Speaking of John Charles Thomas...

...here he is on Groucho Marx’s television program from sometime in the 1960s singing “The Golfer’s Lament” (3:33). Groucho joins him on the final chorus.

I am sorry, but I do not have a youtube video clip of Albert Hay Malotte singing anything.

But if John Charles Thomas can sing about golf, it follows as the night the day that Maria Callas can sing about pasta (2:16).

The ridiculous-sublime continuum, uh, continues.

You see one one-dimensional, autocratic tyrant, you’ve seen them all

1. “L’État, c’est moi.”
--attributed to Louis XIV (1638 - 1715)

2. “So across the board we are engaging them in building capacity in these countries and we have stood on the side of democracy. One thing I think Americans should be proud of: when Tunisians began to protest, this nation, me, my administration, stood with them earlier than just about any other country.”
--Barack Obama during the third Presidential Debate with Mitt Romney, 22 October 2012.

Moral: Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.

As a sort of parting gift to you to get you through my possible impending absence

...here are Andrea Bocelli and the Mormon Tabernacle Choir singing “The Lord’s Prayer” (4:25).

This particular piece of music was written by a man named Albert Hay Malotte (1895 - 1964), about whom I knew absolutely nothing until I read about him in that ever-changing fount of all knowledge, or not, Wikipedia.

Here is an excerpt:

“Malotte composed a number of film scores, including mostly uncredited music for animations from the Disney studios. Although two movies for which he composed scores won best Short Subject Academy Awards (Ferdinand the Bull in 1939 and The Ugly Duckling in 1940), he is best remembered for a setting of the Lord's Prayer. Written in 1935, it was recorded by the baritone John Charles Thomas, and remained highly popular for use as a solo in churches and at weddings in the US for some decades.”

My six degrees of separation, or two, or whatever, from both Albert Hay Malotte and John Charles Thomas is the fact that when I was a child living in a third-floor apartment in a house in Pawtucket, Rhode Island, around 1946 or 1947, I listened to that recording made by John Charles Thomas. It was one of two 78-rpm recordings that I played over and over on a huge wind-up, hand-cranked Victrola rather like this one:

The other recording I listened to over and over in those days was not sung by John Charles Thomas and it was not composed by Albert Hay Malotte. It was a country/western/hillbilly song called “I'm Goin’ Back to Whur I Come From” that included the immortal line, “whur the mockin’ bird is singin’ in the lilac bush” and here it is (2:51).

Parts of this post are ridiculous and parts of this post are sublime, and I’ll leave it to you to decide which are which.

Since the final debate between Messrs. Romney and Obama occurs this evening and time is of the essence....

...let’s cut to the chase.

Dr. Barbara Bellar, a candidate for the Illinois State Senate, District 18, said the following:

”So let me get this straight.

”We’re going to be gifted with a healthcare plan we are forced to purchase, and fined if we don’t, which purportedly covers at least ten million more people without adding a single new doctor, but provides for 16,000 new IRS* agents, written by a committee whose chairman says he doesn’t understand it, passed by a Congress that didn’t read it but exempted themselves from it, and signed by a President who smokes, with funding administered by a Treasury Secretary who didn’t pay his taxes, for which we will be taxed for four years before any benefits take effect, by a government which has already bankrupted Social Security and Medicare, all to be overseen by a Surgeon General who is obese, and financed by a country that’s broke.

”So what the blank could possibly go wrong?”

I did not make this up. Here’s a video to prove it.

* For my UK, Enzed, Aussie, Canadian et al friends, IRS means the Internal Revenue Service, the tax-collecting arm of the U.S. federal government.

Parkinson was right

I don’t know for certain, but I may not be posting much in the next week or two, or perhaps month or two.

It’s nothing against you, my loyal readers. It’s just that life’s responsibilities have gotten in the way of my incessant and constant need to post something on my blog.

And by “life’s responsibilities” I mean specifically both (a) the fact that between the early voting period and the actual election day I will spend seven long, full days and parts of a couple of others working for the county and (b) the fact that as the person solely responsible for music in our small church I need to plan and rehearse with people for the upcoming Advent and Christmas seasons.

Our church has not had a choir in several years. Even though it has a choir loft that can seat more than 20 singers, the current congregation as a whole is perhaps less interested in music than any group I have encountered before. Many (though not all) enjoy listening to it but few are interested in producing it. Since I arrived in the summer of 2010, we have managed to put together a small men’s ensemble and a small women’s ensemble -- it’s the ensembles that are small, not the men and women -- who have sung a couple of times during the year, although meeting for rehearsals has been like pulling teeth at times. The pastor wants both groups to sing again during December, so I need to find suitable pieces of music with the right degree of non-difficulty. There is also the children’s handbell choir to contend with be joyfully involved with once again. Some of last year’s participants have aged out into the youth department; other new children have come in who never played handbells before, and we have only a portion of the Sunday School hour in which to learn and rehearse over the next few weeks, as virtually no parent will commit to evening rehearsals during the school year. I do not want to antagonize the Sunday School teachers either. There will also be two Christmas Eve services, one at 5 p.m. and one at 11 p.m., that require music.

Did I tell you that my official title is “pianist”?

I don’t mean to whine, and it’s not that I’m overwhelmed with tasks exactly, but the responsibilities weigh heavily upon me.
I will have more than enough to do without trying to find additional time for blogging.

If you are not involved in local politics or music, you may not feel my pain. If you are involved in two or more important activities at once, you understand where I’m coming from.

As Parkinson’s Law states, “Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion.”

You know what? Parkinson was right.

We voted today

...by which I mean, by the time you are reading this, if you read it on the same day I finally got around to posting it, yesterday. Is that clear?

The U.S. presidential election will be held on Tuesday, November 6th. Many states, however -- but certainly not all of them -- have instituted an “early voting” process. In Georgia it seems to be limited to the more populous counties.

Cherokee County’s early voting began on Monday. Our county has 44 precincts. From October 15th through October 26th -- except Saturdays or Sundays -- early voting is permitted at one location only, the County Board of Elections building in the town of Canton, which is the county seat. Beginning on Saturday, October 27th, and then again from Monday, October 27th, through Friday, November 2nd, four of the county libraries will be added as advance voting locations. Any registered voter who lives in Cherokee County can go to any one of the five locations to vote early. On election day itself (Tuesday, November 6th), when all 44 precincts will be staffed, voters must vote in the precinct in which they reside.

Monday night’s news was filled with shots of long lines waiting to vote early in various counties around metro Atlanta. And although more than 1,100 people voted on Monday in Cherokee County, we encountered no lines and no wait whatsoever when we showed up at the Board of Elections building Tuesday afternoon around 4:00 p.m.

We waltzed in and we waltzed out.

The whole thing, from start to finish, took less than ten minutes.

So there won’t be any standing in long lines on election day for me. Nosirree. Nosirree, Bob.

For me, there will be a lot of sitting at a table inside the precinct and helping people who have been standing in the long lines.

Se habla Español aqui

I saw a commercial on TV the other day about learning Spanish, French, or German online, free of charge. I immediately decided to take up Spanish and hied myself over to the site and allowed as how I would like to learn it posthaste.

So far, things seem to be going well. After only a few days, I'm already at level 6. I have no idea how many levels there are, though. Probably 157.

We Level 6 virtuosos can say many useful things in Spanish that are sure to come in handy every single day. Here are a few actual sentences I have learned:

1. Nosotros no tocamos la cebolla. (We do not touch the onion.)

2. ¿Oyes caballos? (Do you hear horses?)

3. Yo bebo vino blanco mientres como pollo. (I drink white wine while I eat chicken.)

4. Mi perro duerme sobre mi camisa. (My dog sleeps on top of my shirt.)

5. La niña bebes jugo de naranja. (The child drinks orange juice.)

Once I have mastered Spanish, I am definitely planning to learn German and take a refresher course in French.

After all, the price is right and I have a lot of time on my hands.