HAPPY EASTER!!!

JOYOUS PASSOVER!!

FESTIVE CHRISTIE

HIMMELFAHRT DAY!!!!

(I THINK this is the official international holiday for ex-cheerleaders.)

I was going to apologize for taking so long to write this chapter. I gather the last chapter happened before CHRISTMAS!!!

But I am NOT apologizing. No, sirreee. It has been an outrageous Spring, the roller coaster ride of a lifetime…of several lifetimes.

I am grateful to have survived and be able to still have fingers that type and eyes that can somehow focus.

Where to start? Where to start???

How’s about with DANGEROUS BEAUTY, our  big old honking musical, which started rehearsals two days after Christmas and ran us ragged 24-7 until she opened February 13th. What an adventure.

Who knew Art could be so complicated? Or exciting? Or sleep depriving?

(That’s me and Jeannine Dominy, the author, in the theater at some point during final tech rehearsals. Running on fumes and wayyyy too much caffeine.)

The end result was a creature of pride and beauty for me.

The reviews were as varied as a million dollar bag of dyslexic trail mix…everything from withering scorn to high operatic praise. Loved or hated…which is much more exciting than “I liked it where shall we eat?”

And a fantasy of my LIFE was fulfilled, Rufus Sewell, who starred in the film, came to the opening, (as did the glorious Jacqelyn Bisset), and Michele and I got to have our pic taken with him on someone’s shaky I-phone. I have proof I have been  touched by the handsomest man on the planet!!!!

Does she have a future? Don’t know at this point.  All I know is it was an astounding effort filled with love and drama. All shall be revealed in the fullness of time.

Since then, the world has been a place of SUCH astounding contradictions…

the horrendous continuing tragedy of Japan,

( I  can hear my pal Helen Caldicott, the avid anti-nuclear activist shaking her  fiery head and yelling “I TOLD YOU SO!!!”),

the  astounding events in the Middle East, the foolishness on so many congressional floors, the tornados in Oklahoma, Charley Sheen on tour,  and the MOST glorious Spring that has crept on moist little feet into my garden. Moist, because we have had more rain this Spring then in years! Our drought is officially over!  My roses are screaming with delight, the iris starting to leap towards the heavens, the Orioles have returned to the bird bath, the hawks dating in the eucalyptus trees out front. Heaven!

The Universe has a very strange, Kafkaesque sense of humor.

This cartoon says it all.

In between all this sturm and drang have been patches of joy.

Michele Brourman and I had a GREAT three days at the glamorous RRAzz room in San Francisco, while the hurricane hit Los Angeles.

We went to Tucson to help celebrate the 40th Anniversary  of the wonderful Invisible Theater, where I met and instantly fell in love with the divine Kathleen Chalfont. What a class act in a gorgeous, fuzzy package.

And now, as I type from the sky, I am winging to  New York City where the Universe, in the guise of Michael Feinstein, has asked me to share the stage at Zankell Hall with him and Billy Stritch and my musical goddess, Marilyn Maye, in a tribute to our beloved musical pal, Margaret Whiting. What could be more wonderful?

Margaret was a true friend to me. It was she who encouraged me to keep writing during periods of despair, and always encouraged me to  keep  coming back to New York to sing. She was an angel to so many song writers. What joy to be able to sing her praises in such a classy joint.

(THIS sign will NOT be found back stage at Carnegie Hall!)

In honor of Margaret, the Queen of Jazz, I offer you the following.

She would have LOVED this dissertation!

Goodies and Gossip

AGENT: A character who resents performers getting 90% of his salary.

ARRANGER: A guy who writes to support a drinking habit.

BALLET: An art form for people with eating disorders.

BANDSTAND: The area furthest away from an electrical outlet.

BIG BAND: Nowadays, an aggregation consisting of two musicians.

BROADWAY PIT JOB: A prison sentence disguised as a gig.

CABARET: A venue where singers do songs from shows that closed out of 
town.

CARPAL TUNNEL SYNDROME: God’s way of telling you that you’ve practiced 
too much.

CATERER: A man whose hatred for musicians is unrivaled

CHANTEUSE: A singer with an accent and no time.

CLASSICAL COMPOSER: A man ahead of his time and behind in the rent.

CLUBDATER: God’s way of telling you that you didn’t practice enough.

CLUB DATE LEADER: Someone who changes his name from Kaminsky to Kaye.

CONTINENTAL VIOLINIST: A guy who rushes like he’s trying to catch 
the last train to Budapest.

CRUISE SHIP WORK: A gig that gives a musician two reasons to throw up.

DJ: The guy your son would rather have play for his Bar Mitzvah.

D-MINOR: A rare army classification which states: in the event of war, 
all musicians are to only play klezmer (Yiddish music).

DOUBLEBASS: The instrument the folks footing the bill feel is 
unnecessary.

DOWNBEAT: The magazine that would have you believe that all jazz 
musicians are working.

ELECTRIC PIANO: The instrument that enables its player to pay for the 
hernia he sustained lifting it.

HOTEL PIANIST: A guy who looks good in a tux.

JAZZ: The only true American art form beloved by Europeans.

JAZZ FESTIVAL: An event attended by folks who think Coltrane is a car 
on the B&O railroad.

LYRIC: That part of a tune known only by singers and homosexuals.

MELLOPHONE: An instrument best put to use when converted into a lamp.

METRONOME: The archenemy of chanteuses and cantors.

MOVIE COMPOSER: Someone who can write like anyone except himself.

NEW AGE: A musical substitute for Valium.

NEW year’s EVE: The night of the year when contractors are forced to 
hire musicians they despise.

ORCHESTRATOR: The musician who enhances a composer’s music, only to be 
chastised for it.

PERCUSSIONIST: A drummer who can’t swing.

PERFECT PITCH: The ability to pinpoint any note and still play out of tune.

PIANIST: An archaic term for a keyboard player.

PRODIGY: A kid who has as much chance at a normal childhood as 
the Chicago Cubs winning the World Series.

RAGA: The official music of New York’s Taxi and Limousine Commission.

RARE VIOLIN: A Stradivarius, not to be confused with a rare violinist, 
which is someone over four foot eleven.

SIDEMAN: The appellation that guarantees a musician will never be rich.

STAFF MUSICIAN: Harder to locate than a cavity in the Osmond family.

STEADY ENGAGEMENT: Look up in Webster’s Dictionary under the word 
”obsolete.”

24\7: The time signature of the national anthem of India.

UNION REP: A guy who thinks big bands are coming back.

VERSE: The part of a tune that’s disposable, except to its composer.

VIOLA D’ AMORE: A baroque string instrument and coincidentally the 
hooker Bach lost his virginity to.

WURLITZER: The Ford Pinto of pianos.

YANNI: A man blessed with great hair for music.

As long as we are into definitions, here is my favorite visual definition of the moment…

What useful thing have I learned since last we communicated?

How to make sourdough bread!
My pal Michele forced me to…bless her wicked heart.
Come on over. I’ll bake you some. I’ve done rye, whole wheat, nine grain…haven’t tried chocolate chip yet, but I am pondering….
(If you ask me what my last meal will be…A loaf of hot sourdough bread with a stick of butter, a grilled artichoke, and some berry cobbler…with a fine Zinfandel. How about you?)

How to poach eggs in red wine. Yum!

Now the following may or may not be true….probably a little bit of both, but I liked the read:

Goodies and Gossip

Interesting History

They used to use urine to tan animal skins, so families used to all pee in a pot & then once a day it was taken & sold to the tannery…….if you had to do this to survive you were “Piss Poor.”

But worse than that were the really poor folk who couldn’t even afford to buy a pot……they “didn’t have a pot to piss in” & were the lowest of the low.

The next time you are washing your hands and complain because the water temperature isn’t just how you like it, think about how things used to be. Here are some facts about the 1500s:

Most people got married in June because they took their yearly bath in May, and they still smelled pretty good by June. However, since they were starting to smell . ….. .  Brides carried a bouquet of flowers to hide the body odor.  Hence the custom today of carrying a bouquet when getting Married.

Baths consisted of a big tub filled with hot water. The man of the house had the privilege of the nice clean water, then all the other sons and men, then the women and finally the children. Last of all the babies. By then the water was so dirty you could actually lose someone in it.. Hence the saying, “Don’t throw the baby out with the bath water!”

Houses had thatched roofs – thick straw-piled high, with no wood underneath. It was the only place for animals to get warm, so all the cats and other small animals (mice, bugs) lived in the roof. When it rained it became slippery and sometimes the animals would slip and fall off the roof… Hence, the saying “It’s raining cats and dogs.”

There was nothing to stop things from falling into the house.

This posed a real problem in the bedroom where bugs and other droppings could mess up your nice clean bed. Hence, a bed with big posts and a sheet hung over the top afforded some protection. That’s how canopy beds came into existence.

The floor was dirt. Only the wealthy had something other than dirt. Hence the saying, “dirt poor.” The wealthy had slate floors that would get slippery in the winter when wet, so they spread thresh (straw) on floor to help keep their footing. As the winter wore on, they added more thresh until, when you opened the door, it would all start slipping outside. A piece of wood was placed in the entrance-way. Hence: a thresh hold.

(Getting quite an education, aren’t you?)

In the old days, they cooked in the kitchen with a big kettle that always hung over the fire.  Every day they lit the fire and added things to the pot. They ate mostly vegetables and did not get much meat. They would eat the stew for dinner, leaving leftovers in the pot to get cold overnight and then start over the next day. Sometimes stew had food in it that had been there for quite a while. Hence, the rhyme: Peas porridge hot, peas porridge cold, peas porridge in the pot nine days old. Sometimes they could obtain pork, which made them feel quite special. When visitors came over, they would hang up their bacon to show off. It was a sign of wealth that a man could, “bring home the bacon.” They would cut off a little to share with guests and would all sit around and chew the fat.

Those with money had plates made of pewter. Food with high acid content caused some of the lead to leach onto the food, causing lead poisoning death. This happened most often with tomatoes, so for the next 400 years or so, tomatoes were considered poisonous.

Bread was divided according to status. Workers got the burnt bottom of the loaf, the family got the middle, and guests got the top, or the upper crust.

Lead cups were used to drink ale or whiskey. The combination would sometimes knock the imbibers out for a couple of days. Someone walking along the road would take them for dead and prepare them for burial. They were laid out on the kitchen table for a couple of days and the family would gather around and eat and drink and wait and see if they would wake up. Hence the custom of holding a wake.

England is old and small and the local folks started running out of places to bury people. So they would dig up coffins and would take the bones to a bone-house, and reuse the grave. When reopening these coffins, 1 out of 25 coffins were found to have scratch marks on the inside and they realized they had been burying people alive. So they would tie a string on the wrist of the corpse, lead it through the coffin and up through the ground and tie it to a bell. Someone would have to sit out in the graveyard all night (the graveyard shift) to listen for the bell; thus,someone could be saved by the bell or was considered a dead ringer.

And that’s the truth….now, whoever said history was boring!!!

Goodies and Gossip

Yes, it’s culture corner time…

Books:

HOME by Bill Bryson ( a fascinating look at the history of how we live by the funniest writer alive.)

THE SOCIAL ANIMAL by David Brooks (a wonderful study of the interaction between heart and brain. Also very funny!)

ABRAHAM LINCOLN, VAMPIRE HUNTER by Seth Grahame-Smith (I bought it for the title and LOVED it. He is a terrific writer.

Next for me…SENSE AND SENSIBILTY AND ZOMBIES

THE POETRY OF AMY LOWELL (My mom used to read her poetry to me. I had forgotten how ahead of her time she was, and what a glorious writer.

Viewing:

(I haven’t been TO the movies in a while. Been visiting my home theater, as t’were.)

CAMELOT ( the new, sexy version)

GAME OF THRONES ( you can tell I am into knights and naked ladies at the moment)

MILDRED PIERCE ( slow and gorgeous. That Kate WInslett knocks me OUT!)

And so as we approach the flight path into JFK, and April saunters down the flowery path, I ponder … what does it all portend?

My practicing Christian friends all say Easter is the most important time of year…the time of darkness turning to light, sorrow becoming joy…death turning to rebirth.

And I hope that somehow, the world will celebrate its own version of the Passion Play… the sorrows and confusions and darknesses we all bear ( and I guess, MUST bear as that seems to be a huge part of the pattern for existence in this unexplainable wonderful terrible dimension) will be warmed by the sunlight of each other’s growing patience, understanding, and compassion.

Peace to us all!

Love, Amanda

Goodies and Gossip