I’m to be exalted into the York Rite of Freemasonry tonight. Nervous about it too. I have to remember lots of stuff I’ve only encountered once. I expect it’ll be interesting though.
Decided to get my exercise today by walking to Brick Lane to get my weekly fix of rye bread. Put on my headphones and listened to Wendy Carlos’s various Switched-On albums as I walked. I got halfway up Brick Lane and encountered a police barricade. I thought to myself, “I’ll walk around this” so took a left, and then a right, and woo-hoo! Another barricade. I gave up and took a bus home. I got my exercise, but no bread to speak of. I’ve looked at the news and the websites but no information on what was going on. I expect it was another raid of some sort. Brick Lane is a centre of Muslim life in East London, just as it was once the centre of Jewish life in London: the oppressed minorities over time have changed, but the oppression remains.
It’s the Queen’s official 80th birthday today (she really turned 80 in April), and it was Prince Philip’s 85th last Saturday (his real birthday; unlike the Queen, he doesn’t have a fake one). I watched part of the thanksgiving serivce and then the toasts at lunch later in Mansion House. The Lord Mayor must be a twit: remarking that the menu was chosen in a competition on BBC2, he began to pepper his speech with food references, to the point where I wanted to shout “Bring me a basin!”. The Queen then spoke, and quoted Groucho Marx: “It’s not hard to get old; you just have to live long enough.” The Prime Minister, loving every minute of it, was as obsequious as he could be. Then they all sat down to tuck into the menu selected by BBC2 viewers and cooked by celebrity chefs (but not really by them, just under their supervision).
I’m starting to get a bit antsy about not working. While it’s nice to have only occasional gigs and have the rest of my time free for whatever, I think I need to get back to more or less full time employment sooner rather than later. We are OK moneywise, but it would be better for me to work.
I’m to be exalted into the York Rite of Freemasonry tonight.
Congratulations! You’ll have to let us know how that went.
I used to listen quite avidly to Carlos’ stuff. Aren’t some of her recordings still credited as Walter rather than Wendy?
Will post about the Exaltation later.
I believe that even the original Switched-on Bach has been converted to “Wendy”, even though the person “impersonating” Bach on the cover was Walter.
We were really excited about S-O B (initials mean everything!) when I was in high school: we’d never heard such stuff before. Now it not only seems quaint, but I feel that it’s a bit showy, rather than substantive. Pleasant to listen to, but not meant to be a serious interpretation of the works.