No justice, no peace.
Well, the news has been... batshit. I know y'all have seen it and are being affected by it. I myself did little besides fret over the weekend. Well, apart from joining sharebears and solarwind with Mr. 42 for a virtual movie night to watch Knives Out, which was the most fabulous dynamite-ensemble-cast murder mystery I've seen since Gosford Park, perhaps even better than Branagh's excellent remake of Murder on the Orient Express, which I also adored. Bravo Rian Murphy, and bravi tutti cast (Christopher Plummer! Jamie Lee Curtis! Daniel Craig! Toni Collette! Chris Evans! Just to name a few!) and crew for making a film that was as well-crafted and fun as it was sumptuous to look at.
I also had a great chat with my folks, who attended my dad's virtual 50th med school reunion and had a lovely time. And our virtual Pentecost service was awesome and included three baptisms, which were done in person with a skeleton crew and included a too-tight baby bonnet and a screaming baby and an annoyed older brother and it was just adorable and real and I just wanted to hug everybody. The rest of the weekend?
Well...
I found this piece, entitled How to respond to 'riots never solve anything' to be helpful, also this on the critical difference between violence perpetrated on humans and property damage.
Also, this white dude has been arrested for setting Nashville's Historic Courthouse on fire, so if you had any doubts whether or not white supremacist douchecanoes were deliberately sowing chaos to smear protestors and attempt to delegitimize their cause, there ya go and here ya go. Sadly, the tactics of J. Edgar Hoover and COINTELPRO are still being used by racists to silence protest and distract from the very real issue of deadly force being used disproportionately against black Americans, not to mention our unreconciled legacy of chattel slavery, segregation, destruction of black communities (it's the anniversary of the Tulsa Race Massacre), redlining, defunding of black communities, and other myriad indignities and acts of voilence indignities perpetrated upon black Americans by systemic racism.
I know everybody paying attention to the protests is on edge, stressed, and worried. If you're a white USAmerican, please sit with and reflect on your anger and fear, because that's what black folks in the US experience every single day. I myself have much to unpack in terms of my own ignorance, silence, and complicity, but doing nothing is not an option for me.
In not-existentially-dreadful news, I've managed to finish lyrics and the first verse for the title song of our Zoom musical, which we're hoping to feature in a trailer. My composer/lyricist collaborators are brilliant.
Also, I have discovered a new lyrics-writing strategy that I've found helpful. So JCA sent a cool pop song melody/chords that he wrote for our Zoom musical, with the words as "na na na na na." My other-composer-and-lyricist collaborator took the sample words I'd sent him separately and adapted a couple of lines to fit JCA's song. When I realized how brilliant his idea was, I threw down some stream-of-consciousness lorem ipsum (a'la Scrambled Eggs) to replace the na na nas on the lines that hadn't yet been adapted in order to get the feel for the rhythm and scansion and ended up with such gems as:
I don't wanna
I'm not a banana
[Show name]!
I would like to dooooo
Purple turtles playing in the goooo
[Show name]! Yeah!
So that's a new tool in the lyricist quiver, methinks. And I gave myself and my composer-and-lyricist collaborator a much needed giggle. We kick of the monthlong camp this week, so the students will be choosing characters and customizing them. We have 11 kids signed up, which is a good number for our first attempt at doing a virtual theatre camp, I think. Here we go!
Right. Dog walking and lunch are in my near future. I should also process a reimbursement, email my faculty to ask that they turn in their reimbursements ASAP, and draft some trailer text. I have also got out all my recording hardware, so we'll see if that goads me into doing anything fancy. And bless, neighbor kids are playing noisily outside, and it's music to my ears.
Love to all, be well, and be safe!
Mun42
I also had a great chat with my folks, who attended my dad's virtual 50th med school reunion and had a lovely time. And our virtual Pentecost service was awesome and included three baptisms, which were done in person with a skeleton crew and included a too-tight baby bonnet and a screaming baby and an annoyed older brother and it was just adorable and real and I just wanted to hug everybody. The rest of the weekend?
Well...
I found this piece, entitled How to respond to 'riots never solve anything' to be helpful, also this on the critical difference between violence perpetrated on humans and property damage.
Also, this white dude has been arrested for setting Nashville's Historic Courthouse on fire, so if you had any doubts whether or not white supremacist douchecanoes were deliberately sowing chaos to smear protestors and attempt to delegitimize their cause, there ya go and here ya go. Sadly, the tactics of J. Edgar Hoover and COINTELPRO are still being used by racists to silence protest and distract from the very real issue of deadly force being used disproportionately against black Americans, not to mention our unreconciled legacy of chattel slavery, segregation, destruction of black communities (it's the anniversary of the Tulsa Race Massacre), redlining, defunding of black communities, and other myriad indignities and acts of voilence indignities perpetrated upon black Americans by systemic racism.
I know everybody paying attention to the protests is on edge, stressed, and worried. If you're a white USAmerican, please sit with and reflect on your anger and fear, because that's what black folks in the US experience every single day. I myself have much to unpack in terms of my own ignorance, silence, and complicity, but doing nothing is not an option for me.
In not-existentially-dreadful news, I've managed to finish lyrics and the first verse for the title song of our Zoom musical, which we're hoping to feature in a trailer. My composer/lyricist collaborators are brilliant.
Also, I have discovered a new lyrics-writing strategy that I've found helpful. So JCA sent a cool pop song melody/chords that he wrote for our Zoom musical, with the words as "na na na na na." My other-composer-and-lyricist collaborator took the sample words I'd sent him separately and adapted a couple of lines to fit JCA's song. When I realized how brilliant his idea was, I threw down some stream-of-consciousness lorem ipsum (a'la Scrambled Eggs) to replace the na na nas on the lines that hadn't yet been adapted in order to get the feel for the rhythm and scansion and ended up with such gems as:
I don't wanna
I'm not a banana
[Show name]!
I would like to dooooo
Purple turtles playing in the goooo
[Show name]! Yeah!
So that's a new tool in the lyricist quiver, methinks. And I gave myself and my composer-and-lyricist collaborator a much needed giggle. We kick of the monthlong camp this week, so the students will be choosing characters and customizing them. We have 11 kids signed up, which is a good number for our first attempt at doing a virtual theatre camp, I think. Here we go!
Right. Dog walking and lunch are in my near future. I should also process a reimbursement, email my faculty to ask that they turn in their reimbursements ASAP, and draft some trailer text. I have also got out all my recording hardware, so we'll see if that goads me into doing anything fancy. And bless, neighbor kids are playing noisily outside, and it's music to my ears.
Love to all, be well, and be safe!
Mun42