PA Trip - Day 6

Had We But World Enough, and Time...

Accurately, if unimaginatively, named

Today is the last full day of my visit with my best friend Skip and his wife Elaine. Tomorrow will be a travel day, which means most of our time together will be spent at breakfast and on the drive to the airport in Philadelphia.

This morning Skip and I decided to have brunch because he has an AV gig to set up around lunch time.
We went to the aptly-named
Corner Cafe, and I had the superb Hawaiian Sweetbread French toast.

"Say, that section header is some sort of literary reference, isn't it?"

Yes, yes it is...

Feast Day

St. Francis of Assisi at Prayer, by Bartolomé Esteban Murillo

Today is the feast day of St. Francis of Assisi, a humble friar whose influence on the Church and among the faithful 
is one of the most profound in its long history.

Francis founded several religious orders, including the Order of Friars Minor (now known as Franciscans), the Order of Saint Clare, the Third Order of St. Francis, and the Custody of the Holy Land.

I became acquainted with St. Francis early in life, as the parish church 
I attended in Council Bluffs as a child was named for him. His association with kindness to animals endeared him to me, and my mom often remarked that I seemed to have Francis's knack for communicating with animals.

Francis is the patron saint of Italy, along with St. Catherine of Siena. He is also closely associated with the so-called Tau Cross. He is the patron of animals and of the environment 
as well.

"Francis is my patron saint, too."

What part of "animals" was unclear to you?

Happy Birthday!

Original 1965 "one sheet"

On October 4, 1923 John Charles Carter was born in an unincorporated area unofficially called No Man's Land, Illinois, near the town of Wilmette.

Although he intended to pursue a career in live theatre and possibly television, Charlton Heston wound up being one of the most famous and iconic actors in movie history.

Many of my own favorite movies feature Heston, including classics like The Ten Commandments, Ben-Hur (for which he deservedly won the Best Actor Oscar), and Planet of the Apes, but also lesser films like Soylent Green and the biopic  
The Agony and The Ecstasy, which tells the story of the painting of the Sistine Chapel ceiling.

"'When will you make an end, Buonarotti!'"

"When I am finished!"

The Way of the World

From the delightfully off-kilter webcomic xkcd, by Randall Munroe, which you should read every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.

Until Next Time...

This week's Music Recommendation is a collection of pieces by composer James Horner. Although he was best-known for his work scoring motion pictures like Field of Dreams (nominated for an Academy Award), Braveheart (also Oscar-nominated), and Titanic (for which he won the Academy Award for Best Original Score), he also wrote orchestral and chamber works intended for live performance.

Collage: A Concerto for Four Horns and Orchestra was commissioned by the Houston Symphony and the International Horn Society, and had its premier in March of 2015, just a couple of months before Horner's untimely death in a flying accident. It was his final composition.

The album release includes the commissioned work as well as some other Horner pieces, and they are quite enjoyable as well.



My favorites in the collection are the pieces Horner wrote for the 2012 short film First in Flight. Like Horner, my dad was a pilot and flying enthusiast, and I know he would have enjoyed Horner's flight-themed compositions.

Today's send-off is one of Horner's First in Flight pieces, "Conquest of the Air," performed by the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic under the direction of fellow composer David Arnold. Enjoy...