And for your weekend listening and dancing pleasure…
Nerdy Day Trips - what a great idea. The Ohio Glass Museum? Never heard of it. Sounds like a future destination to me.
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This looks like an interesting nerdy day trip.
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I just think this is fun to look at.
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There’s a generator for everything.
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Hahahahaha.
I call the last four school days The Week What Would Not End. And here we are at Finkday, and it’s still not over.
Calgon…
Lately, there has been much frustration in my world, on many fronts. Just about all fronts, actually. Good thing the Thriller provides comic relief, or I’d have likely committed some flavor of misdemeanor by now.
Why, why, why do we give others permission to do such damage to our brains and emotions, when we know darn good and well that the other party (the one doing the damage) is hardly affected at all? It’s the cruelest form of self-flagellation. I call a stop to it.
Know what I need to do? Spend tonight getting some work done, then have some fun tomorrow night with the Js at our sleepover. Instant therapy. Then Sunday, I need to cook; update the Comfort Foodie blog. I have three or four recipes in the queue, so it’s time to get on it. Cooking/baking always makes me feel better. Beats the heck out of wasting time bemoaning my fate — especially when my fate includes so many wonderful people and situations.
There. Done.
Hey, thanks for the texts, Facebook comments and emails about beau chien Rousseau. His surgery went well, and both tumors were successfully removed and sent to the lab. It was a distinct relief and pleasure to wrap his evening pain pill in some bread and feed it to him last night, after which I watched him slide into sleepyville. He’s still upstairs with the Thriller, sawing lumber. I hope he has a better day today.
I hope I do too. Oy.
Off we go, all of us. It’s almost the weekend! (even though it’ll never get here)
Fink, eternal optimist
Surgery Day, take 2.
When was the last time I turned off my reading light at 10:45, and the next thing I heard was my alarm at 5 a.m.? I honestly cannot remember.
Maybe that’s a good sign. It’s good for today anyway, since I’ll be at school till sundown.
So, it’s been a pretty stressful couple of weeks at school, and yesterday was no exception. The hits just keep on comin’. Issues lay unresolved — some for weeks on end — and they really need to rest. Adding to the stress was my annual evaluation by the principal. He was scheduled to observe one of my classes yesterday. So I told the high school choir, “The boss is coming. Look busy.”
We started rehearsal and he hadn’t arrived yet. Ten minutes in — no Mr. H. Twenty, thirty…by then, it was clear he wasn’t showing. Bummer! Get all gussied and ready, and the party’s a bust. (Turns out he was called upon last-minute to fill in for a teacher who was ill and had to leave. No biggy.) So we’re going to do it again on Friday. What a way to end the week.
But hey, no worries. Thirty days from now…oh wait. Thirty days from today, I will have six school performances over a nine-day span.
Now that’s a first. I think I need to go back to bed……………………………….
While stumbling around on the web at 3 a.m. today, I came across Rolling Stone‘s 100 Greatest Singers of All Time list. (“A panel of 179 experts ranked the vocalists.”) Now before I get all snarked up, I will say that I agree with many of the selections. I’d even go so far as to say I totally see the reasoning behind the #1 choice.
But a list that includes Stevie Nicks, Willie Nelson and Janis Joplin gives me pause. Great pause. Rating Roy Orbison above Freddie Mercury? More pausing. Then I realized, it’s really not about basic vocal beauty, is it? I mean, would you want Little Richard singing the Lord’s Prayer at your wedding? (Don’t answer that.)
Singers are great, in my opinion, not so much for their vocal prowess as for how they make us feel. Now don’t get me wrong; I appreciate super-human voices with technique up to there. I really like them — so much, in fact, that I wonder which of the “experts” at Rolling Stone decided that Bono should get the #32 slot, but Bobby McFerrin shouldn’t make the list at all. *scratching head* Still, you have to go back to the overall effect. Case in point:
There is no question, hesitation or waffling with regard to who is my #1 pick of all time. Don’t even have to think about it. From the moment I heard him sing the opening line of “Girl” (Is there anybody going to listen to my story…?), the space at the top was locked up forever. And I can’t really tell you why he’s my all-time #1. I don’t think I could find sufficient words. But if I were to give it a go, I’d tell you that his voice is so different, so expressive, so intimate…you feel like every lyric he sings is from a song you wrote and hold very dear and personal. His style is both plaintive and declaratory; tender and merciless; ragged and delicate. Almost everyone I know can hear a recording of his voice and identify it within seconds. Add to that the fact that in 45 years of listening to him over and over and over, I have yet to hear one note sung out of tune.
In my mind, he’s just the entire package. And this from a “trained” singer in classical and jazz music. Just goes to show it’s more about what’s in your heart than anything. It is for me, anyway.
It’s an oft-mentioned adage in singer lore: you’d much rather hear a singer who’s not necessarily technically perfect, but who can sell a song, lock and stock. The names on that list are few.
So how about you? If you had to choose one voice as your “Greatest Singer of All Time,” who would it be, and why? I covet your articulate and compendious opinions.
Aaaaaand it’s 5 a.m. Time to git bizzy. Have a dandy day, fiends. I highly recommend some Rubber Soul on your way to work this morning.