Gabrielle & Alex

so, alex and i have a bunch of performances coming up on monday. he is playing the crumb sonata on the monday noon hour and i am play black angels on monday night, also by george crumb. black angels is a work for electric string quartet. that george crumb sure does write some weird stuff. he has us doing all these weird things like whistling while we play, playing crystal glasses, tam tams, maracas, thimbles and even play our instruments backwards. you can go to this website if you want to learn any more about him, i'll just tell you a little story about him. george crumb came to our school when i was in my first year. it was a three day festival to celebrate his 71ist birthday. the three days were filled with concerts of his music, and master classes taught by him. now george is one of the more popular new music composers, and he is quite the brilliant man. his music is very dark, sometimes very political, and definetly incredibly complex. i remeber listening to his music in preparation to the festival and waiting with anticipation to actually see this brilliant man. so, the day finally came, i was sitting in a master class, and in walks george crumb, a chubby, cute old man wearing a bright red shirt with a button that said 'brandon university in something special' and he was making sure his fly was done up. then he spoke, and he had the thickest southern accent i've ever heard. he really was a very nice man and very old man cute. it was really hard to make the connection that this cute man with a appledolly face and a brandon university hat actually wrote all those pieces about death.

Check it out, I'm blogging.

Favorite things to do lately,

1. Going out for coffee with Gab.
2. Snowboarding.
3. Playing on my 1987 Amiga.
4. Practicing my cello.
5. Cruising the Megadeth forums.

I have to play a piece by George Crumb next week, Monday for a noon hour recital. Kinda nervous.....maybe. Nah.
Exam on wednesday that Prof. Rudoff says will be a piece of cake, I'm not so sure. Study more I guess.
Sorry, no more boring you with school life. O.K. let's try random string of thought.

Little red lights on buttons that when you press jack comes out of the box. Ring finger is shorter than my imagination says my tongue is. I think...No not going that direction....Fast cars..... aaach..... Thought string dead. Officially! Bye.

Alex

http://knack.250free.com/LOOKINGBACK.html
here is another neil diamond website with really funny pictures and good old fashioned midi versions of his greatest hits.

well, we definetly suck at this blog thing. our main goals when we started this was,1. have as many top five lists as possible, 2.post obscure articles about crazy right wing politics and 3. most importantly have a neil diamond tribute day on january 24, his birthday. well that day has gone, we failed, however we can make this month neil diamond month just because it's our blog and we love neil diamond. well i guess i love him, alex just is learning to appreciate him because he loves me.
so one day when i was fifteen i bought a old 8-track player at a church auction and then i bought a bunch of neil diamond 8-tracks. before this i had never heard of him. well, when i went home to listen to my new treasure i discovered that the 8-track player that was supposed to be in good condition only plays at high speed. being fifteen and very thrifty there was no way i was going to spend $15 on something and then just let it collect dust in my room, so i listened to neil diamond at high speed everyday and boy did i enjoy it. when i turned sixteen i got a neil diamond c.d. for my birthday from a boy named daniel. since then neil diamond has been my all time favorite singer song writer.
around this time i noticed that my brother tim also had an appreciation for neil diamond. this of course made being a neil diamond fan cool. neil diamond has made our relationship even closer. over the years, many people have critisized me for my tastes in music, i am after all a classical musician. even alex's family doesn't understand me. so, in order to enlighten everyone on my reasons for why i love being a neil diamond fan i will end this post by stating my top five things i like about neil diamnond.
5. he starred in the best movie of all time "the jazz singer."
4. he still wears that same sparkling gold shirt he wore when he was "big" in the seventies.
3. sorry i can't think of a good #3
2. every music store you go into you can find a neil diamond c.d. on the discount rack for five dollars.
1. i don't have to feel bad about not being able to sing in tune because neil diamond can't and look where he is.

we had another snow day yesterday, couldn't go to work, alex missed a bunch of rehersals. this time around i had fun. i cooked alot of food, watched tv, did a bit of homework. i didn't stress out at all the entire day, quite an accomplishment. more happy news. our cousins russ and patti had a baby girl on saturday. everyone is having baby's these days.