Month: January 2024

Midweek Composing Updates

The Portly PoliticoLeave a comment

Yours portly has been composing up a storm lately, thanks to my Noteflight subscription.  While the software doesn’t have all of the sound fonts I’d like, the limitations have also challenged me to find interesting combinations of timbres to create some unusual and pleasing colors.

This Friday, 2 February 2024—Groundhog Day!—I’ll be releasing a new album, Firefly Dance, composed entirely in Noteflight.  I finished the album in late December, but have been waiting to release it to coincide with Bandcamp Friday.  It’ll be available on Bandcamp and all major streaming platforms, except for Spotify.  You can listen to the title track now:

This past Saturday, I spent the morning and most of the afternoon composing the title track to another upcoming release, Epistemology.  Epistemology will released on Friday, 1 March 2024.

Read More »

Open Mic Adventures LXVI: “Scribblings I: Post-Christmas Concert Scribbling”

The Portly PoliticoLeave a comment

After the big Christmas Concert on Friday, 8 December 2023, I took a few quiet moments to unwind and scribbled out a little piece in my music journal.  It became “Post-Christmas Concert Scribbling,” then I added the pretentious “Scribblings I” to the title, which means there will eventually be a “Scribblings II” at some point.

It’s a short, fun little piece, meant to have a vaguely yuletide sound to it, unfolding at a moderate tempo.  The whole thing has a slight bit of pomp to it, as many great Christmas carols do.

Read More »

Monday Morning Movie Review: Donnie Darko (2001)

The Portly Politico4 Comments

Some films carry with them a certain mystique.  Sometimes that mystique is universal—everyone has a sense that this movie contains something special and timeless within it.  That mystique can be magical and lighthearted; it can also be dark and unsettling.  Either way, these films stick with us, even if we haven’t seen them.  They percolate through the Zeitgeist and wedge themselves into our collective consciousness.

I’d wager that most of the films with this rare mystique are deserving of wedging “themselves into our collective consciousness.”  Donnie Darko (2001) is not one of them.

Read More »

Lazy Sunday CXXXVII: YouTube Roundup Roundup II

The Portly PoliticoLeave a comment

I have a YouTube channel.  At the time of writing, my subscriber count is at sixty-three, so it seems to be growing at a steady trickle.

So, in the spirit of promoting my channel and being lazy, here are the second three installments of YouTube Roundup at your fingertips:

There’s loads of tasty jams and succulent garbage on my YouTube channel.  Check it out!

Happy Sunday—and Happy Viewing!

—TPP

Other Lazy Sunday Installments:

SubscribeStar Saturday: Back to the Mountains, Part II

The Portly Politico4 Comments

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.

Three years ago my family took a trip to the mountains around Burnsville, North Carolina, to celebrate my older brother’s fortieth birthday.  I wrote about it extensively in my book Arizonan Sojourn, South Carolinian Dreams: And Other Stories (currently just $12.68 in paperback).  The area is truly lovely, and is very accessible from South Carolina.  My girlfriend and I had the opportunity to do just that over the long MLK Weekend.

After a Saturday full of adventures in the small towns around Mount Mitchell, we decided some hiking was in order for Sunday.  First, however, we rose just early enough to catch the sunrise.  Sunrise in our little patch of the mountains on Sunday, 14 January 2024 was around 7:38 Eastern Standard Time, so we were up shortly after 7 AM.  We threw open the curtains of the large windows, which faced westward.

Because we weren’t facing the rising sun, we watched as the sunlight crept down the side of the mountains to our west, their eastern faces slowly melding from a blueish grey into a glowing red.  Sipping coffee and marveling at God’s daily light show was the perfect way to spend a day spent largely in His Creation.

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

Some of the links in this post are links through the Amazon Affiliate Program. If you make any purchase through these links, a small portion of the proceeds go to me, at no additional cost to you.

Phone it in Friday L: YouTube Roundup VI

The Portly PoliticoLeave a comment

My YouTube channel is firing on all cylinders.  At the time of writing, I have sixty-three (63) subscribers.  I’d love to see that reach 100 in the next few weeks, so if you haven’t already, mash subscribe.

I’ve got some awesome stuff this week:  an original composition about “Snowfall“; another composition about the mountains; and a thorough review of an at-home arcade cabinet.

Read More »

TBT^16: Beethoven’s Sixth Symphony

The Portly PoliticoLeave a comment

For several years now I have reblogged a post about my favorite of Beethoven’s symphonies, his Sixth Symphony, the so-called “Pastoral.”  I have a soft spot for programmatic music, especially music that depicts Creation/Nature.  It’s a wonderful and moving symphony, depicting a day in the country.

Beethoven loved spending time in nature, and would jot down ideas on long walks.  What a way to find inspiration, out in the beauty of God’s Creation!

I’ve long linked to a version of the symphony as performed by the Berlin Philharmonic, but it seems that version is no longer available.  As such, here’s a version of the Pastoral directed by Leonard Bernstein, performed by the Wiener Philharmoniker:

With that, here is 19 January 2023’s “TBT^4: Beethoven’s Sixth Symphony“:

Read More »

Trumparion Rising II

The Portly Politico5 Comments

Well, well, well… it seems that, despite the best efforts of the Establishment GOP/Uniparty/Boomercons, GEOTUS Donald J. Trump can’t be beaten in a fair fight.  At least, he won the Iowa caucuses, and will likely sweep the rest of the primaries as he marches towards the Republican nomination.

What scares the powers-that-be is that Trump still wields tremendous influence.  The plethora of headlines screaming that Trump is no longer a viable candidate are the desperate cries of an elite who hope that if they say it enough, it will become true.  Their black magic and dark incantations hold no power over the righteous.

Read More »