Baby, I'm amazed

"It's a popular fact that 90% of the brain is not used and, like most popular facts, it is wrong. Not even the most stupid Creator would go to the trouble of making the human head carry around several pounds of unnecessary grey goo if its only real purpose was, eg, to serve as a delicacy for certain remote tribesmen in unexplored valleys, it is used. One of its functions is to make the miraculous seem ordinary, and turn the unusual into the usual. Otherwise, human beings, forced with the daily wondrousness of everything, would go around wearing a stupid grin, saying "WOW" a lot. Part of the brain exists to stop this happening. It is very efficient, and can make people experience boredom in the middle of marvels" 
-Terry Pratchett, "Small Gods”

Yesterday I spent the day tweeting amazing things. I hadn't planned to do so, it arose out of the simple reason that first thing in the morning, I often don't have anything of particular interest to remark upon and therefore tweeted this:




Then I decided it would be fun to carry on throughtout the rest of the day (they're in reverse chronological order and okay...there's one that doesn't follow the theme at all).





We do live in an amazing world.

Ciao,

Andrea

Going solo: a night with Jill Barber

On November 22nd (yes, I'm rather behind) I went to see Jill Barber. This was my first solo concert ever since the lovely Andrew was in Baltimore for a conference. I tweeted some time ago that I was distressed that the concert fell over Andrew's absence and would I go by myself? A little later I got a response from Jill herself telling me that she'd be my date, but that she couldn't sit with me. I decided I wanted to see Jill bad enough that I would brave up and go by myself. I figured since the venue was relatively small (Myer Horowitz) and it was a jazz concert that I would be fine on my own. As it turned out there were three solo concert goers sitting in a row--the front row I might add. Naturally I'm way too much of an introvert to have drummed up a conversation with either of the other two.

So yes, I was sitting in the front row for this concert, just off to one side. It gave me a great view of the show and so it was easy to see that the band and Jill were having a wonderful time. Accompanying Jill was a 5-piece band, all guys (Jill pointed out that one problem with touring with only other men is that sometimes she starts to become a 'dude' too). There was a guitar, and a bass player (mostly upright but some electric as well), a drummer, a keyboardist (he played piano, keyboard and accordion) and a violinist/clarinetist/saxophonist who also had a whistle solo in one of the songs. They got individually introduced about a third of the way through the concert, with Jill taking the time to tell a little story about each one of them. They were all excellent, and as I said, they all seemed to have a really good time, enjoying the music they played.

Jill's tour was to promote her new album Mischievous Moon, which came out back in April, and I've had a copy since. A good chunk of her set list came from this record, although there were several from the previous one (Chances), and a few earlier ones I didn't know. This concert was very different from the previous one with Sarah Sleen, which was more of a rock sound, and considerably louder. Also, the singers shows were quite different. While when Sarah told stories she fiddled around on the piano, everyone was quiet as Jill spoke. Jill has a very light and cheery voice, where Sarah is more solemn. I would say most of Jill's songs were about love (and mostly happy), where Sarah's were 'deep' and considerably more dower. Also, Jill primarily just sings, only occasionally picking up her guitar, where Sarah played piano for almost everything. I liked them both for their different qualities.

I really enjoyed the concert. It was fun and if the seating hadn't been theatre style, I would have loved to dance (and if my partner had been there with me). At the end, Jill told a story about a dream she'd once had (this was the only time the band played while she talked--creating 'mood' music) where a woman with a broken heart had gone to a doctor to have him fix it. This segway eventually lead into Don't Let Me Go. At on point during the song she tried to get the audience to participate (you know how musicians will stop singing a popular song and expect the audience to keep going) but we were a little slow on the uptake. So she stopped singing, and we didn't pick up the slack. It took another try before everyone caught on. Then, as this was the 'last' song of the evening she wondered to the back of the stage to allow her musicians to jam for it bit--I thought this was kind of awesome.

Of course, as at most concerts I've been to, the last song is never quite the last song. There was an encore, and as with Sarah Sleen's concert, someone yelled out a request, and Jill obliged the fan by playing Hard Line. Then she got down to the planned encore, which was much slower, quieter song titled Lullaby (which is apparently also a children's storybook.

Jill and the band--I think this was just after the concert started.

Jill and the band performing 'A Wish Under My Pillow.' The band sang backup with just slight accompaniment from the acustic guitar and string bass, which was also used as a drum kit :)

Ciao,

Andrea

The 'Land and Sea' of it: Sarah Sleen in concert

Wednesday night Andrew and I headed out to the Myer Horowitz Theatre at the U of A to catch Sarah Sleen in concert. It was the first time we'd been to the Myer Horowitz for a show and Andrew's first time seeing Sarah Sleen live. I'd seen and heard for her for the first time a few years ago when co-workers asked if I wanted to go see Rufus Wainwright (who I'd also never heard of before) and I said, 'Sure, why not?' A friend of mine had a couple of Sarah's CDs so I was able to familiarize myself with her music before the concert. That show was at the Winspear and Sarah performed by herself as the opening act. I remember she just sort of appeared on stage (the piano was closed to the edge) and got to it. I was impressed by what a fantastic musician she was.

I don't remember exactly how I found out that she was playing Edmonton. I knew she had a new CD out, Land and Sea, from my habitual CBC listening, but I don't think they said anything about her coming to Alberta. At any rate, I asked Andrew if he wanted to go, and he agreed (we did have her last record, The Baroness, so he was at least a little familiar with Sarah's music).

Wednesday came, and of course that was the night the big snow dump was supposed to start (thankfully it didn't get going until after we got home). Our seats were about halfway up the floor on the right side. Myer Horowitz isn't a huge theatre as we discovered, so it still felt like we were quite close to the stage. The show was reasonably full, and the audience certainly seemed appreciative (as I'll touch on a little later). Once again, when Sarah arrive on stage, she just sort of tip-toed out (barefoot too) and took her place at the piano. This time she had an band backing her up--guitar, bass, drums, and a Jack-of-all-trade rhythm guitar/synthesizer/piano/backup vocalist. The bulk of the music played during the evening came from the new album Land and Sea, so I didn't know a lot if (only picking the album up at the show), but she played some oldies as well.

If you've never seen Sarah, she is an entertainer. She tells lots of stories as she tinkers around on the piano, chats with the audience and such. She performed a small section in the middle solo, at which point audience members began shouting out songs they wanted to hear. I guess some of them were quite old as she remarked, those songs weren't just from the vault, they were 'archeological'. She also at one point remarked that the last time she was at the Myer Horowitz there'd been fancy lighting. Immediately after, the lighting guy (or gal) put up an Oilers emblem, to which Sarah replied: didn't they have cool shapes, flowers, waves, etc. The lighting person (who proved to be paying attention the whole night) brought up a flame pattern over top of the Oilers and Sarah commented: 'This is what I like to call, the Oilers in Hell.' We all got a good chuckle over this.

I thoroughly enjoyed the concert, and Andrew seemed to too. The lyrics to Sarah's songs are very poetic. Sometimes, they're very deep with lots of meaning like The Day We Saved the World, or Attention Archers, but sometimes they're a bit more frivolous like Everybody's on T.V. Also, many of her songs were really rockin'. Maybe this is just the difference of listening to her music live compared to on CD at a reasonable volume, but the concert was actually pretty loud. Definitely the lead guitarist was having a having a good time, especially toward the end when he really got into the music. I was amused by the bassist who seemed to have a bit of a 'hipster' as he just sort of stood there and plucked away at his instrument. Sarah herself bounced away on her piano bench as she played.

When they end the show and the lights went down, the audience clapped for probably a full minute (it always seems longer, but I'm sure it wasn't) before Sarah came back out. As she took her place at the piano audience members again shouted out songs they wanted to hear. She gave into the demand and played a song I was vaguely familiar with, but isn't on any of the CDs I have (sorry, I don't know the name). Before she played she prefaced it by saying that she might need help to get through the lyrics. She didn't have any problems, but man was it sad. When she was done she commented, 'Is that was you really wanted?' Yes, by the audience response, it was. Don't worry, though, we didn't leave the theatre feeling miserable and depressed, the band came back out and they rocked two more songs before they finished the concert.

Sarah Sleen, at the piano...I know, how can you possibly tell?

Sarah picking up the mic to sing a few songs free from the piano.

Ciao,

Andrea

P.S. If you're reading this through Facebook, you will no longer be able to do so as of November 22nd. You will need to visit my actual blog site where you can then add it to any reader service you might use, or you can bookmark it and visit it every now and again.

Another romantic night at the ESP...I mean, ESO

Friday night was our second concert of the 2011-2012 Masters series. Again, we're really enjoying our new seats in the loges. We walked to the Winspear (as it was probably one of the last warm nights of the year) and then took our time getting up to our seats. Had we been sitting in our old, centre of the aisle seats, we would have had to crawl over many pairs of knees before getting to our spots. Now that we're in the loges we can arrive at almost anytime (as long as it's before the first piece begins, of course). This concert comprised of three pieces, two twenty-first century compositions (one by Malcom Forsyth, the second by Peter Meechan--who was visiting Edmonton and present at the concert that night) and Rachmaninoff for the second half.

I think Andrew and I both felt a bit so-so over the Forsyth--for which a part of me thinks I should feel bad about because this was his final composition before he died. It's not that it was bad, but it was just okay. A Ballad of Canada is a combined orchestra and choral work (the voices were provided by the Richard Eaton Singers) and was co-commissioned by the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra and the National Arts Centre Orchestra. This piece was broken down into five movements, which represented different geographical areas of Canada, or different historical time periods. It started off in the North with a tribute to the Northern Lights. There's a specific sort of sound that composers create when the depict the Lights, or stars, etc with lots of tremelo strings and it was the case for this piece as well. The second section, which I remember distinctly commemorated WWI with heavy drums and brass to simulate the feeling of being at war--it certainly was effective. After that much of the rest of the piece ran into each other, with many discordant bits from the orchestra, while the lyrics sung by the choir were based on a series of poems. As I said, the Ballad was all right, but it hasn't really stuck with me three or four days later.

The second piece, Apophenia, was inspired by the idea that you can listen to Pink Floyd's The Dark Side of the Moon, while watching the Wizard of Oz and the music will match the action. If you think from this preliminary description that the piece was probably a bit frenetic, you're right. It was frenetic in an interesting and exciting way. The piece was highly rhythmical, and featured Edmonton native Jens Lindemann on solo trumpet--rather on four solo trumpets. Yeah. It was pretty impressive, he had to switch trumpets between movements. As a string player I can only imagine the breath and embouchure control required to successfully play this piece. It was, as the program reads in several places 'fast and furious.' As I explained to one of my co-workers, I'm not sure I so much enjoyed this music, but more appreciated the skill required to play it. The range of tones produced by the trumpet, the complex rhythms and the speed were all pretty impressive. Before I move on, I must complement the drummer. He put on a phenomenal improvised drum solo during the third movement.

Finally, Rachmaninoff's Symphony No. 2 in E minor, Opus 27. According to the program notes, Rachmaninoff's first symphony was a flop, so when the second symphony premiered he decided to conducted it himself. Whether that was the charm needed or not, it seems to have worked. The second symphony is beautiful--although massive, running more than fifty minutes long. Apparently after the premier Rachmaninoff made cuts to the manuscript, which were retained for a long time. At some point (I don't know when) orchestras began playing the whole work, which is what we heard on Friday. After the lively first movement, someone from the audience shouted out 'Play it again,' which garnered a dirty look from Bill, who already seemed fatigued from the work of conducting. When we reached the third movement of the symphony, I thought to myself, this music is the sound romance, pure and simple. Not tragic romance, not Romeo and Juliet, or Healthcliff and Catherine, but successful, happy romance like Elizabeth and Darcy, Jane and Edward, or Weasley and Buttercup. It's warm and soothing, a bit dreamy, and well...romantic.

We won't have another Masters concert until the new year. In the mean time I'll have to bide my time with a couple of upcoming Canadian singer-song writer concerts.

Ciao,

Andrea

P.S. If you're reading this through Facebook, you will no longer be able to do so as of November 22nd. You will need to visit my actual blog site where you can then add it to any reader service you might use, or you can bookmark it and visit it every now and again.

Belated Halloween

Nothing terribly exciting/out of the ordinary happened this week. In consequence of this, you my 3 loyal readers, getting another cake post--mostly. I had leftover buttercream icing (handily already died orange) and fondant from the cake I made 3 weeks ago and I had a Halloween party to go to this past weekend (yes, that would make it November, but everyone dressed up anyway). I decided I would put together a pumpkin cake--both in flavour and in appearance. I made the cake last weekend using Fine Cooking's brown butter pumpkin spice cake (so delicious) and baked it in one of my Pyrex bowls so it would be circular. When I was finished I feared the cake would be a bit too small for a large-ish party so I baked an extra single chocolate layer as well.

The cake before I added the stem. I was really happy with the bumps and ridges I added to make it look more pumpkin-like.

I began the decoration process on Friday (I baked the cakes last weekend and put them in the freezer). I stacked the cake, 'glued' it to the plate then slathered it with buttercream. The buttercream came out of the freezer in excellent shape. I've tried to preserve buttercream before, but I didn't give it enough time to return to room temperature. If you try to re-whip buttercream that's been frozen/refrigerated and don't let it warm up enough it can turn into a curdled looking mixture. You can fix this by heating it up (the microwave will work fine) and give it a good whirl with a mixer, but the first time this happened to me I didn't know this and ended up throwing the batch out. Once the buttercream was applied I smooshed ridges into it with the sides of my hands then added the fondant. I wanted more lines on the pumpkin so I took the dull side of a knife and indented the cake further.

Stem added. I was even more happy with the cake when I added the stem.

I sculpted the stem with leftover fondant then stuck it onto the top of the cake. Just a little water and some pressure was all that was required.

The cake after I added the shading. It was dark by this time so I wasn't able to get as good a picture as the earlier ones.

We were out for pretty much all of Saturday (market, groceries, lunch, aerial practice and a bunch of other stops on the way), so I ended up spending the last hour or so after dinner and before the party applying details to the cake. I thinned brown colouring out with a splash of gin, then used a paint brush to apply it to the cake. From there I used a makeup sponge to smooth out the lines.

Jack-o-lantern face added.

I was really rushing at this point. It was probably 20 minutes before we planned to leave for the party when I cut the face out from the Jack-o-lantern. Perhaps I should have just left it, but oh well. It looked all right, and I figured that most people aren't all that great at carving real pumpkins anyway. In hindsight, I should have made a pattern out of paper to trace onto the cake to get it even--I'll remember that for the next time I do something like this.

Andrew, looking manly in his Scotsman get up.

Andrew in his costume for the party--it was medieval themed.

Me, in my 'saucy medieval gal' get up.

I didn't make this costume. I agonized over the issue of whether or not to make the costume myself for sometime, but eventually I had to acknowledge the fact that I hadn't finished a sewing project that was more extensive than hemming pants in years. I bought the outfit off of Etsy. Eventually I'll turn it into a steampunk costume once I've got the right accessories.

Ciao,

Andrea