Category: Music

That’s a wrap!

Next stop: 2013.
Next stop: 2013.

Adieu 2012.  Not the best of years.  Not the worst.

We celebrated the evening with friends.  The murder-mystery theme was fun.  It was set in 1969, so the costumes were a bit … far-out, man.   I was Enya Goddard-Daveeda, high priestess of the Church of the Vacant Mind.  My costume instructions were to wear all white:  gogo boots, flowing robe & miniskirt.   Can you believe I found knee-high white platform-heeled gogo boots that laced up the back?!!  Thank you Goodwill!

It is fun to get a little silly.   And we did.

As is the custom, Monte played Auld Lang Syne on the saxophone at midnight, and everyone sang along.  We also played an encore out on the front lawn just to make sure noone was asleep.

I don’t exactly know what my resolutions are.  I do know that I want 2013 to be a year with a little more peace, love and understanding.   I guess we’ll have to figure out what we each should do to make that happen along the way.

Cheers!

Down at the Armadillo.

Inside Palmer Events Center.
Inside Palmer Events Center.

‘Tis the season for the Armadillo Christmas Bazaar!!  This is the 37th year of the Bazaar.  If you go, you can find local artists showing and selling their wares (over 150 artists this year), live music on a stage in the center of the hall, and food/drinks to fortify you as you make the rounds.  If you are anywhere near Austin between now and Christmas Eve, check it out.

While I was there tonight, Marcia Ball and Kimmie Rhodes shared the stage from 8-10pm – great music!  Here’s the obligatory shot from the floor…

Marcia Ball & Kimmie Rhodes.
Marcia Ball & Kimmie Rhodes.

 

Gather round and be merry.

We went to Laura and Arnie’s Christmas party tonight.  It’s become a tradition, and a most fun one at that.  Everyone ends up gathered around the piano belting out Christmas songs.  Some scenes from the evening:

The setting.
The director.
The script.
The script.
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The actors.

Taking the day off.

Barton Creek Greenbelt Trail.

My sister leaves tomorrow, so I took the afternoon off to play hooky with her.  We started off buying beads at a bead shop to get supplies for making jewelry thingies.  No pics of that – a project for another day.  Then we headed to Zilker Park for a hike on the Barton Creek Greenbelt Trail.  It was really lovely out.   High 70’s and sunny.  Perfect for a hike.  The creek is mostly dry.  We did see lots of flowers, butterflies and dragonflies.

The orange butterfly in the shot below stopped to let me take several shots.

Gulf Fritillary (Agraulis vanillae).

Later on down the trail this swallowtail stopped to let me do the same thing.

Eastern tiger swallowtail (papilio glaucus?).

I found a pretty good butterfly guide website to try to identify them.  You might want to bookmark for future reference.

After the hike we stopped by Barton Springs Pool.  Such a pretty place.  The pool was beautifully clear.

Barton Springs.

Then we ran over to Sno-Beach for a must-have best-snocone-ever experience.  You’d better hurry, they close at the end of October for the winter.  Go out and get one!

Sno-Beach!

Then.  Back to Zilker to rent a kayak and tootle around Town Lake (ok, sorry “Lady Bird Lake.” old habits die hard).  We paddled all the way to the South 1st Street bridge.  On our paddle back we passed 3 UT Women’s Crew boats training.

UT Women’s 8.

The Austin City Limits Music Festival takes place this weekend.  It’s a 3 day music extravaganza hosted in Zilker Park.  Everything is setup and just about ready for the throngs of festival-goers.  I took the opportunity to take a quick shot of the festival entrance, so I wouldn’t have to come down here with 75,000 of my closest friends to get the shot this weekend.

ACL!

What a great Austin afternoon!

Sunday postscript.

Mr. Bojangles.

One more quick post before the clock strikes midnight.  We’ve had a lovely anniversary weekend.   We capped it off with a concert at One World Theatre tonight, with friends Marty & Sue.  We bought tickets months ago for tonight’s show with Jerry Jeff Walker, and we had a great time.

The evening wouldn’t have been complete without hearing Sangria Wine, and we were not sent home disappointed 🙂  It was an extra treat to have Austin musician Chris Gage join Jerry Jeff on lead guitar, mandolin, accordion and backup vocals.   Nicely done, Chris!

Have a great week everybody.

Summer’s gone.

Last moon of Summer 2012.

This is the last day of Summer 2012.  I had a good Summer, I hope you did, too.  My advice to you:

Summer’s Almost Gone
Summer’s almost gone (x 2)
Almost gone
Yeah, it’s almost gone
Where will we be
When the summer’s gone?

Morning found us calmly unaware
Noon burned gold into our hair
At night, we swam the Laughing sea
When summer’s gone
Where will we be (x 3)

Morning found us calmly unaware
Noon burned gold into our hair
At night, we swam the Laughing sea
When summer’s gone
Where will we be

Summer’s almost gone (x 2)
We had some good times
But they’re gone
The winter’s comin’ on
Summer’s almost gone

Are you going to San Francisco?

Image source: google maps

Why, yes I am.

I’m on my way to San Fran for a week of meetings.  Before I left the house today Monte sang a verse or two of “Are You Going to San Francisco?” (youtube link here).   You know it,  i’m sure…

If you’re going to San Francisco…
Be sure to wear some flowers in your hair….

If you’re going to San Francisco…
You’re going to meet some gentle people there…

For those who come to San Francisco…
Summertime will be a love-in there…

Checking my email during the flight I got a note from Monte telling me that the guy that sang that song, Scott McKenzie had died.   R.I.P. Scott.

Kind of a coincidence, i suppose.   Anyway, that song is in my head now for a while.  So, i thought I’d spread it around.

I’m pretty sure I will not run across the summertime love-in on this trip.  Maybe next time.  But I definitely will try to find some flowers to put in my hair.  🙂

Come (rain) dance with me!

Rain at dusk.

It rained again tonight.  We got a good dousing this time.  I would like more though, so please do a rain dance for Central Texas and the rest of the country that is in dire need of it.

If you don’t have a rain dance of your own, then just dance with Matt.  It’s been 4 years since the last one, but he’s just released his latest Dancing video.  Check it out on youtube here.  I dare you not to smile.  🙂

One fine evening.

Some shots from last night.

I had a nice time last night.  First, dinner at the Grove Wine Bar.  Can you believe that appetizer plate?!  I had wine flight #1, bubblies from Italy & France.  Monte had flight #8, Italian reds.  The cappuccino afterwards was almost too pretty to drink, but I’m glad I did, it was one of the best I’ve had in a long time.

Then we headed to One World Theatre for the Diane Schuur concert, which was great.  She played for about 2 hours… with someone on drums, sax and bass.  She sang numbers from Duke Ellington, Chuck Mangione, Stevie Wonder, and Patsy Cline, to name a few, and ended with Amazing Grace, one of my favorites.

A lovely evening, indeed.

Gimme a kiss.

Keeto at about 8 months.

Keeto is about 8 months old.  His flight feathers are in and he has mastered flying.  He loves to sit on his perch in the window, which is about 2 feet away from a hummingbird feeder.   When the hummingbirds fly up to the feeder, I don’t know who is more freaked out, the hummingbirds or Keeto.   He also will fly between Monte and I when we are all sitting down to watch TV.   He seems to be pretty house-trained.   Good thing. …and he loves to give kisses.

Today is day 2 of an absolutely beautiful weekend.   Monte has headed to the lake,  and I am working.   Ok.  Well.  I will be as soon as I post this.

We are looking forward to a fun evening at the One World Theatre.   For Christmas, I gave monte tickets for 2 for the Diane Schuur concert this evening.   I made him humongous paper tickets for the gift.  The real tix are actually at will-call.   But we’re bringing the home-made tickets with us to see if they’ll let us in with them anyway 🙂

Great seats.

Oh, and Happy Earth Day!

Cousins’ pizza party.

Toppings.

My cousin, once removed (i had to look this up…my cousin’s daughter) is visiting Austin this week.  Alison and her boyfriend Zac came over for dinner tonight.  Monte slung several doughs and we made a bunch of pizzas.  My cousin, Devitt, also joined us.  We had a really nice visit.  What great kids!

Alison and Zac are both amazing musicians.  They were playing Rachmaninoff – from memory!  Our own house concert.   🙂

Making music together.

One more time.

Armadillo artist.

I made another run to the Armadillo Bazaar tonight with some friends.  This is a shot of some prints from Texas Photomontage artists Carl & Betsy Crum.  There are over 150 other artists there, too.

Another of my favorite musicians was playing tonight – Marcia Ball w/ Bill Kirchen.

Marcia Ball @ the Armadillo Bazaar.

Down at the Dillo.

Eliza Gilkyson's set.

Earlier today we were baking cookies and grilling wings to bring to a party at Kurt and Barbara’s tonight.  With all those preparations done we headed downtown to the 36th annual Armadillo Christmas Bazaar, which kicked-off on Wednesday and runs through Christmas Eve.  It’s an Austin-style combination of art and music festival, with local artists selling their work to Christmas shoppers, and 3-4 musicians/bands per day scheduled to play sets on the floor among the artists’ booths.  You can gather round the stage and watch, or listen to the live music from anywhere in the event center, as you’re doing your shopping.  It’s an event I look forward to, more for the music than the shopping, and I usually go a couple of times each year.

Today one of my favorites, Eliza Gilkyson, was playing at 3:30.   I enjoyed her set.

We were back home in time to get ready for the party,  which was a great time.  We got a chance to visit with all our B-dock buddies — with the onset of colder weather and the shorter days that Autumn brings, it’s been a while since everyone saw eachother.  Mark your calendars for Wednesday, December 21 at 11:30 PM, which is when the winter solstice occurs in Austin, after which the length of each day beings to increase again (yay!).

Memory lane

Conjuring pigmeat.

We are on VACATION!!!  We flew into Cincinnati airport (which is, ironically, in Kentucky) this afternoon.  Monte lived here for 2 years in 1977-78.  Since we had some time to burn this afternoon, we drove up to Cincinnati to take a tour of some of his old haunts.

We drove down by the waterfront and saw the new football and baseball stadiums.  We stopped by a bar called Arnold’s.  Back in the day, monte lived a few blocks from there, and in the evenings would pop in.

This was the first bar he ever played darts in (with his friend Caleb).  It is also where he met a legendary musician named Pigmeat Jarrett.  Pigmeat was originally from the Queen City, and had spent time playing piano on riverboats along the Ohio River, and woud also play soundtrack for many silent movies.  When he was in his golden years he would sit at the piano at Arnold’s and play into the wee hours.  He would welcome others up on stage to play with him.   It was in several of those sessions that monte joined in on saxophone and, i understand, a good time was had by all.

Pigmeat passed away at a ripe old age in 1995, but his picture still hangs on the wall in Arnold’s.

This is a shot from this afternoon of monte tinkling the keys on the same piano that Pigmeat played in his stints at Arnold’s.