dual personalities

Tag: music

April 19, 2024

Newer every day*

by chuckofish

TGIF. It has been a stressful week for this old retired lady. I have had a lot to do, on top of our ongoing street renovation stress.

So I am going to channel Katie’s vibe this weekend and chill as much as possible.

However, we do have a birthday to celebrate (mine) amidst other distractions.

I had my last bible study meeting of the “semester” yesterday–we finished part one (chapters 1-13) of Matthew. I really enjoy this group of old and young ladies who take their prayer work seriously and study very hard. We had a nice potluck salad lunch afterwards. Indeed, I feel very blessed to be in this group. I am grateful that God has been so patient with me over the years and that he has put me in this good place.

This is a wonderful story from the book God’s Smuggler about Christians communicating. I have heard of this book, but have not read it. I will soon.

And did you see that an elephant escaped from a circus in Butte, Montana this week and ran through town? The trainer managed to get her under control and there was no need for law enforcement intervention. I guess people in Montana take such things in stride.

So happy birthday to me and here’s to another trip around the sun!

*Emily Dickinson, “We turn not older with years, but newer every day.” (from a letter to a cousin, 1874

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April 2, 2024

Day by day

by chuckofish

It’s April again! Woowee, I can hardly believe it. It came in like a lion–stormy!

I spent yesterday getting the house back in semi-order after our busy and fun-filled weekend. Laundry, dishes, toys.

Just the usual.

I had DVR’d Godspell (1973) when it was on TCM on Easter and I watched about 20 minutes of it. It is of an era, for sure, but it is pretty unwatchable I’m afraid.

Is that Grant’s Tomb?

I remember in high school the choir from another school came and sang selections of it in chapel and I thought hearing the words to old Anglican hymns sung to sultry tunes was pretty cool. (Turn back, oh man! Forswear thy foolish ways!) The whole thing is really kind of high school quality though. Seriously I wish they had done it at KHS–the boy would have been great in it! I loved the cast album and listened to it a lot in college, but I don’t think I ever saw the whole play performed. Day By Day was a big hit. I had forgotten that DC Talk covered it in 1995.

Now you gotta love that.

It is also interesting to note that in the movie, which takes place in Manhattan, the city looks terrible–dirty, run-down. Central Park is a mess. Thankfully the park was renovated in the following decades. We are so used to seeing NYC photographed to look good, but not so in this movie. The production values are generally very low.

As is often the case, things you thought were great as a teenager do not hit you the same way years later. Thank goodness, right?

And I really liked this about a man who died in the pulpit.

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March 14, 2024

How like a prodigal

by chuckofish

–from “To the Dandelion” by James Russell Lowell, 1819-1891. Read the whole poem here.

Spring seems to have sprung, but here in flyover country we know better than to jump to any conclusions. We could have snow before the end of the month. It sure is nice, however, to sit on the patio in the seventy-degree afternoons and soak up some sunshine.

In other news, we wish Michael Martin Murphey a happy birthday.

He is 79 years old! Kudos for still touring. Here is a list of other oldsters who are still out there making music in public.

Later today daughter #1 is dropping Mr. Smith off at our house. He will be staying with us while she visits daughter #2 et al in Illinois. So please keep us in your prayers!

Ha!

Daughter #1 will no doubt enjoy spending quality time with Katie and chasing Ida around–did I mention that Ida is now walking/playing soccer? The boy says, “Get out the cones! Agility drills start now!”

We will do our best to keep Mr. Smith from stressing out.

(The painting is by Jean-Francois Millet, 1868)

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January 30, 2024

Now I ain’t too good at prayin’/But thanks for everything

by chuckofish

Well, I didn’t end up driving to Champaign-Urbana, as it turns out daughter #2’s moving truck-full of stuff won’t arrive until next week so…the best laid plans of mice and men and all that. Thank goodness they made it there safely.

Meanwhile Garden and Gun had a link to this back porch concert which introduced me to singer-songwriter Larry Fleet. I really like this song which Morgan Wallen also covered.

And this was really good.

Plus here’s a reminder. “I agree with Peter: “I think it right, as long as I am in this body, to stir you up by way of reminder” (2 Peter 1:13).”

Go in peace to love and serve the Lord.

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January 24, 2024

Fun facts to know and tell

by chuckofish

Yesterday we were able to put away the storm gear and venture outside in relatively balmy temperatures in the 40s. Hopefully this weather system will persevere through next week when daughter #3 and DN will make the Big Move to Illinois. As you can imagine, the Move looms large in their lives and three-year old Katie has a limitless supply of questions.

Well, in case you were wondering, Illinois has been a state since 1818.

It is known as the “Land of Lincoln”–an excellent slogan, as they go. Three U.S. Presidents have been elected while residents of Illinois: Abraham Lincoln, Ulysses S. Grant and Barack Obama. Ronald Reagan was born in Tampico, Illinois and raised in Dixon. He graduated from Eureka College outside Peoria where he was student body president, played football and was president of his fraternity. Although he left Illinois after college never to return, Reagan is a true son of Illinois.

Illinois is a very flat state, lying entirely in the Interior Plains. Its highest point is Charles Mound at 1,235 feet (376 m) above sea level. It is located in the Driftless Area in the northwestern part of the state. At 279 feet (85 m) above sea level, the lowest elevation point in the state is located near Cairo and the confluence of the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers.

Champaign is the 10th largest city in Illinois. Because the university and a number of well-known technology start-up companies are located there, it is often referred to as the hub, or a significant landmark, of the Silicone Prairie.

Carl Perkins and Bob Dylan joined forces in 1969 to write the song “Champaign, Illinois”, which Perkins released on his album On Top. This is a very cool, fun fact. Not many towns can say that Carl Perkins and Bob Dylan wrote a song about them.

“Yes, I certainly do enjoy Champaign, Illinois!”

My maternal grandmother was born and raised in Illinois–the Ravenswood neighborhood on the North Side of Chicago. After her mother, Anna Hough, and father, William Carnahan, were married in Colorado in 1889, they moved to Chicago where they lived thereafter and brought up their five children. They helped found the Ravenswood Baptist Church which still appears to be going strong.

The next few days are going to be a stressful time for daughter #2 and her famille as they wrap things up in Maryland and head west. I have no doubt they’ll all handle it with aplomb.

He moved away from there and dug another well, and they did not quarrel over it; so he named it Rehoboth, for he said, “At last the Lord has made room for us, and we will be fruitful in the land.” (Genesis 26:22)

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December 13, 2023

Let nothing you dismay

by chuckofish

“Oh! But he was a tight-fisted hand at the grindstone, Scrooge! a squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous, old sinner! Hard and sharp as flint, from which no steel had ever struck out generous fire; secret, and self-contained, and solitary as an oyster.”

–A Christmas Carol by Charles DIckens

Are you feeling a little like our friend Mr. Scrooge? Here’s a good message from the late, great R.C. Sproul: “Every generation has its abundance of Scrooges. The church is full of them. We hear endless complaints of commercialism. We are constantly told to put Christ back into Christmas. We hear that the tradition of Santa Claus is a sacrilege. We listen to those acquainted with history murmur that Christmas isn’t biblical…All this carping is but a modern dose of Scroogeism, our own sanctimonious profanation of the holy.”

So lighten up. Enjoy the season! Spread some cheer! Write some end-of-the-year checks to the Shriners and the Salvation Army and your local Christian radio station. Put some paper money in the red kettle at the grocery store. You’ll be glad you did.

And I hope you enjoy this rendition of God Rest Ye, Merry Gentlemen, which is one of the oldest Christmas carols, originating in 16th-century England. The earliest known printed edition was published in 1760.

God rest ye merry gentlemen
Let nothing you dismay
For Jesus Christ our Saviour
Was born on Christmas Day
To save us all from Satan’s pow’r
When we were gone astray
O tidings of comfort and joy
Comfort and joy
O tidings of comfort and joy

From God our Heavenly Father
A blessed Angel came;
And unto certain shepherds
Brought tidings of the same,
How that in Bethlehem was born
The Son of God by Name.
O tidings of comfort and joy,
Comfort and joy
O tidings of comfort and joy

The shepherds at those tidings
Rejoiced much in mind,
And left their flocks a-feeding
In tempest, storm and wind,
And went to Bethlehem straightway
The Son of God to find.
O tidings of comfort and joy,
Comfort and joy
O tidings of comfort and joy

But when to Bethlehem they came,
Whereat this infant lay,
They found Him in a manger,
Where oxen feed on hay;
His Mother Mary kneeling down,
Unto the Lord did pray.
O tidings of comfort and joy,
Comfort and joy
O tidings of comfort and joy

Now to the Lord sing praises,
All you within this place,
And with true love and brotherhood
Each other now embrace;
This holy tide of Christmas
All other doth efface.
O tidings of comfort and joy,
Comfort and joy
O tidings of comfort and joy.

4 Comments
November 14, 2023

A quiet mind

by chuckofish

Today we toast Aaron Copland (1900-1990) on his birthday. Born in Brooklyn of Lithuanian Jewish parents, he wrote some of the most deeply “American” music of the 20th century. I have loved his music since being introduced to it in childhood. Recently daughter #2 read the play “Our Town” by Thornton Wilder so here is Copland’s “Our Town Suite” which was used in the 1940 movie.

Here’s a reminder that Christians are to use their gifts to serve one another, but also that the testimony of Scripture demonstrates that “throughout redemptive history, God’s people have used their gifts not just for those within the covenant community but for others as well.”

And here’s a little reminder about the difference between Pilgrims and Puritans.

And here’s a prayer that I’ve included before, but it bears repeating:

“Give us grace and strength to forbear and to persevere. Give us courage and gaiety, and the quiet mind. Spare to us our friends, soften to us our enemies. Bless us, if it may be, in all our innocent endeavours. If it may not, give us the strength to encounter that which is to come, that we may be brave in peril, constant in tribulation, temperate in wrath, and in all changes of fortune, and down to the gates of death, loyal and loving to one another.”

(Robert Louis Stevenson)

Grace and peace to you!

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November 1, 2023

A day of small things*

by chuckofish

In the late afternoon of November 1, 1941, Ansel Adams took this black-and-white photo, “Moonrise, Hernandez, New Mexico”. Pretty cool indeed.

Also pretty cool is Lyle Lovett, and it is his birthday today! Happy Birthday, Lyle! Hats off to you–67 years old and still touring.

Today is also the anniversary of the death of Ezra Pound (1885-1972) who was a major figure in the modernist poetry movement. An indulged son of privilege, he was always somewhat “out of key with his time”–another way to say, he never fit in. I was amused to discover that his first job out of graduate school was teaching at Wabash College in Crawfordsville, Indiana, which he considered the “sixth circle of hell”. Well, la di da.

Not surprisingly, he was asked to leave Wabash shortly after starting there.

Anyway, his “legacy” is certainly a mixed one, and he is mostly remembered for his advancement of some of the best-known modernist writers of the early 20th century. All the cool kids: Eliot, Joyce, Lewis, Frost, Williams, Hemingway, H.D., Aldington, and Aiken, Cummings, Bunting, Ford, and Marianne Moore, who became one of his staunchest defenders throughout his controversial career. He lived a long life and is buried in the Protestant section of the San Michele cemetery in Venice. Supposedly Pound had wanted to be buried in Idaho (where he was born) with his bust by Henri Gaudier-Brzeska on his grave. Tant pis. He wouldn’t have fit in there either.

I would rather toast Noah Beery, Jr. who also died on this day in 1994. He was, of course, a supporting actor best known for playing James Garner’s father in The Rockford Files. However, he acted in a lot of movies, most notably as a pilot in Only Angels Have Wings (1939) and as a cowboy in Red River (1948)–both directed by Howard Hawks.

So on this first day of November, look up at the sky, listen to some good music, read a poem, watch an old movie, embrace your supporting part.

Amen.

*See Zechariah, chapter 4

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October 18, 2023

Stand by me

by chuckofish

Time marches on and it is once again the OM’s and my anniversary. As usual, we will be playing it cool and watching Shane (1953).

I feel no need to spend hundreds of dollars on a gourmet meal at a trendy restaurant. Take out from Chick-fil-a or an omelet will be just fine. I may open a bottle of wine that is fancier than our house wine, but maybe not. À chacun le sien.

O gracious and everliving God, you have created us male and female in your image: Look mercifully upon this man and this woman who come to you seeking your blessing, and assist them with your grace, that with true fidelity and steadfast love they may honor and keep the promises and vows they make; through Jesus Christ our Savior, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

–BCP, The Celebration and Blessing of a Marriage, 1979

Well, I’m an old lady now and this is with whom I identify these days. “Morals over Hussies.”

Granny: “A vegan and a vegetarian are jumping off a cliff to see who hits the bottom first.”

Boys: “Uh huh.”

Granny: “Who wins?”

Boys shrug.

Granny: “Society.”

Read more about the Didiers here.

And here’s a little something in honor of marriage.

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October 4, 2023

The swing of it

by chuckofish

Well, here we are and it’s already October 4th. September zoomed by even faster than expected.

If you like corn mazes, here is a list of super-duper ones across the country. I was disappointed not to see our local Eckert’s Millstadt Farm on the list. Everyone knows it’s the best.

Signs of Halloween are everywhere, including in my own home.

Just the other day we were discussing the fact that now that daughter #1 is a homeowner and lives in a neighborhood where there will undoubtedly be many trick-or-treaters, she will have to spend a fortune on Halloween candy. The price of candy has sky-rocketed (along with everything else)! Luckily we never get any trick-or-treaters, so as usual, I just buy Halloween candy for myself.

Well, I’m trying to get into the swing of fall…

“Let the words of my mouth, and the meditation of my heart, be acceptable in thy sight, O LORD, my strength, and my redeemer.” (Psalm 19:14)

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