ABC Wednesday Archives - Page 18 of 91

Z is for Zest: energy, flavoring

The question is whether they’ve taken the musical stew and found the zest to make it it innovative.,

Zest is a noun meaning “great enthusiasm and energy”. It’s also a verb: “scrape off the outer colored part of the peel of (a piece of citrus fruit) for use as flavoring.”

I was thinking about that when I read this from Ken Levine’s blog, sitcoms could be better. Larry Gelbart, chief writer of the TV show MASH, explained to Carol Burnett that current writers “never played stickball,” that their references are usually other sitcoms and pop culture.

While I mostly agree, I think that in virtually all the arts have always ~~stealing~~ borrowing from what came before. The renowned classical composers such as J.S. Bach were notorious for this.

The question is: how innovative is the borrowing?

When my wife and I went to the Albany Symphony Orchestra in November 2017, we heard The Sorcerer’s Apprentice by Dukas. Naturally thought of the Mickey Mouse segment in the 1940 film Fantasia. The story line of the cartoon is a rather strict retelling of the 1797 Goethe poem. Yet it’s a classic.

Jazz musicians recreate standard tunes. The early rock and rollers purloined blues, country, jazz and more. Cover artists, when they do it right, can replace the original in the minds of the audience.

The Beatles were notorious thieves: a Bach bit in Penny Lane, Fats Domino in Lady Madonna, Little Richard in I’m Down. And on Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, they stole from everyday life: a child’s drawing (Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds), an old circus poster (Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite), a meter maid (Lovely Rita). The question is whether they’ve taken the musical stew and found the zest to make it it innovative, or is it just derivative? Usually, it was the former.

One of the pop songs that most irritated me is Susan by the Buckinghams, a #11 song on the US charts in 1968. It is a rather ordinary, even bland tune. But Sgt. Pepper had come out, so it was decided by some producer to throw in, for no discernible musical reason, a weird A Day in the Life-inspired orchestration in the middle that just wasn’t earned.

How you make what’s old, new, whether in sitcom writing or music, is zest.

Listen to:

The Sorcerer’s Apprentice – Dukas; Leonard Bernstein conducts the New York Philharmonic

A Day In The Life – The Beatles

Susan -The Buckinghams

For ABC Wednesday

Y is for the year 2018 (ABCW)

Mars will make its closest approach to Earth since 2003.

2017 was so …interesting that I’m actually looking forward to 2018. The number, of course is not prime, obviously divisible by 2, but 1009 IS a prime number.

This coming February 9th through 25th, the Winter Olympics are scheduled to be held in Pyeongchang, South Korea. This will be very interesting for a couple reasons: the ongoing belligerence between the United States and North Korea which we HOPE doesn’t lead to all-out war; and Russia being banned from the Games because of a doping scandal, though some of their athletes may compete under the Olympic flag.

On April 4–15, the Commonwealth Games are scheduled to be held on the Gold Coast, Queensland, Australia. Seventy countries will compete in athletics, badminton, boxing, hockey, lawn bowls, netball (for women), rugby sevens, squash, swimming, weightlifting and more. Sounds exciting, and less controversial.

The FIFA World Cup is scheduled to be held in Russia, mostly west of the Urals, June 14 – July 15. Unfortunately, the US did not make the cut.

On June 24, Saudi Arabia will allow women to drive. RADICAL!

Mars will make its closest approach to Earth since 2003 on July 27.

In the United States, about a third of the 100 US Senators (upper house) and all 435 members are up for reelection in November. There’s no secret that incumbents do quite well generally. Still, the changing political terrain has CNN dubbing 2018 the year of women; I’ve heard that before, but next year, it MAY actually come true.

Ericsson has identified 10 Hot Consumer Trends for the upcoming year, among them, Your body is the user interface and Augmented hearing.

Pinterest has also weighed in with The top trends to try in 2018. For instance, Food: Healthy meets tasty. Good to know.

Inc has sought 22 Predictions for 2018. Some of them seem to contradict each other. “The artificial intelligence (AI) hype bubble will burst.” “Artificial intelligence (AI) will drive smart video meetings.”

Hope your 2018 is grand.

For ABC Wednesday

Xmas: St. Nicolas Day to Russian Christmas

“Reverend Roger Green said the event is one of his favorite parts of the job.”

In a recent sermon, one of my pastors noted that he had received a circular for holiday shopping in September of this year. He promptly threw it into the recycling bin. That would have bugged me too.

A friend of mine posted on Facebook on November 16 that a certain local radio station was already playing Christmas music. I commented, “Thanks for the warning. Will avoid.”

On December 6, though, I started playing at least parts of my now vast collection of holiday CDs. It’s because it’s St. Nicholas Day in parts of Europe.

And I keeping playing it until January 6. After all there are 12 days of Christmas. It’ll be Three Kings Day in places like Puerto Rico, and Christmas in the Eastern Orthodox church. Since I grew up in a largely Slavic neighborhood in Binghamton, NY, most people called it “Russian Christmas.”

I should note, however, that there are seasonal things I do enjoy even in November. Arthur’s array of ads from New Zealand and the UK don’t irritate me as much as the American-made versions, maybe because they’re generally so well crafted. Or perhaps I just find them quaint. Here are some more ads.

Advent: Hearing God in a Female Voice

Ha! An article about having a “Stress-free” holiday included such wisdom as “You don’t have to make everything from scratch.” Good to know, but that wasn’t happening anyway.

Do you wish “Merry Christmas” to a rabbi?

This caught my attention in a positive light, though it’s happening throughout the year: Alexandria [Louisiana] church holds community feeding day. “Reverend Roger Green said the event is one of his favorite parts of the job.” No relation to me, as far as I know.

Now I Know: The Forgotten History of Jingle Bells

JOKES!
Where did Frosty put his money?
In the snow bank. All his assets were frozen!

What is Santa’s favorite sweater?
His Fleece Navidad

Seasons Greetings

For ABC Wednesday

Why W and K for US radio and TV stations?

“It was only in late January, 1923 that the K/W boundary was shifted east to the current boundary of the Mississippi River.”

One of those mundane questions I’ve long wondered about, but never bothered to look up, is why virtually all the radio and television stations in the US start with either the letter W or K.

From Primer Magazine: “In 1912, several countries attended a conference centered on the subject of ‘International Radiotelegraphs.’ One of the biggest things to come out of this gathering was the assignment of certain letters to certain countries, to identify their radio signals – America was given W, K, N, and A (fun fact: Canada got ‘C’ and Mexico got ‘X’).”

But why those particular letters in the US has seemingly been lost. (A for America?)

“While N and A were chosen for American military radio stations, W and K were designated specifically for commercial use. Stations were allowed to choose the letters that followed the K or the W, and the combination was allowed to be three or four letters in length.”

Initially, the K stations were to the east and the W stations were to the west. Thus one can find early radio stations such as KDKA out of Pittsburgh, PA, established in 1920. By 1926, the Federal Communications Commission codified the idea of having four letters, but stations with three didn’t need to change.

From Early Radio History:

“The original K/W boundary ran north from the Texas-New Mexico border, so at first stations along the Gulf of Mexico and northward were assigned W calls. It was only in late January, 1923 that the K/W boundary was shifted east to the current boundary of the Mississippi River. With this change, K’s were assigned to most new stations west of the Mississippi; however, existing W stations located west of the Mississippi were allowed to keep their now non-standard calls.”

This page has more information on the topic than most mortals would want to know, such as the K/W exceptions and other trivia. For instance, some break the rules by owner requests -examples: WACO in Waco, Texas; WMT (Waterloo [Iowa] Morning Tribune). The page was compiled on 1 January 2017, so it’s quite recent.

For ABC Wednesday

V is for Victory blindness (ABCW)

The battle against bigotry and inequality continues.

ANDI MACK – Disney Channel’s “Andi Mack” stars Sofia Wylie as Buffy, Joshua Rush as Cyrus, Peyton Elizabeth Lee as Andi and Asher Angel as Jonah. (Disney Channel/Craig Sjodiin)

In any civil rights struggle, it is natural to want to celebrate the victories, the accomplishments. Yet when I first heard writer Michelangelo Signorile talk about “victory blindness,” probably on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, I knew immediately that it was fundamentally true, and not just with regard to LGBTQ justice.

In this 2015 HuffPo interview, Mike says, “Victory blindness is …a term I use to describe the phenomenon in which we focus on the wins, so starved for validation, that we allow them to blind us to the continued bigotry we face. We become enthralled, intoxicated — spellbound by even a little bit. The effect is that it obscures our reality — literally our vision — and it makes us lose our gumption, not wanting to rock the boat, fearful that we’ll lose what we’ve gained and not get what little bit we think we need, when in fact we need a lot and we should be strong and confident knowing our allies will stay with us.”

I would add that engaging in victory blindness often leads to great surprise and disappointment when there is the inevitable backlash. Signorile was speaking specifically about LGBTQ rights. After the victory of marriage equality being confirmed by the Supreme Court comes a county clerk in Kentucky who refuses to issue some marriage licenses, e.g.

More recently, the US attorney general was asked if federal workers blatantly discriminate against LGBTQ people. Jeff Sessions wasn’t sure.

I think America suffered victory blindness in another arena, BIG TIME, when it elected Barack Obama. Racism is solved! We’re in a “post-racial” society! That did not quite turn out to be the case.

I suspect that the optimism following the November 2017 not-evil election results won’t lead to overconfidence. The battle against bigotry and inequality continues. Perhaps November 8 will, in someone’s words, empower and excite, not satisfy and placate.

Still, I was oddly pleased to see the so-called One Million Moms announce a Disney boycott over a gay character. My family happens to watch Andi Mack regularly, and the one boy’s feeling of jealousy that his male friend is interested in the girl who’s the title character rather than himself is just a small part of the texture of the series. The boycott seems to have had little impact on the enthusiastic fan base of the program.

For ABC Wednesday