now nobody i know is a bigger sucker for family schlock crap about lawyers trying to do good lawyering, and i think the verdict is unanymous (sp?) that "harry's law" is just that. but dang it, with shows like "skin" and "jersey shore", it might just be the sort of thing we need. though i've seen neither mtv efforts, i've watched all 3 episodes of "harry". pretty ideal cast: oscar winner, comic genius rob corrdry (sp?)'s younger brother, brittany snow's perfect smile, and many black people. it's ratings gold.
i grew up where watching tv was something you did as a family. you already knew that. but i find myself as i get older falling for these shows reminding me of my parents' collective horrible taste in tv, with significant though few exceptions.
i'll just chalk it up to cold saturday nights with baying coyotes taunting my dog.
(is there any chance they're foxes? they're pretty big.)
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If the tips of the tails are white, they are foxes, even if the rest of the body is grey. But I've never heard a fox bay. You need another dog.
there's one pup who's really made himself at home under the near apple tree in the east pasture. he easily outruns moonpie, and i wonder here if lately moondog is beginning to wonder just exactly what she plans on doing if she actually catches him. at least 3 last night, about 3 am, baying to beat the band. really made me uncomfortable.
another dog, especially another collie mix from a shelter would be fine with me. but moon has demonstrated her notion of being a part of a one dog family.
but i really can't lose her right now, especially right now, happy as she is.
Well, at least the crops won't be eaten by deer. Maybe get some mountain lion urine and put it near the apple tree. Or shoot one, or better yet, ask your neighbor to shoot one. The others will skedaddle.
i've only got red foxes in my neighborhood. seen one a few times. not something to be mistaken for a coyote.
Twif's right. Can a fox bay? I know they can't bark. But thought foxes can do just about anything:
The Thought-Fox
I imagine this midnight moment's forest:
Something else is alive
Beside the clock's loneliness
And this blank page where my fingers move.
Through the window I see no star:
Something more near
Though deeper within darkness
Is entering the loneliness:
Cold, delicately as the dark snow
A fox's nose touches twig, leaf;
Two eyes serve a movement, that now
And again now, and now, and now
Sets neat prints into the snow
Between trees, and warily a lame
Shadow lags by stump and in hollow
Of a body that is bold to come
Across clearings, an eye,
A widening deepening greenness,
Brilliantly, concentratedly,
Coming about its own business
Till, with a sudden sharp hot stink of fox
It enters the dark hole of the head.
The window is starless still; the clock ticks,
The page is printed.
Ted Hughes
bull extract it is, then. the my space movie kid is hosting snl. he's quite good. did you catch any of tosca at the met this afternoon?
twiff, i'm blocked from your blog. what am i doing wrong?
Was the Tosca the current production? with Radvanosky or however you spell it? And Salvatore Licitra? (Another great poem. Thanks.)
john, started out as a howl, then an eerie screech, then a barkish thing. creepy. foxes are noble; coyotes are vermin. al says they should be shot on sight, but i'm squeemish about such things. nice poem. learned about ted in my late 20s; a favorite of mine. are you familiar with james wright? also, been meaning to pick your brain about agee's "knoxville, summer of 1915". or is it 1916?
run, i was under the impression it was live, if they still do that the way i remember from my teens. but yeah, that cast sounds right. the conductor conducted from memory, and the pit sounded as if they'd run over the music a couple of times. i.e., not of this world. as a wagnerian, i have to admit puccini transcends arias. in a good way.
Puccini is my idea of a good time. Really. To me opera isn't opera unless it's a bit, wet, Italian extravaganza. I haven't listened to opera much lately. Back when the hub was really active at AVA, we went all the time and saw all these crazy talented kids. I follow some of the grads who were singing as students when I think of it. Indra Thomas, Hugh Smith, Stuart Neill. Good stuff.
funny, don't know my puccini as well as i should, but for the first time ever i realized he lifted part of the opening of act iii tosca right from act ii of meistersingers. i got to go to school with dawn upshaw and amy goldstein, where john corigliano was teaching at the time. for the record he was a real prick.
Love Dawn Upshaw's voice. No one at AVA seemed like a prick; but then again, they would never be to me. No incentive. It was so fabulous to have lunch on Rittenhouse Square in the Summer, where the AVA kids and the Curtis kids were practicing in the buildings bordering the Square with the windows open. Now, I listen to Squawk Box with the others in a windowless room while lunch is provided so I never have to actually leave the office, ever. Blech.
Oh hell, I loved it when I was twenty years old or so, and my friends and I would watch network tv like we were reviewing the prospective pledges at Delta house. Thank God there's still sports.
The family television was a love/hate sort of deal with my parents, and it's the sort of relationship I currently share with my own kids and the big box. The biggest difference between then and now, if you were wondering, is that these days, cartoons are on constantly, not just on Saturday morning and an hour after school.
Also, the quiblit addresses have since evaporated. Gotta follow links to twif et al's (who's Al?) currently active ones...
James Wright is good but a bit too prosy for my liking. Jay Wright is more my style. Agee's 'Knoxville' is a compelling instance of the blurred line between poetry & prose -- very stream-of-consciousness stuff, like a faint but familiar music trailing off into a Tennessee dusk.
rundeep, you'll appreciate this: not only was dawn's voice nearly perfect; she was and is a musician, i.e., should could count; and, she was a really sweet girl who loved music. can't say that about a lot of singers.
keif, fair enough. i may be mythologizing my tv childhood, but when i think about the fact that i don't have kids of my own, i revert back to the happiest tv years of my life. but you can be darn sure i'll be watching hallmark hall of fame's valentines movie tonight on cbs. i doubt it can match riding the bus with my sister. incidentally, i don't think i've missed a network made for tv movie in 10 years. sad.
john, i wrote a post about sam barber's adaptation of knoxville last summer. i'll try to link to it. would love your take, especially since you find the music in his prose. this is all assuming you're not aware of the piece.
http://switters-growingtomatoes.blogspot.com/2010/03/16-minutes-of-musical-perfection.html
Absolutely Stunning. Barber understood every nuance and subtlety perfectly. It was pitched with sublime precision. How could one not love a guy who was moved by 'Prometheus Unbound' and Kierkegaard? This is probably the closest thing to prayer [true prayer] I've heard in a good long time. Spellbinding. Thanks for sharing. You mentioned Upshaw's version, is it as good as Price's?
friend of a friend of a friend, etc., long story short: dawn's "agent" suggested it, and her music director said it was perfect for her. there aren't many recordings of it; it was commissioned by what's her face, but the piece is outright price's. outright. i've always suspected somehow sam wrote it for price. and it was his greatest achievement. sam and james had a casual friendship; but, if i'm not mistaken, working from memory here, james wrote death in the family shortly after his dad died, sam wrote knoxville less than a year after his died (i think he was about 38-ish), and price's dad hadn't died that much before the recording session. the piece means the world to me, in every sense, if you know what i mean.
For the record, I was already a fan of yours before I ever read "...as a Wagnerian..."
hey cindy. dicky wag was a piece of work. he dismisses bach as quaint, that counterpoint was a weak crutch. then he writes meistersingers, 5 (okay, 6) hours of flawless counterpoint, and half a dozen fugues. dick. but, though crazy, sublime. but mean.
Agreed on all points.
I'm a bit of a ring-head myself. Can't get enough of it, really.
Currently loving on the Copenhagen production. But I always return to the Met in the 80's.
Love Seattle in person.
I find it fascinating just how often someone criticizes in others what they do flawlessly.
swits: nothing, unless you're still going to the quiblit hosted one. that's irreperably broken (ie: schad stopped paying for it). go back to the old one: http://intentionallyblankpage.blogspot.com/
go to the store now and get your snomg supplies.
bright, went earlier this afternoon during rachel rae (insert cry for help here). the blinking lights on the car i think indicate that i no longer have all wheel drive, since it was fishtail city down the easement. but got supplies. should be set for the week. and i think enough firewood in the house for 3 or 4 days, depending on how niggardly i am with the fuel. i am miserly in my old age.
good luck with snowmageddon, switters and bright. Evidently, we are just getting the Ice Storm version. (A movie I have yet to see BTW). Do not run a generator indoors, please. (My hub is defending a case where a bunch of dumb, sweet 19 and 20 year olds who were cleaning up a disaster of a house owned by one of their parents. A little weed, a little bad judgment, and they all ended up dead. ) Space heater, ok.
i don't think i should watch the bachelor anymore. it's like watching... it's like watching a chorus line meets traffic. the show is evil. skins purports to portray reality, whereas the bachelor purports to be reality. meanwhile, i have to figure out a way to get to my oldest nephew's wedding in charles' town sc in a busted car in 2 weeks while at the same time staying warm in a trailer (trailor?). oh, and i really liked betty white in the valentine hallmark show last night. whatever that means.
ohio, why-o-why-o. oh, i remember now: wind and sleet out of the east.
I have found that playing Turandot (the Mehta/ Sutherland/ Pavarotti concert rendition) really loud and singing along with all the parts really does get the blood warmed up and, in fact, warms the body all the way to the fingertips.
And, I say this as a Wagnerian.
Spring will come. Until then, we sing.
Look on the bright side, Everything's Better With Muppets, even SNOMG!
funny. so i'm watching v, getting ready for parenthood, and i realize i left moonpie's bag of food in the car. so i suit up to get it, and the truck's frozen shut. good times. why did i move back here already again? thanks bright.
Ya got rice? She'll love it. In the spring, you'll remember. When you are busy farming. You need a winter hobby.
in the winter my grandpas sharpened tools and fixed motors. is philly dodging this go around? pbs has been showing a doc on the history of tv, narrated by frazier. it's really good. where were rafa and roger in aussieburg?
I don't know what happened to Federer that he went down in straight sets to Djokovic, but Rafa was sick.
snOMG is my new favorite word.
Heat up water, pour it on the car door until it opens.
Whittle. You've got the wood.
It seems we may dodge it, despite the best efforts of local "meterologists" to make it into a huge killer storm. Don't make me cry about Melbourne again. Rafa didn't look injured until the Ferrer match. Steroids? Alleve? My beloved Roger had a rough first round, then cruised through the quarters only to lose to the Joker, who's game has definitely improved, but I was shocked. Roger had been playing brilliantly by the quarters, and I never thought he'd lose that match. I can't decide whether I love or hate Murray.
I really don't like Federer. He's a brilliant tennis player, but I can't stand his post-match interviews. His post-Wimbledon speech after defeating Andy Roddick made me cringe throughout. He tries to be classy and magnanimous, but he comes off as an enormous asshole.
But I live in a wildly pro-Rafa household. Federer will always seem like an egomaniac in comparison.
Ha, tia, that's funny. I always think he comes off great. He's apparently genuinely well-liked on the tour, and Rafa, though generally a nice guy, is the kind of guy who has woman problems. As in vague whispers of assault type of problems. Also, not always gracious to his fans. Still, I was hoping to get to Mallorca this spring and sneak into the family compound.
Hey now.
michael pollan was on oprah yesterday (insert cry for help here). i don't think he wanted to be there. rafa has a permanent smirk i've never liked. i had a pork chop with cabbage and boiled potatoes for dinner last night. (working on my tweeting.)
oh, wind. it was different than this in colorado. sideways, sure. but wind that actually comes up from the snow? that's iowa. i've come home alright.
I was listening to an NPR segment many months ago--wish I could remember it enough to google--some professor of climatology (or something) included among his requirements for students who were interested in field research (studying glaciers in the nowheres of Newfoundland or something like that), the ability to play the violin. He figured it was an essential skill to holing up out there for long periods. I realize that may not be the best advice for you and all, but I remember being annoyed that he had only room in his mind for a goddamn fiddle. Maybe it's better to learn one of those far from other people, but in that case, why not a banjo?
My wife told me yesterday that she likes New England snow, which wasn't the story this summer. (Or even this wasted weekend.) As one of the three people who made the ill-advised trip to work today, I have to admit that it's starting to annoy me.
The answer to "which direction is the wind blowing?" is always "yes."
I imagine you and Michael Pollan exchanging cringe vibes through the airwaves.
Oprah provides that opportunity. She will be missed.
"As in vague whispers of assault type of problems. Also, not always gracious to his fans."
Noooooo! Really? Ugh. My tennis hero has feet of clay. Damn it.
Switters (do I have to call you that?), I have a copy of the 1974 Mother Earth News Handbook of Homemade Power. Want it? It's fairly awesome reading material.
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