This morning’s sunrise in West Bumfuque. Shot w iPhone and edited in Lightroom. Not sure the rendering does justice to the actual experience, but it was worth a try…
Author - Paul Schatzkin
Like the rest of the world, I awoke to the news this morning (I read the news today, oh boy?) of Sir George Martin’s departure from this earthly plane:
George Martin, the urbane English record producer who signed the Beatles to a recording contract on the small Parlophone label after every other British record company had turned them down, and who guided them in their transformation from a regional dance band into the most inventive, influential and studio-savvy rock group of the 1960s, died on Tuesday. He was 90.
The New York Times obituary mentioned several songs that are regarded as among the breakthrough recordings that Sir George produced with the Beatles during their tenure at EMI / Abbey Road Studios in the 1960s.
So, naturally, I skipped over to Spotify and assembled a playlist of those breakthrough songs:
RIP, Sir George. Words fail, let the music speak for you…
The castle ruin show at the top of this post is Barnard Castle in County Durham, northern England.
The photo was taken at 8:30 PM on June 2, 2013.
I have been thinking a lot lately about… the light. At that latitude, at that time of year – late spring, three weeks before the summer solstice – the sun doesn’t set until after 9:PM.
The treasured “Golden Time” when the sun rests just above the horizon – shining it’s yellowest light and longest shadows – can last like two hours.
On this particular occasion, that meant that I had enough time to walk almost entirely around the grounds and see this edifice from numerous angles. I just kept walking, and shooting. As I walked west, from the nearby village, I found a bridge that went over a stream. I crossed the bridge and made the shot above from that angle, using the stone wall of the bridge in lieu of the tripod I neglected to bring with me (stupid).
It was already 8:30 PM… but the sun was nowhere near setting yet.
So I just kept going. I crossed the bridge, and started walking along the stream. I crossed a green area, like a small park. There was a stone wall at the end of the park, but there was an opening in the wall, and a stone step way that led down to the stream bed. I kept going.
I walked along the stream for about 50 more yards, and then found another great vantage point, composing the stream in the foreground as the final golden rays lit up the ramparts of the castle ruin:
Another angle of Barnard Castle – Durham, England
When I was in the UK in the spring of 2013, I made a LOT of great photos in those hours before the sunset.
I got shots like these only because I had the time to follow the light.
I am jonesing for this light again.
I need to make reservations soon….
I’ve published another installment of the Primary Project:
Time Capsule: 1969
A 60-Something Looks Back At The 60’s
This one is called “Exit Marty,” and is a continuation of the tale told in the prior installment, “Enter Jennifer.”
Try this for an accompanying soundtrack:
Did you see the Series Finale of “Downton Abbey” last night?
Everybody gets a happy ending. Yay.
Then we wake up Monday morning and it’s back to Trump and Hillary, etal. Yuck.
I thought I recognized the location that was used for “Brancaster Castle” – the sprawling estate that the Granthams visited to meet the mother of Edith’s finance, Bertie, aka the “Marquess of Hexham.” The location is Alnwick Castle in Northumberland, England. I haven’t been there but I did recognize it immediately as a location that also served for some scenes of ‘Hogwarts’ in the first couple of Harry Potter films.
The whole subject reminded me of my travels in the UK and I took a look for the first time in quite a while at the slide show I made of some of the photos from the trip that I took there in 2013 (when I discovered the whole “Portals of Stone” thing).
It’s making me want to go back again in the spring…. <*sigh*>
That’s my friend Beth Richardson, holding a hot-off-the-press copy of her new book:
Christ Beside Me, Christ Within Me: Celtic Prayers. (Learn more about the book: http://
…and that’s one of my photos on the cover.
The photo was taken at place on the northern tip of the Isle of Skye in Scotland called “The Quirang” – when Ann and I were there in the fall of 2012. You can see more of the photos of this spectacular location here, and here’s the original photo:
The Quirang – Isle of Skye Scotland – October 2012
…and we really need to pay attention:
The work continues (however slowly…) on my primary endeavor these days:
Time Capsule: 1969
A 60-Something Looks Back At The 60’s
The new chapter is called “Enter Jennifer.” It tells the story my arrival at the George Washington University, and my first encounters with “Jennifer” – the girl with whom I would become obsessed for the rest of semester.
As with the other installments, this one is also published via Medium.com.
Find it here: Enter Jennifer
My essay about the impact of the Internet on the 2016 election has been moved to Medium.com. Find it here.
So…
This is what I have been working for (I hesitate to admit) the past year or so…
It started when I went into the basement last winter to see if I still had an ‘off-the-air’ tape recording I made in 1966 of Arlo Guthrie performing “Alice’s Restaurant” – a year before the record [Spotify] was released.
When I opened the big Rubbermaid tub where I thought I’d find the old reel-to-reel recording, I also found the journals that I started keeping in the spring of 1969 – a record of my last months in high school and my first year of college (though not, really) at the end of a very tumultuous decade.
The timing was providential. For a while, my personal guru (OK, my therapist for the past 20+ years) had been encouraging to “tell your own story…” And there was the beginnings of it, in a set of three-ring, loose-leaf binders.
So that’s what I have been doing… spending as much time as I can transcribing those journals into a word-processor-on-steroids called ‘Scrivener‘ and slicing and dicing and massaging and compiling and trying to come up with a story.
A few months ago I published (to Medium.com) a few installments that were drawn from the notes I made during and after two days and nights at a little music festival in the summer of 1969 called “Woodstock.” (Actually, it was called ‘The Aquarian Exposition’, and it didn’t really happen in Woodstock, but, hey, who’s counting?) Read the resulting account starting here:
Whatever Happened To The Age of Aquarius?
Last week I added several new installments, what I imagine will be the first three chapters once this enterprise finds it way in to some kind ‘book*’ form:
Preface: A 60-Something Looks Back At The 60s
Chapter 1: Suspension – In which I get sent to the principal’s office – with about two dozen of my classmates
Chapter 2: Admission – Destiny fulfilled, I get in to a college.
There are some other links on the home page for the project, TimeCapsule1969.com
In addition to the initial incarnation as a ‘book’ of some kind, I also keep imagining this project manifesting as some kind of stage show, with readings from the book and performances of some of the music that provided the soundtrack of the period.
With that in mind, as I’ve worked on this project I’ve been compiling and listening to a Spotify-based playlist of some of the music I listened to during the period I’m writing about. A lot of these are the songs I figured out when I was learning how to play guitar (starting in 1966); a lot of them I can still play, and those are the songs I’d perform along with readings from ‘the book.’
Whether you’re a refugee from that period or curious millennial, I think you’ll find a lot to listen to in this playlist:
I have been adding new tracks to this list on a fairly regular basis. At present it’s almost 150 songs and more than 9 hours. If you are a Spotify subscriber, subscribe to the list and you’ll be notified when I find new things to add to it.
And if you’re interested in following this work as it unfolds, use the form in the sidebar to the right of this post to subscribe to my “Weekly Digest.
I am publishing the material that I’ve got so far for the sake of soliciting some feedback, to see if any of my stories resonate with a potential readership. It’s really easy for me to think the worst of my own work, so if anybody finds it worth the time and effort, it would kick my ass a little to know that’s the case.
Now then, where was I?
Oh yeah, just arriving at the George Washington University in September 1969… hmmm… who’s that pretty red-head…