And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.
— The 56 signers of the Declaration of Independence

Happy Independence Day.

Also, the Salt Lake Tribune wrote about the Utah-native Moore:

The theme you will hear during ESPN’s monthlong soccer coverage was written by Highland composer Lisle Moore. Moore, with the assistance of Salt Lake City’s Non-Stop Music, created the grand, inspiring music that melds African voices with a full orchestra.

Moore, a graduate of the Berklee College of Music and a Utah resident since 1994, has written music for TNT’s coverage of the NBA, and has worked with ESPN before on golf and tennis coverage. “This is a bigger deal,” said the sports buff who calls himself a die-hard Jazz fan. “This is worldwide.” [...]

When ESPN contacted him about a year ago asking for a proposal for 2010 World Cup music, Moore knew the network was looking for more than a traditional score for the event. It wanted a musical reflection of where the tournament was being held, while enticing ESPN viewers to keep watching throughout an entire month of programming. “I had to do a lot of listening on iTunes to see what I was up against,” Moore said. [...]

With the go-ahead from ESPN, Moore composed 16 variations of the theme so the music could be used in multiple ways on TV, such as during the highlights show, promos, and before and after commercial breaks.

Again, outstanding effort from Moore.  Awesome music that captures the excitement and the setting of the games.  Bravo!

An indelible part of the six seasons of LOST was the musical score provided by Academy-Award-winning composer Michael Giacchino.  With his purposely scant ensemble of strings, trombones, and percussion, he crafted a sometimes subtle, sometimes striking, and often moving musical counterpart to the mysteries and the characters of the island.

The first five seasons of music are available to purchase (hopefully the sixth will be soon, too).  But if you want a closer look at each theme and each motif Giacchino created for characters, events, and specific situations, check out the website Music by Michael Giacchino.

On the site’s special LOST page, each episode is listed with samples of the themes and motifs that episode introduced.  Every theme and motif — quite an impressive undertaking by whomever is behind the site.

Some of my favorites:

• Suspense motif
• Locke’s theme
• Life and death theme
• Rescue theme
• Jacob’s theme
• Richard Alpert’s theme
• Oceanic Six theme

Giacchino’s Oceanic Six theme is probably the finest theme he wrote for the show.  Beautiful.

Finally, if you’re interested in a little behind-the-scenes action, Maria Elena Fernandez of The Los Angeles Times blog Show Tracker featured exclusive video of a rehearsal for a LOST concert with Giacchino and his ensemble.  Below is one of the videos, but be sure to check out the rest.

Whether or not there is more that the president can do, he needs to convince the American public that he is doing all that he can. Every classic story has a villain and a hero. We have a villain: BP and Big Oil. Now we need a hero. Especially if the computer models are correct (via Discovery News) or if a hurricane (or two) blow through the Gulf.

The main construct of the theme is a suspended note followed by two ascending notes.

Now here is John Williams’s theme for the Ark of the Covenant from Raiders of the Lost Ark:

The main construct of this theme is a suspended note followed by two descending notes.

Very clever.  A theme for a mystical, god-like person paying homage to a theme for a mystical, god-related object.  Nice work, Michael.

I don’t have anything profound to say, but I’ve been kicking some thoughts around in my head since Lost ended last night.  If you’ll excuse me, the show really Lost me last night.

Lost was most successful combining character-driven stories with supernatural, mythological stories — character drama coupled with science fiction.  People who grew an attachment to the series largely because of the mystery of the island and the happenings on it, though, were summarily dismissed last night.

The series finale was overflowing with character drama — and great drama at that.  The reunions all throughout the show and the flashbacks to the characters’ good times and bad were poignant reminders of how great the show was.

But Lost built itself on the magic of the island, and that magic was all but forgotten in favor of the lousy and confusing final 15 minutes.

I’m a details person, and I feel like Lost often was, too.  How many times did the numbers, either together or separate, come up?  From the car odometer to the 108-minutes (the sum of the numbers) between Desmond entering them to the table number the Losties sat at for the concert benefit in last night’s episode (table 23, Jack’s number), the numbers were woven into the details of many episodes.  What will bug me for as long as I think about this show is how many little things will never be explained.  The Hurley bird?  The outrigger shootout?  The Egyptian hieroglyphics?  Why did the light cave release the smoke monster when He Who Shall Never Get A Name went in but when Jack, Desmond, and Locke went in nothing happened?

But more importantly, what about all the things we were led to believe were important?  How about the numbers?  How did the guy at Hurley’s institution know about the numbers?  How did they end up on the hatch?  Why were they in Rousseau’s radio transmission?  What about the statue?  Why was it important?  Why was Walt special?  And what really happened to him?  Were these and other never-to-be-explained things not really important at all?

And what about the battle between good and evil?  The entire sixth season was setting up for an epic showdown.  Where was it?  So this wasn’t about good and evil?  Light and dark?  White and black?  What made Jacob “good” and Man in Black “bad”?  What would really happen if Man in Black got off the island?

But then there were those last 15 minutes.  What we learned last night was that the flash-sidewayses didn’t matter for anything.  Nothing that happened in them mattered at all — what happened, didn’t happen — which begs the question, what was the point of them?  Were they just to fill air-time?

The Lost series as a whole made me think and made me ask questions.  But last night, the Lost finale tossed out thinking and relied solely on feeling.  “The End” definitely made me feel — feel like I was cheated out of closure.  If Lost is to be viewed as a story, I’m still waiting for a real ending.

Here, though, is what I did like about “The End”:

• The opening sequence cutting back and forth between on-island and off-island characters accompanied solely by Michael Giacchino score.
• All the rest of Giacchino’s score in this episode was hands-down the best of the season, if not the last two or three seasons.  The music of this episode deserves an album release by itself.
• The nostalgia factor with the various character returns and the reunions.
• Sawyer calling Man in Black “Smokey.”
• The Target smoke detector commercial.
• The camera pull-back with Locke and Jack looking down the waterfall just like they looked down the hatch early on in the series.
• The look on Ben’s face when Jack told Hurley he would be his replacement.
• The look on Ben’s face when Hurley asked him to be his number two.
• Frank finally having a purpose.

And finally, here are some of my favorite lines from the episode:

• Frank: “In case you haven’t noticed, I’m a pilot.”
• Smokey to Jack: “You’re sort of the obvious choice, don’t you think?”
• Jack to Smokey: “You’re not John Locke.  You disrespect his memory by wearing his face.”
• Jack: “What happened, happened.”
• Kate: “I saved you a bullet.”
• Juliette: “We should get coffee sometime.”
• Jack to Desmond: “I’ll see you in another life, brother.”

So here’s to a Lost movie?

• 7 pm: Leave Jon King in prime time and rename his show Politics is Broken. It should be an outside-in show. Make it entirely about bringing into the conversation dominated by Beltway culture and Big Media people who are outsiders to Beltway culture and Big Media and who think the system is broken. No Bill Bennett, no Gloria Borger, no “Democratic strategists,” no Tucker Carlson. Do it in the name of balance. But in this case voices from the sphere of deviance balance the Washington consensus.
• 8 pm: Thunder on the Right. A news show hosted by an extremely well informed, free-thinking and rational liberal that mostly covers the conservative movement and Republican coalition… and where the majority of the guests (but not all) are right leaning. The television equivalent of the reporting Dave Wiegel does.
• 9 pm: Left Brained. Flip it. A news show hosted by an extremely well informed, free-thinking and rational conservative that mostly covers liberal thought and the tensions in the Democratic party…. and where the majority of the guests (but not all) are left leaning.
• 10 pm: Fact Check An accountability show with major crowdsourcing elements to find the dissemblers and cheaters. The week’s most outrageous lies, gimme-a-break distortions and significant misstatements with no requirement whatsoever to make it come out equal between the two parties on any given day, week, month, season, year or era. CNN’s answer to Jon Stewart.
• 11 pm: Liberty or death: World’s first news program from a libertarian perspective, with all the unpredictablity and mix-it-up moxie that libertarians at their best provide. Co-produced with Reason magazine.

This would be a network actually worth watching.

(Via The Daily Dish)