#A-TO-Z-CHALLENGE – LETTER “B” AS IN “BUG” OR “BEETLE”

Letter “B” as in “Bug” or “Beetle”; more precisely, “Ladybug”, or “Ladybeetle” as, my oldest and dearest friend, Pamela calls them. I'm writing about them, because, like the kittens, and the dog and birds, they have become part of my landscape and in a big way.

courtesy: familyman.com   

My hubby also had a bunch of the little devils visit him in his woodworking shed as well.

One day, last October, here in the foothills of the uplands in the Carolinas, in the countryside where we live, ladybugs took to swarming; something I'd never experienced before. I'd seen scads of lightning bugs as a kid in Michigan and later on, when I lived near Gastonia, NC and, had heard tell of swarms of crickets from my aunt when they first moved to Las Vegas some fifty-plus years ago, when her husband, my uncle Stan, worked at the nuclear test site out near there. I'd also experienced swarms of Mayflies from Lake St. Clair, in Michigan, in June.

courtesy: mdc.mo.gov  

Lightning bug swarms are prettier than Mayfly swarms; here's a batch of lightning bugs in Missouri.

The Mayflies came up out of the bottom and swarm all over the towns of Grosse Pointe and East Pointe. People were sweeping them up with their push brooms and they would crunch when you run over them with your car. Kind of icky, but they disappeared fast, as the birds and I think squirrels would get some new snacks.

We also had the love-bugs in Florida. Boy, did we have love-bugs. Something out of a laboratory that got loose. Two bugs hooked together that flew around for a few weeks. They just got mooshed under your windshield wipers and were a mess to clean up. I was never really sure where they came from, or what ecological niche they were supposed to fill, but they were annoying.

courtesy: tcpalm.com  

Love bugs are supposedly a science experiment that got loose and have no known predator, so they just show up and annoy Floridians twice a year. The story may be apocryphal, but I was too busy cleaning dead love bugs off my car to care.

But, the ladybugs I found rather charming. They apparently live for between 2 and 3 years and they swarm in late October in the upper-third of the United States, looking for places to hibernate. They found refuge outside in my eaves, but several hundred, or thousand – I wasn't taking names at the door – found respite in my ceiling and my kitchen and bedroom and music room. They tucked themselves in and went to sleep. They will live off their body fat for the winter. The amusing thing is that it doesn't get really, really cold here, so we'd have a warm day, and a few hardy souls would come buzzing out and I'd find them creeping around in the kitchen.

I'm sure a few have fallen victim to the kittens and one did fall into one of my frying pans when I was cooking. I was unhappy about that. I've talked to people who work in construction and they're used to coming up on packs of them in walls and things like that, so it's not unusual, but I like having them here. At least they beat the wasp infestation I had last summer. That was just annoying. At any rate, I had to remember that terrible children's rhyme, “ladybug, ladybug, fly away home! Your house is on fire, and your children are all gone!” If I'm remembering that correctly, that's just the stuff of nightmares. No wonder we're all in therapy!

I hope you all are having a wonderful #a-to-z-challenge! Next up, letter “C”!

#A-TO-Z CHALLENGE 2015 – LETTER “B” - BENNY GOODMAN – THE “KING OF SWING”

It was 1944, and swing music was making huge inroads in places in America and overseas, following American troops as they made their way into the various theaters of war. The U. S. O. was putting on shows for the boys in the various branches of the Military, and one of these boys, was serving on Okinawa, at the young age of seventeen, having been given permission by his mother (his only living parent) to join the Army, after having dropped out of high school the year before, bored with the whole thing. He mustered out of San Francisco and joined up with the forces on Okinawa, partially as occupation forces and partly as escorts to the U. S. O. girls. Talk about letting the fox into the hen house! The young man's name? Glenn Alton Wallace, Junior. He would not only go on to not distinguish himself in the Army, but he would later go on to join the Air Force and become a pilot of B-29s in the Korean Action. The man loved to take risks.

Lieutenant Glenn A. Wallace, Jr., Korea, 1952

He also loved music and he loved Swing. In 1955, when he somehow became ensnared by my mother's wiles and they married after his Air Force stint, I came along – funny how that happens. My mother had decided early on that she was NOT going to be married to a man of leisure, nor one that had no education, although my father, for a high-school drop out, was a smart man. He aced the college entrance exams and went back to college on the GI bill and graduated from college within three years; third in his class. I came along during his second year of school. He brought me home from the hospital and was my primary care-giver. He took me to class with him, took me to the bar – I learned to walk in that bar at 9 months of age; the Wallaces being precocious drunks – after class and I “did” homework with him. Doing homework with him meant me shutting my trap for a few hours, and the way to do this was to put SOMETHING on the 33 1/3 record-player.

Sheila Wallace, circa 1980. Yeah, my mom was a pilot, too. Me? I hate hate hate hate hate hate hate loathe flying. I'm not keen on balloons, either

In all probability, and in hindsight, he most likely could have played anything and I would have been happy. But, he played music he liked and in turn, growing up with that kind of music, I learned to love it. Thank God he and my mother were eclectic.

My 2nd Christmas, 1956. My first one was spent in an incubator. Note the festive bottle of talcum powder by the Christmas tree; a must-have for Festive Christmas-type decorations. My dad just looks relieved because he's on winter break from school. Unfortunately, there was no winter break from me.

He played everything from Debussy to Rachmaninoff, from Artie Shaw to Margaret Whiting, from Beethoven to Schumann. But his absolute favorite era was the Swing era, typically from the mid-30s to just after World War II. His absolute favorite group was the Glenn Miller (more about him later) Orchestra, with songs like “In the Mood” and “String of Pearls”, but for my money, the one song that is just so much fun and exemplifies so much excellent musicianship (for reasons I'll explain) is Benny Goodman's “Sing Sing Sing”.

courtesy:youtube.com

My folks used to jitterbug and I learned how to do it at an early age. It's rather improvisational, once you get the basic steps down, but it's a hell of a lot of fun. Think break-dancing while being vertical. Anyway, my dad and I would jitterbug to “Sing Sing Sing” and my mother would holler from the kitchen, “Don't break the furniture!” I'm pretty sure she thought we were rough-housing, but we were dancing.

There are several versions of this, but this is my favorite. 

The song was originally written by Louis Prima and has lyrics, but is most strongly identified with Benny Goodman, when he played it at the Palomar Ballroom in Los Angeles in 1936, during his second tour there. For the next several years, Goodman said, they were never able to play one-nighters without including this favorite.

Me, now, unscathed by any airplane encounters.

In analyzing the song itself, I note that the sudden crescendos and decrescendos in the horns and trombones are completely tight. The “bent” notes, so very typical in jazz and blues, are also precise, without seeming so. Goodman's playing is also remarkable because he, unlike many of the “Big Band” players had some classical training and later went on to commission pieces from Bartok, collaborate with Ingolf Dahl, an emigre composer at USC and director of the Victor Borge show and Goodman also recorded versions of Mozart's Clarinet Concerto. Clarinetists of the modern era will be forever grateful to Goodman for his work with composers Aaron Copland, Morton Gould and Malcolm Arnold, as well.

There's only one composer that I dislike intensely and have throughout my life; Mozart. With the exception of his "Mass in C minor" and "Don Giovanni" his music is like the same thing written 600 times over and it's a pain in the ass to play. Since I'm going to be 60 years old this year and have played violin and/or viola since age 11, I'm not going to be changing my mind about him anytime soon. Deal with it, Mozart lovers.

I know that in my musical life, when I first started out playing and listening, I fully expected to play predominantly classical music, but that's not the way it turned out. Although it is my first love, I did learn to play other styles; blues, jazz, hip-hop and even rock and roll. I've even play “Sing Sing Sing” with Bobby Vinton of all people. The great and wonderful thing about music is that you're not restricted to one genre, nor should you have to be. The only requirements needed are a willingness to learn and an open mind. Without those, we would not have the inventiveness and the brilliance that we should expect in all musicians; something I try to aspire to, but not always successfully. 

A-TO-Z-LETTER CHALLENGE "B" – ROBERT BROCKWAY, WRITER

 (WARNING: CONTAINS ADULT LANGUAGE)

I cannot remember the first time I read one of Robert Brockway's articles on Cracked.com, the humor website, but it's been years. Robert is not a humorist per se, as was James Thurber; he tends more to sci-fi, or speculative fiction, or whatever the hell they're calling it these days, but I was immediately taken with his writing style, not just because of his use of the English language, which is beautiful and unusual, but because he paints images that linger in the mind. . .

                                                                                                                                                                                                  Dieselpunk

. . . and then follows it up with a picture and more prose that embeds itself for eternity, as well as setting you up for the hilarity that is to follow:

 "Demonstration matches were frequently held at county fairs and stadiums all across the country, though it was most prominent in the Midwest during the early 1910s. It was usually played with a basketball, as seen above, and the only mandated gear was a jaunty cap and a callous disregard for human life. It was every bit as unquestionably awesome as it was uncontrollably, screamingly retarded:"

Read more: http://www.cracked.com/blog/15-old-photographs-that-prove-world-used-to-be-insane_p2/#ixzz2xfoeQ8iL

There is more mayhem regarding "Auto Polo" but really? Is it any more idiotic than any of the crap you see on "World's Dumbest Partiers?" I must admit it is the ONLY show I watch on Tee Vee; all else is Netflix. I've seen entire back seats of sedans strung up between two trees and drunken red necks swinging to and fro and laughed myself into apoplexy when one of them does a face-plant into the dirt. Am I just not enjoying a free, and safe, ride as the lower end of the gene pool continues it's slow, albeit creative slouch towards self-destruction? But, I digress.

Within this same article, after "Auto Polo", is something that is near and dear to my heart, although, I am glad it is not practiced anymore, for the sake of the wildlife involved. It is called "Lion Drome" and yes, it was a thing. Just thinking that we, here in the U. S. ever did something like this should seem astonishing, but crazy stunts with wild beasts and any other wild, insane, dangerous things that will most surely end in tears, regret, blood and shattered limbs is done all the time, even now. 

"Lion Drome" consisted of, um. . . well. . . it was. . . Hell. I'm just going to let Robert describe it for you. 

"I've shown this photo once before, but I don't think I made it totally clear that Lion Dromes were not a fluke. This was just how you took in a show, back in the day. It was like going to the matinee now, only instead of watching Jeremy Renner pout in front of a shaky camera, you had the kids stick their unshielded little faces out over a bowl of automotive trauma and told them to inhale the heady fumes of gasoline and jungle predator.

Read more: http://www.cracked.com/blog/15-old-photographs-that-prove-world-used-to-be-insane_p2/#ixzz2xft6IwVD

                                                                                                                                                                                                            Thrillarena

 The first time I saw this picture and could finally stop laughing, I looked at the expression on the lion's face and dubbed him "Executive Lion". He's thinking, "Hmmm, wonder if I ate my briefcase."

I have to dip back into a familiar well and go back to "World's Dumbest" and this time I think it was 2 guys on motorcycles inside a metal ball. . . In Bulgaria, which is already sounding like a bad idea. Here in the good ol' U. S. of A., OSHA isn't exactly busting the chops of cheap carnivals that roam around the country, and since they pretty much dump nuclear waste in the rivers, land and atmosphere with regularity in Eastern Europe, I'm sure they don't give two hoots about a couple of dull-normal siblings in a Bulgarian carny. I was proven right. 

The ball held all right, but the two dudes, after reaching maximum speed did about 2 laps that looked like an insane Wheel-o, before meeting in mid-air and falling into a crumpled heap in the bottom of the metal ball. Who does this? I mean, the ball has to be sturdy enough to hold two full-grown men and two motorcycles, so the bars are rather dense, so you get this impression of a giant atom, with large molecules acting okay, and then, poof! Critical Mass? Fission? . . . and a crumpled heap of men and metal at the bottom. Meanwhile, the "assistant" who had presented this amazing thing with a flair of her hand was off to the side playing "Statues" with her arm still held out, pointing to this 8th wonder of the world. It took her a good minute, or minute and a half to realize all was not going to plan. But I digress.

I could go on for hours about the funny and laugh-out-loud expressions and turns of phrase that Robert Brockway continually amazes me with in his writings. Like any excellent writer, he practices and hones his craft and his diligence and persistence are paying off for him. The publishing house Tor purchased his book, the Unnoticeables at auction, with a three-book, six-figure deal! Tor said the books are "hilarious urban fantasy novels" set in a world that pulls from New York's punk scene in the 1970s as well as the modern-day Los Angeles entertainment industry. The Unnoticeables is tentatively scheduled for July 2015.

Robert's comment on his website, regarding his good news on robertbrockway.net? "That's right -- THREE god damn books coming your way. I am going to literally crush you with an avalanche of my books*.

*Provided you are small and do not struggle too much"

His book RX: A Tale of Negativity is available on Amazon and you can read his articles on Cracked.com. His website is www.robertbrockway.net and he is also a disciple of Chuck Wendig, another hellacious author and fan of establishing a solid work ethic.

Please, please, please be sure and stop by my fabulous team Leader for this challenge, DamyantiG to see her post on action scenes in writing, here: Amlokiblogs: #atozchallenge : A for Action #fiction #writing #quotes

BLOGGING FROM A TO Z APRIL 2013 - LETTER B

BEETHOVEN

He was born in Bonn, Germany, in 1770. There is some dispute as his birth was registered on the 16^th or 17^th of December. Some histories list his date of birth as early as the 15^th. As that is my birthday, I prefer to think that is his as well. He started playing piano early in life; again, that is disputed as well. Ludwig's father, a stern and unloving man wanted his only son to be another Mozart (thank God that was NOT the case, one Mozart is one too many, in my not at all humble opinion,) and so, he may have been 4 years old, or 6 years old.

I don't remember when I first heard him. Probably at 6 months, according to my father. Ludwig and Glenn Miller.

Beethoven was a gifted pianist and violist, although not the most disciplined when it came to practice. He was a much more gifted composer and pushed the envelope when it came to experimenting and developing thematic material and working with extreme and sudden changes in dynamic contrasts. Rather than follow traditional rules that had always been followed assiduously for close to two centuries, beginning with Scarlatti and culminating in Mozart. The Art of the Fugue had been explored by Bach; Haydn had written brilliantly, establishing symphonic form that would remain into the 20^th century. Paganini not only raised the bar on virtuosi playing on all non-fretted string instruments, he introduced us to the “Tema and Variations;” a main theme and variations on that theme. This template has been repeated into the 20^th century as well, with Rachmaninoff and Edward Elgar.

Beethoven changed the musical world profoundly. He not only did away with the “terraced” method of dynamics; pianissimo. piano, mezzo-piano, mezzo-forte, forte, fortissimo. He juxtaposed pianissimo-fortissimo to great effect in his symphonic works and also experimented with melodies that were less predictable. His greatest works besides his symphonies are his string quartets.

Still, his greatest achievement is his 3^rd Symphony, the “Eroica” in E♭Major. In one symphony, we bridge the Classical era in music and go directly to the Romantic era. On listening to, and/or playing this, you can pinpoint it to the 3^rd movement. The symphony was originally to be dedicated to Napoleon Bonaparte, during the “Heroic” period of the early 1800s, but then, the Napster took a stroll with his armies through Europe and Ludwig got pissed. The 3^rd movement starts out at a funereal pace and is, indeed dirge-like. But then, Ludwig, being Ludwig, lets his inner rage loose about 2/3 of the way through and cuts loose and he's royally pissed.

In roughly 1/3 of a movement, we go from a huge fortissimo, turmoil and sturm-und-drang in the lower strings and brass, to a syncopated, almost jazzy pianissimo in the first violins and woodwinds, and then back to the dirge, a sort-of dismissal, at least to my ear, finishes the movement as it started, in C minor, after the E♭Major diversion. A sort of rim-shot to the “Emperor” I always thought, as in the days of the Romans, when they held their Triumphal marches. Beethoven was fairly literate and he didn't care for the fact that his Hero did, after all have feet of clay. 

This is me, pouting. I like my Heroes to have Hero Feet

The 4^th movement of the "Eroica" (or "Erotica" as one gleeful colleague pointed out to me in a horribly botched program one evening; "Marc Wallac" on Viola!) is a riotous movement, E♭Major all the way; a true challenge for the violas. The symphonic literature has at last begun to explore the full-bodied sound and for the next 150 years, we will see astonishing growth and wonderful prowess, from this greatest of instruments, a 104-piece modern symphonic orchestra.

The Romantic era was about really pushing the envelope of symphonic music. Finally, the damn violas got something to do besides play whole notes. This being not a music appreciation class, but being a moment in time and having spent a lifetime, seriously, a whole lifetime, in music, that is the time when music changed. Everything written after that was profoundly different. Composers understood that although rules were there and there was a reason to build off solid foundations established centuries earlier and built carefully upon over time, it was really time to move forward. From Beethoven's 3^rd to his 9^th Symphony, there is only a span of 19 years. The 3^rd was premiered in 1805, the 9^th finished in 1824, and premiered to rave reviews. Of course, by this time, Ludwig was stone deaf and could not hear a note that was played by the orchestra, or sung by the chorus and soloists. Being a musician, however, I can speak from experience; he heard every thing that was in the score.