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Posted: |
Jul 19, 2002 - 4:46 PM
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By: |
Howard L
(Member)
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Perhaps you've heard tell of the timeless equalizing presence that is a snowy night and maybe even heard the music. Can there possibly be a corresponding sound to the ethereal netherworld of snow falling on oak trees in our present season?
Today, as in so many days of summer late, I got up around 6am, went to the can and then headed into the "family room" to...The Chair. What makes the chair The Chair is that it is the only chair in the world in which I fall dead asleep; moreover, into deep sleep. REM stuff. And also of late, this onset of sleep is ushered in by a sound of many summers that began so long ago. I have therefore decided to adopt it as my own private Sound of Summer.
The cicada bug. Do you know its penetrating call? If there is such a thing as soothing cacophony, then this is it. The cicada bug. --Then again, call it a bug story led by the charge of the cicada bug. Do you remember the cottonfield scenes in Places In The Heart? That's the sound. And for me there is a positively indelible field of the sound: late July or early August, state tournament, late Sunday afternoon...during a pitching change. Always during a pitching change, particularly in the middle of a late inning with the season on the line. The kid finishes his warm-ups, I take the ball, rub-it-up but good in my hands while giving him the sitch, hand it back to him, turn and head back to the dugout. And all to this eerie hush--of the crowd, the benches, the day...except for the cicada bug.
Baseball marks the time? Sure. But the sound of the cicada bug seals it.
Summer. Summer and being a kid. Young or old. Young and old.
This all explains why Mr. Horner's Field Of Dreams is my summer score. Remember that sound in the corn? the 'cicada' sound?? The music perfectly complemented the sound.
Makes me want to head out to Dyersville and the corn one more time.
Aaaaah, other people will come.
The Chair will have to do, for now.
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Jim, you lucky bastard! I LOVE thunderstorms!!! We haven't gotten any decent ones in a LONG time!
While we're on the subject of sounds of summer, how about the SMELLS of summer!!!!
My two favorite smells of summer is Coppertone and the other is pine needles that have been baking in the hot sun!
...oh.. and my two favorite SOUNDS of summer are June Bugs and thunder!!!
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Posted: |
Jul 19, 2002 - 9:48 PM
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By: |
Ron Pulliam
(Member)
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This thread is making me homesick for all the wonderful things I knew as a child.
I still love the smell of rain, but one doesn't get it here in Oakland until the rain is actually falling. I remember being able to smell the rain before it arrived -- often with the smell of ozone after a lightning bolt lit up the sky.
Warm pine needles --- mmmmmmmm. Add to that the smell of violets. And the taste of tomatoes picked off the vine...very much warm from the sun.
My folks would make an annual vacation pilgrimage to Daytona Beach. The trip would begin at sunset -- we didn't have a/c in our cars in the 1950s and early 1960s. I'd sleep almost the entire trip lulled by the sound of the car's engine. Only when we stopped for gas did I awaken, asking where we were now. Somehow, I always managed to wake up once we were close to Daytona....I could smell the beach -- the ocean and other stuff unique to the beach.
But it was mostly rain that gave me my best visits to dreamland. Especially memorable were the years I had metal awnings over my bedroom windows -- I could sleep with the windows wide open and the rain, beating furiously off the awnings, never could force me to close them, so well-protected was I by the awnings.
And if the smell of rain coming was always wonderful, the smell of the earth and the trees after a rainfall was the purest joy!
Ahhh, well. We get our rain here in the winter. Hasn't rained since early May, as I recall. If we're lucky, we'll get some in October.
But then there's the fog. And when the fog blankets everything, there is almost the quiet of snow....
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I like my Oreos soggy, but with skim milk, not rainwater.
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The sound of The Beach Boys, the smell of Coppertone, the feel of sand between my toes...that's summer for me!
Swimming way, way out, away from the beach in my innertube, and paddling back in until a huge wave rapidly thrusts my entire body face-first into the sand...that's summer for me!
The aroma of an ox roast, or a lamb roast...that's the smell of summer for me!
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Posted: |
Jul 20, 2002 - 2:54 AM
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By: |
Howard L
(Member)
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So many marvelous possibilities--
Add to that the smell of violets.
You have to see all the orange tiger lillies that have sprung up around here. 'S amazing. They're in our backyard, in neighbors' front yards, entwined in picket fences...I haven't seen them in ages. But when I think of "tiger lily" I hear M. Jarre's The Year Of Living Dangerously (the film also had a character named Tiger Lily). And that is truly an appropriate and highly sensual score, quite evocative of the steamy summery locale. And oh, speaking of rain, there is a most breathtaking scene wherein the Sigourney Weaver character saunters through a tropical rainstorm wholly overcome by passion-finally-risen-to-the-surface for Hamilton (Mel Gibson).
And the taste of tomatoes picked off the vine...very much warm from the sun.
A couple of weeks ago I was food shopping and one of the items on the list was vine-ripened tomatoes. Yes, the famed Jersey tomato is such a part of summers up here. Strange (and beautifully so, may I add), the first connection between luscious produce and music is Russell Garcia and The Time Machine. Paradise, no?
Rain. You can sing in it, dance in it, try to keep the Oreos from drowning in it, listen to the rhythm of its fall, walk in it thinking how we met...and since we're into pop let's play the late great Mr. Darin's Rainin' and throw in Ms. Tenille's Come In From The Rain for good measure. But we must not leave out Johnny Green's utterly marvelous cue underscoring the Clift character's search for the fabled tree of Raintree County fame. The chorus just soars and soars and soars...
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Nuthin beats a good ol' "Mater samwich!"(Tomato sandwich, for all you uninitiated! )
What about the SIGHTS of summer?!?! For me, it's watching lightning, lightning BUGS and watching coverage of hurricanes!
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