Author Archives: Anne Farnsworth

About Anne Farnsworth

Musician, writer, academic, borderline burnout. Vegan when I'm not eating meat, athletic when I'm not laying on the couch.

JUST SOMETHING THAT HAPPENS

By Anne Farnsworth

“I haven’t gotten my period in six months.” 

Best Bud whistles long and low on the other end of the line.  

“Geesh,” she says, “you better tell your Mom.”

“No way,” I answer firmly. “You know the Jumper. Before I finish the first sentence she will have leapt to the rafters with a burning stake in her hand crying for justice.  Thunderbolts of fury will rain down on my head.  The earth will scorch, crops will fail…”

“What if you’re pregnant?”  Best Bud interjects. “They’re going to find out sooner or later.”

“I’m not pregnant. That would be obvious after six months.”

Besides, we’ve always used protection, the Prince of Cool and I.  Both times.

“You’re sure?” she asks cautiously.

“I guess. What do you think it is?”

“Dunno. Hope it’s not some disease.”

“Gee, thanks. Can you ask your Mom for me?”

“Are you kidding? Suck it up and tell your mom. She may surprise you.”

“That’s what I’m afraid of.”

I hang up the phone and take a deep breath. What’s the worst that can happen? I’m sixteen,  they can’t send me to regular prison.  A youth camp, maybe. What if she asks if I’m a virgin? Except for the pamphlet she wordlessly handed me when I was twelve, sex has never come up. ‘A Girl’s Precious Wonder’, I think it was called. 

Fists clenched, I step over the bodies of the Sibs splayed out in a starburst formation around the TV.  Poor saps, ignorant of the unearthly power soon to be unleashed in the Jumper’s bedroom.  I knock on the half-closed door.

“Yes?”

“I need to talk to you.”

With my spirit hovering over my body ready for a fast break, I enter and sit on the edge of the bed.  The Jumper puts down her book and eyes me warily. Cozy little talks aren’t our style. “What is it?” 

Her questions have no upward tilt in their inflection. They sound like statements.

I speak the unspeakable. Hold my breath.  A nod that says ‘Go on’, like a doctor would do.  I can’t possibly be pregnant, I add.  No reaction.

“Well?” I ask. 

“We’ll talk about this tomorrow,” the Jumper says flatly. Interview over.

I slink out of her bedroom in a giddy sort of shock.  For the first time in my life, the Jumper hasn’t jumped. To conclusions. All over me. Out of a window and screaming down the street.  Maybe it will be okay after all.

The next morning I am called out of class to the school office. I walk in to see the Jumper signing a piece of paper and handing it back to the secretary. Mumbles. Whispers. What’s going on?

We leave school and get in her car. The Jumper drives in the direction of a neighboring town twenty miles away, home of the Paternal Unit and his new wife, She Who Has Needs. 

“To see the doctor,” the Jumper hisses darkly.

“We can’t see a doctor in our town? Why’d you have to go and get everybody involved?”

No one answers but the wind as it whistles tunelessly through the open windows. It’s hot but I feel chilled.

We pull into the parking lot in front of the small medical center where the local sawbones makes camp with his dipsomaniac nurse. She Who Has Needs is already there, waiting behind the wheel of her big expensive car. She gets out as we do and runs a laser probe up and down my whole sinful self. She and the Jumper exchange meaningful glances.

“Best get this over with,” She says tartly. 

Flanked on either side, I am frog marched into the building. I say nothing.  Talking is what got me into this. From now on I am a prisoner of war, they have my body but my spirit is…

“Good morning, everyone!” Dipsy nurse chirps through blood red lips as we enter the cold, dark waiting room.

The Jumper turns to She. “Can you take it from here? I have to get back to work.”

“I think we can handle things,” She assures. 

I feel guilty as hell. Even the town slut nurse seems to be looking down on me. It’s not my fault, I scream in my head.  What would they do if I had cancer? Put me in stocks in the village square?

The nurse leads us to an examining room where I am instructed to remove my clothes and put on this sheet-looking thing. Dipsy and She stand whispering to one side as I turn the sheet this way and that.  Are they going to leave while I change?

“Come on, the doctor will be here soon,” She admonishes. “Get your clothes off.”

Guess they’re not leaving. I sit on the padded table and take off my shoes. There are silver stirrup-y things suspended from poles at one end of the platform. Do you hang your shoes there while the doctor is examining you? I don’t know and don’t ask.

Naked, I hold up the sheet to cover myself. I’ve never been naked in front of two women before.  In broad daylight.  In big trouble. They don’t seem to notice.

“Put your arms through the holes, dear,” Dipsy instructs, “the open part goes in the back.”  

Excuse me?

Thus arrayed, I slide hesitantly back onto the table. The air conditioning curls up my bare back. Dipsy smiles.

“I’ll get the Doctor.”

The atmosphere grows heavy as we wait, She and I. With each sigh from her wide avaricious mouth, the air thickens until I am gasping, catching my breath in short little hiccups.

“I’m not pregnant,” I mutter. Like speaking under water, my words are dull and slow, fighting their way through the leaden air.

“But could you be?” She asks. “Are you a virgin?”

“What?”

“You heard me.  A virgin.  Are you or aren’t you? You might as well tell me now because the doctor can see if you are. Well?”

I stumble. I stutter. I hang my head. I expose the heinous crime in one little word.

“No.”

She folds her arms triumphantly across her ample bosom and smiles in a weird sort of way.  I wonder how the doctor can tell.  Is it something in the eyes? I don’t ask.

The door opens and Sawbones makes his entrance, all starchy white coat and condescending attitude. He always seems to be bugged that he has patients waiting.   I was fourteen the last time he and I crossed paths. I fall off my horse, hit my head on a rock and split it open down to the skull.   We have to wait in the parking lot because it’s Sunday and Sawbones was home eating dinner with his family.  Sitting in the car, so much blood, crying as I press a red-soaked towel to my head. The Paternal Unit points encouragingly to the doctor’s car as he pulls into the drive.  We watch in horror as he stops at the road to sort through his mailbox before attending to me. I take forty stitches.

“How are we today?” Sawbones rattles. 

She Who Has Needs gestures and they step out of the room.  Supported by my arms trying to hold my bare bottom off the waxy paper cover, I grip the edge of the table and stare out the window. I don’t want to look at the naked lady on the wall with the outlines of her reproductive organs drawn like a street map of a suburban cul de sac. Her arms are open slightly to each side, like a statue of the Madonna, as if she were offering this glimpse into her deepest self for our salvation. Raise those arms, pump in some nails, and that could be me up there.

The door opens. Sawbones and She look grim.

“Might as well get started,” Sawbones says. “Lie back on the table and put your feet in the stirrups.”  

Excuse me?

“Come on, lie down. I’ve got other patients to see, Missy.”

I search the face of She who nods, her face pale and tight.  Do it. 

Still disbelieving, I pivot my body and slide lengthwise down the table, feeling for the stirrups with my bare feet, my hands clumping the fabric of the sheet down between my thighs. The stirrups are ice.  My face burns.

Sawbones sits on a stool and spins across the floor to the table, flipping on a small light attached to a band around his forehead. Grasping the stirrups with both hands, he pulls them upward with a sharp thrust. My legs shoot into the air, calf muscles quivering.  He reaches out and spreads my knees apart. He’s not going to look there, is he? I’ve been defending that hill since I started dating. Nobody got there. Well, except for the Prince. And now Sawbones?

“Let’s see what we’ve got.”

A silent scream explodes in my throat as Sawbones carefully folds back the sheet. His hands are cold, my skin is on fire. Sawbones bends down and studies my private parts. 

“Hmmm…”

Great clouds of pink and blue fill the room. Sparks of electricity shoot out of the light over my head and a low, droning hum fills my ears. Sawbones turns away, his arm disappearing in the mist.  I hear him rustling around in a drawer. Out of the clouds his hand reappears with some sort of utensil, like something you’d see in a gourmet’s kitchen. A crab cracker or a wine opener.  

“This might hurt a bit,” he says, faint glimmer of hope in his voice. 

My body stiffens as the crab cracker is inserted.  The sparks are dancing around my head now, the drone deafening.  She steps out of the haze and leans in, keeping a respectful distance behind Sawbones.

“Do you see anything?” She asks, her voice rising over the thunder.

“Hmm….,” he says again. 

I am not here. This is not happening. I turn my face to the window. The clouds part and I can see the sky. I am not here. I am somewhere up there.

The probing tool is pushed in farther. Screwing sounds. It widens against me from the inside. My muscles fight back. It wins.

“Nope,” Sawbones pronounces. “But that doesn’t mean anything.”

What are you looking for, a miniature baby? When you peer down that dark tunnel, will it gurgle and wave?

His stool squeaks backward as the crab cracker is quickly withdrawn.  The sudden release from its painful grip sends hot tears running down my cheeks. I turn to face the wall. I don’t want them to see me cry.

“Well, young lady, if you want to dance you have to pay the piper,” Sawbones grunts as he stands and leans over me. I can’t stop the tears no matter how hard I try. He presses on my abdomen, carefully, thoughtfully, here and there. I am nauseous. The lamp over my head glows red as I stare straight up. Maybe it will burn out my retinas and I can be blind. The Madonna on the wall reaches out to comfort me.

“Good girls don’t have to go through this. If it was one of my girls, well…”  He leaves the consequence unspoken. Images of his two dowdy daughters dance around the room. Don’t worry, Pops.  Nobody’s interested. 

“You feel something?” She wheedles in a high-pitched voice. Kind of disappointed-sounding.  As if she wishes there was. Like it would give her something to do. A crisis she could turn inside out and poke and prod until it hovered around her. She could wrap it around her neck and, stooped with its great weight, cry foul for the burdens life has handed her.  It would become one of her needs.

“No, but that doesn’t mean anything. You can sit up now.”

Sawbones goes to the cupboard and opens another drawer.  I rise, balancing cautiously on the gaping hole between my shaking legs.  I can still feel the cold steel. He pulls out a large white plastic bottle.

“So…,” She says, beady eyes darting from him to me.

Sawbones opens the bottle and shakes out seven of the largest pills I have ever seen.  He puts them in an envelope and hands them to her.

“See that she takes one a day for the next seven days. If nothing happens by then, well, we’ll know for sure now won’t we.”

She shakes her curls emphatically, taking the envelope with a small greedy hand.

“Yes, Doctor, we will. We’ll know.”

I say nothing.

One hour later we are sitting in the Paternal Unit’s spacious office, She and I. We’ve interrupted a busy day. The phone on his desk blinks insistently. The Unit reaches into a drawer and pulls out his own white plastic bottle. Antacids. Tums for the tummy.  He unscrews the top and pops a couple in his mouth. Chewing slowly, he speaks for the first time.

“So it seems you’re not pregnant.”

“No,” I say softly. The first I have spoken in hours. 

“We won’t know for sure until she takes the pills,” She offers helpfully.

“I see,” the Unit replies.

The same heavy air.  Silent recrimination.  I stare over his head at the ponderous portrait of my great grandfather, Company Founder, that hangs on the wall.  Even he seems pissed off.

“Well,” the Unit says, “we’re just disappointed there was a possibility.  That you weren’t still a…”  His voice trails off. The Founder nods gravely, if imperceptibly.

I am taken home, the bonds released. The Jumper is still at work but has been following the proceedings by phone. There is nothing to discuss when she arrives. I take the pills, one each day. After five days my period comes. And comes and comes and comes. Heavy, cramping bleeding for two solid weeks.  Tidings of joy ring across the parental landscape.  The siege is lifted.   

I wonder why I missed my period for half a year but it is never discussed. We pretend it didn’t happen. I don’t broach the subject that gnaws at me because I have learned a great lesson, to keep my own counsel. Except for Best Bud, of course. But she has no power over me. She can’t hijack me out of school and deliver me into the depths of misery. She can’t lean over a doctor’s shoulder and stare with pursed lips as I lie naked and exposed. 

Fast forward, ten years later. I sit at the Unit’s bedside in a Florida hospital. He is dying. The chemo has turned him a greenish yellow.  She Who Has Needs is in the hall outside weeping into the telephone, cursing her fate, reveling in this, her greatest burden to date.  We are alone.  I talk. The Unit listens. He is too weak to do anything else.

I speak of many things. Slights perpetrated against the Sibs; the missed plays and talent shows, the lavish generosity She showered on her own children while we went wanting.  

And my period.  Remember?  The time I didn’t get my period for six months and everybody went crazy and then I got it and we never mentioned it again? 

The Unit coughs and tries to sit up. He reaches for the steel bowl on his bed and begins to retch. I hold his head until he is finished.  I wipe his mouth and give him a sip of water.

“She told me it was normal.”  His voice is high-pitched, childlike. “Something that happens to young girls.” 

He leans back, exhausted, manages a weak smile. Asking forgiveness? Maybe.  Maybe not.  After all, it’s just something that happens.

(7)

The World According To The NYT Crossword

According To The NYT Crossword Puzzles…

…the most popular cites in America are Ames, Iowa, and Enid, Oklahoma.

(And the two top world capitols are Oslo and Riga.)

…Tito is the most popular Jackson.

…Eva Peron is more significant than her Generalissimo husband.

…anise is the most popular flavoring.

… the only class in medical school worth mentioning is anat(omy.)

…there are only two native American tribes – Utes and Otoes.

…we have three seabirds – terns, erns and kerns.

…and they live in an aerie. Or an aerey (var.)

…speaking of – ‘var.’, or variation, it just means misspelled.

…there are only two native American tribes – The Utes and the Otoes.

Got one? Leave it in the comments.

(5)

HOARDING HOARDERS

If I binge watch Hoarders, a show about people with an obsessive compulsive disorder who can’t stop collecting things, am I hoarding Hoarders?

Dr Suzanne ‘Zataran’ Chabaud, Dr Robin ‘Cheryl Tiegs’ Zasio, The cool Dr Melva Green and affable Dr David Tolin. A dream team of mental help.

Suzanne says – When the objects go, the emotions will flow.

And the cleaning specialists – lovable Dorothy, sanguine Cory and Matt the wild card.

“Don’t eat while watching” should be a warning. Food-centric episodes are the worst, like the lady hoarding rotten food for her sinner children to eat after she’s taken by the rapture.

Joyce season 7 – ‘I know I should clean up…. BUT I DON”T FEEL LIKE IT!

I know when I drive I should follow the rules of the road….BUT I DON”T FEEL LIKE IT!

There seem to be a lot of hoarders in Ohio and Kentucky, just sayin’.

(8)

NDUGU CHANCLER

Anne Farnsworth session

I came home from a Saturday night gig to hear that my beloved friend, Ndugu Chancler, had passed away from the illness he had been battling for several years. An immeasurable loss, not only for the industry, but for all the friends, loved ones, students and everyone he touched with his kindness, joy and positive outlook.

When people asked me about Ndugu’s work, my answer by way of description was, ‘He’s played with everyone from Miles to Michael Jackson.’ And pretty much everyone in between, to be honest. That’s Ndugu playing that iconic intro on Jackson’s “Billie Jean” on the Thriller album, the biggest selling pop album in history. For a deeper, yet still incomplete, outline of some of the people he recorded and toured with, see his obituary in the New York Times. Speaking of which, how many drummers get obituaries in the New York Times?

I went to NAMM with him once and it was like being with the President, we couldn’t walk more than five feet without being stopped by someone – colleagues, fans and swarms of pic-snapping Japanese who surrounded him at every turn. At a pre-JEN Jazz Educator’s Convention held during a frigid January in Manhattan, we’d be strolling to dinner with Ndugu wearing a full length white mink coat. Yes, he was fly.

I was his little buddy and he was my big, cool friend. We met when he came to the University of Southern California to advocate for the admission of one of his private students. I was finishing my masters degree and running the Jazz Studies office. We had a nice chat and I asked him if he would ever consider teaching in our department. He said yes and after he left I ran to my Chair’s office to give him the news.

Our chair at that time, Thom Mason, followed up with an official offer. There was a lot of excitement about this big of a get for the department and several of the male faculty were slapping each other on the back in celebration while I watched from my desk. To this day, I think they think they were the ones who thought of asking Ndugu to join us.

 

Ndugu never stopped giving his gifts to his students. Even toward the end,  he traveled the world to meet with them in workshops, clinics and one-on-one. He was a towering industry figure who still got together for weekly lunches with friends from his youth. As well as I knew him, I never learned about his accomplishments from him, only from other people. He was a beautiful soul who will be sorely missed and never forgotten.

.

(228)

Notes From The Sixth Grade

Unknown

 

I taught sixth grade chorus for a year at Los Angeles Academy for Arts & Enterprise, a charter school in Echo Park. The school shared a building with a Korean Church and Hillary’s 2008 presidential campaign headquarters.

The mostly-latino kids were about a 50/50 mix of enthusiastic and well-mannered children and unrepentant wildlings. English wasn’t their second language, it was more like their third, as many of them had Mexican and Central American parents of native descent who spoke their indigenous languages at home.

The school’s culture required misbehaving kids to write letters describing the incident they were being punished for. The teacher could add a rebuttal or followup questions, the ‘Enterprise’ portion of the school’s philosophy.

These letters were cogent, evocative and dead honest.  I came upon a pile of them while cleaning out some file cabinets and have transcribed them here. If you’re acquainted with this age group, you will hear some familiar refrains.

 

 

                                                                       THE FLY

Dear Ms. Bow,

Ms. F sent me to the back to write a paragraph explaining why I was disrespectful.

That happened because a fly kept bothering me. It kept going to tables and then leaving. I tried to hit it but I kept missing. I tried to hit it with a book but still missed. When Ms. F asked me what I was doing I said “nothing” because if I talked about the fly everyone would burst out laughing.

Then a few kids noticed and softly giggled. I just looked at them and giggled. The fly was really annoying. Then Ms. F sent Hector to the back. A while later she sent Graciela to the back. Then when I and a few others laughed, she said to me “You’ll be next if you don’t pay attention.”

I tried to ignore the fly. But it kept landing. Then when Ms. F was talking it landed on my hand. I tried to hit it but it flew away. I turned around to see where it went. I saw Julio laughing at my failure and laughed a little. When I turned back around she thought I was talking.

I mean I had been talking before and she had heard me. I guess I should have explained it was Elmer. Later for example, when Ms. F authorized it. I admit it. Now I’m in trouble so I will take responsibility for my actions.

My apologies to Ms. F and you, Ms. Bow, for making me waste your time with my childish behavior. I am sincere.     Manuel

 

                                                      BUDDING BOOKWORM

 Dear Ms. Bow,

I was behaving badly because I was reading a book. Because I wanted to know what happened. I was reading it when Ms. F was talking and that’s why I got in trouble.

Response: Ms. F would like to know why the book was out when she asked at the beginning of class to put everything away.

I just wanted to know what the book was about and when you said to put it away I was going to and you came to my desk and told me to write a letter. And Ms. F said that we were supposed to put everything away at the beginning of class. I did and Manuel let me borrow the book and then I was reading it. She caught me with the book and I did not respect her to put everything away.       Hector

 

                                                BLAME TESTOSTERONE

I wish I had music with a different class. Because the boys are really rude. The boys shout instead of sing. I don’t like that. I wish boys would just follow directions and stay quiet. But they don’t. But I ♥♪♪.       Maria [Written on pink Hello Kitty paper]

 The thing that happens is that all boys don’t listen to the teacher and they always talk back. In every class. Almost all the boys except Jose, Darren and Alexander. The girls, we listen.   Jessica

 

                                    CIRCUMSTANCES BEYOND MY CONTROL

The only reason I laughed is because my friend sneezed like a girl. I started laughing and then Miss F told me to write this letter. Then she sent me to the back of the class.

Response – Miss F does not ask people to write something until they have been asked several times to not talk or fool around. Agree?

NO! I do not agree because sometimes you think I’m playing around but I’m not.     Ramon

Dear Ms. Bow,

Ms. F is maid at me. I was just looking at the girl that was laughing and she put me in the back and told me to write this letter.      Edgar

 I was good but people made jokes and I laughed. And people did funny things when we were singing.     Lesley

I wasn’t doing anything bad. I love music. My friends were behaving bad and goofing off. I don’t like to stop a lot. Ms. F doesn’t like to get mad.      Jose

I was trying to tell Ms. F that I didn’t have my songs. I was sharing with Josselin but I stopped because I wanted to tell Miss F the script didn’t have some of the songs.

I did get in trouble because I was being disrespectful because I was laughing and talking and making Johnny laugh and other people. I should think before I say something. Next time I’ll think before something comes out of my mouth.        David

 I was actually sick from the stomach and my head hurt but Brian was staring at me and he made a funny face and I laughed and then he laughed. But I am sorry to doing that. I wasn’t lying about being sick. I hope you accept my apology, Ms. F. I mean it!         Sergio

 

                                                 PERFORMANCE REVIEWS

 How I really feel about music is happy. Singing kinda expresses my feelings. But some people try to ruin it. People shout out, don’t participate and fool around.

Some people hate you because you are mean. I think you’re a pretty good teacher. I like this class. I think you should make the bad people go to detention and the good people don’t get punished. That way the bad people get jealous and do good.         Darien

I think I haven’t been bad cause I like music. When I grow up I want to be a singer but mostly a dancer. Also I like it cause Ms. F is a cool person.        Jacky

Why I don’t want to participate is because I get distracted. And also I was trying to talk to Brian R. I had my feet on Brian R’s chair and was moving him.

Also I don’t like the music that much. It’s boring. That’s why my behavior is bad. And I am bad each time it’s choral music. Then I wanted to talk to Brian R and Ms. F asked me what I was doing. She made me go to the back. That’s why I’m writing this essay!!!!

Ms. F is mean a lot. I don’t really like music class. I try to behave good so my Life Folder will be good and my mom can sign it. This is the only class I don’t like. Reader Theater is better than Music.       Miguel

I like music because I want to be a singer. I like my teacher called Ms F. I didn’t behave good with my teacher. The class was bad to get the teacher mad. But I like music and the teacher. I am sorry Ms. F that I got you mad. I will behave better on Thursday.          Johnny

I like music class because Ms. F is really the nicest teacher in the whole school and cares about us.        JuliaChaos-in-the-classroom1 

 

                                                      SIGNED CONFESSIONS

Dear Miss F,

I, Manuel Esperroza, got in trouble for talking and interrupting you. You said to stop and I was very close to going to Mr. Louis’s office. Well, I’ll resume to the end. Before you sent me to the back I was about to ask Mendez what the lyrics were.

I did not want to write the lyrics down so I was going to ask him if he knew the words I did not know. That way, if you asked me I would know them. Before that I must admit I had been talking about other stuff.

But I was trying to stay away from the office. I do not want to be there. I’ve been there a lot lately. And since you’re reading this I should add something else that you might want to know.

I refused to translate for Elmer because he has been giving me a lot of trouble. First, students come to me and ask me to control Elmer because he’s giving them trouble. Then Elmer hits me in the head with a lock. Outraged I was.

Then he hits me in the ribs with the lock. Mr Cooligan sent us to the office. Elmer gets in-school suspension and I get a call home. And my mom has to come to school to talk about it. Since then we were told to stay away from each other.

That’s my reason for not translating. Well, that’s it. I just have to apologize and take responsibility for my actions.           Sincerely, Manuel

Dear Ms. Bow,

I was talking with a boy and Ms. F warned me to stop talking but I didn’t stop talking, that’s why I got in trouble.           Sincerely, Siomara

 I think it’s disrespectful we kept talking and making jokes. Also, we weren’t singing we were yelling. It’s not good. Sorry, Ms. F. I will not do it again. Bryan R is the worst. Sorry Ms. F.      Anna

Dear Ms. Bow,

Ms.F sent me to the back because I said People’s Court. Then she told me to write this letter.

Response: Ms. F does not send people to the back the first time they misbehave. Agree?

Yes, because when I’m bad the first time she doesn’t send me to the back.       Anthony

 I was speaking when I wasn’t supposed to. I’m so sorry Ms. F. I’ll do better next time. I’ll sing and won’t be disrespectful. Sorry.        Lesley

                                                          UNFAIRLY ACCUSED

I feel like it is not fair that the kids that listen get in trouble. I feel like the kids that don’t listen more than twice should get sent to another class. I feel like Ms. F should not get disrespected. That’s how I feel.      Patty

I could not sign because I am sad and sick. I’m sleepy in music and I do not like signing. I went to a party and came back at 4AM. I like music but not a lot.      Brian

 Well, Miss, I was singing but if you think I wasn’t that’s your choice. But if you don’t think this is good enough, because I was singing, I really don’t have anything to talk about. I was picking up stuff that fell from my backpack. I really wanted to sing but I guess you think I was talking. You’re the teacher and it’s your decision.       Mimi (and Roxy says hi!)

                                                          POST-GAME ANALYSIS

 I think the class was bad because we were not in school yesterday and maybe we got used to having fun.          Mark

Most of the kids in the class were not participating. I like music, besides all the arguments. I think the class was too loud and hyper. Maybe some kids ate too much sugar today.      Maria

 Some people were disruptive to the class. Some people lied because they didn’t want to sing. Some people were probably bored.        Alexander

 Today the class was calling out a lot and I was part of that. I guess the class was tired with music because they wanted to go home.         Bryan

 Some people don’t want to participate because they might be tired or maybe because they don’t like it.        Marta

Dear Ms. F,

I think that some people think it might be uncool to sing. But I really like music because we get to sing. I think people want to argue because they want to be silly but they are not funny. I think that the song You Got A Friend is great.        Anita

(151)

Second Life – The Noob Experience

Noob Avatar                                                               A freshly minted noob

 

The virtual world of Second Life is exciting, scary and utterly confusing to first-timers. Unless you’ve been brought in by a RL friend who leans over your shoulder from your first login, you learned the ropes as we all did – by falling down stairs, watching the interactions of the established avatars and occasionally getting our coats pulled  by an exasperated veteran (Get off the damn landing zone!)

I’ve asked friends to recall their early noob experiences, to confess their confusion. Here are their responses.

WHEN I WAS A NOOB….

…I thought you had to wear ALL the layer options of an outfit at once – shirt, jacket, undershirt.
Miss Cast

…I didn’t know what copy meant so I would buy two, three or four of the same thing.
Molly Bloom

…I would wear the box I tried to open and didn’t know how to get it off me.
Dianna Granville

…when I bought boxed objects, I thought I had been ripped off. I didn’t know the object was inside.
Weller79

…I clicked on everything I saw hoping it would do something.
Amanda Magick

…for the first couple of weeks I didn’t realize there was sound. I thought the difference from one club to the next was the way people dressed.
Calli Glenfadden

…when I fell in the water, I thought I was going to drown (game over, man.)
Ladywhite Falcon

…I didn’t leave my house for the first week because I couldn’t figure out how to change clothes.
Jazzlyn Riptyde

…I thought I could exist on freebies and dressed accordingly, like a spotty teenager in ill-fitting clothes. No one will dance with you.
Sput TheRadishSlayer

… I spent 2 days trapped in a wall trying to figure out how to get out.
Titania Harbour

…I didn’t know about sandboxes so I would go around rezzing boxes everywhere. Then I’d leave them in random stores and streets.
Marie Sorbet

…. I thought everyone was cool and I was fascinated by my AV. Not so much any more.
Ceana

…I couldn’t figure out how to leave the welcome center.
Led Frenzy

…the first thing I thought upon entering Welcome Island was, ‘Where am I?’ Second was, ‘How do I get out of here?!?’
Eurias

…when I tried to click on myself to go into appearance mode I’d end up detaching all my clothes and having to start all over.
Kristyna10

…I thought i was trapped in a cage once. Like I can’t click the x?
Dreamy

…for at least a week after I first arrived I had no idea I could fly or tp so I walked endlessly over the mainland.
Laetitia Vella

…I couldn’t find doorknobs to open doors so asked people to TP me out.
Chef Lew

…I spent my entire first day with a motorcycle attached to my hand, swinging it around as I walked. I couldn’t figure out how to get it off! I walked up to the first person I could find to ask how to get it off.
THAT person turned out to be a prostitute and wanted me to pay her for sex. “You gotta be kidding me, people have sex here?” That was in ’07.
Arthur Earl Dexler

…The nice man invited me to click on the pink ball. I was very surprised by what happened next.
Lorelei Firehawk

…I went shopping for new skin at JOMO, dropping L3500 before I realized those weren’t demos I was selecting.
Bomb

…I went skin shopping and walked around for weeks with ‘Demo’ plastered all over me before someone pointed it out to me.
Jenisen Danick

…for the first month I was so afraid that if anyone talked to me, I TP’d away or just logged off.
Calli Glenfadden

…I jumped on poses balls thinking, Now what?
Lola

… I wouldn’t change unless I was in an SL dressing room because I felt I had privacy.
RFB Morpork

…I would hide in a corner to change clothes.
Scarlett Luv

…I closed the blinds of my house when I wanted to change clothes.
Eachan Branagh

…a friend spent two hours teaching me how to find and move an object.
Dearest Myrtle

…I was convinced everyone needed excite body parts (not sure why you need emoting nipples.) I rented a furnished skybox and was only allowed 10 extra prim. I’d dropped my nipples and was hundreds of prim over. My landlord was furious.
Dee

…after a few days stumbling around, a kind girl advised me I was gender neutral and had to buy my bits. BUY my bits!! Still have traumatic flashbacks of that moment.
Warn Dragovar

…I think I am forever a noob. I still fly into walls and fall in the water.
Daffney Anne Bellic

…I kept all the boxes from everything I got or bought. I didn’t know you could delete them until 6 months later.
Amanda Magick

…I fell in the water and got stuck for hours until a guy showed me how to get back on land. Funny and frustrating at the same time.
Allyce

…I sat on EVERYTHING.
Jazzlyn Riptyde

…I lost control of my new motorbike and crashed it through the bar at Crossroads during a DJ’s set – twice. I also crashed into their no-tell motel, half sticking through the wall. Really freaked out the couple in the room.
Marie Sorbet

…I desperately had to look up the meaning of “AFK” “LMAO” “BRB” and such like.
Tarjiman Ort

…I thought IKR was short for I Kan Relate.
Miss Cast

… I found a wonderful place called “camping” something- back then, camping was where you got paid LL to hang out. I thought it was fantastic, there were so many people. I didn’t notice they were all afk.
Alice Bardenboar

…. I couldn’t cam for a long time and just walked to things I wanted to look at.
Elwood Zanetti

…I accepted friend offers from many ladies, all of whom seemed to need lindens to buy clothes or pay rent. So many tragic stories!
Brash

…I didn’t know how to sit so I kept walking.
Impress Allen

…I couldn’t figure out why my halo, wings, being on fire and riding a slug made people mock me. I thought I was the coolest person in the room.
Molly Bloom

…I got stuck in a koala bear avatar for three days.
Jaici Fairport

…I would get naked and dress in a shopping mall without a care in the world. It was like dressing a Barbie doll. Now it’s ME!
AprilShowers Becloud

…. I wondered how the women got their real shapes into SL.
Zeus Michalski

…I thought poofers were the ‘in thing’ and loved to use them. Got banned at a few sims and pissed off a good many folks.
Piffy Difference

…. I got my first piece of land and wondered what the hell prims were.
Saraya Starr

…I thought everyone shared the truth about their RL. Problem is, I still do!
Fabio Lazuli

…I stayed logged into SL for five days straight. My dreams, first life and SL all melded into one.
Clyde Barrow

… I didn’t realize there were club dance balls and I only had one stupid dance. I wondered why everyone was so much better at dancing than I was.                                                                        Samstar64

…a 12-year-old boy avatar gave me a “school girl” outfit to wear – little plaid skirt, open white shirt…
Precious

… I took to fishing. I had fish all over the sim – in the sky, on the ground, everywhere. My friends were very patient.
Attilio Mersand

…I decided to change clothes at a club and ended up bare ass naked in the middle of the dance floor.
Ulrick Storm

…I looked awful on the first day. On the 2nd day I got turned into a vampire and got a makeover. [ED: Now she’s a model]
Nicci Winsmore

…I had no idea what SL time was. I live on the west coast and thought the little clock in the corner was a courtesy clock.
Miss Cast

…. I was standing in the front row at a Creed tribute concert when everyone was asked to remove excess prims. My skirt was very prim heavy so I went to detach it, accidentally hit Shirt and flashed the band. One of the band members passed me a tee shirt and asked if I was trying to get backstage.
Veronica Weksler

… I had no idea I could place an item parallel to a wall by using rotation. Cost me hours and hours of my time.
Lorelai Bonetto

…none of the above.
Edith Halderman

Got one for the list? Tell us in comments.

(610)

Tony Cennamo – One Of The Great Jazz DeeJays

Tony Cennamo
I was going through some old tapes and found a late-night interview I did in the ’80’s with Tony Cennamo, the legendary WBUR Boston DJ.

Nothing I can say about him wasn’t said better by his WBUR colleague, Steve Ellman, in a moving memoriam written at the time of Cennamo’s passing in 2010 at the age of 76.

You can read Ellman’s tribute here.

Tony was ebullient and full of life, despite a few strokes and a careful adherence to sobriety. I’ll never forget him bursting into the rather sedate bar at a high end hotel in Bermuda where I was doing a solo show, shouting, ‘I heard Anne Farnsworth was playing here!’

Here’s our interview, minus the music selections. Those are posted on my YouTube channel, Anne Farnsworth Music.

 

 

 

Tony_cennamoWBUR1

 

Boston.com columnist Roy Greene, among many others, also published a remembrance at the time. They include many of Tony’s often hilarious, decidedly un-pc opinions; fightin’ words from the big hearted man who lived and breathed jazz:

“Brooklyn accent riffing through the Boston night, Tony Cennamo used his expansive understanding of jazz as a counterpoint to the records he played past midnight on WBUR FM, entertaining and educating sleepless lovers of everything from bebop to avant-garde.

Listeners can hear his voice speaking the words he wrote for the Christian Science Monitor when he took a moment “to vent in print what is on the tip of my candid tongue” in January 1985. Musicians’ names cascaded like a soaring saxophone solo.

“Jazz is Monk, Ornette, Duke, Bird, Dizzy, Miles, Trane, Toshiko, Pee Wee Russell,and Gil Evans, Mingus the imaginative, the juices flowing, not the bland, watered down, the whitewash of a thousand Xeroxed copies,” he wrote. “Jazz is not safe and doesn’t hide in Symphony Hall.”

He didn’t play it safe, either, and his precisely rendered opinions helped shape jazz tastes for a generation of fans during the quarter century he spent on WBUR. Mr. Cennamo, who also taught at Emerson College for many years, died Tuesday in Glen Ridge Nursing Care Center in Malden. He was 76 and had suffered a seizure in April.

“Tony’s the rare thing that most disc jockeys are not,” vibraphonist Gary Burton told the Globe in 1987 as he and others prepared a tribute concert to honor Mr. Cennamo’s then-15 years of spinning jazz records on WBUR. “He’s also a musician, a trombonist, which makes him a better DJ. It comes out a lot in his interviews. He doesn’t sound like a fan interviewing a star. He’s a real champion of the new musician in town and his interest extends beyond the currently popular to the future of music.”

When Mr. Cennamo left WBUR in 1997, Globe jazz critic Bob Blumenthal called him “Boston’s most constant jazz voice,” someone whose “deep knowledge of the music and broad taste made his programs invaluable resources for listeners.”

Mr. Cennamo, who was master of ceremonies for the Boston Globe Jazz Festival in years past, kept an eye on the past and present, too. Steeped in the genre’s history, he would tell anyone who asked, and many who didn’t, that jazz was an African-American art form.

“Most new forms of jazz music are initiated by black musicians,” he wrote in the 1985 Monitor article. “White players (with few exceptions) copy, black musicians invent!”

He also looked askance at soothing new age music and the artists featured on the Windham Hill recording label, rejecting the suggestion that jazz could be found in, say, the piano playing of George Winston.

“Cheers for those club owners and bookers who stick out their financial necks weekly to bring us some of the most talented players in jazz,” he wrote. “Meanwhile, George Winston fills Symphony Hall with his nonjazz, nonrhythm, lukewarm, Jacuzzi-inspired piano offerings.”

James Isaacs, a former Boston Phoenix writer who became a colleague on the air at WBUR, said that even when discussing musicians he admired, Mr. Cennamo employed a ready sense of humor to humanize performers that many place on a pedestal.

“People who broadcast jazz on the radio treat it with such reverence,” Isaacs said. “Cennamo always had a sense of reality, and there was a certain sense of outrageousness about him that I always found attractive. It wasn’t, ‘Now, ladies and gentlemen, the great Zoots Sims, the great John Coltrane.’ No, they were just musicians.”

The oldest of three children, Mr. Cennamo grew up in Brooklyn, N.Y. He told the Boston Herald Sunday Magazine in 1987 that the first record he bought was a collection of Duke Ellington tunes, chosen because of the trombonist, Lawrence Brown.

“I listened to jazz in my room at night,” he told the Herald. “I loved it so much, my parents thought I was crazy.”

He joined the Air Force and was stationed in Omaha, where he formed an integrated jazz ensemble and railed against any club owner who tried to exclude the band because it included black musicians.

While in Nebraska, he met and married Doris Steffen, and used the GI Bill to attend Creighton University in Omaha. He got his first experience on radio across the Missouri River in Council Bluffs, Iowa, then moved his wife and children back to Brooklyn, landing a job in the WCBS radio library.

Among his first producing opportunities was a folk show for WCBS, through which he met the likes of Carly Simon, Phil Ochs, and Mary Travers of Peter, Paul, and Mary. He also was a producer of Pat Summerall’s sports show.

“He enjoyed listening to all kinds of music, as long as it was done well,” said his son, James of Arlington. “But he must have heard something that touched his soul in jazz music.”

In 1967, Mr. Cennamo took a job with WCAS AM in Cambridge, where he ran a community talk show that dealt with polarizing topics such as opposition to the Vietnam War.

WBUR offered him a weekly jazz show in 1972, and he moved to weekday mornings in 1974. The disc jockey made cameos in Robert B. Parker’s Spenser mysteries, with the Boston detective listening to his radio show while on the job.

The station revamped its programming in 1981, shifting Mr. Cennamo from mornings to a 10 p.m. to 2 a.m. shift, and edged him ever later over the years until he was signing off at 4 a.m. at the end of his tenure in 1997.

Mr. Cennamo, whose first marriage ended in divorce, augmented his radio work by teaching jazz history and radio programming at Emerson and in other venues.

New to Boston, Carine Kolb met him in 1986 when she took one of his classes. They married three years later.

Mr. Cennamo suffered his first stroke in 1986 and returned a few months later to teaching and the radio show. While the stroke hobbled him physically, it had the unanticipated effect of reinvigorating his approach to work.

“For a while, I was getting tired of radio,” he told the Herald in 1987. “But after the stroke, I’m glad I can do anything. I’m rejuvenated by the time off. I’m ready to explore new programming ideas.”

“He would go to WBUR in the middle of winter, with snow on the ground, with a very strong limp and a cane, still carrying a very big bag of records, because he wouldn’t go anywhere without a stack of records,” his wife said.

Isaacs called Mr. Cennamo “one of the most unforgettable people I’ve ever met. You just don’t come across many guys like that in this life, guys who are unafraid to speak their mind and who do things for other people not expecting anything in return. They just do it, and they’re amusing while doing it.”

Boston.com

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Confidence

Artists often struggle with confidence. We create from the deepest region of our souls, laying bare thoughts and emotions that most people are never forced to expose. Not only do we expose our inner selves, but we then present that exposure as a commodity on the open market where others are free to pan, pick apart or simply ignore. Is it any wonder that our confidence, our belief in ourselves waxes and wanes? Where do we get confidence in the first place? Is it formed or destroyed in childhood by our parents? Our peers? And how does the psychic pain that drives many artists to create in the first place affect our confidence? Does it strengthen it or tear it down?

Over the course of my teaching career, I’ve seen students whose confidence levels bear little relationship to their artistry and achievement. Most of them err on the side of too little, needing support and coaxing to bring out their innate talent. Stop whispering, I urge. You’re hiding your voice; let it out. Don’t be afraid.

Then there are the others. People who have an inflated, yet rock-solid sense of themselves and their gifts, despite all evidence to the contrary. Where did they get that unwavering self-assurance? Is it born or made?

I envy these people.

Years ago, one such person walked into my teaching studio. In her late 20’s and completely untrained, she was convinced that a career on the stage was her birthright. Instead of asking for my feedback, she told me what her future held. Frumpy and unattractive, with a high-pitched nasally speaking voice and a strong Brooklyn accent, I found her confidence breathtaking. Perhaps she did indeed have a unique talent, a once in a lifetime gift. A diamond in the rough who just needed some training and direction to realize her dreams.

And then she sang. And it was bad. It was stupendously, awe-inspiringly bad. So bad that, for a moment, I wondered if it was performance art or I was being punked. She sang with no inflection, no resonance, no vibrato and rarely in tune. But she was loud and proud. Confident. And boy, did I envy her.

I record my lessons to give my vocal students something to practice with and the chance to hear themselves as others do. I never keep the recordings but this one I did. Not to mock her at parties but as a reminder – confidence is mutable and self-directed. No one can give us confidence but ourselves.

So, here she is, in all her self-assured, imperturbable glory. And if you think she sounds a little bit like Miss Piggy (another example of self-possessed aplomb), well, she kind of looked like her too.

(52)

Ten Things I Hate About Mac

MacFail

Oh, Macintosh, you’re like a bad boyfriend. You’re fun, creative and sexy, but also flighty, undependable and, in the end, a heartbreak. You promise exciting adventures while you run up my credit card before disappearing for days, sometimes weeks. Then you’re back, offering a shiny brushed aluminum hand to lead me once again into your increasingly complicated world of useless widgets, treacherous upgrades and oversensitive platforms.

 Why can’t I quit you? Here are 10 reasons why I should:

                             1. YOU PROMISE YOU’LL BEHAVE

     My cute little 12-inch Powerbook was a petite slice of paradise. You opened me up to new worlds and encouraged my creative side. Sure, you were pricy and some of your features never worked right (iMovie – I’m looking at you). I was hurt when your dvd drive conked out after 6 months of very light use.   And yes, I was leery after paying a king’s ransom for the return of my Imac’s data.

    In your defense, I must admit your rival, Mr. PC, has been known to cause pain and suffering as well –  HELPSONG

     I learned my lesson –  a girl needs a backup external hard drive like she needs a backup plan for a canceled Saturday night. I thought I was covered, protected. You made me feel safe and warm. Until your hard drive died ONE MONTH out of warranty and though it felt good to say, “Hey, I don’t need no stinkin’ data recovery”, I couldn’t live a single day without you so…

 2. I REWARD YOU FOR YOUR INCOMPETENCE

     Little G4, you were in surgery for so long that it looked like you were a goner. I visited you several times a week but your doctors were having trouble finding your replacement parts. ‘Why?’, I wondered. ‘You’re not even 2-years-old!’

     So I bought your big brother, MacBook Pro. This time with the cold comfort of Apple Care.

     Sure, I know I was rewarding your maker for selling me shoddy equipment by purchasing even more. But like all moody gigolos, you demand money just to stick around. And I pay. Gladly. For when you leave, the sun leaves with you.

 3. YOU BARELY ACKNOWLEDGE ME ANYMORE

     Some days are fine. We wake up together with a smile, eager to start our morning over coffee and the online papers. But you often grow distant, cold.

You ignore the deep connection that’s developed between us.

nonepreferred

Why won’t you acknowledge me? Why do you punish me so?                                    All I’ve ever done is love you.

 4.  WHAT’S WRONG WITH YOUR KEYBOARD?

            We haven’t been together 6 months, yet you grow irritable, deliberately picking fights. I keep you scrupulously clean, I never eat or drink around you. You don’t even have to leave the house! Still, your keyboard grows more stubborn and petulant by the day. And choosing the F key to stick the most, when you know my last name begins with it, is just cruel.

5. WHY DO YOU RANDOMLY LOSE COUNT OF MY EMAILS?

                        You scare me sometimes, for your own amusement.

email1

 

29 messages? Really? Where did the other 50 go? Let’s try again:

Now 13?

Email3

Now you refuse to count them at all?

Email2Email2

Oh, my love. Why do you toy with my emotions like this?

                       You know I have a nervous constitution.

 6.  YOU’VE FORCED ME INTO THE ARMS OF OTHER BROWSERS

     Your endless talk of Safari had me dreaming of unfettered travel to exotic destinations. But you were so slow to deliver you made me distrustful of my server, and we argued because of you. Now I have no choice but to go outside the bundle, for Firefox gives me everything I could ever want; and in half the time.

     7.  WHEN YOU TRY TO IMPROVE, YOU JUST MAKE THINGS WORSE

It’s heartwarming when, out of the blue, your boyfriend heads into the kitchen after a long, messy dinner because he’s decided to help out. That is until you see the results of his thoughtful gesture. Mac, your software upgrade alerts are like that. It’s sweet that you’re thinking of me and I do want to trust your advice. But that plate you broke means I don’t have a full set of dishes, the water you spilled on the cookbook makes it UNREADABLE and my great-grandmother’s spoon that got mangled by the garbage disposal? That was the last piece from her wedding silver.

8. IPOD PEOPLE

   I bought accessories for you -all the things you said you absolutely needed. One, an Ipod Classic, had a nervous breakdown 6 months later. Apple Store ‘Geniuses’ were stumped so they replaced it. But your oh so smart buddies only gave me a 3 month warranty on the replacement. Apparently Geniuses can’t add for not only was I gypped out of a month on the original warranty, I have only 120 days of security in case little I-boy decides to take a swan dive into the dark, roiling sea of insanity.

 9. STOP TOUTING YOUR NEW FEATURES AND FIX THE ONES YOU HAVE

     There’s nothing more depressing than seeing your old boyfriend on TV, smugly purring over new apps, widgets and upgrades. While you turn on the charm, tossing off ever more complicated versions of iPhones, iPods and iTunes to every hopeful heart who catches your eye, your real message is iDon’t Care. But remember, my love, your A.D.D. isn’t only hurting yourself; it’s hurting the ones you stick with the broken promises and flimsy interfaces of the apps you left behind and…

    10. OH WAIT! I THINK YOU”RE SKYPING ME!!!!

 

(60)

The Story of Farnsworth Printing

Yankee ingenuity and the knack of picking a marketable specialty are traits which have distinguished the Farnsworth family of printers since 1886.

That was the year in which Theron A. Farnsworth settled in Camden and began a small job printing business in a barn behind his Minor Avenue residence.

Adelbert

That home is still in the family today and is still occupied by a T. A. Farnsworth, a grandson who has carried on the printing tradition and is today president of the Farnsworth Envelope Co.

Between these two men, 88 years of Farnsworth printing in the village of Camden are spanned.

The original “T.A.” specialized in printing of milk tickets. These were coupons bought from a dairy and used as a means of ordering and at the same time paying for home-delivered dairy products.

Known as the “Webb Press,” this business prospered first under the direction of T.A. and beginning in 1933 under the proprietorship of his grandson, Almon G. In 1938 it became a facet of the family’s major endeavor, the printing of church offering envelopes.

Back in 1896, T.A. had given his son, Almon M. Farnsworth, a small hand press, and while still in high school, A.M. launched a printing career, which was to spread the name of Camden, NY throughout the country.

amf

Almon Farnsworth was canny and industrious and by 1906 he had established his own printing business in a new factory built by him at 17 Main St. This brick structure still houses a part of the Farnsworth operations.

The A.M. Farnsworth Co. first specialized in the printing of catalogues and advertising calendars. However, business soon came to be concentrated on printing boxed, annual sets of church offering envelopes. By 1916 his firm ranked as one of the nation’s leading suppliers of this unusual product.

The company continued to develop as a prominent church specialty printing house and in 1938 two sons, Almon G. and T. Albert, were taken into partnership and the A.M. Farnsworth & Sons Co. came into being.

A.M. Farnsworth died in 1947 and the partnership of his sons continued until 1957 when T. Albert formed a separate corporation to pursue a refinement of the envelope concept, the monthly mailing of individually addressed offering envelopes.

In 1959, Almon incorporated the parent company under the name “A.M. Farnsworth Sons” and took into the business his sons, David, who took charge of the growing commercial printing division. Almon retired in 1969 after 36 years of service to his business and this community.

Today, David is president of the company and has continued the manufacture of boxed envelopes, children’s envelopes, liturgical calendars and church specialties while building the commercial printing business into one of the finest job printing firms in Central New York.

Growth has been marked by numerous improvements to the original buildings and acquisition of the former Main St. Red and White Store and Grange building.

During the same time, the offshoot Farnsworth Envelope Co. has grown steadily under the direction of T. Albert Farnsworth. Three separate additions and extensive renovations including the erection of an attractive Main St. facade have been made over the past 17 years. Now Farnsworth Envelope puts nearly 4-1/2 million of mail through the Camden Post Office each year.

In 1969, T.A Farnsworth’s son, Jerry, entered the firm, joining David as the fourth generation of Farnsworths active in the vocation of printing and the avocation of building a better Camden.

REPRINTED from “The Advance-Journal” 100th Anniversary Edition

    Thursday, May 9, 1974  All Rights Reserved

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The Christian Right Invades Venice Beach

       Just another easy breezy day at Venice Beach, California

If I wondered whether I was going to hell, I wonder no more. They’ve got me on a multi-count indictment:

VeniceBeach

 

Hmm… can you even be a street preacher online? Or is that too meta? Maybe if you set up your soapbox on Farnsworth Avenue – you’d be skipping down easy street.

Although the “I’m With Stupid” meme is only funny the first five times, you’ve gotta give it to this guy:

VeniceBch

 

Photos by Sunil Bharitkar. All Rights Reserved

(49)

Pity The Poor Single Woman

MINOLTA DIGITAL CAMERA

There is nothing sadder than an unmarried woman. It breaks my heart to see her strolling through the shopping malls, miserably buying exactly what she likes. It’s an empty life – spending her money and her time as she chooses without worrying what anyone else thinks, needs or wants.

Single women are so wrapped up in themselves, you have to feel sorry for them. They don’t have to check with anyone if they decide to see a movie instead of coming home for dinner. They don’t fight with anyone over bills, the color of the living room carpet or at whose house they’ll spend the holidays. It’s a pretty pathetic picture.

Everyone should be married. No one should be allowed to escape the wonderful experience with its various adjustments: The realization that Prince Charming is not just ordinary – he’s downright strange. Think of the character built on the humiliation of hearing him tell the neighbors what you look like when you’re putting on your pantyhose.

But the fulfillment comes after several years when you realize your love and respect for him are about as thin as his hair – and likewise growing thinner day by day. The wonder of how a man with a master’s degree who commands a multimillion-dollar budget at work becomes a helpless child when he learns you have to work late and won’t be home to cook one evening. The peaceful smile of a guy who has the patience to sit in a boat for three days (catching nothing), but cannot wait 10 minutes in a store while you try on a dress that’s 50 percent off. Those warm conversations about why it’s reasonable for him to spend top dollar on tools he seldom uses, but it’s out of the question for you to buy good-quality cookware even though you use it daily.

Marriage is worth it all. Every night’s sleep disrupted by his snoring and every pair of dirty underwear fished out from under the bed pays off at the 25th wedding anniversary party: He didn’t mean to insult you; is it his fault you gained 20 pounds after bearing four children? (Remember how his belly shook and the seams of his pants strained when he bent over to slap his knee?) After all, aren’t you a better person for having stretch marks and sagging breasts – the products of your childbearing years?

Reflect upon that romantic night when he proposed, the devotion in his voice, the lustful gleam in his eyes. How were you to know that in a few short years only his boat would receive the same adoration? Could anything match the restraint of your father, who has never once said, “I told you so”?

You just have to look at the unmarried woman to see how unhappy she’s become. She knows where everything is in her kitchen; there’s always toilet paper in the bathroom; she’s wearing clothes no teenage daughter has ever touched. If she were married, she’d look like the rest of us – worn out, stressed out and stretched out.

Jenny Gholson
Reprinted from “Dear Abby”

(74)

Bread & Circus At The 2006 Billboard Music Awards

December 4, 2006

Janet+Jackson+2006+Billboard+Music+Awards+_zlNmAadjhGl

Spectacle trumped talent at the 2006 Billboard Music Awards when, during several of the early musical numbers, supersized confetti spewed from modified snowmaking machines. Giant candy canes planted around the stage led one to wonder which competitor would nail the slalom event.

Along the sides and upstage, a CGI fever dream pulsates from huge screens. Upstage, indeed. A psychedelic Candyland designed to delight, amuse and distract. Was the bamboozle supposed to blind us from the sadness? Over-produced flimflam by over-caffeinated set dressers to keep us awake and watching?

Here’s my theory – the lesser divas and divos of the pop music pantheon need a little help, a little cover from the pain of a live rendition of their Auto-tuned recordings.

Take Janet Jackson’s opening number. She begins her medley with a shout-out to one of her early hits, “The Pleasure Principal”, to school the youngsters in the audience that she, indeed, was at one time relevant. Jackson then proceeds to whisper her way through her new single as she clomps arthritically through an approximation of her tired twenty-year-old dance moves.  And the confetti is flying with a vengeance.

In case a flurry of postcard-sized confetti wasn’t enough to distract us, her backup dancers leap and spin around the stage like meth-fueled Cirque Du Soleil acrobats.

Young legs execute supernatural street athletics, undeterred by the drifts of colored paper that are beginning to accumulate in drifts around the stage. Instead of distracting us from Jackson’s performance, the teenagers only highlighted her lame, geriatric performance. Seriously, she looks lame – like she’s pulled a hamstring.

Then there’s Fergie, rapping in that dated singsong manner like a female Will Smith as she minces around the stage almost in time to the music. Tired rap, forgettable lyrics, confetti explosion!

A pattern is emerging. The worse the performance, the harder the confetti falls. The lights pulse more insistently, hypnotizing us. Ignore the girl and bow to your sparkly, trance-inducing master!

Just as it seems the stage walls will come tumbling down in a frenzied representation of the end of western civilization, a giant Quincy Jones appears on the back screen like a pop music oracle. Down, ye walls of power! All is not lost!

Jones introduces a quartet of rappers who actually have talent. The walls calm to bathe each rapper in his own signature color. Hmm…no confetti. Or have supplies simply run out in the face of all that earlier suckitude?

Eager yodeler Gwen Stefani bounces around the stage, manically selling her harajuku rapping goatherd mash-up. No confetti, she must be talented. Well, she is actually singing and sort of dancing. No comment on the bewildered goat.

The guys who won digital album of the year – no confetti and no background movies. They must be really talented. Well, the lead singer is playing a piano, an actual musical instrument.

Mary J. Blige performs with only a subtle screen of vertical white stripes behind her – a subliminal reference to a now defunct minimalist rock duo or an homage to postwar Italian cinema? But she is indeed confetti-free. She’d better be, she won nine times!

Now comes Stevie Wonder to introduce Century award-winner Tony Bennett. Visually, the quietest screen of the evening, a cascade of calming electric blue. Two legends. No confetti.

As for the less gifted performers who appeared tonight, the message seemed clear. They’ve already got your bread, how about a little circus?

(42)

Random Thoughts On Riga

I’ve been teaching piano and voice this semester in Riga, Latvia, in fulfillment of a Fulbright Scholar award. I joined the Jazz Studies faculty at the Jāzeps Vītols Latvian Academy of Music, the country’s top conservatory.

JVMLA

JVLMA 

I did some teaching and clinics at the Dome Choir School, a prestigious magnet middle/high school for aspiring musicians. I also performed and did master classes around the country. More on that later…

Rigas Doma Kora Scola

Rigas Doma Kora Scola

Latvia has a long and impressive choral tradition and are pretty serious about their singing.

Here’s a Youtube of a Latvian boy’s choir performance:

The singers are fabulous and the Choirmaster is mesmerizing.

My jazz singers were pretty awesome, too. Well-trained in technique, reading and theory, they were also enthusiastic, sweet-natured and absolutely rabid about jazz. A real pleasure to work with.

In July, Riga hosts the Latvian Song And Dance Festival, which takes place every four years. 100K people will be walking around Riga in traditional Latvian dress. As Riga’s normal population is only 700K, they will definitely stand out.

The performances are going to be amazing, I’m sorry I’ll miss it.

If you wonder why Lativians have such great complexions, they drink a lot of carrot juice.

The music sounds vaguely eastern, it may be because there’s an interesting connection between this region and India. Indian historians think that Latvia was originally settled by Indo-Aryans. Of course the Latvian scholars think it’s the other way around.
Either way, there are about 250 words Latvian shares with Sanskrit and they share many of their pre-christian gods’ names and identities as well.

Here are their symbols representing the different gods:

Latvian symbols for their gods

Latvian symbols for their gods

The designs make for some beautiful jewelry and embroidered clothing.

Latvian Jewelry

                                   JANUARY/FEBRUARY

On my first day in Riga, my landlady took me for a walk around the city where I learned my first word in Latvian – Atlaides!

Sale!

SALE!

I arrived to some harsh weather compared to what I’d left in Los Angeles.

It's only 4:30PM

Note – It’s only 4:30 PM

RigaSnow2

Well, it’s 5 o’clock and pitch dark… cocktail, anyone?

Riga is farther north than Copenhagen and Moscow so it gets nippy. Days usually had below freezing temps, with a cold, wet wind blowing in from the river. Nights were face-numbing.
Walking ranged from treacherous to annoying – snow-covered sidewalks force that ‘one step forward, half-step slide backward’ motion. Just like at the beach, except for the freezing-your-ass-off part.

It was pretty, though, when the sun came out. Sometimes the sidewalks even melted a bit.

Shadows are already long by early afternoon

Shadows are long by early afternoon

I strolled through Vermanis Park every day on my walk to the conservatory. A much prettier and calmer commute than the 10 to the 405.

Vermanis2

I didn’t have a car so the weather forced me to tackle the tram system learning curve.

Riga Tram

I felt like an idiot the first time – How do you pay? You can pay the driver but they don’t look too welcoming behind their plexi-glass wall. There was a way to pay with an E-card, but where do you buy them? And where do you punch them in?

On my maiden voyage, I spent the whole trip squeezing a one Lat coin ($1.90) in my sweaty mittened palm, waiting to be accosted by the ticket control ladies. I’d heard they were tough and might stop the tram and kick you off after some biting public ridicule, which I wouldn’t understand since I only knew one word in Latvian – Atlaides. Sale? Sale?

Isn’t your first ride free?

                                                           MARCH 

After the initial excitement of this new environment wore off, reality set it and I began to feel isolated and out of sorts.

I grew up in this climate, as I repeatedly assured everyone who asked, so going from palm trees to near-arctic conditions wasn’t as extreme as people assumed it to be. But the light deprivation was affecting my mood and walking on dangerously icy streets kept me from exploring, going to jazz clubs and restaurants, as much as I would have. Broken bones from falls were not unusual and the bitter cold made one think twice about venturing out in the evening.

But the biggest factor in my growing sense of isolation was the language barrier. I’d spent extended stays in Europe on tour and thought I wouldn’t have much of a problem. What I forgot to consider was during those previous stays I had lived in hotels where people spoke English and I ate in the dining room.

It didn’t take long to suss out the language map – people under 30 speak English, very well; between 30 and 40 it’s a crapshoot and over 40, forget it. If I got lost, which I frequently did, I would look in a store window and if a 20-something was behind the counter, I knew I could go in and ask for directions.

Latvia has only been liberated from the former Soviet Union since 1991 and kids growing up in that era (“Soviet times” as the locals call it) studied Russian. As a result, they speak it like champs but rarely do you find someone in that age group who speaks English. Also, about 50% of Riga’s population is ethnic Russian, and they survive very well speaking only Russian. Similar to Los Angeles, where people can live comfortably speaking only Spanish.

Latvians don’t express warm and fuzzies to strangers, at least by American standards. Store clerks can look alarmed if you smile at them. They don’t reach out if you appear to be struggling and seem to have a strong distrust of strangers.

There was a book on the State Dept’s suggested reading list that I found invaluable to my understanding of this new culture. “The Art Of Crossing Cultures”, by Craig Storti, taught me to see a foreign culture through the eyes of the locals instead of my own.
What behavior we Americans might perceive as unfriendly may just be respect for someone’s privacy. And in a society that was not so long ago overrun by government informers, it could also be a healthy sense of self-preservation.

I learned that the constant little stressors I was feeling were a sort of psychic death by a thousand paper cuts. Pulling a door handle when I should have pushed, getting lost several times a day, not being able to communicate basic needs – becoming overwhelmed and depressed was a natural and normal response. As Storti says (paraphrasing), “You have to get used to feeling like a mentally-challenged six-year-old. What will make for funny dinner party stories when you get back home aren’t funny at all when you’re living through them.”

So I turned to Google translate, learning a few words every day. It’s a small thing but learning the difference between “grûst” and “vilkt” (push and pull) on doors was huge and saved me about 8-10 arggghhs a day.

Push, dammit!

Push, dammit!

Pull!

Pull!

Grocery shopping took three times as long as it should have. Chicken was recognizable but pork vs. beef? Fish?

Huh? Carp, I got that one

Huh? Carp, I got that one

I would stand slack-jawed in front of the dairy cooler holding a package of something in my hand. Butter or margarine? Milk or buttermilk?

Ordering from the deli counter? Something I could only dream of doing in the beginning.

Rimi Supermarket

Rimi Supermarket

Latvians make great salads and I did a lot of pointing and grunting to get some.

Yummy

Yummy

One thing that made shopping easier was the currency exchange. The Lat is a little under $2.00 and since things were sold by the kilogram, a rough estimate was $1/lb.

Back to Google translate for more words.

Latvians would ask me, Are you learning the language? Yes, I’d reply, All the important words – chicken, salmon, cheese, lettuce, tomatoes….

One day at the dairy cooler I saw a woman holding a package of sviests and wearing the same dazed, slack-jawed expression I had worn a month earlier. “Excuse me,” she said, “do you speak English?”
“Yes,” I replied, “I don’t speak Latvian though, but I can tell you that’s butter!”

                                                           APRIL

Daylight hours are lengthening, the weather is improving and so is my state of mind. I’m getting a handle on the language and have learned my way around.

In an effort to recreate some of the habits and patterns of life back home, I joined a health club. As a life-long gym rat, I feel comfortable in that milieu and the atmosphere and protocols are the same no matter where you are in the world.

"Feet-niss Klub"

“Feet-niss Klub”

I’m amazed at the ease with which the instructors slip between Latvian and Russian, counting out a set of crunches in one language and then the other. I’ve learned to count to eight in both languages!

Training, Aerobics, Gym, Sauna

Training, Aerobics, Gym, Sauna

I played a concert at a very cool place called Kalnciema Quarter, a set of historic wooden buildings that have been rehabbed into cutting edge designer stores, artisan workshops, offices and restaurants. It’s a UNESCO world heritage site, as its style of 18th-19th cent. wooden architecture hasn’t survived in most of Europe. Bombs are not healthy for wooden buildings.

Kalnciema

I won’t say the piano was old but it had built-in candlestick holders…

Teaching is going well and I’m loving my students’ energy. There are a few macho types who aren’t used to taking advice from women (I’m looking at you, Vadims!), but for the most part, they’re a dream to work with.

Laura Rozenberga

Laura Rozenberga

Have I mentioned Latvians are tall?

Inga Berzina, my vocal jazz counterpart at the Academy who has become a good friend, thought it was hysterical when I was trying to reserve teaching space for piano students with the non-English speaking room manager and just kept repeating the one Latvian word I knew at the time – labs (good). I need a labs piano! Labs, please!!

Two labs pianos!

Labs!

I was invited to join the judging jury for the Riga Jazz Stage vocal competition, in association with the annual Rigas Ritmi Jazz Festival. It began with 75 aspirants from all over Europe, whittled down to a top 12 who performed for 2 nights along with some professional appearances. One of my students, Evilena Proteckor, made the finals and, I don’t know why, but I thought she was the best.

Latvians LOVE flowers

Latvians LOVE flowers

It was a gas meeting and working with the international judges, who are all involved in the European jazz scene as players, educators, composers and promoters.

Steponas Januška - Lithuanian Vocalist, Composer & Educator

Steponas Januška – Lithuanian Vocalist, Composer & Educator

Swiss Peter Basler, manager & promoter

Swiss Peter Basler, manager & promoter

Good stories, cameraderie and the best part? English was the common language. Sweet relief after two months of wandering through a linguistic desert.

MAY

“Riga becomes magical in the summer,” says Kerri from the US Embassy, and she is right on.

Flowers

 Summer is finally here.

Neighborhood flower shop

Neighborhood flower shop

The park I walk through on the way to school? Greeny green green now.

ParkSummer2

Daylight hours  linger well into the evening, pushing toward 10PM. At night, there are fairy lights in the trees and the undersides of the curved stone bridges over the canal glow an ethereal blue. People are strolling, sitting on benches soaking up the sun, and smiling!

Tourists have appeared and I’m hearing more English on the streets than I’ve heard in the previous four months combined.

Vermanes Summer

Nearly all of the cafes and restaurants are building outdoor seating areas – a lot of sawing, hammering and painting going on. Do they tear these structures down when the weather gets cold and rebuild every spring?

CafeBuild2

CafeBuild

I performed a concert at the Academy, playing with two very accomplished students, bassist Edvins Ozols and drummer Rudolfs Dankfelds.

ANNE-FARNSWORTH-A2-01

They played great and we had a lot of fun. I would hire them anytime.

There are more videos on my YouTube channel – AnneFarnsworthMusic

https://www.youtube.com/AnneFarnsworthMusic

The shopping thing is finally under control. I’m fortunate that one of Riga’s larger open air markets, Vidzemes Tirgus, is a block from my house. Each door to the huge stone building has the name of the food group sold in that section.

Not a ballroom entrance - the meat door

Not a ballroom entrance – the meat door

I’ve learned which vendors aren’t annoyed by my language deficiencies and which ones were taking advantage of my initial poor understanding of the currency. An expensive lesson.

Not getting these kinds of looks anymore

Not getting these kinds of looks anymore 

Waiting for me to get my act together

Waiting for me to get my act together

I’ve settled on a bread lady, egg lady, fruit lady, you get the idea. At this point I know enough Latvian to select amounts and understand what they’re asking me to pay.

The problem now is some of the vendors think I speak more Latvian than I do and start chatting with me. I have absolutely no idea what they’re saying so I just mirror their facial expressions. If they look happy, I nod my head and smile. If they seem unhappy, I frown and look concerned.

The older ladies have been the nicest, taking a motherly interest in my welfare. Which sauerkraut should I get? ‘Oh, try this one – it has caraway seeds! Or do you prefer garlic?’

Market

Very excited to see raw milk products sold here without any OMG-we’re-so-cool fanfare and the accompanying nose bleed prices. Cheese, butter, yogurt, sour cream, for about the same prices as pasteurized.

Suck it Whole Foods and your $8 quart of raw milk!

market4

For liquid dairy, you bring your own containers which they fill from pitchers. Piano wire is used to cut slices of butter from long rectangles. It’s all very farmstead and homey, although I’m careful not to annoy the piano wire ladies.

Riga’s main market is the Centraltirgus. Housed in 5 WWI-era zeppelin hangars, it’s the largest and oldest open air market in Europe.

Centraltirgus

Centraltirgus

It’s a bit far from my apartment for daily shopping but I’ve been a couple of times for fish.

market6

There are a mind-boggling 3000 vendors in the warmer months.

CentralMarket3

Inga Berzina and my students will be disappointed if I didn’t mention my discovery of, and immediate addiction to, berzu sula, or birch sap, which they found hilarious.

The spring tonic appears without warning in late March and, a few weeks later, disappears just a quickly.

Berzu Sula2

Packaged in ratty-looking plastic bottles with no safety caps and a dodgy-looking waxy scum floating on the top, birch juice is a traditional kidney/liver cleanse, blood purifier and all around healthifier. I loved it and was drinking a couple of liters a day for the few weeks it was around, to the amusement of all.

berzu sula

Inga and I drove up to Cēsis, a town of 18K people northeast of Riga, so I could do a teacher training seminar at the Alfred Kalnins School of Music.

Took a while to find the school

Took a while to find the school

It was a three hour drive up to the former market town, which dates to medieval times. They’ve got a castle!

Cesis Castle

Cesis Castle

It’s a beautiful place and, as I was informed by several proud locals, older than that Johnny-come-lately down the road, Riga.

Cesis3

Inga was a trooper. After driving us there, she had to translate the entire two-hour master class. English is not her forte, it was an exhausting day for her.

Master Class

Master Class

After the seminar, we had lunch, walked around the town and stepped inside St John’s Church, built in the 13th cent., where an ancient docent told us we could climb up to the bell tower.

As we worked our way up the several floors to the top, the ascent became more and more treacherous. Winding stone stairs were replaced by wooden your-grandmother’s-attic-y sorts of stairs which led to rickety ladders that looked like original equipment. There were no lighting or safety features. Apparently Latvia is not a very litigious society; there’s no way something this hazardous would be open to the public in the States.

But the view was worth the potential bodily harm.

Cecis Tower

                                                                  JUNE

The semester is winding down and so is my time here in Riga. Finals period is in full swing, which means juries, the final exams for performance classes. The students play before a jury of faculty and are graded on their performance.

A jazz jury

A jazz jury

Are these kids adorable or what?

Are these kids adorable or what?

We’re doing juries at both the Academy and Dome Choir School and I’m loving the way drummer Tālis Gžibovskis, the jazz chair at Dome, is running the deliberations that take place after their jury performances.

Fellow students, family and friends

Fellow students, family and friends

Academics have a tendency to be long-winded *cough* and in love with the sound of their own voice. That can make for excruciatingly long faculty meetings.

Tālis, on the other hand, runs the discussion like John McLaughlin of the old news analysis show, The McLaughlin Group – throwing out a student’s name and pointing to a guest, er professor, for a quick yea or nay and some hastily mumbled commentary before moving down the table. If you’ve seen the show or the SNL skits spoofing it, you know exactly what I mean. Never in the halls of academe has so much been accomplished in so little time.

Since the discussion was taking place in Latvian, I was only getting about 40% of the conversation. So when it abruptly ended I thought we were taking a break. How my heart soared when Inga said, “Nope, we’re done!”

I want to say a few words about Inga Berzina who, as I mentioned earlier, has become a good friend and was so helpful and generous getting my teaching situation organized.

But first, you should know that Inga is a very popular name in Latvia. Since I know three Ingas, I’ve given them nicknames to save confusion when talking to the folks back home. Inga Berzina is Inga Voice;  my big-hearted, chain-smoking landlady is Inga Landlord and the fantastically accommodating and endlessly patient Inga Bodniece at the US Embassy is, of course, Inga Embassy.

Inga Voice is a wonderful teacher and an amazing vocalist. She’s in high demand in the Baltics and Russia as an educator, recording artist, jazz camp superstar, competition adjudicator and all-around good egg.

Her Academy voice students took double lessons this semester, their regular weekly classes with her and an extra one with me; unlike some of her peers who handed me their classes and ran off to join the circus.

At the Dome School, I sat in on her lessons, adding my observations and suggestions.

Inga with a Dome School student

Inga with a Dome School student

Inga’s just released a new CD, Neizteiktie Vardi  (Unspoken Words). It’s a collection of Latvian pop tunes with jazz arrangements. Hmm, where have I heard that concept before? Speaking of which, Sealed With A Kiss is now out in Mp3 and Hi Res! Hee hee, back to Inga…

Jazz singing in Latvian is not easy but Inga makes it flow. I particularly like the opening track, “Atceries Mani Vel” (I Still Remember).

Here’s a YouTube of one of the songs on her CD,  “Reiz Nāksi Tu” (Once You Come In).

She’s awesome, ’nuff said.

My brother Dave has come to visit me. Yay! Company!

He’s a ham radio nut and apparently it’s a thing to broadcast from different countries. He said there’s 350 countries in the world and he’s only hit 35, so imagine his excitement having all these tiny countries to knock off the list.

Picked him up at the airport and our first stop was a wine bar that was hosting a free wine tasting event.

Yes, I did eat the canary

Wine, brother and food

Dave’s doing Tex Avery-style boggling at the assortment of blondes wandering about, I’m just interested in the vintages. Welcome to Latvia!

Took him to one of my favorite restaurants, Kalku Varti, in Old Town. The food is locally sourced, creatively presented and delicious. I’m not a picture-taking type of foodie but had to snap our desserts, they were so whimsical.

Dessert2

Dessert

We drove up to Estonia just over the border so he could transmit and then he took off alone for Lithuania and Poland.

Dave Estonia

When he returned we took a 15 hour train trip to Saint Petersburg.

Our sleeper cabin

Our sleeper cabin

Russian Village

Russian Village

There was no food on the train but they did attach a bar car after four hours. Priorities!

No food but complimentary water

No food but complimentary water and flowers.

I ordered a martini and the barmaid slammed a pint of vodka and two shot glasses on the counter like some old-timey saloonkeeper. It had been hours since we last ate so the crew scrounged up some cheese cubes and a tin of Pringles. Oh, and there was beer.

Hundreds of miles from nowhere, in the middle of the forest,  we were awakened at 2 AM for a border crossing – young, strutting country bumpkins with AKs slung over their shoulders, accompanied by menacing guard dogs. Okay, overnight train to Russia with intimidating passport control inspection is officially off my bucket list.

Dave asks, Is this the part where they take us out in the woods and shoot us?

My question is, Do they know those hats look way too big for their heads?

RussianSoldier

Saint Petersburg was brilliant but I couldn’t wait to get back to Riga. Ironic, considering my long Latvian learning curve, but seriously – Cyrillic street signs? Really?

Latvia does a lot of smart things that we don’t do. For instance, their streetlights turn yellow before turning green, not just before red. Saves a lot of “wake up, dammit!” honking.

Stoplights

Retail packaging is much greener than in the west. Cereal comes in bags instead of boxes. Actually, a lot of things come in bags – milk, yogurt and other items you’d never think of as bag-able.

Attirance, my new favorite skin care products store (sorry Body Shop), sells soap by cutting off slices, like butter, and then weighing the bars and wrapping them beautifully.

Soap

I went to listen to a student, the aforementioned Evilena Protector, sing at a local club. Her voice is amazing and I predict a bright future for her. It was fun hanging out and sitting in with the band.

Evilena Protector

Evilena Protector

What an interesting surname she has and she was definitely one of my protecters during my time in Riga.

Inga Landlady took me to Jurmala, the seaside, to visit her weekend cottage. There are actually two building on her ‘compound’, which she is in the midst of renovating.

I had been there during the winter but now it was full summer and pretty sweet.

Inga's Cottage

Inga’s Cottage

Inga Grauze, aka Inga Landlady

Inga Grauze, aka Inga Landlady

JurmalaWe spent many wine-soaked nights discussing politics. I don’t think I’ve ever discussed Lenin, Stalin, Gorbachev and JFK in a single conversation before in my life.

Inga Voice has invited me to her weekend place, her childhood home, in Smiltene. The backyard slopes down to a beautiful lake and is the perfect spot to decompress.

Smiltene

They have a traditional sauna house that is heated with wood. Her husband got the stove going and we ladies took a late-night sauna.

Sauna House

Sauna House

There were birch branches for slapping ourselves with but Inga said that’s more of a guy thing…

After a few minutes in the heat we would stumble down to the freezing lake and jump in. It was so cold my screams were echoing off the trees on the other side of the water. Mind-numbing, heart-stoppingly cold. It got easier about the third time around. Plus, there was beer.

Sauna

Edited for decency

Edited for decency

The next day, the neighbors hosted a luncheon that lasted four hours. There was food, drink, music and a host of guests wandering in and out.

Smiltene2

Wife plays guitar while husband opens wine. Good marriage.

Most of the conversation was in Latvian so I just ate, drank and nodded a lot.

Great Idea! Let's get drunk and go kayaking!

Great Idea! Let’s get drunk and go kayaking!

Since Inga is over 40, she may need some help reading this blog. Ask one of your daughters to translate for you, Inga!

Inga Daughters

My six months in Latvia have come to an end. No big thoughts or final summation to close with; I’ve pretty much expressed it all. Just a big thank you to all my students, colleagues, Embassy staff and everyone else who guided me through this amazing experience.

The night before I left, Inga and I had a last meal and I gave her my hat to remember me by.

Inga

Ciao, Riga! Es garām jums!*

*I’ve been informed that Google Translate is ridiculously archaic so instead of saying, ‘I will miss you’, I’ve probably said ‘I shalt miss ye’, or something biblical like that.

(249)

Jazz History As Students Remember It…

porkbrains-2  

Some memorable test answers from college Jazz History exams and Concert Reports I’ve received:

Jazz was affected by the economy in WWII – people didn’t go out very often because there was a shortage of rubbers. (Actually, the demise of the Big Band era was hastened by a wartime shortage of rubber … for tires … for the buses.)

Q.  What’s the difference between a big band and a combo?
A. A big band performs with a male singer and a combo uses a female singer.

The instrument in Free Jazz most likely to be omitted is the drums, because with everybody doing their own thing there’s no use trying to keep the beat.

A stride pianist is a person who sits astride on the piano bench. Also, when the music is strident, it’s probably a stride pianist.

The difference between a rural Blues singer and a Classic Blues singer is the Rural Blues singer is shorter. (ED: The songs are shorter – not the singers.)
Not only did Bessie Smith record for Columbia, she also made videos for them. (Ah, MTV circa 1932.)
Louise Armstrong was the first great Jazz musician. No, it was Lois Armstrong. (Armstrong’s wife had no idea!)

A ‘hot Jazz’ band is on fire. A ‘Mickey Mouse’ band plays at Disney World.

From Concert Reports:

“The pianist used crescendos and archipelagos in his solo.”

“The trumpeter put a muzzle on his horn to keep it quiet while the bassist played with his hands around its neck.”

More brilliant concert reportage:

“The bass player didn’t do any walking because there wasn’t enough room on the stage.”

“The two soloists competed like an old fashioned carving contest.” (He means ‘cutting contest’)

And finally, my favorite:

“The piano and the bass started the tune silently.”

(80)

Mondegreens – What Did He Sing?

headscratcher

MONDEGREENS     mon•de•green(n) : a word or phrase that results from a mishearing of something said or sung

aka “Huh??”

When I was a kid, I was seriously puzzled by the lyrics in certain pop hits. They didn’t make sense or it was a kind of sense that only teenagers and adults could understand.
Of course, I never actually asked a teenager or an adult what the lyrics meant. As with many things in my childhood, like gravity or how Ajax got stains out of sinks, I chalked it up to one of the mysteries of life.

“My Bonnie Lies Over The Ocean”

I heard the Scottish folk song as ‘my body lies’… and found it mystifying. Are you floating above the ocean or in it? Face-up or the dead man float? Are you covering the whole ocean? How big is this body, anyway?

Below are a few more auditory befuddlements. Got any of your own?

BEATLES: “You’ve Got To Hide Your Love Away”

To me, it sounded like the Beatles were singing, ‘Hey boy, you’ve got your heiny in the way…’
I was shocked they were allowed to say heiny on the radio.

THE BUCKINGHAMS: “Kind Of A Drag”

I thought this song was an extended Canada Dry ginger ale commercial and they were singing “Canada Dry – when your baby don’t love you. Canada Dry – when you know she’s been untrue.”

Because just like your Mom gives you a ginger ale when your stomach’s upset, drinking one when you’re emotionally upset would make you feel better, too.

MONKEES: “Cheer Up Sleepy Jean”

Sounded like they were singing, “My shaving razor’s cold and it stinks.”
Men’s toiletries were a mystery to me but ‘stings’ makes more sense.

MANFRED MANN: “Do I Diddy”
In the bridge, the singer says, “Well, I’m hers, she’s mine. I’m hers, she’s mine, wedding bells are gonna chime.”

I thought he was saying, “Well, I’m hurt, she’s mad…” and I wondered, If he’s hurt and she’s mad, why are wedding bells gonna chime?

I figured since grownups fight after they’re married, they probably didn’t see fighting as a reason not to get married in the first place.

Speaking of Manfred Mann, in their song, “Blinded By The Light”, the lyrics are:

‘Revved up like a deuce,
Another runner in the night’
I thought they were saying:

‘Wrapped up like a douche,
Another mother in the night’

Makes absolutely no sense, I know.

ELTON JOHN: “Rocket Man”

Molly Bloom from the Bay Area writes:

“I used to think Elton John was singing, ‘Rocket Man, burning like a piece of hairy bone.’” Burning hairy bone – god, what an awful smell.

PRINCE: “Little Red Corvette”

I heard the title line as ‘Feel that, Colette?’ I have three brothers and I could imagine someone’s annoying brother pinching his sister over and over while saying, “Feel that? How about that?”, along the lines of the dreaded ‘Hurtz Donut.’ When I grew older I heard the mondegreen in a more, um, adult situation.

Gaily The Cross I Bear

Christian E. from Toronto reports that when he heard this song in church as “Gaily The Cross-Eyed Bear”, he asked his mother why they would call a cross-eyed bear Gaily.

JIMI HENDRIX: “Purple Haze”

This is a common misheard lyric. When Jimi says, “Excuse me, while I kiss the sky”, I thought he was saying ‘Excuse me while I kiss this guy.’
Not knowing much about sex, and never having heard of homosexuality, I found this puzzling indeed.

ROLLING STONES: “Beast Of Burden”

My brother Dave, in upstate New York, thought that Mick Jagger was promising he would never be your ‘pizza burning’.

Do you have any misheard lyrics?

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