The personal blog of author Kelly Sedinger, chronicling the adventures of one overalls-clad wanderer.
Sunday, December 06, 2015
Your Daily Dose of Christmas!
Time for a repeat! I've never liked "Carol of the Bells", but this rendition makes me happy.
Saturday, December 05, 2015
Symphony Saturday
I know, we missed this feature last week, but fret not! We're back, with a work I didn't even know existed until this very morning. It's the Symphony No. 2, subtitled "Roma", by Georges Bizet. It's an interesting piece, with an interesting history. Bizet only lived until he was 36, and he wrote this symphony over an eleven-year period until he was 33, and by all reports, he was still unsatisfied with it and might have done more revision work on it had he not died. The work's movements were never performed together during his lifetime, and because the symphony is generally viewed as a flawed and incomplete work, it is rarely performed today. But listening this morning, there is music of value here.
Here's Bizet's Second Symphony, "Roma".
Next week we start looking at one of the greatest of all symphonists: Johannes Brahms!
Here's Bizet's Second Symphony, "Roma".
Next week we start looking at one of the greatest of all symphonists: Johannes Brahms!
Your Daily Dose of Christmas!
Alan Silvestri's music to The Polar Express is just wonderful stuff. Here's a suite of it!
Friday, December 04, 2015
Your Daily Dose of Christmas
Yo Yo Ma and Natalie MacMaster, two of my favorite string players, teaming up for a Christmas jig!
Thursday, December 03, 2015
Thanksgiving in New York, continued
After the Parade dispersed, we went in search of something very pressing: a bathroom. Hey, we'd been standing there for five hours! We found a Starbucks. To my great disappointment, they spelled my name correctly on my cup.
Just across the street from Starbucks? This rather notable building.
Sadly, no Deborah Kerr running across the street, staring up at the building because it's the closest thing to Heaven; no Tom Hanks running up there to find his son and Meg Ryan, either. And no giant gorilla. Just the Empire State Building, as beautiful a thing as I've ever seen.
Later on that night, we went to dinner. I had already made reservations the week before at a place called Senza Gluten, an Italian restaurant in Greenwich Village. (The Wife is celiac, so we always have to seek out gluten-free options for her. I've never minded this, because in truth, it's led us to some really amazing food finds that we wouldn't necessarily have discovered otherwise.) The place was tiny and rustic, and the food was wonderful. Yes, it was Thanksgiving, and yes, there was traditional turkey dinner on the menu. I had the chicken parm.
Upon leaving the restaurant, I had to walk into the middle of the street, because this is the view outside Senza Gluten's front door, facing south:
One World Trade Center is actually a very impressive building, especially at night.
This night was amazingly beautiful. It had been in the low 60s during the day, and by now it was in the 50s, a perfect night for a stroll through Greenwich Village, on our way back to the 9th Street PATH Station...and then I spotted something lit up, bright and white, off in the distance. It turned out -- and I honestly hadn't even realized this until I saw it -- that we were approaching Washington Square Park with that amazing, beautiful, famous arch.
We lingered here a bit, taking in the November air that felt like May, gazing upon the arch and reflecting upon the impromptu memorials left for the victims of the attacks in Paris.
After that we finally made our way back to the hotel, full and tired and happy and thankful.
The next day? That's another post to come!
Just across the street from Starbucks? This rather notable building.
Sadly, no Deborah Kerr running across the street, staring up at the building because it's the closest thing to Heaven; no Tom Hanks running up there to find his son and Meg Ryan, either. And no giant gorilla. Just the Empire State Building, as beautiful a thing as I've ever seen.
Later on that night, we went to dinner. I had already made reservations the week before at a place called Senza Gluten, an Italian restaurant in Greenwich Village. (The Wife is celiac, so we always have to seek out gluten-free options for her. I've never minded this, because in truth, it's led us to some really amazing food finds that we wouldn't necessarily have discovered otherwise.) The place was tiny and rustic, and the food was wonderful. Yes, it was Thanksgiving, and yes, there was traditional turkey dinner on the menu. I had the chicken parm.
Upon leaving the restaurant, I had to walk into the middle of the street, because this is the view outside Senza Gluten's front door, facing south:
One World Trade Center is actually a very impressive building, especially at night.
This night was amazingly beautiful. It had been in the low 60s during the day, and by now it was in the 50s, a perfect night for a stroll through Greenwich Village, on our way back to the 9th Street PATH Station...and then I spotted something lit up, bright and white, off in the distance. It turned out -- and I honestly hadn't even realized this until I saw it -- that we were approaching Washington Square Park with that amazing, beautiful, famous arch.
We lingered here a bit, taking in the November air that felt like May, gazing upon the arch and reflecting upon the impromptu memorials left for the victims of the attacks in Paris.
After that we finally made our way back to the hotel, full and tired and happy and thankful.
The next day? That's another post to come!
Something for Thursday
I've featured this piece before, but here it is again, as I've just discovered that my favorite performance of it ever is on YouTube! It's the Trumpet Concerto by Alexander Arutiunian, a Soviet/Armenian composer who only died a few years ago. This concerto just drips with Armenian folk flavor. I had this performance on a cassette for years, but never managed to locate it on CD. And now here it is, with Timofey Dokshitzer performing with the Bolshoi Orchestra. This is fiery stuff!
Wednesday, December 02, 2015
Thanksgiving in New York
The Wife has maintained, pretty much since the very first Thanksgiving I spent with her, that one day she wanted to go to New York City and see the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade in person.
Then, a little less than a year ago, she suggested that we make that dream a reality and commit to going, this year.
So we committed...and we went. The other night we got back, and let me say this: New York City is an astonishing, amazing place. I loved it so much that I really hate the fact that I'm not still there, right now. But hey: it's not going anywhere, right? So we'll be back. Meantime, I've got pictures. Lots and lots of pictures. I'll break these up over a few posts, but I'm also putting them below the fold. Onward!
Then, a little less than a year ago, she suggested that we make that dream a reality and commit to going, this year.
So we committed...and we went. The other night we got back, and let me say this: New York City is an astonishing, amazing place. I loved it so much that I really hate the fact that I'm not still there, right now. But hey: it's not going anywhere, right? So we'll be back. Meantime, I've got pictures. Lots and lots of pictures. I'll break these up over a few posts, but I'm also putting them below the fold. Onward!
Your Daily Dose of Christmas!
"Happiness can be found, even in the darkest of times, if one only remembers to turn on the light."
--Albus Dumbledore
--Albus Dumbledore
Tuesday, December 01, 2015
Tinkering
Yes, I'm doing some redressing of the blog today! It's a work in progress, so as of THIS writing, not all details are set. I've been finding the old layout increasingly clunky with too much un-updated stuff hanging about, so I want to tidy it up and make it look better. Stay tuned!
Sunday, November 29, 2015
Stuff for a Sunday!
Some links before we head out to brunch in Manhattan, as people do! (I am so going to miss this city...but more on that another time!)
:: A couple of Star Wars links first. Here's an interesting interview with Lawrence Kasdan, who wrote The Empire Strikes Back and co-wrote Return of the Jedi, and has now returned to Star Wars to write episodes VII, VIII, and IX. Kasdan also wrote Raiders of the Lost Ark and Silverado, two other faves of mine.
:: Here's an interesting history of Marvel Comics's first foray into Star Wars comics, back before the Expanded Universe or the Prequels or just about anything else. There were some really fun stories in those Marvel comics, and I especially liked the creative team that was in charge at the end of the series's run; I wish they'd have had more time to flesh out the story they were working on before the series's abrupt cancellation.
:: Exploring an active volcano via kayak. Don't try this at home, kids!
:: Many years ago -- in 1980 or so -- my mother took me to see the Ice Capades when we were living in Portland, OR. The chief attraction was Dorothy Hamill, of course, but to our dismay, Ms. Hamill did not perform when we went, because she was sick or something. But still, I got to see the Ice Capades! I'd pretty much forgotten all about it until a random check of the RetroSpace Flickr stream, whereupon I found that they posted captures of some of the pages from that Ice Capades program. I had this program book, and wow, does this take me back to when I was no more than nine years old!
And yes, the Ice Capades really were that cheesy, which is why it was awesome!
That's about all...behave, folks, and regular stuff should resume mid-week! (Today's our last full day in NYC and then tomorrow we're on the Amtrak all day.)
:: A couple of Star Wars links first. Here's an interesting interview with Lawrence Kasdan, who wrote The Empire Strikes Back and co-wrote Return of the Jedi, and has now returned to Star Wars to write episodes VII, VIII, and IX. Kasdan also wrote Raiders of the Lost Ark and Silverado, two other faves of mine.
:: Here's an interesting history of Marvel Comics's first foray into Star Wars comics, back before the Expanded Universe or the Prequels or just about anything else. There were some really fun stories in those Marvel comics, and I especially liked the creative team that was in charge at the end of the series's run; I wish they'd have had more time to flesh out the story they were working on before the series's abrupt cancellation.
:: Exploring an active volcano via kayak. Don't try this at home, kids!
:: Many years ago -- in 1980 or so -- my mother took me to see the Ice Capades when we were living in Portland, OR. The chief attraction was Dorothy Hamill, of course, but to our dismay, Ms. Hamill did not perform when we went, because she was sick or something. But still, I got to see the Ice Capades! I'd pretty much forgotten all about it until a random check of the RetroSpace Flickr stream, whereupon I found that they posted captures of some of the pages from that Ice Capades program. I had this program book, and wow, does this take me back to when I was no more than nine years old!
And yes, the Ice Capades really were that cheesy, which is why it was awesome!
That's about all...behave, folks, and regular stuff should resume mid-week! (Today's our last full day in NYC and then tomorrow we're on the Amtrak all day.)
Thursday, November 26, 2015
Thankfulness (Something for Thursday -- Thanksgiving edition)
Wow...hard to believe it's been a year since the last time I was thankful! There seems to be so much ugliness in the world right now, but I wonder if that's not always the case...it comes and goes. But the beauty and the good things remain, and I am thankful to be privileged enough to be in a position to realize it.
Here is my ongoing list of things I'm thankful for, tweaked for this year. Further posting may be sporadic for a few days, as I'm on vacation with The Family in the Big Apple, the City that Never Sleeps, the Town So Nice They Named It Twice, New York, NY! Happy Thanksgiving, folks!
Bib overalls, writing, Star Wars, Hayao Miyazaki, Guy Gavriel Kay, John Williams, Person of Interest, Sarah Shahi, Lois Macmaster Bujold, Cutthroat Kitchen, Alton Brown, Veronica Mars, Enrico Colantoni, Adele, Idina Menzel, Kristen Stewart, "Let It Go", Arrested Development, chicken dances, Freaks and Geeks, The Musketeers, indie authors, Ithaca, Cayuga Lake, the Rochester Lilac Festival, fleece pullovers, scarves, retired racing greyhounds, our new house, a room for all my books, George Lucas, Gordon Ramsay, Hector Berlioz, Sergei Rachmaninov, Wicked, showtunes, raisin bran, The Oatmeal, the Sterling Renaissance Festival, antique shopping, taking ridiculous numbers of selfies, Guardians of the Galaxy, discovering that a coworker and I have the same second-favorite Madonna song, handing copies of Stardancer to my friends, Asian Star (our favorite local Chinese restaurant), Arriba Tortilla (our favorite local Mexican restaurant), Firefly (our local cupcake joint), Firefly (the teevee show), Castle and Beckett, A Prairie Home Companion, Car Talk (thanks for the memories, Tommy!), snow, sun, learning to live with a dog, watching two cats learning to live with a dog, hiking in the woods with the dog, drinking rum, single-malt Scotch, science, the stars, new friends online and off, finding out how cool my coworkers are, Princesses Tariana and Margeth, Lieutenant Rasharri, John Lazarus (hopefully you’ll find out who he is nest year), Aeric Seaflame (someday....), being tantalized by story ideas, figuring out a way out of a plot jam, getting a pie in the face, holding The Wife's hand, listening to The Daughter play music and video games, the feeling of getting home, the sense that I've figured out the plot, life, the Universe, and everything.
Happy Thanksgiving to each and every one of my readers and interactors throughout the Cyber-world! May the Holiday season be one of joy, and even if joy is hard to find, please try to take a moment and find some beauty!
Saturday, November 21, 2015
Symphony Saturday
Ooooh, here's one of my absolute favorites. There's just something about Russian Romantics that always calls me home. I don't really know why that is; it's nothing genetic or ethnic or to do with genealogy. To my knowledge, there's not a drop of Russian blood in me, anywhere. But this group of composers, along with their post-Romantic brethren, seem to speak to my heart more than most other groups or national schools or whatever you want to call them. I don't want to indulge too much in sweeping generalities, but there's just something about the way the Russians can engage in lyrical brooding that appeals to me on an elemental level. Beautiful sadness, I think -- or the awareness that there are things in this world that can break your heart simply by being as beautiful as they are. There must be a German word for that feeling, or some lovely phrase in French.
Anyway, up today is the Symphony No. 1 by Vasily Kalinnikov. You have almost certainly not heard of Kalinnikov, because the fates dealt the music world a cruel blow when they afflicted him with tuberculosis. Kalinnikov was a deeply talented composer who was just starting to take flight when he died at the age of 35, becoming yet another "Oh, what if!" artist.
His first symphony is full of everything you would expect from a Russian Romantic symphony. It's full of amazing melodies (just try getting the first subject of the first movement out of your head after you've heard it), singing chromaticism, brooding churn in the lower registers, and cyclic construction that brings themes from the previous movements back for the finale. The delicate opening of the second movement is one of the most magical segments of any symphony I've ever heard, and that finale -- what an astonishing climax Kalinnikov creates, when he summons that delicate love song tune from the second movement to be the main focus of the symphony's glorious conclusion!
Maybe I'm being over-the-top in my praise of this work, but don't take my word for it. Here's the Symphony No. 1 by Vasily Kalinnikov.
Anyway, up today is the Symphony No. 1 by Vasily Kalinnikov. You have almost certainly not heard of Kalinnikov, because the fates dealt the music world a cruel blow when they afflicted him with tuberculosis. Kalinnikov was a deeply talented composer who was just starting to take flight when he died at the age of 35, becoming yet another "Oh, what if!" artist.
His first symphony is full of everything you would expect from a Russian Romantic symphony. It's full of amazing melodies (just try getting the first subject of the first movement out of your head after you've heard it), singing chromaticism, brooding churn in the lower registers, and cyclic construction that brings themes from the previous movements back for the finale. The delicate opening of the second movement is one of the most magical segments of any symphony I've ever heard, and that finale -- what an astonishing climax Kalinnikov creates, when he summons that delicate love song tune from the second movement to be the main focus of the symphony's glorious conclusion!
Maybe I'm being over-the-top in my praise of this work, but don't take my word for it. Here's the Symphony No. 1 by Vasily Kalinnikov.
Friday, November 20, 2015
Thursday, November 19, 2015
Something for Thursday
I love Russian music. Composers from that land (and its various "satellite" countries) really have this way of letting it all hang out, don't they? Here's a short selection: the Sailor's Dance from The Red Poppy, by Reinhold Gliere.
Wednesday, November 18, 2015
Sunday, November 15, 2015
Sunday Linkage Clearing House!
Some links that have been gathering dust in my bookmarks!
:: "Why would you waste cream and sugar on anything that you don't like?" Nifty little video on one restaurant's tradition of celebrating departing crewmembers with a pie in the face.
:: Universes that blur the line between SF and fantasy. The genre lines are not sharp borders....
:: Found: Map of Middle-earth, annotated by JRR Tolkien himself.
:: Behold the most complicated watch in the world. This thing is amazing.
:: The tangled cultural roots of Dungeons and Dragons.
:: Unopened mail...from 400 years ago.
:: Making a Dagwood sandwich...and, if you're so inclined, making the original Dagwood sandwich.
:: How the ballpoint pen killed cursive. I've never been able to make up my mind about cursive and whether or not it should still be taught. I've never really understood the logic of learning to write twice, but I don't get the idea that it hurts anything to learn, so...I dunno.
:: They've found a new earliest use of the F-word! (And by the way, if you're one of those who thinks the F-word is an acronym, please stop. You're wrong.)
:: Making The Warriors. I never saw that movie, but I've sure heard of it.
:: How Richard Scarry updated Best Word Book Ever to reflect a newer world.
Finally, on a much more serious note, two pieces that pretty much encapsulate my thinking on the horror that's been unfolding in the world the last few days: The Price of Civilization by Jim Wright, and Paris by John Scalzi. I honestly don't have any great prescriptions for making our world better, although I do cling to my faith that we (as a species) are getting better, albeit so very slowly that sometimes it doesn't seem like we're getting better at all. I do hope that we don't completely give in (and by 'we', I mean the Western powers and not just the United States) to the eternally-seductive notion that if we just let slip enough of the dogs of war, for a long enough time, we'll eventually kill all the bad guys and let the credits roll on a victory. History just doesn't work like that; it never has, and I see little reason to expect it to work that way this time.
With that, I go back to writing. Excelsior, and live well, people!
:: "Why would you waste cream and sugar on anything that you don't like?" Nifty little video on one restaurant's tradition of celebrating departing crewmembers with a pie in the face.
:: Universes that blur the line between SF and fantasy. The genre lines are not sharp borders....
:: Found: Map of Middle-earth, annotated by JRR Tolkien himself.
:: Behold the most complicated watch in the world. This thing is amazing.
:: The tangled cultural roots of Dungeons and Dragons.
:: Unopened mail...from 400 years ago.
:: Making a Dagwood sandwich...and, if you're so inclined, making the original Dagwood sandwich.
:: How the ballpoint pen killed cursive. I've never been able to make up my mind about cursive and whether or not it should still be taught. I've never really understood the logic of learning to write twice, but I don't get the idea that it hurts anything to learn, so...I dunno.
:: They've found a new earliest use of the F-word! (And by the way, if you're one of those who thinks the F-word is an acronym, please stop. You're wrong.)
:: Making The Warriors. I never saw that movie, but I've sure heard of it.
:: How Richard Scarry updated Best Word Book Ever to reflect a newer world.
Finally, on a much more serious note, two pieces that pretty much encapsulate my thinking on the horror that's been unfolding in the world the last few days: The Price of Civilization by Jim Wright, and Paris by John Scalzi. I honestly don't have any great prescriptions for making our world better, although I do cling to my faith that we (as a species) are getting better, albeit so very slowly that sometimes it doesn't seem like we're getting better at all. I do hope that we don't completely give in (and by 'we', I mean the Western powers and not just the United States) to the eternally-seductive notion that if we just let slip enough of the dogs of war, for a long enough time, we'll eventually kill all the bad guys and let the credits roll on a victory. History just doesn't work like that; it never has, and I see little reason to expect it to work that way this time.
With that, I go back to writing. Excelsior, and live well, people!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)