One of the seminal figures of 20th Century music, as far as I'm concerned, in one of the seminal bands. Even if I don't listen to them as much as I used to, or their music doesn't lend itself to repeated listens as some other music may, The Mother of Invention, in which Sherwood played a crucial role even before his sax innovations, had an impact on me and many others like no other band of the 1960s and beyond.
They influenced numerous streams of musical genres that followed, and absorbed more musical streams of music that came before them than any other band of what may be in retrospect rock'n'roll's golden age, the 1960s.
Anyway, that's the way I feel right now in the first hour of the last day of 2011. Somehow my hearing of Sherwood's recent passing and registering it here seems like a totally appropriate way to end a very bizarre year full of unexpected events and happenings.
Here's some great footage from a 1968 appearance on the BBC, Sherwood is in the brown suede jacket with the leather fringe first playing baritone sax then tambourine.
{And here's the obit from Rolling Stone.]
Saturday, December 31, 2011
Friday, December 30, 2011
WINTER WONDERLAND IN THE BERKSHIRES (NOT)
Got up here this afternoon, to a snow free holiday vista. On the nearby Butternut snow slopes they're making snow to satisfy the skiers and snowboarders. But it's somehow not the same.
2011 had more catastrophic weather events than anytime in our history so far, eleven.
The last record was nine, in 2009.
There is no doubt that the earth is warming and as a result weather patterns are changing and more severe weather is becoming more frequent.
And the greedheads continue to deny, distort, dissemble and destroy. They have to be brought to justice for their crimes.
2011 had more catastrophic weather events than anytime in our history so far, eleven.
The last record was nine, in 2009.
There is no doubt that the earth is warming and as a result weather patterns are changing and more severe weather is becoming more frequent.
And the greedheads continue to deny, distort, dissemble and destroy. They have to be brought to justice for their crimes.
Wednesday, December 28, 2011
50/50
I caught the trailer for this flick back when it first came out and didn't feel compelled to see it. It looked like another Judd Apatow/Seth Rogen take on the overgrown baby boy whose self-centered crudely childish behavior is forgiven by everyone because...of whatever the plot device is served up, in this case Rogen's friend getting cancer.
Don't get me wrong, I dug a lot of the movies Apatow and Rogen did together, but their routine seemed to become less and less heartwarming and more and more rim shot reflex forced gags. 50/50 isn't directed or written by Apatow or Rogen, and the latter serves in the capacity of sidekick to Robert Gordon-Levitt whose performance alone is worth the price of admission.
Sometimes he's miscast, but when he isn't he's a delight to watch (500 DAYS OF SUMMER for instance). And in 50/50 his performance gets great support from other performances, like Bryce Dallas Howard's (she almost stole THE HELP) and Anna Kendrick's (who kicked butt in UP IN THE AIR). The rest of the supporting cast are terrific too, including Angelica Houston.
And the story isn't as depressing as the premise seems to forewarn. In fact 50/50 is a terrific little movie that I can highly recommend.
Tuesday, December 27, 2011
PS TO LAST POST
And just to make the point that this warm Winter weather is not an anomaly, as I wrote in a post a few years ago, when I was a kid living not far from where I live now, the two little shacks next to the pond in the park in my town and next to a sunken field in the park in the town where I live now, were used every winter for iceskaters.
The shacks had fires in their fireplaces or little wood burning or oil stove type heat, for skaters to take a break and get warm. Sometimes they sold hot chocolate. As a teenager I worked either on the frozen pond in our town or on the big sleighriding hill nearby, looking out for people who got hurt etc. I worked every Christmas until I left home, because kids would bring their new skates or sleighs to try out on Christmas day.
When I moved back to this area in 1999, they were still flooding the sunken field in the town I live in now and it froze a few times and people came out to skate. But it didn't last more than a few days a winter, the rest of the time the field was just a big manmade pond with geese and ducks floating in it because they no longer went South for the Winter.
Now they don't bother to flood it anymore, and the pond in the town where I grew up doesn't freeze very often and not for long and not solid enough to warrant allowing sanctioned ice skating, though on the few days it freezes some kids try it anyway.
But the shacks haven't been used in a decade now because it's a waste of money since there isn't any ice skating anymore. This breaks my heart. The idea, as this latest scientific report suggests, that in the future kids growing up in this part of the world, my part of the world, will no longer have white Christmases unless there's a freak storm once a decade or century (which the pre-Halloween one was) and the rest of their winter will be just cool and rainy, sucks.
And the blame is clear, as it has so often been throughout history. Those greedheads who ignore the warnings of scientists and humanists who track and predict the impact of verifiable global warming and instead promote the notion that there is no such thing so that their corporate masters can make even more obscene amounts of money. They suck too.
The shacks had fires in their fireplaces or little wood burning or oil stove type heat, for skaters to take a break and get warm. Sometimes they sold hot chocolate. As a teenager I worked either on the frozen pond in our town or on the big sleighriding hill nearby, looking out for people who got hurt etc. I worked every Christmas until I left home, because kids would bring their new skates or sleighs to try out on Christmas day.
When I moved back to this area in 1999, they were still flooding the sunken field in the town I live in now and it froze a few times and people came out to skate. But it didn't last more than a few days a winter, the rest of the time the field was just a big manmade pond with geese and ducks floating in it because they no longer went South for the Winter.
Now they don't bother to flood it anymore, and the pond in the town where I grew up doesn't freeze very often and not for long and not solid enough to warrant allowing sanctioned ice skating, though on the few days it freezes some kids try it anyway.
But the shacks haven't been used in a decade now because it's a waste of money since there isn't any ice skating anymore. This breaks my heart. The idea, as this latest scientific report suggests, that in the future kids growing up in this part of the world, my part of the world, will no longer have white Christmases unless there's a freak storm once a decade or century (which the pre-Halloween one was) and the rest of their winter will be just cool and rainy, sucks.
And the blame is clear, as it has so often been throughout history. Those greedheads who ignore the warnings of scientists and humanists who track and predict the impact of verifiable global warming and instead promote the notion that there is no such thing so that their corporate masters can make even more obscene amounts of money. They suck too.
TWAS THE DAY AFTER CHRISTMAS AND STILL NO SNOW
As usual, the rightwingers who are so loud when the winter weather gets cold because their unscientific knee jerk reaction is to declare that a sign that global warming is a hoax have been nowhere to behold or hear during this so far incredibly unseasonable winter.
Spring or Fall like weather every day, with the exception of the freak snowstorm before Halloween (when the right went bananas over how that was clearly proof that there was no such thing as global warming!). It's not only hurting the economy of a lot of the Northeast that depends on ski and snowboard tourism this time of year, but a recent scientific paper declares this is the future, mild winters with the occasional freak storm of greater intensity than normal.
2010 was already the year with the most extreme weather events in our history. More to come. Along with higher than average unseasonal temperatures when the weather isn't just freaking. And the sad thing is, the more this becomes apparent on into the foreseeable future, the right will still find a way to blame it on someone else and claim they were fighting global warming all along (like Ron Paul disowning his own racist and sexist newsletters that he publicly defended when they first came out).
Spring or Fall like weather every day, with the exception of the freak snowstorm before Halloween (when the right went bananas over how that was clearly proof that there was no such thing as global warming!). It's not only hurting the economy of a lot of the Northeast that depends on ski and snowboard tourism this time of year, but a recent scientific paper declares this is the future, mild winters with the occasional freak storm of greater intensity than normal.
2010 was already the year with the most extreme weather events in our history. More to come. Along with higher than average unseasonal temperatures when the weather isn't just freaking. And the sad thing is, the more this becomes apparent on into the foreseeable future, the right will still find a way to blame it on someone else and claim they were fighting global warming all along (like Ron Paul disowning his own racist and sexist newsletters that he publicly defended when they first came out).
Sunday, December 25, 2011
CHRISTMAS DAY TRUCE 1914
I'm sure most of you know the story, but it's worth being reminded of it again this day. Click here (and read the comments for some further light on the subject).
Saturday, December 24, 2011
IN THE SPIRIT OF THE SEASON
My brother the Franciscan friar who passed a few years ago visited her a couple of times and I think corresponded with her. He and I saw her when she was still a Hollywood actress in the film WHERE THE BOYS ARE at Radio City Music Hall back when it first came out.
He was fascinated when she joined an order of nuns who, well, you can read the story and if you feel so moved send a little donation. Limited as my funds are, I intend to send something.
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