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December 30, 2021:

RAINY DAYS AND THURSDAYS ALWAYS GET ME UP

Bruce Kimmel Photograph bk's notes

Well, dear readers, I am sitting here like so much fish in the warmth of the home environment, whilst the rain is pouring down outside, which it’s been doing all the livelong day and night and rather vociferously at that, oh, yes, rather vociferously at that. I enjoy the rain. Rainy days never get me down nor do Mondays. Other than that, I’ve been going through Andre Previn’s RCA recordings of the Vaughan Williams symphony cycle, and I forgot just how fine they are, both in sound and performance but also performance and sound and vice versa and versa vice. He has a real feel for the Brits and especially Vaughan Williams. I recently listened to all the Boult Vaughan Williams symphonies and those are, of course, wonderfully performed but the mastering is so mediocre that one hopes someday soon we’ll get a fresh new mastering because the sound could definitely use some sprucing up. If you’ve never gotten around to the Vaughan Williams symphonies you really should. You can find all of them on YouTube in any number of fine performances. I’d start with symphonies three and five and then go to seven. Then do the rest. I’ve loved all of them for forever. Prior to that, I had to watch a motion picture so I can write liner notes for one of the titles we’re announcing tomorrow or Friday. So, I can’t tell you anything about it because I don’t want to give it away other than to say that it was one of the biggest if not THE biggest box-office disasters of its release year. I just couldn’t work up the energy to watch the rest of King Richard – perhaps today. I spent most of the evening uploading the Previn CDs along with two more Michael Torke CDs – going back and forth between the laptop and the big-boy computer. What a pain in the ASS.

Yesterday was a pain in the ASS – not really, I just wanted to write that again. I got seven hours of sleep because I was up until four-thirty doing stuff for the new book – just notes, and revising hugely what I’d already written, getting it to a place I liked. Then I cut and pasted that into the new book Word doc so that on Saturday I’ll be all ready to go. I answered e-mails and caught up on a few things. For food, I made some tuna with red onions (the brown onion I had was rotten – this happens too much at Gelson’s, where one is paying premium prices), and I made what I called tuna sliders – tiny little sandwiches on those teeny-tiny Hawaiian rolls, four of them. That was pretty good, and then I finished the bit of onion dip that was left with the little bits of potato chips that were left – I mean, little pieces that probably wouldn’t make eight whole chips. That was good, too. And a couple of pieces of the Darling Daughter’s pumpkin loaf – that was excellent. Then I relaxed for a while, just doing stuff on the computer of no importance whatsoever and then I drove over to the mail place and picked up a couple of small packages and no important envelopes. Not sure why the screeners have come to a standstill. I know more are coming. What in tarnation are they waiting for? I just want to see a couple more things before I vote, although I pretty much know who I’m voting for. We vote for five in this initial go-through and I know my top two. Then I watched the movie, a two-hour film that seemed like four hours (no mean feat).

That was pretty much it and it was pretty much that, not necessarily in that order. Now playing is Vaughan Williams’ glorious symphony three, the Pastoral and boy is it pastoral. You cannot get more pastoral than the Vaughan Williams Pastoral, trust me on this and on this, trust me.

Today, I’ll be up when I’m up, I’ll do whatever needs doing, then I’m relaxing for most of the day – IF the stuff is ready to announce then I’ll announce and of course I’ll mosey on over to the mail place to hopefully pick up some packages and important envelopes. Oh, yesterday I did announce the January Kritzerland show – here’s the flyer so you can get a look at our talented young folks.

Then at four o’clock I’ll be having either a late lunch or an early dinner with Robert Yacko at one of my favorite jernts. That will be fun. Then I’ll come home and watch, listen, and relax.

Tomorrow is, of course, the day of the night of our annual New Year’s Rockin’ Eve Bash right here at haineshisway.com and what fun we’ll have, ringing out the old year and ringing in the new – 2022 to be exact – our various and sundried balls will drop, and it will be ever so much fun and perhaps we’ll even do the LIMBO. Maybe, just maybe for those in attendance, we’ll do a New Year’s Rockin’ Eve Zoom partay, too. We shall see. Then on Saturday, the first day of the New Year – 2022 – I’ll begin my new book. I try to get up around ten or so to do that and then I write for several hours. Then in the later afternoon, a handful of folks will come over for some Wacky Noodles and whatever else I concoct out of whole cloth or, at the very least, half cloth.

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, relax, maybe announce our three year-end titles (if we don’t, then it will be early tomorrow), hopefully pick up packages and important envelopes, sup with Robert Yacko, then watch, listen, and relax. Today’s topic of discussion: What’s the weirdest New Year’s Eve you’ve ever had and why was it the weirdest? Let’s have loads of lovely postings, shall we, whilst I hit the road to dreamland, as I sing the hit song, Rainy Days and Thursdays (always make me glad).

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