Romance in the snow

Today I was all excited because I managed to film a video of my hi-fi playing Leonard Pennario's record of Chopin's famous Etude in E. Actually I made the video Friday night, while I was ruining these baked beans I was trying to make out of this hoity-toity coffee table Williams Sonoma cookbook. These poor beans, I dressed them all up in maple syrup and molasses and then I put them in the oven. And then I forgot all about them, because I was making this video.

Well, also I baked them at a higher temperature than they should have baked at, because I was making cornbread at the same time. That did not help!

After shooting my video and burning my beans, I uploaded the video onto You Tube, a process that took hours. I cannot believe I am writing that word, "uploaded." I cannot believe I am using language like this.

Finally it uploaded and I could not stop admiring it. I watched it three times. I have not watched a film three times through since my sister Katie and I first saw "Dr. Zhivago" at the Granada!

Reminds me, the weather this morning reminds me of "Dr. Zhivago." I said that to one of the ushers when I got to Mass because it was so snowy that you could not see the church from across the street. That is a snapshot of me and the usher up above so out-of-towners can see what I mean.

But back to my ground-breaking video. I am proud of it because there is only a handful of Pennario recordings posted on You Tube and I do not want to keep linking to the same ones. They are incredible recordings which is why I do not want us to burn out on them. Now there is one more, thanks to me. And Pennario plays this Chopin exquisitely. He fills it with such warmth and feeling. When he gets to the hard part in the middle, no one else pours that passage out as perfectly and passionately as he does. Plus, he takes chances. He puts a lot of himself into this piece.

I was going to post my video on my blog today but then Howard told me not to.

"It's too boring," he said.

Honey! Say it isn't so!

So it's not Quentin Tarantino. So there are no car chases. You get to sit and listen to Pennario playing this beautiful etude. Plus you get to see what I was seeing when I listened to the record, which is Buffalo during a snowstorm. At one point a Metro Bus goes past. That is a highlight. Then the music reaches this gorgeous climactic moment and in that instant you hear this big clank. That is the radiator! It is as if my house's heating system was caught up in the excitement.

While you are watching and listening you can reflect on that this is Pennario's own record you are listening to. I mean, it was his personal copy. He gave it to me and now I am passing it on to everyone out there in Blog-O-Land.

Watch it here. Enjoy it. Bask in it! Then rate it five stars. The Leonard Pennario video should steam ahead passing all the videos by Britney Spears and Amy Winehouse.

It has to happen!