January 2023 - Page 3 of 4 - ForgottenStars.net

January 12, 2023January 11, 2023

Something for Thursday: Farewell, Jeff Beck

Sad news from the music world yesterday: guitarist Jeff Beck has died. He had a long and unconventional career, which led to some amazing music-making. This song was my introduction to his guitar work, and it quickly became one of my favorite songs of the 80s, and then of all time. Yes, it’s a cover; the original is by the great Curtis Mayfield, whose own versions are well worth seeking out…but this rendition stood in stark contrast to the Van Halen-esque guitar fireworks that were the main role of the guitar at that time (at least, in terms of the guitar-centric music that I was listening to at at the time). Now, I loved hair metal and I yield to no one in my conviction that Eddie Van Halen is one of the all-time greats, but Jeff Beck was something else. He showed me that the guitar could sing, and his playing here doesn’t merely back up Rod Stewart’s vocals; Beck’s playing here is a full partner with Mr. Stewart.

I didn’t realize until quite a few years after I heard this song that Jeff Beck’s career had been as long as it had been. He was apparently difficult to work with at times, but also he was one of those musicians who follows his own instincts and thoughts, with the result being decades of great music-making.

Thank you for the music, Jeff Beck. I hope your guitar is sounding on that very train.

Here is “People Get Ready”.

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January 11, 2023January 10, 2023

Of sweaters and such….

Two Christmases in a row, I petitioned The Wife for a white cable-knit sweater rather like the one Chris Evans wore in Knives Out. I didn’t petition her for this sweater because Chris Evans wore one in Knives Out, but I won’t say that his wearing one in Knives Out had nothing to do with me petitioning her for just such a sweater. I mean, come on:

Credit: https://bamfstyle.com/2020/11/25/knives-out-sweater/

That’s some iconic sweater wearing, is all I’m saying. And you know what? There’s nothing at all wrong with seeing a look in a movie and thinking, “Huh, I kinda like that.”

I asked too late in the game last year for one of these, but this year, The Wife came through! Of course, unlike Mr. Evans, I am most likely to pair the sweater with a pair of overalls. This is an outfit for cozy winter days…a hot beverage and a good book, while the elements do their icy thing outside.

Note the coffee mug! That was a gift from The Daughter.

Dogs remain the best fashion accessories.

Detail. This is the only scenario when I do the one-strap-undone thing.

Morning coffee and a book. Simple pleasures!

The sweater is by Land’s End. We’ve had a lot of success with that brand over the years; everything they make is of high enough quality that the clothes last, and they just make good, solid staples, like sweaters. This sweater is soft and pleasant, and if there’s one thing my life can always use in greater supply, it’s “soft and pleasant”!

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January 10, 2023January 9, 2023

Tone Poem Tuesday

Olivier Messiaen (1908-1992) was one of the major names in twentieth-century music. HIs work is always brightly modern, but also accessible in a way that much of the avant garde music of that century was not; Messiaen’s work both rewards repeated listening and the first hearing.

I haven’t found much information about this particular piece, beyond the fact that the score was lost during World War II, prompting Messiaen to reconstruct it from memory. The result is a work of unflinching spirituality and modernism, an orchestral kaleidoscope of color and texture. It’s a fascinating listen, as Messiaen tends to be. Here is Hymne (Hymn to the Blessed Sacrament), by Olivier Messiaen.

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January 6, 2023

Play “Misty” for me

I took this on the 31st, when our post-storm warm-up was progressing along to the point that the woods behind the house were shrouded in winter mists. There’s always something magical about mists and fog, something evocative that makes it seem as if the world is shrouding itself….

(By the way, I’ll be taking a couple of days off from posting here, but I’ll be back either Monday or Tuesday. Meanwhile I’ll be starting my next newsletter installment, huzzah!!!)

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January 5, 2023

Something for Thursday

Time to start the weekly music features for 2023, huh? We’ll lead off with this, which a friend shared on Facebook: the classic Simon-and-Garfunkel song “The Boxer”, played by quite an impressive country-roots trio. I may actually like this performance more than the original.

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January 4, 2023

A Preference in Weather

I will take 26 degrees and snowy over 46 degree and rainy.

After our blizzard and lake-effect storm ten days or so ago, just about all of it has been melted away by warm temps and rain.

We have a two-month period of warm temps and rain coming up. It’s called “the first two-thirds of Spring.”

Yuck.

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January 2, 2023January 2, 2023

Farewell, trusted companion through many breakfasts….

For Christmas 1990, a friend of the family gave me…a toaster oven. I was in college, and this was a gift that had never once been on my radar as something I wanted or needed. But off to college it went, whereupon my room-mate at the time saw it. This exchange, or something like it, happened:

HE: A toaster oven?
ME: Yup.
HE: We have a toaster oven?
ME: Yup.
HE: Did we need a toaster oven?
ME: Maybe? I mean, we can make toast now.
HE: Is that something we’ve been missing until now?
ME: Maybe it’s one of those things we didn’t know we were missing?
HE: Huh….

Anyway, we set up the toaster oven. I don’t recall how much we used it at the time, in our dorm room (given we were college students, probably small cheap frozen pizzas), but it did become more useful the next year when we were living in a rented off-campus house.

That toaster oven lived through college, and then…it kept on going. And going. And going. It stopped serving that roommate and I, and eventually served The Girlfriend when she moved out to Western New York, and it served us both again when we got married and she became The Wife.

And this morning there it was, that old toaster oven, still in our kitchen. I made toast in it just this morning.

But…this is the last day for that old toaster oven. Thirty-two years of a toaster oven. I’d say I got our old family friend’s money’s worth out of that toaster oven.

Now, why is it the last day for that toaster oven? Well, we’re upgrading. What to? Well…that’ll be a post for later this week, I hope!

(oooh, wait! A random memory of my grandmother’s toaster. I don’t know if it was specifically a toaster oven, but it looked like one. When you went to open it to put bread in it, the wire rack would actually slide out at you, and when the toast was done the door would open and the wire rack would pop out to give you your toast. That, for six-year-old me, was magic. A lot cooler than those boring toasters where you drop your bread in through the top….)

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January 2, 2023January 2, 2023

Back in the saddle again!

My right hand is a blur, while my left just sits and watches….

Actually, this photo is from yesterday. After taking a couple weeks off from even opening Scrivener once I finished the Forgotten Stars V draft, I launched it yesterday on a project that I’d been noodling with a bit during 2022, but now I want to actually get it done: a collection of various Star Wars-related essays I’ve written over the years, many in this very space! I figure, other folks have gathered their blog entries for collections, why shouldn’t I? I’m starting with Star Wars because it’s personal, and because I’ve written a lot about it. Should be fun!

I’m going to try targeting March 31 for completion of this draft, and then my hope is to return to The Adventures of Lighthouse Boy, the fantasy duology I’ve had shelved for entirely too long. There are another few projects I’d like to get to this year, but I won’t mention those this far out. And then, in 2024, a return to The Song of Forgotten Stars, as well. Lots of work ahead!