Buggy..!

Buggy..

Buggy!!!

(cherry bomb!)

Plus his Yassified JoJo form (?)

a collection

Nothing has the instant magic that color has - especially when used to cheer up a dreary-looking kitchen. Here plain wood cabinets were treated to molding, then painted daffodil yellow - a perfect choice if you face north or like a sunny look. Plain windows take on personality with stained-glass replacements, and the utilitarian backsplash went colorful with Mexican tiles.

Double doors open onto a space and serene - almost monastic - bedroom. Many of the furnishings of the Owings home are colonial Mexican or New Mexican in style. The heavy proportions and flat carving of this style derived from Old World taste of medieval times, which persisted into the nineteenth century in the New World. Leaded glass windows reinforce this sense of the past.

Fantasy illustration. Weird tales. March 1937.

Gates of Hell

Oddly shaped lava formations look like a mass of twisted bodies.

Location: Hawaii over the West Kamokuna lava skylight

An extremely rare creative arrangement by Hachidai Nakamura of the love theme from the successful 1968 film adaptation of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet as directed by Franco Zeffirelli. This track came from an album released exclusively, it seems, as a demo vinyl for four channel stereo, the idea of which allowed you to experience music from around you - including surround from behind. Needless to say, the system flopped with audiences, but as it was my father took a fancy to the Nakamura album and recorded it in regular stereo. 

Nakamura’s arrangement of Nino Rota’s love theme is still my favorite arrangement, although as a fair warning it won’t be to everyone’s cup of tea. It eschews the sugary legacy of piano arrangements popularized by Henry Mancini in favor of jazzy Oriental-style eclecticism - a musical arrangement discarding the dramatic context of the song. The thin string section and the harmony via female vocalise help bring the sweetness to the melody, while imbuing it with a sense of mystery. The love theme isn’t really a sumptuous, romantic melody like say Rota’s Godfather but, while still a love theme, has a subdued, almost gloomy element. This tragic sensibility is fitting, no doubt, for the iconic doomed lovers that are its inspiration.