Tone Poem Tuesday

Posted on August 27, 2024 by ksedinger

Leonard Bernstein was born 106 years plus two days ago, on August 25, 1918. Oddly, I’ve never written much about him here, have I? I really should change that one of these days…maybe after I finally get Maestro off the “to-be-watched” queue…but for now, I feature a symphonic suite Bernstein culled from the score he wrote for the Eliz Kazan-Marlon Brando film On the Waterfront.

I’ve actually never seen On the Waterfront, for various reasons (I have to admit a distaste for Kazan owing to his naming names for HUAC, but mostly it’s that I’ve just never got ’round to it), but this symphonic suite is a fine work, pieced together into a single cohesive work from a score that Bernstein found frustrating to create: a film score is, by its nature, a subservient piece of music, and Bernstein was never one to easily suffer the pushing of music into the background. In his writings, Bernstein’s attitude toward film music does not seem to have been particularly positive, but his one attempt at film work resulted in a very fine American tone poem.

Here is the Symphonic Suite from On the Waterfront by Leonard Bernstein. 

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Memories of Twenty Years Ago

Posted on August 26, 2024 by ksedinger

Twenty years ago, a drive to the hospital in the morning.

Twenty years ago, calling off work because it was time, the baby was on his way.

Twenty years ago, bright sunny skies over Buffalo.

Twenty years ago, a very long day of pain and struggle.

Twenty years ago, thinking, “At the end of this day, one set of dreams comes true and another starts.”

Twenty years ago…seeing them wheeling her into surgery prep, and being given ill-fitting scrubs to change into.

Twenty years ago, sitting again by her side while they did the Caesarian.

Twenty years ago, thinking, “This isn’t the way we wanted this to go, but we’ve been here before and we can do it again.”

Twenty years ago, sensing a change in the mood of the doctors as they extracted him from the womb.

Twenty years ago, wondering why he wasn’t crying yet.

Twenty years ago, hearing one of the doctors–the main one, maybe?–saying, “This isn’t good.”

Twenty years ago, looking at that other table and seeing them taking out the intubation tool and thinking, “I’ve watched enough ER that I know what that is. Why are they using that? What’s going on?”

Twenty years ago, waiting at her side while they did whatever it was they did to him and for him, someplace else in that giant building that was always too cold no matter where you were.

Twenty years ago, being taken upstairs finally to see him instead of him being brought to us.

Twenty years ago, meeting the NICU nurses for the first time.

Twenty years ago, wondering how they could hook all that stuff up to a human being that tiny.

Twenty years ago, wanting to know why he couldn’t cry.

Twenty years ago, seeing that new set of dreams stop before they could even start.

Twenty years ago, learning that life was somehow going to be more now about fighting than living.

Twenty years ago, starting the remainder of my life to wonder what could have been, who he might have been, what he might have become.

Twenty years ago, beginning an unbroken streak of asking “Why?” each and every day.

Twenty years ago, the first day of a life that lasted for 458 more.

Twenty years ago, our son.

Happy birthday, Quinn.

Where are you?

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Live, laugh, learn (or something like that): A Sunday Stealing quiz

Posted on August 25, 2024 by ksedinger

Interesting format for this week’s Sunday Stealing: instead of a selection of questions, it’s a series of prompts. I’m going to try to do these in one sentence each. Let’s see how that works out, shall we?

Reveal yourself in 24 easy steps

I am not: the least bit interested in pulling the weeds out back that I’ve been neglecting for a while now, and I am really going to regret not doing it sooner.

I hurt: at really random times these days, which I suppose goes with being 53 and well into the time of life when the body just hurts sometimes, regardless of whether or not you actually did anything that could cause an injury.

I love: photography.

I hate: missing the shot entirely because I dilly-dallied and didn’t even get the camera up. An attempt that misfires is one thing, but not even attempting is just duh. (Well, my “one sentence per reply” thing didn’t last long, but hey, did anybody reading this think it would?)

I fear: the prospect of enough Americans rising up to defeat the current possibility for the country shooting itself in the foot, but those Americans not being geographically distributed in a way that allows them to win.

I hope: for a gigantic rejection of American conservatism in November.

I regret: the shot I missed last Tuesday. 

I cry: every time that goofball cropduster guy realizes he has to sacrifice himself to save the world in Independence Day. (Sheesh!)

I care: about the unfair nature of breed-specific dog legislation.

I always: fasten both straps on my overalls. The one-strap thing always feels weird on me, like there’s all this strange tugging and pulling when overalls shouldn’t do that, and I dunno, it feels kind of unfair to put all that responsibility for the structural integrity of one’s pants on a single shoulder strap and buckle-hook.

I long: to go back to Hawaii.

I listen: to The Wife. Or I try to. Not always successful, and this always gets pointed out when it happens.

I hide: the keys for my tool cabinet at work. I just have to.

I write: less than I used to, which is a little bit of a problem! I need to find the balance between the writing and the photography.

I miss: that one coworker who brought all kinds of weird joy to the party. I’m still in contact, but she left The Store several years ago.

I search: for good deals on vintage overalls and cool tops on a daily basis. I don’t buy much these days, but you never know!

I learn: by doing. I learn more from doing something once or twice than by watching it a hundred times.

I feel: like the world is trying to turn better? Like a series of better choices might be in the offing?

I know: way too much odd minutiae about Star Wars.

I want: a full-frame mirrorless camera with three or four lenses to use with it, and a week in Toronto or Honolulu to put it through its paces.

I worry: about what if the world isn’t trying to turn better.

I wish: for more wishes. Duh!

I have: a little black book with my poems in….

I give: zero shits about how good it is for me, I am not eating broccoli!

I wait: for a better day.

I need: more money, a house with a big enough room with bookshelves to allow single shelving of my books, a dozen pitties and maybe a few greyhounds too, and as it’s been a while, I probably need a pie in the face.

And that’s it!

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Something for Thursday

Posted on August 22, 2024 by ksedinger

There is an orchestra in Prague that specializes in concert performances of film music. I did not know this! It is called, appropriately enough, the Prague Film Orchestra, and they have a YouTube that is loaded with their performances. Here is one of them: a bit of Ennio Morricone, from Once Upon a Time in the West. I don’t know much about this film at all, but I do know that the Morricone score for it is highly regarded, even among Morricone’s general output. The setting is also interesting for this performance: it looks like they literally set up camp on the set of a movie musical to perform this. 

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Take THAT, Home Depot!!!

Posted on August 21, 2024 by ksedinger

Shopping for paint the other day for work, and I saw this. Yes, I laughed. I thought it wonderfully and subversively funny.

Somehow this would be a lot less funny at Lowe’s.

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Tone Poem Tuesday

Posted on August 20, 2024 by ksedinger

I get asked all the time: “Hey, when you were a young musician, what was the first Sousa march you ever played?”

[RON HOWARD NARRATOR VOICE: This is false. Nobody asks him this.]

OK, fine, but anyway: when I was in 7th grade, and in the Junior High Band (consisting of 7th and 8th graders), we played a march by Sousa called The Free Lance. I assume that we played an arrangement for young players, but I may be wrong on that score. I don’t remember much of the music from the march at all, except for one segment halfway through which turns out to be notable because the march starts in one time signature, 6/8, and shifts to 2/4 halfway through. Also, the structure is slightly different, with three strains before the Trio.

The Free Lance March is a repurposing of melodies that Sousa wrote for an earlier operetta, also called The Free Lance. Sousa is known as a prolific composer of marches for wind band, but he was more prolific even than that: among his large non-march output were fifteen operettas, none of which are much heard today, but which were generally well-received in his lifetime. From what I’ve read, Sousa was influenced greatly by Gilbert and Sullivan, and he featured their music in his own concerts and even used some of their themes in his own marches and other works. While Sousa’s name lives on because of his marches, including the immortal Stars and Stripes Forever, he was a great deal more than that.

Here is The Free Lance March.

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An offering for World Photography Day

Posted on August 19, 2024 by ksedinger
The old Bank of Buffalo (now M&T Bank) building, with the Electric Tower behind, in downtown Buffalo, NY. Both are reflected in the pool at Fountain Plaza, across the street.

I took the above image last Tuesday, when I spent the entire business part of the day walking around the city of Buffalo, taking photos of streetscapes and doing street photography. This was part of an eight-day vacation I took starting two Wednesdays ago. It was a wonderful vacation: two days at the Erie County Fair, walking the city of Buffalo, going to Chestnut Ridge Park. I took almost a thousand photos during my time off. I also got some writing done, read a lot, and ate and drank very well.

The price had to be paid, though: I returned to work on Thursday and fell “into the fire”, so to speak. We are getting the store ready for a Very Special Event (they happen), which means that I have been incredibly busy there with a ton of projects. The sum of that has been…no posting here for six days.

I can’t promise a return to quite regular posting yet, but…we’re getting there. I think.

Happy World Photography Day!

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Tone Poem Tuesday

Posted on August 13, 2024 by ksedinger

Longtime readers will recognize (I hope!) the name of Russian composer Vasily Kalinnikov, who was a deeply gifted composer who seemed destined to rise to towering greatness in late Russian Romanticism had he not sadly died of tuberculosis when he was just 35. His extant works reveal a powerful dramatic voice and a commanding gift of lyricism, and I firmly believe that had he lived, he would form a trio of late Russian greats with Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninoff. Alas…but the works he left behind are wonderful and they really should be better known.

An amusing note here: I figured, as I listened to this piece on Sunday morning over coffee, that I’ve almost certainly featured it before, and indeed I have: almost six years ago to the day. Well, here it is again: The Cedar and the Palm, a symphonic picture. This is passionate and evocative music that seems every bit at home with Borodin, Rimsky-Korsakov, and all the other late 19th century Russian greats. Enjoy!

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Sunday Stealing!

Posted on August 11, 2024 by ksedinger

I’m actually on vacation and the days have been packed, which is why I haven’t posted a whole lot the last few days. My current vacation doesn’t end until Thursday morning, when I go back to work, so who knows if I’ll post much between now and then…and while I’ve been taking a lot of photos, that means I have a lot of culling and editing to do!

But meanwhile, I can do a quiz, can’t I? Sure! As I write this, dinner is in the oven, so I have some time. (It’s a cool, low-humidity day here, otherwise I’d be avoiding the oven. Also the weather forecast originally had it being rainy around dinnertime, so I ruled out grilling. So…guess what the weather is right now. You don’t even need three guesses. Harumph!)

1. I am looking forward to …

My next vacation! Seriously, my next one is our annual Fall getaway to Ithaca and the Apple Harvest Festival. I love that trip. I’m also looking forward to getting through the next six weeks or so at work; we have a couple of special events in that time that are making my life abnormally busy.

2. Least favorite words

“Moist” should only be used in the context of describing a cake or other baked good. Other than that, I don’t really dislike specific words. Now, “least favorite phrases” is something I could go on at length about.

Oh wait, I remember 1999 or so that everybody was suddenly using “copacetic” a lot. That word was suddenly everywhere, and it went away equally quickly. I never really understood that.

3. If I ruled the world

Let’s stipulate no war and stuff. I’d mandate tons of high-speed rail all over America, universal healthcare, and I’d make overalls the Official Pants of Humanity. (I wouldn’t require everybody to wear them, I’d just give them the title.)

4. Favorite websites and blogs

This one! And Roger, and Sheila, and Mr. Evanier, and a few others. I keep waiting for people to get frustrated with social media and its incessant mechanized moderating and return to blogging, but maybe that’s not happening.

5. Things I do for myself

Not sure I get this one…I get dressed, so, yay! I also make my own coffee, for the most part. I can cook pretty well. 

6. Weekly rituals

Nature walk on Sunday morning; cooking dinner for The Wife and I on Fridays and making cheese plates on Saturday and cooking for the entire family on Sunday. 

7. DIYs I want to try

I don’t know if I’ll ever bother, because when I get home the last thing I want to do is DIY stuff, but I did see some ideas for home-made planting systems while at the County Fair the other day.

8. On my shopping list

An interchangeable lens camera! Not sure if I want full-frame or Micro Two-thirds, but we’ll see. I’m not actually expecting to enter that market again for at least two years, but we’ll see.

9. Places to see in your town

We just got back from the Buffalo AKG Art Museum! The museum was wonderful when it was known as the Albright Knox and was a lot smaller, but then a man named Gundlach gave the museum a huge amount of money, and they built an expansion that almost (or did outright) doubled the amount of exhibit space in the museum. It’s an amazing facility that really makes you feel like Buffalo is a world-class place.

10.Road trip must-haves

Water, snacks, camera and phone, stuff to read. Obviously clothes.

11. Guilty pleasures

I don’t really believe in guilty pleasures.

12. Things I’d rather be doing right now

Street photography in Toronto, NYC, or Honolulu.

13. Books I’d like to read this year

Hmmm. I actually have a reading list written down in my yearly journal, but that’s upstairs and I’m too lazy to go get it. I hope to finish NK Jemisin’s Broken Earth series soon, though. I only have the last book to go.

14. Lessons learned

Patience is good. Taking a deep breath and counting is preferable to jumping off half-cocked. Always keep your dogs on leash. Check your camera settings a lot while you’re out-and-about shooting, as it’s super easy to screw up and leave it set incorrectly for the next shot. And overalls are cooler (temperature-wise) than shorts with a belt. It’s an airflow thing!

15. Vacations to take

Hawaii again, obviously. Toronto and NYC, always. I’d like to take a week and roam around the Finger Lakes…and honestly, taking a week and not going anywhere is lovely.

Extra question:   Olympic events I like to watch or follow

I’ve lost track of figure skating over the last bunch of years, but with Mom gone, I’m thinking about following it again. Hockey, too. Most of my favorite events are Winter events; somebody once said that the problem with the Summer Games is that it reminds us too much of gym class. I can relate. The gymnastics is amazing to watch, precisely because it doesn’t make me think about the years of getting picked last for softball.

It also seems to me that Olympic pie-throwing should be a thing….

 

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Something for Thursday

Posted on August 8, 2024 by ksedinger

Sometimes you just need a bit of Bach, so…here’s a bit of Bach. This is Hillary Hahn, playing the third movement of the Partita No. 3 in E Major.

This is very likely the first work of Bach’s that I got to know fairly well, thanks to its prominent use in one of the most memorable segments from Carl Sagan’s teevee show Cosmos. Bach’s immortal combination of simple beauty and logic of the utmost rigor somehow forms the perfect aural backdrop for the tale of all of life on Earth.

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