2014 — 20 April: Sunday
Although we've made our cunning plans for another Easter stroll, it won't be until tomorrow. The weather today being, as predicted, dull so far with (I gather) rain on the way. I've just heard Brahms' "Academic Festival" overture for what must be about the tenth time since Christa died. It certainly seems to be a BBC Radio 3 staple. It's just that it always reminds me of a favourite film we both enjoyed: the 1951 People will talk. Amazing stuff, music.
Speaking of...
I have been...
... inspired (?) to "do something" about the no-longer small but now teetering1 tower of CDs that has been steadily building up over the past 12 months or more in front of the (unused; unnecessary) plasma gas fire. Before this particular pile goes all Chernobyl on my living room ass, it's well past time the CDs all cast off their stupid plastic "jewel cases" (which knothead designer ever thought they were a Good Thing, I wonder?) and instead took up residence in the latest CaseLogic folder that's currently still open for new business, accepted their new identifying numbers, settled down, stopped gathering dust, and became — in short — locatable by a slightly better method than the old eyeball-driven "needle in a haystack" process.2
Thoughts provoked, in part, by my having found my 64-bit Windows 7 Ultimate system DVD in the pile (and — hush! whisper it quiet — having been momentarily tempted by it now that I've been exercising Ubuntu 14.04 on my laptop PC for a while).
Heck, I may even generate an updated list of the (musical) things. Not, however, before breakfast. That would be silly.
In the course...
... of a leisurely morning of living room clearing-up that's already extended into the afternoon, I've just re-watched a 2009 oddity from "Crinklecut" pictures. It was passed along to me by my chum Tom, who shares both my affection and enthusiasm for Dr David EH Jones. ("Daedalus" of "DREADCO" fame, for those in the know.) The Perpetual Motion Machine — a slowly rotating bicycle wheel in an enclosed case — visible from time to time is (of course) a spoof but at the time of filming had been ticking along for 27 years.
Nine years ago...
... I picked up Volume 2 of a Warners Brothers "Commemorative DVD" celebrating what it claimed was 50 years of the "Best Shows on Television". It was included (some might prefer "thrown in") with my Season #1 DVD set of "Murphy Brown". Anyway, I finally got the round tuit needed to pop it into the DVD drive on my PC for a look-see. So I now know that Pam Dawber (whom I enjoyed watching in "Mork and Mindy" 35 years ago) also appeared in "My sister Sam" (which I didn't know). It just goes to show...
I've just been refreshing...
... and/or filling in the gaps in my set of Joni Mitchell CDs. Amazon "Auto-rips" to the rescue. Annoyingly, they managed to download a duplicate set of tracks for one purchase, while overlooking another. So I shall still have to do my own ripping when that CD ("Song to a Seagull") eventually shows up. I do already have mp3s of it, but from a truly ancient vinyl album about the quality of which, the least said the better.
It's been a nastily wet afternoon and will have made at least some of our usual walks muddier than is strictly desirable.
In between noting that BBC 6Music managed to cock up the first half of the Guy Garvey show this afternoon by playing instead an hour from a guest presenter of the "Freak Zone"... I also ordered the CD of the soundtrack to that wonderful film "Klute" (with its amazing jazz score), a secondhand copy of a CD by Hunter Muskett (if it's actually the second album — the one with "John Blair" on it — then that will mark the end of a search that has now been going on for just over 40 years), and a CD of "just the music bits" from a certain Ring Cycle by a dreadful German composer that some people rave on and on about.
I am not one of them. (Actually, nor was Christa, bless her.)
Although the sun...
... is putting in rather a late appearance, I fear that — not for the first time — the heavy April rain has wreaked its havoc on the blossom of both the Japanese cherry and the pear tree. While I don't expect cherries from a decorative tree, I do enjoy picking and eating the occasional pear.
A musical evening, too. I've just downloaded Steve Mason's 2010 album "Boys Outside" special bonus edition having heard "The Letter" on the Freak Zone. There's just so much music I've never even heard of, let alone heard, dagnabbit.