April 2020 - Page 4 of 6 - Ramblin' with Roger

April rambling: marvelous, melancholy

Tributes to Fountains of Wayne and Bill Withers

Click here to fill out the 2020 census online today! This way, census workers won’t have to come to your door. The Census Bureau advises completing the census now even if you haven’t received your 12-digit census ID by mail. Here’s a reminder.

Eight marvelous and melancholy things I’ve learned about creativity.

Garbage Language: Why Do Corporations Speak the Way They Do?.

Grover reads The Monster at the End of This Book (2020).

What Is Color Psychology?

A new search engine:https://www.privado.com/ (they don’t store searches or IPs!)

The difference between baking powder and baking soda thanks to Alton Brown.

How some cities ‘flattened the curve’ during the 1918 flu pandemic.

Notes From The Pandemic. A Diary of Struggling for Survival and Sanity in the Season of the Witch. I have contributed a few links to this effort.

The Week: What Caught Our Eye, including news that the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy were officially considered essential workers.

Little Tips for Better Video Chat (For Teachers…and Everybody Else).

MASH and the coronavirus.

The 12 most annoying co-workers you face on Zoom.

How Frasier Would Shelter in Place During the Coronavirus.

Some Good News with John Krasinski Ep. 2 – Zoom Surprise at 8:25.

Quarantine calls with Joe Buck.

“So long as men worship the Caesars and Napoleons, Caesars and Napoleons will duly arise and make them miserable.” – Aldous Huxley

Study identifies a psychological factor linked to Trump supporters’ vindictiveness.

John Oliver takes a look at One America News, or OAN, a far-right news network being embraced by him at his coronavirus press events.

Now I Know

Why Does It Feel So Weird To Walk on a Stopped Escalator? and Putting a Happy Face On Trash and Badminton’s Sinister Secret and The Problem With Invisible Stone Boogers and Why Mario Has a Mustache and Keggy.

MUSIC

Movie: Sound City, America’s greatest unsung recording studio.

Movie: The Wrecking Crew, which I wrote about here.

Thank you, Adam Schlesinger. Stacy’s Mom – Fountains of Wayne.

Bill Withers, a Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee. Ain’t No Sunshine; Grandma’s Hands; Use Me; Lean on Me.

Coverville: 1304: Tributes to Fountains of Wayne & Bill Withers and 1303: Eric Clapton Cover Story.

Stay Away – Randy Newman.

Sing About It (The Wood Brothers) – Seizoenen koor Amsterdam.

Jubilie – Mary Chapin Carpenter (Songs From Home Episode 5).

Wish You Were Here (Pink Floyd Cover) – MonaLisa Twins.

A suite from Catch Me If You Can – John Williams’s score.

Hard to Be the Bard – Christian Borle from Something Rotten.

Yellow River Concerto, themes composed by Xian Xinghai.

K-Chuck Radio: The Hits of Apryll Aileen.

Symphony No. 2 in D Major of Beethoven.

Music for The Creatures of Prometheus of Beethoven.

Coronavirus Blues – Middleburgh Minstrel (it’s all about the TP).

Post Secret purloin: surprise, shock

plenty of time

surprise The final part of the PostSecret purloin.

What is the last thing you changed your mind about?

I was going to say the failure of ethanol, but I have another one. The use of they as a singular pronoun. For the longest time, the Sting song title, If You Love Somebody, Set Them Free bugged me. Now it does not. Now it makes so much sense. This, BTW, did not keep me from buying the 12″ single of the track.

What things helped you get through a difficult time in your life?

Ya gotta have Friends.

Over the course of your life what trip or place was most special? Why?

Running out of gas in Speculator, NY with my dad. I thought he’d be mad, because I was supposed to be the navigator, but he was surprisingly cool about it.

What would you like to re-experience again because you did not appreciate it enough the first time?

I’m hard-pressed to think of anything. To every thing, there is a season…

Can you tell me something about yourself that I don’t know that you think would surprise, shock or delight me?

Surprise? Shock? Probably, but all in good time, my pretties, all in good time. Delight? I’m always fascinated that there are stories I tell my daughter that delight her. I’m not sure why they do. One is the bathroom mirror story, which I should tell at length sometime.

How to be lazy

What habits served you the most through life?

I like to work ahead, not waiting for the last minute. That most assuredly applies to writing this blog. There’s been maybe twice since 2008 that I got up and wrote something that was published that day. Writing ahead allows me to be tired or sick or just lazy.

It’s true: if I have something due in a month, I’m most likely to do it in the first week. This doesn’t always work when you’re dependent on other people. “We have plenty of time,” they say, until we don’t.

What is the best mistake you have made, and why?

Probably moving into my grandmother’s house in the cold of early 1975. If I could survive THAT, I could survive anything.

What do you hope my siblings and I have learned from you?

From my father, I learned from my father is that you don’t have to be book smart to be successful. What I learned from my mother is patience – OK, I’m working on it – and kindness.

How are you doing right now? Is there anything on your mind right now that you’d like to talk about?

I could spend forever doing genealogy. It’s something, I realize, I do in part for my sister and my daughter. My wife’s family, the Olins, can trace their back to the late 1600s. Thanks to the new relatives I’ve discovered only in the last six months, I can go back to the 15th century. That’s about 300 years further back than I was ever able to go on the extant bloodlines I’d known about for decades.

Movie: Call of the Wild (2020)

computer-generated dog

I’ve never read Jack London’s Call of the Wild. As far as I can remember, I’ve not seen any movie or television adaptations.

What drew me to the nearby Madison Theatre a few days before everything went into lockdown were two things: Harrison Ford’s presence and the $5 ticket price all day on Tuesdays.

An overly large pooch, a St. Bernard/Scotch Collie mix, seemed to have the run of a California home. Then he was dognapped and shipped north to Alaska.

He was purchased as part of a sled dog team operated by Perrault (Omar Sy) and Françoise (Cara Gee). Eventually, he crosses paths, for the third time, with John Thornton (Ford). Thornton protects Buck against the cruel Hal (Dan Stevens), who had stolen and beaten Buck.

Thornton and Buck go on an expedition further north practically to the Arctic Circle. In this environment, the once pampered Buck gets in touch with his primitive roots when interacting with a pack of wolves. The story was OK.

NOt a real dog

I was more curious whether I would buy the computer-generated dog in Call of the Wild as real. The answer is, “Sometimes.” The technique was less effective in the early narrative. Or maybe the storyline was just too goofy. But in his relationship with Perrault and Françoise, and later with Thornton, “he” usually resonated as a dog more believably.

I credit the fact that those performers were interacting with actor/stuntman Terry Notary, who modeled all of Buck’s actions. Those actors all expressed admiration for Notary’s work, giving them someone credible and emotive to perform with, rather than a blue screen.

There was a small audience for the 1 p.m. show. I ordered a burger, slightly overpriced but good.

It took SO long for the Madison Theatre to reopen. I hope it can withstand the current disruption. Good news is that it’s still selling food, pickup/delivery only. I’m inclined to order from them when I can.

Resurrection, a new way

The Hallelujahs live-streamed on Facebook

First Presbyterian Church. window This is different. It’s Easter Sunday. We get up, take showers, and have breakfast. Then we travel, all the way back upstairs, to the office and watch church.

On March 15, church did not happen for me. The sermon was subsequently mailed out. But on March 22, some of our fine technical experts, along with our pastors, presented service on Facebook. The pastors offered scripture, prayers, and sermons, while the service was augmented by song selections from the past four years of the Chancel Choir. There are some tracks from the Bell Choir ss well.

Like anything new, the process has evolved, with hymn texts projected on the screen so that we may sing along. The Presbyterian Church USA has indicated that it was OK to have communion at home, and we did on Palm Sunday and Maundy Thursday.

The Good Friday worship service was the scripture readings traditionally referred to as “the last seven words.” Additional readings from Psalms, the Gospels, and the epistles expanded on the message. The readings were separated by sung responses from the Taizé Community, a Christian community in France known for its contemplative, meditative music. The service concluded with music, and we were invited to ponder Jesus’ death before departing in silence.

Easter?

And now we’re in the resurrection mode. Funny thing, though. Instead of passing on chocolate for Lent, we had given up hugs and handshakes and even face-to-face contact. On the other hand, Lent isn’t all about refraining from, but taking on. We’re taking on “an abundance of caution” and handmade masks. We work from home, or in perilous conditions if we’re working at all.

And Easter doesn’t change that. Not yet.

Still, we celebrate Easter Worship Service today. The Hallelujahs may be live streaming on Facebook – my church’s service is at 10 a.m. EDT – but I hold onto hope. I must, for my own sake. Being part of a community, even one I only “see” because of the zeroes and ones on my computer screen, is still a blessing.

Handel: Worthy Is the Lamb

Blessing and honor

If you had asked me earlier this year if I had ever sung Worthy Is the Lamb That Was Slain I would have said no. This is why I don’t trust my memory.

There’s a gentleman named Don Ingram who played organ. For his 70th birthday, he conducted a 2002 performance of the entire Messiah. I found the program I recently found in MY Messiah score. Doesn’t EVERYONE have a Messiah score? It sits on the shelf right next to my Mozart Requiem score, naturally.

Messiah was composed in 1741 by George Frideric Handel, and first performed in Dublin on 13 April 1742. It received “its London premiere nearly a year later. After an initially modest public reception, the oratorio gained in popularity, eventually becoming one of the best-known and most frequently performed choral works in Western music.”

The choruses for the first part of the Messiah I’ve sung several times. It’s often performed during Advent, that period just before Christmas. That includes And the Glory of the Lord, And He Shall Purify the Sons of Levi, For Unto Us a Child is Born, and Glory to God in the Highest. The first I’ve likely sung the most.

The second section addresses the Lent to Easter period. Behold the Lamb of God, Surely He Hath Borne Our Griefs and Carried Our Sorrows, and All We Like Sheep Have Gone Astray I’ve performed a few times, but there are other pieces less familiar to me.

But THE most familiar piece in the whole work is in that section. Hallelujah I’ve sung almost every Easter morning for decades.

Part the third

Part 3 is sometimes performed in that period between Easter and Pentecost. Since by Man Came Death I’ve sung a bit. But less so for Thanks Be to God.

If it had not been for the shutdown, I would be singing Worthy Is the Lamb That Was Slain/Amen tomorrow. I find it inspirational. And the final cadence of the Amen is even emotional. I find lots of final phrases in familiar classical music make me verklempt.

Listen to Mormon Tabernacle Choir

Hallelujah chorus.

Since by Man Came Death.

But Thanks Be to God.

Worthy Is the Lamb That Was Slain/Amen.

Also:

Handel Messiah Part 3 – Octopus Symphony Chorus.

Handel Messiah, complete – London Philharmonic.