The Wordless Music Series

The Worless Music Series is a series of concerts putting professional concert musicians (i.e. a concert pianist) with popular bands that produce wordless music (many are electronically manipulated in the same vein as Radiohead).
An earlier "counterpart" to this idea is "Lider ohne Worte" (Songs Without Words) by romantic composer Felix Mendelsshon.

I have been a fan of wordless popular music for a while now and this concert series strikes a resonant chord with me. The band I gravitate to most that produces music without words or with minimal words is Sigur Ros (W). A friend down the hall from me in my dorm my first year of college gave me a CD of theirs.

I hope to see one of these concerts in the future (long trip!), not only because the idea is appealing, but I am also interested in the bands that are performing/have performed. I disagree, however, with the philosophy of the program, "the various boundaries and genere distinctions segregating music today...are an artificial construction in need of dismantling." There is worth in distinguishing popular music and classical music as low and high art, respectively. Popular musical artists are usually more stylistically constrained and many are low-readers of music. "Classically-trained" musicians are usualy more versitile and produce a finer art form.

These are bands that are scheduled to play in the series:

Do Make Say Think (W)
Mum (W)

Many posts; a mystery post

State of the House We Live In

Feel free to tell us what to do about this wet situation...
We think we have mold growing in the basement and this is why, all the windows leak water when it rains (or in the recent case, snows), and there is some discoloration that has been depicted as mold on the websites we visited that explain mold. It's supposed to be a health hazard, but most people don't seem to think it is serious. Seems serious to us though...






I haven't cleaned out the gutters yet, but they were darn full when we moved in and have only gotten worse. I rigged this tarp since I don't have a ladder and therefore can't get on the roof to clean the gutters. Even if I cleaned the gutters on this side of the house, water would still drain into the area that is subsided next to the foundation.

Kitchen Repainting

If you think the color scheme is whacked, don't just sit at your comp and sneer, leave feedback!






Here are some pictures of our kitchen and my most concerted effort to repaint. There's always summer...

'Hood Kids 2

Since the onset of leasing our backyard to the populace we have had many visitations. We've even been attacked a few times. The damage from the hits we've taken has been merely superficial. Here are some videos that tell the story...

We thought about getting rid of the swingset, but it's just too much fun.



Those speakers quit working again right after the video -- they were a wedding present.



these crazy kids are out here everyday!

Neighborhood Kids

Our neighbor boy is in middle school. He doesn't have my husband for a teacher, unfortunately, and I say unfortunately because this adolescent seems as though he would be a lot of fun to have in class. Once, when it snowed a whole bunch, we saw Victor meticulously shoveling the sidewalks around his house. For an offer of $5, he shoveled our driveway, too. He also received a bonus for going the extra mile and clearing the path all the way up to the front door.

Last week, we had an unexpected surprise in our backyard when we arrived home from work: kids playing soccer! Victor now knows to ask permission beforehand, and we delight in "hosting" neighborhood kids in this once-empty space. I counted five back there on my way to write this post.

-H

Beatboxing

J and I saw a street beatboxer in Sydney, Australia -- my first experience with talented beatboxing (to my knowledge). Since then, J has been locating decent beatboxers on the web, particularly through youtube. Check out the beatboxing flute player named Greg Pattillo if you have fast streaming internet. Liz, I think you'd get a kick out of it.

J aspires to beatbox through his trombone. He's practicing as I type, and I think it's pretty obnoxious, actually. =) Now he's playing scales into a pan of water. Ah, married life.