There are bloggers and then there are bloggers

Some people use a blog as a personal diary, telling all and sundry the minutiae of their daily lives down to what time they got out of bed and what they ate for breakfast. Others are observers of the world around them but refrain from divulging any personal information about themselves.

Some people take lots of photographs and display them by the hundreds; others take no photographs at all and confine themselves to the written word. Some people post every day; others post once or twice a month at best. Some people receive numerous comments and seem to revel in their popularity and influence; others receive hardly any comments but forge ahead valiantly, undeterred.

I am tempted to say there are as many types of blogs as there are people, but that would be an awful lot of types of blogs. Still, in its own way, each blog is unique.

More power to bloggers everywhere. Long may they wave.

Sorry about the brief hiatus

It was unplanned. It sort of just happened. Life got in the way, I think. Maybe I had post-quinceanara blues. Anyway, now I'm back.

One of my favorite songs of the past half-century is "When October Goes". The lyrics were written by songwriter Johnny Mercer who died in 1976. His widow presented Barry Manilow with several of her husband's unfinished songs in the hope that he might be able to compose music for them.

When Barry Manilow's album 2:00 AM Paradise Cafe was released in 1984, one of the tracks was "When October Goes" and I think it is great, bordering on exquisite, a perfect marriage of lyrics and music. Let's hear it for collaboration, even posthumously.

If you want to listen to Barry's version or Rosemary Clooney's (she's George's aunt, you know) or Nancy Wilson's -- they're all good but my favorite is Barry's -- be my guest. I am not including a link here as you are all big boys and girls who surely know how to find someone's YouTube video via Google.

I do have a request of you, however. Please tell me which of the following two layouts of the lyrics you prefer. One of them was with Barry Manilow's version and one was with Rosemary Clooney's (did I tell you she was George's aunt?).


A. Version 1, Layout of lyrics to "When October Goes":

And when October goes
The snow begins to fly
Above the smokey roofs
I watch the planes go by
The children running home
Beneath a twilight sky
Oh, for the fun of them
When I was one of them

And when October goes
The same old dream appears
And you are in my arms
To share the happy years
I turn my head away
To hide the helpless tears
Oh how I hate to see October go

And when October goes
The same old dream appears
And you are in my arms
To share the happy years
I turn my head away
To hide the helpless tears
Oh how I hate to see October go
I should be over it now I know
It doesn't matter much
How old I grow
I hate to see October go


B. Version 2, Layout of lyrics to "When October Goes":

And when October goes
The snow begins to fly
Above the smokey roofs
I watch the planes go by

The children running home
Beneath a twilight sky
Oh for the fun of them
When I was one of them

And when October goes
The same old dream appears
And I am in your arms
To share the happy years

I turn my head away
To hide the helpless tears
Oh how I hate to see
October go.

And when October goes
The same old dream appears
And I am in your arms
To share the happy years

I turn my head away
To hide the helpless tears
Oh how I hate to see
October go.

I should be over it now, I know
It doesn't matter much
How old
I grow
I hate to see
October
Go.


You see the difference. A has breaks every eight lines and B has breaks every four lines, then does something different at the end. It's interesting to me how the printed layout can affect one's enjoyment of what basically is poetry.

I do hope you will find the videos and listen to them. The song is hauntingly beautiful. Perhaps listening to it will even affect your choice of A or B.

For the record (see what I did there?), I prefer B.

I've got you under my skin

When the writer of the 139th Psalm wrote, "I am fearfully and wonderfully made" he wasn't kidding. Our bodies are very complex. Depending on which online article you happen to read, the human body is made up of several distinct systems. Here are some of the lists I found:

1. The integumentary system
2. The skeletal system
3. The muscular system
4. The lymphatic system
5. The respiratory system
6. The digestive system
7. The nervous system
8. The circulatory system
9. The endocrine system
10. The urinary system
11. The reproductive system

1. Circulatory system/Cardiovascular system
2. Digestive system/Excretory system
3. Endocrine system
4. Exocrine system/Integumentary ststem
5. Immune system and Lymphatic system
6. Muscular system
7. Nervous system
8. Renal system/Urinary syste
9. Reproductive system
10. Respiratory system
11. Skeletal system

1. Musculoskeletal system
2. Cardiovascular system
3. Respiratory ststem
4. Nervous system
5. Digestive system
6. Urinary system
7. Endocrine system
8. Lymphatic system
9. Reproductive system
10. Integumentary system

Integumentary was a new word for me. It means the outer layer. Ours includes the skin, hair, fingernails, toenails, sebacious glands, and sweat glands.

Some lists divide the reproductive system into two systems, reproductive system (male) and reproductive system (female). Some lists treat the skeleton and the muscles as two separate systems; other lists treat them/it as a single system (musculoskeletal). One list separates our five senses (sight, smell, hearing, taste, touch) into a "nervous sensory subsystem" apart from the nervous system; other lists include them in the exocrine system. Some lists don't even mention an exocrine system.

Either the jury is still out or the science is not as settled as some would like us to believe.

The Psalmist didn't mention something significant that a man named Paul wrote several hundred years later in a letter that that wound up in the New Testament, that we are body, soul, and spirit.

That is a post for another day.

Round and round she goes

...and where she stops, nobody knows.

I'm referring to the world.

Continuing a glimpse into yesteryear from the previous post, I can honestly say that I know very few (hardly any, really) of the names of today's celebrities, musicians, athletes, or television shows. The young people today live in another world, one I don't recognize. I suppose it has been ever thus.

Kiki and Brittany at the ultrasound place were not familiar with Murphy Brown, Candice Bergen, Edgar Bergen, or Charlie McCarthy. I wonder if they have heard of Captain Kangaroo? Joan Baez? Bennett Cerf? Dorothy Kilgallen? Arlene Francis? Garry Moore? Durwood Kirby? Bill Haley and The Comets?

The list could go on and on.

There wasn't enough time to tell Kiki and Brittany about Bess Myerson, Henry Morgan, and Betsy Palmer on I've Got A Secret or Bud Collier (who was the voice of Superman on the radio) on Beat The Clock or Peggy Cass and Orson Bean on To Tell The Truth or Martin Landau and Barbara Bain on Mission Impossible or Luciano Pavarotti or Arthur Godfrey or Little Anthony and The Imperials. It's a pity.

On the other hand, shifting the shoe to the other foot, I didn't know my parents' world either. Who in the world was Ish Kabibble? Francis X. Bushman? Ed Wynn? Bix Beiderbecke? Eddie Cantor? Wendell Willkie? Bruno Hauptmann? Winnie Ruth Judd? Jean Harlow?

Their list went on and on too. As I said above, it has been ever thus. I would bet dollars to doughnuts that Socrates (circa 470-399 BC) and Plato (circa 427-347 BC), children of different generations, also viewed each orher across a vast gulf of mutual incomprehensibility, shaking their heads all the while.

I'm not being fair to Kiki and Brittamy. I am not part of their parents' generation. I'm part of their grandparents' generation. The gulf is wider than I thought.

יוֹם כִּפּוּר

Yom Kippur (that's what it says in the title in Hebrew) starts at sunset today, October 4, 2022. It will end at sunset tomorrow, October 5th.

Sixty-five years ago today, on October 4, 1957, the Soviet Union launched Sputnik.

Also sixty-five years ago today, my mother died. I was 16 years old. She was 47.

Not only does that seem a long time ago, it is a long time ago.

Today, because I had some kidney stones blasted away about a month ago, I went for an ultrasound of both kidneys and my bladder. As the young blond woman led me into the room, she said, "My name is Kiki and I will be conducting your procedure today. And this is Brittany, a trainee who will be observing."

When she said, "My name is Kiki" my mind went immediately (as I'm sure yours did as well) to the television series Murphy Brown. I asked her if she had ever heard of it.

She said that she had not.

I said that the reason I mentioned it is that there was a blonde TV reporter on that show named Corky, a former Miss America from Louisiana. On one episode her entire family -- father, mother, and three younger sisters -- came from the South to visit. The sisters were all carbon copies of Corky -- young, beautiful, blonde, dripping with Southerness and y'alls. Their names were Kaki, Koki, and Kiki. (Note. I think I have the names correct but I may be off a little bit.)

I also happened to mention to Kiki and Brittany that Corky's last name was Sherwood and that when she married TV writer Will Forrest she became Corky Sherwood Forrest.

"What was the name of that show again?" asked Kiki.

"Murphy Brown," I said. "It starred Candice Bergen. Have you ever heard of her?"

Kiki and Brittany both said "No."

I told them that Candice Bergen's father was a famous ventriloquist named Edgar Bergen, and that his ventriloquist's dummy was named Charlie McCarthy.

"Have you ever heard of him?" I asked, and Kiki and Brittany again said "No."

I shrugged and said, "It was a different world back then."

My question is, is the conversation I had today with Kiki about that other Kiki covered by today's Day of Atonement (that's what Yom Kippur means) or must it wait until next year's Day of Atonement?

Maybe this whole post needs atoning for.

It occurs to me that Kiki and Brittany probably never heard of carbon copies either. I should have said clones.