George Gershwin's sister dances the Charleston

A rare home movie of Frances Gershwin dancing the Charleston. She looked almost uncannily like her brother, which must have been a mixed blessing. 

The Troll Doll Channel: ENCHANTING! Sparkling Crystal Trolls

Me vs. technology: who won this round?

For what it's worth, this is a letter I wrote in response to a nasty experience I just had at the optometrist's. It's very hard for me to be assertive and normally I would just quietly fume and make myself sick. But I want to post this in case anyone else in the world has ever felt this sort of unnecessary intimidation. BTW, this wasn't even my main eye test, which was done on a series of perhaps nine different machines, but a "follow-up" which was then going to be followed by another "follow-up". BTW, I was warned to take all identifying marks off this in case they "took legal action".

Dear Dr. Somebody,

I feel I would be remiss if I did not report a very negative and stressful experience I had at my last appointment with your office. I was treated rudely and disrespectfully, and the instructions I was given could not have been more vague and confusing. I was surprised that the receptionist conducts so much of the eye testing, but I was willing to let that go as I was under a lot of pressure and needed to get it over with. Another problem was that she has an accent which was making clear communication with her very difficult. This is not a criticism but a fact. Along with my partial hearing loss, it meant I had to ask her several times what she had just said.

When I sat at the third machine (I can’t name what it was because I am not cognizant of the technology), she told me I would see “flashing lights” and that I would have to “push the big button” when the lights came on. I was not at all clear what this meant, as she just handed me a sort of wand without showing me what to do with it. When I asked her for a clearer explanation, as by now I was quite confused, she said, quite irritably, “But I already explained all this to you.”

I sat through the first part of the test staring into the machine (I wasn't allowed to blink) and waiting for the “flashing lights”, which I assumed would be identical to all the other tests I had already had, with a very bright light like a flashbulb. This did not happen. I only saw tiny pinpoints of light appearing and disappearing at light speed all over the outside of my field of vision, but I did not respond because I was waiting for the “flashing lights”. So I sat there doing nothing and feeling confused and very foolish. After a while I had to assume she meant these tiny pinpricks of light and tried to keep up with them, which I could not.

When she came in to switch eyes, I once again asked her to clarify the instructions. Once more she said, sounding exasperated, “But I explained all this to you already.” I have severe arthritis in my hands at the base of the thumb and could barely keep up, as it was quite painful, and my hand was sticking to the “big button” due to the hand sanitizer. I felt as if I was holding a joy stick and trying to play a very fast-moving video game which I did not understand. My eye-hand coordination has always been extremely poor, the lights were tiny, very hard to see and moving at incredible speed, and I was sure I was failing the test. I was not comfortable asking her anything else as she had already been so abrupt with me.

Perhaps this has never happened to anyone else you have dealt with before (I was certainly given that impression), but I do find it hard to believe, as you must treat a great many elderly patients. My last eye test basically involved reading lines of type and looking into a couple of machines, but I have not experienced anything remotely like this intimidating high-tech “state-of-the-art” setup. But all these marvelous machines accomplish exactly nothing if you go home feeling worse than when you came in. Customer relations should always come first, and your job should be to serve the public with patience, courtesy and respect. This is absolutely crucial when most people are already so overstressed that only one bad experience might put them over the top.

I have my glasses now, am happy with my vision, was already told my eye health was good for my age, and don’t need any more rude and disrespectful treatment that leaves me feeling foolish and only adds to my already sky-high levels of stress. Please cancel all my further appointments, and do not contact me again.

Margaret Gunning

(Blogservations. The machines have taken over. I was tested on no fewer than NINE high-tech pieces of equipment just because I needed new glasses. At first I was in awe of it all and felt like I was on the Starship Enterprise, though I did not know why the receptionist ran the first three tests on me in a "little room" off to the side. Did she have any actual training to do this sort of thing? The rest of the appointment was a blur of e-charts, flourescent eyeball diagrams, blood vessel maps, and complicated explanations by the optometrist of all the diseases of the eye which I might have, but don't, and which finally concluded that there was nothing wrong with my eyes at all, and that in fact my eyes were ten years younger than my (admittedly run-down) biological self. 

But it was in the follow-up, which I now call the "foul-up", that I became enmeshed in a collision course between complex machinery and total incoherence. "Push the big button"? 

WHAT button, where? And why that sour frown on her face even as I struggled to figure out just what the fxxx she could mean?

I won't go back, but I confess here and now that I haven't sent the letter yet and probably won't. I usually "think better of it" the next day - and when I think of the letters I USED to actually send, to doctors, psychiatrists, etc. to protest such minor things as institutionalized abuse, and how those letters became part of my "file/diagnosis" - well, let's just say it never paid off in the end. It was all seen as pathology, as EVERYTHING a psychiatric patient says or does is pathology. They're mentally ill, remember?

Oh, and one more thing. I didn't think anything could be worse than the time the optician took one look at my prescription and exclaimed "WOAHHHHWW" - meaning: God, are you ever blind! But what happened today "trumped" even that wretched experience.)

UPDATE. I sent the letter and sighed with relief to be DONE with it all, hoping they would at least honor my request for NO followup. This morning I received not one, but TWO phone calls from this person, though I specifically asked them NEVER to contact me again. I hung up after the first call, then the phone immediately rang again and it was that person, the one whose dismissive rudeness basically ruined my day.

 All of a sudden, I seem to be the one who is in trouble. The receptionist said she would only call back if there was a "problem", but the "problem" is that the instructions I received were so fucked up that I could not complete the totally unnecessary test. My daughter has a severe eye problem, has had two surgeries, and I believe has been botched by an incompetent surgeon. Now she needs a cornea transplant due to HIS incompetence. This may leave her BLIND, unable to work ever again, and forced to go through the legal system.  I don't usually use this language, but I am beyond upset - I am terrified for her - so FUCK THEM ALL!

MY LOCKDOWN HAIR: truth or dare

Something I made a couple of days ago. I'm finding out what you can do without: A LOT, and what you can't - much more - and more heartbreaking, as it involves the loss of beloved people who are gone from my life. 

Never too old for snow! My teenage grandkids frolic in rare Vancouver snowstorm

 

FATA MORGANA: can we believe our eyes?

 

A Fata Morgana (Italian: [ˈfaːta morˈɡaːna]) is an unusual and complex form of superior mirage that is seen in a narrow band right above the horizon. It is the Italian name for the Arthurian sorceress Morgan le Fay, from a belief that these mirages, often seen in the Strait of Messina, were fairy castles in the air or false land created by her witchcraft to lure sailors to their deaths. 

Although the term Fata Morgana is sometimes applied to other, more common kinds of mirages, the true Fata Morgana is different from both an ordinary superior mirage and an inferior mirage.

Fata Morgana mirages significantly distort the object or objects on which they are based, often such that the object is completely unrecognizable.

A Fata Morgana can be seen on land or at sea, in polar regions or in deserts. It can involve almost any kind of distant object, including boats, islands and the coastline.

A Fata Morgana is often rapidly changing. The mirage comprises several inverted (upside down) and erect (right side up) images that are stacked on top of one another. Fata Morgana mirages also show alternating compressed and stretched zones.

BLOGSERVATIONS. I knew something about mirages, but I thought they were those things in the desert, where you see water and palm trees on the horizon and by the time you run to them, they're gone. But the Fata Morgana, named after the sorceress Morgan Le Fay in the Arthurian legend, is something quite else.

I seem to remember, in certain films, seeing something above the water, something weirdly shimmering that kept changing size and shape. It seemed to melt, stretch and reform like a strange liquid. Sometimes you could see through it. These things likely freaked out those sailors of antiquity, just as they freak out people today. Pirate ship? Imminent attack? One can see where they might be mistaken for a UFO.

A boat can suddenly project itself upward so that it appears to hang in the sky, morphing from an elongated shape to a blob to - nothing. The marine mirages make sense - sort of - because of all that reflection on the water. But what about the ones on land?

Wikipedia tells me (and how can Wikipedia be wrong?) that a Fata Morgana can be almost anything: an island, a mountainside, a mountain GOAT if you could get a goat to hang upside-down. But how about whole cities? The photos from China appear to show tall buildings supended above the clouds, leading a lot of people to cry "photoshop!" Then how to explain the video of the same phenomenon? Who could have created that?

All this comes from the Land of the Strange, that country in which I am a cliffdweller or sharecropper or part-time lover. It's all very well to say "it's just a trick of light". Simple physics. Physics is a strange thing, however, and some time I'll post something about the overtone chanting of Tibetan monks, which is, quite literally, a chord coming from one person's throat. The way the sound leaps all over the musical spectrum is downright spooky, and seems impossible.

Do we believe our eyes, and if we don't, what do we rely on? Physics? Upside-down boats (or goats), or castles in the air? And did anyone in that eerie floating city in China happen to look down?

Johnny Cash - Wanted Man - Live at San Quentin

The best, if not the only, version of this song. Johnny Cash wrote the tune, and Dylan the lyrics (can't you tell?). I had this album in the late '60s and wore the grooves off it, but seeing this video is startling and makes the experience much more real and vivid. Cash had never done any serious time, but he managed to create the impression that he had. His was an outlaw's soul, and these men knew it.

Wanted Man (Bob Dylan)

 

Wanted man in California,
Wanted man in Buffalo
Wanted man in Kansas City,
Wanted man in Ohio

Wanted man in Mississippi,
Wanted man in ol' Cheyenne
Wherever you might look tonight you might see this wanted man

I might be in Colorado,
Or Georgia by the sea
Working for some man who may not know at all who I might be

If you ever see me coming and if you know who I am
Don't you breathe it to nobody 'cause you know I'm on the lam

Wanted man by Lucy Watson,
Wanted man by Jeannie Brown
Wanted man by Nellie Johnson,
Wanted man in this next town

I've had all that I wanted of a lot of things I've had
And a lot more than I needed of some things that turned out bad

I got sidetracked in El Paso,
Stopped to get myself a map
Went the wrong way in Pleura with Juanita on my back

Went to sleep in Shreveport,
Woke up in Abilene
Wonderin' why I'm wanted at some town half way in between

Wanted man in Albuquerque,
Wanted man in Syracuse
Wanted man in Tallahassee,
Wanted man in Baton Rouge

There's somebody set to grab me
Anywhere that I might be
And wherever you might look tonight
You might get a glimpse of me

Wanted man in California,
Wanted man in Buffalo
Wanted man in Kansas City,
Wanted man in Ohio

Wanted man in Mississippi,
Wanted man in ol' Cheyenne

Wherever you might look tonight you might see this wanted man

Bob Dylan - I've Made Up My Mind to Give Myself to You

I've Made Up My Mind to Give Myself to You

Bob Dylan

I'm sitting on my terrace, lost in the stars

Listening to the sounds of the sad guitars

Been thinking it all over and I've thought it all through

I've made up my mind to give myself to you

I saw the first fall of snow

I saw the flowers come and go

I don't think that anyone ever has ever knew

I've made up my mind to give myself to you

I'm giving myself to you, I am

From Salt Lake City to Birmingham

From East L.A. to San Antone

I don't think I can bear to live my life alone

My eyes like a shooting star

It looks at nothing here or there, looks at nothing near of far

No one ever told me, it's just something I knew

I've made up my mind to give myself to you

If I had the wings of a snow-white dove

I'd preach the gospel, the gospel of love

A love so real, a love so true

I've made up my mind to give myself to you

Take me out traveling, you're a traveling man

Show me something I don't understand

I'm not what I was, things aren't what they were

I'll go far away from home with her

I've traveled a long road of despair

I've met no other traveler there

Lot of people gone, lot of people I knew

I've made up my mind to give myself to you

Well, my heart's like a river, a river that sings

Just takes me a while to realize things

I've seen the sunrise, I've seen the dawn

I'll lay down beside you when everyone's gone

I've traveled from the mountains to the sea

I hope that the gods go easy with me

I knew you'd say yes, I'm saying it too

I've made up my mind to give myself to you

Wedding of The Painted Doll - 1929

One of my all-time favorite numbers from the early-talkie musicals. The choreography is extremely odd! These dancers lack the grace I see in my three dancing granddaughters. Their "splits" are more like thuds, and those pompoms. . . oh well, this is definitely a period piece. This has just resurfaced on YouTube after disappearing (copyright issues, probably) for several years. 

Be careful, Amelio! Troll doll takes a ride on a drone.

Brilliant! I love the "medical team" at the end.

"MEOW! Get me down!" Brave little kitten in cherry tree

 

"PLEASE STOP!" History's Worst Singers (an encore)

 

(I rediscovered these recordings a little while ago, then realized I'd already done a post on them. Well, if I can stand to hear them again, so can you!)

There's not much to say about singing like this - not even words to describe it, but I'll try. Most of these are "vanity" recordings, kind of like self-published books, and thus are a whole new definition of awfulness. But at some point, these people must have thought they could sing. Who told them that? Whoever it was should be incarcerated. At very least, there should be a stiff fine.

Ah! Emanuele Bucalo. You may ask - who is he? You will know even less about him after you hear this. But I will say, it's funny. There used to be a Hanna-Barbera duck character named Yakky Doodle, and this is who he reminds me of. Not even as tuneful as Donald Duck.

Sirach Van Bodegraven is another infamously un-famous singer who deserved his reputation. He has a way of blundering through the classics in hell-bent fashion, singing so badly that it's often hard to tell what the hell the song is supposed to be. Here he eviscerates Vesti la Giubba from Pagliacci with true operatic gusto. Or is it gutso?

Encore, encore! To thunderous applause (or is that a thunderstorm? Can't tell, my ears just went blank), Sirach treats us to his inimitable rendition of that other opera standard, Nessun Dorma. This is only marginally worse than listening to those fat adolescent boys in spandex body suits butcher it on America's Got Talent. Note to the audience: LOUD singing isn't GOOD singing.

Now, here we have "The Highest Voice". That is the title of the video, so that is what I am going to call it. It is the highest voice, I suppose, if screeching at the top of your lungs and "sort of" hitting the note counts. I had to read the YouTube description to find out who this was. It's Susie Summers! Sounds like someone from a Gidget movie, or maybe one of those dolls with hair you can pull out of its head so it reaches the floor. Anyway, Susie Summers is singing The Doll Song (appropriate!) by Offenbach, whom I don't believe for a minute wrote it the way she is singing it.

Adele's Laughing Song! But we're not laughing.

Thomas Burns may just be the Michelangelo of bad singing. The piano introduction seems to be preparing us for singing that is romantic and tinged with melancholy, and instead we get a constipated Elmer Fudd. I have heard that Burns was a close friend of that other scion of bad singing, Florence Foster Jenkins (badly portrayed by Meryl Streep, whose performing is now so weighed down by mannerisms that she looks like a candidate for Dr. Nowzardan). Maybe not, though - I think he was just added on to a CD of Jenkins' recordings to pad it out a bit. Florence only recorded a dozen or so arias, or perhaps the others just exploded into bits. When Burns sings, "O, Margarita", though. . . do I even need to finish that sentiment?

I shouldn't include this one, and I feel a little ashamed of myself, but here it is anyway because it is just so horrendous. It's not just bad singing - it's drunk singing, from a soprano who should know better. What's both touching and cringeworthy about it is how the tenor just keeps on valiantly singing, not trying to carry her but just keep his head barely above water. What else can he do - escort her off the stage? Really, someone should have, if only for her own sake. I had to look up her name - she's a well-known singer, when sober, with the incredible handle of Dragana Jugovic del Monaco. Yikes!

Natalie de Andrade. I can't find out anything about her. Obviously she must have performed somewhere, or her puss wouldn't be plastered on this programmy-looking thing. But she is awful. Simply awful. This sounds like a rehearsal, but of what, I can't say.

My all-time favorite cherry blossom cat

 

Some favorite cherry blossom cats