Tag: blogging

Monday Morning Movie Review: Wrong Turn (2021)

The Portly Politico6 Comments

While in the mountains my girl and I managed to watch a few flicks in between all the hiking, eating, and exploring.  I’ve already reviewed one of them, 2010’s exquisite Black Swan.  Our second night we figured out how to hook up my little laptop to the cabin’s television and rented 2021’s Wrong Turn ($4 on Amazon).

The film came up in our conversations while driving throughout the mountains.  I remarked on how anybody could be out in the woods and we’d likely have no idea, and my girlfriend enthusiastically proclaimed, “we have to watch Wrong Turn!”

The film is a reboot of a series of films dating back to 2003.  My girlfriend said she’d recently watched the 2003 original, but that the 2021 version is much better.  I haven’t seen the original, so I can’t comment on that assessment; apparently, it has a very The Hills Have Eyes feel to it, as it’s all about a group of cannibals stalking stranded college students.  However, I can affirm that the 2021 version was a good romp through a strange world of mountain dwellers gone rogue.

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Lazy Sunday CXXXVIII: Firefly Dance Tracks, Part I

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On Friday, 2 February 2024 I released Firefly Dance, my latest collection of original digital compositions.  It’s a fun album, and I’m pleased with how it came out in the end.

You can purchase and/or stream Firefly Dance through the following services:

– Bandcamp ($5!): https://tjcookmusic.bandcamp.com/album/firefly-dance
– Apple 🍏 Music: https://music.apple.com/us/album/firefly-dance/1724130522
– YouTube 📺: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_k5xlOgwiUIFHGrMXpJ4bjmKHGGepfpCYM&si=U5tXOlFABVRwmA-E

Of course, if you’ve been reading the blog regularly, I’ve been posting sneak peeks of the album since late November.  So for the next few Sundays, I’ll be featuring past installments of Open Mic Adventures that highlight the tracks:

  • “Open Mic Adventures LVI: ‘Orange Roll’” – I went way too far with this one—ha!  I reharmonized it, played it on bass, etc.  You can experience all the iterations in this original post.
  • “Open Mic Adventures LVII: ‘Firefly Dance’” – I love the title track.  Honestly, my only regret is that I didn’t start the album with it, as it’s a beautiful piece.  I think it’s one of my best works.
  • “Open Mic Adventures LVIII: ‘Kartofelsalat’” – Well, I misspelled “Kartoffelsalat,” leaving off that second “f,” but by the time I realized my error, I’d already submitted everything to CD Baby for digital distribution and didn’t want to change it.  But much like German potato salad, it’s a tasty jam.

Enjoy—and, y’know, maybe shell out $5 and help a musician out, eh?

Happy Sunday—and Happy Listening!

—TPP

Other Lazy Sunday Installments:

SubscribeStar Saturday: “Epistemology” Preview

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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.

Last Saturday I spent pretty much the entire day working on music.  It started with an extensive composing session to write “Epistemology,” the title track of my next release, Epistemology, which hits on Friday, 1 March 2024 on Bandcamp and all streaming platforms, sans Spotify (by the way, my newest album, Firefly Dance, released yesterday, and is available now on Bandcamp and streaming platforms—you should get it!).  After a long, late nap, I finished up artwork and the rest of the particulars necessary to get the files and metadata uploaded to CD Baby for digital distribution (I might need to write a post about that some day, but it’s not exactly a sexy topic).

I’d written the other nine tracks first, but was searching for some theme or album title.  Then I saw poet Stacey C. Johnson‘s “On Knowing,” and that gave me the idea to write a composition based on the different philosophies of knowing, or asking, “how do we know what we know?”  [For a good Christian introduction to the topic, check out W. Jay Wood‘s Epistemology: Becoming Intellectually Virtuous on Amazon. —TPP]  In this case, it was the title more than the poem’s content that inspired me (although it’s a great poem!), but two of Johnson’s other poems inspired me to write pieces for this album (“Updrafting” and “Waltz“).  In a way, I owe Johnson and her writing a huge debt of gratitude for Epistemology, because her work inspired a good chunk of it.

So while my American History students took a quiz on Friday, I rapidly jotted down the basic ideas for “Epistemology.”  I wanted to write a repeating theme—like Hector Berlioz‘s idée fixe from his Symphonie Fantastique—that would evolve throughout the different sections.  That theme or motif represents Truth as filtered through the various epistemological philosophies, starting with skepticism and proceeding through empiricism, rationalism, idealism, and postmodernism, before finally arriving at God’s Truth.  I wanted that last bit to be the seventh part, as seven is traditionally understood to be the number representing God; to do that, I had to shoehorn in “Observation” as the second section.  I also specifically wanted the chaos and uncertainty of “The Postmodernist” to be sixth, representing man’s number and his fallen—and confused!—nature.

Epistemology will release on Friday, 1 March 2024 (if you want to know the minute it comes out, take a minute and follow my Bandcamp page).  But for you—my adoring subscribers—you get to hear the title track today.

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.

Bandcamp Friday 2024 and a New Album!

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The future of Bandcamp Friday is a bit up in the air, but we’re living in the present here at The Portly Politico, and today is Bandcamp Friday!  That means Bandcamp waives their share of any purchases made on my Bandcamp page today (Friday, 2 February 2024), so it’s the best possible time to buy my music if you want to support yours portly.

Even better:  I have a new album out today!  You can pick up Firefly Dance for $5.  It’s eleven tracks of original instrumental music.  Your digital purchase includes not just the music, but also full scores for every song; music videos for each piece; handwritten manuscripts for most of the pieces; and exclusive artwork (including artwork to accompany every piece on the album).

There’s a lot to dig into in this release.  The opening track, “Ode Napol​é​on,” is a multipart tone poem depicting the rise and fall of the infamous French emperor.  The title track, “Firefly Dance,” tells the story of a mysterious woodland world of dragonflies and fairies in the form of a flowing, interpretative waltz.

You even get the frenetic, eleven-second, unexpected YouTube sensation “FRANTIC!!“

If you’re feeling generous and want my entire catalog of fourteen releases, my entire discography is half-off.  That’s fourteen releases for $25.89, or $1.85 per release.

Tight on cash?  No worries—you can listen to Firefly on any streaming platform (except for Spotify), and all the tracks are on my YouTube page (you should subscribe to that, by the way—it’s free!).

I’m excited about this release, and I appreciate your support.

Happy Listening!

—TPP

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TBT: Groundhog Day

The Portly Politico4 Comments

Today is not Groundhog Day.  That’s tomorrow (Friday, 2 February 2024), but I have something special for tomorrow.  Still, I thought it’d be nice to observe this unusual holiday, which I haven’t done since 2021.

Groundhog Day is one of those fun relics of old, weird America, the America of roadside attractions, themed hotels, kooky local personalities, and the like.  I doubt seriously that a rodent in Pennsylvania can predict the weather, but it’s a fun little game we play every year.

With that, here is 2 February 2021’s “Groundhog Day“:

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Midweek Composing Updates

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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.

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

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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.

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Monday Morning Movie Review: Donnie Darko (2001)

The Portly Politico8 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.

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Lazy Sunday CXXXVII: YouTube Roundup Roundup II

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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 Politico8 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.