Glenn Miller, 1940. Associated Press

I'm just now reading the Sunday papers from this past weekend. I love this snippet from a WSJ article by James Ellroy on Glenn Miller's "Perfidia":

The song is about love and betrayal, and Miller's version fits this era perfectly. His rendition begins forcefully, all heavy brass. The reeds join, low and mournfully, with the clarinets on top. Then the Modernaires, the vocal group in Miller's band, sing the lyrics in tight harmony, like a whispered secret: "To you / My heart cries out 'Perfidia' / For I find you, the love of my life / In somebody else's arms." It's the song of the underdog.

 

Miller understood that music is elegiac. Other orchestras back then were hipper, but Miller knew that people would look back at "Perfidia" and say, "This is the Miller sound." He understood it was a romantic era.
 

"Perfidia" always takes me back to a time I never experienced—when L.A. had big gleaming cars and there wasn't a particle of smog in the sky. Women I know like the song, too. The sentiment is universal. It touches the gut of the jilted party and offers a supportive shrug. Hey, you love, you lose.

Amidst the sad and bad in the news world is this lovely story:

 http://jezebel.com/two-women-in-their-90s-wed-after-spending-decades-as-a-1631790801

via The Associated Press

http://globegazette.com/ap/state/two-iowa-women-get-married-after-years-together/article_c27bc39f-37ab-5c9c-a9c7-e17149d780ed.html


This line from the second article gives is so incredibly hopeful: "The two women say it's never too late for a new chapter in life." It would be nice to personally think so, not necessarily with finding love, but with life, in general.  :)

There are certain singers whose voices soothe me so much I immediately feel better. Karen Carpenter (it goes without saying)...Stevie Nicks (even when she's not always the best enunciator, she still sounds so wonderfully wise and weary)...Carole King (Tapestry is an album that definitely makes a rainy day better)...Tina Turner.

Tina Turner has always struck me as a classy lady and one who is at peace with herself. She once said her greatest beauty secret was being happy inside.

Her voice is so natural, her singing both exceptionally controlled and often very mellow ("Better Be Good To Me" is a favorite and shows off her range quite well), I just peace out. Plus...I don't why exactly, but I bet she'd be a really neat person to share a cup of tea with sometime.

Growl is definitely well-named. I have no business drinking this, but I didn't sleep last night and needed some caffeine. Little did I know just one of these little guys is worth four cups of regular coffee.

It depends on the individual, of course, but I would not recommend this drink. My anxiety, which can be off the charts anyway, is really high right now, my heart is beating extra hard and I feel more than my normal kooky. Plus, the taste (the one I got is called Sweet Vanilla) is on the yucky side (as if it didn't finish brewing and there are still coffee grounds in it.)

As the day went on, I only felt worse and I didn't like how extra-worried and hyper it made me. Well, "made me" isn't the best of choice of words since I'm, of course, responsible for my own behavior but I still felt so completely off that I did not like it all. I even felt a bit mean inside, like the "growl" stood for monstrous. Again, that's my fault, but I think it's best to avoid anything that doesn't agree with you. I don't want to be mean, I want to be nice and I don't think I was today.

So now I'm sipping Sleepy Time Celestial Seasons (it is so relaxing!) and hoping to be a better person tomorrow. I really need to switch all the way to tea.

Honestly, I have such mixed feelings about Flannery O'Connor.

On the one hand, the woman could write short stories unlike anything else around...and often about things she had no personal experience with...on the other, her feelings on gay people (though to be as fair as possible, I'll add that she felt any love not directly tied to God was "perverse") and civil rights (little as we know about those feelings) make me cringe a lot. (When a friend of hers spoke of being committed to the civil rights movement, O'Connor responded by telling her racist jokes.)

Her recently published A Prayer Journal shows a woman of devout faith, yet it is this kind of faith (that comes from a woman of such narrow, sanctimonious and often prejudiced views) that confuses me. How can someone who writes:

I do not know You God because I am in the way. Please help me push myself aside. I am mediocre of spirit but there is hope. I am at least of the spirit and that means alive.

be the same woman who would react to a friend's news that way? Be someone so judgmental of others who do not share her beliefs?

I often feel so mixed up and torn with guilt inside when I find out a writer I once truly enjoyed is not whom I thought she (or he) was.

Of course, it's still easier and different with people you can easily put away (i.e. authors, musicians, actors or actresses) but what do you when people in your own life feel a way that appalls you? Then, it's not so easy to put down a book or turn off a song, especially if you like them before you learn of their views...

For more from Flannery O'Connor's A Prayer Journal, you can read here:

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2013/09/16/my-dear-god