Spindlings

Michelle and I are playing today at the local library's Story Time and Singalong, our first all-kid gig, in conjunction with the city's Holiday Parade of Lights. We were told by the PTB not to sing any Christmas songs.

Because, you see, it's the "Holiday Parade of Lights".

(Oh wait, I said no more political statements. Whoops.)

Tomorrow night is First Friday. This time we're at Halltree Antiques on Main St. in Oldtown Salinas.

Just so you know

My husband, whom I affectionately refer to as Irish, used the following phrase in a sentence today: "a cloudy burst of entanglement". In the context, it even made sense.

Neither of us can remember now what the topic was.

Filler Tuesday

Ai, please don't tell me I'm procrastinating like this again!

Here's another one of those silly filler thingies just so I can get back on the horse. I took one of those "What Are You?" tests and it actually hit close.

You Should Rule Saturn

Saturn is a mysterious planet that can rarely be seen with the naked eye. You are perfect to rule Saturn because, like its rings, you don't always follow the rules of nature. And like Saturn, to really be able to understand you, you need someone to delve beyond your appearance. You are not an easy person to befriend. However, once you enter a friendship, you'll be a friend for life. You think slowly but deeply. You only gain great understanding after a situation has past.

What Planet Should You Rule?

Spindlings

Tonight we play First Friday again, this time at the Girl-Lee Boutique from 6-7:30.

Tomorrow we're at the Salinas Adult School's Art Crafts, and Quilts Show, from 12:00-1 pm.

Hey, we're saving to make that CD!

No-pol policy

Starting today, I'm not posting about politics. It's not worth it. There are a hectillion sites out there doing nothing but, but only one of my life. Besides, I never agree with anyone, anyway. I'm too conservative for the liberals and too liberal for the conservatives. I guarantee that no matter who gets elected next week, I won't be happy with them.

There. My last political blog commentary ever.

Now onward to the fun (and useful) stuff.

End of an era

One of my favorite bloggers, Doug TenNapel, is tossing it down the chute. Today he's on Part 5 of his auf wiedersehen (hmmmm, and Barbra Streisand's on her 5th farewell tour--coincidence? You decide) and I'm feeling downright bummed. I'll miss the lift from his slap-'em-silly approach to life and all its weirdness. I'll miss the unhinged comments from his detractors. I'll miss the little fishy swimming back and forth. Yes, he could be abrasive. Yes, the scatological references sometimes made my eyes roll. No, I didn't always agree with everything he said. However, he sure showed that conservatives don't all wear black suits on Fox News. And he was downright fun to read. (If there were a liberal blogger half as entertaining, I'd add him to my list, too. Trouble is, most liberals have no sense of humor, except for Stephen King.)

God be w'ye, Doug. At least I still have your archives and your three wackadoodle paintings at Rollick's. (The toaster one is my fave.) Have fun storming the castle and replenishing the Earth.

Campaign pledge

I hereby pledge to withhold my vote from anyone who calls my house and leaves an automated campaign message on my answering machine. I don't care what party you represent or what your message is--you invade my home like that and you're out, Buster (Bustress?). Did you really think I'd stand there and listen just because you paid some 15 year-old kid running a server to call me and 59,000 of my closest friends? Pfui! I snort in your general direction!

I'll say one thing for this system--it sure narrows the field when I go to the polls.

Spindlings

M & I played a set at that fantastic pickin' party we attended last weekend at the home of our friends Kelly & Jac. While pondering the setlist, M noticed that she sings all the melancholy, poignant, and love-gone-wrong songs (Annabelle, I'll Be All Smiles, Poor Wayfaring Stranger etc.); while I get the chirpy stuff (Spread a Little Love Around, Listen to the Radio and such).

That's when she suggested we might change our name to The Bipolar Sisters.

"The Land of Sandra Dee"

Ah, if only I'd written it! If anyone knows whom to credit, kindly buzz me so I can give them their proper due.

Long ago and far away,
In a land that time forgot,
Before the days of Dylan
Or the dawn of Camelot,

There lived a race of innocents,
And they were you and me,
Long ago and far away
In the Land of Sandra Dee.

Oh, there was truth and goodness
In that land where we were born,
Where navels were for oranges,
And Peyton Place was porn.

For Ike was in the White House,
And Hoss was on TV,
And God was in his heaven
In the Land of Sandra Dee.

We learned to gut a muffler,
We washed our hair at dawn,
We spread our crinolines to dry
In circles on the lawn.

And they could hear us coming
All the way to Tennessee,
All starched and sprayed and rumbling
in the Land of Sandra Dee.

We longed for love and romance,
And waited for the prince,
And Eddie Fisher married Liz,
And no one's seen him since.

We danced to "Little Darlin'",
And Sang to "Stagger Lee"
And cried for Buddy Holly
In the Land of Sandra Lee.

Only girls wore earrings then,
And three was one too many,
And only boys wore flat-top cuts,
Except for Jean McKinney.

And only in our wildest dreams
Did we expect to see
A boy named George with Lipstick
In the Land of Sandra Dee.

We fell for Frankie Avalon,
Annette as oh, so nice,
And when they made a movie,
They never made it twice.

We didn't have a Star Trek Five,
Or Psycho Two and Three,
Or Rocky-Rambo Twenty
In the Land of Sandra Dee.

Miss Kitty had a heart of gold,
And Chester had a limp,
And Reagan was a Democrat
Whose co-star was a chimp.

We had a Mr Wizard,
But not a Mr T,
And Oprah couldn't talk yet
In the Land of Sandra Dee.

We had our share of heroes,
We never thought they'd go,
At least not Bobby Darin,
Or Marilyn Monroe.

For youth was still eternal,
And life was yet to be,
And Elvis was forever,
In the Land of Sandra Dee.

We'd never seen the rock band
That was Grateful to be Dead,
And Airplanes weren't named Jefferson,
And Zeppelins weren't Led.

And Beatles lived in gardens then,
And Monkees in a tree,
Madonna was a virgin
In the Land of Sandra Dee.

We'd never heard of Microwaves,
Or telephones in cars,
And babies might be bottle-fed,
But they weren't grown in jars.

And pumping iron got wrinkles out,
And "gay" meant fancy-free,
And dorms were never coed
In the Land of Sandra Dee.

We hadn't seen enough of jets
To talk about the lag,
And microchips were what was left at
The bottom of the bag.

And Hardware was a box of nails,
And bytes came from a flea,
And rocket ships were fiction
In the Land of Sandra Dee.

Buicks came with portholes,
And side show came with freaks,
And bathing suits came big enough
To cover both your cheeks.

And Coke came just in bottles,
And skirts came to the knee,
And Castro came to power
In the Land of Sandra Dee.

We had no Crest with Fluoride,
We had no Hill Street Blues,
We all wore superstructure bras
Designed by Howard Hughes.

We had no patterned pantyhose
Or Lipton herbal tea
Or prime-time ads for condoms
In the Land of Sandra Dee.

There were no golden arches,
No Perriers to chill,
And fish were not called Wanda,
And cats were not called Bill.

And middle-aged was thirty-five
And old was forty-three,
And ancient were our parents
In the Land of Sandra Dee.

But all things have a season,
Or so we've heard them say,
And now instead of Maybelline
We swear by Retin-A.

And they send us invitations
To join AARP,
We've come a long way, baby,
From the Land of Sandra Dee.

So now we face a brave new world
In slightly larger jeans,
And wonder why they're using
Smaller print in magazines.

And we tell our children's children
of the way it used to be,
Long ago and far away
In the Land of Sandra Dee.

The Greens of Wrath

Once again, my adopted hometown of Salinas gets press--and once again, it's not good. This time it's not gang violence or the threatened public library closing. Now it's killer spinach. The #7 crop in the Valley, pulled from shelves across the country and implicated in at least one death and the illness of over 150 people. My favorite green, and I'm quite nervous about buying it again when it does reappear. Maybe it has something to do with that "healthy" Asian salad I bought at a Jack in the Box on my way to one of the camps this summer--the one that was supposed to be much better for me than those evil fried-in-transfat things, but which resulted in my seeing more of the inside of the festival Porta-potties than anything else that memorable weekend. Guess I need to, ahem, grow my own.

Steinbeck or Woody would probably write something.

Packin' up again...

...and it's off to another festival with Michelle! This time we're headed to Bluegrassin' in the Foothills, where we'll see a lot of great acts like Cherryholmes and Dan Paisley and Southern Grass. This promises to be a really fun weekend, if I can get my tent up and the canopy doesn't blow over like last time. It'll be really cold tonight (39F), which might put a damper on the jamming, but I'm taking along my Uggs and gloves with the fingers cut out just in case. You just can't keep a good grasser down.

This is George Simmons

An average businessman, a regular flight, an ordinary day--nothing appears unusual and his about George Simmons from his picture. He and his wife Diane were on their way to Hawaii from Great Falls, Va., a suburb of Washington, D.C. What was he wearing on the plane that day? Maybe a nice pullover sweater over casual slacks with sensible loafers. Did he bring a book, or was he reading the Wall Street Journal? Did he eat breakfast before they left that morning? Did he have the window or aisle seat?

George was aboard Flight 77, which terrorists hijacked and crashed into the Pentagon on September 11, 2001--no ordinary day. George didn't ask to be remembered today. He didn't ask to be #2412 on the 2,996 Project list. The man a friend called "cheerful, positive, and engaging" by a friend and "one nice fellow who deserved a few more years" by a co-worker wanted to go about the business of retirement, perhaps reading or golfing, eating out, driving, living the rest of his life. Instead, he is part of the montage of honored victims of the horrible crimes which left three gaping holes in the American topography and millions more in the hearts of decent people here and around the world. None of the 2,996 men, women, and children who died that day would have wanted their face there. Like George, they'd have chosen blissful anonymity and life with their families and friends. Like George, they were the human beings whose ordinary but valuable lives were snuffed out by calculating, merciless enemies they never knew.

What went through George's mind as that plane fell towards the ground and then veered madly into the Pentagon? Surely he thought of his loved ones, to whom he wouldn't have a chance to say goodbye. Did he and Diane hold hands and say goodbye? Was he calm? Perhaps he thought of God and eternity. Did he pray? I doubt his thoughts were of bills, money, traffic jams, politics, dry cleaning and what he saw on TV the night before--the thousand details which make up our ordinary lives. One thing is certain: he didn't get up that morning knowing that five years later, a strange woman from California would be writing about him. His was an unexpected and unwanted notoriety.

I most likely wouldn't have noticed George Simmons in an airport crowd, and I doubt that our paths would have crossed in this life; but I'll never forget him now.

Further:George Simmons tribute at Legacy.com



Update:Looks like the host site of the 2996 Project, for which I signed on to remember George, is temporarily down, probably due to overextended bandwidth. Please keep trying. I'm sure it'll be up again soon. In the meantime, here is a quote I saved from the site which explains its mission.

"2,996 is a tribute to the victims of 9/11.

On September 11, 2006, 2,996 volunteer bloggers
will join together for a tribute to the victims of 9/11.
Each person will pay tribute to a single victim.

We will honor them by remembering their lives,
and not by remembering their murderers."

Update 2: Thanks to Michelle Malkin there is a mirror site listing the 2,996 Project memorials and the participating bloggers. Looks like the original site is completely down.

The Eyrie stays put for now

We thought we were moving this month to another nest a little lower down the cliff, but the eagles have landed and are not scrabbling for another perch in the rock right now. Looks like I'm taking over on-site management of the current roost. This being California, we've been inured to some of the other more costly habitats. This was brought home to me yesterday when Irish and I were out walking and saw a lovely little cottage for sale, reduced to a mere $439K and thought to myself, "Wow, such a deal!"

Shoot, we just painted the bedroom after ten years. The least we can do is look at it for awhile.

What's more self-indulgent...

...than a blog?

A blog, a personal Web site and a band MySpace page.

I just can't help myself.

With all the looniness going on, the only sane thing to do is grab my guitar and autoharp, then post about it online. It beats Prozac and is whole heaps better than whining about things over which I have no control. (Not that I'll stop, mind you.)

So check out our new, improved Spindle Sisters sites, now with the miracle cleaning power of mp3s!

Reactions from The Eyrie: World Trade Center

Okay, this isn't a real film review. There are no cast and crew details (that's why IMDb exists, after all) and I've never taken Film Appreciation at even the lowliest level. I just know what I like or don't, and occasionally I'll post that here, because I can.

I seldom see films nowadays for obvious reasons (cash flow, dearth of quality, annoying and rude theatergoers), and ones based on disasters are not usually on my short list when I do go. My husband really wanted to see Oliver Stone's World Trade Center, and I went along to please him more than anything else. Being claustrophobic, the last thing I really wanted to sit through was a depiction of two Port Authority police officers buried alive under the devilish wrath that was September 11, 2001. However, I owed Irish big after he sat through March of the Penguins and Pride and Prejudice, so off we went. I knew it would affect me emotionally and even physically regardless of the director's method. Indeed, there were a few scenes during which I had to look away, and some that made me visibly shake. Irish asked if I needed to leave the theater. I wanted to, but was riveted by the thought that if those people could live through something like that, I could honor them by at least staying to hear and see their story.

The movie is vivid without being ghastly in its realism. The entire cast does justice to the victims, living and dead, of that awful day. At no time do we see a Hooray-for-Hollywood-rootin'-tootin' sensationalized tabloid tale. Instead, bedraggled female characters, all but forgetting to take a breath, let alone fix their makeup, endure the most agonizing day of their lives; men look like they've just been belched from the very maws of death itself; kids lose their childish trust that Mom and Dad will fix everything and the world's an okay place to be. Besides being honest, World Trade Center is a family-honoring and (big surprise!) God-honoring work. (Imagine, people of faith being portrayed positively, even heroically in a mainstream movie!) Above all, I was mightily impressed that Stone managed to make good on the story and not inject his particular political slant. That alone is a huge measure of its success as a film and his as the director. (Did I really just say something complimentary about an Oliver Stone film?).

Nothing being perfect this side of Heaven, the movie has its flaws. Could anyone have accurately portrayed the hardship the rescuers endured, hour after hour digging down into what could very well have been their own tomb? The rescue effort itself had to be truncated, both for time's sake as well as to spare the audience from being itself buried in the tragedy. Some characters were inevitably combined or overlooked. Without giving spoilers, there were a few characters and occurrences in the story line that I chalked up as script devices to move the plot along or add drama. I was amazed to read interviews with the real-life Will Jimeno and John McLoughlin later and find out that these were, in truth, part of their actual experiences. Amazing.

Please don't take children--this is much too overwhelming for anyone younger than mature teenagers to sit through. The use of profanity is brief and quite appropriate. The audience filed quietly out at the end without the usual banter and giggling that accompany a Saturday night crowd. Don't shortchange yourself by sitting this one out. It was the day life changed profoundly for all of us.

Pluto follows St. Christopher

A day of ignominy for the celestial body formerly known as the Planet Pluto--just as the Catholic Church demoted saints like Nicholas and Christopher, so now Pluto has lost the status it held since 1930 and been downgraded to something called a "dwarf planet". No more will third-graders fashion mobiles of nine gradated sizes of crumpled paper. 8 is the new 9 in our trimmed-down solar system.

There, Pluto--that's what you get for horning in on Neptune's orbit. And think of the economic boon as millions of new science textbooks are rushed to print.

Of course I didn't write it, but...

Today’s history test:

1. In 1968 Bobby Kennedy was shot and killed by:
a. Superman
b. Jay Leno
c. Harry Potter
d. A Muslim male extremist between ages 17 and 40

2. At the 1972 Munich Olympics, athletes were massacred by:
a. Olga Corbett
b. Sitting Bull
c. Arnold Schwarzenegger
d. Muslim male extremists between ages 17 and 40

3. In 1979, the US embassy in Iran was taken over by:
a. Lost Norwegians
b. Elvis
c. A tour bus full of 80-year-old women
d. Muslim male extremists ages 17 to 40

4. In 1983, the US Marine barracks in Beirut was blown up (killing 241 marines) by:
a. A pizza delivery boy
b. Pee Wee Herman
c. Geraldo Rivera
d. Muslim male extremists ages 17 to 40

5. In 1985 the cruise ship Achille Lauro was hijacked and a 70 year old American passenger was murdered and thrown overboard in his wheelchair by:
a. The Smurfs
b. Davey Jones
c. The Little Mermaid
d. Muslim male extremists ages 17 to 40

6. In 1988, Pan Am Flight 103 was bombed over Lockerbie, Scotland by:
a. Scooby Doo
b. The Tooth Fairy
c. Mr. Bean
d. Muslim male extremists ages 17 to 40

7. The World Trade Center was bombed the first time in 1993 by:
a. Richard Simmons
b. Grandma Moses
c. Michael Jordan
d. Muslim male extremists 17 to 40

8. In 1998, the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania were bombed by:
a. Mr. Rogers
b. Hillary Clinton
c. World Wrestling Federation
d. Muslim male extremists 17 to 40

9. On 9/11/2001, four airliners were hijacked; two were used as missiles to destroy the World Trade Centers, one crashed into the US Pentagon and the other was crashed by the passengers, killing thousands of people: The hijackers were:
a. Bugs Bunny, Elmer Fudd and friends
b. The Supreme Court of Florida
c. Eight 75 year old grandmothers
d. Muslim male extremists 17 to 40

10. In 2002 reporter Daniel Pearl was kidnapped and murdered in cold blood by:
a. Bonnie and Clyde
b. Captain Kangaroo
c. Billy Graham
d. Muslim male extremists 17 to 40

The world's a mess; let's play the Carter Family

Let's see, the war is Iraq slogs on. Iran,too, rattles its scimitars. North Korea, apparently not enjoying being out of the limelight, defiantly tests warheads. Japan threatens retaliation. Israel and nearly everybody around them are exchanging bombs and kidnappings. No one knows how this will escalate. Is it the final fuse lighting?

Good thing I know Who is in control.

When all about is chaos and freakishness, I just want to grab my autoharp and play "Anchored in Love". It's my equivalent of that sappy 70's gush about planting a tree today, knowing the world will end tomorrow. Somehow, sending a song of faith out there is the only sane thing I know to do. It's my prayer, my manifesto.

"Anchored in Love Divine."

Off to the CBA!

Father's Day weekend has arrived, and you know what that means--bad ties and aftershave in golf ball-shaped bottles, right? Not for me. I celebrated the day a bit early yesterday with the DH, and now Michelle and I are off to the long-awaited CBA Father's Day Weekend Bluegrass Festival up in Grass Valley, California. And guess what I got just in time for my big weekend of jamming and singing? A nice head cold, that's what. Ah, life's ironies. At any rate, I'll attend workshops if I'm not too woozy, and at least get to hear some great music. If I'm not careful, I'll get another nasty sunburn to go with the one from the first Farmer's Market we played at three weeks ago. This time, however, I am prepared, anti-sun kit at the ready, complete with not one but two hats (to double my chances of looking silly). A good time will be had by all, or Mother Scothia will find out why.

Old-time in Oldtown

Michelle and I opened at the new downtown Salinas farmer's market in front of many enthusiastic listeners last weekend, June 3. It was a blast, although I learned two things: sunscreen is not optional; and press people, even very experienced ones, cannot be trusted to shoot your best side. (Yikes!) A nice Russian vendor gave us blinis, saying, "You sing. Now you have lunch!" Another, grateful we'd brought more business his way, gave us carrots and cilantro; the bakery lady "paid" us in bread and cookies. Folks stopped to smile, sing and dance along. Little kids clapped and twirled about. Lots of people took our publicity cards and quite a few signed up for our mailing list. Lunch, water, and parking were all provided by the venue; and we made pretty good tips. What could've been better, other than T-Bone Burnett emerging from the Steinbeck Center to offer us a contract?