SO last week

I went out to go to work the other morning and found my car covered in frost. I wish I hadn't been in such a hurry--it was a regular gallery of designs--but I was able to stop and snap a picture or two.

Today, by contrast, the weather must have been up in the 70's. I found a beautifully easy reed lurking in the depths of my pipe case and spent a very happy hour in the shade of an oak tree (yes, it was the sort of weather where you actually wanted to stand in the shade!) paying attention to some long-neglected tunes.

Cold Comfort

When we were growing up we had a picture-book version of James Herriot’s story Moses the Kitten. Though it was a delightful story, the thing that made the biggest impression on my young mind was the rather grim line:

I had driven about ten miles from home, thinking all the time that the Dales always looked their coldest, not when they were covered with snow, but as now, when the first sprinkling streaked the bare flanks of the fells in bars of black and white like the ribs of a crouching beast.


For some reason I have never since been able to look at the hills north of town without recalling that comparison. Above you can see them as they looked last week—ribs and all.

We are currently in a “winter storm warning." We woke up to the heaviest and most delightful rain that has blessed these parts in quite some time. I attempted a bit of a jog early in the afternoon and got an eyeful of the black of trees, the grey of rocks and the white of the hills. (At one point, I also got an earful of sleet--very unpoetic, not to mention uncomfortable.) I must have been in a literary mood this week because when I passed a great flock of sparrows huddled together on the telephone wires singing away like mad, I felt a reminder of something tugging at my brain. After a hot shower at home, I found this in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight:

“. . .with many birds bleakly on the bare twigs sitting
that piteously piped there for pain of the cold.”
(translation by J.R.R. Tolkien)

Nothing about telephone wires, but it does capture the feeling of that rather forced cacaphony in the sleet.

Quote of the Week

Earlier this week, I stumbled across 41 Stories By O. Henry. Browsing through the titles, I discovered that I had read very few of them, which gives me a good deal to look forward to. (I've been a great fan of The Ransom of Red Chief from a tender age). I'm reading it in pieces. Sometimes I read a story, sometimes I just pass the time with a paragraph or two. Below is one of my favorite pieces so far, a bit from "Hostages to Momus":

"We was waked up in a yellow pine hotel by the noise of flowers and the smell of birds. Yes, sir, for the wind was banging sunflowers as big as buggy wheels against the weatherboarding and the chicken coop was right under the window."

???--ology

The study of other people's studies is always entertaining. There are probably in this world, people who are not merely linguists, but who are experts on Old Irish verbs. There are probably other people (in fact, I know there are people, because I read it in a book a few months ago) who specialize in cranefly taxonomy (this is important, because there are more than 1,000 species of craneflies in North America, and somebody should be able to tell them apart). Today on the phone I met a man with a specialty that was startlingly delightful. He was an expert on bottle necks. I came away dazed with the realization that there was that much to know about bottle necks and that someone had taken the time to learn it all.
A few months ago, in an evening of deep study I myself discovered that an empty Redbridge Beer bottle produces a rather sharp F# if you blow across the top (Jacobite Ale, which comes in a fatter bottle, gives you a somewhat truer, but still slightly sharp, F#). The gentleman who called the shop this morning was also interested in the musical qualities of bottles, but from quite a different angle. He sells handmade slides for guitars; you can see them here:
http://gerryglombecki.com/Sliders.html
Since I am in the music sales business and since I have heard the term "bottleneck guitar" applied to some types of blues, I should have presupposed the existence of such an expert as Glombecki. I did know (because, by weird and inexplicable coincidence I had to look it up just yesterday for a customer) that different players will wear their slides on different fingers; I also have been alive on this earth long enough to notice that different people have different sizes of fingers. Still, I was amazed (amazed is really too mild a word, but my brain is tired, probably from being so amazed, and I can't think of a more amazing synonym) at the expertise it takes to fit the perfect slide. Glombecki knows which brand of liquor comes in a bottle with a neck to so many sixteenths of an inch, so that if he gets a request for a custom-made piece, he can accomodate it. The story that really floored me was about a blues guitarist who called him with a request for a slide made of some extinct sort of tequila bottle--and Glombecki knew right off that it was extinct. He can dremel out the inside of a neck to make it larger, of course, but he has to keep his eyes open for bottles which might accomodate slender fingers.
Now I must admit I know more about slides than I know about how they are used, but I suppose if I sit by the phone long enough , I just may learn that too.

Happy New Year

It seems like an appropriate time to wish everyone Happy 2008. . .and likewise, since the 12th Day of Christmas hasn't come around quite yet--Merry Christmas!

Ghost in the Graveyard

One wonderful thing about being a tutor or teacher is that you are constantly learning, not only in an effort to keep up with your students, but *from* your students. On the music side of things, I still use a lick in the "Jesse Polka" that one of my students put there accidentally about ten years ago. I never would have thought of it myself and it certainly adds a nice bit of variety to the song.
On the more practical side of things, last week after a literature lesson, I learned how to play "Ghost in the Graveyard". Like all the better games, it is somewhat conducive to black eyes and bloody noses unless handled with care--so consider yourselves warned. You choose somebody to be the "ghost". Then you turn off all the lights (and if you are truly thoughtful put away any china statues that are standing out in the open). Then, to make sure the ghost has no advantages you put a blanket over his head. (You see what I mean? It's the sort of game in which subtlety, stealth and sharp ears are really much more useful than speed. . .but the high-spirited and excitable still insist on running into corners, couches, refrigerators, and any available stationary object. The more timorous and crafty (me) prefer to sidle along the wall, feeling carefully and silently for the corners and sliding their feet over the floor so as not to come suddenly upon the couch leg. Even so, it is fun. Excuse me, I digress.) After you have the ghost properly blanketed, you begin to sneak about the room. The idea is quite simple--that the ghost is going to tag you if he finds you, and if he does, you are going to be the ghost. No matter which side of the blanket you are on, this concept is infinitely intriguing.

You learn something new. . .

I was thinking:
1. I don't write an awful lot on here
and
2. There are a lot of interesting things to write about, or even just to know about.

For instance, there is the sarrusophone. One of the fellows who comes into the shop is a clarinet/saxophone/oboe teacher and in a random moment recently, he brought up the sarrusophone. It was, evidently, meant to be a marching version of bassoon-like instruments. Somehow, it never caught on much (the very look of it frightens and perplexes me, but then again, I'm just a piper--what do I know?) If you read every word in this article, you will know more about sarrusophones than I do. . .and you are welcome to it:
http://idrs.colorado.edu/publications/dr/DR8.2/DR8_2Joli.html