Furnace Time

We test ran the boiler today.  The house was down to 65 F this morning, and it was 40 F outside and there were blustery winds.  We managed to survive till now without heat, but we gave it a good morning blast, which actually lasted all day.  Later we baked pumpkin pies, and Deb made a large batch of soup, which also helped keep things warm.  Tonight it is clear, still windy, and the temp will drop even more than last night.  So we will likely reblast the central heat upon awakening yet again.  The price of natural gas is such that last winter we paid $91 per month on the budget plan.  That pays for our hot water and heat.  However, this year the fee has jumped to $137 per month.  That's more than a 50% increase in the price of gas.  Of course seniors on fixed incomes can easily handle this sort of thing, right?

Yesterday we took an autumnal walk on the local rails to trails path.  It was turning cold, and the wind was up.  There is still corn in the fields, standing at least 5' high, and the stalks rattle in the wind.  The dry spell we have had since mid June continues unabated.  Most of our evergreen trees are suffering, and turning brown.  There is no measurable rain in our ten day forecast.  On it goes.

 

A lone cyclist approaches us on the trail.

This should be a running stream.  Only shaded puddles remain. 

We have just watched episodes six and seven of Prime's "Rings" series.  I thought there were only six episodes, but there are eight.  Last episode is released next Friday.  Six and Seven go together as a pair, featuring a battle and several great losses.  With each episode running close to 70 minutes, and sometimes beyond, there are about ten hours of viewing altogether.  Anything to do with the dwarves continues to be the highlight.  Galadriel is rather one dimensional for a supposedly wise elf, but the lone elf warrior is a truly great character.  The special effects continue to be beyond belief in virtuosity, and with several story lines taking turns, there is never any real boredom.  It's hard to fathom that people are saying that this series moves at a "glacial" pace; usually it's moving too fast for comfort.  These are people raised on Marvel movies, which all seem to take place in fast, breathless motion.  I think Tolkien himself would have been quite impressed with this production.  I'm hoping that the estate is impressed enough to hand over the Silmarillion to Amazon someday.

In movie news, there is only one to report, as we have been watching four different TV series,and still mostly are.  The King of Chinatown is from 1939, and was my leaving Oct. 31st choice for last week.  Starring Ana May Wong and Akim Tamiroff, it is actually quite good, and the plot holds several surprises.  Wong plays a highly regarded Chinese/American surgeon who saves the life of a local bad guy, one who sells protection to Chinese merchants.  But he is not a stereotype, but rather displays a heart and even a bit of soul.  And there are even some Chinese actors playing Chinese!  Likely quite a bit ahead of its time, and not lurid at all.

Leaving Criterion Oct. 31st. 

Mapman Mike

 

 

New Piano Repertoire

First the big news--it rained!  So far since yesterday we have received 1.2 inches of rain, very badly needed.  So it's back to cutting grass, beginning tomorrow.  The humidity today is unbearable, however, with the possibility of more rain to come.  We'll take it.

In other news, Patti's older sister, Joanne, has finally friended me on FB.  So maybe I will be able to find out some things about Patti, past 20 years of age.  Fingers crossed.

I have been working on newer piano pieces for just over a week now.  While the fingers aren't too happy, the brain is dancing once again.  Several years ago Deb and I attended the finest music festival we ever heard.  It was the Great Lakes Chamber Society's annual June festival, and the theme was Bach and his later influence on composers.  So we got to hear a ton of Bach concerts, along with composers who took his works and used them to make their own pieces even greater, composers such as Beethoven and Rachmaninoff.  My little brain has been ticking ever since, and I was overjoyed to discover that our complete set of Bach music CDs has a whole category of recordings on the same subject, with dozens of composers who used Bach as a rich resource for their own music.

Anyway, my newest program will feature 6 pieces by Bach on the first half.  I am going to pair a Little Prelude with a 2-part Invention, another Little Prelude with a 3-part Invention (also called a Sinfonia), and finally a Prelude and Fugue from the Well Tempered Clavier, all in the key of d minor.  This means that the first half will feature music that gradually becomes more contrapuntal and complex, until we arrived at the d minor fugue (Book 1).  Clever, huh?  Three of the pieces are quite flashy, including the lively Gigue of the Prelude and Fugue, while three are more sedate.

But wait--there's more!  The second half will feature the music of Edvard Grieg, namely his Op. 54 Lyric Pieces.  There are six of them (same as the first half of the program by Bach), though I am only working on four at the moment, but upon hearing them listeners will be able to find traces of Bach (and many others, to be sure) in the music.  Two of the pieces in the set are quite well known and popular, the March of the Dwarves, and his Nocturne. 

In movie news, there are two to report, both my choices for the week.  Blood Simple, from 1984, was the first feature film by the Coen brothers, a dark comedy/tragedy that takes place in a small Texas town, much of it in a seedy bar.  There are four main characters, one of whom is a private detective played wonderfully by M. Emmet Walsh.  He first tracks a cheating wife for the husband, who then wants his wife dead.  There are some great plot twists and tense moments, but overall viewers are led by the nose by the directors, and by the end it all becomes a bit much.  The wife and her boyfriend, a bartender at her husband's bar, are cardboard characters.  The husband is a loser in just about everything (though he did catch some nice fish), and provides much of the dark humour in the film.  Heavy premonitions of Fargo can be seen and felt in the film.  Mostly fun, but not a classic.  There are many, many extras with this film, of which we have two of the shorter ones.

Now showing on Criterion. 

 

My going away choice for this week was a silent film from 1929, starring Anna May Wong.  It was called Piccadilly, and provided a plum role for the actress.  She works as a scullery maid in a fancy London nightclub, but after the owner sees her dance, he hires her for his club.  Jealousy and murder add to the colour of this well made film.  Great sets and costumes, and Miss Wong is very pleasing to look at.  Not a bad film at all.

 

 Now showing on Criterion, until August 31st.  There are some impressive hats in this movie. 

 

Mapman Mike