With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion.
The good life, as I conceive it, is a happy life. I do not mean that if you are good you will be happy - I mean that if you are happy you will be good.
Too much sanity may be madness and the maddest of all, to see life as it is and not as it should be.
The only way to find the limits of the possible is by going past them into the impossible.
September 22, 2009 - 10:36 a.m.
I was going to say "Welcome to an early morning edition of Wise Madness;" but it really isn't that early. I've been up for a while. I'm trying to get up early on days that I don't teach to make it easier on the days then I do. It's tough, I’m a natural night owl, I can't just decide to be a lark. Still I'm trying to get my body used to going to bed around midnight and getting up at 7:00. That really isn't enough sleep though so I'll shoot for sleeping till 8:00 when I don't teach. Today I was up at 7:15.
I ran so far behind yesterday I never got a chance to go shopping. I didn't even have time to make dinner. After I updated I hopped on the subway to see Anaïs Mitchell at Union Hall in Park Slope Brooklyn. I thought it was my first time there till I got close and realized that I saw Jill Sobule there. After walking a block looking for a place to eat I remembered that they had pretty good bar food there. The first thing I did was order Chili dogs and fries. It was quite reasonable and quite good.
I was afraid of being late but got there right after doors opened and was the first one in performance space. If I arrived as the show started I would have been fine. It's a strange space. It's mainly a bare floor but people don't stand, they sit. I imagine with a packed crowd that wouldn't happen.
Anaïs walked in soon after I do and recognized me across a dark room even with my beard that she's never seen. I could never do that. If she grew a beard I wouldn't know her from Adam. I'm not so sure I'd give her a hug like she gave me either.
There are benches along one wall and that's where I sat. One of the other early arrivals looked familiar. It was dark and hard to see and I said, "You look familiar." It was A.J. Roach. He was the only one I knew at the show. That's ridiculous. Anaïs is a major talent, why weren't more people there? Next time she's in the area I'm going to beat the drums for her and you better be there.
Before the show I came back from the bathroom and found Anaïs talking to A.J.. She said, "You two know each other?" Which was just what I was going to say to them. Folk is a small incestuous world.
The opening act was Jefferson Hamer. She had seen him backing someone else up on guitar in Santa Cruz and asked him to back her up. He lives in Park Slope so this was the perfect show for it. He asked if he could open. She never heard his own material but she said yes. She sat in the audience for his set and when it was over she came over to me and clearly blown away. He was great. He reminded me of John Elliot, that's high praise indeed. Nobody sounds writes like John Elliot. Anaïs and A.J. heard it too. I just sent in a friend request on Facebook and see that he's friends with everyone in Crooked Still, Mike & Ruth, and Maura. He's my people.
Anaïs is one of the performers I've run out of praise for. Like John Elliot she's one of a kind. The full cast recording of her opera Hadestown has been completed and is being released in February. Listen to the cast.
Eurydice – Anaïs
Orpheus – Justin Vernon (Bon Iver)
Hades – Greg Brown!
Persephone – Ani Di Franco!
When she did The Wall she said that Greg sings it several octaves lower. I can imagine it so vividly, he's perfect for the role. His low growl is the opposite of her crisp diction but somehow it seems right.
After the show I hung out with AJ and Jefferson. Anaïs joined us and asked about getting to the Long Island Railroad. She was staying out on the Island. She was planning on going to Penn Station. I told her to go to Flatbush Ave, one subway stop from where we were. That's actually the fastest way for me to get home and I had my ticket in my wallet from when I tried doing that last time I went to a show in Brooklyn and just missed the train, so I not only guided her, I went with her. That worked out perfect. I got out at Jamaica where she had to change trains and I could show her where to go.
So what was the highlight of the evening? Attempting to cast Hadestown with Muppets on the ride home.
Orpheus – Kermit
Hades – Sam the Eagle
Persephone – Miss Piggy
We didn't cast Eurydice but realized that if Kermit was Orpheus then Miss Piggy would insist on playing her even though she unsuited for the role. So perhaps Rolf should be Orpheus. Who would make a good Eurydice?
So Much Music So Little Time - September 27, 2009
Postcrypt Postscript - September 26, 2009
Fort no Piano - September 25, 2009
Ace Kree - September 24, 2009
Ragin' Cajun - September 23, 2009
Email me: GordonLew at gmail
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 License. Horvendile September 22, 2009
