Open Mic Adventures XXIX: “Lavender’s Blue”

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)

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

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:

TBT^2: The Joy of Spring

Spring has sprung, and it’s been a surprisingly mild one so far.  It’s going to get brutally hot soon, I am sure, but South Carolina has enjoyed a bout of good weather.

It reminds me of the notorious Spring of 2020, right at the dawn of The Age of The Virus.  It seemed at the time—and I still believe this to be true—that God Delivered us good weather at that time when everything remotely social had to be done outdoors (unnecessarily, as we’ve since learned).

I now find all The Virus stuff to be endlessly boring and tedious, but it’s worth remembering how bad it was—and how totally unhinged our reaction to it was.  I can excuse some of the hysteria of the early days, but soon an entire regime of busybodies and medical “experts” (usually nurses twerking on TikTok) grew up to make the rest of miserable.

In reflecting on that beautiful Spring of 2020, we would do well to remember the tyranny that bloomed along with its flowers—a tyranny we’re now all-too-quick to forget.

With that, here is 28 April 2022’s “TBT: The Joy of Spring“:

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Monday Morning Movie Review: The Haunting (1963)

Last week I reviewed Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House, which prompted several readers to recommend the 1963 film adaptation, The Haunting.  I rented the flick on YouTube for about three bucks, and found it to be a mostly faithful adaptation of the book.

Indeed, beyond a few changes to some of the characters (Dr. Montague is now Dr. Markway, and his wife is not an insufferable Spiritualist but instead scoffs at the idea of ghosts) and the elimination of Arthur, the overbearing boys’ school headmaster, it does a great deal to enhance the book, a rare case where the movie, if not necessarily better than the book, is at least a worthy supplement to it.

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Lazy Sunday CXCVIII: Spring Break Short Story Recommendations 2023

Another Spring Break is in the books and I’m back to the grind tomorrow.  It’s five weeks of classes, one week of exams, and one week of teacher meetings until I’m free—free!

Before heading into the final leg of the school year, here’s a look back at last week’s Spring Break Short Story Recommendations:

Happy Sunday—and Happy Reading!

—TPP

Other Lazy Sunday Installments:

Lazy Sunday CXCVII: Easter III

Easter is here!  He is Risen!

I’m fortunate to teach at a school that recognizes Good Friday as a day worth honoring, so my Spring Break always coincides with it (actually, we start on Maundy Thursday, which is pretty nice).  I’ve long advocated for a long break at Easter, a la the two-week Christmas Break.  Many countries (especially in Latin America) take two fulls weeks for Easter, paying proper respect to Holy Week.

Wherever you are today, and whatever you are doing, take a moment to thank God for Giving us His Son, Jesus Christ—and know that Jesus Lives!

Happy Easter!

—TPP

Other Lazy Sunday Installments:

TBT: Spring Break Short Story Recommendation 2022: “Witch’s Money”

It’s SPRING BREAK!  One of my multiple cushy, extended breaks—the primary perk of dedicating one’s life to the molding of young minds—has now commenced, which means next week I’ll be inundating you with reviews of short stories, as is this blog’s Spring Break tradition.

One story I read last year was John Collier‘s “Witch’s Money.”  It’s the tale of a haughty artist who succumbs to the ignorance and greed of peasants who think that checks are a magic source of money. I read it when I was quite young—to young to appreciate its nuances at the time—and it made an impression on me.  Don’t write a check your butt can’t cash… or, at the very least, don’t write checks in lands where people don’t understand the basics of modern banking.

With that, here is 20 April 2022’s “Spring Break Short Story Recommendation 2022: ‘Witch’s Money’“:

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Lazy Sunday CXCVI: Hono[u]rable Mentions

The long countdown of mine and Ponty’s favorite films ends tomorrow with Ponty’s #1 pick.  What will it be?  Weekend at Bernie’s II (1993)?  Porky’s (1981)?  That video he and Tina made that no one else is supposed to know about?  In twenty-four short hours, we’ll know all.

In the meantime, here are our respective hono[u]rable mentions lists.  I did mine in one succinct, efficient package; Ponty spread his over three massive posts, full of lovingly rendered detail and pathos:

Happy Sunday!

—TPP

Other Lazy Sunday Installments: