TBT: Memorable Monday II: Monday Steakhouse Blues

10 March 20229 March 2022 The Portly Politico2 Comments

As I wrote yesterday, today I’m taking my students to a music festival, where they will play and sing solo selections for judges. They get a score based on their performance, as well as useful feedback from the judges about tone, pitch, articulation, musicality, and the rest. It’s a very fun day, but also a very busy one.

As I noted in yesterday’s post, it always seems to coincide with one of the busiest seasons of the year, when time constrains are at their most stringent and intense. Almost everyone reading this blog understands there is an ebbing and flowing to life: you might enjoy one (even two!) weeks of routine, maybe even a bit of a lighter schedule than usual.

Then—BAM!—everything comes due, breaks, and goes haywire at once. As my friend and regular reader Barnard Fife once told me, “trouble is like grapes: it comes in bunches.” Amen, BF.

The original post behind this threat, “Monday Steakhouse Blues,” was written at a particularly tough time for yours portly. I found myself without Internet and putting in very long hours (and this was well before I had twenty-ish students for private lessons). I spent a weary Monday evening eating steak at Western Sizzlin’ and writing a blog post on my phone. The steak was good, but everything else at the time was pretty miserable.

Thank God for better organization, a greater sense of perspective (this is just life, and it will pass), and for 10 milligrams of citalopram every morning. Gotta be thankful for the little things.

The “Memorable Monday” version of this post, which I have also reblogged below, went live the week before everything in South Carolina shut down due to the dawning of The Age of The Virus. In other words, it was the last week of The Before Times, in The Long, Long Ago. There are many things I miss about The Before Times, but a silver-lining of The Age of The Virus was that it saved me from the intense burnout I was experiencing at the time.

With that, here is 9 March 2020’s “Memorable Monday II: Monday Steakhouse Blues” (on a Thursday!):

TBT: Hawkworld

3 March 20222 March 2022 The Portly Politico13 Comments

With war in Europe and lots of foolishness here at home, it seemed like a good time to look back at the excellent three-book miniseries, Hawkworld. It details the stellar character arc of Katar Hol (Hawkman, essentially) and his rise, fall, and redemption in a corrupt, decadent empire. His home planet of Thanagar sustains its selfish elite on cheap labor and imported luxuries, doping its citizens with designer drugs and endless parties.

It’s like a grimmer, grimier Metropolis (1927). It’s also a powerful Silver Age comic that I highly recommend, and one I will probably reread soon myself.

With that, here is 9 March 2021’s “Hawkworld“:

TBT: Monday Morning Movie Review: Near Dark (1987)

24 February 202217 February 2022 The Portly Politico1 Comment

Normally I wouldn’t “throwback” to a Monday Morning Movie Review for a Thursday edition of TBT, but the guys over at RedLetterMedia posted an episode of their show re:View last week about the 1987 cult vampire film Near Dark (1987):

I watched the film on Shudder last summer, but apparently it’s no longer on the platform (according to the RLM guys in the video), and it’s a difficult film to find.

That’s a shame, because it’s one of the best vampire movies I’ve ever seen. The RLM crew does a great job breaking down the film, and their video is worth watching.

And my review from August 2021 is worth reading.

With that, here is “Monday Morning Movie Review: Near Dark (1987)“:

TBT: The Joy of Romantic Music III: Hector Berlioz’s “Symphonie Fantastique”

17 February 202213 February 2022 The Portly Politico9 Comments

It being a week of romance and lots of artistic endeavors, I decided to look back this Thursday to a post about the great French composer, Hector Berlioz.

Berlioz is the quintessential Romantic: he wrote the subject of today’s post, the very fun Symphonie Fantastique, to deal with his lovesickness—and he ended up getting the girl because of it!

Another Berlioz heartbreak anecdote: after his fiancée left him for another man (note, this woman is not the same as the subject of the Symphonie Fantastique), Berlioz plotted her and her new husband’s murder. He traveled to Nice, where the couple was living, and took along weapons, disguises, and other murder paraphernalia. When he disembarked from the train, he came to his senses, and abandoned his ill-conceived plot. Instead, he spent a couple of weeks in Nice composing.

Talk about a whiplash! I’m a sensitive poet-warrior at times, and I’ve experienced lovesickness, but never to the extent of Berlioz. Still, I identify with his desire to compose music to get (or to cope with not getting) chicks.

With that, here is 29 January 2021’s “The Joy of Romantic Music III: Hector Berlioz’s ‘Symphonie Fantastique’“:

TBT: Phone it in Friday VI: Valentine’s Day

10 February 20226 February 2022 The Portly Politico11 Comments

Well, it’s not quite Valentine’s Day yet, but I thought it would be worth looking back to 2020’s Valentine’s Day post, which was mostly a collection of various blog posts and reflections on the holiday.

I’m still wondering how Jay Nordlinger gets to travel the world writing pithy little observations about violin concertos and the like. How do I position myself to take his place when he finally retires or kicks the bucket? Who else is going to critique all those free concerts in Vienna?

But I digress. The Season of Love is upon us, and I suspect restaurants will be packed this weekend with lovers canoodling over their cannoli (or, in the case of the high number of breakups on Valentine’s Day than average, crying into their kishka). Sounds like another weekend of frozen pizza and spaghetti for yours portly.

So, here’s some great stuff from better writers to celebrate your Valentine’s Day Weekend. It’s 14 February 2020’s “Phone it in Friday VI: Valentine’s Day“:

TBT: A Tale of Two Cyclists

3 February 202229 January 2022 The Portly Politico16 Comments

My good online friend and regular commenter/contributor Pontiac Dream 39 wrote a great piece for The Conservative Woman about the new Highway Code in Great Britain. Apparently, the Highway Code is the document that deals with all that tricky driving stuff like who has the right-of-way in what situation, etc.

The new code features a bunch of carveouts and privileges for that most odious of roadway users, the cyclist. Ponty details how these “reforms” will result in increased cyclist fatalities, car accidents, and massive traffic jams, all in the name of giving cyclists more precious roadway.

That’s a trend all over the Anglosphere, it seems. Cycling nuts—the same people that want us all crammed into cities and getting around by public transport and aluminum bikes—keep pushing for not just more recognition on the roads, but more actual road space! Bicycle lanes pop up all over on congested city streets.

Cyclists also seem to have a total disregard for the massive vehicles barreling down on them. Few things make my blood boil and my eyes roll like seeing a a cyclist in full Spandex in 5 PM rush hour traffic. They seem to possess this notion that because there are laws allowing them space on the road, they are somehow invincible from harm.

But in this piece from 2019, I note there are some people who have no option but to ride a bike to get around. I consider these folks to be honest, hardworking dudes who just need a way to get to work (that, or they have DUIs or suspended licenses, so…). I am also not opposed to bike riding, per se—I desperately want a bike myself for running small errands around town. But I’m not going to be schlepping ten miles up US-401 at 7:30 AM in busy traffic, jeopardizing my life and making everyone else late for work.

But I digress. Read Ponty’s piece—it’s quite good!

With that, here is 17 September 2019’s “A Tale of Two Cyclists“:

TBT^2: Beethoven’s Sixth Symphony

20 January 202215 January 2022 The Portly Politico4 Comments

One of the many benefits of teaching music is (re)discovering beloved favorite works. During last week’s round of distance learning, I had to pull out some of the classics. If we’re going to sit on a Google Meet call, let’s listen to some music, not just talk about it.

I really love programmatic music—instrumental music that tells a story, often accompanied by program notes explaining (usually very briefly) what the listener is supposed to hear in the musical “story.” Students often like to imagine their own stories when listening to instrumental music, which is great, but I find that programmatic works give students (and myself!) some guideposts to follow.

Fortunately, Ludwig von Beethoven provided some handy ones for us in his Sixth Symphony, quite possibly my favorite symphony, and certainly my favorite of Beethoven’s. It’s the so-called “Pastoral” symphony, as it depicts a pleasant trip to the country (besides the roiling thunderstorm in the fourth movement).

It’s also unusual in two respects: instead of the standard four movements of the classical symphony (a fast opening movement, a slow second movement, a dancelike third movement, and a fast fourth movement), Beethoven includes five; and the third, fourth, and fifth movements all flow seamlessly into one another, without the customary pause between each.

It is also long, especially by the standards of the classical symphony (the Romantics, however, would have easily matched Beethoven for runtime), clocking in at nearly forty-five minutes (the typical classical symphony averages around twenty-five-to-thirty minutes, but forty-five would have been the upper limit for the time). But that length is in service to Beethoven’s vision, and he fully explores every theme in this symphony.

Here is a particularly excellent performance—the one I showed, in part, to my classes last week—by the Berlin Philharmonic, under the direction of Bernard Haitnik:

https://youtu.be/9ORsinmqm0M

With that, here is 4 February 2021’s “TBT: Beethoven’s Sixth Symphony“:

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

13 January 20225 January 2022 The Portly Politico26 Comments

In “The Worst of 2021” post, there was a much-neglected gem amid all the filler: this January 2021 post about Czech composer Bedřich Smetana‘s The Moldau. My good friend and former colleague H. L. Liptak—herself a noted writer and a recent subscriber, *hint, hint*—praised it in her a comment on “The Worst.”

That got me thinking about this post, and that it deserved a comeback. Thus, here is January 2022’s “The Joy of Romantic Music II: Bedřich Smetana’s ‘The Moldau’“:

TBT: Supporting Friends Friday: Audre Myers

6 January 20225 January 2022 The Portly Politico22 Comments

A little Welsh birdie told me that today our dear Audre Myers is turning twenty-nine for the forty-first time. Therefore, in lieu of my originally planned TBT—which will appear next Thursday—I’ve done what any decent blogger would do and hastily and have revived this classic post about Audre, one of the most popular posts of 2021.

As far as I can tell, this will be the first edition of Supporting Friends Friday to enjoy the TBT treatment. Who more fitting to receive such a dubious honor than Audre? Audre’s been a constant source of encouragement, amusement, and inspiration, and is one of those folks who keeps me writing.

So, before I get overly mushy, here is 27 August 2021’s “Supporting Friends Friday: Audre Myers“:

TBT: The Worst of 2020

30 December 202128 December 2021 The Portly Politico6 Comments

2021 has been a far more enjoyable year than 2020, although 2020 wasn’t nearly as apocalyptic in retrospect as it seemed at the time. Regardless, I’ve written a lot of stuff over the past three years. A great deal of it, whether good or bad, hasn’t been read by many people (with some notable exceptions).

2021 was the year that I stopped having posts with single-digit (or even just single!) views, but I know I’ve got some that flew under the radar—and probably for the better!

But we’ll look back at those posts tomorrow. Today, it’s time for the fifty-five (!) posts of “The Worst of 2020“:

The Portly Politico

One Southerner's unique, erudite, conservative perspective in a hectic world

Tag: TBT