Archives for November 17, 2008

Seven-forty p.m. The winds are blowing from the north-northwest at eighteen miles an hour, the temperature is twenty-nine degrees, and the dewpoint is nineteen. I”d say we”ve gotten this year”s snowy season underway in earnest.\r\n\r\nEarlier today the Caledonia area got treated to the kind of big, chunky angel fluff that causes us Michiganders to rhapsodize over the beauty of the first, tranquil snowfall, and then rapidly transition to a state of chronic loathing as snow does what it inevitably will do for the next four months.*\r\n\r\nOkay, okay…I know that there are those of you out there who love snow. A few of you even live where the stuff accumulates enough to constitute an actual winter rather than a fleeting novelty. I marvel at you, I tip my hat to you, and I hope your family and friends treat you very nicely and keep you away from sharp objects.\r\n\r\nFor the rest of you, I offer this treatise on SDS (Supercell Deficiency Syndrome), written by noted SDS authority and confessed sufferer Steve Miller. I addressed the topic myself in a post last year, which, if you”ll take the time to read it, will show you how seriously I view SDS. However, my article is amateurish next to Miller”s now classic paper, which explores the phenomenon of SDS in depth and detail.\r\n\r\nThe symptoms of SDS vary in type and severity. Some poor souls stand outside for hours at a time, snow collecting on their heads and shoulders as they gaze hollowly at their Kestrel meters and mutter, “The dewpoint can”t be eight degrees. It”ll change any minute now–I just know it!” In extreme cases, individuals have been known to slit open feather pillows in front of electric fans and shout, “We have debris!”\r\n\r\nWith the price of pharmaceuticals rising in inverse proportion to temperatures, those who experience accute SDS are increasingly turning to alternative therapies in order to survive the winter. Sledge hammers are favored by some, based on the premise that if the administered dosage doesn”t render the user blissfully comatose till the spring weather season arrives, then the painful side-effects of a fractured skull will at least partly divert attention from the misery of SDS. \r\n\r\nThis approach, however, is not anything I personally recommend. I favor sitting in a hot shower several times a day, inhaling deeply while repeating affirmations such as, “Aaahhhhh! Gulf moisture!”\r\n\r\nRealistically, though, nothing can change the fact that four dark, cold months lie between now and the first stirrings of convective release. And so I say, my fellow chasers, that if we must suffer, let us do so nobly. Let us set our faces like flint, turn our eyes in steely defiance to the north from whence the snows fly, and, in true Hemingwayesque fashion, sink to our knees, pound the floor with our fists, and sob like babies.\r\n\r\nNow hand me my feather pillow. The fan is running.\r\n\r\n————–\r\n* Make life miserable. Unless, of course, you ski, or snowmobile, or ice fish, or sell igloos, or collect snowflakes, in which case, see the next paragraph.

Speaking of the Duke Ellington Orchestra, here”s a clip of the original band featuring lead alto legend Johnny Hodges. The event is the 1962 Newport Jazz Festival, and the tunes are the tender, sensuous ballad, “Passion Flower,” followed by the rollicking blues, “Things Ain”t What They Used to Be.”\r\n\r\nThe quality of this old, black-and-white film isn”t very good, but it”s worth seeing nevertheless. Note the rapt expressions on people”s faces when the camera pans in on the audience. Hodges” performance truly is mesmerizing, the mark of a brilliant, lyrical sound artist.