Ralph Stanley’s death this week had me putting on my O Brother, Where Art Thou cd and giving it a turn. I loved that movie, if for no other reason it introduced me to some beautiful music.
I have no recipes for you this week…to be honest I didn’t even remember it was Friday. The world is rushing at me, mostly with really good stuff, and I’m struggling to keep up. I suspect it will be that way until mid-July. I am also finding myself inundated by kind, unexpected deeds that have buoyed me at a time when it would be so easy to become cynical and disillusioned with the world. The house is almost a done deed, too, so I’m going into the weekend feeling hopeful.
I will try and have some July 4th ideas for you next week. But no promises.
What’s on your plate tonight? Anything fun planned this weekend? Open thread…
Omnes Omnibus
If this isn’t a bat signal for raven and OzarkHillbilly, I don’t know what is.
Mike in NC
Heat index the last several days averaged 103; some relief due over the weekend.
debbie
Love that soundtrack. Also, congratulations!
SiubhanDuinne
TaMara, you do what you need to do when and as you need to do it. The rest of us can wait. Honestly. There are potato salad recipes on the web. You’re moving house, FFS.
Amaranthine RBG
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tUOfaIyv4Bs
Unfortunately, he backed away from this endorsement in 2015.
But, still, the idea if this elderly guy from southwest Virginia endorsing a black man for president is something to behold.
Groucho48
Folks who like the Oh, Brother soundtrack might want to check out the DVD of a concert “inspired” by the movie. Down From the Mountain, with lots of the same folks who performed in the movie.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Down_from_the_Mountain
Mnemosyne
There was supposed to be a big open streets (ciclovia) event this weekend, but it got postponed due to the nearby wildfires. Feh.
I have a lot of paper purging to do around the house, plus I’ve been putting off some proofreading for a family project. And it would be REALLY nice if I could find my damn Kindle, which is somewhere in the apartment, but I can’t remember where.
Redshift
This is one of those weeks when the Ms and I discover that those shows we excitedly bought tickets for a couple of months ago are all happening at the same time. Tuesday it was the theater re-broadcast of One Man, Two Guvnors, which was great. Last night we saw Sting and Peter Gabriel, which was wonderful. Tomorrow night it’s Jonathan Coulton. Tuesday it’s the MST3K reunion show live broadcast.
They’re all lots of fun, but we also have too much other stuff we need to be doing, which makes it a little stressful.
Mnemosyne
@SiubhanDuinne:
Best potato salad ever: Cooking Light’s Caesar Potato Salad. People go nuts for it at every picnic.
chopper
O Brother! is still one of the best movies ever. and ralph stanley is a national treasure. damn.
TIlda Swinton's Bald Cap
r-u-n-n-o-f-t
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@chopper:
It’s really a perfect movie in every way – from the light, to the story, to the soundtrack and the acting. The KKK ceremony scene was next level creepy. It touched so many themes still working their way through our national digestive tract. It’s genius, and Ralph Stanley’s austere voice was key.
Major Major Major Major
I haven’t seen that movie since… College? Yeesh. Gotta see that again.
debbie
@the Conster, la Citoyenne:
I feel the same way about the Coens’ True Grit.
the Conster, la Citoyenne
I’m making potato salad for a solstice/belated Father’s Day party tomorrow, where the feature is Korean barbecue with all the ingredients from H Mart – our little piece of Seoul here in Boston. The weather here is actually perfect. Low humidity, hot sun, cool breezes. Looking around at the world in chaos, it seems far away, at least for now.
danielx
Musically related thread, so….I’m trying to figure out a better way to connect an IPod Classic to a stereo receiver. Currently using an RCA adapter plug from the mini RCA headphone plug to inputs on receiver and it works, but not very well. Sound quality isn’t great and I have to crank up (way up) the receiver volume to hear the tunes. Ideas…?
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@debbie:
Blood Simple and Fargo also are just crazy good stories. Coen brothers are treasures.
debbie
@the Conster, la Citoyenne:
Agreed. They are by far my favorites. I can’t even imagine being in the same room with them!
redshirt
@the Conster, la Citoyenne: Did you see Hail, Cesar?
Spoiler! It was a wonderful movie about movies.
lamh36
not to be a Debbie downer, but this made me sooo damn mad!
“A Father Refused to Claim Body of #Pulse Victim” #OrlandoShooting
shit…it’s your damn flesh & blood. Let God do the judging, if that’s so important to you, but to just leave ur child in a nameless possibly potter’s field…just cause they were gay.
Shit…no one said you have to have a service, but CLAIM THE FUQN’ BODY.
smh
Karma is coming for that dad…smh
rikyrah
I had a Groupon that was about to expire, so I went and got Middle Eastern food.
J R in WV
For those asking about the WV floods, we are fine in Lincoln county. We’re a little bit southwest of the major bands of rain which were a little north of Charleston.
We had the phone line dead and some guttering washed in the gravel farm road, which we will repair tomorrow. We try to keep a pile of gravel just for these occasions. Pretty trivial compared to the towns underwater, with streets running like waterfalls.
Amazing to see that burning house floating down the creek, amazing and horrible.
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@redshirt:
I haven’t seen it, but it got really mixed reviews. George Clooney and Coen Bros though – pretty much must see. I still haven’t decided how good an actor George Clooney is, but then I remember O Brother, where he was pitch perfect, and I forgot he was George Clooney.
seaboogie
@the Conster, la Citoyenne: Agreed. I remember seeing Blood Simple for the first time and thinking “dayum…this is a movie!”. I’ve re-watched it several times, along with others in the Coen brothers oeuvre. I met Frances McDormand here in Sonoma last year. I was working at our indy bookstore and she had left her credit card there after a purchase earlier in the day and came back to retrieve it. Someone else had left their cell phone behind and we were working on getting that back to them at the moment. Weird day – everyone was losing their (material) shit. Frances is a woman of surprisingly small stature and also very down to earth.
Omnes Omnibus
@debbie: “Raising Arizona” and “Miller’s Crossing.”
redshirt
@the Conster, la Citoyenne: It was a lot of fun. That’s my best review.
seaboogie
@the Conster, la Citoyenne: I love that Clooney and Pitt are part of the Coen troupe. Burn After Reading was also perfect. Seeing these excellent actors play total doofuses is delightful. And whenever Richard Jenkins plays a character full of pathos, he always claims my heart.
MattF
So much good stuff in that movie. Here are the three sirens.
ETA: Note that GW slips ‘we wrote’ into the intro. She tells the anecdote of an old lady who came up after a concert and asked her “Are those real songs or did you write them yourself?”
TaMara (HFG)
@J R in WV: Glad to hear from you!
debbie
@Omnes Omnibus:
Yes, Miller’s Crossing is probably my #1 favorite, though True Grit’s close behind. My youngest brother likes Coen Bros. movies as much as I do, but his favorite is Lebowski (he never left the frat house behind). We go back and forth for hours over which film’s the best.
I got the True Grit soundtrack from my library and renewed it the maximum of 10 times. I just could not get enough of those hymns.
TaMara (HFG)
@redshirt: One of my favorite movies this year. Just spot on.
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@seaboogie:
She’s such an unlikely movie star – pretty in an unconventional no makeup plain kind of way, and you can’t take your eyes off of her. Didn’t Ethan Coen scoop her up after Blood Simple? What an interesting couple. I loved her in This Must Be The Place with Sean Penn – another really offbeat movie that could have been made by the Coen Bros, but wasn’t.
SiubhanDuinne
@Mnemosyne:
Sounds awesome! If I cooked, I would totally make that.
Elie
Made great sour cherry pie/s today. My neighbor’s sour cherry tree had a limb laden with cherries that broke into our yard. My hubby and I collected a couple of buckets of cherries — enough for two pies. We kept one and gave the other to our neighbor with the tree who was kind enough to saw the thing down before it broke down our fence. The cool thing is that they are dark pink rather than red like store bought cherry pie filling that has color added. They also have this nice exactly tart sweet flavor. The recipe that I used had both vanilla and almond extract in it and those two flavors made the pies really full flavored….
Tripod
David Cameron: is you, or is you not, my constituency?
English public: YES!… NO!… Wait… what was the question…?
TaMara (HFG)
@SiubhanDuinne: Thank you. Two of the things I usually gravitate to for stress relief, cycling and cooking, are not practical at right now, so I’m a little at odds. Walking Bixby is helpful, but since he almost broke my hand yesterday we’re on tenuous ground at the moment. #stilllovehim
Applejinx
What’s on my plate tonight is, I finished my video game I was working on just after New Years’ :)
http://brothersjohnsongames.com/counterpart/
It is free: ain’t no money in game programming you know :)
seaboogie
@lamh36: Well, we are not all the way there yet, but humanity seems to be evolving even as what one hopes are some of the last vestiges of fear and blame erupt even higher. Today Obama made Stonewall a National Monument. There have been a lot of big steps forward for LGBTQ folks lately. Families can evolve somewhat more slowly, because family, and culture…
seaboogie
@the Conster, la Citoyenne: Heh – met Sean Penn several years ago in another retail establishment, but I think I’ve already told that story.
TaMara (HFG)
Did I mention that my (fingers crossed) soon to be new garden is full of golden raspberries, 5 kinds of strawberries and concord grapes. Oh, the fun we’ll have.
schrodinger's cat
The idea of a dip in the water being redemptive exists in Hinduism too. Some rivers are more sacred than the others. Also music: hymns, bhajans, aartis, abhangas, Sufi qawwalis, I like them all. There are so many commonalities between religions, when one thinks about it.
The Varkaris make a walking pilgrimage from different parts of Maharashtra twice a year, in spring and fall to take a dip in the river Chandrabhaga and go to the Vitthal (Vishnu) temple in Pandharpur, singing and dancing all the way*. .
Varkaris have been doing this for the last 800 or so years.
The song is from a movie but the footage is that of real vari (trip, pilgrimage)
SiubhanDuinne
@TaMara (HFG):
Yes, meant to ask you how’s the hand? Yikes, that sounded so painful! Bixby doesn’t know his own strength, clearly.
Of course you #stilllovehim. #heisyourbaby.
ruemara
Was thinking of going to watch a friend perform, but something’s odd between us and I fear it would be intrusive of me to go. So I think I’ll run some dungeons after doing some photo work. Then tomorrow I have more video work to do amnds -huzzah! – the old car will finally get hauled away to a charity. I hope to rest this weekend, no matter what.
Brachiator
@the Conster, la Citoyenne:
And also a damned good re-imagining of The Odyssey. I love the sly hillbilly revision of Homeric myth.
Delmar O’Donnell: Them syreens did this to Pete. They loved him up and turned him into a horny toad.
hamletta
@seaboogie: I have BAR on DVD, and the extras include an interview with the costume designer. She says it was a hard gig, because she had to “take two of the world’s sexiest men and make them look like complete dorks.”
@Elie: Serious Eats just ran a recipe for Cherry Pit Whipped Cream, which is what it sounds like: steep the pits in cream overnight, then whip it. It gives the cream a slight cherry flavor and a delicate blush.
seaboogie
@TaMara (HFG): Oh – and you the cook – congrats!
Yutsano
@the Conster, la Citoyenne: Your soundtrack for tomorrow! This piece kicks my butt every single time!
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@Omnes Omnibus: Lots of us are mountain music fans. And funk fans. And punk/new wave (leaning to punk edge) fans. And so on.
I have eclectic tastes. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.
SiubhanDuinne
@schrodinger’s cat:
So many Western pieces of music about rivers, sacred and otherwise. Grofé – Mississippi Suite. Scarlatti – Già il sole dal Gange. Schumann – Rhenish Symphony. And many more.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@J R in WV: Damn, I’m glad to hear from you. We were worried. Cole checked in with his floating house post, and I wondered about you.
TaMara (HFG)
@SiubhanDuinne: Much better. Ice and arnica last night, today the swelling is gone and it’s red not black. Still couldn’t hold his leash with that hand…he is a freight train when he forgets I’m attached.
Omnes Omnibus
@a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q): Those two were posting Ralph Stanley songs in every thread this morning. Tha’ s’all.
Tim C.
Damn! O brother came out in 2000? I was thinking more like 2004 or 2005… sigh. Years are getting slippery.
Brachiator
@schrodinger’s cat:
A very moving BBC story about the funeral of singer Amjad Sabri, who was shot dead in Karachi by militants for being a “blasphemer.”
Some BBC news clips also feature samples of his wonderful, strong voice.
Omnes Omnibus
@Omnes Omnibus: @a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_7nclwcsXmg I own some of this.
Emma
@Mnemosyne: Oh thank God I’m not the only one who loses her Kindle in her own house. Been trying to find mine for two weeks.
ruemara
@TaMara (HFG): this sounds like a wonderful home. May it be ever a comfort & blessing. Is the hand swollen or sore? Hope it’s getting better.
Elie
@hamletta:
Woof! I MUST try that…. thanks for sharing…
Emma
@J R in WV: Nice to hear from you. We were getting a tad edgy.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@Omnes Omnibus: I figured they would, even as I missed it. Mainly I was messing with you.
I had to explain to Mr. Q who Ralph Stanley was, and cite O Brother as what he’d have heard. The same man who’d never listened to TVZ or Guy Clark, or Gillian Welch – among several others until I introduced him to them. The music they don’t teach at a conservatory is shocking sometimes. And the music we’ve always had in common includes some odd stuff that’s not just because we’re age peers.
@Omnes Omnibus: Not surprising.
@TaMara (HFG): That’s no fun. Glad it’s getting better. #youstilllovehim.
TaMara (HFG)
@ruemara: Thank you. Both – it was slammed between a 160 lbs of dane and the side of my new house. We were over there watering the yard (the owner has moved out of state, so the real estate agent and I are taking turns making sure I don’t move into a dead yard). Bixby didn’t want to go home, just as I was putting him in the car he bolted for the backyard … unfortunately I had his leash wrapped around my wrist.
divF
I posted this earlier, but on a dead thread, but I am given another opportunity…
Angel Band, by the Stanley Brothers, played over the credits in O Brother…. A beautiful funeral hymn in 3/4 time.
amygdala
Bernie Worrell, of Parliament/Funkadelic and Talking Heads fame, died today, too. Listening to the Stop Making Sense soundtrack in his honor.
Bad weeks like this call for baby animal videos: Great Dane vs gosling (baby goose, not Ryan)
Other than that, I got nothin’. Going to PDX Sunday for a couple of days. I need a Powell’s Books fix and change of scenery.
schrodinger's cat
@Brachiator: I have heard about him and I did read the BBC piece but I am not familiar with his work.
@SiubhanDuinne: Rivers were highways before there were highways.
Brachiator
@lamh36:
That’s just sad. So much unnecessary pain compounded by tragedy.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@amygdala: Mr. Q broke that sad news to me. I’ll be doing the same listening. Along with more Stanley stuff.
I saw a wee singleton fawn grazing in the yard next door, while the young mama doe lazed under a bush about 40 feet way.
Brachiator
@amygdala:
Oh, no. Like Prince, David Bowie, and a few others, his work was part of my inner soundtrack throughout much of my life.
Must have some Mothership Connection
If you hear any noise,
It’s just me and the boys
Amir Khalid
My day at the University of Malaya School of Medicine final-year exam went well, if not without boredom. It consisted mostly of waiting for hours and hours at a hospital bed, while dressed up in an inpatient’s plain blue sarung and shirt. For some reason I was offered lunch, even though it was Ramadhan and I wasn’t doing anything physically strenuous to justify breaking fast to eat. (They let me take it home.) We volunteer specimens were also paid — RM150 cash, about US$40. (Yay!)
First a bunch pf examiners came through to look at us, and then we waited for the students. (Each one would examine us in front of four examiners.) One examiner was an Englishman who introduced himself as Professor Rudy. I asked Prof Rudy if he knew how the Brexit vote had gone.
“They voted to leave,” he told me.
“Oh dear,” I said.
“That’s my thought exactly,” said the prof.
Lurker Extraordinaire
There is sooooo much I need to get caught up on. We just moved, too, and my husband started a new job this week, after his old company up and decided to eliminate all but 10 jobs from the heavy check section. If an company going through bankruptcy tells you no one is losing their jobs- don’t believe them!
Next week I plan on hitting the lit review for my master’s thesis hard, and getting on a better schedule. And start working out again. At least we found a new gymnastics school for the little diva.
I hope everyone has a great weekend. Hope that WV gets no more rain, but that California gets some to help with the heat and fires.
amygdala
@Amir Khalid: I saw your post several days ago indicating you would be participating in the exam, but too late to respond to it in the thread.
Thank you for being part of these students’ education. Reading is fine, but patients are the best teachers. I still remember many of the patients who helped me learn when I was a med student. Nowadays we can rely some on simulators and web modules and the like, but without patients who are willing to work with students, medical education would come to a screeching halt.
Ramadan aside, a meal and reimbursement for your time is totally appropriate.
Again, thank you. Hope it was fun, or at least interesting. I have a number of UK docs and scientists in my Twitter feed and they’re all pretty glum today.
Tom
Saturday’s going to be the usual – morning matinee and my famous slow cooker chili.
This afternoon my wife mentioned that she wanted to see a musical that was playing at the Denver Center. It’s not one of my favorites but I managed to snag two orchestra seats (one for wheelchair access), plus arrange transportation for her and one of her friends.
“Blood Simple” was my first Coen Brothers movie and I don’t even remember why I decided to watch it. I mean, the only cast member I recognized was Dan Hedaya. But I got pulled in and it was completely riveting. I also fell in (platonic) love with a young Frances McDormand.
All this Coen Brothers talk (and the death of Ralph Stanley) has got me thinking about putting together a little movie festival to watch on Sunday.
Blood Simple (naturally)
O Brother, Where Art Thou?
No Country for Old Men
Burn After Reading (? not sure, it didn’t leave a big impression on me the first time but given the talk on this thread it might deserve a re-watch).
True Grit
Possibles:
Fargo
Miller’s Crossing
The Big Lebowski
They’re not all winners. “Intolerable Cruelty” and “The LadyKillers”, for example. Hudsucker Proxy struck me as too weird and goofy, though I liked Jennifer Jason Leigh channeling Rosalind Russell.
Omnes Omnibus
@Tom: No “Raising Arizona?” What is wrong with you?
Miss Bianca
So, if it’s not too late for an “O Brother” story…
A few years back I was at Rockygrass (a great festival put on by Planet Bluegrass, who also does the Telluride Bluegrass Festival), and Alison Krauss and Union Station were there. Dan Tyminksi, her guitar player and a fabulous singer, told the story about how he had been cast as the voice double for George Clooney in that movie when they did the Soggy Mountain Boys recordings.
According to Dan, he called his wife to let her know the news, and her response was: “What’s a voice double?”
Dan says, “Well…imagine George Clooney’s face with my voice coming out of it.”
Back comes the reply from his wife: “THAT’S MY FANTASY!”
Huge laugh from the audience. I remember turning to my friend Caroline (sweet Caroline, RIP) and saying, “Honey, that’s a LOT of women’s fantasy!”
Time to watch that movie again. It’s by far my favorite Coen Bros. film.
NotMax
@Mnemosyne
Bestest German style tater salad ever, whether served warm or served chilled.
@Tom
She’s an absolute delight in Mrs. Pettigrew Lives For a Day. (Ought to still be available on Netflix.)
Miss Bianca
@Brachiator: Oh no! Bernie Worrell? Damn.
divF
@NotMax:
Seconded. A must-see.
Gvg
@TaMara (HFG): probably too late to the thread but look into a gentle leader. It’s like a halter for dogs who are too strong and it usually works. It holds the head not the neck, so they aren’t as strong there, don’t have the leverage and you can control them with less muscle.
Tom
@Omnes Omnibus: You know, I’m not a big Nicholas Cage fan.
TaMara (HFG)
@Gvg: No not too late, I always come back to my posts to see if anyone had a question for me. He does have a gentle leader, I couldn’t walk him without it, he’s usually very good, but too strong for those moments when he sees someone he loves (and he LOVES everyone) or a squirrel (no love there).
I just didn’t have it on him because we were running errands and he was basically going from the house to the car, and I don’t keep it on him in the car. He had other ideas. Sheesh.
Elizabelle
Great thread. Thank you, TaMara.
Sorry to hear you were injured; glad it’s healing well. Bixby will be Bixby.