Well, dear reader, has this ever happened to you – you’ll be online, merrily doing whatever it is you do online, and suddenly you get a pop-up notice out of nowhere? It just arrives like an unwanted canker sore, and it says “If you are seeing this pop-up your computer isn’t secure” and says to come to a website which will help you make it secure. It then says if you close this window it will go away forever. Once would be fine, but I have been getting this pop-up thing quite a bit, yesterday, for example, I got it six times. Should one go to the website and write them a nasty note, such as “Damn them, damn them all to hell”? I did go to the website and there is a phone number, but these people seem to be located in Norway and therefore most likely do not speak English. In any case, I find it rather annoying but I suppose this is the price one pays for life on the Internet.
If you missed any of the goings on around these parts over the weekend, then you simply must catch up (or, at the very least, catch down). We had lots of excellent postings and some very interesting revelations in these here notes. Perhaps I should put a whole book together of all the revelations I have revealed – I could call it the Book of Revelations. Isn’t that exciting? Isn’t that just too too?
I’ve been listening to quite a few CDs recently, including Monica Mancini’s new CD on the Concord label. It’s an entire CD of movie songs – such as Cinema Paradiso, Over the Rainbow, and lots of others. If memory serves, they are all ballads. I say “if memory serves” because I can’t currently locate the CD. I thought it was in my car but I cannot, for the life of me or anyone else, find it. Perhaps it is lodged somewhere. It’s a very well done CD, well produced, excellent sound, full orchestra with top Hollywood players. Some of the arrangements are okay, some are better than okay. I’d never heard the lyric to the Cinema Paradiso film, because I believe the lyric was written specifically for this album. It isn’t very good, unfortunately, not worthy of the beautiful melody. Miss Mancini also does one of my favorite of her father’s tunes, and probably one of his least known – the absolutely stunning and haunting them from Soldier In the Rain. I’ve loved this theme forever, and I’ve always wished someone would set a beautiful “rainy” lyric to it. Well, that is what Miss Mancini had done and she went to the Bergmans to do it. Unfortunately, they made it literal – it’s literally about a soldier in the rain – I mean, come on, how many people are going to sing a song about a fershluganah soldier in the fershluganah rain? Miss Mancini has one of those smoky throaty voices which jazz artists seem to possess, and she does very well. It’s a nice moody album and if I ever find it I’ll probably give it another listen or two.
Well, why don’t we all click on the Unseemly Button below before that unseemly pop-up thing arrives to annoy me.
Whew, made it, and just in the nick of time, or, at the very least, the joe of time. I continued my marathon of catching up on DVDs, and watched two count them two films by Francois Ozon (director of 8 Women). I was interested in him because of 8 Women, which I find wacky and stylish and fun. All these other films are not at all the same, they run the gamut. First I watched his film Water Drops on Burning Rocks which sounds like a Japanese art film by Ozu. It is based on a play by filmmaker Rainer Werner Fassbinder, and it’s fun and weird and moves right along. It’s basically a two-hander for most of its length and then becomes a four-hander. It’s about a middle-aged man who picks up a young fellow and their rather strange relationship over the next months. The boy’s former fiancée shows up and they decide to go off and get married. The man’s former lover shows up and there is much strangeness between the four of them, including one rather sublime miming of a German pop song by Tony Holiday. Then I watched his much acclaimed film San Sous Sable (Under the Sand), which I found a bit tiresome, but which does feature a wonderful dramatic performance by Charlotte Rampling. I then watched a French comedy by Veber, called Les Comperes, with Depardieu and Pierre Richard. Most of it was very funny, laugh-out-loud funny, and it was fun to see. It was, naturally, remade here in the States about five years ago, as the very unfunny Father’s Day.
Don’t forget, tonight is our Unseemly Live Chat at six p.m. Pacific Mean Time. We do hope lots of Hainsies/Kimlets will be there, for it is sure to be wild and wooly and also wooly and wild.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must type madly on my laptop computer, I must get that annoying pop-up screen, I must do errands and eat foodstuffs and then must type madly some more. Today’s topic of discussion: Let’s have another session of Wrong Casting, shall we? Today let’s have a revival of Hello, Dolly! with the most wrong cast you can possibly come up with (I know the movie version did a fine job of it, but we’ll do better, and maybe those TV folks will get some ideas). I’ll check back and give my suggestions in a bit. Post away, my pretties.