Well, dear readers, I am sitting here like so much fish, listening to the Mahler tenth symphony, which remained uncompleted at the time of his death, with only the first movement being orchestrated, but the entire symphony being sketched out. The first to “finish” it was Deryck Cooke, and he did several revisions over the years. The first commercial recording of the Cooke version was in 1965 with Eugene Ormandy and the Philadelphia Orchestra. Since then, there have been quite a few other recordings, of the various Cooke versions and a few others who completed it, but none of those recordings, and I believe I’ve heard them all and have them all, has come close to the power of the Ormandy, especially in the emotional first movement as completed by Mahler himself. There are many, many recordings of only that movement by conductors who refuse to do any of the other versions. And even those don’t come close to Ormandy, at least for me. The best of the complete performances after Ormandy is a very nice one by Jean Martinon, a live recording. If you’ve never heard it, I’m sure it’s on the Tube of You. It will be included in the next stereo Ormandy box covering the rest of his Columbia output and I’m hoping it gets a wonderful new remastering. Now, I’d talk about yesterday but really what is there to talk about? I could not fall asleep and did not do so until ten in the morning. I finally arose at three in the afternoon after five not enough hours of sleep. I was beyond out of it. Beyond Out of It – that’s the title of my next novel. I answered e-mails, the helper told me all but about five copies of the new CDs have shipped and those five will have to wait until Tuesday because she needed more labels, which will be delivered to her on Tuesday. So, that’s a load off. I then ordered food from a nearby barbecue jernt that had very good reviews on Yelp, which, as it turns out, is why I am the ONLY Yelp reviewer anyone should listen to. It’s mostly young people who know absolutely nothing about barbecue. Now, I will admit to the fact that I’m no fan of any barbecue that has any kind of sour vinegar taste, and I know that’s a style of barbecue. Sadly, that’s what this jernt is – it was simply the worst pulled pork sandwich ever – I ate it, but I did not like it, nor did I like their sauce, also sour-tasting. I’ve actually never had a bad pulled pork sandwich until this one. As my side dish, I got potato salad – one bite of whatever that was caused me to hurl it into the trash. It was like soup. I’ve never seen or tasted anything like it and I hope I never do again. Blechhh. Next time I want a pulled pork sandwich I’ll get it from the Smoke House – theirs is great. Blechhh.
I had a telephonic conversation with David Wechter, brief, as we set our longer conversation for ten in the evening. Around six-thirty, really needing to get the horrible taste of the horrible sandwich out of my mouth, I ordered a crispy chicken sandwich from Fatburger. I’d had it once before and it was quite tasty. Not this one – this one was just weird – perhaps the chicken should have been cooked a bit more. The crispy part was fine, it was just the chicken. So, two for two in the terrible food department. Blechhh. Then I sat on my couch like so much fish, trying to find a movie. I found a French film from France that I’d always wanted to see, entitled Mort d’un Pourri (Death of a Corrupt Man) from 1977, starring Alain Delon, with a great score by Philippe Sarde, with Stan Getz doing the sax solos. It looks like a very good movie but I couldn’t watch it. Instead of proper subtitles, it had close captioned subtitles and those were four lines late on every line so you never knew who was saying what. Inept. I shut that off and then put on Antonioni’s Red Desert, a movie I’ve tried to watch about thirty times, never getting past the first twenty minutes. This time, I didn’t get past the first five because I dozed off and continued to doze off for the next three hours.
At ten, Wechter and I had our conversation, and that was productive, and then I ordered some ice cream in hopes that THAT will get this rancid taste out of my mouth. It’s currently in the freezer until I finish these here notes, which I’m about to do.
Today, I’ll try really hard to be up by eleven, I’ve already decided I’m going to make a little pasta here, since I have all the ingredients and because I ordered so much yesterday due to stinky food. Blechhh. I’ll do whatever needs doing, I have a little writing to do before David Wechter and I have another telephonic conversation, I’ll go to the mail place at some point, I’ll tell the glasses lady that this new version is fine for driving as long as my eyeballs are in the sweet spot. Then at some point, I’ll watch, listen, and relax.
Tomorrow, I’ll have a quick conversation with PayPal, and the rest of the week is writing, meetings and meals, and prepping the Kritzerland show. We have our five cast members now and we can add a guest star if we find one. I’ll post the flyer as soon as I have it.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, try to be up by eleven, do whatever needs doing, write, visit the mail place, eat pasta of my own making, call the glasses lady, then I can watch, listen, and relax. Today’s topic of discussion: What foods have you loved the first time you had them and then had bad experiences the next time? Let’s have loads of lovely postings, shall we, whilst I hit the road to dreamland, hoping the ice cream rids me of this rancid taste in my mouth – blechhh indeed.