LAZY DAY STRAINS

strain, to use to the utmost; damage or weaken by too much tension, pressure, or force
strains, a part of a piece of music; melody; song; tune  –The World Book Dictionary

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August 10 is LAZY DAY. Don’t ask me who the originator is, or why LAZY DAY is on this particular day — today, I is too lazy to care. All I know is, it’s a good day to post a post over which I’ve pondered as poco* as possible. Mind you, when your brain avoids work as strenuously as mine strains to avoid strain, it deserves arrest — correction: a rest.

Thus, I bid you adieu without further ado (except for a tune or two), and leave the rest to You(tube).

Here, Hoagy Carmichael sings a song he wrote, as another guy tries to keep a level head:

Thank you, friends, for that tremendous ovalation**– that calls for a curtain call. So, what’s got me in a lazy mood? FOREWARNING: the answer is a four-letter word (not counting a ‘postrophe s):

*poco: Spanish for little (as in a poco loco in the coco).
**ovalation: an ovation during which a round of applause takes on an oval shape

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GOOD-BY, JU-LY

I don’t know about the weather where you are, but one state north of me, in the town of Hell, Michigan, I hear July has been….

So, when it’s hotter than ‘ell in Hell, I say it’s time to say good-by to July, and good riddance. As I (would like to) tell my visiting in-laws, come back again when you can’t stay so long. Today, as July leaves, I leave you with some hot jokes to remember me by until my next post….and remember, don’t blame the muse-enger for the clinkers. Acting as a muse meant for amusement, mistermuse mooched most of ’em, thus no funny-back guarantees.

How hot is it?
So hot, the birds are using potholders to pull worms out of the ground.

How do you make holy water?
Boil the hell out of it.

What did one pig say to the other in a steamy pigpen?
I’m bacon.

How hot is it?
So hot, the chickens are laying hard-boiled eggs.

What happened when Mr. White bought a loaf of bread at the store?
By the time he got home, White’s bread was toast.

How hot is it?
So hot, when I spilled ice water on my computer, it begged for more.

Somehow, I have a funny feeling it’s gonna be a while before my next post.

 

THINK NOTHING OF IT

Seeing as how July 26 is ALL OR NOTHING DAY, I realized ALL OR NOTHING is as good a subject as any to post about today. A good thing too, as the only thing that had come to mind was nothing, otherwise this post might be about something, which at this point is something I want nothing to do with, as a post about something would be worth nothing unless nothing is the something I want to post something about nothing about.

Speaking of ALL OR NOTHING AT ALL, I subsequently came upon a dissertation by one Farouk Radwan, MSc, about all-or-nothing thinking, which may explain one way why The King of Self-Trumpeting Liars, Donald Trump, is the way he is. Unless you’re a glutton for punishment, this may be more than you want to know (and certainly more than Trump knows, or would admit if he DID know), but I can stand it if you can:

“Narcissism is one of the causes of the all or nothing way of thinking. Being a narcissist either devalues people and considers them worthless, or thinks highly of them” [like how The Donald devalues Robert Mueller but thinks highly of his no-bargain Attorney General, William Barr?].

Anyway — after much ado about nothing — I close with the Trump badministration’s theme song*:

*composed in the year 1934 B.T. (Before Trump) by Cole Porter, including these oh-so-apt-today lyrics:

The world has gone mad today
And good’s bad today
And black’s white today
And day’s night today

So ANYTHING GOES, but TRUMP STAYS? That can’t be good, or my name is Cole Porter.

 

 

GOOD VIBES

They’ve used jazz xylophones as an aid in diagnosing depressives: If a subject is listening to more than a few minutes of jazz xylophone a day, there’s a better than fifty percent chance that he’s about to step in front of a train. –from THOUGHTS ON JAZZ, a tongue-in-cheek post on the surfeit-of-potatoes blog of our friend MASERCOT: https://morepotatoes.com/2019/07/19/thoughts-on-jazz/

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Well, I suppose every potato is entitled to its own opinion, but (though I dig potatoes as much as the next yam) I can’t let this riposte pass without defending the jazz xylophone, regret though I may that this puts non-diggers of ‘jazz x’ on track for a depressing end. But why step in front of a train when you can Take the “A Plane” and  go Flying Home….

If you recognized that “A Plane” was a play on words on Duke Ellington’s “Take The A Train,” give yourself an A+.  Here’s vibraphonist Milt Jackson’s take (the main dif between xylophone and vibraphone: the former has wooden bars, the latter has aluminum bars):

And, so you’ll have something beautiful to remember when you get home, here is (to quote jazz critic George Simon) “a magnificent xylophonist of exquisite taste,” Red Norvo and His Orchestra with their “smoldering version” of Irving Berlin’s REMEMBER (Red’s solo begins at the 1:16 mark):

So there you have it: three jazz xylophone/vibraphone masters at their best, bar none.

 

DON’T FORGET TO KISS AND MAKE UP

First, I want to beg your forgiveness for forgetting to publish a post for you on July 2nd (I FORGOT DAY), for I forgot it was I FORGOT DAY….but even if I hadn’t forgotten it was I FORGOT DAY,  I might have forgotten to forget what I forgot. In any case, my bad.

If memory serves me right, friends, they say you never get a second chance to make a worst impression. But now it’s July 6th (INTERNATIONAL KISSING DAY), so let us let bygones be bygones, kiss and make up. After all, if Trump and North Korean dicktator Kim Jong Un can rise above it all on the world stage, you can see that you and I, surely, should be able to get down to a measure of serendipity on this piddling platform (albeit a bit less passionately than The Donald embracing Un). Of course, it would surely help if you….

And just in case you forgot how Trump and Un have come to feel about each other….

Surly friends, it’s TIME to bury the hatchet, forget that I forgot, dig our differences, and pucker up. However, since kissing can transmit 80 million microbes of bacteria in a single buss, I suggest we get off the buss and blow each other kisses electronically. Ready. Set. Blow. XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

I’d blow more, but I don’t want this post to be X-rated. Besides, I want to leave space for you to return the love….

I’m waiting.

 

LOESSER IS MORE

Yet do much less, so much less….Well, less is more. –Robert Browning, from his poem titled Andrea del Sarto

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The phrase “Less is more” was popularized by architect Ludwig Miles van der Rohe (1886-1969), but goes back to at least 1855, when Robert Browning penned it in the poem quoted above. I bring it up here because today is the birthday (6/29/1910-7/25/69) of a Loesser who is more: Frank Loesser, a ‘more better’ song and lyric writer than the past majority of his contemporaries….worthy, in other words, of being remembered on this day.

In the spirit of “less is more,” I’m going to skip over the particulars of the Loesser life (if interested, here’s a link to bio info: http://frankloesser.com/bio/ ). I also recommend a delightful Loesser biography written by his daughter, Susan Loesser, titled A MOST REMARKABLE FELLA: Frank Loesser and the Guys and Dolls in His Life.

Here, I would like to spotlight songs from Loesser musicals I particularly enjoy, starting with this rockin’ tune from my favorite Loesser musical, GUYS AND DOLLS:

Continuing, how’s about we MAKE A MIRACLE (from the musical WHERE’S CHARLEY?):

Perhaps I’m pressing my luck to squeeze in one more song, but I BELIEVE IN YOU*

*from HOW TO SUCCEED IN BUSINESS WITHOUT REALLY TRYING

My business here is done. I hope I’ve succeeded in entertaining you….with really trying.

 

 

ACHING NEWS

Due to the fact that a growing portion of the news on TV in recent years is blown up as BREAKING NEWS, it’s a wonder there’s any news left in one piece. It strikes me that TV ‘journalism’ has fallen into such a decrepit condition, even Humpty Dumpty wouldn’t want to trade places with what remains of it. To those of us who fondly remember the class of Edward R. Murrow, Walter Cronkite, and the like, cable news overkill is a heart-breaking state of affairs — and heart-breaking affairs, of course, can only leave….

Yes, friends, I’m afraid this world has come to a pretty pass. My heart aches for the return of the good old days when men were men, women were women, news was news, and Presidents were a cut above a pain in the dis-ass-ter. Pardon my language, but that’s the….

What’s to do about it?