion of Gerald Butler's vocal ability has dropped upon repeated listenings. The Appointment and Get Carter are the most memorable of the bunch; I have a growing appreciation of electronica and 60's instruments like the harpsicord and the vibraphone (it's mostly the novel usage of these instruments that's intriguing), though the retro kind is more of my preference. I haven't heard Vertigo, parts of the Prisoner Files Volume 3, or Eternal Echoes yet, so I'll try to review them later. If I wasn't doing FOMF this weekend I'd have time to review them properly, but I don't have to get to the home base until 11:30 tomorrow morning. More reviewing goodness later!

May I say for the record, Patrick McGoohan saying "I like my dream" is probably the sexiest line in the Prisoner. Not that you probably care :P

Comments

[phoenixbird27.livejournal.com]

Oooh! What's on the Vertigo soundtrack? It is Hermann's stuff? Are there extra tracks that aren't featured in the film?

[theladyrose.livejournal.com]

It's a rerecording of Herrmann's work by Joel McNeely, a fine film composer in his own right and the man considered to be the best interpreter of Herrmann's work. McNeely also rerecorded Herrmann's Farenheight 451. There's a fair bit of previously unreleased material, and from what I've heard so far, it's definitely worth getting if you don't have it already!

[phoenixbird27.livejournal.com]

Cool! It's sometimes hard to get in things like that out here--we generally have to import them from the US. But I'll check it out anyway, it's possible our uni has it actually.

[theladyrose.livejournal.com]

I got mine off of Amazon.com, so perhaps you can order it from there? It'd be great if you could just borrow it from your uni and avoid all of the trouble :)