Tuesday, March 10, 2009

Deja Vu

One of the best jazz singers around today, Trudy Kerr, has just released a new album of Duke Ellington songs, called "Like Minds" which features the great Michael Garrick on piano. It's a terrific record and is well worth searching for. On it she sings "Don't Get Around Much Any More" (one of my very favourite songs) in a way I have never heard it sung before, in a way which provides a powerful example of what jazz should be all about.
Anyway, I was browsing through her website when I noticed that her last album was called Deja Vu. And as soon as I saw these words I remembered I needed to put together a post about .... about deja vu (could all my pedantic friends please note that I know there should be all sorts of accents over various letters, it's just that I can't be bothered searching for the special keys which will produce them and therefore there is no need to e-mail me and point out my mistake).
I have been suffering from deja vu a lot these last few days. It all started when my computer came back from the repair shop. My new computer developed a fault after a couple of months which most people blamed on a software problem. Eventually it was discovered that it was a hardware problem - the Hard Drive had failed - and a new one had to be fitted. This meant that when the computer eventually came back I had to start at the beginning again, re-installing all my software and fine-tuning everything to just the way I like it. Whilst the software installation is a fairly simple process these days, the fine tuning is proving to be painful in the extreme.  And throughout the entire process there has been this sense of deja vu, this feeling that I have walked down this road before. And, of course, I have. My problem is that I can't remember the solutions that I painstakingly came up with last time. Thus my life has become a process of rediscovery - and what an annoying process it is.
So I sit here, staring at the screen fonts that look all wrong, glancing at my Google sidebar clock which isn't there, and wondering where it all went wrong. To hell with it, let's listen to some music instead. Next track Trudy please.

3 comments:

  1. You, of course, now have me intrigued... does this work? Here we go... déjà vu.

    No, I don't know the ALT DOWN - type in no. number - ALT UP codes by heart - I had to go and try what you got for nos. 123 upwards.

    (à is 133, é is 130 and û is 150... which I didn't need but I couldn't remember if the u was accented.. until I looked it up.)

    And the title, déjà vu, (hey, it worked again!) for some reason immediatly brought into my mind that Emerson Lake and Palmer LP "Fanfare for the common man" which I used-to blast in my Balcombe St. flat.. why? 'Cos the first track fanfares, thumps around and ends with "c'est la vie." So the link was a French phrase and music... but now I can't get the memory of that track out my head....

    Pa - pa - paaa. Pa - pa - paaa. Paa, paa, paaa paaaaaa ,,, thumpty-thumpty thumpty thumpty.... um.

    I'm sure you must remember it?

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  2. P.s., Ive left lots of comments on the photo blog but AB is clearly censoring them.

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  3. P.p.s My looking at the blog now seems to be recorded as coming from Preston. Uh?

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