He was at the coffee shop. Two men of his age were at the next table. They were trying to remember war movies and their stars, and struggling. He passed on telling them who was in The Great Escape, The Longest Day, Where Eagles Dare, and The Bridge at Remagen. Surprising that he could easily remember all that stuff, he remarked to himself, pleased. Just one of those days.
But he had to step up to the other table when they couldn’t recall the name of the movie with Clint Eastwood, Donald Sutherland, Don Rickles, and Telly Selvales. “Kelly’s Heroes,” he finally called out.
He and his wife have a friend, Heather, a fake name for this tale. Heather is an actor. Heather’s best friend in New York, where she lives, is also an actor. Heather’s friend is a regular on a TV show he and his wife enjoy watching. Whenever Heather’s friend comes on for the first time on the show, one of them will say, “There’s Heather’s friend.”
The weather witches (it is too a thing) whisper to me that we’ll be functioning between 30 and 38 degrees F outside, as Winting continues holding on to Ashlandia. The sun blended in at 7:06 AM, a little heat, a little light, then suddenly shafts of brilliant bright, gone before you blink. Clouds will be hanging about throughout the day, Thursday, Feb. 18, 2023. Sunset’s moment comes at 5:45 PM.
Had a relaxing meetup with friends for beers last night, just eight of us for about ninety minutes at a local brewery, Caldera. Good to see them and reflect on news, culture, and life. A quick five was spent remembering horses’ names from movies and television shows. Silver, Buttermilk, Scout, Ol’ Blue, Hidalgo, etc. News of Raquel Welch’s passing had made the news just before we met up, so there was extensive conversation about 1,000,000 Years B.C. from 1967, followed up by a Quest for Fire and Caveman.
Despite the cold temperatures, Papi insisted on braving the temps to prove himself. He was out and then back in ten minutes later, as that sunshine just didn’t cut the cold enough. Part of that experience had be telling him, “I’m going to close the door in three, two, one,” before he made the dash. The Neurons pulled out a song called “After Hours” and slotted it into the morning mental music stream. “After Hours” was released in 1969 but I didn’t know it until the mid-seventies. Stationed at Clark Air Base on a unaccompanied tour, I picked up a Velvet Underground tape, and this song was on it. The Neurons keyed on the words, “But if you close the door,” which is repeated often in the school. It’s a sweet, mellow song.
The wife has a Zoom coffee call in the other room. People who used to live in Ashlandia, who were attending the Y exercise class — you know the one, led by Mary for the last thirty-five years, right? — wanted to see their friends and share their news. K has been attending this Mon-Wed-Fri class since we moved here in 2005. It’s been the key to many social connections, including the book club which she started with five other class members. Membership has changed but they continue to meet once a month. K hosts in March, which means we’ll be doing a big clean.
Stay pos, and carpe diem. I’ll carpe some coffee first. Here’s the music. Cheers
My wife wanted to see “Spirited” last night. I shrugged. Okay.
If you don’t know, Spirited is a movie streaming on Apple which was written by John Morris and Sean Anders, directed by the latter. It may be in theaters or streaming elsewhere. I don’t know.
It’s campy. Will Ferrell, Octavia Spencer, and Ryan Reynolds star, and it has a strong cast beyond them. Will Ferrell plays a meek, mild fellow while Reynolds is a PR barracuda and Spencer is Reynold’s assistant. Set in New York, the thing about the movie is that it’s a musical, kind of sort of sometimes, with an ongoing joke, “No, not another song, it’s not needed.” The second thing is that it’s a holiday offering based on the ideas presented by Dickens in A Christmas Carol that there are ghosts and supernatural beings out to change folks using some time-travel. Naturally, Spirited contains a modern twist or two.
It’s a neat and fun idea. I liked thinking about how the idea may have evolved, finding it a clever application of the basic premise. To understand more, you need to watch it or read actual, thorough reviews of it.
I did enjoy it, especially the take on the expression, “Good Afternoon”. Again, you’ll need to watch it. The singing and dancing was energetic and well-executed. Some of the songs had a sameness to songs from other musicals by the musical power behind Spirited, Pasek and Paul, sending my wife to google what other works they’d done.
Yeah, not much of a review, other to say it entertained and diverted me, but I prefer not to give more away. If you have a problem with that, well then, good afternoon to you.
Clouds have descended on us. It’s like, ain’t no sunshine. There is daylight, with the sun brokering the current levels when it came into the southern end of our valley at 7:10. We’re the funnel piece here, where I-5’s traffic coming north from California is squeezed through a pass and down through the mountains, heading west before turning north toward Portland. The mountains spread away at our town’s edge.
It’s 38 F now. The weather masters tell us it’ll be cloudy all day, maybe rain, but we should see some sunlight later, as temperatures will trudge into the fifties, peaking at 55 F. Precipitation might strike the valley in the early evening, depending on how the clouds tango.
This is Tuesday, 11/22/2022, another of those days that get people excited with its numbers. “Look! Eleven. Twenty-two. It must mean something.” Maybe it does mean something beyond a calendar date, but that meaning hasn’t surfaced for me. But it is a youthful day yet, still getting its footing at nine AM. Maybe all will be revealed at a later hour.
Sunset will be arriving in less than eight hours, at 4:44 PM. Get busy, ’cause we’re losing daylight.
I have The Peripheral on my mind. Do you know this novel and the television series? William Gibson gave us the book a few years ago. I’m a fan, so I read it, dazzled again by his ideas when I finished it. Differences between novel and series fascinates me, as these things often do. I’ve gone through this with Dune, I, Robot, Sense and Sensibility, Foundation, Game of Thrones, and so many others. I experience annoyance at the differences but also respect that the differences are required to carry the story and clean it up for delivery by a different media. Movies — and television — and books are not the same. Adaptations require some sacrifices.
“Lady Marmalade” from 1974 by Labelle is cruising the mental music stream. I blame The Neurons but I also blame the wife. Of course, it started with The Neurons.
“Hey Soul Sister” by Train had been playing on my car stereo. Entering the house, I greeted my wife, “Hey, soul sister, how they hanging?”
She responded with the opening lyrics of “Lady Marmalade”, “Hey sister, go sister, soul sister, go sister.” The Neurons answered, “Oh we know that song. It goes like this.” And it’s been going ever since.
Coffee time, yeah? Stay positive and test negative. Hope your weather is favorable and the news is good.
It happened again last night. We were watching a Brit mystery on our television. Not the biggest one, a mammoth 65-inch critter, curved screen digital and all that, but the smaller 36-in digital flat screen that’s in the snug. Most of our living is in the snug. The corner recliner is the number one place for man, woman, and cats. Woman has number one claim on it, chasing the rest of us with sharply worded orders to “Get out.”
But that’s beside the point. The TV screen is big enough and digitally sharp. Not sharp enough for the moment as a character holds up a cell phone to read a text.
“Here we go,” my wife says. “What’s that say? I can’t see that. How am I supposed to see that? And they take it away so fast, I can’t even focus on it before it’s gone.”
She’s got a point. Kind of weird of them to use things like that. They provide us captions FOR THE HARD OF HEARING, as they nicely put it. (Yes, that IS sarcasm.) Would it be so difficult to include the text messages in the captions?
Watched the “Serenity” movie again. Apologies to anyone who thought I was going somewhere spiritual with this. I thought, it’d be a fun sequel to have Zoe hunt down the old crew, including River Tam, so that they can go and rescue Mal. If you don’t understand, you’re probably not a gorram brownshirt.
Monday has landed. You need to be careful when Monday lands that it doesn’t do serious damage to you. Some people really enjoy Mondays landing. They’re depressingly cheerful, shouting things like, “Woo hoo, it’s Monday,” causing the rest of us to raise our eyebrows so high that they get lost in our hair.
It’s August 27, 2022, which, for some, is the deadline. It’s also birthdays and anniversaries, so salutations to you if it is. Hope it’s memorable and the start of a long line of fantastic years.
I’m in Eugene, Oregon, now, a stop off on our way home. It’s 61 F here, 16 C on the coast, and 64 F in Ashland. Respective highs are 85, 68, and 88 F. Sunrise for this local was a classic, with sunshine piercing the eastern sky with a sharp golden lance at 6:323 this morning. Sunset will be at 8:07. I plan to be home then, where the sunset will be 8:01.
I have a 1957 song by Buddy Holley and the Crickets stuck in the morning mental music stream. My fault, totally my fault. After we checked into the room and settled for the evening, we cruised TV offerings where we found BBC America showing Stand By Me. The 1986 movie is about boys in a 1959 small town, their conflicts with themselves and others, and the quest to find a dead body. It features a terrific cast and music of the era. Well, The Neurons heard, ” Everyday, it’s a-gettin’ closer, goin’ faster than a roller coaster,” and they latched onto that like a cat taking over a chair.
Stay pos, test, neg, and so on. Yes, I’ve had coffee and breakfast. Coffee was very good. The breakfast went down well, breaking back tears of joy from being out in the field and enjoying some fine reconstituted eggs. Here’s the music. Cheers
Excitement is building. They’re forecasting some snow for our state and area next week. Maybe a few inches. Oh, heaven! Snow on the banks. We need it. We’re all worried about the heat, drought, fire, and smoke endured for the last several years. We’d like to avoid more of the same. Some say that last year was the worst because the COVID-19, wildfire, and smoke sucked enjoyment out of going anywhere or doing anything. But the year before, fire struck our town and heavily gutted two neighboring towns. Toss up, to me.
This is Saturday, 2/29/2022. Sunrise kicked in at 7:02 AM. And what a sun. Let’s give the sun a hand. Heat, light, very impressive display. The sky is blue forever and on. Whatever storms and clouds are lurking out there are doing so beyond the mountains that hem our valley. It’s presently 46 degrees F and we will see something in the upper fifties for a high today before the sun downs itself beyond the world’s curvature at 5:48 PM.
Today’s theme song comes from the film, Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome. I’ve used “We Don’t Need Another Hero (Thunderdome)” (1985) by Tina Turner before. It came to me today because I looked at my poor sick black cat and said, “Aren’t you a sight, raggedy cat.” Which reminded me of a line that Aunt Entity said to Mad Max. That lined up the neurons to begin playing the song. So here it is, friends and neighbors. Give it all or nothing.
Stay positive, test negative, wear masks as the situation warrants, and get vaxes and boosts when you can. I’m off to meet my maker and pour a cuppa, right? Cheers
Michael Seidel, writer 