A little Cleaning Music

Heigh-ho! 

Here is a fellow to model our new improved selves after:  He takes his mind and his hands and his ears and gives us this charming gem!  Enjoy it, and don't forget to make a little noise of your own, today, too.







Here is a link to his website and other projects:  Diego Stocco.
Until later, O talented ones!  I am off to make the music of pancakes.

Pearl Holding

Dear Hand-Lenders,

I want to whisper to you, through the chink in the wall, as did Thisbe and Pyramus.  I want to tell you that I have been thinking of your hands.  Although we cannot see each other, through this wall, I will know from the sound when you are making mudras, or ombromanie.

Some mudras for dancing, and some for meditating.  A few hand shadows, and many hand shadows.

John William Waterhouse's painting of Thisbe.

I will be listening for you.

Time for Spring

Dear Listening,

Is the outdoors buzzing and cheeping?  Can you feel that leaf unfurling, and hear the sugary green sap pulsing in the branches?  Buds and blades pushing up and our with palpable force?  Well, right here, it is all that and more.  It is absolutely humming out there, and it puts one in mind of Oreads, Dryads, Limoniads, Meliads, and the Napaeae.  It is a very fine day for listening to Spring, and woolgathering* over  nymphs which live in the growing substance of seasons.  I hope the vernal equinox affords you a joyous symphony of nature, just beyond your window sill.

Should something conspire to keep you indoors, here is a 1936 cartoon, with a very lovely animation of the energy and essence of Spring that we are seeing and hearing, plus a bevy of gnomes.




*To gather wool best, use Epimeliads, the nymph protectors of sheep and goats.

Waltz and Weave

Dear Ready to Lend a Hand,

I bring this image, clip and article to you of the sociable weavers, so that we may become a more perfect society.  If you don't feel like joining the crowd, you may instead be inspired by the accretive force and sculptural beauty of these birds' nests.

A clip of David Attenborough and sociable weavers. 

A short article by the inimitable Bernd Heinrich, from Audubon Magazine.

I am working on my waltz these days.  It is also instrumental in forming a more perfect society.  I hope you will take the opportunity to learn to waltz.  If we keep at it, and we get reasonably good at it, we can take our feet out to a grand ballroom, like the Blackpool Tower.  We might even see the Wurlitzer descend, during the organ changeover. 

Until we meet on the ballroom, or out on the veldt.

oojah-cum-spiff

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Thanks, DJ!

Hey! 

Drop everything!  Sing along with this.   My DJ just played it, and I wanted you to hear it too.  Not many DJ's left, maybe you've noticed?  Radio has a beautiful intimacy that the Internet and television can't touch.  But, play this and this, too, while we thank what's left of the DJs.  Oh, and world, get together and sing!

Bossing, Again.

Dear Spunky Gals, Young Impressionables, and Women Everywhere,

I see that today the Internet is "banning bossy."  As in banishing it from our language, at least as it is pejoratively applied to girls and women.  Well, this is something dear to my heart, because even as I write this to you, to tell you that I was (and am still) called bossy constantly, I can hear a chorus of people in my head, and what are they saying?  "But, she is bossy!"  I have been called 'abrasive' too.  Instead of softening up, to be less abrasive, or quieting down, to be less annoying, or attempting to ban bossy, I suggest that we give this issue the DIY treatment.  It's a laudable effort, to spread awareness of how damaging this labeling is to young girls and women; but I can tell you right now, we will need to work on this as individuals, too.  So why not practice channeling your personal  response to such put-downs.  Here are a few suggestions:

"Oh yeah??!"
"Is that so?"
"Whatever."
And my personal favorite,
"f*&# you."

This last one might seem a bit coarse, but you needn't say it out loud, you just need to know that it is true.  You need to know it and proceed as if you never even heard them speaking.  At first it will seem difficult, but it is better to be angry than to be a victim, and you will soon find, with practice, that you really don't care what people say.  At all. 

Just to get you started, a bit of musical inspiration. 

Another, and keep back sass talking to those voices.





Can't get enough?

Ponies: Boy and Car

Dear Musical Motorheads,

Did you ever want a car?  I did;  I wanted a '72 Corvette Stingray, I wanted a Volvo P1800 from the *year I was born.  I have even had the temerity, just like Janis Joplin, to want a 1978 Mercedes 450SL.  But, all I want now, is a pony car.  This pony car; a Mercury Comet.  A lovely woman drives it around, and sometimes we are lucky enough to park next to her and her car's stunning glory.

But I don't have the Mercury Blues, because I have My Pony Boy; it doesn't even need wanting- you can have it, here, here, and here.  You can even play and sing it yourself, with this sheet music. 









* Pass You By 

That was so good; let's do it again.

Almond Bloom Ardour

Dear Late Winter,


Join me in admiring the white blossoms of the season... almond trees with the fervid scent of sweet nectar.  The blooms exhale fragrance and petals fall in a blanket of soft nacre.  They have a center of such a red-pink!  How can I proclaim this hue?  Perhaps it is the shade of a length of frail velvet ribbon that binds a packet of your great grandmother's billet-doux, the sheets filled with elegant longhand endearments?  It isn't only a color; the center of these blossoms is intricate; there is a feeling, a liason, and a fleeting taste.  This radiant orchard is in the San Joaquin Valley, near to the junction of highways 46 and 33.

Do these images put you in mind of almond treats, like this old post?  Here is a little addendum; a recipe for macaron with the measurements given by volume, because, weighing nuts can make you a little crazy sometimes.