Singing Poetry

I still remember the first time I heard John Prine.  It was the summer of ’73 and I was living in what used to be a gracious old Des Moines neighborhood.  The neighborhood was on its way downhill, with beautifully maintained family homes being turned one-by-one into seedy dives filled with raucous students, impoverished laborers, and unemployed ne’re-do-wells.  I lived in one of the seedy dives and was working my way through the stages from raucous student to impoverished laborer and unemployed ne’re-do-well.

Impoverished Laborer in Transition to Unemployed Ne’re-do-well

I felt that, in many ways, my life was moving in the same direction as the neighborhood; downhill.  I was a fresh college drop-out whose future looked like it would consist of eking out an existence as a ditch digger.  (According to my conditioning at the time, ditch digging was the only alternative for someone with no college degree.)

In spite of my gloomy self-prognosis, the summer of ’73 was one of the best and most memorable of my life.  I was living with four friends in a great old house and making enough money to get by.  And if I didn’t have a future, I didn’t have anyone expecting anything of me, either.  I had a job that was… unusual.  I was hanging out with people who were… unusual.  Life was one long party, and there was no place else I had to be.

The best thing about the house was the second-story sleeping porch.  The house was perched on a little rise at the corner of the block.  The porch was at the front of the house, so it dominated the street and gave us a commanding view of the intersection.  Giant hardwood trees shaded the porch and it was always cool.  In an un-airconditioned house during a Midwestern summer, this was important.

When we first walked through the house, my buddy Jim laid claim to the bedroom connected to the porch, thinking he’d scored a coup.  What he’d actually done was choose as his bedroom the corridor between the porch and the rest of the house.  People tramped through his room and carried on right outside his bedroom window at all hours of the day and night.  Jim spent most of the summer sleeping at his girlfriend Kim’s apartment.

Late one night, we were hanging out as usual on the porch when we heard someone bellowing at us from the street, inviting himself up to join us.  He was boisterous, bearded, burly, and none of us had ever seen him before.  He’d heard us partying in the wee hours and decided to party with us.  But he was friendly and a lot of fun.  He had us splitting our sides while he told us stories about the psychotropic properties of nutmeg when ingested in large quantities, “You have to eat, like, a quarter pound, man, and you’ll puke your guts out, but you’ll trip your ass off!”  And then he asked, “Do you guys like bluegrass?”

Well, being Iowa boys born and bred, we didn’t even know what bluegrass was.  So we moved the party over to boisterous, bearded, and burly’s place, two or three houses down, and he introduced us to John Prine.*  I’ve been listening to John ever since.

One of the reasons Nan and I knew we were sympatico early-on was because we both loved John Prine.  We’ve gone to see him at every opportunity since the late ‘70s.  Last Friday night at the packed Touhill Performing Arts Center, we were with 1,623 other people who, judging by their enthusiasm, felt the same way we did about John Prine.

John and two other musicians performed for over two hours.  The crowd was absolutely in love with what they were hearing.  John’s voice has gotten rougher, but he still has a great stage presence.  When John and his sidemen finished Lake Marie and said farewell, all 1,625 of us leapt to our feet and cheered until they came back for an encore.  They were joined for the encore by Carrie Rodriguez, the talented young fiddler/guitar player who opened the concert.  They performed the duet In Spite of Ourselves, and finished up with an extended version of Paradise.

Dang, it was a sweet show.

- Poppa

 

* I don’t think John Prine actually plays bluegrass.  I’ve been told he refers to what he plays as “shitkicker music.”  But the album cover in 1973 was mostly blue and there was straw on it, so we all agreed it must be bluegrass.

Pilobolus, the Acrobatic Gymnastic Contortionist Tumbling Choreographed-Seizure Shadow-Puppetry and Occasional Dance Company

Saturday we fired another salvo in the Kulturkampf as we went back to the Touhill Performing Arts Center at UMSL (University of Missouri – St. Louis) for a performance of Pilobolus, the dance company, not Pilobolus, the cowpie-dwelling phototropic zygomycete.

This ain’t your father’s dance company. Pilobolus has been round since the seventies, blazing the trail in weight-sharing choreography unlike anything I’ve seen outside of Cirque Du Soleil (and Pilobolus is at least 10 years older).

The most notable characteristic of a Pilobolus work is the way the dancers flow together to form many-limbed multicellular creatures capable of moving around the stage in weird and wonderful ways, and then dissolve back into individuals.

The first work performed was Lanterna Magica (2008), an ethereal piece involving fireflies captured in a lantern.

 

Then came Pseudopodia, a 1973 golden oldie, performed by a single dancer.

Next was Darkness and Light, a 2008 shadow play wherein microscopic creatures floated and monsters loomed.

After the intermission, we saw Ocellus, a Pilobolus standard since 1972, consisting of four male dancers in positions that made it important to avoid foods prone to cause wind.

Megawatt (2004) was my favorite. I saw the human body do things I didn’t know it could do. Check it out at the Pilobolus web site if you have time. I can’t link directly to it, but select Menu-Works-Active Repertoire and scroll down to Megawatt. For that matter, the entire site is interesting.

In the What-Were-These-People-Thinking Department, there was a guy behind me who started the performance by pretending he was a 900-pound owl and screaming “Whoo!” at inappropriate times. At one point, he shouted “Watch out!” at the top of his lungs, as though he was at the movies and the dancer was about to go into the scary house.

Pilobolus, the dance company, not Pilobolus, the cowpie-dwelling phototropic zygomycete, should be seen at every opportunity. We’ll be on the lookout for their next St. Louis performance.

- Poppa

“What’re you blaming society for, Johnny?” “Whaddya got?”

 …to paraphrase Marlon Brando.

For Christmas, my daughters gave me the best present a father can get, proof they listen to what I say.

Thanks, girls!

Poppa

A world without string is chaos.

This Just Makes Me Smile

The HD version at YouTube is remarkable.  Click “watch in HD” right underneath the video.

Poppa

Pizza π, Murderers Reciting Hamlet, and Kobe Wagyu Beef

Another fine weekend (not counting tearing my hair out over work most all of Saturday and Sunday). Friday night we walked over to the 2008 Taste of St. Louis and had some great ice cream.  Saturday we had pizza at a place called π (pizza Pi, get it?) on the U City Loop.  This is seriously the best pizza I’ve had so far in St. Louis.  Can’t wait to go back and try the deep dish.

  

π

Pizza π

Ira Glass at the Pageant

After pizza, we went across the street to the Pageant where we had tickets to see Ira Glass (our second NPR personality in as many weeks).  Ira was there to support Prison Performing Arts, a literacy and performing arts program serving incarcerated adults and children.

It was a little unsettling to be in the audience while murderers and pedophiles were reciting bits of Shakespeare.  Ira was great.  He’s a consummate storyteller.  I think the Prison Performing Arts people are providing a helpful and much-needed service.  More power to them.  The murderers and pedophiles are what they are.  One can only hope they’re now having a positive impact on those around them.  But the audience was going into paroxysms of delight merely because they were watching actual murderers talking about murdering people in Elizabethan English.  (It’s all very insightful and profound, you see…)  I mean, all I would have needed to do to get a standing ovation from that audience was bellow some lines from Hamlet.  Oh, and murder somebody.

Sunday we had brunch at Mosaic.  (mmmm… Kobe wagyu burger…)

- Poppa

wonderful walking (mostly) weekend

It was the longest week ever – I don’t know why, but it just dragged on abysmally.

Finally Friday night arrived. We walked over to dinner at 10th Street Italian before motoring over to Touhill to see Second City. We recently saw Second City for the first time (huh?) and this second evening with Second City was just as much fun. The current program is called “Deface the Nation”.  I’m glad the political humor was funny without being mean-spirited. Not one word about Sarah Palin – but wait, I’m not gonna talk about her. Once again, the program included skits that had clearly been rehearsed and also some amazing feats of improvisation.

Saturday started with my usual hour-long river walk. Holy moly – Lewis and Clark (the Lewis and Clark statue, for folks unfamiliar with these parts) were both completely submerged. Lenore K Sullivan Boulevard was flooded – closed to all vehicle traffic. After a quick scoot out to Creve Coeur to visit my mom, I got stuck in our building’s passenger elevator a mere two floors from my destination – home. That was the second time this year. Yes, it’s true there were a number of other years with absolutely no painful elevator experiences. However, I think that twice should be my maximum lifetime achievement for getting stuck in an elevator. The feeling of abandonment and frustration was eased a little because John called 911 after the elevator repair guy failed to appear after 30 minutes. So it could have been worse. Then after a forgettable dinner salad, we strolled down the street – literally – to The OrpheumTheatre. We spent some delightful time with Garrison Keillor. See John’s posting about that and our fabulous late-night “snack”.

Sunday started with another usual hour-long river walk. Surprise, surpise- the river had fallen a lot since Saturday morning.  I could see Lewis’s arm and his hat (again, that’s the statue I’m talking about). Parks Department workers were busy with backhoes scraping mud from Lenore K Sullivan Boulevard so the street could be opened to vehicular traffic.  We walked to get a few groceries, I made some potato salad for lunch, we walked to the library to return some books, we stopped at the London Tea Room for caffeination, and then stopped by the Sushi Eating Contest at Wasabi. Seriously, today was the third annual Sushi Eating Contest.

I love living downtown.

–Nan

A Great Day and a Bizarre Declaration

I celebrated my birthday Saturday in the best of all possible ways, a bagel in the morning,

dim sum for lunch,

a breaded pork tenderloin sandwich for supper,

Ted Drewes for dessert, and CDs/DVDs for after (White Stripes, Hellboy, and Doctor Who).

Yes, after resisting for 33 years, I’ve drunk the Doctor’s Kool-Aid.

Between dim sum and Ted Drewes, we stopped at the Central branch of the Public Library to see an “original copy” (sorry, I chortle whenever I say that) of the Declaration of Independence.  

There was something a little twisted about the circumstances of the Declaration display.  Not the Declaration itself; it was sealed in a glass case and you could file by and examine it as closely as you liked for as long as you wanted.  You could take pictures (no flash).  There were about 30 people ahead of us so it didn’t take long to work through the queue.  The strange note came in the form of the handout we received when we walked in the door.

On one side of the handout was a Xerox of the original Declaration, complete with signatures.  On the back was an article about what happened to the signers.  Some were captured by the British and executed as traitors.  Several more lost all they had and died penniless.  At the bottom of the article was a curious sentence.  “Although some of these men suffered and died for their defense of liberty (as America’s political prisoners do today) others went on to become respected leaders of society.”  The article was credited to Serendipity at serendipity.li/jsmill/decl_men.htm

Since “America’s political prisoners” was underscored on the handout, I was curious about what the source was trying to say.  I headed for the Serendipity site and was flabbergasted to see that the underscored phrase was indeed a link which took me to a page with this patriotic message.

“The United States of America, which styles itself hypocritically as a defender of human rights, keeps many people behind bars (when it doesn’t simply kill them, as in the case of pro-marijuana activist Grover Crosslin) because they dare to express (non-violently) their opposition to the unjust policies of the U.S. government.  That is to say, in addition to the many dissidents now in their graves there are many locked away as political prisoners.  These are often members of ethnic minorities, perhaps because the United States, which was built upon the exploitation of black people by white, has always denied the human rights of its ethnic minorities.

The United States govt. insists that the U.S. is a country where its citizens and residents enjoy freedom. But they can’t even go for a walk in the evening without the risk of being arrested and thrown into jail.”  And to prove this, there’s a link to a story about a guy who was arrested and thrown into jail because he went for a walk.

The root URL (www.serendipity.li) is a hodge-podge of links to every whacked-out conspiracy theory I’ve ever heard of and some I haven’t.  If you surf there, you’ll learn that Zionists control Wikipedia, 9/11 was a government conspiracy, Waco was a government conspiracy, UFO cover ups are a government conspiracy, in fact, pretty much every bad thing that’s ever happened was a government conspiracy (except the Zionist conspiracies).

The guy(s) at Serendipity (who, to my shame, describe themselves as Libertarian) would no doubt theorize that the propagation of this link on the handout was part of a subtle conspiracy perpetrated by a shadowy group to get subversive information into the hands of the unsuspecting dupes of the imperialist US government.  I, on the other hand, suspect somebody at Cricket Communications just Googled “men who signed the Declaration of Independence”, grabbed the first link, and used it for their handout without checking the source.

But it COULD be a conspiracy.

Poppa

this week

3 things to appreciate from this week:

• the 3 things I PLANNED to appreciate this week = wearing my new clothes, dim sum for John’s birthday on Saturday, seeing the musical BIG on Sunday afternoon
• Friday night I got a surprise “gift” of gently used clothing – several jackets, tops, and a skirt and jacket outfit
• Saturday night I went to see the “new” fireworks display that’s NOT begin shot off a barge in the river

3 things to anticipate about the coming week:

• lots of our tomatoes are ripening all at once, so we’ll have some good tomato sandwiches this week
• I should be able to finish a good book I started last week “Stumbling on Happiness” by Daniel Gilbert
• Thursday morning, we leave for a vacation visit to see Erin & Benjy in Georgia

–Nan

hot, hot, hot

3 things to appreciate this past week:

• air conditioning – it’s so hot here that I feel like my brains are frying when I’m outside
• drove the new car for many miles and many minutes on Saturday – that was sort of fun all by itself – and it’s so easy to park
• went out to eat at a new restaurant Saturday night and had Coconut Almond Joy ice cream for dessert – what an excellent ice cream flavor!

3 things to anticipate this week:

• I bought some new clothes and now I get to wear them
• John’s birthday is next Saturday and he wants to go to dim sum at Lu Lu to celebrate
• We’re going to see “Big”, the musical, next Sunday afternoon – it’s a community theatre production that Marie is in

–Nan

Lots of fireworks

The PC was “in the shop” for a week – it was in a death spiral with corrupted RAM. But the Geek Squad worked wonders. It just took time and money, and now the PC is back. Dang, I missed it when it was gone!

3 fabulous things I appreciated recently:

• GREAT fireworks down on the riverfront – both Friday the 4th of July and Saturday July 5th
• saw “Wall-E” on Sunday – go see it, you’ll like it
• made 2 good recipes recently – hummus and corn & tomato linguine (like Mick’s)

3 things to anticipate:

• John and I are going to buy a new/differnt car – buying it will be sort of a hassle, but it could be fun eventually
• some of the tomatoes are almost ripe!
• 1 got 2 wooden kitchen chairs from mom’s house and I’m having them re-finished. I’ll like using them here.

–Nan