I've had two blog entries in my head since April, but I never found a round tuit to write them. Even though they may not be timely, you might find them interesting.
An April Fool's joke
On 1 April my wife was standing in the kitchen after breakfast musing about something. I said, "Your shoes are untied." She looked down at her slip-ons and said, "Oh, that's a good one!"
Who am I to complain?
For years when it's not ski season, I've gone downtown for coffee, then to the library, and then maybe to lunch.
At first, I went to a coffee shop owned by some friends. When they retired, I went to a coffee shop nearby instead. Besides the good coffee, I appreciated the classical music from public radio.
Then government budget cuts hit the library and it was no longer open on Monday mornings. So, I went to the fitness center instead. Maybe afterward I would walk to the library.
This spring when the ski slope closed, I went back to the coffee shop. Instead of classical music on public radio there was pop music on commercial radio. I mentioned it to a barista; he said the owner changed the station because some of the regulars complained that the classical music put them to sleep. They came to the coffee shop to wake up.
The pop music was not overly loud but the commercials were and set my teeth on edge. I never went back.
Who am I to complain? I went there once a week for nine months of the year. The regulars were there every weekday twelve months a year.
I went to another nearby coffee shop twice but the coffee was so weak that I decided not to go back.
I could have gone to another coffee shop (locally owned) but it was farther from the bus stop and over a windy bridge.
So, I've stopped going downtown on a regular basis altogether. Maybe I'm saving money but I miss dropping in on a few shopkeepers. And I've stopped reading the variety of magazines at the library.
The real downside is I've stopped walking so much. It has to be a nice day with no special errands for me to walk the mile to a local coffee shop twice a week.
"I took the [road] less traveled by, and that has made all the difference." - Robert Frost
Showing posts with label classical music. Show all posts
Showing posts with label classical music. Show all posts
Thursday, August 26, 2010
Thursday, February 19, 2009
Many people like classical music and don't even know it
This evening we went to the Home Page, a coffee and sandwich shop in Bozeman, for a light dinner. They had a classical music show on the speakers at a volume conducive to conversation.
What caught my attention was two different versions of "The Flight of the Bumblebee" by Rimsky-Korsakov. I said to my wife that has to have been in couple of cartoons in which someone was chased by a bee. That lead me to think about all the classical pieces that have been in movies, TV, and radio.
I complimented one of the baristas on the choice of music and we started mentioning other films and their themes. He mentioned Pachelbel's Canon in D as one but he didn't know the movie.
I pulled out my iPod and looked up a few terms on Google. One of the hits was Media: Theme Songs. Pachelbel's Canon was used for Ordinary People, a film based on Judith Guest's novel of the same name.
This same site had "The Flight of the Bumblebee" as the theme song of the radio show "The Green Hornet".
Many people will associate Rossini's "William Tell" with "The Lone Ranger" and Prokofiev's "The Love of Three Oranges" with "The FBI in Peace and War".
Elmer Fudd sings "Kill the Wabbit" to the turn of Wagner's "Ride of the Valkyries"
"2001: A Space Odyssey" brings to mind Richard Straus' "Also Sprach Zarathusta".
But few can link Ottorino Respighi's "The Appian Way" of the "The Pines of Rome" to two films that I'm sure it was used in. One was a western in which the Indians on their ponies come over a rise with a red sky behind them. The other was a World War II naval movie that was in black and white as the Navy had one setback after another. Then the Navy assembles a humongous fleet and as it sails forth the movie changes to Technicolor and "The Appian Way" plays triumphantly. Even a film professor friend didn't have an answer. I think I'll try "Ask Mr. Smithee" by the syndicated Alan Smithee film columnist at alansmithee@ajc.com.
What caught my attention was two different versions of "The Flight of the Bumblebee" by Rimsky-Korsakov. I said to my wife that has to have been in couple of cartoons in which someone was chased by a bee. That lead me to think about all the classical pieces that have been in movies, TV, and radio.
I complimented one of the baristas on the choice of music and we started mentioning other films and their themes. He mentioned Pachelbel's Canon in D as one but he didn't know the movie.
I pulled out my iPod and looked up a few terms on Google. One of the hits was Media: Theme Songs. Pachelbel's Canon was used for Ordinary People, a film based on Judith Guest's novel of the same name.
This same site had "The Flight of the Bumblebee" as the theme song of the radio show "The Green Hornet".
Many people will associate Rossini's "William Tell" with "The Lone Ranger" and Prokofiev's "The Love of Three Oranges" with "The FBI in Peace and War".
Elmer Fudd sings "Kill the Wabbit" to the turn of Wagner's "Ride of the Valkyries"
"2001: A Space Odyssey" brings to mind Richard Straus' "Also Sprach Zarathusta".
But few can link Ottorino Respighi's "The Appian Way" of the "The Pines of Rome" to two films that I'm sure it was used in. One was a western in which the Indians on their ponies come over a rise with a red sky behind them. The other was a World War II naval movie that was in black and white as the Navy had one setback after another. Then the Navy assembles a humongous fleet and as it sails forth the movie changes to Technicolor and "The Appian Way" plays triumphantly. Even a film professor friend didn't have an answer. I think I'll try "Ask Mr. Smithee" by the syndicated Alan Smithee film columnist at alansmithee@ajc.com.
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