tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-79406692024-03-13T00:25:11.242-04:00I'd Rather Be in ItalyMelissahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13915059829084334110noreply@blogger.comBlogger349125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7940669.post-36429962699068162572013-10-26T23:23:00.000-04:002013-10-27T01:47:14.163-04:00Learning again<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Since the beginning of September, there has been a piano in my apartment. It is a marvelous old instrument that belonged to my grandmother, an accomplished pianist in her own right. It has loaned an air of gravitas to my hobbled-together little home. I had to give away an Ikea metal-framed futon to make a place for it. This looks a little more grown up. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Isn't it lovely and dignified? It's a bit beat up, but the wood just longs to sound out - If I sit on the piano bench and talk on the phone facing it, the wood vibrates with my voice and tries to send it back out to me. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I absolutely love having it in the house. The weekend after it arrived, I assembled all of the pictures and items to put on top of it, filled the bench with music, and went about playing through a few of the pieces I studied when I was taking piano lessons. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">My grandmother was a piano teacher, although since we grew up a couple of hours away from where she lived, I never studied with her. We always played our recital pieces for her when we visited her, though. I took piano lessons from the third to the eleventh grade. I was never great--I had a mental block against the complexity of playing all of the notes in a chord at the same time--but the sheer hours of practice did have an effect and under the tutelage of a very skilled teacher I managed to do all right. In each of my last three years of lessons, I learned a movement from a piano concerto and worked on a cumulative repertoire that in the last year reached 21 pieces. I played these annually for the local music festivals (a misnomer if there ever was one--they were not so much joyous celebrations of music as panic-inducing audiences before judges). My grandmother always wanted me to hit 25 pieces in my repertoire, but the time came to stop taking lessons and I had not yet hit that mark. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">From the time I left for college until now, I have not had consistent access to a piano. Having one now is a treat; however, I have searched for the list of the 21 pieces I learned in high school and although I thought I would know just where to look, I haven't been able to put my finger on it--the situation definitely threatens my potential to ever hit that 25-piece goal.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">See the sheet music on the piano in the picture? That is an arrangement of <a href="http://yalayla.blogspot.com/2013/10/auteur-music.html" target="_blank">Woodkid's <i>Iron</i></a>. I love how sheet music is as widely available online now as is any other kind of information. I found the arrangement for <i>Iron</i> <a href="http://sebastianwolff.info/news/2011/08/woodkid-iron-sheet-music/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">here</a> on Sebastian Wolff's site this week, and I finally had a chance to tackle it today. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">It has been a long time since I have tried to learn something new, and skill-wise, there is a lot to re-learn. Counting, for one, and re-figuring out how the notes fit together to fill out a measure.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I gave the piece a quick and awful run-through sight reading first. Well, quick might be an exaggeration, and awful isn't nearly strong enough. You might say painful. I made it through, though, then walked away for a bit. I went back to it this evening and decided to tackle the rhythm. See, I know what the rhythm sounds like when the professional taiko drummer plays it on the album, it just doesn't easily translate through to my fingers on the piano, especially when the other hand is busy trying to figure out cords. So I stepped away from the piano and tried to clap it through. I was pacing through the house counting and clapping, trying again and agian, but no bones. So I pulled out grandma's metronome. Sadly, something has happened to it in the time between when she owned it and now, and it clicks with a slight limp. I was in the zone, though, determined to get this rhythm right, so I got on Amazon to see what a new metronome would cost me. And then, as I was looking, the 21st century dawned in my brain and I realized that there is probably an app for that. And lo and behold, the free app of the day on Kindle was the full version of <a href="http://www.amazon.com/AmparoSoft-Creative-Metronome/dp/B009V0TV6O/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1382839557&sr=8-1&keywords=creative+metronome" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Creative Metronome</a>. Go figure. My stars must be lined up right.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">This app is superb! It has a little woodblock sound that you can use to hear how different rhythms would fall within a the main clicked metronome beat. I was able to set it so a woodblock sound went off on the half beats, which helped me finally get the rhythm down. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">This was so much fun, just to the edge of frustrating without going over, and a challenge for parts of my brain that have lain dormant for years. I worked on the first four pages (lots of repetition within them) and called that practice for tonight.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">We'll see if I can still do it tomorrow.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Here's the Woodkid song I really would like learn to play next. Too bad I just don't have the skills to figure it out myself.</span></div>
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<br />Melissahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13915059829084334110noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7940669.post-60611404141516105022013-10-10T01:08:00.000-04:002013-10-10T01:15:50.726-04:00Musique d'auteur<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">So a person who watches night-time comedy content produced by Comedy Central is bound to see a lot of advertisements for adult beverages. Most ads are just icky. Few rise above the scuffle. One company, though, long known for its iconic print ads, does so consistently. The ad I saw this weekend while catching up on the Colbert Report on hulu was as visually and musically arresting as an ad could be. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">So I went hunting.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The music in the ad is by Woodkid, an artist new to me. And WOW. Let's just say this: remember how I have spent previous posts gushing over The National and Mumford and Sons? Let me now gush for Woodkid. His real name is Yoann Lemoine; he is French; he has already done a lot of film work with lots of big artists whose names trigger instant recognition but who I really don't listen to. But now he is doing his own thing and it is amazing. There are a couple of EPs, <i>Iron </i>and <i>Run Boy Run</i>, followed by a debut album, <i>The Golden Age</i>. There are music videos for <i>Run Boy Run</i>, <i>I Love You</i>, and <i>Iron</i>. The work is just so impressive taken as a group that I'm breaking with my usual self-imposed limit of one video per post. This just doesn't seem like the time for moderation. Shall we take a look?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">There are also "Quintet" versions of <i>I Love You</i> and <i>Iron</i>. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">And finally, there is the title track of the album, which I find so intriguing. Not that I don't find the rest of the album intriguing/arresting/necessary, it's just that I want to revel in the similarity of the staccato horn work starting at 1:34 with the brass in Bjork's <i>Wanderlust</i><i>.</i> Different but similar. It's really such a driving, urgent sound.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Woodkid - The Golden Age (and the rest of it). Downloadable on Amazon.</span></div>
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<br />Melissahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13915059829084334110noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7940669.post-12286634930856315742013-09-17T18:39:00.002-04:002013-09-17T18:39:44.263-04:00For the record<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Some numbers, in case you didn't think my thoughts on charter schools held water: <a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/greatspeculations/2013/09/10/charter-school-gravy-train-runs-express-to-fat-city/" target="_blank">forbes</a> </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I guess it comes down to who you feel is deserving of a paycheck: an investor or a teacher.</span></div>
Melissahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13915059829084334110noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7940669.post-59882121092272764992013-09-15T20:51:00.001-04:002013-12-07T01:59:30.412-05:00What September Brings<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I first heard of charter schools 11 years ago when I became a teacher. It was apparent that the school reform movement was a mask for a movement bent on turning a public good into a private source for revenue. My opinion of the dangers "reform" posed to schools only became more firm two years later when I became the testing coordinator at my school and became a witness and participant to the hoops our school was jumping through in the name of "verified credits." During my time in that position, testing moved from paper to electronic format, with no relief or redress to the school as the testing company rolled out a system that barely functioned. I also witnessed the utter waste of instructional time teaching the students how to take these tests on the computer and teaching to the test, and the waste of teachers' time training them to administer these tests and forcing them to do so during their planning time. The testing company profiting from the policies mandating this definitely saw growth during my time as a teacher. From where I stood, it was obvious that our school was participating in these tests to comply with federal and state laws, not because we believed that it represented best practices.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">When I first read Diane Ravitch in classes 8 or 9 years ago, she was still cheerleading these reform mechanisms. I couldn't stand reading her. She has since changed her mind. I admire her public about-face. I'm linking to <a href="http://www.salon.com/2013/09/15/diane_ravitch_school_privatization_is_a_hoax_reformers_aim_to_destroy_public_schools/" target="_blank">this article</a> because she has a bigger soapbox than I do. I only hope that some of the local, state, and national decision makers will listen, think, and change their minds too, in spite of the money machine that has bought them for too long and the incessant media droning on about a nonexistent death spiral for all public institutions and the voracity of the hoards of self-interested teachers seeking to profit off the backs of distressed children. Charters, "choice," reform, and privatization are a dangerous path that will undermine the work that has been done to offer a free public education to the children of this country: an education that instills the value of being a citizen of our public into our young people. I am a product of the schools that the famous study of the 1980s accused of putting our "Nation At Risk;" I now work in a school with real challenges that has managed to continuously provide a quality broad-based comprehensive program to city students. I am proud to teach there. I see students I have taught who are now achieving in college, in grad school, and working as productive members of our society. I am proud of them for their success. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">It's time to stop demonizing schools and time to stand behind them and uphold them as one of the central organizations in our community. It's time to stop demonizing teachers and students. They are real people working together who accomplish good things. Mostly, it's time for every citizen who is "choicing" their children out to re-evaluate whether their participation in this public good might bolster their whole community and their own families. ("Ask not what your country can do" and all that..) Maybe once we stand together in the public arena we will be able to abolish this high stakes nonsense and get some public education policy that reinforces what American schools do best: provide an American public prepared with the creativity, flexibility, and will to meet the challenges of the future that we know are coming and that we can't yet foresee.</span></div>
Melissahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13915059829084334110noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7940669.post-79080914571674993832013-04-28T17:47:00.002-04:002013-04-28T17:50:01.779-04:00No words.<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I have wanted to post and I have started drafts and nothing has come off of my keyboard quite right. It is a pitched time. I have never felt so much like things are going along but still falling apart at every turn quite like I have this year. So of course the writing does not want to come together. Most recently, I have wanted to indict the idiots of congress who say things along the vein of "now the sequester is hurting normal Americans" when all the sequester has done is hurt normal Americans. News like that causes bursts of insane laughter to come out of my shower in the mornings, because I cry enough over normal things that laughter is all that is left.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">But I haven't been able to put it together quite right, and the moment has passed.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">So today I am posting for the sake of the music. Because for the first time today I came across this one. Oh, Mumford & Sons. Masters of the slow crescendo of intensity, and the crushing wave that is the full impact of the song's resolution. I have no words.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Mumford & Sons: Home</span></div>
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Melissahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13915059829084334110noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7940669.post-53112858478983290562013-04-02T21:44:00.001-04:002013-04-02T21:44:53.989-04:00Music Holdings<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Long ago, in the days of audio cassettes, I fell in love with rock and roll. I actually experienced the first blushes of that love even earlier - the first two albums I acquired were on vinyl. (The first one, Heart's self-titled album, my parents picked up for me after a night of babysitting, which was a responsibility, not a job that earned me extra cash. I found out later that they had double checked with my uncles that the music wasn't too inappropriate for their child. The second one, <i>Invisible Touch</i> by Genesis, I purchased my self with money I earned babysitting other people's children. I still have a fondness for the Heart album.) After that it was cassettes - including the quintessential 80's experience of trying to tape music off the radio without too much deejay talkover.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I collected the music because I loved it. When I was 21, my mom asked me to count my CDs. When I told her how many I had, she just looked at me and said, "That's a car." It would have been a used car, but what good would the car have been without anything to play in it? </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I still do collect music, even in this age of free unlimited plays on YouTube. I am waiting A-N-X-I-O-U-S-L-Y for The National's new album to drop in May. Within the last week I have purchased 4 or 5 albums and a few random songs. That is higher than a normal week for me, but not unheard of. There are a lot of people in the world with music collections larger than mine, but I am still happy with the lifetime of music listening that my collection represents.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">One of the bonus reasons I always wanted to collect music was so I could expose my kids to it. I figured that nothing could be more important to any child of mine than knowing the ins and outs of late 80's new wave and electronica, or understanding who was who in indie in the 90s. Besides, I still like it when my dad pops on the Beatles and tells me about the memories he associates with the different songs. As for me, the kid thing didn't really work out, but one of these days the nephew and the niece are going to get an earful! (The niece already likes to dance with her daddy to The Cure. He is doing right by her.) </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">So. What is the collective memory of our age that we want to pass on? If you would like to, dear reader, drop a comment. Tell about what you always wanted to share with a future child of yours and why. Tell how it turned out if it did, or how it might kind of turn out if it still just might. What is the thumbprint you want to send forward? What memory do you want the future to have of your experiences?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Here is one for me. This is a song that I would want perpetuated. It reminds me of the liberty of days off from my summer job in college - exploring the swath of the country covered by the southern parts of Nevada and Utah and the northern reaches of Arizona. Riding in cars with friends looking for adventure. And sometimes finding it.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">New Order - Regret</span></div>
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Melissahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13915059829084334110noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7940669.post-64593945200700410912013-03-31T22:12:00.001-04:002013-04-01T06:51:06.658-04:00I am a hypocrite, but I have reasons for that.<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">JC Penney was playing Morrissey the other night - <i>Every Day is Like Sunday </i>- and I want it on record that I don't approve of my youth becoming the new cool vintage for kids to appropriate much the same way I appropriated peace signs and other trappings of the '60s to be cool when I was a teenager...</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">There is a bigger thing going on, though. Morrissey isn't just some musician - he is a voice of disillusionment, of angst, of despair - of trying so hard and finding you still do not belong. He is not the voice of insatiable retail hunger. He is not the voice of the suburban American dream. He is not the voice of a hamburger and a Coke, or of a McFlurry, for that matter. Next they will play </span><i style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Bengali in Platforms</i><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">, all about how no matter what you buy, your otherness and desperation to fit in will ultimately sink you. And they won't see the disconnect - they will just think they're pushing tall shoes.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The Smiths - Stop me if you think you've heard this one before</span></div>
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Melissahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13915059829084334110noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7940669.post-34338295474962566452013-03-10T21:39:00.001-04:002013-03-10T21:42:34.968-04:00Life is bigger than I am.<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">... and I find myself seeking escape in just about any way I can. Books. Sleep. Music. Sleep. Sleep. Netflix. Books. Sleep. Sleep. Sleep.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Lauren Hoffman - Out of the Sky, Into the Sea</span></div>
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Melissahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13915059829084334110noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7940669.post-38489882122051782432012-01-08T21:34:00.003-05:002012-01-08T22:50:22.280-05:00Story for a Full Moon<div style="text-align: justify;"><span>I love Italo Calvino's stories. Tonight I ran across news that an album of music inspired by <i>If on a winter's night a traveler...</i> will be released this week, and the samples sound lovely. I'll write more once I get my hands on the whole thing. I hadn't heard the following story before, but I thought this little film was just beautiful.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span><br /></span></div><div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span>The distance from the moon - Italo Calvino</span></div><div><br /></div><iframe width="640" height="480" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/EZ9cEZhiGPw" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe></div>Melissahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13915059829084334110noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7940669.post-91044477046312670552011-12-30T21:02:00.009-05:002011-12-30T21:38:33.029-05:00Mountain Vistas<div style="text-align: justify;"><span>So yesterday I was flying over the Rocky Mountains. They are so beautiful. I was flying home after visiting family for Christmas. Of course, once I got off my diet of work-related stress, my body relaxed so much I spent much of my time away feeling sick, but I also did a lot of hard playing with my nephew and niece. They are two fun kids. My nephew is sweet as can be, and my niece is a spunkcat! We spent a lot of time laughing and coloring and having fun. Yesterday before I flew out we played "camping," which I hope is what we will be doing the next time I go home. </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span>Also on this trip out, my sister-in-law treated me to a pedicure, which is something I've never managed to do before. Very nice and enjoyable. We've decided that it needs to be an annual girls'-day-out activity - hopefully next winter my sister and our to-be sister-in-law will be there too.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span>And we managed to see the new Muppet Movie. It earned my laughter and my tears and my stamp of approval - finally something with the Muppet name has been created with Muppet spirit. Which may be the biggest compliment I could pay for that one.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span>So it's winter, and I find myself less talkative. At least today. Maybe tomorrow I'll be more loquacious. </span>Anyway, the vacation was all-too-short, and yesterday I found myself flying over the mountains. Which leads us to today's song. Make yourself happy and blow up the video - whoever put this one together did a beautiful job. And the view at 1:34 reminds me of home. Not in winter.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span>Midlake - Core of Nature</span></div><iframe width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/OFBTYow4YC0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>Melissahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13915059829084334110noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7940669.post-80388784593772771402011-11-27T21:26:00.008-05:002011-11-27T22:38:32.428-05:00I tried rutabagas.<div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: verdana; ">The secret is that Garrison Keillor made me do it.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span">I have a love-hate relationship with the Writer's Almanac. I find the information fascinating and I love to read the poems again afterward, but I am not the president of the Garrison Keillor fan club. I just disagree with his way of reading most of the time. Too slow. Too many pauses for breath. Tone of befuddlement, especially in situations where befuddlement doesn't work. And yet, I have to listen. I like most of the stories, and the poetry! It's all about the poetry. And yet... there is this one other issue. O</span>f course, a few years ago I wrote a poem about it:</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span">*****</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span">Why I really regret having picked up the habit of listening to Writer's Almanac every morning</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span">When, standing in the bookstore aisle, I open up somewhere in the middle of a new book of poetry to peruse and test its waters; </span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span">When, settling in with a new collection, repetition and flow wash over me (O that this poet's words were mine!);</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span">When, pencil in hand, I dot the final line of my own feeble attempts, scanning back over my own lines with some satisfaction; </span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span">Elation! Joy! Soaring! But too soon,</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span">that crazy Writer's Almanac theme music</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span"> (zippy from the end of the show, not slow and plodding from the introduction)</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span">rips through my mind announcing</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span">the end of the poem.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span">Garrison has finished his reading for the day.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span">Time to put the poem down. I am off to</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span">Be well, I set my hands to </span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span">Do good work, and I try to figure out with whom I would like to </span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span">Keep in touch.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span">Oh, wait. I had more poetry to live.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span">Lost, I search vainly to figure out where I was.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span"><br /></span></div><div>*****</div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span">So last Tuesday, <a href="http://writersalmanac.publicradio.org/index.php?date=2011/11/22">Garrison read a poem about rutabagas</a>. And I was so taken in by the description of them as having a </span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span"> "...dug-up texture,</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span">the hint of dirt</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span">that couldn't be baked away,"</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span">that I went out that afternoon and bought two rutabagas.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span">When I started peeling them, I was shocked at the thick layer of paraffin coating them. I cut them into large cubes and roasted them with cubed pork loin and with other vegetables: sweet potatoes, baby red potatoes, carrots, garlic, and mushrooms. </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span">The rutabagas were a delight. They tasted just like the poem said they would. Point Keillor.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span">Here is a song from a Christmas album I downloaded this afternoon. I may post more from it while the holiday season is on. I liked the Christmas albums so much I went back and downloaded everything Amazon had by them. I think this is a band I will enjoy getting to know better. Anyway. Enjoy the surprise halfway through this one.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span">Future of Forestry - Joy To The World</span></div><iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/EwlvImmWYdg" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe><div><br /></div>Melissahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13915059829084334110noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7940669.post-42745093569782914372011-11-25T05:21:00.004-05:002011-11-25T05:51:32.264-05:00Leaves<div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" >So it's fall and the trees have been very busy dumping their leaves. Thanksgiving is always a reference point for me. It seems like my first few years living here, there were still lots of leaves left on the trees as we rolled into the last part of November. This year, definitely not. We have had some early cold, and most of the leaves are down.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" ><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" >I write about this because my new classroom has me parking on the back lot of the school now rather than the front, and in the back lot, there is a tree with different leaves. In the front it's all maple and other super-broad-leaved trees; in the back there is a tree with smaller, skinnier leaves. (Sorry, I do not know which trees are which, so you'll have to believe this rudimentary description.) They are rounded at the base, about three inches long and 1/2 inch across, and they form a slight point at the end. Go figure. Anyway, this tree must have dropped millions and millions of these little leaves. They are all over the back of the lot, and when it rains, they coat your car like fur. </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" ><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" >But what struck me was walking out to my car in the rain the other day - the sound of the rain drops hitting the leaves was so staccato, like a million rattlesnakes rattling, just beautiful - and so different from the normal sounds of rain hitting pavement or (more silently) grass. It reminded me of rain in the forest - it reminded me of the green expanse beyond the city that houses most of my life. I felt wonderful and alive.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" ><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" >The next day when I got in my car after school, more leaf madness. As I drove along the street, one of these leaves flew up from the vent area below the the windshield wipers and behind the hood, and started to dance across my windshield. Because it was damp, the ends stuck to the glass, but the middle rippled and waved and forced slow movement upward toward the top of the car. When I came to a stop, it fell, and it blew away. </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" ><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" >Hooray for leaves. I will be glad in the spring when they come back again. I'll have to take a closer look at that tree so I can figure out what kind it is.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" ><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" >Bing Crosby - Autumn Leaves</span></div><div><iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/8kP8jPa1wCg" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe><br /></div><div><br /></div>Melissahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13915059829084334110noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7940669.post-45692008850618114092011-10-20T23:59:00.002-04:002011-10-21T00:13:53.019-04:00An Introduction<div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: verdana; ">Tonight I met a new poet and I am reduced to runny-nosed tears reading her beautiful, beautiful work. If you haven't already, please meet <a href="http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/340">Wislawa Szymborska</a>. I won't clog up this meeting chatting away - here she is:</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: verdana; "><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" ><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" ><b>Under a Certain Little Star</b></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" ><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" >I apologize to coincidence for calling it necessity.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" >I apologize to necessity just in case I'm mistaken.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" >Let happiness be not angry that I take it as my own.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" >Let the dead not remember they scarcely smolder in my memory.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" >I apologize to time for the muchness of the world overlooked per second.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" >I apologize to old love for regarding the new as the first.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" >Forgive me, far-off wars, for bringing flowers home.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" >Forgive me, open wounds, for pricking my finger.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" >I apologize to those who cry out of the depths for the minuet-record.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" >I apologize to people at railway stations for sleeping in at five in the morning.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" >Pardon me, hounded hope, for laughing now and again.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" >Pardon me, deserts, for not rushing up with a spoonful of water.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" >And you, O falcon, the same these many years, in that same cage, </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" >forever staring motionless at that selfsame spot,</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" >absolve me, even though you are but a stuffed bird.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" >I apologize to the cut-down tree for the table's four legs.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" >I apologize to big questions for small answers.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" >O Truth, do not pay me too much heed.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" >O Solemnity, be magnanimous unto me.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" >Endure, mystery of existence, that I pluck out the threads of your train.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" >Accuse me not, O soul, of possessing you but seldom.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" >I apologize to everything that I cannot be everywhere.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" >I apologize to everyone that I cannot be every man and woman.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" >I know that as long as I live nothing can justify me,</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" >because I myself am an obstacle to myself.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" >Take it not amiss, O speech, that I borrow weighty words,</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" >and later try hard to make them seem light.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" ><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" >Translated from the Polish by Magnus Jan Krynski and Robert A. Maguire</span></i></div>Melissahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13915059829084334110noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7940669.post-83150255798092741462011-10-17T20:36:00.002-04:002011-10-17T20:58:54.945-04:00Not Johnny Cash<div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" >Before I even get started, let me just say that I am running in a perpetual state of sleep deprivation these days. I don't know what that has to do with anything, it's just that I figure it must have a lot to do with everything. Go figure. So maybe I overreacted, but I don't think I did.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" ><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" >Well. Here we go then. So anyone who sort of keeps up with this blog has figured out that I really like music and that I try to keep up with some small fraction of music coming out of Italy. Usually this is an enjoyable endeavor - one that sends me hunting for downloads and gets me trying to sing along. And I have found so much wonderful music this way. Usually it is wonderful. Every once in a while it's disastrous.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" ><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" >Like today. Early this morning, I turned on Italian radio and one or two songs later, I heard a very familiar guitar riff - the opening to <i>Solitary Man</i>. Which is one of the great songs in the whole universe. Except then, it was being sung in an Italian translation that just completely failed at doing it justice. It was more a song of "please don't leave me" and "what would I do if you left me too" than a song of resignation to the singer's own solitude. I couldn't believe the gross distance by which this one missed the mark. A shame.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" ><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" >You know, I don't think that sleep deprivation is forcing me to over-exaggerate at all. It really was horrible. So let's just make a rule that when Johnny Cash does a song, no one really needs to come behind him and do it again. He was just too spare and poignant to need a redux.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" ><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" >Ok, and yes, I do know it was originally a Neil Diamond song. But let's be real. It's a Johnny Cash song down deep through and through. Sorry, Neil.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" ><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" >Johnny Cash - Solitary Man</span></div><iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/-OVHnWyDmdw" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>Melissahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13915059829084334110noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7940669.post-89447669525862752252011-10-06T03:49:00.003-04:002011-10-06T03:58:36.332-04:00What has been playing in my head for days<div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: verdana; ">At work, I've been streaming a lot of <a href="http://www.blogger.com/www.radioitalia.it">Italian radio</a>. This because I'm teaching fewer classes but experiencing a much higher workload, and music has always helped keep me concentrating when at the computer. Finally, though, I'm finding that locating and downloading Italian music is becoming much easier and much less expensive than it has been. So when I heard this song, I zoomed right over to Amazon and downloaded it. And now a couple of songs on this album are on a continual loop in my head. They're quite catchy.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" ><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" >A note, though: I was promoting listening to Italian radio with my college class the other night and during the break I turned it on, and of course some old 70's - early 80's song that sounded not-so-great was playing. I tried to pass it off saying that with the time differential, it was the middle of the night there---but let's be real. Quite off-putting.<br /></span><div><span class="Apple-style-span" ><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" >Modà - Sono già solo</span></div></div><iframe width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/PdTEBPGNpKM" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>Melissahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13915059829084334110noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7940669.post-44077180134982017742011-10-02T07:52:00.004-04:002011-10-02T08:47:20.717-04:00Medieval Weapon of Choice<div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" >I love catapults. This morning's Cul de Sac cartoon got me wishing (again) for a great big full-size catapult of my very own.</span></div><div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div> <div><img src="http://cdn.svcs.c2.uclick.com/c2/233c8d60b7ef012e2f8f00163e41dd5b?width=900.0" alt="233c8d60b7ef012e2f8f00163e41dd5b?width=900" /></div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" >Why do I love catapults? Because I seriously rolled off the couch laughing the first time I saw this:</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" ><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" >SNL - Yard-A-Pult</span></div><div><iframe id="NBC Video Widget" width="512" height="347" src="http://www.nbc.com/assets/video/widget/widget.html?vid=1352985" frameborder="0"></iframe><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" ><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" >It's the dog that gets me. I talked about that one for years - I think it's the funniest thing SNL has ever done.</span></div></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" ><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" >When I was in Torino years and years ago we visited a beautiful park (Parco del Valentino) by the Po that has a replica of a medieval village. There we found a weaponry shop and they had the most fantastic catapult - just big enough to have some torque, maybe a 15-inch arm - for sale. It wasn't just that it was a catapult - it was beautifully styled with rope and wooden wheels, etc, so it was captivating in a way your amazon.com balsa catapult-from-a-kit could never be. (They also had a little guillotine, which to me is much more scary but almost as cool.) Sadly, I was in no position to buy it, but the last time I was in Italy I did get an itty-bitty working catapult pencil sharpener at the Colosseum. Yes, I realize that catapults have nothing to do with the Colosseum, but that is the souvenir I bought there. It's about big enough to launch an M&M. Mostly it has been used to launch wads of paper at my webcam when Skyping with my nephew and niece.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" ><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" >Wow. I've got to get back to Torino.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" ><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" >Hooray for the catapult and its family of flinging weapons. I can't embed it, but here is a great video for the road - a British medieval weapons enthusiast with a great big <a href="http://youtu.be/BYY1XXQondw">trebuchet</a>. Enjoy. Really. </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" ><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" >And how about a song?</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" ><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" >Elizabeth & the Catapult - Taller Children</span></div><iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/EsUO__GWpQM" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>Melissahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13915059829084334110noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7940669.post-27437339408976973802011-09-24T08:48:00.002-04:002011-09-24T08:50:43.799-04:00Dear Elizabeth Warren,<span class="Apple-style-span" >please run for president. I'll pull for you 100%.</span><div><span class="Apple-style-span" ><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" >Thanks,</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" >Melissa </span><div><br /></div><iframe width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/htX2usfqMEs" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe></div>Melissahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13915059829084334110noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7940669.post-26589430840360231032011-09-23T19:19:00.007-04:002011-09-23T21:34:10.138-04:00So Much for September<div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span">Well, it must be September and the start of school because this blog has not been updated for a while. So here are some of the happenings and the ideas kicking around my head for the last little bit:</span></div><div><ul><li style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span">I watched the Emmy Awards last Sunday and realized that I was actually more interested in them than I was in the Academy Awards last spring. Read: TV is more interesting than movies. Sad to say it, but let's face it: Modern Family and The Daily Show are the BOMB. Both shows are so smart and funny, with real things to say about the world we live in. Now, I have certainly not sworn off movies altogether, but movie theater movies? In 2011 I have gone out to see <i>Harry Potter 7.2</i>, <i>Thor</i>, and <i>The Help</i>. So I have been trying to figure out why I have arrived at a point where a sitcom is more engaging than a film. There are a couple of possible reasons: a TV show obviously offers more time for character play - (not necessarily character development) - and I really like to laugh, but I find most comic movies sophomoric. Let's face it - smart movies aren't usually funny, but smart TV can be.</span></li></ul><ul><li style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span">[Side note: Not that movies are bad. <i>The Help</i> was so very awesome. I cried through at least six napkins and walked away with purpose. Loved it.] </span></li></ul><ul><li style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span">Jon Stewart, I love you. Still.</span></li></ul><ul><li style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span">I am teaching some great students this year, both at the high school and at the university. Switching to teaching was the best career move I could have possibly ever made. Once upon a time in college, I wanted to study Italian teaching, but they refused to let me do it because it wasn't one of six approved teaching languages. Well, phooey on you, university where I did my undergrad, I got what I wanted in spite of you. :P</span></li></ul><ul><li style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span">One of the students in my university class gave me props this week for knowing how to spell Megadeth. </span></li></ul><ul><li style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span">I had to switch classrooms this year and even though Back to School Night has come and gone, I still don't have my classroom put together the way I would like. Why on earth not, you ask? Because that will require borrowing a tall ladder from the custodians and taking a big old chunk of time to take many, many trips up and down it to hang up my flags and posters. And that has not happened yet. It may not happen this year. I did finish getting fresh paper up on most of the bulletin boards on Wednesday, and I saw one spot of the top of my desk yesterday.</span></li></ul><ul><li style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span">I switched rooms because I am now helping to coordinate one of the programs at my school, and I needed to be next to the program offices. My new responsibilities have been quite overwhelming, and I don't feel that my feet will ever hit the ground again. I am one of those crazy cartoon characters suspended in midair with my feet churning in circles. Don't get me wrong - I am loving so much about this: the organizational aspects of my new responsibilities, the people I'm with whom I'm working more closely now, and the sense that I will really be able to help make the school work - I've just got a nice big learning curve stretching forward as far as I can see.</span></li></ul><ul><li style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span">This has been a week of my sister and me calling each other to say "You've got to hear [insert crazy wonderful radio show] on NPR!" <a href="http://www.npr.org/templates/rundowns/rundown.php?prgId=13&prgDate=09-20-2011">Fresh Air</a> had an interview with Maurice Sendak (author/illustrator of <i>Where the Wild Things Are</i>). It left me in tears in the parking deck and almost made me late for class - but I could not turn the car off. I don't always like Terry Gross (she can insert way too much of her politics into her interviews, and she is too left-wing even for me) but this was a beautiful, thoughtful, and artful interview that really explored aging and loneliness while still celebrating life and Mr. Sendak's work and genius. Amilynne had me listen to this <a href="http://marketplace.publicradio.org/display/web/2011/09/21/pm-stop-calling-it-class-warfare-commentary/">commentary from Marketplace</a> on the "class warfare" currently underway. Also, Writer's Almanac had two beautiful poems: <a href="http://writersalmanac.publicradio.org/index.php?date=2011/09/23">Unveiling</a>, which immediately invoked images of the little yellow circular "kid's table" in the basement of my grandparents' house, and <a href="http://writersalmanac.publicradio.org/index.php?date=2011/09/20">The Love Nest</a>, which has one of the most delicious metaphors I've ever heard to make you gasp at the very end. Seriously. If you don't gasp just a little, you're probably dead. I ♥ NPR. </span></li></ul><ul><li style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span">Speaking of NPR. One of their regular reporters is a former high school classmate. Pretty nutty to be getting ready to go to high school in the morning and hear the voice of someone you knew a million years ago in high school reporting or interviewing someone really important. Yeah.</span></li></ul><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span">I think that's about it for the moment. Blitzen Trapper has a new album out. Would you like a song?</span></div></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span">Blitzen Trapper - Girl in a Coat</span></div><div><iframe width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/K0ojbIHurI4" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe><br /></div><div><br /></div>Melissahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13915059829084334110noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7940669.post-13207315995083103112011-09-01T00:17:00.003-04:002011-09-01T00:29:25.744-04:00Tonight I hated heading home<div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" >but there's work in the morning, you know?</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" >
<br /></span></div><div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: verdana; "><span class="Apple-style-span" >The Smiths - There is a Light that Never Goes Out</span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: verdana; "><span class="Apple-style-span" >
<br /></span></span></div><iframe width="420" height="345" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/pSgoEBa6b_U" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe></div>Melissahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13915059829084334110noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7940669.post-60434935839179259522011-08-01T20:49:00.003-04:002011-08-01T21:23:16.864-04:00Hope is a Rare Birdand it was showing off its lovely plumage this evening. The NY Times <a href="http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/08/01/giffords-return-marks-moment-of-unity-in-divided-house/?hp">reports</a> that Gabrielle Giffords arrived at the Capitol to vote for the debt ceiling bill that finally appears to be receiving enough bipartisan support that we may avert the crisis of a default. I am so happy for her and for her loved ones.Melissahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13915059829084334110noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7940669.post-26892030502876033702011-08-01T17:35:00.002-04:002011-08-01T17:42:56.383-04:00$25 of Good for FREE<div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: verdana; ">Usually I am not one to boast about bargains on my blog, but I just joined Kiva and made a $25 loan for free! You can too. Here's the link: <a href="http://kiva.org/invitedby/melissa5486">http://kiva.org/invitedby/melissa5486</a>. As of now, there are about 3,700 free $25 loans available. I have a feeling that they will be long gone by the August 13 deadline.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" ><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" >I am excited, too, because the loan I picked was for a weaver in the Philippines. My dad has some beautiful woven runners and place mats that he brought back from there before I was born. Eye-dazzling. </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" ><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" >I'm not going to be wordy so I can publish and get the word out. Have a great time finding someone to help. </span></div>Melissahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13915059829084334110noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7940669.post-55252779777858460712011-07-25T21:52:00.004-04:002011-07-25T22:05:11.010-04:00Now is that kind of time.<div style="text-align: justify;">Happiness and joy to you. Much is afoot. Now is the preparing time, the waiting time. <span class="Apple-style-span">Let's just say that the past weeks have not been blog-friendly. Yes, I am sleeping again. Yes, there is too much to do to fit into a day. On days like this, I search my music program for "baroque," hit shuffle, and play. </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span">So let's try it on YouTube.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 18px; ">Trevor Pinnock - </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 18px; "><span class="Apple-style-span">Ramcau, La Villageoise</span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px; "><br /></span></div><iframe width="425" height="349" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/WAJE35wX1nQ" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>Melissahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13915059829084334110noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7940669.post-60632425942599390362011-07-10T08:05:00.002-04:002011-07-10T08:10:16.337-04:00Lost<div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" >Only three hours of sleep last night.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" ><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" >Mannaggia la miseria.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" ><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" >The Dandy Warhols - Sleep</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><iframe width="480" height="390" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/AeAB00szD4E" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>Melissahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13915059829084334110noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7940669.post-34423179094300251672011-07-09T12:23:00.002-04:002011-07-09T12:57:19.078-04:00I-N-S-O-M-N-I-A<div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" >I have had the worst insomnia for the last two weeks - basically since the start of the summer class I am teaching. It seems that the only time my body wants to sleep is from 6-11 a.m. - precisely when I need to be moving on teaching days. Apart from about two nights in the last two weeks when I think exhaustion drove me to sleep earlier, I can fall into a light sleep from about 3-6, but real restful sleep seems only available in the mornings. Hooray, then, that today is Saturday and I slept in until eleven. I feel more alert than I've felt in days.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" ><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" >Yes, I am a nightowl, but this is rediculous.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" ><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" >So I haven't been ignoring the blog, I just haven't been able to concentrate enough to put anything coherent together. </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" ><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" >This summer, I was supposed to be reading <i>Paradise Lost</i> with Amilynne. She waited for two months to read it with me. Summer finally started and I gave her the go - and I got to page 2. She texted me the other day that she has finished it. I just told her that it wasn't happening for me. So last night I looked around the book shelves with free eyes - for the first time in 2 1/2 years, I am letting myself choose a book I really want to read, not something related to work (although I have read some fabulous books for work in the last couple of years). I decided on <i>Il barone rampante</i> by Italo Calvino - a book I have tried to start about four or five times and failed - and last night it was like the story reached out and took me in. The description of a sister who cooks every strange animal of the forest into really sadistic presentations for her family, and of the two little brothers who desperately plot to set a barrel of snails free had me - I was retching at the descriptions of her past presentations of snails.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" ><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" >The book has been translated into English as <i>The Baron in the Trees</i> and is available on <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Baron-Trees-Italo-Calvino/dp/0156106809/ref=sr_1_5?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1310229448&sr=1-5">Amazon</a>. If you order it and start reading it right away, don't tell me the ending - I'm not the fastest reader in Italian, but I'm getting much better.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" ><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" >Italo Calvino is one of my favorite writers - <i>If On a Winter's Night a Traveler</i> is one of my all-time favorite books. His books take the normal to a point of absurtidy - the whole time you're reading, you're thinking "Is this really what's happening?" and it really is.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" ><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" >Here's a song that sounds like insomnia to me.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" ><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" >DM Stith - Easy to be Around (Diane Cluck cover)</span></div><div><br /></div><iframe width="480" height="390" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/4AO_2_sYxfU" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>Melissahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13915059829084334110noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7940669.post-17987199275703694532011-07-07T23:18:00.002-04:002011-07-07T23:40:48.014-04:00Endorphins.<div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: verdana; ">I'm feeling them from my walk this evening. I feel kind of "yay" and that is good.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" ><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" >In general, summer is "yay"-making, and right now that is definitely how I feel.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" ><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" >Tonight's walk took my most awesome take-a-walk-motivating friend and me around an island in the middle of the river. And it was the perfect time of evening: the sun was about the right height in the sky to still be daytime but it had lost the worst heat of the day, the water was blue, the swimmers were out on the rocks. Looking at it for a while, I thought how I would like to take a sketchbook there and do some drawing; maybe I will sometime.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" ><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" >Time to schedule another beach trip. </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" ><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" >Summer is the best.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" ><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" >Janis Joplin - Summertime</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><iframe width="480" height="390" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/mzNEgcqWDG4" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>Melissahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13915059829084334110noreply@blogger.com0