Month: April 2023

Lazy Sunday CC: Myersvision, Part II

The Portly Politico9 Comments

Lazy Sunday turns 200!  It’s hard to believe that I’ve been phoning it in for 200 Sundays now, but here we are.

In celebration of this milestone, I’ve decided to highlight some more features from our senior correspondent, Audre Myers, who contributes her Myersvision pieces roughly every Wednesday (or whenever the muses move her).  Here are three more of her excellent pieces:

Here’s to many more editions of Myersvision to come!

Happy Sunday!

—TPP

Other Lazy Sunday Installments:

SubscribeStar Saturday: Washington, D.C. Trip Part III: Mount Vernon

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After the debacle of children sliding down the Lincoln Memorial came much-needed rest.  The long day of traveling was, in many ways, the easiest of our days in D.C.  Thursday promised to be full of walking, but all those steps would be worth it.

Following our food service hotel breakfast—I’m a sucker for those hyper-yellow egg product scrambled “eggs” they serve at hotel continental breakfasts—we loaded the bus and headed for Mount Vernon, the home of our first President, George Washington.

The Mount Vernon Ladies’ Association maintains and preserves Mount Vernon.  The Association is the nation’s first national historic preservation organization, and the oldest active patriotic society.  Founded in 1853 after the founder’s mother witnessed the poor state of the home, the Association had raised $200,000 by 1858, with which it purchased the home and two hundred acres surrounding it.  Following the ructions of the American Civil War, restoration work began, and continues to this day.

It is a gift to the American people to walk the grounds where George and Martha Washington resided.  There’s something appealing, too, about the home and grounds being under the auspices of a private non-profit organization, rather than the National Park Service.  It’s proof that private individuals sharing a common goal can often achieve more, and do it better and more efficiently, than the government can.

It was a crisp, sunny morning when we visited Mount Vernon, and it was easily the highlight of the trip, at least for me.

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You Can’t Cuck the Tuck IV: They Cucked the Tuck!

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It’s been nearly three years since I last wrote an installment of You Can’t Cuck the Tuck, but not because I grew disinterested in Tucker Carlson’s insightful commentary.  Quite the opposite:  his powerful, succinct analysis of our current ills has only deepened my respect for him and his worldview even more.  That he delivers his critiques with mirth, laughter, and good humor only strengthens them.

Sadly, Fox News—an organization that hasn’t done anything particularly interesting since Red Eye w/ Greg Gutfeld—has embraced cuckery and kicked The Tuck to the curb.  The last vestige of FNC as a truly conservative option in the space of mainstream cable news is now gone.

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TBT: Go to Church

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Easter has come and gone, so ’tis the season the stop attending church until Christmas.  At least, that’s the attitude of some folks.  Here at TPP, we endorse frequent church attendance.

Last year I lamented the way our attitude about church attendance demonstrates our skewed priorities.  We’ll bend over backwards (for some people, perhaps literally) to appease our increasingly unreasonable bosses, but come Sunday morning, we’ll lounge about in bed rather than fellowship with other Christians.

To be clear, I don’t think church attendance is a necessary precursor to salvation.  At the same time, a Christian should want to spend that time learning about God’s Word and worshipping Him with other believers.

I certainly don’t feel like it every Sunday.  Because of my extremely busy work schedule, I sometimes catch myself begrudging the long drive to church on Sunday mornings, and the way that it cuts into the day.  But I almost always am glad I went.

Funny how even the tiniest sacrifices and the slightest hardships, once endured, help us improve.  Attending church once a week is not a major imposition.  Now churches just need to make sure they’re teaching the Truth, not watered-down inspirational speeches that I could find on a mommy blog.

With that, here is 13 April 2022’s “Go to Church“:

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Fed Up

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This Wednesday we’re taking a break from Bigfoot to talk about another terrifying creature:  the Federal Reserve System.

I don’t typically write about the Federal Reserve System because, well, I don’t really get it.  Sure, I’ve taught about it, and I get the general gist of what it is alleged to do, but like most Americans, I know that it tinkers with interest rates and is incredibly boring.

As a kid, I’d hear about Alan Greenspan and how significant he was.  Janet Yellen, the who I thought was still the chair of the Fed (nope—she’s the Secretary of Treasury now, apparently), sounds like a walrus with head cold, and strikes me as about as lively as block of wood.  These are not inspiring or interesting people, but they are immensely powerful.

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Open Mic Adventures XXIX: “Lavender’s Blue”

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I’m diving back into Alfred’s Basic Piano Library, Complete Levels 2 & 3 for the Late Beginner this week with the piece “Lavender’s Blue.”

As I explain in the video, I knew very little about the song, other than it has a kind of Renaissance feel to it.  Since making that hasty recording during a precious planning period, I have done a bit more research on the piece.

The piece dates back to sixteenth-century England, where it was a popular folk song and nursery rhyme.  The lyrics suggest the nursery rhyme elements:

Lavender’s blue, dilly dilly, lavender’s green,

When I am king, dilly dilly, you shall be queen:

Who told you so, dilly dilly, who told you so?

‘Twas mine own heart, dilly dilly, that told me so.

Any tune with “dilly dilly” in the lyrics is prime nursery rhyming.  As is frequently the case with these very old songs, the piece has dozens have verses, and variations upon those verses, so there’s not an “official” version—kind of like Blade Runner (1982).

Fortunately, I’m just playing it on piano, so there’s no confusion there.

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Monday Morning Movie Review: The Fog (1980)

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Regular readers will know I am a big fan of John Carpenter.  He is, perhaps, my favorite director, and one of my favorite film composers and musicians as well.  Big Trouble in Little China (1986) was my #2 pick for the best flick ever, and would have likely been #1 if I weren’t had I not been trying to troll Ponty.  My #3 pick was 1982’s The Thing, which is actually better than Big Trouble objectively, although that’s the definition of comparing whiskey to wantons.

Naturally, readers would be correct in thinking that my assessment of his 1980 release The Fog would be similarly rosy (and rose-tinted, perhaps).  While I don’t think it’s a masterpiece like the other two films—not the lightning-in-a-bottle amalgam of genres that make Big Trouble more than the sum of its parts, nor the nihilistic and terrifying, claustrophobic experience of The Thing—it is quite good.  It’s not particularly scary for a horror film, but it is quintessential Carpenter.

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Lazy Sunday CXCIX: Ponty and Portly’s #1 Picks

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Between Easter and Spring Break Short Story Recommendations 2023, I never got around to writing a retrospective of the #1 films from the Top Ten Best Film lists Ponty and I put together.

Well, in case you missed them, here they are now:  the “best” films of all time:

Happy Sunday—and Happy Birthday to my mom!

—TPP

Other Lazy Sunday Installments:

SubscribeStar Saturday: Washington, D.C. Trip Part II: Showdown at the Lincoln Memorial

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After a long bus ride and a whirlwind tour of two Smithsonians and the Spy Museum—and a hearty feast at Buca di Beppo—our merry band of wastrels and wine moms headed out on an evening tour of three memorials:  the Korean War Memorial, the Vietnam War Memorial, and the Lincoln Memorial.

I first visited the Korean War Memorial on a high school band trip, and found it to be particularly arresting.  The fuzzy images of soldiers crossing a battlefield have stuck with me ever since.  It’s a testament to the power of a good memorial not only to honor the dead, but to highlight the hardships and tribulations they endured.  The Korean War is the “forgotten war” of twentieth-century America, sandwiched as it was between the glory of the Second World War and the ignominy of the Vietnam War.

Korean War Memorial 1

Apparently, I failed to capture any pictures of the Korean War Memorial (the image above is an addition to the Vietnam War Memorial), likely because I was a.) in quite, reverent awe while passing through the memorial and b.) calling down knuckleheads who ought to know to treat these memorials as quasi-sacred places, memorials worthy of silent dignity and respect.

That apparent lack of understanding of and respect for those who gave their lives was a recurring theme of the evening, and one that would result in some frustration and consternation on the part of yours portly.

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