I worked the Easter Sunday matinee of Riverdance – the 25th anniversary show. 25 years ago I was knee deep in work projects, so I wasn’t a huge fan the first time around. My mother had all the DVDs, though – Riverdance AND the Three Tenors. So I signed up as a nod to my mom…and my Irish dad.
The show was pretty toe tapping good!
I’ve started volunteering at the Bass Concert Hall as an usher. Today I worked the matinee for the Broadway musical “Ain’t Too Proud,” the story of the lives of the members of The Temptations. The venue was full of music, dancing, and lights…. a great story and show.
I got home from the show in time to watch the FAU Owls play in the Final Four. Sadly, we lost. Should have won, but a great game played by all.
Last week we stopped in at one of our favorite music spots in town, Donn’s Depot. Danny Britt and friends were playing. We sat in the back dining room and visited with friends while we listened to the music. We don’t go often enough, but I sure hope this place never goes away. A jewel of old Austin.
The Christmas ornaments are always slow to come down at Donn’s. It makes for good ambiance, though.
Danny Britt playing for the crowd, as viewed from the back room
We ventured out tonight to see a friend return to the stage. Mike is a sailor, former B-Docker, and drummer in the band FatDog. They played at Infamous Brewery tonight. Kurt and Barbara joined us. It was nice to see him and Connie again.
The beer menu at Infamous is much improved since I was there last; more variety. I enjoyed a nice pilsner and a lager.
I have to give Infamous points for their very eclectic restroom art, best I’ve ever seen. 🙂
After a long, self-imposed exile from restaurants and bars, we’re loosening things up a bit. Last week we enjoyed our good old “blue-hair special” at Chuy’s. Yummmmm.
And last night we popped in at Donn’s Depot to listen to the Nash Hernandez Orchestra. It was a great time.
We have some talented musicians living in our neighborhood. They have taken to doing a driveway concert every couple of weeks. Sometimes classical. Sometimes jazz. We walked over tonight with a couple of chairs and enjoyed the ambiance for a bit. Very nice.
Love thy neighbor. 🙂
During this prolonged shelter-in-place, when people ask me “what did you do today?” I usually go blank. But I have been busy! Aside from the household chores, cooking, and yard work, I have found contentment in these online diversions, which fill my day.
Photography
Nikon is offering their curriculum of 10 online photography classes to be streamed for free until the end of April. How cool is that? Link here.
Birding
High Island on the Texas Gulf Coast is one of my very favorite birding destinations during migration in April. But not only is travel not in line with the current stay-at-home order, but the sanctuaries are also closed. Thankfully, Houston Audubon, who owns and runs the High Island sanctuaries, is live streaming video footage from their Facebook page at 8AM and 3:30PM every Thursday through Monday. Their Facebook link here.
Guitar
Fender is offering a 90-day free trial of their online guitar, bass, and ukelele lessons. I’m a poorly self-taught guitar player of nearly 30 years and I’m learning new things by following their lesson progression, and more importantly, practicing again. Link here.
Exercise
Lori recommended some beginner yoga sessions on YouTube, from “Yoga with Adriene.” I’m a yoga-newbie and am enjoying them very much. Link here.
I use an app called “30Days” to help me to do higher and higher reps of traditional strength exercises like plank, situps, pushups, etc. You pick the exercises, set your starting point, and for 30 days the app will gradually increase the reps, giving you days-off every few days. I’ve used their app for years, on and off. I’m 27 days into my latest 30-day stint and am back up to planking for 3 minutes. 🙂 The app isn’t fancy, there are prettier ones out there, but it’s free and it works for me when I use it. Link here.
Amy recommended an app she used to train herself from couch-surfer to running a 5K over the course of 8 weeks. They also have a 10K version which takes you from couch to 10K in 14 weeks, which is the one I’m using. I’m on week 4 and am still enjoying it. They are both free to try for 7 days, and then you have to pay to upgrade to unlimited access. The provider, Fitness22, actually has an entire collection of fitness apps. Link here.
After 6 years, I am still wearing my fitbit One tracker every day. I need to upgrade to a watch soon. Either way, I use their app daily to track my activity and food. Link here.
Things to listen to
Amazon Music, one of the perks of Prime membership, has a great selection of music; 2 million songs from their 50 million song library are free to listen to for Prime members. You can search by song, album, artist, or listen to existing playlists and curated stations for something that floats your boat. Keeto enjoys George Winston. Link here.
Amazon Music has a channel on twitch.tv where they are hosting live-streamed webcasts. Look for #togetherathome hashtag. I listened to Hayes Carll play live for an hour on his patio last night. The audio was very well done. Link here.
I’ve gone overboard subscribing to and listening to podcasts, true crime is my addiction. I have new content to listen to each day. I use the Stitcher app to listen. Link here.
Foreign Language Learning
I still use the free app Duolingo to practice my Spanish every day or so. Link here.
Things to watch
The British National Theatre is streaming previously recorded theater performances every Thursday in April, on their YouTube channel. We watched the first one, a comedy called One Man, Two Guvnors, last week and really enjoyed it. Link here.
The Metropolitan Opera is streaming videos of previously recorded opera performances, a new one every day. Link here.
Acorn.tv is offering a 30-day free trial of their British TV shows’ episodes (which we enjoy very much) for new subscribers, instead of their normal 7-day free trial. Use the code FREE30 when signing up. Link here.
Videochat
Ok, hands down, I’ve adopted Zoom for video chat. The free version allows unlimited video meetings with a 40-minute time limit on each, which works for me. Link here.
Online multiplayer games
We have spent many hours playing online games with friends and family. I think that trickstercards.com and boardgamearena.com are both well done for this. We combine them with a zoom video chat.
Food & Drink
Virtual wine tasting from Becker Vineyards. What’s a virtual wine tasting? Well, Becker is selling different 3 pack bottles of different varietals each week, which you can order to be shipped to your home. And then a few days later, you tune into their Facebook Live sessions to participate in a group tasting of each bottle with experts from the vineyard. I just bought the 3rd tasting pack. It should be good! Link here.
I posted previously about my ongoing on-line grocery shopping adventures for delivery and/or curbside pickup. I’ve been pretty good at keeping an order scheduled a week to 10 days ahead of time, to keep fresh food in the house. Let me say, again, HEB is awesome! Link to my previous post here.
Michael & Amber gifted us several tickets to see an Austin band with them and a bunch of their friends tonight, Extreme Heat. They are a self-described funk and soul band that’s been playing in Austin since 1977. And they are one of the Austin Music Award nominees for Hall of Fame artist this year. I really enjoyed the show. They were great! We asked Mike and Joel to join the party as well. Nice venue, great tunes, a little dancing. Very nice.
We are watching the latest Ken Burns multipart documentary on PBS, Country Music. I think it’s great. I love the music, and the walk through time.
The episode on Hank Williams dusted off some cobwebs for me. I have strong memories from my childhood – including listening to my dad play Hank Williams albums on his record player at night, often with the lights in the living room turned off.
I couldn’t resist playing some of the same albums on my iPod tonight. And I just had to flick the lights off. I was immediately transported to my old home many decades ago, and memories associated with that time resurfaced.
Music sure is powerful.
A memory from that same time came to mind. I was going through my pre-teen gymnast phase. My dad, upon discovering me doing cartwheels in the living room one day, strongly suggested that I not do that anymore. Unfortunately, I had a bad case of Nadia Comaneci fever, having closely followed the 1976 Summer Olympics. So the urge to bounce about was irresistible. A few days later, on the very last indoor tumbling run of my life, my foot hit and broke the plastic cover on my dad’s record player. The very same turntable from which Hank Williams sang to me in the dark. Lesson learned.
After the much dreaded confession when my dad came home from work, I searched for, found, and purchased a replacement cover and paid for it from my babysitting money. It was not an easy thing to do back then. There was no Google search. No Amazon Prime. I only had a phone book and a Sears Roebuck catalog. But I had to make it right.
Long story short: it’s amazing how music and memories and the mind work.
Good Night Hank.
Monte and I grabbed lunch in South Austin today at Evangeline Cafe, a long-time Austin favorite for Cajun food and live music. I cannot believe it has taken us so long to make it here! It was the first time for both of us. And it was goooood. I want to come back again soon.
The hallway is covered with music posters for performances at the cafe over the years.
Mardi Gras is only a few days away, so maybe you should check them out, too!
We joined friends tonight to listen to music at Donn’s Depot downtown. Chris Gage is a favorite of mine, and he played Christmas songs and welcomed other musicians to join him. It was a fun night!
Very Merry!:
Chris Gage and Jimmie Dale Gilmore playing If You Were a Bluebird:
I attended Laura’s recital yesterday afternoon. She plays piano beautifully. There were a dozen or so other people playing a piece each; on either piano or violin. It was a nice way to spend a rainy Saturday afternoon.
When rafting up with friends on Lake Travis, we invented this game to amuse ourselves – everyone takes turns playing a song from their iPod that they think is awesome. We pass the plug from one person to the next. You strive for a song that others will agree is awesome. Some songs take people down their own memory lane, some are just funny, some songs everyone sings along to, some are songs other people never heard before. It’s a great way to pass the time, under the stars, on a boat, with friends, slightly impaired, at anchor, off the grid, into the wee hours of the morning. Here’s the typical scene.
Awesome! 🙂
One of my unofficial new year’s resolutions was to dedicate some time to learning. Have you heard of MOOCs – massive open online classes? Well, there are MANY online courses on every subject imaginable, hosted from many different institutions and web portals. They are free – if audited, and are taken online from the comfort of your couch. Ten weeks ago I enrolled in a MOOC on Jazz Appreciation on edx.org, along with 11,000(!) other students. I love all kinds of music, but I really didn’t know much about Jazz, and I thought if I learned a bit more about it, its eras and artists, that I might enjoy it even more.
Today I finished the course. I highly recommend it. I now know a bit more about early jazz, swing, bebop, cool, hard bop, modal, free jazz, fusion, and neo-classical eras. I know that Coltrane was THE MAN on tenor sax. I know that Miles varied his music on trumpet to influence many eras. I found out that I really like the pianist Bill Evans and will seek out some of his albums. I understand why Charles Mingus and Thelonius Monk transcend a specific Jazz era. I decided that I don’t care as much for bebop – no offense to Dizzy and the Bird. I enjoy early jazz and modal and hard bop and cool. I can distinguish blues form from AABA form. I can listen for the bass and drums to try to pick out swing from even-8th rhythm. I heard many snippets of a variety of performances from artists that I was already aware of, whetting my interest to hear more by them. And I learned about some of the newest artists to appear on the Jazz stage. Professor Hellmer was great.
All and all, a great class! Aaaaaand, I got an A. 🙂
openculture.com maintains a list of over a thousand MOOCs here. Take a look, pick one out that sounds interesting, and enroll!
Sheila365 