Archive for April, 2009
Violin Lesson; Life Lessons
Pop and I share a young music student, a twelve year-old girl. He teaches her fiddle and I teach her violin. That seems a fair trade. She comes up for his Sunday musical open house. We both love working with her because not only is she interested and has a bit of talent, but she’s [...]
Buying My Car
Modest not ostentatious. A car that would blend in and not provoke envy.
“Where do you want your wealth to reside?” Not in a heap of tin and heavy metal that starts to depreciate as soon as I drive off the car lot.
“A car is an appliance,” my sales representative says to me as he drives [...]
“You Gave Me Dignity”
Jimmy Freeman and Tommy White at the scouting jamboree. Slept in the same sleeping bag. “Color didn’t rub off either one of them.”
When Jimmy returned to visit Pop he told him, “You gave me dignity. I can stand up with anyone and be proud.”
Deeper Themes of “Deathly Hallows”
In J. K. Rowlings latest Harry Potter book she makes a hommage to C. S. Lewis (perhaps ever so unconsciously) and the Narnia books in her emphasis on sacrifice in conquering death. Lewis used this as a Christian reference. Pagans believed something similar, but in a slightly different way.
Also, I feel she’s discussing totalitarian regimes [...]
Sunflower Journal Led Me to Sunflower Festival
Sunflowers grace the front of my journal and now that I’ve come and gone from the Mountainaire sunflower festival I notice this correspondence.
The Heritage House sitting room/parlor. Silver tea set on oval tea table. Golden light filtered through curtains. parquet floor.A sense of peace, contentment and fulfillment, satisfaction from completing my New Mexico visit. So [...]
Scott Sharot’s Performance Tips
“Live Poet’s Society.”
Exposure. Feel safe. Choose your audience.
Surprise pink special light–a theatre light that makes you look good.
Skating on fast ice.
Janet: “I feel terrible before, during, and after. Don’t know why I do it.”
(a shame attack?)
The Audience Wants to Hear: Tips for Reading to an Audience
First Folio Technique for actors and performers
Comma–short breath
Period–full breath
Pencil in pauses
Underline
Use musical notations for lists. Vary pacing and pitch, emotional coloring.
Village Wisdom: Anchors Series on Riehlife
“Anchors” refers to the people in the Melville community that were the heart of it as my father Erwin A. Thompson grew up and as he listened to the stories of older generations of the legends that were our heritage.
Here is a showcase of what Pop likes to call the “anchors” of the community [...]
Village Wisdom: Anchors (intro) by Erwin A. Thompson
Rebecca Pincas and her family hosted a gathering at the Edwardsville Library to share the labors of several yeras of hard and dedicated work. The subject: “The early history of Melville andi ts people.” Several of the old families were represented in the audience, who later became participants in the discussion [...]
Riehlife Poem of the Day: Connie Wanek’s “Radiator” from Bonfire
Radiator
by Connie Wanek
from Bonfire
Mittens are drying on the radiator,
boots nearby, one on its side.
Like some monstrous segmented insect
the radiator elongates under the window.
Or it is a beast with many shoulders
domesticated in the Ice Age.
How many years it takes
to move from room to room!
Some cage their radiators
but this is unnecessary
as they have [...]
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