Tuesday, February 12, 2013

The epitome of cool

...back in the 1960s was to have Stan Getz and Astrud Gilberto together on the same stage at the same time.

Here they are in 1964 performing “The Girl From Ipanema.”

I am a very big fan of Getz’s saxophone virtuosity but not a fan of Gilberto’s voice at all.

Because even coolness has limits.

For example:

1. Today is Abraham Lincoln’s birthday. (Cool)
2. Tonight, President Obama gives his annual State of the Union address. (Not cool)

1. The deluges we’ve been having here in Georgia lately will make the flowers grow. (Cool)
2. The deluges we’ve been having here in Georgia lately have made my back yard extremely soggy. (Not cool)

1. Someone -- probably either Louis XV (1710-1774) or Madame de Pompadour (1721-1764) -- once said, “Après moi, le déluge.” (Cool)
2. Between my soggy back yard and tonight’s State of the Union address, it (the deluge) is here. (Not cool)

But the coolest thing of all is that in preparing this post I found this site, which will tell you more about “Après moi, le déluge” and its classical antecedents than you could ever want to know.

It’s right up my alley.

And speaking of allez, I have to go now. I shall either be listening to more of Stan Getz’s saxophone playing or delving further into my new favorite website.

Perhaps I will do both.

They’re really cool.

9 comments:

  1. I thought that, to be cool, something had to be current, but Urban Dictionary says:

    "Cool. The best way to say something is neat-o, awesome, or swell. The phrase "cool" is very relaxed, never goes out of style, and people will never laugh at you for using it, very conveniant for people like me who don't care about what's "in.'"

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  2. Snowbrush, it is even cooler to say "Cool beans" instead of saying merely "Cool."

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  3. Bonjour mon ami, all this French talk is helping me get back into the swing of my basic schoolgirl Frence which I will be using in 10 weeks time in Paris. Luckily, in Paris, a lot of English is understood ( as long as you try to communicate in French first !) but further out in rural France I'll be needing it.
    Merci!

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  4. Helsie, bon voyage and all that, but I think you'll need more in rural France than “Après moi, le déluge”! You can start with "Je m'appelle Helsie et je suis de l'Australie."

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  5. "And speaking of allez, I have to go now..." It's so cool to think you have a musical reproduction facility in your "rest room". I guess it helps to drown out other noises.... I wonder how the word "cool" ever came about as a way to define likeable or fashionable phenomena? Please research and post.

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  6. Yorkshire Pudding, it is common knowledge that the word cool means a moderately low temperature. Then, of course, there are colors that are cool (as opposed to warm) and the estimable K.M. Steeds could tell us more about them. COOL (in all uppercase letters) refers to a programming language (Classroom Object Oriented Language) and also to the Coastal Ocean Observation Lab at the Institute of Marine and Coastal Sciences (IMCS) at Rutgers University in New Jersey. I didn’t mean any of those.

    I meant cool as an aesthetic and, in referring to Stan Getz and Astrud Gilberto, , cool jazz.

    There is more than enough reading material to keep you out of trouble for a little while, at least.

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  7. P.S. -- I do not have a musical reproduction facility in my "rest room".

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  8. "I meant cool as an aesthetic..."

    "Cool as an atheist"...I like that. I like it a lot. Do you mind if I use it sometimes?

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  9. Snowbrush, no, I don't, but I think it's time to get your glasses changed.

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<b>Always true to you, darlin’, in my fashion</b>

We are bombarded daily by abbreviations in everyday life, abbreviations that are never explained, only assumed to be understood by everyone...