Wednesday, January 29, 2014

Report From the Deep Freeze Part 2.


Recently there was a news article listing our town as one of the 15 coldest in the country.  So it's probably no surprise I have another post from the heart of the snow belt.

Not much has changed from my last report except that it is almost February now. The kids finally went back to school 3 days later than their break was supposed to be.

Midweek last week, all the districts around called off again, but the city schools did not, prompting outcries from many parents and a suggestion from the superintendent that parents invest in hats and gloves for their kids.

By Friday school was called again however, leaving the approach of the new week to be faced. Temps rose some over the weekend, mainly so it could snow more, which it did, resulting in massive white outs and much accumulation.
 

I was at work Saturday and took this picture from the window trying to show the lack of visibility.

Now the snow has stopped, but that actually bad news, as lack of cloud cover means  temps are steadily dropping to record lows. There was no school yesterday and  none today. No one knows for sure about Wednesday. Our governor is already calling for a one year increase on snow days.


As the local news site said"--it's not who will be closed, it's who will be dumb enough to be open."

My trash can looks very lonesome out at the curb.

Today we took the Boy back to school through frigid temps, although not a lot of traffic for a weekday since so much was closed. 

At least the sun was shining.

This week end we are supposed to warm up to a balmy 20, or bikini weather as the local DJ said. I'm sure we haven't seen the last of the deep freeze though.

Update: The phone rang a little while ago and the school system came up on the caller ID. You guessed it, no school tomorrow. That's 7 snow days since New Year's Day.

This blog post is being added (somewhat belatedly) to the I Don't Like Mondays Blog Hop at Elleroy Was Here. Click on the button to see some great posts by other bloggers.


elleroy was here

Tuesday, January 28, 2014

Cheers to you--A Twisted Mix Tape


Friends. We love them, we stand by them and hope they stand by us. We want to be there for them when they are down. And if we can't be there, we can make them a mix tape. Here is my list of songs I would dedicate to a friend on a down day.

 
This is a great song, because depending on your mood one person can sing lead with Paul, while the other person joins John on the "Can't get no worse" harmonies.
Janis Ian has seen me through many an up and down. I love this song, it reminds me of the connections that never go away between good friends, regardless of the years or the mileage.
On a really down day, this is a song that cheers me up.  I hope it would cheer my friend up too.  What better message can there be on a bad day than to take a sad song and make it better?
Sometimes all we need to know is that there is someone out there who gets us--who loves us as we are for who we are.
And here is Pink with the best pep talk of all time.  I first fell in love with this song because of my daughter, cause its exactly the message that I always want her to have from me.  But the more I listen to it, I realize its a great motivator for us grown up girls as well, who may still chasing down our demons. This is the PG language version of the song, but there are images in the video that some might find disturbing.

  This post is part of Twisted Mix Tape. Click on the like to see what other bloggers chose to cheer their friends up.  
My Skewed View

Pete Seeger: He Never Quit Singing






One of my greatest heroes, Pete Seeger, died yesterday. He was 94 and had devoted his whole life to the causes of peace and justice for everyone.



In 2011 during the Occupy Wall Street movement, Pete Seeger went to Manhattan and marched two miles with the protesters even though he was using two canes to get around. Some celebrities who showed up were booed for their hypocrisy; rich folk jumping on a middle class bandwagon. But not Pete Seeger. Everyone knew he was doing what he had done for 70 some years: supporting the ordinary person wherever they may be, lending his voice to their chorus.


When Pete Seeger died yesterday at the age of 94, we didn't lose his voice - it's on hundreds of records and videos - or his words which are in numerous works. What we lost was his presence, his street cred, as it were.


A man whose activism reached back to the truly dark days of the Depression and his association with Woody Guthrie, through the 1950's and The Weavers (the original folk super group), who was later run off TV and radio by McCarthyism and the Blacklist, through the Civil Rights Movement and the 60's folk revival largely inspired by Pete and Woody, through protests of the Vietnam War and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Along the way, he devoted considerable attention to environmental issues, especially the cleaning up of the Hudson River. That is what Pete Seeger brought to Occupy Wall Street.

When Pete Seeger was blacklisted in the 50's and the 60's, when he couldn't appear on TV or radio or in major concert venues, he went on college campuses to perform. It was those college student who would lead the folk revival of the 60's, which influences our pop music to this day.

Pete Seeger also gave a voice to the civil rights movement by popularizing the melody that became its anthem: We Shall Overcome. He said his main contribution to the lyrics was changing "will" to "shall" because it was easier to sing. Sometimes that's all it takes.



Growing up in the 60's and 70's, I didn't know all this, but I knew Pete Seeger. I knew it through a small book of folk songs for kids that I bought in the 5th grade in which Pete wrote entertaining commentaries for each song. And I knew him through groups like Peter, Paul and Mary who took up that torch. Incidentally, many of the great folk singers of the 60's refused to appear on shows like Hootenanny because Pete Seeger was blacklisted from the show. When he finally did appear on The Smothers Brothers Show, the networks cut the song protesting the Vietnam War.

Protests forced the network to let him return to perform the song, but some of the affiliates cut it from the broadcast.

Pete always got the audience to sing along. He felt a song was better if everyone joined in because it was never about him, it was about the music and the messages it conveyed.

It's often said that the best revenge is to outlive your critics. Pete Seeger did that. And he did it without changing the message of his music, that we should look out for each other and get along. When he received the Kennedy Center Honor, President Clinton called him "an inconvenient artist who dared to sing things as he saw them."


 Perhaps the best example of this was at President Obama's Inaugural concert in 2009. It took place in the shadow of another time of economic devastation. Pete was appearing with Bruce Springsteen, who had recorded an album entirely of Seeger's music. Pete told Bruce he wanted to do This Land Is Your Land and he wanted to do all the lyrics, not just the happy ones about the beauty of this country, the ones that are in all the song books,
but also all the verses about the dispossessed, to whom the country also belongs. Of course he asked everyone else to sing along. And watching at home I remember thinking "Well Pete, you outlasted them all."

Heroes to me are defined not by the single moment that brought them their fame, but by how they use that fame for the whole of their lives.  Pete was a great example of this. He summed it up perfectly in one of my favorite Seeger songs, Quite Early Morning.


"So we keep on, whilst we live.
Until we have, no more to give.
When these fingers can strum no longer
Hand your guitar to young ones stronger."

This is the Pete Seeger I will always carry with me: the optimism, the faith in mankind, and the challenge to us all to carry on.




Photo  by Joe Holmes/CC 2.0 by
Lefty Pop

Sunday, January 26, 2014

Twisted Mix Tape--Two for the Price of One


Twisted Mix Tape--Two for the Price of One

Lots of things conspired against me the last two weeks  and I didn't get my new songs mix posted. So I'm posting it now.  But before I do I'd like to look at this week's dance music theme. Unfortunately my idea of dance music involves Fred and Ginger, so I am turning this list over to my 14 year old daughter, who has in fact attended several dances in this century (and also is a fledgling blogger herself at The Dancing Juggler) Here's the Girl:

I feel a certain need to mention that this is NOT my general taste in music; there is a reason I avoid High School dances. I prefer country to pop. But at least a couple of the songs are catchy...until they get stuck in your head.

I can't say I'm a fan of One Direction. But a couple of their songs aren't horrid. This one at least, helps teen girls' insecurities. And it has a catchy beat. (Ideal for dances--theoretically)
Ever the fan of P!nk, at least one of her songs generally shows up at dances.

The ever popular, shove all the guys off the dance floor dance...
Here's at least one Rock song to satisfy every antisocial, dragged-to-dance-by-friends, kid. Because hey, sweaty kids, crappy refreshments and ridiculous dancing? If that isn't hell, I'm not sure what is.

The inevitable slow dance...
That's the best I got, like I said, I pushed Homecoming to the back of my mind. High school dances...shudder.

OK, here's Meg again, with thanks to the Girl for all the insight. Now for last week's list of new music we heard in the last year.

A few years ago a  friend sent me a CD of songs.

There were some that I knew, but a great many more that I didn't. I  found myself seeking out more by the same performers.  I realized I pretty much quit acquiring or even listening to new music around my 30th birthday. The radio was set to the oldies station and didn't budge.

Around the same time, my kids were developing their own musical tastes as well, and theirs was heavily tinged with country. My son tends to favor the likes of Jason Aldean and Toby Keith, while with girl, not surprisingly, it's Carrie Underwood and Taylor Swift.


I have listened to a lot of new music this year, thanks to them, or at least music that is new to me,  here is sampling:

My wish--Rascal Flatts

 I picked this one up from The Girl. She played it a lot after her brother left for college.  It doesn't annoy me on repeat hearings like so many songs do.
My daughter likes to dedicate this song to her dad.
I picked this song up from the Boy who uses it as a ring tone: 
Of course, every once in awhile, I catch a new song from a movie or TV show. The best of those from last year was "The Show" from  Moneyball. (I almost never see movies till they make it to cable). It's great to share a song and a movie with my kids.
And speaking of baseball... Our Indians did pretty good this year (especially compared to recent seasons, this song was heard a lot around our house.


So that's it for this week. We will try to get back on track this coming week...Till then head over to Twisted Mix Tape and see what the more punctual bloggers posted.

 
My Skewed View

Sunday, January 19, 2014

Farewell to the Professor



I often  think about what happens to the actor who becomes totally identified with a movie or TV role, often to their financial benefit, but at the price of being hopelessly typecast. Do they rail against their fate and refuse to have anything to do with the source of their fame? Or do the accept their lot and try to make best of it?   The late Russell Johnson, best remembered as the professor on Gilligan's Island, was someone who took the latter approach.

Before signing up for that 3 hour tour, Mr. Johnson, a WWII veteran who studied acting on the GI Bill, was best remembered for his work in 50's sci-fi films, from classics like This Island Earth (1955)  and turkeys like Attack of the Crab Monsters (1957), as well as many TV shows, including the Twilight Zone, Thriller and Alfred Hitchcock Presents. He often played a scientist or other intellectual.   In many ways he was the perfect type for the role of Roy Hinkley: Eagle Scout, high school science teacher, holder of 6 degrees; who boarded the Minnow to take a break from the book he was writing on ferns.  The professor provided what little reality there was to the show--and the rest of them would have been dead in a few weeks without him.  As a kid, watching those endless reruns, he was my favorite.  Although the show was silly his character was, and he inspired an interest in science in many young viewers.

After Gilligan's Island he mostly appeared on TV, often in parts similar to the professor, or directly referencing the show.  By all accounts he was endlessly friendly and patient with fans.  But he also used his fame to bring attention to a major cause when  it was  still quite controversial, and it was this that raises him, in my eyes, from a favorite to a hero.

In his 1993  autobiography Here on Gilligan's Isle/the Professor's Behind-The-Scenes Guide to Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Gilligan's Island he wrote with great humor about the whole of his career, including the 3 hour tour. 

But he also wrote with openness and honesty about his son David, who was gay and that he had AIDS, having lost his lover to it as well. (David would die a year later)  "Nobody deserves to have this disease." he said.  This was at a time when there was still a lot of stigma attached to the disease, but he knew he would reach an audience that might have avoided the subject. As someone who had already lost a friend to AIDS, I cannot tell you how much it meant to read those  words at a time when people still just didn't talk much about the disease, especially on a personal level.  Much of the later part of his life was devoted to fundraising for AIDS causes. 

So farewell Mr. Johnson, you'll not be forgotten: you gave fans thrills and laughs and tried to make the world a better place as well. 

Monday, January 13, 2014

100 word song: High School is Just Like Starting Over

"Don't worry about the new school. High School is a new group of people, ones who do not know you from before. It's just like starting over. "

The wise advice given me so long ago came back as I watched my daughter, viola in hand, make her way up the steps to her new performing arts school. She had competed for this spot in a more academically demanding program.

In the bigger pond of high school I found friends and security. I hope she finds academic fulfillment and success.

"Hope it works for you" I whispered as she went through the door.



This week I am trying something new: the 100 word song challenge.  100 words inspired by a chosen song. Another hop I have lurked around for some time,  I was lured in by this weeks choice: John Lennon’s Starting Over. To see what others did with the same inspiration and 100 words, click on the link.
My Blog Can Beat Up Your Blog

Friday, January 10, 2014

Finish the sentence Friday--if I had a Million



Everyone thinks  about it  once in a while: what would happen if I had a million dollars.

Most of my dreams are simple, really, get myself and loved ones out of debt, set aside college money for the kids, only have to
work to my minimum retirement date and then walk away.

  But there are a few things I would do like sell this house and  move to that farm my husband has always wanted. (see the part about early retirement).

Have a travel account, both to visit places I've never seen(hello Dublin, London and Athens);  as well as friends I never get to see.

Also a crafting acct for my husband to keep him in a all the wool and leathercrafting toys he needs.

At the suggestion of the Girl, purchase a large supply of Nook chargers because the device is great but the chargers suck.

Indians season tickets.

A fully equipped writing room and library.

A life time subscription to Ancestry,com so I can nail the family tree down once and for all.

A small donation to all the worthy charities that have flooded my inbox all these years. I've always wanted to do that.

In the  end to me it's not so much about life style as security. These are the things that would allow me to feel happy and secure.

This post is part of Finish the Sentence Friday. Click on the link to read more great blogs.

Wednesday, January 8, 2014

Being Human--a Twisted Mixtape

Todays mixtape is about mistakes.  We make them, we correct them, we learn from them.  If we do it right they make us who we are.
 
Jim Croce--The Hard Way Every Time
 This is one of my my favorite Jim Croce songs...
"Wouldn't have done it any other way".
 
 
Crosby, Stills& Nash--Wasted on the Way
There's still time to go back and fix the things we did wrong with those we love...
 
Billy Joel--Only Human
The title speaks for itself...
 
Big Bird--"Everyone Makes Mistakes"
Big Bird explains it all for us.
 
 
My Skewed View

Sunday, January 5, 2014

Report from the Deep Freeze

This is your intrepid reporter coming to you from the impending ice storm.  By tomorrow morning the temps are due to take a 20 degree drop, from the 30's to the teens, and then continue downward to sub zero realms. 

When bad weather occurs two questions immediately arise: How badly will we be hammered at work tomorrow, and will there be school?

Work conditions are still unknown, but school was called about 3:30, a record as far as I can recall.

When I was a kid, the snow day ritual was intense.  Early in the morning we would huddle around the radio or TV waiting for the school list.  Our school superintendent believed that if his dog could get outside to pee kids could walk to school, so it didn't happen often.  Now we get texts, emails and robocalls.  Takes some of the adventure out of it all.

Tomorrow was the first day back from winter break.. After two weeks everyone is already stir crazy...and now it may be Thursday before school  resumes. Everyone will be cranky and bored.

Makes sliding out the door to work look down right appealing.

Meanwhile everyone stay warm.

 
This was the yard before the current snow. 

This post, appropriately enough, is part of the I Don't Like Mondays Blog Hop.


I Don't Like Mondays Blog Hop

Wednesday, January 1, 2014

Saying Goodbye 2013 Edition

This is the time of year when my mailbox fills with "Best of" issues. Pictures, moments, headlines, events of the year nearly gone are recounted yet again. One of the features I always enjoy in a melancholy way is the remembrances of those who have died in the past year. Several TV news shows do this as well. Cracked  on Line does a nice piece overlooked deaths of the year. Most award shows do one as well, but year in and year out TCM Remembers is tops.

  This post is my version of the year end tribute.  I have to say I'm not the one to write about Nelson Mandela or Margaret Thatcher because I don't know what to say that hasn't been said again and again already. Its the writers and athletes and performers, especially actors, that I am drawn to.  It's a good thing to remember those who have gone who gave us pleasure while they were with us.  Two I wrote about at the time of their passing: Seamus Heaney and Roger Ebert. Here are a few more of the public figures I will most miss who took final curtains in 2013. Most of them had long fulfilling lives of that gave a lot of people a lot of joy.


Stan Musial-When I went to St Louis last year for my cousin's wedding I promised The Boy I would go to Busch Stadium and get him a Cardinals Tshirt. I also took pictures of all the statues of Cardinals greats that are in front of the stadium. But standing alone, as he should, larger than life, as he was,  is a statue of the great Stan Musial. A few months after I took this photo, Mr Musial died, at the age of 93.  He was a class act in every possible way, playing his entire career with the Cardinals, married to the same woman for 72 years. In over 3000 major league games, he was never ejected. As Bob Costas said “It seems that all Stan had going for him was more than two decades of sustained excellence as a ballplayer and more than nine decades as a thoroughly decent human being. Where is the single person to truthfully say a bad word about him?"

Or you can just go with what it says on the statue:
"Here stands baseball's perfect warrior.
Here stands baseball's perfect knight."

Jane Henson--The Muppets' mom. What else can I say?

Allan Arbus--The man who gave MASH Dr Sidney Freedman. If I ever have to seek psychiatric help, I hope its someone of the same compassionate dignity as Sidney--a role Mr Arbus didn't merely act, but inhabited.

Richard Matheson--He wrote several of the best Twilight Zone episodes, the original Night Stalker movies, and the novels I am Legend and Hell House, the latter made into one of my favorite horror films, in short the cultural touchstones of my youth.

Ray Harryhausen--I don't remember how old I was when I first saw The 7th Voyage of Sinbad or Jason and the Argonauts, but long before I studied movies seriously I saw the animation work of Ray Harryhausen and knew I was looking at something special. His films often used mythological themes, or tales from the Arabian Nights. The absolute master of stop motion, he work couldn't be equaled, let alone bettered, with most special effects wizards of today turning to CGI instead.   Here is what might be his masterpiece: the skeleton sword fight from Jason.


I started writing this about a month ago, thinking I had already seen enough loss for one year. Then on December 14th, Peter O'Toole died.  Mr .O'Toole had been one of my favorite actors since I was a child, and saw Lawrence of Arabia and The Lion in Winter for the first time.  Really great acting, to me, has a touch of divine madness to it.  Most actors these days seem too self conscious and buttoned down to reach for the crazed heights, but he did it again and again.  At the same time he was capable of quiet wordless acting in which the eyes said it all. Besides he was Irish. Here's my favorite O'Toole scene from The Lion in Winter.

 
So  that is my list of public person I will miss most who died this year.  I'm sure you have a list too.  Before we move on to the new year, it's good to say one more "Thank You" and Goodbye".