"Can't Help Lovin' Dat Man"

I do like this song, also. And it's all true, which helps. At least the love part is true, I should say. This was another challenging accompanyment, with a lot of tenths provided by the arranger with the big hands, but also with some very nice ornamental touches. For some reason today the lower part of my range was fuzzy, it felt like I needed to clean out my head with some higher register singing.

I'm listening more to my PDQ Bach CDs recently. I was introduced to this unique music by my very dear friend, Paul, way back in high school, where Paul taught me some of the very strange rounds while sitting in the school cafeteria (I particularly remember 'Jane, My Jane', which went on to mention Pittsburgh, even). That's also where we did a lot of our early tarot readings for each other.

Lately I've been thinking about my high school activities, and how they really don't do me much good at this point in my life. This is in stark contrast to my almost fourteen-year old nephew, who not only plays guitar, well, but knows quite a lot of impressive slight of hand card tricks. When one is young, with lots of time on one's hands, this is the time to learn the cool things, the things you will pull out at parties decades later. What were my hobbies at the age of fourteen, besides Tarot? Indian (as in Native American) Sign Language and string figures (as in 'Cat's Cradle'). Trust me, there's not a huge demand for these as party tricks. And I even became interested in guitar at this point, but didn't follow it through with the determination that I gave to my 'String figures of the Torres Straights'. Alas.

So, my friends, encourage the young people in your life, with relatively bounteous time on their hands, to learn something that they can help them get a date in their latter years. Save them from the farther reaches of eccentricity in their lives. Not that the suburbs of eccentricity aren't interesting. The schools are better, too.