“Did you ever get to know a man better by asking him questions?”

Arthur Miller, screenplay for The Misfits

I’m burned out.

See you next week.

– Average cost of a movie ticket in the U.S. in 1929: 35 cents

– The same amount in today’s dollars, courtesy of Inflation Calculator: $3.78

(Source: Gary Giddins, Bing Crosby: A Pocketful of Dreams)

“Leisure is not the attitude of mind of those who actively intervene, but of those who are open to everything; not of those who grab and grab hold, but of those who leave the reins loose and who are free and easy themselves–almost like a man falling asleep, for one can only fall asleep by ‘letting oneself go.’ Sleeplessness and the incapacity for leisure are really related to one another in a special sense, and a man at leisure is not unlike a man asleep. Heraclitus the Obscure observed of men who were asleep that they too ‘were busy and active in the happenings of the world.’ When we really let our minds rest contemplatively on a rose in bud, on a child at play, on a divine mystery, we are rested and quickened as though by a dreamless sleep.”

Josef Pieper, Leisure, the Basis of Culture (trans. Alexander Dru)

Yesterday’s listening, unexpurgated:

– Flatt and Scruggs, “Ground Speed”

– Reynaldo Hahn, “Offrande” (played and sung by the composer in 1909)

– Stan Getz, “Hershey Bar”

– Jimmy Rowles, “Grooveyard”

– Hal Kemp, “Got a Date With an Angel” (vocal by Skinnay Ennis)

– Steely Dan, “Green Earrings”

– Bing Crosby, “Sweet Leilani”

– Bing Crosby and Connie Boswell, “Basin Street Blues”

– Johnny Cash, “Hey, Porter”

– Farah Alvin, “Breathing Each Other In”

– Hot Tuna, “Hesitation Blues”

– Bernard Herrmann, Concerto Macabre (from the soundtrack of Hangover Square, performed by Joaquin Achucarro, Charles Gerhardt, and the National Philharmonic)

– Stephen Sondheim, “The Ballad of Sweeney Todd” (from the original Broadway cast album)

– Count Basie Sextet, “Stan Shorthair” (with Joe Newman, Paul Quinichette, and Buddy Rich)

– Doc Watson, “Let the Cocaine Be”

– Paul Hindemith, Flute Sonata (played by Jean-Pierre Rampal and Robert Veyron-Lacroix)

– Total one-time flat fee paid to Fats Waller and Andy Razaf by Mills Music Company in 1929 for all rights to the musical score of Connie’s Hot Chocolates, including the songs “Ain’t Misbehavin'” and “Black and Blue”: $500

– The same amount in today’s dollars, courtesy of Inflation Calculator: $5,402.35

(Source: David A. Jasen and Gene Jones, Spreadin’ Rhythm Around)

“Wisecracks still ricochet off movie soundtracks, but too often they are severed from their roots in actual harsh or bitter experience. They are zingers offered for the sake of the zing, not for the hard truths and obdurate realities that we otherwise could not bear to hear of outright. The smart talkers of today’s movies, mimicking the monologism of stand-up comedians or the one-liners of sitcoms, rarely aspire above the level of the put-down.”

Maria DiBattista, Fast-Talking Dames

Sorry, folks, that’s all for today. I had to get up at four on Monday morning to write a piece, and I expect to be up pretty early this morning doing the same thing. No blogging until the smoke clears, or at least thins out a bit.

For now, enjoy the balmy weather, and check out some of those other fine blog overs in the right-hand column.

I’ll be back in a day or two.