One of the great joys of being a grandma is singing with my granddaughter. And she can really carry a tune at age ONE, which is amazing to me. It turns out she likes a lot of the same songs her mother did thirty years ago. The all-time favorite is Baby Beluga by Raffi. This song will always make me smile.
From Claude:
Raffi Cavoukian, known simply as Raffi, is one of the most beloved children’s musicians of all time. Born in Egypt in 1948 and raised in Canada, he transformed children’s music with his 1976 debut album Singable Songs for the Very Young and went on to create iconic songs like “Baby Beluga,” “Banana Phone,” and “Shake My Sillies Out.” What set him apart was his genuine respect for young audiences — his music was engaging and wholesome without ever being condescending. Generations of children have grown up with his songs, and beyond music, he has been a dedicated advocate for child welfare and environmental stewardship.
I can accompany some nursery rhymes—like Twinkle Twinkle Little Star—on toy piano.
In the spirit of trying new things in this new phase of my life (aka Retired Grandma), I performed a full length solo song in a “Café Musicale” fundraiser at my church last night. It was set up like a cabaret with lots of round tables and a decorated central buffet with desserts & apps and twinkling lights and candles. There was a variety of acts, including a couple of bands, duos, trios and two other soloists (one of whom was a professional).
I sang Anthem from the 80s musical Chess. In the show it’s sung by a Soviet chess player who is thinking of defecting. When I heard it recently, it resonated with me in a new way given all that Americans are experiencing with a wannabe dictator in office. I had a fantastic professional accompanist on piano.
I think it went well. I wasn’t overly nervous and I got warm applause and some very heartfelt comments afterwards.
So, as my 60th year is about to wrap up next week, I can truthfully say I’ve already tried some new things in this new decade.
I took watercolor classes and started painting again, successfully performed a solo for a room full of people, and registered for week long Dance Camp.
Oh, and as an update on that art show (where I was disappointed that my painting was hung so high), I found out last night that it was moved and placed at eye level. The organizers apologized for where it was hung originally and said it was one of their favorite pieces in the show! It’s going to travel with the rest of the pieces to a real art museum in October.
Proof of performance. I’m not a professional singer so I’m not going to upload the video of me singing, but it’s a very moving song. You can listen to “Anthem” from the Original 1988 Broadway Cast Album here. The show was recently revived and is currently playing on Broadway.
Undoubtedly the best thing about being 60 has been spending time with my granddaughter. The second best thing has been engaging more in my foundational love of the arts. Painting, singing, dancing and writing this blog have all been so fun and important to me this past year.
As GenXers will remember the old public service announcement: You Gotta Have Art!
I grew up on Sesame Street, Mr. Rogers, Free to Be You and Me, Zoom and Schoolhouse Rock. Even the rigid old Catholic Church (my nemesis) got a makeover in the 70s as a result of Vatican II. (Think felt banners and folk music). Also, I was a Camp Fire Girl, which was much more “hippie granola” than Girl Scouts.
Camping with the Camp Fire Girls in 1975
Granted Reagan and AIDS in the 80s put a dark tint on my rose-colored glasses, I still somehow believed we were headed toward a more perfect union where the “general welfare” was the goal.
Kids who grew up in the 70s have the Preamble to the Constitution lodged in their brains forever thanks to Schoolhouse Rock!
The election of Barack Obama in 2008 brought those old feelings back. Justice, equality, peace, happiness, community seemed achievable.
MLK’s vision of the Beloved Community resonated strongly with many 70s kids who also loved Sesame Street and other PBS shows promoting those ideals.
I now feel as if I was living in a highly privileged bubble, which has been unequivocally popped.
I’d like to stay positive for the sake of my kids and grandkids, but I just don’t know if we’re going to see anything like that in my lifetime.
We’ve gone so very far in the other direction.
A UFC Fighting Cage being erected at the White House in honor of the nation’s 250th birthday—kinda just says it all.
I remember walking around in the airport in Paris—Charles De Gaulle—in December 1985. I was waiting for my flight back to Boston after my semester abroad in Rome. I was listening to my Sony Walkman, which had the songs that had been the soundtrack for the entire semester—Take on Me by A-Ha, Money for Nothing by Dire Straits, 99 Luftballons by the German band Nena.
I was hungover. I was sad. It was the end. Back to America. I knew it was going to be culture shock. So many things had happened that semester—some good, some bad—but all of it was new and exciting. I had traveled through Europe with friends, had a fling with a fellow student who was studying in France, been semi-stalked by an Italian guy, smoked hash and saw Sting perform live, been chased down the street by a very angry nun who was mad I’d let my friend use my roommate’s bed in the convent, been subjected to my first public masturbator (aka “The Jerk”), ordered entire meals in Italian, been awakened on a train by a French security guard who didn’t like my friend’s Filipino passport, got all my clothes destroyed by an Italian laundromat, and seen the most magnificent art and wonders of western civilization from the Mona Lisa to the Colosseum to Pompeii to the Vatican.
Walking through that airport felt like the last scene in a movie—a very 80s movie.
Here I am in Rome in 1985 with my short 80s hair and my friend Scott who was in my program with me. Scott was my close friend Carla’s boyfriend, but she was studying in cold old England for some reason. Girl Code obviously eliminated any chance of a fling with Scott, but he was so cute, right? Look at those legs.
I have loved all five seasons of the series Hacks with Jean Smart and Hannah Einbinder and I know the series finale is being released today. I will make a point of watching it as soon as possible so that I don’t accidentally read about it.
In the olden days, you had one shot at seeing the series finale. You had to watch it when it aired—or wait forever for the rerun to come out. Most people didn’t get VCRs until the later 1980s. (And even then, “taping” your show was an unreliable process.)
The series finale I remember being the biggest deal was M*A*S*H—the long running dramedy series set during the Korean War that followed the doctors and staff of a mobile army surgical hospital. The show ran for 11 years. I was a senior in high school when it ended in 1983.
Although I had not watched every episode along the way, I knew the main characters well. I’m pretty sure I sat and watched the finale in real time and probably shed a tear or two.
According to Google, the M*A*S*H finale, titled “Goodbye, Farewell and Amen,” was 2.5 hours long and was one of the most-watched television broadcasts in U.S. history, drawing about 106 million viewers. In 1983, the total population of the US was 234 million people. So literally, half the country watched the M*A*S*H finale.
In case you’ve forgotten the very end (like I had), here’s when Hawkeye and BJ say goodbye.
Even though I haven’t seen the Hacks finale yet, I’m assuming there will be a similarity with M*A*S*H in that two people who have been through some major shit together will deeply understand that they’ve been changed for the better by the other person.
I’ve registered and paid for a five-day dance retreat in Maine in August.
I’ve been hearing about “Ferry Beach” from my fellow Unitarian Universalists for decades. This mythical coastal retreat center has transformed many a life. They’ve got retreats for everything from Yoga, to Women’s Healing, to Buddhism. My church friend Ron, who leads our monthly Sacred Circle Dance, is co-leading a week-longSacred Circle Dance retreat. I brought the flyer home and stuck it on the refrigerator about a month ago.
With my husband’s knee replacement recovery taking for fucking ever, we have zero travel plans. Nothing booked. Nothing to look forward to. And I have noidea when or what type of travel he’s going to be up for.
This led me to Dance Camp. I tried to convince my two friends from high school that I rarely get to see to join me there, but so far, no dice.
So…I went ahead and registeredfor five nights by myself in the mythical UU retreat center. Dancing 5 hours a day with strangers, could be a terrible idea. I mean, I like our monthly dance, but this is going to be waaaay more than that. There’s a chance I might hate it and bail out after a night or two.
In any case, I’ll have finally experienced Ferry Beach.
I heard the NYT “30 Greatest Living Songwriters” piece described on TV as a “last gasp of legacy media” to remain relevant. Maybe so. But hey, I’m a dedicated consumer of legacy media—and no publication has had more cultural sway in my 60 years than The New York Times.
So, for a fun activity on Mother’s Day, my son, my husband and I went through the list. We listened to a song or two by most of the songwriters.
The main things to know are that the list is unranked and has some crazy juxtapositions. For example, Young Thug comes immediately after Dolly Parton. Also, some of these folks did not perform their own songs, so they are less familiar.
I have seen many posts about all the songwriters—including Billy Joel—who did not make the list, which I agree with. (He should’ve been on it.)
But as we know—art is subjective. One person’s masterpiece is elevator music to another.
Artists I enjoyed listening to that I didn’t really know before: Missy Elliot and Stephin Merritt.
Artist I forced my son to listen to because she is a legend he should know: Carole King
Who’s not on it that you think should have been? (And remember, they have to still be alive. My husband was pissed David Bowie isn’t on it, but sadly he died at 69 in 2016.)
Of course I watched Suffs on public television (PBS’ “Great Performances”) last night. I’ve had it on my calendar for months, and I saw about 25 ads for it on social media yesterday, and a friend called to remind me about it.
Created by Tony Award winner Shaina Taub, this musical recorded from Broadway tells the story of the American suffragist movement and the remarkable friendships, heartbreak, and action that brought women together—or, in some cases, tore them apart.
It’s going to air again tonight at 8pm on PBS. Watch it or record it, if you can.
I will never again call them Suffragettes. They were suffragists.
Hopefully all the Tradwife influencers will decide to take a break from serving their husbands and tune in.
One thing about being older is that you have so very many snippets of songs, poems, sayings and jingles floating around in your head. Literally decades worth of popular culture is lodged in the ole memory. Half the time, you can’t remember why or from where you know something.
Apparently “April Showers Bring May Flowers” is a saying from England that dates back to at least the 1550s. Imagine. That saying has been kicking around the English-speaking world for over 450 years.
The flowers that bloom in the spring,
tra-la.
OK, just Googled and that’s from The Mikado, which makes sense. I was in that show in high school (embarrassingly, in full yellowface). Gilbert & Sullivan are responsible for a great deal of brain clutter in older people who like musical theater.
Springtime for Hitler and GER-MA-NY
I wish that one from The Producers would leave me, but it just won’t. Must be lodged too deep in the grey matter.
Spring in general has more songs, poems, and sayings than all the other seasons combined. Don’t you think?
What pops into your head when you experience the miracle of spring where you are?
I was planning to watch the White House Correspondents’ Dinner last night. I watched a lot of the pre-game, red carpet stuff on C-SPAN. The reporter kept asking people who they were wearing and it became so awkward that the anchor finally told him to stop. “This is Washington. Nobody has any idea who they’re wearing.”
I was wondering if maybe Trump was going to somehow manage to be charming in his speech. Highly unlikely, but still. And if he was going to be vile and awful to the press (as usual), I wanted to see him embarrass himself until I couldn’t stand it anymore and then go to bed.
After the chaos was unleashed, my first thought was that they’d obviously cancel the event. People in the room (including multiple pregnant women) had plunged to the floor and everyone was shaken. The fact that Trump wanted to carry on (“the show must go on”) seemed to be just another example of his complete disregard for others.
When he then held a press conference at 10:30pm and all the reporters showed up in their formalwear, I felt badly for them. If you had had a night like that, wouldn’t you want to just go home and go to bed? But no…they had to go back to the White House and listen to Dear Leader blather on about his ballroom and lie about all “the love” in the room. (Quiet, Piggy!)
Reporters are people too and I feel badly for them, especially the female ones. Trump treats them like shit. I felt especially bad for the WHCA President & Host Weijia Jiang who tearfully announced that Trump was insisting she reschedule the event within 30 days. (The Commander Commands and the People—especially the Women—Must Obey.)
And then, I just had to go online and see what people were saying. If I didn’t know better, I’d say that the entire country thought the event was staged. That was all I saw in the comments.
I’ve never been prone to conspiracy theories. (Typically, I mentally dismiss people who raise them.) But…maybe.
Could the whole thing have been staged? And if it was, why?
Our government is flailing, people. I grew up in this country and I’ve never felt like this about it before. The on again off again trip to Pakistan is just the latest example. What the hell are they doing? Do they even know??
We have now entered the Twilight Zone. That’s how I feel. Cue the music.
Honestly, the TV show Twilight Zone was a bit before my time. It’s more of a Boomer thing. I never actually watched it. But culturally, it has been referred to so often that I have a sense of it.
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