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Posts Tagged ‘song’

Canadian Makes a Rock Video in Space

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , on May 13, 2013 | Leave a Comment »

Quoting from The Next Web, Andrew Sullivan posts today about a Canadian astronaut who may be on his last trip to space, given the Canadian government’s cutbacks.

“Commander Chris Hadfield is one of the most memorable astronauts to have gone into space, so it was fitting that his farewell moment to the world saw him record the first ever music video from space.

“Ahead of his return to Earth on Monday after five months at the International Space Station (ISS), the 53-year-old Canadian astronaut fittingly covered the David Bowie classic ‘Space Oddity’ in a poignant video.

“Hadfield has maintained strong links to folks at home, having entertained his 700,000-plus Twitter followers with regular photos and commentary, and taken part in a Reddit AMA interview, but music was always a focus for him.

“He recorded the first song in space last December, and, speaking before his latest mission, he admitted that he would record a range of songs in space.”

Read more at AndrewSullivan.

This video is really, really wonderful.

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In Their 90s

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , on August 18, 2012 | Leave a Comment »

A 91-year-old Hindu gentleman has joined the tai chi chuan class I take Saturday mornings. His wife brings him a little after we have started, and he walks slowly between the wall of mirrors and the line of practicing students to sit in a folding metal chair, where the teacher explains the upper-body part of the exercises so he can join in. Age has not kept him from that.

After today’s class, I was driving home and heard Susan Stamberg interview Marian McPartland, 94, here, on National Public Radio. A fantastic jazz pianist, McPartland recorded her last Marian McPartland’s Piano Jazz show only two years ago — after 33 years — but continues as artistic director. She is also the subject of a documentary called In Good Time that highlights the day in August 1958 when she was part of a famous photo of jazz greats in Harlem, below.

Speaking of nonagenarians, folksinger and activist Pete Seeger, 93, showed up on Colbert recently. At first I thought he was not answering a question and was wandering, but it soon became clear he was unfurling a story in his own way and that it would end precisely on point.

Seeger still splits logs to heat his house with wood. And his banjo playing hasn’t aged a bit.

Photograph: Art Kane/Art Kane Archives

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The White Buffalo

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , on July 20, 2012 | Leave a Comment »

Did anyone watch the television show Rin Tin Tin as a kid?

I thought of it today when I read this awesome AP story:

“The birth of a white bison, among the rarest of animals, is bringing Native Americans who consider it a sacred event to celebrate at one of the least likely of places, a farm in New England.

“Hundreds of people, including tribal elders from South Dakota, are expected to attend naming ceremonies later this month at the northwestern Connecticut farm of Peter Fay, a fourth-generation Goshen farmer.

“Native Americans in the area have come with gifts of tobacco and colored flags for Fay and the bull calf since it was born there a month ago, and Fay is planning to offer his hay field as a campsite for the expected crowds.

” ‘They say it’s going to bring good things to all people in the world. How can you beat that? That’s the way I look at it,’ Fay said.” More. (There’s a photo there, too.)

I knew I had to blog about it because I loved the Rin Tin Tin episode when young Rusty is in dire straights and is saved by the White Buffalo. I know the song from that episode by heart. It was one of my brother’s records when he was little, although I don’t think it made it into the website with his blues records.

“There’s an old Indian legend that I heard long ago.
“It’s about a special valley and the White Buffalo.

“The legend says you’ll find it if your heart is brave and true
“And you treat all men as brothers no matter what they do.

“I have searched for that valley since I started to grow.
“I won’t stop until I find it — and the White Buffalo.”

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Further Adventures of the Babushki

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on July 13, 2012 | Leave a Comment »

You may recall that six grandmothers from the former Soviet Union competed in Eurovision. We blogged about them here. Loreen from Sweden won first prize, but the babushki came in second.

In a follow-up story in the NY Times, Andrew Kramer writes that the grandmas’ fame is bringing a modicum of prosperity to their forgotten village. In particular, it is rebuilding the church that Stalin destroyed and that they loved in secret. They chose to spend their winnings on the church.

“For years, Buranovo was a dying village, one of many in the Russian countryside left behind by an oil-driven boom that revitalized drab Soviet cities and drew the young away from the farms that had sustained their parents. …

“Now, the women’s good fortune is transforming not only their lives, but also Buranovo. In appreciation of the group’s near victory, the local government is building a water pipeline, installing streetlights and high-speed Internet for the village’s sole school and laying new gravel on the main roads. …

“It all began with a miracle, said Olga N. Tuktareva, the leader of the singing group …. Ms. Tuktareva recalled strolling about the village with a friend in 2008 and lamenting a sad episode in local history: the destruction of the Church of the Trinity, taken down like countless other churches in Stalin’s Russia. …

“During that walk, Ms. Tuktareva recalled, her cellphone rang. It was a music producer in Moscow who had heard of the singing babushki …”

Read more.

Photograph: Oleg Nikishin

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Singing Rodent

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , on April 25, 2012 | Leave a Comment »

Something fun from the NY Times science section: a creature that looks like a rodent and sings like a bird.

James Gorman writes that the hyrax is reminiscent of a Dr. Seuss character: “It looks something like a rabbit, something like a woodchuck. Its closest living relatives are elephants, manatees and dugongs. And male rock hyraxes have complex songs like those of birds, in the sense that males will go on for 5 or 10 minutes at a stretch, apparently advertising themselves …

“Arik Kershenbaum and colleagues at the University of Haifa and Tel Aviv University have found something more surprising. Hyraxes’ songs have something rarely found in mammals: syntax that varies according to where the hyraxes live, geographical dialects in how they put their songs together.” More here.

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“Taizé” Worship Service

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on January 2, 2012 | Leave a Comment »

First Parish does not have a typical service on New Year’s Day. For one thing, attendance is sparse.

Sunday’s “Taizé” service put me in mind of something my mother used to say about Unitarians to tease my father, who was one. (The denomination was not yet Unitarian-Universalist.) She liked to say that her impression of Unitarians had always been “seven people in an attic with a violin.”

Parishioner Joan Esch and her cello provided the opening music yesterday. Instead of going into the main sanctuary, we gathered in the parish hall, sitting on folding chairs around a small table with candles and flowers. At most there were 40 people, including toddlers running and climbing.

Mark Richards led the Taizé service, explaining that the concept started in France. The First Parish version is short and consists of one-verse songs sung over and over in unison without accompaniment and interspersed with readings, cello interludes, meditation, and candle lighting — for remembrance (such as an illness or death) and hope (such as a new beginning or a birth).

I enjoyed being there. It was different. And I liked a line that was quoted from a long-ago minister — something about the mystery within reaching for the mystery without.

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Mystery Grammy Nominee

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on December 26, 2011 | Leave a Comment »

Someone who used to know her well alerted me to the story of the Mystery Grammy Nominee. At 51 and without a record label, she has managed to get a remarkable burst of attention for her music.

Writes Christopher Morris at Variety, “Linda Chorney used the Recording Academy’s Grammy 365 website to connect with voters.

“Armed only with a computer and some chutzpah, a longshot snuck through the back door and into the Grammy Awards competition this year.
The resourceful Linda Chorney secured a Grammy nomination in the category of Americana album for her self-produced, self-released ‘Emotional Jukebox’ by taking her mission directly to voters, employing the peer-to-peer function of the Recording Academy’s own site for members, Grammy 365.

“Many in the tight-knit Americana community have reacted quizzically, and sometimes vehemently, to Chorney’s nomination, which trumped several well-known artists in the genre. The virtually unknown Sea Bright, N.J.-based musician will face off on Feb. 12 against a field of nominees that has collectively garnered a total of 23 Grammys. And while some question her methods, her online campaign falls completely within the academy’s parameters for acceptable self-promotion.” Read more.

There are several videos on YouTube. What do you think? Leave a comment.

Follow us on twitter @LunaStellaBlog1.

Update: Chorney didn’t win a Grammy, but she has been invited to sing the national anthem at Fenway Park before an April 2012 Red Sox game, another item on her “bucket list.”

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When Half-Spent Was the Night

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , on December 24, 2011 | Leave a Comment »

The phrase comes from the carol “Lo, How a Rose E’er Blooming.”

Somehow, the words “when half-spent was the night” instead of “in the middle of the night” (a choice doubtless made to fit the rhythm) makes one think about the meaning more. Something about a gift arriving unexpectedly halfway through a time of darkness. Something surprising and curious.

A nice gift I received Friday was an expression of gratitude for being there for someone through her first year at my workplace. With tears in her eyes. Golly. Something surprising. A welcome surprise.

Then today, tucked in the back door, a stealth gift. Hmmm. No note. Swedish colors. For Erik? I think I recognize the cookie style. It suggests Suzanne’s longtime friend, a buddy since kindergarten, known for — among other things — her mother’s cookie-painting parties at Christmas.

Suzanne is being remembered, and being reminded of fun times, at a busy season when her friend is visiting town for only a short while. These are gifts that make people feel good.

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