I’m continuing to work on my pond-based pieces, and have a fourth piece completed. This duet incorporates whole tone scales, which possess a mystical, mysterious quality. The piece is broadly in Bb major, but the second and third sections feature some secondary dominants that, at times, push the key closer to D major. The whole tone scales also give a sense of atonality to sections of the piece, representing the mystery of moonlight.
Last week I found time to watch a few flicks, among them 1976’s Carrie, the coming-of-telekinesis story of Carrie, who is bullied relentlessly both at school and home. Her mother’s Pharisaical view of redemption (essentially, there is none) makes Carrie’s life sheltered; meanwhile, Carrie’s classmates bully her in part because of her mother’s insanity.
Family lore has made this film legendary. According to legend, my parents went to see this film on their honeymoon in 1977. I don’t know exactly when it occurred, but my dad—who was raised Pentecostal (Church of God – Cleveland, Tennessee) was so beside himself, he walked out. My mom (raised Southern Baptist, and, therefore, a bit less bee-hived in her hairdos) was a fan of Stephen King—then an emerging author in many respects—and it apparently was a shock to her that my dad reacted as he did.
Having just seen the film, I can see why my dad got so uncomfortable. It literally opens with a quasi-pornographic shot of Carrie showering herself after gym class—and then receiving a visit from Aunt Flo. There’s also the iconic “prayer closet” with a Jesus sporting menacing, glowing eyes. The anti-Christian messaging is pretty strong.
That said, the film is not, I would argue, primarily a screed against religion, although that is a part of it. Carrie’s mom is a nut, but anyone with even a passing familiarity with Christ’s Teachings would realize that her religion is not Christianity. It’s some kind of perversion of something resembling Christianity into a legalistic tangle of extreme ascetism coupled with brutality.
Instead, Carrie is very much a coming-of-age story, in which the sheltered Carrie attempts to spread her wings and become her own woman, but instead is met only with resistance at every time. Having developed no healthy relationships—and faced only mockery and scorn from her mother, her schoolmates, and even the principal—she lashes out in the film’s fiery conclusion.
It’s a super Lazy Sunday here in the Southeast, as Winter Storm Gianna has covered everything in a blanket of snow. I’ve been really struggling lately to get posts done due to a combination of factors, mostly related to the stress of moving and getting my house listed.
Apologies to paid subs. I’ll be attempting to catch up soon. The past few weeks have been weird and challenging.
Happy Sunday!
—TPP
Yours portly is delayed again with SubscribeStar Saturday. A busy week at work, coupled with wrangling with a moving company (it is resolved—a complaint with Better Business Bureau has resulted in a full refund of our deposits) has me worn out. There’s also a major snowstorm all over the Southeast.
Stay safe. More to come.
—TPP
Yours portly has been uploading some more of his original compositions to YouTube. This week, I’m featuring three pieces that are part of (so far) a koi pond triptych of compositions. I’ll be adding to this trio of pieces, so it won’t remain a triptych for long, but that’s a good way of conceptualizing it for now.
I’ve really enjoyed these three pieces, which are all for small, unorthodox chamber groups.
I’ve been on a programmatic composing kick, which seems to happen every January. I’m currently working on a collection of instrumental music inspired by my koi pond, which I’m tentatively calling Koi Dance.
Writing music inspired by God’s Creation is nothing new, but descriptive program music reached its height during the Romantic Era. The great composer bridging the gap between the classical and Romantic periods was Beethoven.
Beethoven is known for many works, but I am partial to one of his less-appreciated symphonies, the Sixth. It depicts a day in the countryside, and fits with the emerging Romanticism’s fascinating with the natural world and the countryside.
With that, here is 30 January 2025’s “TBT^256: Beethoven’s Sixth Symphony“:
A quick update from yours portly today, as I’ve been hustling to get my house ready to list. Last week, my pastor (who just started a carpet cleaning business) did a deep clean of the house, which, of course, meant I had to deep clean before he arrived so he could get to the really bad stuff. My mind boggles at how much junk I have accumulated in just seven years.
This morning my realtor came by with a photographer to get pictures of the house, so that required more organization, especially involving the artful concealment of things no one wants to see in pictures of a home—trashcans, the stuff you keep on the back of the toilet, etc. I was really pleased when my realtor told me that I’d done a great job getting things together.
Now I’m just waiting for the disclosure paperwork, and soon my little home will be on the market officially. Selling that will be a huge boon for Dr. Wife and me. We currently own three homes between us, which sounds like some kind of decadent dream, but it’s really a huge time- and money-sink. My house, fortunately, is paid off, thanks in part to the best bank of all, The First Bank of Mom and Dad. The value has more than doubled (of course, the value of the dollar has probably halved) since I bought it, so I should walk away with a good profit, which will help to pay for the hefty mortgage on the new house.
Shew! But I digress. Please be praying that my house sells quickly—and Dr. Wife’s! She’s had hers on the market since right before the wedding back in November, and while she’s had some showings, she hasn’t had any offers yet. We need that albatross dropped onto some hapless chump happy new homeowner ASAP!
More to come. Happy Wednesday!
—TPP
The koi pond at our new house has served as a source of immense inspiration for yours portly. I’ve spent many late nights researching various species of aquatic life that can thrive in our little pond ecosystem. I’m most excited about getting some Japanese Trapdoor Snails for our pond.
In the meantime, however, I’ve added some ramshorn snails to the pond already. They arrived in a bag from an eBay seller in Oklahoma, clinging to the walls of their watery shipping compartment. I drove them up one frosty night and gently plopped them into the pond, which inspired today’s new piece.
Good ol’ Tom over at Free Speech Backlash graciously sent along this powerful post about the state of free speech—or the lack thereof—in Great Britain and Europe.
American readers are likely aware of the rapid erosion of free speech in the nation that birthed the very concept, and it serves as an object lesson on the importance of the First Amendment, which has so far protected Americans from the worst excesses of government censorship. As Tom notes, though, paper guarantees are worthless if not supported for every American.
However, government censorship has rarely been the issue in the United States; rather, corporate censorship is what haunts free speech in the United States. The various attempts by the tech giants to censor free speech on their platforms in 2016, 2020, and 2024 indicate that the platforms that serve as our de facto public square are often restricted at the whims of the rich and powerful. Elon Musk’s purchase of Twitter did much to restore free speech online, but even that is imperfect.
Further, American banks have the nasty habit of “debanking” account holders with unflatteringly Truth-based views. Many conservatives found their deposited funds inaccessible, or unable to accept payments through popular payment processors, because of publicly-voiced opinions that did not fit the globohomo narrative.
But, ultimately, we have the protection of the Constitution to criticize the government, even when the ostensibly private sector platforms for doing so are often censored. Great Britain and Europe at large lack that basic protection.
Tom links this destruction of free speech to the massive influx of Third Worlders. The two go hand-in-hand—if you need an imported slave class to a.) do all of your work for cheap and b.) make you feel good about yourself, you don’t want the native-born proles complaining. The solution—especially in a system like Britain’s where the party in power controls the executive and legislative functions simultaneously (usually) by default—is to make it illegal to criticize the massive influx of dusky hordes into your homeland.
That brings me to another point: why does Britain have a Home Secretary—or anyone in power—named Shabana Mahmood? It reminds me of this clip from The Simpsons:
But I digress. Here’s Tom with more:
It’s a quick Lazy Sunday this week as Dr. Wife and I hunker down in the cold. I’m casting my gaze back to two posts from earlier this week, one based in the coolness of the watery depths, the other in the fiery crucible of the modern restaurant industry:
Happy Sunday!
—TPP
The Portly Politico 