Easter Parade

Last night, instead of the next murder in whatever Britt-box detective show we’re watching, I suggested we watch Judy Garland and Fred Astaire in the movie Easter Parade. A wise decision! Except for the predictable naïve notions of falling in love after two minutes standing in a doorway with someone, the film held up! Memorable dance numbers —Fred Astaire’s drum/ tap dance number, he and Judy as two tramps— and great Irving Berlin tunes—It Only Happens When I Dance with You, Stepping Out with My Baby, Easter Parade. (Remember that Berlin was a Jewish guy who hit it big with Easter Parade and White Christmas!) Some lesser-known Berlin tunes as well, but each so dang clever—I Want to Go Back to Michigan, A Fella with an Umbrella, Snookie-Ookums, I Love a Piano, The Ragtime Violin. Check it out!

 

After it was over, I checked Facebook and was amazed to see their Facebook memory from 15 years ago. It was my Orff colleague Elisabeth who I had just spent a week with in singing Over the Rainbow at the Orff Institut in Salzburg. She sang it with a ukelele in the style of Israel “IZ” Kamakawiwo’ole and then, I came in on piano with the jazz version. She sang it well and I was happy with my accompaniment. But what were the chances that Facebook chose this particular memory since I had just watched Judy Garland (who made the song famous) and spent the week with Elisabeth! This is the kind of serendipitous occasion I’ve experienced many times in my life, always with a feeling that there are other invisible hands at work bringing such things together. I’d like to believe that this was the case here.

 

But… I rented the movie from Amazon Prime so the Big Brother bots and AI predators know I did so. Perhaps they passed it on to Facebook, had also seen me with Elisabeth on Facebook and got the machines whirring in search of the perfect Facebook memory. If so, you might ask, "What's the big deal? The result was not only benign, but somewhat sweet to pull up the nice memory." But even so, I don’t want it. I prefer leaving it to the gods than the machines. There’s just something creepy about it and cynical, stomping on my lifelong belief that serendipity is real, that there are unseen benevolent forces at work and they don’t need a damn machine to do their work. 

 

I hope I’m wrong about the above and that it actually was a sweet, serendipitous connection. I guess I’ll never know. But just the fact that I have to doubt it is disturbing. I’ve loved returning to San Francisco from my trip, but hate being bombarded anew by the AI billboards and Waymo cars every damn block. If the Resurrection happened today, most modern people would just think:  “Nice work from the Special Effects folks!”

 

Happy Easter!

 

PS Speaking of modern tech, I looked it up on Google and apparently the Easter Parade with its accents on bonnets is still happening in New York!