Well the count down has begun in earnest! I’ve been going down my check list and I am really excited. This is the first time I’ve had a table in the Artist Alley, having been helping out at the Cartoonist Northwest exhibition booth. I’d given up on Artist Alley in frustration do to bad traffic and thought going the co-op route in a better traffic area might be more viable. But regrettably while being situated in the middle of the dealer’s area looked like a better traffic spot, it was a better the way a 7-11 on Aurora is a good traffic spot. While there were hundreds of people going by most of them were on their way to meet the celebrities, or knew exactly what they were looking for. In the mean time I couldn’t help noticing that the Artist Ally that I had abandoned as a frustrating waste of time had now become viable. Crowded with people looking to try something new. So this year I’m giving it another try, and I’m far more excited than I am nervous. So if you’re in Seattle between March 30th and April 1st come on by. I can’t wait to see you.
Today’s Rhapsody is Bela Bartok’s first Rhapsody for the violin with soloist Kyung-Wha Chung. I’m really enjoying becoming more familiar with Bartok’s work. He was a folklorist as well as a composer and incorporated much of the traditional Hungarian and Gypsy music he researched into this works. It gives the violin solo a wonderful haunting quality that I’m really getting into.
Today’s sketch, from the Seattle Art Museum, is of “Tower of Mothers” by Käthe Kollwitz. This was the first piece I had ever seen Kollwitz and regrettably the first time I’d heard of her. Since then I’ve been enjoying the pleasure of discovering her work. I very much like her vivid style and the power of the symbolism behind it.
I’ve always liked folk music. Growing up my father used to play his guitar and banjo to us and he had an extensive collection of folk records including Pete Seeger, The Weavers, Peter, Paul & Mary as well as the Kingston Trio.
I was reminded of the Kingston Trio today. While they weren’t my favorites, they had a few songs I like such as the Anne Boleyn song (which was nearly traumatic when I first heard it at age eight.) and this one, the MTA song which my Father used to like but couldn’t get some of the final chords right. I always liked it too, mostly due to the absurdity of this musical tall tale.
Of course as I got older a recurring question kind of spoiled it for me… Why didn’t Charlie’s wife give him train fair along with his daily sandwich?
http://youtu.be/VBTefQO2z6s
Today’s Rhapsody is a completely new one for me. I hadn’t even heard of Eduard Lalo before today. But now having heard his Norwegian Rhapsody I very much like what I hear. I hope you all do too.
http://youtu.be/Xxi_B4UlMYE
Welcome back everyone! It looks like we’ve finally managed to flush out the remains of that pesky out of the system. I was comfortably sure everything was okay my stats that had been pretty much dead all week started going up big time (on a SUNDAY) and I got a email from Google Adwords saying they had unsuspended my account (not that I was ever using it but the suspension email on Wednesday was the precursor to the malware wall) But on the other hand a friend had told me he was still getting the Google Malware Wall. So I had developed a nearly superstitious pessimism which kept me from even checking up to see if everything was working again. (I swear after a while it’s like looking at your bank account)
So anyway everything is up to snuff and with any luck changing all of my passwords to ones so strong they’re impossible to remember without writing them down will guarantee this doesn’t happen again for a LONG time.