I have two movies, albeit without reviews: "Christmas Eve"(1947) with yet another stellar cast: George Raft, Ann Harding, Randolph Scott, George Brent, Joan Blondel, the stunning but dangerous Dolores Moran, and Virginia Field. We watched that one on, you guessed it, Christmas Eve, and on Christmas night we saw "On the Avenue"(1937), an Irving Berlin musical starring Alice Faye, Dick Powell, Madeleine Carroll, and The Ritz Brothers, who - if you've never seen them - are hilarious.
All year I've been listening to Wagner or Handel late at night, but for Christmas Eve and Christmas I switched to Bach's Mass in B minor (which was first performed, in an earlier and shorter incarnation with JSB conducting, on Christmas night in 1724). At any rate, because it's a tremendous work, it got me to thinking about the greatest pieces of music of all time. All you have to do is check the Youtube comments to see that many folks think Mass in B Minor is number one. I'd tend to agree.....if I hadn't discovered Wagner. I read a biography on him about five years ago, wanting to understand why he was so vilified, and yeah, I know about his infamous writings, but he is played extensively on KUSC (which tells you something), and in reading the book, I wanted to know how anyone said to be such a rotten person could make such incomprehensibly beautiful music. The two polarities didn't jibe, and I hadn't actually heard very much of his music at the time, just the overture to "Tannhauser", which they play regularly on KUSC, and of course the "Ride of the Valkyries", which everyone knows, either from "Apocalypse Now" or some other pop culture context. But that was all the Wagner I knew. My Dad didn't like him, preferring Mozart and Italian opera, and because I got introduced to classical music and opera by my Dad, I started out by taking his suggestions. But Mozart, while great, was too light for me.
The author of the Wagner bio wrote in depth about the emotions conveyed in his opera "Parsifal" for instance, or the chord structure that opens "Tristan und Isolde". He described it with such passion that I thought, "I'll have to give these operas a listen", and I did, and this year, I got hooked. I haven't had many pieces of music - rock, classical or otherwise - that I could listen to night after night for a solid year, but with Wagner, that's what's happened. And it actually began in 2021. I think he's tied with Bach as the all-time musical genius. And so, with that said, here's my Top Ten Pieces of Music of All Time: 1) "Parsifal" by Wagner, 2) "Mass in B Minor" by Bach, 3) "Tristan und Isolde" Wagner, 4) "Lohengrin" Wagner, 5) "St. Matthew Passion" Bach, 6) "St. John Passion" Bach, 7) 5th Symphony by Gustav Mahler 8) 2nd Symphony by Mahler 9) "Rienzi" Wagner, 10) 8th Symphony by Anton Bruckner.
Those are all long form. If I was listing shorter pieces, they might be, in no particular order, "Mysterious Barricades" by Francois Couperin, "Finlandia" by Sibelius, Piano Sonata K545 by Mozart (which is one of the first pieces of music I can remember hearing), "Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring" by Bach, "Partita #3 for Violin" by Bach (must be played by Hilary Hahn), "Intermezzo 118 #2" by Brahms, "Adagio for Strings" by Samuel Barber, "Meditation" from the opera "Thais" by Massenet, and "Pavane" by Faure. I'm leaving out a ton of stuff, but those are ten favorites. Rock music is incredible of course, and we all love it, but give classical music a shot. It opens you up to a universe of musical language, and the thing about music is that no one knows what it is, or where it comes from. It might be the language of God, or at least one of His or Her languages (because silence can be a language, and so too the fluttering of leaves), but with classical music you get a lot of nuance and perhaps a greater range of emotion than you do with rock, as great as rock undoubtedly is. Anyhow.....
I am also thinking about hypnosis. Have you ever been hypnotized? I have, several and maybe umpteen times. In truth, I have no idea how many times I've been "put under", because I am certain that I've been hypnotised more than once without the hypnotist telling me in advance, and without my being aware of it once it happened (and I was never aware of it in any case until long after the fact because I was always administered a "block" to cause me to forget it). But I'm learning that there are different levels of trance, including at least one that could be called a "waking" or "class 2" trance, in which everything seems normal, you are walking around like it's an ordinary day (although such a trance never happens on an ordinary day) but you are absorbing reality only "in the moment" and it won't last because there won't be an immediate memory. Your ability to remember has been blocked, programmed out. In a Class 2 trance, there is also a numbing of the shock value of things that might entice or outrage you. Certain things are numbed or emotionally "set back", as if you are slightly "outside of yourself" and yet you can still ride your 10 speed home, three miles from an apartment building in Reseda, so to speak, without feeling any trance whatsoever. And yet, if you've seen something unusual in this state, the next day it will seem like you dreamed it, even though you will know that you didn't. That is what a Class 2 trance feels like. Think of it as "in-the-moment reality" that is designed to shock and, in my case, to humiliate, when certain very bad people were involved.
Entrancing a person can be done in various ways, including the use of surreptitiously administered drugs (think Roofies and date rape) and/or electronics, and it can also be done by someone trained in hypnotic voice techniques, but it also helps when the victim has been pre-conditioned emotionally. In my case, I was repeatedly provoked for at least a year-long period, and my girlfriend (as I learned) was a conditioned person herself. And she wasn't very nice. I will leave it at that for the moment, and we will soon return to these subjects. In the meantime, you can look up the Esalen Institute. You might have to do some digging, because it's website won't give you any useful information.
As a side note, I should mention that I've also had some very good times under hypnosis. Amazing, even. But that involved nice people, not a-holes.
Let's do the all time TV shows: 1) Gilligan's Island 2) The Flintstones 3) Twin Peaks 4) The Twilight Zone 5) The Outer Limits (original version) 6) The X-Files 7) Laugh-In 8) Millennium 9) Danger Man (aka "Secret Agent Man") 10) The Addams Family
What? "How can you leave out 'Streets of San Francisco' or 'Seinfeld?" Yeah, and a million others. But those are just ten of my favorites. I also love "Flipper", "Combat" and "The Patty Duke Show". And every Hanna Barbera cartoon and a whole bunch from other animators. Remember "Milton the Monster"? How about "Cool McCool" or "Commander McBragg"?
Favorite Athletes: Pete Rose, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Kurt Warner, Nadia Comaneci, Sandy Koufax, Larry Bird, Novak Djokovic, Roman Gabriel, Johnny Bench, Sidney Wicks and Curtis Rowe.
How about crystal balls? Do you guys ever use them? Do you believe in them? What do you think, are they reliable conveyors of the future? I don't know, folks, but I'm not sure I'd chance it, take a chance that they are wrong. I've been looking in my crystal ball (proverbial of course; I don't actually own one), but I've been looking in mine, and what I see doesn't bode well for a certain bunch of people. I see a long, hard road ahead for them, perhaps an endless road, and one that gets more difficult as it goes along. It doesn't end in death, or in Hell. Hell would be a vacation compared to this road. Anyway, that's what I'm seeing in my crystal ball. I'd say "I hate to say it", but I don't.
Finally, on the one-in-a-million chance that they are reading, I want to say something to two ladies:
I love you, Lys.
I love you, Helen.
I remember when each of you were there for me. If you ever need me, I'll be there for you. (not that you would ever need me, but if you did....)
I love both of you beautiful women with all my heart, in every way, and I will hold you there always.
You are the highest of the highest of the high. ////
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