February 2024 - Page 6 of 6 - Ramblin' with Roger

Sunday Stealing: Compassion Intl

The Tough Coughs as He Ploughs the Dough

This Sunday Stealing segment is from Compassion Intl.

1. What three words best describe you?

Overanalytical, observational, musicality.

2. What makes you unique?

We’re all unique, I reckon. I tend to see how others, even strangers, have to deal with a situation, and I look to see if there’s a non-intrusive but uncomplicated way to make it easier/better.

3. Who is someone important in your life?

Someone? There are lots of someones. I’ll pick C, whom I’ve only known for about 55 years and who has a good heart. They commented on this blog recently.

4. What is something that always makes you laugh?

I almost always forget what makes me laugh. Then I read, watch, or listen to it again and fall on the ground, chortling. Often, it’s a silly mistake I made. I track my food consumption on Noom, and at the end of the day this week, I accidentally wrote that I had consumed one CUP rather than one TEASPOON of brown sugar!

5. Who is someone who can always cheer you up?

The Big O, who I hope to see in a month. She’s bringing lasagna.

6. When was a time you were really proud of yourself?

Pride is not really my strength. Almost anything I’ve done, I often think I could have done more and/or better. But I’ll pick the 4th of July event at the Underground Railroad Education Center in 2023.

7. What is something that is difficult for you?

Do you know those people who can take a bunch of containers and lids and match them up easily? My wife is like that. I assuredly am NOT.

Traveling man

8. What three places would you love to travel to?

Only three? Ireland, Nigeria, and Italy. The first two are places where I have genealogical roots.

9. What is a fun memory you have with your best friend?

I think it was my 35th high school reunion. The event was okay, but seeing them was grand.

10. If you could have dessert for breakfast, what would you eat?

What makes you think I don’t? Warm apple pie with vanilla ice cream.

11. If you published a book or wrote a movie, what would it be about?

My father. He was a complicated man.

12. Which is easier, math or English?

My wife was a teacher of English as a New Language. As a native speaker, I’m pretty good at English, but it can be difficult for others. There are rules for adjective order, which I could not tell you about, even though I wrote about it a decade ago. I just know it by experience. Dr. Seuss’s book The Tough Coughs as He Ploughs the Dough is a fine example of how complicated English is.

Arithmetic always made sense to me. In high school, I was good in algebra, geometry, and trigonometry, and I occasionally still use them in my life. Now, calculus, I didn’t “get it,” but I’ve survived that lapse.

13. What three things make you the happiest?

Music (listening, singing), revelatory conversations, when democracy works.

Ridin’ thumb

14. What is an event in your life that has shaped who you are today?

An event. Hmm. Okay. After I graduated from college in New Paltz, NY, I worked as a ticket seller for the student government. But I wasn’t making enough to survive. So reluctantly, I asked my parents, who had moved from my hometown of Binghamton, NY, to Charlotte, NC, and I moved in with them and my baby sister c. January 1977.

I hated being there for a lot of reasons. My parents were selling costume jewelry, so I spent much time helping them. At their primary venue, most people who bothered to speak to me seemed to resent every time I’d use a word with more than two syllables.

So, one day in April, I hitchhiked from Charlotte to Binghamton. It took me nearly an entire day. After that, I bounced around to NYC, New Paltz, and Schenectady, but at least I knew the turf. And 1978 was MUCH better than 1977.

15. Which is more important, being kind or being honest?

EASY! Kindness. Some people weaponize honesty. They can say, “I was only being honest, ” but they seem to relish being an @$$4013. BTW, CBS News has an ongoing series called Kindness 101. Here’s one video about the Secret Santa Club.

“A Phoenix elementary school teacher who uses Steve Hartman’s inspirational stories as lessons in kindness and character made a huge impression on his students with the tale of Secret Santa, a wealthy, anonymous businessman who annually gives out hundreds of $100 bills to strangers. That motivated the kids to raise $8,000 – and then give it all away.”

The #1 hits of 1914

By The Beautiful Sea

Sheet music. It’s a Long, Long Way to Tipperary. 1982.0736.05.

Here are the #1 hits of 1914. Joel Whitburn’s A Century of Pop Music notes: “Ballroom dancing…became a nationwide phenomenon, with 1913 as its peak year.”

Also, “six new companies became talking-machine competitors to the Big Three [Edison, Columbia, and Victor] in 1914.” Of course, World War I began that year, though the US didn’t enter the fray until three years later.

I tried to find the best recording. The first one is subpar. In general, the ones from the78prof are quite good.

The Song That Stole My Heart Away – Henry Burr (Columbia), seven weeks at #1

It’s A Long Way To Tipperary – American Quartet (Victor), seven weeks at #1. In 1915, this became a big hit for John McCormack (#1) and the Prince’s Orchestra (#2). This is a very familiar song, and I’m not even 110.

Rebecca of Sunny-brook Farm – American Quartet (Victor), six weeks at #1

I’m On My Way To Mandalay – Henry Burr, Albert Campbell, and Will Oakland (Victor) , six weeks at #1. Written by Al Bryan and Fred Fisher, the writers of Peg O’ My Heart, which I know well.

By The Beautiful Sea – Heidelberg Quintet (Victor), six weeks at #1. Or Quintette, per the label. I know this song, at least the chorus.

Comedy is so subjective

Cohen On The Telephone – Joe Hayman (Columbia), five weeks at #1, a gold record of spoken-word comedy

Too-Ra-Loo-Ra-Loo-Ral (That’s An Irish Lullabye) – Chauncey Olcott (Columbia), four weelks at #1. I knew it was familiar! Bing Crosby covered it and it went to #4 in 1944.

Ballin’ The Jack – Prince’s Orchestra (Columbia), three weeks at #1. An instrumental.

I Love The Ladies– Arthur Collins and Byron Harlan (Columbia), three weeks at #1. A comedy record.

The Aba Daba Honeymoon – Arthur Collins and Byron Harlan (Victor), two weeks at #1, listed as a comedy record. This was a gold record for Debbie Reynolds and Carleton Carpenter as it went to #3 in 1951. This has nothing to do with Fred Flintstone.

By The Beautiful Sea– Ada Jones and Billy Watkins

Our mom knew stuff

1 Corinthians 12

In the ZOOM conversations I have with my sisters about 45 times yearly, I keep learning things about my parents.

Now, we realized early on that our mom knew stuff about finance. She was a bookkeeper in two Binghamton institutions, McLean’s Department Store and Columbia Gas and Electric. Later, she was a teller in Charlotte, NC.

I didn’t know until recently why she did not impart her wisdom to her children. She thought we were more intelligent than she was and that we would “figure it out.”

This sounds utterly Trudy. And it bugs me because we could have used her wisdom in this area. I know I had accumulated credit card debt for a time, which only got wiped out by my wife’s much better handle on finances, a topic that would make MEGO. It was also aided by winning money on a game show a quarter of a century ago.

But I’m also sad because it was her diminishing her gifts, her talents. She saw her husband as gifted in singing, painting, organizing, writing, schmoozing, etc. By comparison, she didn’t feel she had nearly as much to offer. And to suggest that her children know more than she did was incorrect.

Even though she went to church since before I was born, she never embraced the message of 1 Corinthians 12.

The Good Book

“There are different kinds of gifts, but the same Spirit distributes them. There are different kinds of service, but the same Lord. There are different kinds of working, but in all of them and in everyone it is the same God at work.

^“Now to each one the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the common good. To one there is given through the Spirit a message of wisdom, to another a message of knowledge by means of the same Spirit, to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by that one Spirit, to another miraculous powers, to another prophecy, to another distinguishing between spirits, to another speaking in different kinds of tongues, and to still another the interpretation of tongues. All these are the work of one and the same Spirit, and he distributes them to each one, just as he determines….

^”Even so the body is not made up of one part but of many… God has put the body together, giving greater honor to the parts that lacked itso that there should be no division in the body but that its parts should have equal concern for each other. If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it.”

My mom had many gifts, including understanding, compassion, and a fantastic mind for math, which meant the ability to stretch a dollar. I wish she knew how to share the latter. Some of my friends suggest her reluctance was just a generational thing, but I think it was more that she was squeezed emotionally by her husband and her mother. My mom died on 2 February 2011.

Movie review: The Zone Of Interest

The banality of evil

I went to see the Oscar-nominated film The Zone Of Interest. It’s based on Martin Amis’s 2014 novel of the same name. It starts mundanely with a family, a couple with five children and a dog, out on a picnic by the river. They return to their pleasant home with a lovely garden, a greenhouse, and a pool. They must be well-to-do, as they have a few servants, at least one of them a young Jewish woman.

The father has a few of his work colleagues stop over to discuss plans… to build a more efficient way to incinerate people, a technological marvel.

Oh. The father is Rudolf Höss (Christian Friedel), and he is the commandant of Auschwitz. And it’s not as though the camp was a distance away. As Vox noted: “There’s an ambient noise in The Zone of Interest, akin to the hum of a white noise machine — except in this case, it’s omnipresent, the sound of furnaces in the distance, laced with occasional gunshots and howls.” The wall is almost always visible, with occasional plumes of smoke lofting into the sky. “To hear what’s going on in the house, we have to tune them out a little.”

Domestic bliss

The household’s mother, Hedwig (Sandra Hüller), is well aware that the niceties she acquires used to belong to someone else, someone imprisoned or, more likely, dead. She leans into being the self-designated Queen of Auschwitz, so she is not unaware of her husband’s job.

I saw this movie at Landmark’s Spectrum 8 theater on Saturday afternoon, January 26. Two folks I knew from church happened to be there. One thought they’d wasted two hours of their life. The other got the gist of it, though they and I were confused by one particular effect. After the lights came up, the five folks sitting behind me remained in their seats as though they were still trying to discern what they had just seen.

When I say not much happens in the film, especially in the beginning, it’s not a criticism but a fact. Then, Rudolf is so efficient at work that he’s designated for a possible promotion, which leads to an astonishing conversation with Hedwig. This is the “banality of evil” writ large.

The music throughout is haunting.

Rotten Tomatoes critics gave it a 92% positive review, though audiences were only 79% enthusiastic. A positive review by Robin Holabird: “I watched the movie with interest—not pleasure, but with appreciation for the point and risk it takes.” Edwin Arnaudin, conversely, writes dismissively, “Well, that’s certainly one way to tell a Holocaust narrative.” I get both POVs.

This was interesting: “Director Jonathan Glazer used up to five fixed cameras in the house and garden with no visible crew to capture many scenes, so the actors didn’t know if they were being shot in a close-up or wide shot. They were totally immersed in the scene and enjoyed working in that realistic environment.”

I admired the film. I don’t think LIKING it is entirely possible.