Welcome to September. My first month at university is over. Wow. It has been heaps of fun and quite a shock to the brain. Imagine you lived in Switzerland 25 years ago for 4 years. You spoke fluent Swiss-German and quite good normal German. Since then you have only spoken Swiss-German from time to time. Now you go back to university and they are teaching you everything in German. Your brain is saying I understand but when you go to speak you can barely get any Swiss-German out. That’s what it’s like going back to do Maths. Just sub in Swiss-German = Engineering Maths and German = Maths and you have my current experience.
Apart from the uni thing. I have been doing all the normal things. YouTube, sports watching, Concerts and even some reading and sewing.
Things to check out
John Williams
An amazing documentary by the BBC from 1980 about John Williams and his music for Star Wars: Empire Strikes Back. It also looks at how he composed for other movies as well up until this point. Also a great section about sound effects.
Sketchplanations
Through a new podcast, which has the one and only Rob Bell as one of its hosts, I have been introduced to Sketchplanations. The sketches explain everything from how satellites stay in orbit, one size fits man and how to compose a cheese board. They are the brainchild of
Glass Act
https://www.presentandcorrect.com/blogs/blog/a-glass-act-1
Soviet Playgrounds
https://www.zupagrafika.com/shop/soviet-playgrounds
Concerts
Scott Bradlee’s Postmodern Jukebox
This is the second time we have got to see PMJ. A very different lineup from last year. We started the night with Turkish ice cream from Hakiki. A great night out wearing one of the new outfits that I made last month.
Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra
So to top off a massive weekend of music. It was back to the opera house this time to see the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra. This time without the Sydney Symphony Orchestra. It was great. They played music by Dizzy Gillespie, Duke Ellington, Dave Brubeck, Thelonious Monk and Charles Mingus. There were also other pieces written by current and past members of the orchestra. The program doesn’t have the tracks so during the concert I made notes and pieced together what I could in a playlist.
Brandenburg Orchestra
I got a great deal on a ticket to see the Brandenburg Orchestra at the City Recital Hall for the first time. The concert was ‘The Lover’ starring violinist Théotime Langlois de Swarte and the designer was Trent Suidgeest (of whom I am a bit of a fangirl). The first half was Theo’s album ‘The Lover’.
The second was more standard staging with the whole orchestra they played John Eccles’ Aire 5 from The Mad Lover Suite, Charles Avison after Domenico Scarlatti’s Concerto Grosso No. 5 in D minor, Antonio Vivaldi’s Violin Concerto in D minor, RV 813 and Francesco Maria Veracini’s Sonata in A major, Op. 1 No. 7. As expected the lighting was amazing and the music was beautiful.
Cocktail hour
This was the last cocktail hour concert of the year
My Concert
It went really well thanks to those special people who came and supported the
Phil Burton
Day out at the football
To spice up my sport consumption I went to the football with my Auntie. We went to North Sydney oval and watched the AFLW, Geelong Cats vs Sydney Swans. Unfortunately, the Swans didn’t win but there was a great crowd it and I had heaps of fun. It has got me in the mood for more live sport.
Whoopsie Buy
Ok, so I went to Castle Hill Towers to buy shoes from Popping Candy’s popup. Which of course I did, these black practical ones and these sparkly ones.
But they weren’t the whoopsie neither were the sparkly outfits. The whoopsie was the Electric Piano. After many years of thinking about it, I just walked into the Dural Music Centre and bought a Yamaha Arius YDP-S35. To make it even better, though it took me and Mara ages to figure it out, I was served by Tyler from Burn the Floor, whom I spoke about in the last newsletter.
Books
- The Paris Mystery by Kirsty Manning – Book 1 of ‘Charlotte ‘Charlie’ James. ‘Charlie’ is a journalist from Sydney who has just got her dream job with The Times in Paris in 1938. She is sent out to cover the big social event of the year only to stumble across a murder.
- The Egyptian Antiquities Murder by Sara Rosett – Book 3 of ‘High Society Lady Detective’. Another wonderful time spent in the company of Olive Belgrave in 1923. This time investigating the murder of an Egyptologist.
- Smile Beach Murder by Alicia Bessette – Book 1 of ‘Outer Banks Bookshop Mystery. We meet Callie Padget who has moved back to her hometown after losing her reporting job in the big city. She moves home and an old friend dies falling from the lighthouse, just as her mum had 20 years earlier.
