Latest Percussion Recital

Thomas has been taking percussion lessons with Alyssa for over 5 years and during most of that time has concentrated on the snare drum (which he played for most Philharmonia pieces last year) and the marimba. But about a year ago Alyssa pressed him to start on the drum set. I'm not sure why Thomas resisted for so long but he absolutely refused to play for more than a minute or two during lessons. Then about a month ago he decided that he would give it some serious effort. His early practice sessions didn't sound like much--several times I accused him of "pissing about" and he would insist (quite energetically) that he was in fact very earnestly practicing very difficult parts of real songs. Shows what I know. The song he is performing here is called Super Nova and is over 6 minutes long. I have edited out the beginning half (which had a bit of a "moment" when about a minute in Thomas realized that the snare wasn't on) and just provided the last two minutes. It's not as pretty as the marimba, but when you keep in mind that he only started practicing the drum set about a month ago, it isn't too shabby. Now he can focus his efforts on mastering stick tossing and twirling while he plays!

Last Percussion Recital of the Year Aside

We have finally braved all our old tapes and sorted through them, labeled them and converted much of the material to digital. Here is a snippet of Thomas' very first percussion recital, which also has Omid and it is his first recital. At this latest recital, Omid and Thomas were not Alyssa's oldest students but had both been taking lessons with her the longest. How many more years will they be playing together? Only time will tell.

Latest Percussion Recital, Too

Here are Thomas and Alyssa playing a duet at his most recent percussion recital. Thomas stumbled briefly at one point but recovered quickly.

This is the last music business of the season and I am very, very glad. We aren't completely free since Thomas continues to take private percussion and bassoon lessons all summer but at least there are no more performances until December. Thomas auditioned to play percussion for the Philharmonia for next year and then about a week ago decided that he wants to audition to play bassoon for the Philharmonia, too.

Buy Me Presents!

In exactly one month from now it will be SIMON'S BIRTHDAY! Now, no doubt my relations have all been planning for this for months, but in the eventuality they've wracked their brains and come up with nothing, I've updated my Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk wish lists, so that anything from either would be welcomed! Gifts to suit every pocket!

(Isn't this shameless?)

My new favourite place in Flint

Is the Dort Mall.  It's a practically empty Mall on Dort Avenue, which is the sleaziest main street in Flint (it has all the strip joints and tattoo parlours as well as every junk food you could imagine, a lot of "storage" places and a lot of abandoned buildings).  This is why I've never been there.  But having heard rumours, and because Frederick and I had time to kill, I stopped, parked in the massive, empty parking lot, and we went inside.  It was like entering a parallel world.  Here are some blurry cellphone photos.

Apparently the person who owns it is an eccentric millionaire who collects various memorabilia and stores it in this place. It's like being in a giant old museum with no rhyme or reason or placards or other people. It's crying out to be the setting for a horror film...

Guys With Ties - the series

From the Notebooks of Frederick, a series on the rat race in the 21st Century.


This one's a bit smug. He's just been commended for landing the new account.

This one's just happy to be starting his first day at the firm. He's sure a great career lies ahead.

Oh dear. Downsized.

Flying Frederick!

Just before this picture was taken, Frederick was inside drawing. I (pictured above) told him to come and bounce, and he hastily captured what he envisaged happening before running outside. Here is that rendering, tentatively entitled "Daddy and Frederick Bouncing":

Art Show

The FIA art show reception was today. As blogged earlier, the theme (for adults) was The Figure. Alongside the grownups show was a display of work done by kids taking classes in the last year. Here is Thomas identifying his thrown bowl, which he named "Ocean Bowl." He is chewing an oreo and not doing a good job of hiding that fact.I was looking at other stuff when I turned around and saw him doing this. This kid can't be taken anywhere! (Uncivilized behavior seems to run in the family because it wasn't too many years ago that Simon and Frederick were "asked" to leave the museum. Frederick was patting the paintings and, it seems, museum guards don't approve of that--much better to stare mindlessly at art than to enthusiatically embrace it.) Fortunately this is mine and so I could intercede if anyone objected. (Perhaps I should have stipulated that hugging the thing is required?)

Old and New

About a month ago, Simon and I decided that it was time to rotate the trampoline (it sinks into the ground after months of winter and spring storms) and when we lifted it, Simon lifted the trampoline mat ring right off the frame. Hmm. That ain't right. It turns out that one of the legs of the frame had rusted off the trampoline mat ring--the mud was the only thing holding it upright. So we had to suspend all trampoline activities until payday and then buy a new trampoline. Halfway through dismantling the old trampoline, we wondered what the hell we were going to do with the old bits. It was my bright idea to collect all the steel pipes and take them to a metal yard (inspired by Bubbs of The Wire, no doubt). Here are about half:

And now we know why homeless people collecting metal are homeless--a $500 trampoline turns into $8 of metal. We dragged the rest to the end of our driveway and hoped the garbage collectors wouldn't notice the unusually heavy and large load of refuse. (These are the people who like to stick red labels onto our uncollected garbage with a list of rules [which we always seems to be violating:"no flammables" "no paint" "no lumber" "no fireplace ash"--what the hell ARE we supposed to do with all our hot ashes and paint I ask you?] with threats of $50 fines for repeated offenses.) Bizarrely, during the night someone hauled away the old mat and all the old styrofoam piping that covers the steel poles. That only left the spring mat, which almost packed down into one garbage can. The next day I watched (furtively peeking from behind a curtain) the garbage collectors arrive at our house. When the can tosser lobbed the can with the spring mat into the back of the truck, the mat came loose and most of it fell to the ground. He didn't bother to pick it up and the truck drove off, dragging 20 feet of mat behind. Oh well, not our problem now. It took us about 3 hours to take apart the old one and about 4 hours to put together the new one. I think I could have worked faster if I wasn't having to chase off kids chanting, "Can we go on now? Can we go on now?" And here it is. The old one lasted just two months short of three years, and this includes daily use throughout the winters. This one is already creaking ominously. How long before it goes to the metal yard?
And, speaking of "out with the old and in with the new," one of Frederick's top teeth had been loose for WEEKS and finally popped out (with a little help from Simon) yesterday. Just visible amongst the blood and guts is the new tooth, shyly peeping out. I noticed today that its mate, the other front top tooth, is loose now. Argh. [WARNING: The following photo is not for the weak hearted.]