With children--Friday night and Saturday morning sees us helping YD prepare, in every sense of the word, for her two weeks with grandpa and horse-riding camp in Virginia. The trip to and from Logan is mercifully non-eventful, and the airport interlude is not particularly stressful. Nonetheless, we collectively collapse for most of the afternoon upon our return.
Sunday, and OD's turn to shove off for camp. With deep breaths and a borrowed cellphone, we head off on Route 2 in the Ford Torturous...and, yes, everything's fine. OD quickly finds half a dozen camp mates from last year, and our departure barely registers. We stop off in Shelburne Falls for a rendezvous with Me Mum, and a lighter-than-expected dinner, as the cafe inexplicably ran short on several menu items. Oh well. The ride back is a wonderful reminder of how gratifying adult conversation is, especially when unfettered by the presence of youth with ears a-burning. Without children--Three vacation days, spent in a leisurely paced relax-work-relax mode. There's a deadline to finish our household rearranging, but not a firm time-frame by which we toil, making the experience quite pleasant, thanks.
...like on Monday, when we take the opportunity for a couple of viewings:
*"Lucky Numbers" -- personal points for being set in Harrisburg, Pa., where my paternal grandmother lived for some years. This tale of a minor TV celebrity's attempt to scam the Pennsylvania lottery has some charms: John Travolta (whose close-cropped hair makes his facial features seem larger than normal) is at his unctuous best; hearing Lisa Kudrow spout profanities takes a little getting used to, she holds up pretty well; and the tangled alliances these two form neatly walk the line between pathetic and hilarious. But somehow the movie doesn't feel as funny as it should -- the dialogue doesn't help much, nor does the performance of Bill Pullman as the Laziest Cop in the World.
*"The Net" -- for a little while, anyway, the mainstream film industry standard-bearer for neo-Luddite, anti-tech paranoia -- if, of course, you can believe Sandra Bullock as a reclusive computer geek or accept the tech application and theory on display. What differentiates this, and not in a bad way, necessarily, from similar movies is that the love-interest betrayal happens early on instead of at the end, and there is never a face-to-face encounter with the Ultimate Evil Mastermind character.
July 5
*I escort OD and friend Jake to the weekly contra dance in Cambridge, the first such event I've been to in years. It's a treat rediscovering the little social mores and quirks of the dance scene: gauging how energetically you should swing the person you're with; the dynamics of eye contact on swings, gypsies and doh-se-dohs; and the implied, instant intimacy that comes with partnering up spontaneously. Much more of a treat, though, was to have OD ask me to dance, and to see how easily and enthusiastically she's taken to it -- to the point where she feels empowered to critique the performances of her various dance partners. Sometimes, I really think there may be hope for these teenage years.
*Some recent musical acquisitions:
==Nick Drake, "Fruit Tree" -- Much like Anne Briggs (q.v.), Drake found his muse difficult to channel, at least in ways that brought him joy and satisfaction. Unlike Briggs, however, he could not find a way to ultimately master, or at least live with, this shortfall. But his songs, while ranging from somber to bleak, have a quiet dignity to them. There's also an occasional glimpse of an almost child-like hopefulness: "I was raised to love magic." His voice, so wistful and fragile, was as perfectly suited as his 1960s-London-style guitar accompaniment.
==Kat yn 't Seil, "Liereliet" -- A Dutch group I saw a few years back at Old Songs, featuring lovely close-harmony vocals. One revelation from this album: hearing Dutch sea chanteys.
==Various, "Nordic Roots 2" -- Having been suitably impressed with the first volume, I couldn't help but snap this one up. Highlights: "Wild Honey" by Boot, with driving, intricate rhythms underneath a superbly rendered fiddle; the Scandinavian-Celtic meshing of Swap; and the fortifying vocals of Varttina.
July 4
*A bit of community service enlivens our Fourth, as we volunteer to collect donations at the town Independence Day Fair for the local community playground project in which we participated some years ago, just after moving to Our Community. OD and YD were a little dubious at the prospect of chasing down fair-goers, but then we hit upon the idea of adding a face-painting division to our labors. They wound up working two hours past their scheduled shift, earning the appreciation of that day's crew chief. Funny how a low-tech activity like face-painting still attracts such interest among kids, both those who paint and those who receive: Maybe it's the appeal of a temporary "new identity," or the sanctioned application of colors and designs upon one's person...or maybe Dennis Rodman and Allen Iverson have that much more to answer for.
*Evening, and we repair to our friends for their annual barbeque, right near the fireworks staging area. Both events are somewhat diminished this year (then again, our friends had two of their kids at camp). But it made for peaceful, easy-going conversation with some other fellow parents we hadn't seen in a while.
*My long-time friends in Northern Ireland have joined the e-mail crowd, thanks to their granddaughter, so I look forward to far more regular exchanges.
*The car, incidentally, is apparently in good working order. The mechanic's diagnosis for our problems of last week was that vague, and therefore unsettling phenomenon vapor lock.
July 3
Scandal in Denver: Newspaper columnist picks up gossip that some employees in corporation which bought naming rights for the city's new football stadium refer to the structure as "The Diaphragm" (and, no, it has nothing to do with singing). Corporation head is now threatening to sue, his denial bearing uncanny resemblance to traditional disclaimer "We didn't raise our boy to use language like that."
June 30-July 1
*After a one-day reprieve, back comes the tropical weather, prompting us to reprise our heat-emergency status (i.e., close off family and master bedrooms from rest of apartment and activate the AC). OD spends fairly quiet weekend trying to shake off bug, but she, along with YD, seem to have also been infected with a yen for Christine Lavin. Score one for parental values.
*Sunday includes a visit by Shay and me with childhood friend, now living Out West with her 9-year-old daughter but temporarily eastward to spend some time with her mother in New York. We shepherd the younger ones to the Children's Museum, and to catch up with one another: She's married for the third time, and carefully navigating the blended-family waters as well as cultural differences. But everyone is doing very well, and deservedly so.
June 29
So, one group of scientists have figured out how fireflies work, and another group think they can develop a non-allergenic cat. And yet another chalks up the already partly-debunked Loch Ness Monster legend to geological activity. Guess they've already figured why fools fall in love, too.
June 28
Well, to quote Mr. Pither, I never. Stirring feebly against a classic New England heat wave, we prepared for a day trip to visit Mum and family friends at her mountain retreat center. Barely a mile or so on, OD -- obviously sleep-deficient, caused by combination of heat and parental-directed irritation -- complained of feeling ill, which necessitated a return to home to drop her and LW off. YD and I continued on our way, and just outside Boxborough our Ford Torturous breaks down, stirring painful memories of last June (didn't I just employ this link in a more positive vein?). Triple-A is notified, and we two await the tow truck as the semi-oppressive early afternoon sun beats down. But Shay proves to be indefatigable, passing our time with jokes, reminiscences and usual wacky observations. About a half-hour into our vigil, she recalls one of the few Blackadder" episodes she's seen: "So, have we reached the urine-drinking stage yet?" Anyway, we finally do arrive safe and sound, and find the heat waning, within the household and without.
Song. Rain. Dance. Rain
A quiet stop-over at the old homestead in Claverack, then we made our trek to Old Songs, where OD quickly settled into her debut as a junior crew member in the Children's Area. YD, meanwhile, having turned up her nose at family entertainment she considered too juvenile for her tastes, happily frolicked with a couple of representatives from the Ithaca League of Stiltwalkers.
Disclaimer: I'm not a particularly good photographer to begin with, and taking digital pictures in low light and with no flash doesn't improve my work any. Be forewarned as you click on the links below
As for those of us in the household inclined to hear, and play, music, well, periodic downpours put things in a tiswas, forcing the evening concert indoors and canceling our hoped-for dinner-hour jam session. But plenty of good stuff to listen to: There was Yorkshire cheer a-plenty, and a splendid updating of the a cappella close-harmony style by Artisan; Karan Casey, along with estimable Robbie Overson, proved the supremacy of live performance over studio recording; Joel Mabus had the place transfixed with a dramatic rendition of "Bagum." On the instrumental side of things were Montcorbier, essaying French-Canadian and Breton pieces with high power and amusing body English, and the pin-your-ears-back Harmonia, driven by Marko Dreher's violin and Alexander Fedoriouk's cimbalom.
The revelation for me, however, was two very familiar personalities. Martin Carthy was/is my chief inspiration for developing a guitar accompaniment method, and I have to admit I'd rather taken him for granted after all this time. Then Saturday came, and he and Norma Waterson -- whose voice I'd likewise forgotten about -- offered a very humbling reminder of how valuable to good performance is affection and respect for the music you play.
Another noteworthy event of the day was OD's discovery that contra dancing is fun, for which we thank our friends the Aarons. In fact, so enthused was she that she immediately accepted an invitation on Monday to celebrate their older son's birthday at the Concord Scout House dance.
Most of Sunday was spent recovering at step-mother Barbara's in Albany, and then we were home. P.S. Unlike last year, the family cargo vessel made it all the way there and back. Yay.
No More Writing Implements, No More Bound Volumes...
So, we've gotten one kid through middle school, that abbatoir of trust, reason and sanity, for child and parent alike. This rite-of-passage probably hasn't sunk in for OD just yet, and may not for a while -- then again, as a transfer this year to the school, she doesn't have the ties to it and the community like most of her classmates. Thus, a rather perfunctory end to the year, even the much-anticipated 8th-grade dance. But she and chum Tasha did pause after the graduation ceremony for a photo, featuring the obligatory rabbit-ears.
Friday, the very last day of school, saw both kids off with their respective classes to Canobie Lake Park, returning just in time to pack up and go to New York.
June 20
*Got in three more sessions this week at Gaelic Roots, and am amazed at how "ceilidh memory" works. I think I must've recalled about two dozen tunes or so, many of which will no doubt return to oblivion in the next few weeks. Also tried out a few more chord positions/patterns for guitar accompaniment, and most actually seemed to work.
One highlight, though, actually took place before the June 19 nighttime session in the quad behind Gasson Hall. A few of us sat there in the quiet, a refreshing breeze wafting through the session tent, and we listened to Joe Derrane talk about once having had to sell his melodeon to buy a piano accordion so he could play commercially and earn some more serious dough. Such choices should not be.
*Rather sad item in NYTimes about former hoop cult favorite Manute Bol, now physically hampered and destitute back in the Sudan after some unsuccessful investments -- including in his country's disastrous civil war. Hmm. And other ex-NBA players get more ink for domestic violence and disorderly conduct.
June 17
*Book completed: "The Fifth Elephant," by Terry Pratchett -- a return to the Ankh-Morpork quasi-police squad, where werewolves, trolls and zombies are not only welcome but indispensable. A goodly dose of political satire to this particular story, involving a controversial coronation in an adjacent kingdom, but amidst the zingers and classic restrained English humor Pratchett is willing to insert some pretty sobering, even grim, interludes. This is my third Pratchett indulgence, and hardly my last.
*After a considerable deluge, I head off for the first-day evening session at Gaelic Roots, which proves to be quite enjoyable despite a noticeable lack of fresh air in the room.
June 16
*Great moments in matrimony: Arising earlier than normal on a Saturday morning after a night filled with busy-brain and discovering your beloved A) has thought about much of the same things of late B) agrees with most, if not all, of your observations and C) doesn't think you're crazy in the slightest for thinking them.
*Near-incapacitating heat wave forces us to install air conditioners rather earlier than we would have liked. A day in which to rejoice at the close proximity of the municipal pool, where the girls stow themselves and various pals for most of the afternoon.
*That night, a family viewing: "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" -- yes, it gets well-deserved credit as a classic martial arts-ballet tour-de-force. But Ang Lee ably mixes in references to other genres, namely the buddy-buddy alliance (with Chow Yun-Fat and Michelle Yeoh) as well as the rebellious teen romance (the very appealing Ziyi Zhang and Chen Chang), and with a quite moving finish. For all that, it's impossible to ignore the action sequences, especially Chow Yun-Fat's pursuit of Ziyi Zhang among the bamboo.
June 15
Eccentrics? Elves? And how can I get them to come to my house? From local paper's"crime report" section:
"A Joseph Road woman hired a painter to do work on her house and returned home Tuesday, May 29, to find the job started. Problem was, however, the painter said he hadn*t start work on her house yet. A ladder was moved but nothing
was stolen, police said."
June 13
Posted a set of pictures from the May 12 "Day of Dance" here.
June 12
Book completed: "Carry Me Home: Birmingham, Alabama -- The Climactic Battle of the Civil Rights Revolution," by Diane McWhorter -- Timely reading, I suppose, in light of the justice-retribution question raised in previous entry. Current events aside, though, this is a masterful, troubling examination of Birmingham's landmark year 1963 marked by high-quality journalistic digging, scholarly exegesis and personal catharsis. McWhorter succeeds in so many ways, not the least of which is adding detail and cross-hatching to a portrait one thought fairly complete: You learn, for example, that the Alabama Ku Klux Klan for a brief period in the late 19th-century actually had common cause with blacks, as a populist movement of "have-nots" -- a legacy which would help attract the likes of a Hugo Black. All that changed, of course, as the Klan became the repository of increasingly marginalized men, and McWhorter depicts how this new incarnation served Birmingham's power structure all too well. The September 1963 church bombing somehow seems like a ghastly preordained event.
Then there are the mix of personalities, like Fred Shuttlesworth's courage and determination, Martin Luther King's caution and presence (and a foreboding that he was becoming irrelevant to a number of blacks), Bull Connor's short-sighted and doomed intransigence, and the oh-so-painful, if incomplete turning of the city's "Big Mules" to a new world view.
McWhorter, especially through her personal and family reminiscences, adds a philosophical dimension by continually showing the thread running from her upscale neighborhood to the likes of Tommy Blanton and Robert Chambliss: When the bomb went off that Sunday, she says, we lost the last vestige of our innocence.
June 11
Timothy McVeigh belongs to the ages now, for better or worse. Reading about his apparently congenial demeanor up to the moment of death, I remembered the oft-cited ritual of the condemned man forgiving his executioner. Was this considered de rigeur, perhaps even a kind of noblesse oblige? Was it almost as important as showing contrition for one's crime? Perhaps this absolution, if you will, helped to invest the memory of the condemned with a measure of respect and admiration?
Most of all, though, I remembered the family we know whose son was murdered many years ago, and what they must endure when these questions of justice and retribution play out in the public forum.
June 8-10
*So will the name "David Manning" be a touchstone of effusive but meaningless praise? Reminds me of the real-life PR hack many years ago who sent out releases trumpeting the accomplishments of a fictional small-college powerhouse football team he'd created. More fodder for those journalism ethics classes.
*Walt Disney World characters will now have their very own, individual underwear! John L. Lewis would be proud.
*Weather finally hits its stride this weekend, allowing for a bit of good old-fashioned yard work on Sunday. Saturday sees LW, YD and me stop off at the kids' old elementary school to peruse their flea market. We greet some old friends and acquaintances, and before we know it, the volunteer gland kicks in: One minute we're minding the drinks concession, the next we're helping pack up and cart off the unclaimed items to Goodwill. All felt perfectly natural.
*Viewing: "X-Men" -- having read the Marvel comic faithfully as a kid, I had to watch this, even if the focus was more on characters who came well after my time. Patrick Stewart is a perfectly decent paterfamilias-type Professor X, James Marsden an ably straight-arrow Cyclops, Hugh Jackman looks like he emerged right out of the pages of Wolverine and Anna Paquin makes quite good use of her half-crazed/half-frightened gaze. You knew halfway through that the producers crafted this with the word "sequel" stamped on their frontal lobes, but it's not necessarily a bad thing. Annoyance: Sorry, I always had the villain's name as "MagNET-o," not "MagNEET-o," which was what Marvel used in their parody comic book Not Brand Ecch.
June 7
Book completed: "Brides of Eden: A True Story Imagined," by Linda Crew -- ambivalent about this one, frankly. The idea of chronicling the notorious "Holy Roller" cult in early 20th-century Oregon as it might have been recalled by one of its participants is promising. There are also a few provocative points about mores for women and the lines between accepted, and acceptable, religions. But the story overall is thin, mostly narrative and invented dialogue. Then again, the narrative voice is convincing if you believe that it's supposed to belong to a young (barely 20), rather unsophisticated woman only a few years removed from the events she describes. Crew was apparently unwilling, for whatever reason, to lend greater introspection and interpretation to the tale.
[Addendum: Well, here's the answer. It is in fact more aimed at teenagers then adults, based on the marketing campaign I've since seen. Would've been nice if someone had told the library that before they put it on the shelves.]
June 6
End-of-the-year potluck for Banbury Cross, with gifts of song and framed photo collages for departing teacher Dave and holdover squire Kem (tribute for the latter is here, but be forewarned -- folk and morris in-jokes abound). Pleasant conversations all 'round, confirming the smallness of our world -- I come to find I and another parent attended the same folk festival during the 1970s. So much up in the air about next year, though, not the least of which is whether OD will be participating. I've at least made a commitment of sorts to help out. Too much good stuff going on here.
Items of some personal interest from the British Isles:
*Guinness -- which, face it, knows its constituency -- has offered to soon-to-be redundant workers in Dundalk a severance package that includes free supplies of the ole black stuff, at least for a while. Pity them what don't like stout.
*A candidate in the upcoming British election swore off his annual Whitsun morris dancing because, says he, "It would be beneath the dignity of a Conservative candidate." Now, over here, you can't get elected anything unless you do a photo-op with a senior citizens' line-dance.
June 2-3
*A joint sleep-over affords the missus and me a rare night-out-at-home, which we spend mostly prepping and enjoying a seafood dinner, topped off by LW's family-recipe curry mayonnaise sauce.
*Our restful morning includes, among other things, a viewing of "Brassed Off" -- some will say it's a shame to let politics get in the way of a good story, but politics is the story here: a Yorkshire mining community whose venerable colliery brass band functions as a barometer for the harsh socioeconomic realities of the Thatcher era. The ensemble and individual acting is Ealing Studio-quality, notably Pete Postelthwaite -- one of the most beautifully homely faces in modern movideom -- as the bandleader who loves music not wisely but too well, and Stephen Tompkinson as his son, his anguish washing over his face as his world collapses. Postelthwaite's peroration at the end, fortunately, helps the film to veer away from sappiness.
*After a late-afternoon Banbury Cross gig, OD and I head over for a team gift-making session involving both parents and kids. Looking back through some "old" (1998) photos, it's rather astonishing how far everyone's come along.
June 1
Pleasantly quiet, low-key night with younger daughter at a friend's sleep-over, and older daughter electing to take the night off from peer socializing. Wound up having a highly civil, reasoned conversation about school, morris dancing, and life, before I consented to have my head handed to me via several rounds of "Spit."
May 30
Despite distinctly unseasonable weather, the joint Banbury Cross -Red Herring dance-out in city center goes off with nary a hitch. Does a body good to dance with the young'uns.
May 29
Viewing: "The Straight Story" -- Quite a revelation to see David Lynch find beauty instead of vague menace in the landscape, as he relates the true-life tale of 73-year-old Alvin Straight's journey of affirmation and reconciliation -- all on a creaky John Deere, no less. So many things work: Richard Farnsworth, whose eyes seem to literally twinkle, as the quietly determined Alvin; Alvin's encounters with a runaway pregnant teen and a haunted World War II veteran, the latter scene producing one of the most dignified and powerful statements on the common, tragic bond most every soldier shares. There's also some more familiar Lynch touches, like a little boy glimpsed through a window as he looms out of the darkness to fetch a ball, plus a somewhat ironic reference to the random car-wreck vignette in "Wild at Heart," with Barbara Robertson standing in for Sharilyn Fenn.
MemDayWknd
*"'Pearl Harbor 2001' Fever Sweeps Nation": More than a few veterans and scholars note historical inaccuracies, from annoying but telling (kids playing Little League at the crack of dawn Sunday morning?) to the more significant (the premise that Navy brass had absolutely no inkling of a Japanese attack). And then there's the obligatory love-story thread. Poignantly, this may be the best the WW2 generation can hope for from pop culture before last call: a flawed treatment of, arguably, their defining moment and call to sacrifice. Wonder what John Reed would've thought of "Dr. Zhivago."
*Fittingly enough, this weekend I completed reading "Martha Peake," by Patrick McGrath: a curious but generally satisfying account of the tragic canonization of a fictional Revolutionary War heroine. The stuff of legend, it seems, can be made up of inconvenient, and suppressed, truths, as well as embellished or patently false facts -- and as much by the person who becomes the legend as those who serve as its promoters. But McCabe casts it as a retelling of a retelling, and the narrator's presence frankly becomes tiresome after a while.
*Other than a so-sad-it's-almost-funny teen moment (which actually lasted a couple of hours), the weekend was peaceful if moderately busy with social engagements.
*Viewings:
="Beautiful" -- there are sci-fi movies that ask for less suspension-of-disbelief than this chronicle of a woman's drive for beauty queen honors. Notably, Joey Lauren Adams' Ruby is so dutiful and self-effacing you begin to think serious therapy is in order. The climactic social-consciousness-raising scene, meanwhile, is apt to conjure up more of a quizzical smirk than a chorus of "We Shall Overcome."
="Best in Show" -- as in "Waiting for Guffman," Christopher Guest can't quite stay in the boundaries of cinema-verite, but so what? While satirizing the dog-show set may not require heavy lifting, there are enough good characters to make the thing funny: in particular, Parker Posey and Michael Hitchcock as the couple who project way too much of themselves onto their poor weimaraner. Fred Willard makes a fine contribution as a painfully ignorant and overly blithe TV announcer.
="eXistenZ" -- "Eraserhead" meets "The Matrix." David Cronenberg doesn't waste a lot of time on explanations or plausibilities. Just let loose with the protoplasmic special effects and dare people to follow along the story -- which has something to do with a new and insidious virtual-reality game that literally sucks you into it. Jennifer Jason Leigh summons up another beautiful/intelligent/edgy character performance.
May 26
I've changed some of the links, and added some new ones as well, for the Lilac Sunday entry (May 12-13), if these things are important to you.
May 25
A former teacher of OD's "came out" to her students the other day, concerned by their continual usage of "gay" as an insult. This is the second time in as many years a local teacher has disclosed his or her homosexuality to students, although the earlier occasion was less of a response to inappropriate behavior. The reaction last time was far more vociferous, perhaps because one of the more unfortunately persistent beliefs about homosexuals is that gay men are potentially more "predatory."
May 24
Tired, tired. Shoved the 12-page Commencement extravaganza out the door, closing out the academic year.
May 20-21
*Another chauffeuring job for OD and friends, this one out to The Garment District, which manages to combine in one building yard sale detritus ambience with funky upscale vintage/retro stuff. Oh, and a nice collection of nostalgia-evoking LPs.
*Family viewing (over two nights): "Anne Frank: The Whole Story" -- the controversy over who owns Anne Frank's history will no doubt continue, but this is an important refinement of the story. Not just because it gives hints of Anne's teenage humanity -- from her menarche to her iconoclasticism -- but because there is little evasion of what befell her and so many others. Ben Kingsley is a painfully restrained and dutiful Otto Frank, and Hannah Taylor Gordon does a fine take on Anne. The scene at Auschwitz in which she sits naked while being deloused is especially powerful.
May 19
So, a little over a week ago, OD decided she really wanted to watch "The Exorcist." Sure, we said, just read the book first. Easily done: She finished it in about four days. Thus, we set aside tonight for a family viewing of "the scariest movie ever made," as dubiously noted on the video box. Sure enough, the kids' appraisal is general, vaguely focused disappointment, and in OD's case a well-conceived criticism of the "parts left out." YD, meanwhile, just scoffed at it as "boring." Why, then, did LW discover the two of them reading in the same bed with lights on at 1 a.m.?
May 18
I dragoon myself into chauffeuring four eighth-grade girls to a apres-school dance ice cream treat, during which I am presented with high-decibel denunciations or endorsements of various classmates, teachers, celebrities and domestic products. Ow.
May 17
Neighbor Sheldon posted some shots of Red Herring at Lilac Sunday, here.
Weekend with Terpsichore
*Red Herring Day of Dance 2001OD, YD and I travel to Salem for this by now annual, and much anticipated, bit o'fun. Unfortunately, the fountain at the first stop was off, meaning that the Bassett Street Hounds could not offer their standard Dance Amid the Drops -- settling instead for sprays from various water bottles. I wound up playing for a couple of dances, "Mrs. Casey" and "Froggy's First Jump," the second rather less successfully. Oh, well. The weather was fine, we looked pretty damn good (especially in our potentially hazardous stick-tossing dance, "Fireworks"), even at the end.
*After the dinner party, I escorted the kids plus those of another dancer for a walk along the beach at Nahant. The sun was setting in back of us, the darkness gathering in front, and sky and surf melding in color, and the only other sound than the waves was a touch football game a hundred or so yards away. Very peaceful, sublime midpoint to the weekend.
*Lilac SundayWe arrive at the Arboretum shortly before 10, and OD goes to her stand with Banbury Cross, and I to mine with Red Herring -- today's modern morris family, on the go. RH running collectively on fumes after yesterday, but we make the best of it. Our "show" (exhibition) dance is "Lass of Richmond Hill," which climaxes with consecutive leapfrogging by dancers in the "5" and "6" positions, the latter of which I've happily taken for, oh, years now. So many images and sounds to sort: Banbury and the other kids' teams, looking joyful and exuberant; Orion, taking the longsword dancing tradition to yet more inventive heights; Commonwealth, as always reaching their own kind of heights...So, 5 p.m. rolls around, and I've given myself a good couple of days of work, no question.
*The capper is a come-all-ye at Doyle's, where we drink a few and sing, often being rather silly while doing so. I find myself next to old musical acquaintance and fellow school parent Brian O'Donovan, and in between choruses of sea chanteys and drinking songs we manage to converse about families and music we like. OD, happily sequestered in a booth with other morris children, is even seen to sing along to the chorus of "Country Life." Ah, life is pleasant, thinks I -- I belly up to the bar to fetch refreshments just in time to watch Jason Varitek clout a homer to give the Red Sox an extra-innings win.
May 11
*Unfair. Douglas Adams dies of a heart attack at 49. Even Marvin would see the injustice in that. Think it's about time I read OD "Life, the Universe and Everything."
*Viewing: "Analyze This" -- Wisely, the movie doesn't try to hard to answer the ethical question it raises early on: Does a therapist treating a patient engaged in evil pursuits have a duty to simply help him/her function normally -- and thus continue their evil? No, far wiser to depict the kulturkampf between the language of psychotherapy and bare-knuckled gangster machismo: Billy Crystal's attempt to explain the Oedipus complex to Robert DeNiro, for instance, or the suspicion aroused by the word "closure."
May 9
Recent musical acquisition: Milladoiro, "Castellum Honesti" -- Wish my high school Spanish teachers had told me about Galicia and its Celtic music tradition. I somewhat preferred Milladoiro's live album, but their spirit still comes through on the livelier tracks, especially with the spiraling melodies and countermelodies of the gaita, or bagpipe.
May 7
Viewing: "Whatever" -- At first, this chronicle of two girlfriends' final weeks of high school seems like a grim procession of desultory debauchery and other exercises in bad judgement, with episodes of family dysfunctionalism thrown in for good measure. But it grows on you after a while, especially through Liza Weil's depiction of Anna, whose artistic talent and latent streak of common sense gives her a shot of getting out of her dinky little Jersey town. Good stints as well by Dan Montano as the thug with the heart of gold and Kathryn Rosseter as Anna's broken-hearted mother, whose advice for her daughter is, "Don't expect so much. It's easier that way." The scene of Anna riding a bus home as she mercifully flees a near-disastrous road trip with "Angel from Montgomery" in the background is one of those perfectly sublime cinematic moments.
May 6
Recent musical acquisitions:
*Kornog, "Premiere: Music from Brittany" -- Having purchased the second Kornog album some years ago, gettingg their first was a foregone conclusion. The instrumentation (guitar, bouzouki, fiddle and flute) is straightforward but absolutely gorgeous, and Jamie McMenemy's singing is strong yet understated at the same time, managing the tempo shift in "The Demon Lover" and the achingly beautiful melody in "Bonnie Jean Cameron."
*Orealis -- Another debut album from relatively way back (1990). Can't fault the musicianship, and the interpretations of "Spencer the Rover" and "Trooper and Maid" are well-done, but overall this gets the faint-praise Nice Album tag.
May 5
A spring day in the life of a morris dancing morris parent: Out to (Somerville Garden Day with Red Herring, then to Quincy Market for the annual (Ginger Ale for area kids' morris and sword teams. At the latter, OD sustains her first significant morris injury, a twisted ankle. Yet she refuses to leave and even guts it out in a few more dances. That evening, most of the participants and families converge for a dinner party and round of informal dancing.
