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

 

Donation guilt: "Go 'way from my door"

 

I have some serious issues with the two people who came to my door on a freezing-cold evening, right at supper hour, and said, "Thanks for coming to the door! We're collecting for UNICEF!" I said, "We don't give at the door", and closed it. But of course, being a good Canadian who had politeness jackhammered into her as a child, I felt "bad" as I went back to my already-getting-cold dinner. But I didn't want to stand there shuffling from foot to foot while they gave their spiel and I fished around for some money to get this transaction over with. 

I think door-to-door donation is a VERY bad idea in this age of widespread fraud, even if charities actually still do it, because I've heard stories that they won't even take your cash now and want your credit card info (! How dumb do they think I am?), or will only sign you up for monthly donations. I'm not against that, in fact we already do it from the security of our PayPal account. Certainly it feels safer than handing your money over to "someone" who says he's from UNICEF. 

It's hard enough to overcome a highly-warranted suspicion about people holding their hands out in the dark, especially when you've been trying to de-stress with your loved ones at the dinner table. But that leads to another question. Since when is this still OK during COVID? How easy is it to stay six feet apart when handing someone a wad of cash?  What are the regulations now, and who has the extra money to spare when businesses are failing all over the place? Yes, I know kids overseas have it even worse, but is it helpful to remind me of that as I stand there wondering if I can even afford to give them anything? 

In addition to all this unpleasantness at dinnertime, I don't honestly want a person I don't know coming to my door unless it is some sort of real emergency. Bill and I recently made a pact: the ONLY business we do at the door now is Girl Guide cookies. (BTW, there used to be someone who came around every year with no affiliation at all, saying he was collecting money to buy milk for homeless mothers. I think it went straight into his pocket. If he comes around again, I'll tell him my daughter is a TV reporter who's doing a story on donation fraud, and watch him skedaddle away from my doorway forever.)