Month: May 2025

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About the Bed

Sunday Stealing is all about your bed! By the way, did you know that there’s a low-budget horror movie from 1977 that’s become a cult classic, and its title is Death Bed: The Bed That Eats? It’s about a bed that has been possessed by a demon and thus it literally eats people who sleep on it. So that’s fun! (You can watch it on YouTube, if you insist.)

Anyway, onto the questions, about bed stuff (it’s all G-rated, folks):

1. Let’s say your alarm wakes you up with music. What would be the worst song to hear first thing in the morning?

Honestly, I’m not sure. Sometimes the song has been something quiet and peaceful, which doesn’t really help. And I wouldn’t want to wake up to Toby Keith, for example…but there’s zero chance of that.

We did used to have the clock radio set to WNED, the local classical station, and WNED used to run the BBC’s news update at the top of every hour. So there were a few times we were awakened, if the alarm was set for 6am or some such thing, to a British person calmly reading news copy like “Authorities are still working to collect the bodies.”

2. How many pillows do you sleep with?

I use two while sleeping, and sometimes my head goes under the top one. I use a third, smaller pillow to prop my head for reading, but when I put the book side, off goes that pillow.

3. What size mattress do you sleep on?

Queen at home. When we’re staying in a hotel we try to get a King.

4. Do you always sleep on the same side of the bed?

Generally, yes…as you’re in the bed, I’m usually on the right side. We recently spent a weekend in Toronto and we had to flip, though, because the hotel room’s AC unit was blowing directly on The Wife, and she didn’t like that.

5. Do you make your bed every day?

I wouldn’t say we “make” the bed, but we do tidy it up a bit.

6. Do you keep water on your bedside table?

Yes, though I rarely actually drink out of it.

7. How often do you change your sheets?

Weekly? Biweekly? Honestly, I’m not sure.

8. What’s under your bed?

Stuff, dust, and cats.

9. Do you sleep in total darkness or do you like to have a light on?

I need light, but not much. A light in the hallway is fine, or the soft light from the humidifier. Total darkness freaks me out. I hate not being able to see anything. When we’re in hotels, I’ll leave enough of a gap between the thicker curtains to allow some light in, maybe just an inch-wide gap of light, during the night and in the morning.

10. What do you remember about your childhood bedroom?

Which one? We moved a lot…but when we settled in WNY, I had the upper part of a bunk bed, which gave me extra room down below. That was fun.

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Twenty-eight

One memory from my youth that I’ve been kicking around is the day after my first date with this one girl in college. We had kinda-sorta met the previous weekend, and then I asked her out on an official date. We went to see Edward Scissorhands. (This was February 1991.) I didn’t know this girl at all well and I wasn’t terribly sure if the date went really well or just nicely enough, but it went well enough that I was hoping there would be another. Luckily, a mutual friend had already sought her out and picked her brain so she (the mutual friend, that is) could assure me that yes, this girl did in fact want another date. Securing a second date was, at that time, quite the accomplishment for me.

Six years and a few months later, we got married. Specifically, on this very date in 1997. Which means that today we are celebrating our 28th wedding anniversary. What are we doing? Errands! Going to the Farmers Market and maybe another produce market and returning some books to the library and dropping by our favorite bakery and then picking up a prescription or two, and then coming home to do laundry and walk dogs and later on we’ll have cheese for dinner and drink some adult beverages while watching a movie. Romantic? Yeah, absolutely. You kind of get to a point where everything’s romance, it’s all just at a low simmer, that’s all. (Except for times when it’s not!)

Twenty-eight years, wow. Oh, I think she just got up. I have to go make her morning coffee.

Drinks before tacos, Kensington Market, Toronto, April 2025
Niagara Falls (Canadian side), April 2025
Rochester Lilac Festival, Rochester, NY, May, 2025

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Something for Thursday (Friday edition)

Yesterday was just…busy, folks. That’s all.

Anyway, one stalwart conversation starter that comes around social media with amazing regularity is naming one’s favorite cover song, or naming a cover song that’s better than the original. This one most definitely fills the bill for the former, in my eyes. I do not grant that it fills the latter…but this one is so good because it does something so amazing with the original, that there’s no need for this cover song to supplant the original at all.

So here, from the 1980s, are Rod Stewart and Jeff Beck covering Curtis Mayfield’s “People Get Ready”.

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Two anniversaries

One somber, one celebratory.

The first one happened three years ago today. The Wife and I were vacationing in the Finger Lakes region that weekend, and we got back to our cottage after a day visiting the Glass Museum in Corning (or maybe we were in Ithaca that day, and Corning the next)…we checked social media for the first time in hours, and I found multiple messages from people asking if I was safe because they knew I worked at a grocery store in Buffalo. That’s when I was horrified to learn that some racist lunatic decided to arm himself to the teeth, drive to a grocery store in Buffalo that he knew would be mainly frequented by Black people, and open fire.

It remains one of the most horrific days in local history, and will likely continue to be one for many years to come. And I can’t help contrasting that day, and the feelings that followed it, with the climate in this country right now as our elected leaders, placed in power by us, work hard to eliminate “DEI!” and “Woke!” and…look, we all know what that means, don’t we.

Buffalo poet laureate Jillian Hanesworth, who is an enormously gifted voice, wrote this poem in remembrance. It was printed large on the wall of an exhibit at the Buffalo AKG Museum for a while. (I might have my own photo of it, but I can’t find it right now.)

It’s also important to remember, and name, the lives taken that day in the name of hatred and fear and simple blind stupidity:

Roberta A. Drury
Margus D. Morrison
Andre Mackneil
Aaron Salter
Geraldine Talley
Celestine Chaney
Heyward Patterson
Katherine Massey
Pearl Young
Ruth Whitfield

May their memories be blessings for all who knew them…and for those of us who only learned their names when they ended.

UPDATE: I found my photos of the exhibit at the AKG. You can see them here. I somehow never actually uploaded them to Flickr. It was a beautiful and powerful exhibit, and I regret my oversight in not getting these photos posted.

::  On a happier note, today is the 81st birthday of one of the most important forces in my creative life, a man without whose work there is zero chance I’d be the person I am today.

Happy birthday, George Lucas!

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Tuesday Tones

Wind ensemble music today, by prolific composer David R. Holsinger. My band director in college formed quite a fascination with Holsinger’s work and programmed something by him each of the years I was there. I don’t think this was one of the pieces, but some of his works are long and complex and involved and I want to give some of those another listen before I feature them here. This shorter piece is titled On an American Spiritual, and it starts off the way one would expect such a piece to start…but then it takes some unexpected turns on the way to its conclusion. Interesting piece!

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The bathroom quiz!

Well, why not! Roger did it, after all.

1. Do you shampoo once or lather, rinse and repeat?

Once. The “Repeat” business was inserted to get people to use more shampoo, and thus need to buy new shampoo more frequently. It’s not unlike how the directions on the toothpaste tell you you only need an amount the size of a pea, but all the marketing shows this giant glob of toothpaste running the entire length of the brush. Marketers, I swear!

2. Do you use conditioner a) daily, b) when you need it, c) never?

My hair routine is: Wash and condition twice weekly, usually Sunday and Thursday. Condition only, Monday, Tuesday, Friday. Just a wet-down on Wednesday and Saturday.

3. What’s your shaving cream preference: foam or gel?

Shaving cream? Away with that nonsense! On the one hand, I rock a fine beard and have not shaved in more than twenty years. On the other hand, shaving cream makes for terrible pies to be hit with. Ewwww! *

4. Is your toothbrush manual or electric?

Manual.

5. Dental floss, soft picks, neither or both? 

Floss, but I have been known to take a soft pick with me when I go to the movies.

6. Do you use mouthwash a) daily, b) when you need it, c) never?

Never, really.

7. Are there magazines in your bathroom?

No. I take reading material in as needed and bring it out again. I never sit there reading very long, either. I do not get how many dudes will sit for long periods of time on the toilet.

8. Is there bar soap or liquid soap on your bathroom sink? 

Liquid. It’s lavender-scented.

9. What kind of soap is in your shower?

Liquid shower gel. 

10. Now for the most important question: does the toilet paper drape over or under?

Over, because we’re not heathens. But there’s also a roll right on the counter, because in our bathroom’s configuration, accessing the spindle from the toilet can be a bit…not easy.

Aren’t y’all glad you asked!

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Tabs! Get ’em while they’re open!

Time to clear out some tabbage:

::  Two morons were convicted in Great Britain of cutting down the Sycamore Gap tree. Good.

::  Conductor Michael Tilson Thomas, 80 years old and battling cancer, has called it a career. Tilson Thomas was once music director of the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra, from 1971 to 1979.

The BPO has been so stable over the years that with Tilson Thomas’s retirement, only three former BPO music directors remain active on the podium: Semyon Bychkov (1985-1989), Maximiano Valdes (1989-1998), and the incumbent, JoAnn Falletta (1999-present).

::  Yes I’m a half-Palestinian lesbian, but I dream of being a Republican Congresswoman. Here is my six-point plan.

(Yes, this one is written with a wink.)

::  Abbott Elementary keeps the laughs but loses the stakes.

The biggest shake-up that happened over these twenty-two episodes was Ava Coleman’s (Janelle James) firing in the wake of the district uncovering the bribery, especially since Ava’s capability as a principal has been thoughtfully advanced over the show’s run. It truly felt like a loss. Unfortunately, it was one whose impact was cut short as she was rehired a mere three episodes later. So much potential could have been had, seeing what happens when a series regular, especially one as seemingly callous as Ava, is deprived of the school that operates as the heart of the series. It winds up being a mere blip instead, a momentary inconvenience undone within a couple of weeks. Abbott doesn’t traffic in hard drama, nor is it supposed to, but pulling its punches doesn’t do anyone any favors.

I agree with this article. I love Abbott Elementary, but not only did much of its fourth season feel like it was treading water, I think the last few episodes actually harmed it. Ava’s development over the show’s four seasons has been amazing–in a lot of ways, her character hasn’t changed so much as been revealed. For all her brash materialism, there have been many moments revealing her wiser self, which is what made her firing late in S4 such a shock. When she finally admitted that she wanted to come back to the school, the show had also shown Gregory growing into his sudden new role as principal. I really thought the obvious thing was to keep Gregory in that role and allow Ava to return as a teacher. That would have shaken up the dynamic considerably, and it would have added a new wrinkle to the Gregory-Janine relationship. Alas, the show let Ava twist in the wind for all of two or three episodes, and then executed a reversal of fortune that was frankly not believable. I really think the show limped to the end of its season, and it’s the kind of thing that makes me wonder if the show has entered its decline. We’ll see.

::  30 years ago, Timothy Zahn resurrected Star Wars.

This article is a few years old already, but the point still stands: Star Wars was pretty much dead in the water until author Timothy Zahn wrote a novel set five years after the events of Return of the Jedi. I remember seeing that book on a stand in a Walden Books and buying it on the spot, feeling a rush of confusion and excitement. Was Star Wars back? Was this a precursor to more films? What was going on? I tore into the book, which was very well written…and a lot of history followed.

::  “Only I get to tell you what to do”: Republican messaging deconstructed.

You’ve watched the Republican Party champion the idea of “freedom” while you have also watched the same party openly assault various freedoms, like the freedom to vote, freedom to choose, freedom to marry who you want and so on.

If this has been a source of confusion, then your assessments of what Republicans mean by “freedom” were likely too generous. Here’s what they mean:
1. The freedom to tell people what to do.
2. Freedom from being told what to do.

When Republicans talk about valuing “freedom”, they’re speaking of it in the sense that only people like them should ultimately possess it.

This is a useful article that pretty much sums up the genuine nuts-and-bolts of Republican thinking.

::  Finally, some baseball commentary! It’s fun being a Pirates fan, innit? Here’s an article whose headline could have been accurate at nearly any point over the last twenty years, except for three seasons: Bob Nutting has ruined the Pirates and broken plenty of hearts along the way.

I’ve followed sports for a long time, and “bad owners” are nothing new. There are plenty of bad owners: owners who are cheap, or who want control to the point that their micromanaging screws things up, or who think that they have special knowledge about how to build a team so they keep making decisions and somehow the team never gets better (see “Jones, Jerry”). But I think I can honestly say that every bad owner I’ve ever seen has at least wanted to win and just couldn’t because they sucked at it.

Bob Nutting, however? He’s the first owner I’ve ever seen who seems genuinely unmotivated by winning and completely unfazed by losing. It’s amazing, it really is, and the only chance the Pirates have of ever being good while he’s in charge is for them to field their typical team full of young prospects on their first contracts, and have them all just happen to enjoy career years at the same time.

Yeah, good luck with that.

Harumph.

 

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Something for Thursday

I wanted to like this more than I did, but it’s worth watching, even if it’s way too frantic: it’s a short film comprised of drone footage of many of Buffalo’s architectural gems. I’ve been nearly everywhere in this film, and it does capture some of the most beautiful buildings and structures in this city. I don’t think the film needed this much fast-cut swooping around, though…but still. Here it is:

(via)

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Tuesday Tones

I wrote yesterday about how we attended the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra’s performance to film of the score to Raiders of the Lost Ark, and I noted how impressed I was with the orchestra’s technical precision during the action cues, particularly the Desert Chase sequence, which is an extremely complex and long cue. So I figured today, why not present the actual cue as originally recorded for the film by the London Symphony Orchestra in 1981?

I thought about giving a blow-by-blow accounting of what is happening throughout this entire sequence with the timings, but I decided not to. Instead, note the structure of the cue itself: it starts with the establishing shots of the bad guys and their truck caravan heading out, and then we get some suspense music as Indy and friends watch all this and Indy hatches his plan. Then, it’s all action, all the way out. There’s a lot of back-and-forth action as Indy works to take control of the truck and dispose of the rest of the Nazis, but then there’s a long section of building tension as it looks as if Indy is really about to fail (and die in the process). It’s really an amazing cue from a compositional standpoint; Williams deploys his themes throughout in a way that really works. Too much action music in films is basically unmelodic rhythmic pounding. “The Desert Chase” is very much not that. Enjoy!

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