Pligget

Pligget
Little to say for myself

Thursday, April 10, 2003

Not a corny title like "The Rhythm of Life"

Just been to see The BackBeat Quartet in concert. They had done an all-day percussion workshop with local schoolkids and rounded it off with this gig - supported by groups of the students (my son amongst them).
It was wonderful to see and hear such beauty being made simply by hitting things. It seems the more primitive the instument, the deeper the emotional impact - whether that emotion be joy, sadness or anger.
They also proved that you don't need masses of expensive classical gear to make art - just a spark of imagination, an ear for sounds and how they work, shedloads of talent, a sprinkling of wit, and no doubt countless hours of grinding practice. Their finale involved (between the four of them) four drumsticks, two tomtoms and two basketballs - and for their encore piece, they just hit parts of their own bodies to make the sounds. Scintillating stuff.

Off to bed now - got to get up at 3 (yes 3!) a.m. to drop my other son at school for his day-trip to Vimy Ridge.

posted by Plig | 23:45 |

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Forget the sentimental notion that foreign policy is a struggle between virtue and vice, with virtue bound to win.
Forget the utopian notion that a brave new world without power politics will follow the unconditional surrender of wicked nations.
Forget the crusading notion that any nation, however virtuous and powerful, can have the mission to make the world in its own image.
Remember that diplomacy without power is feeble, and power without diplomacy is destructive and blind.
Remember that no nation's power is without limits, and hence that its policies must respect the power and interests of others.
Hans Morgenthau

The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, but wiser people so full of doubts
Bertrand Russell

The release of atomic energy has not created a new problem. It has merely made more urgent the necessity of solving an existing one
Albert Einstein

When you are right you cannot be too radical; when you are wrong, you cannot be too conservative
Martin Luther King Jr.

Our great democracies still tend to think that a stupid man is more likely to be honest than a clever man
Bertrand Russell

I think it would be a good idea
Mahatma Gandhi, when asked what he thought of Western civilization

There are painters who transform the sun to a yellow spot, but there are others who with the help of their art and their intelligence, transform a yellow spot into the sun
Pablo Picasso

Those are my principles, and if you don't like them... well, I have others
Groucho Marx

Whatever you do will be insignificant, but it is very important that you do it
Mahatma Gandhi

Always make new mistakes
Esther Dyson