December 29ths (3 Days Away)

12/29/1966

"Interviewed in November 1965 Paul McCartney mentioned that he’d been toying with the idea of writing a song called “Penny Lane” because he liked the poetry of the name. Penny Lane was, and still is, the name of the road in this suburb immediately to the south of Liverpool city centre, close to where the Beatles grew up. It took another year for Paul to actually write the song but with its description of the shops and the people and the “blue suburban skies” his Penny Lane was a fine counterpoint to John’s “Strawberry Fields Forever”"

[12/29/2024: 1966 has always been my pet year. (Everyone might have one where they plant a flag on it), but it seems to be pivotal and culminating, the result of the “lag of the seasons” in a cultural sense. GenX thinks it’s 1974 or 1975. For older millennials it might be 1984]. See: The Threshold of 1966:

12/29/1999

A friend asked me what I thought the world would be like in the year 3000. This question was probably asked a thousand years ago. By 3000 there will be new terms that will redefine nature. By 3000, many will be still waiting for the end of the world. Story idea set in 3000, with facts derived from life in 1000. Panel of experts talking on TV about the potential Y2K problems with US and Russian nuclear arsenals. Some looked extremely worried. (A call to release 7500 nuclear bombs would be made in just 3 minutes after a false reading). I feel excited about this new age, but trepidatious feelings now winning. 

[12/29/2024: Fear is both timeless and contemporary, and can even become a relic of the past, defused of its anxiety. Y2K has become a fashion vibe, when at the time I recall everyone felt like the end of the world was 3 days away] 

12/29/2004

Tsunami disaster dominates the news. 80,000 now estimated dead. They project it will double if disease breaks out.

12/29/2022

The reason most players plateau and get bored is that their view of music is narrowed by only playing an instrument. Be a total musician: Do something you wouldn’t normally do, like follow along with an orchestral score as you’re listening to it. Open a music dictionary and investigate a topic at random. Take some music theory classes and do the exercises. Or you can go outside of music and investigate something, then come back to music.

[12/19/2024: This is how I see music AI: a way of “going to an extreme and retreating to a more practical position". After watching the recent documentary about Ennio Morricone: there was always some level of experimentation, but he always came back to being essentially a melodist].

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