Meme and Dave Barry

Meme copied from sugarkane_59:

Name a CD you own that you think no one else on your friends list does:
Inti Illimani: Grandes Exitos. Unless you're into Chilean folk music from the sixties, I very much doubt you've got this one.

Name a book you own that you think no one else on your friends list does:
"MARTIN'S Annual Criminal Code, 2003, Student Edition." Did you know that it is an offence in Canada to "pretend to practice witchcraft"? 'Strue. Section 365. If you're going to be a witch, you better be a real one.

Name a Movie/DVD/VHS that you own that you think no one else on your friends list has:
Logan's Run. I'm actually not sure nobody else has it - but I'm naming it because it'll tickle me greatly if anyone on my flist says "I own that too!"

There! Is! No! Sanctuary!!

Name a place that you have visited that you think no one else on your friends list has:
El Tabo, an apparently famous Chilean beach town. We were told of the glories of El Tabo ad nauseam the last time I was in Chile. Beautiful, they said. Peaceful. Unique. Gorgeous. Serene. Don't leave Chile without going to El Tabo.

Then we got there. You know what's so special about El Tabo? It's got no surf. It's on the Pacific, but sheltered somehow, so it's very peaceful and gentle. Lovely.

Yeah, lovely. Except at the time Chris and I lived in Kingston, on the shores of Lake Ontario. And let me tell you, Lake Ontario does surfless beaches like nobody's business. Better than El Tabo, anyway.

Name a tool/piece of technology that you think no one else on your friends list owns:
Hm... AHA!! Star Wars Episode III Lightsaber Battle Game!

***
And, from culturevulture7, here's why I adore Dave Barry:

Want a little something EGTRRA?
DAVE BARRY

It's tax time. ( I know this because I'm staring at documents that make no sense to me, no matter how many beers I drink. )

A Choral Line

Haven't written about choir in a long time, not sure why.

So we're fully into rehearsals for our February concert, which will have the theme "Black History Month". Kind of a funny theme for a choir consisting mostly of middle-aged Ontarian Aryans, but you won't hear me complaining. We've got African songs, gospel songs, spirituals, you name it - if it's got a beat, we've got it.

Even we have a beat. Of sorts.

( Program, for the curious )

And today we got to practice a few of our songs with a group of drummers, which... um, wow. Songs that had been kind of "Yeah, that's pretty good, nice little beat" abruptly turned into "Holy ****!!" Like, I had an extended atheist-touching-the-face-of-god moment. Mbinguni Kule, which is sweet but a little repetitive on its own, totally grew wings with the drums backing us up.

::happy sigh::

Oh and I dropped my Cheerful Idiot facade at one point in the rehearsal. I think one of the reasons I haven't written much about choir lately is that I'm much less frustrated these days after a rehearsal. I attribute this wholly to a seating rearrangement which has put me a few seats away from my previous neighbour, whom I shall politely call MoaningWhiningJustShutUP! TroubledSoul. TroubledSoul spends the better part of most rehearsals complaining about everything. Her feet hurt, she's too old to stand up, and the music sucks. All of it. All the time. Especially "this type of crap" - crap being defined as anything un-WASP-like. So the whole black-themed set? Not her cuppa. I had fond hopes that she'd drop out, as she's been threatening to ever since she joined, at least until after the February concert. But no. She shows up every week and bitches as if bitching were an Olympic sport.

Anyway, like I said, I'm not next to her any more, which makes choir infinitely more enjoyable. But I still get to hear her when there's a lull. And today, as we paused in between parts of Peter on De Sea, she moaned once more "I hate this crap," and I said, "Yes, we know." Which made a few people turn around - not that I was being rude or loud, I just said it very clearly and I normally don't say much in rehearsal.

TroubledSoul looked at me, really surprised, and said, "You actually like this thing?"

"Yes, I do," I said, and TroubledSoul looked rather insulted for about an hour.

But hey, she didn't complain about the songs. Score!

What was funny was that Peter on De Sea is the only song on our list that I actually don't like.

There was at least one song that she likes in our program. Nigra Sum, by Pablo Casals, the only women-only song we've ever done in this choir, though Kurt normally gives the men a song or two on their own. I guess he figures the women get enough exposure, and he's right. Still, it's neat to be on our own for once, especially for a song as lovely as this one.

It's not terribly Black History-ish, though, other than the title, "I Am Black". The lyrics are in Latin, and from the Song of Songs, and it was written by a (white) Spanish dude, and the melody doesn't say much that's African. But still. Gorgeous song. And we do it well.