Fuck political, geographical, and religious conflicts and the vehement vindication it further compels.
In the event anyone is unaware the 3 victims of the shooting in Vermont earlier today were all Palestinian students who were at the top of their class.
Let me share one of my absolute favorite Bach organ pieces: "Fugue in G Major" BWV 577. It is also known by "La Gigue" or "The Jig." Although it is in a minor key, it doesn't seem like it as it jumps around joyously.
Moments of interest: fancy pedal work at 0:47 and 1:49, and call-and-response between the manuals (keyboards) at (for example) 0:29 and 1:23.
My brother has caught my sister’s cold. It’s not COVID we checked around this time of year we get sick. Last year my mom had RSV and I caught it from her. It kicked my butt far worse than COVID did.
For YEARS, I've always gotten a respiratory infection in December. I wonder if it's RSV, because one year it lasted for 3 months and I was WIPED OUT. I could barely walk more than 3 days. It figures I'd get RSV before it got cool.
I hope your brother is feeling better soon and that the heinous virus spreads no further. It's just miserable when an infection runs through the family and systematically knocks the entire family down, one after the other.
I am not feeling the thing myself the infection is eyes, nose, ears for me but my allergies have been playing merry hob with me all week. My eyes have been runny, nose blocked on and off and my ears have been popping. It’s supposed to rain today so it’s even worse today.
Jimmy Carter tried to switch us to metric, and Reagan shitcanned it because the American people couldn't understand it. Sorry, Ronnie. The America people understand perfectly what 2 liters and 28.3 grams are.
Nature gave me ten fingers for a reason. I deserve metric.
I have never seen it on stage and the cast album baffled me, especially when Sondheim said that "In a Tree It Was Me" was his favorite of his own songs, at least at the time.
But I am ready to believe that it works in performance.
Sondheim did not create as many evergreen hit songs as his predecessors, especially on his own, but it wasn't him aim to do so.
That was a hit and rightly so, although Sondheim noted that he was not striving to write a standard. He just wanted to write a song that expressed the dramatic situation and that Glynis Johns could sing in her limited vocal range.
But he didn't write shows like Berlin, Kern, the Gershwins, and Rodgers, to name the heaviest hitters, in which multiple hits emerged from even from single shows or film scores.
But, of course, by the time he came along, the whole mechanism that created hits was falling apart. Popular singers and bands took up a song and, all of a sudden, what had been considered a turkey became a standard. Case in point" "The Man I Love."
It also worked for lesser Tin Pan Alley types but it worked better for the best because they were, well, a whoooooooole lot better.
The rock revolution upended all of that.
Would Elvis, or the Beatles, or Taylor Swift record "A Little Priest" or "Another Hundred People?"
I think there are several Sondheim songs that could become standards, if the old system were still here. "Take Me the World," for instance or "Anyone Can Whistle," just for starters. But who is going to sing them for a mass market audience? Eminem? Katy Perry? For the Public TV fundraiser crowd: Andrea Bocelli?
I'm not begging for a return to the old Tin Pan Alley model which was frequently exploitive, dishonest, and sordid, just like any business and especially any music business.
But it seems to me that Sondheim was never focused on writing for a Kasey Kasem top 40 list.
I do wonder what people will make of his songs in the fullness of time. Lots of songs do get performed by jazz and lounge singers, including some just now emerging. I would not be surprised to see some future Elvis or Taylor Swift cover a few of them.
If Taylor Swift chose to sing "Take Me to the World," it would become an immediate megahit. But I think she sings only her own songs, right? (I may be wrong.)
I'm not even familiar with that one! I'll have to check that out. Right now on YouTube there is a version of company that might be my favorite. But no one will ever be able to beat Elaine Stritch for "ladies who lunch "
Musicals are like seafood. I love both of them but I completely understand people who don't and why they don't. It's definitely "live and let live "territory
And the classic Movie Musical has been relegated to Disney and Pixar. Everything else is cinematic versions of stage musicals, and a great many of those leave me cold.
I am going to go grocery shopping. We have no conveyor belts. It is also an urban grocery store three blocks away so I just dump out my basket on the table, the cashier checks my DNA by using a needle (never go for the sterile ones as Google might have put the COVID injection on them),(I never go to male cashiers because women should be cashiers and men should be bag boys and butchers) and then he bags it up with the AWS security chip in case I am hit by a car. I am in the mood for Miracle Whip Salad Dressing.
Ta, Stephen. The other Stephen is a great role model for you. May his memory always be a blessing.
Fuck political, geographical, and religious conflicts and the vehement vindication it further compels.
In the event anyone is unaware the 3 victims of the shooting in Vermont earlier today were all Palestinian students who were at the top of their class.
Local officials state this was a targeted attack.
Thanks for mentioning this. I somehow missed it (and I live in MA).
Let me share one of my absolute favorite Bach organ pieces: "Fugue in G Major" BWV 577. It is also known by "La Gigue" or "The Jig." Although it is in a minor key, it doesn't seem like it as it jumps around joyously.
Moments of interest: fancy pedal work at 0:47 and 1:49, and call-and-response between the manuals (keyboards) at (for example) 0:29 and 1:23.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WuoxijdFKA0
Wow. I've seen dance steps that were less complex than those pedal moves.
If people make you sick, try cooking them longer.
Joy Harjo had her poem "I am a Prayer" published in the 11/27/23 edition of The New Yorker:
https://www.newyorker.com/search/q/Joy%20Harjo
"This had remarkably little impact in Greenville, South Carolina."
In fairness, nothing makes much of an impact in Greenville, South Carolina unless it involves Jeebus or strippers.
Or boiled peanuts, or fireworks.
Or Biden's transgender army, and how evil Democrats are.
My brother has caught my sister’s cold. It’s not COVID we checked around this time of year we get sick. Last year my mom had RSV and I caught it from her. It kicked my butt far worse than COVID did.
For YEARS, I've always gotten a respiratory infection in December. I wonder if it's RSV, because one year it lasted for 3 months and I was WIPED OUT. I could barely walk more than 3 days. It figures I'd get RSV before it got cool.
Glad your mom was OK.
We were both ill for about three months as well. We got through it.
I hope your brother is feeling better soon and that the heinous virus spreads no further. It's just miserable when an infection runs through the family and systematically knocks the entire family down, one after the other.
I am not feeling the thing myself the infection is eyes, nose, ears for me but my allergies have been playing merry hob with me all week. My eyes have been runny, nose blocked on and off and my ears have been popping. It’s supposed to rain today so it’s even worse today.
A friend's nephew and his wife saw the Disney-produced film of "Into the Woods." They were expecting a Disney film. They got Sondheim.
Not exactly what they were expecting. ;)
𝐏𝐀𝐈𝐍𝐓𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐎𝐅 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐃𝐀𝐘:
https://substack.com/profile/157154942-oneyieldregular/note/c-44298390
Manuel Scano Larrazàbal, "Untitled (Worry Later)," 2014
I absolutely LOVE this watercolor. Magnificent.
His technique here is ingenious and must be a hoot to see in action:
https://www.artforum.com/events/manuel-scano-larrazabal-219006/
I guess I might have been tangentially on-topic if I'd posted a Georges Seurat painting, but as I just posted one a few weeks ago...)
Thanks for posting this, including the NYT link. I'm going to spend the day with Mr. Sondheim and his music.
Yrs. Trly's directorial debut was a production of A Little Night Music.
Reviews included references to the Titanic.
Marty Krofft died.
Awww. His and his brother Sid's campy productions were the highlight of my childhood Saturday mornings.
Rumor has it that all that stuff was ganja fueled.
I recall reading that in an old issue of Bizzare magazine and it didn't surprise me one single bit.
HR Puffenstuff was an acid trip made manifest.
My dad enjoyed watching those shows with me (particularly the Krofft Supershow) and he was probably high AF, LMAO!!!!!!
It just doesn't get much better than that!
Same.
I guess having the "H. R. Puffenstuff" theme song running through my head for the rest of day can constitute a memorial.
For me, it was "Lidsville"
“Lid” used to mean an ounce of weed when I was young.
Jimmy Carter tried to switch us to metric, and Reagan shitcanned it because the American people couldn't understand it. Sorry, Ronnie. The America people understand perfectly what 2 liters and 28.3 grams are.
Nature gave me ten fingers for a reason. I deserve metric.
I was so sad to read that this morning. My childhood!!!!!!!
𝘞𝘩𝘦𝘯 𝘱𝘦𝘰𝘱𝘭𝘦 𝘵𝘳𝘪𝘦𝘥 𝘵𝘰 𝘴𝘱𝘦𝘭𝘭 𝘮𝘺 𝘯𝘢𝘮𝘦 “𝘚𝘵𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘯" 𝘰𝘳 𝘱𝘳𝘰𝘯𝘰𝘶𝘯𝘤𝘦 𝘪𝘵 “𝘚𝘵𝘦𝘍𝘈𝘕," 𝘐'𝘥 𝘳𝘦𝘴𝘱𝘰𝘯𝘥, “𝘕𝘰, 𝘪𝘵'𝘴 𝘚𝘛𝘌𝘗𝘏𝘌𝘕 𝘭𝘪𝘬𝘦 𝘚𝘰𝘯𝘥𝘩𝘦𝘪𝘮." 𝘛𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘩𝘢𝘥 𝘳𝘦𝘮𝘢𝘳𝘬𝘢𝘣𝘭𝘺 𝘭𝘪𝘵𝘵𝘭𝘦 𝘪𝘮𝘱𝘢𝘤𝘵 𝘪𝘯 𝘎𝘳𝘦𝘦𝘯𝘷𝘪𝘭𝘭𝘦, 𝘚𝘰𝘶𝘵𝘩 𝘊𝘢𝘳𝘰𝘭𝘪𝘯𝘢.
I find this to be credible and authentic.
Company
Pacific Overtures
I have never seen it on stage and the cast album baffled me, especially when Sondheim said that "In a Tree It Was Me" was his favorite of his own songs, at least at the time.
But I am ready to believe that it works in performance.
Sondheim did not create as many evergreen hit songs as his predecessors, especially on his own, but it wasn't him aim to do so.
I never saw it performed on stage either, but went through a period of obsession with the album.
Send in the Clowns has entered the chat.
That was a hit and rightly so, although Sondheim noted that he was not striving to write a standard. He just wanted to write a song that expressed the dramatic situation and that Glynis Johns could sing in her limited vocal range.
But he didn't write shows like Berlin, Kern, the Gershwins, and Rodgers, to name the heaviest hitters, in which multiple hits emerged from even from single shows or film scores.
But, of course, by the time he came along, the whole mechanism that created hits was falling apart. Popular singers and bands took up a song and, all of a sudden, what had been considered a turkey became a standard. Case in point" "The Man I Love."
It also worked for lesser Tin Pan Alley types but it worked better for the best because they were, well, a whoooooooole lot better.
The rock revolution upended all of that.
Would Elvis, or the Beatles, or Taylor Swift record "A Little Priest" or "Another Hundred People?"
I think there are several Sondheim songs that could become standards, if the old system were still here. "Take Me the World," for instance or "Anyone Can Whistle," just for starters. But who is going to sing them for a mass market audience? Eminem? Katy Perry? For the Public TV fundraiser crowd: Andrea Bocelli?
I'm not begging for a return to the old Tin Pan Alley model which was frequently exploitive, dishonest, and sordid, just like any business and especially any music business.
But it seems to me that Sondheim was never focused on writing for a Kasey Kasem top 40 list.
I do wonder what people will make of his songs in the fullness of time. Lots of songs do get performed by jazz and lounge singers, including some just now emerging. I would not be surprised to see some future Elvis or Taylor Swift cover a few of them.
If Taylor Swift chose to sing "Take Me to the World," it would become an immediate megahit. But I think she sings only her own songs, right? (I may be wrong.)
I saw it in San Francisco as a new production. Always liked it.
I'm not even familiar with that one! I'll have to check that out. Right now on YouTube there is a version of company that might be my favorite. But no one will ever be able to beat Elaine Stritch for "ladies who lunch "
Agreed. That song is in my head a LOT.
Pacific Overtures is really a masterpiece; I think you'll appreciate it!
😀
Thanks!
I am obviously so uncouth, not a fan of musicals so p probably have a big old hole in my heart... ;>(
Musicals are like seafood. I love both of them but I completely understand people who don't and why they don't. It's definitely "live and let live "territory
And the classic Movie Musical has been relegated to Disney and Pixar. Everything else is cinematic versions of stage musicals, and a great many of those leave me cold.
I am going to go grocery shopping. We have no conveyor belts. It is also an urban grocery store three blocks away so I just dump out my basket on the table, the cashier checks my DNA by using a needle (never go for the sterile ones as Google might have put the COVID injection on them),(I never go to male cashiers because women should be cashiers and men should be bag boys and butchers) and then he bags it up with the AWS security chip in case I am hit by a car. I am in the mood for Miracle Whip Salad Dressing.
Wait, CNN would like your opinion on Biden's age and handling of the Crisis on the Southern Border
I just saw a new poll. Apparently, I'm the only person left in the country who still likes Biden, so he's walkin' a real tightwire.
Southern border? Right now there are millions of feral hogs gathering on the northern border ready to invade. https://www.kxxv.com/news/national/a-population-of-hard-to-eradicate-super-pigs-in-canada-is-threatening-to-invade-the-us
Let them come. This is why the Founders gave us the Second Amendment and God gave us the AR-15.
Bad enough you send us your geese, Canada!
And the liberals said you'd never need that AR-15 😆
Canadian Bacon 2?
The fryin'ing