IT’S UGLY OUT THERE

“The world is made for people who aren’t cursed with self-awareness.” –Annie Savoy, philosopher

“Most incompetent people do not know that they are. One reason [is] that the ignorant also tend to be blissfully self-assured.” –Erica Goode, New York Times (after interview with Dr. David Dunning, professor of psychology. Cornell University)

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

As a cursed self-aware person myself, I can very much relate to the above quotes. Some might say I’m self-aware to a fault.

I witness a world being browbeaten by those who are NOT self-aware, who are “blissfully self-assured,” and whose ‘my way or the highway’ attitude is a moral dead end which does not justify the means. I see an America becoming increasing dominated by a mean-spirited egomaniac named Trump, his Pied Piper cult, and his mindless MAGA (Make America Greedy Again) anarchists. I fear the place humanity is headed ….and humane is not its name. Life is unfair and dirty enough as it is without being awash in hogwash.

Some of us may be guilty of being self-aware to a fault, but aren’t the NOT self-aware guilty of far worse? To the former, that may be stating the obvious, and to the latter, may be like talking to a brick wall. So, why bother? Well, maybe I have nothing better to do. Or maybe, by some miracle, I can connect with some poor soul looking for less bs and darkness, and more sunlight and facing-the-music. I am just idealistic enough to hope that these passing thoughts may strike a chord and clean a spot on someone’s mirror. Nothing ventured (values-wise), nothing ingrained, I always say (well, once in a Blue Moon).

But enough about meanies. It’s time for a song.

….or two..

LO AND BE OLD

I am now Covid-free (but old age-embogged), and still dealing with family health issues, including those of my wife/fellow octogenarian. She fell several weeks ago, was hospitalized, and is now is in short term rehab at a local care facility pending transfer to a long term facility. Dealing with the bureaucracy involved with her admission and care while I had Covid brain-fog was a pain in the rear view mirror (and beyond).

The upshot of these and other issues is that I won’t be able to post, or comment on your posts, with near my pre-Covid frequency. In short, old age and its kismet have caught up with me. But enough about that. I will now turn to my customary selection of “old songs” in keeping with the theme of past post practice.

.Betty Boop cartoons are passé now, but this one features the timeless jazz of Cab Calloway playing the song (OLD MAN OF THE MOUNTAIN) which is also the cartoon title:

I’ll close with this classic from SHOWBOAT, sung by one of the greatest singers who ever lived:

COVID UPDATE

Just a note to thank everyone who responded to my previous post with get-well wishes. Sorry I wasn’t up to replying, but Covid really “knocked me for a loop,” Last night I completed my five-day Paxlovid regimen and am hoping for a negative test result tomorrow, although I’m still feeling somewhat weak and “washed-out.”.

Thanks again. Take care.

A COVID HIATUS

This is just to let you know that my family and I have come down with Covid contracted from a visiting in-law, I’ve started taking Paxlovid, which (if all goes well, should put me back in business in five days. Meantime, I feel like crap, and am taking a “vacation” from blogging for the duration. Sorry, but meanwhilee, I don’t feel up to responding to comments, etc.

Thanks for your consideration.

.

BRIEF ENCOUNTER, UNENDING ENCUMBER

“Why, if there’s a God in the sky, Why shouldn’t He grin / High above this dreary twentieth Century din?” –lyric from Twentieth Century Blues by Noel Coward*, British songwriter, playwright, performer, and man-about-world (Dec. 16, 1899/March 26, 1973

* https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20230602-noel-coward-the-dark-side-of-the-quintessential-englishman

The title of this post comes from pairing the title of one of my all-time favorite films, Noel Coward’s BRIEF ENCOUNTER (1945), with the perplexity posed by the quoted Twentieth Century Blues lyric…..in particular, the words “Why shouldn’t He grin.” A better question might be “Why SHOULD He grin?” Is He amused by pain and suffering, “chaos and confusion” (as the lyrics go on to say). Or are the words “if there’s a God in the sky” a bigger-than-religion, larger-than-life question? Believe what you want, but who knows the answer?

Who, indeed, has escaped those dreary Twentieth Century Blues? Those who died before the Twentieth Century? After? In that sense, isn’t the Twentieth century but a metaphor for every century? When the story of the 21st century (if we survive it) is written, do we really think human nature will have been nurtured by our better angels to new heights? Hard to believe, wouldn’t you say?

I close with a brief Noel Coward quote:

“It is discouraging how many people are shocked by honesty, and how few by deceit.“

A NOSE BY ANY OTHER NAME WOULD SMELL AS — WHO KNOWS?

Last year’s last post (12/23/23), which I titled WIT’S IN A NAME because I like witty titles. opened with the Shakespeare quote “What’s in a name? A rose by any other name would smell as sweet.” This post opens with a citing of GET A DIFFERENT NAME DAY (2/13/24), apparently created by someone who disagrees with Shakespeare and thinks a rose, a nose, or any other name would smell more (or less) sweet by any other name. So, just for the smell of it, I’m going to run some noses by my readers. If you’re looking for ex-citement, read on. Otherwise, other eyes may wake up and smell the noses.

I’ll start with a few famous names who were known for their big noses, followed by what I consider an appropriate pseudo name, because either it fits, or yours truly has a rotten sense of humor (or both):

Bob Hope — Bob Heart (due to having a heart bigger than his nose)
Pinocchio — George “I cannot tell a lie” Washington Carver (of wooden puppets)
Nostradamus — Nose Tradamus (this one was easy pickings)
Jimmy “Schnozzola” Durante — Mr. Calabash (who misses the Mrs. in this tender ‘show-ender’):

Now I’ll “other name” some living characters known, not for big noses, but for whacky whoppers (big lies):

Donald Trump — The Big Lie-bowski ad Infant-i-tum
Marjorie Taylor Greene — The Mean Greene Machine
George Santos — Will ‘I never met a lie I didn’t like’ Rogers, by George
Rudy Giuliani — Rudolph the Two-faced Reindeer

I could go on and on and on, as the GOP echo chamber nose no limits, lacking only a scheme song which lays bare what they bet on, but dare not openly let on….like these two do:

I leave you with this afterthought:
“The biggest lie is the lie we tell ourselves in the distorted vision we have of ourselves.” –Kirk Douglas (1916-2020), from his autobiography

UP FROM DOWN WHERE TRADE WINDS PLAY, TO DOWN TO EARTH, BENEATH THE CLAY

Ashes to ashes, dust to dust….
Live it up we may, but die we must.
Who can tell the why or the wherefore,
Or what the hell on earth we’re there for?

Sorry if my title and little poem strike you as something of a downer, but we all have our ups and downs. Maybe this will help Sort Of Serve as a picker-upper:

What the above is leading to: a few up and down Songs Our Souls could use to help make (y)our day — and, by the way, don’t ask me y (I just live here). So….

Here’s my favorite old (composed in 1930) UP song —
I think that you’ll dig it, but I could be wrong:

I’ve heard that what goes up, must descend….
And so, on that note, we’ve come to the end:

WELL, ALL RIGHT!

This post is all about ALL RIGHT (as opposed to ALT RIGHT, which is not ALL RIGHT) — specifically, ALL RIGHT in song titles..

The words ALL RIGHT have stuck in my head since I said “if it’s all right with you” in the opening paragraph of my Jan. 21 post….then, early this morning, it dawned on me that three of my favorite old songs have those two words in their titles. So, without further adew, let’s get right to it (if it’s all right with you):

Any song by Cole Porter is all right with me:

And, if you should ask, this song by Harry Akst is also Gonna be all right:

Good Night, owls (hawks too….if you’re not alt right).

A FINE KETTLE OF FISH

Theirs not to make reply,
Theirs not to reason why,
Theirs but to do and die.
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.
—Alfred, Lord Tennyson (from The Charge of the Light Brigade)

It has dawned on me that Lord Tennyson’s poem (or, at least, the idea behind it) may have spawned a number of titles, lines, and catch-phrases, such as A FINE KETTLE OF FISH and….

THEY WERE EXPENDABLE, a 1945 film based on a 1942 bestselling book of the same name about an American PT boat squadron in the Philippines in the early days of WW II.

A TITANIC DISASTER: https://www.theguardian.com/news/1912/apr/16/leadersandreply.mainsection

ANOTHER FINE MESS:

So be careful what you fish for, because….

So, did the Lord (Tennyson?) reap what he sowed? I leave it to you.

WELCOME TO THE (HOT) CLUB

As noted in my previous post (THE GYPSY IN MY SOUL)), January 23 (1910) is the birthday of Django Reinhardt, the “Belgian-born, French-raised gypsy musician in love with American jazz” –Martin Williams, author of Where’s The Melody? A Listener’s Guide To Jazz and other jazz writings….including the following from the back cover of the LP First Recordings! QUINTET OF THE HOT CLUB OF FRANCE:

“He was, above all, a unique individual named Django Reinhardt. He learned his jazz first from phonograph records imported from the states, and his own records attest not only to how well he had learned his lessons, but how lastingly delightful are his solos. He did not simply imitate.. His playing was not merely derivative. He went to the heart of the matter, and he made music. The Quintet grew out of Reinhardt’s desire to lead a string group, and out of backstage jam sessions with Stephane Grappelli. The Hot Club of France was founded in December, 1932, to organize concerts and promote jazz.”

Coincidentally, the Quintet LP mentioned above is one of five Quintet/Reinhardt albums I own….and the only one which contains this recording of an obscure ballad composed in 1934 for an obscure film titled HOLLYWOOD PARTY:

From one of Reinhardt’s earliest recordings and most obscure songs, we go to one of his last recordings and most enduring songs, Cole Porter’s NIGHT AND DAY:

I’d like to close with one of my favorite songs: the indelible BLUE MOON. Here, Reinhardt plays with tenor sax great COLEMAN HAWKINS and ARTHUR BRIGGS, whose soaring trumpet sends me to the moon:

Back on earth, may the magic of Django Reinhardt’s music be with you all your moments, night and day, wherever you go.

P.S. What can I say?
I got carried away.