As the economy spirals into the unknown, we can’t even download free Depression era sheet music because the late Rep. Sonny Bono extended copyrights in order to protect Mickey Mouse! And I so wanted to play “Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?” tonight.
Cookie’s New Single
Reining American Idol David Cook has just released his new single, “Light On,” co-written by Chris Cornell and Brian Howes. This can be heard on the fan site david-cook.org.
Based on this tidbit, Mr. Cook’s debut album, to be released in November, should be quite promising. And boy, does he have some crazy fans on that web site! I have been impressed with his ability to handle the media, talk show appearances, and the rigors of AI touring to mostly positive reviews.
A friend of mine says that DC’s my double of 20 years ago. While that’s a stretch, under the right conditions Cookie and Whookie do bear an uncanny resemblance (especially the early, pre-makeover Cookie). Other times, it’s like the use of Smenkhkara’s relics for brother King Tut’s tomb: a general likeness, but no cigar. I mean any ol’ scruffy, brown-haired coot with a big head could be said to look something like DC.
Nick n’ Deb
I knew he is a fan of their products. I only just learned the specifics, however. Nick Saban hoards Little Debbie Oatmeal Creme Pies. So any plots being concocted in Georgia to subvert shipments of Little Debbie products to Alabama this week, in order to swing a game outcome, are futile, buahahahaha!
Chacun a son gout: I’m more of a Nutty Bars man, myself. The new cranberry and orange muffins are good, though. [Note to self: with a belly button shaped like the frowning mouth of an Aztec mask, should’nt self lose weight?]
Oh, calamity, the Debbie home page indicates that there are football-shaped brownies now (if only they had G clef ones, too)! And while we’re in the sin of gluttony department, David Cook likes eating Cheez-Its by the box full, as does a certain pirate.
Dumbest Song
I was recently asked my opinion as to the dumbest song ever written. Now, I’m a piano guy pirate, so I can’t claim encyclopedic knowledge. But, off the top of me noggin’ I said, “Nagasaki,” a real corker of a Tin Pan Alley song featuring the line, “Back in Nagasaki where the fellas chew tobaccy and the women wicky-wacky woo.”
Yet upon rumination, I think the song How You Comin’, Alabama? takes the cake. That was the Alabama (American) Bicentennial Presentation song that all school children were supposed to learn (never mind that Alabama wasn’t a state in 1776). The Alabama Travel Department put out booklets including a soundsheet (remember those, a record stamped on a square piece of thin plastic that could be played on the phonograph?) that had remarks by George C. Wallace, a really funky arrangement of How You Comin’, Alabama?, and a voice-over guy who suggested visiting spots in Alabama like the Bowl Weevil Statue in Enterprise, the Coon Dog Cemetery in Tuscumbia, and the Space and Rocket Center in Huntsville. I am astounded that there is no mention on the internet of this song–until now!
As for other dumbest things, I can unequivocally state that the dumbest line in a movie (okay, TV movie) is “I am not here for your cold roast chicken; I am here for your love.” Vanna White, Goddess of Love.
More Cypherin’
Expounding on my “additive resemblances,” I hadn’t thought of doing algebra before.
George Will = Brad Pitt + Bill Gates
Mike Dukakis = George Clooney + Alfred E. Neuman
Myra Hess = Miss Piggy + Whistler’s Mother
Mayim Bialik (Blossom) = Sarah Jessica Parker + Angus T. Jones
So, algebraically:
Pitt = Will – Gates
Clooney = Dukakis – Neuman
Piggy = Hess – W.’s Mamma
Parker = Bialik – Jones
Is this great blog content or what?
abc Notation
This is fun!
There is a music format called abc used to share tunes over the internet as plain text files that can be converted to notation. This is most useful for folk music enthusiasts such as fiddlers, guitarists, penny whistlers, accordionists, etc., who deal mainly with a melody line and possibly chord symbols (abc apparently doesn’t work for multiple staves).
Here is an example of a Scottish tune:
X:1
T:Rowan Tree
O:Scottish
R:Slow air
M:4/4
K:A
A>B|\
c3c c2B2|ce3 e2a2|f3e f2a2|f3e e2 A>B|\
c3c c2B2|ce3 f3e|ec3 B3c|A6 ::
e2|\
(e2 e)>a (a2 a)>g|g2f2 f2a2|\
e3f fedc|(c2 c)d/>c/ B2A>B|\
c3c c2B2|ce3 f3e|ec3 B3c|A6 
The text in bold, above, can be pasted into the converter box at this site to get notation. Afterwards, there are options to download a PDF or MIDI file of the tune.
Click here for an introduction to abc and here for some tune collections, there’s even a klezmer one. (Each new tune in a long file of tunes starts with “X:__,” the converter site will only display one tune at a time. Other shareware and freeware abc programs will display multiple tunes per page of notation.)
Squiggly Red Carpet
A renovation of the Birmingham-Jefferson Convention Complex Concert Hall has just been completed. This is the first major overhaul since the Concert Hall opened in the early 70s. This facility is not much loved in Birmingham, and it should be, since so much performing arts history has taken place there. The renovation seems to cheer up the austere modernism of the lobby and house (which for many years had plain orange carpeting and upholstery). Additional concession space, restrooms, and improved accessibility will be appreciated. Click here for B’ham News photos (new squiggly red carpeting in full glory, as well as other changes).
Old publicity photo of the stage. I don't remember the "ribs" of the shell being grazed by spotlighting.
Unfortunately, some planned acoustic tweaks to existing [ ! ] reverberation chambers above the still ugly stage got budgeted out. (The infamous plywood and 2×4s shell painted blue remains.) Since the Alabama Symphony Orchestra’s classical concerts have been moved to the glorious acoustics of the Alys Stephens Center on UAB’s campus, this is not so much of an issue anymore. The BJCC Concert Hall now serves mostly for traveling shows, ASO Pops Concerts, and rock/country/pop concerts, which all rely on amplification. (The Alabama Ballet performs at Samford’s Wright Center *gasp*. BTW, click here to see some dubious changes made to the Wright Concert Hall since olden times!)
There are big plans for the BJCC. It looks like Mayor Langford’s domed stadium is finally going to materialize next to the site (even as the county goes broke from digging a court mandated sewer tunnel that can’t be used). And we’re going to host the Olympics in 20 years or so (yea, right).
Sock, Now Knob Gremlin?
While playing the piano today, I kept thinking that something was wrong. Turned out that the bench was a hair too high. The same gremlin that steals a single sock from each load of laundry must also be responsible for twisting the knobs on a piano bench when no one is looking!
Which brings to mind the story that when Glenn Gould was playing a concerto with the Cleveland Orchestra, he spent an inordinate amount of time during one rehearsal flutzing with the height of the bench. The conductor, George Szell, finally exclaimed, “Perhaps if I were to slice one-sixteenth of an inch off your derriere, Mr. Gould, we could begin.”
Runnin’ Shoes
Well, the Jackasses and Elephants have both wrapped up their ‘08 conventions. We now have two super tickets from which to choose, AHEM (please forgive the internal polls and focus groups, they know not what they have done . . . to both parties). Should McCain win, here’s some advice for a favorite local resident:
RUN VULCAN, RUN!
See, Sen. John McCain, that great cavalier fighting everybody else’s pork (why else keep reelecting our Senate jokers if they can’t build up enough seniority to cash in for their respective states?), saw fit to criticize Sen. Richard Shelby for securing some federal funding for the restoration of the Statue of Vulcan in Birmingham, Alabama. Never mind that Vulcan is the largest cast-iron statue in the world, a venerable antique, and Birmingham’s most spectacular landmark. (Hey, quit kvetching about your tax money going to this–there’s precious little to visit in B’ham as it is, must have something to visit when you come here from yonder places.)
So, perhaps B’ham’s mayor, Larry Langford, will take up a collection at the next burlap and ashes rally to buy running shoes for Vulcan as sandals won’t do. McCain may come after Vulcan to get the money back. Scrap iron goes for a high rate!
[Note to B’ham expatriates: a slight twist on the pedastal has him mooning Channel 13’s studios now instead of Homewood.]
Five Facts
There’s an internet game where one reveals five (silly) “facts” about oneself. OK, here goes (with rich elaboration, of course):
Dowsing. I can locate metal water pipes underground by using divining rods (two pieces of wire cut from a coat hanger and bent into an L-shape). This ability appears to run for generations in the Archuleta family (not my real surname), though I can’t do the version where one uses a wishbone-shaped hickory stick to determine where to dig a well. That takes real talent.
Paper snowflakes. I can cut proper, six-sided paper snowflakes (a useful skill at Christmastime, despite a lack of Southern snow). Mine are rather artistic, if I say so myself. I get quite cross when someone manages to cut a few clumsy diamond shapes along folds and thinks his/her snowflake is equal to one of mine. That would take authentic talent.
Additive resemblance. I can often express a celebrity as (looking like) the sum of two others. Sarah Palin = Tina Fey + Marge Simpson. Mike Huckabee = Dick York (Darrin No. 1, Bewitched) + Richard Nixon. Juan Diego Florez = Richard Tucker + Sylvester Stallone. John McCain = George Peppard (A Team) + Dr. Evil (Austin Powers). Lauren Holly (Mark Harmon’s boss, NCIS) = Liza Minnelli + Reba McEntire. Blimey, it just pops in me head. It’s an annoying talent.
Shaving Brushes. While I’m old-fashioned enough to use a safety razor loaded with a double-edged blade, I dislike shaving brushes and all that build-lather-from-paste-that-comes-in-tubs-from-England stuff that Corey Greenberg says you’re supposed to do on the Today Show. I use *gasp* canned foam. (Yes, I wear a beard, but I regularly shave my neck, thankyouverymuch. A pirate mustn’t look like the Geico Caveman.) It’s ironic that the klutz in me can actually wield a safety razor with alacrity whilst managing the eventual fumble of any shaving brush into the toilet. That takes uncommon talent.
Viola. I can play “Ode to Joy” on the viola without sounding like I’m strangling a cat. This stupendous ability comes from having taken class strings in music school (as an elective, *gasp*) from a favorite professor with a dry sense of humor who foisted the bigger, lower-pitched cousin of the violin on me since he thought I could handle reading alto clef. Let me tell ‘ya . . . that takes talent. (Favorite viola joke: the viola isn’t bigger than the violin, it just looks that way because violists have small heads.)
Now, one is supposed to “tag” five other people to list five facts about themselves on their own blogs linking back to the initiator. While I can think of a few, it’s a little rude to do that–sort of like sending a chain letter. Of course, a surfer might have bad luck were he/she to read this and not . . .
