Here is a photo of our handsome older brother (on the right) with his dreamy best bud Tom at our parent’s home back in 1980. Written on the back of the snapshot is Oct. 18, 1980 which means it was taken on the evening following the wedding of the OM and yours truly. Everyone was relaxing and the bride and groom had left the scene.
Good times. I wonder what they were playing?
P.S. The BB (big brother) is the same age here as the boy is today.
Tradition says we must play 1980s 45s and dance at Christmastime. Who are we to mess with tradition?
Advent is here, can you believe it?
This lovely long weekend I celebrated Thanksgiving with the boy’s in-laws, went to a “Rock N Roll” craft fair in terra incognita, “shopped local” and online, bought my evergreen wreath from the local Boy Scout troop, and got out all my Christmas decorations. I also got some decorations up, but I have a long way to go. The boy came over for his birthday dinner (honey mustard chicken) and put up our outside Christmas lights–yay!
I went to church–Advent I–and we were warned:
“And there will be signs in sun and moon and stars, and upon the earth distress of nations in perplexity at the roaring of the sea and the waves, 26 men fainting with fear and with foreboding of what is coming on the world; for the powers of the heavens will be shaken. 27 And then they will see the Son of man coming in a cloud with power and great glory. 28 Now when these things begin to take place, look up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near.”
We didn’t sing this hymn, but I wish we had. You go, Charles Wesley!
And now–back to the salt mines.
Okay, get this–today is Neil Young’s birthday
and he is seventy years old!
Well, the fact that he is old, makes me feel old. Zut alors, look at how the time goes past!*
Harvest, you will recall, was the #1 best-selling album in the U.S. in 1972 when I was in the 10th grade. Even I owned it, which is saying something.
So cut me some slack.
Happy birthday, Neil. You’re kind of a tool and a preachy one at that, but I’ll toast you tonight anyway and your survival to the ripe old age of 70.
*Clever inclusion of NY lyric
I went to see The Yeoman of the Guard by Gilbert & Sullivan on Friday night.
The scene of this opera is laid within the precincts of the Tower of London, in the period of the 16th Century.
Admittedly, it was not the D’Oly Carte Opera Company, but I thought our local Winter Opera company was really quite wonderful.
My mother was a fan of Yeoman and we had the record.
I think she liked it because it is the only W&S opera with kind of a sad ending. She could always relate to the fool/jester character in anything and there is a stellar one in Yeoman.
Anyway, I dragged the OM and the boy along (daughter #3 was otherwise engaged) and they enjoyed it also. We were all proud of ourselves for getting out and participating in a cultural activity.
It reminded me of the time back in 1964 when my mother bought tickets to see the actual D’Oyly Carte Company perform The Mikado. She took my brother and me. I was in the second grade, but she thought I was old enough to enjoy/appreciate this opportunity. (She may have over-estimated me.) Anyway, my father took my little sister (who was not old enough to enjoy/appreciate light opera) to see It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World. Ironically this film was on TCM last week and I DVR’d it and then watched it this weekend. It features literally every American comedian (plus Terry-Thomas) alive in 1963. It is overly long and drags some, but it does have its moments. Jonathan Winters is great and the scene in the gas station with Arnold Stang and Marvin Kaplan is priceless. There is a lot of yelling in this movie.
Speaking of movies, I also watched From Hell (2001) on Halloween and, despite the presence of Johnny Depp, I thought it was dreadful. Apologies for recommending it on Friday!
Sunday, as you know, was All Saints Day and we had an interminably long service complete with a children’s sermon dissecting the hymn The Saints of God. Oh, did I mention it was also pledge Sunday? Well, it was. On top of this, the woman sitting behind me was a beat behind or a beat ahead during every prayer and every hymn to the point where I was ready to slap her and slap her hard. I hate feeling that way in church.
And now it is November and the long slide to Christmas begins. Deo gratias.
Enjoy your Monday!
Point. I have a song to sing, O!
Elsie. Sing me your song, O!
Point. It is sung to the moon
By a love-lorn loon,
Who fled from the mocking throng,O!
It’s the song of a merryman, moping mum,
Whose soul was sad, and whose glance was glum,
Who sipped no sup, and who craved no crumb.
As he sighed for the love of a ladye.
Heighdy! heighdy! Misery me, lackadaydee!
He sipped no sup, and he craved no crumb,
As he sighed for the love of a ladye.
–Yeoman of the Guard
Hymn #287
Yesterday daughter #1 rode in from NYC for a little flyover R&R.
This time she will not be running in a half marathon but recovering from one she ran two weeks ago on Staten Island. ‘Taking it easy’ will be the byword for the weekend.
(Aren’t those white Keds the cutest things ever?)
I must also note that today is the birthday of my distant cousin, Dwight Yoakam!
Old Dwight (who is my age) has had quite a career. Fifteen-time Grammy nominee and three-time winner, his music career has been stellar indeed. But he must be congratulated for doing a great job of transitioning from country music heart-throb to “character actor.”
Would that we could all do it as gracefully.
Happy birthday, Dwight! We’ll be toasting you big time tonight!
Back on July 2 I failed to note that “three prophetic witnesses” were recognized with a feast day on the Episcopal calendar. They are Walter Rauschenbusch, Washington Gladden and Jacob Riis.
Washington Gladden (February 11, 1836 – July 2, 1918) you will recall, was a Congregational minister and early leader in the Social Gospel movement, whose ministry “was dedicated to the realization of the Kingdom of God in this world. Gladden was the acting religious editor of the New York Independent, in which he exposed corruption in the New York political system. Gladden was the first American clergyman to approve of and support labor unions. In his capacity as Vice President of the American Missionary Association, he traveled to Atlanta where he met W.E.B. Dubois and he became an early opponent of segregation.” (Standing Commission on Liturgy and Music)
He was also a graduate of Williams College, class of 1859.
While at Williams, Gladden wrote its alma mater song, “The Mountains.”
“I had been wishing that I might write a song which could be sung at some of our exhibitions,” wrote Gladden in his memoirs, “and one winter morning, walking down Bee Hill, the lilt of the chorus of “The Mountains” came to me. I had a little music-paper in my room in the village, and on my arrival I wrote down the notes. Then I cast about for words to fit them, and the refrain ‘The Mountains, the Mountains!’ suggested itself. I wrote the melody of the stanza next and fitted the verses to it. . . . That it would . . . become the accepted College Song, I could not, of course, have imagined.”
The Mountains
O, proudly rise the monarchs of our mountain land,
With their kingly forest robes, to the sky,
Where Alma Mater dwelleth with her chosen band,
And the peaceful river floweth gently by.CHORUS
The mountains! the mountains! we greet them with a song,
Whose echoes rebounding their woodland heights along,
Shall mingle with anthems that winds and fountains sing.
Till hill and valley gaily, gaily ring.Beneath their peaceful shadows may old Williams stand,
Till suns and mountains nevermore shall be,
The glory and the honor of our mountain land,
And the dwelling of the gallant and the free.
I have fond memories of singing this rousing song while a student there in the mid-1970s. Check it out:
Have a great Wednesday!
Today is Cole Porter’s birthday.
This makes me want to SING!
Oh, give me land, lots of land under starry skies above
Don’t fence me in
Let me ride through the wide open country that I love
Don’t fence me inLet me be by myself in the evenin’ breeze
And listen to the murmur of the cottonwood trees
Send me off forever but I ask you please
Don’t fence me inJust turn me loose, let me straddle my old saddle
Underneath the western skies
On my cayuse, let me wander over yonder
Till I see the mountains riseI want to ride to the ridge where the West commences
And gaze at the moon till I lose my senses
And I can’t look at hobbles and I can’t stand fences
Don’t fence me inOh, give me land, lots of land under starry skies
Don’t fence me in
Let me ride through the wide country that I love
Don’t fence me in
Why this song comes to mind and not one of a dozen more sophisticated ones–well, that’s just moi I guess. Love those internal rhymes!
It also makes me want to roadtrip to Peru, Indiana!
Seven Pillars natural rock formation in Miami County
Peru, you will recall, is where Porter was born and raised. It is the county seat of Miami County and is located on the Wabash River. Among its many claims to fame is the fact that Public Enemy John Dillinger robbed the Peru police department armory in 1933. And did you know that Peru was the winter headquarters for several famous circuses, including Ringling Brothers, Hagenbeck-Wallace, Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show, and others? That is why for years it was called “The Circus Capital of the World.”
But you know Cole Porter is definitely the most famous son of Peru. His maternal grandfather was James Omar “J. O.” Cole, “the richest man in Indiana,” and he had plans for his grandson. Young Cole was sent to Worcester Academy, funnily enough, and it is reported that he brought an upright piano with him. This helped him win friends; he was always the life of the party. Although he seldom returned to Peru after going off to school, he is buried there in the Cole/Porter family plot.
Are these the strangest headstones ever?
So a toast to Cole Porter! And you can listen to old blue eyes while you do.
*Cole Porter, who else?
Here’s more pictures of that wonderful home overlooking the Missouri River that I covet. And another lottery ticket to purchase I guess.
Not that I buy lottery tickets. You know I don’t approve.
Here’s something fun to do this summer. TCM is collaborating with Ball State University and Canvas Network, an open online educational platform from Instructure, to present Into the Darkness: Investigating Film Noir, a free online multimedia course open to the general public.
Burt and Ava in The Killers (1946)
Film Noir isn’t really my thing, but they are showing some good movies in July.
This is a really good album. And Fred Vargas has a new book coming out Tuesday. Life is good.
Have a good Thursday! Take time to smell the flowers!
*”To the Work” by Frances J. Crosby
Nothing is so beautiful as Spring –
When weeds, in wheels, shoot long and lovely and lush;
Thrush’s eggs look little low heavens, and thrush
Through the echoing timber does so rinse and wring
The ear, it strikes like lightnings to hear him sing;
The glassy peartree leaves and blooms, they brush
The descending blue; that blue is all in a rush
With richness; the racing lambs too have fair their fling.
What is all this juice and all this joy?
A strain of the earth’s sweet being in the beginning
In Eden garden. – Have, get, before it cloy,
Before it cloud, Christ, lord, and sour with sinning,
Innocent mind and Mayday in girl and boy,
Most, O maid’s child, thy choice and worthy the winning.
“Spring” by Gerard Manley Hopkins
A friend at work brought this poem to my attention by stopping by my office and quoting, “What is all this juice and all this joy?” He was alluding to the beautiful spring day of course. We have certainly enjoyed an exceptionally beautiful spring with long strings of crisp, clear days in the high 60s. Carpe diem, I say–but I am glued to a desk. Sigh.
Anyway, it is also the birthday today of Sir Thomas Beecham (29 April 1879 – 8 March 1961) who, you will recall, was an English conductor and impresario best known for his association with the London Philharmonic and the Royal Philharmonic orchestras.
From the early 20th century until his death, Beecham was a major influence on the musical life of Britain and, according to the BBC, was Britain’s first international conductor. If you are like me and my dual personality, you were brought up on Sir Thomas Beecham’s recordings. True, some may have considered him low-brow for saying things like, “I would give the whole of Bach’s Brandenburg Concertos for Massenet’s Manon, and would think I had vastly profited by the exchange.” But I can’t say I disagree with him.
I remember in particular an LP titled “Beecham Bon-Bons” which included popular favorites by Faure, Delius, Sibelius, Ralph Vaughan Williams and the like.
I wiled away many an hour with Beecham’s music in the background. So a toast to Sir Thomas Beecham! And I think I’ll look him up on eBay and see what I can find.
Beecham’s grave in Surrey
By the way, the painting at the top of the page is by St. Louis artist Frank Nudercher (July 19, 1880 – October 7, 1959)–“Spring Landscape” in the St. Louis Mercantile Library collection. Nudercher is sometimes referred to as the “dean of St. Louis artists.” You can read about him here.
dual personalities 