Bird Brain

Hello World, Happy Chinese New Year! It's time to get your red on, and party like it's 4715, 4713, or 4654! (Apparently, years in the Chinese calendar are not sequential, like they are in the West, so there's no real consensus on what would be considered the numerical value of the current year at this point.) We're entering into the Year of the Rooster, which is known for the attributes of high achievement, attention to detail, and good instincts. So for all of you Roosters out there born in 1909, 1921, 1933, 1945, 1957, 1969, 1981, 1993, or 2005, get out there and enjoy the year ahead with all the cock-a-doodle-doo that you can muster. Like your barnyard namesake, you should get up with the chickens, and greet the day with a roar, so you can really show them who's boss around the old henhouse. Or in the immortal words of the legendary Ray Charles, "Bend over, let me see you shake a tail-feather!" Speaking of songs, it reminds me that over the course of the oh-by-gosh-by-golly-mistletoe-and-holly season, I listen to literally hundreds of Christmas songs at home, in the car, or on the radio when I'm out, and not to mention, at church as well. I have a motley assortment of over 60 music CDs with holiday classics, novelties, or downright oddities, by everyone and anyone from The Chipmunks all the way to the mighty Enrico Caruso, and everything in between. (And yes, "Grandma Got Run Over By a Reindeer" besides.) It made me realize that we are all exposed to so much of this over our lifetimes that we're not even aware of how much we have unconsciously absorbed it, and if we actually gave it some thought, we would be genuinely amazed. There are dozens upon dozens of Christmas tunes that we know, both popular and spiritual, not just that we've heard of their names, but can actually sing them by heart, basically at the drop of a (Santa) hat. If a camera crew from Entertainment Tonight ran up to you on the street and said, "Here's $100, sing 'Jingle Bells'," you wouldn't say, "I have to go get my sheet music first." No, like everybody else, you would just launch right into those bells on bob-tails dashing through the snow, without a second thought. Try that right now - go ahead, I'll wait. (Dum-dee-dum-dum ... making spirits bright, what fun it is to ride and sing a sleighing song tonight!) You can easily do the same thing with "Let it Snow," "Joy to the World," "White Christmas," and countless others - which is a remarkable achievement when you consider all the important stuff that you want to remember, but can't. When we were visiting our friends upstate over the MLK weekend, and still in a holly-jolly frame of mind, I thought it might be interesting to take a shot at quantifying this vast untapped pool of knowledge, and see how many titles we could actually come up with on the spot, that we could honestly sing and knew the words to, without resorting to online helps or other smart phone trickery. It didn't take long for us to come up with a list of almost 70 carols, hymns, and ditties of the North Pole or Bethlehem variety, that we could recall with reasonable accuracy, without any sort of practice or planning ahead of time. Heck, by now probably even the godless Communists and KGB agents monitoring my email can sing "Frosty the Snowman" in spite of themselves, just by virtue of hearing it so often, without even noticing it. Chestnuts roasting on an open fire, anyone? Something else we can expect this time of year, at least around here, is weather and plenty of it - although it should be plain to anyone of even the meanest intelligence that they've got the temporary seasonal help in charge of the Kremlin's infernal weather machine lately, because you just don't know what to expect from one day to the next, or sometimes even the very same day. Some mornings you wake up to single-digit temperatures, sullen gray clouds, and biting winds, and 2 days later, it looks like June and people are out in shorts and flip-flops. This can make forecasting a dicey business (and which it must be said, is already a hit-or-miss proposition under the best of circumstances) and I don't envy the meteorologists trying to make sense of it all. Definitely not making sense was a news segment I saw recently with the intrepid reporter in the studio very carefully explaining and pointing to the interactive weather map behind her. She was attempting to show how the atmosphere goes from warmer to colder underneath, and the rain turns into little pellets, and then she claimed - at least according to the ostensibly helpful captions provided by our TiVo service - "that's how you get sleep." Somehow I don't think so! In other local news, we finally took the plunge and went to see "Rogue One" in glorious IMAX 3-D, and you can believe me when I say, "The Force is strong with this one." Perhaps without even realizing it, everyone understands where this story comes from, because in the very first original "Star Wars" movie from 1977, we remember that it begins with the runaway droid R2-D2 being chased by Imperial Storm Troopers, only to be scooped up and protected by Luke Skywalker in the appliance repair shop, who pretended that it was broken and he was working on it. Later he noticed it had a cartridge stuck in it, and when he tried to pry it loose with a screwdriver, instead it played the famous hologram of Princess Leia desperately seeking help from Jedi master Obi-Wan Kenobi - and which launched the whole outer space adventure of 9 films after that, and no let-up in sight. So "Rogue One" is actually the tale of how the critical information from the rebel alliance got to the princess and plucky droid in the first place, making it intrinsically interesting, since we all know what happens after that. It has all the eye-popping spectacle that anyone could ever want, plus an engaging cast of fresh-faced youngsters, with a few old regulars (like Darth Vader) tossed in for good measure. In order to bridge the gap between the original story and this one, some of the actors (such as the late Peter Cushing) have been very carefully remastered from the original 1977 movie, and digitally inserted into the new one, which is a fascinating idea that they managed to pull off without a hitch. It's lively and entertaining throughout and never lags, and somehow manages to seem familiar and also refreshingly exotic at the same time. [SPOILER ALERT - for anyone who still has plans to see it] One caveat that I might suggest is that you don't get too attached to anyone or everyone you might see somewhere through the long and winding narrative, because they really cleaned house in this one - and great or small, a pivotal character or seemingly inconsequential, you can't count on them making it all the way to the end in one piece. It may be a wild ride, but it's great fun, and I was glad that we were able to catch up with it while it was still available in IMAX, which is the only way to see special effects blockbusters like this. And after all, if that's not something to crow about, well then, I don't know what is. Elle

Quick Fix

Hello World, Well, will you look at where we are in January already, where does the time go! It seems like one minute, we're getting ready for back-to-school, and suddenly before you know it, here's Valentine's Day traipsing up to our very doorstep, by Cupid. (One good thing already about this year is that Easter is so late in April that Ash Wednesday doesn't happen until well after the saint's day devoted to indulgence and excess - not smack-dab in the middle of Lent as it often does, when you have glowering hordes of grouchy Christians to deal with.) Of course, Valentine's Day candies have been in the stores since before Christmas, heaven knows, and even though Easter is late, there's certainly no lack of Easter baskets, bunnies, and chocolate eggs on all sides as well. At this rate, pretty soon it will be time for the back-to-school supplies all over again, and eager retailers will be hawking their colossal Black Friday discounts and extended hours for our shopping convenience. In fact, I actually did just receive a fashion catalogue featuring a sale on swimsuits, so that tells you something right there. Suntan lotion, anyone? The dust had hardly settled on the hoopla of the holiday weekend's events, while a clamoring populace hurried on to the next big thing, and left Dr. King unceremoniously behind in their wake. That would never do for us, and we made sure to enjoy the weekend for all it was worth, and then some. As usual, we followed our noses north, to bivouac with our friends in the Albany area, who very kindly left their Christmas decorations up for us, putting us firmly in the holiday spirit like the veriest and merriest elves on the holliest and jolliest sleigh ride ever. Since we arrived on Saturday afternoon at lunchtime, we hurried to the 76 Diner with all haste, and dove right in. I was especially glad to be there, because it happened to be a day they were serving their signature fried ravioli, which is a treat that is only available occasionally, and often does not line up with our visits north, alas. It was excellent, as well as the Greek fries, which are regular shoestring fries dressed up with crumbled feta cheese, lemon, and oregano for an international flair that is hard to beat. Thus fortified, we dashed off to infuse some cash into the local economy, starting at the brand new Salvation Army Thrift Store - which admittedly is small potatoes when it comes to lighting up cash registers, but we were still glad to check it out and do our part. After that, it was off to Hewitt's for their after-Christmas discounts on decorations, and it's always interesting to discover what modern technology has made possible in the way of lights, lawn ornaments, and various gadgets that are new to us, and snap them up at bargain prices. Soon our friends' trunk was bulging with our bounty, and we declared the excursion a success on all counts. We had one more stop to make, if we wanted the perfect breakfast to look forward to, so we set off for Price Chopper, and for anyone who hasn't tried it, here is my unsolicited testimonial for Cinnabon's delightfully decadent "Gooey Bites," now in your grocer's freezer. All you have to do is take it out of the box, pop it in the microwave, and in seconds, you have a luscious, pull-apart cloud of soft warm nuggets, drizzled with cinnamon sauce and icing, that turns your mouth into a Valhalla of utopian ambrosia, where the gods feast on delicacies unknown to mere mortals. Our old friends the dinosaurs in The Peanut Gallery may well snicker all they like, but you can go ahead and ask anyone who's tried them, and they will assure you that I am not overstating the case by any means. We did make kind of a spectacle of ourselves when we found them in the frozen foods, and jumped up and down in the aisle, but let's face it, after all this time, you have the figure that the general population of Latham must have grown used to us by now. After a day of careening around from pillar to post, we elected to stay in for dinner, so pizza and garlic knots from our friends at Paesano's was just the ticket to please the hometown crowd, and I ought to know. Often after dinner, we peruse the on-demand offerings available on our hosts' big screen TV, but there can be some difficulty finding something that we are interested in, but haven't already seen. This time we took the bull by the horns, so to speak, and brought a couple of DVD's with us, that we expected our friends would like, and which we were sure they had never heard of. The first was a personal favorite of mine from decades ago, "The Adventures of Captain Zoom in Outer Space," which I have always recalled fondly as campy hilarious fun. Unfortunately, it did not hold up well over time, and although our friends were gracious about it, in the cold hard light of day, it had nothing to recommend it, and I was sorely disappointed after all this time. We fared better with our second option, the seasonal charmer "Christmas in Connecticut" from the golden age of Hollywood, and it has always made me wonder that it never achieved the popularity of other well-known holiday movies like "It's a Wonderful Life," "Miracle on 34th Street," or "White Christmas," for example. Barbara Stanwyck is at the top of her game as a lifestyle guru (think Martha Stewart) who is a complete fraud that knows nothing at all about the domestic arts, and couldn't tell a spatula from a spinning wheel at gunpoint. In a bald-faced bid to boost circulation at the magazine, her editor decides to foist an injured sailor (the yummy Dennis Morgan - all but forgotten these days, but kids, ask your grandmothers about him) on her for the holidays at her family farm, and it takes all hands on deck to suddenly scare up 1) a family, B) a farm, and iii) anybody who knows how to do all of the creative wizardry that she's supposed to be such an expert at. (If the part about the second baby doesn't make you laugh out loud, you would have to be declared legally dead, believe me.) That did the trick of washing the bitter aftertaste of Captain Zoom out of our collective mouths, and we toddled off to bed full of high spirits and happily-ever-afters. Of course, in the morning we pounced on those Gooey Bites and polished them off in nothing flat, and while I couldn't recommend to Cinnabon that they hold a speed contest for eating these - for safety precautions, you understand - frankly, I would stack our chances up against anybody, with a good bit of confidence. There were other breakfast selections, such as muffins, pastries, and fruit, but honestly, with Gooey Bites on the table, who could really care? Soon it was off for another round of shopping, this time taking in a favorite dollar store of ours, Goodwill, and Cracker Barrel, and it would be a sure bet that we didn't come back empty-handed - and we've got the rock candy and peanut brittle to prove it, by golly. It wasn't long before we noticed the time slipping inexorably away from us, and with a long way to go, we were anxious to make a start of it before it got dark, so we tossed all of our voluminous variety of bags and boxes willy-nilly into the car, and took off at a flat run for all parts southward and home. Once again, the traffic was not an issue, and we were not in the least embarrassed to stop at Denny's in Newburgh for the 3rd time in 3 months, thank you very much, and they were just as happy to have us, I'm sure. The rest of the trip home was uneventful, and even the cats declined to raise a disdainful eyebrow at our return, so at least we knew that we had arrived at the correct household, and not some other place where the family pets actually care if the family is there or not. In fact, the only fly in the ointment for us was that the MLK weekend effectively closes the door on the yuletide season for good, the Christmas caravan is packed away for the duration, and we have nothing but our memories to console us for the next too many months on end. On the other hand, it will soon enough be time for the Super Bowl on the first Sunday in February, quickly followed on February 12th by the three most beautiful words in the English language: "Pitchers and catchers." Let me at that suntan lotion! Elle

Bug Off

Hello World, Happy The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. weekend! There's a burgeoning movement afoot to treat the late civil rights leader's commemoration day as an opportunity for community service, so if that's part of your plans for the occasion, I'm happy to send you off to your good deeds with a hey-nonny-nonny and a ha-cha-cha to boot. The world can certainly use more good deeds and community service, heaven knows, and a long holiday weekend in honor of someone who fought the good fight and did not rest on his laurels, would be just what the doctor ordered, I shouldn't wonder. Meanwhile, for the superstitious among us (and you know who you are) we can't pass by this time of the month with no mention of Friday the 13th dropping in on us uninvited, and hopefully it was not a troublesome day for everyone, in spite of its inauspicious reputation. On the positive side, we only have to get through this one and the one in October for the whole year, and let's face it, at least they're predictable way ahead of time, and don't sneak up on anybody unawares like earthquakes - although truth to tell, that smacks of damning with faint praise more than anything else. The fact of the matter is that you need to have a month that starts on a Sunday to have Friday the 13th, so even a cursory glance at the calendar will quickly identify which months to watch out for. In an ideal situation, you want a year like 2011 that wasn't a Leap Year, with January 1st on a Saturday, and had only one month that started on a Sunday the entire year. This also happened in 2014, when the year started on a Thursday and there was only one Friday the 13th from beginning to end. Apparently there's no combination of Leap or non-Leap Years, plus starting day of the week for the year, that will completely eliminate the unwelcome day from the calendar altogether, because in every year, no matter how you slice it, there has to be at least one month that starts on a Sunday, and often, there's two or even - God forbid! - three of them. This is what I would definitely refer to as "too much of a bad thing," and I ought to know. In other local news recently, I was busy in the church office on New Year's Day after worship, when one of our helpful worker bees collected the Advent wreath from the Sacristy (since Advent was officially over by Christmas Eve) and carried it upstairs to the storage closet in the balcony, with all of its many and varied chains clanking sonorously all the way. I told her she sounded like the spirit of Jacob Marley from the Charles Dickens classic "A Christmas Carol," which I thought was not only brilliantly clever, but seasonally appropriate besides - although admittedly, it did lose much of its comic effect when I had to shout it up the stairs after her, and repeat it twice to make myself heard. Indeed, she seemed to have no recollection of Jacob Marley from any point in her life, which a person might think would be impossible, but my explanations were met with quizzical looks all around, and the legendary example that set Ebenezer Scrooge on his journey of redemption was apparently no acquaintance of hers. This really managed to sap all of the humor out of the witticism in spite of its merits, and it suffered quite the same fate as poor old Marley, left to die alone and unmourned. Personally, I thought it was hilarious - although our old friends the dinosaurs will tell you that I am all too easily amused, and I can't say that they're too far off the mark there. Bah humbug! And speaking of things that don't turn out the way we might have hoped, every year we stay at home to welcome in The New Year, declaring positively that the New Year's Eve programming can't possibly get any worse, and every year, they prove us wrong, with even more terrible shows that count down to midnight, when the ball drops, the noise-makers erupt, and the fireworks explode all over the sky. It seems that no matter what channel you watch (and our cable service has hundreds in its vast arsenal) they manage to have the most boring hosts, the most uninteresting entertainers, the most tedious guests, the most uninspired musical performances, and above all, the most hackneyed interviews with every old nobody who will stand still long enough for them to stick a microphone in their faces. And if all that's not bad enough, the worst of it is that the shows seem to be about 90% commercials, and no matter how much you change channels between them, all you end up watching is cars, beer, insurance, more cars, Bob's furniture, and prescription medications with alarming side effects that make me sick just thinking about them. This year, finally, I thought we had really turned a page on the old way of doing things, and planned to observe the holiday countdown with our local public television station, with an enticing entry in the TV listings Best Bets called "New Year's Eve with the New York Philharmonic." I had a (perhaps delusional) idea that we could enjoy some beautiful and beloved classical music for a while with no interruptions, and then switch over to one of those network shows at the last minute for the actual ball drop and all the hoopla in Times Square, that is the very definition of the holiday itself. Not so fast! First of all, the PBS show started at 9:00 PM, and ended around 10:30, thanks not, which was not going to get us up to midnight, and not by a long shot. We used our TiVo to record it, and then start watching it around 11:00 PM, planning on using it to lead up to the big moment with some high-brow entertainment and none of the drawbacks. Unfortunately, the evil minions at the Philharmonic decided to play some of the most horrible modern music in their repertoire, rather than a snappy selection of classical favorites more suitable for the occasion, and we spent more time with our fingers on the fast-forward button than we did actually listening to anything they were doing. We bailed on them just before midnight to get our usual fill of commercials for cars, beer, insurance, more cars, Bob's furniture, and dubious prescription medications - and once again, thanks ever so much not. So that certainly didn't pan out as well as might have been hoped, and our effort to hit on a winning New Year's Eve strategy remains a work in progress. Garcon, more 1812 Overture, with a chaser of William Tell, if you please! For anyone who still believes that modern science will provide the solution to all of our problems, I'm afraid I may have some very bad news. It's still only January, so we can't even chalk this up to an early April Fool's prank, but recently USA Today reported on the work of British scientists studying high-altitude insect migration, and what they discovered was pip-pip, tally ho, and a bit of all right, as they say. Here it is in their own words (and apparently without irony) and as Dave Barry always says, "I'm not making this up" - ============================== " ... the results from a decade-long study found literally trillions of insects zoom over southern England each year. It's the first study to pinpoint the precise number of bugs that buzz over a region." =============================== Excuse me??? Since when is "literally trillions" considered pinpointing a precise number of anything, in any place, at any time, in any way, and by anybody who actually understands what numbers mean??? It makes me wonder how these British scientists would feel if they walked into a store, and asked the sales staff the price of an item they wanted to buy, only to be informed that it's "literally dozens of dollars, as well as a handful of change," instead of an actual price of the product. Or asking for the current time and temperature, and being told, "It's literally hundreds of minutes, and several actual degrees outside - so watch out." I'm guessing that if they suffered an urgent call of nature, a response to their quest for the nearest bathroom, that it could be in "literally trillions" of locations, would not get their vote as the most useful information in the world of science or otherwise, not to mention, the pinpoint accuracy that they might have desired at the moment of crisis, I dare say. Alas, these are sad times that we live in, where "literally trillions" is considered pinpointing a precise number of something, and all we can do is shake our heads - although around here, weeping and gnashing of teeth might not be out of order either, in fact, I can almost guarantee it. By golly, where is that 1812 Overture with those darned cannons when you really need it??? Elle

Joy Ride

Hello World, And so here it is 2017 already, believe it or not, all bright and shiny like a brand new penny, and spreading out before us like a wonderful present, with all of its surprises yet to be discovered. I do hope that the New Year will be a good one for you and your family, full of peace and joy, health and happiness, and plenty of good times from one end to the other. In fact, I hope it's so great that you hate to see it go out in December, and not that it wears out its welcome early and you can't wait to be rid of it. Of course, it does no good to complain, heaven knows, but there's a reason why they say that hope springs eternal, and right about now, that's the best we have going for us. Meanwhile, for all the Druids among us (and you know who you are) the big deal at the end of last year was not Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, or even New Year's Eve, but the winter solstice on December 21, marking the shortest day of the year in terms of daylight hours. Happily, that means that every day since then has been having incrementally longer periods of daylight, starting earlier in the morning and lasting longer in the afternoon, which I'm pretty sure is an improvement that we can all rally around with enthusiasm, if not downright euphoria. It won't be long before we're not still getting up and stumbling around in the gloomy pre-dawn darkness, and even better, we'll be coming home from work while it's still light out, like real people, and not feeling like alien mole people released from underground tunnels into the inky blackness of outer space. I admit that the concept of space travel has never held much allure for me, but lately the idea of going to a planet with two suns would seem to have a lot of advantages that I could really sink my teeth into, by Krypton. On the local scene, the holiday season brings many joys into our lives, not the least of which are merry greetings from friends and relatives, neighbors, business acquaintances, and not to mention, total strangers near and far, with jovial sentiments of yuletide cheer - or conversely, carefully crafted messages of politically correct non-specific content, so as not to offend even the most sensitive recipient, and appropriate for any, all, or no particular occasion at all, I dare say. I was surprised to receive so very many "Seasons Greetings" and "Happy Holidays" cards, rather than Merry Christmas, even among diehard church-goers, and more than previous years, those horrible cards that are black or navy blue and manage to be depressing no matter what they say. Of course, I have always maintained that a Happy Holidays card featuring The Holy Family at Bethlehem, or a Seasons Greetings card festooned with holly berries, candy canes, and reindeer is nothing more than a mixed metaphor of the worst sort, and it's a wonder to me that The Holiday Police are not more vigilant about stamping them right out. One non-traditional greeting I was glad to receive was a postcard with holiday felicitations from our sanitation crew, who are apparently better known as Moe, Larry & Curley. I know this because one side of the card features a picture of them in front of their truck, and the Three Stooges' names are very plainly printed right on top of them as they stand there smiling. Fortunately for us, they do a much better job at picking up our trash than the legendary comedy team probably would do in their place, so as far as I'm concerned, they can call themselves anything that they want. Is that you, Shemp? I can add two more joys of the season to our holiday festivities, and none the less welcome for the fact that we gave them to ourselves, rather than having them bestowed upon us by a benevolent universe or generous benefactor, I can assure you. Alert readers may recall that one of Bill's favorite musical performers is Vienna Teng, and we had previously braved the trackless wilderness of Uncasville, Connecticut, to see her free show in the Wolf Den at the Mohegan Sun casino, which I don't mind saying, her legion of ardent fans greeted with (wolf) howls of delight. This time around, she was slated to be at Rockwood Music Hall in lower Manhattan, where we had been before, and fancied ourselves old hands at this sort of thing. We managed to miss the early train and had to wait for the next one, but luckily still had time to squeeze in some dinner from the food court at Grand Central Terminal, and the specialty grilled cheese sandwiches at the Grand Central Market could have been worth the trip all by themselves, by golly. It turned out to be just as well that we didn't get to Rockwood any earlier, because the show started late, and waiting outside on the sidewalk was nobody's idea of a good time, especially after 45 minutes in the freezing cold. Personally, I feel that Vienna is too popular to play a venue like Rockwood, because after the doors finally opened, the surging tide of humanity quickly filled up the space to what could be considered "standing room only," as long as nobody wanted to breathe, besides standing there. We shoe-horned ourselves into a corner of what could be laughingly referred to as the balcony, which afforded a good view of the stage, but also meant that we had no way of getting back out again, until just about everybody else left first. But it was an interesting show as always, this time with unexpected trumpet and trombone, of all things, and in a place that size, you can believe me when I say that the brass rattled the rafters like a runaway freight train on a bumpy track. We really did enjoy the show, on the whole, and if nothing else, proved that the old geezers can still hold their own on the live music scene of the modern age, and live to tell the tale. Also in honor of landing a new job that I really like (however temporary it may be) I decided to treat myself to an appointment at the nail salon, and signed up for a long-overdue mani-pedi, which I probably haven't indulged in for the last 3 years or so. Over the course of a good long while, we had tried a variety of salons throughout our fair city, that pretty much ran the gamut, and we were surprised at the difference in quality between them. Some aimed for the glamour look, with shiny furnishings, flat screen TVs, and the latest equipment. Others sported a more stark appearance without amenities, and made no apologies for their time-worn decor. I'm not impressed with fancy trappings, but I wasn't expecting the wide range of expertise of the manicurists, that was often alarming, and occasionally dangerous. I discovered that both manicures and pedicures, far from being the simple operations I envisioned, can nowadays be instead painful exercises in poking and pummeling that are not for the faint-hearted - and I have left more than one establishment not only bruised but actually bleeding, and wondering how these people ever got jobs with sharp implements in the first place. So rather than taking a chance with some new joint and fearing the worst, we went back to the salon where we originally started, and hoped that the new management still maintained a "do no harm" policy when it came to customers. Luckily for me, the beautician was competent and very gentle, so I had no complaints on that score, and I walked out of there as soft, smooth, shiny, and sweet-smelling as I could have hoped. It was a rejuvenating way to start the New Year, and I promised myself that it would not be another 3 years before I did that again. After all, if 2017 is indeed going to be better than last year, it's got to start somewhere, and that's not just a lot of Moe, Larry & Curley, by Shemp. Elle