"Les Preludes" ...

... and other thoughts. 

... As I was driving home from work the other day, Kurt Masur was conducting this piece, one of my favorite Franz Liszt compositions, and I lengthened my trip so as to get to the rousing finish before arriving home.  Here, Valery Gergiev conducts the Vienna Philharmonic.  He's fun to watch.

For a little romantic levity, here is "Sonata Innamorata" by P.D.Q. Bach.

... As for those other thoughts

... It took till Tuesday for me to get around to reading the Sunday Review  -- I should say "start reading ..." because I'm nowhere near finished reading.  I literally cried while reading Nicholas Kristof's "Are Chicks Brighter Than Babies?" as well as Lawrence Downes's "The Writing on the Wall" and Serge Schmemann's "World to Washington 'Really?' " and I could literally write a paragraph or more on each of those subjects except I just made a doctor's appointment to find out whether I have carpal tunnel syndrome or whatever it is that is keeping me from enjoying the Times crossword puzzle.

It's painful to put pen to paper.

I'll be back.

The rollout of Obamacare is not going well (according to Republicans, according to Faux News, but not according to anybody else, as far as I can tell.)

In my opinion, the website glitches are caused as much by the rampant demand for healthcare insurance as by the incompetence of the web designers.  Yes, the huge demand should have been anticipated.  I'll admit that.

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I especially loved Bill Keller's op-ed in the New York Times last week.  "Obamacare -- the Rest of the Story."

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Tons more snippets of observations to make.  No time to make them.  It's a busy life I lead.  A good busy.

It's my best memory of the game, that's for sure.  Reliving Kirk Gibson's pinch-hit home run off of the A's Dennis Eckersley.  Recapture the feeling HERE.

OCT. 18 EDIT:

Sorry, I haven't had time to get back here and share my personal memories.

I was a big Kirk Gibson fan, ever since his football wide receiver days at the Michigan State University.  For his professional career, he chose baseball over football.  Another two-sport star was Deion Sanders, aka Neon Deion, and you could look it up, but I'm guessing that Gibby and Neon may have been playing their sports in the same era because I distinctly remember comparing the two thusly:

Gibby played baseball like a football player, and Neon played football like a baseball player.  By which I mean:  Gibby would take the field even when injured, like football players do, if they're physically able to do so.  And Neon, if he was nicked up a little, would take the day off, like baseball players do.

With that as background, you can understand how it was when that 1988 World Series rolled around.  Gibby had knee and hamstring issues, and was scratched from the lineup for Game One because he could hardly walk.

I was watching Game One on tv and in the bottom of the ninth inning, it looked hopeless for the Dodgers because the immortal Dennis Eckersley was on the mound and I don't know why it seemed hopeless but it did.

Then for no apparent reason, I heard an immense roar from the stadium crowd and I had no idea of the reason for the roar.

And then it became clear.  Gibby was coming out to pinch-hit, and at the sight of Gibby, the crowd went bananas.  So did I.

And then came the pitches from Eckersley.  And the pathetic-looking swings of the bat from Gibby.  And then the dribbler down the first-base line that went foul.  And Gibby tried to run toward first and his gait looked even more pathetic than his swings of the bat had looked.

And then he came back to the plate and damn if he didn't eventually hit the ball out of the park.  And the home-run trot and the outboard motor pull and the crowd going bananas squared and me too.

And they replayed it on TV over and over, and I literally timed the time it took for Vin Scully to open his mouth and record for posterity his comment about "in a year that has been so improbable, the impossible has happened."  Vinny let the crowd's bananas roar tell the story.  More than a minute went by before Vinny spoke.  It was beautiful.  Vin Scully, my favorite announcer of all time, announcing the greatest moment of all time, and letting the crowd's roar tell the story before he did.

I've been remiss in blogging lately.

Let's clear up one matter that is probably still disturbing my more thoughtful and concerned readers.  My wife Barbara and I love each other forever and ever, and since my last entry betrayed the sad fact that we're often at war with each other, please don't worry about us.  We've already had at least one ridiculously heated blowup (verbal, not physical, I assure you) since the one described here a couple of weeks ago.  All that is is par for the course.

Be happy for the two other people who are not being driven crazy by their spouses.  Barbara and I belong with each other.

As for "Rush."

See it.  It's one of the best sports movies ever, but I don't even think of it as a sports movie, even if ESPN's Bill Simmons does.  It's a character study of two men -- Formula One racecar drivers James Hunt and Niki Lauda -- real-life rivals who dominated the sport in the mid-70s.

The brilliant Ron Howard -- who never misses, in my opinion (the Oscar he won for "A Beautiful Mind" is just one example of his work -- directed.

Hans Zimmer's musical score was fantastic.

Hunt, the fast-living Brit who famously rivaled Wilt Chamberlain for "most women bedded by an athlete," and Lauda, the cerebral, hard-working Austrian driver, were polar opposites.  Barbara was audibly rooting for Hunt.  I was just as much cheering for Lauda.

If you don't know the true story, let yourself remain in suspense until after you've seen the movie.

In case you haven't guessed, there's a crucial automobile race near the end of the movie.

********************

Other thoughts:

While I, like most of the rest of the country, blame the Republicans for the mess we're in in Washington, why is NO ONE blaming the voters -- people who elected the likes of Ted Cruz and Michelle Bachmann to office?

I blame the voters.

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Back to the subject of domestic life:

The conflict two weeks ago came about because Barbara promised to call me regarding a lunch date and then forgot.

Interestingly, I was left hanging TODAY on the same kind of deal.  Barbara showed up at 1 p.m. (she's still house-sitting), expecting me to be ready to go with her to lunch at someone's house.  YESTERDAY, she said the invitation was ambiguous.  It would be for either lunch or dinner.  I'd find out TODAY, she said.

Anyway, I had an ample bite for myself at noon.

But at least I think I learned my lesson from two weeks ago, and so far no arguments have ensued.

***

Back to another subject:

Oh, yeah, these "comments" that I have to label as spam.  I GUESS I have to label them that.  But they keep multiplying.  

What's the deal with all this spam?

(later)

So I'm writing it down here.  Couldn't sleep (you'll know why later), it's 3:18 a.m. this second and ...

1. Read Walgreen instructions

2. Feed dogs

3. Write (doing that now)

4. Canteloupe

5. LEONES-ANELES

6. Check email

7. I miss the Daily News

1.  I changed over from Liberty to Walgreens on the diabetes testing kit and I'm having a devil of a time with the new kit.  Tother day when I was at the doctor's office I had to wait and wait and wait and because I had to keep a movie date with my wife I just didn't have time to make them sit down and show me how the new kit worked. 

1A.  Not on my list above, but it's irritating as hell to type on Xanga and have to keep it in one paragraph so as to keep the boldface (I'll indent later).  There must be an easier way. 

2.  Because I got up so early, I have to remember to stop typing when it gets to be 4 or 4:30 so I can feed the dogs.  There's seven in the house at the moment.  My own five --  Yoo-Hoo, Dagmar, Max, Fritz, Margie -- and the two guests Guido and Harvey, whose owners are up in Maryland getting married this weekend. 

3. Write.  By which I mean, not the rest of the crap 1-7 but THIS paragraph in which I cry out in pain over the anguish that kept me from sleeping in the first place. 

Long long story.  Background.  Barbara house-sits for other people's dogs and there's lots of times I'm in the house alone wondering if and when Barbara's coming back home for lunch or dinner and if I make the mistake of just eating when I'm hungry, then sure as anything Barbara will waltz in the door and be disappointed that I didn't wait for her. 

So anyway, Thursday night we were dining out and discussing the next day's plans and it's Gourmet Hamburger Day (a United Way fundraiser) at the hospital where I work and so Barbara jumps at the idea of meeting there for a burger, so she promises to call me sometime Friday morning to make plans for the day.  In my mind I know that Barbara will be sleeping late and might not call me till 9 or 10 in the morning.  I've promised her I will be at home waiting for her call.  (There's NO way for me to call her.  She just bought a cellphone not long ago but she doesn't know how to answer it or retrieve a message.  She has it so she can call out when she wants to.)

I also know she wants to see Ron Howard's movie "Rush" and I want to see it too so I'm planning to suggest it when she calls on Friday and so ...

Time goes by and she never calls!  10 a.m.  11 a.m.  (Hamburger's available between 11 and 3).  Noon.  1 p.m.  The lady Barbara's house-sitting for lives in a gated community and I can't get in but she's due home Friday evening and of course I'm worried Barbara might be lying dead in her kitchen and so I call the lady (Pat) who tells me she's still in Kansas (!) but the plane will be leaving soon and she'll only be an hour late getting home and Barbara is ALREADY shuttling between two house-sitting homes and doing multiple errands and getting a mammogram but anyway by the time Pat called me back (4 p.m.), I'd already heard from Barbara (3:40) via phone message because something weird happened when Barbara called and when I picked up the phone neither of us could hear the other and Barbara left the message saying she'd be home in an hour. 

At 5:30 Barbara finally shows up with a few groceries (part of her Thursday night promise was that she'd cook dinner at home on Friday) and I allow as how I hadn't eaten at all because she was supposed to call regarding Gourmet Hamburger Day and she said, for the one and only time Friday in a sincere voice, "I forgot.  I'm sorry."  I thought I reacted appropriately, accepting the apology but repeating that it was fairly urgent that we eat soon as I hadn't eaten all day waiting for her call and she replied somewhat sarcastically that I should have taken care of myself (totally forgetting how mad she gets when I eat before she gets home even on days when we had made no plans whatsoever!) and anyway, unbeknownst to her I'm not a complete idiot and I did wolf down two packages of nuts and four delicious cookies that were lying around, plus a can of soda -- all needed because I hadn't checked my sugar that morning because I was nursing my left-over Liberty equipment to make it last until I have time to figure out the Walgreen's and I was feeling light-headed so the nuts and the cookies and the soda took care of me well enough but didn't spoil my appetite for the gourmet hamburger that I never got to eat! 

So anyway, Barbara said it would take too long to cook a meal so we went out to eat (another expensive restaurant dinner that I can't really afford because you wouldn't believe how many times we eat out instead of eat in) and here's the thing. 

I don't do well with hearing nothing but sarcasm from the wife that I love (unless she's screaming and I don't like that either) and even though it's Barbara who's completely at fault here, she doesn't understand that that's the case because she's completely insane. 

I say that in all sincerity.  Believe it or not, most of the time we get along OK and on her good days she doesn't even remember how impossible she can be on the bad days. 

And so this is how we get through life.  My marching orders (from the therapist) are not to escalate, and the louder Barbara talks the softer I have to talk, and Barbara's marching orders (from the same therapist) are to be clear, concise and direct but Barbara has no concept of what that means.  She tries.  She really does.

So do I.

Close to 4 a.m.  It's time to feed the dogs.  More later, maybe.  Also, I'll eat the canteloupe that will be turning to garbage if I don't eat it soon.

Politics makes strange bedfellows, as they say.  I loathe the fact that I'm in bed with Paul Ryan, Sean Hannity, Harmon Kaslow, and other fans of Ayn Rand's classic novel, "Atlas Shrugged."

**********

Before going any further, let me refer you to this latest item I found at BuzzFeed.com.  Whoever wrote the text hates us John Galt-ers, and loves to make fun of the irony that filmers of Atlas Shrugged, Parts 1, 2, and 3, are begging for money on Kickstarter.com because they are too incompetent to make a movie that shows a profit.

**********

If I were a millionaire businessman like Harmon Kaslow, I'd produce the movie, sure, but I'd find some Hollywood pros who knew what they were doing, instead of throwing money away on amateurish productions that so far are what have been put on the screen.

Part 1 wasn't too bad, but the marketing was pitiful and they were too chintzy in the production and it showed.  (Stock footage of trains rolling into stations, etc.  It didn't bother ME, but I heard groans from the audience.  You have to spend money to make money.  At least in the movie business.)

Part 2 was closer to dreadful, and I'm not too sanguine about the upcoming Part 3.

Someday, probably long after I'm dead, somebody willing to hire the best writers and the best actors and best marketers of movies will decide to do justice to my favorite novel.

Driving home from a party, I heard this cool interview on "All Things Considered."  Audio will be available at 7 p.m. EDT.

Without knowing anything about Bo Pelini's qualifications to be head football coach at the University of Nebraska, I'm still incensed over the treatment accorded him these days.

Somebody with a grudge sent an audiotape to deadspin.com from two years ago.  In that tape, Pelini, who was upset about newspaper articles like THIS ONE (can't make the link work, sorry)*, unleashed a profanity-filled tirade.  He was annoyed with the press.  He was annoyed by the fact that Nebraska football fans didn't like the results on the field to the point that they walked out of the stadium before the game was over.

The problem isn't Pelini's profanity.  The problem is creepy websites like deadspin.  They follow in the footsteps of rags like the National Enquirer.  No journalistic standards whatever.  Just muckraking.

Rake some muck.  Make a buck.  Now all the wiseguy reporters are speculating that Pelini can't survive at Nebraska. 

Win or else.  Or you're on the shelf.  Oh, well.  That's the way it is anyway, in college athletics. 

Still, I hope Pelini survives.

*Maybe THIS LINK works.  It's an article by Will Leitch.

"The results of scientific research very often force a change in the philosophical view of problems which extend far beyond the restricted domain of science itself."

I love this one, which I discovered this morning:

 “Being powerful,” Margaret Thatcher said, “is like being a lady. If you have to tell people you are, you aren’t.”