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December 31, 2020:

FAREWELL 2020, HELLO 2021!

Bruce Kimmel Photograph bk's notes

Well, dear readers, in case you haven’t noticed, the day has arrived. Yes, you heard it here, dear readers, the day has arrived, and I know most people are really happy the day has arrived, the day being the final day (and evening) of the year known as 2020. What a year this has been – a bit of the old the good, the bad, and the ugly, with mostly the bad and the ugly taking the lead. And so, tomorrow we start a brand-new New Year, one I like to call 2021, and it is my fervent hope and prayer that 2021 will be a year filled with health, wealth, happiness, creativity, and all things bright and beautiful.  And, of course, it will also be January, and it is my fervent hope and prayer that January will be a month filled with health, wealth, happiness, creativity, and all things bright and beautiful. I’m hoping we can all accentuate the positive with much light and sanity, and I think the change that’s coming with a new administration will go a long way towards that happening, and it will happen. Let’s not expect all that to be instant, but let’s just make a promise that we’ll all do our bit to keep positive and not be distracted by silly and pointless nonsense.  I has spoken.

Otherwise, I’m sitting here like so much fish, listening to Kurt Weill’s Zaubernacht (Magic Night), a ballet-pantomime he wrote on commission when he was but twenty years of age. It was lost for a very long time and the only thing that survived was a piano reduction, which was missing several pages. A reconstruction was done in the 1990s, but then suddenly Weill’s original orchestrations were found in a safe at Yale that hadn’t been opened in decades. It was there because a curator hadn’t catalogued it yet and said curator passed away before doing so. This recording is the first and probably last of the original version and it’s delightful – you can hear Weill’s very unique musical voice trying to break through the styles of the period, and occasionally that happens.  Other things I heard: Another Berthold Goldschmidt opera, Der Gewaltige Hahnrei (The Gewaltige Hahnrei or The Magnificent Cuckold).  It’s a little more strident at times than the other stuff I have by him, including his opera Beatrice Cenci, but that’s because the libretto requires it. But it has very haunting moments and very powerful moments and I really liked it a lot.  It’s yet another in the Decca Entartete series (I’d really like an accurate count of how many albums there actually were in this series – I think I have about sixteen at this point. Anyway, it was enjoyable, and I’ll give it another listen soon. Then it was Humperdinck’s Dornroschen (Sleeping Beauty). I was expecting, of course, an opera, but it’s not really that at all. It’s like a play with music – a lot of spoken dialogue, several lengthy and beautiful orchestral sections, and some nice singing. Thankfully, the dialogue, which is mostly unaccompanied, can all be removed as it’s tracked separately. But the music, while not up to the high standards of Hansel Und Gretel, is still very attractive, with several wonderfully tuneful tunes and the orchestral sections are just lovely. Some nice choral singing, too.  And I do have a CD of orchestral excerpts from the operas, and there are four selections from Dornroschen on that CD, which is called Fairy-Tale Operas.

Yesterday was an unexpectedly busy day right from the get-go as well as the go-get. I got seven hours of sleep, arising at ten-thirty.  I answered e-mails and such, then at eleven I had a long work session on the telephonic device with Richard Allen, doing some musical fixes and such – that turned out rather well. Then I did a Zoom session with one of the performers for project one and that went well, too. I went to the mail place and picked up some packages, knowing that I’d have to go back late in the day to get more, which was fine as I’m trying to keep the motor car battery nice and healthy, and yes, thankfully it started right up.

I stopped at Gelson’s, which was jammed with people doing heaven knows what since they’d just done heaven knows what on the twenty-fourth – it must be a who knows what thing that everyone feels compelled to do. I got some things I needed and would have gotten more if it weren’t so crowded, as I will need some water soon.  I can’t even remember what I got, actually.  Some tortillas, I think, but the bigger size that has more calories – it was all they had.  And my annual bottle of Korbel champagne for tonight’s midnight toasting in of 2021. I do this every year – one sip of champagne at midnight, then I keep the bottle until the following year. It’s one of my New Year’s Eve “things.”  I came home and ate the chicken Caesar salad I’d gotten the day before, and that was excellent. I also had a couple of small dinner rolls I’d gotten at Gelson’s. After that, it was a telephonic conversation with another project one performer.  And then a trip back to the mail place for a couple more packages, but no important envelopes. Then I came home and listened to music, after which I sat on my couch like so much fish.

Last night, I watched the first ten minutes of a DVD entitled The Cunning Little Vixen, another production of the Janacek opera.  As you may recall, I’d watched a horrid Eurotrash version a couple of weeks ago – this one’s the polar opposite – a completely magical and charming production directed by Nicholas Hytner, with great sets and costumes by the amazing Bob Crowley. But I fell asleep and forty-five minutes later woke up, so I’ll watch the whole of it today.

After that, I listened to music and then it was time to write these here notes.

Today, I’ll be up when I’m up, I’ll do whatever needs doing, which I know will include another work session for the music of project one, which I’ll reveal a bit more about in tomorrow’s notes, at long last, more listening for project one, I’ll hopefully pick up packages and important envelopes, I’ll eat something light but fun, and then we have our Annual New Year’s Rockin’ Eve right here at haineshisway.com, and I hope all you dear readers will show up for this one, so we can welcome in the New Year with light and sanity and good energy and fun – first for our East Coasters and then for our other Coasters. At eleven-thirty my time, I’ll do my usual New Year’s Eve contemplation, where I think about things I’d like to do to be a better person and things I’d like to happen this year. It will, of course, be the best partay on all the Internet.  And speaking of the Internet, here are some stats for our little corner of the Internet: 2020 was our biggest posting year since 2016, with over 60,000 posts and really only slightly behind 2016.  Our page visitors were pretty much on par with last year at an astonishing fourteen MILLION visitors – actually just under fifteen MILLION. Not bad at all, and I think that soon we will be the most popular site on all the Internet.

Tomorrow is, of course, a new month in a brand-new year, namely 2021.  And, as I’ve done for many years, I will begin what I hope will be my twenty-first book, a novel. I’m looking forward to that. Otherwise, I’m sure it will be a quiet day. I’ll have food delivered, I think, a nice meal from somewhere nice, just to start off the year with a nice meal, but not a heavy one. I will lose more weight this year – I’m determined and when I’m determined I determine that I will do that which I’m determined about in a most determined way. She of the Evil Eye comes Saturday, so I’ll do breakfast in the car.  Once home, I have a little Zoom thing to do, and of course pages to write, which will be the order of the day for however long it takes to write the new book. I’m in somewhat new territory and that’s always energizing but scary. And next week we begin in earnest on project one.

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, do whatever needs doing, do a work session and do whatever listening I need to do for project one, pray that the motor car will start, hopefully pick up packages and important envelopes, eat, and then have our Annual New Year’s Eve Rockin’ Eve right here at haineshisway.com.  Today’s topic of discussion: What are your hopes for 2021? Let’s have loads of lovely postings, shall we, whilst I hit the road to dreamland, happy to be saying farewell to 2020 and saying hello to 2021.

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