“Books are like seeds. They can lie dormant for centuries and then flower in the most unpromising soil.” (Carl Sagan); “Nothing ever dies on the Internet.” (anon.); “This is not your father’s Oldsmobile.” (Madison Ave. [m]adman). My posts amalgamate these three philosophical elements into one novel experience; they champion critical thinking, human dignity / equality, levelheaded / even-handed / liberty-based governance and solid environmental stewardship. C’mon in!
Easing us into this final Sunday of 2018 and week #16 of our Sunday Song Series is the Velvet Underground’s aptly titled tribute to Sunday Morning, which was released (as a single) fifty-two Decembers ago.
Magnificently enhancing the mellow mood established by song composers Lou Reed and John Cale will be the tranquil imagery (posted a scant seven days ago) by a YouTube videographer (screen name Midnight Classics).
Short and sweet best describes this song… so short that… well… let’s also give a listen to a cover version… courtesy of the accomplished acoustic guitar strumming and impeccable harmonizing of June & Lula…
For more Sunday songs, meet me back here seven days from now.
Previous programs are archived in my music categories section.
It was at this same time last year that I found myself wondering if anyone within our vast world had ever thought about performing a musical mash-up of Ludwig van Beethoven’s Ode to Joy and George Frideric Handel’s Christmas carol Joy to the World?
Back then, I instantly realized the “A” to my “Q” actually existed… just mere clicks and typed in search parameters away over @YouTube where one’s wish is (almost always) their command. Indeed, The Piano Guys had performed my sought after musical medley to which this post’s lead video will… beyond a shadow of a doubt… attest.
Well… I did wind up featuring this extraordinary, uplifting Piano Guys performance last December and since my replaying it this early a.m. has not lessened, one iota, the welled up tears of joy in my eyes, I’ve decided to play it again in this post… in fact to transform their rendition of Ode To Joy To The World into this blog site’s tradition.
Since not many WordPress residents and visitors are all that familiar with me… well… to introduce myself and familiarize yourself with my POV… let’s just say that as a harsh critic of narcissistic and capricious leadership… which isn’t leadership at all… I do find it my constant struggle to see our world from a “glass half full” perspective.
That said… there is compelling evidence to refute such skepticism. Indeed, once more, humanity has squeaked on by to survive another year… to add yet another chapter to our human story. And that, in itself, is no minor miracle. Our getting another opportunity to “get it right” is also reason enough for us to express our shared feelings of gratitude and joyousness.
Alas… long sigh… if only finding peace of mind and establishing world peace were mere clicks and typed in search parameters away.
Perhaps this concluding video provides us a clue? Yeah… I think so.
You see… it all begins with good intent, a song in one’s head / heart and resolve… that person stepping forward and then another and another… until it all coalesces / snowballs into a flash mob.
Flashmob Flash Mob ~ Ode an die Freude (Ode to Joy) Beethoven Symphony No. 9
However you choose to celebrate the December holidays… and even if you harbor a more secular view causing you to opt out from such festivities… my wish is for our peaceful coexistence. If we can manage to accomplish this, the joy will flow outward quite naturally to reach all corners of our world.
For the record… while I do loathe censorship, I also know that America’s 1st Amendment Freedom of Speech rights do not protect the oft mentioned example of someone “yelling fire in a crowded theatre” (when no such conflagration exists). When compelling arguments can be presented… those which claim that song lyrics are perpetuating violence against women… that’s when it can also be argued that figurative fires are raging… burning down civilized society and it’s high time to break out the fire extinguishers. Needless to say… merely yelling “FIRE” will not suffice. Yes, there’s much more to discuss.
Which brings us to the #MeToo movement… female activism at its finest. Rightfully so, they’ve been on a mission to expose two legged, male predatory animals whose MOs run the full gamut from verbal harassment to sexual assault.
It was only inevitable that they’d inspire our scrutinization of offensive Christmas songs… most recently and notably the Frank Loesser composition, Baby It’s Cold Outside. Let’s give a listen to this spot on, CBC (Canadian TV network) round table meeting of the minds.
The couple portrayed in this next video brilliantly establish the seriousness of this problem… how rapidly males can devolve. All I can say is thank God the vile male character found in this video vignette was only an actor playing out a role…
The big question becomes… why would anyone still insist on playing such a song when they know its premise offends and/or creeps out women (and many men too)… when they know that broadcasting / publicly playing it, can re-victimize sexual assault survivors. Think of it this way. First, saying NO to their attackers did not mean NO and now their saying NO to this deplorable song’s fan-base does not mean NO.
At this point it would be totally appropriate to point out one more offensive Yuletide track, Santa Baby. While the song premise does not quite devolve to that of Baby It’s Cold Outside… that is hardly an acceptable excuse. This song showcases composer Philip Springer’s erroneous perception of what a woman wants out of life… i.e., to seduce Santa into becoming her sugar daddy… in effect… selling herself into sexual servitude.
Such lyrics hardly perpetuate a healthy female/male dynamic. Worse yet, overly impressionable, immature males (of all ages) could easily become brainwashed into ERRONEOUSLY believing that they are the only “gift” women would ever need. And once they’ve got that notion surging within their testosterone toxified gray matter, might they also wrongfully believe it their birthright to interpret NO to be negotiable?
Let’s re-emphasize this… NO MEANS NO!
Let’s now explore Santa Baby through the ages…
In the beginning it was Eartha Kitt’s 1953 rendition…
Next came Madonna’s 1987 interpretation…
where she performed it in a voice that sets back Women’s Lib as much as a Tweeting orange fake prez and blackface minstrel shows set back racial equality (PLEASE… Ms. Ciccone… tell me this was your idea of a joke). Oh… btw… my mind clicked onto the comparison to a minstrel show PRIOR to my viewing my blog’s lead video… where CBC Radio pop culture columnistKim Linekin made a similar observation.
Finally, Thoroughly Modern Miley Cyrus delivers her 2018 rendition….
Well, it’d appear that Ms. Cyrus’ no nonsense, 21st century cover has got us all covered. We can only hope that her Version 12.18 forever replaces all the earlier releases.
One final observation… please keep in mind that Christmas themed songs are what oft captivate the minds of the youngest members of society. If you have any doubt, consider how many of today’s “adults” still want to hear Baby It’s Cold Outside.
Two final questions… to each and every (hopefully concerned) parent…
1. Would you want your daughter to incorrectly assume she’s not allowed to say NO and/or aspire to become a seductress of a sugar daddy… for all intents and purposes a sexual predator / rabid wolf in Santa Claus clothing?
2. Would you want your son to not grow up to become the president… to have as his role model an orange prez who has been accused of being a sexual predator?
Week #15 of our Sunday Songs Series has now arrived. This time we’ll be giving a listen to the instrumental track Never Mess With Sunday… as performed by Yppah… a.k.a. Jose Luis Corrales Jr.
That title does sound like some sound advice, too… wouldn’t you agree?
Remaining consistent to his track’s wordlessness… to set up the playback… why not keep the words to a minimum, too. Uh… well… other than to add that, instrumentally speaking, his arrangement reminds me much of a track featured here several Sundays ago… namely… Bat For Lashes’ Sunday Love.
For more Sunday music, meet me back here seven days from now.
Previous programs are archived in my music categories section.
On this day, 50 years ago, at 7:51 AM EST, a Saturn V rocket blasted off from Florida… from the Kennedy Space Center’s launch pad 39A… thereby sending America’s Apollo 8 astronauts Frank Borman, James A. Lovell, and William A. Anders into Earth orbit. Upon completing a subsequent, 2 1/2 hour long, methodical checklist to confirm all systems go, Capcom (Capsule communicator) Michael Collins radioed the astronauts thusly…
With each passing minute and mile during this three day / quarter of a million mile mission, these three brave men were taking the type of giant leap, which the late President John F. Kennedy had committed America to… i.e., they were further laying the groundwork for a lunar landing by the end of the 60s decade.
True, both the US / USSR space programs had started out as a thinly veiled extension of the coldhearted cold war… i.e, fierce international competition to simultaneously determine which superpower could reach the Moon first and thereby establish nuclear ICBM superiority.
However… American astronauts and Russian cosmonauts… also, unintentionally wound up transcending most politicians’ foolhardy posturing and knuckle-headed, knuckle dragging narrow-mindedness.
Indeed, as these missions literally soared into space, so did the human spirit. Our successes glowingly illustrating our innovativeness and resolve. Even our failures (inclusive of the death of astronauts / cosmonauts) heightened our awareness of the preciousness of life. The most telling aspect, by far, so far, was that for a fleeting moment in the annals of history we had become a unified people.
A couple of prime examples of this unification are rooted deeply within this very historical Apollo 8 flight… the Christmas Eve, Moon to Earth audio / video transmission of Borman, Lovell and Anders reading from the Book of Genesis while focusing their camera on lunar landscape images passing beneath them and [2] Anders’ eye opening, soul searching snapshot… what was to be later titled Earthrise.
While one half century’s worth of waning moon phases could never cause any waning of my own sense of unity… well… regrettably… not enough of us… who lived vicariously through our astronauts’ successes… remain.
As for those of us who have either forgotten or were born since that era… well… too many educators… restricted to George W. Bush, teach to the test, tactics… have not been able to adequately convey this feeling to energize young minds… well… that is… if/when NASA’s outer space glory days / achievements are even covered in the first place.
Indeed… what would any such “child left behind” ever know about any of that?
I’m not saying that our survival as a species, necessarily, wholly, depends upon America reviving its space program. What I am saying is that my homeland… indeed nations spanning our globe… must aspire to something greater… something more positive… oh… say… utilizing our scientific know-how to clean up our environment… to conquer discrimination, intellectual / nutritional starvation and other such human suffering.
I welcome you to week #14 of our Sunday Song Series. Once upon a time, the late Scott Weiland (musician / singer / songwriter of the 1990s band Stone Temple Pilots) spoke of this week’s musical offering…
”Naked Sunday is about organized religion. About people who tell others what to do and what to believe. They switch off people’s minds and control the masses. It gives me a feeling of isolation, when I think about it. Organized religion does not view everyone as equals.”
When I think about it, too, I feel a need to expound / expand on Mr. Weiland’s sentiments. Let’s consider the devastating effect, which terrorists, televangelists and pedophile priests have had on organized religion… the multiple thousands of lives they’ve ruined. OBVIOUSLY, their deplorable and/or deadly deeds, can never solve any of our worldly woes… only severely worsen those that already exist and even add more to that already too long list.
It beats the hell out of me how anyone could ever believe that persecution, perversion, violence and homicide / mass murder could ever result in the betterment of humankind. The only thing worse than their attempting to add fine print clauses to abrogaate a commandment such as Thou Shalt NOT Kill is for them to attract “disciples” who’ll blindly follow them to the ends of the Earth. Each and every time that occurs, that’s one step closer to the end of Earth.
Look, I’m not saying organized religion is intrinsically bad… so long as the devout keep it all in the proper perspective.
It matters not which respectable religious sect strengthens / elevates our souls… so long as it also strengthens / elevates our interpersonal relationships and, eventually, society as a whole.
To successfully accomplish this, people must understand that our Creator is not a slacker who’d ever need to outsource tasks to mere mortals. And, since no, one, respectable religion is better than the other, our Creator does not expect us to proselytize either.
So what, pray tell, should be the duty of the devout?
Doncha think that living the Golden Rule would suffice? Hell, that can and does work out fine for agnostics / atheists, too!
Our Sunday Song Series will continue seven days from now.
Back in 2005, soon after my sister had dropped me off at LAX for my return flight to Michigan… well… let’s just say that not all was well. At that point I was feeling a bit disconcerted to see the mechanics… right out the window… working on the very 767 that was supposed to fly me home. My only consolation was that the alert flight crew engineer had discovered the mechanical failure prior to take-off.
During that three hour long delay my mind had plenty of opportunity to flash back to… and dwell on… every airline disaster film I had ever seen… starting with the very first one… Fate Is the Hunter. Indeed, not all that many years after this 1964 production had left the big screen… it had “landed” in TV land’s Late Late Show time slot.
Well… thanks to YouTuber Allan Visser… just a couple of days ago, I got to watch Fate again and soon realized that what had impressed me about it way back then, still has the same effect on me today.
All in all, we discover a well written script, great casting, good character development, plenty of plot twists and turns and surprisingly convincing pre-CGI era special effects. Oh, there is one other worthy of mention detail… the plausible forensic investigative techniques that the characters employed in reconstructing the accident… up to the point where the dead pilot’s best friend (also a pilot)… along with the ill-fated Flight 22’s sole survivor… the flight attendant (who’s familiar with much of the disastrous cockpit events) take off in the exact same model jet… fly off on the identical heading and… and… and…
Well… uh… just in case you might be planning on watching this flick I’ll refrain from revealing too many details.
Yeah, I realize that what interests me will not necessarily interest you and even if it does, you might not have the luxury of spending 1 hour and 45 minutes out of your life to view it.
So… that’s why I’m linking to the FILM TRAILER (but be warned, viewing it can be a bit confusing considering the considerable number of film flashbacks).
I’m also providing an indisputable time saver, too… a link to the Wikipedia essay where it’ll only take about three minutes for you to read the entire film’s plot. I’m labeling this Wiki link SPOILER ALERT as a final warning to those who are planning on viewing the full film.
And speaking of the full film…
Captain Savage, our pilot, is completing his pre-flight checklist and is just about ready to head down the runway…
Since no snowman can survive global warming, Frosty
the Snowman has opted for cool as a cucumber green
eyes rather than those 2 days-of-yore black coal lumps.
The Fake Prez has come up with a new way to combat climate change woes. Sop up excess H2O with a YUGE sponge which can be wrung out over all the wildfires!
Aw shucks… I wound up feeling so guilty for getting you to read that above lame bumper sticker about a lame fake prez that… uh… well… I just had to make your visit more worthwhile.
Hence this genuinely entertaining Wilson Pickett track. Although this song’s subject matter is unrelated to climate change / global warming it is aptly titled Fire and Water… ENJOY…
CommonSenseTom 