Lazy Sunday CLXXX: More Movies XXXIII: Ponty’s Best Films, Part I

Last Sunday we looked at my #10, #9, and #8 picks for the best films.  Now we’re looking at Ponty’s choices for the same.  So far, I think Ponty has the better list, although I stand by (most of) my picks.

His first three are all in the horror genre, but all vastly different films.  They’re also exemplars of the genre, and are must-see films:

Happy Sunday!

—TPP

Other Lazy Sunday Installments:

TBT^2: The Joy of Romantic Music II: Bedřich Smetana’s “The Moldau”

It’s been awhile since I’ve written about classical and Romantic music, both of which hold a special place in my heart.  Part of the reason is that I am not currently teaching the Pre-AP Music Appreciation course that guaranteed a near-daily baptism in the greatest works of these periods.

So in casting about for a good TBT installment, I came across this little post about one of my favorite bits of programmatic work, Bedřich Smetana’s “The Moldau.”  It’s a beautiful work that transports listeners on a magical journey down the titular river.

I love programmatic music because of its accessibility to average listeners (and because there’s something intriguing to me about a text accompanying purely instrumental music)—anyone can listen to this piece and hear the different scenes on the cruise down the river.  It’s also such a beautiful expression of Smetana’s love for his homeland.

With that, here is 13 January 2022’s “TBT: The Joy of Romantic Music II: Bedřich Smetana’s ‘The Moldau’“:

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Lazy Sunday CLXXIX: More Movies XXXII: Portly’s Best Films, Part I

This cold, wintry season always makes me want to bundle up with a hot pizza and a cool flick.  What better way to kick back after a long day of mind-molding than with a classic gem (or a B-flick schlock-o-rama) and piping hot pie, drizzled in olive oil and dripping with cheese.  Oooooh, baby….

Erhem—but I digress.  That got me thinking that it’s time to start going back through the best films lists that Ponty and I now halfway through compiling.  Since I started off the list, I figured I’d look back at my #10, , and #8 picks first, then jump over to Ponty’s next week.

With that, here are the first three from my list:

Happy Sunday!

—TPP

Other Lazy Sunday Installments:

TBT: The Hermit’s Life

I’ve been writing this blog for so long now, it’s amusing to see how cyclical life is.  Apparently, I was running a low-grade fever right after Christmas 2021; this year, I was running a higher-grade fever around New Year’s 2023.

I’d completely forgotten that I rang in 2022 by going to bed at 10 PM after nearly a week of puttering around my house in a sickly fog.  My Christmas Break in 2022-2023 was much more action-packed, but that just meant the “slow down there, sport” illness hit right when I was supposed to go back to work.  D’oh!

That said, I do enjoy—in limited doses—the life of a hermit.  I’m very thankful to have a supportive family, and a strong support network of neighbors and friends nearby who can help me out in times of trouble.  But there is something appealing, especially during this dark, cold months, about holing up in my warm little house, eating frozen pizzas and watching horror movies.

For those that read my Tuesday post, here is a quick health update:  I think I am on the mend.  I went back to work Wednesday, as my fever broke.  I’m still coughing a bit and have some gnarly congestion, but my voice is back, which makes teaching possible—hurray!  Here’s hoping that as my health improves, I can use some of this slower wintry time to get crackin’ on several long-delayed book projects.

With that, here is 4 January 2022’s “The Hermit’s Life“:

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Lazy Sunday CLXXVIII: The Worst of 2022

Happy New Year, my portly friends!  2022 is in the books, and 2023 has dawned.  What fresh opportunities—or nightmares, gasp!—will it bring?  Whatever it is, The Portly Politico will be offering up flabby commentary about it, and God is in Control!

As I do every year, it’s time to look back at the worst posts of the recently expired year, 2022.  In years past I’ve made this post quite extensive, but due to a dearth of time—and due to feeling a tad under-the-weather as the new year dawns—I decided to stick to just three of the “worst” posts, though there are many more with single-digit views.

To explain the criteria—and what I mean by “worst”—here is yours portly from 31 December 2021 in “The Worst of 2021“:

Now, by “worst,” I don’t mean “the lowest quality” or “the most offensive.”  I wouldn’t be an impartial judge of the former (and my readers are generally too polite to tell me if my writing sucks), and I’ve toned down my rhetoric too much to be the latter (although, who knows with the delicate sensibilities of modern Westerners).

No, by “worst” I simply mean “the posts with the lowest views.”  In the old days, when I routinely had posts with single views, I’d just hoover up those and plop them into one big post.  Fortunately, the blog has grown to the point that I don’t have single-view posts anymore, but I still have some neglected posts.

For this list, I will ignore posts that were written in prior years, with the exception of TBT posts, as I often add substantial new commentary on such posts.  I will also ignore posts that merely informed readers that that day’s real post would be delayed, or has been posted (so classics like “SubscribeStar Saturday Post ‘The TJC Spring Jam’ is Posted!” and “Lazy Sunday is Coming” won’t be included).

At the end of 2021, I looked back at single-digit posts; in other words, those with fewer than ten views.  For 2022, I just looked at the three lowest, each with only five measly views.

So, without further ado, here are the three worst posts of 2022, with five (5) views each:

Here’s to a new year of blogging!  I’m excited to see what’s next for yours portly as TPP enters it’s fifth year of daily posts.  WHOA!  Let’s all work together to ensure that none of my posts suffer such negligence in 2023, eh?

Happy New Year!

—TPP

Other Lazy Sunday Installments:

TBT: The Worst of 2021

It’s been an unusually busy week for yours portly, and I’m still catching up on delinquent posts from Monday and Tuesday, both of which I hope to get up later this morning.

In the spirit of that delinquency, it seemed like the perfect time to look back at the worst posts of last year (I’ll be getting into the worst posts of this year soon).

By “worst,” I don’t mean that the posts themselves were bad—although that may be true—but that they did not get very many views.  All of the posts had fewer than ten views in 2021, which means essentially no one read them (if you were one of those nine people, my apologies—you are a person and you do matter, you just aren’t generating much ad revenue for me).

Let’s see if these poor little posts can get some love—then we’ll do the same for 2022’s soon enough.

With that, here is 31 December 2021’s “The Worst of 2021“:

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Lazy Sunday CLXXVII: Review of A Christmas Carol (1951)

“You there!  Yes, you, boy, reading this post in your underwear before a long day of festivities.  What day is it?”

“Why, it’s Christmas Day, sir!”

“Here—take this blog post and go buy the biggest goose in town.”

“But it doesn’t work like th—”

“Never mind—-it’s Christmas!”

And—scene.

Yes, it’s Christmas, probably the one day a year no one is reading any blog posts.  But The Portly Politico marches on, Christmas or no.

To celebrate, I thought I’d look back at the three recent reviews from Ponty, Audre Myers, and myself about A Christmas Carol (1951).  They’re pretty good:

Well, time to get dressed—it’s Christmas Day!

Merry Christmas!

—TPP

Other Lazy Sunday Installments:

TBT^4: Christmas Eve

Once again, it’s nowhere near Christmas Eve—it’s Christmas Eve Eve Eve this year, and I’m sure the Catholics and High Protestants have some special, esoteric name for 22 December, but I don’t know what it is.  Regardless, I always enjoy looking back at my original “Christmas Eve” post from 2019.

As I wrote at the time:

Christmas Eve is always the most magical, mystical part of Christmas time.  Popular depictions of Jesus’ Birth take place, presumably, on Christmas Eve—the angels bursting into the black, silent night above Bethlehem.  The whole event is supernatural—the Virgin Birth, the Star guiding the way to the manger, the angels appearing to the shepherds and singing.  Tradition has it that even the animals in the manger talked at the moment of Christ’s birth (at exactly midnight, of course).  If the rocks can cry out, singing praises to Him, why not some donkeys?

That scratches the same itch as Halloween for me—another “Eve”—that connection with our Creator, a Being far beyond our comprehension, and a whole other world just beyond our meager vision.  It’s all the more remarkable to consider that that very same God sent His Son as a mere baby to bring a fallen world salvation.  Rather than an aloof, indifferent God, or the disinterested Clockmaker God of the Deists, we have a God who loves us enough that He sent His only Son to die for our sins.

We don’t deserve that, but thank God for it!

With that, here’s “TBT^2: Christmas Eve“:

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Lazy Sunday CLXXVI: 2022’s Top Three

It’s still two weeks to New Year’s Day, and while there’s plenty of time for some wayward posts to take off—or some new ones to exceed the three listed here—it’s the last Sunday of the year that isn’t Christmas.  As such, I decided to do the best (in terms of views) posts of 2022 today.

Before getting on to the posts, let me point out that they’re all quite different—and one of them is from our own Ponty/Always a Kid for Today—and the #1 most viewed post of the past year remains a mystery to me.  It’s a good post—I write in earnest humility—but for some reason it will randomly get dozens of views in a day sometimes.

I’m not complaining—I think it’s great!—but the mystery intrigues me.

Well, enough of that!  Here are 2022’s Top Three Posts:

  1. Driving the Georgia Backroads” (384 views) – I actually wrote this post in 2021, so I suppose it’s technically ineligible for this list… but I’ve already written the lengthy preamble about it and I’d rather not mess around with changing it (remember—it’s Lazy Sunday).  Regardless, it’s about driving the backroads to Athens, Georgia, and all the quaint little communities along the way.
  2. Monday Morning Movie Review, Guest Contributor Edition: The Purge (2013)” (176 views) – Once Ponty started writing movie reviews for the blog, his shameless whoring of the posts over at The Conservative Woman really brought in the traffic.  He’s also a great writer and reviewer, so that probably has something to do with it, too.
  3. Alone” (157 views) – True to human nature, we all love tales of woe and misery.  “Alone” was my magnum opus to heartbreak (actually, my magnum opus to heartbreak is my solo EP, Contest Winner EP).  I was at a low point, one from which I clawed myself, but I’m a bit back at square one.  Oops!

Happy Sunday—and Merry Christmas!

—TPP

Other Lazy Sunday Installments:

TBT^4: O Little Town of Bethlehem and the Pressures of Songwriting

It’s another Exam Week, a welcome respite after two weeks of madness.  Proctoring exams is a pain, but it’s the kind of tedious pain that we’re all used to enduring from time to time.  Fortunately, it’s basically two hours of boredom at a time, followed by frantic grading.  The sooner that’s done, the sooner Christmas Break can truly begin.

I’ve been thinking quite a bit lately about how pressure creates diamonds.  I was incredibly, almost superhumanly productive in the two weeks after Thanksgiving because I had to be.  I was putting in twelve-to-sixteen-hour days to get everything done, and while I was exhausted, I felt like a champion.

Then this last Saturday I had an endless day before me, and accomplished almost nothing.  Part of that was recovering from the craziness of the week before; part of it was woman problems (the greatest drain on energy and resources); part of it was the lack of anything to do.  I understand why retirees die within six months if they don’t find something productive to do—I was starting to think that all my endeavors meant nothing (maybe they do mean nothing, but as a Christian I know they do; if they didn’t mean anything, it’s all the more reason to keep myself moving so I don’t have time to dwell on The Darkness).

Anyway, that pressure can create Beauty.  All this pressure has had me thinking about Neo’s comment on my post “You’ll Get Everything and Not Like It“: “I always remember that our soldiers in France in 1944 had a saying, ‘The road home goes through Berlin’. Berlin is on all of our ways home.”  That’s the end of a very long and poignant comment, but those two sentences say it all.

With that, here is “TBT^2: O Little Town of Bethlehem and the Pressures of Songwriting“:

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