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Friday, Dec 09, 2005
Imagine:John Lennon
In a case of my TiVo having a finely tuned sense of my demographics, it recorded on its own volition the 1988 documentary, Imagine: John Lennon, mentioned previously.
I never knew much about John during his peak of fame. As a straitlaced suburban kid, I just wasn't tuned into the counter-culture of the late sixties and early seventies. I got Revolver in about 1968. But otherwise heard the Beatles only on the radio (and the Ed Sullivan and Smothers Brothers appearances).
The documentary shows a variety of sides of John. (And unfortunately, not enough of Paul and the others.) We see John the ambitious music entrepreneur. John the dick. John the sap. John the poet. John the celebrity in exile. John the quixotic. John the guy who loves to wail on a guitar.
In college I roomed with a Paul fan. JimL may have sat in on one or more smoke-filled debate. And in the end, we settled on the fact that each became a better musician primarlily because of his work with the other.
John Lennon
A scan of the NYC radio dial on the night Lennon died. (via bill)
Appearing on HBO is Imagine John Lennon, December 14, 4:00 PM, HBO2 East.
A 1971 interview with John. (via tom)
Sweet Jesus I Hate Celine Dion
Developing equipment that processes HD TV requires access to HD TV content. That's easy enough these days. With a VHF/UHF or a satellite antenna, one can pick up a dozen or more channels. What's hard to get is pristine, uncompressed HD.
One of our ultra clean clips is a Celine Dion concert. We've watched it for a year or more with no sound. But those days have ended. We're doing much more testing with video plus audio. And that's one of the few clips that allows us to look for lip sync.
My lord, what a truly awful experience.