Author: Roger

I'm a librarian. I hear music, even when it's not being played. I used to work at a comic book store, and it still informs my life. I won once on JEOPARDY! - ditto.

I’m SO Tired

On the TV show Grey’s Anatomy. Meredith and Derek are exhausted with a new baby. On another show, Parenthood, there’s a couple with a new, crying-all-the-time, infant.

For reasons I mostly don’t understand, for the last couple of weeks, I have been going to sleep, waking up anywhere between three and four and a half hours later, and then being unable to go back to sleep. I stay in bed for as long as an hour, then finally get up and check my e-mail, or, rarely, watch TV for an hour, then go back to bed, pretty much in time for the alarm clock. I usually DO fall asleep in that brief time between when my wife wakes up and when she returns from the shower; I know this because I am likely to have quite vivid dreams.

The annoying thing is that I’m often too unfocused to write a comprehensible blog post, to even start one. Yet the IDEAS are still there, which is actually worse.

I’ve experienced this condition before, for a day or two, and I can operate OK in the short term. But in this extended bout, not so much. There was a First Friday event I plugged in this blog, and which I remembered at 2 pm Friday. But by 5:30, when it was time to leave work, I totally forgot, went home, and at 6:20, I was too tired to go back out.

In case you’re wondering, I’ve tried having a glass of wine, or having nothing to drink; different times of going to bed (yeah, I know you’re supposed to go at the same time, but that only applies when that’s working.) I had been staying off caffeine until the last few days when I feared dozing at my desk.

Saturday afternoon, with absolutely no energy, I watched a little of the TV show Grey’s Anatomy. Meredith and Derek are exhausted with a new baby. On another show, Parenthood, there’s a couple with a new, crying-all-the-time, infant. Then it hit me: the last time I was THIS tired was nine and a half years ago

I HATE using them, but, in desperation, I took one of those OTC medications that are supposed to let you sleep for 3 or 4 hours, and it DID work.

But my friend Jon said that had a better idea – 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 see hear feel. You open your eyes and note five things you see, 5 things you hear then 5 things you feel. Then 4, 4, 4, then 3, 3, 3, et al. Always worked for him. Well, not for me; I found that it was so focusing – where am I at, 4 hear or 3 feel? – that it made me alert, and even the pill didn’t help.

To boot, I must have slept wrong one night, because the back of my neck aches much of the time lately.

My problem is, paraphrasing John Lennon (whose birthday is today), I have a tough time turning off my mind, relaxing, and floating downstream.

Beatles songs:
I’m So Tired
Tomorrow Never Knows.

M is for Monsanto, modified foods and mischief

Monsanto uses “alarming legal and political tactics to maintain this monopoly [that] are the subject of worldwide concern, with baleful consequences for the world’s small-scale farmers.”

Monsanto, a large agricultural entity in the US, apparently needs protection, for the US Congress has passed, back in the spring of 2013, what has been dubbed the Monsanto Protection Act, which, critics claim, “effectively bars federal courts from being able to halt the sale or planting of controversial genetically modified (aka GMO) or genetically engineered (GE) seeds, no matter what health issues may arise concerning GMOs in the future”. The bill has been recently reauthorized in the House, but not the Senate. (Meanwhile, while supporting corporate welfare, the House GOP axes food assistance for millions of Americans.)

So what’s the issue with GMOs? It is believed that GMOs are not safe. “They have been linked to thousands of toxic and allergenic reactions, thousands of sick, sterile, and dead livestock and damage to virtually every organ and system studied in lab animals.”

Also, many scientists are calling for further study of a genetically modified bacteria which is used to create aspartame. Moreover, some fear that the use of the Monsanto product RoundUp will cause birth defects.

The desire among many, short of banning these products, is for GMOs to be labeled, but GMO manufacturers are even resistant to that unless they are voluntary. Worst-case scenario, once the FDA finalizes its GMO labeling guidance, the industry uses the FDA guidance to preempt state laws requiring mandatory labeling of GMOs. “Currently, states have the right to enact GMO labeling laws precisely because the FDA has not formally ruled on GMO labeling.”

It’s interesting that a whole lot of the world wants them banned. Activists in Chile are fighting Monsanto’s bid to patent food crops. Also, more than 1000 acres found to have been planted with genetically altered maize crops have been destroyed in Hungary. “The country has boldly banned GMO seed. Peru has passed a ban for at least ten years on GM foods, along with Italy, Greece, Spain, and Austria with their own bans, as well as many other countries.” Here is a list of countries & regions with GE food/crop bans.

According to The World According to Monsanto, which charts “documentary filmmaker Marie-Monique Robin’s three-year journey across four continents to uncover the disturbing practices of multinational agribusiness corporation Monsanto, it uses “alarming legal and political tactics to maintain this monopoly [that] are the subject of worldwide concern, with baleful consequences for the world’s small-scale farmers.” This parody piece from The Daily Show illuminates how litigious Monsanto is when farmers try NOT to use their patented seeds which need to be purchased every year, contrary to the agricultural practice of reusing seeds that go back millennia. And the US Supreme Court has supported Monsanto in 2013.

In the Philippines, GMO corn farmers are losing their land and going into debt, thanks to bait-and-switch pricing tactics.

There will a March Against Monsanto event on Saturday, October 12 around the world. The information is now on Facebook, after previously having been removed.

Some other links:
14-year-old girl stands up to Monsanto shill
The list of Monsanto-owned companies you may have seen on the Internet is probably wrong, such as this one, though it may be a fair reflection of companies using Monsanto products and techniques. Conversely, this list I believe to be correct.
Five GMO myths busted.
Leigh Erin Connealy, M.D. of Newport Natural Health – GMOs: Are Your Cupboards Filled with Frankenfoods?
Occupy Monsanto website.


ABC Wednesday – Round 13

Favorite albums of 1951-1960

I do have several albums from the decade, some of them quite well respected.

Ella Fitzgerald

Sometimes you try something, for instance in this blog, and it fails. If SamuraiFrog, who was born in the late 1970s, could write so knowledgeably about the music of the 1960s, might not I, who was born in the early 1950s, be able to speak to the music of the period in which I was born? Any number of my friends who were born in the 1960s know the music of that decade.

The answer is: apparently not. I never owned that many albums of 1950s pop artists. I have them mostly on compilations, notably Frank Sinatra, Ray Charles, and Nat Cole. I do have several albums from the decade, some of them quite well respected, such as:

The Quintet: Jazz at Massey Hall/The Greatest Jazz Concert Ever (1953)
Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong: Ella and Louis (1956), and its follow-up; at some level, they blur in my mind
Count Basie: April in Paris (1956), though I DO love this particular version of the title song a LOT.: “One more ONCE.”
Billie Holiday: Songs for Distingué Lovers (1957)
The Original Broadway Cast: West Side Story (1957)

I do enjoy them. But truth is, there are only five I found that I respond to like some of the albums on my sixties list, where they’ve almost imprinted on my DNA:

5. Duke Ellington: The Nutcracker Suite (1960)
Described at length HERE.

4. Ella Fitzgerald: Ella Fitzgerald Sings the George and Ira Gershwin Songbook (1959)
Actually, Ella doing ANY of the songbooks might rate, if I owned them. One of my college friends played them constantly, but this was always my favorite.

3. Dave Brubeck Quartet: Time Out (1959)
‘Take Five’ is the classic, but ‘Blue Rondo A La Turk’ is even better, to me. I wrote about Brubeck HERE.

2. Harry Belafonte: My Lord What a Mornin’ (1960)
I mentioned HERE that I just bought this album for both my sister Leslie and me just last year; it was so important to my father.

1. Miles Davis: Kind of Blue (1959)
Which I linked to HERE. Always associate this album with my late friend Donna George.

It’s interesting, to me anyway, that much of my musical enjoyment comes from the experience of hearing something together. It’s not that I can’t appreciate something as a solitary experience, but music, it seems to me, ought to be shared.

Understanding: sometimes difficult to achieve

My wife was baking muffins and was out of baking soda and wanted to know what she could use instead. I have no idea, and in fact, have confused baking soda with baking powder. I do know, once upon a time, I used one instead of the other in making pancakes, took one bite of the bitter batter concoction and threw them out.

Found this website, Baking Soda Substitutes, which reads: “For each 1 teaspoon baking soda in the recipe, substitute 4 teaspoons of double acting baking powder.” It worked well!

But I still don’t have a deep understanding of what each of them does. And I suppose I don’t care enough to learn.
***
Sometimes I use words or phrases people don’t understand.

I wrote to one friend, “I namechecked you in my last blog post.” And I had to explain that namecheck merely meant that I mentioned her. “The Peter, Paul and Mary song I Dig Rock & Roll Music namechecks the Mamas & the Papas and the Beatles and Donovan.”

She, BTW, sent me a link to this Louis CK video, Older People are Smarter. Which they are, BTW, but younger people often don’t understand this. She was concerned I might find it profane. Interestingly, no. I wouldn’t USE the language, but hearing the language didn’t bother me (and it might bother you, or not.).

To another friend, I said something was a PITA, and she asked what THAT meant. I wrote back, “Pain In The Butt.”

There was this third example I can’t remember presently, and they all happened within a 24-hour period. The overriding point is that sometimes I think I’m being clear, yet I feel misunderstood. I suspect all of us feel that way some of the time.

I was telling a friend a story about an incident, and my friend interrupts, “Oh, you told that story.” Except that I hadn’t, because this iteration had a different (and more annoying) twist to it.

Video review: Singin’ in the Rain

After noting in this blog that I had not seen the 1952 film in its entirety, it was total coincidence that The Wife decided the family ought to watch together Singin’ In the Rain.

I did not know this until watching the extras, but the film was MGM producer Arthur Freed’s plan to use his catalog of songs, written with Nacio Herb Brown, and used in previous MGM musical films, mostly from the 1930s. It became the job of screenwriters Betty Comden and Adolph Green to create a script that would make sense. They decided that making a film that shows one studio’s foray into talking pictures in response to the real game changing film, 1927’s The Jazz Singer. Hollywood is usually good at showing Hollywood.

Singin’ In the Rain is mostly marvelous. Gene Kelly not only plays Don Lockwood, “a popular silent film star with humble roots as a singer, dancer and stunt man, ” he also co-directed it with Stanley Donen. He performs the iconic title song sequence, which I had seen often, but it works so much better once seen in context.

Don’s leading lady in the silent films is Lina Lamont, played by Jean Hagen, doing her best Judy Holliday routine. She has a voice made for silent films.

Donald O’Connor, as Don’s best friend Cosmo, is marvelous dancing with Kelly, particularly in Moses Supposes, a Roger Edens/Comden and Green piece new for the film. But O’Connor is most extraordinary in his solo stint, Make ‘Em Laugh.

Debbie Reynolds, not yet 20, plays Kathy Selden. Don, avoiding his fans, accidentally lands in Kathy’s car. She feigns disinterest in his “undignified” film career, but later Don discovers she is not a stage actress but a chorus girl. Eventually, romance is kindled.

After the disastrous preview of The Dueling Cavalier, Don, Kathy and Cosmo come up with the idea to change it into a musical called The Dancing Cavalier. It’s at this point the marvelous dance Good Morning with those three characters takes place, up and down a flight of stairs, among other tricks. Reynolds, a gymnast but not previously a dancer, managed to keep up with Kelly and O’Connor.

I understand it from a historic context, but the one part of the movie I wish were a bit shorter was the flashy Broadway Melody Ballet. Not sure what I would have cut out, although it would NOT have been the parts with Cyd Charisse as Kelly’s dance partner. Incidentally, Reynolds’ rendition of You Are My Lucky Star, sung to a billboard showing an image of Don, was cut; nicely performed yet unnecessary in advancing the plot.

All in all, Singin’ in the Rain is a quite enjoyable film, and a cultural icon to boot, referenced in everything from A Clockwork Orange to Glee. The extras, showing where the songs had been used in previous films, was entertaining, as was Debbie Reynolds’ recollections of the filmmaking.

Ramblin' with Roger
Social media & sharing icons powered by UltimatelySocial