Category Archives: Art, Theatre, & Film

Second Chair

They put me in the second chair last night at orchestra. I like the seat; I hate the responsibility implied. Our section leader is away so they moved Walter and I up from fifth and sixth to first and second for a few weeks. Eep! Well, it will make me practice the Beethoven if nothing else. The Minuet & Trio is all over the fingerboard and quick, damn it. I can coast through anything decently except demonically fast 3/4 time…

I also tried my cello bow last night for the first time in three months. Right after the last concert in January I picked up a really cheap student viola bow for about $40 and tried playing with that instead. The frog is smaller (the handle, folks, the handle) and while it’s a couple of inches longer than a cello bow and the weight distribution is slightly different, overall it’s a bit lighter. It works quite nicely for me; it’s easier to handle, and I can create a smoother sound with it. Going back to the cello bow last night was disastrous! So it’s back to the viola bow. I’ll have to sit further away from my stand partner though, so I don’t stab him like I almost did last night. (Can’t you just see the headlines?)

The IntraWeb

The strangest thing just happened to me. I was double-checking my blog page after fiddling with the template, and the banner at the top caught my eye. I recently uninstalled my ad-blocking software, so these are new to me. Normally they are pesky. This banner was bright yellow and advertised some place called Central Booking, with a catch-phrase of Read Like Crazy. Hmm, I said, listened to the Force murmuring in my inner ear, and clicked on the banner – something which I never do.

I discovered something rather cool. A whole community of people like me who think books are important, and who like to talk about them. Check it out.

Imagine. A banner for reading, popping up on my web log. I love my life.

That earthquake I posted about at ten to seven registered as a 5.5, and was felt from Niagara to Quebec City, from the northern US to the Laurentians. Nice to know I wasn’t just dreaming. (Hmmm – I was awake before six-thirty, and the earth moved. Coincidence? You decide.)

Well, it’s 7:30. I think I’ll go away now. Maybe a nice bath with a book. Then breakfast. Then HMV. Once home again, I will (gasp!) practice. My husband and I have made an agreement: we have a whiteboard divided into two columns by the instruments. Every time one of us practices we’ll log the date and time on the board. At the end of the month, we’ll add them up. This is an overt attempt to shame each other into practicing more. I have an eight-year head start, but I am graciously waiving that in the interests of fair play. (Ye gods – have I actually been playing the cello for just shy of eight years? Goodness.) I’m looking forward to the creative excuses he will come up with to explain his lack of chanter-playing.

Wee Smas

So I’m here at 4:45 AM, tuning up my blog. Can’t sleep. Probably has something to do with having a glass of red wine, watching an hour of TV, and going to bed at 9 PM last night. When I woke up at 3:30 AM I knew it was game over, but I tried to lie in bed for a little while anyway, in case sleep decided to mosey on back. No such luck. So here I am, with a cat on my lap (if you knew I was using my ergonomic kneeling chair you’d understand how creative this positioning of cat can be), listening to the very first Mediaeval Baebes album, Salva Nos, which I picked up yesterday to complete my set. It has the stunning, show-stopping Gaudete on it, which is one of the pieces of music which can seize me no matter what I’m doing, get my blood flowing and lift me spiritually out of whatever mood I’ve been in. A great track to raise energy, if you put it on repeat and sing along. Assuming you can sing Latin and understand what you’re singing. Which I can, in Gaudete. (Insert smirk here.) It also has the phenomenal title track, Salva Nos, which is, like Gaudete, another chant to Mary, whom we all know is the Goddess anyway, right? (Yes, I’m getting the Latin down for that one too, rather rapidly.)

Salva nos, Stella Maris
Et regina celorum
Que pura Deum paris […]
Salva nos, Stella Maris
Et regina celorum
O virgo specialis
Sis nobis salutaris
Imperatrix celorum […]
Lux cecis, dux ignaris
Solamen angelorum!

Oooh… I just get shivers. Which have nothing to do with being barefoot in the middle of the night when the temperature has dropped twenty degrees (honestly, does anyone remember something called a seasonal temperature?).

I know what this means. It means I’ll have to take a nap this afternoon, or risk falling asleep in the middle of the student round-table discussion I’m co-moderating tonight.

Speaking of students, I pulled off another spectacular workshop Tuesday night. I’m beginning to think that I really am good at this, and people aren’t just saying it to be nice.

CURRENTLY READING:

Wicca: The Old Religion in the New Age by Vivianne Crowley. There exists an interesting phenomenon in the Wicca division of occult publishing. There are hundreds of 101 texts, and very few advanced texts. Why? Because it’s an experiential religion, meaning once the basics are communicated you have to build on them yourself, creating your own relationship with the Divine. No one, published author or otherwise, can tell you how that’s done. They can give you suggestions, but in essence, you become your own 201 text. Which is very cool, but a bit frustrating as well. Anyway, the upshot of all this is I read a lot of 101 texts, partially to become familar with the variety of crap and fluff that’s being published, but also to zero in on the good stuff, the wheat amongst the chaff that I can recommend to seekers when they interrupt – er, ask my help at work. I enjoy it a lot more than people might think. Sure, the basics are repetative, but the interesting thing is how the authors express those basics, what angle they approach them from. You can learn a lot about the complexities of spiritual and religious philosophy from how the same thing is said a dozen different ways. Vivianne Crowley is a nice, solid, British antidote to a lot of the fluff that’s being sold these days. It’s not new; it was originally published in 1996. This is a revised edition; hence the subtitle.

Meeting of the Waters by Caiseal M�r. It says it’s book one of The Watchers. We’ll see if it makes the trilogy potential or not. Alternate Celtic fantasy, set around the Fir Bolg/Danaan clash. It’s got ravens, standing stones, harps, druids, cover art by Yvonne Gilbert that I fall for every time, damn it. Eh. It’s bus-reading material, which in my world means a book that fits in my bag (Trollope has been relegated to at-home reading), a story that isn’t too complex (a book that gets picked up and put down frequently can’t be too deep or intricate otherwise you spend too much time trying to remember what happened), a story that isn’t so meaningful that I’ll become too involved and miss my stop.

Twilight Zone

Okay, now I’m officially shpooked. This morning I said to myself, “Gee, I wish I had a new Mercedes Lackey book to take with me to Toronto this weekend.”

Twenty minutes ago, our CanPar delivery man dropped off two boxes. One of which contained the new Mercedes Lackey hardcover Gates of Sleep, based on the Sleeping Beauty fairy tale.

I’m almost afraid to take it out of the box.

Giants Passing

Wow. Dudley Moore is dead. I was thinking about him completely out of the blue last week. No particular reason, just popped into my head. I spent a day or so trying to figure out why – had I seen a clip from a movie, heard a comedy sketch, or something of the sort. I didn’t come up with anything, so I let it go. Then on the news this morning, they announced his death. Eerie.

Moore was one of those people who was dreadfully, awfully talented. He trained as a classical pianist as well as developing a nasty wit. On Music & Company this morning Tom Allen played two different Moore musical sketches, but the one that sticks in my mind is the Same To You musical piece he did, which is Colonel Bogey a la Beethoven. I almost spilled my tea. It’s right up there with Peter Schickele’s baseball version of Beethoven’s Fifth symphony, Conductor vs Orchestra. (“My God! They’re reprising the opening theme! This has never been done before – listen to the crowd – they’re wild!”)

So I enjoy classical musical humour. Shoot me.

Sleeping On It

Well, sleeping on it does work! I wrote last night’s post on-line (a no-no I usually avoid by composing in Word and copying it over) and my computer froze as soon as I hit the “Publish” button. Argh! Was it lost? Was it trapped in cyber-space, awaiting my secret Jedi powers to free it?

After half an hour of trying to un-freeze the unit I gave up. If it was gone, it was supposed to be gone, and my earlier post was to stand as to my musings on Eric’s sudden passing. I checked this morning, and voila! My post!

Orchestra tonight – I’m so anti-Bizet that I pulled out my CD and my music this weekend and listened to it over and over, then played the opening bit. Or, I tried. Then I played with the Schubert symphony for a while. Much more satisfying. This marks the first time I’ve touched my cello between rehearsals in, um, five months. Gulp.

Woke up this morning to a delightful bit of Renaissance lute music from a CD called “Lute Music for Witches and Alchemists”. Now I have to own it. Hey, I’m supposed to be enjoying life more consciously now, right?