Our usual opening panorama view.
Then the same view taken with something called PANA on Paul´s brand new smuggled OnePlus 7 Pro, allegedly a phone but with so many camera lenses that one doesn´t know whether one is coming or going.
The Starters
Ingrid, Dina, Paul, Yves up top, JohnH, Myriam, TerryA and Jill, plus Becky.
It was a surprisingly chilly morning when we assembled, just in time for the statutory prompt 7.37 am start. Our residential philosopher, Yves, made a welcome return after several months hors de whatever. And those individuals whose absence the previous week had meant a break in the APAPS sequence were also back. 8 starters; Rod still taking it easy but doing a great commissariat job in organising the breakfast; the Whittles´ busy social life prevented them from walking although they did manage to surface in time for the breakfast.
News about Ian Scott´s recent accident was shared and good wishes expressed.
One would have thought that the cold might have encouraged us to get a move on but progress all morning was slow. One of the lowest average moving speeds recorded.
On up into the hills and out into the sunshine.
The first stop, at the Rest and Be Thankful bench was a lengthy one because Dina had damaged her arm on her walking gear and required medical time out. Luckily, TerryA was fully equipped with bandages.
We climbed higher and caught a view of the Silves windmill in the early light.
Yves intends to go back to the spot (if he can find it) with his “equipment.”
From there we took a familiar track down to the Silves prison road which, if Janet had been with us, would have brought her happy memories.
Then, rather than follow either of the routine tracks home, both of which would have involved sticking to the low ground, the Leader decided to take what he thinks is a new track for our group, up into the central lump of the Bom Homen Herdade.
Yes, there was a tad more climbing than some participants would have preferred, but it proved to be a good walking track with views down on both sides to tracks which we could recognise. For once, a Google Maps recce had proved to be reliable.
Towards the end, there was an option: a final hill or a bail-out route; all but one accepted the challenge.
We were all seated at the breakfast table in very good time, for it had been a short walk. Rod and the Whittles turned up, but the food was slow in coming. The new Para e Fica waiter, efficient as he is, did not recognise Yves´ prerogative to be served first, apparently holding to the old-fashioned concept of Ladies First.
But eventually, all were served and very good it was too.
The Track
The Statistics
Whatever the machines say, we will take TerryA´s distance as the official record:-
Total distance: 6.1 kms. Total time: 2 hrs 03 mins.
Moving time: 1 hr 29 mins. Average moving time: 4.00 kph. (I told you we were slow.)
Total ascent: 253 metres, including that final optional hill.
Eggs consumed: 20.
In addition to Paul´s new kit, the OnePlus7 Pro, there was a new piece of on display, a cool bit of headgear.
.
And we close with a couple of literary references of a sort.
Keen readers of these pages may remember from the APAPS 19.6 blog that Antje had told us about a Booker Prize entry called “Ducks Newburyport,” a book of over 1000 pages consisting of one single sentence, being an American housewife´s steam of consciousness meanderings. Hard to believe that anyone would take such a thing seriously, even if it is literally a blockbuster, but when your correspondent was in the Edinburgh Waterstones bookshop last week, he saw a man (yes a man!) actually buying four of the things. They were so heavy he couldn´t lift them and needed a sack trolley to get them to his car.
The second thing is that you may have been gullible enough to have clicked on the link given in the previous APAPS 19.9 blog to that saccharine love duet between Kenny Rogers and Dolly Parton called “Islands in the Stream”. The literary aspect here is that the song apparently took its inspiration (if that is not too complimentary a phrase for it) from a novel, published posthumously, by Ernest Hemingway entitled “Islands in the Stream.” Quite why the BeeGees (who wrote the song) felt inspired by Hemingway is hard to tell. There seems to be no connection between the novel´s plot and the song´s lyrics.
Mercifully, this week´s link moves us to a rather more sophisticated level of music. In Paul´s case, it is currently an earworm. (An earworm is a term used to describe a song that gets stuck in your ear or head — all you have to do is look at or think about the the lyrics and your brain can get stuck on repeat.)
This song is Miss Otis Regrets
Lyrics (amended, with apologies to Cole Porter)
“Miss Otis regrets she's unable to breakfast today, madam
Miss Otis regrets she's unable to breakfast today
She is sorry to be delayed
But last evening down in Lover's Lane
She strayed, madam
Miss Otis regrets she's unable to breakfast today.
When she woke up and found
That her dream of love was gone, madam
She ran to the man who had led her so far astray
And from under her velvet gown
She drew a gun and shot her love down, madam
Miss Otis regrets, she's unable to breakfast today.
When the mob came and got her
And dragged her from the jail, madam
They strung her upon the old willow across the way
And the moment before she died
She lifted up her lovely head and cried, madam
Miss Otis regrets she's unable to breakfast today.
Miss Otis regrets she's unable to breakfast today.”
Click on this link
https://youtu.be/KIW1ZrDio7M
5 comments:
I must say I was not expecting John to use the link to that haunting rendition by Ella Fitzgerald, of the song that bored into my brain before last Wednesday. Indeed I nearly didn't play the link for fear of catching the worm again, but I am glad that I did as I hadn't heard it before.
In fact the version that had bugged me was by Kirsty McColl and the Pogues, which halfway through cuts to the earthy Shane McGowan growling another Cole Porter number 'Just One of Those Things'. That can be found at https://youtu.be/A9Pn_sxL4oQ but be warned it can be harmful to your sanity!
Kirsty also did a more sanitised version with the Band of the 1st Battalion of the Irish Guards, which would stir the heart of any true Irishman. it can be found here. https://youtu.be/N4sZUfQ97po
As for the origins it is shrouded in mystery, so there is no need to delve too deeply, except for certain of we APAPS, who won't be able to resist reading on., in the second comment as it is too long to be included in this one!
ar)!
Part Deux:
Porter's biographer William McBrien states unequivocally that Porter wrote "Miss Otis Regrets" for the the unproduced musical Ever More, which had Music and lyrics by Cole Porter, book by Guy Bolton and was based on the stage play "The Spell" by Lilli Hatvany. Other sources seem less certain that it was written for this would-be show. In any event, the song was eventually used in a show, having been interpolated into a London production, Hi Diddle Diddle (not a Porter show), which opened in The West End in October, 1934, where it was sung by Douglas Byng playing a stuffy butler who dryly announces that Miss Otis will not lunch today. This is because, he explains even more dryly that on the previous evening she shot her lover and was lynched. What distinguishes the song more than anything else is the wry tone which Porter employs to tell the story of a society lady's down and dirty demise in the most polite terms with a demure melody to go with it. The song had already been published in April of 1934, and Ethel Waters recorded it in New York on August 20, 1934 (Decca 140 A), both before Hi Diddle Diddle opened in London.
Several accounts of the inspiration for the song are in circulation. Robert Kimball in his Complete Lyrics tells the story about how it is a parody of a country and western song that Porter heard on the radio while at a party. Another account has Porter's friend Monty Woolley betting the songwriter that he could not create a lyric to fit the title "Miss Otis Regrets." Eric Partridge in his Dictionary of Catch Phrases: British and American gives the title the status of having become a catch phrase by including it as an entry in his reference work. His research reveals that Porter wrote it "not for one of his musical comedies but for the private entertainment of his friends" and confirms the Woolley connection by noting that the actor was fond of dressing up as a butler and singing the song, often at parties with Porter at the piano. He adds that the song at some point was dedicated to Elsa Maxwell, and was indeed first presented publicly in London by Byng in an apparently Woolleyesque performance in Hi Diddle Diddle. (Partridge, p. 310).
McBrien, however, muddying the waters a bit more, says that several performers have claimed that Porter wrote "Miss Otis Regrets," specifically for them. Most notably was the African American chanteuse Bricktop (Ada Smith) whose nightclub in Paris was a popular hangout for the avant-garde claimed that "one evening in Paris Cole came to her club and said, 'Brick, I've written a song for you.' It was 'Miss Otis Regrets'." Maybe he did or maybe he just wanted a good table. Partridge suggests that the song was written not so much for but about Bricktop. The country and western angle is supported by McBrien reporting that a newspaper clipping found among Porter's papers said the song was inspired by "a bad cowboy lament" the songwriter heard at a party. And finally McBrien quotes Porter as follows: "You haven't heard anything until you've heard Monty Woolley sing ['Miss Otis Regrets']. In fact he was the first one ever to sing it. I gave it to him and he did it at one of Elsa Maxwell's parties, and he was the life of the party for the evening thereafter." Whatever the origins/first performance etc. "Miss Otis Regrets" is now a standard with a life completely its own.
I now claim the title of Longest Blog Comment by a Boring Old Fart ( if you have read this f
In the words of Charlie Brown " Good grief"
Amen!
Modern worshippers of Christianity, Islam, and Judaism all use a version of the word, and records indicate that it has been used as an expression of
concurrence
after prayer for centuries. The opposite of amen, arguably is cursing. Yet, both cursing and prayer have the same roots in the three major
monotheistic
faiths, strangely enough.
In Judaism, congregants say amen in response to the words of the
rabbi
, or spiritual leader. The term appears as part of a number Jewish prayers.
In Christianity, amen occupies a central but often spontaneous position at the end of prayers or as a personal expression of affirmation for another’s words during a sermon or other religious discourse.
Islam, like Judaism, incorporates a more formal use of the word into ritual but also deems it an appropriate way to end any sort of prayer. Rather than amen, Islam generally says amin.
Amen is also used colloquially. For example: “Dinner is finally ready—amen!”
In Egyptian mythology, amen, or amun, was a deity represented by a ram, the god of life and reproduction. A controversial theory posits that amen derives from the Ancient Egyptians.
When we pray, almost anything goes: dancing, whirling, kneeling, or swaying. And, words of affirmation are almost always spoken. Amen is certainly one. What are others?
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