This lovely film music cue has been on my mind the last few days because for some reason, the YouTube algorithm served up a clip from The Karate Kid Part II, and because I like that movie (it’s not as good as the first one, but it’s still quite watchable and it’s gorgeously filmed), the YouTube algorithm proceeded to give me more of it to watch. So here’s a wonderful cue that’s from a scene toward the end, just before the movie’s climactic action starts to unfold. Daniel is set to leave Okinawa and return home, but before he does, he visits the Okinawan girl he’s been hanging around with in an old warehouse, where she performs a tea ceremony for him. It’s a frankly wonderful scene, wordless as the music plays. I featured this cue here before, but it’s been a bunch of years, so here it is again: “Daniel Leaves” by Bill Conti.
(The cue ends suddenly because at that moment the wind whips up, blowing out the candle hanging above them and alerting them to the coming cyclone.)
Continuing our brief survey this month of classical works that debuted one hundred years ago this year, in 1925, we have one of George Gershwin’s major works, and one that gives some clear idea of the direction Gershwin was moving as a composer. The Concerto in F, as it is officially titled, teems with jazzy, urban energy. It feels like what it is: a more structured and more compositionally-assured successor to works like Rhapsody in Blue, where the musical structure is simple to the point of being almost absurd. The Concerto is still a work of youth, with compositional imperfections, but when heard in context you can clearly see Gershwin’s development from a genius of melodies toward being a genius composer. More on this here.
The Concerto follows the traditional form, being in three movements of the fast-slow-fast variety. Opening with four sharp timpani strikes, the temptation might be to compare this piece to Beethoven’s Violin Concerto, which also starts with four taps on the timpani. Gershwin is doing something much more overtly energetic here, which suits his background; his ongoing use of wonderful melodies loads the work with propulsive energy. The work never seems to lose its dancing nature, even if the nature of that dance is at times playful and at times sultry and seductive.
This performance, featuring soloist Wang Yuja, is conducted by Michael Tilson Thomas, the recently retired conductor of the San Francisco Symphony who was once, in his own musical youth, music director of the Buffalo Philharmonic.
I saw, a while back, a content creator I follow on social media wearing this shirt in one of her videos:
I saw that shirt and immediately thought, “I want one of those shirts!” Of course, I quickly surmised that I wouldn’t be able to get that shirt, exactly. For one thing, it’s a woman’s shirt. Is that necessarily a deal-breaker for me? You know, maybe not. I’ve always wondered why it is that women-wearing-stuff-made-for-men was a thing while the other direction is generally not. But the other problem with that isn’t so much the potential weirdness, perceived or real, about me wearing a women’s shirt; the problem is that the shirt is honestly unlikely to be cut in such a way to really work on my body. Oh well. (And for another thing? I found the shirt online and it’s $150, roughly. Yeah, nope. Not at this point in my life, anyway.)
(Oh, I’m not naming that creator because I don’t want to make things weird.)
But I still really liked the way that shirt looks! The color and pattern are terrific. Men’s shirts are, for the most part, really boring to look at. I really don’t know why this is, but to the extent that interesting patterns exist in men’s tops, you usually see them on golf shirts, which I really dislike wearing. Most men’s shirts are just boring patterns–simple stripes, if there’s any pattern at all, really–and visual flair in men’s clothes tends to come from accessories and things like ties. Since I refuse to wear ties, that’s out. When I was a kid, paisley shirts were a big thing, but I also can’t wear paisley. At least not in The Wife’s presence. A while back I saw some dude wearing a really neat paisley shirt and I pointed it out to her and her cocked eyebrow and disdainful “Really?” made me shelve that idea pretty quick. (And no, it doesn’t bother me to not wear something she hates…or let’s say I haven’t found anything to wear in which I am sufficiently invested to tempt fate in that way.) Point is, I have a ton of solid-colored shirts in my wardrobe, so a pattern here and there–something other than plaid!–would be nice to have as an option on occasion, is all I’m sayin’.
So I set up an eBay search under “Yellow Linen Shirt” (I’m also really loving linen, but we’ll discuss that another time), and checked the results every few days. Now, I have some things–specific brands or patterns of vintage overalls, mostly–that I’ve searched out for years. So it was to my high surprise and great pleasure that this turned up in my search results after just a few weeks:
Note to self: Look up how to hold up a shirt to display it.
Obviously I knew that I was unlikely to get super-close to the exact pattern of the women’s shirt modeled above, but I was hoping to get at least in the neighborhood–and this one is honestly a lot closer than I even expected to get! Into my shopping cart it went, and lo, it was mine.
After a wash and dry, it was time to wear it. I actually want to wear it with darker blue overalls, but once I had this shirt in hand it was getting quite hot in The 716, so I thus far have only paired it with a lighter pair that’s cooler to wear. I really loved the feel of the fabric (again, linen is a thing that is increasingly making me happy on a regular basis) and the worn, rumpled, and patterned look.
Yeah, I’m pretty happy with this one. Now, if we could get the temps to drop just a little, this shirt will get some serious use! We’re in a hot-and-humid stretch of the kind we haven’t had in what feels like several years, unfortunately. My relationship with heat and humidity has softened as I’ve aged, but I’m not on board with upper-80s and heat indices in the 90s, though. Even with a miracle fabric like linen!
Oh, let’s see what the weekly quiz has to offer, I haven’t done one of these in a bit:
1. If money wasn’t an issue, would you move to a new home?
No. Easy!
Well, fleshing out a bit, I suppose it depends on what is meant by “money isn’t an issue”. We can afford a mortgage someplace and it’s all fine, but we still have to work where we are? Then, again, no. I like the house we’re in.
Now, if we’re saying “You are now rich as shit and you don’t have to work and hell, you can probably afford two houses”, then my desire would be to split time between a cottage in the Finger Lakes and a penthouse in downtown Buffalo. Of course, The Wife would get a vote. She might not want the downtown penthouse…and come to that, with dogs, that might not be a great idea.
2. Do you listen to different music when you’re happy than when you’re sad?
I’m not really sure, to be honest. I have been digging more into classical and classic rock of late, because I need to constantly remind myself when things are going very badly and they’re going badly because apparently many of us want things to be going very badly, that humans are still capable of doing amazing things. But I don’t stop listening to new stuff, either.
3. What’s your favorite way to unwind after a tough day?
I always shower when I get home from work. It’s a physical and metaphorical rinsing of the day’s detritus from me. When it’s less hot, I’ll participate in a quick dog walk first.
4. What’s the first book you remember from childhood?
I remember a storybook full of old fairy tales. I have no idea which volume of that type it was, and my memories of it are very vague. I do look at such things when I see them at used bookstores and library book sales and antiquarian places, but I do not know that I would remember my specific book were I to see it again, either.
5. What made you smile today?
Apparently dogs of the pittie/staffie variety like to bake themselves in the sun. Today it’s very hot in Buffalo Niagara, and we try to keep an eye on Carla when she’s outside. At one point she had a ten-minutes-in, ten-minutes-outside thing going on. After the last time she came in, this is what she did:
Via. No, I do not know how this happened. I assume the driver was backing a boat trailer up and…they exceeded the parameters of the assignment.
And if you did have a worse day than this person, I am so very sorry and I hope that everything turns around and you live soon in a land of milk and honey.
You may remember the improv comedy show Whose Line Is It Anyway, which has had several incarnations over the years…including the original, which was a BBC production. Here’s a clip that I’ve always liked. The second guy’s reaction to the tempo his improv song is set always makes me laugh.
:: Buffalo’s One Billion Dollar Cautionary Tale for Baltimore’s Highway to Nowhere. This has been a very frustrating story to watch unfold. Buffalo’s Kensington Expressway, NY33, is a four-lane expressway that connects downtown to the airport, several miles away. But to build it, they pretty much completely destroyed a wide and beautiful parkway that just happened to pass through a predominantly Black neighborhood. The resulting speeding traffic has made the area one of the least healthy sections of the city. Several years ago the NYS DOT came up with a plan: to restore the old wide boulevard not by filling in the expressway and getting rid of it–something done in a number of cities successfully, including Rochester–but by putting a literal roof on the expressway, turning it into a tunnel. The whole thing was absurd.
:: I might have linked this before, but the tab is still open, so here it is: the sad fate of the Ontario Science Centre, a once glorious museum that fell on hard times and then got pretty well screwed by the Ontario government, which from my point of view, sucks.
:: Finally, a depressing read, but a necessary one: The US Constitution has failed. I tend to think along the same lines, though I do question the framing. America’s precarious position is because American citizens, through action or inaction, have largely chosen to put Americans there. The Constitution is not some mechanism that operates independently of the citizenry, and I truly believe things don’t start getting better until Americans realize and recognize their role in the fact that things are as bad as they are.
Continuing our look back at the classical music of one hundred years ago, we have a work for solo piano that was written in 1925. Henry Cowell lived from 1897 to 1965, and he was a largely self-taught composer and performer who found himself heavily in the avant-garde school. It’s a roughly five-minute piece in which the pianist never touches the keyboard. Instead, the performer reaches into the string chamber and manipulates the strings directly through various means: brushing the hand over them, plucking them, and dragging the nails of a finger along them. The effect is otherworldly and haunting; it almost sounds like the kind of atmospheric soundscape-type music that is often heard during old science fiction movies and horror movies of all eras. Here is a good post with more information on this eerie, haunting work.
