So trivial, yet it really ticks you off.

LizzieMaine · May 5, 2020

Nobert said:
A woman I worked with a couple of years ago said that her grandmother had a huge crush on Liberace. She thought that he was just so elegant and classy. This amused her because, even as a kid, she could tell, 'Gramma, I'm pretty sure he would not be interested.'

Generation gap aside, the whole idiom of popular music pre- vs. post-rock and roll is so radically different in its approach, conception and performance, they might as well be two different media. As someone who's interested in both, I have to practically engage different parts of my brain to appreciate them. And learning to like older music, I never had an epiphany or a love-at-first-sound experience (well, maybe Ruth Etting). It was a slow, growing appreciation because I was interested in older stuff in general. I still don't "get" a lot of jazz music, even the stuff I like. Note to the jazz-curious who are wading into the listening experience: Don't read the liner notes. Seriously, they'll just make you feel as though you like all the wrong things for the wrong reasons. Yeah, I'm looking at you, Hugh Panasie.

The first record I remember hearing was a novelty tune called "Does Your Spearmint Lose its Flavor On The Bedpost Overnight," which I played over and over again on a little kiddie phonograph until one day it disappeared. Most of what we had around the house was of the Billy Vaughn/Ray Conniff style of early-sixties 'easy listening' music, but I developed a taste for jazzier stuff farily early on. I had a little bedside radio and would tune in stuff like Joe Franklin's show on WOR, the Make Believe Ballroom on WNEW, and a show out of Baltimore hosted by this gravel-voiced character who played a lot of loud swing. And then in my early teens I started listening to "Jazz Revisited" on public radio, and I started to think analytically about what I was hearing.

I have never liked bop, or "progressive jazz" of the fifties/sixties style all that much. I don't *dislike* it, but much of it strikes me as music you listen to "for your own good" rather than music you listen to because you get a kick out of it. I settled pretty early on on dance bands of the '30s and prewar swing as "my music," and have pretty much stuck with it since I was a teen.

Ruth Etting is great stuff. So is Annette Hanshaw and Marion Harris.

Bushman · May 5, 2020

LizzieMaine said:
The first record I remember hearing was a novelty tune called "Does Your Spearmint Lose its Flavor On The Bedpost Overnight," which I played over and over again on a little kiddie phonograph until one day it disappeared.

Ah, now that brings back memories! I had a cassette tape as a kid with a bunch of old late '50s/early '60s silly hits on it like that one (only it was chewing gum, not spearmint), "Splish Splash," "Alley Oop," "Charlie Brown" by The Coasters, "Yakety Yak" also by The Coasters, and a couple others I'm probably forgetting.

Haversack · May 5, 2020

My dad, born 1926, didn't listen to much music, and when he did it was Classical or Baroque. His LPs were Toscanini's Beethoven Symphonies and E. Power Biggs' Bach organ works. My mom, born 1930 and still kicking, was more eclectic. She liked Glenn Miller, Gene Autry and other cowboy singers, (but not Roy Rogers), the Ames Brothers, (and later in the '60s Ed Ames), and lighter classical such as Offenbach. A couple of records of hers that I still have are the LP of New Faces of 1952 and a collection of transparent red 45s of Leonard Warren singing sea shanties.

tonyb · May 5, 2020

My dear old ma, who was married at 17 and widowed with three babies at 21, once told me that she had neither time for nor interest in popular entertainment when she was dealing with all of that. Those were the early years of rock ’n’ roll, which may as well have been Chinese opera as far as she was concerned.

She had little against it, really, as far as I could tell, although she found the hysterics with which Elvis Presley was met by his more adoring fans as silly as that accorded Frank Sinatra before him and the Beatles after.

I recall one of my brothers being presented with a Chubby Checker LP, c. 1960. It was quite the departure from the Dean Martin and Nat King Cole and the like that played on our car radio up until then.

MisterCairo · May 8, 2020

Snow in May.

LizzieMaine · May 8, 2020

Yep. Got it coming tomorrow here. This year certainly does seem to be going out of its way to be utterly loathsome on every possible level.

tonyb · May 9, 2020

Last year it snowed here on May 21, a heavy, wet snow that broke tree branches up and down the block.

Rule of thumb around here is you can’t rely on it being frost-free until May 15. Some years you can’t trust the thumb.

MisterCairo · May 9, 2020

9th May 2020, near Amulree, Ontario:

GHT · May 9, 2020

You'll notice that Ontario, which has some cold winters, is even with northern Spain, which decidedly doesn't. That's a mental preconception that we all share: North = cold.

But it's not that simple when you have a nice Gulf Stream warming your coastline, as Europe does.

It's true that we have a mental concept that Canada is "North" but it was a surprise the first time, when I was at school, and the teacher followed the line of latitude with her ruler. We were on the same line as polar bear country, that Gulf Stream from the equator sure is a blessing. When I see photos like the one above it makes me wonder what all the global warming fuss is all about.

MisterCairo · May 10, 2020

GHT said:
View attachment 233835
You'll notice that Ontario, which has some cold winters, is even with northern Spain, which decidedly doesn't. That's a mental preconception that we all share: North = cold.

But it's not that simple when you have a nice Gulf Stream warming your coastline, as Europe does.

It's true that we have a mental concept that Canada is "North" but it was a surprise the first time, when I was at school, and the teacher followed the line of latitude with her ruler. We were on the same line as polar bear country, that Gulf Stream from the equator sure is a blessing. When I see photos like the one above it makes me wonder what all the global warming fuss is all about.

Remember, it is global warming when it gets hot, "climate change" when it gets cold. A convenient set of conflicting theories: everything proves one or the other as and when required!

Watching our pigeon trying to drink from the frozen water...

Zombie_61 · May 10, 2020

MisterCairo said:
Remember, it is global warming when it gets hot, "climate change" when it gets cold. A convenient set of conflicting theories: everything proves one or the other as and when required!...

In this part of California "climate change" would be the more appropriate term because that particular pendulum is swinging farther in both directions. Temperatures and humidity in the summers get a little higher with each successive year, but temperatures in the fall and winter are getting a little lower each year as well.

Bushman · May 10, 2020

Zombie_61 said:
In this part of California "climate change" would be the more appropriate term because that particular pendulum is swinging farther in both directions. Temperatures and humidity in the summers get a little higher with each successive year, but temperatures in the fall and winter are getting a little lower each year as well.

Same here in Illinois. Summers are becoming longer and hotter, and winters, while shorter, more brutal, and filled with lots of ice storms. Snow on Christmas used to be a guarantee, now it's a hope. Yesterday I was walking my yard, and I noticed how dry everything already seems to be, and we're only in the middle of May. I have a feeling this is going to be a very dry summer season. We've had droughts before, but the seasons seem to be getting worse and worse every year. 10 years ago, all the leaves on our trees would have fallen by Halloween. Now, they're not only still up in the trees, but half of them are still green. We're losing our Autumn. The trees are already gleefully adapting to an extended hot season. The climate is changing before our very eyes, and that's an undeniable fact.

Zombie_61 · May 10, 2020

Bushman said:
Same here in Illinois. Summers are becoming longer and hotter...

I'm sure you're right because you live there year 'round, but the last three times we visited my wife's relatives in the Chicago area (July and August, all within the last 10 years) the weather was far nicer in northern Illinois than it was here in southern California. Hell, I might consider living there if I didn't know better.

Bushman · May 11, 2020

Zombie_61 said:
I'm sure you're right because you live there year 'round, but the last three times we visited my wife's relatives in the Chicago area (July and August, all within the last 10 years) the weather was far nicer in northern Illinois than it was here in southern California. Hell, I might consider living there if I didn't know better.

It's a much more humid heat in Northern Illinois than Southern California. Heck, I've noticed that the humidity in the downtown area of Chicago alone will drop to at least 5% lower than any of the surrounding areas that have a higher concentration of green space. Likewise, I've travelled through Nevada in late May/early June and despite the temperatures being what I'd consider unbearable back home, they were actually quite pleasant there just because of the absolute lack of humidity.

LizzieMaine · May 11, 2020

We're having more and longer spells of "inappropriate weather" for the time of year -- warm days in December and January, cold November-like springs.

I measure the severity of winters by the number of 50 lb. bags of rock salt I have to use to keep the sidewalk at the theatre clear -- a severe winter might be an eight or ten-bagger, but the winter just past required only one and a half. That's unprecedented.

The current spring has been equally absurd. We had snow Friday and Saturday, and have gotten temperatures higher than the low fifties only twice since the first of April, with highs in the mid-forties having dominated. Usually I shut my heat off for the season on May 1st, but that's out of the question this year -- overnight temperatures are still in the thirties. As I type this it's 39 degrees outside.

Fading Fast · May 11, 2020

LizzieMaine said:
We're having more and longer spells of "inappropriate weather" for the time of year -- warm days in December and January, cold November-like springs.

I measure the severity of winters by the number of 50 lb. bags of rock salt I have to use to keep the sidewalk at the theatre clear -- a severe winter might be an eight or ten-bagger, but the winter just past required only one and a half. That's unprecedented.

The current spring has been equally absurd. We had snow Friday and Saturday, and have gotten temperatures higher than the low fifties only twice since the first of April, with highs in the mid-forties having dominated. Usually I shut my heat off for the season on May 1st, but that's out of the question this year -- overnight temperatures are still in the thirties. As I type this it's 39 degrees outside.

With the proper adjustment for the normal Maine-NYC differences in temperature, we've had (as has most of the Northeast) a similar experience in NYC this winter and spring. I usually wear my "snow" boots five to ten times a winter; this year, once that I remember. But we had the heat on this weekend and have had it on quite often throughout April and May which is unusual and which doesn't help our coop apartment building finances by the way.

Nobert · May 11, 2020

LizzieMaine said:
The current spring has been equally absurd. We had snow Friday and Saturday, and have gotten temperatures higher than the low fifties only twice since the first of April, with highs in the mid-forties having dominated. Usually I shut my heat off for the season on May 1st, but that's out of the question this year -- overnight temperatures are still in the thirties. As I type this it's 39 degrees outside.

Yeah, that was weird, even for here. I woke up on Satruday to about three inches of snow on the ground, and spent the entire morning with the odd feeling that Christmas was coming.

crawlinkingsnake · May 11, 2020

Nobert said:
Yeah, that was weird, even for here. I woke up on Satruday to about three inches of snow on the ground, and spent the entire morning with the odd feeling that Christmas was coming.

I feel yer pain Nobert. It's been miserable here in West Virginia most all April and now into May. Today's high in the 40's really sux! Now their saying gonna reach high 70's or maybe 80 by weeks end but with more rain. Our back yard is wet as a rice paddy. strange, strange, strange....

Hercule · May 12, 2020

weather - meh, I just take it as it comes and deal with it. Maybe if I were the outdoors type I'd think differently.

LizzieMaine · May 12, 2020

All of a sudden I've started to hear radio news and sports broadcasters referring to Major League Baseball as "the MLB," in the style of "the NFL," "the NBA," "the NHL," and such. This grates terribly. Unless they mean to refer to the Maritime Labor Board, there is no "the MLB." It's just "MLB," if you must abbreviate. If some new style guide just came out stating that "the MLB" is now acceptable, it must be seized and all copies burned at once.

So trivial, yet it really ticks you off.

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