Sunday Sundries, 5

1. Some coincidences. The other day this cartoon was in the paper, and for those of us "of a certain age," an allusion to William Tell always animates our memories of the old TV show, The Lone Ranger (1949-57), for it was a portion of the Overture from Rossini's 1829 opera William Tell that provided the theme music for The Lone Ranger. (Here's a link to the old TV show's opening credits.)

Now here's the coincidence part. Just the night before I saw the cartoon, I'd watched on cable a bit of last summer's film The Lone Ranger (dir. Gore Verbinski; starring Johnny Depp (Tonto) and Armie Hammer (LR)), a film that received some of the worst reviews of the year (and tanked at the box office), but a film both Joyce and I liked a lot when we saw it (opening night around here)--and liked again the other night when we watched the final portion of the film, a fantastically choreographed action scene that features the Ranger riding Silver on top of a train that carries the Bad Guys. I blogged about the film last summer--but I'll repeat one thing I said here: When the William Tell music began in that climactic scene, I wept. And I wept again the other night. I really believe that history will be much kinder to The Lone Ranger (2013) than the critics were last year, many of whom, I would guess, had not grown up with the show and just didn't get it.

2.I posted here recently about comedian Mike Birbiglia whom Joyce and I had stumbled across quite by accident while flipping through Netflix recommendations ("Because you watched .... you might also enjoy ..."). We both really like his style, his story-telling gifts, his (generally) PG-13 approach (oh, am I weary of jokes about poop and puke and the grubbiest sex a mind can conceive). We watched the Birbiglia videos that we could stream on Netflix, then, this week, watched via Netflix DVD his show What I Should Have Said Was Nothing (here's a link to a portion of it). Afterwards, we felt that sadness that all readers and viewers feel when there is no more. End of Harry Potter, Edward Cullen, Frodo, Rabbit Angstrom, Nick Adams, etc. So I got on Birbiglia's website and found he was going to be on tour this fall. Where? And I discovered one of his venues will be ... the Palace Theater ... in ... Cleveland, Ohio! (Scored the tix! Will be there on 13 September!)

3. Last week (or maybe the week before?) Writer's Almanac posted (as the poem for the day) Tennyson's "Crossing the Bar," a poem that I remembered from the funeral of my great-grandfather, Warren A. Lanterman (1866-1963). (I was a frosh at Hiram College at the time.) And so--in his honor--I decided to memorize it ... and now I have. (It's the 132nd poem/literary passage I now know!)

Here's the entire thing (it's short) ...

SUNSET and evening star,
And one clear call for me!
And may there be no moaning of the bar,
When I put out to sea,
But such a tide as moving seems asleep,	5
Too full for sound and foam,
When that which drew from out the boundless deep
Turns again home.
Twilight and evening bell,
And after that the dark!	10
And may there be no sadness of farewell,
When I embark;
For tho’ from out our bourne of Time and Place
The flood may bear me far,
I hope to see my Pilot face to face	15
When I have crossed the bar.