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Category: music

Revelatory covers (#23 in series – Brad Mehldau plays The Beatles)

Imagine (no, not that song) this:

The Tardis delivers a very surprised J.S Bach into the present day, with no briefing.

He finds himself seated at an interesting “new” keyboard – a grand piano.

Atop it is a device, pre-loaded with a diverse selection of music/s from the second half of the 20th century.

He is given absolutely no “background information”.

The printed instruction to him says, “press button to listen to these pieces, then improvise upon whichever one most pleases you”

JSB is intrigued by I Am The Walrus.

Q: what would he do with/to it?

A: perhaps, something like what you are about to hear….

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Footprints: literally, mostly (with musical bonus)

 

 

This post’s actual footprints come from bears in Alaska, birds on the Indian subcontinent  and continental Australia, a Tasmanian wombat, and humans in an African desert and Australian suburbia.

The musical bonus is courtesy of one of the greatest jazz musicians – equally so as composer, virtuoso instrumentalist and inspired improviser.

There’s also a metaphorical footnote which involves New Zealand’s largest farm…

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Happy Gnu Year, with musical bonuses (final, double-edition of Namibia “single”-image series)

 

Gnu/wildebeest are bona fide antelopes.

However, as the Blue Wildebeest’s scientific name – Connochaetes taurinus – suggests, most human newcomers assume that wildebeest are bovine beasts.

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Venerable dunes, with “Father Time” musical bonus (#19 in Namibia single-image series)

 

The Namib is generally considered the world’s oldest desert; certainly, it is many millions of years older than the Sahara.

Some of the Namib’s dunes are uncommonly stable, exquisitely coloured, remarkably tall.

Contrary to common belief – and to claims made by promoters of various African and Eurasian deserts – the world tallest dunes are not in Africa, nor Arabia, nor China; by a considerable margin, they are in South America.

The Namib’s “sand sea” is, however, singularly beautiful, most especially around Sossusvlei.

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“Ugly Beauty” – warthogs rule, ok? (#13 in Namibia single-image series, with musical bonus)

 

 

 

Arguably, this particular oxymoron nicely describes Phacochoerus africanus – the common warthog.

Ugly Beauty is also the title of an unequivocally beautiful composition by one of jazz’s greatest composers.

This post’s kneeling hero was neither injured, nor pious, and although the fire in this image was part of a lovely dinner experience, warthog was not on the menu.

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Rare, shimmering…with musical bonus (#12 in Namibia single-image series)

 

 

Khowarib Gorge is one of very few Namibian places through which water flows, visibly, “permanently”.

This post’s (Tunisian) musical bonus was doubtless inspired by larger waves, dancing somewhere else entirely, but Anouar Brahem’s Dance With Waves dances well with a desert river’s rippling.

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Kunene River daybreak, with musical bonus (#10 in Namibia single-image series)

 

 

Photo was taken a few hundred metres upstream of Epupa Falls.

At 6.37 am on 11 November 2022 I was standing on the Namibian side of the Kunene River.

In Angola it is the Cunene; above, you are looking at both nations…and the moon.

The Kunene and the Orange (which is the border between Namibia and South Africa) are the only two of Namibia’s rivers that “permanently” have water flowing – above ground, visible – all the way to the Atlantic Ocean.

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