Biding Time Until The New Bakken Week Begins -- Nothing About The Bakken -- December 14, 2014

A huge "thank you" to my readers. I'm #1 at "Google Search" today for:

 china storing oil in supertankers

The other day I was knocked to #2 by a Reuters story using that search with five words. But today, I'm back to #1. LOL.

What a hoot. It doesn't mean a thing, but it really it is what it is.

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A Note for the Granddaughters

Without question my favorite two (or is it, my "two favorite") periodicals are the Wall Street Journal (a daily) and The New Yorker (a weekly). Word for word, The New Yorker might be the best dollar value out there. Wow, their articles are long; they go on forever and ever. But there is some irony there: if you like the subject or the article, the article seems too short; if you start reading an article, and find you don't like it, they are way too long. And for obsessive-compulsive folks it's almost impossible to stop reading an article one has started. That's why I'm also careful which books I start reading. Once I start reading a book, I feel a moral obligation to complete, and with a thick novel one could lose precious hours, days, and weeks.

That reminds me of a great line/insight in The Great Gatsby: "Anyhow, he gives large parties. I like large parties. They are so intimate. At small parties there isn't any intimacy." [Another great phrase, "I was within and without...."]

Virginia Woolf's definition of an author is "one who collects phrases."

Our older granddaughter's first love is science, particularly marine biology; her fund of knowledge is incredible, but I don't see her as a writer. I could be surprised. On the other hand, I don't know yet what our younger granddaughter is particularly interested in (except winning arguments) but I do see see her as a writer.

For quite some time I've collected "words" to share with the older granddaughter: their spelling, their meanings, the etymologies. We keep them in a small notebook and page through them while driving when we run out of other things to do. Today, it dawned on me, while reading the Wall Street Journal, it would be interesting to start collecting phrases for the younger granddaughter. These caught my interest, from one movie review: "moderately morose mood"; "swallowed by the shadows"; and "captured the collective imagination."

The phrases came, from all things, a review of the 1944 movie, Gaslight, in this weekend's edition of the Wall Street Journal. It's hard to believe: Angela Lansbury made her film debut in that move. Both she and Ingrid Bergman were nominated for Oscars for their work in that move; Ingrid won one. Of the major cast and crew members from that movie, only Ms Lansbury is still alive.

I most recently watched Gaslight about a week ago, watching it three times over a number of days, making this the umpteenth time I have watched this move. My wife watched a little bit of it with me; today at breakfast she tells me she hated that movie; she remembers it from her college days, when it was an "oldie" even then. Ha. But of all things, it was the subject of a long essay/review in this weekend's Wall Street Journal.

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Musical Interlude

A year ago, maybe two years ago, I forget, I stumbled upon this group over on YouTube; I forget how I came across Pentatonix; it's possible someone sent me the link. Or maybe it was a dream.

Whatever.

Of all things, this group was featured on the front page of section D, The Wall Street Journal, this past week, Friday, December 12, 2014.

Little Drummer Boy, Pentatonix