Tag: Smiles

Some useful advice for awkward social settings

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

To counter the effects of a boring conversation from the get-go, be the more interesting person by asking questions like:

  • What’s the weirdest thing you’ve ever eaten?
  • What’s on your bucket list? (ask a follow-up question about how you can help them accomplish it).
  • What new skill are you learning?
  • What’s your personality type?
  • What’s your calling or purpose in life?

By taking the initiative and making the conversation about the other person, this selfless act of shining the spotlight on someone else first gives you the edge – making you the more interesting person in the room.

Gee, I am wondering where I copped this.

 

Dragging me out of the Stone Age

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 1 Comment

I was tempted to make that “stoned age,” but I was of a more tempered side of the hippie era.

When it comes to high tech, though, I’ve leaned more toward neo-Luddite. You know, face-to-face and keeping people employed. That’s why I go inside to a teller at the bank, rather than an ATM or drive-thru. Ditto for fast food.

One way my family has of nudging me in the other direction is in their Christmas and birthday gifts to me.

Well, my clumsiness therein is another matter.

Here are some examples.

  1. My first cell phone and then, a dozen years later, the big upgrade to my S22 Ultra, in large part for its digital camera abilities.
  2. That replaced the Olympus digital camera they’d presented a few years earlier. I have to agree it’s a huge upgrade.
  3. A coconspirator in all this offered some puzzling lenses and a lobster tripod for photography that made no sense until I learned about the S22 Ultra. I was so ignorant, but these are cool.
  4. Then there’s the LED ring lamp for Zoom meetings with its warm and cool light settings. The way it’s set up now, I use it for a regular light at my workstation.
  5. A Fire tablet. An ebook author really should have one, though I use mine mostly to stream music. Which leads to …
  6. A Bluetooth headset that works with the aforesaid cell phone and tablet plus my laptop Zoom connections. Didn’t know I couldn’t live without one.
  7. As well as my Tribit remote speaker. I love the flexibility of taking my music around the house or of having hands free during a phone conversation.
  8. My little weather station, the one that doesn’t require wires running out to the wind, temp, and rainfall gauges. Hey, living on a windy island puts the weather high on the awareness chart.
  9. The mustache trimmer. The rechargeable battery device really does the job better than a razor.
  10. Most recent is a set of wireless speakers to go with the new audio system. I started to say “stereo” but know how outdated that’s become. Still, this one  accommodates vinyl, if you know what that means.

 

Well, maybe this should go somewhere

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

Still more random notes in no particular order:

  1. Why so many churches? Only an unbeliever would ask.
  2. Note the hippie vibe of Pride Day. Like a time warp.
  3. The jolt of phoning someone and preparing to respond to the voicemail only to have a live voice pop up instead.
  4. Keys that don’t fit anywhere.
  5. It’s a Catholic church too small to conduct bingo games.
  6. I’m spending as much time keyboarding as ever.
  7. All those years I worked five-day weeks every holiday ‘cept maybe Christmas Eve. Or commuted in atrocious weather.
  8. What is literature? And why does it matter?
  9. She strikes me as little more than skin-deep beauty.
  10. What do you like about Christmas?

 

A shoutout some outstanding vocal ensembles

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

With the holidays just ahead, we’re coming up on the prime choral season of the year.

Look around, and there are many outstanding groups, not just the big, famed organizations in the footsteps of conductors Robert Shaw, Roger Wagner, Margaret Hillis, or John Oliver, either.

Hit on some of these on YouTube or Vimeo and let me hear what you think.

  1. Old Order Mennonite Harmonia Sacra. Let’s start from an old American shape-note tradition of harmony. Singing from the 1832 hymnal compiled by Joseph Funk in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia, this video will likely lead you to others in this unique stream, including the Shenandoah Christian Music Camp. I’m inclined to sing along, using some much later Mennonite hymnals. Imagine an entire congregation singing parts like this, and many do. Eventually, it may even lead you to the unique Sacred Harp style. If you want to talk about American roots, don’t overlook this. I’m forever indebted to my exposure in this vein. So where do we turn from here? How about something completely different in the religious vein:
  2. Detroit Mass Choir. This large, tightly disciplined urban body runs flawlessly, turning on a dime when director Jimmy Dowell spontaneously decides to repeat a phrase or section or even jump back several parts or similarly ahead. Their take on Charles Tindley’s 1905 “The storm is passing over” is outstanding. Yeah, it’s one more place where stony unemotional me gets teary. That confessed, don’t overlook the instrumentalists, either. And I, for one, do appreciate the audience support throughout, something my mother would have considered interruptive and rude.
  3. Jehovah Shalom Acapella. And you thought the King’s Singers or Cambridge Singers epitomized the small, elite, all-male a cappella field? This six-member Ugandan Gospel group, members of the Seventh-day Adventist faith, delivers with an unbelievably smooth pop style. Where, by the way, do they find such an incredibly deep bass? Now, if we only knew how they’d handle Handel, Bach, and Mozart as well, we might have even more cause for amazement. By the way, we’ve also delighted in live performances by athletic Ladysmith Black Mambazo.
  4. Central Washington University chamber choir. Within a higher education state institution in tiny Ellensburg, well east of the Cascade Range and Seattle, there’s long been an outstanding fine arts program. In such situations, a few good teachers can make a lasting impression. (I hate to think of the destructive obverse.) Under the direction of Gary Weidenaar in works by contemporary Ola Gjeilo or Renaissance master Tomas Luis da Victoria , these student singers reflect, I feel, the high standards found in many other pockets across America – and not just its great conservatories and leading music schools. Returning to the shape-note tradition:
  5. Amherst Madrigals. In William Billings’ “Euroclydon,” a distinctive masterpiece, these ten singers blow me away. It’s a very demanding piece, after “all. And they present it so clearly, with no conductor in sight! For further confirmation, listen to what they do his “I am come into my garden.” Or, for pure polyphony, move onto another group for this:
  6. Indiana University’s Conductor’s Chorus. Their master’s of music performance of Palestrina’s “Sicut cervus” for conductor Daam Beam Kim in 2016 is unbeatable. After seemingly endless rehearsals and a few public performances of this choral masterpiece, I can’t imagine anything more ethereally sublime than this. Period. Even as an IU grad.
  7. Saint Olaf College Choir. This Minnesota Lutheran institution makes some incredible music. The diction in their videos and recordings leaves me envious, and their annual Christmas broadcast is understandably anticipated and admired. Still, compare their rendering of William Billings’ “What wondrous love is this” to one led by Ukrainian conductor Yuriy Kravets and the Shenandoah Christian Music Camp orchestra and choir, previously noted. Both are deeply moving.
  8. Luther College. Set along the upper Mississippi River in Decorah, Iowa, this church institution also has a superb musical program. Just listen to what its Nordic Choir can do. I’m even more impressed when I notice they sing their parts from memory and then their ease in navigating dynamics. Oh, my, that soon leads to a Baton Rouge high school performance that definitely stands out. Yes, high school.
  9. Quoddy Voices. My current chorus is an amazing group in a small remote fishing village with an active arts scene in easternmost Maine. Still, we would really welcome some younger voices. During the Covid restrictions, director John Newell put together some remarkable virtual presentations online, despite the fact we were recording individually under some highly unfavorable conditions. Now that we’re back face-to-face, I’m also delighted and humbled to be part of this circle and its stellar leadership.   
  10. Boston Revels. A unique half-century-old organization that blends history, folk traditions and classical music, dance, plus theatrical acting and story line, I have to admit a bias in being part of the organization though not its justly celebrated annual winter holidays extravaganza. Each year’s Christmas show ends with the entire audience joining in, in full harmony, on the Sussex Mummers’ Carol, inevitably drawing tears from me and, I suspect, most others in the packed and wildly cheering Sanders Theater at Harvard. As a charter member of its community chorus, I do confess this family custom is one thing I do miss in relocating to Way Downeast Maine. Thanks for the memories, all the same.