January 2009 Archives

So I am a violin student, which is to say my skills are far below amateur, but slightly above cats fighting in a bag. Its not difficult to get a couple of notes out of the thing, but getting them to line up and hang out together in a meaningful way is a mean feat.

Sysguy somewhat reluctantly joined me for a "casual friday" concert at Disney hall, featuring Hilary Hahn as the violin soloist. I've heard she's really great, so I was looking forward to it. It was awesome!! Together with the orchestra she performed a Glazunov violin concerto in A minor, Op 82. I don't know why they name stuff that way. I have no idea what it means, but the music was great. I know, I'm musically illiterate. Whatever.

Anyway, after the Glazunov, she performed this piece as an encore. O. My. God.

Can you believe it?! The fingers! With the bowing! Plus the pizz sometimes with the still bowing and the fingers? It was incredible. (Even Sysguy was moved to say that it was interesting. He didn't really like it, but it was interesting...but was it the opposite of fun? Hmmm)

Next, while Ms. Hahn was presumably applying tourniquets to her bleeding fingertips, the orchestra alone performed the Tchaikovsy Romeo and Juliet fantasy overture (conducted by Leonard Slatkin, if that is meaningful to ya.) It was lovely, and comfortingly recognizable to some people....

After the performances, there was a little chat session where people got to ask questions of the conductor, Ms. Hahn, and one of the Phil violinists (Dale Briedenthal, a local girl from the south side who is in the second violins). It was interesting in that they went over a theme my instructor had emphasized the same day: make the piece look easy enough that the audience can relax and enjoy it instead of empathising with the musician. Someone asked how Ms. Hahn made the more difficult pieces seem so easy, she said, "well, they're all hard, you have to get past that for a successful performance". Oy. Ms. Hahn said a friend of hers in the audience had requested the Schubert encore piece. Thank you, whoever you are.

On another note, this was our first concert at the Disney Hall (Thing 1 has been 3 times already!). The sound was fine; we were in the nosebleed seats, so we have no other spot to compare to as yet. The building is really beautiful, yeah, but the almost total lack of right angles actually made it feel like walking on a rolling ship deck to me. It was weird, very few of the walls hit the floor at a right angle, so there's no reference point, which I apparently need in order to not walk like a drunk. C'est la vie.

And I mean that in the "gross!" way, not the non-Newtonian fluid sort of way. Sysguy and I have a running disagreement: I refuse to go through everyone's pockets before washing their clothes, its my little housewife rebellion. I figure folks deserve whatever happens to the stuff in their pockets, and perhaps they'll pay closer attention if it is damaged. I do make the Things remove hot, clean, rocks from the dryer themselves, which can be amusing. (It has cut down a lot on the larger rocks. We get a lot of very clean acorns, though.)

Also, there have been a fair number of things that perhaps Sysguy would not have liked to have laundered, as well. Lets not go into that.

Today. Sigh. Today I found, in the lint filter, the most. revolting. thing. ever. At first I thought it was a tiny rubber snake. Sometimes Thing 2 likes to have his washed. Upon closer inspection...No. It was an actual, real, not plastic, lizard tail. One that was clearly recently ejected from a frightened lizard, pocketed, cleaned and rehydrated in the washer, buffed to a nice sheen in the dryer—except for the stump—actual lizard tail. About 5" long.
Gaaaaahhhhh!

Is it too much to expect people to get that I am the laundress and not their personal valet? Does the drycleaner go through pockets? Hello?

So, the three of you who read this blog might remember this post from last year, where Thing 2 cut his own hair. Funny, that. Recently, Sysguy purchased a rechargeable gadget for cutting one's own hair, mostly because I wasn't getting around to cutting his hair in a timely fashion. He was playing with it today, attempting to use it to cut the thatch that has grown in the weeks (weeks!!) I've been neglecting him. The thing, which is meant to work like a sort of comb with blades, kept getting clogged up on this first cut, so he was removing the guard and cleaning it out periodically.

You can imagine what is next. Yep, on one pass, he inadvertantly forgot to put the guard back on. The good news? He's got a cute new haircut. The bad news? Its very, very short. To blend in the stripe he put across the top of his head.

Genetics. Its more interesting than I thought.

Also, I am smart enough to know better than to post pictures. Duh.
(I'm still living down the toilet.)

Headlines of the Inauguration, from around the country and around the world. It's pretty amazing. Well, except for the Amazonian, which has a practically naked woman much larger than any of the news.

Priorities, people.

One really great guy can't do it alone. We all have to help. Lets pretend its September 12, 2001, and do what we should have done the first time around: Pay attention, pull together and try to make the world a better place. Drive less. Use less. Be more.