Tag: 2020A

This may surprise people, but did you know that a video game theme has won a Grammy award? In 2011, the main theme of Civilization IV, “Baba Yetu” (Swahili version of The Lord’s Prayer), won a grammy award for Best Instrumental Arrangement Accompanying Vocalist(s). The composer is Christopher Tin and features the Soweto Gospel Choir and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. Here’s the song, it’s a great listen (despite the video game graphics of 2005):

This song also made to America’s Got Talent in 2018, where it was awarded the Golden Buzzer:

Before starting my PhD, I was living in Los Angeles and I found out that Christopher Tin had a small classical recital one Friday evening in Santa Monica. I attended it with Aldo, and we met Christopher Tin afterwards (he is super nice!). I own a copy of each of his albums, “Calling All Dawns” (which also won a grammy in 2011 for Best Classical Crossover Album) and “The Drop that Contained the Sea”. My favorite song from his second album is “Waloyo Yamoni”, which translates from Lango (Uganda) into “We Overcome the Wind”. It’s also features the Soweto Gospel Choir, just like with “Baba Yetu”.

SONG OF THE DAY

Christopher Tin has a new album coming out this August. I supported it on Kickstarter when it was announced 2 years ago and it became the highest funded classical music Kickstarter ever. I’m hoping they’ll do a west coast (particularly Los Angeles) live concert for this album in the future, so I can go attend it in person. Therefore, the song of the day will be the first song that has come out for this album, which also happens to be the main theme for Civilization VI:

To be honest…I don’t play any of the Civilization games. Never have been a turn-based strategy player. Now, if you want to talk about Animal Crossing: New Horizons, I’m totally in.

This is, officially, the highest numbered “run” post achieved (so far) on this blog. Jhen’s post yesterday tied with the previous record holder, Day 44 from 2015A, what we fondly refer to as The Death Run.

Arizona is opening back up. So, to some extent, is UofA research. Our lab, The XWCL, has been open because of an important project, but only for limited work on one or two things. But starting next week we’ll be able to start paying attention to our other projects, which includes MagAO-X. Still not supposed to meet in person, go to our offices, etc.

However, since we aren’t technically in a “Stay At Home”, I guess this “run” is over. It’s like when we are in the air form SCL to DFW, the telescope time is done, but we still have to clear customs and stay awake long enough to catch the 9:10 flight to TUS. You can still post if you want to, but all of our subscribers should stop expecting daily content.

So we watched “The Rise of Skywalker” tonight. Hadn’t seen it yet — after “The Last Jedi” I just wasn’t motivated enough to go see it in the theater. “Rise” was better than I expected, but still a cluttered mess as far as story telling goes. Too much happens in too many places, with not enough time in between. Remember in “A New Hope” how they actually travel? And the kids play games in the back seat to keep them occupied (there’s even home schooling). Remember how Jedi training was a thing in “Empire”, worthy of half a movie? The conflict scene between Luke and Vader and the Emperor in “Jedi” (the only movie referred to with that single word) was epic, and again was something like half the movie. The sequels just bounce around and try to show us too much with too many subplots. The middle one was especially egregious — the time between events wouldn’t work in even a small U.S. city, let alone a galaxy-scale ecosystem.

Please note: the sequels are at least watchable more than once. Let’s not drag the prequels into this.

The main thing about the sequels that drives me nuts is that they don’t make any sense from a high-level galacto-political sense. I don’t understand why there is a “resistance”. What are they resisting? They won the rebellion, so aren’t they the government now? Sure, sure, you can say they are resisting the First Order. But that’s just it — doesn’t that just make the resistance the military of The New Republic? Why do they never have help? Where’s the actual regular Republic Navy? This is a whole thing that is never explained to any level. Part of my complaint derives from having read Zahn’s “Thrawn” novels when they first came out, and were supposed to be canon. The takeover of The New Republic was part of the story, and well told. The whole expanded universe included this. Characters we know, like Wedge Antilles, are big shot Admirals — not gunners that Lando digs up somewhere. Leia is occupied with politics and governing a galaxy, as you’d expect.

I’m not all complaints though. I think Rey is the best character* of the entire Star Wars universe. Her story is incredibly compelling, and Ridley is fantastic at being the naive reluctant Jedi, and then better at being the badass when her time comes. No spoilers here, but I’ll just say that “Rise” brings the 9 part Skywalker saga to a fitting conclusion, true to its real beginnings in IV. (*Mando is shaping up to be pretty amazing too, from a different point of view).

And, the music is as good as always. Here’s “Rey’s Theme”, by John Williams:

P.S. For future historians, yes, our count is low by one day by the usual rules of run-post-counting on our blog.