Eric Whitacre Prom

I didn't end up going to the Eric Whitacre Prom this week, but I wish I had. 

I've listened to it on iPlayer - if you get a chance, it's excellent. The link is here, but I'm not sure how long for!

I am Ingrid (well, not really)

It was time for some new glasses. Because, well, it was.

I had been admiring Joanna Goddard's glasses, as pictured here, and Ingrid Michaelson's glasses, here.

So I went to Specsavers (I know!) and got these. LOVE them. Also, feeling very pleased with myself because they were the cheapest pair in the store. £25 frames, £40 for the lenses. I think that might be my karma from the 2-pairs-ago expensive disaster coming back around.

Speaking of Ms. Ingrid, I can also play The Chain on my new guitar (no, it's not a hard song, and no, I'm not a good guitarist) while singing along. Oh clever me.

Other favorite thing of the moment: nectarines, halved, with a little bit of butter and a sprinkling of sugar, under the broiler for 5 minutes, with ice cream. Do we maybe think this is why my skinny pants didn't fit this morning? Umm...

(NOT) Sweet Peas

How is it that Spotify has been available in the UK for, um, years, but that it has taken my American peeps to be super-excited about it (thanks, Em) for me to actually download it? I realised that I even had a login - I put my email address in and it welcomed me back. Oops?


Taylor Swift, embarrassingly, you rock my world. Sorry, cool police. Google+ is also creeping in to my life - if you're on, shout!

And here comes a public service announcement: did you know that the peas on sweet pea plants (pictured above) are toxic? Um, I didn't. A bell-ringing friend gave us some sweet pea seedlings back in the spring, which I planted outside the kitchen door. They started to make peapods, so I announced that I would put them in some dinner…maybe a curry. The Husband's reaction? "NOOO! They're poisonous!" Oh, really? (Checks internet…) "Why yes, they are." Then why the heck would they name them something like sweet peas? C'mon guys, give me a fighting chance. I hereby suggest a new name: "Very Pretty But For Pete's Sake Don't Eat The Peas!" Thoughts?


Here's my attempt at bokeh, through the plant on the windowsill. I have some work to do, I think.

This is what our table on the back porch looks like. Yes, I know we need the rain. But does it have to rain every day, for hours? And can it be a little warmer than 15C? I don't really want to wear trousers and slippers and a hoodie IN JULY. Thanks.

First raspberries

I finished The Postmistress today - I liked the writing and found the descriptions very vivid, especially London during the Blitz. The storyline was a little predictable, though. I think the atmosphere of the book will stay with me for a while, while the characters and plot fade.

I tried to start W.G. Sebald's The Rings Of Saturn after reading about it in the New York Times (it's "set" in Suffolk), but I read the first chapter and completely lost interest. I have been known to ramble randomly, but I didn't put it in a book. NEXT!

Raspberries, below, from the garden. Yum. Oh, and I have managed to find an Ingrid Michaelson album that I like - I have downloaded Everybody and it is on semi-repeat. She's like Kate Rusby in that her voice falls in a similar range to mine and her songs are quite melodic, so she is very lovely to sing along to.

My brain on music

Anna at twelve22 recommended Daniel J. Levitin's This Is Your Brain On Music, about how we hear music in neurological terms. It's riveting. My only problem is that I need to be by myself when I'm reading it, since I'm compelled to read chunks out to whoever's around at the time.

I'm only about 50 pages in, but I can see that it's the kind of book that a Colby music prof would assign as an extra-credit project. I'm actually enjoying reading it just to read it, rather than reading it knowing that I need to write a paper on it or answer questions on it on my next midterm.

(This is a random picture of a clock from one of the church towers we visited last weekend)

In other music news, I seem to have come out from under my rock to find Owl City (warning: music auto-plays). I normally find auto-tune stuff to be really irritating, but for some reason I think it's really catchy. Embarrassingly, I didn't find out about them (him?) on the radio like a normal person. No, I heard about it because someone at work asked if we would be buying in the matching folio. In case you're wondering, the answer is yes.

Reviews: Christmas Music

Having been liberated from a previous colleague's taste in schmaltzy pop Christmas music (Do They Know It's Christmas? How could they miss it? You've played the song 12 times so far today!), my iPod has been keeping things festive in my office. Please note: I'm NOT inflicting this on anyone else.

Kate Rusby: Sweet Bells
The peerless Ms. Rusby (whose songs fit v. nicely within my range) sings traditional Yorkshire folk arrangements of the Christmas carols you know (and some you don't). It always reminds me a little of the Sutton Manor versions of Christmas carols, which must seem very strange to outsiders...

Tori Amos: Midwinter Graces
A bunch of really traditional Christmas songs, Tori-fied. She kicks butt. And pianos. The album does rather over-use chimes to invoke church bells, but I'll forgive her.

Benjamin Britten: Ceremony of Carols
Way funkier than people give him credit for. We're rehearsing this for our concert on the 20th (shameless plug!), and I really love it. We're doing the SATB version with organ or piano (I can't remember which), but the recording I have is of the SSAA version, and I have to say I prefer it. My favorite movement: "This Little Babe". The lyrics start out seemingly harmless, but it's sung in a crazy fugue and comes across as complete chaos.

Sesame Street Christmas
We've been through this. I love it. Everyone else thinks I'm crazy. I'm ok with that.

An Indigo Girls review, 2 months late

The latest Indigo Girls album, Poseidon and the Bitter Bug, came out at the end of March. However, that was the US release date, and since my iTunes is configured for the UK (so I can use my iPhone), I had to wait. And wait. And wait some more. And then I got distracted.

I finally downloaded the album this weekend, and listened to it all the way through at work today (hooray for having my own office). Amy, Emily and I go WAAY back - my dad first heard them on NPR back in the early 90s, then I spent lots of time sitting around campfires in Vermont singing Closer To Fine, then listened to them all through high school, went to a few concerts (and wrote a few musicology papers) in college, and then have seen them perform in New York (lots of times) and Cambridge (just once). I'm predisposed to enjoy me some Indigos.

I'm still on the fence about this album, though, which I think is partly a result of the way it's presented. I bought the 'deluxe edition' on iTunes, and it features every song in both a "studio" and "acoustic" version. Why? Give me the same number of tracks, once, and YOU as the artist decide if it sounds better as the studio version or the acoustic version. Please? Even I, the hardcore IG fan who can listen to hours and hours of Amy 'n Emily, have trouble listening to the same album twice in a row. And what will become of me if I put the album on "shuffle"? I may suffer the indignity of hearing the same song twice in a row. On MORE than one song!

Taking the album as ONE set of songs, though, the songs are classic Indigo. There were two where I found the music particularly interesting:

First, "Love Of Our Lives" opens with Amy and Emily singing in unison, followed by a section with them singing in octaves - I can't think of any other songs of theirs where they sing together without harmonising for more than a note or two.

Second (although it's earlier on the album), "Sugar Tongue" has Amy singing a very "Emily" song, in a much higher register than she usually sings. It makes her sound completely different - it's almost like a falsetto.

Musicologists, start your engines!

Toot!

We picked up a movie last night: The Last Mimzy. We watched it with James (it's a kids' movie), and boy, was it weird. I've seen some trippy ones in my time but this one took the cake. The kids find a stuffed rabbit from the future who says the world's going to end unless they send it back to the future and save the universe. Yeah. It actually doesn't sound that bad when I describe it like that, but it was really strange.

We did our usual butcher/baker/farmer's market shopping today (when did we turn into such hippies?), and made the lamb/tomato/zucchini thing for dinner. It was funny - it was the first time I made it that it wasn't for guests.

We gave James a solar car kit for his birthday - he and I built it today and played with it out on the sidewalk. Once we found a big mirror and used the regular sunlight AND the reflected sunlight, it was really moving along. He was pretty impressed, and then a cloud went over the sun and the whole thing screeched to a halt.

Oh, and his mum announced this week that he was starting music lessons. More specifically: trumpet lessons. I mentioned that 'Uncle Ed' played the trumpet all through middle school and that I played the french horn and trumpet in high school and college (and taught the trumpet to kids his age at an after-school program for 2 years).

He was SO excited about bringing his trumpet to our house so he could play. I was mean, though - his idea of playing is 'taking a huge breath and blowing as hard as he can to make a honking noise and then giggling.' Granted, this is pretty much what anybody would do with a trumpet, but it's not the best way to learn to play.

I made him do some breathing and then he buzzed on the mouthpiece and THEN he played a few notes. He reminded me of myself at that age, trying to learn something. He wants to do it ALL and he wants to do it NOW and he doesn't want to bother with stupid stuff like breathing right or playing real notes. He gets frustrated pretty quickly (like I always did), and he's had asthma his whole life, so the breathing exercises generated some tears. I reminded him that if he learned to breath the brass-player's way, his asthma would get a lot better and he'd be able to breathe more easily anyway.

It was totally bringing back memories of my college horn teacher, who I have to say was one of the best teachers I've ever had. She was a kindergarten music teacher when she wasn't teaching horn, and she used the same techniques on her college students as she used on her little kids. We LOVED it and really learned a lot. I think James was a little bit mystified when I made him lie on his back on the floor with a cookbook on his stomach (it's to get him to breathe with his diaphragm), but it definitely helps.

I'm hopefully going to get to the Paxman store in London next weekend (it's a horn mecca), since my mouthpiece is somewhere in New Ro and my horn is in Stowmarket. I kind of need them both to play, so I'm going to suck it up and buy a new one. It feels a little bit sacrilegious - I've only ever had the one mouthpiece and I can't really imagine playing with a different one. But until I (or mom) figure out where it is, I'm going to have to get a spare. Like Edward's blankie when he was 6. I guess the good news is be that when I find it, I'll have two. And until then, I'll have my own brass instrument to make noises on so James won't get icked out by sharing his mouthpiece with me.

Found things

I'm currently obsessed with Kate Rusby. She's one of the premiere folk singers in the UK - I heard her on the weekly folk program that I listen to on Radio 2. John and I both heard the track "High On A Hill" and reached for our wallets to buy the album. Once we get our heads round this one we'll be buying some more. She has sort of a Joni Mitchell / Emily Saliers sound - I LOVE it.

My first week back at work was a little chaotic - I've never taken 2 weeks off from a job before and I had a v. large pile of email when I got back. My colleague and I also swapped offices with the marketing department this week - there are three of them and two of us and our office was quite a bit bigger. It works out for us - we get REAL (un-recycled, un-filtered) air. We have a an office with a big window and 2 doors. I've made it, I think. :)

My other new discovery (besides Ms. Rusby) is Boden. It's a UK clothing store that I saw an ad for in a magazine and ordered. Every page has something that I'd wear - when I get back down to a reasonable weight, I'm going to treat myself to an outfit from them.

Speaking of weight, it's going reasonably well - I've been making a conscious effort to end every meal a little bit hungry, and we went for an epic walk today and are planning another one tomorrow. I'm RAVENOUS right now, but I've also been drinking a lot more water to fill myself up and I'm feeling a lot better. John made a gorgeous paella for dinner tonight - it had chorizo, squid, shrimp, mushrooms, peas (I even ATE them!), and some other yummy stuff. I'll keep him.