Song Shuffle

Miles Davis is on the I-Pod speakers. I'm sitting in our kitchen, a cup of coffee by my side. Might be a little late for a cup o' jo (it's 9 pm) only time will tell. I have a feeling a few Valerian drops to counteract the caffeine will do the trick.

Tony Bennett's on now singing "Smile", Charlie Chaplin's song. I'm here with the cats and the birds. 4 cats - 3 healthy and 1 a bit punk. Sophia got into something outside and for the past few days has been throwing up, not eating. She just looks up with these woeful "what's going on with me?" eyes. Hope whatever it is is working its way through with a little help from our vet.

Moody Blues "Story in Your Eyes." The birds are all in for the night -- 25 5-week olds out in the new coop, 5 grown hens in the old coop laying 3-5 eggs a day and freely roaming around all day, 1 spunky little chick named "Spike" in his plastic container pining for a little company ---

Mills Bros. "Opus One." --- and 3 geese about to peck out of their shells back in the gopher-bator. Sometime over the next 3 days they'll be pipping out -- and Richard's not here again. We also have our 2 Canadian Geese on the pond across the road, the female spending most of the time on her nest these days while the male stands guard and roams around, checking things out. The nest is in an excellently protected "island" mound in the midst of our swamp.

"Momma Look Sharp" from "1776." Also on the pond are a pair of mallards, the male looking all dapper and dressed up in his green and brown while his mate smocks around in a dullish beige brown; its as if he went out to the clothes store, spent all his duck buck on his own duds, and then said "Oh, sorry honey" and stopped by a thrift store on the way home for her lovely ensemble.

Dixie Chicks "Favorite Year." I love song shuffle. And I love The Dixie Chicks. Good combination. If you've never seen the documentary about their odyssey following the "we're from Texas and we're embarrassed about President Bush" at a concert, get it. What an amazing journey and artistic breakthrough. There whole sound changed, something they had yearned for, but which probably wouldn't have happened without a cataclysm like that. They rock.

"Promise of Living" Aaron Copeland - I mentioned recently that I start most every day listening to this piece of music. There's something about Aaron Copeland that speaks America to me, deep down, root deep, the idea and promise of it, the sadness of it underneath everything else, the fortitude, the pioneering spirit, the hokum and the heart, tender and lovely and moving and shimmeringly uplifting. It starts one's day off well, swelling to a climax and then bringing you back down for a gentle landing in your morning.

John Williams "The March from 1941" from "1941" Great overture, shitty movie, enough said. Well, no. Even in shitty movies there are wonderful bits that make you mourn why the rest of the movie didn't work. Robert Stack is so terrific in this as I recall, the only real heart in most of the movie. And John Williams score is fantastic. This march and his music for the jitterbug contest: Swing, Swing, Swing. Excellent. Since I was a kid I've LOVED movie soundtracks, loved to collect them. I toted around vinyl for years, now all gone.

"On Broadway" by Greg DeBelles from "Karl Rove, I Love You" My movie, great jazz score by Greg DeBelles, so proud of and delighted by the soundtrack. Cool, cool, cool.

"My One and Only Love" Oscar Peterson Funny, Greg DeBelles played this for me when he was interesting me in his idea for the score to my movie, when the idea was still in his cells, in his head, in his gut. It's fun hearing the seeds of it here. Also this makes me think of Richard who's down in White River Junction tonight - this whole week really - directing 2 plays in Project Playwright, a program under the auspices of Northern Stage Company where 10 plays are chosen from many written throughout the year by area 5th graders and are then mounted fully by professional designers, directors and actors on both the main stage and the area schools the playwrights attend.

There followed "Fragile" by Sting; "Woman" by the James Gang (oh, sophmore year in high school!); some Carole King; more Greg DeBelles; songs from "Working" and L'il Abner" and now I'm fading. Oh "How the West Was Won!" - next to "Big Country" its my favorite Western soundtrack. Such a great score to such a star-studded, stilted, politically-incorrect flick.

This may not need explanation, but my music taste is an eclectic, hodge-podge and I love it. I depend upon Richard for most anything contemporary and he is utterly dismayed that within that arena I can't recall the names of groups or individual singers, even when I love their song. Ah well.

Just a ramble tonight. Hope you enjoyed it.

Create something good for the world! And have fun doing it!

Ciao!