The Rainey’s/ Ita Kane
The Rolling Wave have a feature on The Rainey’s — a travelling family who played traditional music around County Galway fifty years ago. They were recorded only on one day in 1956 in Letterfrack. The lovely Ita Kane made a documentary for Radio Connemara, where she traced relatives of the Rainey’s, having been inspired years earlier on hearing the only recording of them.
The piece starts 43.13 into the programme if you want to scroll to it. The recordings of the Rainey’s are particularly atmospheric and unique because you can hear people shuffling around nearby and you feel like you could be sitting at the table with them.
There is some other interesting stuff before it about a man who makes flutes, as I recall.
National Anthem Neurology
Which part of the brain likes the national anthem? I’d like to know because the small Puffin will not stop singing it, despite our numerous chit chats along the lines of it’s a song designed not to be sung too often how about singing…. this other song Mr Tambourine man?
No, it’s the usurper. He recently announced he’d almost perfected it. This means he sings it even more often. This song is making something in his brain very, very happy. Or perhaps the fact it’s hurled before every ice hockey match is the key to it.
Small Puffin also announced he’d been working on an operatic version of the national anthem, which when revealed turned out to have a touch of the Sheryl Crow’s about it, rather than Covent Garden vibrato.
Then there’s his French version which ends after the first two words.
Then there was the version in the middle of the packed ferry boat.
But the highlight of this national antheming was when he interrupted our recent Romeo and Juliet inspired wooden spoon sword fight, declared it was the worst sword fight he’d ever had and announced he had to sing the national anthem, turned the wooden spoon ladle end up and used it as a microphone.
Have at you patriotism…. 5 years of singing the same song and it looks likely there’ll be no let up shortly with the promised rock version and Christmas version in the works. To say nothing of the “I’m now working on the American national anthem”, which the Canadians on the next packed ferry boat/ trolley bus will surely rise up and clap over… it currently stalls after 1 and half lines.
Shostakovich
This is what the brain needs. A blast of Shosto.
Tried giving it some exercise today because it hasn’t had any for a very long time and the brain people claim it likes it. After 4 mins according to the dottish clock, what felt to be at least 19 mins by my knee tendons, being of short stature, struggled to find the stop button on this stepping yoke machine, I managed to physically fall off it. This was followed by a bout of that dizzy, trembling they warn you about in the posters. I discovered an additional pulse in my abdomen and retired. I will repeat the experience only because my brain and cardio pipes do very well with only 7 mins total of it and the alternative will be looking for a new hip on ebay.
Recovery was possible with this piece of music.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio3/lunchtimeconcerts/pip/4dmbl/
It’s only available for a mere matter of days, so get a blast while you can.
Something up with that link .. it’s expired but here’s another lunchtime blast: Shosto comes in at the end, after the first two.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio3/lunchtimeconcerts/pip/ohtun/
The first piece in that last link did not agree with my particular neurological picnic.
This is more like it: lovely anecdotes at the beginning of this concert about him being a late starter, football coach and deeply suspicious of the postal service sending postcards to himself to check it worked.
Case in point
Exactly which part of the brain is responsible for hanging things on the wall? Which part of the brain allowed a woman hang this shelf on the wall in this manner and look at it each day (for many months) without any overwhelming desire to make it practical and useful.
If there can be a defence against this act; some initial neurological trickery went on in the purchase of it, since it turned out not to be a shelf at all. It was a panier/basket impersonating a shelf. In which part of the brain does a basket masquerade as a quality shelf?
Spatial reasoning? Apply red dot.
Make that a clutch …
So Charlie Rose somewhat put me off the brain, though I liked the pink model they had in the middle of the table. Every one should have one made at a certain age, with red dots that mimic the real state of our individual brains based on scans, so we can then point to it in difficult situations and say look its my x or x or x that’s playing up that’s why I forgot my purse to buy the food, or drove through that red light that looked orange or can’t get anywhere on time. Could be very useful for finding a mate: put your pink model on the table and compare and contrast compatibility.
I need to start more basic, so next stop will be the teenage brain. Found this Frontline series on PBS that one can view online: cannot vouch for it yet, as got distracted (red dot alert) by another one about the disgraceful response to Hurricane Katrina by FEMA and those other elected dozy does’ who did so little to help people in the aftermath.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/teenbrain/view/
It’s going to be a while before I’m cracking the neurology textbooks at this rate. I wish someone would publish an online “current bun” style guide to the brain and how it all computes up there. They should divert all this wasted money going into weapons in space into research into what’s going on upstairs instead.
A grasp at grey matter
I’m attempting, with a sincere and unfortunately limited disposition towards anything scientific, to get to grips with the brain. I’m tired of it all being a random bingo game above the neck. This multi story car-park set up that’s up there needs a few signposts.
I should point out that I’ve lived a life to this point of scientific blunder. This is not an exaggeration, but I’m not about to admit to the extent of it because I’ll never be gainfully employed again if I do!
The small puffin has a much better aptitude for science and so is always asking for clarification on things, that usually I cannot answer. There was some astonishment at the dinner table when I admitted it never occurred to me that snow was frozen rain. Politely put, I had a more poetic version of it I thought it just stuff nestling up there alongside whatever else is up there. Impolitely put, it probably equals a low IQ ! There was a terrible 12 hour pause when the small puffin was required to learn the time at school and I couldn’t exactly decide whether the earth rotated the sun or the sun the earth. Another parent, a doctor as it turned out, cleared it up for me with a slight degree of polite bemusement in the playground. Some folk may be appalled by such an admittance. Truly though these kinds of facts are simply missing from my lexicon or they just never occurred to me. They require a degree of logic than evades me. (I think it’s the same gene for cookery.)
It’s not all doom and gloom neurologically speaking since I can accurately recall the first prologue from Henry the Fourth part I (not the roman numerals in title though) that I read a full 20 years ago. Plus phrases in Indonesian and the handy question in Icelandic: have you got a car? (or maybe it’s: are you a car?) And in Hebrew: I am picking melons in a field (though the last time I uttered it the recipient said I had confused the word melon for breasts). I can also repeat nine numbers in reverse if someone says them forwards to me.
Useless skills ultimately, being able to cook a good omelette would be far more popular and practical. Also, if I am reading a book and a word gets repeated 200 pages later I notice. Doesn’t happen with my own work where a word can be repeated five times in the same sentence and I won’t see it. I intend to understand it all very soon, as I voyage into the neurological realm and have a quick picnic with logic. Handily, I came across Charlie Rose getting tres enthusiastic over the brain, round the table with a bunch of blokes who been perpetually excited about it. Subsequently there are a group of women discussing more specific aspects of brain function. You’ll have to bear with some of the ironic adverts.
For those who have long come to terms with the frontal lobe there’s Jimmy Carter and David Hare close by.