Category Archives: Diversions

The stuff that didn’t fit elsewhere.

Current events

Reactionary reactivism

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Poppy and her friends were emailing each other practically all night on Tuesday, first with hopeful messages and then increasingly with disbelief and fear. But eventually they came back to hope, because they figured it out before I did: We can get through this.

I spent a good deal of yesterday crying or trying not to cry. Not because my side lost but because the future looked so angry and bleak and so dangerous for so many people, and because the kind, generous America in my head turned out to be an illusion. I felt betrayed, and I was scared. I read about what to do now and about how to talk to your kids about the election. I grieved with friends who have more to fear from this rising tide of anger.

Then in the evening we went to a poetry reading and then out for drinks and dessert with good friends. And it helped me to remember that we are still ourselves. The world may not be turning the way we’d like right now, but we’re still here, and we can do everything we can to Make America Kind Again. So today I’m laughing at my sweet, summer child self (see: Area Liberal No Longer Recognizes Fanciful, Wildly Inaccurate Mental Picture Of Country He Lives In) and preparing for winter by looking for ways to help.

I don’t know what the next four years holds. But I do know this: The only thing I can control is how I react to the situation.

Flotsam / Jetsam, Reading

When in doubt, read poetry

Tonight I’m going to see one of my favorite poets do a reading, and I’m going to have him sign a couple of his books for me. Here’s a good (if slightly unsettling) one from Billy Collins.

“The First Night”
by Billy Collins

The worst thing about death must be
the first night.
—Juan Ramón Jiménez

Before I opened you, Jiménez,
it never occurred to me that day and night
would continue to circle each other in the ring of death,

but now you have me wondering
if there will also be a sun and a moon
and will the dead gather to watch them rise and set

then repair, each soul alone,
to some ghastly equivalent of a bed.
Or will the first night be the only night,

a darkness for which we have no other name?
How feeble our vocabulary in the face of death,
How impossible to write it down.

This is where language will stop,
the horse we have ridden all our lives
rearing up at the edge of a dizzying cliff.

The word that was in the beginning
and the word that was made flesh—
those and all the other words will cease.

Even now, reading you on this trellised porch,
how can I describe a sun that will shine after death?
But it is enough to frighten me

into paying more attention to the world’s day-moon,
to sunlight bright on water
or fragmented in a grove of trees,

and to look more closely here at these small leaves,
these sentinel thorns,
whose employment it is to guard the rose.

Music, National Blog Posting Month, reviews, sponsored

“Jazz Loves Disney,” and I like jazz, and I like Disney. This ought to work out just fine.

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Disclaimer: This is a sponsored post from Disney Music and One2One Network. Nichole was compensated for this post. All opinions are her own.

We were at Disney World when I got the email from One2One Network asking if I’d like to review “Jazz Loves Disney” from Verve Records. I immediately said “Yes Please,” because I like jazz, I like Disney, and I knew I was going to need something to help me ease back into real life after our vacation. It was obviously meant to be. I’m going to tell you what I thought about the album in a minute, but first let’s talk about

Nichole’s Top Five Disney Movies

5. “The Little Mermaid”

Ursula is my second-favorite villain, and I will sing along to “Part of Your World” and/or “Under the Sea” every single time. And Sebastian? Always dropping truths.

under

4. “Beauty and the Beast”

Belle’s love of books and Beast’s library are enough to get this one on the list. But then there’s also Every Single Song in the movie. And it’s beautiful, and it stars the greatest duo of all time, Lumiere and Cogsworth.

Lumiere and Cogsworth

3. “101 Dalmatians”

I don’t think I can properly express how much I love the “dogs who look like their owners” scene in this movie. It cracked me up when I was a kid, and it cracks me up to this day. I love the jazzy soundtrack, and of course Cruella de Vil and her song are beloved as well. But the guy that clinches this spot for “101 Dalmatians” is Rolly, because I am him and he is me, forever and ever amen.

rolly

2. “Sleeping Beauty”

Maleficent is my favorite villain, because she scared the daylights out of me when I was a kid and she is also a dragon. I love the animation and the font and styling of the credits in “Sleeping Beauty.” The scene where the fairies are making the cake and the color-changing dress are still pure magic to me. And of course, there’s “Once Upon a Dream.” I sing it often enough to make “Sleeping Beauty” likely nowhere near the top of Rockford’s list of favorite Disney movies.

shade

1. “Inside Out”

I was dubious when I first read about the premise of “Inside Out.” Then I saw it. It’s so beautiful and inventive, and Poppy was just starting to head into the age Riley is in the movie. And that abstract thought scene? My jaw dropped. “Inside Out” isn’t just one of my favorite Disney movies, it’s one of my favorite movies in general.

bingbong

So about that album.

jazz_loves_disney_cover

You might have noticed a common thread in most of my Disney favorites. If it has a great soundtrack, chances are I’m going to love it. I’m thrilled that my kids have inherited my love for a good Disney tune — even if they don’t appreciate it when I “cover” their favorite tunes. Pete frequently puts the “101 Dalmatians” soundtrack on while he’s playing, and sometimes he’ll even dance to “I Wanna Be Like You” with me in the living room. He draws the line at the “Frozen” soundtrack. I suspect that has something to do with the number of times Poppy has listened to “Let It Go” on repeat.

Regardless of whether Pete is telling me to stop singing “Let It Go” or Poppy is squashing my dreams of luring chipmunks in to fold the laundry for me by gently and whimsically humming “Someday My Prince Will Come,” the Butterscotch Sundae household is thoroughly saturated in aural ephemera of the Disney kind.

“Jazz Loves Disney” is a compilation of musicians giving classic Disney tunes a big band jazz twist, and it works very well. For the most part. There are a few songs on the album that don’t especially shine. The nonsense words in “Bibbidi Bobbodo Boo,” for example, don’t quite translate well as scat — especially in contrast with The Hot Sardines’ version of “I Wanna Be Like You” — and Anne Sila’s “Let It Go” doesn’t quite measure up to Idina Menzel’s original.

That said, the rest of the album is a delight. Grammy nominee Melody Gardot lends a smoky note to “He’s a Tramp” from “Lady and the Tramp,” and Italian singer and pianist Raphael Gualazzi brings a little extra zing to the already infectious “I Wanna Be Like You” from “The Jungle Book.” Jamie Cullum’s high-energy version of “Everybody Wants to Be a Cat” had Pete and I dancing through the living room, I love Laika’s silky smooth and appropriately dreamy take on “Once Upon a Dream,” and Nikki Yanofsky’s “Un Jour Mon Prince Viendra (Someday My Prince Will Come)” is soaring and tender.

My favorite track on the album, though, is Gardot & Gualazzi’s “The Bare Necessities.” Their voices play off one another perfectly, and this version is so bouncy and fun you can’t help shimmying when it’s playing. (I’m chair-dancing as I type!)

“Jazz Loves Disney” would be a great gift for the Disney-phile in your life. It’s available November 18 from iTunes or Amazon, so you have plenty of time to order it for the holidays. Here’s the full track listing:

  1. Jamie Cullum, “Everybody Wants To Be A Cat” from “The Aristocats”
  2. Melody Gardot, “He’s A Tramp” from “Lady And The Tramp”
  3. Stacey Kent, “Bibbidi Bobbodo Boo” (French version)” from “Cinderella”
  4. Gregory Porter, “When You Wish Upon A Star” from “Pinocchio”
  5. China Moses, “Why Don’t You Do Right” from “Who Framed Roger Rabbit?”
  6. Raphaël Gualazzi, “I Wanna Be Like You” from “The Jungle Book”
  7. The Rob Mounsey Orchestra, “A Dream Is A Wish Your Heart Makes” from “Cinderella”
  8. Hugh Coltman, “You’ve Got A Friend In Me” from “Toy Story”
  9. Anne Sila, “Let It Go” from “Frozen”
  10. Melody Gardot & Raphaël Gualazzi, “The Bare Necessities” from “The Jungle Book”
  11. Laika, “Once Upon A Dream” from “Sleeping Beauty”
  12. Nikki Yanofsky, “Someday My Prince Will Come” from “Snow White & The Seven Dwarfs”
  13. The Hot Sardines, “I Wanna Be Like You (French & English version)” from “The Jungle Book” (US release only)



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