Time out for a fun Monday distraction

“The Voice” keeps getting better every week.

Regular readers know I’m a big fan of reality shows, but I’ve never really gotten into “American Idol” or any of the dozen other shows in that vein. Until “The Voice.”

Maybe it’s because I have a couple of iTunes cards burning a hole in my pocket (you can buy your favorite songs of the evening on iTunes — how’s that for almost instant gratification?). The contestants on “The Voice” do covers of popular music (yes, pop, so sue me) that make old music new again.

If you haven’t been watching “The Voice,” it might be hard to get into it because you don’t know who to root for and you don’t know the backstories. But you should check it out anyway. Just watching it cheers me up. The music is so fun. Except for Christina Aguilera. I pretty much hate anything that comes out of her mouth. Ignore her. The rest is a joyous distraction.

And at the end of a long Monday, there’s nothing better.

(P.S. Vote for Chris Mann. Just to be “weird.” Thanks, Adam Levine, for that commentary.)

Making spirits bright … or maybe just haunting me

“Captain, he put creatures … in our ears
… to control our minds.”

~ Chekov in “Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan”

Yeah, nothing like a Ceti eel to interfere with the mission at hand. Here on Earth, they’re known as ear worms, I learned this week on National Public Radio’s “Talk of the Nation.”

An ear worm is one of those nuisance fragments of a song that plays endlessly in your head.

For some inexplicable reason, that nuisance song for me recently has been “Jingle Bells.”

A listener of “Talk of the Nation” offered this advice for combatting such a creature: Sing through the whole song to close the loop (click here for that replay).

Let’s try it …

Dashing through the snow
In a one-horse open sleigh
O’er the fields we go
Laughing all the way.
Bells on bob-tail ring
Making spirits bright
What fun it is to ride and sing
A sleighing song tonight.

Jingle bells, jingle bells,
Jingle all the way,
Oh, what fun it is to ride
In a one-horse open sleigh. Hey!
Jingle bells, jingle bells,
Jingle all the way,
Oh what fun it is to ride
In a one-horse open sleigh.

Did it work? Yeah, me neither. At least now I won’t be alone in the rubber room.

You’re welcome.

Planetary proximity

Venus and Jupiter look like they’re cozying up together in the Western sky tonight and tomorrow night.

The are within three degrees of each other — the width of your thumb at arm’s length (try it — stick your thumb out there). With the relative lack of light pollution in the little burg of Hampshire, I observed them through the leafless trees in my back yard tonight. Venus is brighter (of course she is) because she is relatively closer to Earth than Jupiter.

In third grade, my teacher created one of those famed bulletin board displays that burns into one’s brain like witnessing a fellow third grader puke green beans all over his melmac tray at lunch. You just can’t erase the memory.

Because of her (the teacher, not the source of green vomit), I understand the order of the planets and what makes them unique — tiny Mercury, cloudy Venus,  life-giving Earth, red Mars, Jupiter with its weird eye, ringed Saturn, unremarkable Uranus and Neptune and, at the time, far-flung Pluto. Since the ’70s, Pluto lost its standing as a planet and is now considered just a big hunk of space rock but the nostalgic armchair astronomists assign her past title like a head of state. Once President Bush, always President Bush. Once Planet Pluto, always Planet Pluto.

And yes, I did that on purpose. Astronomist = astronomer + astrologist. While I can guess what happens with Venus, the planet of love and beauty, dances near to Jupiter, the symbol of growth, expansion and prosperity, I’m not astrologist. You’re on your own.

Getting nostalgic for third grade and thinking of dancing planets has me musing philosophical about another bit of random pop culture.

Goddess on the mountain top,
Burning like a silver flame,
The summit of beauty and love,
And Venus was her name.

~ “Venus” performed by Bananarama

Gleeful diversions

My Beloved steadfastly refuses to watch “Glee.” Go figure. He hates episodic television anyway, let alone one about high schoolers set to music.

But I catch episodes here and there (out of his earshot), and I love it. I guess that makes me a Gleek.

Expecting to watch the first hour of “Biggest Loser” while on the treadmill at Snap Fitness, I was disappointed to show up there and see “A Michael Bublé Christmas.” Huh? So I watched “Glee” instead, and I was amused to find the producers must have been born when I was.

Tonight’s episode, titled “Hold on to 16,” featured a line from John Cougar a.k.a John Mellencamp’s  ”Jack & Diane”:

Hold on to 16 as long as you can
Changes come around real soon
Make us women and men.

Every time I hear that song, I think of the boy who taught me to French kiss (he was a John Cougar fan). But hearing the song tonight, I realized I was 15 when that song was big. Oh, to think of how I should have been holding on to 16 as long as I could instead of wishing it away!

Tonight’s episode of “Glee” also featured “I Will Survive,” made famous by Gloria Gaynor in 1979. If I was ever forced on stage to sing karaoke, it was going to be “I Will Survive” at the top of my lungs. But tonight’s pumped-up version on “Glee” — now that would be showstopper on a karaoke stage!

Since I don’t watch the show regularly, I think I could get my “Glee” fix with a few iTunes downloads. That would be a switch from NPR! Boy, the inside of my car would get loud before appointments!

I’ve got all my life to live,
I’ve got all my love to give
and I’ll survive.
I will survive.

‘Pumped Up Kicks’ isn’t the bubblegum song it sounds like

If you’re not listening very closely to the words of Foster the People’s hit song”Pumped Up Kicks,” you might want to rewind.

I read about the song in Tuesday’s Chicago Tribune, and then I heard it — consciously — when I worked out at Snap Fitness. The band appeared on Saturday Night Live tonight, and when you listen for it, you’ll know the song:

All the other kids with the pumped up kicks,
You’d better run, better run,
Outrun my gun.
All the other kids with the pumped up kicks,
You’d better run, better run,
Faster than my bullet.

Guns? Bullets? The lyrics tell a story about a kid preparing to shoot his classmates at school.

Ick.

For all its smooth perkiness — Follow the People even whistles at one point — “Pumped Up Kicks” may not be the sort of lyrics with which to feed your mind. And as reporter Steve Johnson points out, ” its bright carousel of a chorus gets in your head and spins merrily around” so they’re hard to escape.

Garbage in, garbage out. Might want to take the garbage out on that song.

Who do you, who do you think you are?

Doesn’t this whole federal government meltdown make you crazy?

If you understand it at all, you probably have an answer you think Congress should pursue, but more likely, you don’t know what a debt ceiling is (really, do Americans understand the concept that there’s an end to how much you should borrow?) and you’re not even sure how to pronounce Boehner (who is he again?). It’s not BONER, I can assure you.

Does this make Gnarls crazy?

It makes me think of Gnarls Barkley.

Huh? How does hip hop relate to government shutdowns?

Barkley recorded a great pop crossover hit that was big in the summer of 2006 when I was training for a marathon. In fact, the memory of that song prompted me to download some tunes from iTunes yesterday. This is a rare enough occurrence that I got an email warning alerting me that someone had purchased something through my account on device “not previously associated with this Apple ID.”

Same old device. It’s just been a while, iTunes.

The song is “Crazy.” Instead of advice or demands, I’d like to sing this message to President Obama and Speaker of the House John Boehner (BAYner, people):

Come on now, who do you
Who do you, who do you, who do you think you are?
Ha ha ha, bless your soul
You really think you’re in control?

Well, I think you’re crazy
I think you’re crazy
I think you’re crazy
Just like me

Of senses and seasons and summer

From the highest of heights to the depths of the sea
Creation’s revealing Your majesty
From the colors of fall to the fragrance of spring
Every creature unique in the song that it sings
All exclaiming

Indescribable, uncontainable
You placed the stars in the sky
And You know them by name
You are amazing, God.

~ songwriter Laura Story

If the seasons evoke senses, what sense does summer best serve?

Without quibbling with the songwriter about using the word “indescribable” to describe God in a praise song, I got to wondering about that third line when I heard “Indescribable” at church yesterday: “From the colors of fall to the fragrance of spring.”

If autumn’s palate of orange pumpkins, red leaves and golden waves of grain under a harvest moon are a treat to our sense of sight, and spring’s lilacs and freshly cut grass and rain-drenched landscapes cater to our sense of smell, what senses are served by summer and winter?

As a native Minnesotan, I would choose the sense of touch for winter. It’s a wake-up call to our skin when the cold air freezes one’s nose hairs and numbs one’s fingertips. Never does a hot drink feel so good to one’s hands and mouth as it does on a cold winter evening. Snuggling under Grandma’s quilts is a luxury when the thermometer reads sub-zero.

I struggle with assigning a sense to summer. Does summer best minister to our sense of taste when we enjoy sweet and creamy ice cream cones and juicy fresh tomatoes and buttery sweet corn? Or is it our sense of hearing that summer amplifies? Is it a coo of a mourning dove, the wind rustling the leaves or the laughter of children wafting through the neighborhood that say “summer” to you?

Tomorrow is the first day of summer and the perfect opportunity to ponder how you will best experience it. As any good Minnesotan knows, summer is fleeting and we must appreciate every moment. What will you savor?

Bids to do our bidding

One woman’s trash is another woman’s treasure, as they say, and I’m out to turn some of my trinkets into Thailand.

We’re out to empty our domicile of its detritus in exchange for a trip to Bangkok.

While dining on satay and curry this past weekend, we decided we needed a new goal. While I’ve traveled to such wonderful places as London, Sydney and Tokyo, I still long to visit Rome and Bangkok, a couple of exotic and historic locales with excellent cuisine. Thus, our new goal is Bangkok, and I am reminded, as I am so often having grown up during the era of Ronald Reagan, of a pop song from the 1980s:

It’s Iceland — or the Philippines — or Hastings — or –
or this place!

A proper trip to Asia requires two weeks, so you can acclimate to the time change, and in a perfect world, business-class airline tickets. To finance this venture, we’ll need a tidy sum … so we’re having a garage sale!

The creme de la creme of the chess world in a
show with everything but Yul Brynner

Well, not a garage sale, exactly, but we’re going peddle our wares to the world on eBay. With a lot of effort by my mother-in-law and my Beloved, we put 17 things — from clothing to tools — on eBay today.

So you better go back to your bars, your temples, your massage parlours …

We may not be able to afford business class plane tickets on the proceeds from eBay, but we certainly will rid ourselves of clutter while collecting a dollar here and $10 there — and sometimes more, fingers crossed — if and when our stuff sells.

One night in Bangkok and the world’s your oyster …

From ‘Paul’ to Sigourney to ‘Friday’

How many adults shook their heads in disgust, I wonder now, when a reference to a Frank Sinatra song or a John Wayne movie was completely lost on my naive teenage self.

A world of cultural references is lost with each new generation.

Today’s teenagers only know “Charlie’s Angels” because of Drew Barrymore, they know Charlie Sheen all too well but do not recognize his half-brother Emilio Estevez, made famous with “The Breakfast Club” and “St. Elmo’s Fire,” and poor Dolly Parton is just a busty joke, not a funny, talented country music crooner.

I spent the weekend alternatively entertaining and being entertained by my 16-year-old stepson who was visiting for spring break with a 16-year-old friend.

Among tactics we employed to divert their attention away from hand-held video games and their cell phones was a visit to the movie theater; fight the small screens with the big screen, I always say.  We filled them up a Chinese buffet beforehand thereby avoiding the popcorn prices and paid for four matinée tickets to see “Paul,” the funny little movie about a cross-country road trip across the American West by two Brits and an alien.

No, not illegal alien. An alien from outer space.

Yes, it was filled with stupid humor and crass language but, well, it was funny, especially if you’re as big a sci-fi fan as I am. And it features a motor home suspiciously similar to my Beloved’s 1983 Pace Arrow.

Anyway, at one point in the movie, Sigourney Weaver’s character is told, “Get away from her, you bitch!”

I laughed out loud, much to the chagrin of my 16-year-old seat mates who had no idea why that would be funny and even if they understood, certainly didn’t want me calling attention to us by laughing out loud in a movie theater, God forbid. I am so embarrassing.

Soooooooo, when we got home, we booted up Netflix and moved the best science fiction action movie ever made to the top of the instant-view queue. “Aliens,” starring Weaver and directed by James Cameron (known even to today’s generation from his work on “Titanic” and “Avatar”), is a classic horror thriller with suspense, gore and Academy Award-winning visual effects. The only thing one of these 16-year-olds knew about the movie was that a creature erupts out of human’s stomach (a scene, actually, from the first in the series, “Alien”).

The 1986 flick also features memorable dialogue including the line above and other jewels like “Did IQs just drop sharply while I was away?” and ”Hey, maybe you haven’t been keeping up on current events, but we just got our asses kicked, pal!” (which are also useful in a variety of non-science-fiction situations).

It was satisfying to watch for the first time for some of us and for the 50th time for, well, me.

Meanwhile, these 16-year-old’s shared with me a cultural reference from their generation about Rebecca Black’s You Tube hit, “Friday” that was actually useful while reading today’s Chicago Tribune when I ran across the story, “‘Friday’: Annoying repeat performance, or what?”

I’m warning you, though: Do not watch the video if you don’t want the annoying lyrics running through your head for, oh, the next week.

“Maybe we could build a fire, sing a couple of songs, huh? Why don’t we try that?”

 

Guided by my faithful heart

“My heart is steadfast, O God,
     my heart is steadfast!
I will sing and make melody!”

– Psalms 57:7

King David wrote this Psalm to commemorate his escape in the cave of Engedi from Saul, the king who David would succeed, according to Adam Clarke’s Bible Commentary. Saul had entered the cave without knowing David was there, and David could have killed him, but didn’t; upon Divine intervention, David only cut off a piece of Saul’s garment, as a trophy of the encounter.

I haven’t been sleeping in a cave, but I’ve had a hell of a week. Evil has been stalking me, chipping away at my ego, my security, my integrity, my comfort.

And yet, in the midst of it all, is my grateful heart. It has been pounding in my chest at times this week, pumping my warm blood during runs, making me heartsick and still beating with dependable regularity as I slept (or tried to).

I survived. No one died. Despite my little encounters with hell here and there (and they’ve been little, I know, compared to some of the big encounters with hell I know others have experienced), God has been as steadfast as my heart, still beating inside me.

So I sing. Thanks for this, Natasha Bedingfield:

Got my dreams, got my life, got my love,
Got my friends, got the sunshine above.
Why am I making this hard on myself
When there’s so many beautiful reasons I have to be happy?

People lie, people hide, people cry, people fight,
And they don’t know why

If fear is all that we should fear
Then what are we so afraid of?
‘Cause fear is only in our heads.