small pond

"Five things" meme

Sun, 18 May 2008 02:55:37 GMT

Oh, looky! I was meme-tagged by LazyGal a couple days ago in this post, but at the time I was still crawling out of the cave of insane, end-of-semester busy-ness and hadn't checked her journal.

Anyhow, here, better late than never, is the "Five Things" meme:

What were you doing five years ago?

Teaching philosophy 3/4-time to non-specialist undergrads at a small private college near Baltimore, and raising three children with my husband in the 'burbs. So, like, same as I'm doing now.

What are five things on your to-do list for today (not in any particular order)?

It's after 10 p.m., so here are five things on tomorrow's list (in order):

Go to church (& play in the worship band)
Sing in 3 p.m. concert with one of my choruses
Attend 7 p.m. rehearsal for another of my choruse.
Do the dishes
Bag up a ton of recycling

What are five snacks you enjoy?

Cheese & crackers (my favorite snack ever)
Chocolate chip cookie dough SlimFast meal bar (only 220 calories)
Ruffles chips & French onion dip (er, way more than 220 calories)
White cheddar popcorn
Celery sticks (yes, really!)

What five things would you do if you were a billionaire?

Retire my parents
Set up education funds for my kids (plus any niece- & nephew- types who needed it)
Retire hubby & me (though I'm sure we would not be idle: I'd probably do non-profit volunteering, while he'd take that dream part-time job in a hardware store)
Fund some non-profit causes (arts, mainly, and a few church-y ones) that I really believed in (okay, no sense being coy: the choirs I sing in would be first on the list for major donations)
Eventually, move somewhere way cooler than the boring 'burbs (but, if hubby would not agree, then I guess we'd just travel occasionally instead)

What are five of your bad habits?

Sloth
Gluttony
Wrath
Whining
Driving with just two fingers on the steering wheel

What are five places where you have lived?

DC suburbs of Maryland (most of my childhood)
Baltimore suburbs of Maryland (the tail end of childhood and all of my adult life)
Charlotte, North Carolina (for two years between the DC and Balto. periods of my life)
Western Pennsylvania (I'm told, for a "blink and you missed it" tenure in early childhood)
Oxford, England (for two years while doing a university course in the 1980s)

What are five jobs you’ve had?

Waitress (post-HS summer job)
Operations Research Analyst (two years, right out of college, in cubicle hell)
Choral director at a Bible college (coolest thing I have ever been paid to do)
Shop assistant (in the picture framing department of a "Ben Franklin Crafts" store -- a descendent of the old five & dime -- to make ends meet while working at the under-funded Bible college)
Philosophy teacher (current job; I've been at it, more or less, for two decades)

What five people do you want to tag?

Ummm.... I only have about five regular readers, and one of them is LazyGal. Please try it, all of you!

This and that

Fri, 16 May 2008 14:58:46 GMT

1. Film: Was Jimmy Stewart the greatest (American) movie star ever? Yeah, probably. Here's a decent case for it.

2. Bad girl: I skipped graduation today at my college. Adjuncts don't have to go, though I almost always do anyway. Today, however, I just felt like taking a rest.

3. Refund: Got a manicure Tuesday. Within a couple hours of getting home, despite doing nothing more strenuous during that time than reading a book, I found that the right thumbnail was badly chipped. So if it cost me $10 for the work, am I entitled to a $1 refund? Kidding, of course: the polish is pretty incidental to the main point of the manicure, which is the cuticle work. But still, you'd think the stuff would stay on for a couple of leisurely hours...

4. Books: I have promised myself that this summer I will read a book a week-- so, naturally, this week I have read five. Am I off the hook for the next four weeks, or should I press on? Kidding, of course: this week's books were all short and minimally challenging (three Sherlockian YAs and two pre-Nero Wolfe pulp novels by Rex Stout). Next week, I'll try to up the ante a little.

Fear of re-reading

Wed, 14 May 2008 11:58:21 GMT

Yesterday (I think it was yesterday), one of Terry Teachout's co-bloggers posted a piece by a friend of hers. Entitled Beloved Books I Fear Re-reading, it featured this fellow's reflections on some novels he enjoyed before time and/or education changed him enough that he began to suspect he wouldn't like them anymore. Rather than risk spoiling a happy reading memory by testing his suspicions, he's decided to leave them forever un-re-read.

Very interesting concept. Would it be like not going to a high school reunion because you know you've "grown apart" from these people you recall having once liked? The guy (author and blogger Mark Sarvas) named Of Mice and Men (read and loved before he ~~knew it wasn't cool to like Steinbeck~~ had learned to be annoyed by Steinbeck's frequent, er, lack of subtlety) and The Princess Bride (which he fears might now seem both too arch and too sentimental), along with two contemporary novels and a decades-old mystery).

So, do you have any books like that? I think I do. The book I usually list as my very favorite novel ever, Walter Miller's A Canticle for Liebowitz, is one I read for a college course when I was 21. It hit my imagination in the old sweet spot (exactly the phrase I used about a certain movie when I talked about seeing it last October), and I'm sure I re-read it within a year or so of taking that class. But that was 25 years ago, and reports of the disaster that was the posthumously-published sequel to Liebowitz, plus things I've read that suggest I didn't really "get" the author's attitude toward the Church when I first read the book, make me fearful of cracking it open again.

What's up

Tue, 13 May 2008 17:30:15 GMT

So, what's been going on in my life for the past few days?

1- Concerts. Lots and lots of concerts. I sang in one; Number One played in two (and Number Two made a cameo appearance in the second of them, playing a little flute solo to begin the 4th mvt. of Mendelssohn's "Reformation").

2- Other musical events. These include rehearsals (two for me, one for Number One) and a State Solo & Ensemble Festival (for Number One, who received a rating of "1" for his rendition of the 1st mvt. of the Mendelssohn violin concerto-- yes, it was a big weekend for Felix and my boys).

3- Church-y stuff. Remember the garden party I was to speak at? In my little talk, I did use some puns donated by readers of this blog, and, well, it was a hit. I also sneaked in a gratuitous "Green Acres" reference (I read the parable of the soils, and somehow it seemed to fit).

4- Birthday parties. Two for the same little boy, on consecutive days. Parents divorced and re-married (to others), and evidently not on good enough terms to handle a joint celebration. Number Three, being the boy's best friend at school, went to both events, which meant that his dad and I each got a chance to accompany him. When I was 6, I'm sure my parents just dropped me off at friends' parties...

5- Pizza. Lots and lots of pizza. I think we had it 3 or 4 times, including ordering some for lunch on Sunday with my parents and my brother's family, in honor of Mother's Day.

6- Paper grading. And one night with no sleep in it.

So this morning, I decided to do something completely different (well, after I spent an hour or more practicing piano for the Baccalaureate service at MPOW tonight). Yes, I...

...read a book. A light-- trivial, even-- novel, purely for fun. And it was! Fun, that is.

(Ha! You thought I was going to say I watched a movie, didn't you? It's true that I haven't done that in about a week, so you should be ready for some reviewing in the days to come.)

Anglophone

Tue, 13 May 2008 14:12:34 GMT

Number One Son had a concert last night-- his high school orchestra performed, on what even this music-loving parent thought was a much too crowded bill, with two of the school's choruses, a couple of student soloists, and a faculty vocal jazz ensemble (who did a nice piece, even if their inclusion on the program was, I thought, a bit self-serving-- they're pros, so it's a cheap way of soliciting gigs). Anyhow, I noticed that, while on stage, the concertmaster (aka my boy) tended to use his unruly tresses as a kind of shield between himself and the audience. This, I felt, took away from his presentation, so afterward I volunteered to take him sometime to a salon and have them shape that hair a bit. I mean, if he is going to wear it impossibly long, at least it oughtn't to look like a Cousin Itt- style curtain.

Well, talk of a modified hair style naturally led to consideration of the ~~two black fuzzy caterpillars~~ extremely dark and heavy eyebrows that completely dominate the face that a new 'do would thereupon render visible. And I said I'd happily take the boy to the place where I get my own ~~fuzzy caterpillars~~ dark, heavy eyebrows taken care of (hey; allow me one or two indulgences as I settle into middle age), and ask them to thin his a little.

And this led to the talk about how uncomfortable my kids are in said eyebrow place-- a nail salon, in fact-- whenever circumstances (i.e., being out with me on eyebrow day) force one of them to have to darken its door. Which brings me to the real subject of this post.

For why do my sons always squirm in the local nail place? It's not because it's full of old women like their mother; that, they can cope with. It's that the entire staff is from Vietnam, and the employees speak to each other exclusively in Vietnamese the whole time one is in the shop. These employees do, of course, address the clients in English, and they may have a little conversation with you if you seem keen. But there's a big TV on the wall to keep customers preoccupied, leaving the employees mostly free to engage each other. Which they do, right over your head, for all one knows exchanging cutting comments about the respective lumps of flesh they are working on.

Now, truth be told, I am a little uncomfortable in this setting as well, when I stop to think about it... but I am so thoroughly indoctrinated with PC values that I am afraid to stop and think about it, for fear that the implications make me seem an elitist redneck. I mean, it's bad enough that I'm willing to pay for assistance with my personal grooming (the manicure-pedicure-eyebrow stuff being, IMO, much more intimate than a simple haircut), taking for granted as it does that any other human should be willing to tweeze my face or (eww) touch my toes for any price. And I know that these people can't be making a lot of money, given what I'm charged for their services. Basically, it's the sort of work made for immigrants-- people who need work so badly that they'll accept a few pennies to scrape my cuticles-- and here I am, ready to exploit their need. And, on top of that, because these are Asian immigrants (not only in our local nail salon, but all the Baltimore-area ones I've ever been inside) and I'm of Western European descent, there's an added uncomfortable racial dimension.

For me to be put out, however faintly, that the nail and eyebrow people speak to each other exclusively in a language other than English while I'm there seems, oh, classist and arrogant. At best.

So, how do you feel when you're surrounded by people-- in a nail salon, a restaurant, beauty shop, whatever-- all speaking a language you don't understand?

Let the games begin

Mon, 12 May 2008 15:24:26 GMT

Grades submitted, I emerge from my cave.

Happy, happy

Fri, 09 May 2008 01:50:07 GMT

Okay, today I can finally say why I was ecstatic back on April 1. Because, see, even though almost no one I know IRL reads my blog, and that's pretty much the way I want it, I still felt honor-bound to keep confidential the news leaked to me that day that my nominee had been selected as Teacher of the Year at the college where I teach. I realize that none of you could possibly have leaked back to the Dean that I knew this fact almost six weeks in advance of its scheduled public announcement, but I still didn't feel right spilling. Somehow, it seemed to violate the spirit of the confidence (which I received from the award's then recipient-to-be) to talk about it, however obliquely, on the internet. So I didn't.

But tonight the award was made, so I can now say, still obliquely but with great pride, that my workplace best friend and semi-mentor is indeed the winner, and evidently on the basis of my nomination (since the Dean's introduction was pretty much all paraphrases of my stuff). I was even at the awards ceremony, though not, I am disappointed to say, by invitation from the Dean's office (which felt like a snub-- I mean, it's not as if I didn't sign that nomination). No, only full-time insiders seem to get asked. However, my nominee knew that I'd submitted his name ('cause I told him back in December, figuring that even if he didn't win, he might enjoy knowing that a colleague thought he deserved to), so when he won, he included me in his count of personal guests. Ha! A fine way to make the roster for an event at one's own workplace... but I decided it'd be stupid to have an attack of pride and stay home.

I was and am delighted at the selection because (1) a supremely deserving individual was honored, (2) the fact that said deserving individual teaches a humanities subject in which our career-oriented school doesn't offer a major did not get in the way of the Dean's seeing how valuable a contribution he makes (yea, culture!), and (3) okay, the choice could also be seen, in some very remote / backhanded / incidental way, as perhaps a little vote of confidence in the nominator, aka yours truly. And I don't get many of those at work, let me assure you.

Happy, happy.

Reluctant speaker (follow-up)

Wed, 07 May 2008 16:58:12 GMT

Well, I'm committed... or I should be.

I phoned the tea lady (see this post, if you've just joined me), hoping the whole time that she had changed her mind about waiting till the eleventh hour to finalize the program, and mentally rehearsing my good-natured "Of course I'm not offended that you made other arrangements" speech. And I didn't even call her last night, as I was supposed to; I waited till this morning to do it, thus increasing the likelihood that a pinch-hitter would already have been summoned from the bench.

But, noooooo. It's me (as in, "It's me, it's me, O Lord, standin' in the need of prayer..."). And wait-- I haven't even gotten to the best part. Because this is a garden party, I was informed, we'll have a floral theme going ("God blooms in our lives"... "Jesus will 'forget me not'"... etc.). Though I'm not obliged to stick to the bloomin' theme ("say whatever God plants in your head," my cheerful contact reiterated), I am welcome to do so.

So, have I ever mentioned to y'all that my affinity for growing things is on a par with my general proficiency in the domestic arts? No, let me be honest: it's worse. Nevertheless, I already have an idea of what to talk about, and kinda-sorta of how to tie it in. My piece won't be stunningly original, but I shall endeavor to compensate by saying it as well as possible. Meanwhile, if you have any floral-spiritual puns I can interject for comic relief, just, er, plant 'em in the comments. I will, of course, take full credit for anything I use.

Tag!

Wed, 07 May 2008 13:45:38 GMT

Yes, I am finally doing what all the ~~other~~ cool kids did last year: tagging my posts. The most recent entries are done, as are the very oldest ones. I'm now slogging through the middle section of my archive. And I've only deleted two posts since I've been at it!

Anything to avoid paper grading?

P.S. Do you taggers tag every post? I mean, take this one: not only is it not easily categorized, it's also dull and unlikely to edify upon later retrieval. So, no tag, right?

* just wants to be ~~cool~~ correct *

Uh-oh...

Wed, 07 May 2008 11:24:12 GMT

I tag a post "spiritual things," and the next thing I know, there are religion ads on my page. Oh, they're not selling indulgences or anything; but I'm still not sure I want this kind of trade located here with what appears to be my tacet endorsement. How do I know the Bible study materials being pushed in the "Find Eternal Joy With Jesus' Word" ad are sound?

I'd better go back to pagan topics. Hmmm.... what's the last Eddie Albert movie I watched? concert I sang in? miserable student paper I graded?

I did read a book last night, but it was nothing special-- just the latest Hamish Macbeth, by M.C. Beaton. These formulaic mysteries are like literary M&Ms: I'm kind of hooked on them and vaguely wish I weren't, not because they're wicked bad, but because they offer no real nourishment for the effort one puts into consuming them. Still, I don't see me giving them up soon.

There, that ought to change the ads.

Finals again, and a quandary

Tue, 06 May 2008 18:26:43 GMT

Home stretch
Well, I never quite believe at the beginning of the semester that this moment will ever come (nor at the beginning of the academic year in September that May will ever come), but here I am, giving final exams... Spring final exams. If I can just get through this week, I can start my summer vacation (before you get all jealous, however, remember that "vacation" here is a euphemism; in plain terms, I will be unemployed for the next three months).

This week promises to be harrowing, though: about 75 finals and papers to grade (i.e., roughly 150 pieces of work in all), plus a concert on Friday night (I'm singing) and a State Solo & Ensemble Festival on Saturday morning (I'm playing for Number One Son; Mendelssohn concerto again). Oh, and the church ladies want me to give a little talk on Saturday afternoon at their annual Mother's Day tea, and I have no idea what to say on account of (1) never having attended the event (it's always been on the same day as Festival), so not knowing what sort of thing is expected ("whatever the Lord leads you to say," I was told, helpfully), and (2) not feeling especially qualified to give talks to church groups.

Not qualified
That last bit's interesting, seeing as how I have a seminary degree and once aspired to the ministry. My church doesn't ordain women, though, so it was a clandestine aspiration, which eventually faded to frustration (combined with a little jealousy, when my brother was encouraged into the ministry), then to resignation, then to indifference, then to acceptance, and finally to relief. But still, you'd think I wouldn't mind the opportunity to share a little something when asked... and maybe I wouldn't, if (1) I felt more spiritually alive at the moment, (2) I'd had much practice at this sort of speaking over the years (being ghetto-ized in the music department means you aren't always asked to do other kinds of things at church), and (3) the invitation wasn't to address women at a special "women's event" (I mean, I am not gifted in domestic arts, hospitality, submissive wifeliness, obedient daughterliness, or parenting, so what do I have to say, as an evangelical woman, to evangelical women, for Mother's Day?).

I enjoy being a girl... really, I do
Let me expand on #3 above, lest I come across as a feminist misogynist type. For the record, I am quite happy to be a woman. You wouldn't call me a stereotypical girly-girl (hair, make-up, shopping), but I have always identified female. Not even when pining to be a preacher did I wish to be a fella (and not even when I was in labor, either!). Okay, I clearly do not, in my heart, accept all of the limitations that my wing of the church believes God places on women (nor-- and this is the important part-- do I buy the rationales we give for said restrictions). I have, however, chosen to remain in this setting and, therefore, I try not to make trouble. What's more, I have (thoughtfully, I hope) accepted a pretty traditional "feminine" role within my family, believing that certain aspects of that role (e.g., breastfeeding the babies; being a conciliator) are naturally mine as a woman, while others (e.g., cooking; being the more home-focused, less career-oriented parent, for the sake of the kids) are only contingently "hers" on account of socialization (combined with the personality and individual skill set that made such socialization possible in my particular case).

BUT....

Nothing to offer
Because the great majority of what I see as my role as a Christian wife and mom is, in fact, identical to what I see as hubby's role as Christian husband and father-- that is, gender-neutral stuff having to do with loving, being supportive, setting an example, and taking responsibility-- I fear that I will fail to satisfy an evangelical audience on any "women's topic." And I've already said I have no desire to be subversive (well, not on this issue. On environmentalism or pacifism, however, I'd be happy to try-- but who's going to ask me to address the crowd at the church ladies' Earth Day tea?).

I was hoping that Number One's solo time would, as it usually has, rule out my attending both events, but I discovered yesterday that this year it wouldn't, leaving the decision up to me (the woman who asked me said she was so keen for me to do it that she would wait till the last minute, which is to say when I got the Festival schedule, before taking my answer). So is the lack of a schedule conflict the will of God, or pure chance? And does it matter, in terms of the answer I know I feel obliged to give (i.e., "yes")?

Having read the foregoing, you are probably wondering what possessed the organizer of the tea to ask me in the first place. Surely I don't exude the air of authority (given all my doubts, my compromising nature, and my general spinelessness) that one wants in a speaker! Well, I wonder that, myself. But, then again, I am a middle-aged person who has been with the congregation for almost 30 years, whose profile is fairly high (I'm up there on the platform with the band every Sunday morning), who has been in a leadership role (head of the worship committee), whose children and spouse are well-liked, who has taught Sunday School (aeons ago, to young children), and who demonstrates one measurable virtue (loyalty). Plus, I talk for a living. I probably looked like a good bet, to someone who doesn't read minds.

So?
If you were in my place, would you do it? That is, would you interpret the circumstances-- viz., the combination of their invitation and your own availability-- as indicative of God's will that you step outside of your comfort zone and at least try to bless others? Or, would you accept your own fear and lack of confidence as evidence that you were not the woman for the job (the better part of valor, and all that)? I mean, not everyone is called to every work (as I've often thought during a really bad sermon).

I have to call the tea lady tonight, and I really am curious as to what you think, folks, even though it appears that my wimpy self will be speaking regardless of whether it seems like a good idea.

Fun flick

Sun, 04 May 2008 05:42:43 GMT

I'm behind on preparing the Guareschi stuff I wanted to share-- concerts this past Sunday, Wednesday, & Friday, and this coming Sunday (er, today!), dontcha know-- but I do have this movie review that's been sitting around on my desktop in draft form for a while. It is, of course, another entry in what's become my "What hath Roman Holiday wrought" series... but it's better than no post at all, right? :-)

The Dude Goes West:

Yes, folks, as that title and photo suggest, it's a comic Western! But it's a sweet, gently paced one, with nice performances and no cartoonish slapstick-- you know, the sort of good-natured, thoroughly entertaining (if ultimately unremarkable) film that the few who've seen it tend to praise with phrases like "unjustly forgotten" and "underrated gem." Okay, a 1948 Western is bound to contain some bits that play politically incorrect in 2008, and this one is no exception; but The Dude Goes West also rises above a few of the more egregious cliches of both genre and era. And it's got a Dimitri Tiomkin score! Why, I suspect that had any of its stars later ascended higher in the cinematic firmament, Dude would probably still be remembered today (as a minor picture, to be sure, and maybe only kinda-sorta remembered, seeing as how it is 60 years old... but it'd be on somebody's radar). As it is, the forgotten flick managed to get a recent-ish DVD release, so at least I don't need to refer you vaguely to a cable movie channel when I recommend that you track it down and give it a look-see (its page at Amazon suggests that it's already OOP, but available secondhand-- there's also a nice review of it on that page, incidentally, by someone who evidently liked it as well as I did).

But what's it about, you ask?

The story: The year is 1876, and gunsmith Daniel Bone (just one "o," if you please) decides to abandon tame Brooklyn, New York for a part of the country where a person in his line of work can expect to be kept a little busier. Closing the family shop, he packs up his tools and books and heads West to lawless Arsenic City, Nevada. Now, decent-to-the-core Daniel might be a tenderfoot, but between his professional skill with firearms ("How could I be a good gunsmith if I couldn't shoot well?" he explains to an incredulous fellow sharpshooter; "Wouldn't know whether or not I fixed a gun right") and his voracious reader's head full of general knowledge, he turns out to be more than a match for the dangerous characters he meets en route to his new home. First, he dispatches a fellow train passenger and would-be troublemaker called the Pecos Kid. Then he plays Androcles to undeserving thug Texas Jack Barton on the desert trail. Our boy even tangles successfully with the local Paiute Indians.

About the only person whose defenses he can't seem to get past is Elizabeth Crockett, a young woman who's come West to find her late father's lost gold mine. Naive about most other things, she's hyper-suspicious of men, and thus misunderstands Daniel's every kind overture. Miss Liza is nevertheless forced to rely on Mr. Bone when it turns out that more than a few of Arsenic City's residents-- including the aforementioned desperados, Pecos and Texas-- are waiting to jump her father's claim. Can the nicest gun in the West outwit the bad guys and win his lady?

The verdict: I've already told you I liked this one; now let me tell you why. The Dude Goes West is a charmer, plain and simple. It's a comedy, but one in which the humor is all in the writing. The actors play things perfectly straight-- without mugging, exaggerated double-takes, or pauses for imaginary rim-shots-- leaving the viewer to get the jokes on his own and allowing him to enjoy the characters as characters rather than as comics in costumes. The director surely has to take most of the credit for this, so I was surprised to see at IMDb how many of Kurt Neumann's other credits were in, er, unsubtle genres-- indeed, he came to Dude fresh from doing a "Tarzan" movie. Then again, so did Tiomkin, so who can tell?

Titular dude Eddie Albert, 42 years old but looking his usual decade away from it, makes here what is surely his best case as a light leading man of the young Jimmy Stewart-Danny Kaye ilk. He sings, shoots, strums a guitar, speechifies, shyly woos, and strikes many a handsome profile. I'm sold, but evidently there weren't enough late-1940s producers and directors in the market for what he had to offer, for the actor would soon turn exclusively to the supporting roles for which he became so much better known. No sense saying it was a shame, as there there were some fine supporting performances to come (not to mention Green Acres), but Dude offers one what might be the last, best chance to see Albert doing the sort of thing he was originally invited to Hollywood to do.

Dude's supporting players are winning, as well: reliable James Gleason endears as the obligatory grizzled prospector-sidekick, a surprising Barton McLean (remember Gereral Peterson from "I Dream of Jeannie"? *That* guy) insinuates as the more sympathetic of the black-hatted bandits, and the marvelously (stage-)named Gale Storm is happily non-cloying as the standard-issue spunky heroine. Gilbert Roland and Binnie Barnes, who round out the main cast as a pair of thoroughgoing bad 'uns, also do their part.

Recommended... but I've said that.

May 1

Thu, 01 May 2008 10:37:37 GMT

Happy Giovannino Guareschi's Birthday!!

Quotable

Wed, 30 Apr 2008 02:46:27 GMT

"In university, I had a Shakespeare professor who was the world's leading expert in Romeo and Juliet, and who used to say he would give anything for the ability to read the play again for the first time.

When I meet someone who has never seen The Third Man or Singin' in the Rain, I envy them the experience they are about to have."

-- Roger Ebert

No, not that Bernstein; the other one

Mon, 28 Apr 2008 03:50:39 GMT

Right now I'm listening to excerpts from the score to To Kill a Mockingbird. My goodness, Elmer Bernstein was brilliant.

Okay, I admit that I don't know what kind of brilliance it takes to score a film. And this particular score is so Copland-esque in spots that you probably have to dock him a few originality points.

But even realizing that fact doesn't prevent one from appreciating EB's main genius, which in a soundtrack composer is first and foremost about suiting his music to the story. Writing stuff that's also listenable when the movie's not playing (true of so much of EB's work) is gravy.

I'm not a film score geek or anything, but as a musician and a movie-lover, I do always notice the score, and I certainly have my favorite composers for the cinema. And Elmer Bernstein has been at the top of my list for as long as I can remember.

Quick Update

Sun, 27 Apr 2008 11:12:33 GMT

Number Three Son was awarded the game ball at his Tee-ball game yesterday! I should add that they don't play real games-- no outs, no score, everyone runs the bases no matter how his or her hit was fielded-- so I suppose the prize must be given for effort (indeed, the coach told my boy that he was impressed with how far he'd come since the first practice, making this a "most improved" award). The boy was thrilled, and he immediately commandeered my baseball displayer thingy (yes, there's one that's sat on my desk for at least five years, with a cricket ball in it) to show off his trophy (inscribed by the coach and everything!).

Big weekend

Sat, 26 Apr 2008 12:19:49 GMT

Dress rehearsal today, concert tomorrow. Haydn ("Lord Nelson Mass") and Handel ("Foundling Hospital Anthem"); good stuff. Meanwhile, today is Number Three Son's Tee-Ball Opening Day. All the other stuff I'm supposed to do gets put off till Monday or Tuesday, I guess.

See you in a few.

Movie time!

Fri, 25 Apr 2008 19:27:12 GMT

Is it Movie Day Yet?
I forget now which day I was going to designate "Movie Day" back when I was thinking about setting up my own "daily(-ish) meme" (you know, two or three weeks ago, when I had all the free time in the world and was desperate for writing prompts... you know, before real life intervened, and LJ became the last thing on my mind). I'm sure Monday was going to be "Music Day," as on that day I usually post from the radio station anyhow. Meanwhile, I think Wednesday might have been the one I intended to set aside for my cinematic ramblings, since Tuesday night is one of my prime DVD-watching times (no classes the next day, and my favorite Tues. TV show's been on long hiatus due to the writers' strike). As for Fridays, I believe I was tentatively planning to feature philosophical or theological topics then (how ambitious!).

Of course, it's all moot now, since, if my previous post is to be believed, I am on the verge of giving up my online life altogether. :-) Still, before I pull up stakes-- and since I've been quite contemplative enough in my recent "Funeral" posts-- here's another in my series of reviews of "Interesting Films That I Might Never Have Come Across But For Roman Holiday."

The Young Doctors
Less than a week ago, I watched The Young Doctors (1961), and it's a measure of how much I liked it that, despite having a decent number of interesting-looking DVDs in the "to be viewed" queue on my desk, I'm ready to watch it again. Alas, it's not (to my knowledge) commercially available, but it must turn up on TCM from time to time, because that's where the friend who sent it to me TiVo'd it from. TYD is the kind of movie they just don't make anymore-- and, yes, I know I've said that about other things, but this time I mean it more as a literal comment than as vague, hyperbolic praise-- and I therefore recommend it not only for its entertainment value (good story, terrific acting), but also for its status as an artifact of another era (gotta be careful how I phrase that: it's the same age as I am!).

The movie is based on a story by Arthur Hailey-- he of later Hotel and Airport fame-- that first saw the light as a teleplay for CBS's Studio One. Then called "No Deadly Medicine," it was produced as a two-parter in December of 1957 for the celebrated live drama anthology series. Sidney Lumet directed, and Lee J. Cobb and William Shatner starred as two pathologists whose generational conflict is played out against the background of hospital politics and a pair of tough medical cases involving other staff members. The script became the basis for Hailey's second novel, 1959's The Final Diagnosis, and the book, in turn, spawned the 1961 film I saw. I can't explain all the title shifts, but I must say that "The Young Doctors" seems to me to be the most misleading of the three monikers. I wonder if something snappier and more on-point would have resulted in the film's being better remembered today...

(Incidentally, Hailey's first novel also started life as a 1950's TV script that became a movie-- all three incarnations differently titled-- and its TV version also starred a future Star Trek crew member. But that's another story.)

As the blurb I gave for the TV version reveals, The Young Doctors is set in a hospital pathology department. This might not sound terribly exciting, suggesting as it does a homely world of glass slides and Petri dishes rather than, say, a chaotic whirl of dramatically wounded strangers continually arriving via speeding ambulance, but in fact we soon learn that there's plenty of conflict down in the lab. For when not dissecting corpses or performing routine tests on bodily fluids, our white-coated heroes are busy battling penny-pinching hospital higher-ups, diagnosis-resistant diseases, and each other.

The great Frederic March, proving at 64 that he still deserved that adjective, plays department head Joe Pearson. Dr. Pearson (like his portrayer, only much less gracefully) is nearing the end of a storied career. Having served decades in the medical trenches and made several lasting contributions to his field, he has now cast himself as one of the hospital's "characters." Undisputed ruler of a grisly domain (we first meet him in the autopsy room), he's larger than life to his students, while annoying as the proverbial pebble in the shoe to some of his colleagues. Pearson is colorful, irrascible, idiosyncratic, stubborn, utterly frank, and disarmingly wise. And he's the hero... right?

Not so fast. As the story begins, Pearson is being saddled with an unwanted second-in-command. Young Dr. David Coleman, perfectly played by Ben Gazzara, is as New Breed as his boss is Old ~~Skool~~ School: thirtyish and energetic, but serious and no-nonsense, Coleman wants to bring the department up to date and see it run by the book. And it's a book, needless to say, that doesn't include that phrase "We've always done it that way." The new hire isn't prepared to compromise his principles just to get along, thus insuring that he'll be butting heads with Pearson, who's spent a whole career making do and, in his own flamboyant way, getting along. Is the maverick going to be put in his place, or will the old doctor be put out to pasture?

The film settles on the initially stern, enigmatic Coleman as our point-of-view character, and we're happy to see his warmer side emerge as he awkwardly courts a pretty nurse (his hilarious Brando imitation alone is worth one's tracking down a bootleg copy of the movie; maybe I'll find a way to put it on YouTube). Meanwhile, two more doctors are introduced: genial, middle-aged obstetrician Charles Dornberger (Eddie Albert) and fresh-faced boy intern Alexander (are you ready? Dick Clark!), whose expectant wife is under the former's care. All four of the main doctors' paths intersect when the blood test Dornberger orders to rule out Rh disease in the Alexander baby is inadequately handled in the pathology lab, resulting in a false negative that threatens dire consequences later on.

It's Pearson who's at fault, but just when it seems that the cigar-chomping veteran has lost our sympathy for good, Coleman's girlfriend falls ill, and the old doc shows surprising sensitivity, not to mention the kind of medical judgment only experience breeds, in handling her case. He can't make her accept drastic intervention, however. Will Coleman? And will these two dramatic cases, which between them have cast all of the lab's deficiencies into the harshest of spotlights, be Pearson's last?

I've already praised March, but all the principals acquit themselves well here. Gazzara, for his part, completely wins one over, causing me to wonder why, with all his evident talent, he didn't have more of a Frederic March sort of film career. Then there's my man Eddie Albert, who seems to be chugging along through one of his patented, self-effacing supporting performances, when all of a sudden, at the film's climax, he takes center stage for a heated confrontation with old friend Pearson and a tour-de-force O.R. scene that actually brought a tear to my eye. And baby-faced Dick Clark? Who knew he could act? I'm not necessarily saying that the cinema lost one of the all-time greats when he abandoned acting to focus exclusively on TV hosting and producing, but I am saying that he played this one just right (including, not that this was ever a problem for him till his stroke, projecting younger than his age-- in actuality, he's almost a year older than Gazzara). Clark must have had an awfully good agent, though, to snag third billing ahead of both Albert and Ina Balin (who logged plenty of screen time as the stricken nurse).

The verdict: when I said that they don't make them like this anymore, I was mainly thinking that in these days of lean and mean cinema, a sprawling sudser as heavy on character as this one would probably be developed from the outset as a TV series rather than as a one-shot teledrama or feature film (the material in the 100 minutes I saw would, by itself, easily serve as the basis for a 22-episode season). But it worked fine for me in movie format, ultimately because it was so well acted that a viewer couldn't help but get involved. Add a terrific Elmer Bernstein score (one that asserts itself from the opening titles), and that appropriately clinical-looking B&W cinematography typical of the early 60s, and you have a film that may be dated, but that represents its time very well. Recommended.

I'm a Second Life widow...

Fri, 25 Apr 2008 01:18:00 GMT

... and it's enough to put me off the whole online thing. I mean it: as much as I once loved my cyber-life, today I think that for 50 cents I'd chuck it all, sell the computers, and become someone who just checks eBay and web-based email at the public library a couple times a week. Though I recall vividly the initial heady thrill of discovering via the internet that there were actually other people in the world who liked what I like and wanted to "get together" and talk about it, I have to say that the warm feeling has finally worn off. I've become disillusioned with the Web as a way of connecting with people. Yes, it's possibly to make "friends," but it's ultimately unsatisfying to enjoy them long distance, in your mutual leftover moments. Sure, I still find it reassuring to be reminded by the odd listserve post that I and my "statistical outlier" tastes are not alone in the universe. But, in the end, online life has turned out to be just like real life (people move on, favorite hang-outs close, etc.), only worse, in that the semi-anonymity perhaps encourages one to act just a little bit goofier, creating more fodder for regret.

So I suddenly realize, after a decade as a heavy user, that I could give up the Web, and what happens? My husband develops a serious addiction (well, whatever you want to call it) to this thing that isn't quite a game, Second Life. He is there all the time, as enamored of it as I was of my literature message boards and fannish listserves and cricket chatrooms back in the day. He's constantly writing scripts for himself and his chums, the same way I used to dash off primitive webpages celebrating my arcane interests and, on their behalf, those of my non-HTML-savvy acquaintances. I understand his enjoyment of his new milieu better than he knows, because I once felt it for my own favorite corners of cyberspace. Indeed, I remember it all too well: that pathetic eagerness to log in to the online community whenever one's home, just in case some of the regulars might be there; the unwillingness to go to bed at a decent hour, even when work and next-day family or church obligations loom, because cyberfriends in other time zones are still awake and logged in; and, yes, the guilty feeling (acknowledged to oneself alone) that, frankly, the online world is more fun and interesting than boring old real life, including the boring old spouse and kids (not that you don't still love them, albeit distractedly).

[So, you might say, this is really just pay-back-- and believe me when I tell you that it's only my awareness of that fact which keeps me going. I earned this karma, so I'll tough things out for a while... then rev up the threats and recriminations. ;-) ]

My change of heart is not so complete that I now think the internet is evil or anything. I just feel let down by it, I guess, because it's no longer a source of unalloyed pleasure. I had been seduced, you see, by the idea that here, at last, was the ultimate level playing field, a place where each participant was represented only by his or her words and ideas-- i.e., the distilled essence of his or her "true self." Just like college, in fact, only better (for one thing, seemingly never-ending)! Since my primary gifts are verbal, I was quite happy with the electronic self I presented. Talk about a self-esteem rush! (Unusual, for me.) It was like when I first met the Man: not only did I think he was the greatest, but I liked me better when I was with him. In both cases, though, I've discovered as time has passed that you take yourself and your insecurities wherever you go-- including into a marriage and even online. External validation has its limits.

I don't remember much about what our home life was like before internet access. We've been wired since '97, which means we've had a modem for more than half our marriage and for most of the kids' lives. Could we be happy without the Web now? The short answer is no: we've all become accustomed to having constant access to up-to-date information about, well, everything, so I know I can't unplug us completely. What can I do, though?

Love those ads

Wed, 23 Apr 2008 21:09:00 GMT

Too funny. The Google Ads on this page are all (or were all, at 5:05 p.m. Eastern time) for church music: "Christian Rock Bands," "Funeral Music," and "Music for Worship," to name three.

You-Tubing

Wed, 23 Apr 2008 11:38:47 GMT

Well, I posted a video to YouTube! My first one! Number One Son says that slideshows of still pictures over a song are the lamest kind of YouTube video next to celebrity tributes, so it is naturally quite fitting that I should have made something my first time out that qualifies in both categories.

And Guareschi's 100th birthday is right around the corner, so I shall surely strike again.

In the meantime, here's the one I made (okay, Number Two Son and I made) for Eddie Albert, the 102nd anniversary of whose birth was yesterday. It's basically some crops from old movie production stills, plus a song he recorded in 1958. Sadly, I had trouble using the "cool transitions between slides" feature on Windows Moviemaker (or whatever the program is called), so in the end I had to omit them. Next time...

"A little traveling music," finale

Wed, 23 Apr 2008 11:17:03 GMT

I enjoyed sharing the quote from Ted Cohen in Monday's post. Whenever I read it, I think, "supposing I did number among my friends lots of wonderful musicians who were likely to both outlive me and be consulted about service music when my time was up. Is there something 'constituent of my sensibility' that a particularly sensitive friend might choose to have performed at my memorial that would conjure the sort of intimacy Cohen was getting at?"

(Yes, I did just put all that in quitation marks, as if it were a verbatim record of my thoughts. How funny!)

The answer, of course, has to be something choral. I am one of life's choristers, both literally and metaphorically. I mean, I've tried being a soloist, as well as a conductor (again, both literally and metaphorically), but at the end of the day I am all about providing the harmony. :-)

As fitting choral pieces go (in "memorial" terms), I've always thought this was a great one, but I don't know how anyone who liked you at all could sing it at your funeral without breaking down. It'd have to be a group of strangers! (The lyrics are here-- if you check them out, you should also click on the audio button to hear some very high-voiced ladies singing the SSAA arrangement. Wow!)

Happy Earth Day / Happy Birthday

Tue, 22 Apr 2008 09:21:40 GMT

Happy Earth Day to them as thinks the Earth's something to be happy about (as opposed to, say, constantly worried about). And Happy 102nd Birthday (wherever you are) to the actor who's kept me (and my credit card) awfully busy at eBay since I saw him in Roman Holiday last year.

"A little traveling music," part 3

Mon, 21 Apr 2008 16:05:22 GMT

What? Could it be? A few seconds to sit down and post? At last, I can begin to close this thread on funeral music. Hope my rather pedestrian choices don't constitute too much of an anti-climax for my faithful readers, who've waited a good two weeks for this. :-)

First, though, a passage that's anything but pedestrian, from a wonderful article ("High and Low Thinking about High and Low Art," 1993) by Ted Cohen. I've been assigning the piece to my Aesthetics students for almost a decade now, as we end each semester pondering the power of art to forge connections between people:

A year ago I participated in a memorial service for a friend who had died during the summer. The program for the service was a number of remembrances and two musical selections. The musical selections, performed by a string quartet, were chosen by someone who had known my friend and knew that both were favorites of his. Why is this music appropriate? There are a number of answers, good answers, to this question. I draw your attention to one. My friend has died and is not present. I listen to music I know he cared for. It is a fact about my friend that he cared for this music, perhaps even a constituent fact about his sensibility. It is, thus, an entrance into that sensibility. I sit listening, not merely thinking that this music meant something to my friend, but bending my imagination to the task of reaching and comprehending an aspect of my friend which responded to this music, that is, feeling what it was to be my friend.

Cohen goes on to talk about the status of certain objects-- art, in particular-- as occasions of intimacy, and you can see that by "intimacy" he means something pretty deep ("feeling what it was to be my friend"). Anyhow, I include the passage here because it always lurks in the back of my mind when I think about funeral music. By leaving behind a few carefully chosen selections-- again, even just of hymns for the congregation to sing-- might one be offering those who care one last chance at "conversation" (communion, really)?

So maybe it's not so arrogant to scribble somewhere (I know! How about online, in my blog?) my preferences vis-à-vis funeral music. Assuming, then, that the event were to take place soon-ish (and I say that not because I anticipate its being the case, but because I know that my selections might, er, expire as time passes), here are the congregational songs I choose:

First, somewhere early in the service, I think the contemporary worship song Be Unto Your Name (this one, which we sing just a hair faster at my church) would be appropriate. "We are a moment; You are forever / Lord of the Ages, God before time / We are a vapor; You are eternal / Love everlasting, reigning on high" and later, "You are the love song we'll sing forever / Bowing before You, blessing Your name." It speaks of the fleetingness of life without being maudlin, and hints at heaven without being triumphalistic. It's the music of my fellow evangelicals, it's genuinely lovely to sing, and the lilting tune pairs well aesthetically with my other selection...
My personal struggles with Christianity and the church and all fundamentalisms notwithstanding, Be Thou My Vision (know it?) describes the only sort of faith that I think worthy of Ultimate Reality. "Naught be all else to me, save that Thou art.... Thou mine inheritance, now and always." The hymn would work well after the (inevitable) sermon, I think. And I reckon it would be familiar to everyone, regardless of churchmanship, who'd be likely to show up at my memorial.
It would, of course, be nice to have a closing song for everyone to sing, but I'm not sure I can propose a favorite that my people would know. Now, without the latter constraint, The Day Thou Gavest, Lord, is Ended (link) would be on my short list-- but I'd have to import some English mourners to sing it (Marcus, will you make the trip?). Interestingly, it (with my preferred tune) is yet another in three-quarter time (though not Celtic or faux Celtic like the first two). Am I saying I want St. Peter to waltz me into the afterlife, then? Hmmm...

Maybe I should go a different direction (musically, I mean!!). One branch (by marriage) of my family has a guitar-playing member who always leads a graveside rendition of Will the Circle Be Unbroken (the old hymn lyrics, but the Carter family tune) at the funerals of his close kin. Having been present on two such occasions, I won't deny that it was a little maudlin, but it was also 100% right. Plus, it would work in my church, which is very guitar-y, as well as for my non-church friends, who are likely to respect roots music and the like. And if such a thing doesn't sound very "me," that may be because I don't often talk here about the years when my family (as in Mom, Dad, and us three kids) used to sing old gospel songs in close harmony at revivals and such.

Okay, I promise I'm almost done with this subject.

One more...

Update 2

Mon, 14 Apr 2008 13:36:28 GMT

Still can't find five min. (this post took me about one)!