Brian J. Noggle – Page 170 – Musings from Brian J. Noggle

I Know Where That Background Vocal Line Comes From

May 12, 2019 Brian J. Noggle

So I was doing the evening chores, and I found myself singing a bit of “Ew wah ew wah ew wah ew wah.”

Unlike when I found myself ruminating on the melody of Marty Balin’s “Hearts” in February, I knew where this came from.

Dwight Yoakum’s “Pocket of a Clown”.

Although I did have to search for it to make sure I wasn’t crazy (“Pocket of a Clown”? No way that’s a real song.).

I had Dwight Yoakum’s This Time album when it was fresh. It’s weird; I think of my college years as mostly steeped in pop music, but I listened to my share of country at the beginning of the 1990s as well.

Why it came up in my mind’s rotation, I have no idea. I am pleased, though, that the radio station that I can listen to while mowing the lawn has, after a couple of years, backed off of the all-bro-country format and returned to a mix of today and oldies. And by “oldies,” I mean things current when I was an adult.

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I’ve Seen That Meme

May 11, 2019 Brian J. Noggle

Spotted on the Powerline blog Week in Pictures:

I think it was on March 16 as I was coming back from ABC Books. The carrier turned left onto Republic Road and passed me going the other way.

Of course, it might still be in town since VisionCon is this weekend.

I was toying with the idea of going, and that’s now greatly increased as I see that Jewel Staite will be there. Shiny.

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What Goes Around Comes Around

May 9, 2019 Brian J. Noggle

My youngest son is having a birthday soon, and I wrapped his gifts today. A while ago, I bought a couple rolls of birthday wrapping paper, but apparently, I’ve run through them, and I had some green crafting paper and some old wallpaper that I use as wrapping paper because it’s thick and stiff, so it doesn’t wrinkle or tear. Also, it was like a buck at a garage sale a long time ago.

Apparently, I’ve been in this situation on May 9 before.

This year, though the green craft paper covered both gifts with no waste, so no wallpaper for the laddie this year.

But I’ll probably wrap gifts for his children in this wallpaper.

Is this your second post from Facebook memories you’ve done this week, Brian J.? you ask. Yes, I guess so. Some weeks I got nothing.

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Book Report: Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë (1847, 1984)

May 6, 2019May 6, 2019 Brian J. Noggle

Book cover This book shall probably forever hold the Personal Record in my life for the longest time between re-reads at 33 years. I read this book as a freshman in high school and didn’t remember that much from it except the basic outline of a servant woman working and falling for a rich man with a crazy wife in the attic. Uh, spoiler alert.

So not long after I read The Count of Monte Cristo, I spotted this book on my shelf and decided to pick it up since it was a classic and shorter than the aforementioned The Count of Monte Cristo. Still, it took me two weeks to read the book, partially because my evenings have been pretty active in those two weeks with watching playoff hockey and the less occasional movie.

On re-read, I recognize and appreciate the three part structure of the book. The first part is Jane’s unhappy youth at her aunt’s place and the charity school she attends; the second her life as the governess at the said home with a said lunatic; and the third is her life after she’s fled from Mr. Rochester after discovering his secret at the altar when she was going to marry him.

You’ve got a bunch of hints that Jane has some wealth coming (she does), a little bit of resolution with her family line (her mother was from a moneyed family that disinherited her when she married a poor clergyman, and the moneyed family lost the money in a bad speculation), and whatnot. It’s one of those tangly Gothic romances, you know.

It does, however, offer a bunch of topics for school papers, though. You can explore Jane Eyre’s personality: Is she really strong? She yields a lot to circumstances and strong male figures. Is her endurance a strength? Is it weakness? One could talk about the proper ways women relate to men: Should they yield as Jane does? You could talk about the roles of class. You could write about how Jane can only really be with Rochester when he is humbled. I’m sure many could.

Me, I’m thinking that this book warped me at a young age as to how imperious and haughty one can be and still get the chicks. It didn’t work for me throughout school. But I eventually got a babe, so maybe not too much.

So it was interesting to read, shorter than The Count of Monte Cristo, and it makes me feel worthy of my English degree to have returned to it.

But I don’t think I’ll read it in another 33 years when I’m eighty. I’ll not be that far into the to-read shelves by then.

Wait a minute, Brian J., are you saying that you’ve re-read Me and My Little Brain as an adult? Well, gentle reader, I didn’t think you were paying attention. So this re-read of Jane Eyre is probably not my personal record, but I can pinpoint the time when I read it to give it an absolute number, so I went with it. Me and My Little Brain probably went almost forty years between readings. EVERYTHING YOU READ ON THIS SITE IS A LIE! Except the part about my beautiful wife being beautiful.

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Everybody’s Doing It

May 6, 2019May 6, 2019 Brian J. Noggle

Tam K., as do we all, responds in a Pavlovian fashion to the Daily Double sounder on Jeopardy!:

Personally, as someone who has traditionally yelled “BET IT ALL!” at the screen every time Double Jeopardy came up, I’m enthralled to run across a contestant with the chutzpah to do just that.

In my head, I can still hear my oldest son at two exclaiming that when he heard the Jeopardy! sounder in our house in Old Trees some decade ago.

I went looking through my new computer to see if I recorded it, or if I’ll just have to remember it as best I can. It looks like I’ll just have to savor the memory.

However, I did mention it on Facebook.

Nine years ago today. Exactly.

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Good Book Hunting, May 5, 2019: Friends of the Springfield-Greene County Library Book Sale

May 5, 2019July 3, 2025 Brian J. Noggle

As I mentioned yesterday, I visited the Friends of the Springfield-Greene County Library book sale yesterday. It was half-priced day, so I hit the dollar (fifty cents!) records. Sometimes, I can put those in the hold area and take all of my purchases out at once, but yesterday, I paid for the records, put them in the truck, and then went into the Better Books section to look for actual, you know, books.

I limited myself pretty much to the art monographs, history, and Missouri/Ozarks tables because I managed to accumulate most of two boxes’ worth of books there as well (fortunately, I had my oldest boy who is going to be a teenager later this year) to help me carry.

As I mentioned, I got a couple of things.

I got:

The Tent on the Beach by James Greenleaf Whittier, an 1899 first edition in pretty good shape for $25. Because I confuse him with James Whitcomb Riley. I think I already have an old collection of Whittier that I inherited, in a roundabout fashion, from my maternal grandfather.
Little House in the Ozarks: The Rediscovered Writings by Laura Ingalls Wilder / Edited by Stephen W. Hines. Because I’m going to collect them all, now, apparently.
The Legend of the Golden Huaca by Colleen Tucker, a local author. Fiction.
The Great Game of Business by Jack Stack with Bo Burlingham. A local manufacturing executive has created a system to gamify business. My beautiful wife has seen him speak several times, and this book might very well disappear from my to-read shelves. I probably wouldn’t miss it.
Thawed: The Art of Gary Bedell(?), a comic art monograph. It might be autographed; inside the front cover is the sigil that appears on the cover as the author’s name.
Three different collection catalogs of June Wayne exhibitions. One is in French, so it might be a duplicate of one of the English catalogs.
Dan Worth: Photographs 1955-1985.
Pierro Della Francesca.
Dialogues with Nature: Works by Charles Salis Kaelin
Art Noveau Belgium/France.
William Partridge Burpee: American Marine Impressionist by D. Roger Howlett.
Adolph Dehn Drawings.
In Focus photographs by Jim Rathert.
Missouri Images of Nature by Charles Gurche
Images of India by Samuel Bourne.
Gauguin.
Cezanne and Chagall from the Color Slide Program of the Great Masters series. Instead of plates, each comes with 20 color slides. But, Brian J., do you even have a way to view slides? Shut your mouth! Of course I do. Not a projector, though: just a little slide viewer.
Catherine Murphy: New Paintings and Drawings.
Alan Gussow: Oils 1950-1980 by Lyle Gray.
Jon Corbino: A Heroic Vision.
John Shaw’s Landscape Photography. The top of the book says “Professional Techniques for Shooting Spectacular Scenics”, so this is more of a how-to guide than a monograph.
The Art of Carl William Peters.
Steuben Glass by James S. Plaut.
The Art of America in the Gilded Age by Shirley Glubok.
Rodin by Yvon Taillandier.
Henry Fuseli by Carolyn Keay.

I also found a two incomplete sets of Will and Ariel Durant’s The Story of Civilization. The sale included two incomplete ex-library sets: one with the dust jacket and one without. The one with the dust cover had Volume 1, but on the overleaf where the price goes, it said “New” and then had some high prices marked down to $129. Others similar to that volume were marked $4 each, so I don’t think it was to be sold as a set, but I didn’t want to get into a controversy when arguing that that volume should be $2 on half price day and not $65, especially since I was already shelling out $25 for another old book. So I’ll look for Volume I and Volume VI now to fill out the set. I’ve been really jonesing for them since I read The Lessons of History in 2016.

“Will you read that?” my beautiful wife asked when she saw the stack of them.

“I hope so,” I said. I hope to read all of the books I buy. Which is why I am hoping for advances in medical science in the next decade or so.

At any rate, it’s thirty-five new books for me. And, friends, we have reached the stacks on the floor stage of book accumulation. Which means I should probably hold off on getting too many more for a couple of weeks yet.

Also, it probably means I should stop re-shelving books from my book accumulation points.

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Good Album Hunting, Saturday, May 4, 2019: Friends of the Springfield-Greene County Library Book Sale

May 4, 2019 Brian J. Noggle

Friends, somehow this spring’s book sale sneaked up on me, so I only found an opportunity to visit it on half price day today. Which worked out all right for me, as I only spent thirty some dollars on records.

Which is 61 LPs, double-albums, and boxed sets.

I got:

Asilos de Abandonados Miguel Aceves Mejia
Entre Copa y Copa Miguel Aceves Mejia
Canta…Los Huapangos de Oro Miguel Aceves Mejia
Con Mariachi Los Panchos
Midnight Time The Three Suns
Help Is On The Way Melissa Manchester
Romantic Jazz Jackie Gleason
Trumpet A Go Go James Last Band
El Nuevo Trio Los Panchos Trio Los Panchos
Greatest Hits Boots Randolph
Court and Ceremonial Music of the 16th Century Roger Blanchard Ensemble with the Poulteau Consort
Songs of Italy 101 Strings
Sings Spanish and Latin American Favorites Connie Francis
1100 Bel Aire Place Julio Iglesias
The Sound of Boots Boots Randolph
The Best of Vicki Carr Vicki Carr
The Yakin’ Sax Man Boots Randolph
Heart Like A Wheel Linda Ronstadt
Songs of the Seasons in Japan 101 Strings
The Manhattan Transfer The Manhattan Transfer
Maynard Ferguson Maynard Ferguson
Forever Gold The Isley Brothers
Fall Into Spring Rita Coolidge
Love Me Again Rita Coolidge
Everything Under the Sun The Three Suns
Men of Brass Massed Brass Bands of Foden’s, Fairey Aviation and Morris Motors
1980 Gil Scott-Heron and Brian Jackson
Como Swings Perry Como
Miriam Makeba Miriam Makeba
Lead, Kindly Light The Three Suns
Cocktail Piano Frankie Carle
So Early in the Spring Jackie Collins
30 Hits of the Tuneful ’20s Frankie Carle
Look to the Rainbow Al Jarreau
El Gallo Colorado Miguel Aceves Mejia
A Treasury of the Award-Winning Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass The Longines Symphonette Society
Lo Mejor De Miguel Aceves Mejia (box set) Miguel Aceves Mejia
Lo Mejor De Amalia Mendoza (box set) Amalia Mendoza
Lo Mejor De Jose Alfredo Jimenez Jose Alfredo Jimenez
It Must Be Him Vicki Carr
Le Monde Musical de Baden Powell Volume 2 Baden Powell
Ecos de Cuba Trio Matamoros
Even in the Quietest Moments Supertramp
Sweet Talk Boots Randolph
Spanish Fly Lisa Lisa and Cult Jam
Love Is A Season Eydie Gorme
Louis and Keely Louis Prima and Keely Smith
Cocktail Time Frankie Carle
The Fantastic Boots Randolph Boots Randolph
Portrait of My Love Steve Lawrence
Golden Saxophones Billy Vaughn and His Orchestra
Come Waltz with Me Steve Lawrence
Cantos de Amor Campriano Miguel Aceves Mejia
Para Cantar Yo Naci Miguel Aceves Mejia
Classical Cats
A Man and a Woman (Un Homme et Une Femme) Original Motion Picture Soundtrack
Die Große Stereo-Starparade – Folge 3
Soulful Dionne Warwick
The Road to Romance Dorothy Lamour
Bourbon Street Pete Fountain and Al Hirt
Also Sprach Zarathustra Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra

Honey, I didn’t buy 100 LPs, I told my beautiful wife via text message to soften her up.

I am not sure it worked.

I jumped on someone’s former collection of Miguel Aceves Mejia; on first listen, it’s more traditional Mexican music than the pop that I have tended to favor. I got a couple of other box sets akin to his that will likely prove similar.

I got some more Frankie Carle, The Three Suns, Boots Randolph, and Vicki Carr to add to my catalog of their LPs.

I’ve also started the slide into 80s pop (Supertramp and Lisa Lisa and Cult Jam) since that music is coming on 35 years old now. As close to today as Sinatra was to us. You might hear a song or two on the radio from these bands, maybe, but I really need to pick up the source material because the stuff on radio playlists is so shallow in breadth. Can you be shallow in breadth? On this blog, you can!

I also got some books, but you’ll have to wait until tomorrow to see what I got.

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A Triple F Musical Throwdown

May 3, 2019 Brian J. Noggle

Harold Faltermeyer was quite the instrumentalist for movie soundtracks in the 1980s, including two from that movie that had a Saturday Night Live alum portraying the title character, an investigator who assumes various comic roles as part of his investigation.

I’m talking about Fletch, of course.

I’m talking about Axel Foley, of course.

I prefer the former due to racism, of course. Also, because it is a little more than the synth progressions of the “Axel F Theme”.

It also made me start enumerating the films where a Saturday Night Live alum starred as a wise-cracking cop or investigator. Between the Fletch and Beverly Hills Cop movies, we’re already up to five. Throw in Taxi, and we’re up to six. Surely there are more, which I’ll give far too much thought and investigation to.

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An Ozarks Spring Evening in One Photo

May 1, 2019May 1, 2019 Brian J. Noggle

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Our shoes spent the night next to the door to our storm room.

Our storm room is an interior room with one side in the earth, two sides of brick, and with the ceiling joists supported with extra braces. It has a gravel floor, though, since our pump tanks and whatnot are in there. We store a card table and matching chairs in there along with flashlights, a little food, and a radio just in case.

Last night, we had tornado warnings off and on from 3pm to a little after 9pm. Our weather radio squalled a couple of times, and the local sirens went off once, but most of the real action took place northwest and southeast of Nogglestead.

Still, we have to be readier than we did in Saint Louis or Milwaukee. Every couple of years, a tornado touches down hereabouts. About fifteen or twenty years ago, a nearby barn got destroyed and a woman was killed because instead of seeking shelter, she went to calm her horses. It’s an apocryphoral story, though, since it’s from before we were here, and I don’t remember exactly who told it.

I know you loyal readers in Oklahoma understand.

UPDATE: A loyal reader in Oklahoma documents his response to the same system, experienced during his commute as crazy thunderstorms.

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On On the Beach

April 30, 2019April 29, 2019 Brian J. Noggle

Book cover Well, I didn’t get to watch this film on the first try, but I did get to watch it after my triathlon class ended.

For those of you unfamiliar with the premise, it’s a film from 1959 where, after a nuclear war, an American submarine comes to Melbourne, Australia, where people are trying to carry on even though the scientists are pretty sure that the fallout will eventually reach Australia and kill them all.

The captain of the submarine, played by Gregory Peck, doesn’t like to think that his family in the states is dead. The Australian navy places a young officer, played by Anthony Perkins, as a liaison with the American forces, and he introduces Gregory Peck to a local drunk played by Ava Gardner. They start to have feelings for each other, but it’s complicated.

The Australian admirality receives a radio signal, so it sends the sub and its crew to the coast of California to investigate, which gives the sub crew a chance to view the empty coastlines and cities. Unfortunately, it’s not a remnant of civilization. So the sub returns to Australia, and everyone dies.

Well, the film ends with the sub heading back to America because the crew wants to die at home, but, man, it’s a heckuva downer of a film.

As you might know, gentle reader, Gregory Peck is not high on my list of favorite lead actors from the era, and Ava Gardner is not high on my list of actresses, either. However, the film does have Fred Astaire in it, so that’s a bonus.

A downer of a film, for sure, and anti-nuke agitprop. Not something to watch when you want to watch something entertaining, but if you fancy yourself a film buff, you might want to watch it for completeness.

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The Only Styx Song I Can Stand

April 30, 2019 Brian J. Noggle

You know, my beautiful wife owns a number of Styx albums, including at least one on vinyl, but I really don’t like many of their songs.

But one, “Show Me The Way”, struck a chord with me.

It came out in 1990, when I was transitioning from an awkward high school student into an awkward college student. I moved from small town Missouri back to the city of Milwaukee, and I certainly could have used some guidance.

I still can.

I often think of Styx as a seventies band, but this hit was from 1990.

Kind of how I think of the Rolling Stones as a sixties band, but they charted records well into the 1980s. But the radio playlists really focus on the greatest hits of both bands, which are the early hits.

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Soon To Be A Major Motion Picture From Marvel Studios

April 29, 2019 Brian J. Noggle

Environmentalist superhero Captain Planet visits kids at Discovery Center:

With so many shows and games for kids to play it can be hard to get them excited about things like the outdoors. But today, the Discovery Center brought a superhero in to help bring shows and excitement about the environment together.

Captain Planet from the well-known show made a visit to the Discovery Center today to interact with kids and teach a little about the environment.

From the well-known show?

Which one is that? The one that ran for two years in the early 90s, or the one that ran for three years in the middle 1990s?

Hey, I’m not knocking it. Keep promoting it as “popular” and maybe even “collectible.” I’ve got a copy of the Marvel Captain Planet and the Planeteers #1 that I need to increase in value if I’m going to retire someday.

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I Wonder Why The North Side Mindflayers Trivia Team Keeps Me Around

April 28, 2019 Brian J. Noggle

So we have this cat, and I like to proclaim often, “You’re a menace!”

He doesn’t look like much of a menace in this action photo, but he really is. He has the nickname “Foot” which is short for “Underfoot.” He likes to walk ahead of me and stop suddenly to turn to look to see if I’m going. And when I say “Walk ahead of me,” I mean inches ahead of me. He’s also prone to appearing in the kitchen when I’m cooking, and if I start downstairs (and hence towards his food dishes) before him, he will come bowling down the stairs after me, often striking me in the back of the legs as I’m descending. When I say “Bowling,” I mean like a bowling ball. He is, after all, nineteen pounds of cat who thinks affection involves biting the hand that pets him and lying across the pillow in the middle of the night and grooming me while I’m sleeping. And then biting me.

Of course, I call all the cats menaces in the spirit of J. Jonah Jameson.

So recently I started to tell him, “Don’t Be A Menace.”

You know, like the movie.

But then I realized I couldn’t remember the name of the movie, a film that came out in 1996 and which I’ve never actually seen, but which has the words/shortened title on the movie poster.

I had to look it up.

Don’t Be A Menace To South Central While Drinking Your Juice In The Hood.

Which I now tell the cat all the time, and which means I’ll probably retain that bit of information in case it shows up on a trivia night.

Yes, I do talk an awful lot to my cats. But I have been a remote worker for over a decade. I have to talk to someone.

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My Next Home

April 27, 2019 Brian J. Noggle

It would be my home in eight weeks if I had the money: A castle outside Clever, Missouri:

5000 square feet on 10 acres, and the shields on the gate already have the letter N on them.

At roughly a million dollars, it might still be on the market by the time I can afford it. Unfortunately, I’ll need hyperinflation to get there, but unfortunately, in that event, I wouldn’t get change from my $200,000,000 bill.

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Mr. Keith Begs To Differ

April 26, 2019 Brian J. Noggle

An ad on my Facebook feed makes an assertion that country music science does not support.

The ad:

The study that refutes it:

Why this ad appeared on my Facebook feed, though, I have no idea. One would expect with all the data that Facebook harvests from me that they would know we don’t host many gatherings here at Nogglestead.

We still have blue and orange disposable cups from my oldest child’s fifth birthday party, almost eight years ago. The bags are gone, though, so I could not tell you if they were Solo or Hefty in nature.

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The Week of Easter to a Parent

April 25, 2019 Brian J. Noggle

“Dad, can we eat the entire contents of our Easter basket RIGHT NOW?”

via GIPHY

My boys, well, the oldest, has a habit of going through the video library and pulling out interesting films to read the boxes, and recently he’s left The Hunt for Red October lying around. Given that it’s PG, I suppose we could watch it together. It will blow their minds to see James Bond older.

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You Can Probably Guess The Answer

April 24, 2019April 23, 2019 Brian J. Noggle

So I’m in the process of transitioning computers, which means I have to again set my Web browser to stop bothering me when every last Web site wants to send me notifications.

This is a simple config change, but I did a quick Web search to ensure I set the correct preference name to false.

The Web search led me to a Reddit topic:

Which was obscured by Reddit prompting me about its notifications.

Note to self: It’s dom.webnotifications.enabled.

Also, let it be noted that when previewing this post, I had the impulse to click Not Now on the above picture out of recently acquired habit.

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For Elise, Wherever You Are

April 23, 2019 Brian J. Noggle

My youngest son has been taking piano for a couple of years, and his teacher has just put him onto "Für Elise" by Beethoven.

When he plays, I cannot help but sing along.

What, you don’t think there are lyrics to the song?

Translated from the original German, of course.

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Current Status

April 22, 2019 Brian J. Noggle

It sure is Monday.

You know, my knowledge and appreciation of popular music from the middle 1990s is strangely lacking. I think I was listening mostly to country at that time or something.

Speaking of Monday morning, this line of Keats in “The Eve of St. Agnes” which I finished reading this morning stuck with me:

But let me laugh awhile, I’ve mickle time to grieve.

Mickle means “a large amount.” You can bet I’ll use this word on a call today, if not the whole line.

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Book Report: Haitian Hit The Executioner #129 (1989)

April 21, 2019April 19, 2019 Brian J. Noggle

Book cover To what do I turn after completing The Count of Monte Cristo? Why, an Executioner book, of course.

This book is not a bad entry. Bolan is in Haiti to put the hurt on some mobsters, and he ends up getting entangled in a revolution looking to overthrow the military junta in charge after Baby Doc fled. Since the junta is allowing the mob to build a casino and resort, Bolan’s plan turns to its destruction.

Once again, these books from the 1980s illustrate how little has changed in the thirty years since they were new. Haiti is still a mess, and the story would not need much updating to be set in 2019 instead of 1989.

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