The Birthday Boys: Day 1

Texas Rangers Co. “D” Uvalde

YEEEEEEEHIIIIYAAAAAYYYYHAAAAWWWWWWWWWW!!!

Historian T. R. Fehrenbach (IIRC) says the "rebel yell" originated with the first Texas Rangers, the loose conglomeration of lawmen who defended early Texas pioneers from the Apache and Comanche warriors, combining still remembered ancestral Celtic war cries with Native American war whoops. Terry's Texas Rangers (CSA 8th Texas Cavalry, whose core consisted of men from the Rangers) introduced the cry to the Confederate Army.

It's a yell earlier Texas Rangers used to great effect against earlier Yankees. The Rangers were also known as giant-killers, who wore out many a filly.

Say it with me, with gusto: "YEEEEEEEHIIIIYAAAAAYYYYYHAAAAWWWWWWWWWW!!!"

Shine on.

Buffalo Shuffle

My wife brought me a pack of Clark's Teaberry gum from The Cracker Barrel (the official place grandparents take their grandkids for a meal).

"Wisdom demands a new orientation of science and technology towards the organic, the gentle, the non-violent, the elegant and beautiful."


-- E.F. Schumacher

A revelation.

QUARTET FOR THE END OF TIME
Quatuor pour la fin du temps, for violin, cello, clarinet & piano, I/22
Olivier Messiaen
Tashi
(Richard Stoltzman, Ida Kavafian, Fred Sherry, Peter Serkin)

RCA Red Seal

Olivier Messiaen wrote this piece during World War II, while he was being held prisoner in a German concentration camp. It takes its inspiration from (among other things) the Revelation to Saint John.

The rather odd ensemble grouping is a result of the circumstance that the only musicians in the camp who were proficient enough to perform a work of his, were a violinist, a pianist, a cellist, and a clarinetist. Thus he found a quartet for the end of times.