Eclectic post #2

André Rieu plays the beautiful Intermezzo from Cavalleria rusticana, an opera in one act by Pietro Mascagni




Bob Dylan wrote Things Have Changed for the quirky 2000 movie Wonder Boys.
In the music video Dylan is spliced into scenes played by Michael Douglas in the movie.




Great movie soundtrack!

--Cat

Summer Lazy

With the advent of hot sunny weather, I'm more inclined to listen to music than compose prose.

So, there will be more YouTube vids of some of my favorites.

-Cat

If I am nothing else, I am eclectic . . .

Dvorak - Symphony No. 9 "From The New World" - II (part 1)

Many years ago as a kid, I learned to play a small portion (Largo) of this piece on the accordion. Taken in isolation, it was easy for a beginner to learn.
I must say this magnificent performance leaves my simple rendition groping in the dust left by a thousand stampeding elephants . . .

Loved it then, love it more now.






And now for something completely different - the incomparable Leon Russell, from 1971.











--Cat

Hummingbird Season

Hummingbirds have returned.

All is right with the world.

Well, this corner of the world.

I could watch them all day!

This is about the making of a fantastic film by PBS about these beautiful little birds.


--Cat

Musical Interlude

Simply because it's so wonderful . . .




--Cat

BAD words and bad words

I don't watch reality shows because I don't believe in their reality.
That said, while recently channel surfing I happened upon one, then another reality show that was disappointing in its, well, reality dialogue.

An abundance of beeps highlighted the dialogue of both shows. Often the beeps outnumbered the words, so the viewer must decipher/read lips/guess the conversation.

I know a beep could have masked the A-word, the B-word, the C-word, the D-word the E-word... (well, maybe not E). However, I get the sense that the F-word won the count.

I don't completely disapprove of the F-bomb, as it's often called when used in an "oops" moment by politicians and celebrities. It's an effective word that gets to the nitty-gritty of the matter. Psychologists at a British university did a study which found the use of expletives strengthens one's endurance to pain.

Yes indeed. Stub a toe and find out how true that is.

However, I find that overuse dilutes the effectiveness of any cuss word. To me less is more. I'd rather see a show with a few bombs used in strategic--shall we say explosive--moments instead of tossed away like fluff in every other sentence.

Ditto in books. If I read a book in which a character goes overboard with the reality dialogue, it becomes a big yawn. But a judiciously placed pained/frightened/horrified/grievous/excited detonation bursts off the page and gives an effective single-word stress moment to a most dire (or alternately, most loving) event.

Disclaimer: Some fictional characters are defined by the language they use, so it's necessary to salt their dialogue in an appropriate manner. Some real people, too, have a limited vocabulary and can best express themselves by fixing on the single descriptive word they know.

That's reality for you.

~

Bad words

My five year old grandson on a recent visit learned a new bad word.

It was unintentional.

I don't know what tv show he was watching, but he said, in true five-year-old righteous fashion, "That's dickless!'

Uncle, knowing the boy's mother would never abide her child using such language, kindly took him aside and told him dickless was a bad word that should never be repeated.

Grandson looked perplexed. Could it be that other members of his family used this vulgar term?

He agreed never to say it again.

Later, Uncle told the boy's mother about the event.

She laughed and laughed. Uncle was now puzzled.

It was the boy's way of saying ridiculous.

Uncle, no doubt slapping the side of his head and calling himself a dickless wonder, had to admit to the boy he'd been mistaken about the word, it wasn't bad at all, etc.

No doubt Grandson was even more puzzled by this revelation.

He probably doesn't know any true bad words.

Give him a few years.

Learning the language is like a rite of puberty. And reality tv.

--Cat

Congrats to all Olympians

Go Vancouver!

Go Canada!

Go World!

--Cat


Afterthoughts March 2

WE WON!

The big game.

The most gold medals.

The most total medals we've ever won in the Winter Games.

A place on the world stage. A good place.

Goodwill and respect for our city, our province, our country.

Unity among the diverse peoples of this land.

~

I confess to being among the skeptics before the Games began. Too expensive by far, too difficult for the organizers, the weather would probably not cooperate, protesters would give our visitors a bad image, in other words a big dud!

My feelings changed during the torch run. People turned out in droves in big cities, in little towns throughout the country--east to west, north to south--and cheered in good weather and bad, enthusiastic, proud, pleased to be included. It was...inspiring.

Then bad stuff happened. A young luger from Georgia died during his practice run. Cypress Mountain, site of several events was green and wet. Snow had to be trucked in. A malfunction during the opening ceremonies. Gretzky looking worried in the pouring rain carrying the torch to the cauldron.

A dud.

But soon I found myself glued to the television watching events unfold. I hoped for the rain to stop so the visitors could see how beautiful Vancouver is. There were some delays, some problems, some grumbling, some asinine protests. The sun appeared. People by the hundreds, by the thousands, took part in the street festivities, watched events on giant screens, cheered together, groaned together. It was...inspiring.

As was watching young people from all over the world come together and compete in fast, beautiful, grueling sports for their country, for themselves.

The closing ceremonies remedied the opening "glitch" in a humorous way. The proceedings were so...Canadian.

I'm happy I was here to witness this once-in-a-lifetime event.

And proud to be Canadian.

As someone once said, A perfect ending leads to a good beginning.

--Cat

HAPPY NEW YEAR 2010

Cheers to a new year and another chance for us to get it right.
-- Oprah Winfrey

Welcome 2010!
--Cat

Organized...

. . . I'm not.

My office resembles chaos, bookshelves overflowing, not only with books but with a menagerie of small stuffed creatures that seem to multiply of their own accord. This is almost as bad as my Beanie Babies (remember those?) collection, who now occupy a box under the bed.

I look wistfully at the bookshelves. The books are roughly organized: novels, biographies, history, geography, dictionaries, Writers Market 1998! (time to recycle that one) At one time I planned to alphabetize everything.

Somehow that plan never bore fruit. I have ruined the overall effect by slotting paperback novels into any available space, whether it's among poetry, world history, Shakespeare... Time to give some of these intruders away to a good home.

It's tough for me to part with books. We once had a garage sale and sold a number of books I believed I'd never read again. I often regret having sold them--not that I'd probably read them again--but they were like precious caskets filled with drama, love, hate, laughter, tears that writers graciously shared.

~

A need to compartmentalize does, however, rear its head every now and then. I focus this urge on my computer where I create folders within folders within folders for my favorites or bookmarks, depending on which browser I'm on. If I don't sort these into aptly named folders the list grows huge and I can't find anything.

While I'm there, I also weed out those that I never visit, that have closed, or that I wonder why on earth did I save this?

Organizing bookmarks is small potatoes next to my writing files folders within folders etc. Does a cache of thousands sound too plentiful?

And yes, I have a real life filing cabinet with, you guessed it, green and blue folders holding manila folders filled with actual papers.

Actual papers have not yet declined, despite the computer age. Seems every day we take a stack to the recycle bin or the shredder.

These are not all bills, either.

--Cat

This and That

When researching the life of poet André Chenier I did some reading about the French Revolution and the Reign of Terror, a horrific time, in which massacre followed massacre; nobility, clergy, dissidents alike formed a steady stream toward the guillotine.

Reading how Chenier himself was affected gave me a narrow view of the events. I searched the internet and found an overview of the Revolution, the causes, issues, duration, effects, in Revolution and After .

Dickens aptly wrote of the age in A Tale of Two Cities :

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to heaven, we were all going direct the other way - in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.

The revolutionaries began with noble goals: an end to the tyranny and the outrageous privileges that aristocracy and clergy saw as their due, and liberty, equality, fraternity for all. Perhaps the idealists envisioned a peaceful transfer of power from the monarchy to the people.

It was not to be. The rest, as they say, is history.

As often happens, I continued reading about Napoleon, his rise, his glory, his fall. A couple of pages do not do him justice; I see further reading in my future. My father's library, which I inherited, has several fat books about Napoleon and his wars.

I'll add them to the TBR (To Be Read ) pile.

~

My mother, age 88, is devoted to following the news. From morning news radio, to newspapers which she reads from first page to last (even the sports), to local, national, and international news on tv, to the Letterman Show (hey, he presents news, doesn't he?) she is well-informed about it all. Opinionated, too, frequently venting at newscasters, politicians, and situations that parade past on the tube.

She is the master of the rhetorical "why": why would a man kill his small children; why would those thugs beat up a gay man; why spend billions to send rockets into the air when the economy is so bad; why is the government doing/not doing this, that, or the other...

I used to try to answer her questions. Then I realized she knows there are no answers, and this is her way of trying to make sense of a world that has changed so drastically over her lifetime, yet has also not changed at all.

Besides, I don't have any real answers. They're all blowing in the wind. (more on this coming)

~

--Cat

Musical Interlude

Talented violin virtuoso David Garrett plays Czardas, a traditional Hungarian folk dance.








And simply because it's so very beautiful, Garrett playing Debussy's Clair de Lune.





--Cat

Hottest Day

July 29, 2009

Air conditioner alert!



We aren't used to temperatures this high.
We don't like temperatures this high.


There's something oh so quiet about a hot-hot day. You can almost see the flowers wilt. Birds make liberal use of the birdbath -- wish I had a picture for they truly frolic in the water like exuberant children.

Birds being birds, they always return to the feeders.





Cute birds aside, too many more days like this and I'm going to Antarctica. I hear Antarctica is melting. (sigh)

Okay. But it's still cold on Mars.



Mind you, once it's colonized by humans and they carry on as is their habit, Mars is bound to heat up.
Martial Warming?

--Cat

Adding PS: the heat wave is over for now (for the summer, we hope.)
Mars will have to wait.

The moment I saw him ....

I had to have him!

Yes, a Teddy Bear. But not just any bear - this one had the exact face shape of the Teddy I had when I was very young.



My first Teddy had stiff brown "fur" and when turned upside down and righted again he grunted what I presumed was a bear-like sound.

Unlike the old one, this new Teddy is cuddly and soft and machine washable. But it was the face, that dear, fondly remembered face that tugged at my heart.

I don't recall what happened to my first Teddy bear; lost in transit, perhaps. Or the girl believed she had outgrown him and packed him away, along with her other childhood toys.

The trouble with packing things away is that they are seldom if ever seen again. And often forgotten, until fate bestows a reunion of sorts.



Now and then everyone, no matter what their age, needs a Teddy bear to hug.

--Cat

The Weather Channel

Truly one of the more interesting channels...

Not merely for the weather reports, but for weather news and related tidbits.

Recently it was reported that because of global warming the snow packs enjoyed by skiers will gradually decline.

Seventy years from now the ski season will be half what it is now, and this will of course impact the future of the winter Olympics. No snow, no Olympics.

This got me thinking. Seventy years from now no one will remember how it was in 2009 or before. The winters of yesteryear will become a novelty. Quaint pictures, old movies and tv shows will be of passing interest to young people, much like when our studies took us to previous ice ages.

Seventy years from now my grandchildren will be in their seventies, eighties, and nineties. Perhaps they will reminisce about skiing, snowboarding, tobogganing in the olden days.

I might be a memory, the grandmother who sat at her computer and wrote things.

And after that I'll become a name on a genealogy list.

I need to stop projecting.

This really isn't about me.

I truly hope snow is abundant for Olympics into the year 5000.

--Cat

In search of the sweet stuff

And didn't "they" say Hummingbirds return in April?

My husband was coming out of the garage when he, literally, came face to face with a hummer.

Where's the juice, the little bird seemed to demand.

John hustled in and mixed the syrup, hung the feeders, and a short time later the customer arrived.

It's uncanny how they remember from year to year






--Cat

Musical Interlude

You know how some tunes stick in your mind and refuse to leave?

I had a flashback to a song by Roger Miller. (Jan 2, 1936 - Oct 25, 1992)

Namely: You Don't Want My Love - (In The Summertime When All The Trees And Leaves Are Green)

From 1960 (gulp) Was I even born then? Well, maybe, but I was very, very young.

I found it on You Tube but couldn't embed it, so here's the link


Here is a hilarious version by The Muppets (Oh, how I loved them!)






--Cat

Snow, Snow, Go Away

Yes, yes, it was a lovely sight. One should have the privilege of seeing this at least once every five years. Seven or eight years would be better.



It's been heralded as the biggest dump of snow in the area since sometime in the sixties.
I believe it, though I've lived here only since 1980.

The solid flaky sort of rain first hit the ground December 17th. After one or two clear but icy cold days it began to fall in earnest on the 22nd. And it fell, and fell, and caused incredible hardship for people counting on all forms of transportation.

Truly, people here don't like/fear/can't/refuse to drive when it snows. Warnings not to drive blared across the airwaves.

Because of bad road conditions on Christmas Eve, we delayed the stuffed bird meal until the 28th. (It was just as good.)

It's warmed up (but only slightly) and rained (a lot). But dang it, the snow has not disappeared.
And today -- horrors -- it snowed a bit at noon, dancing, swirling fluffs that seemed to smugly leer, "You ain't done with us, yet!"
.
I say enough! We've had our fun, and our White Christmas.

This makes me wonder why people dream of a white Christmas. What's the big attraction? I think we've been brainwashed since that song came out to believe snow at Christmas = perfection.

No, snow just causes messy trouble and means that it's cold.

Front of my house

My nostalgic inner child remembers sledding, building snowmen, having snowball fights, dressing in twenty layers of clothing (ugh). My inner artist sees the beauty in dark pines and cedars webbed with white, branches bending low beneath the weight...

What am I saying--during such delightful events the power could go out at any time!

--Cat

Merry Christmas

My favorite Christmas song - O Holy Night, performed by the Trans-Siberian Orchestra


(no longer available)




My thoughts exactly:




-- Cat

Music

Il Divo --

Operatic pop quartet. Interesting Wikipedia info here

I love the way they blend their voices and the wonderful songs they sing.








This is my favorite, done up in a pretty collage:






--Cat

Oct 3 - In Memoriam - Kevan F Hartwell

Remembering my father:

Kevan F Hartwell Dec 21, 1920 - Oct 3, 2001

He who has gone, so we but cherish his memory, abides with us,
more potent, nay, more present than the living man.
-- Antoine de Saint-Exupery

Always remembered, always loved-- --the Family

--Cat