In the air

Today was cool, continuing a trend from yesterday. Not cool as in "Joe Cool." There's enough chill in the air that I checked the radiator when I got home to see if the heat had kicked on. It didn't quite go that far, although there was one night in late May when it came on for at least a few seconds.

Anyway, it won't be a night of tossing and turning and sweating. Well, not because of the heat, at least.

Façade

Here's something fun if you're in the mood for it, which I admit I probably am more than the average person. Selections from Edith Sitwell's Façade, with their original musical setting by William Walton, and read by Sitwell herself and English opera singer Peter Pears. Sitwell was inspired, here and elsewhere, by music hall comedy. The poems are playful bordering on goofy, and their delivery matches. Walton gets into the spirit as well, his backing sounding like he's setting nursery rhymes. He would have made a great composer for the cartoon studios.

Another era

A story I'm writing now is, among other things, a work of historical fiction. It's also set within my lifetime, because I'm at an age where that's possible.

While there is a market I'm considering, the guidelines don't say anything about setting the story in the past. That's my choice, made for a couple of different reasons. For one thing, the protagonist is a banker. A relatively sympathetic one, out of necessity for me. But the thing is, if it were set today, I'd have to answer questions like "what kind of phone does he use" and "does he use Slack to talk to coworkers" and "what is slack." This way I can limit my research to more fun topics.

Also it's set in New York, a city which seems to have a little more grandeur when you're talking about the seventies. Part of that is because of the movies that have imprinted me, I'm sure.

Apocalyptic uptick

Our experience on Earth is probably repeated endlessly in the cosmos. Life develops on planets but it is ultimately destroyed by the light of a slowly brightening star. It is a cruel fact of nature that life-giving stars always go bad.

Has anyone ever worked that last sentence into a country song?

This is from Peter D. Ward and Donald Brownlee's The Life and Death of Planet Earth: How the New Science of Astrobiology Charts the Ultimate Fate of Our World, which I just finished. There's something calming in these scientific prophesies of doom. The news isn't good, but things like the sun turning into a red giant are so far in the future we never expected to be around for them. Our children's children won't either. Of course there are threats now, some self-created. But the thing is, the goal is to just squeeze as many good years out of this world we have as we can.

There is no bottom

I have a friend who took out his phone tonight and showed me the sign featured in this article. Well, I'm not too proud to say that I laughed. Thought I'd look it up when I got home. Something did tell me that the image was too good to be true. I mean, there has to be a lot of sets of eyes on a sign that prominent, people who review the text before it's made permanent. And lo, it turns out to be a hoax.

Not sure I'll tell my friend it's a fake, though. I mean, there are a lot of hoaxes going on out there, and most of them aren't as harmless as this one.

It's alive

I received a plant a few weeks ago. I don't think it's exactly a poinsettia, but the leaves have a similar shape and texture, but they're lighter, and maybe a little bigger in area. If this kind of plant has any special needs, I don't know about it. So I've just set it by a window and I've given it water once per week. While the plant has lost a few leaves, it still looks pretty healthy.



Exactly, Steve. So far, so good.

Double oh

I'm listening now to a show on WFMU where the DJ has compiled a solid hour's worth of versions of the song "Live and Let Die." A for effort to her, but man, it's a little hard to believe so many people have chosen to do that song. The original recording works because it's Paul and Wings, but as a song I don't think it exactly towers over Duran Duran's "View to a Kill". The song Chris Connell did for Casino Royale strikes me as much better and I'm not even that big a Soundgarden fan. I mean, McCartney seems to be going out of his way to be trite with that "you used to say live and let live" opening.

I don't know, maybe I'm being mean. But imagine what Lennon must have been saying at the time.