Wednesday, May 27, 2009

Altitude or Attitude? A Platitude

In life, you can take the high road or the low road.

I recommend the high road: The view is better, and you don't get your shoes as muddy.

Remember my dears, strength isn't measured by how many people you knock down, but by how many people you lift up.

love, hosaa
trying to get a better view

Monday, May 25, 2009

Elliott Yamin at the Birchmere



Just another reminder to go experience live music - or dance or drama or comedy. Support the arts! It supports us.

Some friends went to see Coldplay at the Nissan Pavilion last week, so I knew a scaled down show like Elliott's at the Birchmere would leave them feeling cheated. I invited them to come with me to the show last night (May 24), but understood when they declined, still off their Chris Martin high. I don't know. I like scaled down intimate shows. I like being 25 feet from a singer, seeing his eyes, watching him work.

Elliott has more stamina than he did when he first came to the Birchmere two years ago (May 17, 2007). Starting his first tour for his first album, he lasted a strained 50 minutes but put his whole heart into the show. Without enough of his own material, he did some great covers at that time.

This year, two years stronger and with more confidence, he pulled off an energetic and soulful 70 minute set, covering his first and second albums just about equally (the two encores were from the first album, "Train Wreck" and "Movin' On").

Including the first album was a good move, IMO, not because it's stronger material than his latest CD, "Fight For Love," but because the mood varies more. And because the fans in the audience are more familiar with the first CD, they can sing along and get into the show with Elliott. And he encouraged that a lot!

I got to share my table with two sweet PYT's from West Virginia, Amanda and Leslie, who informed me that their plan was to marry Elliott. Both of them. I hope they understood this would require religious conversions among the three of them, but they were so happy - and especially thrilled when I told them that Elliott would probably be out front after the show to sign autographs.

While the vid's are uploading (good view, but a little shakey and off center, and beginnings cut off on some - sorry about that), here are some of my best shots.

Love, hosaa,
Waiting for Clay but loving the Yamin





"Ya-mini"


Cold Heart


I Can't Keep On Loving You (From a Distance):


One Word:


Someday:


and, apropos of the above (heh):

Friday, May 22, 2009

What It's All About

Since everyone else is pontificating on Clay Aiken's "trashing" of American Idol, why not me?

I won't repost his members-only blog or link to the sites that did, but basically Clay said he was glad that "boy-next-door" Kris Allen won the eighth season of the show that gave Clay his start.

His actual opinions of the artists' performances don't really mean much since he didn't watch the entire season. He did say that he didn't like what Adam Lambert did with a classic country song ("Ring of Fire"), and based on very limited exposure to either finalist said that public perceptions may have formed around Adam as being "arrogant" (because of all the support that the producers and media had given him over the course of the season).

Clay didn't say Adam was arrogant, just that - rightly or wrongly - the perception of him may have been strong enough to encourage some voters to vote against him.

So what Clay was really lamenting in his blog was Idol's loss of innocence, the loss of the vision of what it was all about in the first place. Like Linus in "Merry Christmas, Charlie Brown," Clay took the thumb out of his mouth, dropped his security blanket, stepped out alone onto a stage and a single spotlight, and said what AI was all about: giving opportunities to people with raw talent who would not otherwise have that chance.

The truth is, Adam and Kris are both extremely talented, but since Adam was already a professional with lots of opportunities, he didn't need Idol as much as Kris did. The fact that Idol producers and judges (and the media they seem to control with their targeted messages) had so transparently supported the contestant most likely to become a superstar (and make them all richer) was disillusioning to Clay (and to many of us who have loved Idol over the years).

It's always disheartening to see the crass commercialization of our cherished traditions. Charlie Brown winced at Snoopy's enthusiasm in the neighborhood Christmas display competition. And Clay winced at the obvious AI bias for hot-property Adam.

So, like Linus, that's what Clay was talking about in his blog. He was simply reminding us why the AI experience burrowed itself into our hearts in the first place, with Kelly, Tamyra, Ruben, Clay, Fantasia, and Carrie. The kids next door were getting a chance to make it big.... That could be us! And now with Kris, it still can be.

That's what it's all about, Simon!

Love, hosaa
"id(o)ling"

Tuesday, May 19, 2009

Punk Rampant!

My curiousity sometimes leads me down curious avenues, and when I was watching a DVD of Franco Zeffirelli's Romeo and Juliet recently, a bit of the dialogue didn't quite sit right.

The Nurse is trying to find Romeo to tell him where and when to meet Juliet, but he's hanging out with his friends. She has a go-around with sharp-tongued Mercutio, whom she declares a "scurvy knave." All right, that's good Shakespeare.

But then her servant Peter is rolling on the ground laughing, and she screams at him, kicks him down the steps, and bellows out, "Punk rampant!"

(with apologies: the video has been removed)

WTF?

Well it sounds good, but it ain't Shakespeare. Zeffirelli's film came out in 1968, so at first I suspected the line was contemporary, perhaps borrowed from Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange, the definitive film on punks rampant. But that didn't come out until 1971.

I did a Goodsearch for the phrase, but came up empty. So then I turned to Google Book Search, and by gum... It's from The Dutch Courtesan By John Marston, 1605:

Freevill (to Franceschina): Go; y'are grown a punk rampant!

So the phrase is authentically of Shakespeare's era (or a tad later) and not Zeffirelli's. But how modern is it! "Punk Rampant!" could describe any number of contemporary scurvy knaves.


Love, hosaa,
mind rampant

Tuesday, May 5, 2009

The Nonlocality Problem

A little gripe... It's hard to "buy local" when it comes to fresh produce.

There are two farmer's markets within walking distance of me: The venerable Montgomery County Farm Women's Cooperative, which is half a block and across the street from my apartment, and the Bethesda Farmer's Market, in the shadow of my office building.

I like the idea of buying fresh produce directly from farmers, and local farmers in particular because of the reduced environmental impacts of transportation. But these farmers aren't all that local. The corn I bought from the Farm Women's market on Saturday came in from Florida. And the two tables of produce I just passed by in Veterans Park were from Pennsylvania and West Virginia.

I guess I can look at it this way: I want the fresh produce, and I want to support farmers and cooperatives. I know I can't get white sweet corn from Montgomery County in early May. At least the environmental impacts of my own transportation were minimized: I walked.

Love, hosaa
shopping locally