WIND-SWEPT CHRISTMAS EVE

Strong southern winds blew into rural Tennessee, bringing unseasonable warmth and a surrealistic aura which expunges the traditional essence of Christmas Eve.

The day was balmy, hazy, overcast, with feeble glimpses of dusty amber light that could have been sunshine. The wind was intense and persistent, and is still whining and moaning late at night as I'm writing this. My only concern is that more nearby trees might topple, like they did during the tornado warning two weeks ago.

In mid-afternoon the forest looked ghostly, with dark shadows of gnarled naked trees and haphazard piles of trees that were broken and toppled in recent storms. Bleak. Desolate.

My day was completely uneventful. The ceaseless wind was an appropriate accompaniment to the mournful elegy of my weary soul.

I had roasted lemon pepper chicken with wild rice for dinner. Pecan pie for dessert. Tomorrow I'll have leftovers.

Tonight I lighted candles to evoke the spirits of past memories. ...to resurrect distant echoes of what was once my life....

Sentimentality runs rampant in the custody of potent wine and the delicious danger of rural isolation.

These photos were taken at mid-afternoon on Christmas Eve. Believe it or not, they're in color but look black and white.

My recent forest photos all look alike because I've been taking the pictures from the back porch. Too lazy to venture away from the house.
 

The winter sun looks so remote and far away - even at noon. It seems to linger tauntingly near the horizon.

I bought some new candles the other day (how exciting!). This one has the rare and heavenly scent of amaretto and blood orange. I love it.
Blood oranges were always abundant in Texas around the holiday season. I haven't seen any here in TN.

This "tree" is a European Cypress. The candle is cinnamon and cloves (I'm sure your excitement knows no bounds).
 

A warm and aromatic array of candles on Christmas Eve......accompanied by potent homemade cranberry wine and the phantom sound of howling winds in the forest.
 

May poetic dreams always sustain you and may all good and positive things continually infiltrate your journey through life.     

 With love, Jon

Was that a strange sentiment? Heck, I thought it was better than "Happy Holidays".

I made this video last year and didn't like it. So, I revised it yesterday with some new visuals. I'm still not satisfied, but what the heck - it's not too bad.

P.S.  I'm STILL having lots of trouble trying to leave comments on your blogs.
A pox on Blogger!

WIND, WEATHER, AND WARSAW

  

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I won't bother to mention that this past week was incredibly bad - during which everything that could go wrong, did go wrong.

I won't mention that I'm completely out of supplies and have to wait until Monday to go to town.  

I will mention that the weather has been horrendous this weekend. The wind was so frighteningly strong this morning that I thought I was back in West Texas.
In Texas, however, I had a house made of bricks - which could courageously withstand the wind.

My Tennessee house is unnervingly flimsy. The Big Bad Wolf could easily blow it down. 
And I feared that some of these gigantic trees would topple over and pulverize me.

A Tornado Watch accompanied the wind, but that didn't bother me. When I lived in the Missouri Ozarks there were Tornado Watches every day (or so it seemed....). Intense apprehension was part of my daily agenda.

Right now, in late afternoon, there is fog, thunder, and torrential rain. The brutal wind has subsided. 
I've decided that I'll probably survive.
Although I might need a rowboat..... 

So, what's this about Warsaw??

I'm talking about the Warsaw Concerto. I love this composition and have performed it publicly more times than any other piece of music.

I also recorded it at least a dozen times. Some of those recordings are now lost, but fortunately a few remain.

The Warsaw Concerto was composed by Richard Addinsell (1904 -1977) and  featured in the 1941 British film Dangerous Moonlight.

It was originally written for piano and orchestra, but the version I play is my own arrangement for piano solo. I still have a few pages of my piano score - - which I wrote when I was in my early 20's.

I made this video recently. After exhausting my limited ideas for visuals, I decided to do an ocean theme.

When I first watched the result of my creative efforts, my first thought was

Holy crap, this is going to make everybody seasick!!

...but then I decided that it wasn't bad after all.
Take some Dramamine - - and watch the video full-screen.

OUT OF THE FOG, INTO THE WIND

It's a few hours before dawn on Saturday morning. A very strong and unseasonably warm wind is blowing - rustling restlessly through the trees, making the wind chimes on my front porch sing.

Several packs (groups? gangs?) of coyotes were howling nearby awhile ago: a macabre chorus in the night. I ran out on the front porch to see them, but it was really too dark (moonless and/or cloudy) and they disbanded rather quickly.

The wind is really raging now as I write. Things are banging around outside and all my cats woke up. The warm temperature is eerie but it won't last (unfortunately). Frigid weather is expected by Christmas Eve.

Yesterday (Friday) the rain poured all day and it was foggy. I've never seen rain and fog at the same time until I moved to Tennessee. I actually like it - very atmospheric.

I snapped a few photos yesterday. Nothing particularly interesting.

 Oranges and apples, and two old nutcrackers that I found packed away.

This snowman used to play music when you pressed his hand, but it no longer works.

The front yard yesterday morning when the fog was starting to roll in (above).

 

.....and the back yard in the dreary afternoon. 

 

 A few autumn leaves are still clinging to trees.

 

 I took a picture of these candles without using the flash and captured my hands holding the camera in the mirror.

ALL GOOD THINGS

 Sunset on Christmas Day

Christmas is finally over, but we're still ensconced in the maddening limbo of the holiday season. New Year's Eve is our next hurdle.

I've decided to curtail my complaints, rants, grievances, and general misery - and try to concentrate on all good things. At least for a few minutes. As a hardcore pessimist it won't be easy, but it's my holiday gift to you.

I finally replied to your comments on my previous post. I generally love comments (as long as they're not death threats), but I don't always acknowledge them simply because I'm lazy - and often because I have nothing interesting to contribute.

Christmas Eve was remarkably pleasant and I savored the persistent fog and dreary weather. I ate supper at midnight and watched the 2002 Hallmark movie Silent Night - which was remarkably good. It was based on a true story about a group of American and German soldiers who were unwittingly brought together by fate on Christmas Eve in 1944.
It's available on YouTube, in case anyone cares. 

On Christmas day the fog and rain cleared out and the temperature rose to 65 balmy degrees (that's Fahrenheit, for those of you in Stockholm). The day was marred by four (yes, four) power outages. They were consistently annoying but mercifully brief.

Today - which I'm assuming is Monday - is still unseasonably mild and windy. It's a clean wind here (not tainted with west Texas dirt), and it inspires the treetops to sing as a great haunting chorus.

 This was my back yard in west Texas during a windstorm (no, I am not kidding)

 This is my Tennessee back yard today during a windstorm. I rest my case.

I watched another movie recently, the 2012 German film Ludwig II starring Sabin Tambrea as the ill-fated Bavarian King (directed by Peter Sehr). Despite taking many liberties with historical accuracy, I thought it was a wonderful film. It certainly held my interest for the two and a half hour duration. 

It's difficult to compare this recent film with the 1973 film about Ludwig II directed by Visconti - - both efforts are good in their own right. 

 Sabin Tambrea as King Ludwig II

I've always had a strong penchant for Ludwig II, the "mad" Bavarian king, because in many ways we were alike. I never held the belief that he was insane, but rather feel that he was an extreme eccentric who chose to avoid the harsh realities of life and kingship by escaping into the safe and soothing fantasy of music, art, and literature.

This is the real King Ludwig II

When I was a child, I escaped from the brutal reality of my father's violence and abuse by reading books, writing, and delving into music. This chimerical safe zone of artistic delusion has followed me throughout life.

Two more things: just for the record, I never agreed with the general theory that Ludwig committed suicide. I believe that he was murdered by his (many) enemies.

The 2012 film Ludwig II is available on YouTube, if you want to see it. It's definitely not a movie that will appeal to everyone - and it's in German. Be sure to enable the English subtitles (I can understand German, but the subtitles help immensely).

I never initially intended this post to be a movie review but, hopefully this transgression will be forgiven.

Now I'm off to feed my cats, feed the 'possums, and make dinner (for myself).