Well, dear readers, the day is done and let me tell you, it needed to be, with a couple of nice exceptions. Some days begin poorly and devolve into utter snot. Part of the problem was five hours of sleep – again. Part of the problem is being irritated unnecessarily with an emphasis on the latter, and frankly the less said about it, the better, other than to say it was the kind of day in which one thinks about becoming a serial killer or, at the very least, a cereal killer. Anyway, as the wags say, less is more, so I’m saying less. Of course, that will make these here notes very short, but not really, because there is stuff to talk about or, in the case of these here notes, stuff to write about. And the evening has been very calm and fine, due to a four-hour nap and a completely out of the blue telephonic call that was very nice, someone I haven’t heard from in some time, and I must say the timing was quite weird. Always enjoy catching up with people, so that was the highlight of a day filled with lowlights, including the ubiquitous computer shutdown. And now, I am sitting here like so much fish being serenaded by the great Art Farmer on flugelhorn, one of his more pop-oriented albums originally on Mainstream Records, with gorgeous orchestrations by someone named Hans Salomon – this was an overseas session with European musicians. I bought it when it came out and thankfully it made it to CD in a beautiful mastering. Otherwise, I did watch a documentary on Max entitled Surveilled, about some software thing called Pegasus that can tap into cell phones and grab everything. It’s mostly used by governments in foreign countries and there’s a ban on it being used here until very strict regulations can be established, but it’s pretty frightening. I think my post about it says it all, so here is that post: “Watched the Ronan Farrow Surveilled documentary, in which Ronan Farrow is the STAR, photographed endlessly in adoring close-up by the producer of the documentary – Ronan Farrow – and edited in such a way that it is all about Ronan Farrow. As an in-depth documentary, it runs exactly sixty-one minutes and seems like three hours. Not only is Ronan Farrow a ninety-pound hipster, but he is also trying so hard to be a glam documentary unto himself, even though the subject matter is interesting. It would be a lot MORE interesting if the producer, Ronan Farrow, wasn’t fetishizing the leading player in the documentary, one Ronan Farrow – the directors are complicit in this fetishizing.” The story began as a New Yorker piece and I’m sure that was better than this sixty-one-minute documentary.
After I plopped down in my comfy bed at five and woke up at nine, I started to watch some Brit movie from 1971 entitled Assault that I’d never heard of. I’m twenty minutes in – a standard killer stalking schoolgirls thing, horribly directed by Sidney Hayers, who had a long career, some films he directed were really fine, some are lurid – can we say Circus of Horrors – and amusingly, like many Brits from that era, he ended up in American TV, directing episodes of The A Team and Scarecrow and Mr. King. I was fortunate enough to work with two other Brits who ended up in American TV – Robert Day on Ghost Story and Gordon Hessler on Lucas Tanner. Not sure I need to finish this one.
And that was pretty much it. I had a pretty decent chili, cheese, and onion hot dog and a small side of mac and cheese for food, and that was it for food. I had a nice telephonic conversation with dear reader Jeanne and then had the completely out of the blue and quite unexpected telephonic call and that was certainly interesting on many levels, especially level three.
Today, I’ll be up when I’m up, I’ll do whatever needs doing, I’ll probably write a bit, I’ll probably eat a bit, I have several errands and whatnot to do, so I’ll do those a bit, and then I can watch, listen, and relax.
The weekend may include seeing a show, and Sunday and Monday I’ll be getting in the right frame of mind for my physical on Tuesday.
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, write, eat, do errands and whatnot, then watch, listen, and relax. Today’s topic of discussion: It’s Friday – what is currently in your CD player and your DVD/Blu and Ray/streaming player? I’ll start – CD, Art Farmer followed by Art Farmer playing Michel Legrand. Streaming, another early Inspector Maigret movie from the 1940s. I enjoyed the first one I watched. Your turn. Let’s have loads of lovely postings, shall we, whilst I hit the road to dreamland, happy to have had at least a couple of highlights on a day filled with lowlights.