robins and convenient surroundings

This week has been all about being saved by my surroundings. I don't mean this in any life or death sense, but just in the simple realization that sometimes thing really are easier than they appear if you just notice what's nearby.

On Monday I got to work only to remember that I had an extra rehearsal that evening for dance - just a quick hour - but I hadn't remembered any dance clothes. I realized I could get away with my shirt, so it was just the bottom half that was missing. I popped into Ragstock 15 minutes before rehearsal started that night and found the only pair of stretch pants they had in the place - one pair, in one size, which happened to fit, and happened to cost $1.06 including tax. My apparel brain wasn't functioning much better today. I went into rehearsal in the morning with all my dance clothes in tow but got there and realized I'd forgotten a bra to wear for the rest of the day. With a smart recommendation from L I popped into Wintersilks after rehearsal, during my quick walk to the bus stop and found a black lacy bra/cami that fit perfectly (didn't bother to try it on, but hey, it's stretch) marked down for a total of a whopping $5.25.

I love State Street.

I'm starting to think I should take after Candy and post bruise shots. I put on an outfit the other day and realized it not only made visible, but perfectly accented the three bruises I had going at the time. In addition to "appreciate your surroundings" week (easy solutions AND real warm weather and leaf buds and ROBINS) it's also been "let the body heal" week. I did a photo shoot last week for the advanced photo students out at MATC. They wanted some dancers so they could work on catching motion and up in the air bits. 4 hours later my back was voicing displeasure. By Sunday I was alternately getting a few things done and laying flat out on the couch asking for things to be brought to me (when they were mere feet away). Feeling a bit better today.

I'll post a few pics once I get them back if any of them want posting...

I'll have to go find some nice sun-warmed grass to lay on and let my back finish unknitting itself tomorrow!

all kinds of spray

Today we finally went out to do a new photo shoot (about time). It's always good motivation when you were supposed to have a new photo to a festival *yesterday* (that's the mythical yesterday that means it was already supposed to have happened regardless of actual dates and times of requests). We had some great lighting as we were getting on toward sunset:



...but the wind was a bit of a bear:



Holy action shot, Batman!

Those shots were taken mere moments apart. I think mostly what we got were some great templates of shots we want to reshoot in kinder wind. There are a few where Sheila looks just like (name any model with big long hair) in those hairspray ads where they're trying to prove that you can do anything with their product. I am now convinced that all those shots are bunk and are just done in a wind tunnel.

A few minutes ago I ran down to the corner store. I love having a corner store I can run down to. (I did actually drive somewhere today but I also love the fact that I drive rarely enough that I was clueless about the leaning toward $2.70 pump prices a friend retched about today.) But the real point here is that I love having a corner store. Some odd guy came in while I was in there and my first instinct was to make myself semi-invisible. He mumbled a few things at the person who runs the place - asking him to make change or something like that - and headed out again. I reappeared from the back of the store about to ask the owner a question about cough medicine only to find that he was wielding a can of Lysol over the entire airspace on the customer side of the counter. If it was enough to make the owner of a corner store try to instantly disinfect, I'm glad I was given the option of breathing in freshly sprayed Lysol instead.

Trompe L'Oeil

What a funny way for the pavement to erode! ;-)
A co-worker recently passed this my way. The website is a bit rough, but the pictures are great. The artist (Julian Beever) has his own site too, with most of the same pictures. I love this sort of thing - especially in a city where your can make it feel less like a city, or less like you have a brick wall straight out your "window." Or now that I'm getting into this, there are also these, which are pretty trippy.

My cousins have done some fabulous paintings of this sort on the walls of their various abodes - I'll have to ask about a few of those pictures again. I remember them as being just amazing.

It's been a week of recovery around here. (...a quiet week in Lake Wobegon.) The house is too quiet and the chairs are too cold.

Fuzzy pictures

I've fixed the pictures in Fionn's post, so you can scroll on down the page or see them in their own glory.

To make a full day of updating older posts, you can also now see the rest of the Irtrad-L thread about singing in languages other than your native. The navigation isn't very clear, but at the top of the page there's a back and forward arrow first, and then another set of back and forward arrows with what looks like a lightbulb (?) next to each one. That set is the one that will take you through the whole thread. Non-thrilling content disclaimer: Not much came of it in the end...

It's a beautiful sunny Lá Féile Phádraig here in Madison. Which at least makes all yesterday's snow beautiful if not entirely warm.

Sled dogs

The Iditarod race finished up this week with a fellow winning for the fourth time. I had to laugh when I heard the announcement that in addition to his cash prize he also is awarded a new truck. I get that when they're not actually racing they have an amazing amount of stuff that they have to transport all over the place, but I still find it hilarious that a race devoted to transport by way of dog gives away a shiny new gas-powered beast.

Technical difficulties: I failed in my picture posting attempt with my last post, and considering it was mostly pictures that's a bit sad. I'll tweak it this evening, so come back and see the real thing!

Thanks, Fuzzy

I've had a chance to tell most of you who knew him well, so now I think I can finally talk about it here. It was a bad weekend.

On Friday night A and I had to make the decision to have Fionn put to sleep. He would have turned 5 this summer. Fionn was a rescue cat - I was reminded by C that among other possible horrors I rescued him from his name given by the kind people at the Humane Society - Giovanni. (Apologies to all the Giovannis out there - it just wasn't right.) He jumped up on my lap in the meet-the-cats room at the Humane Society and started purring and knocking his head into mine. He was gregarious, and made people who didn't think they liked cats fall in love. He led a good short life.

Here he is with S and me, not long after he came home. (Note the nail polish - this secures the fact that it was just post-Halloween.) He loved to be held in any position... sideways, right side-up, upside-down, all 3 in quick succession, as long as he was in contact.




He had the chance to marvel at German snowflakes.




He helped me edit my masters thesis.



He charmed a big hulking heavy-stuff-mover at the Frankfurt airport. I was moving back home and had two enormous bags, a large cardboard box, a backpack, and Fionn. I could just barely pretend to manage all of it and a very kind airport hefter came to my aid moving everything through one of the screener machines for me. I was quite nervous about Fionn and all my things and suddenly couldn't see the man anywhere. I realized he was crouched down with his nose to Fionn's cage making cooing noises through the wires.

Fionn perfected the art of couch-diving.







We think Fionn was probably never properly weaned, since his greatest comfort was sleeping on top of a person, sucking on their shirt. He would just close his eyes and look like all was right with the world.

He was always happiest close to the action. Fionn had his own straight-backed chair in the living room here and whenever there were guests he was most likely to be found sitting on it paying close attention to the conversation. (Sounds like stories of me when I was a baby, when I was happiest falling asleep on a blanket in the middle of the floor when my parents were still up and especially if there were guests.)




We shared a love of nooks and books.




He was a good reminder of how to relax.






He listened nearby when I played flute and as with everything else, was totally curious. I remember for the first few months when he was still small and not so used to the sound, he would climb up on the nearest chair or table and put a paw over onto my knee and stick his face right across the embouchure from my nose to see where the sound was coming from.




A mechanical metronome was total fascination.




Bags and boxes were always to be investigated (yes, he is in all 3 pictures).




I'll miss being greeted at the door every day, and having him lay across my arms every time I work with my laptop on my lap.

Thanks, Fuzzy.

happy feet

Well, at least they're on their way to being happy feet. The Kanopy show weekend is past and as always there's a little necessary space of letting my body find center again. I tweaked my foot badly on Saturday night but with tape, ice & ibu I was able to do the Sunday show. R took a good look at it before the show and said it was the sort of thing he'd seen heal quickly in the past. I was dubious after my 4 month healing process when I bruised my ankle bones & tissue last summer, but it's feeling lots lots better now. Not 100% but close enough that I forget about it most of the time.

To give you an idea of how out of it I was yesterday, I called around lunch time to see if I could still register for the Bill T Jones masterclass scheduled for the evening. It wasn't until about 2 hours later that I realized I didn't have 2 feet to dance on. Oy. Tonight is the BTJ show at the Overture though, so if I couldn't dance last night at least I can watch tonight!

enormous, but not overwhelming

Inhabitat recently posted a single shelf bookshelf from an Amsterdam-based design house called Studio Frederik Roije. (Not re-posted here, but it's the first thing you see on the sfr site.) That one was a bit severe-feeling for me to put it in my own space, even though I like the design idea. Digging around the rest of their designs I found this (picture below) more extensive bookshelf called 'long legs.' The amazing thing to me about this design is that the space looks so open for having such a huge piece of furniture in it.

It's a cool modern piece but it reminds me of some of the intricate Asian wood patterns ( -> ) where the lines are all very clean (well spaced, horizontal & vertical only), but they can start and stop unexpectedly.

[edited for picture clarity - Fri afternoon]

doing justice

I keep a loose eye on a listserv called IRTRAD-L. It devolves into scrappiness every so often like too many listservs. I ignore those bits as best I can and keep my eyes open for (very subjective) interesting discussions and news of new good music/musicians I should find. I have probably made 3 posts in the many years I've been subscribed. This morning I posted #4 to the list in response to a question about songs and singing in languages other than your own. Given what I've been up to for the last 7 years I could hardly keep quiet...

Original question to the list:

All,
Can a singers do justice to a song in a language that they are not fully fluent in (Irish) - and can a listener who does not understand that language (Irish) appreciate that song as anything other than a 'nice sound' - presuming, of course, that it has been sung skillfully enough?
Best,
Jim

My reply:

Good heavens I hope so. Anecdotal evidence in favor:

I grew up in the States and started learning Irish a decade ago. Fully fluent is pushing it but I have good conversational ability. I sing with a small group (just 3 of us). We do songs in Irish, Scottish, Manx, Welsh, Cornish and Breton. For years we've sung Griogal Cridh' - mostly to American audiences who have no knowledge of Scottish. We sang a set including that song at a small intimate dinner a few years back where we weren't introducing the songs at all. Later in the evening a woman came to talk to us asking to tell her about "that song." With a bit of singing partial lines we realized she meant Griogal. She had no Scottish (or Irish, etc) and had never heard it before but understood easily that it was a strong lament, and it had reduced her to tears.

I like to think we do justice to that song and many others, and I know that, while it's a different experience than listening to a song in your own language, people can have a deeper experience than thinking they've heard a "nice sound."

Music is it's own language and any song sung is really in two languages - the language of the music and that of the words. None of us would argue that instrumental pieces can draw out emotion, but I think there is an extra element when lyrics are sung. The human voice can convey quite a lot, even if it isn't a Babel fish.

Respectfully,

Elizabeth

I'm fearful of the responses devolving into a tradition/purist snipe-fest, but if they don't it could come to be an interesting set of posts to have around - hopefully good for all of us who didn't grow up in the Gaeltacht.

Dark Nights

It's into full swing now for Kanopy tech week (well, that would be tech night, dress night, opening night through 5 shows), so my posts will probably be a bit more sporadic even than usual. Or maybe there will be lots of them but they'll all be short and odd. You'll just have to keep an eye on your RSS feed to find out!

The show is called Dark Nights. Appropriate for the show and the time we get out of the theater at night. Actually pretty good for the time get into the theater at night! It's all rock music played on cellos but don't be afraid if you don't like old heavy metal - the melodies are beautiful and cellos really bring them out.

This morning was a great cool theater ghosts experience: I got to the theater a little before 10. We knew it would be open and had planned a short class/show tweaking session. The room was empty with low lights on when I came in. No sign of anyone. No worries, I was a bit early (which in Kanopy terms means I didn't sleep in nearly long enough). I came into this lovely peaceful room - beautiful wood and a big empty stage. And just as I set my bag down on the floor I hear just a few notes, very quiet. I realize what I'm hearing is the start of a piece from the second part of the show (windows media file from Amazon). But who started it? Where did it come from? Everything was dark in the control rooms, so I just hung out with the ghosts for about half an hour. Very cool way to start a day.

Off to pack up a bag full of little portable snacks... hot spicy V8 anyone?

a tank full of guppies

Last night I went with C to see the New Pornographers at the Barrymore. It was supposed to be three of us but unfortunately A was swamped so we had a spare ticket. The show was a make-up from last October when they had to cancel due to one of the band members having his appendix "explode in anticipation" as they described it last night. The fact that it was a make-up, and the fact that they're just cool meant that the show was sold out. C & I arrived after the doors were opened and there were a few people standing around outside but on a short glance I thought they were just smokers (ah, happy current Madison legislation). I walked up to the door and turned around and asked if anyone needed a ticket and it was like opening up a fish tank when the fish are starving.

The show was fabulous. I was prepared to be mostly really impressed by them, but only mostly since Neko Case wasn't with them. I am not a longtime fan of either Neko or the NP but I'm taken with her voice, and liked some of what I've heard of NP. Turns out I was totally impressed. Kathryn Calder was doing (a fabulous job with) the vocal lines Neko usually has, and out of 6 people on stage 4 had vocal mics (most often being used simultaneously). The really impressive thing though was to see how tight they were on stage. So together. So rehearsed. So easy going and powerful. The played strong live versions of most of Twin Cinema (including a great more energetic version of Streets of Fire than the one on CD), a very cool Testament to Youth in Verse & The Laws Have Changed from EV, and a standout The Body Says No (or maybe I just like that song). Yes I looked up all of that songX on albumY bit because even though I recognized lots, no, I couldn't have told you a song name yesterday. I'm fully converted.

The other yay surprise for the evening was the opening music. I didn't go in so much for the first act but the second act (self-labeled "meat in an awesome rock sandwich") was a group I'd heard about a while back and meant to look up but then forgot about. Hate it when that happens. But thanks to A so wanting to see this show (poor fellow) I found them again - Matt Pond PA. Go! Find. Contented mellow-rhythmic-melodic indie with a very engaging voice. Happy. I bought a CD. I can't remember the last time I bought a real CD. I've gone totally digital lately but I love the feeling of selling a CD at a show - it feels like such direct appreciation. So I own it. Of course I ripped it within minutes of arriving home. :-)

mmm, soft curvy silicone

Score one for smart design. My dream is a day when wireless is totally ubiquitous. I mean everything - data transfer, headphones, powercables, audio connections - for every piece of equipment I own. Not there yet, obviously (that wireless power transfer will be the cool one). In the meantime, if you have to have cords: Smartwraps & Syncwraps are my next favorite silicone product - I'd gotten stuck in kitchens for a while. Isn't it nice that we can all talk about silicone now without...

(If any of you local types decide this is a must have and make plans to order one or a few let me know and I'll split shipping with you!)

Tonight for dinner I had one of my most favorite weird foods: purple basil jelly. Mmmm. French bread with honey goat cheese & purple basil jelly. I was totally dubious the first time I saw the stuff.

Winter!

Last night we went sledding with Todd & Erin at the park just over the hill behind the church across the street (whew!). It's a great sledding hill - one big woomp in the middle to go flying over, and then it bottoms out at the very frozen lake. Some people had built a little jump over to the right, but since there's an enormous beautiful tree just at the lake shore beyond the jump we stuck to the open streak on the left. Besides there was another group using the classic cardboard-box-sides-as-snowboards trying to go over the jump (they couldn't get enough momentum going to have the tree be any danger).

After the usual four hour Saturday rehearsal at Kanopy yesterday morning, and the very cold walk to get there after missing my bus, I thought I had really probably worn myself out enough for one day (it takes a lot of energy to descend into total insanity twice). But of course little local sledding hills aren't as well-endowed as Elver Park where I went sledding every winter when we first moved to Madison as a little kid. At Elver we had a tow rope. I remember this especially for one time when I was getting myself dragged up the tow rope and lost my feet and ended up with my chin sliding over said rope. Nasty rope burn! But of course we had no tow rope last night so it was headed toward another full decent into insanity until we abandoned for Jolly Bob's. Nothing like sledding and Caribbean cocktails to make a perfect winter day.

dragons make everything better

My plan here is to rave happily about commercials. This fact alone should confuse you. I detest commercials. Not seeing a lot of ads (read, not watching much TV at all) is part of how I keep my sanity. Most advertising doesn't have any respect for the person seeing the ad, as witnessed by the use of phrases like "big sale," "no payments for X," "special," and "best ever," and the depressing scream-at-people-long-enough-and-they'll-buy-your-stuff attitude.

This sort of thing is the only thing that makes me tire watching the Olympics. If it was just sports coverage I'd be sunk, happily settled into my couch. But with all the ad breaks I start to get a feeling of not having nearly enough silence around me. Too much input. But I promised happy raving and haven't gotten there yet so here goes:

There is a beautiful commercial from United Airlines playing during the Olympic coverage. I've had some travel issues with United. Lots of them actually. So an add that makes me feel contented about that company is impressive. It's a stop-animation piece of a little kid dreaming about what his dad is doing while he's gone on a business trip. United has both the commercial and a making-of short movie available on their site. The 'making of' bit is worth all of its 6 or 7 minutes. Jamie Caliri, who directed it, is the kind of person I love working with (not that I get to work with him) - totally in love with what he does. It also turns out he's the same person who did the fabulous closing sequences for "A Series of Unfortunate Events."

There's still too much in the way of life-sucking commercials, but things like this are a big dose of clear air and sunshine.

more keyboard (heaven?)

This one is 180 degrees off of the last keyboard I posted about - your grandmother's keyboard so to speak.

The description from the designer:

"This retro decorative tablecloth contains a textile keyboard. The electronic is woven into a fabric, which finds itself between layers of water resistant felt as sandwich material. The TIDY TIPIST NO.2 is washable."

Such a great concept. (Ergonomics? Who knows...) I think it's something related to the way it looks funny to see things like fabric or crumpled sheets of notebook paper on a computer monitor. My next design reminder:

"Things don't need to look modern to be new and innovative."

I suppose this is officially DesignReminder #2. For the unlabelled DesignReminder #1 see Image Interpretations.

This snowstorm is beautiful. I've enjoyed the warm but I miss the big beautiful snows too. Of course the last time we had a big snow my bus home took more than an hour (usually about 20 minutes). Today at work they sent out all the administrative emails about what you're supposed to do if you decide it's not safe for you to travel to work. But I'll stick with the beauty thoughts for now.

snif

It's official - I have the current "thing" ...stomach, throat, sniffles, sleepy. I didn't realize it was a thing until today when I found someone else who has the same "thing." Time to take a cue from Fionn who is currently snoozing on the back of the couch.

A bit of beauty:



This is a small bit out of a beautiful collection of pictures

(found thanks to BLDGBLOG)

high resolution Torino

If you haven't developed an addiction to Google Earth yet, this should pull you in. A few days ago Google added high resolution imagery around Torino along with a detailed road network. The Official Google Blog has the link to the Google Earth file with all of the venues marked. I spent a while last night panning around and tilting to see the mountains.

Today is International Fest and Navan has a set there mid-afternoon. Until then I'm planning to hang out with a lot of tea and see if I can start into this very small knitting project I found last weekend when Adam and I went for a drive in the country and found ourselves at the Sow's Ear. Considering I haven't done this in a while it may end up more of an entertainment for Fionn.

Side rant:

I can't believe that NBC is showing the Nascar qualifying race for 2 hours today when it would normally be doing Olympic coverage. That should be part of the deal for winning the Olympic contract: any non-Olympic sporting events normally broadcast by the network should be redistributed to other networks during the two week span of the Olympics. Gr!

Jim = Fred?

I'm fascinated by Jim Lampley. Apparently he's done Olympic coverage in quite a few previous Olympics but he didn't stick with me, and I just don't watch enough boxing to know. If I only listen to his voice I totally understand why he's in broadcasting. And I suppose he's the perfect picture of a talking head, but there's just something odd. He most reminds me of Mike LaFontaine (Fred Willard) from A Mighty Wind (Not there yet? If you've seen it, "Wha' Happened?" should do it for you.) It's something in the cut of his face and the over zealous jaw work.




Yes?

This is an older picture of Jim, but for this Olympics he has a very coiffed thing going on in a salt and pepper that is so perfect it looks like they dyed in both the dark and the grey bits. When he had on a pinstripe suit for the opening ceremonies commentary last night it was a bit too much - sort of a stripey zoo animal from top to waist! He was wisely in plain dark grey this afternoon.

Found a few great mapping bits this afternoon but I'll get around to those another time. For now it's back to watching the end of Il Postino :-)

Tags:

• olympics

non-meme-ing

I feel after two meme-ish posts some real content is in order. In a little over an hour the NBC coverage of the Olympics starts and I've caved completely. I can go for months without seeing something on broadcast TV (excluding the games we have people over for now and again, a happy social symptom of having a projector) but I can easily predict that the next two weeks will be total abandonment of that lifestyle. I like all the sappy human interest stories. I like the pop music transitions as the broadcast skips between events. I like the glory. I love the athleticism. It's just rare to get to watch so many people all at the top of their game - focused on this one point in their life for years.

In local life, Kanopy has the entire next show choreographed and just in need of cleaning and lots of runs - and the shows are three weeks away. This feels like a fabulous gift - a very comfortable position. I really like how this show is coming together, and it feels good to dance. It's interesting to see how much it all hangs together considering there are 6 choreographers for various songs in the evening-length work.

Last night Navan tested out a new studio. Apparently this is a comfortable week for arts - we had a good test. It was easy to sing there and the rough mix down sounded good. It's a bit pricier than we were hoping for, but we'll see what we decide. In the unexpected break from recording we've sorted out a few more arrangements for things we were planning for the album.

A short correction: When I chatted a good few posts back about Olympic design I used Turin instead of Torino. This is a personal pet peeve of mine (is 'personal' redundant there?) - Places get renamed in other languages for no good reason. I know it's sometimes for ease of pronunciation, or because the original language uses a different alphabet. But it happens too often for no good reason. Classic example: Hannover in Germany, Hanover (when referring to the German city) in the US. Oy. So, up Torino!

Fionn has taken up his usual "your fingers are paying too much attention to that keyboard" position across my forearms so I think I'll quit for now, give him a bit of attention, and take a shower before the opening ceremonies start!

I'm a bit slow...

I'm not always so quick to cop on, as witnessed by my ignorance of having been tagged by Candy for the 4things meme.

Back to the OED: meme - A cultural element or behavioural trait whose transmission and consequent persistence in a population, although occurring by non-genetic means (esp. imitation), is considered as analogous to the inheritance of a gene. Word made up by Richard Dawkins in 1976. You're in good company, Candy.

Four jobs you have had in your life:
1. CD store (how to define... in a small music shop you do it all... sell, restock, clean)
2. waitress at a Pizzeria Uno
3. database designer on a statewide radon monitoring project
4. web & graphic designer

Four movies you would watch over and over:
1. LOTR (how's that for the obvious answer?)
2. Harry Potter - these are like comfort food... perfect if sick or snoozy
3. The Never-Ending Story (first movie I ever saw in a theatre - the Al Ringling Theatre!)
4. Braveheart
(I'm sure I'll think of the other one's I meant to list later...)

Four places you have lived:
1. Madison, WI
2. Dublin, Ireland
3. Hannover, Germany
4. Boston, MA

Four TV shows you watch:
Not so much with the TV watching, but we definitely get shows from NetFlix... but then they sort of feel more like short movies, so here are the ones we've gotten this year
1. Deadwood
2. Firefly
3. Millennium
4. Six Feet Under

(And as much of the Olympics as I can catch, but that hardly counts as a show - more like a portal in the TV. I should probably also admit to my 1st season addiction to Project Runway.)

Four places you have been on vacation
1. Donegal
2. northern corner of France
3. Italy
4. Sanibel Island

Four websites you visit daily:
1. NYTimes
2. BLDG BLOG
3. Delicious Days
4. Jumping at the Ground and Missing

Four favourite foods:
1. chocolate chip cookies (but only the ones from the recipe I grew up on)
2. fresh summer garden tomatoes
3. poached salmon
4. basted eggs on toast

Four places I would rather be right now:
1. Donegal
2. Sienna
3. a warm island (what can I say, it's winter in Wisconsin)
4. anywhere outside of a city (forest, meadow, river, mountain, grass, canoe, trail)

Four bloggers I am tagging:
1. Wee Beasties (maybe 2 tags will get her, huh Candy?)
2. Grand Marnier (but I think she got swallowed by school)
3. the secret blogger (you know who you are!)
4. oy - anyone else out there I know have a blog going?