A day after I post about the British Monkey: Journey to the West opera, an article runs in today's Vancouver Province about a Chinese production coming to Vancouver next month!
Click here for the production's official site! I'd better start saving my pennies... Tripitaka, Pigsy, and Monkey from a 1970's film version of Journey to the West. Yesterday's video of the Monkey King is from the tale Journey to the West in which the self-proclaimed "Handsome Monkey King" is humbled by the Buddha and is then assigned to accompany a monk on his journey to India (The West) to retrieve the Sutras. The Monkey King's name is Sun Wu Kong which means "Equal with Heaven," so, yeah, he was in need of a little humbling...
Anyway, for those who were wondering, the lyrics for yesterday's video are basically: The background singers: "Princess, a monkey called 'Sun Wu Kong' wants to see you." Princess Iron Fan: "How can you be back so soon? You impossible monkey! I will drive you away again with my fan, churning the Universe over and over. The Palm-Leaf Fan is powerful." The Monkey King: "I'm guarding Tripitaka on his way to India for the Holy Scriptures. Could you please lend me your fan? I will return it to you as soon as we're done. Don't be so stingy." The goddess in white sings: "Congratulations, Monkey. You have come to retrieve the Holy Scriptures. Where is Tripitaka? Take this magic pill so she will not be able to blow you away again." And they all keep repeating these lines throughout the song. Jamie Hewlett, the artist behind Gorillaz and Tank Girl was involved in the creation of a British opera "Monkey: Journey to the West" based on the Chinese epic novel that is nothing short of a cultural phenomena in China. This is a music video created as a promo for the opera and intended to look like an excerpt from an old movie from the 70's. This video still gives me shivers and I have trouble watching less than twice in a row! I used to work as an audio producer for radio stations in Montreal. My job was to a radio commercial what a director is to a motion picture - I was handed a script and it was my job to take the written word and realize it for the big screen... er, for your radio speakers... One of the writers would hand me a script and I would mix the secret potion, and roll the ancient dice, then hire a focus group, and hold a human sacrifice. Oh wait. That was Auto-Tune the News 9. Actually, I chose the voice-people and coached them to give me the performances I wanted. I selected and edited (and sometimes created) the music and audio effects, if any, for the commercial. I did a bunch of technical magic, and I edited it all together! Below is a small sample of the reams of commercials I made over the years. Just press the mystical black triangle below and soundwaves will magically be transmitted to your ears via your computer-machine. Uno, dos, trés, quatorzé! So, as I mentioned on Day One, I was rather disappointed when my college's paper came out and the comic strip that I had worked hardest on had been shrunk down to the point of being almost incomprehensible. I don't think a single person I knew saw this strip on the comics page, which was unfortunate because it was rather clever.
The arts building at John Abbott College was the Penfield building. The washrooms in the Penfield building were purple and dimly lit - trés artsy. They also had scoop-shaped sinks that, if you turned the water on too fast, shot water at your pants and left you walking around looking like you'd peed yourself. That last point has nothing to do with the following cartoon, but is still pretty funny. I wonder if they've replaced those sinks by now. As before, in a master-stroke of irony, click on the cartoon below to enlarge it: It's unfortunate that media and audiences in English Canada can be resistant to songs sung in other languages. There is so much amazing music being made around the world and we tend to miss out on so much of it. Right here in Canada we have a large French-Canadian music industry that largely goes unnoticed by the rest of the country, but features many artists worthy of national attention. Certainly, Celine Dion has made the jump to international superstardom, but there are so many other talented musicians worthy of our attention who never cross over to singing in English like she did, and so rarely come to our attention. So, today, dear readers, I give you Stefie Shock. Shock is one of the more musically interesting pop singers in the country at the moment, and puts on one heck of a live show. I've had Ange Gardien stuck in my head for the last few days, and the video for the song is a lot of fun, so I thought I'd share. And yes, he is playing all of the rolls in this video... "Et voici, Stefie Shock!" After high school I earned a diploma in Creative Arts from John Abbott College in Montreal. I have always drawn comic strips and comic books, and early in my second year I finally got up the nerve to submit two comic strips to the school paper.
My strips were head-and-shoulders above the other comics the paper received (I'm not exaggerating... yeesh!) and both were published in the next edition, and the editor hounded me to submit more. Unfortunately, one of the strips was graphic intensive and wordy, both being intrinsic to the joke, and the editor shrunk that strip down to the point that it was hard to make anything out. This annoyed me. It also gave me an excuse to not submit any more. You see, these were the "good ol' days" when comics had to be submitted in black ink on white paper. Inking the final draft of the strips was SO STRESSFUL that I didn't enjoy the process at all! I longed for my Glory Years of drawing Captain Austria in mechanical pencil with my trusty eraser at my side. No worrying about the final quality. The only audience - my pals in junior-high. But all this inking with no room for error stuff was killing me! I had more ideas for strips - hell, I had already pencilled out some pretty good ones! - but I just couldn't bring myself to endure the torture of inking up the final versions. And so I kept telling the editor that I was offended and wouldn't submit any more strips and he eventually gave up pursuing me. Yes, I was/am a bit of an artsy basket-case... Thus ended my fledgling publishing career in the comics. Over the years I tossed around the idea of submitting material to the local indy papers, and even worked for a while at developing a concept to submit to professional syndicates, but never saw any of those projects through. So, dear reader, I give you the first of those two legendary comics. Tomorrow I'll upload the controversial 'shrinkage' strip. Ironically, you can click on the comic below to make it bigger... Enjoy! I had never heard of the band Duchess Says until three and a half minutes ago when I stumbled upon this video. I'm now definitely a fan. I think anyone who is familiar with my obsession with Mike Patton will understand why... Latisha1209 really speaks for all of us when she wrote in the comments below the video on YouTube: "i feel i can really relate to the lyrics." |
About me:"Paul Corriveau is, without a doubt, the greatest visionary working in new media today. I pity the fool who hasn't discovered this genius' brave works!" Archives
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