Friday, March 7, 2008

A Really Good Shew....

Natalie MacMaster
Thanks to a good friend, I had a great introduction to something I'd have never otherwise found. One of my favorite colleagues ever and frequent musical endeavor accomplice invited me to join herself and another good friend for what she described as an evening of "celtic fiddling".

Oh! How short was the invitation sold! Natalie MacMaster is a gaelic fiddler in the tradition of Nova Scotia (Cape Breton)--performing with a six piece ensemble (cello, bagpipes, percussion, piano, banjo, electric bass), Natalie is nearly continuously dancing along a la River Dance---straight up celtic step dancing, complete with taps. I've always had a genuine respect for the celtic fiddles and their impact on the mountain music of our country; I love that cross-section that is at once celtic and American bluegrass. Boys and girls, this was something else---not entirely, but something exponentially more powerful, moving, energetic and---also contemporary. I have never seen a cellist get down before, but that's exactly what the dude did---totally laying it down! The bass player made it clear that despite impressions to the contrary, there certainly can be a very strong groove there. The drummer was very impressive, a young African-American from Vegas, he used to play with Shania Twain(!). How a guy like that ends up behind a kit in a progressive Cape Breton fiddle ensemble is completely beyond me but he did tear it up.

She's had a dvd recently released and its scheduled to air on PBS this fall; keep your eye out for it. You will be awestruck, regardless of what your usual genre preference is. Its all about the performance and man, oh man---what a show it was!

Recent Days
Lots of stuff going on, most of it really fun. A great morning and early afternoon of knitting with a favorite friend and fellow music/craft obsessed Mommy, lots of laughs and chatter.

A day in the dentist chair, unfortunately, as well. A couple of days ago I remarked to my mother that I was doing something so distasteful that I'd sooner pull my own teeth. Well, don't ever say that. Later that day, chewing something very sticky (bad girl; but I love Jolly Ranchers...) and pulled the damn crown off of my lower bicuspid. And underneath? Ewwwww....decay, nastiness. So here I am, temporary crown and a heap of pain in my jaw bone from all the drilling he had to do beneath the gum line to clean everything up.

Funny thing, though; my knitting buddy and I had laughed over our mutual inclination to slip our working sock needles in our hair when we need to put down our work for just a minute. I've woke up and found them in bed with me, I've heard them plink to the floor in the shower, I've left my house with them in my hair. She and I had so much fun that I literally had less than 5 minutes between when I realized I had to go and actually leaving. At the dentist office, one of the techs made a comment about knitting and we had a great chat----when I sat back in the chair, guess what? She saw I had a sock needle in my head! Doh! Silly rabbit!

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