Movie Music at Mass, and Other Pleasures
Notes from a week improved by phone cameras, jug Chablis, real mail, and one unexpected church prelude
One thing I enjoyed this week: a sunset from the Moondance catamaran.
Another thing I enjoyed: the way our phones now quietly improve our pictures. This isn’t really what I saw, but I’ll take it. Photo by the Author, she says proudly.
And another thing I enjoyed — maybe the most unexpected one — came Sunday morning at Our Lady Help of Christians in Cheektowaga.
This is a breathtaking 1850s chapel set in one of the most mundane stretches of town imaginable. You get out of your car and you’re across the street from Airport Plaza, amid motorcycles and sirens and planes descending toward the Buffalo airport. Then you walk into this tiny church, and suddenly you’re in another world.
Someday soon I’ll have to write about this extraordinary place properly. For now, I just want to capture one moment before it gets away.
That was the moment when, in the hush that precedes the mass, the organist began a prelude — and it was Ennio Morricone’s “Gabriel’s Oboe,” from the movie “The Mission.”
I had to film it, I just had to.
I wish I had kept the camera going for just a few more seconds because the bell rang and the service began, and I always love that moment.
Thinking of all this makes me think of other pleasures from recent days. It’s the little things, you know? Here are a few.
Monsignor Car
Legendary reporter Paula Voell used to sit next to me at The Buffalo News and she taught me this term, meaning a big, square old car, preferably maroon. With which, I bring you this cool old monsignor car in the parking lot of Gordon’s on Elmwood. I took this picture to show Howard because he loves boxy old cars like this one.
Jug Wine
My friend Cori, her father came from Germany. And he taught her the magic of wine spritzers, made with Carlo Rossi Rhine wine and whatever seltzer you have on hand.
With our recent heat wave, I decided this had to be tried. I went to Amherst Street Wine & Liquor and — oh look, here it was, the Carlo Rossi department.
At the last minute I was afraid the Rhine wine would be too sweet. I conferred with Daddy-O, aka AI, who told me Chablis was a better choice. So home it went.
Tee hee, the clerk at the liquor store suggested a bag because she assumed, which I can understand, that I did not want to be seen toting the jug out to the car. The bottle of Italian red I was buying, that could be seen, however that big Carlo Rossi jug…
But the truth is, it’s fun! I took some to a party. You mix it half and half with plain seltzer and you have something tasty you can quaff without drinking yourself under the table.
Jeoffry
Speaking of being under the table, Jeoffry doesn’t need booze to put him there.
I continue to enjoy our new library too. I was thinking this morning, I even like the smell of it. It reminds me of school libraries. So that is another thing.
Serendipitous Snail Mail
Finally, there was this card sent to me by my virtual friend Karen, here in our little Substack group. Who doesn’t love snail mail? I made it into an event, settling into the library with my cup of coffee to read my snail mail.
I love greeting cards. I pore over their designs. I appreciate the art that goes into them. I have a stack of them that I don’t throw out, and this one is going there.
I love its retro look!
And its message. “It’s the little things in life that touch our hearts the most.”
How did Karen know just what I was going to write today?
She nailed it!