hakuna matata

My friends, Rina and Alia, took me to see "The Lion King" tonight at the Boston Opera House. It was a birthday gift. What a wonderful show. Beautiful costumes. Amazing puppetry. Great music, of course. A stunning venue. And the chance to spend an enjoyable evening with two lovely friends.

dear alex lambert

Dear Alex,

You are young. And yes, your lack of on-stage experience highlighted your nervousness while performing on TV for millions and millions of people. For the inexplicable and often illogical voting audience, that shaky inexperience did not endear you.

Pity. Because you have a unique and wonderful voice, and a talent that is undeniable even under the burden of stage fright. Please don't allow last week's vote to alter your musical career path. We need musicians like you. If you don't come back to AI next year, then please keep pursuing the path through other means. I look forward to someday having in my music library the musical stylings of Alex Lambert.

Sincerely,
Kelly

P.S. Your talent is spot-on, but that hairstyle must go. Either grow it all long or cut it all off. The half-and-half baby mullet ain't workin'. :-)

how faint the tune

I snapped this picture as I was leaving work Friday night.


And now, some Ella Fitzgerald -- a stunning talent and one of my favorite songs.

quoting britney spears

Oops, I did it again. Still need to get my head around this daily blogging thing. Maybe by the end of the year, I'll be better at it. Here, watch a nice video. Actually this is the first time I've seen the video. But I really like the song.

moonlighting

Not sure what I was thinking when I agreed to writing for my company blog. I should have known better than to believe I could write one entry a week in any less than six or eight hours. Why can't I go faster? Gah.

So, now with no time to write my own entry, I'm again cheating with a peep. Tonight, I'll do my best not to think about the fact that one of my favorite jazz singers is going to be a few hundred yards away from my home this Wednesday, and unless Ted has some great secret up his sleeve (i.e. tickets), I won't get to see the performance. Feel like wailing like a big baby. I WANNA' GO! I WANNA' GO!

But that wouldn't be dignified. And would hardly help the situation. I hope you enjoy our fair city, Mr. Elling.

distraction

I was poking through this website of rare photos of famous people when I found this picture. Although it's not identified, I feel confident that I know the setting. The Beatles were in their room at the Edgewater Hotel in Seattle, fishing from the window. Ted had a friend who managed the Edgewater for a while, and he told us that story years ago. I'd never heard the story before then, and didn't see a picture at the time. This morning, the last piece came into the picture.

That's my distraction this morning. I'm afraid now I have to go face reality.

day 7: time to stop counting

It's been a wild and woolly day. The last couple hours were occupied on a very important phone call, which only ended because my cell battery experienced massive failure (sorry Rina!). I have no new picture to share, no real idea of even the fluffiest of topics to discuss, and no time to flesh them out anyway. Just a minor decision. Today will be the last day I number the blog titles. After one week, I'm feeling more confident that they'll be more regular than last year.

And with that, an easy distraction and fare-thee-well.



Good night.

vote tomorrow

And tonight enjoy the Old, Fat, Naked Women For Peace!

dare you not to laugh

OK, yeah, so it's this cute cat sitting on a horse's back and rubbing affectionately against it. But the real draw of this video is the music. You must listen to the music.

making fun of the 80s

This video is funny. Though I must say, I never thought that the sketched lead singer dude had a pipe wrench of his own. It always looked to me like sketched uniformed guy was approaching sketched lead singer dude as if he were going to hit sketched lead singer dude with his pipe wrench. Funniest of all is how seriously everyone took this video when it came out. Technological marvel, and all.

And now that I think about it, doesn't it seem this video may have had some influence on the people who write "Heroes?" You know, the comic book predicting what's about to happen? Whoa. Deep.



P.S. Props to Dreama for tweeting this, else I might never have seen it.

if i had a band, i'd name it 'how soon is now'

In some general web-surfing this morning, I found a Wikipedia category called "List of bands named after other performers' songs." I knew some: Godsmack, Beat Surrender, Radiohead, Hello Goodbye, Deacon Blue, Shakespeares Sister, Death Cab for Cutie, and a few others. But admittedly, I hadn't heard of most of them. Cool. That page also led me to discover the categories "List of bands named after places," and the ultra-cool "List of band name etymologies."

'Kay, Wikipedia -- not perfect, but sometimes pretty fun.

Oh, and I'm more inclined to name a band "I Sleep on My Heart."

andrew bird

Sufjan Stevens meets Jeff Buckley, with a dash of Vienna Teng thrown in for good measure. Cool stuff.

circles

A virtual friend of mine tweets that the song "Poison" by Bell Biv DeVoe has commandeered his consciousness, and it sets about this weird cascade of music stuff for me.

Step 1: The songs instantly wows to life in my head, and there it's been ever since.

Step 2: I add it to my "Video of the Day" widget on my blog.

Step 3: I chuckle that the title of the video I'm replacing is "I Don't Feel So Well" (which would make sense if one were poisoned).

Step 4: I remember that the Muzak at our store has been repeatedly playing "Mr. Telephone Man" over the last couple weeks (and it's as stupid and insidious now as it was in 1984).

Step 5: When I want to ensure that "insidious" is precisely the word I want to use, the online definition gives me, "a subtle poison."

Step 6: The song in my head gets louder.

Thanks, Paul! That was actually kinda' fun.

eleventh hour

In the past, I've blogged extensively about American Idol. Just last week, I mentioned that I'd avoided discussing the show at all this season (in this blog, that is) or even casting a single vote -- despite having watched every single episode and definitely having opinions on the contestants.

So, if I tell you today that two months ago I predicted a top two consisting of David Archuleta and David Cook, you could go, "oh yeah, sure you did, Kelly," because I have no concrete, public evidence to back it up. You'll just have to trust me.

We generally watch the show one day late, courtesy of TiVo and a bizarre life schedule. This is half the reason I didn't vote this year: I was always too late. Given how hard it was to avoid next day spoilers throughout the season, I thought it best to watch the final results show on the night of the actual finale (i.e. tonight).

Ted and I watched Tuesday's show first. We had a discussion as to who we thought would win and who we hoped would win. Again, I have no proof to back this up, but we generally agreed that Mr. Cook would likely win for two reasons, one valid and one a bit stupid. Before explaining those two reasons, it must first be said that they are based on the premise that both Davids are talented and equally deserving of a win even though their styles differ significantly.

• Reason #1: Because 25-year-old Mr. Cook shows more confidence, polish, and willingness to take risks (that usually succeed) in his performances than young Mr. Archuleta.
  
  
• Reason #2: Because Chris Daughtry didn't win in Season 5. Seriously. Like the Academy Awards giving an Oscar to a great director for a mediocre movie: because they failed to appropriately acknowledge a superior achievement the first time around. Get it?

Anyway, we watched the show and, although David A. certainly brought his game and was, as Randy Jackson says, "in it to win it," our opinion that David C. would win remained intact.

So, Ted heads off to bed (you know, up before the freakin' crack of dawn), and I install Firefox* on my computer and poke around for a bit. I decide around 9:30pm to start watching the results show (using the TV Ears so as not to disturb my sleeping husband). This will allow me to fast forward through all the commercials (although I did manage to catch the Guitar Hero one with D.A. in it).

I watch nearly all of the show, fast forwarding only through one or two bits I couldn't quite tolerate. I wonder how Syesha gets to be so lucky as to sing with Seal. I feel for Amanda who looks hacked off to be singing Donna Summer songs and stepping along to cheesy choreography. I puzzle over the presence of ZZ Top, even though David Cook completely pulls off "Sharp Dressed Man." I stare intently at Bryan Adams, examining the rugged terrain of his face. I'm impressed by Carrie Underwood's stage presence and fabulous outfit.

The end nears, and the Top 12 are group-singing "Faith" -- a catchy pop song of the highest order from my neck of the woods (i.e. the 80s). As soon as they segue into "Father Figure," a grin of anticipation takes over my face as the apparently slow realization dawns on me that George Michael is going to show up any minute now. Say what you will about tabloid scandals and professional absences, outsized talent such as his more than compensates for personal peccadilloes (this is true for other entertainers I admire like Robert Downey, Jr., who also appeared on the show).

George descends the stage stairs and sings "Praying For Time." Aside from a case of the sniffles and sunglasses that should only be found on the face of a 70-year old woman, I found his performance riveting. Entrenched in nearly two hours of fanfare and this last number, I find myself eagerly thrust into the final results!

The official Official hands Ryan an envelope. There is visible anxiety and talk of nearly a hundred million votes. He opens the envelope, and says...

"The winner of American Idol 2008 is..."

Dramatic pause.

"David..."

Dramatic pause.

DING!

The recording is over, and TiVo wants to know if it should delete the show. In the span of a mere moment, I process the following facts:

• TiVo sometimes misses the end of a show because it's run longer than scheduled. This is not an uncommon occurrence.
  
• I specifically made it a point to watch this show tonight so I would know who won.
  
• If the two finalists didn't have the same first name, and if Mr. Seacrest didn't have a flair for dramatic pauses, I might have actually known who won without seeing the end of the show.

Data entered and processed, I start laughing hysterically. Uncontrollably, actually. I try to be quiet so as not to awaken Ted. I fail. After muttering through the fog of sleep, asking what happened, he too begins to laugh at the situation. This only encourages me more. I laugh harder. And louder. And tears start to fall as my sides literally start to hurt. This went on for ten minutes. I couldn't stop. After all that effort, and I still didn't know who won!

Reason enough to blog. Now, I've spent far too much time here, digging up links and graphics, and fighting with Firefox. It crashed once while mid-Blogger. Hopefully it's not indicative of the type of behavior I'll get from it. If so, I'll hitch a ride back to the IE Express.

Time to go to bed. Argh. 1:50am! Good night. And congratulations, David Cook. ROTFLMAO

* To my reader(s) viewing this site on Firefox, my apologies. I had no idea that some of the graphics are blocky and overlapping in spots. Believe me when I say it always looked fine in IE, or I would have changed it to look fine. Now, if I continue using Firefox, I'll have to check both places, and hope that I'm capable of fixing it!

napomo treasure

Every day, I receive an email with a poem. As mentioned before, despite my apparent love for poetry, often when a hundred are thrown at me, only one or two will stick. I guess it's simply a matter of which topics and feelings I best relate to. Sometimes, though, the wordplay alone is enough to capture me, even if I don't wholly jive with the rest.

Today's email poem was "Balance" by Adam Zagajewski. It includes phrases such as "...a certain sort of snowy wasteland bursts from a surfeit of happiness" and "pale grass plagued by winter and the wind." I liked the idea of the alternate existence of being on a plane versus the harshness of reality once landed.

"The darkness of daily wanderings resumed, the day's sweet darkness, the darkness of the voice that counts and measures, remembers and forgets."

So I went a little further. Followed links to other poems written by Mr. Zagajewski (and translated by Clare Cavanagh). "My Aunts" is quite intriguing, but it is his "Self-Portrait" that most caught my ear.

Self-Portrait

by Adam Zagajewski
Translated by Clare Cavanagh

Between the computer, a pencil, and a typewriter
half my day passes. One day it will be half a century.
I live in strange cities and sometimes talk
with strangers about matters strange to me.
I listen to music a lot: Bach, Mahler, Chopin, Shostakovich.
I see three elements in music: weakness, power, and pain.
The fourth has no name.
I read poets, living and dead, who teach me
tenacity, faith, and pride. I try to understand
the great philosophers--but usually catch just
scraps of their precious thoughts.
I like to take long walks on Paris streets
and watch my fellow creatures, quickened by envy,
anger, desire; to trace a silver coin
passing from hand to hand as it slowly
loses its round shape (the emperor's profile is erased).
Beside me trees expressing nothing
but a green, indifferent perfection.
Black birds pace the fields,
waiting patiently like Spanish widows.
I'm no longer young, but someone else is always older.
I like deep sleep, when I cease to exist,
and fast bike rides on country roads when poplars and houses
dissolve like cumuli on sunny days.
Sometimes in museums the paintings speak to me
and irony suddenly vanishes.
I love gazing at my wife's face.
Every Sunday I call my father.
Every other week I meet with friends,
thus proving my fidelity.
My country freed itself from one evil. I wish
another liberation would follow.
Could I help in this? I don't know.
I'm truly not a child of the ocean,
as Antonio Machado wrote about himself,
but a child of air, mint and cello
and not all the ways of the high world
cross paths with the life that--so far--
belongs to me.

Oh, how lovely. I truly feel as though I know him better now. And what's not to love about phrases like "... a child of air, mint and cello...?" Wonderful.

Mr. Zagajewski's work evoked the idea of a six word memoir. You're familiar with this phenomenon? Here is a slide show from NPR that showcases a number of the memoirs. I've included one here, though the caption is very small. It is, "Naively expected logical world. Acted foolishly." It was written by Emily Thieler.

Sometimes, I think about trying to encapsulate my life in six words. Sometimes, it seems insurmountably difficult to squeeze it all into just six words. Sometimes, six seems all together too many words. Perhaps someday I'll actually give it a try.

Until then, the only attempts at creative writing I make are Tweets in the Westernized form of haiku. Hardly noteworthy. There is a Haiku Writing Center near my house. Ted keeps encouraging me to go knock on the door. I nearly did, the other day on my walk. But I haven't done it yet.

Just around the corner, tomorrow, is Jazzmouth: The Seacoast Poetry and Jazz Festival. Did I mention that jazz is one of my favorite genres of music? And you know about my love of poetry. Why is it I didn't read about this festival until yesterday? And Billy Collins is going to be there! Can I make it to any of the events? Tomorrow's show isn't sold out: I must simply decide whether or not to spend money on my ethereal longing at a time when employment eludes me. Might I go to one of the free sessions? Alas, I have already scheduled my weekend to the teeth. Could I rearrange the calendar to allow? Alas, it is previous rearrangement that has me in my current pickle -- the one which requires me to work all weekend.

Perhaps it is fitting that the poetry and jazz which I seek and which seems so close is so elusive, feeding my longing. Hmm. Perhaps.

I leave you with Mr. Collins. Not only is the animation a unique way to experience this poem, the subject matter hits particularly close to home for me these days. Frighteningly so. And it is that connection that gives poetry its potency. For me.

roller skate tuesday

Falling back on the old reliable, YouTube, for blogging purposes.

First, Fred and Ginger.



Then my one true love (sorry honey!), Gene Kelly.

sunday funnies

fruit on my head and a song in my heart

In a previous post, I mentioned having made two South Park avatars and that I was saving one for a particularly kooky mood. No time like the present. Ladies and gentlemen, please give a warm welcome to Kelly Miranda!


Please note the Hawaiian shirt (which makes me long to go back to that marvelous place), the omnipresent iPod (did I mention I have one just for my kitchen now.. like the old days of a kitchen radio, except mine is a kitchen iPod?), and the seriously wacky eyebrows (I refuse to pluck!). Also, although my hair is about this length now, the red has generally disappeared, leaving me with my natural darkish brown with random wiry greys (that often stand on end) and a spectacular star burst of silver over the right side of my forehead. And of course, my mouth is wide open. I'd say given the music machine and millinery, I'm singing Ethel Merman... loudly (the only way to sing her).

naturally 7

I saw these guys in concert last night, and they are incredible. Seriously. I mean, whoa. Bobby McFerrin and Take 6 rolled into a fresh, new 21st century vibe. Way, way cool. You must watch!

thanks, doug

Having escaped the real world for a while, my friend, Doug, is living la vida loca in Mexico. He set up camp with his girlfriend, participates in local celebrations, and dares to start the process of writing a book. Luckily, he has a good internet connection so he can send regular updates and weekly song selections. His most recent is one of my favorite "Three Stooges" skits. My brothers (yes, three of them) taught me this song well, and I have been randomly torturing friends and loved ones with my rendition of it ever since.

With no further ado, Ladies and Gentlemen, "Swingin' the Alphabet."