Totems: power and grace

During a recent visit to Stanley Park, we were knocked over by these totem poles. I can't find much information about them, except that they were "collected from all over the area". Right. Like saying the Mona Lisa was bought at a garage sale, but at least we got to enjoy them and be in awe. I put music behind this one to try to capture the mood.

The Birds: out of nowhere!

Back when I was doing all sorts of video experiments and being flagged by YouTube for using copyrighted material, I made this: a very short snippet from Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds, set to the dire, dark music of Finnish composer 
Einojuhani Rautavaara (photo by Ari Korkala, below). I was amazed at how neatly they dovetailed (squawk) without any real effort on my part. I think that's because Rautavaara is natural movie music - and for all I know, he actually DID write dire, dark film scores for dire, dark Finnish movies. The Scands are not known for their lightheartedness.

I was interested to realize, all over again, that Hitchcock did not use any music at all in The Birds except theme music. The squawwww-ing and skreeee-ing of those hideous birds was enough of a soundtrack. Hitchcock knew that music would only interfere.

I guess I'm not quite so clever.