I became insane with long intervals of horrible sanity.
The trouble with fighting for human freedom is that one spends most of one's time defending scoundrels. For it is against scoundrels that oppressive laws are first aimed, and oppression must be stopped at the beginning if it is to be stopped at all.
Many people would sooner die than think; In fact, they do so
What I have been telling you, from alpha to omega, what is the one great thing the sigil taught me — that everything in life is miraculous. For the sigil taught me that it rests within the power of each of us to awaken at will from a dragging nightmare of life made up of unimportant tasks and tedious useless little habits, to see life as it really is, and to rejoice in its exquisite wonderfulness. If the sigil were proved to be the top of a tomato-can, it would not alter that big fact, nor my fixed faith. No Harrowby, the common names we call things by do not matter — except to show how very dull we are ...
August 07, 2015 - 12:15 p.m.
I won't see my therapist again for a month. So I have that much time to turn things around so I don't have to tell her how I'm not taking care of myself well. Notice I'm not writing about cooking. That's never a good sign. Good thing I always make myself a hot breakfast. After that my day goes downhill. O friends! Not these sounds!
But let us strike up more pleasant sounds and more joyful! In other words Falcon Ridge.
I'm up to Budgiedome on Friday night. Here was the lineup.
Annika
Mya Byrne
Scott Wolfson and Other Heroes
ilyAIMY
Heather Pierson Trio
Eric Lee
Since Anthony da Costa played that slot I have tried to give the leadoff position to young performers, Annika fits the bill, she's 17 and just graduated high school. She is also now using the name Annika Bennett. Also new to the Budgiedome was The Heather Pierson Trio. I met her when she shared a bill with Carolann Solebello. She impressed me enough to get the invite and this time she came with a band. She also came with a melodica. She knows how to win me over.
How many times has Mya played? Many. Not only did I meet Mya and Scott at Jack Hardy's memorial but that's where they met each other and Mya is now one of the other heroes. We are talking real home team, I love the music and they are close friends. SW&OH are shall we say high energy and a hard act to follow. Guess what, so is ilyAIMY. Hey know what? Repeat what I said about Scott for them except for where we met. They all keep getting better and better.
That leaves Eric. Eric has THE best Falcon Ridge Story. He went from being a camper at the Festival to being in a main stage act on the same day. The Strangelings came up the hill to play for the GFP and the Budgiedome. He was in the audience. He grabbed his fiddle and jammed with them. By the time they were finished at the Budgiedome I told Pete and Maura he should be in the band. They said, "He is." This hear he played fiddle tunes, sang, and played guitar. He was joined by some friends whose names I'm blanking on. Sorry Eric's friends.
Saturday's lineup was:
Meg Braun with Mare Wakefield & Nomad
Jean Rohe with Liam Robinson
Mark Allen Berube
Greg Klyma
Villa Palagonia
Karen Dahlstrom with Katherine Etzel
The only newcomer was Villa Palagonia, Allison Scola and Joe Ravo. I've been trying to get them since they formed. Pretty sure I've seen them more than anyone else. They are not the usual Falcon Ridge fair, their music is centered on Allison's Sicilian heritage. Yes some songs were even in Italian. We've had people sing in other languages before, Jean Rohe for instance. But we never had someone do a dance number. Allison taught the Tarantella and I was her demonstration pupil. Yes I danced on an uneven surface very vigorously. I also came close to fainting from exhaustion. Katherine joined her too and did a much better job. If you are surprised by that you either don't know us or no or, you don't know us.
Meg generously gave one song in her set to Mare & Nomad. They were also in the Emerging Artists. Nomad played the melodica too! Two melodicas in one year! Hey the first instrument I owned was a melodica. I had no idea what it was called. I don't remember not having it. It must have been a hand me down from my sisters. I thought it was just a toy. Greg is an old time Budgiedome favorite that I rediscovered a few NERFAs ago. Then I somehow left him off the Budgiedome schedule even though he was right there on the invite list. He couldn't come last year but finally he was back now. Paul was happy that somebody else from Buffalo was there so we wouldn’t make Buffalo jokes.
Then there's Jean. You know how much I love her music in all its incarnations. She did her own music and Robinson & Rohe songs. She did my one request, Arise Arise the National Anthem starting in 2040. I of course rose and put my hand over my heart.
Mark did my requests on the main stage. So here's the thing I've been saving up to write about Mark. He assumes the audience is well informed enough to get all his references and smart enough to understand the humor. Even I don't get all the references but I get enough to get by. And I fake being intelligent well for an idiot. But the Budgiedome is the right audience for him. They do get it.
Karen has performed solo and with Bobtown. This year she did some solo songs and some in a duo with Katherine as The Evangelines. That was a Bobtown side project that even I never saw.
Like I said and My Gentle Readers know, I often write about my cooking and how much I enjoy it. The Budgiedome lineup is my cooking too. I only invite musicians I love so of course I love the music. Year in and year out I will enjoy it as much as any concert I go to. Now how can I get Richard Thompson and Rhiannon Giddens to play? You'd come for that, right? And yes I mean play together. It's the Budgiedome, it has to be special.
We had a disappointing year in terms of audience turnout, there were a lot of possible factors in that. But it was not a disappointing year in terms of musical quality. We always do well in terms of having our performers being voted in by the Festival Goers as Most Wanted Artists. Each year there are 24 emerging artists and the top four vote getters are invited back to play in the following year's festival. This year Jean Rohe and Matt Nakoa were brought back. Why didn't Matt play this year? I have no idea. He slipped into the same crack that Greg did two years ago. He said he'll play next year. Two winners from our group is not unusual. It's the minimum I expect. This year we had five emerging artists play, Annika Bennett, Mya Byrne, Scott Wolfson and Other Heroes, Meg Braun, and Mark Allen Berube. I was be very surprised if at least two didn't get voted in this year. I would not be surprised if it were three. Could it be four? Maybe but there's usually somebody out there with a fan base I don't know of. Also I'm not sure if there are always four chosen. Aren't there sometimes just three? Isn't it theoretically three and only goes to four if the voting is close? I'm going to go with that. Let's say four are chosen. How many of our five would you expect to make it? Well one sixth of the people are chosen so maybe one. I am saying now I expect at least two and perhaps more. Experience has shown that’s what happens. So let me nerd out for a bit and compute the actual odds of n winners out of our 5 if 4 are chosen out of 24. I will not go into the math. The people that are interested can do the math themselves.
N~odds
0~0.3648
1~0.4560
2~0.1609
3~0.0179
4~0.0005
If only three are chosen here are the odds.
0~0.4788So when I say I expect two even if only three are chosen that's a strong statement. If I'm wrong you better say something as I will conveniently forgot I made this bold prediction. "Bold prediction" is something I used to say to Alan all the time. I said things like "no member of the Knicks will still be on the team when they win their next playoff series." I was right on that one. You read it here first at least two of our five will be in the top three vote getters in the survey. That would happen only 9% of the time by chance. Should I say two of the top four and raise it to 16% no. I will be bold! But I will weasel if they make the top four OK I will make it four as four are only chosen if it's close. Yes that's how I put it, we will have at least two people invited back for the Most Wanted whether three or four are invited.
1~0.4224
2~0.0939
3~0.0049
Wow that was a lot of math. Did I lose everyone?
OK a little non Falcon Ridge but music related business to take care of. Tuesday night I'm going to guest DJ with Brian again. This time I'm planning out the entire set beforehand. Last time I did it that day. This time I'll have it on a spreadsheet. I when I'm done I'll list the artists played. It's going to be all new music, nothing more than a year old with the emphasis on music released this year. Some has not even been released yet. So if you want to be the cool hipster that tells people, "You never heard of the bands I like" make sure to listen in. You can listen live on WFDU then the show will be archived for two weeks. Brian will be on from 8 Pm – 1 AM we are still working on when I'll be on. So far I have a dozen songs and 45 minutes of music scheduled. I'm still working on it.
OK now to make the one meal I can always get myself up to cooking, breakfast. Bacon and eggs today. Then I have to deal with some very stressful things. It's anxiety day.
I signed the Pro-Truth Pledge:
please hold me accountable.
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Wise Madness is Now In Session - May 28, 2018
The NFL and the First Amendment - May 27, 2018
On The Road Again - May 26, 2018
Oliver the Three-Eyed Crow - May 25, 2018
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Horvendile August 07, 2015
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