Something for Thursday (Leonard Cohen edition)

Posted on September 8, 2022 by ksedinger

For purposes of this weekly feature, let’s make the balance of September “Leonard Cohen Month”. Cohen was born in September 1934, and I feel like focusing on him a bit and waiting twelve years for his centennial doesn’t seem all that wise.

Let’s jump right in with his most famous song, “Hallelujah”. This is one of those songs that has become more famous in the hands of others than it ever did in the hands of its original artist, the man who wrote it and sang it and recorded it. Cohen wrote and recorded “Hallelujah” for a 1984 album, and it attracted attention from other artists, starting with Bob Dylan and moving on from there. My first encounter with the song came, as it did for many, via its use in the movie Shrek. “Hallelujah” would then come up all over the place. It was used in an episode of The West Wing, an episode of Scrubs, and perhaps most famously in recent years, in the cold open of the first episode of Saturday Night Live after the 2016 election. (On the subject of that one, SNL alum and generally much-more-unfunny-than-he-thinks actor Rob Schneider has been in the news of late for his notion that this moment “killed” SNL. I won’t dwell on that, other than to let Roger Ebert’s review of Schneider’s best-known film stand as the definitive rebuke.)

“Hallelujah” has become such a touchstone song that there’s actually a book out there about its composition and rise to prominence. (I have not read the book, having only learned it exists as I write this.) I did, however, read this article from The Atlantic about the song.

The article asks an interesting question about the song itself: What is it about “Hallelujah” that makes it so irresistible to singers? Its use across pop culture is one thing, but why is this song covered so much?

In June 1984, at New York’s Quadrasonic Sound studios, Leonard Cohen laid down a song he’d spent years writing. “Hallelujah” would eventually join the pantheon of contemporary popular music; at the time, though, the Canadian singer-songwriter may as well have dropped it off the end of a pier. That’s because it was included on Various Positions, Cohen’s seventh studio album for Columbia, which the head of the music division, Walter Yetnikoff, chose not to release in the U.S. “Leonard, we know you’re great,” he said. “But we don’t know if you’re any good.” Or as cartoonish execs say in the movies: I don’t hear a single.

The album, which Columbia didn’t put out in the U.S. until 1990, features a handful of Cohen’s greatest songs. It opens with the sardonically gorgeous “Dance Me to the End of Love” and fades out on “If It Be Your Will,” which Cohen described as “an old prayer” that he was moved to rewrite. And sitting in the middle of that albatross of an album—side two, track one—is one of the most frequently performed and recorded pop songs of the past half century.

As any American Idol watcher or bar-karaoke singer knows, “Hallelujah” begins, “Now I’ve heard there was a secret chord,” and for a time the universe seemed determined to keep all of the song’s chords a secret. The new film Hallelujah: Leonard Cohen, a Journey, a Song—inspired by a 2012 book by Alan Light—documents the record’s long, strange trip to ubiquity. It’s a tale about the vagaries of recording history and the foolishness of industry suits, but it’s also about rediscovery and inspiration and reinvention. “Hallelujah” has become inescapable in large part because it doesn’t narrowly belong to anyone; it belongs to us all.

Read the whole thing; it’s a good article, even if the author, Kevin Dettmar, is curiously dismissive of k.d. lang’s cover of the song, which is one of my favorites.

In considering the question of “Hallelujah”, it has clearly reached the point where it’s covered a lot because it’s covered a lot. Everybody knows it, so everybody feels they need to sing it. In this way it’s not unlike Etta James’s “At Last”, a song that you’ll hear probably a dozen times every year in the “Audition” phase of American Idol. But thinking about the ubiquity of “At Last” on the talent show scene gives a key to the answer of “Hallelujah”‘s appeal. “At Last” is a perfect vehicle for a singer to show off their instrument, isn’t it? It starts immediately with that first sultry syllable and then a leap into the singer’s upper register, from where the singer (it is to be hoped) fills the room with the soaring tones of their instrument. “At Last” is a vocal showpiece. “Hallelujah” is not.

“Hallelujah”, for all its wonders and gifts, is not a demanding song for the singer. Not technically, anyway. It doesn’t cover much range, and all of its rises and falls are stepwise, so there are no big leaps like the one at the beginning of “At Last” (or that notorious leap in “The Star Spangled Banner” that has all by itself convinced many singers that our national anthem should be changed). The melody repeats, and repeats, and repeats. The chorus is just the word “hallelujah”, sung melismatically four times. There is no ‘bridge’ section to “Hallelujah”.

“Hallelujah” is, though, an interpretational challenge, a musical challenge, of the highest order. If you come to “Hallelujah” and you want to do it justice, you’d better have done your homework. Cohen’s lyrics are full of Biblical allusion, emotional depth, and outright eroticism. (Some singers leave out those verses, and my reaction to such is, “You weenies.”) Everybody knows these couple of verses:

Now I’ve heard there was a secret chordThat David played, and it pleased the LordBut you dont really care for music, do you?It goes like this, the fourth, the fifthThe minor falls, the major liftsThe baffled king composing Hallelujah

Hallelujah, HallelujahHallelujah, Hallelujah

Your faith was strong but you needed proofYou saw her bathing on the roofHer beauty and the moonlight overthrew youShe tied you to a kitchen chairShe broke your throne, and she cut your hairAnd from your lips she drew the Hallelujah

But how about this verse? What do you do with this?

There was a time you let me knowWhat’s really going on belowBut now you never show it to me, do you?And I remember when I moved in youAnd the holy dove she was moving tooAnd every single breath we drew was Hallelujah

And if you do include those, how do you make them an organic part of the whole song? Because now Cohen isn’t talking vaguely about King David’s minor fall or major lift, and he’s not alluding obliquely to Samson. He’s talking to a lover where the flame isn’t there anymore. And if you’re the singer, you have to make this verse a part of the same song as the first two verses, the ones everybody knows. (By the way, the latter verses, which are almost accusatory of failed love, really make it seem all the more odd that in recent years “Hallelujah” has actually been getting airplay in December as a Christmas song.)

I think singers gravitate toward “Hallelujah” precisely because it is such a profound challenge to sing convincingly. There’s nowhere to hide; you can either interpret it, or you can’t. Singers come to “Hallelujah” to take their measure, much as a conductor comes to Beethoven’s Seventh or Mahler’s Ninth.

And now, finally, here is Mr. Cohen.

 

Posted in music | Tagged | 1 Comment

“A vision in splendor of the great kings of old”

Posted on September 7, 2022 by ksedinger

For lack of anything better to post today, here’s a rundown of the British monarchy, all the way back.

Credit unknown. I searched but could only find more uncredited versions of this.

Note Edward VIII, saying a hearty “Nope!” to the whole thing.

Full-size version here. (And if you’re the artist, let me know! Or tell me to take it down, whichever you prefer.)

 

Posted in On History | Tagged | 2 Comments

“Twelve Presidents” (a fiction, on the anniversary of the shooting of President William McKinley)

Posted on September 6, 2022 by ksedinger

One hundred twenty one years ago today, President William McKinley was shot by an anarchist while visiting the World’s Fair in Buffalo, NY. Eight days later, President McKinley died of his injuries, and Vice President Theodore Roosevelt became President.

Being the scene of a Presidential assassin certainly colors a city’s local lore. Years ago the Buffalo News ran an annual short fiction contest, and in 2007 the contest theme was a story surrounding the events of the assassination. This is the story I submitted. And…it won!

***

Ernest Knight tried to conceal his wheezing as he pushed Hilda’s wheelchair up onto the sidewalk, but Hilda heard him all the same. Old and sick as she was, she still heard everything.

“Slow, Ern,” she said. “That heart of yours–“

“I’m fine,” Ernest replied. This eighty-six year old heart of mine is still strong enough to push my eighty-two year old wife.

Fifteen minutes later they arrived at a spot where the street sloped slightly downward toward the underpass. Ernest applied the chair’s brake.

“This spot all right, Dear?”

“Oh yes,” Hilda said as she opened an Agatha Christie book she hadn’t read in so long that she’d forgotten who did it. Ernest merely shuffled about.

“Lots of people already,” he said.

“Everybody loves to see a President,” Hilda replied.

Ernest took in a deep breath of November air, and let it out. Hilda was sick, and he was old. This will be our last President together, he thought; and then he turned his memory back to their first President together.

***
Lt. Ernest Knight of the Buffalo Police Force brushed an invisible speck from his shoulder and tugged at the collar of his newly-minted uniform. Sooner or later, it would start to get cold, but for now it was a hot and humid day, not uncommon for early September in Buffalo. The uniform didn’t help matters at all, but he was on special assignment and had to wear it. The line of citizens and well-wishers was already forming outside the Temple of Music, people who’d come to shake the hand of William McKinley, the twenty-fifth President of the United States.

As the newest Lieutenant on the force, it fell to Knight to supervise the uniformed officers outside the Temple in their efforts to control the crowd. Next time a President’s in town, he thought, at least I’ll be one of those poppinjays on horseback.

“Stop pushing, folks,” he called out when the crowd got a bit too restless. “The line will move quickly enough.”

“Oh please,” came the voice of a young woman. Knight turned to face her. She wore a blue dress and a matching blue hat, but what held Knight’s gaze were her wide hazel eyes and the red hair she wore in a style that was more daring than he usually saw in Buffalo. “We’ve been standing here for two hours.” She dabbed at the sweat on her lip with a handkerchief from her handbag.

“It’s hot for everyone, Miss,” Lt. Knight replied, recovering himself. “You were pushing this gentleman.” He gestured to a young-looking man in a dark suit immediately in front of her in line.

“Oh, it is all right,” said the young-looking man. “I just want to congratulate the President.”

“Well, the line’s moving again,” Lt. Knight said. “Good day, Miss.” He tipped his hat to her, and she smiled in return. A mischievous smile.

“They put too much starch in your collar,” she said. “At least it fits you well.” She smiled again. Lt. Knight couldn’t help but watch her as she disappeared into the Temple of Music. He would always remember that look in her eyes, the first time they met.

He would also remember afterward how that young-looking man never used the handkerchief on his hand to dab at the copious sweat on his brow.

***
Ernest continued pacing back and forth behind Hilda’s wheelchair. A passing policeman had told them it would be less than an hour now.

“Henry said this is a bad idea,” Ernest said. “He thinks we’re too old for this nonsense.”

“Henry always thinks we’re wrong,” Hilda replied, not looking up from her book.

Henry was the youngest of their three sons, and the most pig-headed. Born during the Wilson years – their fourth President – Henry had gone to war against the Germans in ’42 while his brothers, Walter and Joseph, had been sent to the Pacific. After the war, Henry had moved down south to follow the nurse he’d fallen in love with. Both Henry and Walter (born under Taft, Ernest and Hilda’s third President) were now nearing retirement themselves. (Joseph, their firstborn, had been buried in Arlington after Guadalcanal. He’d lived from Roosevelt to Roosevelt.)

“We should have voted for this one,” Hilda said. “He seems like a good man.”

Ernest nodded. So had McKinley.

***
“Lieutenant!”

Knight turned to his superior, Captain Hess, who’d just come from inside the Temple.

“Come inside,” Hess said. “Mr. Cortelyou’s nervous.”

That was George Cortelyou, personal secretary to the President, who’d been very nervous about security for this event.

“Yes, sir.”

Lt. Knight followed Captain Hess inside through the exit door, thinking incongruously that he’d get to see that young red-haired woman again. He shook that thought out of his head – and then he was in the same room as the President of the United States.

President McKinley was a big man, dressed in a black suit with a broad, white vest. At the moment he was greeting two children whose parents stood beaming behind them. The queue extended down the hallway opposite. There, third in line, was the young-looking man; behind him, the red-haired woman.

“Captain!” It was Mr. Cortelyou. He did look nervous. “We will close the doors in five minutes.”

“We’ll be ready,” Captain Hess replied. “Lt. Knight here will help clear the room.”

Nodding, Mr. Cortelyou moved back to the President’s right. Across the room from the President stood one of his personal bodyguards. It all looked perfectly in order. Lt. Knight caught the eye of the red-haired woman; she gave him a small smile. He chuckled, returned her smile, and turned his attention back to the line.

Next came the young-looking man, with his handkerchief still on his hand. He stepped up close to the President, who extended his right hand in greeting. But the young-looking man did not clasp Mr. McKinley’s outstretched hand. Instead–

Lt. Knight heard firecrackers.

***
It was a little after noon now. Hilda put her book away, and Ernest wiped sweat from his brow. “I don’t know how Henry lives down here,” he said.

“Henry never did like the snow,” Hilda replied.

“Well, we’re never leaving Buffalo again.”

“No, I suppose not, Dear.” Hilda touched Ernest’s hand. They’d lived in their current house, their second, since Truman’s defeat-turned-reelection. They’d moved after the boys had left, to a smaller place closer to little Anna’s grave. She’d been born, lived and died — of dysentery – all under Taft. Their only daughter.

Behind them a man with one of those new home movie cameras was climbing up onto the concrete balustrade to get a better view.

It would be about fifteen minutes now.

***
Two shots.

Blood, running scarlet across President McKinley’s white vest.

The guards, piling on top of the young-looking assassin.

The President, saying “Be careful of how you tell my wife.”

Mr. Cortelyou, shouting for assistance for the President.

“Knight!” Captain Hess, shouting. “Clear those people!”

The onlookers.

Lt. Knight sprang forward as the guards pummeled the assassin. “Don’t hurt him,” he heard the President say, but that would be the least of the President’s concerns.

Knight found that most of the onlookers had been ushered out by the other guards, but the red-haired woman just stood there, her hazel eyes wide with shock.

“Miss? Miss?”

“H-Hilda,” she stammered. “Hilda Watt.”

Lt. Knight put a hand on her arm.

“Let me take you home, Miss Watt.”

***
Ernest took Hilda’s hand. Somehow her hand felt the same as it always had, even though both their hands had changed so much over sixty-two years together.

He could hear the sirens now. The President’s motorcade was almost here.

***
As the doctors operated in fading light on President McKinley – fading light, at a festival with hundreds of bright electric lights — Lt. Knight took Miss Watt home. She told him many things about herself: she was to be a nurse as soon as she finished her studies; she loved coffee and hated tea; she was a suffragette. She’d been in that receiving line, hoping to hand the President a pamphlet she’d written about giving women the right to vote. For his part, Knight told her about his time on the police force, and how he’d wanted to be a policeman since he could crawl. He told her how he loved horses and didn’t much care for snow.

As darkness fell, he asked if he could call on her again. She said yes. And so it began, as President McKinley lingered. Their first President together.

The first night that Lt. Earnest Knight came to see Hilda Watt at her home, all proper-like, was the night that President McKinley died. Vice President Roosevelt was sworn in soon thereafter.

Their second.

***
The motorcade arrived. It slowed and came around the bend. Cheers went up from the hundreds of people lining the street.

Ernest looked down at Hilda, and found her eyes – still that beautiful hazel – turned up at him. Her hair was no longer red, but her eyes had never changed.

They both looked back to the street. There was the car, and in it, their eleventh President, and almost certainly their last. Neither expected to live to the 1964 elections. She was sick, and he didn’t see much point without her.

And as President Kennedy seemed to make eye contact with them, Earnest heard something he’d once heard before.

Something like…firecrackers.

The End

 

Posted in Occasional Fiction, On Buffalo and The 716 | Tagged , | 1 Comment

Tone Poem Tuesday

Posted on September 6, 2022 by ksedinger

Today we have a work of the kind that I find deeply challenging to write about, because I know so very little about this whole approach to music in the first place. It’s an avant-garde piece by 20th century Greek-French composer Iannis Xenakis, called Jonchaies. Xenakis’s music was not only heavily influenced by the musical trends of the 20th century, but by his own training in architecture and engineering. I have not heard a great deal of Xenakis’s work, but there is a character in what I have heard that I would describe as industrial. (I almost chose mechanical, but that has connotations that I don’t think apply.)

When you hear Xenakis’s music – any piece of what we recognise as his mature work, starting with 1954’s Metastasis, onwards – you’re confronted with an aesthetic that seems unprecedented according to any of the frames of reference that musical works usually relate to. You won’t hear vestiges of things like familiar forms, or shapes, or languages. Even the furthest-out reaches of early 1950s serialism sound resolutely conventional next to Xenakis’s works of the same period. It’s music whose sheer, scintillating physicality creates its own territory in every piece, whether it’s for solo cello or huge orchestra. (credit)

As for Jonchaies itself, I find it a thrilling exercise in orchestral colors and textures. This is the kind of music one has to approach with a willingness to work at finding its appeal; it’s too easy to listen to this and dismiss it as random cacophonous noise. This article (worth reading!) describes Xanakis’s approach as “sound sculpture”, and I think that is right. Having walked through the Albright-Knox’s collection of modern art more than a few times, I can definitely hear the connective artistic tissue that binds this music to some of the abstract sculpture I’ve seen in museums.

Posted in music | Tagged | 1 Comment

Of Elbows and Tables

Posted on September 5, 2022 by ksedinger

“Don’t put your elbows on the table!”

Anybody know where this shit came from? Because it’s dumb.

Back in my college days, our musical groups all had their own odd quirks and traditions. One of the Wartburg Choir’s stranger ones (I do not know if they still do this) was that when they were traveling as a group someplace and they were eating or having some kind of fellowship time, usually in a church’s fellowship hall, if any choir member spotted another with one or both elbows on the table, they’d shout something like “Hey [Name], get your elbows off the table!” and then the offending party would have to get up and walk around the entire perimeter of the room while the choir sang some goofy song about elbows on the table. (I’m not getting the particulars exactly, but it’s been 30 years and I was only present for this weird practice two or three times. And no, it was never me being called out.)

I was thinking about this yesterday while we were eating at 110 Grill in Henrietta, NY. (Yes, we road-tripped 80 miles to Henrietta just to eat at that restaurant, because their food is good and they have a big assortment of gluten-free options for The Wife. You do what you have to do when you have certain appetites and a food allergy that makes them difficult to indulge.) I ordered the fish tacos, which were (a) really delicious, and (b) really messy. The best way to manage this was to either eat them with the knife and fork (which looks absurd–I mean, really, who the hell uses knife and fork for tacos?!), or to eat them by hand and lean way over the plate while doing so. Obviously, I took option B, but I found that to comfortably assume that stance, it was frankly easiest to plant my elbows right on the table.

And this whole “No elbows on the table!” thing is so ingrained that I was feeling self-conscious about it the whole time I was eating. Yes, I was sitting in a public restaurant wearing a poofy Renaissance-faire shirt under a pair of vintage Hickory-striped overalls, and the thing that I was self-conscious about was my elbows on the table. What a dumb rule.

Oh, here are the fish tacos in question.

 

 

Posted in Commentary, On Food and Cooking | Tagged , | 2 Comments

I see the Moon…

Posted on September 4, 2022 by ksedinger

I like taking photos of the moon.

Here’s one from the other night, taken through some trees at the end of my street, with a Prisma filter applied.

Have a good Sunday, y’all!

 

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Everybody on the Bandwagon!

Posted on September 3, 2022 by ksedinger

A metaphor for the concluding thirteen seconds of the Bills’ 2021 regulation-time season.

So, the NFL season kicks off next Thursday! And playing in the 2022 season’s very first game are the Buffalo Bills, taking on the defending Super Bowl Champion LA Rams! Wow!

It’s been an interesting ride with the Bills in the last five years or so. The fifteen or so years before that were pretty much of an unending era of bad football. Somehow every year the team would manage to do something in the offseason to make fans think “Hey, maybe they’re turning the corner, maybe they finally won’t be crappy this year,” and yet…every year another terrible season. Records like 6-10 and 7-9 as far as the eye could see. Every year, picking somewhere between 9th and 13th in the draft, and yet somehow never getting better.

Longtime readers will remember that through all that, I simply stopped watching them. There was a weaning process that took place over several seasons (where I’d watch the first few games but eventually stop), but when the 2009 Bills took the field in a home game against the Cleveland Browns, and held the Browns’ quarterback to just two completions, and still managed to lose 6-3, I started thinking that the Bills were not a worthy use of my time.

Well, long story short, eight years later they drafted a quarterback named Josh Allen from Wyoming who has turned out to be an unimaginable stud of a player, and they put a whole bunch of talent around Josh Allen, and lo and behold, the Bills are good again. In fact, as I write this, they’re a common pick by “experts” to, as Tom Berenger once said in Major League, “win the whole f***in’ thing”.

Obviously, this region’s mood is…very different now, as far as football is concerned. Bills-mania is everywhere, and especially this year, where the Bills may be about to field the single most Super Bowl-ready roster in their history. It hasn’t felt like this around here* since the early 1990s, when the Bills famously went on their run of four consecutive Super Bowl appearances (none of which produced a championship, but hey, it was still fun to live through).

During the long run of football futility, Bills merchandise would show up in stores in August and September, and then usually quietly disappear except for a few key items by November. Ohhhhh, not so this year! The Store is constantly getting in shipments of Bills stuff, to the point where we’re struggling with where to put it all. Last year there was a special run of a certain toy made with a Bills theme, and The Store got pounded on the day this was released to the public. Now, we’re all wondering, “OMG, what’s it gonna be like if they actually do win the Super Bowl?”

(I’m not making any predictions, by the way. This isn’t any fear of “jinxing” things, but simply acknowledging the reality that the NFL can be a wide-open free-for-all once the playoffs roll around. Last year saw both conferences’ fourth seeds make it to the Super Bowl, so…you never know!)

One thing about fandom, though. I saw this sentiment on Twitter the other day, and it’s not the first time I’ve seen this type of thinking:

Yeah…folks, ignore this. If you’re out there cheering for the Bills because it’s fun and you just love that everybody around you is happy about it, and somebody tries to gatekeep your fandom by asking you if you watched the Bills fall to the Patriots 34-20 on the last day of the 2013 season to wrap up yet another shitty 6-10 campaign, just tell them to feck off.

Seriously.

I have posted the following several times, always as a reminder to sports fans that if their team sucks, they are not required to support them or watch them play or do anything at all. This flies in the face of the notion that “If you’re a fan you’re always there for your team!”, which I think is just a big waste of time. There is no virtue at all in being a staunch fan when your team sucks, and your joy when the team wins is no better or worse in comparison to whatever suffering you may have chosen to endure or ignore.

When the Bills were eternally crappy, I finally just stopped watching the games entirely. At the time I imposed a rule: I would start watching again whenever the team reached a point where they were no fewer than four games over .500. (Meaning, only when they would have won at least four more games than they’d lost.) At the time I imposed this rule on myself, I honestly didn’t think it would take that long for them to get to that point. If memory serves, I came up with that rule in 2010 or 2011, and the Bills did not reach my new rule for watchability again for something like eight years. By that time I was so accustomed to not watching football that…I just went on not watching football. Hence my new version of sports fandom, where I only read about it, like folks did before teevee and even radios everywhere.

But I remember a lot of mocking when I would tell people about my four-games-over-.500 rule, with the most common being a derisive comment along the lines of “Oh, so you’re just a fair-weather fan now.”

And now, I quote my earlier remarks:

The Buffalo Bills aren’t friends of mine; I have no personal connection with them at all, and therefore, I see no reason to assume that they deserve a greater commitment of time or emotional energy from me than I’m willing to give them. The idea that I must devote three hours a week to watching a bunch of guys who aren’t very good at their jobs, or I’m not a “fan”, strikes me as deeply bizarre. I can be a “fan” of a restaurant, but if they start serving consistently bad food, I’m not going to keep eating there because that’s what a good fan does. That just doesn’t make sense. Being a “fairweather friend”, only there to support and help a friend in good times, is a bad thing to be. But fandom isn’t friendship. Never has been, never will be.

Believe me, it can be a real downer to hang around with football fans the Monday after a representative Bills game of late, which is another reason I stopped watching. Why would I want to feel like that, when I can do something else instead? One fan friend of mine questioned this once, saying “Well, it’s not like I’m doing something great and important with those three hours,” to which I replied, “Nobody said you had to cure cancer in that time, but maybe doing something else means you’re not spending the rest of Sunday and Monday morning in a funk over a football game.” Seems to me that, all things being equal, subtracting things from life that regularly make us angry is a good thing.

So go ahead, Bills fans, or fans of any crappy team out there! Turn them off! Watch something else! Do something else! And if your “fandom” gets questioned, so what? If and when your team wins the Ultimate Championship, there will be no Fan Police in the streets to stop you from dancing because you didn’t watch each and every crappy game they lost six or seven years earlier. When you die, there will be no Sports Fan Valhalla into whose golden halls you will be denied entry because you chose not to witness every down of their fifteenth consecutive losing season.

It’s OK to jump off the bandwagon, and get back on it. The team won’t notice you’re there. You don’t owe them shit. You have zero moral obligation to watch any more or less of a team’s games than you want to, and nobody gets the right to judge your “fandom” on the basis of their personal yardstick for voluntary suffering. For those calling me out for not watching this team, I hope you’ll remember this next time you’re sitting inside on a stunning fall afternoon watching your team lose 38-10 in the fourth quarter, or in December when you’re insisting on watching every minute of a 42-3 laugher as the Bills fall to the Broncos.

I note now that this advice goes both ways! If they’re crappy and watching them brings you no enjoyment at all, it is totally OK  to turn them off! But if they’ve been crappy for years and you stopped paying any attention because really, why spend three hours a week staring at a turd floating in the porcelain bowl, but now they’re actually good again and watching them not only doesn’t fill you with torpor and existential ennui but actually starts making you feel something akin to actual joy, go ahead!

And if there are people around you who chose to suffer for all those years who are now getting pouty because you’re back on the bandwagon, enh, screw ’em! Jump on that bandwagon! Be a fan, if you want! Screw the gatekeepers! There are no gates!

(But don’t do that table-jumping thing. God, that is some dumb shit.)

Go Bills!**

*I didn’t actually live in Buffalo during the Super Bowl run, so I’m kind of guessing as to what the local mood was. During those years I alternated between college and my then-home in the Southern Tier.

** I’m not especially in love with our regional adoption of “Go Bills!” as a greeting of choice for all social scenarios. I’m sticking with a mix of Detective Sipowicz‘s mechanical “How’s it goin'”, or Wayne‘s “How are ya now?”

Posted in Commentary, Fandom, On Buffalo and The 716, On Sport | Tagged , | 3 Comments

Diary of a Donut Peach

Posted on September 2, 2022 by ksedinger

Credit: Wikipedia, “Flat Peach”

DAY ONE: I am not ripe.

DAY TWO: I am not ripe.

DAY THREE: Despite my high hopes, I am still not ripe.

DAY FOUR, at 4:23am ET: Oh my God! It has happened! I am fulfilled, because I am now, at least, fully and perfectly ripe! Oh joy! Let there be dancing in the streets, for I am at long last ripe!

DAY FOUR, at 4:28am ET: Alas, though I loved being ripe for five minutes, no one has consumed me, so I must now instantly, completely, and utterly rot. Goodbye, world.

 

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Something for Thursday

Posted on September 1, 2022 by ksedinger

In honor of his eighty-seventh birthday today, here is conductor Seiji Ozawa leading the Vienna Philharmonic in Strauss’s overture to Die Fledermaus.

Happy birthday, Maestro Ozawa!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1dp73Jzypw8

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Someone’s gonna be re-taking “Knots 101”

Posted on August 31, 2022 by ksedinger

Imagine you’re in charge of piloting a tug boat, pulling a barge, from Erie, PA to Buffalo, NY. At 4:30am or so you finally make port in Buffalo, pleasantly cheered by the good time you’ve made on a breezy night on Lake Erie.

That’s when you realize that you don’t have your barge anymore.

Luckily, it’s easily found, as it washed up on the shore near Dunkirk, about halfway from Erie to Buffalo.

Well, maybe “luckily” doesn’t apply. I’m sure there’s a tugboat crew that’s going to be seeing some unfortunate entries on their next performance reviews.

“Uh, Bob?” “Yes, Cap’n?” “I have a question….”

 

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