When librarians sing carols...

...we sing 'em Old School. At Saturday's LNO Ho Ho Ho (Librarian's Night Out, a semi-regular social gathering of Twin Cities area librarians, this one a Christmas party), our awesome hostess not only had the good sense to own a baby grand piano, she had also checked out assorted Christmas music from the library's collection. One book included a variety of modern (read: '80's) Christmas favorites, including this one:


That's right, not only has George Lucas been unable to erase the Star Wars Christmas Special from our collective memory, there actually exists sheet music for "R2D2, We Wish You a Merry Christmas," released two years after the infamous Special. Truly a Christmas miracle! I've included someone's YouTube puppet music video at the bottom here in case you need to hear this thing- which you do. I think my favorite lyrics are from the second verse: "And if the snow's too deep / Just give a little peep / We'll gather 'round the fire / And warm your little wires." Read the interesting trivia near the bottom of the Wikipedia article linked above to learn who made their recording debut on this song. Considering the source, I double-checked the facts like a good little librarian, and it's true. Just goes to show, everyone has to start somewhere.

new ways to ROCK!

Knowing my Guitar Hero addiction like he does (actually, he started it), my cousin invited me over last night to play with his newest toy, Rock Band. Boy, does it ever- rock, I mean. Fun fun fun! It was 7:30 p.m., then it was instantly 9:00, and next thing I knew it was 2:30 a.m. Dangerous to have around, actually, if anything else needs to get done. I was trying out the drums for most of the time, and I can see how a person could actually get better at drum set playing this game. I've always had trouble with the whole foot pedal coordination element when I've messed around on other people's drum sets, but by the end of the night, I actually felt marginally improved. Sorry there are no visuals, but I was having too much fun and didn't think to capture the moment.

We covered guitar and drums, but there's also room on stage for a bass player and a singer. How fun would that be? Here's a screen shot:


When you create your character, you choose everything from their physical build to their clothing look to their hair and tattoos- you can even design the tats and face paint yourself if you want. After all, what's an up-and-coming rock band without a Look? Can you see how 8 hours of my life just sort of disappeared?

amazing, indeed

The final song in worship this morning was "Amazing Grace," in a slightly updated style, but mostly the same as the original. My church is the kind of place where people sit or stand during worship, whatever they feel like doing. There was an older lady sitting behind me, and from what I've observed in the past, she's enough of a traditionalist that she doesn't usually stand unless someone says "please stand" from the front. But the first few words of the first line were still resonating when she got directly to her feet.

I understand exactly how she feels. Of all the meaningful songs in my life, this one still has the power to choke me up, at least a little, every single time I sing it. What is it about "Amazing Grace"? The lyrics, the music, the combination, or some inexplainable third element that makes it greater than the sum of its parts? A friend in grad school was on an ongoing quest to find as many melodies as he could that scanned well with the poetry of AG. His favorite success was the theme song to Gilligan's Island. Go ahead, try it. You know you want to. Same powerful words? Yes. The choke-up factor of that version? Not so high. I've never heard alternate lyrics to the AG melody, so I have no experience with reversing the experiment.

Whatever the reason, I'm thankful for it. The world is a better place with this song in it. And, of course, with the availability of said amazing grace. Nothing like the ring of incredible truth to make the meaning more, well, meaningful.

like singing in the shower, but shushier

So I ended up working at the library last Sunday, which I kind of hate doing, but that's another story. I was helping someone in the children's fiction section when I heard this indistinct but vaguely tonal sound filling my area. I thought maybe some kid was singing in the bathroom, but they'd have to really be belting it out since the bathroom wasn't close. As I walked back to my desk, I realized that the sound was coming from a young girl in the glass study room. She didn't look like she was singing, just sitting there with her head down, reading some manga, but it had to be her. Kids often make the mistake of thinking that room is soundproof, instead of the echo chamber that it is. Kind of like a big shower stall, without the water. Or the privacy.

I needed to cut this little jam session short- it is a library, after all- but the shape of her tuneless tune felt a little familiar, and the music history major, listening test-taking student in me felt compelled to identify it first. Thank you, Alice Hanson!

Then it struck me: she was singing the Hallelujah Chorus. Only the first four bars, and in a made-for-TV, based-on-an-actual-song kind of way, but there it was. Unexpected, but okay, I'll buy it. After all, it was Sunday afternoon.

This has been another Random Public Library Moment (TM).

The Universal Language of Muzak

If you've ever called a Hennepin County Library and been put on hold, you're familiar with our hold music. More accurately, our hold song. We only have one. No matter what time of day or what library you call, the hold song is always exactly the same: about 1 minute long on a continuous loop, sounding like the bastard love child of two timeless classics: "Guy at Bloomingdale's Playing Piano Under the Escalator at Christmas" and "The Song That Never Ends." I see-saw between hating it and loving it deeply and ironically. For all the time and money we invest in being on the cutting edge of technology in our field- Library 2.0 is the latest buzz term- couldn't we at least offer our customers, I don't know, *two* hold songs? Add a little excitement and unpredicability to the phone call? It's just a thought. But for now, we just have the one hold song, and I had started to think of it as all ours; after all, I'd never heard it anywhere else.

Until today.

I've spent quite a bit of time the past few days on the phone with the nice tech support folks in New Delhi. (I just went wireless. Where am I blogging from right now? My living room? My kitchen? The bedroom closet? Only I know! How's that for excitement and unpredictability?) They put me on hold, and over thousands of miles of wireless aether, I heard a familiar strain. It was a remix of the HCL hold song! I couldn't believe it. Instead of solo piano, it was sort of a Light (make that Lite) Rock version with an even slower tempo, but the banal melody, the barely distinguishable A and B sections, the short loop- it was all there.

Is this Cisco's theme song, to be found universally in all their phone systems? I wonder how many other versions are out there? Is there sheet music available? If/when I get a piano, I am going to teach myself this song. It'll only ever be useful as a one-hit joke at library staff parties where there's a piano available, but someday, someday that scenario will come true, and I'll be ready.

"We'd like to thank Hormel a lot..."

"...for their generous support of Spam...alot."

That was the introduction, and it just got funnier from there.

Spamalot. A hit Broadway musical based on a cult classic movie. A movie with no real ending, just sort of the end of the reel. And yet, let Eric Idle and Friends take another crack at it, mix in a few other Monty Python jokes and songs at random, and you've got yourself a hi-laaarious evening of entertainment. It was fun to see the scenes I've had memorized since high school enacted on stage, but I think the new or slightly altered bits were my favorite. Like how Dennis the Constitutional Peasant is actually Dennis Galahad, who joins the quest after being talked into it by the Lady of the Lake and her part ethereal water nymph, part cheerleader "Laker girls." Alas, I didn't see the Curry/Pierce/Azaria cast (I'm salivating at the very thought), but the touring guys did a fine job. I think I may have to acquire the original cast recording so that I can add the show to my "you big nerd, how much Monty Python do you really need to memorize?" repertoire.

And isn't this where the show really belongs, here in Minnesota, the cradle of Spam itself?

My other favorite thing: the stage bill. Analogous to the Holy Grail opening credits in quasi-Swedish, there is a title page in quasi-Finnish:

And that fits in Minnesota, too! I needed look no further than the person sitting next to me to find a Finnish last name with an abundance of oddly-arranged vowels. And I mean that in the nicest possible way. Finland, Finland, Finland, the country where I want to be...

good neighbors

I opened my front door on Sunday afternoon to figure out what sound I was vaguely hearing from next door. It was my Ukrainian neighbor, singing melancholy Russian folk songs at full voice with an impressive Russian-style baritone. It was lovely. Especially compared to my neighbor in Champaign during grad school, who liked to play Cher dance remixes at 2 in the morning. We'll soon find out how far Nadia and Vasily's neighborly tolerance and devotion to music go; I need to practice my oboe.

Good Friday, Good Jazz

At my church's Good Friday tenebrae service, we each get a nail on the way in. After the service, as we're leaving in darkness and silence, we drop the nails in a tin bucket by the door. The only sound in the church is the patter of falling nails, a sobering reminder that each of us had a hand in putting Christ on the cross. Throughout the service, I was fidgeting with the nail, and by the end I found that I wasn't eager to give it up. I would trace the sharp edges with my fingers, even clutch it tight into my palm, like worrying a toothache with my tongue, as if the constant bite of my own sins was somehow a comfort to have near. The problem is, I don't have the guts to actually pierce my own hand, and even if I did, what's the value of my tainted blood? How often do I find some kind of dark comfort in keeping company with my own spiritual aches and pains instead of turning them over to Christ, who already covered my cosmic tab? I suppose it's because wallowing takes less effort, and I also get a nice martyr-y feeling, as long as I don't think it through too much.

And now for something completely different: after church, I went to see Happy Apple play at the Artist's Quarter in downtown St. Paul with my friend Jason. He's a big fan, and I thought I'd give them a try, and it was definitely worth the effort. Drums, bass, and saxophone is what they've got. According to Happy Apple's mySpace page, they classify themselves as jazz/experimental/crunk. Whatever they are, they are talented and very tight while playing the crazy jazz music, yeah. Here they are in motion:

Whee!

The show also re-enforced in my mind that some types of music go best with a beer. This is one of them. I don't know if it's the classic dark basement jazz club setting, or the nature of jazz itself, but a muscle and brain relaxant seemed to free up a few synaptic pathways for new combination possibilities that my brain may not have been as willing to accept and enjoy when stuck in stone cold weekday patterns. Just a thought.

In an attempt to tie the two halves of my day together, I pose a question:

If the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit played drums, electric bass, and sax in a jazz trio, who would play what, and why?

In my CD player:
Live Current, volume 2 (thank you, MPR)

In my iPod: The Book Thief by Markus Zusak

On my screen:
Jeremiah, Season 1 (jury's still out on this one...)