HOLLYWOOD LAYS AN EGG

I recently said that I wasn't going to watch the Academy Awards this year. Well, in a shameful moment of acute moral relapse, I caught the last half hour (on live stream) to see what film won for best picture.

As fate would have it, this turned out to be the best part of the entire show. It was the worst debacle in Academy Award history - and has Hollywood Bigwigs spinning on their pompous asses, with egg dripping from their facelifts.

Allow me to explain:

The presentation for Best Picture is always the most eagerly-awaited part of the entire long and tedious ceremony.

The audience already sat through four excruciating hours of the usual insincere ass-kissing accolades, and listened to the usual weary, threadbare Hollywood rhetoric: including that  written statement sent to us by Iranian film director Asghar Farhadi who refused to attend the ceremonies because of President Trump's "inhumane" immigration ban - - and because of our "disrespect" for Muslim countries.

Yea, right Bubaloo. These are the same countries who execute gays, enslave women, enjoy public beheadings, and hate everyone other than themselves. 
Go suck a camel hump.

Aw, settle down and breathe easy, amigos - I'm getting to the good part.

 
Finally the moment has arrived to announce the Best Picture award. The award presenters are Faye Dunaway and Warren Beatty - who were resurrected from the Tinseltown Boneyard because they starred in the film Bonnie and Clyde, which was made fifty years ago (yup - 1967).

Dunaway and Beatty in 1967

Warren Beatty opens the hermetically sealed envelope to announce the winner. He looks at the contents, fumbles around, and inexplicably hands it to Faye Dunaway. Everyone thinks he's either goofy or senile (which wasn't the case).

Faye glances at the envelope and quickly announces that the winner for Best Picture is La La Land.

Before the words leave her lips, a stampede of La La participants crowd onto the stage - and the babbling Thank You speeches begin.

While the La La recipients are in the midst of giving profuse thanks to everyone in their entire lives - - some flustered bald guy emerges out of nowhere with the devastating news that La La Land didn't win for Best Picture. It was, in fact, Moonlight that won.

While the La La bubbles were bursting in abject confusion, the Moonlight participants stampeded the stage and commenced with their own barrage of Thank You speeches.

Chaos ensued. It was a Hollywood epic worthy of Cecil B. DeMille.

The raw - not to mention embarrassing - fact is that the wrong envelope was given to Warren Beatty. In it contained the proclamation that Emma Stone won for Best Actress (which indeed she did). But she already accepted her Oscar hours ago (or so it seemed).

Faye Dunaway saw the name Emma Stone (for La La Land) and assumed that La La had won for Best Picture.
It was an incredibly ugly scene - but neither Beatty nor Dunaway can be blamed for it. 
Some Jackass behind the scenes can be thanked for the Big Boner.

My own personal thoughts are that the Russians are behind it. I have no doubt that Vladimir Putin hacked the Academy Awards.
I demand a recount.
Moonlight might have won the electoral vote - - but it was La La Land that won the popular vote.

I plan to go out tomorrow to riot in the streets, burn buildings, and very possibly loot.


Here's the blunder on video, in case you want to see it. I got this from YouTube.

  ( A few of the usual sourpusses didn't appreciate my humor. It's their loss....)

UNDER THE LUNAR INFLUENCE

When I write I'm merely talking to myself, very often completely oblivious to the prospect of eavesdroppers. My words should probably best be ignored rather than absorbed. Private thoughts are not always easily interpreted or appreciated.

Tonight I'm under the influence of the full moon - which has a habit of disturbing the solace of a lonely night with the resurrection of slumbering memories. 

I toss and turn in a tangle of damp sheets and the stifling embrace of a humid room. Then I get up, sit by the open window and inhale a pallid breath of midnight air. The night is a gentle infusion of thickly clustered trees, silvery patches of moonglow, and the random neon-blink of fireflies.

In this deceptive hour of sacred solitude, long-closed chapters of my life unwittingly open and serve to haunt me with the tattered pages of distant things.

This rhapsodic night is not intended for those whose souls are devoid of poetry, nor those whose hearts are immuned to the poignant rapture of love. 

The ethereal moonlight of these midnight hours is reserved for the secret song of remembrance.

DEVOTION
(for W.G.H.)

When I think of you now
five years dead
it is impossible to perceive
the long burden of time that has spilled
beyond the threshold of our love.
It is too fresh in my memory:
that first autumn night
when a crisp November wind
wiped the stars clean
along with the slate of our future.

Those sacred hours after midnight
held the ripe secrets of our youth,
soaring with the sweet discovery
of each other,
singing with the eager prospect
of endless possibilities.

I tried to believe that eternal love
doesn't come this easily,
but the depth of our first kisses
forever expelled the thought
from my shadowed doubts
and united the scattered pieces
of our separate lives.

Where are you tonight,
when old memories resurrect
the timeless multitude of windswept stars
and lonely hours are filled
with echoes of our depthless devotion?

 Jon V.
from Love Letters to Ghosts




Note:
if you don't like poetry, you might like the fake photos on my other blog, at this link:
Cabinet of Curious Treasures  

ROMANTIC NIGHTS WITH REYNALDO

Every once in awhile, I like to throw a curve ball and write a blog post that no one will be interested in except myself.

It's May. Spring is in the air (along with pollen, allergies, bees, wasps, and assorted horrifying Tennessee mountain bugs that I've never before heard of). Despite all of the unexpected annoyances of mountain living, the weather is gorgeous. My rustic surroundings are inspiring. I'm in an acutely romantic mood. And I'll make a confession:

I've been spending my nights with Reynaldo.

My readers are gasping in horror, blessing themselves with signs of the cross, and expunging me from their "friends" lists.

I've been in love with Reynaldo ever since I was a music student in Los Angeles. We seem to have lost touch through the years, but have finally been recently reacquainted - thanks to YouTube.


I'm talking about the extraordinary but sorely neglected French composer Reynaldo Hahn (1874-1947). He was actually born in Venezuela but his family moved to Paris when he was three years old.

 As a composer, Hahn's style and influence is exclusively French. He was a child prodigy and studied with the French masters: Massenet, Gounod, and Saint-Saens. Hahn composed an extraordinary amount of music - including operas, ballets, symphonies, and concertos. He was also a singer, conductor, music critic, and diarist. Today, he seems to be mostly remembered for his charming songs for voice and piano.

Reynaldo Hahn was extremely popular during his career and was the darling of the Belle Epoque drawing rooms (I won't mention the fact that he and Marcel Proust were lovers). 

I've chosen two of my favorite songs by Hahn - both of which are highly romantic and depict moonlit nights.

La Barcheta (The Little Boat) was written in 1901 and is from a series of six Italian-style songs, entitled Venezia (Chansons en Dialecte Venitien)
It depicts a romantic ride on a gondola in the moonlight.

It is sung by the delightful Italian bass  Giovanni Furlanetto.
Actually, he sings two songs by Reynaldo Hahn: La Barcheta (The Little Boat) and Che Peca (What a Shame)
 

L'Heure Exquise (The Exuisite Hour) was written in 1893 when Hahn was only nineteen.
It is based on the poem La Lune Blanche by Paul Verlaine, which depicts a moonlit night by a lake.

It is sung by the American bass Jason Hardy.
(the video has English subtitles)

 
And for those of you who are still awake and paying attention, I have an extreme rarity.

This is a ancient gramophone recording of Reynaldo Hahn actually singing La Barcheta and accompanying himself on the piano. It was recorded in 1909, when he was 35.
Over 115 years ago!!!!!!

The audio quality is really horrible and it seems much too fast, but what can you expect from a recording so old?

Since Hahn was a tenor, he sings La Barcheta in a slightly higher register than Furlanetto does.

BOSCO BY MOONLIGHT

Dazzled by the full moon's interpretation of daylight, Bosco watches in amazement and wonders why he's confined indoors. He is unaware of persistent hard frost and intermittent snow. The window has beckoned him during momentary cloudbreak - when moonlight drenches frozen landscape with stunning illumination.

The other two cats sleep, blissfully snoring, unaware of my chronic insomnia and heavy burden of thoughts. Thought is perpetuated by the silent midnight hours, inspired by momentary glimpses of moonglow.

The February full moon. Snow Moon, as it's called. I went outside, much earlier, as it was rising. The deep forest was shrouded in low fog, but the moon was brilliant and white just above the grasping reach of naked treetops.

As I absorbed the moon's beauty, coyotes howled very nearby. The announcement of their presence startled but didn't scare me. I've grown used to it. They have their territory, I have mine. We respect one another.

The hunters have no respect. The sharp, echoing sound of their rifles occurs quite often and still unnerves me to some extent. Tuesday afternoon was enhanced with showers of light snow. I went outside to watch the strikingly red cardinals. The sudden shots of the hunters was too close for comfort. The birds scattered. I hurried back indoors. I can only hope that the hunters have good eyesight and remain reasonably sober.

And me? I'm still existing in a mild state of confusion - - with too many things and nowhere to put them. The house is chaotic. The garage looks like an explosion at a junk yard. I have a stomach virus and a lethargic attitude. I've put a Hungarian pox on the entire process of moving. And my movers. My missing possessions, so far, have not been found.

But enough of annoying reality. These frozen, moon-drenched midnight hours are reserved for respite and rumors of dreams.

Bosco, in the mesmerizing custody of the moonlit window, fully realizes this.