The All-New Bunrab

go to http://www.montgomeryvillagecommunityband.org/video/holiday-concert--2008
scroll down to Jingle Bells Hora, and watch the video! I get to take a quick bow at the end.

So here's what I've been doing the last couple weeks: two weeks ago, caught a cold. Hasn't completely gone away yet. Tried taking pseudoephedrine to stop the snot, and got zapped by my ICD for my trouble. The day after that (last Friday) drove up to Philadelphia to see niece in high school play - she is a freshman, but got one of the front parts usually reserved only for seniors; the family habit of singing loudly in public at the drop of a hat has some uses. Came back Saturday afternoon; played holiday concert at CCBC-Essex with the BSB on Saturday night. Sunday afternoon, I played a holiday concert with the Montgomery Village Community Band, while squirrel_magnet played one with the Bel Air Community Band, each 40 miles in opposite directions from C'ville. And at that, we missed two other performance opportunities we had for the same afternoon; since Thanksgiving was so late this year, the number of weekends available for holiday performances is scrunched down, so a lot of things were happening at the same time.

Monday, I slept. Well, woke up for meals, but otherwise slept. Tuesday I also slept, though I woke up for taking Chippy-chin to the vet for a follow-up; he is almost all healed up from Darwin's attack. Wednesday, let's see, I believe I actually woke up for a few hours Wednesday, and worked on the many homemade holiday presents I have not yet finished. Thursday we went to the library, and I finished buying the last few little things I needed to buy for assorted nieces and nephews. Then Thursday evening, Cindythelibrarian took us to see a show, as part of her Christmas present to us. The show was "Every Christmas Story Ever Told" presented by the Baltimore Shakespeare Festival, and it was great. A three-man show doing them all - Charlie Brown, The Grinch, Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, and (due to copyright issues) Gustav the Green-Nosed Reingoat. If you're in the area, it's playing through Sunday. My favorite part was the first act closer, The Nutcracker ballet. If you're on my flist, chances are you are familiar with Anna Russell's version of The Ring Cycle; imagine the Nutcracker condensed that way and you about have it. Complete with actual ballet dancing, done very well and very funnily. (Funnier for women my age than for men, because women of my generation, if we were anywhere above poverty level and even some below, we took ballet lessons when we were six years old or so; it was just one of those things. Ten years older and you probably didn't; ten years younger and you probably didn't, but all of us who are fifty-mumble took those lessons, whether at a dance school, or cheap group public school stuff on Saturdays in the gym, we all learned the five positions, and plies, and so on. Bit of cultural literacy there.) The second act was a merger of Dickens' A Christmas Carol and "It's a Wonderful Life" and then ended by singing every Christmas song ever written in about three minutes. We really enjoyed it.

And Friday, today (or yesterday, depending on how you feel about nights and stuff), I went to the doctor and got some stuff that's supposed to stop the nose drip without causing hypertension or arrhythmia; we'll see how that works. Also stopped at Jo-Ann's and got some yarn for one last teddy bear xmas present, and at Trader Joe's for freeze-dried strawberries; the chinchillas get VERY peeved if we run short on strawberries, and one really doesn't wish to risk the wrath of a peeved chinchilla. And now I am back to working on those presents - gotta finish place mats for Steph, potholders for Jen, teddy bear for Luke...

I have not had time or energy, outside of concerts and colds, to do any xmas shopping for anybody not part of my immediate family. If some of you normally get a Solstice/Chanukah/xmas present from me, well, this year, expect a New Year's present, or an Epiphany present, or maybe even a Martin Luther King Jr. Day present... There are a couple small things going out in the mail tomorrow to Texas, and a couple more small things on Monday, that might get there before New Year's.

One of the things we haven't done, either, is get up to NYC, which I wanted to do. Since the Museum of Natural History keeps their tree up through the end of the month, I am thinking we might go the week after Christmas; even though it'll be a little more crowded 'cause kids have off from school, a weekday should still be tolerable. Possibly Monday the 29th. (T, I'll call you about possible lunch!)

Now back to work.

So we went to the Winterthur on Saturday. They have really nice lunches in their cafeteria, including a fancy dessert table. I spent more time on the "Who's Your Daddy" exhibit than squirrel_magnet or Cindythelibrarian did. We all enjoyed the "Feeding Desire" exhibit - if you're anywhere in the area, that's a great one to go see. Of course right now, the house tour includes Winterfest, which is always beautiful. And mid-afternoon, there was a concert by a Sa"ngerbund - I forget the name of the group, but it was a chorus of about 30 people. Mostly songs we did not know, many of them in German. When we crossed the driveway to the gift shop, we noticed the largest holly tree I have ever seen, somewhere over 30 feet and full of berries. I am used to holly trees being spindly 10 or 12 foot things, and in Texas holly is a shrub; this was most definitely a tree! We got a good deal of holiday present shopping done in the gift shop. On the way home we avoided the evil Delaware toll plaza - on the way up, we were so busy talking, we missed the exit for easiest toll avoidance.

Backing up a bit. I did not wind up making the corn pudding for Thanksgiving. It would have been the last thing to get started, and when I got to that point, I realized that I had every single inch of space in my oven and my toaster oven completely filled with stuff already, more stuff than 8 people could possibly eat. (So I used the corn to make corn chowder late at night for S & I for supper - so we didn't have to eat the leftovers the same day!) We had a nice Auslese Riesling and a lot of apple cider. The day went well. My 7-month-old nephew Luke seems to be attempting to bypass crawling altogether and trying to stand up by himself and learn to walk. We watched "Babe" after dinner, which was popular not only with almost-2 Kyla, but also with my dad. My stepmom gave us a housewarming present, a Tensor floor lamp with a daylight-spectrum bulb in it - and it's dimmable! That will be useful not only for all my needlework but also for S's fiddling with stereo pieces and with gadgets.

Currently reading: Grease Monkey by Tim Eldred - very funny SF graphic novel - and The Eight by Katharine Neville, a thriller about Charlemagne, chess, the French Revolution, and auditing. The number 8 has many meanings in the book, and one of them is the "Big Eight" accounting firms, back when there were still such. Our heroine works for one that is a roman-a-clef Peat Marwick, often known as KPMG; in the book, the names of the firm form an acronym of FCK-U, which pretty much describes the firm's attitude toward its clients, its employees, and everything else.

I love museum gift stores.

Knit Kimono by Vicki Squares - yes, this is a book to read, not just knitting patterns. Reviewed at Amazon here.

A Year Without "Made in China" by Sara Bongiorni. Subtitled "one family's true life adventure in the global economy." Amusing. They didn't quite manage to actually get through the year without buying anything made in China, both because Chinese stuff sneaks into other products in insidious ways, and because they have young children.

A Wrongful Death by Kate Wilhelm - latest in her Barbara Holloway series. In the previous volume, I had gotten impatient with Barbara for her endless dithering/whining about her relationships and her career; apparently, the author did too, because in this book Barbara sees a shrink and gets some stuff straightened out. Meanwhile, the mystery plot is good, and it's on the timely topic of medical prostheses.

We got the Christmas tree undecorated and folded up and boxed, but didn't manage to get it back to the storage unit, so the living room floor is a bit crowded at the moment. For some reason, we have the antique button accordion in its case, which Squirrel Magnet has been carrying around from house to house for years, in the living room, as well. And his City of Austin departmental fire warden's cap is on the sofa. I'm not sure how this stuff manages to get into our everyday space so easily. Library books, I understand.

Yesterday we went to the American Visionary Art Museum, for Cindy's birthday. My impression of "visionary art" for a while now has been "stuff made by people who hear voices" and nothing we saw there contradicted that impression. You know, pictures that god told them to draw and to write all over. Some people seemed to be channeling George Washington, King George III, and Jesus simultaneously. Many who had OCD. Fascinating stuff, but - people who hear voices in their heads.

We will be headed back to Texas on Wednesday. We'll be checking email while we're there. We'll be coming back Thursday the 31st. The pet sitter is already looking forward to it - she loves giving the chinchillas their dust bath! And Cindy will be dropping in as well, to play with little Vlad. (That's him in my icon.)

When we get back, I *promise*, pictures of Vlad, and of my latest completed knitting and crochet projects.

This is my original song for y'all this year.


Blah, blah, copyright 2007 by R. Kelly Wagner, blah, blah.

Christmas with Travelin' Light - Sam Pilafian & Frank Vignola. Light jazz with a tuba soloist - need more be said? Pop and traditional favorites.
The Ventures Christmas Album. Ahh, the sixties. This is pretty funny - and they sneak in bits of their own music, too - a piece called "Scrooge," and little riffs from other pop songs sneak into the Christmas carols. Their "Jingle Bells Rock" sounds more like rock than the original did.
Christmas with the Lettermen. Traditional carols, nice harmony, a bit bland (I say that about a lot of things that don't include LOUD).
Christmas - The Players. Lots of stuff on here. Huge variety of instrumentation - you don't often hear soprano sax and cornetto on the same song, let alone both of those with button accordion and banjo.
Psallite! A Renaissance Christmas - Chanticleer. I'll bet angevin2 has this one, too. Josquin des Prez, Heironymous Praetorius, William Byrd. A must for early music fans.
Christmas Now is Drawing Near - Sneak's Noyse. Lots of English folk carols. Themed medleys. Some stuff that's not commonly heard in the US.
A Froggy Christmas. Novelty album, needless to say. A little of this goes a long way, so it's best played as part of a shuffle rather than trying to listen to it straight through. The back cover text is pretty funny (one of the performers is listed as Ribbit Goulet...)
A Toolbox Christmas. Likewise a novelty album, same caveat as above. "Your favorite carols performed on your favorite hand and power tools." Some spouses think it's funny to put Froggy Christmas and Toolbox Christmas on shuffle with each other (and nothing else). Some spouses are lucky that I am extremely tolerant.

The Texas Department of Insurance had a door-decorating contest for Christmas for many years - decorate your office door, win a ribbon. As you know, being an atheist has never stopped me from enjoying lots of Christmas, and so I participated with vigor. One year, I covered my door with silver foil wrapping paper, then cut out a six-foot tall pine tree from green wrapping paper and pasted it on there - and then made a couple hundred origami stars, in many colors, and pasted them to the tree. It wasn't terribly fancy but it was lots of homemade, and I certainly got good at folding those stars. Made a big one for the top of the tree. Got an honorable mention.

Probably the funniest thing I ever did was rescue the covers of "annual statements" that were being disposed of. Insurance companies send in these huge (11 by 14, or larger, and about 130 pages) financial statements every year. They get kept in hard copy for a couple of years, then microfilmed, and then the hard copy gets destroyed. (This is the 80's and 90's - a lot of companies don't file hard copies any more in the 21st century, just electronic.) The covers are heavy paper stock, in different colors for different kinds of insurance companies - property/casualty companies have yellow covers, life insurance companies have blue covers, and there are peach and tan and green and pink... So, one year, I rescued all the covers, cut them into strips, and made a garland of paper circles, the kind we made out of construction paper as kids. And I strung that garland along the wall over the doors ALL THE WAY AROUND OUR FLOOR OF THE BUILDING. It didn't win any prizes, 'cause it didn't do much for any one door and didn't fit the categories, but I still think it should have won a recycling prize. That sucker had to be a couple hundred yards of garland. Needless to say, if I hadn't already had a solid reputation for being crazy, that garland would have cemented it.

You might think about doing that with some of your junk mail, if it comes in colorful envelopes!

I've started writing a Christmas song. Its title will probably be the first line of the song, "We don't need God to have a merry Christmas." Sample verse, draft version (lots of polishing needed yet):
"In the dark, we all hope for light
And so we have the candles burning bright
Candles on the Christmas tree
The candles lit for Hannukah
Candles in the windows
For the travelers from afar."

Recent listening:
The Carol Album: Seven centuries of Christmas Music - Taverner Consort, Choir, & Players. Many unfamiliar items, many foreign language items (Latin, German, French) and Middle English. Interesting listening, and I like the harmonies.
Christmas with the Canadian Brass featuring the Great Organ of St. Patrick's Cathedral. Not only is it bright, loud, brass, but also a large, loud organ. Who could ask for anything more? The Hallelujah Chorus is so good with the organ that you'd almost swear you could hear the words despite the lack of a choir.
Christmas in a Celtic Land by Golden Bough. Like their other album, already mentioned, this has several songs I haven't heard elsewhere, and perhaps more to drink than we associate with modern american Christmas. You can tell it's folk music 'cause it includes an accordion. "Dear Joseph" is something I haven't heard elsewhere, a very pretty tune. "Mrs. Fogarty's Christmas Cake" is a hoot. I really like their voices and harmonies.
A Little Christmas Music - the Kings Singers. I could live without guest soloist Kiri Te Kanawa - I just don't like shrieking sopranos, I'm sorry. Anyway, other than that complain, this is nice stuff. KTK is in the medley of songs done as if by Mozart. I always like the Boar's Head Carol, and sing along with the chorus at the top of my lungs. Ends with Patapan and Farandole - the French carol that everyone here thinks of mainly as the melody from one of the "L'Arlesienne" suites.
Swingle Bells - Swingle Singers. They're sort of out of style now, but I still like a dose of Swingle Singers every now and then. Some foreign stuff on here that one doesn't hear very often, assorted Yule polkas and a bit of Bach.
Christmas Brass - Philip Jones Brass Ensemble. I have this unfortunate tendency to refer to PJBE as Peanut Butter Jelly. But really, they're everything good about brass. A large ensemble than the Canadian Brass and other assorted quintets, and they managed to sound even larger than that; their arrangements are often complex enough that you'd swear there was an entire concert band.
Sing We All Merrily - A Colonial Christmas - Linda Russell & Companie. Older carols, no pop stuff, with dulcimers, mandolin, harp, according, Northumbrian small pipes - very folksy, very nice - Russell's voice gives the group a distinct sound and style.
It's a Spike Jones Christmas. Do I really need to say anything more about this? Actually, yes - there's some perfectly nice stuff, done more or less straight, on here, in between the comedy numbers. But yes, there are all the comedy numbers you expect. It's from Rhino, whaddaya want?

Yesterday was my saxophone lesson. I came home with a different soprano sax than I had left with. Pictures soon. The upgrade did not cost much, and it's a MUCH better horn - not any shinier, but ergonomically much easier to play. The longer I take lessons, the more I learn about what works and what doesn't on an instrument with that many little moving pieces, that I had never thought about before.

I'm sure I had already mentioned my new bari sax mouthpiece, the Jody Jazz 6; I wound up getting almost the same model for the soprano sax, the 6* (pronounced six-star) [http://www.jodyjazz.com/hr.soprano.html]. I also got a new used mouthpiece for the tenor a couple weeks ago, a German make called Strathon, with a built-in reed holder, obviating the need for a ligature, AND a built in sliding baffle which can change the chamber shape, and thereby change the sound from fairly mellow (though still jazzier than my C-Star mouthpiece) to quite edgy. I could never have afforded one new, but used was do-able. It is the Adjustotone model. (Strathmann's web site has only minimal info about them, and no pictures; they seem to now be far more into making their alto flutes than their sax and clarinet mouthpieces - but here's a link, such as it is: http://www.strathmann-musicinstruments.de/gbpatente_u_lizenz.htm)

Today, we retrieved the fake tree and the pertinent ornaments from the storage unit; we'll get it up over the weekend and I'll take photos then. If it snows tomorrow, S will NOT be doing TubaChristmas outdoors at the harbor, so we'll get it up then, otherwise, it'll be Sunday.

Reminder: richspk, guavmom, and n5red, I still need your snail addies.

Brave Combo - It's Christmas, Man!
It is possible to turn anything into an accordion polka if you try hard enough. Brave Combo tries very hard. There's also traditional xmas songs turned into cha-cha, ska, sambas... It's fun. The "Christmas Polka" is wonderful.
Therapy Sisters - Codependent Christmas
A Texas group, and a couple songs are slightly Texas-centric. All the songs are original, all are funny. My favorite may be "Abraham's Lament," a combination Chanukah-Christmas song, sort of.
The Brass Band of Battle Creek - Sleigh Bells and Brass, The Sounds of Christmas
It's loud, it's bright, it's brass, it's Christmas. For you concert band fans: it includes Reed's Russian Christmas Music. Good album. Loud.
Mannheim Steamroller Christmas
Yes, this is the third MS xmas album I've blogged. I don't know whether we've run out of them yet.
Dr. Demento presents The Greatest Christmas Novelty CD of All Time
It's starts with the Chipmunk Song and gets worse from there - all your favorites, such as "Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer" and "I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas." My favorite is the Dragnet parody.
The Early Light Consort - Christmas Past. Instrumentals including some less-familiar bits of "Messiah," "Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring" and "Pachelbel's Canon." Instrumentation includes crumhorns, ocarina, pan flute, lute, and more. Very pretty, very peaceful.
Quink Vocal Ensemble - Carols Around the World
Lots of unfamiliar stuff on this, and some that we know in English translations are in their original language. Some of it's very nice; I don't particularly care for their version of "In the Bleak Midwinter" though - personal preference, I'll take Holst's arrangement every time.
Joan Baez - Noël
She's got a beautiful voice and I like her style. Several less-familiar carols on here, and a couple sung in German.