"I got friends all over this country.
I got friends in other countries too.
I got friends I haven't met yet.
I got friends I never knew.
I got lovers whose eyes
I've only seen at a glance.
I got strangers for great grandchildren.
I got strangers for ancestors.

I was a long time coming.
I'll be a long time gone.
You've got your whole life to do something
and that's not very long..."
- Ani Difranco

"Oh precious heart, you think you're lost.
Look down. Look down and find your feet.
The next step is the path you're on,
Just don't confuse the light and heat"
- Veda Hille (off of "Path of a Body" on Trajectory records)

tra-jec-to-ry / tra'dg ektari / n: 1.) path of a body moving under given forces

Editor's Note: This is going to be a bit long because I have so many wonderful things to write about but I have persisting in doing yet more wonderful things instead of writing about them, and thus a epic update is born. Rest assured that if you are tagged in or reading this note you will likely find something somewhere that you will hopefully recognize you were a part of when you skim down far enough. The order is somewhat chronological for the course of a week or more and the style is inevitably meandering so you may find yourself a page or two down below the fold.

Preamble

Lately my life has been full of delightful friends, both old and new, wonderful company and, especially of late, fantastic art and performance. I have been re-instilling in my heart the joys of being a teacher of sorts, sharing what skills and patience and attention I can muster to help a few friends learn more about spinning fire staff. I have been spending so much time with fine and delightful companions seeing excellent art and performance that I finally had to pause to share a bit about some of the recent lovely things I have seen.

Disney After Dark

On opening night the Friday before last I saw the creative and talented performers of Stripped♥Screw Burlesque in their Disney After Dark show with a splendid and treasured group of companions. My no longer timely imperative review:
"Go see this show! It is teh awesome. Especially Snow White, the Cheshire Cat and Malificent... but everyone was awesome. So creative. Such narrative arc. Artful and sexy."

Degenerate Art Ensemble: Part II

A couple of weeks ago I saw the Degenerate Art Ensemble exhibit at the Frye and posted about it. Just last week (on a rather massive first date) I was able to visit the Frye exhibit again and then to decide to delay going to the ticktock dance aerial performance and instead insist on seeing the On the Boards: New Works show, including, among other remarkable acts for which I should have written more individual words of praise, a wonderful work by the members of the DAE and the talented people who collaborate with them. I missed the chance to talk to Haruko Nishimura and express my appreciation directly, but fortunately my date was actually a friend of Jherek Bischoff, one of the composers and performers for the show. Afterward at the Sitting Room we were able to praise him and some of the other performers directly and to enjoy their company and conversation over a few drinks.

One particularly special moment in the show came halfway through when, after an entrancing opening piece with Butoh styles and fascinating movement, I had a delightful realization. After immersing myself somewhat in their artistic output and videos and then seeing the first half of the show in person there was a moment where our lead stood and moved from the center of the stage to don a Red Riding Hood outfit (the better to converse through video with her inner wolf). This, and afterward as she sat in conversation over a drink at the Sitting Room, was the first time I had seen her body move and be used in a manner one would normally expect to see for a human body. It tickled me that I had grown to appreciate her captivating movements so much and take them for granted that a simple stroll across the stage to put on boots was momentarily surpassing strange. It reminds me of how used to my kilt wearing ways those around me become, and donning a simple pair of pants for a day or two can be enough make my friends do a satisfying double take.

Passion or Death

The night before last I was able to continue the awesome avalanche of art with a show put on by several friends. Passion or Death is now done it's two night run, and the quotes at the top of this post reflect some of the resonating words that stirred in me from other beloved works longer of my acquaintance.
Here is my review of that show put on by The Harlequin Hipsters and their talented friends (including the always awesome and fun Titanium Sporkestra):
"Now I regret that I wasn't fully aware of the scope and wonder of this show so that I could have recommended it more vehemently and in a timelier fashion. Watch for what Angie Lee and the Harlequin Hipsters do next. And always enjoy yourself when Sporkestra happens."

The quotes at the top of this journal make me think of some of the choices that that were presented in the piece. If you confuse certain material rewards or the pressure for societal acceptance with the warmth of filling your days with things you are passionate about then you truly are confusing the light and the heat. If you always feel like you have the whole rest of your life to do what you really want then you should remind yourself that the whole rest of your life is really not very long and that the next step is the path you're on, and given how roads do diverge in yellow woods, way leading on to way, you may never come back this way again. Perhaps you want to take your next step onto the road less traveled by, make that the path you're on, for sometimes that road wants for wear and will lead you somewhere you have never traveled, gladly beyond any experience. For me choosing to surround and infuse myself with passion and joy whenever I can has truly made all the difference.

Trajectory: The Path of a Body

While I was there a delightfully sweet acquaintance took a moment to attempt to express to me something that she noticed during the evening and other times in the past when we had interacted. She said something about how she "liked the way I moved through this world." The verbalization of her intended expression was imperfect to her own ears, I think, but I also believe that I heard and appreciated the high praise. It made me think of Veda Hille and the dictionary definition of "trajectory." It made me think about the path of a body, and the path of my body, and how I like my choices and how my choices might make those around me react and feel. This morning, dancing in my own little world while waiting to order coffee at a corporate coffee stop, I appreciated how the barrista stopped and enjoyed my little dance for a good number of seconds before I noticed I was being observed. I know I have some amount of "look at me! look at me!" desire to be noticed and to be "different", but I appreciate when it is confirmed that a lot of the things I do which may be seen as out of the ordinary are really natural and instinctive things. Another part of me will add rational and philosophical levels of explanation that I might be providing to others some momentary, sparkly, glittery example confirming that the list of options and actions that one will consider as possible to choose at any given moment is destined to make up only the tiniest fraction out of the plethora of things we can all in fact choose from. There are so many more things possible in heaven or on earth than are dreamt of in each of our philosophies. It is possible to hear the strains of a relentlessly exuberant marching band standing on the tables in the next room and to vigourously dance the wild rumpus like one of Sendak's wild things with a lady named Whiskey Troublepants Bliss while standing in line at a bar. It is possible to sing out loud at nearly any time to your music player (or to a memory or echo in your head of music heard before) and to dance anytime or any place like no one is watching, or like everyone is watching, or like your eyes are closed and you yourself are not watching. My brain will try to tell me that sometimes, at some level, my antics are an attempt to draw the eyes of some tunnel-visioned passerby a little to the left or the right (or down, or back and to the left, or up up up up up up up) for a tiny moment so they can wonder for that brief second to themselves "If he can do that then why can't I?" "Can I?" "Maybe I can."

Still, after all that musing I am happy to assert my belief about the truth of the matter, about the fact that my action really does often enough reflect my passions and inclinations as directly as I can muster. Once again it is resonating in my head through dint of the beautiful compaction of the poetry and the words I've managed to borrow and accumulate from so many favourite wordsmiths over the years:

"I do it for the joy it brings
because I am a joyful girl,
because the world owes me nothing
and we owe each other the world.
I do it cuz it's the least I can do.
I do it cuz I learned it from you.
I do it just because I want to....
because I want to."
- Ani Difranco

ticktock:domestic variations

Last week I chose the DAE instead of this show since it was only on for that weekend, and Saturday I selected the closing night of Passion or Death with the logic that there was one more showing on Sunday for this intriguing aerial performance. That made it much more distressing when we arrived just at 7PM at FRED's Wildlife Refuge to find ourselves (and a few others) unable to find a way into the space for our last chance to see the ticktock:domestic variations aerial/theatre/dance performance. Finally discovering that we were at the back door and managing to find the front door (and indeed a pair of front row seats) in plenty of time for the show was a relief.

These three ladies managed to produce a truly new combination of aerial and dance and especially theatre using a unique, custom set of apparatus which, due to their clearly familiar and domestic shapes and origins, leant a whole burbling subtext of connotations and connections to their movements and performances. I saw three different characters come through. Perhaps I saw a supple fox, a strong and beautiful matriarch and a fearsome tiger, or perhaps they were each something else. Together they were approaching in a fresh and engaging way the circus arts, with which I am really very familiar and on rare occasions even a mite jaded. The most fun was the synchronized and interleaved bed jumping, and the most fraught with implied and real danger and tension was making tea on the stove, and they were my two favourite pieces. The table piece was also beautifully interleaved, the chairs delightfully choreographed, and the tub and first solo piece for the bed were filled with interesting movements that all really impressed me.

A lucky man

To have the time and resources to make these choices and the friends and social connections to reveal these opportunities to me and the fine companions to share it all with... although I am certain that it is possible I could be a luckier man, I also know that have far more than any average share of luck. Thank you all for helping to make my life a really nice place to spend my time.

Love,
Tony

After years of seeing their striking and beautiful images on posters and in the local weekly papers I finally managed to see the output of the Degenerate Art Ensemble yesterday at the Frye Art Museum with Jhayne. The static displays of their costumes and original musical instruments were lovely but they, along with the other aural and video installations, identified quite clearly the need to see one of their performances when I next have the opportunity.

I was especially drawn to the Deer Leg Dance from their Cuckoo Crow performance. The movement and the sounds produced by the prostheses used in the choreography definitely captured me.






I will have to more fully explore their YouTube and Vimeo channels and, having unfortunately missed their recent Frye performances of their new Red Shoes show, keep myself informed of when their next performances will take place.

Also pleasantly running through my head and making me quietly sing out load lately, Yeasayer - Tightrope (a beautiful rendition of which appears in the delightful Take Away Show they did in an apartment in France which, while rough around the edges and not spectacularly polished, has a kind of intimate energy that pleases me greatly)

BTW: If you visit the Frye to see the Degenerate Art Ensemble show before it closes on June 19th you should be sure not to skip the Tête-à-tête exhibition, a densely hung collection of portraits that was also worthy of attention.

"We do on stage the things that are supposed to happen off.
Which is a kind of integrity, if you look on every exit as an entrance somewhere else."
- Tom Stoppard, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead

Last night was spent backstage, packing up after the show’s run was over and making an inventory of masks, stage weapons, scripts and cue sheets. I noted how different it all looked from here, and how different it felt. On the stage during the action, with the lights and music and the crafted fog I let the shadows and my mind make each mask so fearsome and each axe, sword spear or knife so filled with menace and danger, light glinting off of a razor's edge, ready to draw blood. I forgot all my lines and I dropped my sword and cowered to the edge of the stage. The conflict was left hanging and so much of my part left unperformed, words left unspoken. Sometimes she would try to whisper my cues to me or entreat me to pick up my sword and complete our dance, not to worry about her weapons and especially not to worry that my sword would draw her blood or my own. She would ask me to trust in each other and our ability to keep each other safe throughout it all. The text was written with an ebb and flow, room for resolution of the conflicts and dénouement, room for happily ever after and the graceful arc of a satisfying narrative. The performance, with my part excised, ended with a whimper as an unsatisfying gentle tragedy, a story of squandered potential and wasted opportunities.

But after the show, after the curtain fell and the lights came up and the doors were closed, now it all looks so different. Now, as the protagonists remove their makeup and prepare to move on inevitably to what comes next, it seems that the paralysis is gone. Now I can stack the harmless tin stage weapons in a pile, counting off the numbers for each one and noting how now there is no more fear of the glinting edges. I can see the cue sheets in my mind’s eye and run down the list of each missed entrance and every time the stage went silent when the time had come for the soliloquy. I can clearly remember and utter the dropped lines word for word and play out the production in my head the way it could have gone. I can look at the formerly fearsome masks and see the glue and papier-mâché and the seams of their construction and hang them on the wall without any need to hide behind mine or cower from the gaze of another. My tongue is loosened and my mind is cleared and now that I am off stage and after the moment I can finally do more of what was needed and what was missing, now that the need is gone and there nothing but too little and no time but too late.

Even so, with the props returned to their proper places and with nothing left for me but to navigate through the exit, I am standing in the open door and stepping through to my entrance somewhere else.
---
Notwithstanding the overworked metaphor in the above critical review, I find myself getting slowly and predictably less and less sad about the past and less and less consumed by what I may have done wrong or how my failures might stack up. I can compile my learnings and move forward and improve and grow without lowering my opinion of myself. I can recognize that I have learned to be satisfied and content with my life, to be fundamentally pleased with where I am, because I am actually very lucky in how I have lived with few woes and setbacks and little struggle. I have fortunately landed in a place in my life with security and comfort and with a personal landscape filled with fascinating experiences and dynamic, caring and intelligent friends. I can learn gently to overcome my fears about risk and conflict and to accept more responsibility and possible consequences and to flex my potential and drive more. I can reconcile my contentment and fluid and accepting nature with an ability to want for more and to make a good life even better, keeping all the gentle benefits and calm bliss of the one while gathering the rewards and fulfillment of the other. To continue to stay open and not to shy away from things that seem scary or difficult and to truly own my responsibility and capacity to succeed or fail and accept that doing or saying a wrong thing is more often less painful for everyone than doing nothing at all.

"And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom."
- Anais Nin

Video: Jhayne and I - Time and Lapses [My Entire Flickr account in four and a half minutes]



This is a montage of all the public photos from my Flickr account as of 2010-12-20. It primarily runs the course of the couple of years since I reconnected with Jhayne:
- 0:03 - Starting around mid October 2008, when I met Jhayne again
- 1:05 - Norwescon in April 2009, when we wordlessly and mutually decided to embark on a relationship
- 1:22 - Through the year and a half of weekends, beginning May 1st 2009, throughout which we traveled back and forth between Vancouver and Seattle to see each other, not missing a single weekend together during that entire time
- 4:22 - Then Santarchy 2010, now mid December, my first weekend without Jhayne in over one and a half years.

Many parts of those two or so years are not seen here (never photographed, never uploaded, never made public on Flickr or lost on a laptop on the 545 bus) but vignettes from most of the course of my relationship with Jhayne are visible in the frames of these four and a half minutes.

It was nice to watch so many sweet and loving times together flicker by on the screen. I spent some time looking back over our past and mourning the loss of the partnership so that I can look forward to our future. This week she has been in Seattle and collected her things and we have started navigating the path of our friendship.

Finally, I find myself looking forward to it.

Tony

Note: Follow the link to YouTube for a click-able listing of interesting time points in the video (also helps if the embedded video is cut off)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=49jNo0Rc8YI

The photo sets in the video are all available here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/purplepaintedfiretiger/sets/?&page=1

Video: Arriving at Santarchy and sneaking up on Katie

- More pics and videos from Santarchy 2010

I am very grateful to Katie for an invite to join them for their Santarchy adventures and to the excellent group of people we were with. Some of the faces were familiar acquaintances that I got to know better and others were new to me. I am especially grateful for their hospitality and companionship at a time when I definitely needed it. This past weekend was to be my first spent alone without visiting Jhayne and it could have been very hard on me. Instead, the Friday was spent with old friends playing Mao until the wee hours. The following morning started a bit late and a mite hungover with a drive back to the Hill and an hour and a half spent getting "hatted up" before going to join Santarchy. The first hat that I bought was a fairly unique long one that would have served well enough for me. Then I realized what I actually needed was to wear my everyday hat, but that my hat needed a hat. I found and cannibalized a Christmas teddy bear "blanket caddy" to get the tiny hat I needed and voila, I was ready to go:



After arriving and finding my friends (video above) I found a great home for the first hat and had a grand time with some lovely people. By dint of their gracious hospitality I was able to stay surrounded and connected with a collective of friendly, sweet and interesting people through the night and then have a tasty brunch in the morning. That left only an appropriately small part of Sunday afternoon for the mourning. Just enough for me to have a few good, introspective and heart gripping moments about what it will mean to be alone now, defining a direction entirely of my own and no longer focused on my partner and our time together. Enjoying her companionship and improving her life in little ways that I could manage has happily been a main focus of my life for a year an a half. Now I am ready to shift the focus to myself. And I was relieved by my awareness that I am in no way actually alone, despite the gently fading echoes of ache in my heart. Jhayne is still here, and we will be friends. We will be very good friends, I believe. Even more uplifting than that is the awareness that I am fortunate enough to be surrounded by a wealth of wonderful, vibrant and caring people to whom I need only reach out in order to banish any melancholy thoughts that I am alone in this world.

Thanks, my friends.

Elbow - The Bones Of You

This morning:
Out of my iPod the tentacles of this song stretched and my world moved in slow mo as I walked and I thought deeply of Jhayne and how I love the bones of her. That I will never escape, nor ever want to. I had a far off thought of Thursday, May 1st, 2014 when I will listen to this song and I will be 5 years ago, one red rose in hand and one jade, seeking her arrival with such tender and abiding hope for our future. I will smile as I pull image on image like beads of a rosary, savouring each fragment and memento. Thankfully I will still have her in my bones, a nourishing marrow of the joys that we have shared that will continue ever to feed my soul.

Update from Jhayne: "making it all official like on the internets"
I built a lovely life with Tony, but even though we did good, it didn't quite fit. Here's to new happiness in our futures and a deep abiding love.

If you are tagged in this note on the face books then I had something to say about you in my musical meandering below based on what my mp3 player shuffled into my ears today. Of course you might need your browser's Ctrl-F find tool to locate it in this long stream of consciousness.

I almost never indulge in these "tag 25 people" chain memes but I've been working from home on some debugging and HTML/CSS/Javascript today and my MP3 player is doing it's eclectic best to mix up the sound scape so I will share some of its selections and my thoughts thereon. If you feel like doing your own list of 25 (or have recently done so) them link to it in the comments below. I will also be editorializing at length on each chosen song because I will can never write 5 words when I could have written 50 (or 500). I expect that only the most dedicated or readers will make it through the whole thing. :-T

Once you've read this you may, should you so choose:

(1) Turn on your MP3 player or music player on your computer.
(2) Go to SHUFFLE songs mode.
(3) Write down the first 25 songs that come up - artist and title - NO editing please.
(4) [alternate non-tagging instructions] Post the result somewhere and add a link to it in the comments here. I'd love to hear about what you're listening to and your thoughts on your favourite things among your set of tracks. (BTW: thanks for tagging my Studley)


1) - Someone to Watch Over Me - Jeri Southern [from S' Wonderful: The Great Classics of George Gershwin]

2) - Heroes - Utah Phillips w/ Ani Difranco [from The Past Didn't Go Anywhere]
I love his storytelling and have nearly a dozen of his albums. I am sorry he passed on but glad I saw him perform many times before he shuffled off this mortal coil.

3) - Where do We Go From Here - The Cast of Buffy (feat. Anthony Stewart Head) [from Once More With Feeling]
This is perhaps a mite embarrassing for me, in some company, but ever since my dear friends put on a backyard and then basement production of this show and I developed an abiding affection for the songs while watching both productions and listening to the players practice and recording their production for posterity (and then forgetting to share it with them).

4) - Love Walked In (Single) - Louie Armstrong [from S' Wonderful: The Great Classics of George Gershwin]
Popular disc on shuffle today, I guess.

5) - Whatever Way the Wind Blows - New Grass Revival [from The Best of New Grass Revival]
Surely this was a recommendation from Tamea. Fun little bit o' twang.

3) - Something to Sing About - The Cast of Buffy (feat. Sarah Michelle Gellar) [from Once More With Feeling].
Not my favourite singer from the cast, nor my favourite song. I think Molly did it better, myself. Hi Molly!

4) - That Must Be the Place - Talking Heads [from Talking Heads]

5) - Ahead By a Century - The Tragically Hip [from Trouble in the Henhouse]
First major bit of Canadiana. Lovely song. I like other songs on the album more and live versions of this song more, but still a lovely song for the mix.

6) - Madonna Sex Book - Bill Hicks [from Shock & Awe]
I was reminded of his existence by Jhayne's collection. Dark and bitter and funny man.

7) - Always Look on the Bright Side of Life - Monty Python (feat. Eric Idle) [from Monty Python]

8) - Hang Down Your Head - Tom Waits [from Rain Dogs]

9) - Dream - Michael Bublé‎ [from Call Me Irresponsible]

10) - Candidacy - Utah Phillips w/ Ani Difranco [from The Past Didn't Go Anywhere]
I might vote for him posthumously since his platform for "good government" described in this track does not require him to actually be alive, in point of fact.

11) - Stuck on Repeat (Fake Blood Remix) - Little Boots [from salacioussound.com]
I think this little bit of electronic candy came to me through Jhayne as well, but I might be wrong

12) - Heartbeats - The Knife
This song always makes me think of Haley-bird and Eoin and the gang from that time. Hi Eoin! Thanks for playing this a lot when you visted.

13) - The Wherewithal - The Tragically Hip [from Fully Completely]
This song is taking me back to a young lady from years ago who brought The Hip deeper into my heart. Here is a link to concert in Seattle I went to last minute -
http://www.flickr.com/photos/purplepaintedfiretiger/sets/72157619930618332/

14) - My Ally - Victoria Williams [from Loose]
A recommendation from Tamea again? I think so. Pretty. A bit like Jewel... before she switched to ultra-pop style... which was her prerogative, of course... and I kind of liked her Intuition video with all the pop tropes and such. Meandering tangent there.

15) - Courage - The Tragically Hip [from Fully Completely]
I love the cover of this song by Sarah Polley for The Sweet Hereafter soundtrack. Slow... painful... sad... just like the Atom Agoyan movie in question.

16) - Cold cold Ground - Tom Waits [from Frank's Wild Years]

17) - Gin & Juice - The Gourds [The Gourds]
I love this bluegrass twang cover! Just too much fun! Thanks again, Tamea.

18) - We're All Mad - Circus Contraption (feat. Schmootzi the Clod) [from The Half Wit's Descent]
My absolute favourite circus troupe of all time (loved them since their Gallimaufry show back in 2002 or 2003). I saw their closing season of the Show to End All Shows 4 or 5 times over last summer with many friends, trying to milk the last bit of their run for all it was worth. Now that the troupe itself is officially no more I am generally willing to go to any show that involves any of these talented musicians and performers, whether is is singing or emcee work from Armitage Shanks, Aerial performance from Lara Paxton or musical goodness from Schmootzi the Clod and God's Favourite Beefcake. I would love to purchase their hopefully forthcoming "Circus Contraption: A Bracing Curative for the Afflictions of our Time" DVD retrospective of their entire troupe career featuring bits of all their shows and exclusive special features and interviews from their miscellaneous video archives (hint, hint to the circus gang: If you can make such a DVD as I describe without it costing you an arm and a leg I will buy 6 of them for me and my friends).
This exercise reminded me to check in on their soundtrack album for their last run and I found that is in finally available! Huzzah! Snag! (both the download and the Cd for maximum support $$s, immediate gratification listening and then "in my hand" physical satisfaction of the actual CD)
http://circuscontraption.com/music.html
Preview "America", "Drink It Down" (bottle choir song), "Love Makes the World Go Round" and "Jetpack" and then buy the goodness: http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/circuscontraption5
("It's Been Good To Know Ya" and "Slop Buckets" are excellent songs from the show but the previews don't get the best bits)

19) - Good To Know Ya - Circus Contraption (feat. Schmootzi the Clod) [from The Half Wit's Descent]
The lyrics of the chorus from this song have been wandering through my head from time to time since a friend of mine recently passed on. It may seem to be an odd choice for an elegiac song, but I found it lovely and apt for a life filled with circuses and fun like I believe his was. You will be missed Luke.
"It's been good to know ya.
The time has come for us to say good-bye.
Put on your mask and don your feather boa.
We'll sing and dance until the end of time."
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001A635QO/ref=dm_dp_trk13

20) - United States of Pop 2008 (Viva La Pop) - Dj Earworm
So glad this came up on the shuffle. Jhayne shared this with me and now I cannot hear any of billboard's top songs for 2008 without hearing this epic audio/video mashup. An extraordinary work merging all of the year's 25 songs and videos into a lovely pastiche of the entire year in pop music. Much like the Justin Bieber song "U Smile" slowed down 800%, this mashup makes songs I would never normally listen to into a new and interesting work that I enjoy. (Check out the 2009 and 2007 mashups too, Annie Lennox "Backwards/Forwards", "Come Together As One" and some of his other excellent work)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XLaZ-8IMtt0&hd=1

21) - Here's a Quarter - Travis Tritt [from The Best of Travis Tritt]
A fun track from my youth listening to country with my mom.

22) - The Sweater - Meryn Cadell [from Angel Food for Thought]
I loved this video, and Inventory too, from Much Music in my youth. She wrote some truly clever lyrics and had a very special sense of humour and spoken word poetry in with the music. I think Job Application and Flight Attendant are still hilarious and oddly topical in this age of rampant unemployment and shameful overreaching by the TSA and I think the first track "Secret" is truly beautiful and moving. I am not sure what he has been doing nowadays, but I should check up on him.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VHQFDf96yrw&hd=1 (and the other tracks are in the related videos)

23) - Route 66 - The Manhattan Transfer [from The Very Best of The Manhattan Transfer]

24) - I've Got a Theory - The Cast of Buffy (feat. ensemble cast) [from Once More With Feeling]

25) - Bei Mir Bistu Shein - The Andrews Sisters [from 20th Century Masters: The Best of the Andrews Sisters]
I've always liked this classic and the many rendition's I've heard, including one by a friend of mine. Hey there Dane. This 1937 Single titled as "Bei Mir Bist Du Schöen," the popular quasi-German spelling instead of the original Yiddish title's transliteration.

Unfortunately none of my more interesting world music stuff was shuffled into this first 25, nor was much of my prodigious Ani Difranco collection, but that just indicates that I need to tune the mix of tracks on my iPod some more so shuffle songs ranges the way I'd like it to.

Music recently came back into my daily life more after an absence. I was forgetting to turn it on when I worked or walked. I am very glad the joyful noise has returned. Now I am singing in the streets and dancing at the bus stops, to the varying chagrin, amusement or delight or the passersby, which is wholly as it should be.

Wandering through pictures new and old in Jhayne's recently updated photostream I ran across this one and was moved to add a comment for this photo that struck me as a sort of median temporal marker.
"Jhayne Victorious redux":

May 3rd, 2009


My comment:

I had actually titled the photo "Jhayne Triumphant":

September 13th, 2008


That original photo was taken the day after the evening that I met you six years later again. And this redux was taken seven and a half months after that on the first Sunday of the first Month of Sunday's of our six months together and counting.

xox
-T

A world music playlist I threw together after a friend sent me a link to Grooveshark.com.
(From facebook click on "View Original Post" to see the playlist embedded properly)