*Happy reunion with LW and YD, who return from 10 days in Paris and London with literally hundreds of digital photos and tales of a late night visit to a Parisian Irish pub, solicitous crepe-makers, forced museum-marches, and numerous other anecdotes, from the sublime to the ridiculous. Hours after our little family is all together again, we're apart, with OD off to her Halloween contra dance in wench attire and YD trick-or-treating with friend - not yet ready, it seems, to let go of that ritual. But LW and I are able to catch up on most things parental and personal.
A lovely Indian Summer weekend follows: Saturday sees fairly successful attempts at cleaning up the place, followed by an overnight visit of OD's out-of-town friend. Sunday offers an opportunity for a very laid-back bit of music and conversation with one of my fellow morris dance parent-chauffeurs.
*Book completed: "Master and Commander," by Patrick O'Brian - It helps if you know some nautical and sea-faring language, and if you have at least a little familiarity with British Empire politics of the late 18th/early 19th century, but this first installment of O'Brian's Aubrey-Maturin series is a decidedly unromantic look at life on a square-rigged ship: the boredom, the routine, the qualifications necessary to run the thing, mixed in with action and intrigue. At the center are Captain Aubrey and Dr. Maturin, of course, who between them embody the era's masculine ideals (honor combined with skill in the arts, combat, geography, science and physick) and yet have plenty of shortcomings to make them seem fully realized.
Oct. 22-30: The Dance of the Single Working Parent
*In more than a few ways, I guess I got it pretty durn good. Most weekdays, I don't have to put up with driving through the overcrowded byways of suburban Greater Boston. I don't have to figure out how long my teenage kid should be left at home unsupervised (if at all) in proportion to the work I have to finish at the office. I don't have to suffer the slings and arrows of teenage intrigue alone. And I get to have a nice person sharing my bed.
None of that was true during this period, which saw LW and YD head off to Europe, leaving me with OD and more than a little angst.
But you know, assuming we don't get calls from truant officers or process servers during the next few days, the whole thing basically went fine. But there's no doubt that my general stress-and-anxiety levels were inching upward, simply by virtue of suddenly being a single working parent. Creature of routine that I am, changing around work hours, sleeping by myself, etc., well, definitely not as much rest these past several days. So, here and now, I must publicly extend my appreciation to OD for helping me keep things together. But no, that doesn't mean I'm going to let you hitch-hike across the country next summer.
*Viewing: "The Talented Mr. Ripley" - Matt Damon takes that solid jaw into an ethereal mist of ambiguous motives, sexuality and, most of all, identity, recruited under false pretenses to fetch home a wealthy family's wayward son from his bohemian life in 1950s Italy. Damon's Ripley reminds one of a half-serious lament by Peter Sellers: so many identities and impersonations, he's unsure as to who he really is. At the height of his deception, he has his two assumed identities exchanging correspondence with one another; it is, perhaps, one of the more narcissistic, darkly comic turns in recent cinema.
Oct. 17-19
*Another music-dance Friday night with OD, albeit one where the musicians outnumbered the dancers. Played mandolin for the last hour or so, but put it down to have a very silly, and extremely fun, contra with my young lady. Listening to Fairport Convention's "Liege and Lief" on the way, we discuss, among other things, the traditional ballad form and Most Memorable Musicians I Have Known. Sometimes, silence works best during our car rides, but when we have conversations like this, well, I could go all night.
*Most of Saturday and part of Sunday is preparation for LW and YD's impending trip, which somehow doesn't seem possible. Once again, I hang out at OD's Sunday afternoon morris rehearsal, and put in some musical practice of my own. Tunes on the verge of being learned: "Easy Club" and "Jenny's Welcome to Charlie."
*Viewing: "Signs" - Aliens-visit-Earth film that desperately longs to be more than an aliens-visit-Earth film, and generally succeeds. Mel Gibson is the grief-stricken reverend trying to cope with the death of his wife (depicted in a flashback that is very difficult to watch) and the loss of his faith and vocation, trying to derive comfort and solace from his two young children and his direction-less younger brother. Their growing dread over the extraterrestrial presence in their midst is convincing and palpable. But writer-director M. Night Shyamalan goes for a quasi-theological statement as well, via Gibson's meditation on signs and coincidences. Shymalan implies that perhaps we are put together as we are for a reason, no matter our imperfections, whether it be asthma, an irrational fear about drinking water quality or a lack of batting discipline.
Oct. 14-16
*Sigh* It would have been such a validation that, perhaps, the 21st century has a chance of being a better century than the 20th. Francis "Fall of Communism" Fukayama, I got yer "End of History" right heah! Red Sox-Cubs World Series! Earlier this week, I actually indulged myself with visions of ill-fated human windmill and third-base coach Wendell Kim sending 'em in against Trot Nixon's arm, or with evaluating the Ex-Pirate Factor for both teams (Tim Wakefield, Jeff Suppan and Scott Sauerback vs. Aramis Ramirez, Randall Simon and Kenny Lofton). But in a matter of 48 hours, it all turned to ashes, and in about the most exasperatingly awful way possible. As the poet once said, looks like another winter of hard drinkin' and self-abuse.
On top of it all, YD's art teacher encouraged her students to produce their own "Reverse the Curse" posters, and was apparently so enthralled with YD's creation she declared she was going to send it to the Red Sox. So the one time YD makes a personal and artistic investment in the Red Sox fortunes (or in just about any sporting event), and like the rest of us veteran sufferers, it goes for naught.
Oct. 10-13
*Rather unexpectedly musical weekend, much to my delight. It begins Friday night with OD and I heading off to a family contra dance in the far western 'burbs. I eschew dancing for sitting in with the band, and am reminded as to how quickly two-and-a-half hours pass when you're churning out reels, jigs and waltzes. Plenty o' good cheer.
*Saturday morning, I bound up to Lowell to join my morris team in sharing a performance with our fellow hoofers. On this particular day, with our regular musician unavailable, we christened a few new musos, who did quite well. Our first stand was on a bridge over one of the canals passing through the city, and had me thinking back to earlier times when one could boat from there all the way to Charlestown. Routes 95 and 3, even on their best days, just don't elicit the same affection, sorry.
*Sunday sees a welcome resumption of the back-of-the-church jam sessions I enjoyed earlier this year with other parents/chauffeurs affiliated with Great Meadows Morris. There is a reprise on Monday, thanks to a last-minute invite to OD from some of her friends, and so my mandolining and contra-dance repertoire both get a good work-out. Hell, we even have a go at a few English country dance tunes. Quite delightful.
*Suppose I can't very well gloss over the latest conflagration in the Red Sox-Yankees Hundred Years War, in which Pedro Martinez displayed characteristic machismo, but rather far less common sense, and Don Zimmer managed, for a few minutes, to roll back the ravages of age but at apparently the cost of accumulated wisdom and dignity. At the end of the day, the Yankees have wrestled back the home-field advantage, and the initiative. For at least that day.
*Viewing:
=="Identity" - A (literally) by-the-numbers murder mystery at the classic nowhere motel is somehow connected to a last-minute competency hearing for a condemned serial killer. The answer is imaginative, and the ensemble acting is enhanced by John Cusack and Ray Liotta. But there's something unsatisfying about the whole film, which for all the suspense-horror conventions it seeks to jettison, winds up adhering to one of the most common: Look out for the little kid.
=="A Mighty Wind" � With folk music, as with most anything else, parody that is affectionate and well-done works the best (see Barker, Les and "The Folker". Christopher Guest and Eugene Levy get it right in recreating, and satirizing, 1960s folk zeitgeist - the earnestness, the idealism, the arch vocal styles - in this so-called "mockumentary" about storied performers gathering for a reunion concert to honor a celebrated impresario. They also, wisely, reject a completely cynical and over ironic tone in their treatments of the aging performers: There's a very believable quality to the rapport of the Folksmen, right down to the good-natured wisecracks as they're driving to a gig; and the tension and uncertainty between former collaborators and lovers Mickey and Mitch (the latter portrayed brilliantly by Levy as a fragile man trying to read cue cards inside his head) resolves, at least temporarily, in a way that is very poignant. Fortunately, Guest and Levy stop short of the sentimentality that would ruin the film.
Oct. 8
Obligatory post-California recall wisecrack: If Arnold had lost, he would simply have gone back in time and changed history. All right, it sounded kind of funny when I thought it up at breakfast this morning.
Oct. 3-6
*This weekend, the drama and excitement comes from without, rather than within the household: specifically, the Red Sox improbable, possibly-doomed-but-so-what postseason drive. Floating in the water, two games down, the timely, prodigious hitting all but forgotten - and then comes Saturday night's extra-innings, pinch-hit homer by flawed but determined Trot Nixon (almost overshadowed by not one but two interpretations of the obstruction rule), and Sunday's glare-of-the-sun double by David "Vaquero Arriba" Ortiz, and it's Westward Ho.
*Amidst all this, LW and I install more sheetrock panels, nearly completing that part of the infrastructure for the kids' room. Other rooms are given a fairly vigorous going-over, and the joint actually looks habitable for the first time in a while. Saturday, we have a suddenly cheerful OD to ourselves, and indulge her grocery and gerbil-acquisition whims (the newest is "Kud," named for a certain heavy-metal performer much favored by YD), then - just for kicks - we offer a showing of "Mommie Dearest"; somehow, the reenactments of Joan Crawford's OCD and other mammoth insecurities makes an arresting counterpoint to my quick glimpses of the Red Sox-A's game 3.
*Monday night, and after tending to household matters, I race over to friends' house for the last few innings of Game 5, arriving in time to watch a closely shorn Jason Veritek (who uncannily now resembles a less diabolical Ming the Merciless) even up the score, and Manny Ramirez casually amble toward first base after belting a three-run homer. My fellow viewers and I almost chew off our right arms in the never-ending ninth, but are rewarded when Derek Lowe remembers what it was like to be a premier closer. So now, in comes our bete-noir New Yorkers.
Oct. 2
*Relayed by an acquaintance: A group of Americans recently paid a visit to the Dalai Lama, and asked him how they, "as Westerners," could help him in fulfilling his mission.
The Dalai Lama thought about it, and then answered, "Well, perhaps you could not send me so many young people with blue hair."
*Why I like being part of a mixed-gender morris dance team (dialogue verbatim, more or less):
Team foreperson (female): "�So, for this figure, I notice that some of us are doing the movement in our knees, and some of us are moving our butts. Sean, you're one of those whose butt is really moving."
Me: "Are you looking at my butt?"
Other female team member: "Sean, looking at your butt is a delightful experience."
Sept. 27-30
*More toil in kids' room - electrical work nearly completed, insulation up on all existing walls - punctuated by general parental angst. Such fun.
*At an informational meeting for parents of sophomores (at which the original definition and usage of "sophomore" is pointed out, albeit with much affection), a mother notes that when her present-day 15-year-old was 2, the kid's favorite person in the world was a 15-year-old sibling - - and vice versa. Easy to see why, she explained, because they do have common traits, namely the push-me, pull-you desire for independence. So the other day, she continued, contemplating the latest bout of 15-year-old crazy, "it hit me: 'My God, I have another 2-year-old!'"
*Viewing: "Solaris" - Singularly disinteresting sci-fi ghost story, in which psychologist George Clooney is dispatched to lend a therapeutic hand at far-flung space station whose rapidly diminishing crew has been receiving mysterious "visitors." Soon enough, Clooney wakes up to find his apparently reincarnated late wife with him, only she has little or no memory of their marital history. Unfortunately, the film is only too happy to take us back there, and we witness their beginnings, and endings, as a couple even as Clooney struggles to deal with the implications of this supposed "second chance." But it's nowhere near as compelling as it sounds, especially because there are insufficiently explained hints at A Larger Force At Work, and the unending undulating-shadowplay cinematography is as disengaging as the acting.
Sept. 26
*Pennant fever has now officially gripped The Hub.
*Coworker tells me of an acquaintance who used to work in the airline industry, was laid off because of the post-9/11 slump, and finally managed to get a job as a security guard. Barely 100 yards away from his post stands a memorial to Sept. 11 victims.
*Book completed: "Balkan Ghosts: A Journey Through History" by Robert Kaplan � Excellent on-the-ground look at Romania, Bulgaria, Greece and the former Yugoslav republics a few years after the fall of the Eastern Bloc. Kaplan finds people who are, variously, lost, ecstatic, hopeful, apathetic, anxious or pragmatic as they contemplate the changes to their society: one of the few remaining Saxons in Romania, ready at last to take his leave; a Bulgarian who defends the Communist regime almost to the very last, yet manages to re-surface after the tide of history washes through; a Serbian nun who rails against the Albanians in her midst. He weaves their stories alongside those of the aforementioned ghosts, from Ceausescu to Archbishop Stepinac to Ataturk to King Carol II to Queen Marie to the Legion of St. Michael, whose unimaginable slaughterhouse massacre of 200 Bucharest Jews is, sadly, one of many instances of cruelty and savagery related here. Perhaps the most sage comment in the book is that by a Skopje poet: "How do you divide up the past?"
Sept. 20-21
*A last-minute flurry of activity (mainly due to some needed pantalones repair), and then OD and I are off to the annual Fall Harvest Tour hosted and organized most competently and enjoyably by Ha'Penny Morris. This is, I believe, the third year my Red Herring Morris mates and I got the invite, and it's a big reason I look forward to September. The event is as pleasant a "welcome back" to the morris dance routine, i.e., the weekly practices, but also the whole morris social universe - and it's all held in the very picturesque northwest Route 495 area to boot.
The day was hot and humid, not exactly a harbinger of autumn, but everyone - adult and kid dancers - did quite well, and then we adjourned for a dinner party and conversation. No après dinner music this time around, alas, but I am already looking forward to the next one. Oh yes, here's a more in-depth look, sorta kinda, at the shindig.
*LW and I spend most of Sunday wrestling with wires, outlet boxes and other things electrical, as we inch ever closer to finishing up the kids' room. And if they don't appreciate that which we have made possible, as far as I'm concerned, they can have our room.
*Again, I contemplate the possibility that the aging process enhances the mush gland. All I know is, when I hear Dar Williams' splendid "Teenagers Kick Our Butts," the lines that bring a tickle to my throat are:
And when the media tries to act your age
Don't be seduced, they're full of rage
Find your voice, do what it takes
Make sure you make lots of mistakes
And find the future that redeems
Give us hell, give us dreams
And grow. And grow. And grow.
And it's that joyous invocation in the very last line that makes me ready to sing through my tears. Wardrobe, get my "Sentimental Old Fart" t-shirt ready, please.
Sept. 18
*Site update note: Restored a couple of more entries for the D&Q archives. We're now all the way back to the last days of 2000.
*A radio ad I probably never expected to hear: Between innings of a Red Sox game, on came a solemn announcer intoning something to the effect of "Are you a man of upstanding moral character and good values?" etc., etc. I waited for the punchline -- you know, blazing rock 'n roll soundtrack, party noises in the background, and a head-bangin' announcer-dude screaming, "THEN THIS [name of product/event here] AIN'T FOR YOUUUUUUU!"
Instead, the ad turned out to be an invitation to apply for membership in...The Freemasons. The announcer went on to extol the good works and proud history of The Freemasons, accompanied by portentous, brass-heavy music that summoned up images of mysterious figures in cloaks carrying torches down dark roads.
Now, my impression of The Freemasons (which I'll admit is based to a great extent on the Monty Python sketch) has always been that it was, if not a secret society, at least an exclusive and reclusive one, aloof and distant from the rest of us. So to hear it being shilled on an urban AM station next to ads for tire manufacturers and local watering holes was rather startling.
*Viewing: "Chicago" - - By setting the story in 1920s Chicago, and at the birth of American mass media - rather than its besotted present - playwright Maurine Dallas Watkins concocts an unapologetically, wickedly cynical celebration of the thin line between infamy and celebrity. Or for that matter, between news and entertainment. The music and choreography complement the cinematography, and vice versa, and it's just a lot of fun to watch Renee Zellwegger's ing�nue-turned-idol, or Catherine Zeta-Jones' full-throated jazz singer-dancer, or Richard Gere's amoral showbiz lawyer�
Sept. 17
*Here's an advocacy Web site just waiting to happen: Popular Russian ballerina Anastasia Volochkova has been canned by the Bolshoi because, officials claim, she has become the Mama Cass of the pas-de-deux set. Anastasia, who claims to weigh a feathery 109 pounds and to have forsaken ice cream for spinach leaves, hints darkly at a conspiracy. "Justiceforanastasia.com," anyone?
*I love Memepool. Thanks to their links, I have found another reason to cheer the advent of football season. And remember, it takes a worried man to sing a worried song.
Sept. 13-14
*Fresh off only its second practice of the season, Red Herring Morris performed at an ale festival in a most fitting place (yes, free, albeit small, samples included). A bit rusty in spots, but felt rather good to be in gig mode. Shared a very pleasant ride to and fro with some neighbors of ours, discussing much-cherished musical groups and individuals and the pros and cons of cell phones.
Home, and I tossed off morris dance outfit and slipped on working clothes to go help at a community service playground project, where LW had been toiling already for a few hours. Many familiar faces from our elementary school era (as parents, that is, not as students), and many of them, like us, had a hand in making this little slice o' recreation a reality. Good, basic hard work, indeed.
*Sunday, we turn our attention back to the somewhat-neglected kids' room, which now has about three-quarters of its walls back. Spent most of the afternoon and part of the evening trying to figure out how and where to re-route electrical wires, ultimately triumphant.
*Viewing: "The Pianist" - - Deservedly acclaimed account of Wladyslaw Szpilman, a Polish Jew who endured the Nazi subjugation of Warsaw, but largely as a spectator. Holed up in various safe houses, he glimpses the struggles and uprisings, with little context for the larger conflict happening outside his field of vision. Yet it's worth noting, too, that Szpilman often comes within a Nazi's whim of becoming one of the many victims. Watching the various pieces of Szpilman's life slip away -- his family, his vocation, his health, almost his very soul -- the question arises: what price survival? Is endurance in the face of such loss really worth it? The answer is readily, strongly, apparent.
Sept. 11
There were some hints of it last year, and more so this year: Who will "own" 9/11? Predictably, the event has been co-opted all along the ideological spectrum by politicians and activists alike. Meanwhile, some, but by no means all, of the families of those who were lost have staked their own claim: demanding full disclosure of governmental, public safety or airline industry culpability, for example, or in calls for peace, justice, even retribution. So where does that leave the rest of us? Perhaps we can "own" 9/11 simply by asserting the right to live ordinary lives - - well, ordinary as possible, hopefully filled with good works and diverting, enlightening experiences. Lives such as those that were ended two years ago.
Sept. 10
Book completed: "At Weddings and Wakes," by Alice McDermott -- Evocative, finely detailed chronicle of an Irish-American family's life and times in 1950s New York City and Long Island -- the demarcation points of their tragic past and hopeful present -- told largely from the point of view of the elementary school-age children, who glimpse the conversations, and pregnant silences, between the adults as they revisit old feuds and imagined slights. An out-of-left-field flash-forward about a third of the way through imbues the story with an increasingly sad augury.
Sept. 8
Recent musical acquisitions:
*Little Johnny England - - Third-generation British folk-rock (i.e., following after Fairport/Steeleye and Oysterband)? Yeah, maybe so, but these fellas have carved out a niche -- a somewhat more urban, distinctly north-of-London perspective. Most of their material is original (I hesitate to add "rather than traditional," since it presupposes that a meshing of the two is somehow unlikely), and their eponymous song, an anthem really, is splendid -- giving a nod to nostalgia even while recognizing its limitations. "Maybe" is a clever little take on the thin line between optimism and fatalism, a 20th-century British "Paudeen O'Rafferty." "Early to Bed," which closes out the album, is a gentle yet realistic nod to the hard-working agrarians of the past. Instrumental-medley-wise, I found myself preferring LJE to the Oysters, with tight playing between fiddler Guy Fletcher and melodeonist Gareth Turner (who wrote most of the tunes) and some inventive backing by guitarist P.J. Wright.
*Le Vent du Nord, "Mauditte Moisson!" -- My interest in this group's album, their first, stems from seeing them perform at Old Songs (see late June entry) and New Bedford Summerfest (July 7). With bands like La Bottine Souriante, Montcorbier and Ad Vielle Que Pourra on their resumes, the members' credentials are impressive, and so is their talent in performing both French and French-Canadian traditional music, as shown on the opening track, "Au Bord de la Fontaine," and the a cappella "Chers Amis Buvons." Imaginative jazz turns crop up here and there in the arrangements, next to the classic "pieds" accompaniment and vocal responses. Of course, the studio doesn't capture their stage presence, especially that of accordionist Benoit Borque.
Sept. 6-7
*Saturday, I am off to help usher in a much-anticipated, ambitious, hoped-for resource for the Boston-area music and dance scene. So, I strap on the axe and sit down to accompany my new (as of last weekend) musical compatriots, Heather (fiddle) and Robin (tin whistle), in an assortment of jigs, reels and hornpipes. Not much of an audience, but that's OK, we were there to provide atmosphere or background or something, and we have plenty of fun. I would not mind at all playing on a consistent basis with these two. A little later on, I have the opportunity to sit in with some Scottish players, which means a healthy assortment of strathspeys and marches.
Damn, but it's great to have music be a regular part of life again.
*The other, regular part of life -- grocery shopping, laundry and continuing apartment renovation -- takes the forefront on Sunday, which is probably just as well since it spares me the twin disappointments provided by the Patriots and, to a lesser extent, the Red Sox, who most certainly bloodied the Yankees' collective nose over the weekend.
Non-musical addendum
I was informed in the course of the weekend at Pinewoods that my posture is quite poor when I perform standing up. If any of you happen to come see me at a concert, feel free to remind me to straighten up (if not out).
Labor, not Labored or Laborious, Days
When I was 16 -- back in those halcyon days of the Ford Administration -- and developing a very keen interest in things folk, I went to this place called Pinewoods for a week in August. That week, and the one the following summer, I count as two watershed experiences in my musical development. I received, for the first time, really, some appropriately focused instruction and, more importantly, was fully immersed in a setting where there was little else but folk and acoustic music happening. I truly began to see the possible lengths to which people could take this music, whether as a vocation or as a simple source of delight (not that the two are mutually exclusive.)
So, more than 25 years later, I finally made my return to Pinewoods, bringing along OD and friend for Labor Day Weekend. Braving the twisting roads of Plymouth County in a borrowed van, we arrived late Saturday afternoon and I checked into my quite comfortable lodgings
(No, I didn't have the place all to myself.)
Literally within minutes of arrival, I was invited by several friends to come join a jam session in one of the dance pavilions
And so it went. Sooner or later, you would find someone with whom to play music,
or just sing -- as was the case when a young man and his girlfriend, whom I had met earlier, caught up with me and asked, "Can we now?" And we sat off in a corner, singing "Durham Gaol," "Hal an Tow," "The Barleygrain for Me," even "Dark as a Dungeon," which I'd never before tried on guitar but managed to get working.
You could also sit and watch other people having fun
There were, in fact, relatively small numbers of musicians present, which meant you didn't feel so crowded when you sat in with the band playing for the nightly contra/English country dance
which allowed you to see the event from a different perspective than you might ordinarily
I didn't get much more than eight hours of sleep the whole weekend, waking up at 6:30ish and deciding that it would be far better to arise, shower and be on time for breakfast. This meant meandering around the camp so as to stay awake before the bell rang, and taking the opportunity to indulge in some still-life photography
or capturing for posterity the aftermath of a birthday party for my housemates' pre-school-age daughter
That's when I wasn't looking through old Pinewoods scrapbooks and finding old photos of friends and acquaintances that are definitely worthy of blackmail.
There were, of course, some social occasions -- including one where we were treated to a sprightly version of "Alabama Jubilee"
Most of all, there were the people. Many of them I knew, some for quite a few years, and we spoke languorously at meals, with gales of laughter at late-night parties featuring oh-so-tasteful attire
-- or in hushed, intense tones when we uncovered instances of questionable, or worse, behavior by our young-but-daily-growing children. On Sunday night, during a lull, Emma, the six-year-old daughter of a long-time friend and fellow morris dancer, approached and graciously invited me out onto the dock to look at Mars.
The next evening, preparing to leave, I came across Amy -- a friendly, funny fiddler extraordinaire (she joked about her "15 minutes of fame" for composing a popular contra dance tune) and a drama teacher who surely deserves every penny of her salary -- giving some of the teen campers an earful about observing rules and regulations, yet doing so with equal amounts of toughness and compassion; she had attended, she said, far too many funerals of students who had died at least in part because they had scoffed at following such "anal" directives. There's no way I can adequately recreate her appeal to them, certainly not in plain text. But it was one more affirmation of the quality of people one encounters in this circle of music and dance.
So, 'bye for now, Pinewoods
and if I have anything to say about it, there will be no more 25-year-plus gaps before I see you, and all who sail in you, again.
