День штруделя

По инициативе Оли Б., профессионально изучающей секреты кондитерства, провели обед, посвященный штруделю. Оля приготовила два штруделя по классическим австрийским рецептам: один с капустой и один с яблоками. Результат оказался выше всяких похвал.

Ребята привезли из Италии бутылку лимончелло. Из холодильника был извлечен его домашний эквивалент и проведена сравнительная дегустация. Официальный вариант оказался немного более резким и крепким.

Fool to Cry

Семейное

Шабат шалом!

 Я услышал эту песню в радиопередаче Таль Ашилони на 88FM, в которой она принимала участников Oi Va Voi, приехавших к нам на гастроли. В ответ на просьбу их солиста послушать что-нибудь из современной местной музыки она поставила песню-протест "Басар ведам" ("Плоть и кровь") - совместный проект Томера Йосефа и незнакомой мне певицы Аяла Ингадешт:

Miss You

We didn't think much of "Miss You" when we were doing it. It was "Aah, Mick's been to the disco and has come out humming some other song." It's a result of all the nights Mick spent at Studio 54 and coming up with that beat, that four on the floor. And he said, add the melody to the beat. We just thought we'd put our oar in on Mick wanting to do some disco shit, keep the man happy. But as we got into it, it became quite an interesting beat. And we realized, maybe we've got a quintessential disco thing here. And out of it we got a huge hit. The rest of the album doesn't sound anything like "Miss You."

K.Richards. Life

Iron Lady

Посмотрели "Iron Lady" с оскароносной Мерил Стрип. В ней и состоит главное достоинство фильма. И в личности главной героини, которая может служить прекрасным примером нынешним политическим лидерам, опирающимися больше на результаты опросов, чем на идеологию и ценности. Неплохая режиссерская работа, за исключением раздражающих мини-флешбеков, напоминающих зрителю уже подчеркнутые ранее моменты.

ШШШ

לגנוב סוסים

На днях услышал забавный ивритский эквивалент русского "пойти [с кем-то] в разведку" - "לגנוב [עם מישהו] סוסים" ("красть лошадей"). Присутствующий при этом кибуцник не был знаком с этой идиомой, поэтому я не уверен насчет ее устойчивости в ивритоговорящей среде.

Melody

We toured Europe in September and October 1973, after the release of Goats Head Soup. The lineup now included, almost permanently until 1977, Billy Preston playing keyboards, usually organ. He'd already had a meteoric career, playing with Little Richard and with the Beatles almost as a fifth member of the band, and writing and churning out his own number one hits. He was from California, born in Houston, a soul and gospel musician who ended up playing with almost everybody who was good. We now toured with two trumpets, two saxophones and two keyboards--Billy's organ alongside Nicky Hopkins's piano--as sidemen.

Billy produced a different sound for us. If you listen to the records with Billy Preston, like "Melody,"he fit perfectly. But all the way through a show with Billy, it was like playing with somebody who was going to put his own stamp on everything. He was used to being a star in his own right. There was one time in Glasgow when he was playing so loud he was drowning out the rest of the band. I took him backstage and showed him the blade. "You know what this is, Bill? Dear William. If you don't turn that fucking thing down right now, you're going to feel it." It's not Billy Preston and the Rolling Stones. You are the keyboard player with the Rolling Stones. But most of the time I never had a problem with it. Certainly Charlie quite enjoyed the jazz influence, and we did a lot of good stuff together.

K.Richards. Life

If you sit Ronnie down, take his mind off everything else, just concentrate all the bits, he's an incredibly sympathetic player. He can surprise you at times. I enjoy playing with him still, very, very much. We were doing "You Got the Silver," and I said, well, I can sing it, but I can't sing and play at the same time. You've got to do my bit. And he got it down so much, it was beautiful. He's a lovely slide player. And he genuinely loves his music. It's innocent, totally pure; there are no angles on it. He knows Beiderbecke, he knows his history, his Broonzy, he's solidly grounded. And he was perfectly adapted to the ancient form of weaving, where you can't tell rhythm from lead guitar, the style I'd developed with Brian, the old bedrock of the Rolling Stones sound. The division between guitar players, rhythm and lead, that we had with Mick Taylor melted away. You have to be intuitively locked to do that, and Ronnie and I are like that. "Beast of Burden" is a good example of the two of us twinkling felicitously together.

K.Richards. Life

Overstaying their welcome

So she became the bouncer, getting rid of people sleeping under beds and overstaying their welcome.

K.Richards. Life

Одноклассницы.ру

Сайт однокашников уже давно выполнил свою историческую функцию по наведению разрушенных мостов через воды Ганга шириной в двадцать лет (о глубине вообще не заикаюсь) и превратился в рассадник тривиальности, нарциссизма, отчаяния и просто откровенного блядства.

Заглянул я недавно на свою страничку. Мое внимание привлекла рубрика “оценки”. Оказалось, что идиотский коллаж, который я выставил в качестве своей профильной фотографии, пользуется большой популярностью среди девушек, по возрасту годящихся в одноклассницы разве что моему сыну, а по внешности – для доски почета дома терпимости средней категории.

Некоторые не поленились на более основательное исследование моего школьного прошлого:

Сначала я подумал, что за этими виртуальными нимфетками стоят толстые и потные дядьки, пытающиеся таким образом привлечь похотливых одноклассников к какому-то бизнесу, раскручиваемого ими в сети. Но из разговора с Чу пришел к выводу, что скорее всего девушки настоящие (с поправкой на возраст и фотошоп), и сайт служит для них плацдармом в поисках заграничного мужа. Судя по черно-белым фото почти сорокалетней давности, внешность незнакомого им мужчины не играет никакой роли. Остаются лишь демографические данные: пол, возраст и страна проживания.

Единственная причина, по которой я не удаляю свой аккаунт состоит в том, что раз в год там возьмет да всплывет какой-то дорогой сердцу человек.

The big rules of knife fighting

The big rules of knife fighting are (a) do not try it at home, and (b) the whole point is never, ever use the blade. It is there to distract your opponent. While he stares at the gleaming steel, you kick his balls to kingdom come--he's all yours. Just a tip!

K.Richards. Life

While I was in the clinic, Anita was down the road having our daughter, Angela. Once I came out of the usual trauma, I had a guitar with me and I wrote "Angie" in an afternoon, sitting in bed, because I could finally move my fingers and put them in the right place again, and I didn't feel like I had to shit the bed or climb the walls or feel manic anymore. I just went, "Angie, Angie." It was not about any particular person; it was a name, like "ohhh, Diana." I didn't know Angela was going to be called Angela when I wrote "Angie." In those days you didn't know what sex the thing was going to be until it popped out. In fact, Anita named her Dandelion. She was only given the added name Angela because she was born in a Catholic hospital where they insisted that a "proper" name be added. As soon as Angela grew up a little bit, she said, "Never again do you call me Dandy."

K.Richards. Life

 You might have all of the music, a great riff, but sometimes the subject matter is missing. It only takes one guy sitting around a room, saying, "throwing craps last night..." for a song to be born. "Got to roll me." Songs are strange things. Little notes like that. If they stick, they stick. With most of the songs I've ever written, quite honestly, I've felt there's an enormous gap here, waiting to be filled; this song should have been written hundreds of years ago. How did nobody pick up on that little space? Half the time you're looking for gaps that other people haven't done. And you say, I don't believe they've missed that fucking hole! It's so obvious. It was there staring you in the face! I pick out the holes.

I realize now that Exile was made under very chaotic circumstances and with innovative ways of recording, but those seemed to be the least of the problems. The most pressing problem was, do we have songs and do we get the sound? Anything else that went on was peripheral. You can hear a load of my outtakes ending, "Oh well, run out. That's the story so far." But you'd be surprised when you're put right on the ball and you've got to do something and everybody's looking at you, going, OK, what's going to happen? You put yourself up there on the firing line--give me a blindfold and a last cigarette and let's go. And you'd be surprised how much comes out of you before you die. Especially when you're fooling the rest of the band, who think you know exactly what you're going to do, and you know you're blind as a bat and have no idea. But you're just going to trust yourself. Something's going to come. You come out with one line, throw in a guitar line and then another line's got to come out. This is where supposedly your talent lies. It's not in trying to meticulously work out how to build a Spitfire.

K.Richards. Life

It's amazing that the music we made down in that basement is still going, given that the record wasn't even that highly rated when it first came out. The outtakes of Exile on Main St. were released as part of a reissue in 2010. The music was recorded in 1971, nearly forty years ago as I write. If I had been listening to music that was forty years old in 1971, I would have been listening to stuff that was barely recordable. Maybe some early Louis Armstrong, Jelly Roll Morton. I suppose a world war in between changes the perception.

K.Richards. Life

"Can't You Hear Me Knocking" came out flying--I just found the tuning and the riff and started to swing it and Charlie picked up on it just like that, and we're thinking, hey, this is some groove. So it was smiles all around. For a guitar player it's no big deal to play, the chopping, staccato bursts of chords, very direct and spare.

K.Richards. Life