Well, dear readers, I am sitting here like so much fish, listening to an omelet named Hamlet, namely an opera omelet named Hamlet, by Mr. Ambroise Thomas. It’s a little old-fashioned for my taste in terms of music, and yet every now and then you get a really nice tune. It sounds a little gay and frivolous to be based on a Shakespearean tragedy, but apparently this version has a happy ending. Go know. The performance on the CD I got is very nice – Thomas Hampson, June Anderson, and Samuel Ramey, and the orchestra sounds terrific. It’s very long at three hours and twenty minutes. I probably won’t return to it much, but it does have a few moments that I liked, and the rest is certainly tolerable. Prior to that, though, I listened to an opera I really liked a whole lot, Umberto Giordano’s Andrea Chenier, which I found a tuneful delight, gorgeously orchestrated, and not so far away from Puccini-land. There are a lot of recordings of this one, but I quite liked the one I got with Jose Carreras, Eva Marton, and Giorgio Zancanaro. I’ll give this one a second listen right away and, of course, it makes me want to hear more from this composer, so I may try his Fedora next. I have two more operas to hear – Carl Nielsen’s Saul and David and Strauss’s Arabella, which I have already on CD from a live performance. The one I got yesterday is with Kiri Te Kanawa. This was all part of a nice trade-in deal I did yesterday and even with all the CDs I got in trade, I still have fifty bucks in credit left. And prior to that I watched one motion picture and the first three parts of an HBO miniseries. The motion picture was entitled I Wouldn’t Be in Your Shoes, a great title from a short story by my beloved Cornell Woolrich. I’ve always wanted to see it, but I don’t believe it ever had a home video release until Warner Archive released it. And it’s a GREAT transfer, I must say. Sadly, the film is a poverty row Monogram cheapie/quickie, directed very flatly, with a no-star cast who are forced to spout a lot of wretched dialogue from screenwriter Steve Fisher, which is surprising since he wrote a wonderful noir novel entitled I Wake Up Screaming. It’s only seventy-one minutes – I just wish it were a better seventy-one minutes. Happy to have seen it, but despite what idiot reviewers say, no, it’s not some undiscovered masterpiece or gem. It’s just bad, plain and simple.
The three episodes of the HBO miniseries Mildred Pierce were the polar opposite. Absolutely wonderful stuff, directed by my favorite – Todd Haynes – with so much great period atmosphere. As one dear reader said, it has amazing LA atmosphere despite being shot in New York. I’ll watch the famous film after this, as I’ve never seen it all the way through, but I have to believe this miniseries is probably much more faithful to the James M. Cain novel. Kate Winslet is terrific so far, and Guy Pearce is very good in what I presume is the Zachary Scott role – his only downside is he’s just too skinny and it is not a becoming look at all, nor would that character be anorexic, which is what he looks like. It’s beautifully shot and beautifully directed so far. Not sure how many more episodes there are, but I’m looking forward to watching them today or this evening, whichever comes first.
Yesterday was a pretty okay day, although I only got about three hours of sleep. Once she of the Evil Eye arrived, I moseyed on over to Uncle Bernie’s for a breakfast – I had eggs benedict and hash browns and I must say both were great. Then I went to CD Trader and brought in my box o’ stuff. They didn’t take all of it – in fact, they didn’t take a lot of it, so it wasn’t even worth my while to take cash, so I got the credit, which was twenty percent more. I got all the opera CDs, a box set of Russian conductor Yuri Temirkanov conducting Shostakovich – he gets raves for these performances so I’m interested to hear them, plus the four operas and a couple of soundtracks. Then I came home and answered e-mails, ascertained that the car battery charger had arrived, so I went and picked that up – it’s really heavy, surprisingly so. It’s still got juice but I couldn’t charge it because you need either an extension cord, which I don’t have extras of, or a special plug, so I purchased one from Amazon – the recommended one for this unit, and that will arrive today and then I’ll get it fully charged, then it goes in the trunk. This will allow me to rest a little easier if the electrical system drains the battery again. Now that I have this, it will probably never happen again – isn’t that the way these things usually go? Then I listened to music and watched motion pictures. At some point, I had a couple of low-cal hot dogs and later a couple of pieces of rye toast. Very good, all of it.
Today, I’ll be up when I’m up, I’ll pick up the charger cord so I can charge the car battery charger so it can charge the car battery. I’m thinking I’ll have a little rigatoni with red sauce, but if I don’t feel like that I might just have a couple of fried egg sandwiches. Then I’ll finish watching Mildred Pierce, and then I have to go through the A Carol Christmas script and make sure all the lyrics are correct – I found two already that I fixed at some point. Then I have to do the same with the score book, to make sure all those lyrics are correct. Kind of a pain in the ASS, but it must be done. And I heard from a theater company that’s done The Brain from Planet X and they’re super interested in doing it next year, which would be a great way to start off our licensing agreement. Then at some point I’ll listen to music and relax.
Tomorrow I have to write blurbs and liner notes for our next two releases, and then this week is meeting and meals, rehearsing with the singer, a Zoom meeting with David Wechter and I’ll also do whatever needs doing and there will be plenty that needs doing.
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 all dance the Hora or the mambo, for today is the birthday of our very own dear reader elmore. So, let’s give a big haineshisway.com birthday cheer to our very own dear reader elmore. On the count of three: One, two, three – A BIG HAINESHISWAY.COM BIRTHDAY CHEER TO OUR VERY OWN DEAR READER ELMORE!!!
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, I must pick up the charger for the charger, I’ll eat, I’ll finish up Mildred Pierce, and I’ll listen to music 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, happy to have done some good trading.