In my room, where is that?
In my room, the room in my head, there is home
and wilderness, unexplored and unending, never tame.
All the wild places I have been, or seen, or heard of
or imagine. It’s a wonder that I can speak at all
words in the daily day, after wandering the wilds.
Why does anyone ever come back?
Why does anyone ever come back?
Except to explore other rooms and add them to ours. I listen to the Brahams Requiem, a painting in orchestra and voice, of his room, his wilderness, his despair and joy. I am glad to come back for this and others like him.
On the Solstice, friends took me to the Glenstone Museum. They combine art, architecture and nature. They have planted over 7000 native trees and have planted over 10,000 native grasses. We can photographs inside but not outside. There are winding paths and sculptures and buildings, both big and small. ‘
In one of the museums, there is a walled outdoor installation called Collapse. It is rusting beams in a 16 foot deep hole surrounded by a 16 foot wall. Moss is starting to grow a little as it weathers. Only three people can go out at a time, with a guide. I asked if anyone had sung into the space, since the metal would bounce the sound around. The guide said he did not think so. I sang part of Faure’s Pie Jesu in to it. The guide said that the installation makes him think of the twin towers and he thanked me.
This my current favorite new holiday song. I didn’t get it until halfway through, because I wasn’t listening quite hard enough. And then! So, is this a carol? Hmmmm. Doesn’t quite meet the definition but it’s still a fabulous and creative song. I got to hear Vance Gilbert at the Nowhereelse Festival in Ohio two years ago. I did get this CD and really really like it.
I have not heard this one in the grocery stores yet. Maybe I should encourage them?
November means concert this year. I have sung in Rainshadow Chorale for 23 years now. My father was one of the eight people who started it in 1997. Concert this coming weekend!
My favorite song is the lobster one, though “Something like a star” always makes me tear up.
Oomph! is a German band. The line up has changed over the years, but they have 14 albums out to date. Wikipedia describes their style as incorporating many styles including “metal, industrial, alternative rock, electronica and gothic”. I think my personal AI got worried — it played “Sweet Coffee Jazz Music and Bossa Nova Piano smooth for Energizing the day” after I put Wach Auf on. It knows I don’t listen to a lot of metal, industrial, alternative rock, electronic, gothic German bands.
The song Wach Auf was in the movie Aliens vs Predator: Requiem.
The photograph is me in 2022 at Halloween. Might be a good thing to wear to an Oomph! concert.
They are all new to me, thanks to the Ragtag Daily Prompt: Oomph!
I am hoping Wach Auf! isn’t a swear. I asked google to translate it and it failed. Uh-oh. I have sung Wachet Auf.
I tried again. It translates “Wach auf” as Wake up and “Wachet Auf” as Shut Up. Hmmm. That seems ironic.
Pandas are black and white, clarity
between the parts, yet both are present together
Pandemic has lessened humans charity
Stress rises, fights and a turn to war weather.
It’s hard to fight a virus way smaller than a bee
And as they change and attack birds and us anew
Frustration rises and we attack the humans that we see
We take sides, black or white, and don’t see that we’re a stew
Perspective changes, white to black and back
The pandas eat their daily bamboo pounds
Unworried which parts are white or black
I hope they are far from the crying bombing rounds
I hope every person has the charity
to give all others love and parity.
We are singing Frostiana, poems by Robert Frost, set to music by Randall Thompson, in chorus. The ending of this makes me cry: “So when at times the mob is swayed To carry praise or blame too far We may choose something like a star To stay our minds on and be staid.”
I took the photograph in Oregon this month, on a Pandasonic (ha, ha).
I grew up with lots of music. My father played guitar and lute and Segovia is engraved in my memory. He and my mother sang in large choruses: the Brahms Requiem, the Mozart Requiem and Bach. We had lots of classical records. I was born in the early 60s when my parents were in college, so they had tons of records. The Band, Bob Dylan, the Loving Spoonful, Joanie Mitchell, Oscar Brand and Jean Richie. I didn’t buy my first record until I was in my early teens and I bought ABBA. My father said, “This is POP!” I said, “I am a 14 year old girl. OF COURSE it’s pop and it’s really good.” He was mildly horrified.
We sang folk songs. My parents were editing them by the time I was three, because I was memorizing the words. They put the naughty folk song records away. They avoided sentimental songs. We learned “dead girl songs”, as my sister called them (Banks of the Ohio, Long Black Veil, Clementine, When I was a Bachelor, there are a lot of educational dead girl songs). We learned lots of comic songs. We also learned work and protest songs and absorbed our parents’ hatred of discrimination.
I set up a recording session for my father and sister and I after my mother died. I have a recording of us singing Long Black Veil and other songs. Here is The Band singing it.
Let’s have a band with women too, and for me that is Sweet Honey in the Rock. Acapella, with a sign language translator, and now they have been singing for ?forty years? They have amazing children’s songs and they are willing to sing about grief and protest. They have sustained me through the loss of my mother, sister and father.
And from one of the children’s albums.
The photograph is of my father at his 70th birthday in 2008. Malcolm K. Ottaway, with Andie Makie and Coke Francis. Andie is playing harmonica, my father on guitar. Malene Robinson took these photographs. The next is me and my sister at that party.
And one more of my sister, Christine Robbins Ottaway.
For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: bands. Wait, you said keep this light. Oh, well. Fail on that.
The Ragtag Daily Prompt is traipse. I looked up Tiny Tim’s Tiptoe through the Tulips, but I don’t want to post it. So instead, another Peter and Lou Berryman. I saw them live while I was in college at UW in Madison, Wisconsin. Once I got my MD, I can especially enjoy the chorus about Dr. O.
And yesterday I really enjoyed watching the Osiris land. How exciting! Gravel from Bennu, the asteroid! Space and science geeks are high as kites, me included!
My photograph is from the Vatican Museum. Look at that ceiling, they were space geeks too.
Let’s traipse to Wisconsin, hop on Dr. Otto’s rocket ship and find out what Martians drink and when they close the bars.
In the Vatican Museum, I note that the paintings are attributed to men. I start really looking for a woman artist. Of course, some of the male artists may have stolen the work or be “passing”. I love this small sculpture, by a woman artist. I think I saw two works clearly by women. Dear Vatican: get a clue.
Around age 13, my son listened continuously to three bands or musicians. We had two years where I swear, he wouldn’t play anything else.
And this is where I feel proud as a mom.
Jimi Hendrix. Bob Marley and the Wailers.
And the third is Sweet Honey in the Rock. African American women a capella. And so he knows about Harry Moore and Joanne Little.
Prayers for all the people discriminated against, terrorized, or in the the path of disaster. And for all the motherless children, we who have had our mothers die. Dave Van Ronk: motherless child.
Some fools are summer fools other fools are sommerfugls fugls are birds, yes, summer birds but summer birds are butterflies I don’t think butterflies can hum but hummingbirds can hum and fly flies and birds and soon it’s fall the summer fools fool us all
Discover and re-discover Mexicoβs cuisine, culture and history through the recipes, backyard stories and other interesting findings of an expatriate in Canada
Engaging in some lyrical athletics whilst painting pictures with words and pounding the pavement. I run; blog; write poetry; chase after my kids & drink coffee.
Refugees welcome - FlΓΌchtlinge willkommen I am teaching German to refugees. Ich unterrichte geflΓΌchtete Menschen in der deutschen Sprache. I am writing this blog in English and German because my friends speak English and German. Ich schreibe auf Deutsch und Englisch, weil meine Freunde Deutsch und Englisch sprechen.
KO Rural Mad As Hell Blog 
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