Galvanizing

1. How often do you hear live music? Rarely. Now that I have time and don't need a babysitter, concerts have gotten out of my price range.

2. What was your favorite live musical performance ever? A performance by the band Ceili's Muse -- maybe 1994, 1995? -- where they did a rendition of "Galway Farmer" that was positively magical. I have their studio recording of the song, and I've heard them perform it several times, but this one performance stands out in my memory.

3. Do you play an instrument, or sing? I've played clarinet and piano, though am out of practice on both; I also sing a bit.

4. Have you ever performed music onstage? High school band and orchestra; piano recitals; music camp. And in this century, I took a musical improv class and performed as part of that.

5. Who is your favorite musician? If I have to pick one, Alan Doyle. Great voice, great performer; if you see him in a small venue, he has the knack of making you feel like he's singing to you personally.

If I were a vidder, I would consider it a moral imperative to make a Doctor Who fanvid to the Belarus entry. Between the song's title and theme, and the original video's many sequences of a man running? It's meant to have a DW fanvid.

A tangential observation: Early in the video I thought "great, Yet Another Damsel In Distress". But when she started playing the violin, for me, that was when she became someone with agency.

(Castiron arrives home from errand.)

Spouse: You haven't missed much; they haven't figured out they're brother and sister yet.

***

Castiron: Ewww. This opera is making me glad that my sons don't have a sister.

***

[Spouse comes back from putting short people to bed.]

Castiron: You've just missed a half hour of Wotan and Fricka arguing. There's one for dangerous jobs -- Marriage Counselor to the Gods.

Spouse: Why does Fricka have Madeline Kahn hair?

Castiron: Oh, like in Young Frankenstein? I think it's just a reflection. [waits for next closeup] No, it's a hair ornament.

Spouse: Why did Mel Brooks never do a takeoff on the Ring?

[later]

Castiron: Yeah, she's figured out that Wotan's been sleeping around a bit. His child support payments must be amazing.

Spouse: Eh, he's a god; he can get away with it. Hey, with the eyepatch, Wotan looks like that hangman that keeps appearing in Mel Brooks movies. [a minute later] It's good to be a god.

[later]

Spouse: Why haven't the Muppets done the Ring?

Castiron: Miss Piggy as Fricka; she wouldn't even have to act.

Spouse: I can't quite see Kermit as Wotan, though.

Castiron: Janice as Brunhilde?

Spouse: "Oh, like, wow, great battle!"

Castiron: Gonzo and Camilla as Siegmund and Sieglinde?

[later]

Castiron: Is it just me, or does Brunhilde look like Maggie Smith?

Spouse: She must not have been very busy.

Castiron: Yeah, she probably just decided that if she was going to sing in a Wagner opera, she'd better do it now before she doesn't have the stamina.

***

[We both take a break; Castiron goes outside for five minutes to take out the rest of the trash and comes back in to discover that the battle scene at the end of act II is half over.]

Castiron: That figures. Forty minutes of expressive singing, and then as soon as I leave the room, the plot happens.

***

Spouse: What are those, the guns on a battleship?

Castiron: Valkyrie seesaws?

***

We quit for the night shortly afterwards, so I have no comments on the magic fire-surrounded rock, which we'll presumably see tomorrow anyway.

I do have to say, though, that Anna Russell's analysis of The Ring of the Nibelungs is an excellent preparation for watching the real thing. Plot synopsis, major leitmotifs, and a recognition that this really is over-the-top stuff.

Spouse: Why hasn't Elmo ever played the Phantom?

Castiron: That's a very good question.

Spouse: He'd have to do it with Denyse Graves as Christine.

Castiron: And Telly as Raoul, and then the Phantom and Raoul can argue, and Christine can suggest that they cooperate!

***

(on television, someone sings "Christine!")

Spouse (the auto mechanic): That just makes me think of an entirely different movie.

Castiron: It'd be a great car for the Phantom to drive.

(later)

Castiron: Hey, isn't there a car called the Phantom? [Googles] Yeah, the Rolls Royce Phantom. That's what the world needs; a possessed Rolls Royce Phantom named Christine.

Spouse: Now, *there's* a crossover.

***

Spouse: You know what would really be great? If Freddy Mercury were playing the Phantom.

Castiron: That's a justification for building time machines right there.

***

Yes, it's beg week on PBS again. (Still. Pretty soon the non-beg week will be the novel and unusual thing.)

ETA: Come on, makeup artists, can't you make a Phantom with a genuinely disturbing face? A few burn ridges? Sheesh. [ETA2: Okay, it's a bit worse at the end, but still, not that disturbing.] I've seen people with more severe facial disfigurements in the grocery store or in the park, and *they* certainly aren't horrifying. Use some flipping imagination!

1. "Molly Ban": a folksong that can be summarized as "practice gun safety". (Version I'm listening to is Pauline Scanlon, Red Colour Sun.)

2. "Mally Leigh": in its rendition by Connie Dover on If Ever I Return, the happiest and most chipper song I've heard in ages

3. "Mamma Mia": what older son is singing for some unknown reason. (It's interesting what he picks up -- he won't show any sign of interest in a song at the time, but a few days or weeks later it'll pop up.)

4. "Marusya Bohuslavka": song performed by The Ukranians that's currently making me go "where the heck did I put the CD? I need the lyrics!" (This is the only issue I have with buying songs on MP3. I don't notice the lower sound quality on anything except classical; I back them up in enough places that I'm not worried about losing them. But I want to sing something resembling the correct words when I sing along. It's enough of a challenge in English -- my mondegreens, let me show you them -- but in a language I don't speak, I really need something written out. Why don't MP3 albums come with a lyrics sheet?)

Driving home this evening, I was on a two-lane no-passing road, stuck behind one of these people who's going 10 mph below the speed limit for no apparent reason. As I was alone in the car, cue my usual round of "hey, bozo! it's called an ACCELERATOR! read the speed limit signs, damn it!"

And what then pops up on the iPod? Great Big Sea's "Fast as I Can." "I'm going fast as I can; please don't make me rush...."

That amused me enough to make the remainder of the time bearable.

(Also, my lower register has expanded enough in the past year or so that I can sing along with most GBS songs now in an appropriate octave! Yay!)