Brigham's Blog: November 2009

30 Nov 2009

Everyone have a great Thanksgiving break? I did. It was nice being away from work for four days. Ate tons of food. Put up the tree. Vacuumed up fallen leaves. Played some piano. Went shopping with my wife. Ate some more.

We have decided to put off the Great Hardwood Floor Installation until after the holidays. We have kids flying in, which means a house with seven people in it. It'll be just too messy and hectic to have floors torn up and furniture stored in the garage, etc. Besides, we're waiting on trim pieces being stained to match the floor...

I am now reading "The Piano Book - Buying and Owning a New or Used Piano" by Larry Fine, which is something of the standard reference book on the subject. I have read again and again on bulletin boards that piano buyers are well advised to read this before spending any money. (Too bad I didn't before I bought my spinet - it recommends against buying spinets!) It goes into what makes the instrument in very great detail - I'm learning about laminated pinblocks, fallboards, string tension, soundboards, etc. It's a strange world, where particle board and plastic is not necessarily a bad thing, and important features usually don't appear on the surface. It's trickier than buying a car!

In my lessons I've learned a piece in a contemporary style called "Ballad of a Starry Night"; I play it rather well. My wife seemed impressed with it, anyway. Sadly, as is my inevitable custom, I came up with a set of tasteless lyrics trivializing it. So now whenever I play it I think of my lyrics. I really have to stop doing that.

I was looking ahead in my lesson book. Egad. Some of those pieces have a lot of notes in them!

Over the Thanksgiving break I scanned a bunch of my old Kodak Instamatic 3 1/2" square prints from the Sixties and sent them to a friend. While doing this I found some likely photos for inclusion into "Avocado Memories" - my photo journal about growing up in the Sixties and Seventies - and have added them: Pool with Jane Holland, 1966; Pool with Doug Minges, 1966.

I have a stack of Instamatic prints; the other day I ordered some archival quality (acid free) plastic sleeves to put them in. The sleeves will go into a three ring binder. It's about time I did this. When I'm done I'll have an album of prints from 1959 to 1976 or so. I quit using the Instamatic when I bought my first 35 mm SLR in 1976. (My cameras page.) In retrospect it's a pity that we ever acquired a Kodak Instamatic. The print quality from the medium format roll film in the 1955 Brownie Hawkeye we had at first is much better than the crappy shots the Instamatic would produce. I suspect the optics were somewhat better in the older camera.

Oh, well... it could have been worse - we could have owned a 110 film camera.

This week I begin my newest phase in scouting: Webelos (the ten year olds). In church I recently got moved as a leader of the eleven year-old boy scouts to the leader of the ten year old Webelos cub scouts. In general, I have always liked cub scout callings better than boy scout callings. You can be goofier. Teenagers are preoccupied with being cool; cubs just want to have fun. I have always said that you can have a lot of fun if you're not worried about seeming to be cool. The other advantage of cubs vs. boy scouts: No camping!

I have been a scouting leader in my church for nine years on and off. My days with my son in scouting were some of the best in my life and I wouldn't exchange them for anything.

Anyway, I have to figure out what it is we're doing this week and next, and tell the parents. I think we'll do the Citizenship activity as it's needed for Webelos badge and Arrow of Light. It doesn't appear that they've done that one recently.

26 Nov 2009

Happy Thanksgiving!

My desk calendar page for today, explaining how FDR and Congress moved the holiday around. We're staying home today - not traveling. (Hooray.) We're going to have a couple of Mormon missionaries over for dinner, then do a Five Families thing for dessert later on. But I see I wrote this yesterday...

It occurs to me that one useful purpose this blog serves is a place for me to store things I've learned. That way, if I want to recall, say, how hobos rode the "rails" (not railroads but the metals straps on the undercarriage of the cars) I can find it here by doing a topic label look up because I remember writing about it. Nice.

I mentioned yesterday that I was scanning a book by genetic researcher Stephen Oppenheimer entitled,"The Origins of the British - A genetic detective story: The surprising roots of the English, Irish, Scottish and Welsh." Surprising... I'll say. It contradicts everything I thought I knew about English history!

Every book I have read about English history in the last 38 years, without exception, paints the following picture: Prior to about 450 A.D. Britain was inhabited by a Celtic people who spoke a Celtic language; these were ancestors of the tribes who constructed Stonehenge in the later Neolithic period. These people were conquered by the Romans, who intermarried with them forming a society historians call Romano-British.

Beginning in the 5th century, invading Angles, Saxons, Frisians and Jutes from Northern Germany arrived in their ships. For a generation the Romano-British organized in the absence of Roman legions and fought back, winning a generation of relative peace. (This is how the King Arthur stories originate.) The migration pressure soon resumed, however, and the Angles and Saxons and drove the Celtic populations to the west, to Wales, Cornwall, and across the channel to Brittany in France. This is why the people in the West are culturally and racially different from the English. (Angles, "Anglish," English.)

Later on, after Anglo-Saxon society had stabilized and kingdoms were created, Vikings from Scandinavia and Normans from the north of France invaded England, causing further changes to the Anglo-Saxon society and population.

That is the standard history of England. The problem is, the genetic data doesn't support this!

Looking at the YDNA (passed only from father to son) and mitochondrial DNA (passed only from mother to daughter) of the modern English, Welsh, Cornish, Irish and Scottish a different picture emerges. True, there is genetic stock that came from northern Germany (Angles and Saxons), Scandinavia (Vikings) and northern France (Normans). But in no case does it exceed about 10% of the total; in fact, it's more like about 6% of the total. The vast remainder of the racial stock is "native British." I put that into apostrophes because DNA testing allows researchers to go back further than history allows to chart human migration 5,000, 7,000 or even 15,000 years or more - and so you have to be precise about who is called an original inhabitant.

The surprising conclusion Oppenheimer draws from looking at the British genetic record is that the vast majority of the modern day people inhabiting the British Isles and Ireland is a stock that originated in the modern day Basque region of Spain 7,000 to 15,000 years ago.

From Oppenheimer: "The most important message of my genetic story is that three-quarters of British ancestors arrived long before the first farmers. This applies to 88% of Irish, 81% of Welsh, 79% of Cornish, 70% of the people of Scotland and its associated islands and 68% (over two thirds) of the English and their politically associated islands. There were later invasions, and less violent immigrations; each left a genetic signal, but no individual event contributed even a tenth of our modern genetic mix."

How can this be? The history books are so persistent about describing an Anglo-Saxon population replacement. That's what all the chroniclers tell us happened. But no, genetics say that there wasn't one.

The main conclusion Oppenheimer draws is that there never was a historical period British invasion population replacement, not by the Romans, Angles, Saxons, Jutes, Frisians, Vikings or Normans. These people arrived and intermarried with the existing population base (the Basques who arrived thousands of years prior) who always outnumbered them and still provide the vast majority of the genetic stock.

Whew. Everything I learned is WRONG.

There are many charts and graphs in this book, but I will supply one that helps illustrates the point: R1b migration. I'm being self-absorbed by choosing this one; R1b is my own haplogroup (as I learned when I submitted some YDNA testing for genealogical purposes). Oppenheimer calls it "Ruisko" after a male Basque name - for lack of a better terminology. R1b is the dominant Western European haplogroup; in Ireland and the Basque country of Spain it approaches 90%. For the purposes of English history, an important haplotype is a branch of R1b called the Atlantic Modal Haplotype.

And... and... I think I'll close. This blog entry is big enough and the topic is certainly complicated. I barely understand it well enough to write about it!

Enjoy your turkey dinner!

25 Nov 2009

'Tis the season to be thankful... and I am indeed thankful for the supportive and gratifying comments sent to me and posted here after yesterday's blog. Thank you! When I first began putting together web sites starting in 1995 I was a bit surprised that anyone would want to read the bosh and nonsense I write, but I find that this is so. It has always been my delight to entertain you... I hope to continue.

In the early days of television it was common for personalities to express their thanks for "...being allowed in your home for the past half hour," etc. When I was young I thought this a curious sentiment; now I understand it perfectly. It is a great honor.

A fun little seasonal game, Thanksgiving Hangman. The skeleton taunts you. I like the background drumming.

That Civil War reenacting brass band I enjoyed on Saturday, the Federal City Brass Band, is featured in this youtube footage playing "Columbia, the Gem of the Ocean." They start at about the 3:30 mark. Very impressive.

Last night I scanned some old Instamatic prints for some friends (in which they appear). This is always fun because all sorts of details pop out of the print with level adjustment. It's also a bit startling seeing the colors adjust with the "auto color" feature of Photoshop. What appeared to be a faded and indistinct old snapshot now looks like life!

I scanned this one: me at the piano, 1966. That's a great old player piano my parents bought circa 1963; the rolls are on the top. My favorite number was a Latin piece called "Cumbaya" that was mean to be played at a rapid clip, which necessitated my pumping the pedals quickly - just the thing to satisfy my hyperactive nature.

I took lessons for a short time in 1963, and again for a short time in about 1965. And again in 1973 with a different piano. After only two months as an adult I am much farther along now and playing more difficult pieces than I ever got with months of lessons then. The difference is motivation and, I think, the greater ease with which a adult can learn.

My performance style back then included wearing a U.S. Army cartridge belt. Notice also the Batman plastic statue and Batman bubble gum cards in the background. A canteen hangs on the wall just past my back in case I got thirsty.

Oh, what the heck? As long as I'm on a roll: Me at the keyboard, 1979. The "keyboard" in question is a cheap little toy Emenee Chord Organ owned by my friend Mike. I used to amuse myself with it while waiting for him to come in from work. I worked out a really bad arrangement of ABBA's "Eagle" on it.

And setting the controls on the Wayback Machine back by a decade, here's Christmas, 1969. I am thirteen. No, that doll ("Swingy" - she danced) isn't mine. My Mom's friend bought it for her.

I am presently reading - or more accurately, scanning - a thick work entitled "The Origins of the British - A genetic detective story: The surprising roots of the English, Irish, Scottish and Welsh" by Stephen Oppenheimer. Sounds interesting, huh? Well, it is in the macroscopic view. But it is difficult to read word for word. Discussions about Neolithic migrations of the various haplogroups is always a bit cumbersome.

I haven't gotten to the "surprising" part yet - he's leading up to that.

Well. Like every other federal employee in the greater Washington D.C. region I'm off tomorrow for Thanksgiving and the day after, "Black Friday." There may be blog updates, maybe not.

We're staying put. Dinner tomorrow is with the LDS missionaries at home and then we do a Five Families thing for dessert.

I sincerely hope you and yours have a wonderful Thanksgiving Day and weekend!

24 Nov 2009

I guess you could say that, thirty years ago today, I became Brigham.

On November 24th, 1979, I joined the church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (Mormon); which is to say that I was baptised. According to our doctrine it was a full immersion in a font in the main Burbank Ward building constructed for the purpose.

My high school friend Mike McDaniel, who had introduced me to the church while we were students at Burbank High, performed the baptism and spoke at the occasion. So did my other LDS friend Bob Avery. I am in daily touch with both of them still. My wife Cari was the chorister; at the time, she was a romantic interest! Bob Edwards, another Burbank High graduate a couple of years ahead of me who was the ward mission president, conducted.

Photograph - program.

I am wearing a white jumpsuit in the photo because that's what we baptise people in; it symbolizes sins being washed clean. The two missionaries who were assigned to me for the introductory teaching sessions known as "the discussions" were Elder Cole and Nelson. (Mormon missionaries always come in groups of two.)

After the baptism we all went to a restaurant to celebrate. Afterwards we stood around idly chatting by the front door. I recall watching the sunset and wondered if I would ever leave the church, or go inactive. (Even then I knew myself well enough to know that my various enthusiams are often not long-lived.) It occured to me then, with some force, that my baptism wasn't a manifestation of some organization I had joined, as was the case with the Marine Corps. It was a manifestation and a realization of who I was - an entirely different matter. I knew then that I wouldn't leave the church, and I haven't.

My entry into the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (Mormon) remains one of the greatest and best decisions I have ever made, probably the best. It has given me a focus, an identity, a mission, a wonderful wife and family, many good friends, opportunities for service and much self-improvement over the past three decades. I can only imagine what a sorrier person I would be today without the church, how pallid my life would be or how much more difficult our marriage would be without the Gospel. It has also given me a testimony, and I would like to share that with you. This will be the most important thing I ever write in this daily blog.

Jesus Christ lives.

He worked out the atonement of mankind for our sins, so that, one day, we can once again share a kingdom of glory with our Heavenly Father in heaven. The path to eternal life is through Him. I accept him as my savior; He is indeed the savior of the world.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints is true and its mission is divine; the Book of Mormon stands with the Bible as a further witness to Jesus Christ. Joseph Smith, a 19th century American prophet, was visited by our Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ and reinstituted the Church according to the structure and doctines described in the New Testament.

I write these things in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.

Check out my church's website, especially the sections that describes who we are, and what we believe: Mormon.org.

Last night my wife and I watched an unexpectedly moving film, "Everything is Illuminated" (2005); this morning, upon reflection, I am convinced it is a perfect film. Without going into details, there is a minor scene where a protagonist tells another protagonist that he is wearing his shirt inside out. Since there's a language barrier, he explains that what is inside should be out and what is out should be inside. This is, of course, metaphorical. By the end of the film the fellow with the inside out shirt has discovered who he really is, and reveals this.

I liked this movie because it contains elements of a journey (my favorite novel is Huckleberry Finn for this reason) and also a discovery of heritage and genealogical awareness - two themes that resonate strongly with me. And, oddly enough, with the subject matter I've written about today.

As I sat down to write this blog, I had not realized that my baptism took place thirty years ago. I had also not planned to share my religion in this blog, or that themes in a random movie I picked up at the public library and watched last night would connect with an event in my own past thirty years ago.

Everything is illuminated.

23 Nov 2009

I had an absolute blast at Gettysburg Remembrance Day Saturday; it was a solid ten on the Event-O-Meter. Just the thing when there are no yard sales to attend.

CAPTIONED GETTYSBURG REMEMBRANCE DAY PHOTOS HERE.

Also, I took some cell phone photos walking through Old Town Alexandria on my way to where my wife works. Now that I have a place to store captioned photos, I collected all my previously-posted and new Alexandria cell phone photos and put them in a file for you to look at, if desired. Many of them were taken with an LG VX-8300, which was a phone with an acceptable camera, but the one in the LG Xenon my son bought me is much better.

OLD TOWN ALEXANDRIA CELL PHONE PHOTOS

I won't be doing any more scout campouts. Over the weekend my church swapped me and another guy in our callings, for logistical reasons. So now I'm the Webelos Den leader - I have the ten year olds. Fine by me. The fact is I have always considered Cub Scouts more fun than Boy Scouts. You can be goofier; Cubs aren't preoccupied with seeming to be cool. And no camping!

Besides, age ten is about where I am mentally.

And that's it for today. Enjoy the photos.

20 Nov 2009

Last night I watched "The Killing of a Chinese Bookie" (1976), a John Cassavetes-directed film noir - mainly because I've read about Cassavetes for years without ever having seen one of his films. This film is one of his most celebrated and is very highly regarded by professional and semi-professional cineastes.

At the rest of committing cinematic heresy - this director has a mighty reputation - I will state that at 135 minutes I found it overlong, self-indulgent and tedious. The directing is way too loosey-goosey for my taste; I like taut productions. Cassavetes' fans claim that this film was fully scripted out, but the dialogue in some scenes appears to have been improvised - and not well. Much of it reminded me of being conversationally cornered by some drunk at my mother's cafe near the close of business. There are some plot holes, too: at one point the protagonist runs and walks around with a bleeding bullet wound in his side to apparently no effect or blood trail.

When confronted with negative reviews on the IMDb message board Cassavetes' supporters claim that, "This is a deeply personal vision - Cassavetes didn't make this film for you." Okay, fair enough. I'll watch films by directors who do make films for me. There are plenty: Fritz Lang, Michael Powell, David Lean, Anthony Mann, William Wyler, etc.

Still, the film wasn't entirely a waste of time as it featured Timothy Carey. (Pictured above.) Do you know him? He's one of the most thorough and convincing psychopaths in all of film noir - and that's saying something as the genre is rife with memorable nutjobs. He's especially good in Chinese Bookie. He was also a surprising bit of weirdness in Stanley Kubrick's "The Killing," given the assignment to shoot a thoroughbred horse during a race.

How does one describe his film persona? You know Kramer in "Seinfeld?" Sort of like him, except mumbling, sadistic and scary. Read his IMDb bio - it's really amusing. This article is good, too. I think I'm going to have to see his self written and directed production "The World's Greatest Sinner" (1962). I bet it's in the Cult section of Video Vault...

The Zonks: I mentioned this obscure 1960's band yesterday and got the following message: "Just wanted to let you know... I saw the same DQ photo about three years ago and it was the inspiration for the book 'We Were the Zonks.' I recently discovered Buzz Andrews, one of the boys in the band, on the web too. But as of yet I have not had time to contact him. The website thezonks.com is not his old band, its my new book about the photo that I saw. Just thought you might like to know! - jim"

Got that? Not the same band but a book about the photo of the band hanging in Dairy Queen stores. Glad we got that settled.

I played the church's Kawai KG-2D grand piano last night after scouts again, muddling through "Scarborough Fair." I just love the tone of that instrument, and the keyboard touch feels so right. (Especially compared to my troubled spinet.) From an Internet review: "...The KG-2D was a very popular piano, with a sound that was on the 'mellow' or 'warm' side. Kawai recently replaced it with the KG-2E, a much brighter, jazzier sounding piano (perhaps more like a Yamaha?), which had an improved action design. Dealers complained a lot because they really liked the sound of the KG-2D, so Kawai came out with the KG2S, which has the new action design but also the warmer sound."

The closest regional Kawai dealership is on the Rockville Pike in Bethesda. One of these days - when I improve - I want to go there and play their grands and baby grands, just to see what the prices, sounds and differences are. I am eager to check out that Millenium III carbon fiber action.

But, in the meantime, I'll content myself to have a nice weekend instead. Leaf blowing/vacuuming/bagging is in the works, sadly. And piano. My plan is to have "Scarborough Fair" so smooth that when I play it somebody will ask, "Is your name Simon or Garfunkel?"

Have a nice weekend!

19 Nov 2009

Been to a Dairy Queen recently?

Every time I visit the one closest to my home I am amused by an olde-tymey photo they have on the wall, "The Zonks at Diary Queen in Hope, Arkansas, 1967." Here's a cell phone photo. To my mind it perfectly encapsulates The Summer of Love as actualized in a small town. The dorky clothing, the earnest posing, the logo on the bass drum. That Fender p-bass (American made!) one of the Zonks is holding is worth several thousand dollars, nowadays. And you have got to admire the fellow in the goofy pants looking up towards... what? Peace and harmony? The Age of Aquarius? A dipped cone?

Google reveals that the philosophical fellow in the Spinal Tap pants is Buzz Andrews - here's his myspace page. He is still in a band! But... is this band - "the zOnks" - the same as the one in the Dairy Queen photo? From the website: "We had a band long ago, and admittedly we were, uh... less than amazing. Then we had a reunion in Texas one year ago and..." And... I don't care, really. Change subject.

(I will state for the record that prior to my Dairy Queen experience, the word "zonk" was known to me in conjunction with Monty Hall's "Let's Make a Deal" TV show, where a "zonk" was a bad deal. In about 1969 my Mom dressed like a hillbilly and she and I showed up outside NBC Studios in Burbank yelling and screaming in the hopes that she could be admitted as a contestant. She wasn't, but we were admitted to see the show. It was cool, watching Door Number One, Door Number Two and Door Number Three getting wheeled about by stage hands.)

ALL YOUR BASE ARE BELONG TO US

Ha ha! Am I not hip now?

See, what happened is this: yesterday a young friend pointed out a sequence of keystrokes on Facebook which, if performed, make goofy little lens flare circles appear when you move the cursor. Why? It's the Konami Code! (An artifact of bored, video game culture-involved software programmers.) So, I mentioned this to another young friend on the bus on the way home who invoked the phrase, "All Your Base Are Belong To Us." Huh? What's that? I've seen that before... and so I made a note to look it up. Here's the explanation.

I'm 53. Normally I have my nose in traditional culture books and literature - the classics - but every now and then I poke my nose out into the pop culture, become disgusted, and go back to my classical Greek or Civil War stuff.

What's the frequency, Kenneth?

I mean, is this the best we can do? People in the 19th century had the Tristan Chord, Transcendentalism and Romanticism. The ancient Greeks had Homer. Even those poor, unenlightened Eisenhower-voting mopes in the 1950's had the Beat Culture, which was at least literary. (Yes, yes, I know, the people voting for Eisenhower probably weren't reading Kerouac - don't bother pointing it out to me.)

The best we can do, with all of the knowledge available on the Internet, FOR FREE, are video game references and Kenneth. This passes as knowledge.

Tell me we're not dumbed down.

18 Nov 2009

The amount of bile I've been spewing forth at other drivers (who are almost always talking on cell phones rather than driving), entertainment industry celebrities and anyone convenient suggests that, once again, it's Cranky Season.

Cranky Season comes but once a year, thank goodness. When I used to moderate an Internet Civil War reenacting email distribution group my readers and I observed that in November, after the last reenactment and the end of Daylight Saving Time, guys would get grumpy. Hence the name.

When I started to play rugby I observed the very same thing at the conclusion of the fall season. However, it was less pronounced with rugby as everyone was physically shot after 3 1/2 months of practice and matches. We were more grateful when the season ended; especially after losing seasons - of which there were plenty.

But it's not just a sports or hobby thing: who wants to get up and go to work as the sun is rising and come home as its setting? That sucks.

My piano lesson last night was pretty good. I redeemed myself on a church hymn I botched some weeks ago, which was gratifying. I now have a piece called "Intrada" to learn. It's by a composer named Paul Peuerl (1570-1625). It's an odd sort of Baroque piece, however, as it has some sharps that cause it to be tonally somewhat different sounding than one is used to with that style. My teacher played it through and doesn't like it. But I shall stretch my ears a bit.

I also have a simple arrangement of the traditional tune "Scarborough Fair" to learn; I am gratified to see that it is modal, in D Dorian. (The D Dorian scale is, start with "D," then play each white key note up to the next "D." That's it.) Folk music is often modal, as is music composed by singing (rather than sitting down at a piano and devising a melody in a major or minor key). A lot of Beatles music is modal as well. Of course the singing duo of Simon and Garfunkle had a hit with "Scarborough Fair" back in 1965.

I learned about modal music when I started playing bass... and was somewhat surprised to learn that I had been listening to modal melodies since my teenage years with the music of Debussy.

Perhaps the most popular mode is Mixolydian, which is exactly the same as the do-re-mi-fa-so-la-ti-do (Ionian) scale except with a flattened seventh (the ti note), which makes it sound a bit jazzy. There are many, many pop songs that have flattened sevenths.

There is a very cool 1966 Leonard Bernstein "Young People's Concert" devoted to modes entitled, "What Are Modes?" I liked it so much I made a copy of the library VHS...

I saw an excellent film last night, which came highly recommended from the fine folks at Video Vault: "The Exiles" (1961). Part drama, part documentary, part time capsule, this rediscovered film takes place in the Bunker Hill section of Los Angeles at the dawn of the Kennedy Era. It is fascinating to watch, and the crisp black and white cinematography is glorious. The night scenes are wonderful: deep, velvety blacks and luminous whites. The film looked good.

The street scenes looked instantly familiar to me from my youth. I remember the bulbous 1950's sedans, when neon signs had flashing arrows, when Dad's root beer came in bottles, the Lucky Lager "X" logo, and when Bell Telephone put signs outside of bars to indicate public phones within. Very evocative.

It's a story much like the New Zealand Maori film "Once Were Warriors" in that it depicts the social devastation wrought upon a minority group by alcohol; watching it I kept being reminded what a human blight alcohol is. (My own family history is replete with lives damaged by excessive drinking.) The protagonists in "The Exiles" are all American Indians. The film doesn't state that it's better to go back to the reservation than exist with the temptations of the city; the film wisely allows the viewer to draw his own conclusions.

Some scenes include shots of the Angels Flight, the funicular service that used to run up and down Bunker Hill. (1960 photo.) My Mom took me on it, once, when I was little. It was exciting - at one point the cars look like they're about to collide but don't and pass alongside one another. (Angel's Flight is also the name of a really shoddy late period film noir.)

I suppose in passing I should note that the dilapidated Bunker Hill area of Los Angeles was home to many a film noir scene. Memorably, in "Kiss Me Deadly" Mike Hammer climbs the long stairs which run parallel to the Angel's Flight up to an apartment and comments to an old woman, "Quite a hike." She replies, "So who asked you to come?"

I love film noir patter.

17 Nov 2009

New remastered Beatles songs multitrack analysis, which my son says is very cool. He is correct.

In a few weeks I'm going to bore you with details of our upcoming home improvement project: hardwood flooring installation in three rooms, two closets and a hall. It's getting off to a slow start. As we started taking pieces out of boxes we noticed that the trim pieces and quarter round pieces don't really match the flooring pieces. So we had to return them yesterday. Can't start without them.

As I mentioned yesterday I'm reading a book that debunks historical nonsense. One such whopper was that FDR knew that a Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor was coming, but allowed it to happen to provide a rationale to draw America into World War II. Really, where do these people come up with these things? Anyway, this one can be safely resigned to the same loony bin wherein resides the claim that Secretary of War Edwin Stanton was behind the Lincoln conspiracy.

I suspect what's at the heart of the problem is that most Americans don't bother reading history books and so are helpless to tell fact from nonsense. Either that or they've been reading too many mystery novels.

There's an old saying I like: Truth is the daughter of time. In the 46 years since the assassination of JFK, for instance, no credible accomplices to a multi-gunman conspiracy have come forth with credible stories. The single gunman conclusion the Warren Commission arrived at is still sound. People have desired a mysterious Oliver Stone-style conspiracy because it's sexy and provocative, but the facts lead to the simple conclusion that Oswald acted alone. Occam's Razor: the simplest explanation is usually the best one. Or, as I normally adapt it to apply to my workplace, "Never assign to antagonism, conspiracy or spite actions that can be attributed to simple oversight." Or, "Only a fool takes offense where none is intended."

But the public, in its ignorance, wants mystery and complexity to create a good story. This kind of thing used to drive my wife nuts in college journalism classes, the constant seeking after the angle or underlying story when there are really just simple facts. Sometimes people have no motivation at all!

You see this kind of thinking a lot these days: Obama's critics are driven by racism, people who disapprove of same sex marriage hate homosexuals, etc. People are enormously complex but, in the end, I think, act simply in concert with their interests. I suppose the science of figuring out how is politics.

I re-watched a couple of hobo documentaries last night, "Riding the Rails" and "Who is Bozo Texino?" The first is up to the usual PBS standard, focused, professionally made, adequately-budgeted, telling a compelling story with the people who took part (rail riders of the Depression Era). A worthwhile view.

The second is strictly a rough, amateur production in black and white film stock by a man who does some tramping himself. Both documentaries are excellent in their own way. Bozo Texino has some memorable shots that are inadvertant, evocative and surprising art: with the backdrop of a lonely landscape a tumbleweed is seen blowing down some tracks towards the camera, a single boxcar is shown silently and mysteriously moving by itself in a freight yard, a telephone pole - as seen from a passing boxcar - sits in a flooded plain.

An interesting sequence involved an old railroad worker who proudly shows off and describes his album of boxcar art, captured with what looks like Polaroid snaps. The cover of the album has a torn off piece of masking tape with "Boxcar Art" written thereupon in ballpoint ink. I hope it ends up at the Smithsonian...

Other clips are interviews with hobos, who have boozy, amusing points of view. "I'll give you anything you want. If you ask me. But tell me, and..." (unprintable language follows). Another draws social distinctions between the terms "hobo" and "tramp" - with more four letter words. (Apparently hobos are big on what Patrick Star calls "sentence enhancers.") And one noted boxcar artist from Texas demonstrates his quick, artful logo with a translation of the Latin motto chalked underneath. Where did a boxcar artist acquire Latin?

All in all, given the many independent, low budget and curious films I have seen this year, "Who is Bozo Texino?" stands out. A worthwhile view - and purchase! You can buy it here.

16 Nov 2009

I finally beat that intensely annoying website virus on rugbyfootball.com. Yahoo suggested deleting the existing ftp connection and creating a new one with a new password. I looked and saw no less than five ftp accounts, only one of which I created. One or more of them were probably how the virus was getting access to the site. So deleting them all and creating a new one and cleaning the website (again) did the trick. Whew.

I am now reading "48 Liberal Lies About American History (that you probably learned in school)" by Larry Schweikart. I'm always attracted to books that attempt to correct historical popular misconceptions. The chapter in this I'm especially interested in is the one about JFK being assassinated because somebody (fill in the blank) was trying to prevent him from getting us out of the Vietnam War. Oliver Stone, one of the most irresponsible filmmakers working today, is directly attributable for this one.

There is no evidence that Kennedy wanted the United States out of Vietnam. JFK was a Cold War Democrat. After JFK was killed, LBJ was very much following the lead and policies of the Kennedy Administration. Meet the new boss/same as the old boss.

There's a hilarious episode of Red Dwarf (a British sci-fi comedy), about the crew of the Red Dwarf mining ship travelling back in time and screwing up the Kennedy assassination. Finally, in order to preserve the timeline (and Kennedy's post assassination reputation) they have to convince JFK to shoot himself from the grassy knoll. Incredible. I don't think any American sitcom would take this one on. A plot element is the canard about his being killed in order to keep the U.S. in Vietnam - so even the Brits don't know any better...

Red Dwarf, by the way, by virtue of being a comedy and not a drama, has taken science fiction to places where even Star Trek dared not venture. One episode featured a planet ("htraE") where everything runs backwards in time compared to the timeline of the Red Drawf crew. (That episode, logically enough, was entitled "Backwards.") Another episode... well, words fail me. Look at this. An amazingly creative television show that worked because if it's a comedy, science-fiction allows you to postulate ridiculous situations that you'd never get away with in a drama.

This weekend I've been working on a "Simple Minuet" by Jean-Nicolas Geoffroy (1633-1694). Simple for better pianists, perhaps, but not me! It's tricky. It's sort of like the piano version of repeating "Sally Sells Seashells by the Seashore" really quickly; the left hand seems to noodle downward independently of the right hand. But I'm 90% there. The last time I sat down at the piano I played it straight through correctly with only a slight hesitation at one point. This is cool.

I am still amazed and delighted with how finger memory works. It's weird. The process of learning a piece is staring intently at the music and working out the notes slowly and painfully. Then, once the brain-finger links start to build, it's a matter of playing each note properly and with increasing velocity. At that point you're not really reading the music anymore - the fingers are just sort of allowed to roam the keys in the right pattern, playing the piece. Once it's memorized you're not even thinking about the piece... it's like absent mindedly scratching your wrist or something. It just sort of happens. It's a mental minor miracle.

Old dogs can learn new tricks.

13 Nov 2009

Friday the 13th...whooo....

I picked up my wife at the airport this morning, so I'm no longer a lone man in a big, quiet house. Hurray!

Since I started taking piano lessons I've been compulsively playing as many instruments as possible to get a feel for how they play and sound - to figure out what I'd like to end up with. Last night I played a friend's c. 1984 Kohler & Campbell studio piano; it was louder than any other vertical instrument I have yet heard, with plenty of mid-range punch. I suppose it's because it has a couple of openings to the sound board in front, like an old-fashioned wind up gramophone. Or maybe it was because of the relatively open and reverberant quality of the room, I don't know. But it was LOUD.

So far I haven't heard a digital piano to compare with an acoustic instrument. They just don't sound the same. There's a Behringer digital at Costco for about $750 that sounds just awful. Whomever did the digital modeling must have been listening to a real piano through a couple of empty beer cans strapped to his ears.

My favorite is the Kawai grand at church; I was playing it last night after Scouts, as I do each week. The tone is wonderfully mellow and deep and the touch feels just right. There's just no getting around the physics... a well-balanced piano with the right amount of bass has to have a large soundboard, which means an upright or a horizontal instrument.

I have heard that pianists are fussy in their choice of instruments - now I know why!

I am, by the way, reading a book I found at a church bazaar I attended, "Piano Mastery - the Harriet Brower Interviews." It's advice by pianists like Rachmaninoff and Paderewski about technique and tone, etc. Way, WAY past my present skill level, but I didn't find this book - it found me.

I have been watching all sorts of films in the past week or two. Best were two Shane Meadows English films with Paddy Considine ("A Room for Romeo Brass" from 1999 and "Dead Man's Shoes" from 2004). These can be quite hard for an American to understand since the characters speak with thick Midlands dialects. But the films are memorable... his "This is England" from 2006 was excellent. Clearly a director on the rise.

I also saw "The Strangers" (2008) with Liv Tyler, a pointless and lame slasher flick. Actually, thinking about it some, I realized that it did have a point: a hapless yuppie Volvo driver who calls shotgun shells "bullets" will be killed by a gang of two girls and a guy despite the fact that they bring knives to a shotgun fight. (And he accidentally shoots his friend in the process.) The NRA ought to use this one as a "how not to" in gun safety lessons.

I also saw "Il divo"' (2008), an exercise in style over substance with an impossible to follow narrative and a semi-comatose lead actor. Ebert liked it; it put me to sleep.

I came across this story - wasted lives on Armistice Day, how sad. General Pershing was a JERK.

Finally, there's a guy who posts rarely seen Our Gang silents to youtube:

"Wiggle Your Ears" (1929) - Bizarre but strangely compelling. How to pick up girls with your ears. "You got any money today, woman?" Harry's in control with the neighborhood girls until he has a temporary inability to wiggle his ears; humiliation and degradation follow. Wow.

"Mary, Queen of Tots" (1925) - Beautiful Mary Kornman (shown above) was an Our Ganger during the silent period and consequently isn't as well known as the talkie's Darla Hood, but she reigned as the resident neighborhood heart throb nonetheless. This was a showcase short subject for her.

Have a great weekend!

12 Nov 2009

I visited the Capitol yesterday, the home of that den of thieves known as Congress. ("Congress: America's only native criminal class." - Mark Twain)

CAPITOL VISITOR'S CENTER PHOTO TOUR

As much as I enjoy taking pictures, I like captioning them even more.

That new visitors' center complex is impressive - much nicer than standing about outside in the weather. It lends the place a fitting dignity. But... check out my photos and decide for yourself.

The 25 Funniest Vintage Tech Ads. My favorite is Sabrina, but the one with Elvira is just puzzling.

11 Nov 2009

Veteran's Day! And I'm at home off work on this rainy, dreary day.

Bring a vet myself I drove over to the nearest Dunkin Donuts and had four of 'em for breakfast. A guy about ten or fifteen years older than I and wearing a blaze orange vest was sitting by himself, staring out the window. He looked like he didn't have a friend in the world. I should have struck up a conversation with him, but didn't.

My plans today include a 1 PM tour of the U.S. Capitol. I've been there before, of course, but not since they put in the new Visitor's Center. I'll bring the camera and post what I see.

I mentioned the apple festival down by Charlottesville; an event I didn't drive to last Saturday. As it turned out a fellow at work - a beefy guy whom I call "Hoss" who reminds me of a rugby front row - took his daughter down there when I mentioned it. He was nice enough to bring me back some apples. I tried a Virginia Stayman, which was only okay. The taste was somewhat more tart than I like and it was a bit hard. Not crisp with a snap, just hard. The other I tried was a Goldrush, which I liked better. A taste somewhat like a Golden Delicious, but not as mealy or sweet. There are a few more varieties on my kitchen table I shall be sampling later. Hoss said he was hoping to try the elusive Black Twig, but there weren't any.

I finally got around to taking my grandfather clock apart the other evening to oil the movement. It had stopped running, and I was fearful that something was broken. No worries... I just slightly overwound the movement and it became bound and halted - that happens from time to time. I am convinced that of all the mechanical and electronic things I have, this clock is the most impressive.

Think of it: the clock was manufactured in 1912, which means that it has been running continuously for 97 years! My mother bought it in about 1962, so we've had it for 47 of those years. (Photo of it in 1966, with the story of its purchase.) Me and my children have grown up to the sound of its gentle background ticking and bonging upon the hour and half-hour. In 1984 a clock dealer offered me $2,000 for it sight unseen. Naturally, I turned him down. He said that Ithaca manufactured them in oak, cherry and mahogany; the cherry (which is what I have) being the harder to find. The Ithaca Calendar Clock Company was better known for their calendar wall clocks (as their corporate name suggests); these are very nice. I'd like to have one.

As near as I can tell, it has never been taken apart and serviced. There's a pencil notation on the back of the dial that says some clock repairman named Cruickshank oiled it in 1954. When I was sixteen I gave it an oiling in 1972 and dutifully marked my name, and marked it again the other night. I asked my watch repair guy whether or not I should take it in for a periodic service. He said, no, not as long as it's running okay. Just oil it - and he gave me a tube of light clock oil in a tube which I used. So there the clock sits, ticking away and announcing the time every thirty minutes, just as it has for the past 97 years. Amazing. I own nothing else electrical or mechanical that I expect that kind of reliability and service from.

And that's it for today. I have a few new piano pieces to learn... Last night's lesson was much better than the prior week's. My teacher gave me a dreamy, impressionistic piece called "Under the Willows" that I did rather well on. She was impressed with my key touch with that piece. "You would never suppose that a big old guy like you would have such a gentle touch."

Well. There's more to me than meets the eye.

10 Nov 2009

Let's get the most important subject matter dealt with at the top: HAPPY BIRTHDAY UNITED STATES MARINE CORPS! 234 years young today.

I got called a "global warming skeptic" the other day by a person who enjoined me to "spread the word" about President Obama's upcoming U.N. Climate Summit in Copenhagen. (Will those wacky Scandinavians put Nobel Prizes on the luncheon place mats?) However, she is incorrect. I am not a skeptic. I am a global warming denier. But I will be happy to spread some word via this blog.

The way real science works is that observations are made of natural phenomena. A model is postulated and peer reviewed by scientists, who are (normally) by nature skeptical. The model's success and acceptance among scientists is strongly based on how well it predicts reality. But the whole problem with global warming is that, well, you'd expect things to be getting warmer. But they're not. The evidence I see (example article here) is that things are getting cooler, not warmer. The warmest year on record was 1998, more than a decade ago.

And my body tells me that this past summer was unusually cool. And what of all those unusually active hurricane seasons were were warned about? Zilch. An atmospheric Comet Kohoutek.

The problem with the whole global warming school of thought is that it's really more of a religion than real science. It has an orthodoxy of thought (humans are destroying the planet) with resultant guilt (humans are bad), religious rites (recycling), a requirement for faith (things will grow warmer, you'll see), a gathering place for the faithful (Earth Day) and prophets (Al Gore).

The environmental playbook looks like this: 1.) Cherry pick your data so that only the facts that support your argument are used. 2.) Overstate your case. 3.) Suppress dissent.

Yes, the whole subject is intensely complex and intensely arguable. But I leave it as my opinion that the only real inconvenient truth about global warming is that the hot air exhaled by Al Gore and his ilk surpasses anything we're really experiencing in the atmosphere.

Finally, I direct you to a great article by Michael Crichton, "Aliens Cause Global Warming." It can serve as my manifesto about junk/politicized science. As Crichton asks, "When did 'skeptic' become a dirty word in science?" Indeed.

I am now reading "Otto of the Silver Hand," an 1888 work by Howard Pyle. The story is fine but the illustrations (also by Pyle) are just outstanding. Golly, what amazing line drawings! (Representational image.) From wikipedia: "His contemporary, Vincent van Gogh spoke of Pyle in a letter to his brother, saying that Pyle's work '...struck me dumb with admiration.'" Me, too!

9 Nov 2009

I didn't go to the apple festival on Saturday, as I was considering. I didn't like the idea of driving nearly five hours to get there and back in one day. Perhaps next year, as a Five Families activity...

I found a couple of books at yard sales. I'm surprised that people are still having them this late in the year, but the weather was nice so that was a motivation. One of them was a book I was aware of as a child but never read, "Otto of the Silver Hand," by Howard Pyle, an 1888 tale about a young German knight. Great illustrations...

I saw a couple of films noir I've never seen before, thanks to the introduction of a friend who is a major noir head. (So much so that he's written two books on the subject.) He's a next door neighbor of my Civil War reenacting pard Chris!

One was "Behind the High Wall" (1956), a great little flick about prison and a crooked warden. The other was the amusingly named, "I Wouldn't Be in Your Shoes" (1948) - only in the 1940's could somebody name a film, which has shoes as a major plot point, with a title like this! (A man throws his shoes at an annoying cat - they are then taken and used to frame him in a murder.)

I finished "Manhunt," that book about the escape and capture of John Wilkes Booth. One of the oddest players in that little drama was a Union sergeant named Boston Corbett (pictured above), who attained notoriety as the man who shot and killed John Wilkes Booth. (Secretary of War Stanton wanted Booth taken alive, but Corbett claimed that Providence directed him to shoot.) What makes him so odd? From wikipedia: "On July 16, 1858, in order to avoid the temptation of prostitutes, Corbett castrated himself with a pair of scissors." I'd call him an oddball, but...

Later on he moved to Kansas, where he lived in a hole dug in a gully and threatened the state legislature with a pistol. He presumably died in a fire in Minnesota.

I learned another interesting piece on the piano over the weekend, a dreamy modern piece called "Under the Willows" that serves as a lesson on how to use the foot pedal. Problem is, the CD that comes with the book (which has performed representations of the pieces) has really obnoxious electronic accompaniments. It would be been far better to simply perform the pieces on a solo piano. It's easy for me to get music stuck in my head - when I was learning bass it was the songs my band worked on. Now it's the piano pieces I'm learning...

Over the weekend I noticed the javascript virus reinfected all the .html files on rugbyfootball.com. %#^!%! I noticed I had accidentally left an infected .htm file on the server; perhaps that's why. I'm going back and doing a really radical cut of many, many .html files in an effort to eradicate this once and for all. If that doesn't work we'll have to find new server space, I guess.

A DREAD CURSE ON ALL VIRUS DEVELOPERS! MAY THEY EVOLVE INTO BOSTON CORBETTS!

6 Nov 2009

I was at Video Vault yesterday - one of my haunts - and saw Michael Jeck stop in. Jeck is a professor at George Mason who used to host a local TV show called "International Cinema" about a decade or so ago. I used to enjoy it and watched it quite often.

In fact, it was his broadcast of "The Match Factory Girl" (1990) that turned me on to Finnish director Aki Kaurismaki. He and I chatted for a while... I learned that in Finnish the director's name is properly pronounced "CARE-is-macky," accent always on the first syllable.

I shouldn't have been surprised to learn that Video Vault, being a magnet for local film types and oddballs (my wife calls it "Eccentricity Central"), would include Jeck as a customer.

While there, on a whim, I rented a film from their "cult" section, Guy Maddin's "Brand Upon the Brain!" (2006), an inconsequential work. In an interview in the DVD features he claimed to try to introduce more plot elements in the film to keep it from looking like he's an "artsy wanker," but I think he failed. To me it seemed like nothing more than an exercise in style with a weak plot. Unimpressed, I shall not be renting any more Guy Maddin films.

I'm enjoying "Manhunt - the 12-Day Chase for Lincoln's Killer" by James L. Swanson. I have, however, come across an arguable statement. It concerns ex-Confederate soldier and Lincoln assassination conspirator Lewis Powell. In the literature, Powell is always described as being unusually muscular and physically formidable. But you check it out. Photo One, Photo Two. I see a skinny kid. (Powell was 21.) Tall, perhaps, but skinny.

Swanson makes the following assertion on page 25, " Powell had the size and strength necessary to physically subdue Abraham Lincoln." I find this very arguable! In addition to being near 6' 4" in height, Abraham Lincoln was legendarily powerful and strong and a mighty wrestler. Swanson admits as much on page 44. And it was reported that, upon a medical examination after his death, Lincoln's body was that of a much younger man.

True, Powell was less than half Lincoln's age - but I have observed again and again in alumni rugby matches, where guys 35 - 50 play guys younger than that, that there is simply no substitute for mature muscle mass. (Especially in scrums.) Let's put it this way: if I were a defender and I could choose to tackle either Lincoln or Powell running down the pitch carrying a rugby ball, I'd consider Powell the easier take down. I think the Old Railsplitter would have kicked Powell's butt!

But this was not to be. Abe Lincoln did not physically face his executor, who was armed not with muscle, but with a derringer loaded with a .44 caliber lead ball.

I talked to a Yahoo tech support guy at length about that malicious javascript virus that keeps infecting rugbyfootball.com... he thought that if I removed all the .html files with active javascripts in them, that would probably do it. I'll do that and see. But there's nothing they can do. Got that? An Internet giant like Yahoo, when confronted with the fact that they have a virus on their servers getting propagated everywhere, can't do anything about it. No wonder we have viruses.

I'm seriously considering going to the 9th Annual Apple Harvest Festival tomorrow just south of Charlottesville. 122 miles away, long drive. BUT... it's supposed to be mostly sunny and 63 degrees. Good convertible weather. Hmmmm.

Have a nice weekend!

LATE ADDITION: I just learned my mother-in-law died in Utah; my wife was there with her. She was a dear lady; I loved her and couldn't imagine a better mother-in-law. None of the usual American sitcom jokes about mothers-in-law applied to the relationship between she and I. I will miss her.

5 Nov 2009

My friend Mike bought an old aerial photo claimed to be of Burbank, California (my hometown) via eBay the other day, and inspected it for a long time trying to make sense of it without success. This surprised me, knowing that he is an expert on most things Burbank.

So I asked for a scan, knowing that one can easily get in a sort of mental rut by looking but not really seeing. (It happens to me all the time, nowadays most obviously with notes in piano music. Yes, that's a "A." So why am I playing a "G?")

What popped out immediately to me was the fact that "BURBANK" was written on a rooftop; Mike hadn't noticed this! Between the two of us, looking at enlargements, we reasoned out what the street pattern must be and saw that our model made sense as we began to recognize confirming landmarks. It was fun!

The photo was apparently taken in the 1920's or 1930's from a bi-plane. The LDS church building - a former country club - is visible towards the top; this is where I was baptized into the Mormon church thirty years ago later this month - how cool!

I did some rapid aerial image analysis the last time I flew into Burbank, September 2008. (It was far harder to do at the higher altitude.) The city has changed considerably. As it turned out I trained my camera putting Mike's house almost exactly in the middle of the shot.

Last night I learned how to play a perky little baroque piece entitled "Canary" by Joachim van den Hove (1567-1620). I really like this book I'm using. The pieces are all at the elementary/advanced elementary level, yet they sound like you're actually playing something instead of those mindless 1-3-5 chord C major beginner pieces every piano student starts with. Unfortunately, however, my teacher regards this book as the "dessert." But that's okay. Anyone who knows me knows that for me dessert is the main course of every meal. (I inherited that from my parents.)

Mindful of my piano teacher's admonitions I am also trying to throttle back and play slower and with more control. Since I'm basically hyper-active and impatient this is hard for me to do.

As a class assignment my son Ethan completed a poster for Civil Rights Awareness at college; I like it. It fulfills the basic requirement for poster art - if you're passing by a bulletin board or a building wall, will you notice it? Yes, certainly. More of Ethan's designs are here. My daughter Meredith says, "You know us Clarks, we can really hold down the fort when it comes to anything with the arts." True.

Last night at the grocery store I had an interesting conversation with the produce manager. I was asking about two apples that were placed near each other: Were these darker apples also Honeycrisps? No, they're Mountaineers, a trademark for the basic Virginia York apple. I am somewhat ashamed to say that I have not yet tried one. While they were a favorite of his (he being a native Virginian), the manager couldn't recommend these particular Mountaineers, however. He came over and felt them and stated that they were too soft; these were too old. I was mightily impressed with this fellow: 1.) He spoke English, 2.) He knew and cared about the items associated with his job, and 3.) He didn't try to sell me something he himself wouldn't buy. You don't find retailing experiences like that in America much anymore.

He also told me about an event this coming Saturday, the Vintage Virginia Apples Annual Apple Festival. From the site: "Rural Ridge is a family-run orchard dedicated to exploring the varieties of apple that can thrive in Albemarle County,Virginia. Thomas Jefferson experimented with 18 or more varieties of apples at Monticello, only a few miles from our orchard. Rural Ridge grows the dozen or so of those cultivars that are still extant as well as hundreds of other old-fashioned varieties that offer delightful alternatives to the limited varieties currently available in grocery stores."

COOL. I just may go to this!

Finally, I had a great time listening to the DVD commentary on that film noir I watched the other day, "The Lineup." Film noir guru Eddie Muller always does a great job with this sort of thing, but for the Columbia noir collection he had with him crime novelist James Ellroy, who put the commentary way over the top. Caustic, witty and hip, he and Muller are a great combination. Lots of fun to listen to... almost as good as simply watching the movie.

4 Nov 2009

Creigh Deeds lost his bid to become Virginia governor, and I'm glad - too many long e sounds in his name. That was driving me nuts. Perhaps alone among political pundits, I maintain that if his name were, say, Edward or John he'd have stood a far better chance.

What Americans sound like to foreigners. Not a bad song, actually; good beat and brass chart. Do you know how the word "barbarian" came about? The ancient Greeks. They thought spoken Persian sounded like "bar, bar, bar..." and so, with their disdain for Persian habits and customs, the word "barbaros" came about. In almost exactly the same fashion native English speakers in my hometown of Burbank call spoken Armenian the "hulla-bulla," because that's what it sounds like to them!

Yesterday I mentioned "The Boy With the Green Hair," and my daughter reminded me: my wife's uncle fashioned the wig for that production! How could I have forgotten? I disremember the details... I think he worked for the studio...

Yesterday I watched a top notch, rarely seen late period film noir, "The Lineup" (1958). A Don Siegel directed film, this one moves right along, always sustaining interest. It has great San Francisco locations, including the police building that television's Chief Ironside worked out of (those large semi-circular windows upper story are instantly recognizable).

Eli Wallach plays a psychopathic hit man assisted by his coach, played by character actor Robert Keith, a middle aged man who looks like a grinning skull with a pencil thin mustache and a dry demeanor. His funny little habit is to collect the final words of the people Wallach kills in a little notebook! Isn't noir great? The best ones have those little freaky details.

I should mention what is perhaps Robert Keith's most well known role: the dying man in the excellent Twilight Zone episode "Masks." He was also the father of actor Brian Keith (TV's "Family Affair" father)... who, oddly enough, is in another "film noir" I watched, "5 Against the House" (1955). It's called noir, but it's really marketing by Columbia Home Video rather than a real noir. It's too jokey in tone. Also, I developed a new rule: Any film that includes Gilligan’s Island’s Professor and Hank the County Agent from Green Acres in its Rat Pack CANNOT be considered film noir.

Back to Robert Keith. He was once the husband of Peg Entwistle, who is primarily known for leaping to her death from atop the "H" in the Hollywood sign, depressed about not getting acting jobs. From IMDb trivia: "In a cruel twist of irony, a letter to Peg arrived the day after her death from the Beverly Hills Playhouse. She was offered the lead role in a play about a woman driven to suicide." Wow. You can't script oddness like that!

My piano lesson was disappointing last night. As it turns out, I was making mistakes in that hymn I learned and now must relearn parts of it with new fingering. DRAT. Oh, well. Two steps forward and one step back is still a step forward. And Vladimir Horowitz wasn't built in a day.

3 Nov 2009

The piano tuner arrived yesterday and tuned up my spinet and fixed a bunch of unresponsive keys. He did it by adding oil to the felt surrounding the tiny brass pins that the hammers pivot upon. The culprit, he said, was simply age. In a 40 year old piano (mine was built in 1968), the felt hardens and begins to add resistance to the motion of the pin, causing an unresponsive action. The keyboard now feels springier and livelier than before. And now it's in tune - a major improvement!

Still, this is no Steinway Concert Grand I've got here. I can hear some oddities... for one thing, there's a clicking in the middle keys caused, I think, by the fact that the large wooden piece that holds the keys down isn't screwed in enough. (When I press it so the felt engages better the clicking goes away.) Well. It's a starter piano I got for $200 with a $120 tuning. You can barely buy a decent electronic keyboard for that. And if and when I get better I shall have my eyes on a better instrument; an upright or a small horizontal model.

Naturally I asked the tuner a bunch of questions while I observed him at work - I'm surprised he didn't charge me more. He said that the strings appeared to be holding tension okay... it was quite a bit flat to start with so he tuned it a bit sharp. What happens is that with atmospheric changes the tuning will flatten out some, so the result ought to be about right, near concert pitch.

Speaking of wood, he told me that Kawai has developed a piano action using composites - plastics - which are more resistant to humidity and temperature changes. They call it the Millenium III action. An interesting article is here. Wow... carbon fiber piano actions... the same stuff they use in the supercars shown on Top Gear!

I noticed that he also adjusted the strings in the very same way my bass teacher taught me to tune a bass: You tune past the correct pitch, then come down to it. A consideration of where metal wire is wrapped around a metal pivot - mechanical hysteresis, perhaps.

Warning! Movie chat with spoilers follows!

When I was a kid there were two celebrated movies about kids that my parents thought highly of: "The Boy with the Green Hair" (1948) and "The Bad Seed" (1955). That is, they used to talk about them from time to time as films I might find interesting. Naturally I became intrigued. The first one - the kid with the hair - I saw some years ago when I got my membership with Video Vault; I thought it was a rather silly, disappointing film. I'll give away the ending: his hair becomes green as a sort of an anti-war protest. That's right... green hair. Get it? Green hair? Anti-war? Neither did I. An easily dismissed work.

The second film I finally got around to seeing last night. There was a stage production of it in my high school; my yearbook has stills from it, so I was always somewhat curious as to what this work was about.

I was immediately struck by how stagey the 1956 movie seemed, a filmed theatre production rather than a film. But what really impressed me was how totally implausible the storyline was. Sure, murderous eight year-olds. History is full of them, yep, very common. All around us. Evil kids from tainted parents. (The mother discovers that she was adopted and is in reality the daughter of a murderess, which, of course, gets passed on to her child.) Puleeze. This positively reeks of the fashionable Freudian psychotherapy of the era.

Anyway, this film was also a disappontment, but has received a kind of cult status due to the oddness of the subject matter. ("Directors don't make cult films. The audience does." - Roger Corman.) That's an image of Patty McCormack above - a bizarre studio publicity shot where the photographer apparently told Patty, "Make a face!"

I am now reading "Manhunt" by James L. Swanson. It's about the Lincoln assasination and the pursuit of John Wilkes Booth. It was given to me by and old friend who is now apparently obsessed with the event. In like manner, when we were teenagers, she was consumed with the life and times of Alexander Hamilton, Cardinal Richelieu, Napoleon Bonaparte, actor Stewart Granger and rolly derby star Ronnie "Psycho" Rains.

She was certainly an interesting girl to be around, that's for sure...

2 Nov 2009

%#%$!%@&^!

I just checked the rugbyfootball.com servers. After removing all the .html files that contained the malicious javascript I see it's back again. I don't know how this is happening. I ran scans on all my PCs and they all check out clean.

Looks like it's time to involve Yahoo, who hosts the site. They should be able to run something that cleans the files and prevents future infections. Problem is, getting their attention is next to impossible, they're so big and so generally unresponsive.

I've been watching a bunch of movies at night.

"The Knack ...and How to Get It," 1965 - A Swinging London film. It probably seemed funny and clever 40 years ago, but it's unbearable today. For a while in the Sixties directors thought you could make films ignoring requirements for sensible dialogue, a plot that progresses in some fashion and a solid script. Wrong. The female lead is an actress named Rita Tushingham - I find her last name funnier than this dated comedy.

"Let the Right One In" (2008) - A Swedish vampire film, and a good one. The reviews on the box said things like, "Best Vampire film. Ever." Well, I don't know about that - the 1931 Dracula and the 1979 Nosferatu are unbeatable, I think - but this one is engrossing and unforgettable.

"Once Were Warriors" (1994) - About the violent New Zealand lower middle class Maori culture, and how it ruins a family. A riveting and excellent film that is very hard to watch due to its unsparing depiction of domestic violence. Something of an iconic cultural artifact among New Zealanders, I learned about it via rugby. The film's male lead, Temuera Morrison, is a rugger. The kind I am thankful never to have played against!

"Visions of Light" (1992) - A documentary about the art of lighting a set. Good... if a bit dry. I've always wondered why Marlon Brando was lit the way he was in the Godfather - you can't see his eyes. This documentary confirmed that of course it's intentional. (Stuff like that is always intentional in a movie; movies are too carefully constructed for many accidents to happen.) The director and DP (director of photography) wanted to suggest that the Godfather's intentions were veiled - which is almost always the suggestion with shots like that. For instance, in noir a shadow falling across a woman's face is almost always a visual clue that she has a double nature or a hidden agenda. Likewise a shot in a mirror.

"Slumdog Millionaire" (2008) - I'm halfway through this; a film that's as good as everyone insists it is. If it is anywhere near a true depiction of life in India, I can see why so many Indians come to the United States!

I am greatly enjoying my piano assignments. I've got that Allemande memorized and can play it easily; in fact I was in a Costco Friday night trying it out on all the keyboards. I have now almost learned a hymn by Charles Wesley, "Christ the Lord is Risen Today." It's fun to play...

My wife is still in Utah; her mother is still dying. My wife describes the whole experience as awful. When my parents died it was relatively quick. My Dad had a stroke and expired within a week. When my Mom had a heart attack, she died a few days later. Naturally we all hope that when it's our time, we collapse at something we enjoy doing and go right away - but it doesn't always happen like this, does it? And we don't get to decide, do we?

Brigham's Blog