In no particular order (Actually, they’re in reverse chronological order):
wedding, play, garden, hike, learning
Catherine Burton (Bunton?), R.I.P.
lots of big musical news, and links galore
Enjoy!
First of all, I’d like to say that I hope you’re having a Merry Christmas and a great holiday season. I’d also like to thank you for reading BFS&T all this time, and for bearing with me through the hiatus. And speaking of BFS&T, it celebrated its third anniversary a couple of weeks ago. Let’s all raise a glass of some sis-boom-bah for that.
I should mention that I’m in Seattle for the holiday week, and that this will only be a short entry, but I did want to share with you the new insult I learned today. I overheard it on a kids’ show that my niece was watching.  A boy band of sorts was trying to put on a Christmas concert, and a policeman was harassing them and trying to thwart the concert, and one of the guys in the band referred to him as a ‘blowhole.’ As in, “Hey, shut your piehole, you blowhole!”
I think that’s going to be my new favorite insult from now on. I love it because it sounds a bit risque and naughty without actually being naughty. Adam Carolla’s clever portmanteau ‘jackhole’ works the same way.  ‘Manhole’ is similarly not-naughty, but in that context it just sounds all kinds of wrong. So ‘blowhole’ is perfect.
You’re welcome. And Merry Christmas.
I wish I could embed this video, but the link will have to do. It’s a short animated illustration of an excerpt of one of Alan Watts‘ lectures, and it’s absolutely brilliant.
I’m still on a mini-sabbatical from blogging, but there’s lots to tell you about if I felt so inclined. Mixing for IrishBand, two gigs in Portland and Seattle (okay, here’s a picture from the Seattle show). . .
. . .opening up for the amazing Cirkestra, a fantastic day of music, dinner and the Oregon Symphony with the lovely and talented JapanesePianist, and for the next few days I’m taking a surprise trip to Northern California. As soon as I get back, it’s into the studio with MellowBand.
But like I said, I’m still on sabbatical, so I’m not gonna elaborate on any of that stuff. Sorry.
See you when I get home from NorCal. Hopefully I’ll be in more of a writing mood by then.
You know it’s been a long time since you’re written an entry when you start to get messages from your friends that say, “You haven’t updated your blog in nine days.”
Yeah, I know.
I’m still alive and well, just kinda lying low on the blog front for a while. I’ve been at this for quite a while now, you know. This incarnation of BFS&T is coming up on its third anniversary, and I had the one on Blogger for a year before that, and the one on MySpace for two years before that. It’s safe to say that I’ve paid my dues to the blogosphere.
I’ve been toying with the idea of a new approach, and I’ve been looking at some different options for platforms, and templates, and all of that sort of thing. I’m hoping to find something that is as detailed as this is, while still allowing me to customize the template a bit more.
The name will stay the same, naturally. Whatever I find will have to be able to be transferred to this domain name. At this point, there’s one that does stand out among the others, but I’ve only recently started looking and comparing.
I’m spending Thanksgiving with the couple who used to host the play-reading group. On the bigger holidays, they have dinner parties in which they invite a group of their friends who are either single, or have families who live elsewhere, or maybe they’re just interesting people in general. Always a different group, and always fun. So that’s where I’ll be.
I’ll be around.
I hope all’s well with you.
Man, I swear this blog gets more hits when I don’t post for a week than when I post all the time. I guess it’s a good thing I’m still feeling un-bloggish lately, then, in order to give everybody a chance to soak up a bit of beauty, humor, sadness (although there’s been precious little sadness lately!) and truth.
Times have been good, overall. Had a great gig on Friday, at which I got the chance to see many friends. I started mixing the EP for IrishBand (our goal is to finish mixing some time in December), and I had an excellent birthday. Got some new clothes. My friend LJ returned from three weeks in the U.K., so we went to brunch and then came back here to my place where she could upload the pictures and explain the stories behind all of them.
I had another excellent day yesterday, which involved a new friend and much random fun. We met at Powell’s, then watched a bewildering theater performance at Pioneer Square (we left after about ten minutes, scratching our heads with confusion), watched some buskers outside Nordstrom, bounced around between a bunch of closed restaurants (which finally led us to get sushi at Sansai), then we walked clear up to Vivace for coffee and dessert. Lovely day.
NewFriend is a piano teacher, so we’ve been looking for classical music we’ll be able to play together as a duo. I found a book of ‘easy to intermediate’ cello solos at Powell’s, which consists of classical pieces arranged for cello, with piano accompaniment. Perfect! It’s part of a two-book series; Book One is the piano book, and Book Two is the cello book. I bought the piano one because A) it was the only one they had, B) it had both the piano AND the cello parts on it, and C) I figured we could track down the complementary book at some point, or just photocopy whichever pieces we intend to learn.
When I pulled up at home, CellistSkip was standing next to his car, and he said hello. I brought the book over to show him, and he said, “No way. . .I think I used to have that book when I was a kid.” FlutistSusan came down the steps just then and I showed it to her too. “That sounds familiar,” she said. “I think I may actually have the cello book in my files somewhere.” She ran into her office, rummaged around in a drawer, and after about ten seconds pulled out a tattered copy of the companion cello book. The cover is gone and about half of the pages are missing, but it’s the same book. What a crazy coincidence, no?
So here are a few pictures. I wish I would’ve taken more, but I was too hungry to think of it when we got our sushi. The sushi was excellent, by the way, but the sunomono salad (with octopus, red onions, bell peppers and daikon radishes) was the hit of the day.
Perhaps I could recruit your help in locating a piece for NewFriend and me? We’re looking for Antonin Dvorak’s Slavonic Dance #2 in E minor, Opus 72, arranged for piano and cello. You know, it’s this piece (and what a beautiful performance this is!):
I could watch that all day. Thanks in advance for your help!
