Re: Xy'd NB -- FLV Video Capture and Player

["Robert Holmgren" holmgren@xxxxxxxx]

** Reply to message from "Patricia M. Godfrey"
 on Thu, 06 Mar 2008 15:41:16 -0500

We've all seen performances like those; and not to diminish
great acting, opera (and a lot of high art, e.g. religious art)
requires a suspension of disbelief. But let us not be banal.

Old-time pit musicians (and conductors) say, and I believe them,
that when Callas was heavy, she was the most exciting musician
they had ever seen. She never could claim the most beautiful
voice. But early in her career, her voice was truly huge; and
throughout her (quite short) career there was something more,
call it charisma, sincerity, a rightness -- she had it. The
point being: Nobody cared whether she looked the part.

There's a YT clip that Jean-Luc Godard shot of Jefferson
Airplane doing "House at Pooneil Corners" on an NYC rooftop on
45th Street back in 1968 -- and I'm in it, at left on the roof
(I was a sound engineer, in another incarnation)! Never seen
that before! We woke up the town that day, then got busted. I
thought Godard's whole project (I think it was called "4 AM")
simply died. You can see Godard at the beginning, wearing
glasses, gesturing with his arms in a window. This was the peak
time for the Airplane, and they were simply great. Jack Cassidy
comes from a different planet -- best rock bassist ever -- still
making terrific music, with Jorma Kaukonen (as Hot Tuna).

-----------------------------
Robert Holmgren
holmgren@xxxxxxxx
-----------------------------