We watched a movie the other night, Another Happy Day, with Ellen Barkin, Ellen Burstyn, Demi Moore, George Kennedy, Thomas Haden Church (naming the actors I recognized). The title of the film was highly ironic: it was about a wedding in a family that, to put it mildly, was (I hope) more dysfunctional than most.
But I liked the movie okay. I think some forward motion occurred. Good change, even if infinitesimal, is good change? Then again, it rated 47% on Rotten Tomatoes, so maybe I'm just compensating for the two hours of my life I spent watching it...
I'm mentioning it here, though, because I did, definitely,enjoy the soundtrack, which until the credits I did not realize was composed by Ólafur Arnalds, whom my sister-in-law introduced me to. And I especially liked the song that played over the closing credits, "Everything Must Change," written by Benard Ighner (1974). Here's Nina Simone singing it:
And here's Quincy Jones, who perhaps first made it famous:
But for something completely different (yeah, it's barely even the same tune), here's Arnalds's rendition:
I found Wordle, according to my NYT stats page, 497 games ago—but really, it was earlier, because I started playing before the Times acquired the game. I believe it was early in the Covid pandemic? However I found it, I enjoyed it: the simplicity, the combination of skill and luck, the fact that you play once and you're done for the day (a relief for my addictive brain).
And soon, one of my Facebook friends was posting his results, and accompanying them with a quote of some sort—a snippet of song lyric, a line of poetry, a bit of philosophy or literature; and his friends would join in, posting their own results and researching the quote to add something: more of the lyric or poem, another morsel of wisdom. Some months ago, said friend, Greg (whom I've written about here and here), said he was done being the ringleader, and a couple of others in the group picked up the reins and started a dedicated FB group, "Today's Wordle." It's basically the same, only now anyone in the group (about 18 of us show up regularly) starts off the day's share.
Which brings me to Regina Spektor.
I like to kick off the day's Wordle every so often, especially when I've just bumped up against something I think is worth sharing (i.e., that everybody really should know about). The other day, we finished watching the Hulu series Fleishman Is in Trouble, and the final episode features a song, "On the Radio," by Regina Spektor that I really love, from her album Begin to Hope. So I used a line from that: "No, this is how it works. You peer inside yourself." It got a good response.
Including someone asking if I'd seen her Tiny Desk Concert (on NPR), from August of last year. I hadn't, but just now I watched it. And it's delightful. She's delightful. Talented, yes, with a lovely voice, but I'm also so impressed by her vulnerability and strength, courage and humility, and the complexity and depth of the stories she tells. I have her first two albums. I might need to seek out her more recent work.
Here's the Tiny Desk Concert, which features five songs—"Loveology," "Becoming All Alone," "Après Moi," "Fidelity," and "Samson"—as well as a "Tiny Song" she whipped up while the piano was being tuned:
And here is "On the Radio":
I'm happy to have bumped into Regina again. She's terrific.
