Well, dear readers, I’ve got very important news. Yes, you heard it here, I, BK, have very important news: It is May. I ask you, where else on all the Internet can you get such information? Nowhere, that’s where. And it is my fervent hope and prayer that May will be a month filled with health, wealth, happiness, creativity, and all things bright and beautiful. Otherwise, I am sitting here like so much fish, reveling in glory that is Eugene Ormandy – The Columbia Legacy, a humungous box set released a couple of weeks ago. Thanks to an Amazon gift card I hadn’t used plus a few credits I hadn’t used, I had enough to buy this puppy and thank goodness I did because it’s going to bring me many days and nights of happiness. And the price, while not cheap, is cheap – 120 discs for about $2.40 each. This set is Ormandy’s entire mono output for Columbia, right up until he began recording in stereophonic sound. I’m on disc seven already and it’s brilliant. Ormandy has never gotten the credit he deserves as a conductor. It was fashionable for decades to, in fact, be derisive and denigrate him as a lesser light. Well, he was nobody’s lesser light, and he was as good as anyone.
What he did have the ability to do and it’s what made him one of the most popular classical recording artists of his time, was make any kind of music accessible. And he took on a lot of different kinds of music and did them all equally well. Some of his repertoire would never have gotten done elsewhere, especially the American music. Most of the music in this set has never been on CD other than lousy-sounding bootlegs. I began with the first two discs, which are the oldest recordings, and which come from discs. The sound is incredible. I don’t actually know how they did it. Once we hit the tape era, the mono sound is breathtakingly beautiful – full, rich, warm, and with sound like that you don’t even miss stereo, and some of these performances far outweigh the stereo redos he did later. He makes me like stuff I’ve never liked. This man brought classical music to so many people, including me at eleven years of age. I won’t tell that story again, but he was my introduction to classical music and when I’d look for other classical records to try out, it was always Ormandy’s recordings that I bought. He was never a fussy conductor, nor a show-off conductor – he let the music do its job and didn’t get in the way, and the result is just amazing. The Brahms fourth symphony from the very early 1950s is the best performance I’ve ever heard, and I’ve heard a lot. And the Philadelphia Orchestra was the best – the sound of that band, especially their glorious strings, was brilliant then and it’s brilliant now. I can’t tell you how helpful hearing this set so far has been. It has eased my stress and tension because, well, how could it not. The remastered sound is so great and full kudos to those engineers. Now we can hope for his Columbia stereo output – it would be an even bigger set than this, but while a lot of his stereo records have made it to CD, they’ve been haphazard releases and all of them are in serious need of remastering. In the meantime, we have this beauty.
I did find two organized helpers for Monday and I have a third fellow who’ll come, and Marshall Harvey will also come. I texted with movers and they think they’ll actually get to the new place by noon, which would be fantastic, and they know we want to set up the CD unit first. So, all that gave me some little bit of comfort, for the first time this week.
Yesterday wasn’t such a bad day as the preceding days of this week. I got eight hours of sleep, got up, answered e-mails, did a bunch of Kritzerland show work and we began getting tracks to singers, so that’s a good thing. Then I picked up the big boy Ormandy box, which is VERY heavy, but no important envelopes, then came right home, opened it and began uploading the CDs in order. I’ve uploaded fourteen of them so far. A long way to go. But I think I must upload The Moldau disc, my first classical album – I haven’t heard it since I was twelve and I’m sure it will bring back many memories. Other than that, though, I’m going in order. I ordered a bacon and cheese omelet from a jernt I’d never been to – pretty close by. In the instructions I said no toast, no potatoes. It arrived about forty minutes later. The second I opened the bag I could smell the potatoes. They got the no toast part right, thankfully. But the omelet was on top of the diced potatoes, so I had to carefully lift it off, wipe all the potatoes off and put it on a plate. The omelet was more like a pancake shape than an omelet shape and the cheese was on top, not inside with the bacon, which was just weird. It was okay tasting and I finished it, but I don’t need to order from this jernt anymore. It’s just another trendy Sherman Oaks place where people will wait forty-five minutes to eat this kind of blah food.
After that, I did quite a bit of Indiegogo stuff, so that’s good. I even began separating stuff into piles and labeling who gets what. All during that, I listened to Ormandy and what a treat that was. Then I sat on my couch like so much fish.
Last night, I watched a motion picture entitled Minority Report, starring Mr. Tom Cruise, directed by Steven Spielberg. I saw it when it came out and liked it quite a bit, even though its future stuff was pretty far out and unreal, at least the car stuff. I got the Blu-ray back in 2011 and watched it then and enjoyed it. And here we are a decade later. Most of it works very well, some of it just goes a little too wacky, and then the wrap up at the end is a little too storybook for what came before. Some of the cast is very good and some of the cast is surprisingly weak for a Spielberg film. It looks and sounds fine and has a very good score by John Williams (who else). But as a whole, it just misses somehow. But it was fun to see it again.
After that, I had a little lettuce left, so I made a little salad out of the little lettuce, with some green peppers and a little mozzarella. I had a little cup of ranch dressing left over from the other day and used that and it was really quite good. So, a very calorie and carb-friendly day of food. And, of course, I continued my listening adventure, which continues even as I write these here notes. In fact, amazingly, a Debussy piece I’ve never heard before is playing and is gorgeous, called La Demoiselle Elue, which has a vocal part sung by the wonderful Bidu Sayao.
Today, I’ll be up by eleven and then I’ll mosey on over to the new storage place in Northridge to sign contracts and pay the first month’s rent. Once that’s done, I’ll try to find a gas station out there, because it should be much cheaper than around here, and I’ll gas up the motor car. I’ll see about picking up something on the way back for food – just depends on what I happen to see. I’ll hopefully pick up two important envelopes, after which I’ll come home. Then the rest of the day and evening is a ME time, listening to more Ormandy and watching something, I’m sure.
Tomorrow is a complete ME day and night, and I don’t care who knows it. On Monday, the two or three helpers and I will convene at the storage place and then Marshall will join us a bit later. I’m hoping that between us all we can get the whole CD unit set up and ready to go. That way, we won’t have to come back on Tuesday, which I’d prefer not doing. Hopefully, if we finish, then the helper’s mom can drive over and get the key and the gate code, and we’ll be set to keep shipping. The rest of the week is finishing doing tracks and getting them to singers so they can start filming – we’ll have a few Zoom rehearsals along the way.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, be up by eleven, sign contracts and pay for the new storage jernt, put gas in the motor car, maybe pick up something to eat, hopefully pick up two important envelopes, come home, have ME time and watch, listen, and relax. Today’s topic of discussion: What are your favorite films of Mr. Steven Spielberg, and your favorite performances in those films? Let’s have loads of lovely postings, shall we, whilst I hit the road to dreamland, happy to have this humungous box set that is bringing me a bit of comfort and a bit of joy during this tumultuous week we’ve just had, and of course it is my fervent hope and prayer that May will be a month filled with health, wealth, happiness, creativity, and all things bright and beautiful.