I have been trying to get my husband to write a guest post on my blog and he keeps promising me that he will, but in the meantime... here is a guest post from our son, Christopher! Take it away, son... Good Day. Son, shine!
Hello All!
I hope that this short post will live up to the beautiful and varied topics that my mother covers.
As you well know by now, my mother loves music deeply and instilled this same deep passion in me as a boy. At the age of eight, I discovered the music of The Beatles (or at least that's the first time I remember truly listening to them). My parents bought me most of their CDs as well as a small boombox-esque stereo to play them on. I listened to them voraciously, imbibing their music much like my peers were gorging themselves on loud, obnoxious cartoons on Nickelodeon.
I vividly remember listening to A Hard Day's Night with my mom and a friend on the way to a second-grade birthday party. I asked my friend if he had ever heard of The Beatles. He replied: "Yeah, I love them!" He had never discussed this with me before, so I was surprised, but mom kept on driving and I left it at that. When we arrived at the party, the friends who were already there were singing along to The Troggs's classic "Wild Thing," although at the time I didn't know who it was by, and I'm sure the people at the party that day still don't know. After we got the salutations out of the way, I proclaimed that we too had listened to some great music and broke out into "A Hard Day's Night." Silence reigned. My friend who had ridden in the car with me, broke out into laughter: "I don't know who The Beatles are! I've never even heard of them!"
I took this slight with as much good humor as an eight-year-old can and continued to enjoy myself at the party. But I've never forgotten this unimportant incident. Fourteen years have passed since then, but my passion for The Beatles has never waned. While uninitiated people on Twitter responded to Paul McCartney's performance at the 2012 Grammys with disdain and ignorance, "Who's the old guy, #imanidiotandidontknowgoodmusicwhenihearit, etc," I blatantly trumpet my love for The Beatles and try to convert the ignorant to their cause of beauty, love, and transcendence. I rediscovered them fully and completely in high school, just when I needed cultural guidance (which was thin on the ground at school, although rife at home), and my love for them has never abated. No band will ever stumble upon the perfect equation of timing, talent, charisma, and intelligence that The Beatles did.
In terms of The Beatles timing, my mother and many of you, her readers, could probably say more about the importance of The Beatles in America in the 60s. I wish I could say more, but I cannot. Because of this, I will discuss something that I do have knowledge of: their music, and specifically the avalanche of great music that was written and released during the summer of 1966.
Revolver, to me, is the greatest Beatles album. Each song flows together seamlessly and features the sharpest production, instrumentation, and arrangement ever seen on any album, ever (at this point). All of the songs were written in 1966, and some of them were written in the "particularly glorious summer of '66" (Macdonald). One of these songs was "Good Day Sunshine," a beautifully breezy number which features an inspired yet understated vocal from Paul (the most musically gifted Beatle), a woozy, honky-tonkish piano solo from the Fifth Beatle (in my opinion), their producer George Martin, and smooth, pleasant lyrics: "I'm in love and it's a sunny day." This song typifies much of The Beatles's appeal. Ian Macdonald, in his extensive and thoroughly fascinating "Revolution In The Head," agrees saying: " 'Good Day Sunshine' displays The Beatles at their effortless best."
Many other classic songs were written during this beautiful summer of '66. The Beatles's main songwriting rivals Keith Richards and Mick Jagger (it was no rivalry really, the four of them got along famously and Mick and Keith knew they were nothing compared to the titanic talents of Lennon and McCartney), responded darkly to the beauty surrounding them, penning one of their best tunes, "Paint It, Black." Donovan Leitch, who would later teach John, Paul, and George how to play finger style guitar during their sojourn to Marrakesh to study under Maharishi Maresh Yogi, added one of his best known songs to the list, the whimsical "Sunshine Superman." The Kinks, another tremendously talented and trailblazing British Invasion band, chimed in with the unsettling "Sunny Afternoon." The Lovin' Spoonful, the only American band on this list, were so affected by this summer (as many Americans continue to be obsessed by the summer and its possibilities of freedom and release from the humdrum machinations of daily life) that they wrote two songs - one positive "Daydream," and one negative "Summer In The City."
All of these songs are imbued with the sometimes stifling, sometimes beautiful dichotomy of summertime. Growing up in Georgia provided me with both sides of this unforgiving coin - the intense heat was usually coupled with freedom from responsibility (of which there was never much to go around anyways) and idyllic days of playing outside until my shirts were held together by nothing but dirt and sweat.
The constant throughout summertime for me, and for many, is the role music plays. With this summer coming to a close and my final year of college looming large on the horizon, I remember back through my myriad summers and think of all the music and joy that I have had the pleasure to be a part of. Nothing will match the halcyon days of my early youth (which is a shared characteristic for many people, I'm sure), but because of the music of The Beatles and the thrumming energy that summer inspires in everyone, the beauty of an endless summer will forever be in our dreams. Not to mention our "Daydreams."
P.S. - Thank you for reading this and supporting my mother, a more wonderful mom than the world has ever known. She puts a lot of time and feeling into her posts, so keep loving, keep reading, and keep breathing!
Citations from:
Macdonald, Ian. Revolution In The Head. 2008.
Sunday, August 12, 2012
Saturday, August 11, 2012
You Gotta See This One!
Okay, I am trying to clean my house today but I remembered a TV commercial during my Olympic viewing last night. It made me laugh so hard that I just had to share it with you!! Let me know if you like it as much as I do! Hope you all have a wonderful weekend and find lots to laugh about...
Thursday, August 9, 2012
Shine On/ Watching The Olympics
This is what Boris Johnson, the mayor of London, said when he saw the British Women's double sculls team on TV. (They ended up winning the Gold Medal). If you are interested, he writes a column in a London newspaper, the Telegraph at this link: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/borisjohnson/
It has been wonderful to see all these young, shining hopeful faces competing in these Olympic Games. And to me, London has looked absolutely incredible. What a beautiful city in the world to have them, am I right? And the views that are shown around Great Britain don't even look real they are so lovely! Did you see the photo at the end of last week with the moon just behind the Olympic Rings on Tower Bridge? That was just so beautiful to see and if you missed that photo, I have it here for you!
Shine on, young gifted athetes, we bask in your glory and smile at your beauty, much as we do the moon.
Monday, August 6, 2012
Lovely August Weekend
Arabia Mountain and The Monastery on Saturday (they are very close in distance) and then down to my Dad's on the Sunday. Watching the Olympics and the Atlanta Braves in between...beautiful weekend!
Look at how big this banana tree has grown this summer. (Can you see that it has just started to rain?) Do you think that is is possible that this tree might have some real bananas on it?)
Yes! We have some bananas, we have some bananas today! (To paraphrase an old song!)
My brother told me that this huge blossom comes up on the tree and then the fruit comes up from that, see the bananas above the reddish bloom? I know nothing about bananas except seeing them in stores...I have never seen them growing!
The rain only lasted for about two minutes and then, bright sunshine! Can you see the rain dripping off of this beautiful okra blossom? Isn't it wonderful that this turns into okra? Reach for the sky, okra pods!
Hope you enjoy visiting at my Dad's with fields of peas, wide open skies and blossoming trees!
Saturday, August 4, 2012
Richard Jewell- Unsung Hero
Anybody remember that the Summer Olympic Games were held in Atlanta in 1996? It was pretty exciting to have the games held here. The city was in preparation for years and it was in great hopes that all would go smoothly. This did not happen because there was a horrific bombing. On July 27, 1996 in Centennial Olympic Park, Richard Jewell, a security guard, noticed a bag underneath a park bench and was able to alert authorities and get many people moved away. However, the bag contained a pipe bomb which exploded and two people died and 111 were injured. Now, at first Richard Jewell was hailed as a hero, but this only lasted a few short days and then, it was reported that he was being treated as a suspect. The news coverage was relentless, making much of the fact that he was an earnest, quiet young man who lived modestly with his mother. I found a video of him talking of what he went through and you may see it here...
I have read other bloggers who have written very movingly about Postman's Park in London which honors Unsung Heroes, people who sacrificed themselves in order to save others. I could not help but think of Richard Jewell when I read about this park.
He was investigated by the FBI and although he was completely cleared of anything related to the bombing , all of this media attention and speculation was certainly a strain upon him and his health suffered terribly. He died in August of 2007 at the age of 44.
Above is his obituary from The New York Times in which he is hailed as a hero. And yet he was and still is a true unsung hero. I know because I did meet him and I witnessed this. His own lawyer said that many times people would come up to him and ask, "Come on, didn't he really have something to do with the bombing". I am grateful that I got to shake his hand and to say "sorry" for all that he had gone through.
Friday, August 3, 2012
The DaVinci Hotel/Eastbourne Video
There was a very good book about Gustav Klimt in the room and of course, you know I had to read as much of it as I could. I like his art and enjoyed this book very much indeed. There was another book in this room and even though this hotel was opened in 2008, I could tell that not one person had ever once turned any pages in this book. I promise you I could tell, the pages had not been touched. What was this unread book? It was the HOLY BIBLE! Recently, I heard of another hotel whose owner replaced the Bibles in his 40 room hotel with copies of "Fifty Shades of Grey". http://www.foxnews.com/travel/2012/07/25/hotel-replaces-bible-with-50-shades-grey-420750936/ (The Damson Dene Hotel in the Lake District in England and I have a link to the story about it.) Well.
When he said that no one ever read the Bibles, I couldn't help but think of this lonely Bible in this hotel room. Now, here is the thing I want to tell you... it was a beautiful version of the Bible, I think it was called English Revised or something like that. I read the Book of Job, I had to leave this room with the knowledge that someone had read something out of this Good Book. (God's words to Job: "Where were YOU when I made the Heaven and the Earth, when I said to the sea, this far you may come and no further". Really awesome to read this when you have the English Channel outside your window!) Of course, I believe the Bible is more than just a book, it is the Holy Bible and is important to my faith and beliefs. I appreciate the quality of a well made book, the quality of the paper and the binding, and this one was excellent. Thank you, Gideons! I, for one, am grateful to have a Bible in a hotel room.
Exciting news! At least for us, is that we were able to put one of the videos on Youtube that we made while we were in Eastbourne! I say "we" but it was really Richard who made this video and I think it is really good, with the seagulls circling lazily overhead as the waves crash against the pebbled shore. Hope you like it as much as we do!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iNnB_UfrMwU&feature=plcp
Thursday, August 2, 2012
Going For The Gold
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