I have neglected this here blog thing again lately for no good reason. I've had plenty of fugitive thoughts but it reminds me of that song from "The Sound of Music" that asks "How do you catch a cloud and pin it down?" I don't seem to be able to pin one down long enough to write about it.
So, since that's one of my favorite shows, how about I throw a knife at it and see if I can stick it to the wall.
We actually saw that movie recently. Our New Year’s Eve habit of many years is to while away the hours until midnight with champagne, a delicacy we call California Bread, and a long movie. For a lot of years we watched “Gone With the Wind,” but we wanted something different this year and chose “The Sound of Music."
I got my wife an Echo Dot for Christmas. She has been testing it regularly, and the other evening she asked it to play the music from "The Sound of Music." Interestingly enough, it played the soundtrack not from the movie but from the live television version of 2013 in which Carrie Underwood pretends to be Julie Andrews.
I watched that broadcast, and while the young lady was a decent Maria von Trapp, I thought the production as a whole had the character of community theater. It was, however, completely worth sitting through to hear Audra McDonald sing “Climb Every Mountain." Of course, almost any boring thing would be worth sitting through to hear Audra McDonald sing anything.
"The Sound of Music" and I go way back. I saw the Broadway touring company when it played at the Michael Todd Theater in Chicago in 1961, although none of the original cast (Mary Martin, Theodore Bikel) came to town with it. When the 1965 movie with Julie Andrews came out, it was a big deal requiring dressing up and buying advance-sale tickets for reserved seats. It came to Chicago’s fabulous old McVicker's Theater, and I attended with some friends from work.
There's probably more. Like my high school choir singing songs from the show, and my experience with recordings (vinyl, cassette, CD, VHS, DVD), and my inability to watch the movie or hear the songs without singing, often at the top of my lungs. But enough is enough.
So, whether or not I caught a cloud, at least I took a stab at it.
