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Lazy Weekend
Posted on: May 16, 2020
Happy Weekend Widdershins!
How is everybody doing? Please continue to take care of yourselves – Covid-19 isn’t gone. While some places are beginning to “open up” again (assuming they ever closed), the danger remains. A nurse friend tells me their hospital in NYC anticipates a second wave in the Fall, if not sooner. Considering how careless everybody is, it may well be sooner. So, as Mad-Eye Moody alway said in Harry Potter: “CONSTANT VIGILANCE!!!!”
Madama B wrote about Tara Reade in her last post and I agree whole-heartedly: I believe Joe. And Reade’s story is disintegrating before our eyes. That’s what happens when real journalists started to look into her story. Major coverage from PBS NewsHour (who interviewed over 70 former Biden staffers) and Politico (who dug into Reade’s trail of paranoia and hurt friends), this is probably why last year Washington Post reporters looked at the story and chose not to pursue. Journalistic principles are meaningless to hacks like Katie Halper and Ryan Grim of The Intercept. And so here we are. Reade is probably a damaged person and she got taken for a ride and exploited by Halper and Grim. What a disgrace. There are many who fell for it too; people like Chris Hayes and Rebecca Traister. As Bill Maher said: “Believe Women” was never sustainable when we are talking about billions of people. And many Democrats woke themselves into a corner. It’s a shame.
(Oh and Juanitta Broadrick: She believes Tara Reade. She does not believe a single of the 25 accusations against Donald Trump. So take that for what it’s worth.)
But here we are. I have no musical theme for us today. It’s a free for all! Post whatever you like, but only with a face mask on and 6 feet apart!
This is an open thread.
Lazy Weekend
Posted on: April 25, 2020
Happy Weekend Widdershins!
I know you’re still with us because nobody here drank bleach to cure COVID-19. We will no doubt start hearing of some cases where they did inject bleach into their bodies. And you know, I just can’t bring myself to even pretend to care about these people anymore. I just can’t wait for November when we – HOPEFULLY – kick Dump/tRump/Drump/Orange Turd-Mango and his entire evil family out. Oh and Mitch McTurtle too. I look forward to a day I can spit and pee on their graves. They don’t deserve to rest in peace.
On a completely unrelated note! Last week I posted a clip to a musical excerpt that immediately whooshed me back to my childhood: the trump melody was used as the theme song for Soviet news in the 1980s. But that doesn’t mean it’s not a good tune! The composer was a great composer and deserves to be remembered for better things.
That propulsive piano is fun too – here’s a video of just the hands playing the piano part.
And then I kept doing a deep dive into more childhood nostalgia. There was this melody used as the theme song for a nature show called “Animal Kingdom” that we always watched. I never knew what that melody was, but it had stayed with me for decades. So I turned to Google! It was a Paul Mauriat arrangement of a French chanson. No wait, further Google informed me that the French chanson used a melody composed by an Argentinian composer Ariel Ramírez for his Navidad Fuestra in 1964.
The French chanson, “Alouette” by Gilles Dreu, stealing shamelessly from the original:
And the original:
And here’s the opening graphic of “Animal Kingdom” (В Мире Животных) with Mauriat’s arrangement.
So your musical challenge this weekend? Give us two versions of the same thing!
This is an open thread!
Lazy Weekends
Posted on: April 11, 2020
Happy Lazy Weekend Widdershins!
I hope everyone is taking care of themselves, not just from Covid-19, but also mentally and emotionally. It’s a tough time, we’re stuck at home with our own thoughts and kitchen appliances, and a barrage of bad news on TV. At least Bernie suspended his campaign. Of course, he still employs his vile spokeswoman and Jill Stein voter Briahna Joy Gray who is having daily meltdowns on twitter yelling at Joe Biden. And Bernie is ok with it, that she attacks the presumptive nominee on his campaign’s dime. Which supposedly is $13,000 a month. Nice job if you can get it and all you have to do is troll people like Neera Tanden on twitter with insults and lies! I’m mad because I’m jealous I didn’t get that job.
Anyway, what’s your mind? Speak freely, we are a judgment free zone. Unless you’re a Bernie supporter.
Lazy Weekends
Posted on: March 28, 2020
Welcome to the weekend Widdershins!
What a mess everything is. I mean…everything is terrible. And our Orange Leader is, well, you know. So – let’s try to lift each other’s spirits up a bit! Post something – a song, a clip from a movie, a poem, whatever – that makes you smile!
This is an open thread.
This and that – midweek
Posted on: March 17, 2020
Hi Widdershins!
I see our last post is getting long and is probably taking time to load, so I’m starting a new place-holder for continued, uninterrupted chatting.
Bernie got his ass kicked again; Biden won Florida and Illinois by huge margins. Ironically Bernie’s awful campaign first tried to suppress the vote by telling people that if they vote they will get Coronavirus and die. And now that they lost BIGLY, they argue that low turnout makes the results not acceptable. They are the biggest hypocrites currently alive.
How is everybody doing? Are you staying in the house? Working remotely? Avoiding crowds? NYC is a ghost town after all restaurants were closed last night. (Only delivery and take-out are allowed.) Gyms are closed, even electronic stores are closed. There are rumors that they will shut down the subways too… Only food stores and pharmacies are open now…
That old Chinese curse: “May you live in interesting times.” Well, how much more interesting can the times get?
This is an open thread.
Musical Weekends
Posted on: February 22, 2020
Hello Widdershins!
Well here we are, another week down, several billion to go of this election. (And don’t forget, the next election starts the day after this one ends.) Although to be honest, if Trump wins there probably won’t be another election, so at least we would have THAT to look forward to!
We learned last night that Bernie Sanders has been accepting Russian help in his election for a full month. I say “has been accepting” because he was briefed on the fact that the Russians are helping him a month ago and he has said not one word about it. And when the news broke yesterday in Washington Post he got angry at WaPo for releasing the news just before the caucus in Nevada, blaming the “Democratic establishment” of trying to sabotage him. It is long past time for us to say and keep repeating: Bernie Sanders is Trump. There is very little separating them temperamentally. Now on policy yes, there are many differences. But temperamentally, Bernie is Trump. He is also a traitor. The fact that he has been silently accepting Russian help in the election for the past month is disqualifying. Period. Full stop.
Speaking of actual revolutionaries, the ones who changed the world: here’s something you may not know – this year marks the 250th birthday of our lord and savior Ludwig van Beethoven. There is lots of Beethoven being performed. I just heard the complete String Quartets and in the middle of a full Symphonies cycle. (It’s nice to have connections and score free tickets.) It’s going to be all Ludwig all the time for a year. And for the record, Beethoven would have been mortified by Trump. Remember when Beethoven wrote his blazing Symphony No. 3, the “Eroica,” he dedicated it to Napoleon. And then he heard that Napoleon had installed himself Emperor. Beethoven scratched out the dedication and wrote: “In memory of a great man.”
Beethoven’t music changed the direction of music: his compositions like Symphonies 3, 5 and 9, his Piano Sonatas and especially String Quartets, took the development of music into previously unimagined directions. Even people like Mozart could never have imagined it. So I’m going to post some Beethoven: Revolutionary and Poet. You post some other trail-blazing musicians who changed the world in some way. (I hope someone posts Madonna because she did!)
Here’s arguably the most famous piece of music ever written: Beethoven’s Fifth, played on original instruments (gut strings, hide timpani, valveless horns, etc.) This is the orchestra whose symphonies cycle I’m currently hearing at Carnegie Hall.
Here is the last piece of new music Beethoven is known to have completed: an alternative final movement to his String Quartet No. 13. (Though he completed 16 Quartets, after finishing the 16th he went back to revise the 13th, which included this new finale.) This is how a giant ended.
For anyone who only knows Beethoven as the deaf madman writing Earth-shaking music, this is the final movement of his last Piano Sonata, No. 32. There are no more beautiful, more perfect, more heart-rending compositions than this one (some may be equal, but none surpass it for me.) It starts off as one of the most lovely melodies ever composed, then gains steam into drama – and then what could be an early jazz/swing dance! It truly is the work of a madman.
Lazy Weekend: Guilty
Posted on: January 11, 2020
Happy Weekend Widdershins!
2020 is full speed ahead. We have no idea where we’ll end up, but one fun thing that happened is that Rachel Maddow decided to take on the New York Times’ pathological hatred of Hillary Clinton.
Here’s a link to the clip on MSNBC:
The NYTimes itself has, of course, acknowledged no guilt. They are perfect, according to themselves.
But we know better. We know they are guilty! So let’s talk about guilt and truth and lies through music!
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