AllenS has requested warmer weather. I have, too. I imagine that even those of you who have not piped up would appreciate a break in the weather.
It has been too cold for me to work. Sure, I can do a bit of yard work, but today when I went out to work in the shop I came back inside before I got anything done. Went to the store - if I can't pretend to make money at least I can spend some. My poor Honda barely cranked over. It misses the warm weather too.
Anyway, I have been using my indoor time to do some reading. Here are my reviews:
Candide, by Voltaire - tend to your own garden.
Schlachthof-fünf by Kurt Vonnegut - so it goes.
Good Clean Fun by Nick Offerman - The teacher and the student walk the same path. Wabi Sabi. Domo arigoto gozaimashita.
To sum up - it is easier to read about world travel than it is to actually travel the world, especially if you are in Lisbon when the earthquake of 1755 hits. Vonnegut was a nut. Offerman is a decent stand- up comedian who pays attention to the philosophy of woodworking and uses his show business money to employ other craftsman.
What else could I include as my musical selection, eh?
And for those of you who find Bernstein's conducting arrogant, indecipherable, opaque or otherwise misleading, you are correct. I knew a guy who was conducted by Lenny and this is what he said "Worst conductor ever!"
Edit - speaking of arrogance - dude thought he could write an operetta that encapsulated Voltaire's novel - ha - did you ever read the book, Len? Sprawling ain't the half of it!
Edit - speaking of arrogance - dude thought he could write an operetta that encapsulated Voltaire's novel - ha - did you ever read the book, Len? Sprawling ain't the half of it!
I just checked the forecast - it will warm up here starting Sunday, we will go above freezing and get some rain. All good things.
7 comments:
Warmer weather has been in the cards for the beginning of next week for a while now. Largely because they're enjoying unexpected warmth in AK.
Feel free to start running around naked.
I've been 'reading' lately. Free audiobooks on youtube. Found a good reading of The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler, read by Eliot Gould. Also listened to about half a Dashiell Hammet book, The Glass Key. The Chandler writing was superior, I thought. Night and day.
I've been reading the Liberation Trilogy by Rick Atkinson. Immense book and totally blowing me away. I would have never have guessed, nor would I have had the interest in knowing, that it took nearly a million gallons of gasoline a day to propel the allied troops off of the Normandy and Marsielle beaches to the German borders. Or that Kurt Vonnegut was captured by the Germans and survived the allied bombing of Dresden. (That's the tie-in to this weather blog.)
"Billy was guided by dread and the lack of dread. Dread told him when to stop. Lack of it told him when to move again."
He was unstuck in time.
It's funny how quickly four years can pass when they're measured by the life of a car battery. My Honda is a little reluctant to start but it seemed to me that the battery was only a couple years old until I dug out the receipt. It's a five year battery but they never seem to make it that long.
Lenny wrote some first rate music early in his career, such as this Overture to Candide, West Side Story, the score of On The Waterfront. Then he attempted to be symphonically "important" and went all pompous on us. Try saying pompous on us five times fast. As to his conducting, it may have been insufferable to the orchestra he was leading but he did put on a helluva show.
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