Unforgettable

Why are some songs so catchy and others so forgettable? More to the point, why do some songs come, unbidden, to play over and over in our heads? I’ve heard these called various things ... ear-worms, sticky music, … my favourite, coined by a musical friend is hum-clinger. 

Where do ear-worms come from? The term stuck-song syndrome would seem to indicate that there is a pathology involved and certainly when you have one it can drive you quite crazy. My suspicion is that dreams and ear-worms come from the same place in the mind. It might be the same place where ideas are generated and, like dreams, these pieces of music that pop into our head could indicate something about our concerns or desires of the moment. 

The best way I’ve found to rid myself of an ear-worm is to find a temporary replacement that I know will go away - The Stars and Stripes Forever is a favourite of mine.

Great composers, like John Phillip Sousa, composer of The Star and Stripes among many other memorable marches, were masters of the use of repetition and development of a musical phrase. Beethoven was ‘the’ master of repetition and development. His Fifth Symphony is, perhaps, the very best example, and a frequent ear-worm for me. Those four notes in the pattern da-da-da-dahhhhh appear over and over throughout the piece. 

Songwriters who are successful are aware of the phenomenon of a song becoming popular because of repetition of both rhythm and melody. Some refer to it as the hook. As well, in a song, words can be repeated and emphasized using rhythm, making the song unforgettable ... like this one sung and played by an unforgettable artist. 

A Teachable Moment Lost

I want to be as generous as possible here. One could easily get cynical about a place where they use washing machines as a measure of volume. 

A sinkhole roughly the size of six to seven washing machines has closed the northbound lanes of State Line Road near 100th Street in Kansas City, Missouri

In fairness, it would be worth mentioning that if you want people to be able to relate to the news in the 15 seconds you give them on television, a familiar way of describing makes good sense. We shouldn't  blame 41 Action News - it isn’t their job to educate. Their only job is to get the viewer's attention long enough so you will still be watching as they cut to a commercial break and pay the bills. 

Being me,  I cannot help but think that if they used square metres or even square yards, it might stimulate some younger viewers to care what that meant. It might give them some knowledge of the way things work. Heaven forbid, it might make them want to know more about how to measure things.

Sinkholes happen everywhere in the world - being proud that you hate science and mathematics is not a universal characteristic ... yet. Happily. 

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

For your enjoyment ... somewhat related, but not closely ... 

Beauty in a Storm

Today I was browsing through YouTube and stumbled upon a sermon of all things (since my settings do not lean toward topics religious), and found myself listening to it: David Brooks' Sunday sermon at Washington National Cathedral, July 5, 2020.

Maybe I was drawn to it because I have just finished re-reading one book and am slowly re-reading another that have large sections devoted to descriptions of life in the time of Jesus' ministry. It was a violent time in that land. If you heard someone preaching to the common folk, it was more than likely vitriol tossed at the Roman occupiers. Into that, came Jesus with a message of love; so incongruous.

Perhaps I felt I had to keep listening to the sermon because it has seemed to me that a country I have admired all my life is imploding - so sad to watch. I cannot see a way out for them.

The sermon was given by a columnist, but very clearly, too, by one who loves Jesus and what Jesus stood for. Brooks also obviously loves his country. I cannot imagine him as ultra right wing in his faith or nationalism. Yet here is a steady faith in both, and, especially, in love as a way to get past this storm. 

I think I like him very much.


Some quotes from this sermon:

"When you see Jesus through the Jerusalem lens, the Beatitudes are even more astounding. In the midst of conflict, here was another way, another path, a higher serenity. They were an inversion of values. They were beauty in the storm."

"... in storms, it seems we have two systems of response. We have the normal bodily response, which is fight or flight, fear and anger. But another style of response emerges from our souls."

"On one level, these acts of beauty and pure gift and loving care are radically illogical. They are vulnerability in the face of danger. They are gentleness in the midst of bitterness. They are compassion in the midst of strife, but these are the acts that have the power to shock. These are the acts that have the power to open hearts. These are the acts that have a power to shock a revolution in our culture and in our consciousness."

"We don’t get to choose our condition. We do get to choose our response."

Is That All There Is?

For a very long time I have been interested in the mind-brain connection and the answer to the question above. I was convinced that the mind had to be separate from the brain in some way. If not, how can we imagine (and I do imagine and am far from alone) that there is more than just this life? Yet, how do we explain that we are more than what we see? As George Lucas wrote for his character Yoda, "Luminous beings are we, not this crude matter." *

Every bit of research reinforces the view that, for our body, this is all there is. Brain studies show that when a part of our brain is damaged, by physical means, or more gradually by age or disease, our character changes as well. Those who have seen the effects of dementia on their loved ones know this all too well.

Yesterday my son pointed me to a podcast** of the NPR (National Public Radio in the USA) program Radiolab with the clever and meaningful title Unraveling Bolero. The story is about two artists, Maurice Ravel, composer of Bolero, a highly repetitive, popular piece of orchestral music from the later part of his life's work, and Anne Adams, who in her forties quit her career as a research scientist to embrace creativity in another direction - visual art. Without giving too much away, because the podcast is very well done (as are all of the Radiolab programs), both Ravel and Adams died from complications arising from progressive aphasia. Ravel's composing of Bolero and Adams' sudden embracing of the visual arts were early symptoms of deterioration in brain function.

I have been thinking a lot recently about a dream from very early childhood when I had no filter to tell me it was silly or impossible. This particular dream (I remember several) was of a time before my birth. "I" had agreed to leave a place where I knew everything in order to accept nothingness followed by life as a person in Canada in 1952. In the experience "I" agreed to do this because there was a potential to accomplish some important goal.

If we don't dismiss this dream as fantasy (and I don't) then it seems to contradict the belief that mind is something generated by our brain. Or does it? Is it possible that the Yoda quote above is close to the mark? Perhaps we (the body and brain we carry about) are host to a spirit that joins us as we are conceived, comes along for the ride, so to speak, and, finally, after this body dies, carries on in some way taking the essence of what was experienced.

It might be that the connection we often feel to the divine is an artifact of this hosting process that each of us participates in. In a very real way, we are connected to a higher power, and this is only a small glimpse into how large a connection it is, and what the nature of that higher power might be.

*Star Wars: Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back (1980)

**

An Exalted Folly

The following was published as part of the liner notes for Herbie Mann - the Evolution of Mann in 1972:

SONNET

Music is a strange and useless thing.

It doesn't offer cover from the storm.

It doesn't (really) ease the sting of living; nor nourish us, nor keep us warm. 

And men expend their lives in search of sound, and by their swift illusions to 

confound the heart with fleeting and evasive joys. 

Yet I am full of quaking gratitude

that this exalted folly still exists,

that in an age of cold computer mood, a piper can still whistle in the mists.

The notes are pebbles falling into time.

How sweetly mad it is, 

and how sublime.

Gene Lees

FOOD, GLORIOUS FOOD!

Just before all the isolation began, K and I were interviewed by a nutritionist as part of a check-up. She was quite impressed that we rarely have any prepared foods, tending instead to use fresh ingredients where possible, and cooking our own meals from scratch. She even asked for the treacle flapjack recipe! Perhaps that will be another post, but today, at the risk of having a blog of mine evolve into a food blog, I want to share a recipe we have for a favourite side dish that can be a stand-alone meal - Baked Beans. 

Growing up, we both enjoyed brown beans. They came from a can with Heinz written on it. If I'd known then what I know now ... ah well. I do know now and making my own pot of baked beans is so easy, and the meal so tasty - why spend so much money for something that is a really cheap and delicious meal? 

South of the border these are known as Boston Baked Beans. I suppose that comes from one of the major ingredients; molasses. Molasses is a derivative of sugar cane (imported through the port of Boston at one time) and a by-product from the production of rum. It is a sweetener, but could replaced by, oh say, maple syrup ... hmm ... At any rate, I am using an original recipe with some very small changes that I've found work to improve the flavour and texture. More experiments will follow, since there is great pleasure to be found in attempting the perfection of a recipe! 

The main ingredient is the humble bean - a pulse as the food folk like to say. In this case, we need white pea beans, sometimes called navy beans. Canada is a major grower of legumes of all sorts, and a pilgrimage to Hensall, Ontario might be in order ... it is the white bean capital of Canada. 

Making baked beans all begins by washing the dried beans in cold water; then, in a pot with lots of water, boiling the beans to soften them. After they have boiled for 30 minutes in the morning, I let them sit all day and overnight. In the original recipe I have, the beans are soaked for a day, then boiled just before mixing them with the other ingredients. I have found that boiling twice actually softens the beans better, and you must soften them before baking - they don't get any more tender in the oven. 

The beans alone are bitter, and otherwise tasteless, so some peppy ingredients are now added to give them the characteristic flavour of baked beans. Here is the recipe I've been using and massaging for a while now. 

So here is the pot, water drained off and set aside. The tasty ingredients have been added, and once mixed will be poured into the dutch oven, on top of the onion slices, ready for the reserved water and bacon to be added. 

I expect you could leave the bacon off, if that was your choice, but it does add to the comfort-food aspect that baked beans evokes. 

You can see the bowl of reserved liquid. As the beans bake all day the smell tells you that some of that liquid is escaping.

Don't let your beans get dried out as they cook. The sauce is a wonderful part of this meal.

If the reserved cooking liquid gets used up, plain water will do nicely.


For more on the history of baked beans, I recommend this article by The Old Foodie, where we learn that baked beans are part of that classic - the full English breakfast! I also love the idea that when the French came to North America, they adapted their cassoulet recipes to match the available ingredients. Mmm, ... cassoulet! I think there is a recipe here somewhere ...

What is better than cooking wonderful food? 

Eating wonderful food. 

Peameal Bacon (Canadian bacon for my friends from the south), and Baked Beans! 

Adventures in Staying Healthy

It is becoming clear that many will remember this winter and spring as the time we woke up to the reality of global pandemics. I have seen several articles that give good reasons to believe that this will not be the last of these. It is clear the way we do things will change permanently because of the way we have had to adjust to stay healthy and to help others who are vulnerable do the same. 

Sadly, it is clear that many thought it would be business as usual for far too long. In some cases, people used half-measures, and that didn't work out well either. For example, not far from us, in a relatively small and remote community, twenty-two (at last news report) residents and the spouse of a resident of a sixty-five bed nursing home have died from COVID-19. As well, at least twenty-four staff members there are also infected. Somehow this disease got into a facility that should have been a safe haven for the most vulnerable. If it can happen there, we all need to do as we are being instructed - stay home as much as possible.

On a lighter note, living in a time of a health crisis doesn't mean that other health concerns end, even mundane ones. Some computer likely deserves the credit for keeping track of such a thing, but it was a human who took the time to phone and tell me that I have an appointment for a mammogram next month. It seems likely that I will have a follow-up call  in the next few weeks telling me the appointment is postponed, but at least they are carrying on the business of taking care of our health in general. 

At the very best, some of us can see this as an adventure; we stayed home and entertained ourselves in new ways. Hopefully we didn't gain too much weight. 

At the worst ... the worst is unspeakable.

K and I have been keeping busy - not just entertained. Being really engaged in some activity is important for good mental health. Most days, while we aren't working on a nasty jig-saw puzzle, K is downstairs in her office working on family genealogy while I am upstairs with the girls (three miniature dachshunds) making sure they know everything is ok. Generally my time is filled with cross-stitching and cooking. I'm trying to give us a variety of meals to make up for a lack of variety otherwise. It is an interesting challenge to plan for a once-a-week grocery outing. While K is keeping the girls company, and cross-stitching, I head to the music room to practice. 

In the area of entertainment is the vast number of videos available online. I love to learn so history or science or music is keeping my mind busy as I do these other things. 

Of interest to those who like classical music would be the recent addition online of the Keeping Score videos by the San Fransisco Symphony and their director Michael Tilson Thomas. Below is a link to their YouTube channel. There you can see the full list of composers and pieces that have been featured. Each of the four I've listened to so far has a full performance at the end of the program, with interesting background insights at the beginning. They aren't short, but they are very well produced - fascinating for anyone with a love of music. 

Keeping Score - Michael Tilson Thomas and the San Fransisco Symphony