gum

This morning I sang on worship team in church.

I was talking with a little friend of mine when I realized I was supposed to be on stage for the first song, so I ran up pretty fast.  As the leader began good-morning remarks, I realized: "UH-oh I still have gum in my mouth."

I am not sure quite how, but somehow the gum transferred successfully from my mouth to my hand.  The next part is what I remember as painfully distressing.  The small white blob became enormously conspicuous.  I cupped it in my palm against the microphone.  That worked because it was still slick and smooth.  However, I knew it would become increasingly dry and sticky with each song.    I switched it from microphone-hand to non-microphone-hand several times to try to find the best holding position.  With each transfer it became noticeable stringier.  By the end of the set I was certain it would be disastrous.  I stared at the music stand thirty inches away.  Maybe I could somehow tuck it onto the ledge of the stand.  The worship team would be able to see it, but nobody else would.  I leaned in toward the stand several times but each time my hand jerked back.  Finally I worked up the nerve and flashed my hand over the stand.  The hand surreptitiously returned to the the microphone.  I stared at the little white ball sitting on the black ledge.  I was free.

Needless to say it was an intense thirty seconds.

firstfruits

galumphing rhythms

Boston Symphony Orchestra:

(An edge-of-your-seat experience.  Vaughan Williams's sixth symphony.  I like the dramatic descriptions in concert programs.  This one - "its forceful energy, its sense of menace, and the desolation of the final pages."  People thought it reflected the tumultuous post-WWII time it was composed in, but it didn't.  Williams was just that way.)

For fun try an out-loud dramatic reading:

"The first movement opens in unmistakable conflict with its violent clash of adjacent minor keys:  F minor hammered out in the opening three notes, then E minor thrust in beneath it, like a dagger to the stomach.  These warring neighbors make appearances throughout the movement in different disguises.  But lest anyone should think the symphony offers no glimmer of joy, no light in a darkened world, the work's lighter moments should not be overlooked.  A galumphing rhythm has its humorous side..."

The performance did it justice (the words, and the hall).

That's the last of three days in Boston spread out over several weeks' posts.  I went not for fun but for a literature conference (which was fun too, actually).  The highlight - a Harvard professor lecturing on why vampires (e.g. Twilight) are so popular today.  As the photos evidence, my professor graciously made the trip much more than a conference.  The Atlantic and the symphony were my favorites.

Next week in Kentucky at a back-to-back conference:

Here I spoke on two things:  "Do Professors Grade International Students Differently?" and "Poetry for the Average Joe."  I valiantly tried to convince my listeners that everyone should make a habit of reading and writing poetry (yes, you).  I don't think I persuaded my fellow Dordt comrades to write their own, but they must have been persuaded that I do.  Every time I was writing anything on the 16-hour ride home (a letter to Granny, edits on friend's story), someone asked, "Oh hey, are you writing poetry?"  Every time I had to say guiltily, "Um, no, not this time."

sparrows

"Even the sparrow has found a home,
And the swallow a nest for herself,
Where she may lay her young --
Even your altars, O Lord of hosts,
My king and my God."

Park Street Church, Boston

"Fear not therefore; you are of more value than many sparrows."

assigned seating

small-town Massachusetts

If you can't quite read it...the left bench is "Democrats" and the right is "Republicans."

(Photo credit to my professor.)

frogs and pennies

(Boston's Freedom Trail)

I was very much looking forward to seeing the site of Robert McCloskey's Make Way for Ducklings.  However this is what the lagoon in the Boston Public Garden currently looks like:

Me at the Frog Pond.  No water, again, but at least there were frogs.  (Angela and Tommy.)

Paul Revere's grave.  Tradition is to put a penny on it because he was a copper smith.

little pink things

This is sushi.  I have had sushi before, but not quite like this.  In my previous sushi-eating experience what you eat is chopped up very small and mixed with other chopped-up-small things so you aren't exactly sure what you are eating.

This time I was very sure that what I was spearing with my chopsticks were hunks of raw fish.  I could tell they were different kinds of fish too.  Not just because of color; they tasted and felt different.

After-picture, because it was tasty.  I'd do it again.

I'm pretty convinced those little pink things are fish eggs.  I normally would finish everything but they tasted sour and salty and something-else and I wasn't quite in the mood.  (Oh, the green dollop is horseradish...didn't finish that either.)

...What would my fifth-graders say if I brought this to lunch?