Back and going back

 

Batty bats and ghoulish things were very much out this weekend as one tried to both be good and put a bad chest behind me as I played and played with friends to two in the morning being always up for a good by the embers yarn.

Rather like last year, I did rather roll back the years when it came to presenting with pleated skirts of different lengths and more obviously girlish tops as it's more an occassion for showing that side of as much that other times I can be very Tomboyish.

Sometimes it's a good thing let both sides out and let others see the whole you before them rather like a sporty girl may attend an award in a dress.
 

And I had dollies with me too!

Pre Halloween edition

For most people Halloween has been and and gone although I'll be off at the weekend so I don't think they'll be an entry here on Friday as I'm gonna be rather busy getting sorted ready for an early morning start.

There weren't so  many little people at the door on Saturday dressed up looking for candy although the weather was more reasonable than last years so I have some spare candy and I believe at least another one of us had the same experience. Around here I know the families of them well.

That kind of leads us into a kind of a theme because of one of things about about that weekend is about re-acquainted  with people you love having fun, the weekend despite some problems with pulled a  leg muscle and badly jarring my neck yesterday also was about that but in a different way as I encountered a few people I hadn't seen for a while.

 

Piano music is a favourite of mine either solo or in the form of a concerto with other instruments typically a full orchestra and Beethoven wrote a set of five such concertos for piano and orchestra which remain hugely popular even today.

This is the third in series of I have that were recorded around 1961-3 for the first time in stereo by the acclaimed pianist Wilhelm Kempff with accompaniment from the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by  Ferdinand Leitner.

The whole set came on four lps, and this like the others is an original  with the "Tulip" logo on the record label.

Given they are over sixty years old, I gave them a very thorough cleaning to remove anything that in that time had worked its way into the groove which helps as there are a good many very quiet passages that don't like any intrusions of dirt and other debris.

That's the rear and it does also show the more usual thick spine with title wasn't commonplace back then as this doesn't have nor do Decca albums of the same era although I have to say the more modern spines with titles are much easier when hunting for your recordings when in racks.

As for the playing, the orchestra is a full on with modern instruments that won't impress those who favour using replicas of eighteenth century instruments but the playing especially the piano just sweep you along in their romanticism which to me is most apt as you just focus on the playing.

It's a set that although there have been a number of great modern accounts  that may offer modern musical scholarship and digital recording you just find yourself very much coming back to.

Letting it all out

 Sometimes you do feel that you really are BatGirl, trying to sort out every thing as it happens no matter how you may be yourself while others are focused on just their own needs or support those of one often lacking a real knowledge of just what it is and the extent of what you provide.

It isn't always helped when you, yourself are undergoing periods of ill health so you struggle to get done your own things and other things on top and you feel other people who aren't actually doing anything seem to be expecting more and more.

I just try to put this kind of the stuff to the back of my mind rather than "mining" it further but it just bugs me.

Putting a full stop in it....

 It hasn't been a great couple of weeks dealing with really bad flu while trying to sort out bits around the next major get together that keep getting changed when you think you got it sorted and dealing with gaps when it suits you less when it comes to getting away for  spooky weekend in a couple of weeks time.

It can and it does drive you really cranky just ten seconds away from a stomp fuelled mouthful back which is really the point in which ideally you need someone with a no nonsense attitude to step in and cut you off midstream in an altogether memorable way.

That's really where spoanking is at with me rather than a precourser to anything kinky or sexy, just that "stop right there, Missy" moment I need.

Children's Magazines again

Although the weather has been lousy for most of the week coupled with being very ill I do get out rather than living life behind a screen, interacting with people and that means at the very least I get to go to the general store and newsagent quite a bit.

I had been looking for a while at comics and magazines aimed for children are both displayed and also the kinds of content because in the time I've been on this planet things have changed.

Most comics and magazines are still sold on a "sales or return basis, the newssagent gets a credit for any unsold copies that are gathered up and collected by the distributor but an increasing number are going for direct sales with indviduals taking out subscriptions with copies being posted out in timed intervals to you.

Inspirations for comics can come from anywhere.

This one from the mid 1940's only had a short run came from parents in the United States who felt existing comics wre too sensational, lacking any meaning content and purely escapist and so mixed more wholesome stories, comic strips in with information about what girls could get involved in and interests.

A kind of "mash up" between comic and magazine.

I really like that cover and the concept.

  A more modern co-ed version is this published by Bayard in France which mixes a short story with comics set in the past with features on science, nature and intresets in a way that is lively, leaping off the page and easy to read.

A well written comic or magazine gently pushes language development, introucing new words and concepts and this is aimed more at 8-14 which given my reading problems is about right and guarantees you do get a challenging gripping story to read given I struggle with Young Adult fiction nevermind naytrhing really intended for adults.

Musings

You'd worry had I of been a modern girl born in the 2010's surrounded by interconnectedness from dawn to dusk from my Smartwatch, Smartphone and gaming Pc when I've had my struggles with online addiction in the recent past being up to two in the morning at one stage despite being in bone years at least.

So yip, Smart isn't always so.

This is the big conundrum for those of us who do love being feminine, loving our skirts and dresses.

It's like every slight possibility of unwanted exposure from stairways so open you can see up our skirts, that moment when tired you just want to spread your legs a little and you're obliged  to keep them forced together on tightly crossed least some MAN see you (and start having thoughts as if we asked for HIS attention).

Like most I'll sit as I find it convenient at home. 

Revisiting an old book

There are things you may have and do feel like revisiting such as books you had for an awful long time and today I'm writing about one.

A good many years back was the internet was becoming more a thing and I first got online I learned from sites I visited not just a bit more about upcoming releases and some variants of Beatles albums but also of books that went more into the history the Band and their Singles and Albums together with marketing.

One name I learned about was the American Bruce Spizer who did write and I eventually got his more useful supplement to 2004's Capitol Albums Volume One box set which had more of the facts, figures and story of these albums than the official enclosed booklet.

Some years ago I bought a few in a kind of paper back form the first editions of a new series of books he wrote around specific albums and one I recently re-read was The Beatles Finally Let It Be, the title being a pun based upon just how long and how many attempts that sessions that ended up as the Let It Be album and its accompanying movie it book until they were "let be" and released.

In it for example you learn of Magic Alex who saw himself as an electronics wizard inventor who appeared to the ear of John Lennon and his plan to build for them the bestest recording studio around with 72 tracks in a world where most had only 8.

That plan effected the recording of this album they only found a 8 track system riddled with so much hum and noise it was simply not fit for purpose, a building where there was no provision for cabling from studio to control room to recording consoles and where the was so little screening of noises such as that from the boiler, it had to be turned off whenever they were recording.

He also inexplicably had eight speakers, one per track where you only needed two for stereo mixing.

Magic Alex was really way out of his depth lacking real knowledge but John believed him even though he was close enough to people who worked and even owned, as George Martin their producer did, studios and knew just what was really needed and possible.

That fascinating little story one of several showed just how gullible the four beatles, not least John were back then handing over vast sums of money to people who knew little but how to gain their money.

It was fun re-reading this volume.