Category: life

Hot whiskey love.

This is a hot whiskey:

It’s delicious and perfect for winter. I love them dearly, and they’re simple to make. It’s just a hot toddy with whiskey:

A shot of whiskey (mine is usually quite generous), a slice of lemon with some cloves stuck into it, and a spoon of sugar all into a suitable glass or mug. Then just add hot, not boiling, water. Result = awesomeness in a glass.

Some glasses may need to be warmed gently with some hot water first, the trick there is to have a metal spoon in the glass when you add the hot water so the glass doesn’t crack. We have a selection of suitable glass mugs / irish coffee mugs just perfect for the job.

I like a lot of cloves. Some people can’t stand lemon or cloves. Some people add more sugar, or none at all. I’ve heard of people adding cinnamon sticks, which just sounds wrong to me, to be honest. Play around with it and see what you like.

Oh, and yeah, hot toddies made with port are also delicious, and I used to share a house with someone who made them using Limoncello, for a hot, alcoholic, lemon drink. Which was also really tasty, I gotta say.

RemixAgainstTheMachine : 4’33”

Now you can submit your own “remix” of Cage’s 4’33” to the “Cage Against The Machine” project. I don’t think “remix” is quite the best word to use, though. As every individual recording of 4’33” is a valid performance of the work, in my opinion. I’m tempted to do one from my favourite café later today.

I’ve posted about this work already on this blog. In a way, this addition to the CATM project takes the work right into the digital age – focusing the listener not just on the sounds of their own space, but also sharing that sound with other listeners who will not hear that space in the same way either, as the sound will merge with the sound of their own spaces.

There is a popular misconception that Cage’s 4’33” is ‘silence’. It’s not. It’s the sound of the place you are in at that time. We have therefore asked some of the best remixers in the world to submit their own versions of 4’33”, in other words, the sound of where they are and what they are doing at that time. Herve tidies up his studio, Alex Metric walks to work, Adam F goes to a club, I’m told Aeroplane may be having a shower, all for 4 minutes and 33 seconds.

So go to it, give us a four minute thirty three second audio snapshot of your life. Record it on your phone, your Mac, PC, recorder, dictaphone, walkperson, whatever and share it here. Bring smiles, warmth and awareness to our cause. Thank you for being part of it :)

Eddy Temple Morris

But is it not all just pretentious rubbish? Perhaps. But interesting, thought-provoking, challenging, inspiring, and creative too.

Snowy Galway

I snapped a few shots out and about around Galway over the last week or so, while we actually had snow again for the second winter running. (we’re not well used to that kind of thing. Wind and rain? Sure. Snow for a few days in a row? That’s rare.)

And one more, just because. The children’s carousel at the Galway Continental Christmas Market. The bright lights make me happy.

I write in cafés

 This post on Edible Geography struck a chord with me. I’m definitely one of those people who sits in cafés for hours working.

Usually though, people can see what I’m doing, as I’m rarely on a laptop anymore since the death of my Powerbook G4, and I’m usually switching between a notebook (yes, actual paper one), manuscript paper (yes, more actual paper you use for writing music), and my phone (for my twitter addiction).

For example, I took this shot of my “workspace” last month while sitting in Kelly’s Bar & Restaurant, which is one of my favourite places to do some work:

Scoring an arrangement for NUIG's ChoralSoc

I love working while in cafés and actually prefer it to working at my desk at home. I’m more productive and more focused when I’m working in a café and get a lot more work done in that kind of environment than I do pretty much anywhere else.

It’s always been that way – throughout uni, I’d get my composition assignments written in the canteen, the students union bar, or any of my favourite cafés in town. The noise and the bustle meant I had to focus on whatever work I was doing. I had to really concentrate to get the work done. That kind of atmosphere works for me. True, I may have also been using the lunch hour before the assignment was due to both eat and get the work done at the same time, but a bit of last minute pressure always helps. ;)

These days, I sit and write out arrangements for songs of mine, or for various different work that I do with choirs, or singing classes. I work on lyrics for my own songs, or write other things like this that make me happy.

I do get some strange looks sometimes, if I’m sitting with a full score out on the table while I have lunch or coffee, quietly working away writing down notes. And it’s certainly not as handy as using MuseScore (a free, open source Sibelius-like software) on my iMac at home, but it’s a bit more comfortable for me and I don’t make as good coffee as those cafés do.

Happy Hallowe’en

It’s a mask I made when I was a young teenager that was found in the attic again this summer, so I decided to re-use it this year as one of my hallowe’en costumes.

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