Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Pessimism assures that nothing of any importance will change.

Whoever he was, that guy was nuts.

Is it irresponsible to speculate? It is irresponsible not to.

So it was an October Surprise A Day, like an Advent calendar but for crime.

We still have time to mess this up!

People are complicated. Love is not.

… pundit janitors mopping up after the GOP

When do we start airlifting the women and children out of Texas?

Roe isn’t about choice, it’s about freedom.

Since when do we limit our critiques to things we could do better ourselves?

Nothing worth doing is easy.

The truth is, these are not very bright guys, and things got out of hand.

Red lights blinking on democracy’s dashboard

Some judge needs to shut this circus down soon.

if you can’t see it, then you are useless in the fight to stop it.

And we’re all out of bubblegum.

Being the leader of the world means to be the leader of peace.

Balloon Juice has never been a refuge for the linguistically delicate.

“More of this”, i said to the dog.

Something needs to be done about our bogus SCOTUS.

Impressively dumb. Congratulations.

Too often we confuse noise with substance. too often we confuse setbacks with defeat.

I did not have this on my fuck 2022 bingo card.

Presidents are not kings, and Plaintiff is not President.

You are here: Home / Music / Early Afternoon Respite

Early Afternoon Respite

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This is sweet (though I do have a friend who is a working soprano who hates the piece in question; everyone shouting as loud as they can while a penguin up front waves a stick):

 

And then there’s this, for when we need to summon up the sinews. Mavis Staples is a national treasure and Rhiannon Giddens has got the voice that can go all day long:

 

Loud open thread, y’all.

 

 

 

 

Reader Interactions

119Comments

  1. 1.

    Scott P.

    The Ode to Joy is the only thing I have ever encountered that has made me think there might be a God.

  4. 4.

    scav

    Suggestion. Put up a Respite category quicklink somewhere — wouldn’t the featuring section be the place? Parallel to the hard-core (non-respite) category link.

    For some reason, Warren Zevon.

  8. 8.

    trollhattan

    Fortunate enough to have seen Mavis twice. The woman still brings it and one always feels uplifted by the experience.

  9. 9.

    Lyrebird

    Thank you TL, and I’m glad the kids are outside right now because I am crying…

    @scav:

    Suggestion. Put up a Respite category quicklink somewhere

    seconded…  I thus far have things pretty good in this situation, and I’m still finding it kinda tough.  Respite category link, yes!

  11. 11.

    Tom Levenson

    @vigilhorn: My friend also describes the requirements for success as a soprano:

    “A scarf and an attitude.”

    Don’t blame me. I’m just the messenger.

  12. 12.

    West of the Rockies

    Adore the music..  Thank you, Tom.

    In case anyone missed it,  Silicone Valley company has FDA approval for a Covid 19 test–results in less than an hour on the spot where test was taken.  Kits will be available by month’s end.  U think that’s a BFD.

  14. 14.

    Hummus Where The Heart Is

    Excellent for mental health.

    I may be going mad. I swear I turned on ESPN this morning (not the main ESPN, it was News or ESPNU or one of the back channels) and there was competitive rock skipping on some body of water. I mean, they are desperate for things to show, I suppose, and I’m sure the rock skippers were only competing to see who won a 6 pack (maybe it was only a 40), but, seriously, this made ESPN? Next thing you tell me you’;; say Trump is President.

    I may need a room with padded walls.

  17. 17.

    opiejeanne

    @Scott P.: I loved singing it when I was in the choir in college. I feel like I’m soaring when I hear it, like I can fly.

    That little bit of syncopation at the start of a phrase, that reminds me what a genius Ludwig was, so far ahead of everyone else.

  19. 19.

    Brachiator

    @Tom Levenson:

    My friend also describes the requirements for success as a soprano:

    “A scarf and an attitude.”

    Wait. That’s also “Doctor Who.

  20. 20.

    opiejeanne

    @vigilhorn: 1st Soprano here. We had a great conductor for choir in college, and good orchestra conductor too. The department head led the concert band, and he’d get lost partway through pieces with   lots of time changes  and he’d just make circles in the air until we got to something he recognized. It was disconcerting at first, but we just had to count and hope he’d catch up with us.  When it was a Charles Ives piece he was lost.

    Heck, when it was the theme from Hawaii 5-0 which we played as the pep band for some unknown reason, he couldn’t direct that at all, and it’s just 5/4 time all the way through. He’d start us up and just let us fight it out.

  21. 21.

    BeautifulPlumage

    Thank you Tom, music has really been helping. I really appreciate Seattle’s independent music station KEXP. I get to listen via the radio, but it can be streamed. Real DJ’s and a real community using music to help us feel less alone.

    I’ m not great at linking, but two new songs have really hit lately: “Thoughts & Prayers” from Drive By Truckers & “Man Without A Soul from Lucinda Williams.

  22. 22.

    MaryL

    My choir is scheduled to perform and record this piece with the National Symphony Orchestra in June, and I’m so sad that it will almost certainly be cancelled.  I’m hopeful that they will do it next season, though.

  23. 23.

    BeautifulPlumage

    @opiejeanne:

    Hi Oppiejeanne! Sorry I missed the post card event. I’ve been thinking of you & your diabetes diagnosis. How are you doing with that? Hope to see you & Mr Oppiejeanne when we can do meetups again. (waves from > 6 ft)

  25. 25.

    Noncarborundum

    @vigilhorn:

    Q: How can you tell that the woman standing outside your house is a soprano?

    A: She can’t find the key or figure out where to come in.

  26. 26.

    MomSense

    My kids are upstairs jamming on their guitars. Mostly improv.  They just did a long blues rumba that was freaking amazing.  I wish I recorded it.

  28. 28.

    opiejeanne

    @Tom Levenson: I wasn’t in the diva category, I was just one of 5 or 6 1st sopranos in a choir of 90.

    The two self-described divas were best friends, pretty nice girls, and very good but jobs weren’t thick on the ground in 1977 when they graduated. I’ve wondered what happened to them.

    The only vocalist I ever noticed that bad attitude from was Carol Van Ness, a coloratura. She graduated from my cow college and quickly shuffled off to UCLA for her Masters, where they decided that she’d been singing in the wrong range. She was huffy and haughty and not a nice person at all. Life must have changed her, because years  after achieving  fame (her face on the cover of 4 major magazines, Time, Newsweek, I forget the other two) she gave a workshop at my cow college, which years earlier she would not acknowledge existed.

    She won the Met competition in 70 something.

    We had another young woman who won the same competition, I think the following year, Mary Heyler. She was a mezzo and good ones are a dime a  dozen. She worked for several years for an opera company in a town of 30,000 in Germany, and then as a teacher in Wales. Everyone loved Mary.

  29. 29.

    MomSense

    @Tom Levenson:

    There is an amazing documentary on Mavis airing on Hulu.  You will love it.

    The first concert my youngest saw was Mavis opening for Dylan.  He said it made him want to be a musician.  He had heard her music for years, but seeing her live moved him.

  31. 31.

    Martin

    @opiejeanne: Ms Martin sings both soprano and alto, and chooses alto in the choir so she doesn’t have to feel like she’s competing with the other sopranos. The altos sing as a group and not as 25 soloists.

    Her conductor says there’s a reason why the sopranos need a million more sectionals than the altos, and it’s not because they don’t know the music.

  32. 32.

    debbie

    Reposting from below:

    Somewhere Over a Rainbow sung by a high school choir, separately thanks to the situation, yet beautifully as one. This song makes me cry even on a good day, but this version is so fucking beautiful.

  33. 33.

    Charluckles

    Apologies if this violates the respite.

    One thing I forgot to mention in the garden thread. A visit to my favorite nursery yesterday involved an interesting conversation with the managers.  It’s the kind of family run place that holds onto employees for decades. They are desperately trying to keep people employed not only because they care about their employees on a financial level but also because they really do care about them and their mental health.  Managers told me they would rather that folks be at the nursery preparing for spring than at home stewing as long as they are strictly following distancing and hygiene protocols.

    As such they are pulling out all the stops to keep business moving. Including curbside service, preorders and even delivery. Told me they would happily take payment information over the phone and then have an employee drop nursery stock or soil etc at the end of the driveway. No person to person contact necessary.

    Don’t forget to support your local businesses if you can safely and sanely do it.

  35. 35.

    WaterGirl

    @scav:  @Lyrebird:

    Nature & Respite has *replaced Pet Blogging in the category bar across the top (and it’s in the hamburger menu on mobile).

    I am still working out details for the additional section in the sidebar.

    *Nothing is ever really gone, but the location can change.  Pet Blogging is still a top-level category that can be found under View by Topic.  Look for the picture of Walter in antlers or you can find it alphabetically.

  36. 36.

    opiejeanne

    @BeautifulPlumage: I’m sorry you missed it too. We had fun writing postcards.

    My diabetes is well under control now. The doc put me on insulin and it’s wonderful how good it has made me feel. I can monitor my glucose with a meter that reads a little disc on my arm, so I don’t have to jab my fingers constantly. I can see if I’m in the green zone or if I need to correct for a poor diet choice.

  37. 37.

    TriassicSands

    …everyone shouting as loud as they can while a penguin up front waves a stick

    Tastes vary and while Beethoven’s Ninth (Ode to Joy) is neither my favorite Beethoven symphony nor my favorite classical choral work, that’s a ridiculous description of that music or its performance.

  45. 45.

    opiejeanne

    @Martin: Doc, the choir director, would have kicked us all out and found music that didn’t require us at all. Our resident diva was too good to sing in the choir or the smaller ensemble. M

    y voice was ‘too small” to be part of the ensemble. That’s what Doc said, and he was being very kind. The day I auditioned for choir my voice sounded very thin and reedy but my pitch was very good. It was nerves.

  47. 47.

    Noncarborundum

    @opiejeanne: Consider yourself bitten.

    It’s nothing against sporanos. There are jokes like that for all the voice parts and major instruments.

  48. 48.

    Catherine D.

    My niece and sister went to see Brandi Carlile, the Highwomen and Mavis Staples at MSG last fall, and I didn’t even get a T shirt ?

  49. 49.

    opiejeanne

    @Martin: Our director, Doc, would have kicked us all out of choir until we behaved, and found something that didn’t require any firsts, or seconds for that matter. The seconds were usually the harder to work with for some reason. I was an older student, went back to college at 23 and spent 3 years getting my BA in Music. I think being a little older and having been out in the Real World might have made the difference. The other firsts were not freshmen, but the seconds all were. They’d been stars at their high schools.

  53. 53.

    opiejeanne

    @Charluckles: We are sweating it for our favorite nursery too. Flower World. Gardeners  in the East Side area near Seattle know it’s a treasure, and it’s sitting on 15 beautiful parklike acres in an area that is buying farmland and turning it into light industrial parks. This place is so pretty that people bring picnic lunches and sit on the lawn near the big pond, although I wouldn’t do it if the geese were present.

  54. 54.

    BeautifulPlumage

    @opiejeanne: great to hear you’re feeling better! But what is this disk you speak of??? Does it rest on your skin, or is it inserted somehow? Guess I should google it; glucose testing has come a loooong way since I left the lab.

  55. 55.

    geg6

    @Hummus Where The Heart Is:

    I remember when ESPN first started up, this was exactly what they showed.  Crazy competitions.  Sports you never heard of.  Because they had no license to show any of the majors.  I liked the network then.

  56. 56.

    Drdavechemist

    Got possibly my last fix of choral singing for a while this morning. By having one on a part in the choir loft, we were able to maintain social distance and stay under the city mandate of keeping gatherings to fewer than ten people (including clergy and videography crew).

    This was the anthem we sang, with hope that spring will eventually get here:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BHLOob5q1QI

    (hoping I’ve linked correctly from the iPad)

    ETA this obviously isn’t my choir, just the first YouTube performance I could find.

  59. 59.

    trollhattan

    @Tom Levenson:
    Peter Schickele guest-conducted the local symphony once and kept a stream of viola jokes going throughout. Wish I had a better recollection of them, but one indicated their popular use as kindling.

  60. 60.

    James E Powell

    @geg6:

    I remember when ESPN first started up, this was exactly what they showed.  Crazy competitions.  Sports you never heard of.

    Australian Rules Football and Monster Truck shows.

  68. 68.

    catclub

    @Tom Levenson: An alto is a soprano who can read music.

    On a different note. I remember seeing/hearing a museum piece of the forty voice Motet by Tallis? (Spem et alium) and they apparently had a different sound track to each speaker. So keeping the forty tracks separate in some system. That was neat – you could walk around and hear it individually, or move away and hear all the voices.

  69. 69.

    zhena gogolia

    Why is an English horn solo like wetting your pants?

    It gives you a warm feeling and nobody else cares.

    That’s the only one I can remember from a whole mimeographed list of these a conductor friend once showed me.

  71. 71.

    trollhattan

    Tory is just another way to say Republican.

    UK PM Boris Johnson says special steps must be taken to protect 1.5m vulnerable people

    Gee Boris, yathink?

  73. 73.

    MomSense

    How many conductors does it take to screw in a lightbulb?

    Who cares. no one is watching anyway.

  74. 74.

    LuciaMia

    BBC Radio4 Extra is reading Hilary Mantel’s new novel (last in the Wolf Hall trilogy) The Mirror and the Light. First part was today. 2 & 3 Monday and Tuesday respectively.

  75. 75.

    trollhattan

    @catclub:

    Sounds fun! Must have been an immense technical challenge, trying to sync all tracks. Speed of light schmeed of light, millisecond delays will present themselves, introduced by the equipment and cabling.

  78. 78.

    pamelabrown53

    @WaterGirl:

    Thank you so much for reposting “Ode to Joy” by the Muppets, Water Girl. It was an absolute delight, as are you. You are tireless in your efforts to help wherever possible. This was apparent even before this pandemic crisis.

    Thank you for being a point of light in these taxing times.

  79. 79.

    LuciaMia

     when ESPN first started up, this was exactly what they showed.  Crazy competitions.  Sports you never heard of.

    Theres a fun, sweet Brit-com over on Amazon Prime. “The Detectorists.” Now theres a competition. Competitive metal detecting!

  81. 81.

    James E Powell

    @MomSense:

    How many sopranos does it take to change a light bulb?

    One. She holds the bulb and whole world revolves around her.

    Note: Same applies to lead singers everywhere.

  86. 86.

    catclub

    @CaseyL: One of my absolute faves, and the only reason I ever considered learning German

    On a different note  [pun intended] Bach’s St Matthew Passion. And Good Friday is coming.

  93. 93.

    Taken4Granite

    @trollhattan: 

    Schickele once guest-conducted a musical ensemble I was part of, and he also told us some viola jokes. One that I remember:

    Q. Why is a viola like a lawsuit?
    A. Everyone breathes a sigh of relief when the case is closed.

  94. 94.

    Patricia Kayden

    True.

    rand paul using the senate gym and pool despite knowing he might have coronavirus is a clue in the mystery of why his neighbor whipped his ass.— b-boy bouiebaisse (@jbouie) March 22, 2020

  95. 95.

    Emma

    @Tom Levenson: have you been watching Twoset Violin? That’s who I immediately think of whenever someone makes a viola joke!

    As much as I love Beethoven and his 9th, I’m tired of people only knowing the 4th movement’s melody. I’m sure they picked it because they could all do it in their sleep, but come on, musicians, this may be the time to introduce other pieces to new audiences. (Says the hobby pianist who only plays when the mood strikes her and would never record her own playing and put it on YT…)

  98. 98.

    opiejeanne

    @Tom Levenson: Oooh! No one ever told me any of those. There were jokes about trumpeters and trombonists, but I don’t remember any of them. Drat.

  99. 99.

    opiejeanne

    @Ruckus: That pep band was very good, and we were delighted when he turned it and the marching band over to the jazz band director. I got to play baritone sax at a basketball game! my secondary instrument was clarinet.

    The department head, the guy who just waved his stick was pretty full of himself because he was getting royalty checks for something he wrote in his 20s, and the first sociopath I ever encountered, although most of his misbehavior was directed at the other faculty members.

  100. 100.

    opiejeanne

    @BeautifulPlumage: The disc is called a Freestyle Libre. It has a very tiny needle that sticks into the side of your upper arm, and the adhesive is a mother to get loose when it expires. They expire every 14 days, just shut themselves off the moment it’s been 14 days since placing the previous one. Maybe the battery and/or the adhesive fails at some point after that.

    I can read it with my phone as often as I want, and with the little gizmo that you can buy separately. I bought it because my phone at that time couldn’t handle the app, and then I got a new phone that would. I use them both. The gizmo hooks up to a computer so the doctor and I can really see a timeline and get a projected A1C reading when it’s time for my next blood test.

    I’m not going next week like I’m supposed to because I don’t want to be anywhere near the lab or the other patients. Considering where I live, really close to Evergreen hospital, and the doctors I see work there part of the time. We’ll do the next appointment over the phone or by Skype or something.

  107. 107.

    BigJimSlade

    @Emma: I saw the 9th at the Hollywood Bowl once, but I was really there for the opening piece, Stravinsky’s Symphony of Psalms (caught this at Disney Hall, too). Much of the crowd seemed confused after that one, but it’s one of my favorites.

  110. 110.

    J R in WV

    @opiejeanne:

    Carol Van Ness, a coloratura…

    Carol has commented here from time to time, which is how I discovered she writes SciFi space opera and paranormal romance. I’m a big space opera fan, and am half way through a 4 novel series which I give a good review to. Great characterization, fun plots, good guys and really bad guys.

    May even try the paranormal romance eventually… would have never guessed she was once a difficult person… some people really do learn a lot from life.

  111. 111.

    Steeplejack (phone)

    @Hummus Where The Heart Is:

    I think you happened on ESPN-8. (“If it’s almost a sport, it’s on the Ocho.”)

    ESPN is really suffering with no live sports. Lots of reruns and boring pundit-type analysis.

  112. 112.

    opiejeanne

    @J R in WV: Is she the same opera singer Carol Van Ness?

    She did mellow after she was out of college and had her bit of fame. quite a lot of fame at the time

    Oh wait, I misspelled her name. She is Carol Vaness. Yours is quite probably someone else.

  113. 113.

    Citizen Alan

    @opiejeanne:  I’m pretty sure the Hawaii 5-0 theme is in 4/4 time. Are you sure you’re not thinking of the mission impossible theme?

  114. 114.

    Citizen Alan

    @opiejeanne:   I have one of those meters. I can actually check it with my android phone and the information is automatically sent to my doctor. It’s great.  My only complaint is that I can’t go swimming anymore because the water causes the adhesive on the disk to fail, and they’re too expensive to replace more frequently than once every 14 days.

  116. 116.

    sheldon vogt

    @TriassicSands: Agreed.  If I want arrogant and ignorant, I can watch Trump’s presser.  I’m in the Kansas City Symphony Chorus.  It’s amazing what a good “penguin” brings to the table.

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