Ks Are Wild

I am pretty eclectic in my musical likes. Broadway, 50s, big band, torch songs, afro-cuban, easy listening, R&B, soundtracks, pop, 60s, 70s, 80s, indie…. But I do tend to gravitate to female leads; perhaps because I can sing along with them better. Except I love artists with the more husky, soulful voice rather than my operatic vibrato. I wanted to share with you guys 3 artists/groups that I’ve discovered. Maybe you’ll like them too – or maybe you’ll just learn more about me. All are artists I loved the second I laid ears on them.

First off - Neko Case (used to be in the group The New Pornographers) – my recent “discovery”. I’m late in the game here, but my friend Michelle, an avid music connoisseur, has helped feed my infatuation. She’s an artsy oddball who looks like the dancing red-haired big bosomed sex kitten who danced with Elvis in Viva Las Vegas and in Bye Bye Birdie Ann Margaret. Talk about learning to use your vocal instrument. She has a bit of a yodel every now and then. She’s the one of the three I’m discussing that is not to everyone’s taste (I’m thinking about my dad here), but she is just lovely if you dig her vocal style.

Maybe Sparrow by Neko Case

Star Witness by Neko Case

Furnace Room Lullaby from the movie The Gift by Neko Case

2nd, Pink Martini. I discovered this group when I moved to Corvallis and was an instantly obsessed fan. I had the pleasure of seeing them live in Central Park last summer during DaVinci Days (a big deal here). They are this huge orchestral group of all different nationalities. They mostly do their own music but there are some great covers. THe composer/pianist and lead female singer went to Juliard together and then formed the growing band. They are Portland based but now perform globally. Their sound is like 40s, old film, swing, salsa, torch combined. Everything I LOVE rolled up into one. I first heard them on a PBS special fund raising concert while I was unpacking boxes. I stopped working and sat and watched the whole thing in its entirety. They do songs in english, spanish, french, italian, arabic, japanese…and counting. They welcome contributions from all their bandmates so it’s very eclectic.

This is the song that made me fall in love with them (She comes in after 1 minute of instrumentals.):  Hang On Little Tomato by Pink Martini

Lead Singer and Composer of Pink Martini live on PBS singing french song

Pink Martini performs Una Notte a Napoli

Pink Martini performs Kikuchiyo To Mohshimasu

Pink Martini performs Hey Eugene on David Letterman

Last, but not least, Eva Cassidy – Canadian blues artist. All of her stuff has been released posthumously (cancer). Her Somewhere Over the Rainbow and Autumn Leaves covers give me absolute chills. She does original songs too – oh nad her Fields of Gold, an uncoverable song in my opinion as nobody does it like Sting, is even wonderful.

Eva Cassidy sings Autumn Leaves

Eva Cassidy sings Somewhere Over the Rainbow

And very last, is a pop song by a female artist (Katy Perry) from Santa Barbara, called “I Kissed a Girl”. It’s just fantastic to dance to. I love it and crank it up every time I hear it. Don’t watch/listen if you are…hmm….sensitive.

Katy Perry official video \”I Kissed a Girl\”

Down for the count with the flu, not a cold as I thought, but still have to care for the kiddos. Kham works Saturdays. So here’s a little diddy, an internet email classic, that is highly amusing about all the stuff that flies out of your mouth as a parent, particularly the stay-at-home one:

The Mom Song

being sick and having to care for yourself and your children solo. I desperately want to curl up in a ball and sleep and take baths to soothe my muscles. But there’s nothing soothing about fighting kids. I feel sorry for them. Mommy is no fun and an absolute beeeahtch. But come off it, can’t they scrape up the teeniest bit of sympathy and keep it together for 10 minutes?!

Gonna go lay down. At least Little Girl (one of our cats who is the antithesis of “little”) understands. She just lays there and waits for me to return to HER bed and curl up to her warmth with my chills. It was bound to happen with the kids being so sick for weeks. I thought I’d come through unscathed. Don’t count your germs before they’ve multiplied.

As I write this Kosette is singing “The Telephone Hour” from Bye Bye Birdie as she plays quietly in her bed…But that wasn’t the song I wanted to point out. The current song obsession of ours (The kids and mine because they listen to what I do – Kellen just likes any “bad guy song”) is from WICKED – “No Good Deed” sung by Elphaba (The Wicked Witch of the West). The funny thing is, well not so much to me, is that when Kosette threw a tantrum leaving her friend Sophie’s, as she so often does, I couldn’t help but think of the main lyrics of that song “No Good Deed Goes Unpunished.” I buckled her in, screaming and crying, and threw in the cd to that track and belted it at the top of my lungs with the windows down. It made me smile and do an awesome car performance if I do say so myself. And that’s quite an accomplishment – to be able to smile in the midst of all that drama. I, of course, am very partial to the original Broadway production. I think Idina Menzel is a genius. The only thing is that in Idina’s version the way she finishes the the “shed” in “punished” sounds like “shit” to Kosette and she’s always asking me if she’s saying the s word. But I’ve noticed that I can’t find hardly any clips from the original cast production. Looks like they’re coming down on copyright stuff on youtube. So here’s a clip of the London cast’s Elphaba performing it (the lyrics follow). I like Kerry’s twist on the ending notes but I’m not a fan of how she is so forceful on her clipped staccotoed no-good-deed. I can see how she’d make a good Fantine character (as she was before in London’s Les Miserables): Burrrr this song gives me the chills! I’m serious, I’ve got chicken skin again just watching it.

Kerry Ellis in Wicked sings No Good Deed

Here’s the lyrics:

ELPHABA
(spoken) Fiyero!
(sung) Eleka nahmen nahmen
Ah tum ah tum eleka nahmen
Eleka nahmen nahmen
Ah tum ah tum eleka nahmen

Let his flesh not be torn
Let his blood leave no stain
Though they beat him
Let him feel no pain
Let his bones never break
And however they try
To destroy him
Let him never die:
Let him never die:

Eleka nahmen nahmen
Ah tum ah tum eleka nahmen
Eleka nahmen nahmen
Ah tum ah tum eleka: eleka:

What good is this chanting?
I don’t even know what I’m reading!
I don’t even know what trick I ought to try
Fiyero, where are you?
Already dead, or bleeding?
One more disaster I can add to my
Generous supply?
No good deed goes unpunished
No act of charity goes unresented
No good deed goes unpunished
That’s my new creed
My road of good intentions
Led where such roads always lead
No good deed
Goes unpunished!

Nessa:
Doctor Dillamond:
Fiyero:
Fiyero!!

One question haunts and hurts
Too much, too much to mention:
Was I really seeking good
Or just seeking attention?
Is that all good deeds are
When looked at with an ice-cold eye?
If that’s all good deeds are
Maybe that’s the reason why

No good deed goes unpunished
All helpful urges should be circumvented
No good deed goes unpunished
Sure, I meant well -
Well, look at what well-meant did:
All right, enough – so be it
So be it, then:
Let all Oz be agreed
I’m wicked through and through
Since I can not succeed
Fiyero, saving you
I promise no good deed
Will I attempt to do again
Ever again
No good deed
Will I do again!

Camping with the kids for the very first time was a wonderful experience (we met Kham’s parents and sister on the coast for 1 night) but now there’s smokey laundry to do and a dirty house from them being sick prior to leaving to sanitize. More details on the actual camping trip another day. I’m currently correcting red eye and labeling all the pictures during my brief computer time. I keep this poem taped to the computer to see and keep in mind at all times. I found myself thinking about it yet again, when falling asleep to the sound of the ocean. I’ll leave you this for now. I wonder if it strikes you as much as it does me:

The Peace of Wild Things by Wendell Berry

When despair for the world grows in me

and I wake in the night at the least sound

in fear of what my life or my children’s lives may be,

I go and lie down where the wood drake

rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.

I come into the peace of wild things

who do not tax their lives with forethought

of grief. I come into the presence of still water.

And I feel above me the day-blind stars

waiting with their light. For a time

I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

A weird summer cold has struck Kellen and Kosette down for over a week and a half now. Their coughing sounds like the barking of seals and the runny noses…and now they both have their first case of pink eye in both of their eyes. That is some nasty stuff. Now it feels like my whole house is nasty and slimy and a germ breeding ground. It’s like life has come to a standstill here at the purple house. I’ve barely left the house. It is a total sty.

It doesn’t help that I have a bedroom floor covered with clean clothes waiting to be folded, a hatching of moths that I think are the webbing clothes moth that came from the old armoire I aired after painting it (those eggs can live for over 2 years. Or one of its life cycle phases can.) And now they seem to be spreading from upstairs to down. And fleas, those too. 5 bites last night. So I need to wash, deflea, medicate 3 cats (which means I need to cut their nails first) as well as disinfect in hot every linen and clothing item the kids have come in contact with, the puppets, the toys,…it’s overwhelming to think of. Oh yeah, and both their tub and our shower have major clogs that over the counter stuff doesn’t seem to penetrate.

So we’ve decided to go camping and just not deal with it at all. Well the kids have been on a rx for the pink eye, nothing we can do about the colds which linger, and I don’t want to even start with the house. We’re going to the Waldport area to meet Kham’s parents and his sister, Julie. Just a night. Car camping. It’ll be a nice trial run to see how the kids do. And we do. Benadryl & wine I say. One for them and one for us. Just kidding. I think it’ll be fun but cold. My SIRIUS satellite radio upped and died and I haven’t had it’s company for over a week now. So this hasn’t been a very fun week in that sense.

Midsummer’s Night’s Dream, however, was awesome. We plan on making that a tradition and look forward to the time when our kids are mature enough that we can take them too. For now, we’ll just have to enjoy the time for ourselves. It was very pleasant. I highly recommend it. And I brought the perfect picnic food if I do say so myself: a bottle of Pinot Grigio, a mixed leaf/cucumber salad with shaved Romano cheese and the yummiest dressing I’ve ever made (recipe to follow another day), a cheese quiche (my very first, made by adapting two dift. recipes) with Havarti cheese and thick Greek yogurt to change it up – very rich and smooth it was with a shaking of Frank’s Red Hot Sauce, a marionberry cobbler with coconut whipped cream (from scratch). All it lacked was coffee – which they sold at intermission. Next time I’ll bring that too and we’ll bring low stadium lawn chairs, then it’ll truly be perfect. For you summertime visitors, you should time your visits to go. ONly $12 a person and money well spent.

We also watched an excellent rental movie this week – Lars and the Real Girl. We both highly recommend it. Ryan Gosling did a fantastic job. And the psych. was in Six Feet Under and did a terrific job as well. And the brother I think was in Deadwood, and the wife was Irish and in something I’ve seen too….just wonderful. Positive. Odd. Comic. See it. Give it a chance.

Gotta go pack. You know how good and speedy I am at that.