P: Pink Floyd

"...the band is just fantastic, that is really what I think. Oh by the way, which one's Pink?..."

Ah, gotta love it. The above lyric is from the album, "Wish You Were Here" by Pink Floyd. The follow-up to "Dark Side of the Moon". The song is "Have A Cigar" and is scathing in its characterization of the record industry.

What can I say about this music that won't seem like a retread, or trite? Just listen to it. There's nothing like it.

Years ago, during my time working at Apple in Cupertino (name dropper, KjM!) I set one of the system sounds - the calendar alarm if I remember rightly, to a sound file named "Floyd Ping". It was the single, pure electric guitar note heard on the track "Shine On You Crazy Diamond" on "Wish You Were Here".

Just gorgeous.

O: The Origin of Fire

Capable women, doing things the world around them doesn't expect them to do. Not a modern concept.


In the 11th century, Hildegard of Bingen showed the world that its picture of women, the frame within which women might operate, was too small. A woman skilled in medicine, a musician, composer, an intellectual, a mystic, a leader. All in a time when women, and women in the Church, were less than their male counterparts.

Or so it was believed. Ah well, society can't be right all the time, I suppose.

"The Origin of Fire" is only one of the CDs we have of Hildegard's music. It's a CD I particularly like, possibly because of the inclusion of some Gregorian Chant - but then, I'm partial to that. As I am to the performers, Anonymous 4.

There's a very good movie, "Vision", that takes the viewer through the life of Hildegard von Bingen. It shows a very human person, but an extraordinary one for all that.