(no subject)

[kirkcudbright]

1) Last night's concert, the first concert I've been to in quite a while, was Hamza El Din, a Nubian oud player. Went with Francie, Vicka, Daniel, and Rich. Francie admitted it really wasn't her thing, Vicka found it soothing, and I don't know what the boys thought.

The first CD I got, A Wish, is one of my favorite in all the world, in any genre. I probably played it 15 times in the first week I had it. I really like it. Go and listen to the samples - you might like it, you might not. But the CD has a couple things the concert didn't, like accompanying musicians, and studio production.

The concert was solo, on one oud. He played and sang, but had a nasty cough, for which he cannot be blamed. He also apparently doesn't like light in his face, because he was so under-lit as to be practically shadowed. He played sitting, with the oud resting on his right knee, in a whispered hint of a spotlight, on an empty stage. Stark.

His compositions tend to the long, slowly unfolding, contemplative style, somewhat like an Indian rag. The CD is a bit more produced for Western audiences, with (gasp) cello and piano on the last track. He played that piece ("A Wish"), and it was interesting to hear the stripped-down essential version.

So that was why we weren't at either of the parties.

2) No riding today - too cold.

3) Went to see Peter Pan instead. That's two movies in as many weekends (the other being LotR, of course) - my quota for the year. This treatment is interesting, being about how Wendy doesn't want to grow up. But I've never seen the many other versions (except maybe the Disney version when I was a kid), nor read the book, so I don't really have anything to compare to. But I suspect Tinkerbell wasn't this much of a bitch in the other versions. Oh, and it starred Lucius Malfoy as both the father and Captain Hook.

4) Made lentil soup for dinner, from the same Cook's Illustrated recipe that coraline posted a few days ago. I used red lentils, which the article downgraded because they tend to fall apart. But then they tell you to puree part of the soup, so falling apart really isn't a bad thing. In any event, the lentils were sort of half fallen apart after 10 minutes, and no more so after 45 minutes. And it was rich, and thick, and tasty. And life was good.

5) No, I won't mention that now.

6) Started a new bedtime book. Having just finished Over Sea, Under Stone, Kylie wants to go through the other 4 books in the The Dark is Rising sequence. I'd been lobbying for The Chronicles of Narnia, and we'll get it it eventually... We also recently read The Children of Green Knowe (about a boy who befriends 3 ghost children in his granny's house), but Francie isn't quite entirely sure where her copy of the first sequel (of 4 sequels) is.

Mind you, this is after we finished the vast majority of the "Famous Forty" Oz books, plus a half-dozen more recent Oz titles.

Comments

[lyonesse.livejournal.com]

the boys claimed to have liked hamza, though i think rich found it distressing that this man was up on stage when he should clearly have been tucked into warm blankets with a hot toddy. i admit i felt that way myself. we have plans to listen to the cd tonight, so rich can experience the sound of the voice without the virus.