Today’s post comes from Ben:
I came home and said hello to the dogs. Went out another door and said “Hi” to the dogs again, and then, as one does with dogs, said “Hi Hi Hi”
Today in 1581, the first ballet was performed in Paris. It had been commissioned by Catherine De Medici and was called “Ballet Comique de la Reine”. I love ballet, and so do our children. Both studied dance for many years.
The only ballets that I have seen in live performance were by the Winnipeg Ballet, which is a very fine company. We saw them perform Giselle and The Firebird. We sometimes saw dancers from the company wandering the halls of our psychology department as they went to appointments to manage their eating disorders with one of our professors, an unfortunate side effect for some dancers.
What is your favorite ballet? Tell about your experiences with dance.
Whenever I am out and about and see someone with a massively full baby stroller, I wonder why some folks feel the need to bring every single thing they might possibly need along with them every time they leave the house.
Then I get home to my bedroom. When I bought my bedframe many years ago, I got one with bookshelves because… well, you know why. Books. As soon as YA and I had it put together I installed a few books and a box of tissues and figured I was all done. There was plenty of room.
Fast forward to today. Now I have a bucket of pens/pencils, ibuprofen, a hand mirror, my blood pressure monitor, my Walkman, my laptop, my journal and sticker box, my allergy meds, the land line phone, a cell phone holder, lotion, fingernail polish, some photos, a candle, finger nail clippers, two little notepads, a couple of magazine, a pig bank and a bucket w/ various things like chapstick, Neosporin, a few band-aids, aloe vera gel and Benadryl gel. And, of course, way more books.
Whenever I try to straighten all this up, I end up leaving most of it there so it’s “handy” if I need it. Guess now know exactly what all those strollers are so full!
What’s essential in your trip kit?
At my mother’s residence (and nursing home) several weeks ago, she and I attended a concert in the Main Dining Room, where there is a baby grand piano. A collection of string quartets (and one trio) were performed by students from St. Mary’s University String Festival – a 10-day music camp for middle and high school musicians.
The campers attended concerts of the Minnesota Beethoven Festival, whose dates coincided with the camp dates, and a concert performed by the St. Mary’s faculty – aka the Lark Quartet. The students also gave two concerts, one as community outreach that acted as their dress rehearsal, which is what Mom and I saw.
I wasn’t sure if Mom would last the entire concert, and in order to position us with an “escape path”, we sat to the far left, but ended up quite close to the First Violin. Now that I think of it, I doubt if she had ever sat so close to a performer before. The first few offerings by the young musicians went well enough. Just when I thought she might be falling asleep, she sat up a little straighter and looked at me out of the corner of her eye – she was REALLY enjoying this, and was enthralled with watching whomever was in the first chair position. Not only did she last the entire hour-long concert, she talked to the students as they came around to greet us afterward, and said over and over how she had never seen anything like it before. She was charmed, and so were they.
I remember at the end of my first summer in San Francisco, I got to see the traveling Broadway show Hair, twice in one week. The first time was with tickets acquired in the usual way, and we were in the second balcony so got to see, essentially, an overview. Two days later my roommate and I were offered tickets by her friend who could not attend – these were in the Third Row Center… I will never forget this experience as long as I live.
When have you seen a performance “up close and personal”?
Which do you generally prefer – an overview, or a close-up experience?
In the news today, Strawberry Fields, the spot that sparked John Lennon’s imagination and led to their great song will be opening to the public soon. You will be able to walk the gardens and grounds and there is a visitor center with interactive exhibits that highlight Lennon’s early life.
According to the story, about 60,000 visitors gather at the gates to Strawberry Fields every year.
What spot inspired by song would YOU like to visit?
The discussion of bands and band instruments the other day reminded me of something that I haven’t thought about in quite a while.
When Child was in the third grade, she came home with a permission slip and information on joining orchestra at school. I was a little skeptical. When she was five, she wanted to take piano lessons but after 2 months, her piano teacher fired her. She didn’t want to practice and then at the last lesson apparently she was rude to him (I was in the kitchen when this happened, so didn’t witness it). She hadn’t made any other overtures toward an instrument, or even music in general, so I was surprised when she informed me she wanted to play the violin.
I always wanted to let her try things, so I read through the papers and signed her up. Luckily the school had a violin she could use for free and the next day she carried it proudly home. Then for the next week she proceeded to torture the poor thing horrendously. I can’t even begin to describe it but whatever you’re imagining right now, amp it up. The dog and cat hightailed it as far away as they could get from her. I wanted to jump off a cliff, but since that’s not very encouraging to a kid, I pasted a smile on my face and ate a lot of chocolate. At one point I thought, is it really that hard to make a decent noise on a violin, so while she was at gymnastics, I tried it. I certainly wasn’t going to win any awards, but I could at least pull the bow across the strings to make a sound somewhat reminiscent of music. So there it was; Child had no violin ability. Still I let her scratch on because I figured I’d let the music teacher do whatever dirty work was needed.
By the end of the second week, she was practicing much less. While this made all the ears in the household happier, I knew it meant she was losing interest. The third week she didn’t practice at all, despite my reminders. There was a practice book in which she was supposed to record how much time she spent playing; I told her that if she wasn’t going to practice she had to be honest and put down “0” or it wouldn’t be fair to Mr. Brown, the music teacher. So she marked all the days with a “0” and off she went to school. When she came home that afternoon and she still had the violin, I was a little surprised but not nearly as surprised as when I looked at her practice book and where there had been “0”s that morning, there were now numbers on every day. 10 minutes, 20 minutes, one even said 30 minutes. She had erased the “0”s when she got to school and written in her false data.
While I appreciated her ingenuity, I couldn’t let this go, so I made an appointment with Mr. Brown, took her with me and had her tell him what she had done and then apologize. He was AMAZING. He was very kind and understanding. He asked her if she really wanted to continue and when she said “yes” (I just about fell on the floor), he suggested they give it another week. Of course she didn’t even pick up the violin the next week so we went in again and met with Mr. Brown to give him the violin back. She never looked back.
Is there something that you just don’t a talent for?
I had a real blast from the past this weekend when I tuned into the new MPR Concert Band Stream. I played the bass clarinet all through high school and college. It isn’t a very exciting instrument, but I had a lot of fun playing. I have a few recordings of my college band, but I don’t own many wind band cd’s. Husband was worried it would be all Sousa marches, but even he, that hoity toity cellist, enjoyed the selections we heard. He really liked the emphasis on percussion. We heard lots of Vaughn Williams, Holst, and Percy Grainger pieces for wind band, selections I remember playing, along with more modern things . They were very evocative for me, reminding me of emotions associated with the music, and memories of ensemble playing that I hadn’t thought about for a long time. I do hope there are enough recordings of wind band music to fill up the daily program.
What are your memories of learning an instrument or playing in the band?
I have followed with some dismay the recent criticism of poor little Prince George for taking ballet lessons, and was glad to see the support of his dancing by other media figures and dancers. Our son studied ballet for 12 years. It helped with some of his motor coordination problems from his prematurity. He channeled it into a study of the martial arts in college, and now he can break a board on his head! He still retains some dance moves, and it is amusing to see all 6’5″, 250 lbs. of him doing a pas de chat (dance of the cat) down the sidewalk.
I did not encounter much gender bias growing up. My parents encouraged me to do what I wanted to do. I remember being outraged at about age 5 when I was told I couldn’t run around outside without a shirt, though. Most of my cousins were boys, so I played lots of sports with them and tagged along with them as they did their boy activities like building model cars and tree houses, stockpiling fire crackers, making homemade cannons, and setting pocket gopher traps.
I remember that boys with non-traditional interests had a harder time of it. I remember the discomfort people back home had when a boy became the first male cheerleader at my high school. It looks like, given poor Prince George, that things haven’t changed much. I hope he keeps dancing. Maybe he will do a pas de chat through Westminister Abbey at his coronation.
What gender bias did you encounter or witness growing up?
My father-in-law was buried in a large Presbyterian Church in Littleton, CO. We met at the church at 10:00 am for the service to place his ashes in the Columbarium in the church yard, and then trooped inside for the memorial service. My father-in-law and mother-in-law had chosen the music for the funeral a couple of years ago. Neither of them knew a whole lot about church music or the pragmatics of congregational singing. There were issues.
The first hymn we all had to sing was “The Lord’s Prayer”. It is very difficult for a congregation to sing, being better handled by a soloist. (Our daughter-in-law has a beautiful voice and sang it at my parents’ funerals. ) It really doesn’t have a set tempo, and the tempo changes as the song progresses. Then we had to sing “How Great Thou Art”. That went a little better, but the whole thing was made worse by the piano player.
The piano player was an elderly man who played the grand piano in the sanctuary like Liberace. I was surprised there was no tip jar. He is the main keyboard player for the church, and he is a soloist, not an accompanist, who seemed to not care a bit if he helped the congregation get through the hymns. He was loud and bombastic. and played with lots of arpeggios and ornamentation. It was all about him and how flashy he could play. I would find attending regular services there really annoying.
I suppose I have been spoiled by the wonderful music I have been exposed to in the Lutheran churches I have attended in my life. This experience made me decide to to write down what music I want at my funeral.
What music do you want to celebrate your life when you are gone?
My company does a fun summer program that includes concerts out on the big lawn between two of our buildings. On Thursday it was Chris Kroeze. As I was tapping my toe I noticed a toddler towards the front of the crowd, not more than four. His folks and younger sibling were sitting on the grass behind him but there was no sitting for him. He had a small electric guitar (probably not real) and he was wailing on it. Non-stop. And he had moves; he looked like he would have been right at home up on the stage. I stayed out on the lawn for about 30 minutes and this kid was playing his heart out the entire time. I thought about going over and introducing myself and asking his name, because I’m sure in 15-20 years, he’s going to be famous and I would be able to say I knew him when.
Have you ever met a famous person? Was it what you expected?
Trail Baboon 