I started to title this “ColorJoy is sometimes Performance” but I think the word action is more all-encompassing. I think first of dance and music, then poetry and theatre, as ways we might encompass “Art as an Everyday Attitude.”

However, perhaps sports can be ColorJoyful as well. I’m not a sports fan, but imagine someone jumping a hurdle, doing any sort of gymnastics, perhaps a martial art, even a baseball player jumping to catch a ball. All of these things can be beauty in action, with or without sound.

My dance instructor is sometimes disappointed about some arts events. They tend to focus on things which can be put in place and sit still properly. Things in frames on walls, for the most part. She is right, dance is every bit as much art as a painting but it is much harder to present, and it does not stay put for a full weekend in one place.

And even when music and/or dance are included in an event, very often poetry is left out. I was delighted when the act just before us at the Old Town JazzFest Lansing last August, was a group of poets. That was a delight and a treat! Definitely a move in the right direction. There was dance before the poets, as well. Score! Go, Lansing.

My friend Ruelaine Stokes is a poet (and a photographer). Her words stand alone as pictures/ideas which engage the mind. However, the best part of a Ruelaine poem is hearing her perform her words. Nobody can present words the way she can!

Ruelaine has authored, with three other excellent Lansing poets, a book titled 4 Against the Wall. She has given me permission before to publish one of her poems here.

She has written many wonderful poems, including one which describes a peach so perfectly that you can taste it. However, I return to the one presented below more than others. It is set in the springtime, but although I see snow out my window today, perhaps we all can enjoy her picture of that time of year. My favorite phrase: …the trees will buy new dresses. Magic!

When I read this poem, I can imagine Ruelaine performing it at the front of a room. See if you can imagine a voice which is intentional as it speaks each word. Read it slowly and with meaning. Slow it down to maybe even half the speed of your first instinct, and really hold out the last word of each line. Or read it out loud to yourself, if you can indulge that luxury.

from the “book” of common prayer
wash my heart & call me clean
a hard time is over

yesterday I listened to the grass grow wild
green under the snow

& now I see the water fall
from your eyes

let it rain
let it rain down on me

forgiveness is mine/listen to your lover

the trees will buy new dresses
the birds will flower

I called it a hard time, lord
but it’s over

tea is on the table, honey in the pot
bread and butter
even the radio wants
to be my friend

that hard time, lord
it’s over

________________________

Photos: Habibi Dancers in Saudi Thobe dresses at Sparrow Hospital Diversity Days; Dagwoods’ Tuesday night open mic, with Brian and our Japanese visitor, Aki, playing music while friend Phil (may he rest in peace) and Lindsay dance; Jam session in a local living room at a birthday party; four Habibi Dancers at Frances Park overlook in Lansing.

I’ll be dancing tonight at 8pm and tomorrow at 2pm at Riverwalk Theatre in downtown Lansing. Habibi Dancers and Riverwalk are doing a joint fundraiser show, with experimental pieces and a few invited guest dance troupes.

This time of year is really busy for me so I’m only in 2 troupe numbers. It will be a full 2 hour show, with many excellent pieces.

The cost is $20, no reservation necessary.

(I’m in purple, kneeling in front row.)

Friend/ Musician/ Instrument Builder Doug Berch writes:

I’ll be giving an in-store performance at Elderly Instruments this Saturday at 12:00 PM. I’ll be playing music on mountain and hammered dulcimer from my two new CDs.

The performance will be 30-45 minutes or so.

Elderly Instruments
1100 North Washington
Lansing, MI, 48906 USA
517-372-7880

After the performance I’m offering a workshop called “Everything You Wanted To Know About Hammered Dulcimer But Didn’t Know Who To Ask.”

Doug is an excellent musician and just a wonderful person besides. I have both of his new CDs and found myself singing his music for days after listening… If you are in the Lansing area, this is a real opportunity to hear a pro.

Tonight, Saturday November 15, Brian and I will be singing at Altu’s Ethiopian Cuisine in East Lansing, MI (map on website). This is a high-quality casual restaurant, the best Ethiopian food I’ve ever had (and I spent over 3 weeks in Ethiopia, eating in good restaurants and friends’ homes). It is a family-friendly place, kids can dance a bit if they like.

If you have never been here before, there is a good variety of food. You can eat mild or spicy, vegetarian or meat. The standard is to eat family style, and use the spongy flat bread (it’s a bit like a sourdough taste) to pick up the thick stew-like main dishes rather than a fork. However, if you do not want sourdough or just prefer an alternative, you can get the stews on a bed of rice, on your own plate with silverware.

My friend Altu, the owner/founder, loves food and she loves her customers. This love and attention to quality are quite apparent in her food. The servings are generous, as well. I often choose to eat half for a lighter meal, and take home half for another meal at home. I love it when Altu cooks for me!

Now, this is not an unbiased review… Altu is one of my very best friends. She is the one who took me to Ethiopia. But we met because I was a loyal customer. Her food was so good I kept coming back. I happened to come in at slow times because of my unusual schedule, and we could talk for a while.

We decided to travel to Chicago together at first, and then in 2004-05 we spent 38 days as sisters/roommates while we toured Eastern Africa. We came back closer friends than when we left.

I maintain Altu’s website and I book her musical acts. I’m very much a part of the restaurant. But it all started because I loved the food and kept coming back. Perhaps you’d like to check it out tonight, if you are in the Lansing area.

Out of town? I’ll enjoy the food on your behalf. You can go listen to our music on our website, at least!

Photos: 1) Brian and I as The Fabulous Heftones singing at Altu’s in a previous summer, wearing African clothes I got when Altu and I traveled there. 2) Altu and I in Alexandria, Egypt, on the Mediterranean Sea. Egypt is fascinating… it is African, it is Mideastern, and it is Mediterranean. It is like nowhere else.

One night when we were in Washington, DC, we decided we would go and play music to folks passing by. We have done this in New York before and it is so much fun!

The weather could have been better, it had rained so the benches at Dupont Circle were wet. Also it was already getting dark by the time we got there (darned autumn) and so it was crucial that we find a good spot where people could see we were there.

First we went to the circle itself (a park inside a large traffic circle) and played a while. The rain did not help us much, and the lighting was poor. We decided to find another spot.

We ended up posting ourselves just outside an area where people came up from the subway, on the sidewalk just outside the traffic circle. This was more opportune, as we got the folks coming up and even a few who were waiting for someone to meet them.

There was quite an assortment of listeners. We saw a few people dressed up for Halloween (this was the weekend before the holiday). We had two guys stop and listen to many songs, who had clearly been partying for quite a while before they found us. They had a great time, but I do wonder if they remembered the encounter the next day.

There was another guy who was waiting for his lady, who chatted with us for a while. We gave him a postcard with our website on it so he could go get some free downloadable music.

In the end, we got pretty cold playing instruments with bare fingers, and we headed back. We found a Japanese fusion restaurant and got hot tea and a little bit to eat before we went back to crash for the night. It was a pleasant experience!

Thanks to Brian’s sister, Jenny, for navigating us to this spot and taking the photographs. We had such a fun time!

My Mom and her beau, Fred, enjoy dancing. They particularly enjoy ballroom styles such as foxtrot, waltz, tango and the like.

They compete in the Polk County Senior Games in Florida in the springtime. (Mom can dance longer than I can… I’m not quite 50 and she’s 74, go mom!)

Fred’s son put up a web page with links to last spring’s Senior Games videos where they danced. If you would like to check it out, the videos are here. I particularly like the Cha Cha video, myself. And don’t miss where Fred pulls Mom through his legs at the end of the Swing video!

Mom had just barely recovered from that mean flu that went around early 2008, and I know she really got wiped out from the event. I think she’s glad she did it, though… they have so much fun! (And they win so many medals, for the record.)

The videos are hosted by our “friend,” YouTube, of course, though the web page is elsewhere. The photo here was taken at The Fabulous Heftones’ CD release party for “In the Garden,” in June 2006. Mom and Fred are at front right, the back left couple is Diane and George if I have it figured right.

I have just finished several weeks in a row of just plain running from one deadline to the next. It’s all good, I love my life and my work, but I just plain need a day off.

It looks like I wake up early on Friday, (I’m volunteering with kids) and when I’m done with them at 10 I will actually have the rest of the day to do with as I please. Too bad it’s November (this morning we have snow on the ground for the first time), I would love a day in the hammock on the porch.

Until then, I have happily-filled days of work and relationship. Yesterday was all relationship… I was the honored guest of a party given by my mother, in honor of my upcoming 50th birthday. Speaking of whirlwind, there were so many people in so many rooms of her house that I did not get to chat with as many folks as I would have liked. It was delightful!

The only photos I got at the party were of myself, Mom and my brother Eric together (Cynthia pressed the camera button for us). I’ll put up one of those when I have time to download from the camera.

Meanwhile, the teapot is whistling and I have kids to spend some time with this morning, so I’m off and running!

The photo here, Brian took of me at the Teahouse in DC a few weekends back.

I received an official notice today from Maggie Ferguson of Live from the Living Room, announcing our Halloween concert this Friday. Here is what she wrote:

If any of you will be in the area and looking for some fun, I am absolutely sure you will find it here. There will be many prizes and lots of good times. Please consider joining us!

Oh, wow. Diana found a good one, on Project Gutenberg.

Woman as Decoration, by Emily Burbank

This is a book mostly about clothing styles, put up for the world to see. It was web-published through Project Gutenberg, including photo scans of illustrative plates. Images of women back to Queen Elizabeth (I) and especially at the end, styles of 1916 and 1917 (just before the bulk of my favorite vocal music was written). The book is in the public domain, and how lucky that is for us!

I particularly love the photos of “Mrs. Conde’ Nast” which really foreshadow flapper attire (including a photo of a fortuny tea gown), and the photos of “Mrs. Vernon Castle.” Irene Castle was a dancer who with her husband influenced fashion, musical styles, dancing styles, and had a great influence on popular culture outside of NYC in the years 1912-1918.

The Castles were important in the Ragtime culture, and danced the Turkey Trot, the Grizzly Bear (scandalous), the Tango, Foxtrot and many others. She bobbed her hair ten years before flappers made the style commonplace.

The photo here is Irene Castle in an impulsive moment in front of the camera. Wonderful, no? Woman as decoration, for sure.

But I digress. There are never enough photographs for me, in any book. However, for a book of 1917, this one has some real gems. And the talk about recognizing the line of a garment and knowing which lines flatter the self, is modern. She speaks of finding lines that transcend fashion and fad. Those ideas are good in any age… even 90 years after the words were written.

I’m grateful for access to this book. Perhaps you’d like to check it out yourself.

Brian and I (as The Fabulous Heftones) performed in Ann Arbor last Friday night. We had not played in that city since 2006 for some reason, and it was good to be back.

We played the Crazy Wisdom Teahouse which is upstairs of the Crazy Wisdom Bookstore. Our friend Sam Corbin arranged for us to share a show with him. (Thanks to Sayre for taking the photos of us performing.)

We went down early, took the back roads to see the colorful leaves. Then when we hit town, we went directly to Zingerman’s Deli. I love that place! They have all sorts of food I can eat, even with my huge list of allergies. They can find out the ingredients in anything if I ask, and they are really cheerful about it.

I had a wonderful salad and some great tea. Brian had a farmer hash (it has sweet potatoes and I really wanted some, it looked great), and some bread and coffee. All top notch quality. Not cheap, but worth every cent.

Then we went to Crazy Wisdom where they invited us to eat dinner. Whoops! We got more excellent tea, in any case.

When we got to the concert, it was great to see the place fill up. It is not a huge space (a turn of the century storefront on Main Street, with tin ceilings and the works) but there was standing room only for part of the show.

Some of our uke festival friends came out. Annette did a special emailing to her Ann Arbor-area ukulele friends.

And Wool & Chocolate Leeann came, too! We had never met in person. How fun that was.

Ann Arbor acts like a big city. It is not as big as Chicago but sometimes I get a similar street vibe, the good kind.

I took a few photos out of the 2nd story windows behind the stage area. I could not resist.

It was another concert where there were several knitters in the house. I love it when that happens!

Friend Sam Herman had his 21st birthday in style last Thursday. He gave a concert for himself, in so many words. He knows a lot of folks in overlapping creative communities. I see Sam a few times a week these days. This party/concert was crowded, and many of my most prized friends were there.

It started as a solo banjo concert. Then Sam played a few numbers on a ukulele. Then friends joined him.

He did duo numbers with Carrie Potter, Doug Berch (see photo above), Brian Bishop and Hanno Meingast.

Whew! Serious talent. And then? Well, there was a short break for birthday cake followed by ensemble numbers. There was a group of old time fiddle/contra dance musicians.

There was a lot of knitting going on, as well. Everyone in Sam’s family knits at least a bit, and then many of us in the crowd also knit. Young, old, male, female… all knitting. Yeah!

And the finale? Eight musicians, seven banjos of different sorts, and a bodhran drum (basically a banjo without a neck and strings). There was a ukulele banjo, a guitar banjo, a mandolin banjo, a Heftone Bass banjo, and three five-stringed banjos if I accounted properly. And the bodhran. It was much fun. We played Oh, Susanna! Yup, a lot of fun.

The finale photo here was taken by A., my young knitter who happens to be related to Sam. In Lansing, every creative person is connected in multiple threads to every other creative person. Or so it seems.

As my Brian would say: “Banjo Mayhem!”

This photo is older than the others here. I just never felt un-sad enough to post it, I guess.

Our musician friend Phil Wintermute passed away suddenly in September. We went to the official service at the funeral home later that week. But a few weeks later, there was a gathering at Magdalenas which some called “Philfest.” We sang songs Phil wrote, for the most part, and we told stories and ate good food.

I find that my camera does not do well in low light. The yellow and orange walls in Magdalenas do not work well for me, but someone took this photo with my camera at the end of the event. The place was jam packed, you could hardly move, so the people shown here are just the tip of the iceberg.

It was long enough ago that I can not remember everyone who was there. It seemed everyone who works at Elderly Instruments was there including Libby who had a lot to do with making this event happen. Friends of every age, and musicians from across Michigan, particularly Lansing and northern lower Michigan, were there.

In this photo I can identify musicians Seth Bernard and Daisy May Erlewine; Hall and Morgan; The Fabulous Heftones; Brandon Foote was there, Chris Dorman, Miko Fossum of Magdalena’s Teahouse. And at least one of Phil’s sisters, and at least one Niece.

I am leaving out so many, but trust me, it was a powerful love fest for our wonderful friend. I was glad to be there though it was difficult in some ways.

My favorite story told was a guy who was a new employee when Phil was also new at Elderly. A customer came in to show off what he knew, with friends who didn’t look like they wanted to be tagging along. He grilled this new employee about a particular niche market, asking him tricky questions and then when the worker said things like “I think so” the guy would correct him and say WRONG… blah blah blah.

The young employee was trying to be polite but things were not working out well for him. So the customer started talking to Phil. He asked Phil: Who is the “X-brand” expert here? And Phil answered truthfully, “You are.”

If it’s true, say it. That was Phil.

Here’s a photo I took of Phil (left, in hat) with Paul Bennett. They played out as a band called “Scratch and Sniff.” I love this photo, taken around 11pm in front of Dagwood’s neighborhood pub, with the traffic lights and I-127 in the background.

Rest peacefully, Phil. Knowing you surely did change my life.

In September, our music friend Lil’ Rev came to stay with us. He played a Wednesday night concert at Altu’s restaurant which drew a respectable crowd despite the unusual day of the week.

Rev has been at Altu’s for three consecutive Septembers. His friends in town keep multiplying.

Rev encourages kids to come up and sit by him, to gesture along with his train song, and to just be part of the crowd. You can see that above. These kids have seen Rev before and were looking forward to this concert.

He invited our friend Jen Sygit to come and sit in with him. He also invited musician David Klein to come in with his cornet.

Above you see a photo of Rev and Jen. Below is a photo taken after David, Brian and I sat in with Rev on his last number of the night.

It was a wonderful time.

I’m just going to post a bunch of photos for several posts, just to show you photos I took and never put up here. Usually you guys like pictures, so I’m thinking this might be fun for all of us, delay or no.

Back in September, about a month ago (dang), we went to Harvest Gathering up in Lake City, MI and had a great time. We stayed just one night and crammed in as much as we could while we were there.

Here’s a moody photo of Jen Sygit’s set, with Brandon Foote at left and Drew Howard/Captain Midnite at right:

Another of Jen’s set, this time with Katie Grace and Cap’n. Notice the bouquet in sap bucket I showed earlier in a mood shot:

Here is a closeup Brian took, again moody because of the odd lighting and my camera’s quirky moods with stage lighting. Behind the bass is me (in beret), then a woman whose name I think is Darlene, then Susan Fawcett in the straw hat, then Jen herself. I was honored to be included, it was really fun to be part of this one piece:

Here’s Chris Bathgate and his zillion-piece backup band called “the Hail Mary’s” including a brass section up in the rafters, top left:

Drew Howard in a rare lead performance, with friends. After a month I can still identify Brandon Foote, Seth Bernard, Jen Sygit, “Daisy” May Erlewine, probably Laura Bates, Mike Shimmin on percussion, and Susan Fawcett. This is an all-star Lansing/Northern Michigan roster of musicians, let me tell you:

It was just plain a lot of fun, and this year was not frigid as it had been last year. Maybe next year we will stay for 2 days. It’s a thought…