life, the universe, and everything

Time isn't holding us

Everything about this song is gorgeous, from the original writing of it to every aspect of the Talking Heads' treatment of it.  

I've continued to listen to David Byrne over the years, enjoy his collaborative works and his writing. I feel certain that if events had only played out differently, we were probably meant to be together, even if only for a brief astronomical experience. But oh, alas. It was never to be. 

He turned 61 today! That hardly seems possible because he's just not that much…older than me…and so anyway. This is my favorite recent thing that I've heard him do, from 2010, but I just downloaded the album he recorded with St. Vincent and am looking forward to hearing that and seeing them play live this summer. 

 

One more thing, just because I always always love this song. This is from 1996.  

Aging iPod, aging me

First I had a light blue iPod mini, in 2005. It was stolen. Then I got a black iPod 5th generation, with 80gb. I guess that was in 2006. In late 2008 or so, it met with a peculiar accident, and stopped working. For Mother's Day 2009, the girls and man colluded to buy me a 6th generation silver one, with 120gb of space. I still have it. It is my number one "save from a fire" object. It has all my digital music, of course, but is also an external hard drive in terms of important writing and photographs that have to be trotted around from one computer to another now and then. I share music with the kids with it, and my playlists are a thing to behold, purpose-wise and archive-wise and just fun-wise. 

Later in 2009, the 6th generation Classic iPod was upgraded to 160gb, and it's remained that way ever since. It is still being produced, but hasn't changed since then. The focus has been on the Touch, instead, which makes good sense, of course. But I'm not interested in that, even if it had more space. My Android phone works well with my Apple computer if I need it to, and the Kindle Fire HD covers all the ground I'm interested in online. The fact is that I'm a little old-fashioned at this point; I'm happy with my self-contained music player just as it is. 

But the battery won't last forever. Just recently, it shows signs of reduced charge time, though not by all that much. As "old tech" batteries go, it's still very impressive. However, once they start to go, the decline seems to pick up speed. So I want to be prepared. It would cost $66 dollars to send it in for a new battery. I don't know…maybe it would be the right path to take. It would be good to have a better sense of how long the unit itself will last, to know if it's worth battery replacement.

We have a terabyte external hard drive; everything is saved to it regularly enough, so if the iPod fails, I won't lose music the way I did the first two times, when my computer was so small it couldn't contain my music collection and still run properly. But I kind of want a new-in-the-box Classic waiting for me the day I need it, because how long will Apple continue to produce them? 

This is the kind of thought process you have as you get older and are, frankly, just a little tired of things changing, when the old thing worked perfectly well. I already don't ever want a new car, even though the CX-5 is such a little badass version of my first-year CX-9. But with cars, there are very good reasons to upgrade now and then; they do improve the technology in ways that benefit us. My music player just handily plays music I can't get on records, and does it anywhere I like. And it has enough space for huge files of things that need to sound glorious, like the Jonas Kauffman Wagner album. I'll occasionally buy improved headphone, speaker, and cable to transfer that sound to my ears, of course.  

I don't mind realizing this thought process is occurring more often. It's like when you realized you no longer needed to know every new band that came out, and later when you went back to buying a style of shoes you thought were comfortable twenty or thirty years ago.  It doesn't mean you gave up on whatever the world still has to offer, which is changing faster and faster, almost by the moment. Your view hasn't truly narrowed; it's just shifted focus. I mean, for a couple more decades, anyway. 

Here's my opera boyfriend Jonas talking about his new album. Just because, is all.  

Parsifal: Live from the Met

On Saturday we went to see Parsifal at the movie theater. The Met has been streaming a dozen operas live this season (for the sixth year,) so that they can be seen all over the world. The tickets are $22 each, really well worth it to see great performers and great music. But you do have to be in a theater with good sound. 

Of course, PBS has been airing a number of them each year, and you can see the general schedule here, if you scroll down a bit. Rigoletto, the one we saw two weeks ago, will air in May, and I'd recommend it for something unusual to enjoy. 

Parsifal is not one for the masses, and I don't mean that in any sort of snobbish sense. It's nearly 5 hours long in addition to the intermissions between acts, so that we were at the movie theater for 6 hours total. It's deep and at times very dark, okay, most times, and filled with symbolism and pain. 

So you have to love the music and the hugeness of the thing in order to really enjoy the experience. Wagner created enormous sounds that are quite overpowering at times, and they envelope your insides. 

Instead of just driving down to Newport, the man faithfully followed his GPS instructions, which took us some odd way around and we missed the opening by the host and in fact entered the theater just after the overture began. As there were only about 50 people in the theater, it wasn't difficult to just slip into some good seats without making commotion. The visual presentation of the overture was so gripping, I began thinking about how great it would be to see quite a lot of symphonic work represented visually. 

It's kind of how I like a lot of prog rock until someone starts "singing." I love the voices in this piece but if I could watch a whole symphony unfold on stage as the music played, I'd happily pay for the privilege. The works of Mahler in particular would lend themselves just beautifully to the idea. 

I like to paint jazz. I'd love to see someone act and move to orchestral music; not with dance, but with pantomime and imagery. 

At the first intermission, we got a snack from the concession stand and some beer from the bar. I had a local vanilla porter which was fine with a hot dog, but then kind of thin, finished on its own. And we moved to lesser seats because someone behind us had a knee-jiggling problem, I think, which made our seats vibrate all through the two hours of the first act.

The second act was intimate and absorbing. The third began too slowly for us but we enjoyed the culmination of the story very much. I felt sort of wrung out by the experience, yet very glad to have had it. 

One nice feature of these streaming events is that the host or hostess is an opera star, who introduces the acts, and conducts interviews with singers, the director, people who make it happen, etc., at the end of the first and second act and before the official 20 minute intermission. Also, because we are witnessing the production onscreen, we see varying (but conservative!) camera angles and closeups. Finally, the English words to the songs appear onscreen for those of us less than talented at interpreting German, Italian, and French as it is being sung. 

That is the "appeal to the masses" which some might find takes away from the purity of the event. But they have the wrong end of the stick. These productions were never meant by their composers to be elitist, and the more people they can reach, the better. It's just that you need a rather steely attention span to appreciate this particular offering. Read about it here.

I said it (all) before but it bears repeating now

I have three songs running through my heads; just bits of them, really. That one, "Creepin' up the Backstairs" by the Fratellis and something I woke up with in my head by Sharon, Lois and Bram that will take me a little time to identify, which goes, "How d'ya do? How d'ya do? How d'ya doodle oodle oodle oodle ooh, yeah!" but I'll remember it soon.

The point (insofaras one can be said to exist) is that it's now been over ten years since I started my blog. It wasn't this blog, but this is a direct descendent of it. The son and heir, if you will. (Of nothing in particular.) If you go back through the archives that far, it's kind of a mess. Things were different then. But it's mostly all here, at least text-wise. 

Anyway. In my head, all words are keywords for a song. Any word, spoken with some certain cadence or tone, will trigger a song for me. Rhythms of sound do that as well, but words are the main triggers. I've learned to calm that down by having a continual background soundtrack in my head, and it's probably why I ended up listening to so much jazz and lounge music. But lately I haven't been filtering it all very well, so it's a bit like one of those CD sample stations at Target inside my head right now, looping through oddities.

Last night I was reading some ten year-old entries and they struck me as so young. I mean, very few of them should be read with any eye toward seriousness. They were mostly intentionally silly. But even that, well, if I am intentionally silly now, it sounds very different. To me, at least. And I'd hate for someone to go back through them all and read it without hearing an arch (albeit unsophisticated) tone. But it's me, nonetheless.

"If I Knew You Were Comin' (I'd Have Baked a Cake)" is the Sharon, Lois & Bram song I woke up with. It isn't on YouTube, but by golly, Bobe Hope and Bing Crosby are. 

But if you have a sudden verve to hear every rendition of this song, be warned most of them are marked wrong and are the same singer. The one I like most (besides, I'm telling you, Sharon, Lois & Bram,) was by Georgia Gibbs & Max Kaminsky's Dixielanders.

Where were we? Um, what's changed in ten years? A little and a lot, but not actually much at all. If you see what I mean. Don't be so linear, okay? Let's keep things loose. A couple years ago I was seized by a burning love for Bill Holden which previously had been only a sort of idle attraction/admiration. So, that's a thing. Ten years ago I lived three miles from the Atlantic Ocean, now it's over 600. I weigh more. I'm much calmer. Those two things aren't meant to relate to each other, just be side by side.

 Ten years ago I was the pedantic bohemian, now someone else is. I was merbelle, and kind of still am. I was sylph, and Emily, and Greer, of course, and those two things do go together. Now I'm Lily and it seems I really am, but if I'd known that would going to happen, I might have worked at being Lena, instead. 

Do you think I am very, very shallow? Do you think I'm always laughing at life or at least at the people in it? Do you...equate being sincere with being serious?

When I was pregnant with my third daughter, who is now 21, the man tried to teach me to meditate, to turn off my endless running thoughts. He believed he failed. But that's not so. It was a very slow-burning lesson, perhaps. Some years later he got all into taoism and sucked the marrow out of that before moving on to the next thing, but I connected it to being pregnant with my daughter, quieting down, opening up, absorbing, resting, and letting go of urgency. However, when you have a lot of little kids and a sort of fickle living situation, it's so difficult to operate that way, slowing down time like a bird or a squirrel. 

Now I have the luxury of seeing the snow fall outside my window right now just as I choose; as individual flakes, or as a stream of moisture, or as mostly air with tiny infinitesimal interruptions to it, too tiny to matter until they all collect together at the surface of earth over my garden. 

And it's silly to have three songs in your head unless you consciously put them there to enjoy together. That's what I've learned over the past ten years. 

Shhh...

 

Posted at 09:18 AM in Essay, Music | Permalink | Comments (0)

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Two weeks ago for my date with myself, I spent a little time in an area called Mariemont. I will write less about it, less to say, but I'm looking forward to tomorrow's date and hope to spend more time out there in the world. 

I spoke of the serendipity of finding Quartet the same time I learned we could see Rigoletto, which we did last week; at the same time I "discovered" my new love Jonas Kaufmann and next week we are seeing him do Parsifal.

So who knows what tomorrow holds? 

The Mariemont theatre is pretty nice, and also is being updated so it should be even nicer soon.

I had a cup of lemon zinger tea, made with one of those little cup machines, and cinnamon-glazed pecans. The theatre was filled with old people who all had Junior Mints, I think. Right?

After the movie, I went to the Dilly Deli, which is a big deal around there, and had a salad with roasted squash, goat cheese and more pecans! The dressing was perfect; light, not acidic, exactly the right amount and balance.

Then I got a phone call saying my new glasses were in, so I drove way over to Costco to get them…

and then, but I have no photos, the boys and I drove way up to Montgomery to have a Very Cincinnati Evening; pizza at Dewey's, ice cream for them at Graeter's, and then we saw Identity Thief in a big newish multiplex. It was way more entertaining than I expected. Forgettable, but enjoyable. 

Last Friday night, the man still hadn't seen Quartet even though I ordered him to before we went to Rigoletto, so we went to Mariemont and had a very nice dinner at The National Exemplar,
and then saw the film. And then Rigoletto the next day, which was really fun. On Sunday evening we played Facts in Five, 70s edition, and that's related as well, but needs a separate post.

It's been an unusually busy month, even though I have not felt well for any of it. February and March are my toughest asthma months. This year is far worse than last. I am so tired of licorice root tea.

This week I've been redevoting myself to recordings of "Waters of March." Here's a fun one.

Waters Of March—Akiko + Corinne Drewery

 

The Best Is Yet To Come

I Wish I Were In Love Again

Witchcraft

 

There's so much I'm just blank about from those years. I had a good friend, Yvonne, and we hung out in Red Bank a lot, eventually meeting a strange guy named Russ who ran a very alternative kind of bookstore. He was moody and interesting and we all became friends for several years. Yvonne was pretty much a hippy, and I felt like Donna Reed next to her. But we clicked, and were best friends for a time. 

Simple Minds released Cry that year, and oh! I forgot to mention that in 2001, we saw Depeche Mode at Madison Square Garden. Dave Gahan was at the top of his game, and the whole show was pretty great. In the summer of 2002, I got front row seats to Simple Minds/INXS for the man and oldest daughter, and then we won two lawn seats, so I took the youngest daughter who was 11 at the time, and the middle one stayed home with the boys. After INXS played, we wormed our way down to the front where the others were. Both of us have cherished memories from that; we were right up against the stage, and Jim Kerr squeezed her hand. A few minutes later, he looked right into my eyes as he sang, well. It was a lovely moment. 

I think no one but me likes this song from that album, and it is a bit cheesy and derivative, but I don't care. He sounds super. 

 

I had a 13 year-old then. The other girls were 10 and 9. That influenced a lot of the music we heard and chose to listen to. Not just because of the radio, but whatever was on TV and in the movies, and at friends' houses. 

Not sure anything was bigger than this one...and I'm okay with that.

 

Here's another fun hit from 2000, which, well, kinda makes you think the world is okay, and it'll keep spinning along the way it always has.  

And I am pretty sure I heard this song every time I walked into the little grocery store closest to us, in Fair Haven. 
  

In 1993, I was training to ride a century, and was up to about 60 mile rides when I discovered I was pregnant again. I tried to keep it up for awhile, just to be in good shape, but all my pregnancies started with overwhelming nausea and heartburn which lasted for many weeks. 

We lived in a duplex at that time, in Olathe, Kansas. I planted my first tiny flower garden there, a ring of zinnias around a tree in the front yard. And we lived next door to a doctor and his wife and their adorable little girls. I learned a few good things from both of them. Our daughters had an inflatable pool in the backyard, and just around the corner was a little lake stocked with catfish that we would walk to. My oldest daughter was a Daisy Scout that year, and I helped out with the troop. 

The second daughter was chosen to be a "typical" in a preschool for children with developmental delays. We took her to a sort of tryout and were told that all the kids who passed it would be put into a pool, and names would be drawn for the four openings. But when we got home, there was an immediate phone call saying they wanted her especially for it. It was a great program for her to be in, though I hadn't even intended to send her to preschool. So I had mornings with my youngest daughter, who was passing through an odd screaming stage, and it was all fairly peaceful at home, with the man cycling every day to Westport to work at an ad agency.

At that time, and briefly, college rock was modern rock, and this is one of my favorites from that year. More on 1993 at a later time.
 .

That last #lilialesbirthdaycountdown was a bit serious, eh? Oh well, whatever, never mind, on to 1992. ;-)

Some favorite albums from that year, among plenty of other good ones:

The Church: Priest=Aura
Peter Murphy: Holy Smoke
Nirvana: Smells Like Teen Spirit

1989-1992 was so important to me musically, I think I'll compile a "best of" track listing a little later on, sharing a bit more here or there. 

I still enjoy Wish by The Cure, though it isn't one of my favorites. I was going to share "High" or "Open," but really, this is my favorite song from that year, and I still find it dead-sexy after twenty years.

The Sweetest Drop

My Bi-Weekly Cincinnati Outing: Report #2

Two weeks ago for my date with myself, I spent a little time in an area called Mariemont. I will write less about it, less to say, but I'm looking forward to tomorrow's date and hope to spend more time out there in the world. 

I spoke of the serendipity of finding Quartet the same time I learned we could see Rigoletto, which we did last week; at the same time I "discovered" my new love Jonas Kaufmann and next week we are seeing him do Parsifal.

So who knows what tomorrow holds? 

The Mariemont theatre is pretty nice, and also is being updated so it should be even nicer soon.

I had a cup of lemon zinger tea, made with one of those little cup machines, and cinnamon-glazed pecans. The theatre was filled with old people who all had Junior Mints, I think. Right?

After the movie, I went to the Dilly Deli, which is a big deal around there, and had a salad with roasted squash, goat cheese and more pecans! The dressing was perfect; light, not acidic, exactly the right amount and balance.

Then I got a phone call saying my new glasses were in, so I drove way over to Costco to get them…

and then, but I have no photos, the boys and I drove way up to Montgomery to have a Very Cincinnati Evening; pizza at Dewey's, ice cream for them at Graeter's, and then we saw Identity Thief in a big newish multiplex. It was way more entertaining than I expected. Forgettable, but enjoyable. 

Last Friday night, the man still hadn't seen Quartet even though I ordered him to before we went to Rigoletto, so we went to Mariemont and had a very nice dinner at The National Exemplar,
and then saw the film. And then Rigoletto the next day, which was really fun. On Sunday evening we played Facts in Five, 70s edition, and that's related as well, but needs a separate post.

It's been an unusually busy month, even though I have not felt well for any of it. February and March are my toughest asthma months. This year is far worse than last. I am so tired of licorice root tea.

This week I've been redevoting myself to recordings of "Waters of March." Here's a fun one.

Waters Of March—Akiko + Corinne Drewery

 

That certain feeling, Sinatra edition

The Best Is Yet To Come

I Wish I Were In Love Again

Witchcraft

 

liliales birthday countdown: 2002

There's so much I'm just blank about from those years. I had a good friend, Yvonne, and we hung out in Red Bank a lot, eventually meeting a strange guy named Russ who ran a very alternative kind of bookstore. He was moody and interesting and we all became friends for several years. Yvonne was pretty much a hippy, and I felt like Donna Reed next to her. But we clicked, and were best friends for a time. 

Simple Minds released Cry that year, and oh! I forgot to mention that in 2001, we saw Depeche Mode at Madison Square Garden. Dave Gahan was at the top of his game, and the whole show was pretty great. In the summer of 2002, I got front row seats to Simple Minds/INXS for the man and oldest daughter, and then we won two lawn seats, so I took the youngest daughter who was 11 at the time, and the middle one stayed home with the boys. After INXS played, we wormed our way down to the front where the others were. Both of us have cherished memories from that; we were right up against the stage, and Jim Kerr squeezed her hand. A few minutes later, he looked right into my eyes as he sang, well. It was a lovely moment. 

I think no one but me likes this song from that album, and it is a bit cheesy and derivative, but I don't care. He sounds super. 

 

liliales birthday countdown: 2000 music memories

I had a 13 year-old then. The other girls were 10 and 9. That influenced a lot of the music we heard and chose to listen to. Not just because of the radio, but whatever was on TV and in the movies, and at friends' houses. 

Not sure anything was bigger than this one...and I'm okay with that.

 

Here's another fun hit from 2000, which, well, kinda makes you think the world is okay, and it'll keep spinning along the way it always has.  

And I am pretty sure I heard this song every time I walked into the little grocery store closest to us, in Fair Haven. 
  

liliales birthday countdown: 1993

In 1993, I was training to ride a century, and was up to about 60 mile rides when I discovered I was pregnant again. I tried to keep it up for awhile, just to be in good shape, but all my pregnancies started with overwhelming nausea and heartburn which lasted for many weeks. 

We lived in a duplex at that time, in Olathe, Kansas. I planted my first tiny flower garden there, a ring of zinnias around a tree in the front yard. And we lived next door to a doctor and his wife and their adorable little girls. I learned a few good things from both of them. Our daughters had an inflatable pool in the backyard, and just around the corner was a little lake stocked with catfish that we would walk to. My oldest daughter was a Daisy Scout that year, and I helped out with the troop. 

The second daughter was chosen to be a "typical" in a preschool for children with developmental delays. We took her to a sort of tryout and were told that all the kids who passed it would be put into a pool, and names would be drawn for the four openings. But when we got home, there was an immediate phone call saying they wanted her especially for it. It was a great program for her to be in, though I hadn't even intended to send her to preschool. So I had mornings with my youngest daughter, who was passing through an odd screaming stage, and it was all fairly peaceful at home, with the man cycling every day to Westport to work at an ad agency.

At that time, and briefly, college rock was modern rock, and this is one of my favorites from that year. More on 1993 at a later time.
 .

liliales birthday countdown: 1992

That last #lilialesbirthdaycountdown was a bit serious, eh? Oh well, whatever, never mind, on to 1992. ;-)

Some favorite albums from that year, among plenty of other good ones:

The Church: Priest=Aura
Peter Murphy: Holy Smoke
Nirvana: Smells Like Teen Spirit

1989-1992 was so important to me musically, I think I'll compile a "best of" track listing a little later on, sharing a bit more here or there. 

I still enjoy Wish by The Cure, though it isn't one of my favorites. I was going to share "High" or "Open," but really, this is my favorite song from that year, and I still find it dead-sexy after twenty years.

The Sweetest Drop