Elaine Fine, “Adoration” arranger

The online music-magazine Van (as in Beethoven) has an article by Felix Linsmeier about Florence Price’s “Adoration”: “Das Über-Orgel-Stück”. Or in (Google’s) translation, “The Over-Organ Piece.” The German title is a translation of Elaine’s characterization of “Adoration” as a “super-organ piece.”

The article credits Elaine as “wohl die Pionierin der weiten Welt der Adoration-Adaptionen” — “probably the pioneer of the wide world of ‘Adoration’ adaptations.” Elaine has arranged “Adoration” for violin, viola, cello, flute, clarinet, and tuba (each with piano), six violas, violin soloist and orchestra, string orchestra, and orchestra. She’s made all her arrangements of this (public domain) composition available at no cost through the IMSLP.

It’s good to see Florence Price’s music getting new attention in the twenty-first century. And it’s good to see an arranger — especially this one — get some recognition for her work. Give the composer some. And give the arranger some too.

Here, from 2020, is Elaine’s first arrangement of “Adoration,” for violin and piano, with the eminent violinist Augustin Hadelich at the piano and thirty-seven other musicians.

Free COVID-19 tests, round three

I’ve mentioned it to several people who didn’t already know, so I’ll mention it here too: third shipments of free at-home COVID-19 tests are now available to U.S. households.

Was it ever thus?

We are in a train compartment. Bing Crosby is on the radio. From the musical short I Surrender Dear (dir. Mack Sennett, 1931):

Mother: “Will you please shut off that noise?”

Daughter: “Noise? Mother, that’s Bing Crosby.”

Noise! Was it ever thus? Yes, it was.

For an approving take on the singer, here’s Roaring Lion’s “Bing Crosby.” And here’s Van Dyke Parks’s recording of that tune, released on the album Discover America fifty years ago this month.

Garfield, with, without

Here’s a strip that I think is better minus thought balloons but with Garfield.

[Garfield, May 18, 2022. Click for a larger view.]

But maybe not:

[Garfield, May 18, 2022. Click for a larger view.]

There’s also a Marie Kondo version, with Garfield and Odie in a box on a faraway shelf. Or maybe they’ve gone to the Goodwill:

[Garfield, May 18, 2022. Click for a larger view.]

No more Garfield for me after today. My tolerance is limited. Maybe yours too.

Previous examples
Thoughtless : “Look at me” : Odie with sunglasses : Sofa, Jon’s back

In search of lost LA

Art Donovan (Jack Bannon) asks questions. Charlie Hume (Mason Adams) answers. From the Lou Grant episode “Hollywood” (December 17, 1979):

“When did they get rid of the orange groves in the Valley? Whatever happened to the eucalyptus trees along Melrose? Why do I sound like a ninety–year–old man?”

“You know, what surprises me is that so much of the town is still here. Remember those donut places shaped like coffee mugs? I saw one the other day. Now it's dry cleaner shaped like a coffee mug. But you see, the old LA is still here just under the surface. But you gotta look for it.”

It’s a singular episode: a miniature film noir, with George Chandler, Laraine Day, Howard Duff, Nina Foch, Margaret Hamilton, John Larch, Paul Stewart, and Marie Windsor.

A pencil sculpture

A Minneapolis man is sculpting a giant no. 2 pencil from a dead tree. Sixteen feet tall, to be sharpened away, one foot a year.

Related reading
All OCA pencil posts (Pinboard)

A BFD, I hope

In The New York Times this afternoon:

The Justice Department has asked the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack for transcripts of interviews it is conducting, which have included discussions with associates of former President Donald J. Trump, according to people with knowledge of the situation.

The move, coming as Attorney General Merrick B. Garland appears to be ramping up the pace of his painstaking investigation into the Capitol riot, is the clearest sign yet of a wide-ranging inquiry at the Justice Department.

Garfield minus Garfield

I somehow got to thinking about Garfield minus Garfield, a self-explanatory strategy for greater reading enjoyment. Does it still work?

[Garfield, May 9, 2022. Click for a larger view.]

[Garfield, May 14, 2022. Click for a larger view.]

I think so.

Previous examples
Thoughtless : “Look at me” : Odie with sunglasses

Mystery actors

[Click for a larger view.]

The fellow on the far left is a real mystery. I have no idea who he is. But the other two should be familiar to anyone who’s spent a healthy (?) amount of time in front of a warm TV.

Thank goodness I can still screenshot movies on a Mac.

Leave your best guesses in the comments. I’ll add hints if they’re needed.

*

The name of the boy in the middle is now in the comments. A hint for the man on the right: he’s probably best known for a long-running role as a minister.

*

The name of the man on the right is now in the comments.

More mystery actors
? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ?

FSRC: annual report

The Four Seasons Reading Club, our household’s two-person adventure in reading, has finished its seventh year. The club began after I retired from teaching, so the year runs from May to May. In our seventh year we read novels, novellas, short-story collections, graphic novels, non-fiction, a Socratic dialogue, a children’s story, and a poem. In alphabetical order:

Hans Christian Andersen, The Snow Queen, trans. unknown

W.H. Auden, “Musée des Beaux Arts”

Jane Austen, Northanger Abbey

James Baldwin, Giovanni’s Room, Go Tell It on the Mountain

Honoré de Balzac, The Memoirs of Two Young Wives, trans. Jordan Stump

Ronald Blythe, Akenfield: Portrait of an English Village

Emmanuel Bove, My Friends, trans. Janet Louth

Anne Brontë, Agnes Grey, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall

Charlotte Brontë, Villette

Jerry Craft, Class Act, New Kid

Robertson Davies, The Salterton Trilogy: Tempest-Tost, Leaven of Malice, A Mixture of Frailties

Henry James, The Turn of the Screw and Other Ghost Stories

Tove Jansson, The Summer Book, trans. Thomas Teal

Robert Musil, Intimate Ties: Two Novellas, trans. Peter Wortsman; Young Törless, trans. Mike Mitchell

Vladimir Nabokov, The Real Life of Sebastian Knight

Gary Paulsen, Hatchet

Jed Perl, Authority and Freedom: A Defense of the Arts

Plato, Gorgias, trans. Walter Hamilton and Chris Emlyn-Jones

Jason Reynolds and Ibram X. Kendi, Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You

Anna Seghers, The Dead Girls’ Class Trip, trans. Margot Bettauer Dembo

Gilbert Sorrentino, Aberration of Starlight

Art Spiegelman, Maus

Robert Louis Stevenson, Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, Treasure Island

Adalbert Stifter, The Bachelors, trans. David Bryer; Motley Stones, trans. Isabel Fargo Cole

Kathrine Kressmann Taylor, Address Unknown

Eudora Welty, Thirteen Stories

Now it’s on to Nella Larsen, Passing.

Here are the reports for 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020 and 2021.