We thought we had an early start. Over the summer and fall we went to a couple of movies that, to our eye, had Best Picture possibilities. We both loved The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel and Moonrise Kingdom. Shows what we know.
But we quickly hit our stride, and after tonight’s viewing of Beasts of the Southern Wild at AFI Silver Theatre, we’ve now seen four of the nine Best Picture nominees.
Since it is our most recent viewing, I’ll just say that Beasts of the Southern Wild is an interesting film, but best picture quality…ummm, I don’t think so. And I’m sorry, but Quvenzhané Wallis did not deserve a nomination above Maggie Smith in The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel.
Knowing that you, dear reader, are waiting with bated breath, here’s how I rank the four I’ve seen:
1. Lincoln
2. Life of Pi
3. Les Mis
4. Beasts of the Southern Wild
I just asked Candice for her rankings, and she has:
1. Les Mis
2. Lincoln
3. Life of Pi
4. Beasts of the Southern Wild
In the other categories, I think Daniel Day-Lewis is a lock for Best Actor (and I don’t even have to see the others). I haven’t seen enough of the Best Actress nominees to have an opinion. I loved Tommy Lee Jones and Sally Field in their supporting roles in Lincoln, but I have no idea if they’ll win.
So there you go…feel free to agree or disagree in the comments section. I’ll update you again as we get a few more viewings under our belt.
Washington National Cathedral pulpit ready for the Presidential Inauguration Prayer Service (Photo credit: Suzy Mink)
Every four years, when the country gathers to inaugurate a president, some of the nation’s most historic buildings take center stage. From the Benjamin Latrobe-designed St. John’s Church where the First Family attends a morning service, to the White House where the President meets with his successor or the leaders of Congress, to the U.S. Capitol where the Chief Executive takes the oath of office under a magnificent dome largely completed during the darkest days of the Civil War—our nation’s peaceful transfer of power occurs in and around stately buildings that are cherished witnesses to history.
And the inauguration ceremonies end the following morning at yet another historic building — Washington National Cathedral — where the nation’s secular and religious leaders gather for the Presidential Inaugural Prayer Service.
I have attended many different services and ceremonies beneath the Cathedral’s soaring vaults. I remember Evensong services in the great choir where I heard young trebles sing a Pie Jesu that lifted the congregants — all twenty of them — to another level of grace. The sanctuary worked surprisingly well as a backdrop for this intimate gathering. But when the sanctuary is filled to capacity with thousands of guests and visitors gathered in common cause, the transformative power of the Gothic structure atop Mount St. Alban becomes self evident.
What do historic spaces such as the Cathedral — where National Trust president Stephanie Meeks and I were privileged to attend this morning’s 57th Presidential Inaugural Prayer Service — have to offer that other buildings do not?
Washington National Cathedral, like any important historic building, reminds us that our lives are built on the shoulders of those who came before and that we have a responsibility to those yet to come. When the Children of the Gospel Choir sing the traditional spiritual Way over in Beulah Lan’ and we think of those who struggled to see beyond this time and place, their voices rise and linger in a building that holds a piece of lunar rock in the Space Window. Beautifully sung calls to prayer from the Jewish, Islamic, and Christian traditions remind us that the Cathedral was built as a House of Prayer for all people, not just the privileged and powerful. When The Reverend Adam Hamilton of Leawood, Kansas, builds a sermon around the emancipation story, the Walter Hancock statue of Abraham Lincoln bears silent witness to those who have made great sacrifice for the good of the nation.
These special places cannot serve the nation without the love, care, and support provided by countless stewards. Last year the National Trust for Historic Preservation named Washington National Cathedral a National Treasure to help those stewards recover from the damage of an unexpected earthquake and develop a vision forward for the preservation of this magnificent landmark.
It was clear again this morning why we need historic places such as Washington National Cathedral. During the service, The Reverend Dr. Raphael Warnock, Senior Pastor at Atlanta’s Ebenezer Baptist Church, asked everyone to join hands for the final prayer in the spirit of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. He did so in front of the pulpit where King gave the last Sunday sermon of his life. In that sermon, King said, “We must all learn to live together as brothers and sisters or we will all perish together as fools.”
Throughout this weekend of the inauguration of a president, Washington’s historic buildings reminded the country that we have often disagreed — and even fought — as a nation. However, they also speak to the fact that we have come together more often than not to focus on the ideals that make us Americans. In the extraordinary, and yet also humbling, space of Washington National Cathedral, Dr. Warnock’s final prayer called us again to those ideals.
Let us recommit ourselves this day to one another and to the work of building together the beloved community. May God transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of the human family. And through us may all the families of the earth be blessed.
More to come…
DJB
(Note: This blog post was originally written for the PreservationNation blog of the National Trust for Historic Preservation.)
Baseball lost two members of the Hall of Fame this past weekend: Earl Weaver and Stan Musial.
There’s much that could – and has – been written about these two baseball greats. I’ve linked to Joe Posnanski’s blogs above, but I could just as easily have sent you to read Tom Boswell’s column on The Earl of Baltimore or George Vecsey on Stan the Man.
I won’t go on about Weaver’s baseball genius – decades before Moneyball made his theories all the rage – or Musial’s quiet consistency – to the point where he was widely considered to be the best ballplayer of the postwar decade. No, I’m going to focus on their nicknames.
Reason #85: Baseball nicknames go on forever – because we feel we know so many player intimately. Football monikers run out fast. We just don’t know that many of them as people.
Then Boswell provides examples.
Reason #6 (close after “bands” (#1) “half time with bands” (#2), and “cheerleaders at half time with bands” (#3)): Baseball has Blue Moon, Catfish, Spaceman and The Sugar Bear. Football has Lester the Molester, Too Mean, and The Assassin.
Reason #35: Football has Tank and Mean Joe. Baseball has The Human Rain Delay and Charlie Hustle.
Reason #51: Football has Hacksaw. Baseball has Steady Eddie and The Candy Man.
Reason #59: Football has the Refrigerator. Baseball has Puff the Magic Dragon, The Wizard of Oz, Tom Terrific, Big Doggy, Kitty Kaat, and Oil Can.
In The Earl of Baltimore and Stan the Man, we have two more nicknames that have stood the test of time. They brought so much pleasure to so many (except, in the case of Weaver, the umpires). May they Rest in Peace.
And Reason #99 that Baseball is so much better than Football? Most of all…because spring training is less than a month away.
“The return of the economic destroyer in chief” (this obviously from a disgruntled Republican who has rewritten history).
“Limousine gridlock.”
The newspapers also get into the act. “Experts” who see the world through their lens and no other, have all the answers for what ails President Obama, the political parties, or the country as the second term begins.
Well, I refuse to play that Washington game. I have a son and four of his college classmates down on the mall today, and they are excited to be a part of history. Andrew and another friend from Washington have spent the last four days touring one friend from California and one from Vermont all around the city – hitting the hip neighborhoods, going to Evensong at the National Cathedral, watching the changing of the guard at Arlington Cemetery, viewing the L’Enfant plan for the city from Arlington House, seeing the museums. They’ve had a wonderful weekend, and they left early this morning – Candice’s turkey sandwiches in tow – to work their way through the crowds to get to the mall to be a part of history.
Inaugurations in the United States are amazing events, and not because of the spectacle. After one of the most expensive, nasty, and divisive elections since…oh, I don’t know, Andrew Jackson vs. John Quincy Adams (at least for the divisive and nastiness parts)…we have a peaceful transfer (or in today’s case, continuation) of power. When one thinks of how power transfers in many countries of the world, it is amazing that we’ve kept this going for more than 200 years.
So I join Andrew and his friends in their excitement today. There will be plenty of days when we can rail against the problems in this world. Today is for the optimists.
UPDATE: Twelve years out, I still don’t miss Facebook, and today’s news (January 8, 2025) is why. As Judd Legum put it on Popular Information, Meta Goes MAGA. Shameful. More to come soon on the Tech Coup of Democracy.)
Before the weekend is out, I will have deleted my Facebook account. I’ve contemplated this change for months. It is time.
Facebook has been great in making initial connections with people I haven’t seen for years. However, I’ve moved quite a bit from how I felt about Facebook three years ago. I will miss hearing from certain friends from across the world. But the changes Facebook has made to their privacy, news feed, photo – you name it – policy have made this a very different platform than I signed up for. I don’t like how Facebook now asks me, “How are you feeling, David?” Really? None of your damn business, frankly. In the end, it is more important that I be present in the moment.
I’m not going to write a long list of reasons why I’m saying farewell to Facebook. There are enough of those online, like here, here, and here.
And I’m not leaving the online world. Many of you know how to reach me at work or home via email (and my phone still works!) I will continue to write on the More to Come… newsletter, for those who want to know what I’m thinking in more than short — occasionally snarky — updates. You can reach me there if you wish. My wife, Candice, is still on Facebook and she promises that she’ll post my MTC writings to her page. I’m keeping my own Facebook page up for the next few hours just so I can post this so some of my online friends can see it.
“You start off playing guitar to get chicks and end up talking with middle-aged men about your fingernails.”
This is just one of the dozens of truisms, cogent observations, and laugh-out-loud lines found in Tim Brookes’ 2005 Guitar: An American Life. Candice gave me the book for Christmas, and though I finished it shortly after New Year’s Day, I’ve only now found the time to say how much I enjoyed this “part history, part love song” to the guitar.
I learned of the book last summer when I met Rick Davis, the builder of my two Running Dog guitars. Rick – along with a new guitar he built for author Tim Brookes – are featured in Guitar. After baggage handlers broke his Fylde guitar, Brookes turned to Davis to build him a new one. In alternating chapters Brookes chronicles the building process while taking the reader through an idiosyncratic yet compelling history of the guitar.
Since the book has been around for a few years, it is easy to find good book reviews online. I’ll content myself with simply repeating some of the great lines from this delightful read. Let’s begin with that fingerboard.
“I’ll often feel intimidated just by looking at the fingerboard. A fingerboard is a curiously disturbing thing, and not especially inviting, a combination of inscrutable rectangular geometry, strings one way, frets perpendicular. What about those inlays on the third, fifth, seventh, ninth, twelfth, fifteenth, and eighteenth frets, refusing to conform to any regular sequence, more perplexing than a Fibonacci series? ‘This is perfectly easy,’ the fingerboard says, ‘but you will never understand it.'”
Brookes, on a day when he has to have his snow tires taken off and his summer tires put on (he lives in Vermont), takes his guitar to the shop’s reception area and plays Django Reinhardt and Scott Joplin for the receptionist.
“When the tires are done and I stop playing, the two women break into smiles. ‘Very relaxing’ is the verdict. I’m tempted to hear that as ‘very boring,’ but I think, no, live instrumental guitar music probably is relaxing in the context of work, artificial light, the smell of artificial carpet and Naugahyde, oil and gasoline drifting in faintly from the shop. They agree that it beats canned music.
‘I’ve never had someone come in and play music in all the years I’ve worked here,’ says the receptionist, and I think, ‘What good is a guitar if you leave it at home?'”
And a final excerpt, this time around the question, “How do those guys play those chords?”
“Playing guitar is as much about the hand as it is about the guitar, perhaps more. Which is one reason why it’s a conservative art: the hand wants to conform to the shapes it knows. Advanced classical and jazz guitar ask the hand to make shapes it only ever makes during electrocution or in the last contortions of strychnine poisoning, which is why those guys develop spidery fingers – long, thin, oddly spread apart. The rest of us stick with the shapes we know, shapes that feel right.”
The guitar is an amazing instrument – simple, complex, versatile, fascinating – and I’m fortunate to have three wonderful guitars made by two luthiers of the highest order. If you have a life-long love affair with this instrument, or are just getting to know it, you’ll enjoy Guitar: An American Life.
On a bright, clear, and wintery Sunday morning — December 20, 1992 — two infants, each barely over 5 pounds in size, entered and forever changed our world. Of course, we didn’t know it at the time, because we wouldn’t learn of their birth from the adoption agency until the next morning. But when I heard that they were born around 11:50 a.m. (and Claire will know who came out first and how much older that twin is than Andrew), I recalled that at the very moment of their birth I was singing the ancient carol There Is No Rose of Such Virtue on the last Sunday of Advent.
Knowing that their birth mother could deliver at any time, we were certainly – in that Advent season — looking forward to those births. And we’ve been singing ever since.
Claire and Andrew came home with us on January 14, 1993. They received a royal welcome from friends and family, who decorated the house with balloons, left strollers and diapers on the front porch, and brought food over by the boat load. It was a good thing, because we were outnumbered. Twin infants and two adults…thank God the reinforcements arrived soon! (Candice’s mother was on the scene within the week, followed quickly by my Mom and sister Debbie.)
A good friend – and mother of twins – told us the story that on her girls’ first birthday, she took her nightgown – which she had rarely taken off over the past 365 days – and burned it in a rite of passage ritual on the backyard grill. We didn’t do anything so drastic in December 1993, but we certainly understood the impulse. What a handful twins can be when they are young!
Through the years it became obvious that we were blessed with two wonderful, talented, beautiful, and intelligent children. I can say all of that without sounding boastful because they don’t share my genes! But I can’t imagine loving any child – biological, adopted, step, or otherwise – anymore than I love these two beautiful people.
To watch them grow into the wonderful adults they’ve become has been the joy of my life. I remember each phase of that growth, knowing that it wasn’t always easy (for them or for us), but secure in the knowledge that they were surrounded by love.
Our traditional birthday celebration – once we got past the “invite over the entire pre-school” phase – was to go to a Japanese steak house for dinner. This began in elementary school, when Andrew and Claire visited their local restaurant while studying Japan. They thought it was the neatest thing in the world to see the chef toss an egg in the air, break it with his spatula, and then cook it right before their eyes. And the great thing about these guys…they were still clamoring for the traditional celebration when they were 18 years old. They have a wonderful way of holding on while still moving forward.
From day one, Andrew and Claire had their different personalities and interests. We always called Claire our “outdoors girl,” because she loved being out of the house. We still call her that today. Claire, the swimmer, is up at 6 a.m. to get in two hours of practice with her college swim team in an outdoor pool in Southern California before breakfast. As for Andrew, I always said that he had perfect pitch coming out of the womb. He loved music, melody, and rhythms, and we spoke of his “math/music” mind that got the theory but also the art. Every time he opens his mouth to sing – and he’s doing a lot of that in college – I am transported by what comes out.
When they headed off for kindergarten, I somehow knew that college wouldn’t be far off. But the time has flown by even faster than I could have imagined. My advice…hug, laugh, cry, savor every chance you get.
Claire and Andrew will be thankful that I’ll spare you many pictures of the middle school years. I’ve just included the one above because it captures us in 2004 – when they were 12 – with our old girl Lilly. Claire was the instigator of getting a dog, and Lilly – a Sussex Spaniel – was a big part of all our lives for about 9 years. Saying goodbye to her in 2009 was one of those life lessons that every child works through, but it was especially hard on Claire and Candice. Everyone loved Lilly, but they had special bonds.
Claire took up a strong interest in photography when she entered high school, and one of my favorite pictures of her is the self portrait above that she took in 2008. She has always had the most expressive eyes. As an infant, friends and family would comment on how those eyes would fix on you and capture you with their intensity and beauty.
I’ve often said I want to change lives with my children. Before they reached 20, they had traveled to South Africa, Sweden, Spain, Northern Ireland, Mexico, Costa Rica, and all over the US. Hell, I’d never flown in an airplane until I was in college! Life is different these days, and I’m so glad we were able to give them the opportunity to learn more about some of the other people who inhabit this planet.
So here it is, twenty years later. And guess who won’t be home for their birthdays. Yes, the crunch of exams and the desire not to fly cross-country on her birthday pushed Claire’s arrival home back a day. Once he heard that his sister wasn’t going to be around for their birthday, Andrew bailed as well and went to visit a friend in Boston. We’ll see them both on Friday, and who knows, we may even find ourselves in a Japanese steak house over the weekend.
As I was lamenting my fate of having the children out-of-town for their 20th birthdays, a very wise friend told me the quote, “When they’re little, you can manufacture quality time. When they’re older, you just need to be there when it happens.” This is a passage for Candice and me. But I do know that they will appreciate it when we are there for them.
So Happy 20th Birthday Andrew and Claire! You can’t imagine how you’ve enriched my life over the past two decades. I love you and can’t wait to see you on Friday – the 21st. I’ll apologize now for putting up these pictures you’ll hate and for telling the world how wonderful you are, but I don’t really mean it (the apology, that is). And I’ll end this post with the same song that brought you into the world.
If it is early December, you can count on “Celtic Guitar God” Robin Bullock heading up a holiday concert for the Institute of Musical Traditions. So tonight, Candice and I joined about 150 other traditional music fans for the 2012 edition of the IMT Celtic holiday concert.
Bullock was joined this year by Scottish champion fiddler Elke Baker and hammered dulcimer player Ken Kolodner. The evening was filled with traditional Christmas carols as well as Scottish and Irish old time music, all played with great enthusiasm and musiciaenship.
Baker and Kolodner played several beautiful duets, including two of my favorite holiday tunes: the haunting In the Bleak Midwinter and the French carol Bring a Torch, Jeanette, Isabella. All three joined together for extended sets of Cape Breton, French Canadian, and Celtic fiddle tunes.
However, my favorite parts of this concert each year focus around Bullock’s solo guitar work. Tonight he had beautiful arrangements of The Wexford Carol and a great mash-up of classical carols as played in the style of Mississippi John Hurt. But one of the most moving arrangements was of It Came Upon a Midnight Clear, where Bullock quoted the seldom-used fifth verse and opined that while it was perhaps seen as harsh, it still fit in these times:
Yet with the woes of sin and strife, the world has suffered long; Beneath the angel-strain have rolled two-thousand years of wrong; And man, at war with man, hears not the love-song which they bring; O hush the noise, ye men of strife, and hear the angels sing.
A wonderful night of great music. Enjoy the video below of Robin Bullock playing the Irish tune Lord Inchiquin at last year’s IMT Celtic holiday concert.
Three of the founding members of the pioneering urban bluegrass band the Seldom Scene gathered this evening in Silver Spring to pay tribute to their ailing partner: dobro master Mike Auldridge. Original Scene bassist Tom Gray, shown at left onstage with fellow alumnus John Starling, alerted me at this morning’s Farmers Market that the folks at the Maryland State Arts Council had added the tribute to their annual ALTA (Achievement in Living Traditions and Arts) Awards show as a way to honor Mike’s 2012 NEA National Heritage Fellowship.
The tribute came at the end of an entertaining and informative night.
The Old Bay Ceili Band from Baltimore opened with a spirited Irish set in memory of former ALTA award winner Joe Byrne, the late proprietor of J. Patrick’s Pub. Flutist Laura Byrne told of hearing the master traditional flute player Chris Norman while she was studying classical flute at the Peabody, asking him where she could learn to play that style of music, and being told to go to J. Patrick’s.
Then the current members of the Seldom Scene, led by founding member Ben Eldridge on banjo, took the stage to kick off the tribute. The first tune began with a recorded version of one of Mike’s beautiful Dobro instrumentals, with the live band and dobroist Fred Travers taking over on the second pass. Starling and Gray soon joined the other members on stage for a heartfelt tribute to their fellow band mate – who played with the Scene for 24 years – and the ground-breaking music they made together.
Starling’s voice was strong as he took the lead on Scene classics such as Dark Hollow. Mandolinist and fiddler Rickie Simpkins added his always tasteful licks throughout the set. Gray told the story of Mike’s slide guitar playing uncle Ellsworth Cozzens, who performed with Jimmie Rodgers in the 1920s, and then sang the Cozzens’ composition Treasure’s Untold. The full band ended the evening with the first tune the Seldom Scene played in public, the Vic Jordan instrumental Pickaway.
Auldridge was too ill to attend tonight’s tribute, but his presence was in the auditorium throughout the evening. His old band mates recreated the magic of his music onstage, musicians such as Mark Schatz were in the audience to pay tribute to his influence, and fans from across the region came together to honor a master musician and a real gentleman.
Thanks to the Seldom Scene – past and present – for a moving, meaningful, and music-filled evening. And to remember Mike’s playing, I’ll end with Auldridge, in a backstage moment, playing – what else – Pickaway.
On the Friday following Thanksgiving, we decided to spend the day in Los Angeles. We were on the west coast to holiday with our daughter Claire. Candice, Andrew, and I had flown cross country so we could be together.
The Los Angeles portion of the trip was one of those decisions made after discussing options that would appeal to the entire family. In the end, we toured a place that had something for everyone…but the family was kind enough to also allow me to indulge in a bit of roots music fantasy along the way.
The Getty Center was the place on everyone’s list. I was the only one of the four who had previously visited Richard Meier’s masterpiece of modern architecture set in the hills above LA, but we had enthusiasm on all fronts. Claire wanted to see the buildings and gardens, and instantly found the photographic exhibit on display as well. Andrew and Candice wanted to wander the campus and soak in Meier’s vision. I was eager to savor the passions everyone brought to the trip.
As soon as we walked onto the campus, Andrew began pointing out features of the building and the architect’s plan that built upon his modern architecture study in Spain last summer. We couldn’t turn a corner without Andrew or Candice commenting on the architecture – either the juxtaposition of the classic Meier white exterior with the rough-hewn travertine stone that helped set the campus in context, the wonderful view lines, or how the stone was generally set in squares and rectangles while the curves were executed in the aluminum cladding. Candice became a Meier fan when he designed the High Museum of Art (1983) while she was studying architecture in Atlanta. Andrew saw Meier’s Contemporary Museum of Art (1995) in Barcelona this summer and was eager to immerse himself in more of the architect’s work. Candice and I — who have both studied our share of architectural history — loved having a passionate guide in the family.
When we entered the photography exhibition, Claire’s passions took over. We all marveled at the Ray Metzker photographs of the city (usually Philadelphia or Chicago) and were glad to see the newest acquisitions of Robert Mapplethorpe’s works to the Getty collection. Claire’s photography training came to the fore as we discussed textures, lighting, and subject matter. I was reminded once again of what a special eye she has for lighting and composition as she called out features of both artists’ work that I simply didn’t see on first glance.
It is a wonderful thing to see your children (and wife) excited about their passions. And since we were on a day trip devoted to fulfilling our passions, I suggested we stop at a special place in Santa Monica to allow me to scratch a certain itch of mine.
I’ve written before about my desire to visit McCabe’s Guitar Shop in Santa Monica. It is one of those legendary music venues and stores in the roots music world. My fascination goes back to Norman Blake’s Live at McCabe’s album of the late 1970s. This album – recorded in the music hall at the rear of the shop – is a gem.
What has made Live at McCabe’s legendary among Blake’s fans is that it is the best showcasing ever of his flatpicking guitar skills. So much of Blake’s attention over the years has gone into other aspects of his music that it is possible to wonder why he is mentioned in the same breath as Doc Watson, Clarence White, and Dan Crary as one of the finest flatpickers ever. The reasons can all be heard on this great record.
So we pulled into a foggy Santa Monica, skipped the restored pier (because we couldn’t see it – or the ocean) and headed straight for McCabe’s. For the next 30 minutes, I roamed from room to room playing Martins, Collings, and Taylor guitars. In the last two years, I’ve bought a parlor guitar and a 000-sized instrument. I was amazed to find more than a dozen of these small guitars hanging on the walls, just waiting for me to pull them down and play a tune or two. Thirty minutes later (not wanting to push my luck with my patient family), I left satisfied that my two guitars were the ones for me. Thank goodness there was no buyers remorse after checking out a number of other options (after the fact).
One of these days I’ll get around to setting up a bucket list. And when I do, I’ll be able to check off “visit McCabe’s Guitar Shop.”
Friday was a great day to remind me of the joyous parts of following your passions. I was fortunate enough to indulge in three: great architecture, my family, and roots music. What a lucky man!
To leave this post, enjoy a bit of Norman picking Randall Collins and Done Gone with the Rising Fawn String Ensemble.
Last year I broke a 57-year-old tradition and decided to see all the films nominated in the Academy Awards Best Picture category. We had a blast, updating More to Come… when I thought we’d seen the winner, as well as on the night of the awards.
