Strings, strings, and more strings were the order of the evening as the Institute of Musical Tradition closed out its 2008 Fall Season with a Scandinavian Christmas concert tonight in Rockville.
Before a full house of Swedes and Norwegians (or so it seemed), Andrea Hoag, Loretta Kelley, and Charlie Pilzer were joined by Bruce Sager for a night of polskas, waltzes, walking tunes, and other music from the north. The evening opened with triple fiddles backed by Pilzer’s steady bass, and throughout the night the four musicians played wonderful music as soloists, duets, trios, and a quartet.
The dance polskas (not to be confused with polkas) were great fun, but I especially enjoyed the walking tunes such as Solskenslaten (The Sunshine Tune) and The Bell Tune, where the bells on the reins of the bride’s horse were tuned with the fiddle to ring in harmony as the fiddler led a traditional wedding procession.
Loretta Kelly (left in the photo above) played two different hardingfeles (or Hardanger fiddles) with their sympathetic vibrating strings, while an energetic Bruce Sager joined in on the Swedish nyckelharpa (or keyed fiddle). All in all it was a different take on holiday music (No O Christmas Tree here), and it made for an enjoyable evening of music.
It is 30 degrees outside, we’re approaching winter solstice, so naturally a young man’s thoughts turn to…baseball!
Yesterday at work I used the term Hot Stove League in a memo to some colleagues, referring to rumors about projects that were heating up. A friend who loves baseball said she wasn’t familiar with the term, so as is usual I sent her the link from Wikipedia. According to that source of all knowledge:
The Hot Stove League is a baseball-related term, referring to the off-season. Therefore, it is not actually a “league”, but the term instead calls up images of baseball fans, anxious for the start of the new season, gathering around a hot stove during the cold winter months discussing their favorite baseball teams. The term has also come to refer to the wave of off-season player transactions (trades, re-signings, free agency, etc.) that occur between seasons, especially during the winter meetings. Since most free agent signings and trades occur during the off-season, this time of significant player transactions (including rumors and speculation about possible trades), is often referred to as the “Hot Stove League” or sometimes more simply “Hot Stove”. Essentially, teams continue competing, except it is the team owners and general managers who are doing the playing, with the score being in terms of human resource losses and gains.
So why am I writing about the Hot Stove League? It could be from the depression of the Yankees announcing their bank-breaking deals this week to C.C. Sabathia and A.J. Burnett (what is it with all the initials?) while the home-standing Washington Nationals were making marginal signings at best. The Nats – to their credit – did make a serious play for home-town player Mark Teixeira who would be a big fish if they could land him. However, I suspect all they’ve done is forced the Boston Red Sox to pay more money in the end. I saw Teixeira play this summer when he was with the Braves, and he’s the real deal. I just wish the Nationals would spend a little more of the Lerner’s money to land several good players and make the team competitive. But until that happens, I’ll just focus on passing along baseball trivia to friends and maybe pop Bull Durham– my vote for best baseball movie ever – into the DVD player.
The National Trust for Historic Preservation is working with the Foundation for Historical Louisiana and other partners to try and stop the demolition of significant portions of the historic Mid-City neighborhood in New Orleans. The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs and Louisiana State University recently announced the selection of the Mid-City neighborhood for the site of their new hospitals. As the National Trust website PreservationNation.org states:
The new hospitals would needlessly destroy the historic neighborhood around Charity Hospital where residents have been rebuilding and restoring their community since Hurricane Katrina. We believe this decision was a serious error and urge LSU and the VA to explore the alternative sites that would restore needed health care facilities faster and at less cost, while preserving much more of the historic Mid-City neighborhood.
The video below is just one of several prepared by the Foundation for Historical Louisiana where the affected residents talk about the decision to demolish their neighborhood. Click on the link above to see more videos and learn what you can do to try and reverse this decision.
Mother was born on December 9, 1930. Today would have been her 78th birthday, had cancer not claimed her on New Year’s Day 1998. For the past ten years there’s seldom a day that passes without something happening that reminds me of her. She was a remarkable woman with a large circle of friends and an even larger capacity for love and service.
After I graduated from college and left home, Mother and I maintained a weekly correspondence for many years. She was a “newsy” letter writer, with information about the family mixed in with items from town, updates on old friends, tidbits about both our careers, and extensive sports news. (Mother was my loyal co-spectator for games on television.)
Several years after she died, I published a collection of her letters from 1980 – 1997 entitled Rich in Love. Over the course of those 17 years she wrote about love, death, babies, pets, advice, and family. Her letters included a four-page typewritten description of our wedding she prepared for family members who couldn’t attend. She wrote one of the most wonderful tributes I’ve ever read to the men in her life for one Father’s Day. She suffered (in the 1980s) and exulted (in the 1990s) with her Atlanta Braves. Rich in Love was my way of ensuring that my children, who were five when she died, would have some way of really knowing and understanding their Grandmother.
Mother had a sense of humor. She could write that my brother called from California and “As soon as he said ‘hello’ there was an earthquake.” Like me she struggled with spelling in these pre-computer days and would complain that, “Even with clean keys the typewriter can’t spell.” When bragging on her first grandchild, she noted that, “Tom and I received our first grandparents card from a grandchild. Ashli really prints her name well to be only two months old.” After returning from a baby shower, she wrote me that, “I’ll give you a bachelor shower and you can give me a menopause one!!! My things are wearing out and you’ve never had enough.” When writing of her own mother she said, “Mother and I have been working on the Weatherly and Roberts families (genealogy). I should have started it several years ago. She has the same person married to three different men in a ten minute interval.”
As the primary care-giver for her mother-in-law for a number of years, Mother worked long hours mixing work with personal responsibilities. She looked up one midnight to see the dog, her granddaughter, and her mother-in-law and wrote, “Tinker is asleep under the piano, Ashli is asleep in the baby bed and Grandmother is asleep in her bed. What I’m doing awake I don’t know.”
Mother was a librarian who worked during the week for the city/county system (for many years as the Children’s Librarian in our town) and then on weekends she served as the volunteer director for our rather extensive church library. She devoured books and passed along her fascination with reading to me and my brothers and sisters. Mother also had a beautiful soprano voice and shared her love of music with all her children. In her letters she writes about every genre imaginable — from attending a Lena Horne concert with my father (one of his all-time favorite singers), to singing opera and classical oratorios, to how much her father and father-in-law would have enjoyed the bluegrass I was playing with my brothers. She loved it all.
Early in 1996, only two months after she retired, Mother was diagnosed with ovarian cancer. After chemo and surgery the cancer went into remission but shortly thereafter a new problem developed when she began to have symptoms of inflammatory arthritis. Even after 17 doctors at Vanderbilt examined her they could not confirm a diagnosis. They finally said it was “like scleroderma” which was very painful. And then in October of 1997 the cancer returned. After talking with us, Mom decided not to undergo additional chemotherapy. She went into Hospice care in November, lived to see her 67th birthday, and then died peacefully on New Year’s Day 1998.
About a month before she died, the library staff from church brought her a video of Amahl and the Night Visitorsas a gift. Mom and I sang the leads in a production of this opera in 1966, and it has great meaning in our family. They also left her with a note which captures how so many people saw my mother.
“Dear Helen:
Your years of service to our library and our church will long be remembered. The many hours that you spent in creating, administering, and directing a first-class library program have set a standard of excellence for all church libraries. Your expertise in your field have been in demand not only in our church, but also in our association, state, and convention. We are so proud of you and all your accomplishments. Just think of the countless lives you have touched through your ministry.
To us you are Mother Teresa, Joan of Arc, and Wonder Woman. You’re like Coca-Cola (The Real Thing), GE (You Bring Good Things of Life), and Dr. Pepper (The Friendly Pepper Upper). You are the very heart of our staff.
On a personal level your life has been exemplified by the very ideals of the Christian faith….The comfort and assurance you have given us as we have faced grief and tragedy in our own lives have given us courage to bear our burdens. In difficult times you were always there with food, a smile, a hug, and kind words. You have always given of yourself so freely.
I remember stopping by the Anthony’s after Ed died. There you were mopping the floor. This reminded me of Jesus washing the feet of his disciples. No job has ever been beneath you. You do what needs to be done.
I have been a member of this church for fifty-eight years. I was enrolled in the Cradle Roll when I was born, but I never felt I was a complete member until you were elected our first female deacon. Thanks for bravely stepping forward and blazing that trail.
We remember many happy times. What woman except Helen Brown who had spent months in chemotherapy would invite forty people to her home for Christmas dinner? What a great time we had….
We wish we could honor you with a dinner or banquet, but we cannot. So please accept our love and admiration for all that you are. Love, Patsy and Your Library Media Staff.”
So many who knew her loved my Mother. We all still miss her. But a good friend sent me a note that I often recall when thinking of Mom.
“They are not dead who live in lives they leave behind. In those whom they have blessed they live again.”
I wish I could say Happy Birthday to you Mom, but this will have to do.
I just learned that Greg Maddux – perhaps the smartest pitcher ever in Major League Baseball – has decided to retire at age 42. As a long-time Atlanta Braves fan, I followed his career closely. Those four Cy Young awards in a row? Amazing. Those 355 career wins (more than any living player)? Just as mind numbing in this age of the specialist. Finishing number 10 on the all-time strikeout list? Now that’s a stat that really does shock me, because I never think of Maddux as a strikeout pitcher. But I do think of him as just the smartest guy on the field at all times.
ESPN’s web site has a great column on Maddux written by Gene Wojciechowski. He includes a wonderful story about Maddux’s smarts:
In 1996, just before Maddux and the Atlanta Braves faced the New York Yankees in the World Series, pitching coach Leo Mazzone met with his starters and relievers and read them the detailed scouting reports. Maddux raised his hand after Mazzone read the report on Yankees slugger Bernie Williams.
“That report is not correct,” Maddux said. “I’ve been watching film of Williams for two weeks, and that report is not correct.”
“Did everybody hear that?” Mazzone said.
The Braves pitchers nodded.
“Well, then the hell with this report,” Mazzone said. “We go with what Mad Dog says.”
Williams hit .167 in the Series.
Thanks for the memories, Mad Dog, and for the great pitching. In this day of histrionics and grandstanders – even in baseball – we’ll miss that competitive yet cerebral approach you brought to the game. And yes, I agree with the fellow who commented on the ESPN column: any sportswriter who doesn’t put Maddux on the first ballot for the Hall of Fame should have their voting privileges revoked.
Playing music with friends over Thanksgiving has pushed me to reorder my schedule to find even more time to play. And – no surprise here – I’ve loved it. I’m reacquainting myself with some of the playing of Norman Blake (check out the Nashville Blues video below of Norman and the Rising Fawn String Ensemble) and other musicians I admire.
In the delightful book Practicing, author and musician Glenn Kurtz says,
For me, sitting down to play has very little to do with discipline. “It isn’t just education and discipline that makes one so devoted to work…it is simple joy. It is one’s natural sense of well-being, to which nothing else can compare.” Love of music brings me to the practice room.
I am finding that joy in playing again and it is a wonderful feeling.
So I’m off to play a bit now, and then tomorrow evening I’ll be at the Celtic Christmas concert of the Institute of Musical Traditions for some great acoustic guitar by Al Petteway and Robin Bullock. If you’re in the Washington, DC area stop by and support live music.
I awoke early this morning and came downstairs while everyone is still asleep. It is St. Nicholas Day, and I had to smile at the sight of two rather large teenage shoes — one from each child — sitting expectantly on the landing. The memories came rushing back.
We’re not German and I didn’t grow up celebrating St. Nicholas Day, but Candice loves a good holiday — especially one associated with a saint that could help counterbalance the commercialization of Christmas. So soon after the twins arrived we decided we’d celebrate St. Nicholas Day and it became a tradition.
The gifts are similar year to year. Candice always finds the gold coin chocolates. The gifts are modest. This year they include something for Claire’s hair and a “Bush countdown calendar” for our progressive teenage son. With St. Nicholas Day, the twins birthday, and Christmas all coming within a three week period, we have to be prudent on the gift buying front.
That’s what I like most about our St. Nicholas Day celebrations: the simple nature of the children’s expectations and the gratitude for small things. Each year there’s a wonder as to what St. Nicholas will bring. There’s a thankfulness for tradition – that we simply remembered to celebrate.
But of course Andrew and Claire aren’t children anymore. Last night at a holiday party, someone commented on the picture of the two of them in our recent A Year in Photos post. They look like young adults, and — in fact — that’s what they are. They live very busy lives and could just as easily have skipped right over St. Nicholas Day.
But the conversation before we all fell into bed last evening was about the safety of having St. Nicholas putting out chocolate while Lilly roamed the house during the night. How very far we’ve come, yet how near and dear they remain. Perhaps Madeleine L’Engle – the author of Andrew’s favorite book A Wrinkle in Time– was right. Perhaps we are always every age we’ve ever been. So when we’re 53 years old, we’re still 4 and we’re still 12 and we still love a childhood tradition.
I’m not sure what has been my favorite holiday, but I think Thanksgiving has now taken over the top rung on the ladder. I think it may be the fact that big business hasn’t yet figured out a way to commercialize it. Or perhaps it is the fact that food plays a big role. I like the focus on the act of being thankful for all we have in a country that’s been abundantly blessed. Then again, maybe it is just that we’ve figured out how to get together with people we really enjoy and have a very relaxing time. Whatever the reason, it is my new favorite holiday.
Candice and I have always enjoyed Thanksgiving. For many years we traveled over the mountain from Staunton to a wonderful inn, Prospect Hill, for a bountiful Thanksgiving dinner. It was especially meaningful to us because we honeymooned at Prospect Hill while we were very poor graduate students. Little did we realize that just a year after our wedding we’d move to Virginia and be an hour away.
With the coming of twins it became more difficult to pack up and go to a great restaurant/inn that was 2+ hours away for Thanksgiving (even though we gave it a try one year). That’s when our wonderful friends Margaret and Oakley invited us to join their extended “family” for Thanksgiving in Staunton…and we made the first steps to Thanksgiving becoming my new favorite. Random thoughts on why I have come to enjoy Thanksgiving:
I love the slow pace of a Thanksgiving meal. You talk, eat, drink, play a little music, eat some more, drink some more wine – and all of a sudden it is 11 p.m. The pace gives you time to digest (and I’m talking about more than just food).
The friends we share with Margaret and Oakley are neat people. And, of course, Margaret and Oakley are the neatest of all! They moved from the Mount Pleasant neighborhood in DC to Staunton a number of years ago, and have this great urban/rural/Minnesota/Dylan/gourmet/ natural foods/spiritual vibe that’s great to share. I’m sure you see all of that in the picture.
When we go back to Staunton, it is like we never left. We can begin conversations that began 15 years ago and that are ongoing.
One of the great things about community is that people accept each other EVEN though they know all the faults. One of mine is that I hear better music in my head than what comes out when I play. But guess what? The good musicians in our group still let me play and have a good time, even when I can’t remember the lyrics or get the chords right. That’s cool.
We love the small town of Staunton, where we lived for 15 years. It is always great to spend 4 hours wandering through the downtown to visit new shops and run into old friends. We did a lot of both this past weekend. This year it was even better because there’s this terrific new bass shop in town, called Fretwell Bass. When I walked into a store with 25 or so upright basses for sale, I thought I’d died and gone to heaven. My dream of playing an upright bass just came into focus!
Staunton’s restaurant scene is also improving. On Friday Margaret and Oakley joined us for dinner at the Staunton Grocery, a wonderful restaurant where we enjoyed the food and company. Candice and Margaret – the former catering partners – sat opposite the picture window looking into the kitchen and kept up a running commentary on the dishes as they were prepared and served. How can you beat two nights in a row of great food, wine, and conversation?
So Thanksgiving is now my new favorite holiday. During our music making on Thursday evening, I was reminded of the great Stephen Foster song Slumber My Darling. Our friend Constance has a beautiful voice which mesmerized us all as she sang this tune. Since I was playing guitar at the time and not filming the performance, I’ve instead posted this wonderful video of Alison Krauss. And while Constance didn’t quite have the backup band of Edgar Meyer, Mark O’Connor, and Yo Yo Ma that Alison enjoys, I’ll remember this highlight from Thanksgiving 2008.
On Thanksgiving morning, Candice and I visited our neighborhood Episcopal Church in Silver Spring. We went to give thanks for all we have, but we also went to this particular church because we knew that one of the DC-area’s best hammered dulcimer players – Karen Ashbrook – was providing the music.
Over the course of the next hour, Karen played six beautiful tunes. Of special note was the haunting O Savior Thee – a Scottish Christmas carol – which made for a wonderful time of reflection following the readings and sermon.
The small Gothic church was acoustically alive, providing a nice setting for Karen’s music. It was a wonderful start to our Thanksgiving Day.
Check out Karen and her husband Paul Oorts on this video of Irish tunes.
This Thanksgiving I’ve posted some photos from the past 12 months as a reminder of the many things for which we are thankful. Scroll over the top of the photo for a description. Click on the photo for a full-screen view.
Happy Thanksgiving.
More to come…
DJB
Enjoy!
More to come…
DJB
Image: Candice and Margaret Pearson cook Thanksgiving dinner
MORE TO COME... 