Smile! *click*

Candid shots are always my favorite:

Blair Brings The Music Online

In the 2001-2002 season of my life, I was living in Nashville's Hillsboro Village area. There was one month when my car wouldn't run and I found myself limited to things within walking distance or on the bus route. The beautiful thing about Hillsboro Village is that just about everything you could possibly need or want is always within walking distance. Rare exceptions were easily accessible with MTA bus route #7.

One of my favorite things to do was to take an evening walk down to The Blair School of Music. I enjoyed so may recitals performed by its students. So often for free and so often on par with anything I might hear for so much more elsewhere. Nashville now has the beautiful Schermerhorn Symphony Hall where one can hear our own Nashville Symphony or any number of gala events. As awesome as an event at the Schermerhorn is, folks on my budget aren't likely to find themselves listening to its concerts often at all.

Thankfully, Blair School of Music's concert series is still as strong and vibrant as ever. And if you find yourself without transportation and find that it's not quite in walking distance for you, the good news is that many of the concerts are now online. Click here, sit back and enjoy the music.

You are Steve Martin, and you may now kiss the fact-checker.

One of my favorite books that my dad gave me way back when was Jay McInerney's Bright Lights, Big City. Told entirely in second-person narrative, it's the tale of a young man in New York City dealing with his mother's death, his wife who has left him, and the narcotic temptations of the "Bolivian Marching Powder." He - or as the book tells it, "you" - works in the Department of Factual Verification of a magazine which may or may not be The New Yorker.

Fired after an article full of mistakes is allowed to go to press, revenge tactics involve a ferret, a boss's desk after working hours, and an unplanned very bad bite on the narrator's hand. McInerney's wonderfully comic, poetic and luminous novel was later made into a very average move starring Michael J. Fox.

Whenever I hear the phrase, "Department of Factual Verification," I think of that funny and moving book. But when actor-writer Steve Martin hears the phrase, he probably thinks of Anne Stringfield, his lovely new bride. She is The New Yorker magazine's deputy head of fact-checking and they married last night in his Los Angeles home. Steve's best man was Lorne Michaels, with guests including Tom Hanks, Diane Keaton, Carl Reiner and Eugene Levy.

A moon and a Parthenon

Ladies and gentlemen, Melissa of Girl of the North Country. It was such a treat to finally meet one of my favorite local writers tonight. She and I are both lucky to have had the same influential English teacher back in our high school days. Mr. Stackhouse was as involved and exciting a teacher as I've ever had. If I write well at all, I owe my interest in it to him.

So, to fall in love with the writing of someone else who turned out to be another of his students made perfect sense to me. Of course, it pained me a bit when I learned that she also took classes with his daughters. His twin daughters weren't even born yet when I was in his class. That makes me...a really old guy.

Anyway, I had the pleasure of meeting Melissa tonight and was so captivated by how kind and sweet she was. She's offered in the past to babysit our two little ones. I'm glad that the manic motion of Joshua didn't seem to scare her off from her offer. He's a sweetie, but he wears me out. He's hard to keep up with. Maybe I'm just, you know...a really old guy.

About that moon over the Parthenon, that's all hers.

Jesca Hoop plays, and I'm intoxicated by what she creates.

Once a nanny for Tom Waits' family, now the author and singer of one of the most requested songs in the history of KCRW's Music Becomes Eclectic.

Here's a good story by Paul Saitowitz in The Press-Enterprise about Jesca:

Jesca Hoop's debut album is called "Kismet," a Turkish word that translates to mean "fate." If you consider that Hoop was once an aspiring singer/songwriter who by chance landed a gig as the nanny for the family of legendary musical vagabond Tom Waits, you might say that the word is the perfect choice to define her career.

After a few months of domestic chores in the Waits' home, Hoop worked up the courage to approach the songwriter and his wife and collaborator, Kathleen Brennan, about her career. Once the couple heard a few tunes, they were impressed enough to pass her music on to a friend who got it in the hands of influential Los Angeles DJ Nic Harcourt. ...more>>

Click here for her site and open the door to hear her songs.

A quote from Tom Waits:

"Jesca Hoop's music is like a four sided coin. She is an old soul, like a black pearl, a good witch or a red moon. Her music is like going swimming in a lake at night."

All's Well...Apparently

Every time I walked by a television yesterday, all I saw was either some story about a cat who predicts the deaths of elderly people (They're elderly. His chances of being right are pretty good, right?) or various interviews with Billy Ray Cyrus.

I think I'll just watch Buzz Lightyear cartoons instead of the news this morning. Please e-mail me if anything important comes up.

"(Looking For) The Heart of Saturday Night"

While wondering what in the world to do this weekend with my family on my unexpected but highly appreciated weekend off, I remembered that Grace at Graceless in Love had made mention of Saturday night ballroom dancing lessons at Centennial Park all summer long. Her account of one such recent evening was tender and lovely and it occurs to me that my wife would love to take part in such a romantic (and free) event such as this.

If she'll do me the honor of saying yes, we plan on dancing (me learning, she mesmerizing me with her beauty) together Saturday night, with our two young children right there with us.

As many know, we operate on the lower end of the household income scale. We get by, but it's always tight. And with that tightness and perpetual tiredness from working and parenting, we sometimes forget to smile. We are in love, but we don't often do the things that lovers do. That said, a quote from the beautiful Paris, Je T'Aime comes to mind, "By pretending to be a man in love, he became a man in love." I don't have to pretend, but I could make it more obvious. What better way than by dancing with my wife?

Anyway, I'm of the opinion that we look good together.



Care to join us?

Info:
Centennial Park Big Band Dance
Free dancing in Centennial Park! Come out and enjoy live music and dancing.

7:00 Lessons
7:30-10:00 Music and Dancing
Contact : 862-8424

The workplace will do just fine without me.

My weekend? Pretty much open for once.

Yours?

The Simpsons - Springfield, Tennessee

Abra Moore - On The Way

I first heard Abra Moore about five years ago when she opened for the amazing David Baerwald at a small club here in Nashville. She had a kind of shy quirkiness to her stage presence and between song banter, and her songs really captivated an audience that was mainly there for someone else. As I recall, it was just she and her guitar on stage and the songs really held up on their own without a full band to round out the sound.

I was very excited to hear her latest release, On The Way, from Seattle's Sarathan Records. However, it's not the quirky, eclectic album I was expecting. This new release of hers is a little weird. I love it but upon first listen, I felt myself not quite giving it a fair shake. It's got a very professional production to it and doesn't seem to be as adventurous a release as I might have expected. But to make the cheap references, if you like Norah Jones, Madeleine Peyroux, Edie Brickell (especially on "I Believe") and/or Nashville's own Fleming and John, then I'd put this one right up with those artists' best releases. Here and there, I'll hear a lyric that doesn't quite live up to my expectations and overall the song structures sometimes feel a bit safe and sleepy, but then I find myself falling in love with the sweet and sensual production of songs like "On The Way" or "Sorry."

There is so much more to these songs than a first listen will reveal. A soft, quiet night with no interruptions is perfect for Abra Moore's intimate yearnings and acoustic rhythms. Songs like "You" or "Birthday Song" bring to mind the thought that they would serve as perfect companions to Sofia Coppola-type films. Dreamy and loving, unassumingly embracing the listener, they reward you with their absolute beauty.

I guess On The Way dances somewhere between background music whatever the next step up from that is. Go to her site and listen to three or four of her songs for free. I'd say she's a curious artist who is well worth hearing at any opportunity. She sounds on the verge of being absolutely amazing.

Abra plays here...

Abra Moore . com

Always, always know that I love you beyond measure.

Over and over, you proclaim, "I do it myself."
If it's a five step process and I've
started it for you and am three steps in,
you'll undo those three steps to earn full
credit for requiring no help.

I'm always so proud to watch you try
so very hard. You know the good feeling of
accomplishment and you know the pride
behind effort. Independence aside, when you
say, "Hold me," I will embrace you with so
much love.

Smoosh!

The fun people at Photojojo are talking about a thing called Smooshtacts. Take a photo of a friend with his or her face pressed firmly against a glass surface and then make it that friend's contact picture in your iPhone or whatever.

Here's a very good example of the results found at Photojojo:

I don't have a phone that stores pictures, but it was still fun for the kids and I to make smooshy faces against our sliding glass door.

Here are our results:

Attention All Tennis Players!

Show some love (get it?) to a teacher and donate your used balls for her classroom chairs.

Not this:


This:


My wife is setting up her kindergarten classroom for the new school year and would love to soften the impact of the chairs on the new linoleum floors.

Also on her list:

• Square carpet scraps
• Dress-up clothes
• Children's play kitchen items
• Puppets
• Bean bags
• Children's play tables and chairs
• Anything else that would benefit a kindergarten classroom

Thanks, and remember...it's for the children.

I'll give it a few more listens and tell you all about it Thursday.