Pelican Yoga

Life Goes On/ Happy 85th birthday, Carla Bley

Published May 12, 2021 by Pelidoug

Life Goes On/ Happy 85th birthday, Carla Bley

In the USA, it is currently “yesterday”, Tuesday, 11 May, 2021.

I hope that Carla Bley is enjoying a very happy birthday with her beloved, Steve Swallow.

For rather more than my entire adult life, Carla Bley has composed, arranged and played singular music, variously – sometimes, simultaneously – provocative, surprising, very amusing, satirical, sublimely lyrical, complex, seemingly-simple…

Her three most recent releases – all, new trio recordings of new music, made between 2013 and 2019 – are some of her finest, ever.

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Revelatory covers (#16 in series): Rhiannon Giddens sings “Calling Me Home”

Published May 5, 2021 by Pelidoug

Revelatory covers (#16 in series): Rhiannon Giddens sings “Calling Me Home”

If the almost-titlepiece of Rhiannon Giddens’ new album were new to your ears, you would probably assume it was a venerable “traditional” song, probably from Appalachia.

Listeners who already knew many traditional Appalachian songs would likely be mightily surprised that they could have hitherto missed such a superb, particularly haunting one.

In fact, Calling Me Home was authored by Alice Gerard; it was titlepiece of her 2002 album, issued in the year of her 68th birthday. (An even better album is Follow the Music, which Alice Gerrard recorded – mostly “live” – in her 80th year)

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Word power: Arundhati Roy excoriates Narendra Modi

Published April 30, 2021 by Pelidoug

Word power: Arundhati Roy excoriates Narendra Modi

Direct quote from Indian Prime Minister Modi, crowing, in January 2021:

Friends, it would not be advisable to judge India’s success with that of another country. In a country which is home to 18% of the world population, that country has saved humanity from a big disaster by containing corona effectively.

Arundhati Roy, describing India’s ghastly pandemic reality in April 2021:

The system hasn’t collapsed. The government has failed. Perhaps “failed” is an inaccurate word, because what we are witnessing is not criminal negligence, but an outright crime against humanity.

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Anvil Beach, again (postscript to #6 in “Deep South WA meets Southern Ocean” series)

Published April 27, 2021 by Pelidoug

Anvil Beach, again (postscript to #6 in “Deep South WA meets Southern Ocean” series)

If you are “new” to Anvil Beach, it would be a good idea – before you proceed further – to see/read its earlier post

This one is the fruit of a visit/swim (my beloved did all of the swimming) at the end of an unusually hot day.

The featured image, taken at 6.03 pm on 18 March 2021, shows Anvil Beach’s “anvil”.

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Hunker Down/That Old Blitz Spirit

Published April 18, 2021 by Pelidoug

Hunker Down/That Old Blitz Spirit

No sign yet of COVID:The Musical, but “the virus” has now yielded a superbly crafted song.

The context is British, but its precise skewering of the gap between self-congratulory “patriotic” government twaddle-speak and the pandemic’s reality rings true across most of “our” world.

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‘Landscape’ postscript to “Stirling Range, after fire”

Published April 15, 2021 by Pelidoug

‘Landscape’ postscript to “Stirling Range, after fire”

For the benefit of those who have not visited the Stirling Range…

The featured image and the one below – wide-angle and telephoto, respectively – look east from Toolbrunup’s east-facing flank, across to Bluff Knoll.

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Stirling Range, after fire

Published April 11, 2021 by Pelidoug

Stirling Range, after fire

At 1,159 square kilometres Stirling Range National Park is “large”, or “small”, depending on one’s perspective.

Four hours drive northwest, Perth – Western Australia’s sprawling metropolis – occupies more than five times as much ground.

The Stirlings’ “footprint” is less than one 209th of the United Kingdom’s 242, 495 square kilometres.

Botanically, however, the Stirling Range is much the “bigger”/“hotter” place!

It has more flowering plant species than does the entire UK; many of them grow only in or near the Stirling Range.

Two recent “catastrophic” fires seemingly “destroyed” much more than half of what had been growing there…

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The grandest grass tree…

Published April 8, 2021 by Pelidoug

The grandest grass tree…

…is surely one of “our” planet’s most wonderfully weird plants.

Kingia Australis is the only member of its genus, is not at all closely related to any of the other grass trees, and it grows (very, very slowly, over centuries) only in Australia’s southwestern corner.

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Ugly beauty: “Forest Motors” (# 89 in “a shining moment” series)

Published March 31, 2021 by Pelidoug

Ugly beauty: “Forest Motors” (# 89 in “a shining moment” series)

A big, rusting surprise was just one minute’s walk away from the house in which we recently spent sixteen nights – on a forested hill near Youngs Siding, in Western Australia’s Deep South.

This post’s musical complement: a singular treatment of an apropos Thelonious Monk number, plus the most tender song ever written about a car salesman….

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“Millennial” lizard, relishing avocado

Published March 20, 2021 by Pelidoug

“Millennial” lizard, relishing avocado

As Australia’s Right-“thinking” “pundits”/commentators/zealots “know”, if this “scaly, self-indulgent millennial” continues to bolt down avocados, it will never achieve home ownership!

They may, however, be pleased to know that no member of this species has ever sipped a latte…although some “pundits” surely will be disappointed to learn that its name does not salute a monarch/y.

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