In the fall of 2002 I was directionless and unsatisfied with life.  After my first summer of canoe guiding I found myself and my bumper sticker-clad old minivan in Indiana crashing with my dad for a couple months.  I got a job at a little coffee shop during the day and spent many evenings at a different coffee shop reading Thich Nhat Hanh and playing backgammon with the regulars.  One evening, The Prince Myshkins played some music at that shop.  They're a duo with guitar and accordian playing all sorts of socially aware and satirical music.  I bought a CD right after they finished playing.

I came across that CD a couple weeks ago and copied it to my computer and played it for the first time in a couple years.  Some of the songs are a little dated (for example... "So President Somebody drops a few bombs on Iraq, exactly like President Whatsisname couple years back"), but they're pretty clever.  There's one song in particular that I like.  On a whim I decided to email the Prince Myshkins to see if they would send me the chords to the song so I could try to play it on my ukulele.  A week later I got a response!

---------------

Hi Aaron!

Glad you like the song -- I think it'd be nice with uke!  I'm putting the chords below -- they repeat with every verse / chorus.  I hope this makes sense.  Most of these chords are pretty normal and will work well on the uke, but there are a few which might be incomprehensible.  We always include bass notes in our guitar chord tab (like the chord D/G is a D major chord with a G bass note) -- the uke doesn't really have "bass" notes so in most cases you can just skip the bass notes and it'll be fine.  In the case of D/G, I'd say it's more like a G chord with an added A note -- maybe play around with that instead of a D chord....  okay here goes:

[E] Now that the mist has blown away[A], the stockholders will pay[B]
for something on the moon[E]
And now[E] that the daily smog report[A] has been taken twice to court[B]
there’s something on the moon[E]
And now[A] that the fog is not allowed[g#m7], they’re ticketing the clouds[D/G]
and suing the monsoon[f#m7]
So now[B], the good visibility[A] allows[f#m] us all to see[g#m]
the slogans[B] on the moon[A -> am]
...
2nd verse same as first except the very end, transitioning into chorus:
”Hey look what’s on the moon”[A -> F#7b5/A#] (this is a chord which includes an F-sharp, an A-sharp, a C natural and an E natural -- any way you can make that happen on a ukelele is fine)
...
[B]Capital[A] collects[E] itself[A] [c#m]cosmic [c#m/B]copyrights [A]
[G]Corpora[bm/f#]tions [dm/f]corpulate[f dim], [F]corpu[Db2]lent and [D2]white

last vamp:  (nothing on the moon.... nothing on the moon....)
g#m  bm  f#m  am  (repeat many times) -> E

Let me know if any of this needs clarification or makes no sense whatsoever.
(and hey, you can play it in public if you want to -- no pressure -- the song isn't registered with BMI or anything so you're totally safe.)

Enjoy! 
Rick

-----------------

Here are all of the lyrics of the song.  It's pretty good stuff.

( Full Lyrics )

So after I figure out just what some of these chords are, I'll have to practice this one.  Good stuff.

Simple pleasure - rediscovered music
Peace

I was at the co-op getting groceries when the Bangles song Walk Like an Egyptian came on.  I couldn't help but laugh because whenever I hear that song, I think of some time in elementary school at the roller rink trying to skate like an Egyptian with all the other little boys and girls.  We had our hands above our heads in a pyramid and in front and behind us being as Egyptian as we could.

Oh '80s, what a magical decade you were.

I went out for one of my longest runs in quite a while this afternoon - 8 miles, mostly along the river.  It was a great day for a November run being in the mid 30s, with no wind at all.  Very nice indeed.  I learned along the way, though, that the tempo of a number of the songs from The Sound of Music are either right on or very close to the tempo of my running cadence. 

I Have Confidence - check
Doe, A Deer - check
So Long, Farewell - check
Sixteen Going on Seventeen - check

Unfortunately, these songs are pretty repetitive, and since I don't know all of the words to all of the verses...


I have confidence in sunshine
I have confidence in rain
I have confidence that spring will come again
Besides what you see I have confidence in me!

Strength doesn't lie in numbers
Strength doesn't lie in wealth
Strength lies in nights of peaceful slumber
When you wake up
Wake up! It's healthy!

I have confidence in sunshine
I have confidence in rain
I have confidence that spring will come again
Besides what you see I have confidence in me!

Strength doesn't lie in numbers
Strength doesn't lie in wealth
Strength lies in nights of peaceful slumber
When you wake up
Wake up! It's healthy!

I have confidence in sunshine
I have confidence in rain
I have confidence that spring will come again
Besides what you see I have confidence in me!

Strength doesn't lie in numbers
Strength doesn't lie in wealth
Strength lies in nights of peaceful slumber
When you wake up
Wake up! It's healthy!

Yep, that was going on in my head for a few miles.

Simple pleasure - watching the miles pile up in my training log
Peace

• I made cardamom bread yesterday evening.  I really like the process of opening cardamom pods and the grinding up the seeds in the mortar.  It smells really good while baking too.  I searched the kitchen for something tasty to put on th bread when I found some blackberry jam that Sarah brought home from Oregon.  The fragrance of the cardamom works so nicely with the bittersweetness of the jam.  What a treat.
• I played poker at the Kom-On-Inn.  It is this dive bar in west Duluth that has been patronized by the working-class folk of that area for decades and decades.  The great part of the bar though, are the big panels around he walls that have paintings of many of the old mills and factories of the town - steel mills, ore docks, refrigerator plant, the cement plant, etc. - many of which have long since been torn down.  That bar, though perhaps lacking in refinement, is a historical treasure to Duluth.  My poker playing wasn't great, but drinking cheap beer and talking with the locals was pretty great.
• We were given the soundtrack to "Once."  It is a great movie, and the soundtrack is wonderful - great Sunday morning music.  If you haven't seen this movie, do it.  Do it soon before you forget about it.
• My baby sister has mono.  She wasn't able to go to school all last week, and even had to miss out on some of the homecoming funness I guess.  Poor girl.  She looked miserable.  Boo.
• It will be in the 30s today.  Sarah suggested that I go biking outside today since I complained of horrible boredom after my ride on the trainer in the basement.  I really want to ride outside, but I don't want to deal with cleaning the bike, nor with being so cold since I don't have much for cold-weather bike gear.  Maybe I'll go anyway.  My bike needs some cleaning anyway.
• It is good to be home after being in Seattle (a post for later) early this week and then going straight up to Wrenshall.  I'm glad I got to visit family, but it is good to see my wife and have a quiet morning with her in our home.
• Yeah, this soundtrack is really good.  It gets extra points for having several songs in 3 and even at least one song in 5.

Simple pleasure - sitting by the wood stove in Burnell's A-frame and visiting with him amid the sawdust and building materials
Peace

My first to classes today were great.  These students quietly took a test and there was no problem at all.  My third period class wasn't a disaster, but it was hardly good.  They were instructed to read through a lesson in their book and do the corresponding problems.  While I recognized the math they were supposed to be doing, I didn't know it well enough to do any teaching.  So I let them get started on their own.  A lot of students didn't have the materials they needed.  Many of them judged that they couldn't figure things out and after a couple minutes refused to even try.  There were students who worked and got things done, but they were the exception rather than the rule.  By the end of the hour, I had had it with students goofing off and I told them to sit in their desk at which point I gave an unhappy substitute teacher talk to them (being prepared, personal responsibility, directions, etc.).  I was about as crabby at a class as I ever have been, and was preparing to send a student out of the room for his constant bad attitude when he and another kid that I like quite a bit nearly got into a fight.  They were nose to nose when I pushed between them and literally pushed the first kid out of the room.

Not happy... and disappointed.

The second kid is great to have in class.  He's a bit goofy, but is fun, and a good student.  I told the second kid to talk to me after class (only a few moments later).  I told him that I liked him, but that he really disappointed me by reacting and contributing to the situation as he did.  I took him down to the office and we talked to an administrator.  He apologized to me and took responsibility for his actions.  I think through that I was able to reestablish a good rapport with him. 

Later, one of the administrators tracked down the other kid, who didn't go to ISS as I told him, and we all talked.  Unlike the second kid, this one didn't take any responsibility and blamed others for everything.  Still not happy about it.

-------------------------

Later, I went and talked to the orchestra teacher and asked him about strings technology that I have been wondering about.

One of the reasons string technology hasn’t changed is that there were three master instrument makers about 450 years ago who perfected the design.  I imagine to have such prodigious and inspired construction at one time is hard to overcome when that construction is recognized to be so good.

Further, a good sounding string instrument only sounds better with age.  The age of the tree used should be very old (he said 700 years old), then the wood needs to be cut and aged (several years longer) before it is turned into an instrument.  Then the sound of the instrument takes time to mature, and slowly gets better over time.  This is a strike against new instruments, as they take some maturing to sound good.  This is why old instruments are valued so much.  Why try something new that may or may not sound good in 5, 10, or 20 years when there is something that sounds very good right now and will only sound better in the future.

Lastly, when a string instrument is played in tune, the molecules in the wood align themselves in such a way that makes the instrument sound better and better.  All of this adds up to favoring older instruments.  It might not be the whole story, but it goes quite a ways to answering my question.

------------------------

Off to do tech ed. tomorrow.  Yee-haw!

Simple pleasure - a comfortable couch
Peace

Saturday afternoon Sarah and I went to go see the Minnesota Sinfonia at the Basilica of St. Mary, downtown Minneapolis.  This is a great organization that gives free concerts throughout the year and also spends a lot of time going to schools to play for students and to talk to students about music.  We've been to a few of their concerts before and always enjoy ourselves.

While they were playing, I looked at the program and read the bio of the guest cellist (a 13 year-old kid who won a state-wide contest for the right to appear with the Sinfonia).  He played very well on a cello that was over 200 years old.  This struck me as a little odd, not that that he played an old instrument (as many strings musicians do), but rather that unlike so many other examples of technology these old instruments are often preferred over newer ones.  Except for the reasons of nostalgia or simply or the sake of being old, I couldn't think of any other item where something so old is still preferred over something newer.  Along those lines, it is amazing that a technology was essentially perfected hundreds of years ago and really hasn't changed.  The only examples of things that haven't changed in so long that I can think of are things like candles and pottery (though perhaps I just believe that because I am ignorant of modern ceramics).

In a way, the unchanging technology extends (though not quite as well) to conceptions of the height of musical refinement.  Not to ignore the talent and innovation of people in modern music and the importance of "new" styles of music (jazz, blues, folk, you name it), but some of the most important music written is, like the instruments that play them, pretty darn old.  This example doesn't hold up quite as well as the the same phenomenon in instruments, but there is something to it, I think. 

So I have to wonder, why is this the case?  My thought is that it has to do with money and class (am I a commie or am I a commie?).  It wasn't the farmers or miners that were the fine musicians back in the day.  To be a musician (or a scholar, or a painter, etc.) a person needed to have money for training and instruments, something that was surely in short supply among the working classes.  This is not to say that there weren't musicians since people have always and will always make music in one way or another.  It was the upper classes who produced and enjoyed the music and saw its resulting magnificence and proclaimed it good.  Perhaps the upper classes later on were focused on the past and thus requiring the same old types of instruments to be used.  Though "classical" music has changed, the instrument hasn't.

I don't know.  I do know that new instruments have been developed (reed instruments such as the saxophone, electric instruments, etc.), but that good string instruments of today are pretty much identical to the string instruments of hundreds of years ago.  Technology marches forward at an astronomical pace yet the most revered instruments were from before the industrial revolution.  Strange.

My head is befuddled.  Maybe someone has a better analysis of it all than I do.

Simple pleasure - doing holidayish things
Peace

Sometimes I'm in the mood for some Tchaikovsky.  Big, bold, and moving.
Other times I really like listening to new Scandinavian folk music like Hedningarna.  It is dynamic and it seems to touch something deep inside me.
Or maybe it's a quiet Sunday morning and it is time for no other but James Taylor.  In his mind, he's going to Carolina.  Meanwhile I am going to cuddle with Sarah.  That's what James Taylor does.
Sometimes nothing but the cool crooning of John Coltrane's tenor sax will do.

But when it is time for the blues, it is time for the blues, and the blues reign supreme.  I saw something somewhere that if a person lives somewhere where it is icy and snowy in the winter, they can't have the blues.  That may be so, but it sure doesn't keep a terminally white guy like me from dancing up a storm (read, bobbing my head and tapping my feet).  I still harbor thoughts of taking up the guitar and learning how to play, or at least do my best imitation of, the blues.  Maybe I'll never be a Chicago bluesman, but I will always have a deep respect for anyone who can play the blues well.

Simple pleasure - that blue note
Peace

Went to go see Yonder Mountain String Band at the Minnesota Zoo last night with Chris.  Oh my, that was a great show.  For those that aren't familiar with YMSB, they're acoustic bluegrass on speed.  I am not sure there can be a better combination of instruments than guitar, mandolin, banjo and bass.  There were a number of times last night were I was in musical extacy and I thought that if it got any better that my head would explode.  Then there would be a key change, and they bumped up the  harmonies and counterpoint a notch or two.  When they finished their last song, I just collapsed down onto my seat from aural exhaustion.

The crowd was funny.  It was largely young X-ers and old Y-ers, but there was a good contingent of old hippies, quite a few young hippies, and not a small number of highschool pot-heads.  Chris and I split a fifth of whiskey, and I was buzzing off of that, but I'm pretty sure I was feeling more than just the alcohol.  The pot smoke was thick.  It was kind of funny.

So, Yonder Mountain is really good stuff.  The amphitheater at the zoo is a really good venue, and I am looking forward to seeing Trampled By Turtles next weekend.

Simple pleasure - watching the mandolin player's hand turn into a finger-picking blur
Peace

I'm waiting for box 7 of the Minnesota Commission for Public Safety files to come up from the bowels of the history center.  While waiting, I made a new icon and it makes me happy.

Went and threw 54 holes of disc golf with Chris and one of his friends yesterday.  That was one hell of a course, very hard but very good.  The first round I threw a 93, only 8 over par.  They've put a lot of work into that course and it will be great to see it completely finished.  Also found three or four new discs while swimming for a couple lost discs while we played.  Woo-woo.

Had a real nice evening with Sarah last night.

Going to go see Yonder Mountain String Band tonight.  Pretty excited about that.  Hope it stays dry since it is an outdoor show.

Oops, here's my box.  time to look for files about the August 15 Minnesota County Sheriffs' Convention, where the Commission told the Sheriffs to prevent meetings by the Nonpartisan League (radical farmers' organization) if they might cause disorder.  Yay for trampling upon the 1st amendment!

simple pleasure - a nice evening walk
peace

I was going to write about this in my previous post, but it deserves a post all its own.

I'm sure I've extolled the virtues of KFAI before, but I have to do it again.  KFAI is a local independent radio station in the Twin Cities.  It is not affiliated with Minnesota Public or National Public Radio at all (which I couldn't function without).    Like MPR, KFAI depends on membership, so I want to encourage everyone to listen to KFAI - online even - and support them. 

I became a member of KFAI maybe a year and a half ago.  I called in and pledged on Sunday during one of my favorite shows, Women Folk (which follows another great show, Urban Folk).  A couple weeks later I got a hand written thank-you note from the host of the show.  It was very nice,  sincere, and written on Wonder Woman stationery. 

Most of the shows on KFAI are produced locally (very few syndicated shows), and the hosts often say that it is like a different radio station each hour.  It caters to different cultural and immigrant communities in the Twin Cities.  Some of those shows include Somali Voices, Hmong Wameng, Bonjour Minnesota, Khmers in Minnesota, Eritrean Community Radio, and more. 

I like to listen in the middle of the day.  Every weekday from noon to one is Democracy Now followed by a different world music show each day (Latin, world, African, Caribbean, etc.) 

My favorite shows are:
Louisiana Rhythms, Corazon Latino, Global Beat, African Rhythms, Radio Antilles, House Party, Sugar Shop, New Scandinavian Cultural Hour, Radio Rumpus Room, Crap from the Past, Sabados Alegres, Century Spring, and Fubar Omniverse.

Other shows of note are Fresh Fruit (a GLBT show), Wave Project (public access), RSE Radio (hip-hop), Strictly Butter (techno), and a few spoken-word programs.

Take a look at KFAI's weekly programming grid.  Listen to KFAI at 90.3 in Minneapolis, 106.7 in St. Paul, or online.  Pledge to KFAI.  It is a voice for so many underrepresented communities and voices in the Twin Cities.

Ok.  Go listen now. 

Simple pleasure - a tapestry of voices
Peace