Friday, April 26, 2024

Three Beautiful Things 04-25-2024: David Byrne on *Fresh Air*, Into the Great Wide Open, Spicing Up the Curry

1. Out of the blue the other day, Deborah called me. She was out driving around in her car, listening to Fresh Air, and wanted me to know that Terry Gross was interviewing David Byrne. She knew that I'd been ecstatic last fall when I went to Spokane to watch the remastered version of Stop Making Sense at Riverstone Square's IMAX theater. She figured, 100% correctly, that I'd love to hear this interview.

Today I listened to it while on a cardio machine at the Fitness Center. I'm not sure what my expectations were, but the interview exceeded them! I was very impressed with how forthcoming and open David Byrne was about his young life, his songwriting, his influences, and his sense of himself as a performer,  how he moves and sings on stage, especially in Stop Making Sense

2. Stu and I were yakkin' by text message about all the uncertainties in our lives. Debbie and I yak about the same thing from time to time. She and I chuckle at ourselves for having thought, when we were young and life was tumultuous, that when we grew older, things would smooth out, life would be settled, we'd get to coast. Ha! 

So, after listening to the David Byrne interview, I dialed up the episode of Tom Petty's old show, Buried Treasures that was playing on the 24/7 Buried Treasures channel on the Sirius/XM app. 

For many reasons having to do with uncertainties in our life right now -- you know, kidney transplant, will Debbie teach another year?, etc. -- just hearing Tom Petty's voice as the show's host planted in my mind his song "Into the Great Wide Open". 

I'd always thought of this as a young person's song, of the way life, when we were young, could seem so full of possibilities and so many unknowns, as if we were about to jump in a car and just travel, without plans, the wide open roads stretching across the USA.

I'm seventy years old. 

Maybe the Great Wide Open has become The Great Unknown, but whatever it is, I know what it's not. 

It's not the Great Wide Certain.

Thinking about these things and listening to Tom Petty's music selections kept me going as exercised for a last half an hour on a second cardio machine. 

3. I broke open our second HelloFresh bag and fixed Debbie and me a Creamy Chicken and Potato Curry. It was supposed to include peas, but either the packers at HelloFresh didn't pack our peas or I lost the packet. No problem! Today I had bought another big container of spinach and I simply put spinach instead of peas in the curry and it worked out great. In fact, I think spinach worked better than the peas would have. This curry was mild, no heat at all, so Debbie and I both added smokey red pepper flakes to our helpings and enjoyed the spicier version much more than the mild one. 

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