I talk a little more in this one. Weber’s Concertino is a major staple of the clarinet repertoire. When it’s done right, it’s so much fun to listen to/watch. Even practicing this is a lot of fun. It’ll be nice when this piece sounds better.
Kay Ryan’s imagery has always made me think. I’ve enjoyed her poetry, and she knows how to describe the human experience. And then her poems become a part of the human experience. She’s definitely made my life more robust.
Saturday morning we were discussing which drive we should go on to look at autumn leaves. In the past, we’ve driven the Alpine Loop. There have always been a lot of people. Lots of cars squeezing by each other on the mountain roads. But Saturday we decided to drive the Nebo Loop. Here’s a prelude video to a bunch of photos we took:
The morning was gorgeous. The best light shone through the trees; cast a perfect silhouette of the mountains. We’re so glad we went.
Happy autumn, everyone!
I just finished a book of poems by Joy Harjo, called An American Sunrise. She adds commentary to her poem “Story Wheel”: “Until the passage of the Indian Religious Freedom Act of 1978, . . . to write or create as a Native person was essentially illegal.”
Sometimes I work on passages of various clarinet pieces.
I’m thinking of starting a video series that includes my playing clarinet and talking about poems. This is the pilot, haha. Unfocused, yes. But two things I love.
I logged into this blog in the last week and found out I had written posts 82 days in a row before completely falling off the face of the earth. Not too shabby. A lot has happened since the last post.
In August we took a whirlwind trip to St. George to attend the last Utah Symphony Concert in which my brother-in-law would be performing for a while. He’s been a substitute percussionist for them for years now, but he went to the University of Michigan this fall to pursue super-advanced degrees in music things.
In August we also took a quick trip to Park City to explore and celebrate my husband’s birthday. It was also nice to let our daughter swim in the hotel pool as much as she wanted.
We spent the month of July building bookshelves, another birthday present for Reilly. It’s nice to have a place to put a lot of our books.
The beginning of school happened for Reilly and Z in the middle of August. Z brought home a cold at the end of August, and we all felt so crappy that Z and I got covid tests. Z never got her results back, but I tested negative. Being sick is so scary in these weird times.
Speaking of, a friend of my brother passed away from covid this week. Truly horrible.
More horribleness: In the last month a church leader gave a speech to some university faculty about taking up muskets against the evils of homosexuality. All of my LGBTQ+ friends were gutted, once again, by the hate the church spews. I don’t know how much longer I can try to reconcile this religion and their dangerous rhetoric with my staying in the church.
Last week I saw Hilary Hahn twice. The first time she performed at a nature center, just before a group of musicians from underserved communities. It was cool seeing her in a really intimate setting by the river with fewer than 100 people. She performed solo Bach. The second time was on a date with my husband at the Noorda Center for the Performing Arts at Utah Valley University. That night she performed the Brahms Violin Concerto. Every note was glorious. It was great seeing her play live again, with the last time being November 2012.
Oh, I cooked pork chops tonight. Started them on the stove in a cast iron pan, then threw them into the oven. They were amazing. But whenever I do a fluky awesome job cooking, I always wonder if it’ll be just as good the next time. I suppose that’s the fun of it.
Autumn has made its presence known. The morning chill, the leaves turning in the mountains. Autumn’s nice, but winter: can stay the hell away.
I may write more later on these individual subjects later. I might not.
Last night we finished my birthday cake. I got it on May 22 and it only took just less than 2 months for us to eat all of it.
It was an ice cream cake. And kept really well in the freezer this whole time. It tasted good up through last night.
It was a quarter sheet, meant to serve about 24. Even after having a party then giving some away, we still had a lot of cake. We worked through it slowly, a little bit at a time.
It’s now all gone, and I’m a little bit sad about it.
We’re working on some things around the house, which is pretty exciting in the summer doldrums. Or dog days of summer. July might be the February of this time of year, as far as long stretches of meh go.
It’s nice to have a goal to work on, and it’s especially cool when an actual product arises, materializes, from that goal. There was a plan, which took the longest to nail down. And now we’re following the plan. Seems to be coming together nicely.
A thing I love about home painting: peeling dried paint from the roller tray. Like, when the paint all comes out in one layer. SO. SATISFYING.
We started working on a project over the weekend. Should be pretty cool.
During our worship services, in between speakers, we sometimes have an intermediate hymn–or rest hymn as they’re sometimes called, so that we don’t feel too restless, because listening to people talk for 40 minutes is a long time. So yeah, we sing a hymn in the middle to break it up a bit.
Today the rest hymn was “My Country, ’tis of Thee.” I get that last week was the Fourth of July, and it’s totally fine to keep celebrating our country.
But for some weird reason the congregation stood up to sing this hymn. Which isn’t “The Star-Spangled Banner.” It’s the exact tune of England’s anthem, “God Save the Queen.”
I don’t know, maybe we have English nationals in the congregation? Which might explain the seeming random standing. But wouldn’t we be singing the words to “God Save the Queen” and not “My Country, ’tis of Thee”?
I was confused.
Anyway, there are four verses to this American rip-off hymn. At the end of the third verse Reilly whispered that he was stepping out to use the bathroom. So I sat down with Z while everyone else stood up and sang.
Interesting.
Last night before the movie I was introducing my brother to some friends. Sisters, actually.
They were chatting with him when I asked, can you tell we’re related?
And one of the sisters chuckled, “Yes, and you even sound alike!”
Such a phenomenon.
If you listen to Reilly and his siblings talk, you’ll notice the same thing.
I can think of other families where this happens.
It’s fun.
I’m glad we look different enough to not be confused with each other in other ways.
We like being our own person, too.
We watched this movie as part of our Summer Outdoor Series. I hadn’t seen it in forever, so a lot of it felt new to me.
People usually recite two quotes:
It is NOT a tumor!
Boys have penises, and girls have vaginas!
And I learned a new one:
You’re not so tough without your car, are ya?
That might be my favorite one.
A Little Thinking 