Live at the Dakota

Live at the Dakota Nachito Herrera and Puro Cubano Date: December 17, 2002 December 17,   —   Music product page Rating:

I thought of another CD I purchased relatively recently, Nachito Herrera and Puro Cubano Live at the Dakota
I am one of the voices yelling "1-2 cha cha cha" in the background of one of the songs. They were a great latin jazz band, and I used to see them regularly, got to know a few of them, things were great until Nachito decided to fire the flute/clarinet/soprano/alto, AND lead vocals and replaced her with a synthesizer, an additional drummer playing a standard drum set and his teenage daughter whose voice can't handle some of the notes in Como Fue. Around that period the bass player Jorge also stopped commuting from Miami to MN to play with Nach, I am afraid this is their one and only CD. The last time I heard them, the sub bass player bounded off the stage during a break gleefully saying "I am in a percussion band!!!" That was pretty much it.

China Song

China Song Shanghai Quartet — Music Rating:

Thanks to Panther, updated itunes or something, all my music in itunes has disappeared. The titles appear but they are no longer connected to the music and the music itself can not be found anywhere, so I am reloading.

This also means that I am listening to it all again. I just listened to my favorite CD's, one of a few I have purchased in the last few years . I would purchase it again tomorrow if I had too.
Its called China Song by the Shanghai Quartet.
A chamber music quartet that meets all of my friend Julie's criteria for musicians who play in her series. They are cute, very nice and extremely good musicians. The album China Song is a group of Chinese Folk music pieces played on western instruments. I purchased the CD during intermission when I was hearing them play, I got it autographed and everything. I recommend it to anyone who likes a variety of music, my favorite piece is a Yao people folk song, which I find very beautiful and haunting.

A review of the concert where I first heard them

Quiet before the storm

I am working through the weekend. The parents are supposed to arrive early next week. The sewing show I look forward to going to all year starts on Thursday, my mom comes here to go with me. I will be modeling for a pattern designer during it, that should be fun, it was last time! I will be also taking 5 classes that I am looking forward to.
My house is a mess, at the moment and I don't know where the stuff for the show is. I am sure it will all be alright in the end. I find myself thinking that somehow eventually everything will be alright a lot these days because the alternative is too much.
I am so sleepy but I don't really sleep, which I am sure doesn't help.


nr-week 17!

A day off?

I think it might be. I even have the cell on and no frantic calls from work, so far. Planned to get up early, go work out, walk, go to the post office, library, clean, maybe finally see the harry potter movie at the $2 theater

Instead I slept in a bit, took a long shower, read a magazine, chatted on line and not much else. It is now 1:30, movie at 4:10, I guess a walk to the po and then the movie. I could clean after the movie, I guess.

I also played with my new gmail account this morning. I think I will really like this. It tracks conversations. If I get 200 posts a day from the asml, it won't matter.

Okay off to start my abbreviated day.

nr-week 9

Comtemplating Widow's walks

I am starting to understand widow's walks. As a child they always fascinated me, when I would be in old houses I would race up to them and look out to the sea wondering why someone would use them. I figured a long once a day would be enough, the idea of pacing or spending time watching seemed so foreign to me.

I am not sure I really had that concept of that kind of the unknown before. The concept of knowing that someone wants to come home, they are trying their hardest to come home, not knowing when it would happen and trying not to think that it might not ever happen while being realistic about the dangers of the voyage.

It is kind of a semi secure helplessness. The security is in knowing their intentions. The helplessness is knowing that there is nothing you can do once they are gone, you just must wait and have some sort of faith/hope/belief that they will return in one piece.

The Empire that was Russia-Aug 17, 2004

A few weeks ago instead of doing what I was planning to do, I was exploring The Empire that was Russia. The photographs of Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii (1863-1944) offer a vivid portrait of a lost world--the Russian Empire on the eve of World War I and the coming revolution. His subjects ranged from the medieval churches and monasteries of old Russia, to the railroads and factories of an emerging industrial power, to the daily life and work of Russia's diverse population.

These photos have been gone under Digichromatography, a color rendering process. The original photographer shot them 3 times to present a kind of 3 color processing effect when he projected them. Very interesting if you've ever processed film.
It is just fascinating! I like the above photo for some strange reason, maybe because I wish my collection (aka stash) was as neat and tidy.

Politics-Architects, wheelchairs and stem cells

I have been listening to Michael Graves the architect and product designer being interviewed on a PBS program called Michael Graves on Design. He is currently paralyzed, the after effect of what started as a sinus infection, he says. He said he let himself get too run down and kept working through illness. Many people do that, Mr. Graves was lucky, he lived, although he said it was a close thing.

The interviewer asked many questions about it but the things that stuck me most were:
his talk about pain, always being in pain and his never having considered that. I wonder how many in the audience have any idea what that means?
his wanting to be whole again-a concept that I and my friends sometimes refer to as being real, doing what real people do. 24/7 pain and being real, welcome to our world, Mr. Graves.

Michael Graves is in a wheelchair and he said something about not realizing how much of his work involves movement, that he can't get to things. I think that every architect, every interior designer should spend some time in a chair, checking out their design.

When asked about his future, he said he put his hope in stem cells, after the election.

If only every person effected by with Parkinson's and Alzheimer's diseases, spinal cord injury, stroke, burns, heart disease, diabetes, osteoarthritis and rheumatoid arthritis, advanced kidney cancer, lymphoma; Leukemia; Lymphoma; myelodysplastic and myeloproliferative diseases, various other cancers including the one my brother had-astrocytoma, ... anyway, if only everyone whose life could be spared or improved by unlimited lines of stem cells voted along stem cell lines, we could change the world. Maybe ru486 could be released for tumor treatment too.

In the beginning

I am finally breaking down and doing my blog. Actually I started a different one a few months ago but I can't get into it, so I have started a new one.

I have been thinking a lot about relationships recently. I am 44 and I have had and continue to have an assortment of non-traditional relationships, and I have always been comfortable with that. Over the past year and a half, I have found myself as an observer of or participant in relationships I have never considered before. This is puzzling and confusing at times.