"I have been but little in," said Ninian hastily...

There's been lots of cool stuff (and not so cool stuff) been going on that I need to blog about, but that will have to wait until I have more time. For right now, I want to just quickly mention that the Proclaimers concert at the Birchmere last night was bloody awesome!

Opening for them was a local signer-songwriter, Owen Danoff. I really liked his lyrics, his tunes, and his self-effacing tuning chats :-). He's doing some more local events soon, including a date at Jammin Java on the 27th, a Habitat for Humanity benefit early next month, and he's opening for another player's CD release at Iota early in May.

The Proclaimers were there usual wonderful selves. They were playing acoustic this time, but they were just as excellent as with full electronics. They played all the songs I could have wished for, including several special Maggie Thatcher commemorative songs (Letter From America, Throw the R Away, Cap in Hand, and the scathing In Recognition, with a special introduction praising the institution of the House of Lords in their own inimitable way). But it wasn't all angry music; they played lots of romantic stuff like Let's Get Married, Then I Met You, and their classic I'm Gonna Be. To the delight of quite a few Hibs supporters in the audience (yes, even here), they played Sunshine on Leith. They played Joyful Kilmarnock Blues and the rockin' I'M Gonna Burn Your Playhouse down. And they played some pieces from their new album (which I haven't gotten yet), including Women and Wine and Spinning Around in the Air.

I love these guys: I love their no-nonsense sets ({finish song} "Thank you. That was... Now we're going to play..." {start new song}). I love the passion of their music and the depth and feeling of their lyrics. And I love, love the sound of their voices, both when singing and the burr of their Fife-y speech when talking. Makes me miss Scotland so much.

Dave Brubeck and Ravi Shanker, two wonderful musicians, have died recently. Both were in their 90s, so my first thought is not "how sad to lose them" but more "how wonderful to have had such people with us!"

I heard this piece on NPR last week, which brought home to me how much of Dave Brubeck's most popular work I know and recognize, and how crucual he was to the way that jazz developed in this country. I remember playing many of his pieces on the short-lived radio show I had on WCFM Williamstown in 1986. Since then, NPR's special correspondent Susan Stamberg has also filed this piece, a lovely memory of Dave Brubeck visitng her home.

I'm pretty sure that it was this recording of Blue Rondo a la Turk that I first heard. Same thing for Take FIve (which I also came to love for it's use in the odd and amusing series Oliver's Travels".)

Just this morning, I heard Stamberg's tribute to Ravi Shankar. It was the first I had heard of his death, but I didn't even need a phrase of his music to remind me of it; just his name conjures it powerfully from my memory. My dad had a special interest in India, having served there for two tours in World War Two. I don't know whether he first heard of Shankar through his collaboration with George Harrison or before that (one of his Shankar albums, which I think I still have, was "In London," recorded in 1964, two years before Harrison met the master of the sitar), but he enjoyed finding a way to get back in touch with an experience of his past. (The same was true of the fervour with which my parents patronised Indian restaurants, when those started appearing in southeastern Virginia where they lived.)

Thank you, Dave Brubeck and Ravi Shankar, for making the world a more beautiful and vibrant place, both while you were here with us and ever after, as your music endures.

Listening to Anna Massie play "Trip to Windsor" (awesome!)

Drinking a Long Trail Double IPA

Making tacos for dinner: ground beef, Mission shells, butter lettuce, organic tomato I chopped up just now, Newman's Own salsa, Kraft Mexican four cheese

Just about to crack open a Dorothy Dunnett I haven't read in a while (Dolly and the Cookie Bird)

Watching well-fed cats drift about the floor like sharks in an atoll,

Preposterously, mildly happy. :-)

Nice party last night. HUGE party, as my friend has several pursuits (gaming, competitive cycling) and he and his wife have lots of work friends, and they had one big party for all of them. Lots of tasty food, good beer, and he kept circulating with little trays of vodka concoctions of one sort or another.

I listened to several Billy Bragg albums on the way home (he lives far out in the VA suburbs). My undying thanks to peaceful_fox and poliscidiva for introducing me to BB. I love his lyric writing.

Grim day today, cold, grey, and steady rain. I slept until 9, woke up and cleaned up a hairball that Busby had upchucked and *insisted* on my cleaning up, then went back to sleep for three hours. Having a late brunch (toast, coffee, and scrambled eggs with cheese) while watching back episodes of Psych (I'm very suggestible). OTOH, I *like* cold, rainy days, even to go walking in. It makes everything...quiet. Peaceful. And it's a great excuse for candles.

The OKC saga continues. I wrote to three more people, none of whom have replied. If I don't hear back from one in particular, I will simply cry in frustration--she's a totally perfect match.

Trying to get up the energy to write my trade pieces. Or do some laundry. I did get the trash and recycling out. Maybe write some cards and do some holiday shopping (online!)

I've missed a few days, so here are several thankfulnesses in one entry.( Read more... )

NPR's All Things Considered did a lovely piece Wednesday night about the current tour by Carole King and James Taylor. Their music is so familiar, precious, and evocative for me, the tears were flowing readily. I'm sorry I didn't see their concert in DC; live performances, at least for the sort of artists I tend to listen to these days, have a special resonance that listening to their recordings don't. But thank heavens we live in an age when recordings are so easy to get and keep; some day all the people whose music I love will be gone, but their performances of their work will live on.

Speaking of people who are getting on in years and whose local concert I missed, I see that Gordon Lightfoot will be playing the Flynn Center in Burlington in October... (It's not ont eh Flynn's schedule yet, but it's on several fansite's tour lists...)

Item 1. I know the difference between male and female mallards, male and female cardinals, male and female peacocks. But since forever I've been trying to figure out what the type of sparrows are that gang around with the house sparrows here. After several years of searching fruitlessly, I finally realised that, duh, they're *female* house sparrows.

Item 2. Though I imagine it was very clear on the materials I got when I purchased it, I only just realised that my DVD player can quite easily play CDs. So I can easily listen to CDs in the living room without blasting them across the flat from the dining room. Which begs the question why the stereo is in the dining room, other than in here. Maybe things are a little too much organised here by what fits where easily rather than what's convenient.

Other observations that don't necessarily have anything to do with my being dim:

I love Noel Coward, though I vastly prefer his comedic songs (like "Imagine the Duchess's Feelings" or "Could You Oblige Us With a Bren Gun?" or "Mrs Worthington") to his crooning/love songs. His talent for wordplay is matchless and a thing of beauty to me.

The grrls were over yesterday for the football (Melissa has declined to be a sports widow and has clearly learned a good bit about the game, despite not being interested :-). They kindly helped me hang a number of pieces I got framed earlier in the year; it's nice to have them up where I can see them. They include a copy of Visscher's view of London that Dad had rolled up and stored for decades, an elevation of the the Royal Mile in Edinburgh that I got in a wonderful print and book shop there, and two prints by Avril Paton. I need to get my other of hers framed, along with the Napoleonic hussar print I got secondhand a while back. I have a couple of pieces of my mother's that I should frame too, if I can find some readymade frames for them (and a nice group portrait she did that which should get the full treatment).

Ouch! Poor Engerland. Time to trot out the old joke (Excited German: "Ha! Again ve haff beaten you at your national sport!" Tightlipped Englishman: "That's all right, old chap, we've beaten you at yours twice now.")

OK, time to finish the last writing assignments for my class, have some lunch, and watch Argentina v. Mexico. Come on, CONCACAF brothers!

ETA: I Meant to say, I really resent it when the day outside my window *looks* so nice (sunny, breezy) but when I actually open the door proves to be so beastly (humid, stifling, oven-like). If I wanted to be baked, I'd live in Greece. I want to be somewhere where summer is *enjoyable*.

also from Foot Stompin' fora:

upcoming Phil Cunningham/Mark Knopfler program on BBC Radio

When Phil Cunningham Met Mark Knopfler, Prog 1/1
Monday 10 May
BBC Two Scotland, 10.00-10.30pm

An amazing meeting of music minds is the subject of the latest ArtWorks on BBC Scotland.
As part of the strand's conversation series, which puts together artists with common ground, ArtWorks has brought together folk musician Phil Cunningham and the Dire Straits rocker Mark Knopfler.

Although his association with Newcastle is well known, Mark was in fact born in Glasgow.

In the run-up to meeting Phil for the programme, he states: "Scottish music will have been the first music that I ever heard in my life...It's just part of my childhood that you can never give up."

And shortly after saying hello, the two are discussing a man who was an early influence on them both - Jimmy Shand.

Throughout the programme it is evident the regard they have for each other's work over the years.

Says Phil of Mark: "I knew there was Scottish in you the first time I heard you play."
Yet the two had never met up until last year, when Mark invited Phil to work on some numbers for his album.

Phil explains: "I first met Mark in 2009, when he asked me to come and work on his album Get Lucky, and as far as I'm concerned it was me that got lucky because I'd been waiting to meet him for about 25 years."

Early days, pub gigs and making music for other mediums - Mark for Local Hero and Phil for the theatre production The Ship - are all part of the 30 minute programme alongside some great performances from the two together, in between the chat.

So, Amazon, it seems, has started using Fed Ex instead of UPS for shipping. And FedEx has, for some unknown reason, decided that they won't leave packages at my apartment, even with a signature. So they eventually send the packages back to Amazon; I get my money back, but I don't get what I ordered--unless I drive downtown to the Fed Ex office every time I order something, which seems to makes the business of paying to have something shipped to me rather pointless.

I can't change how Amazon ships (there's no way to specify what shipper they use), and I can't change FedEx's refusal to leave packages (I've read a lot on the web since this started--apparently it's often the driver who decides that they won't leave a package, no matter what the shipper or the recipient says). So I need to find a new place to buy books, DVDs, and music online. Books I can get, often cheaper than at Amazon, through Abe Books and Alibris. Alibris has some DVDs and music, but they don't have the selection that Amazon does. Does anyone know of a good alternate source for music CDs on the Net? I can buy music from iTunes, but I don't like not having an actual CD--if something happens to your hard drive, iTunes won't replace the songs you've bought from them.