I’m doing a bit of mucking about with the blog template, folks, so if things look weird, bear with. Thanks!
UPDATE: OK, I think I’m done for right now. I liked the look I was using a lot, except for one thing: the “meta-” text regarding each post. I’m talking about the dates, the labels, and the comments links. This all appeared in very tiny lettering, at the top of each post. That bugged me — especially the location of the comments link. I’d wager that on at least 98 percent of the blogs out there, links to Comments come at the bottom of the posts, not at the top. This was occasionally a problem here as readers would, through really no fault of their own, read through a post and then click the comments link they saw at the bottom of the post…which belonged to the next post. Oy! Not good. So now, that’s fixed.
I’ve also added some “share” buttons for each post, for easy propagating of my vapid content to other regions of Teh Interweb, if any of you should so desire. There we go! Onward and upward!
Well, let there be no doubt that overalls are officially coming back into style, folks! I’m at the library yesterday, looking through the latest issues of various “handyman”-related mags (like Popular Woodworking, Family Handyman, and This Old House) and I spotted this, the latest issue of Rachael Ray’s magazine. And there she is, right there on the cover, decked out in bib overalls! Huzzah!!!
I don’t have an opinion on Rachael Ray, really, one way or the other. I definitely think she’s totally cute and all, but I’ve never watched her shows, read her magazine, or referred to her cookbooks. For all I know, she’s the most irritating person on the planet, or she’s a Giant Pile Of Awesome. But I do totally endorse her donning of overalls for her magazine!
Sorry, folks, but I’m nursing a bit of a cold that has sapped my enthusiasm for doing anything other than watch a bunch of reruns of The Big Bang Theory, eat ice cream, and dream of swimming in a giant lake of old-school Ny-Quil before they took the pseudoephedrine out of it.
(OK, it’s not that bad — a pretty mild cold, actually. But it’s certainly making me not feel like blogging.)
Right now I’m kind of angry with my local PBS station. Why? Well, every fall, they shuffle their lineup of kids’ programming around. It’s almost always the same shows, but they just shift them into new timeslots so nothing’s ever in the same place. The Daughter likes to have the teevee going while she eats breakfast and for a little while when she gets home. When the shows on are shows we like (Fetch with Ruff Ruffman, Between the Lions), that’s great. When we end up with a bunch of crappy shows, it’s a whole lot of ugh.
(Shows we don’t like? Look, I will forever be a fan of HA Rey’s books, but the Curious George teevee show is horrifically bad. And there’s just something awfully nauseating about Clifford. Sorry, but I see that big red dog and I wonder why the town isn’t always pissed at him when he leaves his Ford Taurus-sized droppings. And of course, of all kids’ shows, the one that lends itself most to MST3K-style commentary is Caillou.)
Our favorite kids’ show, though, is really no contest. It’s Arthur.
Arthur is the story of Arthur Read, his family, and his friends in Elwood City. Arthur and friends are all anthropomorphized animals: Arthur and family are aardvarks, friend Buster Baxter is a rabbit, and so on. It’s hard to describe what’s so good about the show, but in general, it has a great sense of humor, with a lot of jokes slipped in that only parents will get; it doesn’t rely on sickening sweetness to make its moral lessons; it depicts a very well-realized town with a lot of interesting and quirky supporting characters.
Actually, I just now figured it out: Arthur is like a more wholesome, less subversive version of The Simpsons.
1. Let’s start with more of those guest voices: Arthur’s had a bunch of these, and one of the things I think makes them awesome is that more often than not, the visitors are playing themselves, which can introduce parents and kids alike to new faces and ideas. Architect Frank Gehry’s been on the show, as has kinetic sculpture artist Arthur Ganson, and Jeopardy! host Alex Trebek. (Renamed “Alex Lebek” in the Arthur episode, for some reason.)
2. The value of reading is a huge underlying message: Arthur and his friends go to the library a lot. They did an entire musical episode which included a song and dance the benefits of a library card and another using The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde to illustrate the addictive power of books. Oh, and Arthur’s last name is, in fact, Read.
My favorite Arthur episode, “The Ballad of Buster Baxter”, depicted Buster Baxter’s return to Elwood City after a year away, and his attempts to reintegrate himself into life there and the awkwardness thereof. This is the kind of story that’s easy to relate to, and the episode is pretty insightful about the fears involved: the kids wonder if Baxter has changed from being the kid they knew, while Baxter wonders how he can convince them he’s the same old kid while wondering how much they have changed. But even so, the best thing about the episode is the form: it’s told in a series of vignettes, connected together by the singing of a guitar-toting balladeer moose, voiced by Art Garfunkel. (Sample lyric, after the kids have decided that Buster probably likes all kinds of strange foods now, such as escargot: “Life can be tough as nails, when your friends think you’re a guy…who likes to eat snails!”) At episode’s end, as the balladeer is summing things up, Buster turns to Arthur and asks, “What’s with the singing moose?”
Yeah. Arthur rules. So WNED has it on at 1:00 in the afternoon now. Bite me, WNED!
Seriously, how do you interview people for this job?
Those workers have to climb to the top of a transmission tower that is 1,768 feet high. That’s taller than the Sears Tower. The video starts off OK, kinda-sorta scary, but they’re inside a somewhat-protective metal structure. And then they reach the top of that, and have to keep going up.
I have very little fear of heights, but this video is making me think, “Oh, hell no!”
And get the banal voiceover narration — such as when the climber stops and looks around. “It’s good to take a look around while you rest!” See, if I’m up there, I’m not taking in scenery. I’m focusing all of my energy on two things, and two things only: not falling, and not voiding my bowels into my pants.
And now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to go sit in the corner and quiver for a while.
I’ve written about my fairly new-found admiration for The Beatles a number of times over the last couple of years. The main thing that has captivated me in exploring their music — and I’ve only done this in a cursory way as of yet — is its sheer variety. The Beatles compose and perform in so many different styles, and they’re convincing in each one.
Now, one thing to remember about me as a newly-minted Beatles fan is that I don’t know much about their music, or about their trajectory as a band, or about…well, much of anything at all. It’s all a learning process. So what did I learn about “Don’t Let Me Down”? Apparently it was originally intended for the Let It Be album, and then dropped; it existed as a single and then only appeared on Beatles compilation albums. I also learned that the song was written by John Lennon, and likely intended as a love song for Yoko Ono.
As for the song itself…it amazes me, actually.
It’s one of the more searing Beatles songs I’ve heard, with the emotion raw and on display in a way that isn’t always the case with this band. The song has a slow, bluesy sound, opening with a very brief guitar figure before we start right in with the chorus:
Don’t let me down Don’t let me down Don’t let me down Don’t let me down
If this song is really intended for Yoko from John, then he is imploring her to, well, not let him down. His display of vulnerability here is front and center, not just in the simple repetition of the words but also in their delivery: Lennon sings them in a heartrending scream.
In the verses of the song, though, Lennon sets aside the imperative tone and instead seems to be commenting to a third party on the nature of his love for Yoko. First verse:
Nobody ever loved me like she does Oh, oh she does, yes she does And if somebody loved me like she do me Oh, oh she do me, yes she does.
The song’s tone here switches to a quieter, more meditative sound, almost as if John is surprised at the intensity of his new love. And then back to the chorus, which leads to a second verse:
I’m in love for the first time Don’t you know it’s gonna last? It’s a love that lasts forever It’s a love that had no past
This verse is, to me, the key to the entire song. The lyrics leave behind both the pleading of the chorus and the surprised meditation of the first verse, and instead become optimistic and downright idealistic about the nature of John’s love. We know he has been involved with women before, but now, with Yoko, John is claiming to be “in love for the first time”, and already claiming that it will “last forever” and even sounding a bit mystical in saying that their love “had no past”. This verse is sung to a different melody than the other two, a happier melody that leads John into his upper register again in the second half, but even then, he no longer sounds pleading but rather shouting his affirmation (literally from the rooftop, in this case!)
But what really establishes the optimistic sound of this verse of the song isn’t the lyrics or the new melody; it’s the rhythm, driven forward by the doubling of Ringo’s drum pattern, making the song sound as if it’s just shifted into double-time.
We hear the chorus again, which somehow sounds less pleading this time, after the optimistic tone struck by John in the second verse, and then we’re into the third verse, which brings us back to the bluesy sound of the first verse, and a more, shall we say, intimate tone to the lyrics:
And from the first time that she really done me, Oh oh she done me, she done me good I guess nobody ever really done me, Oh oh she done me, she done me good.
John’s love for Yoko is transcendent in mystical ways, but also in the physical act as well. Or I suppose that’s how this verse should be interpreted. In John’s singing of this verse, I hear a certain bit of mischief in his voice, and maybe even a bit of male “locker room” pride. Yoko is able to inspire John Lennon to the highest degree of virility that he can attain.
The rest of the song — the chorus one last time, and a close-out with John singing wordless cries — is mainly the same as the opening, but after the verses, the sense of pleading is gone. By this time, the song sounds to me like an anthem of affirmation, and a pledge by John that he won’t let her down.
:: Smoking bans and smoking sections in some buildings are reasonable. Smoking bans in bars are not. (As much as I love Lynn, I couldn’t possibly disagree more. What is so sacrosanct about smoke in bars? What is it about bars that makes them completely different from every other business in the country? Near as I can tell, there’s nothing at all that makes bars different, other than the historical stereotype we all have of the smoke-filled saloon. Well, here in New York, we’ve had smoke-less bars for years now…and the bars are still there, selling drinks and doing just fine.)
This is a convenience store located in Orchard Park, just south of Green Lake. I’ve been driving by it for years, but I still have never gone in. No real reason, other than the fact that convenience stores are located for convenience, i.e., they’re there because you need them to be there. I’ve just never driven by this place at a time when I needed to stop for something. Maybe I’ll hop over there one of these days, though.
The name, of course, reminds me of the song Clint Eastwood and Ray Charles perform during the opening credits of the movie Any Which Way You Can, “Beers To You”:
