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The original one-hit wonder

One of my Facebook friends, a guy I went to college with and who was a fellow trumpet player, posted this video of a comedian who was once a cello player and thus has a special reserve of hatred stored up for Pachelbel’s Canon in D, because the poor cellist has to play that infernal ground bass, eight notes in all, over and over and over again:

As my Facebook friend noted, we used to play a brass quintet arrangement of this piece, which was OK if you’re a trumpet, horn or trombone player, but not so much if you’re the poor tubist. As I’ve noted many times, the most thankless tasks in classical music are playing the ground bass in Pachelbel’s Canon and playing the snare drum part in Ravel’s Bolero.

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I find his lack of faith disturbing.

Kevin Drum on Liam Neeson:

Neeson is, after all, our greatest living actor. How do I know this? Consider: every single actor directed by George Lucas in the second Star Wars trilogy gave a performance that could only charitably be called embarrassing. The lone exception was Liam Neeson, who, against all odds, managed to overcome Lucas’s leaden dialog and clunky direction and turn in an appealing, understated performance anyway. If that’s not evidence that he’s our greatest living actor, I don’t know what is.

Oh, come now. I know that most folks think that Hayden Christensen and Natalie Portman turn in sub-par performances in the Prequel Trilogy. I don’t share that view, but I know that’s the general consensus. But every single actor other than Neeson as Qui Gon? Ewan McGregor was embarrassing? Ian McDiarmid? Pernilla August? Christopher Lee? Every single actor not named Liam Neeson? I know, we’re all supposed to hate everything about the PT, but come on, now. Sheesh.

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Sentential Links #157

Start clicking:

:: I really don’t understand how bipartisanship is ever going to work when one of the parties is insane. Imagine trying to negotiate an agreement on dinner plans with your date, and you suggest Italian and she states her preference would be a meal of tire rims and anthrax. If you can figure out a way to split the difference there and find a meal you will both enjoy, you can probably figure out how bipartisanship is going to work the next few years. (I’ve decided that I just don’t care about the “tone” in Washington. I don’t care one whit about it. Reading through various histories of politics, the “tone in Washington” is always acrimonious and nasty. That’s not a bug, it’s a feature. It’s the way it is, everywhere you have differing political parties fighting for stuff.)

:: Some days it’s just this. And this is what I live for.

:: It’s a freaking lifetime when your midsectional and breastal frontage areas are suddenly exposed to God-knows-who. (Yeah…I’m gonna have to take her word on that one. Kerry’s new to the blogroll, but she’s actually an old friend from my high school days, found via Facebook.)

:: For the moment let me just note that in Spain they have this interesting political system (”democracy”) wherein if your party loses the election, the other party gets to make policy until they lose an election.

:: What does it say about me that I could go with either interpretation? (Me, too. This post features one of the more clever LOLcat photos I’ve seen in a long time.)

:: I make an awesome hot salsa. I use cactus in it. (Wait, what?)

:: Comic book lettering has some grammatical and aesthetic traditions that are quite unique. (This isn’t a blog post, actually, but a fascinating article on an overlooked aspect of comics: lettering. When I was a big comics reader, I got to the point where I could recognize letterers on sight, and in some cases where certain comics had the same letterers for years, I would be thrown off if an occasional issue came along lettered by someone else. The art and Chris Claremont’s writing might not change, but an issue of X-Men without Tom Orzechowski’s lettering? That threw me off!)

All for this week. Tune in next week!

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Sunday Burst of Weirdness

I didn’t see a whole lot of weirdness this week, for obvious reasons, but some stuff did catch my eye:

:: Alan reports on a somewhat questionable marketing strategy by a Buffalo website. There was also a follow-up that I find not entirely convincing.

:: Over at Back of the Cereal Bus, Drew Mackie regularly reports on odd search strings that bring people to his blog. In the latest edition of this, I saw one that almost made me spit green tea all over my keyboard:

Jane seymour open heart looks like a butt

I laughed and laughed, because the first time The Wife and I were watching teevee and saw a commercial with Ms. Seymour displaying her “Open Heart” design, which looks like this:

…we both laughed, and I can’t remember which of us actually noted that it does, in fact, look partially like a human arse. I was then reminded of one of the funnier episodes of Everybody Loves Raymond, in which Marie (Raymond’s overbearing mother) takes a sculpture class and makes a giant sculpture that everybody but her sees as strongly resembling, well, a certain part of the female anatomy. (Clip here, although a plug-in download might be necessary to watch.)

That’s about it for this week.

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Comfort Food

Roger commented on a list of “comfort foods”, indicating his thoughts on each particular item. I, of course, shall do the same. Because I’m a follower, not a leader.

Apple Pie: Yup, that’s a comfort food. Especially served warm with a scoop of French vanilla or vanilla bean ice cream. Oh yes. (But I just can’t do the “apple pie with a slice of cheddar cheese” thing. That makes no sense.)

Baked Beans: I’m not sure I call them a “comfort food”; they’re a nice and easy side dish. I do make a thing with sausage, baked beans and a few other condiments that I consider a comfort food, though.

Banana Pudding: Not really. I’m not that much into pudding, and I’m not wild about banana flavored stuff to begin with. Love bananas, but banana flavoring, not so much.

Beef Stew: I make a pot of beef stew a couple of times a year. Comfort food? I’m not sure I consider it “comfort” food, but I like it in the autumn.

Brisket Pot Roast: Not really. I like it and should make it more, though.

Chicken & Dumplings: This is probably one of the canonical comfort foods. I’m not sure I’ve ever had it, though.

Chicken Pot Pie: Yup. Comfort food all the way. I make a nice one, if I do say so myself.

Chicken Soup: Not really. My comfort soup is clam chowder, actually. I find chicken soup boring.

Chili: Again, a regular autumn and cold weather item for me. I’m not sure I call it “comfort food”, though.

Chocolate Chip Cookies: Certainly. I love chocolate chip cookies. Homemade are the best.

Corn on the Cob: Sure. I adore it. Corn in all forms, really. And cornbread! A pot of chili without cornbread is unforgivable. (Well, beer bread is acceptable too.)

Fried Chicken: Absolutely. Especially if it comes in a bucket with biscuits, cole slaw, mac-and-cheese, and a wet-nap.

Gelatin: Meh. Not a big fan.

Green Bean Casserole: I don’t like green beans, so no. The Wife insists on this being on the table every Thanksgiving or Christmas, though, whichever one we make ourselves.

Hot Dogs: I love them, but I’m not sure I consider them “comfort food”.

Ice Cream: Sure. But then, I nearly live on ice cream.

Macaroni & Cheese: Certainly. Especially homemade. I make a baked version with sausage mixed in with the noodles, parmesan sprinkled on top. (One time I topped it with crushed potato chips, which I thought rocked, but The Daughter gave that thumbs down.) And yes, I like the box stuff. Sorry.

Mashed Potatoes: I don’t like these. So no.

Meatloaf: Hmmmmm. I like meatloaf, but I haven’t had it in so long that I don’t think I can consider it a comfort food.

Potato Salad: Since I didn’t like it until adulthood, I can’t really consider it to have a nostalgic thing behind it. But I do love a good, mustardy potato salad.

Pumpkin Pie: Not really. I have one slice a year and I’m good. Mainly pumpkin pie serves for me as a contrast to the mound of whipped cream I consume with it.

Shepherd’s Pie: Mashed potato topping rules this out for me.

Spaghetti: Hmmmm. Maybe. Never thought of it as comfort food; just a reliable, quick meal.

Tomato Soup: I loved it as a kid; I still like it but only have it maybe once or twice a year. But it cries out for a grilled cheese sandwich along with it. Now, if the sandwich is made from caraway rye bread and the cheese is sharp cheddar, then yes, we’re talking comfort food.

Tuna Casserole: Sure.

What other comfort foods do I have? Tater tot casserole. Waffles and pancakes and French toast. Frozen pizza. Burgers at a drive-in, ice cream at a roadside stand. Vanilla and strawberry milkshakes.

Maybe anything I like is actually comfort food….

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Do the pipes still work, Dear?

Howdy folks!

I’m finally back and blogging in Western New York this evening. Actually, The Daughter and I arrived back home early last evening, but we had so much stuff to do post-flight, continuing into today, that I’m only now able to sit down and get caught up on Teh Interweb. So here I am.

Anyway, yesterday’s cross-country return trip was just about the most picture-perfect day of travel I could imagine. The day was bright and sunny everywhere we went. Our first plane took off from Spokane right on time, and apparently the winds were favorably with us (like The Force!), because we were a half-hour early arriving in Minneapolis, where we were already scheduled for an eighty minute layover. The extra time was nice, as The Daughter and I were able to grab some lunch and then leisurely make our way from our arriving gate to our departing one. (The Minneapolis airport is huge. I’m always surprised by this, when I go through there.)

From Minneapolis it was off to Detroit, where we again arrived early, this time about fifteen or twenty minutes early. We disembarked the plane there, crossed the terminal to the teevee screens to find where we were to go for the final plane, from Detroit to Buffalo, whereupon we discovered that we were, in fact, taking the exact same plane. So we didn’t even have to budge from where we were.

And of course, the flight from Detroit to Buffalo basically involves traversing the length of Lake Erie, so this took about forty minutes. What was nice then was that the sun had gone down, and the night was very clear, so from our vantage point, sitting on the left side of the plane (and therefore facing north), as we made our way into the eastern portion of Lake Erie, The Daughter and I could see virtually all of the lights of Ontario’s “Golden Crescent”, which stretches from Niagara Falls to St. Catharines to Hamilton and around the bend of Lake Ontario toward Toronto. It was one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen.

Anyhow, now we’re back and faced with lots of domestic stuff that needs taken care of. The cats made short work of a box of Kleenex, for one thing; for another, one of the boys (Lester, for those keeping score) loves to chew plastic bags of any sort, and he had himself a field day. There was a plastic bag from the local liquor store that he chewed the hell of, dragging it across the floor. Thing is, it still had the bottle of wine in it, since I hadn’t got round to putting that bottle away when circumstances intruded. Plus the place hasn’t been vacuumed in two weeks. Oof. Yeah, so no parties at Casa Jaquandor for a while.

But we’re back and blogging, though. That’s something!

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On a jet plane

Well, as you all are reading this (theoretically), The Daughter and I are on the first of a series of flights which will bring us back to Buffalo. I’ve enjoyed seeing The Wife’s family again, albeit under terribly sad circumstances, but I’m ready to be home. The Wife is staying behind for an additional week to assist her father with the continued adoption of a new life, so I’ll be lonely for a few days. Sigh.

Anyway, for the rest of today, remember Blogroll Amnesty Week and Ask Me Anything!.

(Something for Thursday will return next week.)

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Suiting up

John Cole on the “debate” surrounding the stimulus package:

No one is selling it. The Democrats are simply AWOL. All I see on my tv are Republicans talking about wasteful spending, as if they have any credibility on that topic. I would pay to see Barney Frank matched up against a Republican opposed to the stimulus bill, because every Democrat has an easy retort- “If you have so many good economic ideas, how come you never passed any of them along to the last President?”

It isn’t so much that Obama is losing control in the debate. The Democrats just aren’t participating, and this isn’t so much a debate as a Republican monologue. We all know, given our “liberal” media, how that is going to play out in the long run.

That’s exactly right, and I find it extremely disheartening. I don’t know if Democrats just don’t want to look the way the Republicans looked the last eight years — rubberstamping everything from the White House without giving it one whit of thought beforehand — or if they’re simply assuming that the natural rightness of their position will eventually win the day or if they’re simply stupid or gutless. It doesn’t matter: they need to quit trying to live up to this lunatic notion of “bipartisanship” and mix it up.

I’m reminded of something Toby Ziegler said in a first season episode of The West Wing, after they decide to not pursue a policy they all believe in but know would be politically difficult:

It’s not the ones we lose that bother me,
it’s the ones we don’t suit up for
.

Isn’t that the truth.

Look, folks: “bipartisanship” is, and ought to be, right now, a dead concept. Seriously: it should be as dead as old Marley. For one thing, the current definition of “bipartisan” in Washington is that whether they’re the majority or the smallest minority in a generation, the Republicans get what they want. I say, screw that. We’ve just come through a period in which Republicans got whatever they wanted just about all of the time, and the results are crap. Piss on what the Republicans want, for God’s sake.

But for another thing, really, what’s wrong with partisanship, anyway? What’s so bad about it? The reason we have parties is that people have different ideas as to what direction the country should take. That’s the way it works: people tend to group politically according to the kinds of policies they would like to pursue, and right now, we’ve just had an election where one party’s ideas were strongly endorsed (or, if you’d prefer, the other party’s policies strongly rejected). Democrats, and the national media, need to stop acting as though the Republicans still get to control the debate.

In other words, Democrats need to suit up. It’s too important now.

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Backing away slowly….

So I posted the conclusion of “The Balance in the Blood”, my horror novelette about a Nazi doctor who conducts horrific experiments regarding vampirism on concentration camp inmates, and then I proceeded to surf the Interweb for a while, during which I came across this item about one of the most notorious Nazi concentration camp doctors, who was recently found to have died fifteen years ago. No real comment here, but it was a bit spooky.

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The official site of Kelly Sedinger: Reader, writer, photographer, and dreamer

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