Bloggin' On: Even More Odds and Ends ("Sometimes I Feel Like a Sad Song" Edition)

"As I suspected, you're a rank sentimentalist." - Capt. Louis Renault to Rick Blaine, Casablanca

Hello there, Constant Reader! Welcome to another edition of Odds and Ends, an occasional feature here in A Certain Point of View where I write about other things that aren't necessarily my usual Review of the Day fare.

I was hoping I'd have that review of John Carpenter's 1983 adaptation of Stephen King's Christine, but I haven't gotten around to it this week. I received the Blu-ray via Amazon Prime and I've watched it once, but I think I'll have to watch it again at least one more time. I liked the movie well enough, even though 36 years have passed since I saw it in theaters back in Miami, Florida, but if I'm going to review it, I need to see it again, this time paying attention to the acting of the cast and the differences between the original novel by King and Bill Phillips' screenplay.

Anyway, I've been feeling a bit sentimental as of late. I've always had a streak of sentimentality that borders on the shmaltzy, even when I was a kid. I can't explain it, although I suspect that it has something to do with losing my father at such an early age that I have no memories of him. That, and the fact that I am an "artist-type" and tend to mine my memories of childhood and past loves for stories and ideas for screenplays.

I also suspect that like my late mother before me, I tend to be adversely affected by the holiday season, which began a few days ago with the coming and going of Halloween. My mom was a strong and usually optimistic woman, and for many years she did her best to celebrate Thanksgiving and Christmas without succumbing to the Ebeneezer Scrooge Syndrome. She was, however, ambivalent about New Year's, in part because it was one of my late dad's favorite holidays, but mostly because she hated the raucous partying and worried about my half-sister's nonchalant attitudes about drinking and driving.

Because I live in a family environment and do not wish to rock the boat, so to speak, I always try to not let the Holiday Blues get the better of me. But as John Denver puts it in a 1976 song, "sometimes I feel like a sad song."

The following compositions are among my favorite "sentimental music" choices, and they represent various styles and genres.