An old friend
My wife's friend B. from her workplace called recently asking for her. She was working, so B. talked to me about a computer problem she was having, concerning a reply that she had gotten from a singer whom she had emailed recently. I solved her problem, but I also found out that the web site of this singer is http://www.everon.50megs.com. I looked up that web site and ran into an old friend, Dan Fogelberg.
I remember that his song "Nether Lands" was one of those used for something called "Free Form Dance" at my Unitarian church back in the early 1980's. We would meet at the church and clear the furniture out of some of the religious education classroom areas (it was an open-court type setting). We would play some songs and then dance to them as we see fit. There were variations, such as dancing around in circles around someone or having one person freeze and another dance around the frozen person. I found the whole thing enjoyable and "Nether Lands" was used frequently as the song we danced to. It was a good choice, with dramatic melody and dynamics changes. I liked it so much that I bought Dan Fogelberg's album. Sadly, the free form dancing went away by the mid 1980's and I have never seen it again.
Tonight I got out my Daniel Fogelberg record and played it. Yes, record. It was a 33 1/3 rpm vinyl LP disk. I got out our 29-year-old phonograph and hooked some boombox speakers to it and played it. I remembered quite well the strains of that old tune. It brought back the days of the free form dance. I was pleased to find out that he is still recording and performing, and that he is a favorite of a friend of ours.
Maybe one of these days free form dance will return to my UU congregation. In the meantime I will play my phonograph and remember.
A Journey through Blogrealm
Blogtrek
Blogtrek
2002/08/03
2002/08/02
Storm
This area of the country is affected by a prolonged drought. The forecast was for more of the same: high in the mid 90s, low in the 70s, and a 20 percent chance of an isolated thunderstorm. Well we got our 20 percent today. Boy did we ever. It showed up as a little blip to the northeast of here, but then I heard the thunder. I went outside and saw several vivid strokes of lightning in a row towards the northeast. I went in, wondering how big this was going to be. The blip on the radar showed signs of growing as well as heading to the southwest, a direction that storms don't often take in this neck of the woods. But soon I heard the thunder get louder until it BAMmed!!! almost after the brilliant flash. Then it poured. At first slowly, but then it started filling up the rain gauge until it was up to an inch. Several power blips occurred; I hoped that we were not going to have an outage with the power company on strike. Then the sky started falling. Clack, clack, clack, instead of the usual pitter patter. It was pea-sized hail. I was wondering if it was going to get any bigger. But it didn't. After a while the storm abated, came back again, and then went away. The weatherman said it was heading down I-85, but the next radar I saw of it, it was gone! Poof! Not a speck on radar.
The storm appeared, grew, boomed, poured, flashed and hailed, then it went away without a trace. Like something that just happened in the day. An ephemeral flame. A quantum particle. A brief thought in the mind that fleets the next time one thinks. And although we got an inch and a quarter and the torrent hit the reservoir, most areas went dry. And so the drought continues, and we need rain badly…
This area of the country is affected by a prolonged drought. The forecast was for more of the same: high in the mid 90s, low in the 70s, and a 20 percent chance of an isolated thunderstorm. Well we got our 20 percent today. Boy did we ever. It showed up as a little blip to the northeast of here, but then I heard the thunder. I went outside and saw several vivid strokes of lightning in a row towards the northeast. I went in, wondering how big this was going to be. The blip on the radar showed signs of growing as well as heading to the southwest, a direction that storms don't often take in this neck of the woods. But soon I heard the thunder get louder until it BAMmed!!! almost after the brilliant flash. Then it poured. At first slowly, but then it started filling up the rain gauge until it was up to an inch. Several power blips occurred; I hoped that we were not going to have an outage with the power company on strike. Then the sky started falling. Clack, clack, clack, instead of the usual pitter patter. It was pea-sized hail. I was wondering if it was going to get any bigger. But it didn't. After a while the storm abated, came back again, and then went away. The weatherman said it was heading down I-85, but the next radar I saw of it, it was gone! Poof! Not a speck on radar.
The storm appeared, grew, boomed, poured, flashed and hailed, then it went away without a trace. Like something that just happened in the day. An ephemeral flame. A quantum particle. A brief thought in the mind that fleets the next time one thinks. And although we got an inch and a quarter and the torrent hit the reservoir, most areas went dry. And so the drought continues, and we need rain badly…
2002/08/01
Winning speech contests
I attended a Toastmaster meeting recently in which two speakers talked about winning speech contests. One speaker gave a talk on how to evaluate another speaker. This does not seem to be about contests, except that one of the upcoming contests is about evaluation. He used a football analogy which did not always fit. The other one spoke about humorous speech contests; his humorous remarks kept our attention on him. He did say we should avoid "blue humor"; it will never win. But it did win one year at a regional conference where a speaker talked about her passionate desire for a candy bar. He said the speech had no purpose or message. To me it did - it illustrated how the flaws in our society's sexual ethics lead some to weird pursuits. He said a speech about bathroom functions wasn't funny. But it drove the audience to stitches. But he was right - the contestant did not win. I would not have selected that one as the winner either. All this shows we can't make hard and fast conclusions about things. We can't categorically say that blue speeches are inappropriate or will not win, or that they will win. It depends on the audience, which brings up an important speaker's maxim: know your audience.
I attended a Toastmaster meeting recently in which two speakers talked about winning speech contests. One speaker gave a talk on how to evaluate another speaker. This does not seem to be about contests, except that one of the upcoming contests is about evaluation. He used a football analogy which did not always fit. The other one spoke about humorous speech contests; his humorous remarks kept our attention on him. He did say we should avoid "blue humor"; it will never win. But it did win one year at a regional conference where a speaker talked about her passionate desire for a candy bar. He said the speech had no purpose or message. To me it did - it illustrated how the flaws in our society's sexual ethics lead some to weird pursuits. He said a speech about bathroom functions wasn't funny. But it drove the audience to stitches. But he was right - the contestant did not win. I would not have selected that one as the winner either. All this shows we can't make hard and fast conclusions about things. We can't categorically say that blue speeches are inappropriate or will not win, or that they will win. It depends on the audience, which brings up an important speaker's maxim: know your audience.
2002/07/30
Waking Up
One of the things I did at SUUSI was to take a song-writing workshop from Peter Mayer. He played in concert at SUUSI, but I never got to see him because I preferred to contra-dance. But I saw him at the workshop. He gave us the fundamentals of song-writing, inlucing rhyming, developing ideas, and developing music for the ideas. I came up with two ideas, namely a dance in a storm and a ballad about John Walker. Unfortunately, both of these ideas have already appeared in song.
Today I played one of his CDs and got attracted to "Dancing Song", in which he and his partner dance for their lives, and "Waking Up", about getting away from some of the unnecessary stuff we do in our lives. The last one would make a good theme song for next year's SUUSI, with a theme of "Simple Gifts".
One of the things I did at SUUSI was to take a song-writing workshop from Peter Mayer. He played in concert at SUUSI, but I never got to see him because I preferred to contra-dance. But I saw him at the workshop. He gave us the fundamentals of song-writing, inlucing rhyming, developing ideas, and developing music for the ideas. I came up with two ideas, namely a dance in a storm and a ballad about John Walker. Unfortunately, both of these ideas have already appeared in song.
Today I played one of his CDs and got attracted to "Dancing Song", in which he and his partner dance for their lives, and "Waking Up", about getting away from some of the unnecessary stuff we do in our lives. The last one would make a good theme song for next year's SUUSI, with a theme of "Simple Gifts".
2002/07/29
Press Button to Destroy Evil Empire
About 25 years ago I read a Mad magazine parody of the movie Star Wars. It showed the final scene when Jedi fighters swooped down to the center of the Death Star with the mission of destroying it from inside. In the Mad version there is a button at the center of the Star saying "press button to destroy evil empire". I also see this gimmick used in a number of other places. For example, the ending of Independence Day shows a plane going up into the center of the invader ship seemingly pressing the button that destroys the evil empire. I see some humor in this; it is that the fearsome bad guys have seemingly purposefully made it easy for the good guys to destroy them. It dehumanizes the enemy. Just press the button and see them blow up. It makes it seem easy. Some of our leaders may think it is easy to win a war simply by pressing the right button. Further, it is a metaphor for some of the problems we encounter in our lives. There often is no button you can press that will solve your problem. No button that can bring you your ideal mate, no button that can give you an A on an exam, no button to increase the worth of your stock portfolio, and no button to eliminate poverty and its causes. Just press the button and it will destroy your evil empire. Just like I press a button up in the upper right corner of this form to publish this blog. Self-destruct, Evil Empire!
About 25 years ago I read a Mad magazine parody of the movie Star Wars. It showed the final scene when Jedi fighters swooped down to the center of the Death Star with the mission of destroying it from inside. In the Mad version there is a button at the center of the Star saying "press button to destroy evil empire". I also see this gimmick used in a number of other places. For example, the ending of Independence Day shows a plane going up into the center of the invader ship seemingly pressing the button that destroys the evil empire. I see some humor in this; it is that the fearsome bad guys have seemingly purposefully made it easy for the good guys to destroy them. It dehumanizes the enemy. Just press the button and see them blow up. It makes it seem easy. Some of our leaders may think it is easy to win a war simply by pressing the right button. Further, it is a metaphor for some of the problems we encounter in our lives. There often is no button you can press that will solve your problem. No button that can bring you your ideal mate, no button that can give you an A on an exam, no button to increase the worth of your stock portfolio, and no button to eliminate poverty and its causes. Just press the button and it will destroy your evil empire. Just like I press a button up in the upper right corner of this form to publish this blog. Self-destruct, Evil Empire!
2002/07/28
Back to real life
I am back from SUUSI. I came up with two ideas for songs, talked with a Barney doll, and contradanced and squaredanced at night. I gave my own two workshops; they were well-received. I went on two great nature hikes, to Dismal Falls and upper Cascades, both in the Blue Ridge. Some of the ideas I got at SUUSI: "I love you with all my gut."; "You can't lean on yourself."; "If you fight for what you believe, you could get hurt." The last night was one of the wildest in my life, and after SUUSI I visited the Bedford WW II memorial to the backdrop of a threatening thunderstorm, BOOM!! - made it really dramatic.
I am back from SUUSI. I came up with two ideas for songs, talked with a Barney doll, and contradanced and squaredanced at night. I gave my own two workshops; they were well-received. I went on two great nature hikes, to Dismal Falls and upper Cascades, both in the Blue Ridge. Some of the ideas I got at SUUSI: "I love you with all my gut."; "You can't lean on yourself."; "If you fight for what you believe, you could get hurt." The last night was one of the wildest in my life, and after SUUSI I visited the Bedford WW II memorial to the backdrop of a threatening thunderstorm, BOOM!! - made it really dramatic.
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