“He’s Back”
Monday was a holiday since July 4th fell on Sunday. I was relatively productive – started with a swim, cleaned up a dead mouse, bled the aromatherapy shower unit (still not working quite right), and cut some dead branches from the Japanese maple, while McD trimmed up the maple so it doesn’t block the pathway as much. We were also able to watch a bit of Wimbledon with Clorinda.
I’ve been watching a new movie, “Summer of Soul”, while doing my elliptical workouts. This is a movie, directed by Questlove, about a music festival held in Harlem over several weekends in 1969. The festival is known as the Black Woodstock, occurring within months of that well known event. Nobody knows anything about it because the film was kept in a basement for 50 years as the recorder couldn’t find anybody to fund making it into a movie. Enter Questlove and some financial backers.
The movie is excellent with amazing performances intermixed with interviews with the artists today. Stevie Wonder, Sly and the Family Stone, Nina Simone, B.B. King, and Mavis Staples are among the long list of acts involved. I read that Questlove owns over 200,000 albums and has a vast encyclopedic knowledge of all kinds of music.
Finn arrived back from Oregon on Wednesday night – he was tired from the travel and happy to get back in his spot on his couch.
I laughed when I read these lines in a story in the New Yorker this week:
“We were living on a farm, shared with a Noah’s ark of animals and birds. The animals included Finn the Doug, a genial Irish wolf hound.” This is included in a story called “Driving Lessons” by Margaret Atwood (Handmaid’s Tale author.)
Finn cooked salmon and Brussel sprouts for everyone on Thursday evening. Then we watched the NBA Finals (Bucks vs Suns) with Clorinda. She refused to go to bed until the game finished.
We enjoyed take out Thai food on Friday. Yummy.
Penelope got new front tires on Saturday morning. Finn and I went to the fancy iPic theater in the afternoon to watch the “Black Widow” movie – the latest in the Marvel franchise. Scarlett Johanss0n starred as the Black Widow, so it wasn’t a total loss.
Clorinda enjoyed a trip to Market Street with Diana – a bit busier than Target so she had to be careful navigating around on the buggy.
This was move weekend for Alicia – from San Luis Obispo to San Jose to attend San Jose State University in the fall. She did a great job of coordinating movers and getting everything organized by herself. She seems quite happy with the new apartment, roommate, and the cats that come with the new roommate. Furniture is starting to come together.
Sunday started with a walk with Diana, and continued with the Wimbledon Men’s Final, then the European soccer final. Several members of the household were quite excited when Italy won the penalty shootout at the end of the tied game.
I received some funny pictures this week. Amy sent these pictures of Massimo with a lizard on his back:
The text from Amy was great: “Mom! There’s a lizard on my back!”
“Oh my! How’d that happen?”
“I moved that log and it was under it and it crawled up my back.”
Equally entertaining is this picture of Pride, the Great Dane, on his 8th birthday, from Rachel:
I can’t believe she made the poor guy wear a Tutu.
I finished up “Babbitt” by Sinclair Lewis, and don’t have too much new to say about it. A pleasant and easy read that didn’t really seem to have as much to say as reviewers would have us believe.
On the other hand, “Saved by a Song” by Mary Gauthier, was a rare treat. Each chapter covers what was going on in Gauthier’s life when a song was written and also shows the evolution of the song from first draft to recorded version. The writing is supremely honest and I found it wonderful. I’m almost finished and will include some quotes and examples next week.
Here’s my favourite of Mary’s songs:
Transitioning over to the music section, I was saddened to hear of the passing of Dale Triguero this week. Here’s an article by the excellent music journalist Keith Spera, about Dale:
https://www.nola.com/entertainment_life/music/article_1e852302-dfec-11eb-bd03-a7ffc84f5f94.html
Dale owned and operated the Chickie Wah Wah music club in New Orleans. Denny and I visited his club shortly after it opened many years ago, and Anne had her 50th birthday party there, with music from the Creole String Beans. Dale was always kind and engaging, and really treated the musicians well. The music was taken very seriously at the club, more like a true listening room. One of our favourite shows there was the annual Anders Osborne, John Fohl, and Johnny Sansone performance that takes place over jazzfest. Here’s a link to the blog from back in 2016 that has video of one of those amazing shows:
https://www.keithjrobertson.com/?p=155
Stay safe and kind!