h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I'm starting this on the last day of November.

It's been raining heavily today. I didn't feel up to grocery shopping, so I had some delivered.

I felt badly for the guy who delivered. He had to contend with wind and rain, and the park is not an easy place to find the right trailer.

Various aches and pains in my gut. I hope the canned salmon I fixed last night (and will be eating for two more supper) doesn't back u on me.

Today was atypically warm: 62 degrees Fahrenheit, with a mellow smell of late autumn in the air. I walked about a mile and a half. I've just finished watching some of "Guys and Dolls," a free movie available at Youtube. I listened to a lot of barbershop videos at Youtube earlier, and looked up some novelty songs like "Counting flowers on the wall," as well as some theme songs from popular TV series like "Cheers" and "Mary Tyler Moore Show" and "Beverly Hillbillies." I also listened to disco-era hits like "YMCA" and "Copacabana."

I know that Disco is not currently popular, but I fondly remember a party that people from my workplace went to, and there was a strobe light and disco music on the P.A. system. I had a lot of fun (I made up my own moves, and nobody seem to care).

I used to sing in a barbershop group or two. I love the idiom, and there are some modern performers who are able to record four-part tracks using one or two or three voices, depending on who sounds right for each part. You can see examples on my P.S. by clicking on the "Barbershop collection" number. Barbershop is a quintessentially American art form in its popular form. (Schubert and others wrote for four-part men's groups, but those pieces are considered art songs.)

Recumbentman write an edited guide article on Barbershop A87831723 . I thank him for doing so. Two musicals stand out for their use of Barbershop quartets: "Annie get your gun" and "Music Man." I have performed in both musicals in amateur productions. I sang second tenor in "Annie," and got involved in "Music Man" after the quartet had been formed.

Okay, that's too much information, but I just wanted to show that I could walk the walk as well as talk the talk. I wrote some barbershop choruses in a parody called "Nunsmoke," about a tough nun who comes to a lawless town to be the sheriff -- or so the townspeople think.

Nunsmoke sounds intriguing!

It's narrated by a barbershop quartet.

Today is much colder -- low forties -- but the sun is bright.

I set up the two new lamps I got from Amazon yesterday. They help, but I seem to feel all washed out lately. Stressed, somehow.

Have you heard of the Welsh Male Voice Choirs? You can find them on U-Tube.

I will look them up. Thanks for the tip. I've seen some other groups, but I didn't detect what would seem to my ears to be accents, Welsh or otherwise.

Bryn Terfel is a well-known singer who happens to be Welsh.

here are links to some of his videos:
Here he is singing "Danny boy"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i5ia5EYoHEc
And "Shenandoah"
http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=bryn+terfel+shenandoah

I like this Welsh choir:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0BRMym26yqE

I'm feeling introspective tonight.

A while ago I had a sometimes heated discussion with Dmitri about Sinatra. He said something to the effect that he didn't like Sinatra's material. (I may have misunderstood, or maybe I understood completely. Who knows?)

I need to be fair to Dmitri, and allow that I have some performers that I entirely don't like. If I'm that way about Jim (Ernest) Varney, why should I get on Dmitri's case about Sinatra?

Well, I only know of one role that Varney played that was ever played by anyone ese, in this case Jed Clampett.

Sinatra as an actor played roles (in "Guys and Dolls" and "The Manchurian candidate," among others) that other actors had played either before or after. Some of his songs were standards that many many other singers also sang. Dmitri has the right, if he wants to exercise it, to dislike these songs no matter who sings them. I don't know if there certain cases that are exceptions, but it's not my business.

I'm a songs person. I might like a song the way one singer sings it, but not the way another singer sings it. I might like a song the way someone else performs it, but not the way Dmitri performs it, if he performs it. And, I don't want to hurt his feelings by saying I didn't like his playing. I also don't want to hurt anyone else's feelings. That is my problem.

As far as Sinatra is concerned, I only know of one song that I really like, that Sinatra was almost the only singer who sand it. I just now found out that Jimmy Durante also sang it (I still prefer Sinatra, but Durante's version is good, too.)

So, I'm not the right person to be trying to defend Sinatra. If he had never existed, I would only have lost one song that I really love.

Ten minutes from now, who knows where I stand on this, but right now my position is that I tolerate Sinatra without loving his work. That's a poor stance from which to argue. There are many other performers
that I can feel more enthusiastic about. Those who may be reading this can probably guess who some of them are.

Maybe I should be asking what performers people like. I'm not usually inclined to try to change their positions, though somewhere along the way I may have done exactly that. If I have, point it out to me, and I will try to grapple with it again. Even if there is someone out there who likes Jim Varney.

In another thread, I mused about the reasons people might have for feeding birds. Was it guilt about the things we humans have done to inadvertently kill birds? (Cell phone towers and windmills, etc.).

Was it feeling sorry for birds during harsh winters (1890/1 in the U.K.)

Or did people just like to put their feeders where they could watch the birds come and go?

I found some material on the other side, though. The Audubon Society is not enthusiastic about feeding wildlife. Some states take a dim view of it, too.

Here's Pennsylvania's proposed ban, though it's aimed at feeding biggame
http://www.pennlive.com/life/2019/07/pennsylvania-game-commission-targets-deer-and-turkey-feeding.html
I doubt that people would be prosecuted for having one bird feeder. The government has more important things to do than that.

In Massachusetts (my state), similar opposition exists
http://www.mass.gov/service-details/wildlife-in-winter

"While backyard bird feeding during winter months is generally acceptable, we recommend using native plants and water to attract birds to your yard. Fallen bird seed can unintentionally attract many types of wildlife, including bears, turkeys, small mammals like squirrels and mice, and predators like foxes, fishers, and coyotes that feed on small mammals. If you notice unwanted wildlife in your backyard, bring in your bird feeders immediately."



Oh what a hornet's nest I have opened up.

I'm sitting here at the computer, listening to WCRB streaming (it's the local classical station; you can stream it too by putting this into your top bar:
http://audio.wgbh.org:8004/

They're having one of their periodic fund drives. Right now they're playing music by John Wiliams.

re post 8:

As far as I am concerned people may like or dislike whatever they want. But people should keep in mind that there are both objective and subjective criteria.

I am frequently in a situation where I say things like: "X is a great singer. He has a golden voice that hits the right notes at the right time. I'll give him that. I'm not overly fond of what he sings, though. But hey, each to their own."

Sometimes I have to admit to stuff like "I am far from fond of X's behaviour and I'm afraid that colors my views. Sometimes I can tolerate it, at other times not at all."

That's it and that's all.

that was a response to post 9, not 8!

As for post 10:

I was fond of feeding birds with my granny when I was a kid. Later I learned that we should stop doing so because nature does what it bl**dy well pleases with wildlife anyway and we shouldn't interfere. Still later I learned to stop because the food also attracts rats.

My personal conclusion: I feed birds (in a way that doesn't attract rats) because humans are responsible for the alarming decline of insects of all sorts, no the least pollinators. For the same reason I will as soon as my time and other ressources allow it turn my little backyard into a paradise for both insects and birds.

That's about where I'm at for both performers and birds, Pierre/Pierce. Living in a state that has a lot of environmentally minded people, I'm torn. Humans keep a lot of cats as pets. Cats get fed by their humans, *and* they may also chase birds and mice. Not as many as if they weren't getting fed, but maybe enough to hurt.

The environmentalists, on the other hand, seem to want to live in a golden past when there was plentiful forest cover, and predators kept birds etc. in check. Well, we got rid of the large predators (wolves) but then coyotes came along. I've already mentioned cats. We put bird feeders in a particular spot, and this concentrates the bird population in that spot. If seed-bearing seedheads were distributed here and there, the birds would be spread out likewise, and predators would have a harder time.

On the other hand, most predators don't fly. Owls and falcons are exceptions, but I don't see those here. But maybe if you live on the edge of a forest.

"We estimate that free-ranging domestic cats kill 1.3–4.0 billion birds and 6.3–22.3 billion mammals annually."

Read more here (or google "how many birds do cats kill"):
http://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms2380

I don't have cats (anymore), but there are quite a few roaming in my neighborhood. That's okay with me (you can't blame a cat for being a cat) but I make sure not to lure birds close to them.

And I wish they would stop using my property as their litterbox

So, I am somewhat on the side of wanting to give a little extra help to birds, as long as it doesn't put them in harm's way.

Thursday, December 3, 2020

Evening

I managed to have a nice cap after lunch. Then I had to get up to get ready for a doctor's appointment at 2:30.

I got there on time and got through it okay. My blood pressure is still high. The doctor gave me a prescription to augment the lisinopril I already take. It's a calcium channel blocker called Diltiazem. I hope it will work okay with Mirtazapine, my antidepressant. The Internet is full of lists of scary side effects. Mirtazapine doesn't work well with any other meds. So, we'll see what happens.

The pharmacy was out of Diltiazem, so I won't have access to it before 11:00 tomorrow morning.

There are always trade-offs. If my blood pressure comes down, who knows what I will also have to put up with?

My doctor is perpetually cheery. He gave me lots of blood and urine tests in early October, and I was in fine shape across the board.

Make that a nap, not a cap.

This journal will ramble as I see fit.

Christmas around he world: Estonia

Children put their socks on the window ledge, and elves fill them with sweets. Then Santa comes on Christmas Eve. People give hi poems in exchange for gifts.

Charming!

Christmas in Hawaii:
http://www.bing.com/images/search?q=christmas+in+hawaii&qpvt=christmas+in+hawaii&form=IGRE&first=1&tsc=ImageBasicHover&scenario=ImageBasicHover