November 6, 2006

• <EDIT>

  How could I forget about the poetry contest?
  It starts today and continues to Nov 22nd,
  One entry/person on Friendship,
  no more than 20 lines,
  send it via my message box
  *Would the person that left their poem in my comments,
  please message it to me?*
  

  ********************************************

  Learning to savor each day,
  the sun slanted on the floor,
  the clouds filling my imagination
  the scents-so brisk and clear
  
  Aloe vera heads for the sky,
  my spider sends out shoots
  philodendron-strong and hearty
  can we be as patient as the plants?
  
  © 2006  Laurie B

  

  Through the Windowpane Guillemots 2006

  “There’s poetry in an empty Coke can,” sings Guillemots leader
  Fyfe Dangerfield on “made-up lovesong #43,” from his band’s debut album
  Through the Windowpane. “There’s majesty in a burnt-out caravan.” He’s
  reminding us that love can turn even the most mundane details of our lives into
  minor miracles. It’s a sentiment that preoccupies Dangerfield throughout
  Windowpane, giving these songs a tinge of hope despite the sense of pain
  and loss that suffuse so many of them. And the music magnifies the message too.
  Guillemots swaddles their simple, piano-based indie-pop with bulging symphonic
  arrangements and strange bits of musical detritus, sometimes elevating
  Dangerfield’s musings to bombastic emotional heights so that they’re impossible
  to ignore, and other times swallowing them, insulating them, as if to highlight
  the loneliness he expresses.

  On any other pop album, a heartbreaking
  ballad like “Little Bear” would be saved for a powerful coda. But Guillemots
  bravely sets the song’s tidal waves of swelling strings and piano at the
  beginning of Through the Windowpane, an orchestral overture to the rest of the
  album’s ambitious sweep. Dangerfield’s voice quavers as he sings of a “world of
  broken pieces.” And we hear the shards of that world all over the place, as a
  horn section pops up unannounced in the middle of “Trains to Brazil,” and
  disembodied guitar, organ, and vocal themes somehow coalesce into the danceable
  title track.

  Through the Windowpane is stuffed to the rafters
  with saxophones, synthesizers, drum loops, church bells, strings, flutes, and
  background vocals, but no matter how many instruments crowd the stage the album
  never sounds overblown. Even during the spectacular, orchestral rock finale of
  “We’re Here,” the sawing violins and brass are compressed into the background.
  There’s a sense of holding back, of keeping the grandest ambitions at a cautious
  distance. Dangerfield sings, “Oh yes we’re here / Free to go insane /Joy and
  pain are fighting in the corridors inside,” and the production flourishes become
  the leaves, dust, and glints of light that color our view as we look Through
  the Windowpane at his beautifully simple message.
  

  	Listen to all sound clips from this CD
  “Little Bear” “We’re Here” “Blue Would Still Be Blue”

  Buy this CD

  A day in the life of:

  While in Zion NP we decided to cut our time there a day short, adjust
  Kanab (Bryce, etc) back a day, and spend a day here at Lake Powell near
  Page, AZ.  We should have taken a couple more days off Zion and put them
  here.  Oh well, another time.
  
  After all the rocks and desert it is WONDERFUL to see water; lots of
  it.  We have a prime spot at this 4 year old rv park - the closed the
  old dumpy one we stayed at about 7-8 years ago.  This place is
  outstanding - they really did a nice job designing it.  The first
  picture is the view from our dining area window.
  
  We went into Page - waste of time - but then some backroads we did the
  last time we were here.  Lots of rock and some of the area getting into
  the upper bays on "roads" looks like you are on the moon.  But not
  sending any more rock pictures!  
  
  We will be at Camp Verde tomorrow night - between Flagstaff and Phoenix.
  
  Should be home early to mid afternoon on Thursday.
  
  No internet connections here so this will not get out until sometime
  Wednesday afternoon from Camp Verde.
  
  Been a great time!
  
  Lauren & the ladies
    
  

  

  

  
  Lake Powell in Arizona

  Click here: My Beautiful America

  Remember to vote tomorrow! We need a change in regime.

  I love you!!

  
  

  • 10:11 am
  • 31 Comments