Month: September 2023

Myersvision: How Big is Big?

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Earlier this week our senior cryptid correspondent Audre Myers sent me an intriguing video that seems to depict a Bigfoot sauntering along the side of a Canadian lake near Toronto.  If anyone’s going to be hanging out in Canada, it’s Bigfoot!

Audre makes an interesting point:  could every sighting of the hairy lug really be a guy in a gorilla costume?  That does stretch credulity—except that it’s entirely possible, albeit a tad implausible, that everyone filming is in cahoots with a fellow hoaxer.  The Spiritualist Movement of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries produced more charlatans than ghosts.

Regardless, we simply can’t know.  As with everything with Bigfoot, we’re always talking in possibilities, probabilities, likelihoods, etc.  This footage is intriguing, but it’s so easy to doctor video footage, how can we be sure?  Until we have a Bigfoot in captivity or dead on a lab table, we really can’t.

With that, here is Audre with a little note on perspective:

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Open Mic Adventures XLVIII: “Skeleton Dance No. 2”

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I’m hosting a FREE online listening party for Spooky Season on Sunday, 1 October 2023, at 7 PM Eastern Standard Time.  You can RSVP here.

After the unusual success of “Skeleton Dance No. 1” on YouTube, I knew it was time to compose “Skeleton Dance No. 2.”  As is often the case with sequels, “Skeleton Dance No. 2” is far more developed and fleshed-out (no pun intended) than its predecessor.

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Monday Morning Movie Review: Retribution (2023)

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There are a handful of actors whose films I will always see:  Nicolas Cage, Kurt Russell, Liam Neeson.  Maybe it’s not always on the big screen, but I’ll find a way to view their films.

If the movie is just $4—as it was when I saw the latest Liam Neeson vehicle Retribution (2023), it’s a no-brainer.  What’s not to love?  An aging action star with improbably young children taking on a dangerous criminal and all of the Europol and the Berlin Polizei?  Take my money, please!

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Lazy Sunday CXX: Skeletons

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Spooky Season is upon us, and yours portly can’t get enough of it.  Pumpkins.  Ghosts.  Skeletons!

So this Sunday, I thought I’d look back at the scant skeleton posts on this humble blog:

Happy Sunday—and Happy Listening!

—TPP

Other Lazy Sunday Installments:

SubscribeStar Saturday: Compose-a-thon II: Movement

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Today’s post is a SubscribeStar Saturday exclusive.  To read the full post, subscribe to my SubscribeStar page for $1 a month or more.  For a full rundown of everything your subscription gets, click here.

While working on Spooky Season II: Rise of the Cryptids (coming to Bandcamp on Friday, 6 October 2023), I composed a couple of tracks that only somewhat related, “Meandering” and “Plodder.”  These were pieces I’d written snippets of in my composing journal, but which were more or less experiments in unusual meters and concepts.  “Plodder,” for example, is written to be intentionally muddy—lots of low-end bass notes and tight tone clusters, producing something akin to the effect of a small child or a cat leaning on the low keys of the piano:

I added in tuba and bass clarinet (the latter is quickly becoming my favorite, spooky sound) to drive home that thick, sludgy low-end sound.

“Plodder” fits the cryptid theme of the album a bit better of these two “movement”-inspired pieces.  One could imagine Bigfoot or some zombie (are zombies cryptids?; maybe some variations would be considered as such) plodding slowly through the forests, although all the “footage” of “Bigfoot” I’ve seen seems to indicate he’s a fairly fast fellow.

Regardless, I found these two pieces particularly unusual and unorthodox, and opted to share them with you, my faithful subscribers, ahead of the album’s release.

To read the rest of this post, subscribe to my SubscribeStar page for $1 a month or more.

Remarkable Animals

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My local newspaper, the Darlington News & Press, ran an excellent column entitled “Until one has loved an animal” by Dr. Bill Holland, a Christian pastor and theologian.  His column runs regularly in the paper, and he always offers up some interesting insights into faith and biblical Truth.

Until one has loved an animal

The piece is about the remarkable humanness that animals can sometimes possess.  It’s easy for us to anthropomorphize animals’ behaviors, but anyone who has owned a dog knows that they share something with us that other animals lack.

Specifically, it’s about the remarkable spelling horse Beautiful Jim Key.

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Myersvision – Why?

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One might wonder at times why the Bigfoot people are so gung-ho about what they do. Some of them, I am certain, are charlatans and hucksters, and are putting on a show for clicks and remunerative possibilities.

But there are others who sincerely believe, and respect this legendary creature.  Our senior Bigfoot correspondent Audre Myers is one such soul.

In this short-but-impactful post, Audre details why it is that some folks dedicate their lives, their talents, and their energies to Bigfoot, a creature that is not us, but that seems so similar to us in so many ways:

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Myersvision: Alexander Scourby

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Growing up, I remember pastors championing the King James Version of the Bible as the only reliable translation.  It is, indeed, exceptional—and, even for a hyperintelligent Übermensch like yours portly, exceptionally difficult to read.  I now primarily use the New King James Version, which retains the KJV’s accuracy, while updating the syntax and language for modern readers.

That said, the NKJV still loses some of the poetry of the KJV.  Christianity is a reading religion, but it’s also a spoken one, and like all poetry, the Bible is meant to be read aloud.  Not many of us do it well.  When it’s done right, however, it pierces our souls.

Audre Myers graciously wrote this beautiful piece about the recorded King James Version, available on YouTube.  Actor Alexander Scourby reads the entire Bible, and from the videos I’ve listened to so far, it’s gorgeous.

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Open Mic Adventures XLVII: “Bavarian Bop”

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I’ve been composing like a madman while I still have a free demo subscription to Noteflight.  I’ve already composed Spooky Season, and have a sequel composed and set to release on 6 October 2023 on Bandcamp, then to all other streaming platforms on 13 October 2023.  The sequel, Spooky Season II: Rise of the Cryptids, is ten tracks, and will be loaded with bonus features, including the videos featured in today’s post.

One of my favorite pieces from Spooky Season is “Bavarian Bop,” a short piece for small instrumental ensemble that I also rearranged for solo piano.  It’s a little Oktoberfest-inspired bit of musical whimsy.

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Monday Morning Movie Review: The Last Voyage of the Demeter (2023)

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It’s been a big moviegoing summer for yours portly, and I’ve availed myself of the offerings at my local cinema quite frequently.  While I was still on summer vacation I managed to slip into a 4 PM showing of The Last Voyage of the Demeter (2023), a film about the doomed ship that carried Count Dracula to England in the original Bram Stoker novel.

I was hoping for a delightfully blood-soaked (and blood-thirsty) romp on the high seas, blending the manliness of stoic sailors in the waning days of the Age of Sail with the Gothic horror of old-school Dracula.  Instead, I got a disappointingly plodding film and a stomach ache from eating too much popcorn, albeit with a pretty terrifying depiction of the dreaded Count.

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