Something for Thursday (Friday edition)

So this is weird. I didn't forget yesterday. I drew a blank.

Remember, I'm getting each week's selection via a music challenge that is the kind of thing you find on Twitter occasionally. So far so good for the first few weeks, but now we're up to Number Four, which is:

A Song that Reminds You
of Someone You'd Rather Forget.
See, I got nothin'. I can literally think of no one in my life (or who was ever in my life) that I'd like to simply forget. I thought about going political (that "Money Money Money" song they used as the theme for The Apprentice, before that show's host made a disastrous career change), but I wasn't in the mood for that. So, for lack of anything else, here's "Part of Your World" from The Little Mermaid. Why? Well...this friggin' movie was the featured event in two different dates I went on when I was in college, and in both instances, those dates were followed the next day by the "It's not you, it's me" speech. So...yeah. (I did eventually watch the movie with The Girlfriend, but only after we'd been dating for a year and I could be reasonably confident that its jinx effect had worn off. Which it had...either that, or it's just taking decades to work, but I really hope not.)

So yeah. "Part of Your World". Whatevs, Ariel. Harumph!


(Oh, and obviously I feel no particular animus toward either of those young women from back in the day. One's even a friend on Facebook! I've no idea whatever became of the other one, other than that I think she's a school teacher in Iowa someplace.)

Bad Joke Friday

An ANNOUNCEMENT.

My next book, a supernatural thriller called The Chilling Killing Wind, is nearing release, and to that purpose you can read the Prologue over on my official site! Check it out!

Next week I'll reveal the cover!

Tone Poem Tuesday

Transcriptions of works from one medium to another can be especially fascinating, as this orchestral version of Franz Liszt's Hungarian Rhapsody #2 demonstrates. This was originally a work for piano, and to perform it well requires enormous skill from the pianist. The work's transcription to orchestra makes it into a showpiece as well.

The faces of accomplishment

Here's what people look like when they've just landed a spaceship on Mars.










This is a hell of a thing. Well done, NASA!

Bad Joke Friday

Something for Thursday

It's the third installment of our music challenge! This one is apropos, given that today is the coldest day in Buffalo Niagara since February. Our high today is to top out at 21 degrees, and when we roused ourselves from our warm bed (such rousing coming via two dee-oh-gees who had to pee) was a nicely balmy 7 degrees. Today's category, then, is "A Song that Makes Me Think of Summer". Well, the very first song that leaped to mind is this oh-so-Seventies tune by Mungo Jerry. Enjoy! Summer is only mumble-mumble months away!

Thankfulness in 2018

So we're nearing the last phase of 2018, and today is Thanksgiving. Today will be a day of food and drink and rest and, I canna lie, feeling wistful that we're not in New York City for the day. Here, as always, is my ongoing list of things for which I am thankful this time around.

Carla, the new dee-oh-gee
Cane, the not-as-new dee-oh-gee
Lester and Julio, the really-not-new cats
Rum
Bourbon
Scotch
Gin
Sparkling wine
Hard cider
Paula's Donuts
Ithaca, NY
Autumn Leaves Books
The Rochester Lilac Festival
Knowing where a bunch of gluten-free restaurants are between here and the Finger Lakes
The Finger Lakes
Letchworth State Park
Taughannock Falls
The Ontario County Antique Mall
Finger Lakes wineries
Fountain pens
Fountain pen ink
Making waffles
Popcorn with butter
Kettlecorn
Corn dogs
Chiavetta's chicken barbecue
The Erie County Fair
Hot dogs at Taffy's
Hot dogs at Ted's
Hot dogs at home, on the grill
Star Wars
Casablanca
Hayao Miyazaki and the rest of Studio Ghibli
The Scarlet Pimpernel
88 Cups of Tea (podcast)
Functional Nerds (podcast)
Sword and Laser (podcast)
Writing for The Geekiverse
Our backyard firepit
All my various methods of making coffee (pourover, French press, Moka pot)
Mississippi Roast
The Instant Pot (which I still don't even use as much as I should)
Art and craft shows where I can buy gifts right from the person that made them
Picking out jewelry for The Wife
The Great Lakes region
Pittsburgh, PA (honorary Great Lakes city in my heart)
New York City
The two friends of mine who are finding a lot of new purpose in their lives of late
Chestnut Ridge Park
Sprague Brook Park
Emery Park
Canalside and the Outer Harbor
Knox Farm State Park
The Mill Road Overlook in East Aurora
Roads: US 20A, NY 240, NY 39, Girdle Road, Two Rod Road
Fried chicken
Chicken and waffles
Hot sauce
John Oliver and Last Week Tonight
The Blue Wave
The Resistance
Hector Berlioz
Sergei Rachmaninov
Alexander Borodin
JS Bach
Ludwig von Beethoven
John Williams
Jerry Goldsmith
Max Steiner
Erich Wolfgang Korngold
Howard Shore
James Horner
All the new authors on my shelf whose works I an thrilled to read
The ongoing emergence of so many authors of color and the opportunity to read them and learn from their experiences and perspectives
Goodreads
Twitter (the parts without Nazis)
Harry Potter
Star Wars
Star Trek
The Last Jedi
My Fair Lady
The Chilling Killing Wind
The Song of Forgotten Stars
Princesses Tariana and Margeth Osono
Lieutenant Penda Rasharri
The characters you haven't met yet
The characters I haven't met yet
The days when the writing is easy
The days when the writing is hard
Pies on the table
Pies in my face
Well-worn bib overalls
Stiff raw-denim bib overalls
Vintage bib overalls
The Daughter
The Wife
The world
Our universe

Tone Poem Tuesday

Some Berlioz this week, and one of his most frequently performed works: the Roman Carnival overture, which is a concert piece comprised of repurposed material from his opera Benvenuto Cellini. Berlioz is not generally considered one of classical music's finest melodists--his themes tend to be long and require a bit of unpacking to find their emotional center--but the melody of the slow section of this piece, first played by the English horn, is one of the most beautiful creations of Berlioz's life. The following carnival dance bursts with energy.


This particular performance features Charles Dutoit conducting the Montreal Symphony Orchestra. This particular combo once produced some of the finest performances of Berlioz ever.

Updates and stuff!

I have a new post up on the Official Site! It's not long, but it's an update on some stuff I've been working on of late. Check it out!

Bad Joke Friday

Seen on Twitter, via a user called "ThreeTimeDaddy".

Something for Thursday

It's Week Two of the challenge-thing I launched last week! This time we need a song with a number in the title, so here's one!

Something for Thursday

OK, I'm going to try something new! Here's a 30-Day Challenge of the type that often shows up on various social media thingies. The idea is quite simple: Each day you post according to that prompt.

Well, I'm going to use this not as a daily prompt, but a weekly one. Each Thursday for the next thirty Thursdays I'll use the next prompt to select that week's song or music choice. By my calculations, assuming I don't miss any Thursdays, this will wrap up on the last Thursday in May, bringing us more than halfway around the calendar. Cool, huh?

No?

Well, I'm doing it anyway.

Day 1:

A song with a color in the title.

(It specifies "a song I like," but I'll just take that as a given.)

Here are the Lemon Pipers, with "Green Tambourine".

Tone Poem Tuesday

In hopes that tonight begins a rekindling of the possibility of America.

I hate when that happens.

Damned oil painters!

Bad Joke Friday (Star Wars edition)

Tone Poem Tuesday

I'm not sure what's in the water over at WNED, the local classical music station, but they seem to be on a kick with this piece. I've heard it three times in the last two weeks whilst driving to various points around town. Luckily for them it's a really good piece! Johannes Brahms's music isn't often the most humorous music in the repertoire. Brahms engages a lot of emotions, but sheer humor generally isn't his thing. But here he is, presenting a collection of student drinking songs in his own wonderful style. It's the Academic Festival Overture, and this performance is conducted by Leonard Bernstein, who used to relate an anecdote from his own life pertaining to this piece. He was a student and he was auditioning for a conducting class taught by the great Fritz Reiner (one of the canonical "podium dictator" conductors). There was a piano with a score on it, and Reiner asked Bernstein if he knew the piece. Bernstein looked at the page and admitted that he didn't, but when he began to play he recognized a tune that he'd sung as a boy in school, a German Christmas song with the words:

What clatters on the roof
with a quick, impatient hoof?
I think it must be Santa Claus,
dear old Santa Claus.

Then he remembered recognizing that very tune when he'd heard this work on the radio, which the announcer then identified. Thus Bernstein was able to correctly say to Maestro Reiner, "Yes, I know this piece. It's the Academic Festival Overture by Brahms," and thus got into Reiner's class.

And here it is.

Bad Joke Friday

Overheard at work:

Why is the graveyard so noisy?

Because of all the coffin!

Something for Thursday

Gene Kelly singing Lerner and Loewe. I'm not certain it gets much better than this. It's from Brigadoon, sung by American hunter Tommy as he walks through the heather with the beautiful Fiona, early in the story when he and his friend have stumbled upon a village in the Scottish Highlands that is strangely not on any map. It will turn out that this is because the village of Brigadoon only appears for one day every hundred years, and that by the time night falls, Tommy will have a choice to make: stay in Brigadoon with Fiona, and leave his world behind, or go back to his world, and leave Fiona behind?

This song makes for an enchanting dance sequence for Gene Kelly and Cyd Charisse, but the music itself--with Kelly's typically flawless singing--is magical in itself. It's awfully easy with musicals, I've found, to get wrapped up in the costumes and the choreography and the sets, and almost forget that there's a tremendous amount of amazing music going on too.

Here is Gene Kelly, singing "The Heather on the Hill".

Tone Poem Tuesday

I post this one every year around this time, because it's spooky and amazing: "The Isle of the Dead" by Sergei Rachmaninov.