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GirasoleAzzurra/The LadyHawk
01 May 2008 @ 09:09 am
Beltane  
The first of May! The first of May!
Outdoor kissing begins today!

This little ditty dates at least to the 1930s, and I know it first from [info]helgabee, who got it from her mother. Variants include "Outdoor necking" and "Outdoor fucking" but I like this one best.

A cross-quarter day, Maypoles, St Joseph the Worker, May Day. Many celebratory traditions like ribbons on the Maypole. Kiss someone you love in the sunlight today.
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Current Mood: good
 
 
GirasoleAzzurra/The LadyHawk
20 April 2008 @ 11:38 am
Music meme, classical  

I felt the need to do a classical music version of the previous meme. These are all very small pieces that bring me sustained joy. All are on iTunes, if you want to get a listen.

You Are the New Day, the King’s Singers (New Day). This is a hymn, but to me it is a love song.

Ave Maria, Robert Parsons Exultate Deo Masterpieces of Sacred Polyphony) The most very beautiful of all Ave Marias.

Veni Delectissime, Sequentia (Lost Songs of a Rhineland Harper) A very ancient erotic song.

Jesu Joy of Man’s Desiring, John McCutcheon (The Wind that Shakes the Barley) My favorite piece of classical music, ever. I have numerous versions, but this one is quite lovely.

Ode for the Birthday of Queen Anne, Eternal Source of Light Divine Choir of Kings College Cambridge (Coronation Anthems) Countertenor divine. I am obsessed with countertenors.

Gallarda Napoletana, Jordi Savall & Hesperion XX (Virgin Veritas - Music for the Spanish Kings) Using gentle percussion of hands and feet, a sweet small dance.

La Parma / Lirum Bililirum (Canzoni e Danze Piffaro) The gently lyrical first half of this is the most soothing music I know. It always brings me solace.

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Current Location: Sunday morning
Current Mood: peaceful and allergic
Current Music: Lionheart
 
 
GirasoleAzzurra/The LadyHawk
19 April 2008 @ 07:37 pm
My first meme  
Snurched from [info]debg

Music meme: List seven songs you are into right now. No matter what the genre, whether they have words, or even if they're not any good, but they must be songs you're really enjoying now, shaping your spring. Post these instructions in your LJ along with your 7 songs.

Rolling Stones and Jack White, Loving Cup (I am completely obsessed with this, but I also like Jack White quite a lot. Forgive me)

Alison Krauss & Tony Furtado, the Beatles' I Will

Keith Richards, Gimme Shelter Live 1993 - bows in gratitude to [info]debg[info]

Bob Marley, Three Little Birds

Grateful Dead, Scarlet Begonias

Linda Thompson, Do Your Best for Rock & Roll

Robert Plant & Alison Krauss, Polly Come Home

I don't tag folks, but I bet [info]kradical and [info]helgabee will want to do this.

Edited to correct spelling. The least I can do is get artists' names spelled right.
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Current Location: home
Current Mood: cheerful
Current Music: the Yankees game
 
 
GirasoleAzzurra/The LadyHawk
16 April 2008 @ 02:30 pm
How my son Keith got his name  
The soundtrack of my teens was the British Invasion. I was a Paul Girl. I loved the Beatles, and Peter & Gordon, and the Stones, and the Dave Clark Five, all of them. I loved their names: Nigel and Colin and Keith. They sounded exotic and sexy to me. I vowed my first son would be named Keith. I was, I think, sixteen.

When my son was born, I was 21 and just finishing college. We proudly named him Keith. It sounded strong and Celtic, and you couldn’t make a nickname out of it (we did anyway, but it was a baby name and will not be repeated here). What I did not realize then was that not only is there no letter “K” in Italian, but there is no “th” sound in Italian. The best our Italian relatives could do was Keet'. It was embarrassing. I felt really dumb, but I didn’t stop loving his name.

In 1988 I got to hear Keith Richards at the Beacon, and me and [info]helgabee  , having won free tickets on one of those put-your-business-card-in-a-fishbowl drawings, were in about the sixth row. It was deeply awesome and very loud. But it was then that I realized I had probably named my son after Keith Richards.

We saw Shine A Light a few days ago, and were thoroughly immersed in a rock concert, Scorsese’s brilliant and fluid camera work, and the beautiful sound. It was humbling, seeing these guys, older than I am, doing what they do. They don’t apologize, either. They make music. And there was Keith, disreputable as ever, playing that guitar. My son Keith was with us, enjoying the hell out of the show.

He’ll be 39 in two days. Happy Birthday, [info]kradical  .

The NYTimes review of that Beacon show
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Current Mood: thoughtful
Current Music: Keith Richards' Gimme Shelter
 
 
GirasoleAzzurra/The LadyHawk
04 April 2008 @ 04:12 pm
Music  
Music is in my blood. My brothers, my nieces, my son and I, all share that need to hear a particular chord change, or a particular harmony. We listen to music a lot and we talk about it a lot. Some of them sing, and all of them play.

 Periodically I become obsessed with a song, and I need to hear it over and over. Periodically I become obsessed with a piece of music, and want to hear different versions of it. I adore live music, and find chamber music and early music concerts simply thrilling. I suspect my days of stadium concerts are over at this point, but I saw Bruce Springsteen this year, so you never know.

 I have been struggling to describe how radically my iPod has affected me, and how glorious it is. It’s not just that I can make playlists of all my favorites, or mix up the classical, the Celtic, and the guitar chords, although I do all of that. It isn’t just that I can bring those into the kitchen, or to my home office aerie, or to the bedroom. Nor is it just that I can carry it with me traveling on the train or subway. I just love being able to get a piece of music right away, as soon as I want it. I have gone straight from a radio program to iTunes, to buy a copy of a song for myself and also to send it to my son. It’s lovely. Last night I discovered the Tallis Scholars have a new recording (Josquin's Missa sine Nomine), and I bought it and listened to it and burned it to disk before bedtime.

 It is listening to music in a public place like the train, on headphones, that most astonishes me. Something about that practice seems to channel the music directly from my ear to my emotions, without anything in between. It’s lovely. It’s also a little scary, to be feeling something so essentially private in a place that isn’t.

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Current Mood: contemplative
Current Music: Rodrigo y Gabriela
 
 
GirasoleAzzurra/The LadyHawk
20 March 2008 @ 08:37 pm
Sancerre  

I drank Sancerre all over Paris and Chartres. I discovered I loved every one of them. Amazingly, when I got home and bought a bottle of Sancerre and opened it up, it tasted just as wonderful even without Paris wrapped around it. Sancerre, said the wine guy at Park Avenue Wines, is what sauvignon blanc would be if it went to heaven. What I love about it is the full fruit in the middle and that beautiful mineral, flinty finish. I finally figured it out. That flinty taste reminds me of being inside those ancient cool stone cathedrals – like Notre Dame, Chartres, St Sulpice, St Germain – it does inside of me what the scent and feel of those ancient stones do.

 
 
Current Music: Alison Krauss, the Beatles "I Will"
 
 
GirasoleAzzurra/The LadyHawk
20 March 2008 @ 04:30 pm
the year turns  

"In March the earth remembers its own name.

Everywhere the plates of snow are cracking.

The rivers begin to sing. In the sky

the winter stars are sliding away; new stars

appear...

 

And the name of every place

is joyful...

 

3.

because it is spring;

because once more the moon and the earth are eloping--"

 

from "Worm Moon" by Mary Oliver

 
 
Current Music: Mark Knopfler's Wild Theme from Local Hero
 
 
GirasoleAzzurra/The LadyHawk
16 March 2008 @ 01:30 pm
Writer's Block: Meaningful Words  

What is your favorite quote? And why?


View other answers

All shall
be well,
and all shall
be well,
and all manner
of thing
shall be well.

Lady Julian of Norwich
14th century mystic
 
 
GirasoleAzzurra/The LadyHawk
05 March 2008 @ 09:36 pm
Postcards from the heart - Mohonk  
A friend online says my LiveJournal entries are like heartfelt postcards - always brief, usually only when I travel or am obsessed about something, tending to the epigrammatic and condensed. I hope so.

We are just back from Mohonk Mountain House, one of the best places. Mohonk was founded in the mid-nineteenth century by a Quaker family and is still run by them. It is a beautiful place in a beautiful setting, where every view has been thought out, every action concerned with conservancy of the land and its beauty, every room and public space designed for comfort and delight.

More, plus photos )

It is like staying at the Queen's home in the country. You can sit in one of the many cozy public rooms by a fireplace and read or chat or even check your email. You can attend one of the lectures on local flora and fauna or local history, or meet a visiting lecturer on whatever his or her passion might be. There might be music or a slide show. There is a TV room, but you have to go find it. You can hike the many trails or walk along the carriage road (less of that this visit because there was first much ice and snow and then much mud and melt).

Three meals a day are provided. The food is plentiful, well prepared, and to just about every taste. I love having cream on my morning berries and more bacon than is good for me. At dinner, men must wear jackets and dressing for dinner is a pleasure.

There's a spa and an indoor pool and an outdoor skating rink. I feel cosseted and blessed and cared for when I am there. And I only can bring myself to leave by knowing I will be back.


 
 
Current Mood: cheerful
 
 
GirasoleAzzurra/The LadyHawk
04 February 2008 @ 09:11 am
 


I am voting for Hillary Rodham Clinton in tomorrow's Super Tuesday primary in NYC.

Edited to add a link to Robin Morgan's essay, which says it better than I ever could:
 
 
GirasoleAzzurra/The LadyHawk
09 January 2008 @ 09:00 pm
Tam Lin  
Some time in the past – it was probably in the late 1970s when there was only vinyl – we came upon a folk festival on television. A female singer got up, and with her hands at her sides and at the top of her voice, sang “Tam Lin.” This is a powerful ballad, of course, and she sang it a capella with riveting intensity. Her name was Frankie Armstrong, and we despaired of remembering her name or ever finding the recording.

 We did remember it though, not her name, but the performance.

 Some years later – there still was only vinyl – we were in a women’s bookstore somewhere that was not our home in New York City. We came across a record with that song on it, and we thought, “Frankie Armstrong? This could be the one.” We took it home, and it was, that same powerful, compelling rendition of that scarily beguiling song.

 I was besotted with my iPod mini, and I am currently besotted with my iTouch. These pretty tools enable me to keep a fairly vast array of music with me all the time. And on iTunes is that astonishing performance of Frankie Armstrong’s “Tam Lin” so now I have it not just in memory but in my hand.

 

 

 
 
Current Location: home
Current Mood: pleased
Current Music: Tam Lin
 
 
GirasoleAzzurra/The LadyHawk
21 December 2007 @ 04:32 pm
 

 

 

 

So the shortest day came, and the year died,

And everywhere down the centuries of the

Snow-white world,

Came people singing, dancing,

To drive the dark away.

 

They lighted candles in the winter trees;

They hung their homes with evergreen.

They burned beseeching fires all night long

To keep the year alive.

 

And when the new year's sunshine blazed awake

They shouted, reveling.

Through all the frosty ages you can hear them

Echoing, behind us – listen!

 

All the long echoes sing the same delight

This shortest day

As promise wakens in the sleeping land.

 

They carol, feast, give thanks,

And dearly love their friends, and hope for peace.

And so do we, here, now,

This year, and every year.

   Welcome, Yule!

--by Susan Cooper, 1977 written for The Christmas Revels

 
 
GirasoleAzzurra/The LadyHawk
16 December 2007 @ 07:23 pm
Merry Holly to all  
ImageChef.com - Custom comment codes for MySpace, Hi5, Friendster and more
 
 
Current Location: TheYellowSubmarine
Current Mood: good
Current Music: The Sixteen: Christmas
 
 
GirasoleAzzurra/The LadyHawk
17 November 2007 @ 02:46 am
 


I have an unspeakable toothache, it is quarter to three in the morning, and this is what I am doing.
 
 
GirasoleAzzurra/The LadyHawk
06 November 2007 @ 12:53 pm
Vote  


We live just a few blocks from Woodlawn Cemetery, one of the great old cemeteries of New York City. In the autumn of 2004 we were able to take a tour of the cemetery and see the interiors of some of the chapels and mausoleums. On the cemetery tour some of the huge mausoleums were opened to us, so we could walk inside. In one of them, a wealthy and prominent husband and wife, right next to the wife's tomb was her tattered and worn but still beautiful suffragist banner in white, purple, and gold. I did not touch it or fall to my knees, but I did weep. 

 

 
 
Current Mood: contemplative
Current Music: George Harrison's "If Not for You" remastered
 
 
GirasoleAzzurra/The LadyHawk
18 October 2007 @ 08:55 pm
From Pivot's Apostrophe to the Actor's Studio  
From the Inside the Actor's Studio questionnaire, answer the following:

1. What is your favorite word?

delicious

2. What is your least favorite word?

I cannot think of one. Every word has its reason.


3. What turns you on (creatively, spiritually or emotionally)?

the right word in the right place

4. What turns you off?

unkindness, followed closely by willful stupidity


5. What sound or noise do you love?

little children laughing, and my beloved's voice

6. What sound or noise do you hate?

whining

7. What is your favorite curse word?

motherfucker

8. What profession other than your own would you like to attempt?

actor  musician


9. What profession would you not like to do?

health care of any kind


10. If Heaven exists, what would you like to hear God say when you arrive at the Pearly Gates?

You did good work.
 
 
Current Location: upstairs
Current Mood: amused
Current Music: Boston/Indians game
 
 
GirasoleAzzurra/The LadyHawk
03 October 2007 @ 07:10 am
A Revival meeting at the church of rock & roll  
My son, two of his friends and I drove the three hours to Hartford CT to see Bruce Springsteen on the night he opened his current tour. I have seen Bruce perhaps five times over 25 or more years, and I never cease to marvel at his prodigious ability to turn a huge arena into an intimate shared experience.

with his killer graces )
 
 
Current Location: home
Current Mood: drained
Current Music: Springsteen in my head
 
 
GirasoleAzzurra/The LadyHawk
21 September 2007 @ 11:10 am
Is there anybody going to listen to my story?  
We saw Across the Universe.
It is just lovely. Julie Taymor's magnificent imagination has shaped and formed a really elegant film, and she has spun the magic of the Beatles songs into a narrative of love, war, and the 1960s.
The casting is superb -- the actor who plays Jude, Jim Sturgess, is not only twinkly-adorable but sings well enough to tear your heart out -- and cameos by Eddie Izzard as Mr Kite, Joe Cocker, and Bono are brilliant both musically and visually.
I love the Beatles. I love their music, from the Persuasions doing them a capella to Cirque du Soleil. This is another alchemy - the songs live and the movie is a delight. Go. Listen. Watch. Fill yourself with joy.

An excellent article about the movie, the songs, and the references is in Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Across_the_Universe_%28film%29
 
 
Current Mood: enthralled
Current Music: "Girl" by Jude in Across the Universe
 
 
GirasoleAzzurra/The LadyHawk
19 September 2007 @ 01:08 pm
Garrison Keillor says it just right  
The purpose of all great art is to give courage and thereby cheer
us, just as the purpose of education is fundamentally cheerful -- to
draw us out of gloomy solitude and into a conversation with other
scholars.

Lighten up. Get a grip. Leave morose silence to teenagers; it's too
dramatic for you and me. We have passed the great test of a
republic, to survive the most incompetent leadership, and now
we can anticipate a new era, one with no Bushes. As Emerson
said, "This time, like all times, is a very good one, if we but know
what to do with it ... Finish each day and be done with it. You
have done what you could. Some blunders and absurdities no
doubt crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a
new day; begin it well and serenely and with too high a spirit to
be encumbered with your old nonsense."


http://salon.com/opinion/keillor/2007/09/19/september/
 
 
Current Location: home office aerie
Current Mood: calm
Current Music: that incredibly catchy iTunes Feist song
 
 
GirasoleAzzurra/The LadyHawk
03 September 2007 @ 08:40 pm
A Coda to my 60th Birthday  
Yesterday, we had dinner at Molyvos in New York City with our friends Sir Source of All Truth, his bride the Legal Eagle, and the Lady Omniphile, all LJ-less. We had not seen them in some time, and it was lovely to get together over elegant Greek food. This turned into a presentation of birthday gifts, as I had not seen them since my 60th birthday. Sir SOAT and Dame Eagle gave me a half-bottle of Chateau d’Yquem, that most beauteous of dessert wines. The Lady presented me with the pattern for a needlework of my daemon and totem, the red-tail hawk, which she will make for me. I was gobsmacked. And delighted.

Tonight we opened the Chateau d’Yquem 2003, accompanied by that most perfect of desserts, [info]helgabee’s peach pie. I love dessert wines, and this one can only be described as beautiful. It has layers of complex sweetness, but with a hint of fruits, flowers, and vanilla, each separate before it melts into the next. It made me very happy.

http://www.yquem.fr/yquem.php?lang=uk


 
 
Current Location: TheYellowSubmarine
Current Mood: peaceful
Current Music: late summer evening