Ramblin' with Roger

Watching the Oscars and the Grammys

movies and music

Because of scheduling dictated in part by COVID, the Oscars and the Grammys were on successive weekends. I watched them both in 30-minute chunks while riding the stationary bicycle. So not in real time; I’m too busy for that.

There was a point in the mid-nineties when I would listen to the radio at 8:37 a.m./5:37 a.m. Pacific Time, to hear the announcement of the Oscar nominations in the major categories. I’d then scribble them down frantically and quite illegibly. Of course, in a few years, I discovered I could find them on the Internet by 9 a.m. But it was exhilarating at the time.

Last century, I usually DID watch the Oscars live to the very end, or until I got too tired. I would record the program on my DVD or DVR, get up in the morning, and view it, making sure not to see/hear the news. If I don’t know the outcome, it’s new to me!

After I got to The Slap, about which everyone has an opinion, the show rolled on until Will Smith’s acceptance speech for Best Actor. And it took me two days to actually watch it. To my surprise, I was REALLY angry about this rambling half-apology – no playing-off music there.

Yay, CODA, 3 for 3!

Music

I’ve decided to watch the Grammys the last two years, in part as an archeological dig. Hey, I’ve at least I’ve HEARD OF the nominees for Record, Album, and Song of the Year. OK, I don’t know Daniel Caesar or Giveon, who were featured on Justin Bieber’s track Peaches, the live performance of which was the most bleeped of the show.

I know who Anderson Paak is because he appeared as a performer on The Daily Show with Trevor Noah in December 2018; yes, I looked it up. He’s now part of Silk Sonic with Bruno Mars. Mars’ song with Mick Ronson, Uptown Funk, was so ubiquitous in 2015 that even I had heard it quite often.

H.E.R. I know because she was on that Grammy tribute to Prince in 2020, and she’s a fine guitarist.

I actually own THREE of the Album of the Year nominees. The winner, We Are, is the second album by Jon Batiste that I own. The TV special of Tony Bennett’s 95th birthday concert with lady Gaga I found touching, so I got it . The other – don’t laugh – is Sour by Olivia Rodrigo, which I pretty much blame on my daughter playing it incessantly.

For Best New Artist, Olivia Rodrigo was the winner. I didn’t know Arooj Aftab, Jimmie Allen, Baby Keem, Arlo Parks, or Saweetie. FINNEAS is Billie Eilish’s brother and sometimes collaborator. Hasn’t Glass Animals been around for half a decade or more?

As for Japanese Breakfast, I actually heard of the book Crying in H Mart: A Memoir by Michelle Zauner on The Daily Show and CBS Sunday Morning. Oh, she has a band too?

Every year, Arthur links to these end-of-year video compilations. I asked him, which one is The Kid LAROI? So he wrote a post about him.

There are other artists I did recognize in some categories, such as The Black Pumas (saw on Sam Bee’s show). But most of the nominees I knew were relative dinosaurs like Foo Fighters and Paul McCartney.

Etc.

My, I HATED both of In Memorium segments because I couldn’t always read the names, as the cameras panned out to show the performers. It was particularly egregious at the Oscars. I liked the Sondheim medley at the Grammys, though.

WRGB, Channel 6 in Schenectady, the CBS affiliate, inserted a package of local commercials during the Grammy broadcast. Carrie Underwood was already singing. This is not the first time WRGB has muffed things like this.

I find myself more drawn to music than the movies these days. In no small part, it’s because movies, when I see them on TV or a computer, don’t seem… theatrical.

By contrast, what Batiste said in his acceptance speech is true. “It’s like a song or an album is made and it’s almost like it has a radar to find the person when they need it the most.”

I got that vibe as the Brothers Osborne closed out the Grammys with Dead Man’s Curve, as members of the audience, regardless of their musical genre were clearly grooving to the tune.

Freedom – Jon Batiste
Leave The Door Open – Silk Sonic
I Get A Kick Out Of You – Tony Bennett and Lady Gaga

I may try this again next year.

Changing up the morning ritual

Quordle

Daily Quordle #51
6️⃣9️⃣
5️⃣7️⃣
quordle.com
⬜🟨⬜🟨⬜ ⬜⬜🟩⬜⬜
⬜🟨🟨⬜🟩 🟨⬜⬜⬜⬜
⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜ 🟩⬜⬜⬜⬜
⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜ ⬜🟩⬜⬜⬜
🟨🟨⬜⬜⬜ ⬜⬜🟩⬜⬜
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 ⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜
⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛ ⬜⬜🟩⬜⬜
⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛ 🟩🟩🟩🟩⬜
⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛ 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

⬜🟩🟩⬜🟩 ⬜⬜🟩🟨🟩
⬜⬜⬜⬜🟨 ⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜
⬜⬜⬜⬜🟩 ⬜⬜⬜⬜🟩
⬜🟨⬜🟨🟨 ⬜🟨⬜🟨🟨
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 ⬜⬜🟩🟩🟩
⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛ 🟩⬜⬜⬜⬜
⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛ 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
I’ve been changing up the morning ritual in the past, lessee, two years. Formerly, I would get up, check the email, and perhaps work on the blog, But at 7 a.m., my wife and I would go downstairs and watch CBS This Morning, now CBS Mornings, to watch “your world in ninety seconds.”

When the headlines were unrelentingly about COVID – the spread of COVID, the death toll of COVID – I sometimes passed on the opportunity to start my day with misery. Presently, I’ve been feeling similarly about Ukraine. I guess I’m more equipped to deal with distress in the evening. Besides, I tend to get enough news from various news outlets during the day.

Instead, I do the daily Wordle. I should note that my wife is MUCH better at this than I am, just as she’s better at Boggle. My daughter is better, too. Wordle has become an odd family bonding experience.

I’ve repeatedly told my wife she’d rule on Wheel of Fortune. We actually have the home game, a consolation prize from when on JEOPARDY! and our comparative scores prove my point. But at least we all still have our Wordle streaks going, unlike some people.

FOUR words

Then I attempt Quordle. The first several times I never got the four words in the nine tries. My mistake was to work it like I played Wordle. I know now to try to expose as many letters by finding three or even four words that hit most of the consonants. I’ve been much more successful.

After wishing my wife goodbye, I go back into the office. The cats want to be fed. I HAD been giving them nourishment at 7 a.m. and 7 p.m. But with the stupid time change, if I attend them at 7 and 7, when we “fall back”, they’d be caterwauling to get food at 6 and 6.

This is just one reason that I’m OK with the idea of changing to permanent Daylight Saving Time, even though it’ll be dark on December mornings. I’ve made my feelings about changing the clocks quite clear here. (I’m essentially agreeing with Marco Rubio; this pains me.)

After finally feeding the felines, I take my blood pressure and my pulse to make sure I’m not dead. THEN I eat. The rest is the usual alternating of email/blogging to music, riding the stationary bike while watching TV (JEOPARDY, 60 Minutes, Finding Your Roots, Trevor Noah, et al), washing the dishes/reading the newspaper to music. This may be altered by a medical appointment, Bible study, grocery shopping, or the eternal “something else,” that unexpected task that sucks up hours in the day.

MASH TV series: Blake or Potter?

helicopter noise

More questions from the Buffalo-area blogger Kelly Sedinger. You can still Ask Roger Anything.

If you watched MASH, were you a Colonel Henry Blake or a Colonel Sherman Potter guy?

I watched MASH religiously every week for 11 seasons, on five different nights. In fact, for the first eight years, I’d often watch the reruns. But the last three were generally weaker, sometimes regurgitating plot devices. Moreover, the chronology was all over the place.

I thought that the show should have ended after Radar departed. Klinger became the company clerk and lost the dresses, but I never bought him in the new role.

Blake was a funnier guy, which made Abyssinia, Henry all the more potent. Potter, though, was more substantial. The Old Soldiers episode may have been my favorite; I learned the word tontine. So I’ll opt for Potter.

BTW, I was bemused when Harry Morgan was cast in the role. I watched him on a sitcom called December Bride (1954-1959; I must have seen it in syndication) and its spinoff, Pete and Gladys (1960-1962). He appeared in various series before starring in the return of Dragnet (1967-1970). Then he was a doctor on a western called Hec Ramsey (1972-1974).

What was confusing was that in 1974, the year before he became Potter, Morgan played on MASH Maj. Gen. Bartford Hamilton Steele, a loony officer who wanted to move the camp closer to the front.

Oh, and BTW, Winchester over Burns, BJ over Trapper John (because Trapper and Hawkeye were too similar), and Margaret over Hot Lips.

Choppers

And this might seem random, but a helicopter just flew over my house. We get helicopters flying over ALL the time. Are there lots of helicopters where you are? What’s the common “white noise” of your neighborhood?

Actually, planes and helicopters DO fly over our house a lot. The choppers are traveling to and from Albany Medical Center, which is a Level One trauma center, the only one actually in northeast New York State; the hospital in Burlington, VT is the nearest, followed by ones in Westchester County and Syracuse.

About 50 years ago, a plane crashed in the city of Albany, and in fact in my neighborhood, about a mile away as the crow flies. After 9/11, of course, there were no planes in the skies for about a week, so when the first plane flew over my house again, it actually startled me.

The John Rutter requiem

Rutter was born in 1945

I am a sucker for a good requiem. The John Rutter Requiem is one of my two favorites.

I’ve sung the Mozart, Faure, Durufle requiems, and probably a couple more. There’s often a certain pattern, to which the composer may add or leave out. The Wikipedia discussion is useful.

I must admit that the Verdi Dies Irae, a theme that shows up repeatedly in the piece, is both one of the most recognized and my favorite single two-minute musical pieces.

While I’ve never performed the Brahms German requiem, my former church choir has sung the fourth movement quite frequently, in English. One of my favorite people at my old church wants the choir to sing How Lovely Is Thy Dwelling Place at their funeral.

Published in 1985

Still, the Rutter as a whole touches me greatly. Requiem aeternam, the first movement, “opens with a steady beat of the tympani, to which instruments enter, first without a defined key.” And I think I like the musical uncertainty

The second movement, Out of the Deep, begins with a cello solo; I love a good cello solo. The voices join, and they’re low in the register as well. The text is from Psalm 130; I’ve learned that the text is commonly used at Anglican funerals. The quartet from my choir sang it in the autumn of 2021. Ultimately, this could be transformed into a blues piece, and I can hear it clearly that way.

Pie Jesu is the third movement, featuring the soprano, then the chorus. It includes the prayer to Jesus for rest.

The fourth movement, Sanctus, is ” a lively, and exclamatory movement which is brightly orchestrated with bells, flute, and oboe and occasional timpani recalling the passage in Old Testament scripture in Isaiah 6, and the worship of the six-winged seraphim in the heavenly throne-room of God.”

Choirs I’ve been in have performed The Lord Is My Shepherd, the sixth movement. The text, of course, is Psalm 23, scripture commonly used at many funerals.

Finally, Lux aeterna, for soprano and solo, “includes words from the 1662 Book of Common Prayer Burial Service (‘I heard a voice from heaven…’)”

The recording I own is this one.

Where do you get your news

What IS news?

My intention was to write a blog post answering another Ask Roger Anything question. But it got VERY long, and slightly off point. So I’m going to address “Where do you get your news?”

I remember going to a panel discussion in 2017, part of a symposium called Telling the Truth in a Post-Truth World.” The segment I attended was “Presidents and the Press: Trump, Nixon, and More.” I wrote about it here. Looking back, when the threat of disinformation already seemed problematic, it now seems like a Peter Zenger moment compared with what we’re now experiencing less than five years later.

One issue for me: I don’t know what “the media” means anymore. Twenty years ago, it would have been pretty easy: CBS the Wall Street Journal, the BBC, Fox News, NPR, the New York Times, the Associated Press, the usual suspects.

Now, EVERYTHING is “the media”. Facebook and Twitter feeds and YouTube influencers, pretty much anyone with a megaphone, a microphone, and, preferably, video. This is NOT all bad, mind you. Stories from George Floyd’s murder to war atrocities have been revealed.

Still. About a dozen years ago, I was trying to engage someone in a conversation about information consumption. They said that they had gotten some tidbit from Facebook. I asked where they found it on Facebook. What was the source? “FACEBOOK,” they retorted, exasperated that I seem to be hard of hearing.

North, east, south, west

The other thing I don’t know anymore is “What is ‘news’?” Because many people take in their info via feeds, all the news is of the same significance. So a Kardashian marries, war crimes, the opening of the new Marvel movie, the next mass casualty shooting comes at you. What’s important?

If you happen to read a newspaper – you dinosaur! – you can tell what’s considered most significant the placement of the stories and the size of the headlines. Watching a news broadcast, the story that tends to lead might give you a clue. Online, so many items are vying for our attention.

A friend of mine recently complained that Ginni Thomas’ call to the White House on January 6 disappeared quickly. Of COURSE, it did; that was old news, which may pop up again if she’s called before a House committee or refuses to. But we have to move on to the next topic.

As noted, WHERE one gets the news matters a lot. Sure NBC and Fox are different. But I’ve been receiving newsfeeds that are even less mainstream, let’s say. It’s a bunch of articles such as Fauci, Vaccines, and Big Pharma’s Power by Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. Anti-vax, pro-Canadian truckers who were blocking Ottawa’s downtown earlier this year.

Don’t believe your eyes

But a lot of it pro-Putin. This utterly fascinates me. Here’s a quote from the sender. “Putin is spot on and I wish we had a leader like him…..remember again the msm is just full of lies and U.S.A./Israeli foreign policy and their puppets like Zelensky who can’t even control his fanatic military project what they are and what they are actually doing in Ukraine onto Putin and Russia…God help us with the jerks we have to deal with …”

The atrocities we think we’re seeing on our TV screens are either “some staged dead” or “killed by Ukrainian fanatical ultra-nationalist battalions.”

The original source of some of this is Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, the
former Vatican envoy and outspoken papal critic. He released a letter in March blaming “deep state” forces in the United States, the European Union, and NATO for triggering the current war and demonizing Russia.”

It is reasonable to ask, as Noam Chomsky does, whether the US policy will bring about de-escalation in Ukraine. It’s quite another to make Putin the victim in this narrative.

I had wondered where folks such Tucker Carlson had gotten his pro-Russia position, which he has now conveniently abandoned. It’s OK to believe that sort of thinking is unsettling. But know that a lot of people in this country are getting the same messages, probably from sources which we’ve never heard of.