25 Nov Thanksgiving
So I was listening to Glen's new CD when I was baking the cranberry nut bread last night. The CD is “Shirim, Oy! It's Good, the Art of Yiddish Song” I'm the next-to-last person (before Glen) whose review you should pay any attention to, but I think it's excellent. The numbers on it have a variety of instrumentation, rhythm, tempo, and style. One trouble with klezmer is that the sound is so different from most western music that if you're not familiar with it you can get so caught up with the difference that you can't hear the distinctions between the individual pieces, and you end up thinking it all sounds the same. I think it's the same perceptual phenomenon that leads some westerners to say all Asians, or all black people, look the same. That's a topic for another day, or never. My point is that these pieces sound very different. Then, there's a lot going on in these pieces. After you've listened just for the melody one or two times you can start to admire how much is happening in the trombone or tuba or keyboard lines.
My problem with listening dispassionately to that CD is twofold: firstly, I'm familiar with many of the tunes. I've played them myself, so I know what to expect, and I can listen for the variations and ornaments and try to learn. Secondly, I know a couple of the musicians. Glen has led the band at the JCC for about twelve years now, and he has sent Dave Harris to substitute several times. When I hear the clarinet and trombone I can see Glen and Dave, and not as people up on a stage but as people who have coached me. When I listen to a Shirim CD and shout, “Go, Dave!” at a trombone riff it's different from the way my mouth drops at hearing a Lee Morgan trumpet solo. I admire Dave's imagination and creativity even more than his technical ability.
I had the CD on again today while I was making pumpkin and mince pies. I like it even better. It's impossible for me to judge how much it matters that the lyrics are in Yiddish. I don't understand Yiddish well enough to know what they mean without seeing the translation once. I enjoyed the marionette show in Yerevan without understanding more than two words. Maybe the music is enough by itself. From Newport Classic, Ltd., 11 Willow St. Newport RI 02840, email www.info@newport-cd.com
There's a sticker on the front of my CD case that says, “From the band that brought you The Klezmer Nutcracker.” The Klezmer Nutcracker is a riot. Glen did more than just transcribe the nutcracker into a minor mode, and the result is loads of fun. My reaction was, this is what Tchaikovsky would have written if St. Petersburg weren't all pastel blue, yellow, green, and pink. Keep your eyes and ears out for it.
The special needs chickadee has been growing its tail out. A couple of days ago I noticed a chickadee with an extremely short tail, not beyond the (folded up) wingtips. It was having some foot trouble, so I figure it's the one that had no tail at all the first few times I saw it. Today there has been one chickadee with a tail about 3/8 inch beyond the wingtips that seems to be favoring one leg. I wish I had better notes as to just what day I saw the first sign of the tail. I'm missing an opportunity to contribute valuable scientific data on chickadee tail feather growth rates. My estimate is 1/16 inch per day.
And that reminds me that yesterday Arlene finished work at noon (early dismissal the day before Thanksgiving) and we walked along the river on my lunch hour. There were lots of mallards and something tiny with them -- huh? This isn't the season for baby mallards. Wow! a pied-billed grebe. There was a falcon circling over the Watertown side of the river; could have been a merlin, but we'll say kestrel and not get too excited. Then in a thicket on the Watertown side we saw a ruby-crowned kinglet. It's not Plum Island, but pretty good for a lunch hour walk.
(later...) It was just the four of us for Thanksgiving at Charley's. We picked up Anne on the way. Charley was still slicing ingredients. The menu was: pear and brie quesadillas (from The Surreal Gourmet), cream of carrot soup (same cookbook) with focaccio, peppers stuffed with fish and wild mushrooms, and peppers stuffed with hot cranberry relish (both from Charley's imagination). Turkey, mashed potatos, sweet potatos, creamed onions, and turnips were nowhere to be seen.
We recessed to in front of the TV and video game systems. As a computer game professional, Charley has a Nintendo 64, Playstation, and two Dreamcasts -- one Japanese and one American. The four of us played Choo Choo Rocket, a Japanese Dreamcast game that involves herding as many mice (but no cats! Each one eats up a third of your herd of mice!) as possible onto your rocket ship before it takes off (or get the cats to your opponents' rockets to deplete their mouse passenger list). It's a little like pac man and a little like lemmings. It had all four of us hysterical. Charley says it sold 35,000 copies in Japan its first week. Then Anne got on Charley's computer to print some travel directions off the web and the remaining three of us played You Don't Know Jack. I had never seen it before, and it had us laughing pretty well too.
By the end of the game our appetites had recovered and we sat down to dessert of pumpkin and mince pie and cranberry nut bread (see above). It was a small gathering, but Anne's home now after being in Moscow for the past two Thanksgivings, and that's enough.
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