Alton: NotLA

08:29 pm - A Week In the Life of Doc, Day 6

The rules of the meme and Day 1

Day 2

Day 3

Day 4

Day 5

Doc's Wednesday, in living color.

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08:35 pm - A day in the life of Doc, Day 5

The rules of the meme and Day 1

Day 2

Day 3

Day 4

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09:02 pm - A Week In the Life of Doc, Day 4

The rules of the meme and Day 1

Day 2

Day 3

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09:09 pm - A Week in the life of Doc, Day 3

The rules of the meme and Day 1

Day 2

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08:54 pm - A Week in the Life of Doc, Day 2

Go here to see the beginning, and read the rules.

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09:23 pm - A Week In the Life of Doc: Day One

My beloved Snokat showed me this meme, just in time for my camera to finally arrive home from the repair shop!

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10:53 am - OMG, an actual blog post!

The writer's meme that's been making the rounds was too good to resist:

What's the last thing you wrote?
If you can call it that, The Alton Weekly Inquirer, my weekly news roundup and snark column on the political blog Daily Kos.

Did you ever write a novel?

I did write an article for Airliners Magazine that ran to over 12,000 words before the edit. That's as close as I came.

Have you ever written fantasy, sci-fi, or horror?

My writing has been called "horror" at times.

Ever written romance or teen angsty drama?

I'm a guy. Figure the odds.

What's one genre you have never written, and probably never will?

See above.

How many writing projects are you working on right now?

Nothing at the moment.

Do you want to write for a living?

The extra money was nice when I was writing for publication, but it often got offset by travel expenses when I was working on a story.

Have you ever written something for a magazine or newspaper?

I've been published in two different aviation magazines.

Have you ever won an award for your writing?

Not a one!

Ever written something in script or play format?

Sometimes I'll write a script for a political ad in my Daily Kos column, but that's as close as I come.

What is your favorite word?

Dolphin.

Do you ever write based on yourself?

Since my entire oevre is nonfiction, no.

Where do you get ideas for your characters?

See above.

Do you ever write based on your dreams?

If I do write based on the dreams I remember, the story will have a lot of water and dolphins in it.

Do you prefer happy endings, sad endings, or cliff-hangers?

Any ending that makes sense and is true to the story.

Have you ever written anything based on an artwork you've seen?

No.

Are you concerned with spelling and grammar as you write?

I spell pretty well, so I don't worry about that. I am concerned with good grammar and staying concise for my writing for publication.

Ever write something entirely in chatspeak?

OMG CHATSPEEK LOLZ!!!111!!!. OK, I just did.

Does music help you write?

I find it distracting, usually.

Are people surprised and confused when they find out you write well?

Usually they are very positive.

**********************

OK, I'm about to choke on the dust from this poor blog, after letting it sit for a year!

Andy

Current Mood: hungry

07:32 am - Loreena McKennitt concert report: Chicago, May 1, 2007

Photo: Quinlan Road photo via Wikipedia Commons


My trip to Chicago for the May 1^st concert actually began nine years ago. I had been a fan of Loreena McKennitt (LM) for years (since the release of her album The Visit), and in 1998, when she was touring in support of her album The Book of Secrets, I had hoped to go to one of her performances. Unfortunately the timing of her 1998 North American tour didn’t work out for me. I was living in Oklahoma City at the time and was finishing up veterinary school. The day I graduated with my DVM was the same day LM performed in Chicago, the closest city to OKC on her 1998 tour! Obviously graduation trumped even an LM concert, so I elected to wait for her next tour. I just didn’t know at the time it would be nine years before she went back out!

As soon as An Ancient Muse came out, I re-established my links with Quinlan Road (QR), in hope of a new tour. In the ensuing time since 1998 I had moved to Alton, Illinois, much closer to Chicago than Oklahoma City, and was hopeful of a Chicago date. I wasn’t disappointed! QR released the tickets two days early for those on their mailing list, and I acted quickly. The seats we got were just off center (stage left) and six rows back.

Just a week or so after I received my tickets in the mail, I lost my job! With every dollar precious after the job loss, and with great sadness, I was forced to consider selling my LM tickets. It was a very near thing, but fortunately quite a bit of locum tenens work came my way just days before I was intending to put my tickets on the market, which would provide money to pay for the trip to Chicago.

My wife, Nancy, and I arrived in Chicago on the 1^st, and checked into our hotel in Oak Park, right in the middle of the Frank Lloyd Wright Historic District (I’m a huge FLW fan, also). After a fine Greek dinner in Oak Park, we reached the Civic Opera House 30 minutes ahead of the show. We entered to lobby to see a huge crowd in front of the merchandise tables, and a booming voice from there was directing the crowds so that there was some semblance of order in front of the merchandise table! I’m not sure Lee Ermey could have straightened that crowd up, so I passed on buying things before the show.

We entered the auditorium from the rear, and kept walking forward. The more forward we went, the more impressed we were with the quality of our seats! As things turned out, we sat in the wrong seats initially (101 and 103, vs. 1 and 3) but the move to the correct ones only improved our view! I had an unobstructed view from my aisle seat, and Nancy, alongside me, had nearly as good a view. Were it not for the immense orchestra pit between the audience and the stage, the seats we got would have been perfect.

The house and stage lights were dimmed, and in the shadows LM’s umistakable profile could be seen. A huge round of applause and cheers went up, and once it had died down, the show began with “She Moved Through the Faire”. As she and the band played this song, and continued into the next songs in the first set, I was struck less by how old LM looked, but how those years seemed to fall away when she was talking or singing to us, and how even more years seemed to fall away when she laughed! Speaking of laughing, I thought her sense of humor was very sharp. In response to a woman yelling out “Happy Beltane!”, she, without missing a beat, replied, “Happy Beltane indeed. Do you know where your Maypole is?”

The other thing I noticed in the first half is that when LM would introduce a song, she would softly play the chord changes for that song on whatever instrument she was on--so I actually knew which song was coming up before she announced the title. Far from distracting, I found it charming and even comforting to me.

The musicianship of her band, and LM‘s extraordinary singing, was absolutely captivating. Even Nancy, not a big LM fan (actually she does like her but she’s not the “superfan” I am) appreciated how almost otherworldly tight the playing was. I really had the sense that LM and the entire band were absolutely on the same wavelength on every song. As one who has played in many bands myself, I knew just how rare that absolute one-ness of ensemble playing was.


Loreena performs with one of the four instruments she plays; the others are piano, synthesizer, and harp. Quinlan Road photo via Wikipedia Commons

“Caravanserai” ended the first half. I spent intermission looking for a men’s room (found, but with a huge line--I elected to “hold it”), the merchandise table (huge crowd again, with the drill sergeant behind the table barking out orders again--again I didn‘t buy anything), and an usher, to learn where the stage door was for after the performance (not where I expected, so was glad I asked). I was back in my seat well in advance of the second half.

“Raglan Road”, the song LM began her second set with, was new to me, and I found the interplay between LM’s voice and Caroline Lavelle on cello to be deeply moving. (As soon as I got home I got out all of my LM recordings and didn’t find the song on any of them! Heartbreak, as it is now on my personal list of LM favorites!) The set continued, and while I was still very captivated by the playing, I didn’t feel as engaged in the second half of the show as I was in the first. Maybe it was aftereffects of the five-hour drive to Chicago I had made earlier that day, who knows. As compared to the transcendent first half, the second half was merely excellent.

“Never Ending Road”--up there with “The Lady of Shallot” as my all-time LM favorites--was a perfect ending for her show. The applause and cheers were deafening, and I about wore my palms out clapping through the two encores she performed. Then the house lights went up, and it was time to go. Though the entire show had taken almost 2 ½ hours, how short the time had seemed.

We passed through the lobby, with the QM Drill Sgt. barking out orders to customers yet again. I decided that rather than fight the crowds and the Drill Sgt., I would order concert items from the QM site. (Big mistake, as I found out later. No DVD/CD sets, no “The Muse” tour shirts on the site. Damn!) We left the lobby and headed for the stage door.

There was a group of about 40 of us outside the stage door to greet LM. I had read her notes from the road so had some idea of what to expect, so when band guitarist Brian Hughes told us it would be an hour before LM came out, I wasn’t surprised. The hour passed more quickly than I expected, and was punctuated by cheers and applause from us as band members stepped outside. Biggest cheers of all were reserved for cellist Caroline Lavelle, who was superb all night--the best among equals in the band. Many of the fans went over to greet her, and get autographs.

Just before 11 PM, Civic Theatre security guards started forming us into a single file line. It didn’t exactly form up to their satisfaction, so they made us do it again. Somewhat disappointing but not to my surprise, they announced that no photography would be allowed. I had brought my camera along, in hope, but it would stay tucked inside Nancy’s jacket pocket. (I should add that the Civic Theatre staff had earlier been VERY zealous about the no-photography rule inside the hall. One flash went off during the second set, and out of the corner of my eye I could see at least two ushers bearing down on the unfortunate photographer. So I thought discretion was the best way to go.)

There was stirring in the line, and I looked right to see a head of very red hair headed our way. I quickly got out my picture that I wanted her to sign, did some deep breathing, and thought of how to distill what I wanted to say into the shortest possible statement without sounding contrived or scripted. I was toward the front of the line, so didn’t have much time to think.

Then I was in front of her. I immediately got an impression of kind but very vivid blue eyes, a nice smile, and a surprisingly strong hand shaking mine. I told LM that her staff had been very kind to me while I was in veterinary school and had sent CDs to me free of charge after I mentioned that I was financially strapped on the Old Ways mailing list, and that I wanted to thank her for her staff’s generosity and kindness by coming out to see her perform. Loreena seemed very delighted to hear this, and she asked my name to personalize her signature. I told her my name, and added that I hoped it wouldn’t be nine years before we could see her again. Then my little encounter with LM was over, me walking away from her on air, and Nancy looking very happy for me.


The autographed photo!

This is a performance that will stay with me. LM is one of the very few musicians I have heard that I truly emotionally connect with--the only others I can think of are Paul Winter and Paul Halley from the heyday of their collaborations in the early 1980s. I have heard great individual performances of individual classical works from soloists and orchestras before--but I have never been to a show where nearly everything connected with me. LM will richly deserve a good rest after this tour, but I hope she goes out again, and soon. We'll be there, when she does so!

Current Mood: good