Chris Smither, Friday, December 7, The Iron Horse

There is so much to draw our attention.

Living in the Valley, you will never lack for a chamber concert, a book signing, an art opening, a gallery talk, a gallery walk, a lecture, a reading, a play, a musical, a light opera, an a cappella performance, a ballet, a modern dance concert. Culture abounds.

Tomorrow night, Chris Smither will be playing at the Iron Horse.

I’ve written about seeing him in concert before. He is local, living in Cambridge, Mass; he’s around. However, a lot of folks have never heard of him. He’s been around a long time, has paid his dues, can sing the blues, is one-of-a-kind, an overlooked talent.

Why do I tell you he is playing around here tomorrow night? Why do I post videos and songs? Because YOU SHOULD GO TO HEAR/SEE HIM!

This is also why I prefaced my post as I did. Maybe I will see you there.

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Thankful Thursday–Christmas and year-end round up

You know what the Advent Calender window had behind it on Christmas Eve? Annie insisted that Paul be the one to open it, so I speculated that it would be a picture of Tweedy. But not really. Perhaps a picture of a bottle of Polar Seltzer, black cherry flavor. No. Maybe a fully-decorated Christmas tree. So wrong. It was an ICE DRAGON in the tiny double window. I love my kids!

Got my first iPod nano from Hubby for Xmas. It is tiny, so tiny. I feel dangerous when I have it on. Am I the only one and will this feeling pass? Are there any iPod virgins left? I look forward to loading hundreds of songs onto it. I am figuring it out, but as intuitive as Apple products are reputed to be, I find it klunky and somewhat unfriendly. I also couldn’t figure out how the little fucker clips on to my clothes. Hubby had to show me. Why, Santy Apple Claus, why, do you insist on making me feel dumber than I really am?

Christmas was good. This is the first year since we moved to Western Mass in which I didn’t feel financially stressed more often than not. Eleven years of living in the bliss/hell of self-employment in a New England state, so different than when we lived in Ohio. I am so grateful that our income was more predictable this year. It’s amazing what that does to my ease my mind.

Best present given this year? Behold the perfect gag gift for the consummate lover of Polar Seltzer in our house:

Be afraid, be very afraid!

I am grateful for this blog, for the technology which allows it, for my readers, for the kindness of those who leave comments.

I am grateful that I started writing poetry again and not only that, grateful to be reading it again

Grateful that I was able to take an improv class this year.

Glad that I celebrated 20 years of marriage. Glad that we get to go away to amazing places within a few hours’ drive, stay overnight, eat, shop, walk, swim, hike, visit friends, hear cool musicians, see amazing art.

Grateful that I found out about and saw Gogol Bordello.

Grateful that I got to go to my 30-year HS reunion, see lots of old pals (including my biggest high school crush, which was a hoot), stroll about Kent, Ohio, home of myself, land of the birth of my adulthood*, have that nude photo shoot in a garden in the heat and flower of summer.

Grateful for all the cool music I’ve discovered this year, in part because of the technology and youtube, but more because I do stick to my Music Monday posts. Especially my new-found love for all things Wilco and Tweedy.

Grateful that Willow was in our life.

Annie’s shrine to Willow (detail, not the whole thing), which includes a nail-polish painted (I kid you not, my kids are goofy) white bathroom tile

That is an origami Willow with a little paper bird (crane) in its mouth. Annie must have made a thousand paper cranes on her own this year and went on a bit of an origami adventure. SO GREAT!

My latest fad of photographing bathrooms from our travels. This is from the newly opened Atlantic Pizza Company in Rockport, MA. One of the prettier public restrooms in New England (this photo does not do the bathroom justice)

And this, the environmentally-friendly Euro-loo at The Wired Puppy, Provincetown, Mass

Grateful for any way that a reader might find my blog. Truly, the most abundant search term seems to be some manifestation of “ass tattoo.” That’s not even the most ass of the ass tattoo searches. Ready? I’ve had to live with this and I think if you’ve made it a year here, you will be able to live with it, too: asshole tattoo. You can imagine that I don’t want to know more about asshole tattoos. I do not think someone was thinking, hmm, how many assholes (meaning people who are jerks, idiots, morons) have tattoos? No, I take it as a literal search for tattoos on people’s assholes. First of all, OUCH and second, DUMB and third, if you want a tattoo on your asshole, you’ve come to the wrong place–begone with ye!

Thanks for coming along for the ride this year. Who knows, I may post again before we see the dawn of 2012, but ciao for now and thank you.

With tres mucho love, twinkly

this one is from the uber-tacky, red-and-white tiled bathroom at Five Guys Burger and Fries on Cape Ann

*for some reason, this seems like I’m talking about my maidenhead: why, Santy Claus, why?

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Thankful Thursday–colored chalks, Marblehead, Chris Smither, new cat (!!!)

I woke up this morning with all good will. Let’s start with that….

The use of color at a Waldorf school. Witness the chalks that the teacher uses to create….well, just that, to create:

My first visit to Marblehead, Massachusetts (yet another wealthy New England town that made its fortune on shipping, ie, trade in spices, cloth, rum, tobacco, sugar cane, and slaves (as if humans are the same as the rest of the things on this list, but that would be another post entirely, wouldn’t it?)

Chris Smither, who we saw in Marblehead on Friday night, at the Me and Thee Coffeehouse

old enough kids (old enough for me not to be in the thick of motherhood, but young enough for me to still be in the thick of motherhood)

8,000 blog hits which I reached TODAY in spite of having a blog which features a. poems (who reads poetry any more? and most of them weren’t even about sex) and b. gratitude, o, cynics, and c. not photos of naked women, or naked women with large breasts, real or silicone-d, or naked women with small breasts, or posts about Justin Bieber, Radiohead, &c.

I just used &c instead of etc. I have never done that in my life. How cool is that?

So, I know that 8,000 is a relatively low number for blog hits and it’s sort of measly, but I like it. In fact, I love it!

I have been blogging for almost a year and I only wanted to throw in the towel once (about 2 weeks ago) for about 3 days and I love that, too

new cat

What’s that twinkly? Yes, you heard right. New cat, who remains as yet unnamed (we think Strider, but eldest daughter protesteth). Here she is, retrieved from the vet that was fostering her for Dakin. She’s a beauty, but was in pretty bad shape from her previous owner and probably from the stress of living in a shelter down in Springfield for 2 months…she had fleas, earmites, nausea. She’s scrawny and has lots of matted fur and a distended belly. She’s around 2 years old and gets up and eats every time I go in the room where she’s staying for now. We love her already

You know what happened by this evening, right? This is what I found out at about 4 pm…

While I’m glad that I called and emailed the White House (oh, yes, so grateful for that), I really want Obama and the entire Democratic party to grow a pair. So I guess I’m not thankful. But trying to stave off ranting by being grateful for all the other stuff.

I better stick to beauty…

and smart, talented men:

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Thankful Thursday–swinging the world by the tail

Thankful Thursday is meant to be my remedy for this: we are going to hell in a hand basket. On this day (as if I don’t attempt it at other times), I push myself to love the world in spite of the inevitability of death; in spite of politics and fucked-up information put out by the medical industry; in spite of  advertisers who have sold their own souls and ours; the intertwined, enmeshed corporate world in which we all live; the world of disposable packaging and appliances; hypocrisy–yours, mine, and ours; the deteriorating state of our air and water and soil; the increasing ownership of everyfuckingthing by multi-national corporations. I push through my dug-in heels and my myopic tendencies and reach up my hands for something better and more beautiful and for a bit of ecstasy and for the strength to grab it all, take a bite out of its ass, and love it anyway.

I’ve been sleep-deprived this week and finally, this morning, I took an ibuprofin PM. This is a heavy-duty drug for me. I take it when I need it, but haven’t needed to for months and months.

I think I went to sleep around 10 am or a little before. I was fairly stunned when I woke up and looked at the clock–it was already 1:20 in the afternoon. Had I missed anything? What responsibilities did I screw up? Nada, nothing. Just sleep for me. Whew.

Now I can proceed through the rest of my week without hating anything or pining away the hours. At least I think I can.

Thankful for:

Sleep, even drug-induced

All the FANTASTIC music I’ve been discovering lately (you read about Glenna Bell on Monday, right y’all?)

Look what I found. I am blown away by this guy–his guitar and voice and soft presence AND he’s going to be around these parts in December and January. Maybe I can go and hear him live.

Then, this great thing happened. I was just listening to the above Chris Smither‘s version of “Killing the Blues” and I got in my car (abandoning my children and motherly duties YIKES!) to go to a rehearsal and was trying really hard to sing the song. What came on the radio those very 30 seconds after I pulled out of the driveway? Alison Krauss and Robert Plant singing the very same. I KID YOU NOT! I sang along and sounded pretty good, but I know I’ll never be able to sing that song alone ever. Or “Visions of Johanna.” That one is super tricky….Chris Smither does it, too. Really. Oh, the original “Killing the Blues” was written by Roly Salley. Don’t think it’s anyone else, either, ’cause you know how I like accuracy.

I love serendipitous moments like that. I don’t think they mean that I’m saved or something or that I’m destined for a life of happiness or that someone can read my mind, I just love them when they happen. I do think there are currents we forget about…currents of spirit and particles of energy that clash together for the good sometimes.

The way I know the lyric “world by the tail” is from an old Burl Ives album I had as a kid. I can’t find anything anywhere on the web about who wrote that song.

I sang (and still do, but rarely) that song A LOT to my kids, in the daytime, but mostly as a jaunty lullaby at night (I love a jaunty lullaby as much as I love a melancholy one):

Got the world by the tail with a downhill pull and everything is fine/The reason is my heart’s so full of love for that gal of mine/Sing high, sing low, sing hi-diddle-dum/Sing high, sing sweet, sing low, sing tune, sing moon a way up in the sky

Don’t forget to OCCUPY NOW!

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