First, I want to note that Lydia had her surgery yesterday. It went fine, technically. Obviously, more on this soon. Thank you very much for your support. It does cut into blogging time, though, so I’ll be brief.
An important holiday. But then you knew that, didn’t you?
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You may have noticed some slight changes in this blog. That’s because I’ve finally switched to the new Blogger, powered by that gorilla of search, Google. It allows for an easier way to indicate labels. It also allows me to edit every post I’ve ever done (some 800), rather than the last 300. I probably won’t spend a lot of time on retrospective stuff, but each day I post, I may add tags on an old post or two, so that in a couple years, I’ll have tagged the whole thing. Or not.
I knew that the way I did the transition would throw out the categories of bloggers I visit, because I had done the same transition on the Friends of the Albany Public Library site. (BTW, if you’re in Albany, vote Yes on the school and library issues, Tuesday, February 6, from noon until 9 pm.)
However, since the links needed to be revisited anyway – add some, delete some – I’m OK with the chaos, for the short term. Think of the blog as having one of those annoying Man at Work signs on it. Some guy in overalls from Buffalo is musing about his move to the new Blogger.
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Philip Glass, the big magilla of minimalist music, turns 70 today. I had a girlfriend who HATED his music, and when we broke up, I went on a Philip Glass marathon – not recommended. My favorite Glass recording is this one.
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Former guerrila (!) leader Fidel Castro’s dying and Miami’s throwing a party. Seems unseemly, somehow.
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Governor Spitzer, the big gorilla politically around here, releases the budget today. Let’s see if he keeps those high approval ratings.
Sheldon Silver, the powerful Speaker of the state Assembly, has been like a petulant child, because none of the three finalists to become Comptroller (replacing Alan Hevesi, who resigned because of the “Driving Mrs. Hevesi” scandal) is an Assembly member. A committee interviewed 18 candidates, including five Assembly members. Frankly, picking a legislator would have been business as usual, and “business as usual” in Albany has been dysfunctional as long as I can remember. Let it go, Shelly.
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Get that tobacco monkey off your back. NYS specific, but with some useful data for all.
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Baseball player Tony Suck, who played as though he were wearing a gorilla suit, based on the stats from his brief career.
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Finally, Dennis the Menace – “Gorilla Warfare”
Category: Lydia
The Lydster, Part 34: The Curse of the Purple Dinosaur
I think my in-laws hate me.
First, one set of them bought this singing rabbit and chick for Lydia’s last birthday (singing “Easter Goodies” to the tune of Rockin’ Robin”), then the spinning, singing snowman doing the Springsteenesque “Santa Claus is Coming to Town”, which Lydia played over and over and over…
…and over and over and over…
but now another set of them has provided the Barney DVD, which Lydia is fully entranced by. I don’t remember the name of the disc, and I’m too lazy to check it, but it’s a game between those smaller characters, Baby Bop and BJ. BJ wants to be a rock ‘n’ roll star, Miss Muffet only PRETENDS to fear the spider, and blah, blah, blah. Lydia is enthralled, and I am appalled.
Actually, my Barney emnity really predates Lydia. My niece Alex, when she was 3-5, was Barney crazy. I asked my folks what to get her for Christmas, and they said, “Something with Barney”. But Alex had Barney bedding, Barney lights, Barney EVERYTHING. What could I get her that she didn’t already have? So I declined, and felt some disappointment, not from Alex, but from my parents. Feh.
Anyway, the irony is that Lydia’s disc is not tracking correctly, and I may have to get her a replacement copy. Instant karma IS gonna get you.
Lydia’s going to have her adenoidectomy in the next week. She’s passed her pre-surgery physical. We’ve gotten her books about the hospital, a doctor’s kit that has a stethoscope, thermometer, and whatnot, to try to prepare her. Wish us all the best.
Happy 2 5/6, Lydia! Love from daddy.
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Oh, I went here and realized I needed another title. Since Lydia has had earaches, this one seems to fit.
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My Peculiar Aristocratic Title is: The Very Reverend Roger the Free of Lardle St. Earache Get your Peculiar Aristocratic Title |
Romeo, Romeo
Carol, Lydia, and I sojourned down to the Mid-Hudson valley a couple hours south of Albany for the weekend.
FRIDAY- If you’ve read the column at Frez Sez for August 9 – complete with (shudder), photographs (or should that be (shutter)?), you will already know what the first stop was: visiting Fred Hembeck and Lynn Moss! Given the fact that I have mentioned Fred in this blog any number of times, I may have failed to say that I probably haven’t SEEN him in the flesh since…well, I don’t know. I MAY have run into him at Midnight Comics in 1992, but even that would have been 13 years ago. And it was probably much longer.
Lynn, I’m almost certain that I haven’t seen since my FantaCo days, and that was 1988. If she wasn’t at the FantaCon that year, it might have even been 1983, the previous FantaCon and the year after they moved from Troy to the Mid-Hudson.
Of course, they haven’t met Carol or Lydia.
We arrived in the mid-afternoon (our goal was earlier, but ever since we had a child, we are, inexplicably, ALWAYS LATE.) We got to meet the famous Julie, one of the stars of Fred’s column Fred Sez. She’s bright and pleasant and a talented artist; the source of these skills is a puzzlement. (Kidding, Fred!) Unfortunately, MY child, Lydia, proceeded to move some things around, such as some models for some still life; I hope Julie forgives.
Lydia was infinitely interested in the bunny Romeo. She’s never seen such a creature, so she thoroughly enjoyed petting the rabbit.
I should note that a couple days before, I get this lengthy e-mail from Fred describing the disarray of his abode. It was not as bad as he made it sound, and was a lot neater than places I lived pre-Carol. It was, as someone I knew called it, “lived in,” particularly the area where Fred creates his artistic magic. I recognized some of the comics pulled out for his recent writings (Dr. Graves, Little Dot).
Early on, Carol and Lynn discover that Lynn knows Carol’s brother Dan from work!
As Fred wrote, one of the peculiar aspects of parts of the conversation was that I would say something, and often Fred and/or Lynn would say, “Oh, yeah, you mentioned that in your blog.” Fred would make a comment and I’d cite Fred’s even longer body of electronic musings. Fortunately, we DID have things to talk about that we hadn’t written about, and since Carol doesn’t often read my blog and I doubt EVER reads Fred’s (sorry, guy), it was all new to her.
Since Fred and Lynn have a nearly 15-year old (birthday the same month as Michael Jackson, her former musical hero – now she’s into Pink Floyd), the house isn’t what you called babyproof, so Carol & I took turns chasing around Lydia lest she tumble down the couple steps into the living room or den. Lydia seemed to love going around and around and around…
Fred dropped off Julie at a friend’s house. Later we had a lovely lasagna dinner prepared by Lynn. Afterwards, the storm that had come through passed and we went into the pool.
My favorite conversation with Fred took place then. It was a lot of pop culture references for which we could use verbal shorthand. In fact, the BEST part was when we discussed…oh, wait, I can’t talk about THAT. Fred is going to use it for his blog! It has to do with entertainment, but not comic books.
Then I got to go to THE BASEMENT, where rows of comics and comic-related material resided, some stacked quite neatly. But the man needs more shelves!
We had a wonderful time but needed to leave to go to our hotel room near Poughkeepsie and put the child to bed.
SATURDAY: We went to a swimming party at Darla’s in Pleasant Valley. This was a group of old friends, some of which I’d known since college, and the rest were connected to my college buds. Lydia was fascinated by the cat, also named Romeo, but the feline just ran away. Lots of good food. A mellow time.
SUNDAY: We left the hotel and drove over to my college town of New Paltz. Well, the place has a NP mailing address, but is actually closer to Rifton. In any case, I visited my friends Mark and Paula. They were at the party yesterday but arrived late, and we didn’t have much of a chance to talk with them then. Mark is one of the few people I can tell you the date I met him: September 12, 1971, the first day of college. We’ve been friends ever since. He’s the one who got me into comic books. Paula is his high school sweetheart. They went their separate ways after high school, but got back together in the early 1990s and got married. They have a 10-year old daughter Adrienne.
We had lunch, and the talk old friends have. I nagged Mark into seriously thinking about a blog (he’s a lot more opinionated than I), and suggested possible topics for it.
We drove home, happy to have experienced the trip, and happy to be home (except that, apparently, the power had gone out AGAIN…)
The Lydster, Part 16 "In My Own Little Corner"
I was a big fan of the 1966 television production of “Rogers and Hammerstein’s Cinderella”. It starred Lesley Ann Warren and Stuart Damon. I loved the songs, even the goofy ones like “The Prince is Giving a Ball.”
Herald: His royal highness Christopher Rupert Vwindemier Vlandamier Carl Alexander Francois Reginald Lancelot Herman
Boy: HERMAN?
Herald: Herman.. Gregory James is giving a ball.
I think I liked the production in large part because I had a great big crush on Lesley Ann Warren.
(There was a 1957 version with Julie Andrews and Jon Cypher, which I don’t remember, although it may have been seen by more people than the M*A*S*H finale.)
Both versions features Cinderella singing “In My Own Little Corner”:
In my own little corner in my own little chair
I can be whatever I want to be.
On the wings of my fancy I can fly anywhere
and the world will open its arms to me.
There were times when I was a teenager, and even a few times as an adult, when I’d be at a party and feel suddenly overwhelmed- by too many people, or by some uncomfortable situation, or for no discernable reason at all. I’d go off to an unoccupied room, even the attic or cellar, or an unused stairwell, just to get away for a while, my version of “my own little corner.”
Daughter Lydia likes hanging out in corners, between the CD cases, in the bathroom, under the sink (which no longer has anything under it.) Sometimes she gets into hiding in the smallest spaces, then gets trapped, like cat stuck in a tree, and needs to be rescued.
I want for her to be whatever she wants to be. I want her to be able to fly anywhere. I desparately want the world to open its arms to her, though I know that won’t always happen, and that she’ll want to climb back into her own little corner.
I need to learn how to make her safe enough to venture out again, if I can. Like last week, when she went into a swimming pool for the very first time, and liked it…at least the top two steps.
Happy year and a third, Lydia.
RM3
More Random Meanderings (or Random Mutterings or Ruminating Madness or Roger’s Minutae):
This is my blogger code: B1 d- t- k+ s– u– f+ i o x- e- l c–
For a translation, go here.
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Someone showed me what you can do with a Windows keyboard. (Besides throw it out the window.) When you press the Windows key (between Ctrl and Alt) and M, it minimizes all the windows you may have opened! Maybe you knew that already, but it’s come in handy for me when I have eight windows open and I can’t see what I’m doing anymore.
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I set up another blog to put articles I think are interesting, but that aren’t mine. Here’s the first post about oil running out, with commentary by my acerbic bud, Daniel W. Van Riper. When the U.S. first went into Iraq, there was a widespread fear that oil may have been a motive. Reading this reminded me of that discussion.
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When I take Lydia for a walk in her carriage, and dog walkers approach, they almost always say that the dog “is friendly” or “doesn’t bite”. Please allow me the privilege of being a little bit wary anyway.
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My friend Claudia writes: “Guess no more what the film of the summer is. LADIES IN LAVENDER with Dame Judith Dench and Maggie Smith was a visual feast of beautiful England, enchanting story, complete with the mastery of Joshua Bell. We just adored every moment of English country side, the crashing ocean, melding personal stories. In other words it is delicious and enjoy every moment of it.” I haven’t seen it, but she generally has very good taste.
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John Rodat has a Myth America columm about Buddhist monks and moving that I related to heavily, and you collector types may as well. If it ain’t there anymore, it’s here.
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I was on the bus home a couple weeks ago when I see a guy get on. He was very striking young man, very fair skin, head shaved, oddly shaped glasses. He was wearing a black T-shirt that read in white letters, “Day of Silence.” I might have thought nothing more about this, except that he had pulled out a cell phone almost immediately after he had gotten on the bus. So, my eyes HAD to follow him to the back of the bus, where he sat, silently, playing some sort of electronic game.
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This is one of those a/v pieces that is funny and scary in equal measure. It appears that the Opus Sunday strip a couple weeks ago was inspired by this concept.
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I shaved my beard on July 4. People seeing me the next couple days often commented, “Oh, you look so much younger!” as though that would prompt me to shave more often. Not a chance. Razor is brutal tool to use on face. I did it once because I was hot. However, even when I’m done shaving, I have a 5 o’clock shadow of Nixonian proportions, and impenetrable stubble on the jaw line. Besides, I’m contrarian enough to wonder why it’s so hot to look “younger”. There’s a mindset, epitomized by those inane Clyde Frazier/Keith Hernandez Just for Men hair coloring ads, that gray is bad. Gray is good; “gray matter” represents the brain, after all.