1. Sometimes I think I should get myself focused. I'm always thinking about how when I'm, say, watching a movie, I'm not reading, or, when I watch a baseball game, I'm not listening to music. I foolishly wish sometimes that I could do two or things at once, but, alas, it's not the way things work.
Today, though, I enjoyed three different of these things in life I love. It made for an invigorating day.
I'll begin in the middle.
At 2:00 this afternoon, I went to St. Rita's Catholic Church and listed to a Shoshone County Community Concert presented by Heidi Muller and Bob Webb.
I was trying to remember when I first heard Heidi Muller perform. I am all but certain I heard her play a concert for the Corvallis Folklore Society, and, if this is true, that would have been in the early 1990s.
I "see" Heidi Muller online whenever we are both audience members for Bill Davie and so today, because we were aware of each other, I introduced myself to Heidi and we chatted briefly.
Heidi Muller and Bob Webb are versatile musicians, devoted to performing both Heidi's original songs and traditional tunes, whether from the UK or Appalachia.
Heidi plays the guitar and ukulele, but she's best known for her virtuosity on the mountain dulcimer. She brought several for today's concert and played them beautifully.
Bob Webb, I guess you could say, is Heidi Muller's "side man". He adds substance, color, texture, and beauty to Heidi's songs whether he's playing the mandolin, guitar, dulcimer, or his fascinating electric cello.
Heidi and Bob's performance was beautiful in the present, but it also transported me into some nostalgic emotion that moved me to tears.
I reveled in memories about thirty years old. Back then, I frequently joined friends from Eugene and traveled to Corvallis for monthly folk concerts and went to many others in Eugene and elsewhere.
It was because of my devotion to and enjoyment of acoustic music performed in the Willamette Valley that I first heard Debbie perform and happened to attend the very first Babes with Axes show back in December of 1993.
I miss those days. I miss hearing Babes with Axes. I miss listening to Debbie perform. I miss the bluegrass music I used to get out and listen to.
I didn't miss listening to acoustic music today, though.
I was very happy that Heidi Muller and Bob Webb performed in Kellogg and that I was committed to hearing them perform, enjoying them in the present and enjoying how their music also took me to my most enjoyable past and some very sweet memories.
2. Upon arriving back home, I watched Game 4 of the Astros/Yankees playoff series, with the winner headed to the World Series.
The Astros are a stacked team, stocked with strong starting pitchers and relievers, solid hitters up and down the lineup, and a tight defense. The Yankees were down in this series 3-0 and it looked early like they might stave off elimination, jumping out to a 3-0 lead early. But, teams just cannot make mistakes against the Astros and, in the seventh inning, the Yanks' second baseman Gleyber Torres flubbed a short flip to his shortstop and instead of an inning ending double play, the Yankees not only gave an out away, they then gave up two runs, the game winners, as the Astros defeated the Bronx Bomber 6-5.
3. Late this morning, I returned to The Red House (1947), a movie I started on Saturday night. Were it not for the Turner Classic Movie channel's weekend program, Noir Alley, I am certain I never would have watched this movie.
Unlike the usual film noir movie that is set in dark urban landscape, The Red House takes place in the country on a family farm and in the nearby forest.
I don't want to give away what happens in this movie, but I will say that it involves a red house in the heart of the forest, a house that holds a terrible secret that the movie's central character, Pete Morgan (played impeccably by Edward G. Robinson) tries to keep buried. We learn that Pete Morgan was crippled by an accident (nothing to do with his buried secret) that left him with a wooden leg and soon it becomes clear that Pete Morgan's damaged leg is a metaphor for his damaged soul. The secret Pete Morgan is obsessed with protecting warps him and the movie explores the nature of his troubled soul and the consequences of burying his past.
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