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ROG is 60

“Celebrating a birthday reminds us of the goodness of life, and in this spirit we really need to celebrate people’s birthdays every day, by showing gratitude, kindness, forgiveness, gentleness, and affection.”

I generally take my birthday off from work each year, and today is no exception. Likewise, the blog, especially THIS birthday. I was born in the Chinese Year of the Snake, and arithmetically, it is the Year of the Snake for the sixth time in my life; I’m going to slither off now.

I have, in the past, and will again this year, quote a section from one of my favorite books, Here and Now: Living in the Spirit by Henri J.M. Nouwen, a Canadian theologian who died in 1996.(Copyright 1994, published by The Crossroad Publishing Company.)

I share this passage about birthdays, not only for my sake but, I hope, for yours as well:

Birthdays need to be celebrated. I think it is more important to celebrate a birthday than a successful exam, a promotion, or a victory. Because to celebrate a birthday means to say to someone: “Thank you for being you.” Celebrating a birthday is exalting life and being glad for it. On a birthday we do not say: “Thanks for what you did, or said, or accomplished.” No, we say: “Thank you for being born and being among us.”
…
Celebrating a birthday reminds us of the goodness of life, and in this spirit we really need to celebrate people’s birthdays every day, by showing gratitude, kindness, forgiveness, gentleness, and affection. These are ways of saying: “It’s good that you are alive; it’s good that you are walking with me on this earth. Let’s be glad and rejoice. This is the day that God has made for us to be and to be together.”
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Oh, what the heck: Birthday – the Beatles.

Happy 8th anniversary, Rico and niece Rebecca!

Photo taken by Ray Henrikson on February 1, 2013, at First Presbyterian Church, Albany, NY, and used by permission.

Movie Review: Quartet

Incidentally, I discovered that there was a 1981 movie called Quartet, also starring Maggie Smith.

The Wife and I decided we wanted to see a movie Sunday afternoon, which was a bit ambitious since church tends to run long on the first Sunday. The Daughter and we fairly bolted out the door, picked up the babysitter – no, make that child watcher, per the Daughter’s instruction – dropped them at home, then got to the Spectrum at 12:47 to see the 12:55 showing of Quartet.

There is a home for retired musicians in a lovely part of rural England. Every year, there is a concert to make sure the home will be solvent for another year. The director of the production, Cedric (Michael Gambon), imperiously decides who is in and who is out. Reginald (Tom Courtenay), the musician who sees parallels with opera and rap, is in, as are the lecherous Wilf (Billy Connolly), and the increasingly addled Cissy (Pauline Collins). Then Jean (Maggie Smith), someone from their past moves into the home; Reg is particularly peeved by this turn of events. Jean, proud and sad to be forced into this situation, has her own issues with yet another resident.

I enjoyed this film by 75-year-old first-time director Dustin Hoffman, who tells a pleasant tale about aging, fear, and complicated personal histories. The characters were engaging, and I found myself caring for them a great deal. I also enjoyed the minor characters, many of whom you find out more about in the end credits.

Oddly, this film has been compared, generally unfavorably, with the depressing film Amour. One example by Matt Pais of RedEye: “Unlike the devastating portrait of aging in Michael Haneke’s Amour, Quartet favors cheeky over honest.” Well, I sure hope so! Quartet is primarily a comedy, its dealing with the ailments of getting older was meant to suggest that one perseveres anyway, while one can.

A couple weeks ago, Maggie Smith was on CBS News’ 60 Minutes. She HATES doing interviews and it showed; she’s indifferent to the fame the British TV series Downton Abbey has suddenly foisted on the 78-year-old actress. However, she was most effusive with her praise for director Hoffman. For his part, he appreciated her being “difficult” because it was always about creating a better movie.

Incidentally, I discovered that there was a 1981 movie called Quartet, also starring Maggie Smith.

H is for Hello

There are a LOT of songs that start with the word “hello.”

Hello. How are you today?

I’ve been musing a lot about the word hello. The history of the word can be seen read in Wikipedia; basically, a 19th-century creation that Thomas Edison suggested be used in answering the telephone, rather than Alexander Graham Bell’s idea of “ahoy.”

I’m no linguist, but it seems that lots of languages have had a variation of hello for a long time, while others have not. I found this site Say Hello to the World. Some have very similar words: Chinese – ni hao; Hebrew – shalom; Spanish: hola. Others tend to have words more appropriately described as “good day.”

In any case, I was looking for an excuse to list a bunch of songs starting with the word Hello. There are a LOT of them; this is only a sampling, including several that I put on a mixed CD.

The Beatles – Hello Little Girl;
Ricky Nelson – Hello Mary Lou ;
Allan Sherman – Hello Muddah Hello Faddah;
Louis Armstrong – Hello, Dolly!;
Frank Sinatra – Hello, Young Lovers;
Sopwith Camel – Hello, Hello;
Judy Collins – Hello, Hooray;
The Doors – Hello, I Love You;
Todd Rundgren – Hello It’s Me;
Eric Clapton – Hello Old Friend;
Bette Midler – Hello In There;
Oasis – Hello;
Harry Potter Book of Mormon Parody – HELLO;
The Beatles – Hello Goodbye

Someone’s list of Top 10: Songs with lyrics that begin with ‘Hello’, only some of which I used, since I wanted songs with TITLES that begin that way.

ABC Wednesday – Round 12

Tom Kha Yum: my favorite Thai soup combo

There’s this girl woman I’d known since before she was born. I met her mother when she was pregnant. After my daughter was born, though, we fell out of touch. She moved out of state about eight years ago.

Due to the magic that is Facebook, we reconnected. She’d come back to the area a short time ago. We e-mailed and phoned, then met for dinner at a Thai fusion restaurant in Albany called Kinnaree, which, as it turns out, subsequently received a rave review in Metroland, the local arts weekly newspaper.

First thing she does is order two different soups and two extra bowls; apparently, she orders this a LOT, since the waitress is totally familiar with the routine. Tom Kha is a “spicy hot soup… made with coconut milk, galangal, lemon grass, kaffir lime leaves, and chicken, and often contains straw, shiitake, or other mushrooms, as well as coriander leaves.” Tom Yum is a “basic broth is made of stock and fresh ingredients such as lemon grass, kaffir lime leaves, galangal, lime juice, fish sauce and crushed chili peppers.”

While each of these soups were quite fine, they were SO much more delicious mixed together. I’m a big fan of mixing other items. Orange juice is OK, I love cranberry juice, though it can be a bit tart; they are so much better together. I’ve already explained my obsession inclination to mix cereals.

Slightly off topic, there are ways to combine foods to create complete protein.

Van Cliburn, and the Temptations

I saw the Temptations perform live twice.

When I was growing up, pianist Van Cliburn was the most famous classical musician in the United States. He had an album sell a million copies, unheard of in the genre. It was a function, in part, of the fact that when he won a prestigious competition in the Soviet Union, he was considered a Cold Warrior.

The only problem, as Dustbury noted, is that Cliburn never saw himself that way; he just loved playing the music. Listen to the link Jaquandor provided, and read the sweet story, while you’re at it.
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I was a HUGE fan of the singing group The Temptations from roughly 1964 to 1984; I could even tell you roughly when members came and went. Damon Harris (upper right) came into the group in 1971 to be the high-range vocalist after Eddie Kendrick left for a solo career; he left in 1975, having sung on Papa Was a Rolling Stone. He was only 62 when he died, succumbing to prostate cancer, which, not incidentally, is what killed my father.

Richard Street (upper left), though, was an even more vital part of the Temps history. He was part of The Distants back in the late 1950s with future Temptations Otis Williams (the sole surviving original member of the Temps; lower left) and Melvin Franklin (lower middle). Paul Williams (no relation to Otis) started having problems with alcoholism and depression. “By 1969, Richard Street… was touring with the group as a backup replacement for [Paul] Williams. For most shows, save for his solo numbers, Williams would dance and lip-sync on stage to parts sung live by Street into an offstage mic behind a curtain. At other shows, and during most of the second half of 1970, Street substituted for Williams on stage.” When Paul Williams left the group, Street replaced him in 1971 and stayed until 1992.

I saw the Temptations perform live twice, c 1982 during the reunion tour when Kendrick and David Ruffin temporarily rejoined the group, which was one of the greatest concerts I’ve ever seen; and c 1984, on a double bill with the Four Tops, a lesser event because it was at a baseball field, Heritage Park just outside Albany. Of course, Street was a participant in both shows. In the former show, when four of the original Temps did some of their old hits, it was Street once again filling in for the late Paul Williams. BTW, that’s Dennis Edwards pictured in the lower right; he had replaced Ruffin, and is still alive.

Richard Street died at the age of 70.

Does Petula Clark know about Petula Lark? New album by the 80-year-old Clark, including a cover of her massive hit Downtown.

Ken Levine wrote about the 30th anniversary of the last episode of the TV show MASH. I was a huge fan of the show from about midway through the first season until partway through the eighth. I’ve long thought, though, that they should have quit when Radar left in the eighth year. That bloated 2.5-hour program, still the TV finale with the highest ratings, I pretty much hated. I think MAD magazine nailed it.
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The YouTube video for Tim O’Toole’s book The American Pope.

 

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