Admiration

I have spent the last day catching up on Vinyl Cafe podcasts and admiring the stories of Stuart McLean. His stories are touching, funny, beautiful, and thoughtful. Every time I hear one it makes me appreciate life a little more.

For father's day last year I bought tickets for the live Vinyl Cafe show in Seattle. This October we finally got to go. As we left my theater, my dad turned to me and said, "My stomach hurts." My thoughts immediately turned to the dinner we'd gone to before the show, afraid he was going to be sick. He saw the look on my face and said "No, my stomach hurts from laughing so hard." It was a great evening.

The Vinyl Cafe also encourages people to send in little stories and each week Stuart reads one on the air, "Christmas Tea Rings" is one of my favorites.

Do you know me at all?

Click on the above to enjoy "Nobody Knows Me At All" by the Weepies, one of my favorites.

Sing-along?

Last night I attended the Holiday Sing-along with the Seattle Symphony Chorale. I bought the tickets weeks ago. I was so excited to belt out tunes at Benaroya Hall. I conned three friends into going with me.

As we sat in our seats we took out our programs looking to see what songs we were going to sing we noticed a small note at the top of our programs, "The audience is invited to join in on the selections listed in bold." Apparently, it was a selected sing-along. We were invited to take part in approximately 40% of the music. The evening was not exactly panning out the way I thought it would.

Especially odd was the local weatherman, Jeff Dubois, they got to MC the event. Why do you need an MC at a chorale performance? The answer is you don't. In between classical sets to have a weatherman doing "shtick" was just wrong on many, many levels.

Overall, the music was pretty, but it didn't fill Benaroya. I didn't realize that it was only the chorale and not any part of the symphony. They had an organ player who rotated between the piano and organ. It was actually kind of quiet.

The two highlights of the evening were Fantasie on Adeste Fideles which was an organ solo which was unique, to say the least. During the song the dad in the row in front of us leaned over to his son and said, "Do you think he's gone mad?" I thought the dad might be right. During the song I counted five kids that had to be taken out of the hall crying because the song was just too much for them. The show ended with exerpts from the Messiah which were indeed gorgeous and finally highlighted the specialty of the chorale. My recommendation for anyone is to just buy tickets to theMessiah performance and skip the "Sing-along."

Calm

I am a major escapist reader. My nightstand has a whole shelf of books that I pick up when I want to forget about what is happening in my life for a little while. Most of these books I would never really recommend to anyone else, but they all offer a bit of comfort for this sentimental girl. Perhaps sometime I''ll publish the list.

Today, I would like to share a book that I do feel comfortable recommending to anyone. I laughed and cried and in the end I ended up going back and rereading some of the book. Listening is an Act of Love is a series of interviews done for the StoryCorp where people sign up to go into a booth an interview each other about some portion of their life. It can be a momentous event or just a story about their everyday life. What comes out is remarkable, touching and beautiful.

Check it out from your local library today!

Ready for the Season?

Every year I am always excited for the holiday season. I make cards, I bake, I get a tree, I play carols way too much, but this year the season is filling me with dread. In our current economic crisis everything feels excessive. How do you celebrate when you feel like the world is crumbling around you?