I received a email reminder from CD Japan that the Soundtrack for the anime film “The Girl Who Leapt Through Time” is available for a limited time — as a vinyl record!
The main soundtrack music is by another composer (Kiyoshi Yoshida), but of course Hanako Oku has two of her most famous songs included.
“The original soundtrack of “Toki o Kakeru Shojo (The Girl Who Leapt Through Time)” an animated feature film released in 2006 by Kadokawa Pictures, is now available on analog record for the first time! The full version of the theme song “Garnet” sung by Hanako Oku will be included. 2 discs, 16 songs in total.”
So, today I want to send out “Happy Birthday” greetings out to Ms. Hanako Oku, born March 20, 1978.
Still searching for Oku Hanako in 2021!
Starlight: Will there be another record or performnce this year?
One of my favorite pieces of classical music is “The Planets” by Gustav Holst. Here’s my story on that: I was a fan of the Japanese musician Isao Tomita, and I bought his “The Planets” record way back in 1976 when I was just an impressionable teenager. I was listening to a lot of synthesizer music back at the time. Otherwise, I was not educated enough to know the first thing about Holst.
Much later in life, I bought a CD of Planets by the Montreal Symphony Orchestra. Recently I started a playlist of several different symphonic versions. Indeed, There are a lot of good ones to choose from all over YouTube … but I will share this recent one with you today. This is from the Singapore Symphony Orchestra, recorded live at the Esplanade Concert Hall, Singapore, on November 8th 2019.
I love it of course! The Planets is kind of like a “concept album” that a rock group might make. Each part, or “movement” is a musical description of each planet. Let me also share with you, this gallery of “The Planets” album covers. Do you own any of these?
Before I proceed much farther, I also want to share this video from YT user Classics Explained. His video is a whimsical history about how Holst came to write “The Planets”. CE vividly and accurately describes how each movement relates to each planet musically.
This music history got me thinking about the ORDER of the planets in the symphony. The order of Host’s planets are Mars, Venus, Mercury, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune. This order does not seem to make sense at first — and where is Earth, anyway? If one were to navigate in a space craft, and view and explore Mars (the fourth planet in our solar system) first, then how or why would one go back to Venus (the second planet) next? The order should be: Mercury, Venus, (Earth), Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune. Part of the wrong order of the planets may have to do with the order that Holst wrote the movements. He wrote “Mars: The Bringer of War” first, and “Mercury: The Winged Messenger” was written last.
So … what ever was the flight plan through “The Planets” by Gustav Holst? The only way I can excuse the order when I listen now, is to envision this travel plan scenario:
Our craft zips from Earth out to Mars first. Modern planetary explorers are in a hurry to explore and colonize Mars, so it does not surprise me that the planet is explored first. Our craft circles Mars, but not before dropping two surface probe-droids — which land, then drive around Mars to measure, dig and modify the Martian surface. The two land probes may even be in competition with each other, and may even have “wargames” at the surface. Our spaceship uses the gravity of Mars to fling our craft back to the other side … the inner side … of the solar system. We will use a GRAVITY ASSIST – similar to how the Cassini spacecraft used the gravity slingshot technique to zip around Earth twice to get to Saturn.
Yeah, Yeah, Yeah, Yeah … man those cats can really swing!
Our ship will need more speed to travel the outer solar system, so our spaceship next flies AROUND Venus. (The surface is too hot to land anyway.) The path around Venus gives it a gravity boost – and propels it rapidly to Mercury, where our craft picks up even more speed through the fastest planet’s gravity.
After that gravity boost, our ship begins the long journey to the outer solar system, eventually graduating to the pull of Jupiter. At this point, our journey is in the correct order. We get flung around Jupiter and voyage out to Saturn where after a dance there, we are flung out to Uranus, then finally Neptune.
Oh — I forgot to tell you – our craft does not go back to Earth. I probably should have said something. We keep going as the music to “Neptune” fades. Oh Ok … OK … if you really, really need to go back, listen to “Space Trucking” by Deep Purple for a straight path back. DP song linked here. Yeah, Yeah Yeah Yeah … the freaks said: man those cats can really swing! And yes, Bob, I digress once again.
Do you know what would have been a hoot? if Host had wrote music for Earth, or perhaps even Earth’s moon – Luna. Why not a special movement for the Asteroid Belt? There was no planet Pluto at the time Host wrote, so we cannot blame him for not including it.
Remembder to use the “gravity assist”!!!
Starlight: Forty-four light years it has been! Do you have a favorite “Planets” album? Please share with me in the Comments!
ShadowBall, use your hooters … er … I mean, Hooters — use ShadowBall!
Hoothoot (in Japanese: ホーホー “Hoho”) is the “Owl Pokémon”. The little hooter is a dual-type Normal & Flying Pokémon. Hoothoot evolves into Noctowl (in Japanese: ヨルノズク “Yorunozuku”) at level 20, where it remains a Normal/Flying dual-type.
Thus far, there is not a mega-evolved form. Noctowl is a fun Pokémon, but it is not particularly strong. I hope that there will be a mega-evolution someday, where it might be a powerful dual Flying and Psychic type. I like to teach this mysterious bird psychic moves like “Hypnosis” in order to make your opponent sleep.
My favorite name for Noctowl is “Fly-By-Night”. I more often use the music note symbol instead of a dash, because it stands for the RUSH song and album “Fly By Night”. I also like to catch them with a Timer Ball, as the clock graphic seems to fit the name, and the Rush lyrics.
I thought that “Noctowl” sounded like a sleep-aide or cold medicine, so I named one “Nyquil”. I also named a Hoothoot “Hooterville” after the fictional rural town in the TV series “Green Acres” and “Petticoat Junction”. Even “The Beverly Hillbillies” once went to Hooterville. I named one “Drucker” after Sam Drucker, the grocer at the Hooterville general store.
An obvious owl-related name would be “Hooters” after the famous chicken-wing restaurant. I think I know the reason why that wings restaurant is called “Hooters”. When one eats chicken wings which are a little too spicy, your mouth burns, and you try to fan off your mouth and say “Hooo hot …. “hooo”.
Re-size to fit page.
With all those diners saying “Hooo…” so much, they probably thought that it sounded like owls, and so they might as well just call the place “Hooters”!
Ahem. Other names I might suggest include: “Nox” as a short form of “Equinox” — which might be a cool name too. I think that “Twin Peeks” is good, especially for little Hoothoot. I loved the old TV miniseries “Twin Peaks” created by director David Lynch (the hauntingly beautiful theme song is linked here). Owls were part of the symbolism in this mystery. “Peaks” might mean two glorious mounds of inspiration. but spelled as “Peeks” it refers to the eyes of the owl.
Notice how the viewer is drawn in to that beautiful pair of owl-like peekers.
As seen above, “Who-Are-You” may be a fun name if you like classic rock or that CSI TV show.
Owl nicknames may be a topic to explore further! There will be an owl starter Pokémon (named Rowlet) in the new game — Pokémon Sun and Moon. It releases this November 18th.
What do you name your little hooters? Please comment!
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