As the season of Valentine’s approaches, I can’t help but think of all the love notes being passed in the playgrounds across the world. I happen to have a note of my own, confiscated from an actual student (name withheld) from my classroom a few years back.
With whom would you like to go out and have that kiss with? Here’s hoping your Valentine prayers are answered.
Whoa. We’re a month into 2012 and for some reason our New Year’s fun is just now being posted. I’m sure Tanner can some how be blamed for this. Yeah, Tanner. Way to go (Love you!).
Julie throws a really nice party. Lots of snacking.
Yes, these are delicious Rice Krispies.
We hope your holidays are filled with smiles, cookies and hugs.
Love, Ami and Tanner
A short time ago Ami and I went to see Mike Doughty perform at the Bottleneck in Lawrence. The opening band was Moon Hooch; they rocked a contrabass and were pretty amazing.
Mike Doughty and His Band Fantastic, as expected, were also amazing.
We heard good music and saw something I have never seen done… they sold a live recording of the show at the merch table just a few minutes after the show. People (myself included) were lined up to buy it. Why isn’t everyone doing this? Offer your fans music they enjoy + something not easily found free online + a memory to take home and they will eat it up.
Mike Doughty is embracing the distribution changes the main stream music industry has been fighting hard against. He is not suing fans for downloading and sharing his music, he encourages them to do it! During the show he said the following, ”You many not have money. If this is the case, I advise you that there are many many many places to steal the album on the world wide web and I’m genuinely encouraging you to do so. It is more important to me that the album is listened to than I buy sandwiches.” He went on to say, ”If you can’t afford it, go steal it. If you do buy it, thank you very much, please take it home insert it into your laptop, rip it as the kids say, and then give the compact disc to a friend.”
Apparently Switzerland agrees with Mike Doughty when it comes to sharing music online…
http://torrentfreak.com/swiss-govt-downloading-movies-and-music-will-stay-legal-111202/
A few weeks ago, Tanner and I traveled down to Wichita to see Gillian Welch and Dave Rawlings perform at the beautiful Orpheum Theater.
Reasons I love Gillian
1. She wears boots and she means it.
2. Her voice melds with Dave Rawlings like it’s completely effortless but it’s so superb, you can’t tell the two voices apart.
3. Her sound evokes an old-time feel and while her lyrics are similar, they remain relevant and poignant.
4. Her music is so completely American and it’s hard to explain, but it makes me feel proud that there’s a branch of country music that’s actually an art form, and not a formula.
Her newest album.
Here’s a video of Gillian performing the song “Wichita.” I tried to find a current one, but wasn’t successful. It’s still worth checking out, don’t worry.
I have wanted to see Paul Simon for probably fifteen years. I couldn’t believe our luck that we would not only get to see him in Kansas City, but we even got to sit in the seventh row! We had such a clear view of the stage, and of course “P.S.” (as I began to refer to him).
My favorite part was when he came out by himself and played “Sound of Silence” with just his voice and a guitar. What an indelible memory! So haunting and amazing.
We had the most fun with Julie and Brett when we met them at Worlds of Fun during the scariest time of year. During the day, the amusment park is normal, with some festive decor of the season. After dark however, it turns into several haunted “houses.” We didn’t take any pictures of the “London Terror” haunted walk we did because well, it was too scary. I’m serious: there was mucho creepy stuff going down. I’m pretty sure I saw Sweeney Todd, Jack the Ripper and Jacob Marley, amongst other apparently escaped inmates from the asylum. If you’re into this sort of thing (which I’m not, actually– please don’t make me do this again, guys!), we highly recommend.
What are you revelling in?
Reading: Just finished The Giver, in the middle of Beauty and The Magician’s Elephant
Listening: Bluegrass goodness (kind of Alison Krauss-esque) by Sierra Hull
Revelling: getting photos published in The Hype Weekly (link shows some photos, but the print edition has others)
Creating: Recipe books for dear family members (details to come!)
I’ve been TREASURED! …Isn’t Etsy the best?
If you’re not familiar with Etsy, being treasured basically means an item from your shop has been selected as part of a collection by someone else. People make treasuries of favorite items, but mainly they make groups of things that go together, or are similarly-themed. But enough Etsy talk… go check out my feature!
I was trying to think of “Cr” words to go into this post title, and the only thing I could think of was “cringe.” And normally a spider of this magnitude inside the house would definitely make me cringe (I don’t even pretend to be calm- ask Tanner). But something about this spider, maybe because it was outside, maybe because its web was so beautiful, I was just drawn to it like a magnet. Thank you, spidey, for awakening my inner-scientist.
P.S. If you like to read funny awesomeness, When You Are Engulfed in Flames, by David Sedaris, has a pretty good spider essay.