Bohemian Rhapsody in Music Video

Some days there just seems to be a lot of synchronicity running through my life. It feels like I have been a Queen fan forever.

the Hayseed Dixie band

Today my friend Don shared the link to Hayseed Dixie’s country music video parody/cover of the classic Queen song “Bohemian Rhapsody” Redneck Rhapsody. Although I don’t think their video is anything to write home about, musically it is very well done. You haven’t heard Bohemian Rhapsody until you’ve heard some of their banjo riffs. Instead of being imitative Hayseed Dixie does a whole new Blue Grass interpretation of this classic Rock song. From my perspective, that is what a cover ought to strive to do.

Queen: The Original

Then, there is the real Queen video of Bohemian Rhapsody. Although state of the art when it was created (remember: this video predates MTV) even to me, a queen fan, it seems to drag somehow now.

But my favorite video of this song is undounbtedly the Muppet’s interpretation of Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody.

Gonzo and Company - The Muppets version

Just the other day a friend remarked that he’d been discussing “Bohemian Rhapsody” with a co-worker and they had agreed among themselves that although the song is musically excellent, the lyrics were meaningless.

For their eddification I want to share the following interpretation a young man I know did as a school project some years back:

Interpreting Queen: Bohemian Rhapsody, by Willem Jonkman

Bohemian Rhapsody

Lyrics by Freddie Mercury (1975) Bohemian Rhapsody’s main message is about what poverty stricken people have to do in order to survive.

“Is this the real life?
Is this just fantasy?
Caught in a landslide
No escape from reality”
The line between fantasy and reality line is fuzzed and the singer cannot tell which is which.

“A little high, little low”
Some days are better than others, like one day he could have enough to eat and others he might not have any food.

“Any way the wind blows”
is a metaphor for “anything that happens”

“Mama I just killed a man” emphasizes the main message

“Too late my time has come” means that it is time to make a big decision in life.

“Gotta leave you all behind and face the truth”
He alone can fix what he has done.

“Scaramouche, scaramouche will you do the fandango- ”
The powers that be making fun of him

“Bismillah!
          No-,
We will not let you go-
          Let him go”
The justice system and his family are fighting over him.

“Beelzebub has a devil put aside for me,
For me,
For me”
He has a place reserved in hell.

“So you think you can stone me and spit in my eye
So you think you can love me and leave me to die
Oh baby-
Can’t do this to me baby”
He insists that you cannot treat him like a doormat.

The music in the song changes for different moods, heavy guitar for defiant and and light piano for sad.

The social implications are about what poverty stricken people have to do to survive.

Willem Jonkman, 2005

But then, the Queen “Live” in Concert version is pretty much like what I remember from the one time I was privileged to see Queen perform live at Maple Leaf Gardens. What a great show. Of course my memories stretch back to my college days, when most of my classmates knews the words to a goodly number of Queen songs.

Queen certainly made a great deal of beautiful music, and whether you think it means anything or not, Bohemian Rhapsody is unquestionably an excellent piece of music. Thanks guys.

Restoring Printed Screened Images

“The Canadian Playboy” Jack Kingston was an extremely successful recording artist who got his start during the Golden Age of Canadian Country Music.

I was asked to clean up some old printed images that might be used for cover art in an upcoming British Archive of Country Music (B.A.C.M.) CD reissue of some of Jack Kingston’s music.   Because both colour photography and color printing were prohibitively expensive in the early twentieth century,  publicity material was often printed with a primary colour replacing black ink in an effort to make it more eye-catching. For myself I think red ink was one of the more unfortunate colors to choose.

Before: Eye Detail

After: Eye Detail

Digital restoration of screened images from old printed matter can be extremely difficult to restore because of the screen pattern of dots. When employing digital imaging techniques it is crucial to stay within the pattern, like staying within the lines of a colouring book. When cutting and pasting portions of the image from one part of the picture to another not only is it essential that the portions match, they have to line up exactly or it can create an eye catching error worse than the ones you’re attempting to restore.

When doing a digital restoration like this one it’s good to repair “hickeys” or imperfections that were often added to images from the original print run back in the day.   Along with the fading and discoloration caused by age, there is generally wear and tear to be corrected on old print materials like this.

BEFORE: Original scan:

Original Scan: Canadian Recording Artist Jack Kingston

In doing the restoration my choice was to go back to black and white. Although black and white images can now be colorized with a great deal of success, my personal preference is for black and white images to remain black and white. After all, black and white is the more expensive print process these days.

AFTER: The Restoration

Restoration: Canadian Recording Artist Jack Kingston

To allow the end user flexibility I also photosynthesized the signature out of this version of the image.

I’ll let you know when I know the release date.

Don’t Worry, Be Happy

This year has just flown by, and I’ve not managed everything I hoped to.  There are a half dozen blog posts whirling in my head, but there is only time for this.

The last few weeks have been a pre-season blur and the next few days are sure to be hectic, the trials and tribulations of an extensive  family.

Please take care and drive safe, and we’ll see you next year.

All the best,
Laurie

Help Save Victoria Glen Park TONIGHT

6:00 PM – New Woolwich Town Hall

Woolwich Council will decide the fate of Victoria Glen Park tonight.

COME SHOW YOUR SUPPORT to SAVE VICTORIA GLEN.

For more information see http://preservevictoriaglenpark.blogspot.com/

Some residents will be making presentations to Council to again explain why Victoria Glen Park needs to be preserved.

At the end of the formal submissions the floor will be opened to rgose in the audience wishing to speak.

You don’t have to talk if you don’t want to, but just coming out to show your support will let Council know that it is not just a special interest group.

Victoria Glen Park belongs to us.

Victoria Glen Slogan

Why I don’t like PDF Files

I realize that many people use PDF files all the time. They have been around for years, and I believe the intent was to make them deliberately rigid, so that it would be difficult or impossible to tamper with the content. Well, over the years there are all kinds of ways and means developed for getting around them. But they are still around with an undeserved reputation for security. And PDFs continue to be clunky to use.

Yet many people continue to use PDFs.

Maybe its because they have learned how. As I get older, learning new things does not come as easy as it once did. So I can understand not wanting to have to learn new software if you’re using something that works for you.

Maybe it’s because that’s just how it’s done. The company bought the software, so that’s what we use.

Regardless, I have grown to thoroughly dislike dislike PDFs over the years for a variety of reasons.

My chief complaint is that PDF files are difficult to both read and work with. Maybe if you’re used to them it may not seem difficult to you, but compared to everything else we do in email or on the internet, PDF files are excessively restrictive.

1. You can’t send a PDF file as a PDF as part of your email message, it has to be sent as an attachment.

Email attachments can be very insecure… one of the most common ways computer viruses have been distributed has been to send the virus as an attachment. As soon as the recipient opens the attachment the virus is launched. Whenever there are viruses going around the first public safety warning is always:

“don’t open email attachments!“.

Even if the email appears to be from someone you trust, the sender name can be “spoofed”. I can’t tell you how much spam– for Viagara, no less– that I receive from what appears to be myself.   (Pfizer should be ashamed!)

2. PDF is proprietary software. This means that it is deliberately not easily accessible. Even if you find a PDF file on a website, you can’t read it there. You need a special software (a PDF reader) to be able to open the PDF.

The "pop-up" tells me I have to download the PDF. I can't just read it like the rest of the website.

Whether you get a PDF as an email attachment or want to access information from a website, if you don’t have the software to look at it you have to download software in order to read it. Why should I have to download software in order to read a document, particularly when I did not have to download special software to look at the website that tells me the information I want is locked up in a PDF? Maybe I’m being unreasonable, but the only software I put on my computer is software I want on my computer.

3. Public information should be easily accessible to the public.

I get particularly annoyed when public service websites like the one for the school board or the township have important information locked up in PDFs. There is no reason for this, all it does is make the information inaccessible. My father is a really bright guy who uses email all the time. Even so, he can’t originate an email. he only knows how to reply. Yet he’s still probably far more computer savvy than most of his contemporaries. And all the people like him (still the majority of citizens) are denied access to public information locked up in PDF files.

For me, if it isn’t crucial information, I usually don’t look at it if its in PDF form, because I assume that who ever locked it up there really doesn’t want me to see it. If they really wanted to share the information they would have made it easily accessible.

If I do decide I must look at the PDF, I look at it in ghostview, an open source PDF reader that I have chosen to have on my computer. So I can read a PDF file if I absolutely have to.

PDF files are hard to read on a computer.

Because the PDF format is so rigid, (designed in the old days when screens were not wide) it is hard to read on my computer. It doesn’t easily conform to my screen. Oh sure, I can make it larger, but that makes it even more difficult to navigate through the document.

Instead of just scrolling down the document, as you do on a web page, you have to use the little arrow to “turn the page”. If you find information of value, you can’t just copy it. There are tools available for taking apart PDFs, but they require far more effort than simply highlighting and copying something that is either important or interesting.

The controls are in the upper left hand corner.

4. Environmentally Unfriendly

The only comfortable way to read a PDF is on paper, after you print it out. So if the information is something that you only need to read once, it silly to have to waste our precious resources by printing it out. Certainly, the paper can be reused, then recycled. Except those options are still much more wasteful than reading it on a screen without printing it out at all.

The most ridiculous example of this was when I was doing some research on the environment. This municipality offers its citizens a Community cleanup guide which actually looks pretty good. The problem of course is that its miserable to read online, and its 100 pages long.

It strikes me ridiculous that their idea of cleaning up the environment includes forcing the citizens to print out 100 pages of paper they’ll likely read once, before it comes back to the municipality as garbage or recycling.

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One of the reasons that digital files have become so important in our lives is the fact that it makes transmission of information far easier than it has ever been. Digital files are easy to copy so we can share information. PDFs seem to exist to try and make this more difficult.

Trees are good

Macro Vision

The Victoria Glen Forest

We came to Victoria Glen Park
to preserve the forest.

It was such a beautiful day I had a great time taking pictures.

Victoria Glen Park is an important part of our community.

The leaves are starting to change colour. Must be fall.

Nothing seems to match the beauty of thistle purple.

They call it royal purple.

Playing around with the camera settings can be interesting.

Looking closely the white fuzz is actually a mass of spider web.

Its hard to beat the green of clover

or the white of Queen Anne's Lace

or the rich yellow of goldenrod

Or the blue of this little guy.

I wish I knew the name of this blue wildflower. It’s really beautiful, but I have no idea what it is.   It’s funny, pretty much all the plants I know by name are ones my Dad taught me. For the most part the names of plants I’ve tried to learn since go in one ear and out the other.

I love taking macro photos because it makes me look at the world differently.

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For information on how to help preserve Victoria Glen please visit Preserve Victoria Glen Park

Victoria Glen Picnic

Come on out and join the fun!

September 20th Victoria Glen Picnic Poster

For more information on how you can help preserve Victoria Glen Park visit: http://preservevictoriaglenpark.blogspot.com/

Lord of the Rings Party

This interview took place in Toronto at Future Shop’s Lord of the Rings: Return of the King DVD release party.
And this is of course the seriously cool Frodo costume.

Interview with Frodo Baggins

Everyone wanted to hear all about Mordor

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