Fa-la-la-la-la

Tomorrow (Friday) is Solstice Eve.  We are looking forward to our usual celebration of all things dark.  There should be fresh snow on the ground by Saturday, and it will be very cold.  We will be up for sunrise, and will keep a wood fire going all day, until sunset (don't ask why, it's just fun to do).  There will be plenty of eats and drinks, and lots of music.  For the full moon last Saturday we listened to Acis and Galatea, the opera by Handel.  It is a really great piece of music, and we hadn't listened to it since 2005.  For Solstice Saturday we will try hearing all or most of Wagner's Die Meistersinger von Nurenberg.  We've never heard the full opera, only some excerpts.

 

We are done with medical appointments until the new year, though Deb might try to get to a physio session.  Today (Thursday) she saw an oral surgeon for her TMJ problem.  She is now on a soft food diet for a month, along with taking some physio for the symptoms.  Something is very inflamed in there, and it needs to calm down.  An MRI was also requested, though that may take months.  The doctor won't consider doing anything invasive until he sees the MRI result.

 

With three appointments for Deb this past week, my reading time is doing just fine.  However, my piano practice is suffering a bit.  I had hoped to have the program memorized by Solstice.  It pretty much is!  A bit of remedial work near the end of the Debussy Prelude, and some mid-score work on the Philip Glass Etude, and all will be confined to the space between my ears.  The Haydn and Satie are pretty secure.  The Bach will not be memorized; it's too contrupuntal for my brain.

 

In movie news there are three to report.  Most recently we watched Del Toro's 2021 remake of  Nightmare Alley.   The original b & w film is one of the best, and I hardly think a remake was necessary.  Do we need a remake of Casablanca, too?  Having said that, Del Toro does a fine job with William Lindsay Gresham, the author of the 1946 novel.  Sets, costumes, CGI, and the unique use of colour shades enhance the film for modern viewers, many of whom know nothing of the original film.  Bradley Cooper stars as the con man, with Toni Collette as his assistant.  Together they come up with a winning psychic nightclub act, but when a chance comes up to make a lot of money pretending to put rich people in touch with their dead loved ones, things quickly get out of control.  Cate Blanchett stars as the therapist who outsmarts Mr. Smartypants.  Once one knows the ending, from seeing the earlier film, much of the fun of watching is removed.  Still, it is a stylish and very well done picture.  Recommended, especially if you haven't seen the original, or read the novel.

 

Now showing on Prime Video. 

 

Before that we watched Miller's Crossing, a 1920s gangster film by the Coen brothers from 1990.  Albert Finney stars as the successful Irish mobster boss, with the mayor and police chief in his pocket.  His right hand man is played by Gabriel Byrne, and the opposing Italian crime boss by John Polito.  The acting is very good, the script varies from comical to high drama, and the story itself is engrossing.  John Turturro gets a plumb role and milks it for all it's worth.  Byrne's character is the ultimate in laissez-faire lifestyle.  Whether he is getting beaten up for not paying his gambling debts, or being marched off to be executed by a rival mobster, or telling his boss to his face that he is sleeping with his (the boss's) girlfriend, he just lets what is to come happen, without fuss.  He is the picture's central character, and he pulls it off really well.  The violence is of the comic book variety, with machine guns, explosives, beatings, and threatening stares, and there is plenty of it.  Still a good picture to watch, even 34 years later.

We recently finished two Great Courses lecture series.  Both Understanding Gravity (24 lectures) and Mystery Fiction (36 lectures) were highly worthwhile projects.  We usually watch an episode at 6 pm, time permitting.  We are now embarking on two new courses.  Formal Logic and Geological Wonders are up next.

Mapman Mike 

New Repertoire Progress

 The new piano pieces are coming along nicely.  Patience and more time will begin to round them out.  I am opening with 2 Little Preludes by Bach, in C Major and c minor, and following that with Beethoven's 6 Variations Op 34.  The Beethoven is a big piece, and I began work on it while still practicing the former pieces.  It is ten pages long and filled with great music, all divided into shorter pieces, or variations.  While most variations are written in the same key, Beethoven did something new with this set; he wrote each variation in a different key, dropping the interval of a 3rd each time.  So besides giving each piece a different character through rhythm, tempos, dynamics, etc, the new key sets each one even further apart from its mates, even though they are related by motif and original theme.

After the Beethoven come three Romantic era pieces, a Song Without Words by Mendelssohn (the 2nd last one), a Nocturne by Chopin (#11, Op 37 #1), and a Schubert Impromtu (Op 90 #2).  The Schubert is also a big piece, and I also began working on it while maintaining the previous program.  I will end with a Concert Waltz, Bethena, by Scott Joplin.  While all the pieces currently sound like music, they are all still under tempo and sounding pretty rough in places.  We'll report back in about six weeks time and see how things are going by then.

And now for the latest in film watching news.  My going away choice last week was called The Crowd, from 1928.  A young man from the sticks heads to New York, hoping to hit the big time and make a name for himself, like his late father always said he would.  Well, he takes a job in a big office (and I mean a big office), and basically goes nowhere during the film.  At the beginning he meets a sweet girl, bragging to her what a big man he is going to become, and belittling other people with undignified jobs, such as a man in a clown suit walking the sidewalk with a sandwich board sign.  He marries the girl, they have two children, and the ups and downs of their marriage and near poverty-stricken existence is followed closely.  Her two brothers and mother totally disapprove of her choice for a husband, and as the movie progresses, we tend to agree with them.  The movie is hard hitting and doesn't back down, though the ending tries to be pessimistic.  Some of the camera work in this silent feature is top knotch!

A silent film showing on Criterion until Nov. 30th.

The lifetime office job, from The Crowd. 

Deb chose a noir called Nightmare Alley, an engaging and well-acted piece about a man who gets a job at a carnival helping a woman with her mind reading tricks.  He eventually becomes a major part of the act, and perfects it with a new partner, his wife, and they make the upper class night club circuit, and are soon swindling people of their money, with the help of a female psychologist.  In the end his wife can't take the strain of pretending she is someone's dead relative, and their game is soon up.  But what about the money they swindled?  Well, it turns out the psychologist knows her stuff, and out swindles him.  In this downbeat movie, he ends up an alcoholic back in the carnival, looked after by his wife.  At least he had a chance at reaching the top.  Tyrone Power, Joan Blondell, Mike Mazurki, and Colleen Gray are all excellent in their roles.

Now showing on Criterion.  

Deb's leaving choice was the 1952 colour spectacular version of Prisoner of Zenda.  Though obviously high budget, and filled with top actors, the movie is rather lackluster in its treatment of one of the great stories of switched identities.  Sets and costumes are really well done, along with lighting.  Great to look at, though adventure lovers will likely be disappointed.

Our red bush, taken Monday. 

And finally, another autumn picture, this time a more recent one of our backyard bush, looking rather wreath-like.  Next time, it's back to the art museum for more landscape art.

Mapman Mike