Longtime readers will know that I fill this blog with music each December, starting on the 1st and going all the way to Christmas Day. This year will be no different. In dark times I tend to find myself leaning in music harder and harder. Music can be the candle lighting the way, a flame that reminds us what humans can do when we’re not being awful by choice.
So, as the kids say, “Let’s f***ing go!”
…because surely we can add more, if we want. Seems to me it’s kind of the point.
Here’s a tribute film Disney made for its definitive songwriting duo, the Sherman Brothers. I don’t think I was aware that Richard M. Sherman died earlier this year; I knew that brother Robert had previously died in 2012.
I used to write and post a long list of things I was thankful for each year, but I haven’t done that for a few years as it got to be an exercise in copying-and-pasting. I’m still thankful for an awful lot, but this holiday hits different anyway. Last year, Thanksgiving came less than two weeks after Mom died, and since then Dad has gone to an assisted living facility, so this is the first Thanksgiving that truly feels like it’s being spent without my parents in the world. Worse than that is the state of my country; it’s hard to summon up warm and fuzzy Thanksgiving feelings in a nation that has apparently chosen authoritarianism.
Still, it’s Thanksgiving. I hope it’s happy.
“Thanksgiving”, by Ella Wheeler Wilcox
We walk on starry fields of white
And do not see the daisies;
For blessings common in our sight
We rarely offer praises.
We sigh for some supreme delight
To crown our lives with splendor,
And quite ignore our daily store
Of pleasures sweet and tender.Our cares are bold and push their way
Upon our thought and feeling.
They hand about us all the day,
Our time from pleasure stealing.
So unobtrusive many a joy
We pass by and forget it,
But worry strives to own our lives,
And conquers if we let it.There’s not a day in all the year
But holds some hidden pleasure,
And looking back, joys oft appear
To brim the past’s wide measure.
But blessings are like friends, I hold,
Who love and labor near us.
We ought to raise our notes of praise
While living hearts can hear us.Full many a blessing wears the guise
Of worry or of trouble;
Far-seeing is the soul, and wise,
Who knows the mask is double.
But he who has the faith and strength
To thank his God for sorrow
Has found a joy without alloy
To gladden every morrow.We ought to make the moments notes
Of happy, glad Thanksgiving;
The hours and days a silent phrase
Of music we are living.
And so the theme should swell and grow
As weeks and months pass o’er us,
And rise sublime at this good time,
A grand Thanksgiving chorus.
This building, once the United Office Building and now the Giacomo Hotel, was for many years the tallest building in Niagara Falls, NY, until the construction of the big Seneca casino there. The American city has to this day not managed to seize on its status as being located literally by the side of one of the world’s great tourist attractions, while the Canadian counterpart city of the same name is constantly booming. But there are many reasons I prefer the American side, and this building is one of them.
I also like the way this photograph turned out.
I featured this piece years ago, reflecting on the fact that I performed it in the concert band at a music camp that I attended as a teenager. But in that post I didn’t write much about the piece itself. It’s called Chorale and Shaker Dance, and it was written by John Zdechlik. Zdechlik was a composer and bandmaster who wrote prolifically, and this particular piece has become a staple work in the literature for concert band and wind ensemble. It blends two main ideas–an original Chorale theme by Zdechlik himself, and the familiar tune “Simple Gifts”, comprising the “Shaker Dance”. The two melodies come and go, neither ever seeming to really settle in, as the mood seems to shift from light to dark, from open to mysterious, and back again, before everything comes to a triumphant conclusion.
Chorale and Shaker Dance was one of the first contemporary works for band I ever played. My high school band director, Mr. Roosa, was much more interested in marches and classical transcriptions than in original compositions, to the point that I do not think we ever performed a single contemporary work under his direction. Chorale and Shaker Dance was one of several pieces that first year at Bristol Hills Music Camp that really pushed open a new musical world for me. It’s always been a special piece to me for that reason.
Here is Chorale and Shaker Dance by John Zdechlik.
So, public opinion seems to be coalescing to a degree around the idea that the best Super Bowl matchup to conclude the season that is currently winding its way toward a conclusion would pit the Buffalo Bills against the Detroit Lions. That would be the Bills’ fifth Super Bowl appearance, versus the first for the Lions. The Bills, notably, lost all four of their previous Super Bowl tilts, so a Bills-Lions Super Bowl would produce the first ever Super Bowl victory for one of those two teams.
I get the appeal. I really do. The Bills are not only really good, but they’re really likeable and they are vastly exceeding expectations for this season. Many prognosticators had the Bills finishing somewhere around 9-8, after an offseason that had them dumping two wide receivers and a few key defensive starters from the really good teams of the last three or four seasons…but they just plugged in new, younger guys and here they are, 9-2 as I write this.
The Lions, meanwhile, have been building smartly over the last few years. Last year they advanced all the way to the NFC Championship Game before losing, and as of this writing they are 10-1, firmly in first place in the NFC and the favorite to win the conference and finally make their first ever Super Bowl. And they, too, are a very likeable team, and they have a fanbase that is seen as one of the most cruelly cursed in sports.
So, Bills-Lions in the Super Bowl is well within the realm of possibility, and because both teams are so easy to root for, that’s what’s happening.
Except for me.
I do not want this matchup, precisely because both teams are so likeable and precisely because both fan bases have suffered for, well, ever.
Now, I’m on record as not being terribly sympathetic to “suffering fans”, since the suffering is voluntary. But there’s a limit, and a Bills-Lions Super Bowl would allow one of those fanbases to experience glory, while plunging the other into more heartbreak. If the Lions won, that would drop the Bills to 0-5 in the Super Bowl, and more, they would be the only 0-5 team in the Super Bowl at all. The Bills are already still the butt of jokes for the Super Bowls they lost over 30 years ago, and adding a fifth loss would, I think, simply amplify the national mocking. It’s already annoying enough hearing “He hasn’t won a Super Bowl yet!” in reply to any post online anywhere talking about Josh Allen’s prodigious gifts as a quarterback.
So honestly, were I given by the Sports Gods the binary choice of “They make the Super Bowl and lose” versus “They don’t make the Super Bowl at all”, I would honestly take the latter.
As for the Lions? I don’t want them to lose either, even to the Bills. When the Lions reach the Super Bowl, I want to root for them, and I don’t want them to lose their first Super Bowl.
No, I don’t want Bills-Lions in the Super Bowl. I want the Bills in one of the next two Super Bowls, the Lions in the other, and both teams winning. That‘s what I want.
I’m also sick of the Chiefs, but that’s another matter entirely….
Looking over this week’s quiz, I think I can answer some of these. Let’s give it a shot!
What was the last song you listened to?
Yesterday I started listening to Wagner’s Das Rheingold, leaving off somewhere in Act I.
What is your favorite thing about the place you live?
There’s a wonderful blend of nature and urban here. Plus proximity to water. I do not know how people live in waterless places.
What is your earliest childhood memory?
“Just images, really. Feelings.” –Princess Leia
And that’s really about it: no specific memories, just images of things and places. A toy airplane that I loved. A park I enjoyed going to.
If you could be any animal, what would you be?
Probably some kind of cat.
Who do you trust the most in your life?
The Wife.
How many languages can you say “hello” in?
Let’s see: English, German, French, Spanish, Elvish, and…that’s about it.
What is your favorite kind of weather?
Cool, and little wind. For photography currently I need no precipitation, as Miranda is not weather-sealed.
How did you discover that Santa wasn’t real and how old were you?
In 2nd Grade we spent Christmas on vacation in Florida, going to Disney World and other locations. I bought the idea of Santa finding us in our camper in whatever campground we were in on Christmas night. But also at that point I was losing teeth occasionally, so there was the tooth fairy to contend with. One day I lost a tooth and dutifully stuck it under my pillow…without telling my parents. I just assumed. Next morning the tooth was still there. Some time later, after I mulled this over, I asked my mother point-blank if there was a Santa Claus. She shook her head, maybe a little sadly.
What is the best feeling in the world?
Laughter that’s not born of meanness or spite. Having a dog curl up with you. Smelling the morning coffee on a day when you’re not going to work. And the sound of people laughing at you when you’ve been hit in the face with a pie. I doubt that one’s terribly relatable, but there it is.
What is your favorite color?
Blue! And red. And green. And yellow, and purple, and pink, and gray, and brown, and black, and white. Oh yeah, orange.
Is there a language you would love to learn?
I wish I would have kept up with my high-school French. Spanish, too.
How do you feel about reality TV?
Which kind? Cooking shows usually make me happy. I enjoyed the first few seasons of The Real World way-back-when. But reality teevee also normalized a certain businessman-turned-politician-turned-would-be-dictator, so there’s that.
Did you ever skip school when you were a kid?
Sure, didn’t everybody? Not very much, though. Maybe only once.
What is your least favorite food?
If I was James Bond and I was up against a super-villain whose scheme was to rid the world of broccoli, I’d stand down and let them have at it.
Do you have a good luck charm?
Nah, I don’t believe in good luck charms…but maybe there’s a kind of minor superstition to wearing overalls each and every day? Hmmmmm. And I also feel like myself more when I have a camera in my hand….
Another favorite by Drew Holcomb and the Neighbors.
A few tabs to close….
Here’s some stuff that’s been languishing in open tabs on my browser:
:: Matt Zoller Seitz on Clint Eastwood’s current movie, both as a movie and as a data point in how movies are exhibited and marketed these days. The movie biz has always been a cynical one run by people who would steal the coins from a dead man’s eyes, but sheesh. Read the article for more. (The article has spoilers for the actual movie, but they’re forewarned and they come pretty late in the piece.)
:: There doesn’t seem to be a whole lot of buzz in the fact that Americans are currently slated to launch a crewed mission to the Moon in less than two years, does there? But Swapna Krishna has thoughts on the likelihood of that mission launching as scheduled. Spoiler: she is not optimistic. (I highly recommend Ms. Krishna as a source for space science news. She’s excellent.)
:: I remember years ago when my mother had me read Roald Dahl’s Danny, the Champion of the World (still a favorite of mine), and one detail in that story (set in rural England sometime in the mid-20th century) that always stuck with me was when Danny and his father eat a couple of apples. The apple they eat is called a “Cox’s Orange Pippin”, which is apparently a very special variety of apple indeed. (To this day I’ve never had one.) See, at the time, the whole idea of special varieties of apples was alien to me: you had Red Delicious, Golden Delicious, and Granny Smith. That was it. Nowadays, the apple is an astonishing source of variety and joy. Here’s why.
:: Sometimes I have a tab open so long that I can’t remember why on Earth I had it open in the first place. Here’s one such thing: 11 places that have the same name in Britain and America. I assume this topic came up on one of the social media sites, but damned if I can remember the context.
:: Here’s a video. I’ve written on the subject of roundabouts before, but this video goes a bit into why Americans have been so slow to adopt what is clearly and objectively a superior way of managing traffic at intersections. I’ve come to rather cynically view roundabouts, train travel, gun control, and universal healthcare as my main Exhibits for the Prosecution when making my case that Americans are stubbornly resistant to obviously good ideas that clearly work better than what we’re doing.
:: I hate to close with a bitter pill about this past election, but here we are. Roxane Gay writes in the New York Times (I think this piece is unlocked, but it might be paywalled now, I’m not really sure how that works) about what the odious results of this election say about us. Spoiler: it’s nothing good.
I have nothing to add to this, other than to note my view that this election represents a collective failure of citizenship in this country. My thoughts are now increasingly tilted toward the possibility that America has entered her inevitable and irreversible decline.
(Comments off for this post.)