Pheww!

[ellarien]

Today's mail brought me an Amazon box (one MMPB and two CDs of Chinese elevator^H^H^H^H^H^H^ traditional music) and the letter from my British bank that I need to complete my taxes. I'd nearly given up on that last, (my own stupid fault; I was late writing off for it, and then sent the letter to what was probably the wrong address) and resigned myself to filing an extension request, so it's nice to have it after all. It turns out my estimate of the missing number was off by thirty dollars and change.




In other news, I've been fascinated by Google Maps' imagery of my old haunts; I've located all my old schools and addresses, and the bit of countryside to which my mother and I most often gravitate in the summer, which is available at the highest resolution, fine enough to make out the sheep. Reliably bookmarking particular views seems a bit dodgier, though.

Comments

[kip-w.livejournal.com]

I got two CDs of Chinese music while we were there; one of lute music and one of "folk songs." The folk songs are an interesting mixed bag of stuff. One of the pieces sounds remarkably like a recording I have of an antique automatic instrument -- orchestrion or some such. They run a gamut of styles.

Before that, I had (and have) a CD I got at an Asian Market in Newport News. The cover had an outline of a piano on it, and I had hopes it might be piano music, but wasn't sure. I asked a clerk what kind of CD it was. "Music CD," was the informative reply. "What kind of music?" I persisted. He looked at the piano. "Piano music," he said. So I got it. It's some crazy pop music with a lot of production in it. I think there's even some piano in there somewhere.

I found a piece of sheet music to purchase while we were there too. The first book store we were in had a decent rack of stuff, which was sort of hard to browse (lacking language skills), and I didn't get to stay long enough to pick anything. Right at the end of the trip, I made a side trip to a book store in the White Swan Hotel, where I picked out the two CDs. I asked the clerk if they had any sheet music and was pointed to a pair of volumes of choral music with piano accompaniment. I snapped them up. One volume seems to be real Chinese music, the other contains many well-known pieces like "Beautiful Dreamer," "Moscow Nights" and "Va, Pensiero," among others. And it was a bargain.

[ellarien]

Mine are one CD of bamboo flute music and one of 'traditional Chinese music' with titles like 'Days of Emancipation' and 'Dance of the Yao People'. It's unclear where they were recorded, though I think at least the latter is a genuine Chinese production. It's all quite pleasant, in a bouncy, tweedly sort of way, with lots of gentle percussion, but rather reminiscent of Chinese restaurant background music.