1...2...3...4...

oh, jenny

Ever since "The Humans Are Dead" captured my heart (and earned its way onto my favourite summer mix) last year, I've had a soft spot for Brett and Jemaine.  Even though this song has been around a long time, it's still making me laugh!

hang around for one more song

I'm glad that this (new, favourite) band isn't wasting their rad name on bad songs.  This may just be my new summer soundtrack.

{London Bridges, by This is Ivy League}

Further:

This is Ivy League's Myspace page

on the thrill of music

would you go along with someone like me?

{peter bjorn & john's "young folks"

amazing song, amazing video...!}

some things cost more than we think

further:

www.thestoryofstuff.com

the 

raindrops 

catch 

light

 like 

so 

many 

stars

throwing 

back 

high beams 

to the 

road 

from 

the cars

we're all in this together

my new favourite...

...song & artist & soundtrack & film:  "My Hands are Shaking" by Sondre Lerche for his lovely sountrack of the film, Dan in Real Life.  I've been covering this song on my beat-up guitar all week!

Here, live at Amoeba Records, in Hollywood:

03/08 {a year of playlists}

Some friends in my group have decided to move on, and to them, I dedicate this mix of travelin' songs.

Safe Travels

_________

1.  Safe Travels - Peter and the Wolf

2. I Miss You Like I Miss You - Chad Van Gaalen

3.  On Your Way - Album Leaf

4.  Orange Sky - Alexi Murdoch

5.  The Littlest Birds - The Be Good Tanyas

6.  Detlef Schrempf - Band of Horses

7.  If You Leave - Nada Surf

8. Liberty Line - Griffin House

9.  Change is Hard - She & Him

10.  I'll Be Ok - Sondre Lerche

11. West Coast - Coconut Records

12. St. Apollonia - Beirut

13. Waiting for a Train - Peter and the Wolf

14. Coming Home - The 88

15. Hello Goodbye - The Beatles

love!

In grade 6, I dabbled in stop animation as part of a cartooning module at my elementary school.  My two partners and I laboured for weeks on a whimsical story of the Easter bunny.  All I remember is being hunched over the camera on a musty pea-green carpet in the sunny school library, and click-click-clicking the camera over painstakingly minute changes to our backdrop made of cardboard and crayon.  The film was lost in the mail on the way to being mastered and I never saw it completed.  That must be why I love this stop animation video by the Terrodactyls so much.  It evokes wistful childhood nostalgia, old-school creativity, and that hopeful optimism of one day being a "cartoonist."  

for the widows in paradise...

I love everything about this.  

But especially the banjo.

And the hat.

me and my friend

A few months back, I sent some roughly recorded songs to my friend Mikey, and then proceeded to forget all about them.  What a treat today, then, to be sent the songs back slightly altered, rife with inspired changes.  He added a few tracks, played around, and brought new layers and dimension to my decidedly simple songs.  After years of butchering pretty much every song on my old, beat-up guitar, it's fun to hear things I have written augmented by real musicianship!  Thanks, Mikey!

without singing

Three days after my doctor put me on vocal rest (to heal my teaching-ravaged singing voice), I found myself at a Sunday morning gathering, feeling admittedly, a little bit off.   All around me people were singing, and I wondered how I could participate in this corporate act of 

(musical) worship.  My first inclination was to shut my eyes tight and pray, and I did.  But once I opened my eyes, I found there were quite a few ways for me to meaningfully engage with the music.  I became very aware of my brothers and sisters around me, and found it was kind of encouraging to listen and watch.  I smiled at some, and noted some newcomers to greet after the service.  I winked at one of the girls I mentor, and was heartened as I watched her close her eyes and sing with feeling.  I prayed for my family around me, and realized that as part of the congregation, their singing was my singing.  Watching and praying was oddly fortifying, and I felt very much that I was worshipping with the body of Christ.  I may have been silent, but we were not.

The next week, I came ready to worship without singing, and was flooded with all sorts of ways to worshipfully engage the music component of the gathering.  Without a voice, my posture became significant.  Simply raising my eyes upwards or bowing my head, lifting my hands or touching my heart, all became ways to demonstrate my love for God.  I focused my attention on the qualities of God we were singing about and found myself ruminating at length on the meaning of the words.  Certain phrases jumped out at me, and spurred me to pray silently, or open my Bible.  (Once in a while I cheated, and sang out a lyric or chorus that I just could not keep in!).  Many times we sung lyrics that spoke of the song of the heart, and I knew that my heart was indeed singing, even though my lips were silent.  

How great is our God, sing with me, How great is our God 

All who sing, how great, how great is our God!

Name above all names, He is worthy of all praise

My heart will sing how great is our God!

{'How Great Is Our God', Chris Tomlin}

on new, old gems

I love a good cover song.   The best ones are a marriage between the warm and familiar, and the new and inspired.  They bring a smile to our faces, reminding us why we so adore an old favourite, or conversely, bringing new life to a tired song we never really liked before, and revamping it into a new, old gem, filled with unexpected goodness. 

Meet Hero, a Korean 4 year old, who - without training in music or English - covers "Hey Jude" with gusto and panache.  It's quite possibly my most favourite Beatles cover yet!

Further:

The Covers Project

on long tubes, action plans and egyptian mummies

Today a voice specialist doctor inserted a long tube with a light on the end of it into my nose and down into my throat.  As he moved it around and peered at my vocal chords, all I could think about was how during mummification, the ancient Egyptians would put a long hook in the nose to pull out the brains.  

On a positive note, he pronounced my vocal chords healthy, and free of nodes or lesions, which makes me happy.  I am on vocal rest for the next three weeks (Confession: I've already cheated a little, even though tonight I only played guitar at band practice).  If I rest my voice properly, I should be able to sing again at the end of all of this.  If I don't, that doctor will have to use the tube again, which is incentive enough to change my errant ways.

And so, here is my action plan for the next three weeks:

• Use non-verbal cues in my classroom, and plan out my instructions in advance, so I can say them with the least amount of talking.
• Schedule significant vocal rest into every day.
• Quit singing in the car.  Hide all the Feist & Sufjan Stevens CDs, and listen only to difficult-to-sing-along-to albums, like Radiohead's Kid A, and The Album Leaf.  Listen to talk radio if necessary (ugh).  
• Continue to think of meaningful ways to engage Sunday gatherings, Wednesday night MG and personal worship times without singing.
• Absolutely NO coffee, caffeinated teas or beverages of any kind.  Drink water!

i like these songs

joel battle

he's a friend of a friend who i have never met.  

somehow i ended up on his page,

which is rather fortuitous.

i especially love the songs, 

'daylight saves' and 'slow learner.'  

but seriously, they are all so lovely.

yet to be sung (Am, C, F)

i tilt my head back
look way way up
i have to close close close
my eyes
a little smile escapes
can't keep it straight
all around is bathed
in your bright
how does so much
glory
fit inside my
little story?

for you

homemade cookies...

and a song... 

                            

{happy valentine's day}

learning to love you more (assignment no. 53)

Advice to Alissa at age 17:  

1.  You might never again experience the depth of family that you have had at this church you have attended all your life. You will move on to a new spiritual family in 5 years, and it will feel weird at first.  It's not a parting, but an extension.  Good things are ahead.

2.  That boy you like is leading you on.  Just because he acts like he is in love doesn't mean he is.   There are better boys to come, and soon he will be just a "blip" in your story.

3.  Don't lose touch with Jenny.  She is the truest of friends.

4.  Don't fight with Dad about the cereal.  Let him win so he can still feel like he has authority.  Soon you will move out, and you can eat whatever cereal you want.

5.  Rescue all those beautiful relics from the milkhouse on the farm.  One day you will have an eye for vintage items, and daydream about roaming around all those barns full of free antiques.

6.  When Laura finds a new best friend, don't let her go so easily.

7.  Don't let Jeff and Dave make fun of your music.    They think Nickelback is cool!  What do they know?  In ten years, they will just be discovering what you have known all along.