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September 20, 2020:

MY DOMESTIC SYMPHONY IN THE KEY OF BK

Bruce Kimmel Photograph bk's notes

Well, dear readers, I am sitting here like so much fish, listening to Mr. George Szell, a wonderful conductor of music, have his way with Mr. Richard Strauss’s Sinfonia Domestica, which is a domestic symphony, for those who were wondering.  Apparently, Mr. Strauss wrote it about his own domestic life, which, by the sound of the music, was serene and warm and lovely.  If I were to write my own domestic symphony, I feel it would be sparse, occasionally dissonant, and no more than three minutes long.  It would open with a stirring chord in the key of both B-flat and E-major, and then it would immediately state its main theme in the violas accompanied by only five piccolos.  That would then lead to a fugue for sixteen measures, and then the secondary theme would be taken up by the French horns, double basses, and orchestra bells, playing sostenuto, which is no mean feat for the orchestra bells.  Then we have a brief development section that fails to develop and devolves into a first theme repeat that has already been cut for time.  Yes, this is my Sinfonia Domestica in the Key of BK.  I hear there will be a premiere very soon and that Yo Yo Ma has agreed to play the solo cello part, which is amazing considering there is no solo cello part.  It will be conducted by the great Ferenc Fricsay, who passed away in 1963.  So, as you can imagine, this will be a rather historic premiere in so many ways.  It would appear that at this time I have lost my sanity and don’t know what the HELL I’m talking about, but that can happen on a Saturday night, sitting alone, and writing notes whilst listening to Mr. Richard Strauss’s Sinfonia Domestica.

Yesterday came and went without much ado, and I always appreciate a day without much ado, if you get my meaning and I know you ado.  I got a bit over nine hours of sleep, which was nice.  Once up, I answered e-mails, did a few things on the computer.  I’d scheduled food for delivery at 1:30 and it got to me about ten minutes early, which was fine as I was hungry.  I’d ordered from Togo’s, which I’ve been thinking about for about three months now but the other two delivery services I used would not allow you to adjust anything on the order, so you couldn’t let them know what to include and not include on the sandwich, and what to include and not include is kind of the point.  But thankfully Grubhub did allow the customization, so I ordered a regular (six-inch) pastrami their way (mustard, tomato, lettuce, and onions) and for later in the day a mini (three-inch) salami and provolone their way (same as above) – the thing I leave out of their way are the pepperoncinis, which aren’t for me and frankly I’m not for them.  I ate the pastrami, since that was a hot sandwich (still hot on arrival), and it was quite excellent.  When I first lived in the City of Studio we had a Togo’s within walking distance and I ate there three times a week.  I’ve always enjoyed their food.  The sad news is they no longer seem to have their chicken salad, which was my favorite.  The calorie count for both was a little above my 1000 calorie goal, but not much, so I’m sure I’m fine.

After that, I sat on my couch like so much fish and finished I Confess.  It’s really quite a good film and amusingly all the folks that used to think it was lesser Hitchcock now proclaim it a masterpiece.  I’m not sure it’s that, but I’ve always liked it a lot. Then I began watching Godzilla 1984 aka The Return of Godzilla, or, as I like to call it, Look Who’s Back in Town.  This was a comeback film – they’d retired the old boy in the late 1970s.  This was an interesting film in that it was a direct sequel to the 1954 original film, Gojira aka Godzilla.  And like that film, this was serious in tone and intention and Godzilla was back to being his mean and destructive self, rather than what he’d been turned into – a hero and friend to all children.  The film came out a year later in the US, cleverly retitled Godzilla 1985.  But in predictable fashion it was shorn of twenty minutes, footage was added with Raymond Burr and entirely new dialogue was written, which changed the serious tone into campy comedy, a bad, bad mistake.  I saw it when it came out, and yes, we enjoyed the camp aspect back then because that’s the way it was.  I finally saw the real version on laserdisc about six years later and it was an entirely different film.  It wasn’t great but it was much better than the silly American version.  Of course, it had a new director, new composer, and so the tone and feel of it was different.  And despite it not being a hit in Japan OR the US, it still birthed a new series of films and those birthed a new series of films and on it’s gone to this very day.  The transfer is from hunger, which is typical for Toho, who refuse to ever give US companies great transfers, as happened with the Criterion set of movies from last year, even though Criterion had offered to pay for new transfers.  Anyway, it was fun to see the big G back in action and up to his old tricks.

I did fall asleep for an hour at some point so had to rewind to where I’d dozed off.  After that, I ate the other sandwich, which was excellent, then I had a long telephonic conversation about next Friday’s Partridge Family event, then I took a drive and noticed the new Pavillions store has opened in the Oaks of Sherman.  It’s taken two years for them to completely rebuild what was there and now it’s like our Ralph’s – huge, you have to park underground and escalator up to the store.  I didn’t go in, but I looked online and actually did a delivery order – lots of good deals to be had, but I didn’t put it through yet.  Perhaps on Monday.  Then I listened to music and relaxed.

Today, I’ll be up when I’m up and I guess it will be a ME day.  I do know something is coming to the mail place, so I’ll pick that up at some point, otherwise I’ll figure out food (I’ve been craving pizza so may see if there’s some place where I can get a small pizza that won’t cost more than the 1000 calories, or I may have some pasta from somewhere – we shall see), I’ll eat food, and then watch, listen, and relax.

This week will need some little miracles or there will be hell toupee – what a tough year this has been for Kritzerland and therefore for me personally.  I know others, especially small businesses, have also suffered – it’s no fun, I can tell you that.  Otherwise, I’ll be planning the next two Kritzerland shows – we’re taking October off to give everyone a break but will be back with two big shows to close out the year.  However, I didn’t want to lose our presence in October, so I think what we’ll be doing is a kind of backstage at the Kritzerland shows – with interviews with our singers and Hartley, stories, and whatever else we think of.  I’ll be sure to schedule it directly opposite the shows that have done that to us.

Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, be up when I’m up, have a ME day, hopefully pick up something from the mail place, eat, and then watch, listen, and relax.  Today’s topic of discussion: It’s free-for-all day, the day in which you dear readers get to make with the topics and we all get to post about them.  So, let’s have loads of lovely topics and loads of lovely postings, shall we, whilst I hit the road to dreamland, where I shall dream about the premiere performance of my Domestic Symphony in the Key of BK.

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