Got me a jumbled brain from too many notions and a lack of laying’ things out on the page. Picked up a just-folks twang watching’ the first couple episodes of Country Music on PBS. Ken Burns has got himself a bunch of music my mama and daddy loved to listen to back in the day, and there’s some nice background as to how that music came to be.  From Jimmie Rodgers to Patsy Cline, Roy Acuff and his Foggy Mountain Boys to Mother Maybelle Carter, sprinkled with Hank Williams, the Maddox Brothers and Rose, and lots in between, I’ve been remembering the music and early days of television when we’d watch Grand Ole Opry. Funny thing is, I didn’t like a lot of the music then, even as a kid being kind of embarrassed at the almost-sobs in some of the voices, and the gut-punch emotion of often spare lyrics. I was getting into rock and roll, and that was more my speed. Now I see I didn’t have enough wear and tear on my tires to appreciate the hard times behind those songs. My treads are plenty low in spots now, and in those songs I can hear pain being made into art…sometimes with a twang.

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One of my favorite authors, Stephen King, has a real talent for evoking the flavor of my childhood. The granddaughter and I, having seen It a couple of years ago, went to see the sequel, It Chapter Two last week. Everybody and his balloon has reviewed the movie, so I won’t, but I will comment about the format we saw it in, 4DX, something previously unknown to me. To quote Wikipedia:  4DX is a motion picture technology owned and developed by South Korean company CJ 4DPLEX, a part of the CJ Group. 4DX allows a motion picture presentation to be augmented with environmental effects such as seat motion, wind, rain, lights, and scents along with the standard video and audio. That meant every time there was an action scene, our seats shook or air puffed against our hair or drops of liquid hit our faces (or glasses). Was it blood? Dunno. By the time we got to the big ending, we were shaking around in our seats and I was trying to forget that one of the aspects of my childhood had been motion sickness. No, not quite that bad, but it was distracting. I loved the book It because of the pathos underlying it, and the emotional horror that made the children who they were. The bells and whistles of 4DX made me think of all the summer movies touted to be a hell of a ride! It’ll take me a while to see this movie again and then it’ll definitely be in 2D.

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Mornings are getting cooler and crisper, and leaves are beginning to turn. Autumn is here and I’m excited. We’ve already had two good signs: a full moon on Friday the 13th. The creative juices increase in direct proportion to amount of falling leaves. Can’t remember where I saw this scientific info, but I’ll footnote it next time. Here’s to new projects, new goals. May your efforts be rewarded.

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