danajohnhill.org | Hard Times Come Again No More

I like the Scorpions as much as the next guy (meaning not at all), but I think I’ve been rocked like a hurricane quite enough at this point.

Jeanne arrived on Sunday, and left within twenty-four hours, which was nicer than Frances, I suppose, which caused it to rain for over forty-eight hours straight. Jeanne brought rain, and the back pasture is a lake again, but it wasn’t nearly as much as Frances. The winds seemed higher this time around, but, thankfully, not as many trees were knocked down. Probably because every tree that could have been knocked down already was.

We lost electricity for only a little while on Sunday night, and I took the opportunity to read some Robert Frost by candlelight. Here’s a good one:

The rain to the wind said,
‘You push and I’ll pelt.’
They so smote the garden bed
That the flowers actually knelt,
And lay lodged–though not dead.
I know how the flowers felt.

That’s how the entire state feels now.

Filed under: Current Events, Literature and Books, Meteorology, Musings on September 28th, 2004 | No Comments »

I was awoken at four o’clock last night by loud purring and a paw placed directly on my face. Lucy, evidently, had been allowed to remain indoors for the evening. She was on my pillow. Of course, you can’t just push Lucy away when she’s like this, because she thinks you’re trying to pet her, and she just becomes happier. My only alternative to face-paw was to put her out, which I did. She’s a special kitty, but she’s very furry, and I can’t stand the feeling of fur on my face.

Reading through the latest issue of Classics Today this morning, I came to realize that I have been going about CD collecting the wrong way. Not x-tremely wrong, but just not the smartest way. And here’s the thing: It’s not really my fault, per se. You see, what I have been doing for the most part is getting what’s been easy to get, and easy to find. This is a natural situation that comes out of having access to relatively little information. The Classics Today staff obviously gets piles of CDs to review. They get stuff I will never see on any store shelf. Of course, I do work at a classical music radio station, so I do see lots of CDs. But, my personal collection is a little like the station’s collection: It’s full of standard rep, in fairly middle-of-the-road performances that were all mainstream commercial releases. Now, don’t get me wrong, I don’t want to be one of these collectors that collects live CD-Rs and bootlegs. I don’t want any of that. But reading the review of Der Sieger by Reznicek (CPO 999 898-2), I knew that this is a disc that I should be hearing. Ditto Friedhelm Flamme’s set of the complete organ works of Duruflé (CPO 777 042-2[SACD]).

The problem is that I have been a bit narrow in scope. Yes, I do have a great deal of twentieth century music in my collection now, which certainly wasn’t the case even a year and a half ago. Now I have a Wozzeck and a Moses und Aron and more Messiaen and even Lutoslawski. But I got those because they were recordings of performers I knew. I think I was focused on getting so-and-so’s entire output, like, say, Bernstein. Don’t get me wrong, I love my Bernstein CDs, and I wouldn’t part with them. But I also have a lot of duplication in my collection. I don’t intend to get rid of any of it now, but, think of what else I could be getting if I weren’t shopping for, say, Sinopoli’s recording of Also sprach Zarathustra, when I already have Kempe’s, Solti’s, Karajan’s, and probably another one I can’t remember right now. It’s hard to say, though, because there are some performers whom I really like, and I want all their stuff, and that entails duplication.

I guess my point is that I need to be more all-encompassing in my purchasing. Instead of buying another set of Brandenburg Concerti (since I already have ten different sets), or any other thing I already have just because I can get a bargain, I should buy an opera by Smetana.

Last night at Publix I found the bargain bin full of boxes of Count Chocula, perhaps my favorite cereal. I got four boxes, figuring I’d stock up while I had the chance. In a previous edition of the News page, I told you about Fruit Brute, a cereal from the same line as Count Chocula. It appears that there was another, equally short-lived character on the team, Yummy Mummy. This is amazing to me, and sad. I still love cereal, but it seems like the real glory days of sugary cereals are behind us. What I wouldn’t give to have some Sir Grapefellow.

Filed under: Animals, Food, Music, Musings on September 24th, 2004 | No Comments »

Last night was the conclusion of a program I have enjoyed for a couple seasons now, The Amazing Race. This is the fifth time CBS has done it, and it’s still got it goin’ on. As usual, the race comes to an end with three teams fighting it out for $1 million. And, as usual, only one team is likable, and the other two are awful, and you hope they lose. This time the best team really did win. Chip and Kim were always nice to each other, didn’t do all the fighting and complaining that the other teams did. They always had a positive attitude. The losers were bad people, and I would have slept worse knowing they had won. It would have been like Survivor All-Stars from earlier in the year.

Someone has made a webpage devoted to the old Westminster line of LPs. These records were well known for clever and/or silly album covers. Check out this disc including the “Surprise” Symphony of Haydn. It appears to be a work in progress, but many of these images are entertaining.

Filed under: Music, Technology on September 22nd, 2004 | No Comments »

What an exciting weekend.

Saturday was plain, but we did go to Best Buy to get some stuff for Miriam’s work computer, and later watched Mona Lisa Smile on TV. It was okay. Kirsten Dunst is nice to look at, but she’s not a great actress. Her performances always seem effortful.

Sunday I wanted to go the Friends of the Library book sale, which I thought was this weekend, but it must not have been. When we got all the way over to that side of town and found the place closed, we decided to go driving around looking for houses. We were glad to find so many John Kerry signs posted in yards. We stopped in a wooded park and sat on the swings for a while. The weather had turned cool, and the breeze was so refreshing, that my mood was quite good. The sound of the wind through the pine needles made me happy. After that we went and had some lunch at our favorite restaurant, Zaxby’s. Then, as if that weren’t enough fun, we decided to go to the new McGuire Center for Lepidoptera Research on the UF Campus. I had been eagerly awaiting its opening for years. In fact, I would drive past the construction site on a daily basis just waiting for it to open. We listened to a lecture by the center’s director which included dozens of slides of butterflies, and information about their behavior and natural habitats. The center is at the Florida Museum of Natural History, and I haven’t been there in a while. It was surprisingly good. They had some great exhibits about native Florida Indian tribes and ancient Florida fauna. There was a skeleton of a fifteen-foot-tall sloth. Oh, and a bear-dog. Oh, and as if that weren’t enough, we then went walking down by Lake Alice.

Here’s what the computer has been looking like a lot recently. It has been a lot slower than it should be. The hard drive always seems to be spinning out of control. Programs take a long time to open. The internet connection freezes, and so on. I had jettisoned MS Office some time ago, because Excel had stopped working, and I thought I could get a program just as good for free. Open Office seemed like the right choice, but, alas, it wasn’t cutting it. Miriam couldn’t open certain work documents, and I was annoyed that, although it could open .doc files, it wanted to do some re-formatting, and wanted them saved in its own way. So, MS Office is back on the computer. Now spell check works again for Outlook Express, although that program still blows.

I mentioned earlier that the weather is cooler. It’s amazing how fast this happened. On Friday it was miserably hot. So much so, in fact, that Miriam and I were about to go to the beach. Today it is my favorite kind of weather: cool, breezy, with overcast skies and temperatures in the mid-70s. How I would love jolly old England.

Filed under: Animals, Film, Gainesville, General, Meteorology, Technology on September 20th, 2004 | No Comments »

Frontline, the best program on television* has an outstanding website. You can watch complete episodes of Frontline online, including some of the best programs they have recently broadcast. “Bigger than Enron”, “The Other Drug War”, and “The Jesus Factor” are a few of my recent favorites. Be warned, though: Frontline is the most rage provoking television series I know. It will make you furious.

I had been troubled by a recent eBay transaction. I won an auction for Strauss’ opera Capriccio, which the seller listed as “New” and “Sealed”. I expected new and sealed. It arrived and was opened, and slightly damaged. I wrote to them and at last this afternoon I received a reply to my emails, and, it turns out they have dispatched a brand new copy, and are sending a postage paid envelope for the defect copy. That’s as much as I could have asked for. I’ll follow up here with details, but it looks as though this seller is a good one. I have had one transaction with them before, and it went perfectly, so I have confidence.

*Arrested Development is the best comedy. Frontline is best all-around.

Filed under: Music, Television on September 16th, 2004 | No Comments »