Horsemen from Hell: Murnau's Faust

 

The hideous horsemen from hell. From Murnau's Faust, the movie of my dreams.

1899 "Luna Waltz" Played On Mira 18 1/2 inch Concert Grand Console Music...

Speaking of carousels. . . this music box is the charm.

Carousel Waltz (Richard Rodgers, 1945)

I have always loved the Carousel Waltz, and sifted through YouTube to try to find a good version. I found several - and then this one, and I wondered what piece of music I was listening to. It COULDN'T be the same one! It was like wandering around in a very familiar setting - a circus, maybe, or a carnival - but seeing everything startlingly new, the veils ripped away, as if I were hearing it all for the very first time. 

It's just the way the musicians attack the piece, the way they don't pussyfoot around but just dive right in. And make no mistake, this IS circus music, dark, sometimes dissonant, with thumping bass drums and blasting tubas, dreamily romantic (OH THOSE VIOLAS!), with sparkly carnival effects charmingly reproduced by crisp percussion and those big bald men blowing tiny little piccolos. 

This is a glorious piece of music which has beckoned and pulled me in again, after too long away from music, too much distraction, too many things pulling me in different directions. This is so perfect and encompasses so much, with a glittering cinematic quality and a kind of primal sophistication. And the tempo couldn't be more perfect - bad tempi being my all-time-worst pet peeve in music. For that, you must thank the conductor - and this is without a doubt some of the most glorious conducting I've ever heard. The musicians play this with focus, joy and gusto, but also with the requisite fierceness that is all a part of a beloved musical which, for a popular Broadway show, is exceptionally dark.

And because I just thought of it, here's another favorite piece I keep coming back to - another dance in 3/4 time, Khatchaturian's magnificent Masquerade Waltz, (sometimes called Dark Waltz), with the same primal, inscrutable melancholy lurking under a great bumptious cymbal-crashing piece of circus music. Call it My Armenian Cousin.

Meghan Markle, Fashion Disaster!

A Faustian Bargain (or, white robes and turkey soup)

One of my weirder dreams, which I only remember in detail because I had it right before I woke up.

Faustian Dream  March 24, 2023

We were having people over for homemade turkey soup which I always make after Xmas.  I don't know how many (seven?), or whether they were friends or relatives, though my brother Walt seemed to be in the mix. 

I was busy preparing for this by knitting white garments out of sheep wool for everyone to wear. These were long robes, floor-length, with long sleeves and hoods.

We were all going to watch the silent film version of Murnau's Faust on TV.

I realized there was not enough meat for the soup, so I went to look in the freezer. I also realized all the knitted robes were child-sized and would not fit anyone. The robes also had legs like they were pants or jumpsuits.

I had complaints (from someone?) that the wool used in the robes irritated some people’s skin and they couldn’t wear them, and I wished I had used synthetic, but the real wool was to give the robes a special quality and significance and would cost more.

We watched a part of  Faust which I hadn’t seen before (I expected to see the phantom horses at the start, but saw some sort of Cyclops being killed and wondered if this was a director’s cut). Gabor Mate was at this event and wearing a very short version of the gown with skinny legs sticking out – he was on my right. He was the only person I recognized. Others were there, very vague and shadowy but, did not know who they were or how many or even why they were there.

I wore the gown with the hood pulled up, like a Druid.

Now that I look at it, this seems like a sort of cult wearing robes I’d made, and eating food I made, but I still have no idea who they were or why we were there or what sort of cult it was, or why I would ever organize or take part in a cult to begin with, as I hate them, but am also fascinated with them and can't get enough of reading about them and watching documentaries about them. I have recently been reading about NXVIM, or however you spell it, the cult where women are held down and branded. No branding took place, but no one ate turkey soup either, and except for Gabor Mate no one seemed to be wearing the robes (but I am not sure because I could not really see them). The familiar music from the opening of Faust was playing, but it looked all different (I had seen a clip from it recently).

And all this before breakfast!

Magical Forest (clip)

 

More experiments with the new YouTube "clip" feature, which allows you to clip one minute of sound in a continuous loop. A sort of gif with music.

Stravinsky: Tango

 

Clip from YouTube! (experimental video)

 

YouTube has a new "thing" that I've been experimenting with, but it seems unlikely I can do anything with it. Or not!

The Troll Doll Channel: HAWAIIAN LOVE CALL!🌸

Like Tom Robbins says, it's never too late to have a happy childhood. Here I present two nostalgic elements from that long-ago time: my troll collection, and Spike Jones!

🐦BIRD RINGS DOORBELL🦆

Is this the WORST troll on eBay?

1960-70 Large Troll Doll
 

Item Information

Condition:
Used

Price:
US $45.00

Approximately C $61.89

100% positive feedback

Shipping:
US $20.00 (approx C $27.51) eBay International Standard Delivery. See details for shipping

International shipment of items may be subject to customs processing and additional charges.
Located in: Rose Hill, Virginia, United States

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Seller ships within 4 days after receiving cleared payment.
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No returns accepted. 

💗🧡💛Ferociousgumby THANKS YOU!💚💙💜

Not that I'm proud of my channel! Well, yes. From its beginnings in 2013 as a baking/crafts channel with Caitlin, to the indefinable weirdness of today, it has been a constant source of - what? Lots of things. I attempt to explain it here. Weirdest of all, I was just contacted by the producer of an MTV video clips show called Ridiculousness, asking my permission to use a video I made years ago - of Bill sneezing. How they found it, I do not know. It got 61,000 views, which for me is astronomical, though the highest one so far is 9,100,000 for a really stupid one with a rubber robot singing Daisy (like HAL in 2001).

It's is still getting multiple comments a day, but it's a complete coincidence. I had no idea it was "trending" on TikTok, and it still must be or I wouldn't be still getting so many views. I don't want to get caught up in views and subscribers, but being up to 14,800 subs is something I never expected. What's most gratifying is that my granddaughters, particularly Erica, think this is all WAY cool, especially the MTV thing. 

Whether they actually use it or not remains to be seen, but just being chosen is - well, something, I guess, out of the multi-millions or even billions of channels and videos (and Gangnam Style long ago surpassed a billion views). So here I try to explain it all, or at least talk about it. I've kept this blog for more than ten years and barely know if people read it, but I do get comments, several a week, usually from VERY old posts that people must have googled up. I also google MYSELF up quite frequently. When I do an image search, half the time images from my own blog posts come up. Which is kind of strange, but not for the internet.

25 Ways in Which We Use Asbestos (and Dangerous Things made of Celluloid!)

I think these are absolutely gorgeous! I've tried cutting them up into little pieces, but it takes forever. So I just enlarged a couple of them. Aside from marvelous life lessons on how to and how NOT to play cricket, we learn that while celluloid is horribly dangerous, asbestos is just fine and is in fact a miracle fibre that can be used to fireproof, insulate, make oven mitts, etc. (until miners began to die in appalling numbers due to asbestos-choked lungs). I myself played with asbestos back in the day, with a type of modelling clay not unlike papier-mache. You took this powdery grey stuff and mixed it with mucilege (what we used to call "school glue"), and behold, a nice mushy modelling material out of which you could make nifty things like ash trays. Speaking of dangerous! I remember grey dust flew up out of the powder and drifted and hung in the air, where we undoubtedly inhaled it without a care. Reminds me of how medical science is now discovering that talcum powder isn't good for you. OH REALLY? For generations, newborn infants inhaled this powdered mineral stuff, and no one even thought about it. Johnson & Johnson is now facing zillion-dollar lawsuits, and their baby powder is now made of cornstarch. But why was it ever made of a toxic mineral in the first place?

MY BIG FAT GREY SQUIRREL!

Why is it grey squirrels are so much cuter than the blackies? The silver-grey fur, the white ring around the eyes, the FAT FAT lush silver tail, and their habit of looking right at you as you film them foraging. . . I can't stay mad at them, even as they drain all my bird feeders.

Harry and Meghan: Watching paint dry

CRAIG BROWN: News just in from Harry and Meghan's new hometown of Montecito... yes, watching paint dry CAN save the world

By Craig Brown for the Daily Mail

The Duke and Duchess of Sussex are said to be mulling over an invitation to the King’s Coronation in May.

A statement on behalf of the couple confirmed that they have been emailed about the event but it’s not yet clear if they’ll accept. And that’s the news. The time is three minutes past eight.

March 7: The Duke and Duchess of Sussex are said to be mulling over the a la carte menu at an out-of-town restaurant near their home in Montecito, California. A statement on behalf of the couple confirmed that they have not yet decided between the Cobb salad and the sushi. A decision is expected imminently.

March 8: The Duke and Duchess of Sussex are said to be mulling over whether to go out or stay in. A statement on behalf of the couple confirmed that they have been involved in discussions about the relative benefits of the two options.

March 9: The Duke and Duchess of Sussex are said to be watching paint dry. A statement on behalf of the couple confirmed that they are pursuing their paint-watching in a spirit of universal unity and reconciliation on behalf of all the underprivileged people of the world.

March 10: The Duke and Duchess of Sussex are said to be preparing a statement about how their paint-watching operation is going. In an exclusive interview on CNN — his first in more than two hours — Prince Harry said: ‘I was never given the opportunity to watch paint dry in my childhood. It was always like “Oh, no, no, no, you must be able to find something better to do. You want to do this, you don’t want to do that.”

‘They tried to make out that the paint would dry whether or not I watched it. It was, like, brutal. And that’s something that, as an adult, I’ve struggled to cope with.’

March 11: The Duke and Duchess of Sussex are said to be mulling over an invitation to watch paint dry at the newly decorated house of their neighbour Oprah Winfrey in Montecito, California.

In an exclusive interview with the entertainment editor of Psychology Today, the duchess said that over the coming years they are determined to let their children watch as much paint dry as possible.

‘It’s, like, a very positive experience. It, like, teaches you that though paint of whatever colour or creed may at first be very, very wet, so wet it’s like, really, really wet, well, you only have to, like, wait long enough, and — here’s the amazing thing — it will eventually dry.

‘And to me that’s the most valuable life lesson of them all.’

March 12: The Duke and Duchess of Sussex are said to be mulling over whether to sign up for a major Netflix series, Harry and Meghan: Becoming Dry.

A spokesperson for the couple said: ‘Harry and Meghan are proud to share their passion for watching paint dry with millions of others, harnessing their own expertise to push for safer, more inclusive paint-watching communities around the world.’

Speaking to her friend Gwyneth Paltrow for her podcast Spending And Caring, Meghan said: ‘Harry and I want to shed light on paint and continue to watch it dry so as to empower and inspire others to protect this beautiful, fragile planet we call Earth.’

March 13: The Duke and Duchess of Sussex are said to be gazing at their own navels with great tenderness and compassion, in a specially curated session at the Archewell Navel-Gazing and Enlightenment Retreat (ANGER) in Montecito.

Prince Harry reveals on the My Best Trauma podcast that learning to gaze at his own navel has done wonders for his mental health.

‘As a child, I, like, literally didn’t have a navel, or, if I did, I didn’t know where it was and was certainly not encouraged to gaze at it.

‘Growing up, I suffered from unconscious bias against my own navel. I never gave it a chance to speak, so naturally it felt sidelined.

‘And that’s why Meghan and I are now on a mission to teach everyone to engage with their navels, and to listen to everything our navels have to tell us about our shared values.’

News just in: The Duke and Duchess of Sussex announce their new Archewell Nursing Home, dedicated to nursing all kinds of grievance, from the wholly inconsiderable to the very small.

OH ME, OH MEMES! Just some funny stuff