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May 2, 2021:

THE SYSTEM IS DOWN AND OTHER ADVENTURES

Bruce Kimmel Photograph bk's notes

Well, dear readers, I am, of course, sitting here like so much fish, continuing my listening adventure with Mr. Eugene Ormandy. I just love these performances and the sound continues to astonish me thirteen discs in. There are only a couple where you can hear groove noise, but it’s minor. But the depth of sound the engineers have gotten is pretty remarkable and remarkably pretty. I’m currently on disc 14 and I’ve uploaded up to disc 25. Thankfully, someone has entered these into Gracenotes, not in the way I like, however, so I make changes. Only one so far, Prokofiev’s Alexander Nevsky and Classical Symphony had nothing entered, so I took the time and put all the information in, including the track titles and I saved it to Gracenotes. I do hope there aren’t any more of those. We’re just finishing a lovely performance of the Brahms third symphony, my favorite of the four symphonies because it has my favorite Brahms tune in the third movement, one that’s been used in countless motion pictures. It’s a wonderful performance. Obviously, there are many brilliant Brahms symphony cycles in stereo, and my favorite of those right now is George Szell. But these Ormandy performances are just so straightforward, and they honor the music so beautifully. I just can’t get enough and with 120 CDs I won’t be for a couple of weeks at least. I did cheat (shhh) and play disc 110, The Moldau, just to see if it was as wonderful as I remembered it. The minute it began it was like I was hearing back in 1960 – it’s a no-nonsense version and really beautiful and evocative. No more cheating, though.

I also watched two motion pictures on Blu and Ray. The first motion picture was entitled The Lady in the Car with Glasses and a Gun, the version from a few years ago as opposed to the original film version with Samantha Eggar from the 1970. I liked the 2015 version pretty well up until the ending, where everything gets tied up – a bit silly as done here. But getting there is fun and the leading lady is terrific. Not brilliant, but enjoyable in its way. Then I watched the second motion picture, Plunder Road, a programmer, bottom half of the bill film, but directed by the always interesting Hubert Cornfield. Filmed in black-and-white scope, it looks great. It’s seventy-five minutes about a daring robbery and the subsequent happenings as they try to drive the bounty to a safe location. It moves right along, the cast is fine, but it’s not really great, although the style of it is really excellent. The noisy score by Irving Gertz is certainly not a help. Apparently, I bought the Blu-ray when it came out because I like Cornfield, then never watched it, because none of it seemed familiar to me. I may have seen a pan-and-scan version many years ago. So, that was fun.

Yesterday was a completely wacky day. If I had to describe it, wacky would be the word. I was up at ten and someone was supposed to come pick up a couple of CDs at ten-thirty. Said person still hadn’t arrived by 11:15, so I called, and he was still puttering around his house according to the fellow he lives with, so I said it would have to be another day. I then drove to the new storage place, which took about twenty minutes or so. I finally found the office. There were two people helping folks, but I needed the guy who I talked to, so I waited in that line – well, it was just me and the guy he was dealing with. Once he was free, I told him who I was. He kept telling me to hold on, then finally said the system was down, but only the part of the system for the storage units. Apparently, the system was fine if you wanted to rent a truck. I stood there for forty-five minutes while he kept trying, then he left for a minute, came back and said he’d gotten a call and that there was no ETA for it coming back. He suggested I come back on Monday, fifteen minutes ahead of the movers arriving. Well, no, that’s too close – I need to get the lay of the land and see everything first.

I left, went to the mail place and picked up one important envelope but not THE important envelope, which makes me nervous, but which will hopefully be here on Monday. I then came home, ordered a chicken Caesar salad from Stanley’s via Postmates and an eight-dollar off coupon (good for three meals), so it ended up being cheaper than picking it up even. That arrived a while later and I ate it all up. Since I hadn’t had it in a week, it was good. I listened to music, got a couple more tracks to send to singers, and then decided that if the system was back up I’d go back and get this stuff out of the way. But as of three-thirty it was still down, so that was that since they closed at five. And he won’t be there tomorrow, so I’ll go Monday and get there an hour ahead of the movers and the helpers. Hopefully, the system will be up by then.

Then I watched the two motion pictures, and then it was back to music and that was pretty much it.

Today, I’ll be up when I’m up, I’m having a complete ME day and evening, I’ll eat something and use the eight-dollar off coupon – not sure what, though – thoroughly bored of just about everything, food-wise, but I’m sure I’ll find something. I’m quite sure I’ll listen to music, I’m quite sure I’ll watch something, and I’m quite sure I’ll relax.

Tomorrow is the big move, so I’ll be up by nine, I’ll gird my loins and get to the storage place by eleven. I’ve asked him to please have the paperwork ready for me and that I hope I won’t have to wait in a line. Then the movers and the helpers will arrive and hopefully we’ll get everything in the main unit organized and set up, and then all us helpers will get the CD boxes on the shelves while the movers load up the other two units with my personal stuff. I’m hoping we can be finished with everything by six, but a lot will depend on if the movers get there at noon and how quick the organizing and getting the boxes shelved goes. There will be four of us, so I’m hoping it won’t be too daunting. I’ve asked the helper’s mom to come by so she can see it and then get the key and code. She hasn’t responded yet but hopefully she will prior to Monday.

Then the rest of the week is getting everyone their tracks and doing some Zoom rehearsals and trying to book one more guest. I’m still waiting to hear from one – they agreed but they haven’t gotten back to me with the song choice.

Let’s all put on our pointy party hats and our colored tights and pantaloons, let’s all break out the cheese slices and the ham chunks, let’s dance the Hora or the Wah-Watusi, for today is the birthday of dear reader Freddie aka FJL. So, let’s give a big haineshisway birthday cheer to dear reader Freddie aka FJL. On the count of three: One, two, three – A BIG HAINESHISWAY.COM BIRTHDAY CHEER TO DEAR READER FREDDIE AKA FJL!!!

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 and evening, eat, 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, hoping the system is no longer down and that everything will go smoothly on Monday.

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