Day #42 – Barometer Soup
Day #42 – Barometer Soup
Something I failed to mention in my initial post was to discuss what a barometer is. A barometer is a device used to measure atmospheric pressure and is helpful when determining weather forecasts. My grandparents had a barometer hanging on the wall of their farmhouse, and it might still be there, alongside an old mercury thermometer, still determining conditions. And I grew up on a farm, listening to more weather reports than a human could possibly ever need to know, so the idea of a barometer or barometric pressure feels like my old friend. I have yet to put one in a pot of soup, though…
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Original post from 10/13/2023
Day #42 – Barometer Soup
Barometer Soup is on JB’s 1995 album of the same name. It’s a song about adventure and leading others onto the same path, if adventure and seeing the world is of interest.
“Follow in my wake, you’ve not that much at stake, For I have plowed the seas and calmed the troubled waters, Come along let’s have some fun, The hard work has been done, We’ll barrel roll into the sun, Just for starters”.
On the album jacket of Barometer Soup, Jimmy mentions and credits two men with this phrase in their writings.
The first is American novelist and humorist Mark Twain, pen name for Samuel Clemens, who wrote a 1880 travel journal called A Tramp Abroad. It was about an expedition climbing in the Swiss alps where he placed a barometer into a pot of boiling bean soup as an experiment. He claims it didn’t hurt the barometer and made the soup taste so much better that the cook decided to serve Barometer Soup every day for the rest of the journey.
The second mention goes to American novelist Herman Wouk, who won the Pulitzer Prize for his novel The Caine Mutiny but may be more known for writing The Winds of War and War and Remembrance. He also wrote a novel called Don’t Stop The Carnival, about a man escaping the crisis of middle age by running off into the Caribbean. Jimmy loved that novel, and along with Herman Wouk, turned that novel into a staged musical, with Jimmy writing the entire score. It ran in Miami, and I wished I had the opportunity to see it. Of course, you know that I have the CD.
That was Jimmy’s first foray into musical theater, but not his last. He later wrote the popular and successful Broadway musical called Meet Me In Margaritaville!
But back to today’s song … “Let’s have some fun … we’ll barrel roll into the sun, just for starters.”
Please enjoy Barometer Soup. I’ve included the link in the comments below.
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I have recently bought both Don’t Stop The Carnival by Herman Wouk and A Tramp Abroud by Mark Twain. I will put them in my winter reading pile and get to them when the time is right, but I appreciate that both of them feel like a suggestion from Jimmy. And also, a little bit of a challenge as well. To broaden my reading perspective a little bit, and to also maybe be inspired by the words, just like Jimmy was, although not for the same reasons at all.
Stacy
Please enjoy Barometer Soup. I have included the link below. Enjoy!
The link is from Jimmy’s official YouTube channel, which I have no personal affiliation with.
