kenjari | Random Portions of the Weekend (Reply)

I watched Jim Jarmusch's "Dead Man" this Friday with Other Kenjari. It has Johnny Depp in it, and is sort of a western. Like "Coffee and Cigarrettes", it is shot in black and white, includes appearances by Alfred Molina and Iggy Pop, and is divided into short episodes. However, it is in some ways much weirder. It made a lot more sense if I thought of Johnny Depp's character as having died partway into the film and the rest of the movie as his journey through death and into what comes next.

I've been listening to the newest (that I know of) CD of music by Estonian composer Arvo Part a lot. I really like it. He's using a more varied language than he has been in the past few years. The pieces, particularly "Como Cierva Sedienta", have a lot more variety in texture and harmony - he seems to be branching out from his neo-medieval style. I really want to see a score for "Orient & Occident", which is for string orchestra. He does some really interesting things with the voicing, and I'd love to see what's going on there.

I'm making steady, if somewhat slow, progress on the last movement of my sextet. I'm in the middle stage of the writing, which tends to be the slowest and most laborious. But I like how it's turning out.