Monday, August 19, 2019

Autobiography of Tony Iommi followed by auto of Ozzy Osbourne. The second because I was curious about a different POV for the same events. And indeed. Tony leaves out things like spending some time in prison. Ozzy in general is way more forthcoming. Tells a lot of negative things about himself. Beating his wives. Constantly cheating. Extreme cruelty to animals.

I got into Tony's first because he just seemed interesting in interviews. But not terribly so actually. But hearing about both's childhoods in England was interesting. Best part for both is before they were famous.

Same with previous autobiography of Joe Jackson. A much more intelligent guy who made music that really wasn't as good. Interesting childhood in england though. And Steppin Out and a few other really good songs. Interesting thought about Eye music and how classical music took a wrong turn. But now pop music certainly has also.

Really liked The Urth of the New Sun. Think it should have been part of Book of the New Sun but Wolfe wanted it separate I guess. First part takes place on a spaceship. Then he is "judged". It's really quite strange and works just right. Saving the world type books are so hard to end well.

The Art of Playing the Pianoforte by Cary Czerny. On a Czerny kick. His nocturnes are underrated. Learning op 599. Sightreading it with metronome. Read this and partially many others. Also lots of articles online. Developed my own technique practice. Scales and arps done many ways followed by trilling exercise. Then sightreading with metronome. No less than an hour. Closer to 2 on weekends.

Revisting Perelandra. For ideas for my friends sparse story about Samael, Lilith and Adam. The world is just so empty. How to make other than a very short story? Looking at the conversations between Ransom and the Green Lady.