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Rain, Music & Movies

July 23, 2019 at 10:21 am by Claudia

Lots of rain yesterday, including a prolonged thunderstorm that seemed to go on for hours. It rained all night and into this morning. That’s fine with me, as my gardens and lawn needed it. It will start to dry up this afternoon. Hopefully, it will be dry enough to get some mowing in on Wednesday and Thursday – everything is overgrown because the excessive heat kept us from doing anything outside.

We didn’t get home from Sunday’s concert until well after midnight, which means I didn’t get to sleep until 1:30 am, which means I was tuckered out, and so I took the day off from posting.

We had such a great time! We rarely go out nowadays as we’re on a budget and find it less expensive to eat at home and watch movies on our television. But we bought the tickets for Tommy Emmanuel several months ago and were ready for a ‘date night.’ The concert was in Englewood, NJ at the Bergen PAC, a smallish and intimate space, a former movie theater built in the 20s. We got there a little early – it was still 95 degrees at 6 pm – so we found an Argentinian restaurant and ate spinach empanadas and grilled vegetables.

Tommy Emmanuel, if you haven’t heard of him, is a virtuoso guitar player who was mentored by the late, great Chet Atkins. Emmanuel hails from Australia, but as he informed us, just became an American citizen. He’s charming, a great storyteller, and a brilliant musician. He uses acoustic guitars and speakers. That’s it. He also uses percussion effects, but all of them are supplied by his hands rhythmically slapping the guitar. Honestly, I’ve never seen anything like it. He write some of his music, but also pays homage to a large canon of influences. He opened with ‘Blue Moon’ (I posted a little recording from that performance on my IG Stories if you’re interested. It won’t be there much longer.) He played the Beatles. He played Classical Gas. He played ‘Secret Love.’ His own compositions are beautiful. I couldn’t believe what he could get out of a guitar. Stunning.

We cheered and cheered and were inspired and elated and I’m a huge fan now. He’s also a teacher and has made lots of videos teaching his techniques, his fingering, his way of creating sound. Those videos are what Don has been studying for several months now. He tours all over the world – approximately 300 days of the year.

I had the best time.

If you are a fan of acoustic guitar and ever have the chance, I urge you to go to one of his concerts. You will love him.

Don had to get going early yesterday morning because he had to be in the city for an audition. I grabbed our huge grocery list and went to the store. And then I turned on the A/C – it was still muggy, though the temps were lower – and sat out the storms with a book in hand.

We watched Teahouse of the August Moon last night on TCM. Neither of us had ever seen it, though I’ve seemingly always known about it. My initial response to “Should we watch it?'” was no, because Brando plays a role that should be played by someone who is actually Asian and I thought it might be cringeworthy. But we watched a bit of it and, even though casting a non-Asian in the role would never be done today, Brando was really, really good. His dialect was spot on. And he was funny, something we rarely got a chance to see from Brando. Glenn Ford and Eddie Albert were having a great time, supported by the great Paul Ford and a lovely and funny Japanese actress named Machiko Kyō. It’s a satire about the American occupation of Okinawa after WWII. It was surprisingly delightful.

We’re taking it easy today – hanging out in the cottage.

Happy Tuesday.

Sheltering From The Heat

July 21, 2019 at 10:53 am by Claudia

Greetings from the Heat Dome. Yikes, it’s hot out there! We watered everything twice yesterday. We’ll do the same today. With temps reaching 97 degrees here with a heat index of over 107 degrees, we are happily inside the house for the day. Well, until about 3 pm, when we have to get on the road. We’re going to a concert in NJ, not far from Manhattan. Yes, we’re driving in these temps! But it’s a one-night only appearance. So off we’ll go. (It’s a concert by Australian Tommy Emmanuel, an incredible guitar player. His mentor was Chet Atkins. He’s charming and funny and it will be a lot of fun, especially for Don who is a huge fan.)

Thankfully, all this heat will be gone by tomorrow. The high will be 77.

I watched this monarch go from coneflower to coneflower yesterday. Since there are about 100 blooms on the property, he hung around for a long time!

My dear friend Donna messaged me on FB today. She was a member of the cast of what she reminds me was “You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown” the musical we were doing scenes from 50 years ago yesterday. She remembers “running over to the TVs on every break from the stage to see how they were doing and finally seeing Neil Armstrong step on the surface.” I was assistant director on that production. Donna, by the way, has a gorgeous singing voice and is beautiful inside and out. We were in plays and musicals together, both in the summer and in high school. We also were in choir and vocal ensemble together. She was and is a good friend. So good to hear her thoughts! I read them and was immediately back there at Camp Dearborn with her and the rest of the cast.

I’m still waiting for the newest Kate Atkinson to arrive in my local library. I finished Case Histories last night, and I’ve started on Chris Pavone’s latest, The Paris Diversion. You get a lot of reading done in weather like this.

Happy Sunday.

Where Were You 50 Years Ago?

July 20, 2019 at 11:16 am by Claudia

This is where we are today. Here, and in the den. The A/C has been on since 7 am. It’s so humid, you can cut the air with a knife. Don has already been out to water the plants and we’ll do it again later in the day. Today and tomorrow have been given an “Excessive Heat Warning.”

So, we’ll be staying indoors. No portraits for Don, which is frustrating for him as that’s two days lost. But heck, no one is going to want their picture taken in this weather! I sure wouldn’t.

I’m grateful for air conditioning, books to read, movies to watch, and shelter.

By the way, I went out on the porch in the dusk yesterday to water a few potted plants that had sagged from the heat. Earlier in the day, I had checked the nest in the clematis and the three eggs were there but no mama. I was starting to think they had been abandoned. As I walked around the porch, I saw a sparrow hop out of the top of the clematis and drop to the ground. So, the eggs are still viable and mama and papa are tending to them. Good news!

If you’re old enough to remember, where were you on this day 50 years ago, the day of the first walk on the Moon?

I was performing (what else is new?) out at a place called Camp Dearborn. It was a huge camp owned by the City of Dearborn, but at a distance from the city, where residents could spend a week or two camping with their families. Not unlike the Yogi Bear Campsites that are just down the road from us – lots of activities for families and kids, that kind of thing. My family never camped there – too many people, too much noise. My parents preferred to go ‘up north’ and camp in Northern Michigan, which was beautiful, but boring for me as a young kid. As you would expect, my head was buried in a book much of the time.

Back to why I was with a gang of teenagers at Camp Dearborn: We were doing a summer musical, something I did every summer when I was in junior and senior high school, so the city asked us to perform scenes from it that night. We knew the walk on the Moon was happening and, oddly enough, there were televisions in various parts of the facility – outdoor televisions with small screens that were on some sort of pole accompanied by a few benches. At the point when Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin were to set foot on the Moon, we all ran over to a television set to witness it. It was not unlike standing outside the window of a department store watching a small television set in the midst of a large crowd of people. It didn’t have the intimacy of watching in your living room, but it did have the energy and collective awe of a crowd of people who couldn’t believe what they were seeing, who cheered as Neil Armstrong said “That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.”

I remember it pretty vividly.

50 years ago! Amazing.

Happy Saturday.

Rain, Music & Movies

Sheltering From The Heat

Where Were You 50 Years Ago?

Lambs Like to Party

A Note

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