From: les@jmdl.com (JMDL Digest) To: joni-digest@smoe.org Subject: JMDL Digest V2004 #461 Reply-To: joni@smoe.org Sender: les@jmdl.com Errors-To: les@jmdl.com Precedence: bulk Unsubscribe: mailto:joni-digest-request@smoe.org?body=unsubscribe Archives: http://www.smoe.org/lists/joni Websites: http://www.jmdl.com http://www.jonimitchell.com JMDL Digest Monday, November 15 2004 Volume 2004 : Number 461 ========== TOPICS and authors in this Digest: -------- Re: OT (flagrant self-promotion, part 2) CJCC 3rd Anniversary Concert (Now NJC) ["Sherelle Smith" ] Re: recovering true sight njc ["mackoliver" ] A free "A Case Of You" by Shael Risman [SCJoniGuy@aol.com] Re: goodbye [Em ] what you can do-- please do something njc ["Kate Bennett" ] funk njc ["Kate Bennett" ] Re: Thanks :) ["FredNow" ] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 14 Nov 2004 15:52:29 +0000 From: "Sherelle Smith" Subject: Re: OT (flagrant self-promotion, part 2) CJCC 3rd Anniversary Concert (Now NJC) Hi Fred! I am so glad you are a part of this collective! It sounds so very exciting and creative! I wish I could be there! You see...you are living your dream! Please let us know (those of us who cannot attend) how it went! Sherelle Fred wrote: Dear friends, well-wishers, and both the disconsolate and the consolable: I hope you can make it to this very special event. The Chicago Jazz Composers Collective celebrates its third anniversary in a concert presenting one composition from each composer. This year we're doing something a little different, loosely based on the Surrealist parlor game "The Exquisite Corpse." Half of the composers have harmonized a melody composed by Jo Ann Daugherty, and the other half have melodized a set of chords composed by Kelly Brand. It's pretty wild how differently the resulting compositions turned out. Come for the great music, stay for the great hang. Your fred, Fred ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 14 Nov 2004 10:46:20 -0800 From: "Victor Johnson" Subject: goodbye > [Original Message] > From: Em > To: Victor Johnson ; Lori Fye > Cc: > Date: 11/14/04 6:12:35 AM > Subject: Re: politics and the list NJC PC - and depression > > --- Victor Johnson wrote: > > No I don't believe that all people CHOOSE to be depressed. > > Just wishing you peace, Victor. > > Em > > Thank you. I'm tired of this squabbling. It does not bring me peace. I've been on this list since early 1999, have attended paz fest and five jonifests, and immortalized them in the song, Parsonage Lane, written on Sept 10, 2001. But maybe its time to move on. I can't take this anymore. Victor "I'm not one who make believes I know that leaves are green They only turn to brown when autumn comes around I know just what I say Today's not yesterday And all things have an ending" Stevie Wonder - Visions Victor Johnson New cd "Parsonage Lane" available now Produced by Chris Rosser at Hollow Reed Studios, Asheville http://www.waytobluemusic.com ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 15 Nov 2004 10:52:23 -0600 From: "mackoliver" Subject: Re: recovering true sight njc Thanks Mar. Love Ben Franklin. Wish he were here now but then again he would be mortified and most probably locked up. mack > > > After Congress passed the Sedition Act of 1798, > which prohibited spoken or written criticism of the government, the > Congress, or the President, > > BenFranklin said this: > > "A little patience and we shall see the reign of > witches pass over, their spells dissolve, and the > people, recovering their true sight, restore their > government to its true principles. > > It is true that in the meantime we are suffering deeply in spirit, > and incurring the horrors of a war and long > oppressions of enormous public debt. . . . > > If the game runs sometimes against us at home we must have > patience till luck turns, and then we shall have an > opportunity of winning back the principles we have > lost, for this is a game where principles are at > stake." > > _________________________________________________________________ > On the road to retirement? Check out MSN Life Events for advice on how to > get there! http://lifeevents.msn.com/category.aspx?cid=Retirement ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 14 Nov 2004 09:53:22 EST From: SCJoniGuy@aol.com Subject: A free "A Case Of You" by Shael Risman _http://www.rismania.com/shaelmusic/silentsketches.html_ (http://www.rismania.com/shaelmusic/silentsketches.html) (scroll down and click to listen, or right click and choose "save target as" to download. Enjoy. And if I'm not mistaken, this CD cover is a Joni painting as well. If not, it's certainly an approximation of her early style. Bob ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 14 Nov 2004 08:10:10 -0800 (PST) From: Em Subject: Re: goodbye I don't recall brandishing a pitchfork. But if I did, please let me know - I will hit the highway too. Em - --- Victor Johnson wrote: > > [Original Message] > > From: Em > > To: Victor Johnson ; Lori Fye > > > Cc: > > Date: 11/14/04 6:12:35 AM > > Subject: Re: politics and the list NJC PC - and depression > > > > --- Victor Johnson wrote: > > > No I don't believe that all people CHOOSE to be depressed. > > > > > Just wishing you peace, Victor. > > > > Em > > > > > > Thank you. I'm tired of this squabbling. It does not bring me > peace. > I've been on this list since early 1999, have attended paz fest and > five > jonifests, and immortalized them in the song, Parsonage Lane, written > on > Sept 10, 2001. > > But maybe its time to move on. I can't take this anymore. > > Victor > > > "I'm not one who make believes > I know that leaves are green > They only turn to brown when autumn comes around > I know just what I say > Today's not yesterday > And all things have an ending" Stevie Wonder - Visions > > > > > > > > Victor Johnson > New cd "Parsonage Lane" available now > Produced by Chris Rosser at Hollow Reed Studios, Asheville > http://www.waytobluemusic.com ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 14 Nov 2004 11:25:45 -0800 From: "Kate Bennett" Subject: what you can do-- please do something njc There is a whole lot going on since Kerry conceded the election. I implore anyone with a need to do something with their anger or depression or sadness regarding these elections to visit these websites: http://www.solarbus.org/stealyourelection/ http://blackboxvoting.org/ It turns out that one of my best friends from high school is at the center of this investigation. As a mathematician she compiled data from the florida elections & discovered very interesting information where the ballets were counted by optical scanners. If you are someone who likes to look at data, her website is: http://ustogether.org/ Educate yourself about what is going on- spread the word, donate or volunteer. Do something! Please, channel your feelings into actions as this is truly a grassroots world community citizen effort. Regardless of the outcome of these investigations & recounts, I believe this is perhaps the most important thing we (& this includes people across the world are affected by the US elections but feel helpless- well now you can be part of this process). Every time I think about all of those voters who stood in line for hours & hours I am moved beyond words & I know how important it is for us all to know exactly how & if all of our votes were counted. It is at the very heart of our country's health. ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 14 Nov 2004 10:06:32 -0500 From: vince Subject: Re: politics and the list NJC PC - and depression Victor, it seems to me from outside the fray here that the words: "and this is just my opinion, that if someone allows this election to bring them down so much that they cannot function and enjoy their life when otherwise, they would be fine, I think that is ridiculous. It's over...get over it and get on with your life which you determine and control." People can be, as you know, depressed over many things, the triggers for depression are so different for different people. You understand depression your own self, and I am uncomfortable seeing this continued dispute going on between good people, you of course being one of the good people here. I think the entire basis of the words that are being exchanged centers on what I quoted above. It is going to cause a reaction when term used for the cause of or the reality of some one's depression is "ridiculous" and it is advocated "get over it." Your last post is one of great response to that which you found unfair. If I said that the origin of your response was "ridiculous" and "get over it" I suspect your reaction would be less than cheerful. And that would be a very wrong thing for me to say. What a person "allows" to bring them down not for any other person to judge as "ridiculous" or not. For my own self, I know that sometimes within myself I have to exert a certain psychic force and take control, and sometimes I can and sometimes I cannot. It is not for me to judge whether someone facing the same or any situation ought to be or is able to take control, or if the trigger for depression is going to have effect or not and what a person can do internally to resist it, if anything. You are a good person. I think your words in this one place are eliciting reaction and will continue to do so. My thought is that you might not be aware of their impact, and perhaps are not meant they way they have come across, that it is not is what you meant as it appears. And I do reserve the right as someone who loves my country to grieve deeply when I see a tragic mistake made (in my opinion) that is going to have such long lasting negative effects, as I see it, in so many areas that I consider, in my opinion, important. I do believe from all that I know you that you accept that, correct? That is what my precious sister Lori (whom I agree with) is saying, and I believe that you and Lori are not so far apart there but some words have gotten into the way that are causing this disruption, and resolving those words will bridge a gap that needs not exist. Vince ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 14 Nov 2004 17:18:42 -0500 From: dsk Subject: Re: what you can do--please do something njc PC Kate Bennett wrote: > > There is a whole lot going on since Kerry conceded the election. I implore > anyone with a need to do something with their anger or depression or sadness > regarding these elections to visit these websites: > > http://www.solarbus.org/stealyourelection/ > http://blackboxvoting.org/ > > It turns out that one of my best friends from high school is at the center > of this investigation. As a mathematician she compiled data from the > florida elections & discovered very interesting information where the > ballets were counted by optical scanners. If you are someone who likes to > look at data, her website is: http://ustogether.org/ I agree with you, Kate, about the importance of looking NOW at what happened in this election! (Even though I would really like to pull the covers over my head and just forget about it all!) The more stories I hear, the angrier I get about it. (Or, to be honest about it, I go between anger and, oh, well, what can ya do??) Things like two machines at a college and students there waiting up to 9 hours to vote and the election being called before all of them did. And whatever happened to the 5 million votes from overseas? They seem to have been completely disregarded. And even the military vote wasn't counted, and I can't believe that EVERYONE in the military would have voted for Bush, not when there are so many stories about how the soldiers don't have the protective equipment they need and are being forced to stay in longer than they expected. My first reaction after the election was, how in the world can the exit polls have been so wrong for the second election in a row? They've been used in elections since 1988 and are considered so accurate they're used in other countries as a way to ensure there's not been massive voter fraud. But here, Kerry's ahead by 2-3 points in those polls and then ends up losing in Florida and Ohio, the two election-deciding states? The Bushies were so certain in the early evening they were going to lose that Karen Hughes, the advisor who's wildly in love with Dubya, sat him down and told him he should prepare himself for losing. And then, on the news, I hear how Karl Rove is calling different voting precincts in Ohio and I thought, uh oh!!!!! Kerry's in trouble now! And, next thing we know, the Bushies are talking about having a mandate! And all of sudden there are lots of crabby looking preachers on tv claiming that things are finally going to be the way they want it. Wow. That's not a good sign. We're on the train to meanspiritednesss now. The one good thing about Nader being part of this election is that he (and other third party candidates) are forcing the recount in certain states. Nader's so dogged about things, I'm glad he's part of it. (It's an interesting example of how a characteristic seen as destructive in one context can be helpful in another.) A friend sent me this: > On Friday Nov 5, representatives Conyers, Nadler and Wexler wrote to the > Comptroller General of the US calling for an investigation of the > electronic voting machines. I have called my Representative and my > Senators in Congress. Their office staff told me talks are underway now > about what actions they will take. Our representatives need our support > and encouragement to go ahead with an investigation on these very > serious charges of election fraud, and on calls to mandate nationwide > use of voting machinery that produces verifiable paper ballots. > > You can call the Congressional switchboard at (202) 225-3121 and ask to > be transferred to your Representative or Senator to let them know what > you think. And now I'm hearing about possible voter fraud being talked about on more news shows, beyond Olbermann's cable show. That's good. I don't know that investigating it all will change the outcome of the election, but it's absurd that the U.S. claims to be able to export democracy when it feels like our own has been hijacked. Anyway, and this will be very good news to the "I don't want to hear about politics" people, this is all I'm going to say about it here, Kate. People have the info now and can take action if they wish. Having no political discussions here, when there's so much going on in the world (and when Joni herself talks about politics!), makes the jonilist completely irrelevant to me, but I can appreciate that other people see things differently. Debra Shea ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 14 Nov 2004 18:54:40 -0500 From: Lori Fye Subject: Re: politics and the list NJC PC - and depression > I believe that you and Lori are not so far apart there but some words have > gotten into the way that are causing this disruption, and resolving those > words will bridge a gap that needs not exist. Vince, I somehow missed seeing your post before responding most recently to Victor, and I'm sorry I missed it. You're surely right. Thank you for your words of wisdom. Hey Victor, you feel like exploring some resolution?? Love, Lori ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 14 Nov 2004 20:35:19 -0500 From: FredNow@aol.com Subject: Re: OT (flagrant self-promotion, part 2) CJCC 3rd Anniversary Concert (Now NJC) Hi Sherelle, Thanks once again for your good wishes. The concert went very well despite that I'm sicker than a sick dog today ... bad cold. It was fascinating how differently these pieces turned out, almost unrecognizably so, having been spawned by the same chords or same melody. All the best, Fred In an email dated Sun, 14 11 2004 3:52:29 pm GMT, "Sherelle Smith" writes: >Hi Fred! > >I am so glad you are a part of this collective! It sounds so very exciting >and creative! I wish I could be there! You see...you are living your dream! >Please let us know (those of us who cannot attend) how it went! > >Sherelle > > >Fred wrote: > >Dear friends, well-wishers, and both the disconsolate and the consolable: > >I hope you can make it to this very special event. The Chicago Jazz >Composers Collective celebrates its third anniversary in a concert >presenting one composition from each composer. > >This year we're doing something a little different, loosely based on the >Surrealist parlor game "The Exquisite Corpse." Half of the composers have >harmonized a melody composed by Jo Ann Daugherty, and the other half have >melodized a set of chords composed by Kelly Brand. It's pretty wild how >differently the resulting compositions turned out. > >Come for the great music, stay for the great hang. > >Your fred, >Fred ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 14 Nov 2004 14:51:37 -0800 From: "Kate Bennett" Subject: RE: what you can do--please do something njc PC >I go between anger and, oh, well, what can ya do??) < I was feeling like that too & think it is such natural & mentally healthy way to adjust (at some point you have to surrender to what is)... but each day brings more momentum & empowerment to those everyday citizens who felt disenfranchised in this election ... in spite of the sluggishness/cowardice of the democratic party &/or the mainstream media... after jeff & I talked last night (he was feeling like 'what can you do' he said to me, "okay so where can I donate some money to this?" >The one good thing about Nader being part of this election is that he (and other third party candidates) are forcing the recount in certain states. Nader's so dogged about things, I'm glad he's part of it. (It's an interesting example of how a characteristic seen as destructive in one context can be helpful in another.) I agree, I was so down on him for running this year but now it's turned around to be a good thing... he's really in his element doing what he's doing & he does it so well... > I don't know that investigating it all will change the outcome of the election, but it's absurd that the U.S. claims to be able to export democracy when it feels like our own has been hijacked. I agree that the election results may not be changed by any of this but that does not matter (I have come to terms with having Bush in office & letting him deal with the hell he has already created here & abroad)... what does matter to me is that so many citizens have legitimate questions about our election integrity ... it especially breaks my heart when I think of all the young new voters who deserve to know if we still have some kind of workable system... & if not, if its fixable... This probably got little mainstream attention but yesterday there was a hearing in ohio where people could be heard: "For three hours, burdened voters, one after another, offered sworn testimony about Election Day voter suppression and irregularities that they believe are threatening democracy." http://www.cleveland.com/news/plaindealer/...28444286470.xml ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 14 Nov 2004 21:53:21 -0500 From: "Bree Mcdonough" Subject: Re: what you can do--please do something njc PC Hi Debra and Kate... The exit polls data were heavily slanted because many more women were asked who they voted for and why. And the same with college students. And to think about it I would trust an actual vote count more than I would a follow up on who you voted for. AND the president led Kerry all along.....Kerry was never on top. (I have a friend who lives in New Lebanon, Ohio who was asked the Friday before the election on who she would be voting for and why. She said Kerry. SHe is and was a big BUsh supporter. She lied to the pollster. (she later told she was tired of getting calls ..twenty-four in one week on who she would vote for...so she started having fun with them) I would point out too that forty five percent of Kerry's voters in Ohio voted yes to the amendment banning gay and civil marriages and fifty five percent of union voters....who vote overwhelmingly democratic. Again those pesky polls showed That Bush had the majority of the military vote..over seventy percent or maybe seventy five. I believe Bush won it fair and square and will continue believing that until it is proven otherwise. Bree >From: dsk >Reply-To: dsk >To: Kate Bennett , joni@smoe.org >Subject: Re: what you can do--please do something njc PC >Date: Sun, 14 Nov 2004 17:18:42 -0500 > >Kate Bennett wrote: > > > > There is a whole lot going on since Kerry conceded the election. I >implore > > anyone with a need to do something with their anger or depression or >sadness > > regarding these elections to visit these websites: > > > > http://www.solarbus.org/stealyourelection/ > > http://blackboxvoting.org/ > > > > It turns out that one of my best friends from high school is at the >center > > of this investigation. As a mathematician she compiled data from the > > florida elections & discovered very interesting information where the > > ballets were counted by optical scanners. If you are someone who likes >to > > look at data, her website is: http://ustogether.org/ > >I agree with you, Kate, about the importance of looking NOW at what >happened in this election! (Even though I would really like to pull the >covers over my head and just forget about it all!) > >The more stories I hear, the angrier I get about it. (Or, to be honest >about it, I go between anger and, oh, well, what can ya do??) Things >like two machines at a college and students there waiting up to 9 hours >to vote and the election being called before all of them did. And >whatever happened to the 5 million votes from overseas? They seem to >have been completely disregarded. And even the military vote wasn't >counted, and I can't believe that EVERYONE in the military would have >voted for Bush, not when there are so many stories about how the >soldiers don't have the protective equipment they need and are being >forced to stay in longer than they expected. My first reaction after the >election was, how in the world can the exit polls have been so wrong for >the second election in a row? They've been used in elections since 1988 >and are considered so accurate they're used in other countries as a way >to ensure there's not been massive voter fraud. But here, Kerry's ahead >by 2-3 points in those polls and then ends up losing in Florida and >Ohio, the two election-deciding states? > >The Bushies were so certain in the early evening they were going to lose >that Karen Hughes, the advisor who's wildly in love with Dubya, sat him >down and told him he should prepare himself for losing. And then, on the >news, I hear how Karl Rove is calling different voting precincts in Ohio >and I thought, uh oh!!!!! Kerry's in trouble now! And, next thing we >know, the Bushies are talking about having a mandate! And all of sudden >there are lots of crabby looking preachers on tv claiming that things >are finally going to be the way they want it. Wow. That's not a good >sign. We're on the train to meanspiritednesss now. > >The one good thing about Nader being part of this election is that he >(and other third party candidates) are forcing the recount in certain >states. Nader's so dogged about things, I'm glad he's part of it. (It's >an interesting example of how a characteristic seen as destructive in >one context can be helpful in another.) > >A friend sent me this: > > > On Friday Nov 5, representatives Conyers, Nadler and Wexler wrote to the > > Comptroller General of the US calling for an investigation of the > > electronic voting machines. I have called my Representative and my > > Senators in Congress. Their office staff told me talks are underway now > > about what actions they will take. Our representatives need our support > > and encouragement to go ahead with an investigation on these very > > serious charges of election fraud, and on calls to mandate nationwide > > use of voting machinery that produces verifiable paper ballots. > > > > You can call the Congressional switchboard at (202) 225-3121 and ask to > > be transferred to your Representative or Senator to let them know what > > you think. > >And now I'm hearing about possible voter fraud being talked about on >more news shows, beyond Olbermann's cable show. That's good. I don't >know that investigating it all will change the outcome of the election, >but it's absurd that the U.S. claims to be able to export democracy when >it feels like our own has been hijacked. > >Anyway, and this will be very good news to the "I don't want to hear >about politics" people, this is all I'm going to say about it here, >Kate. People have the info now and can take action if they wish. Having >no political discussions here, when there's so much going on in the >world (and when Joni herself talks about politics!), makes the jonilist >completely irrelevant to me, but I can appreciate that other people see >things differently. > >Debra Shea ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 14 Nov 2004 22:38:51 EST From: Smurfycopy@aol.com Subject: Circumcision vs. Death Taxes -- NJC I don't know which thread I miss more. - --Smurf ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 14 Nov 2004 06:12:34 -0800 (PST) From: Em Subject: Re: politics and the list NJC PC - and depression - --- Victor Johnson wrote: > No I don't believe that all people CHOOSE to be depressed. Victor, But in your post immediately prior to that you did say: "People choose to be depressed." That has an all-inclusive, very comprehensive, general sound to it. Painted with a BIG brush. Your first post was Zippety doo-dah, your 2nd post was the Blues, (to paraphrase one of my fave white males, Townes VanZant). You may have *meant* something really different by your first post, but it came off (to me, too) with a distinct ivory tower and let them eat cake tone to it. Again, maybe your true meaning/feeling did not come through. I suspect this is the case. But I pretty much felt what Lori posted to you, too. I, for one, understand why she replied as she did. In your 2nd post you describe some bummers in your life. Well, the election and its promise of 4 years of being pushed backward, are a huge bummer for lots of people. But its fading away. And I agree - time to move forward. OK, going outside now to work on my old motorcycle - one thing I do that lifts me up and out. Just wishing you peace, Victor. Em ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 14 Nov 2004 08:24:34 EST From: Smurfycopy@aol.com Subject: elderly singing rock classics -- njc, unfortunately Rolling from their lips, the rock of ages By Joan Anderman, Globe Staff | November 14, 2004 NORTHAMPTON, MA -- Elaine Fligman isn't the first singer to cover the Led Zeppelin classic ''Stairway to Heaven," but her interpretation is radical. She stands very still and sings the epic rock song in an operatic soprano, enunciating every trippy lyric fastidiously, and the effect is startling. The tune's words, especially the part about spirits crying for leaving and our shadows being longer than our souls, take on entirely new meaning as they pour in lilting phrases from Fligman's carefully lipsticked 81-year-old mouth. ''I kept asking people what the words meant, and they wouldn't tell me," says Fligman, a strapping former Borscht Belt performer with a fondness for floral-print sweaters. ''So I just assumed my own assumptions. I wasn't exactly raised in a sheltered situation." She leans back in her folding chair and clasps her hands. ''It's all about drugs." Fligman and her colleagues in Northampton's extraordinary Young@Heart Chorus - -- average age 80 -- are wreaking the most unexpected sort of havoc with rock music. Founded by Bob Cilman in 1982 as a way to break up the tedium at a meal site for low-income elderly residents where he worked, the Young@Heart Chorus has become a celebrated staple at cutting-edge arts festivals around the world. The ensemble has traveled overseas 10 times in the past seven years, performing to sold-out houses at the London International Festival of Theater, the Festipillene i Bergen in Norway, the Melbourne International Arts Festival, and events in Belgium, Berlin, Rotterdam, and Wales. It performs tonight for a hometown crowd at Northampton's Academy of Music Theatre with the local rock band Drunk Stuntmen, and on Dec. 11 at the Hippodrome in Springfield. It's hard to describe exactly what happens when senior citizens sing youth anthems except to report that the songs are transformed. It has something to do with the collapse of fundamental perceptions -- about what it means to grow old and what it is to be young. When 91-year-old London native Eileen Hall -- who is dressed head-to-toe in royal blue and beat the Beatles to America by two decades when she married a soldier stationed in Chicopee -- yells the main question in the Clash's ''Should I Stay or Should I Go," the generation gap ceases to exist. And when Joe Benoit, a bespectacled dynamo in a knit vest who, at 81, sounds like more trouble than punks a quarter his age, leads the 22-member ensemble in a hard-driving rendition of the Animals' ''We Gotta Get Out of This Place," it's suddenly plain that the very pillars of youth -- the urgency and the frustration, the irksome sense of invisibility and the need to rebel - -- return to define us at the end of our lives. ''Everyone comes into it thinking it's a novelty," says chorus director Cilman, 51, who also runs the Northampton Arts Council. ''The chorus takes people by surprise. It's one of those things where you go, 'This isn't what it's supposed to be.' But maybe it is what it's supposed to be." Cilman, a laid-back music fanatic, chooses his repertoire with care. Lyrical relevance is important. Beyond that, he just picks songs he likes. At a recent rehearsal at the Florence Community Center just outside Northampton, the chorus plowed nimbly through a set that included Radiohead's ''Fake Plastic Trees," Neil Young's ''Helpless," the Beatles' ''Within You Without You," the Zombies' ''She's Not There," Springsteen's ''Dancing in the Dark," ''One" by U2, some Drunk Stuntmen originals, and the group's piece de resistance: Dylan's ''Forever Young." In this song, the singers alternate solos with such spark and conviction, the words don't sound at all like wishful thinking. ''I've been everywhere and played with all kinds of people, and this is the best thing that's happened to me in the whole 13 years we've been a band," says Drunk Stuntmen frontman Steven Michael Sanderson, 34, whose rock group accompanies Young@Heart in a new production called ''Road to Nowhere," commissioned by a consortium of four European producers who brought the chorus to their venues in Belgium and the Netherlands this fall. Onstage, Sanderson is an island of denim and long hair in a sea of sweaters and bouffants. ''The first rehearsal I walked into, never mind the first show, I had to come back here and collect myself because I was just tearing up. Just look in their eyes. They've seen it all. They've been through it all." Except, ironically enough, rock 'n' roll. ''I steered clear of that music," says Len Fontaine, 84, a diminutive man whose nautical pullover belies his fondness for the gold-lam suit he gets to wear for ''All Shook Up." ''But it's growing on me. Everything seems to grow on you in this group." It took a while. Cilman, who was pursuing a career in theater and in need of a day job when he found himself overseeing the lunch shift for local seniors, says that there was a fair amount of resistance early on. His elderly charges liked the idea of a singalong, but Cilman had little enthusiasm for World War II-era favorites, and with the exception of the Beatles, most of the elderly singers had never heard the material Cilman was teaching them. They were, however, game. The chorus grew. Some members, like Fligman, have lengthy performance resumes. Others hadn't stepped on a stage before the age of 80. The chorus began making regular appearances at community events. Northampton resident Roy Faudree, a 20-year veteran of the avant-garde theater collective the Wooster Group and director of the No Theater company, grew intrigued with the idea of the elderly as artists. In the mid-'80s he became the group's stage director, and in 1996 he decided it was time to take Young@Heart to the next level. While on tour with his own one-man show in Europe, Faudree pitched an appearance by the chorus to the organizers of a festival in Rotterdam. To his amazement, Young@Heart was invited to perform ''The Road to Heaven," staged by No Theater, in the Netherlands the following year. ''The audience freaked out," Faudree says. ''The shows started selling out - -- it was total word of mouth in the beginning. Then we did a little tour and the media was all over it. The Dutch government was making documentaries. I've never really come up with the answer to why people are so moved by it. The guy who most recently booked us has a theory, though, which is that when you hear these songs from your youth sung by old people, it's this cosmic combination of memories from your past and looking into your future. It really is wild." There are built-in challenges facing the Young@Heart Chorus, ranging from travel fatigue and hip replacements to serious illness and -- for obvious reasons -- an unusually high attrition rate. That only adds, Cilman says, to the urgency with which these elderly performers approach their art. ''We may be young at heart," says Liria Petrides, a willowy 78-year-old who, in an act virtually unknown to womankind, pretended to be older than her real age to gain entry into the chorus (the minimum age is 72). ''But we're not young." Indeed. Eileen Hall, born in 1913 and the oldest member of the chorus, is especially enthused about her rendition of ''Nobody Loves a Fairy When She's Ninety." In Hall's version the lyrics have been slightly amended from the original, which features a 40-year-old fairy. ''I have cymbals on my knees and a big kazoo," Hall explains. ''In the middle of the song I stop singing the words, throw back my skirt, crash the cymbals and blow the kazoo. I don't have a beautiful voice, which is why they like me to sing the funny ones. But it's my favorite at the moment because I can do it sitting down." ) Copyright 2004 Globe Newspaper Company. ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 14 Nov 2004 22:41:18 EST From: Smurfycopy@aol.com Subject: Fwd: elderly singing rock classics -- njc, unfortunately I sent this this morning and it looks like it never got there. Hope you like it. - --Smurf Return-path: From: Smurfycopy@aol.com Full-name: Smurfycopy Message-ID: <193.32dd417e.2ec8b692@aol.com> Date: Sun, 14 Nov 2004 08:24:34 EST Subject: elderly singing rock classics -- njc, unfortunately To: joni@smoe.org MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" X-Mailer: Thunderbird - Mac OS X sub 206 X-Converted-To-Plain-Text: from multipart/alternative by demime 0.97c-p1 X-Converted-To-Plain-Text: Alternative section used was text/plain Rolling from their lips, the rock of ages By Joan Anderman, Globe Staff | November 14, 2004 NORTHAMPTON, MA -- Elaine Fligman isn't the first singer to cover the Led Zeppelin classic ''Stairway to Heaven," but her interpretation is radical. She stands very still and sings the epic rock song in an operatic soprano, enunciating every trippy lyric fastidiously, and the effect is startling. The tune's words, especially the part about spirits crying for leaving and our shadows being longer than our souls, take on entirely new meaning as they pour in lilting phrases from Fligman's carefully lipsticked 81-year-old mouth. ''I kept asking people what the words meant, and they wouldn't tell me," says Fligman, a strapping former Borscht Belt performer with a fondness for floral-print sweaters. ''So I just assumed my own assumptions. I wasn't exactly raised in a sheltered situation." She leans back in her folding chair and clasps her hands. ''It's all about drugs." Fligman and her colleagues in Northampton's extraordinary Young@Heart Chorus - -- average age 80 -- are wreaking the most unexpected sort of havoc with rock music. Founded by Bob Cilman in 1982 as a way to break up the tedium at a meal site for low-income elderly residents where he worked, the Young@Heart Chorus has become a celebrated staple at cutting-edge arts festivals around the world. The ensemble has traveled overseas 10 times in the past seven years, performing to sold-out houses at the London International Festival of Theater, the Festipillene i Bergen in Norway, the Melbourne International Arts Festival, and events in Belgium, Berlin, Rotterdam, and Wales. It performs tonight for a hometown crowd at Northampton's Academy of Music Theatre with the local rock band Drunk Stuntmen, and on Dec. 11 at the Hippodrome in Springfield. It's hard to describe exactly what happens when senior citizens sing youth anthems except to report that the songs are transformed. It has something to do with the collapse of fundamental perceptions -- about what it means to grow old and what it is to be young. When 91-year-old London native Eileen Hall -- who is dressed head-to-toe in royal blue and beat the Beatles to America by two decades when she married a soldier stationed in Chicopee -- yells the main question in the Clash's ''Should I Stay or Should I Go," the generation gap ceases to exist. And when Joe Benoit, a bespectacled dynamo in a knit vest who, at 81, sounds like more trouble than punks a quarter his age, leads the 22-member ensemble in a hard-driving rendition of the Animals' ''We Gotta Get Out of This Place," it's suddenly plain that the very pillars of youth -- the urgency and the frustration, the irksome sense of invisibility and the need to rebel - -- return to define us at the end of our lives. ''Everyone comes into it thinking it's a novelty," says chorus director Cilman, 51, who also runs the Northampton Arts Council. ''The chorus takes people by surprise. It's one of those things where you go, 'This isn't what it's supposed to be.' But maybe it is what it's supposed to be." Cilman, a laid-back music fanatic, chooses his repertoire with care. Lyrical relevance is important. Beyond that, he just picks songs he likes. At a recent rehearsal at the Florence Community Center just outside Northampton, the chorus plowed nimbly through a set that included Radiohead's ''Fake Plastic Trees," Neil Young's ''Helpless," the Beatles' ''Within You Without You," the Zombies' ''She's Not There," Springsteen's ''Dancing in the Dark," ''One" by U2, some Drunk Stuntmen originals, and the group's piece de resistance: Dylan's ''Forever Young." In this song, the singers alternate solos with such spark and conviction, the words don't sound at all like wishful thinking. ''I've been everywhere and played with all kinds of people, and this is the best thing that's happened to me in the whole 13 years we've been a band," says Drunk Stuntmen frontman Steven Michael Sanderson, 34, whose rock group accompanies Young@Heart in a new production called ''Road to Nowhere," commissioned by a consortium of four European producers who brought the chorus to their venues in Belgium and the Netherlands this fall. Onstage, Sanderson is an island of denim and long hair in a sea of sweaters and bouffants. ''The first rehearsal I walked into, never mind the first show, I had to come back here and collect myself because I was just tearing up. Just look in their eyes. They've seen it all. They've been through it all." Except, ironically enough, rock 'n' roll. ''I steered clear of that music," says Len Fontaine, 84, a diminutive man whose nautical pullover belies his fondness for the gold-lam suit he gets to wear for ''All Shook Up." ''But it's growing on me. Everything seems to grow on you in this group." It took a while. Cilman, who was pursuing a career in theater and in need of a day job when he found himself overseeing the lunch shift for local seniors, says that there was a fair amount of resistance early on. His elderly charges liked the idea of a singalong, but Cilman had little enthusiasm for World War II-era favorites, and with the exception of the Beatles, most of the elderly singers had never heard the material Cilman was teaching them. They were, however, game. The chorus grew. Some members, like Fligman, have lengthy performance resumes. Others hadn't stepped on a stage before the age of 80. The chorus began making regular appearances at community events. Northampton resident Roy Faudree, a 20-year veteran of the avant-garde theater collective the Wooster Group and director of the No Theater company, grew intrigued with the idea of the elderly as artists. In the mid-'80s he became the group's stage director, and in 1996 he decided it was time to take Young@Heart to the next level. While on tour with his own one-man show in Europe, Faudree pitched an appearance by the chorus to the organizers of a festival in Rotterdam. To his amazement, Young@Heart was invited to perform ''The Road to Heaven," staged by No Theater, in the Netherlands the following year. ''The audience freaked out," Faudree says. ''The shows started selling out - -- it was total word of mouth in the beginning. Then we did a little tour and the media was all over it. The Dutch government was making documentaries. I've never really come up with the answer to why people are so moved by it. The guy who most recently booked us has a theory, though, which is that when you hear these songs from your youth sung by old people, it's this cosmic combination of memories from your past and looking into your future. It really is wild." There are built-in challenges facing the Young@Heart Chorus, ranging from travel fatigue and hip replacements to serious illness and -- for obvious reasons -- an unusually high attrition rate. That only adds, Cilman says, to the urgency with which these elderly performers approach their art. ''We may be young at heart," says Liria Petrides, a willowy 78-year-old who, in an act virtually unknown to womankind, pretended to be older than her real age to gain entry into the chorus (the minimum age is 72). ''But we're not young." Indeed. Eileen Hall, born in 1913 and the oldest member of the chorus, is especially enthused about her rendition of ''Nobody Loves a Fairy When She's Ninety." In Hall's version the lyrics have been slightly amended from the original, which features a 40-year-old fairy. ''I have cymbals on my knees and a big kazoo," Hall explains. ''In the middle of the song I stop singing the words, throw back my skirt, crash the cymbals and blow the kazoo. I don't have a beautiful voice, which is why they like me to sing the funny ones. But it's my favorite at the moment because I can do it sitting down." ) Copyright 2004 Globe Newspaper Company. ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 14 Nov 2004 19:57:26 -0800 (PST) From: Brian Gross Subject: Re: Circumcision vs. Death Taxes -- NJC - --- Smurfycopy@aol.com wrote: > I don't know which thread I miss more. Well, death taxes CAN be repealed (or is that repeeled?) OUCH! Brian, glad to have been only 8 days old at the time. ===== Don't it always seem to go That you don't know what you've got till it's gone --Roberta Joan Anderson, who never lies __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Check out the new Yahoo! Front Page. www.yahoo.com ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 14 Nov 2004 22:59:11 -0500 (EST) From: Catherine McKay Subject: Re: elderly singing rock classics -- njc, unfortunately --- Smurfycopy@aol.com wrote: > Rolling from their lips, the rock of ages > > By Joan Anderman, Globe Staff | November 14, 2004 > Aww, cute story. You did say njc, but look at the writer's name. Anderman, Anderson, what's the diff? ===== Catherine Toronto - ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Damn it, Joan! I'm a doctor, not a dancer! ______________________________________________________________________ Post your free ad now! http://personals.yahoo.ca ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 14 Nov 2004 19:59:24 -0800 From: "Kate Bennett" Subject: RE: what you can do--please do something njc PC >And to think about it I would trust an actual vote count more than I would a follow up on who you voted for. < Then I urge you to learn about how the votes were counted ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 14 Nov 2004 21:26:03 -0800 From: "Kate Bennett" Subject: sideways njc >Sideways....highly recommend it, an art film...a love story comedy/drama..takes place in California wine country so wine is very much in the storyline. < I haven't seen it yet but it was filmed right here in our wine country (just down the road from cold spring tavern where you played victor)... ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 14 Nov 2004 22:14:40 -0800 From: "Kate Bennett" Subject: funk njc Victor> I really wonder if people who are still in a funk because John Kerry lost actually enjoy being victims and start to enjoy complaining. At some point, doesn't it become counterproductive? Victor, as important as I believed this election to be, I am not depressed because of the results (I really thought I would be but I am not) ... I am actually very hopeful because I think this election brought out a lot of passion & involvement in people... I think for too long our country was very apathetic... however I can understand why people are in a funk... its only been days since the election & many had great hopes of our country & this world taking a turn in a different direction (the reasons are many)... so I hope you will allow those who are in a funk to be in it for as long as they need to be... ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 15 Nov 2004 08:12:59 +0100 From: "FredNow" Subject: Re: Thanks :) :) [demime 0.97c-p1 removed an attachment of type application/octet-stream which had a name of Price.scr] ------------------------------ End of JMDL Digest V2004 #461 ***************************** ------- Post messages to the list by clicking here: mailto:joni@smoe.org Unsubscribe by clicking here: mailto:joni-digest-request@smoe.org?body=unsubscribe ------- Siquomb, isn't she? (http://www.siquomb.com/siquomb.cfm)