Category: Music

Last 24 hours

Skating was wonderful, although I have a blister half an inch across on my calf.  Then, I wrote a song.  I went outside for a second and got inspired and came right back in and sang it into the mp3 recorder.  Slept.  Wrote another song.  Got up.  (Particularly pleased with this most amazing piece of multi tasking, what with the lying in bed and thinking up songs).  Got dressed, and did not realize until I had left the house that not one piece of my clothing was on speaking terms with the next.  Girls, I looked like I had slithered through six closets and only wore what stuck.  Went to church.  Witnessed the single cutest moment I’ve ever seen after a very entertaining and well received children’s pageant.  I’m not going to try to describe it, but I hope there are pictures. Got a phone call from ScaryClown and went to a late lunch with him AND dragged him back here for Primer (neither he nor Keith had seen it, from which you may infer that my gorgeous, vivid, witty and perceptive son is here) and classic Warner Brothers cartoons.

Snow has been falling off and on since church got out.

I swept up straw from the manger this morning.

I had a day with my peeps… Jeff ate his late repast with gusto …. boys killing pixels in the basement.  Beautiful and people-filled day, with music ringing in my ears.  One of the songs I wrote is “Christmas in Vancouver” which is a very Accommodationist-wing-of-contemporary-atheism-anti-hymn, and the other is “Load On”.  The latter is a very Band-ish tune meant to be played trad instrument, light percussion and at least four voices.  Okay, that’s how I hear it in my head.  It’s from Deadwood, when Sol goes to back Bullock’s play with that tomfool popgun his girlfriend Trixie loaned him.  And, like one might reasonably expect, gets shot for his pains.  The song is about Sol loaded up on laudanum before, during and after the extraction of the bullet, and the stuff he raves about while he’s wrecked.  I know, isn’t that the damnedest thing to get an instant song about?  I had sung my song about Al Swearengen earlier in the evening and it made me think about Deadwood, so I guess I was primed for it.  I still can’t believe how fast it came on.

I have a quiet happiness inside me which corresponds to chocolate chip pecan cookies.  Happy Xmas to all reasonable people, in the very broadest humanistic terms and without reference to goshes, I mean gods.

Success all round

Waffles = success.

Stationery trip = success.

Band audition = success.

Leftovers = success.

Priceless moments with our furry housemates = success.

Laundry = success.

Walking in the brilliant, glorious, dazzling, heart-drenching sunshine for 40 minutes while carrying a mandolin = success.

This line deleted on advice of counsel, but trust me, it was delectable and loathsome, like a verbal confection of the Marquis de Sade translated by Patrick O’Brian and interpreted by Hunter S. Thompson, and afterwards rolled in a dusting of H.P. Lovecraft.  Still with me?  I guarantee it equalled success.

Watching Mickey Rourke, Marisa Tomei and Evan Rachel Woods in The Wrestler = success. Evan Rachel Woods supposedly getting back together with Marilyn Manson = you must be kidding = hope he’s quit drinking.

Having transcribed some of Dennis’ interview already = success.

A brief descent into vers libre, big kisses to the one reader of this blog who will actually appreciate this….

the what I do the thinking with, o

it makes a buzz

just like a beehive

teenaged boys have whacked.  So much

to think about . life echoes in continuance . life dancing

through doorways . life unfurling its logic . life burgeoning .

life expiring on its own pyre .

life continues

to have that golden glow

Tonight in the fey

the fading moonlight

I am an avatar of the Parking Goddess

soon this divinity will drop

into the day / day

into whispers . into a rush of sea-borne sound . into the pale

and steady light of winter .

Holy ^%$! Batman

Debbie forwards this gem from the nation’s capital.  There’s more than enough **** to go around in this story.  Calling something a blowback makes it sound like a rough breeze, not feces at high pressure.

I had an amazing morning with Katie here, doing tech support and getting out of her way so she could work on her song. The tech support was trying to find cabling and making sure the inputs were set to record properly in Garageband.  Later in the day, my date, alas, was overcome by weariness from his exertions feasting a friend the previous night at a birthday bash, and cried off… this after texting me at 8:10 this morning that he was just going to sleep.   People nowadays have no idea how to pace themselves (this of course will cause Patricia to burst out laughing when she sees it, since she knows what an utter lightweight I am when it comes to weekend excesses.)  I sang “The Weekend’s Over” to myself, which cheered me immensely, and then worked my way through “Freedom”, “Wish it was Mine” (how I love that song, and the mad crush that prompted it), and about half a dozen other songs.  Seeing Katie with my guitar in her hands this morning nearly made me hyperventilate with excitement and glee.   I got her to visit this site for strummable guitar chords (which makes songwriting so much easier)  After she left (her dad walked her home), I sat down with the piles of sound equipment I got out for her this morning (the USB midi input cable for the Casio keyboard, the mucho expensivo mic which Katie found since I had no clue where the damned thing was, the second best set of headphones, the Kaossilator and associated cables, the laptop of course) and made gamenoise1, and that’s only a fraction of the extremely cool music I composed today. Getting more callouses on my fingers, seeing both my kids and writing tunes have put me in a very happy mood… and I didn’t cook dinner, I ordered pizza and then made Jeff pay for it.  Tra la la.  Oh, and I watched the boys kill zombies, because of course, Elferd Ito is in the house.  (L4D2, Left for dead 2, bad pun.)

It being Sunday morning, here, have some curse words

Stephen Fry on swearing. SPECIAL BONUS, Hugh Laurie in drag.

Attended a Jim Scott house concert at Tom and Peggy’s last night.  I am going to be in a minority here, but I think it’s possible to write songs about peace love light cooperation and the rain forest and still keep some edge in the lyrics. Let me recast that.  His choice of words irritated me a lot, also, too much repetition, please please please have more respect for the audience than that.  Oh, really it was an indoctrination session?  Why didn’t somebody tell me?  He has a lovely voice and a lot of Brazilian nylon string guitar style but I enjoyed the a capella song about peace the most.  There was lots of singing along and I couldn’t open my mouth or I just would have coughed through the entire concert.  Also a church member and his squeeze talked ALL the way through, and when everybody else is quiet and you’re the one sitting next to the rude people it doesn’t add to the joy. Since this person behaved rudely at the last event we both attended, I’ll let him know when he’s had his third strike. It would be polite… no sense bottling it up and when I can firmly and respectfully tell him he’s rude.

However, Al Sather’s mini mousse tarts put some life back into me.  MAN they were good.

Had a migraine by the time it ended, walked home in the rain and collapsed next to Keith on the downstairs sofa (I walked 6.4k last night, pouring rain both ways), while he groused his way through the new Assassin’s Creed II.  Bastards dicked with the UI AND the game play, so you spend a lot of time falling off things you didn’t intend to.  Also, Ezio walks as if he tucked a carrot into his ass crack and his jumps look… well I’ll let you see it, because I fell over the first time I saw it.  Someone’s going to do a mashup of all his moves to techno, and it will be funny.

I am still feeling odd. Part of it is irritation with myself over something I can’t speak of in public, but I think I’m genuinely sick, too.  I’ll see if church is still an option after I have my vitamins and some coffee.  I kinda want to boycott church until they fix the sound system, but really that’s not a sufficient reason.

Tomorrow I interview Denis, and I am so looking forward to it.

Watched these two movies over the last couple of days.  Flags of our Fathers, Letters from Iwo Jima.  HIGHLY recommended.

How do YOU set boundaries with loved ones?  Just asking.

Mathemagic

For some of my math geek buddies, here are some jokes.

Speaking of math geeks, I had a nice long call from LTGW last night.  He came perilously close to moving to California but decided to stay here and work on a business – a math related business, if you can believe it.  Then he described what he was doing and it sounds exhausting, creative and fun.  Then we traded bragging and complaining about our love lives and that’s probably enough specifics on that subject.

The parmesan herb bread turned out really really yummy, but the top of the loaf still hit the glass peephole at the top of the breadmaker, and I’m wondering just how little sugar I need to put in that recipe before it stops doing that.  It’s very irritating because that model of breadmaker does not have a removable lid, so cleaning it is a righteous pain.

Carrie and Tom are in town… I hope to see them tonight.

I played with Margot for about an hour last night.  That cat makes me laugh.  And she LOVES music.  She was attacking my laptop when I was playing something on it yesterday.

I get to interview one of the elders for church.  We’re having an “I’m not dead yet” program, where we talk to elders about their lives BEFORE they die, so we can appreciate them more fully and with less saying of things like, “Gosh, I wish I’d talked to him when he was still alive.”  I drew Denis, so I am very happy; Denis has one of the most beautiful and original speaking voices ever, and his passionate love affair with life and literature make him a good fit for me and that kind of work.

Jeff is back today.  Haunted House is now closer to being functional at Gadget House.  Yup, that’s Jeff, leaving a trail of order and repair behind him.

Busy day

Today I am going to go and see a music teacher who lives close by to see if I can take lessons; then I’m going up to my old workplace for lunch; then I’m going to Surrey for a while, and then I should be home for supper.  This is the most I’ve been on transit since the fireworks last summer.

Last night Tom and Peggy and Paul and Keith came over for broiled pork chop, cauliflower and home made cheese sauce, salad, cole slaw, corn and garlic bread.  Dessert was fresh fruit and pecan torte. It was all nommers.  Then we sang and played for a while.

I light a candle for everybody killed and injured at Fort Hood yesterday.   I am sure there will be an uptick in attacks on furrin brown people as a consequence.  I light a candle for the man who thought he could made a contribution to world peace by slaughtering his fellow soldiers.  It’s just so grisly, and so wrong.

Point form updates

  1. Katie got the job, she starts today at 9:30 am.  It is ONE 20 minute bus ride from her house.  Unless the traffic is bad, then it’s about half an hour.  Commuting in the GVRD is hellish, so Katie well knows what a good deal this is, especially since her last interview was in North Van.
  2. My emotions as a consequence may be best summarized as vigilate et orate.
  3. Miss Margot is being very grumpy about having her hair done.  I may have to haul her off to the “professial Persian hedge trimmers” and get her done, which I’d prefer not to as winter is coming.  I tried trimming her myself but her fur is so very fine that it slides through the guide without ever coming near the shears.
  4. My attempt at soup making (chicken with rice) had one heart stopping moment during which I accidentally added rather more paprika than I expected.  Once tasted, however, the soup declared itself happy, and even Keith had some.
  5. This house is not a dude ranch for misfits and unemployables.  The rest of this paragraph I deleted out of deference to the feelings of him what this is in regard to.
  6. It has never gotten quite warm or dry enough for me to cut the grass one last time before winter starts in earnest.  I will when I can.
  7. I have done some more unpacking, and found some bedding which I probably can’t use as it looks doublish as opposed to twinnish or queenish..  However, it’s pure cotton, so I’m thinking of giving it to Paul, if he can stand having something in screeching lilac stripes.
  8. I carved out a pumpkin in the shape of Lafayette’s face.  I’m thinking of cutting up a white sheet I found to make wee ghosties.
  9. Jeff has posted the pinball instructions AND the high scores list.  Let the high score smackdowns commence!
  10. Homicide Season Seven is OUT THERE.  But when Munch starts spouting off (again, again) about how the government is storing information on law abiding citizens, he sounds quite prescient.  The whole show happened before 9/11.
  11. There is biscotti dough in the fridge.
  12. I would like to thank from the bottom of my heart my mother, Unca Barry, Ontie Mary, and the other relatives who assisted with a newly published family project. Barry’s preface in particular choked me up… we can never know what really happened, but we can preserve and think about what we have left, and be grateful that our relatives left us something to go on.
  13. I am reading through the family letters of, and with respect to, Bootlegging Mary.  Long time readers of this blog will hazily recollect that I went to a family reunion and heard about a relative who ran a corner gas station in Saskatchewan (I am at a loss to understand HOW this could be a more Canuckistani reference) and was, possibly, likely, a bootlegger. I wrote a song for her and begged for more detail.  The wheels of family genealogy have ground slow and fine, and to my wonderment and edification, the letters have been translated and published.  Words cannot express my gratitude.  Now I’m reading what it was like between the two World Wars for my Mennonite kin back in olt contry, and I’m amazed and humbled at the crap they lived through – all the while trusting and praising God with an deep and consistent piety. (Even as they got into it hammer and tongs about a disputed legacy… may we all take suitable notice of this falling out, which had tragic consequences for some).  In one letter there is a third hand account (as it’s a letter to a relative from another relative about a third relative’s doings).  The recently married daughter walked through her mum and dad’s village with her husband, and every last person in the village was gone.  They had fled across the frozen river from Siberia to China, with nothing but transportation, food and clothing.  She had seen her father the night before, and while he looked downcast he hadn’t breathed a word of the flight to his daughter.
  14. She is alleged to have said, in describing what she did when she walked through her parents’ deserted house, “I took the cat in my arms and the guitar down from the wall.”  I got chills when I read that.  She went straight for the two things I would have dealt with first.  The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree…..

A new melody

This is called “It’s Time To Get Up.”  I wish it didn’t sound quite as much like Bittersweet Symphony by Verve but shit happens.

There are four voices, all sounding like Midi harp in this example.

The mother is the alto:

Hm, Hm, Hm, it’s time to get up, it’s time to get up, I know you’re grumpy and your bed is lumpy, but it’s time to get up.

The son is the tenor:

One more hour, mother, one more hour father, I’m so tired mother, One more hour mother.

The daughter is the soprano:

Today I’m gonna have to look pretty, you know it, today I’m gonna have to look pretty, you know it, I’m gonna have to look fine, fine, fine, I’m gonna make that boy mine mine mine.

The father is the bass:

Time to get up, Time to get up, I’ve said it once I won’t say it again, Time to get up!

Time to get up

Here’s the same tune voiced in French Horn – you can actually hear the bass line.

Time to get up french horn

The two aren’t connected but happy birthday Loki.

Hello, breakfast

I finished the homily at 8 this morning and went back to bed to warm up.  Then I flew out the door and delivered it.

Just as I stood up to speak, a great blue heron landed on the metal and glass gazebo outside the sanctuary, visible to about a third of the congregation and invisible to me and everyone else.  The way people were pointing and gasping, and the fact I could hear no noise, made me think “A hot air balloon!  How nice.” And then I started talking and got kind of engrossed.  Tom dashed up to me immediately after the service and with a twinkle in his eye told me what had happened.  I had to be home before I figured it out – the heron was using this perch, well out of the way of bothersome hoomins, to case the adjacent pond for koi and other west coast delicacies / breakfast.  There being none, it took off.  See, nothing miraculous or spooky to see here, move along.

Chatted briefly with Patricia the other day, and that was fun. We will fire up the rusty old Cavalcade of Cheese… man she serves good cheese.

Spoke to Catherine today; she confirmed the presence of Sue’s last sock, and once I send her my address she’ll forward it to me.  I don’t want to lose it.  It’s the last thing I have to connect me with Sue Gillespie, of blessed memory.

I’d like to thank Paul for the lift in to both the church and the congregational dinner last night.  In two weeks the church will be closer! I’ll quit bugging people for rides! Beacon is moving to New West!  I talked about that a fair amount in the service today… telling people that we’re doing okay, in fact better than okay, because we can do church on a shoe string.  Did I mention I signed the book again (ie I rejoined)?  I volunteered semi sorta for the Worship Services Committee.  So happily, so cheerfully wacky these days.

I just watched The Man in the White Suit! I loved it!  I am not being sarcastic!

I got a copy of a song that I’ve wanted since the day I heard it.  It’s a live recording (heart heart heart) with Woodhead on bass (heart heart ooo so hearty heart) of Garnet Rogers singing Night Drive, the song he wrote for Stan Rogers, and I thought about John, and cried and cried and cried.  I saw Garnet perform it live.  I cried while I watched it and was still high on emotion when I left the concert.