Monday, November 16, 2009

Weekend status update

Above, a closeup of one of the paintings on display on the East Austin Studio Tour going on this past weekend and next. The schedule was very complicated (too many events!) so we just meandered for awhile.There's one for you, Dr. Monkey! We like this example of recycling bottle caps, so now, guess what? We are saving bottle caps waiting for a creative use to hit us.

We only stayed a little while on the east side because the Green Austin event was going on at City Hall, where we went and won a nice attendance prize at a lecture: one of those "Kill-A-Watt" meters that measures the power you are using for one particular device or another. MrB loves it, as it's a green gadget, and it was free!

Saturday night we went out to Roadhouse Rags to see one of the new hot bands in town, The Trishas. The four official Trishas are Savannah Welch (Kevin's daughter), Liz Foster, Kelley Mickwee, Jamie Wilson, and they had Trisha Keefer as a guest on violin, so she was the Trisha named Trisha. They are all talented singers and there are strong songwriters in the band too. Most of all they just really sound good together. Really awesome. Here is their opening song, it's an old spiritual called "Moses"

I looked up this particular song and found some background on this page. OK, it's a textbook analysis, but helps keep the perspective on songs like this that weren't just "church music."
Since Moses was also the name by which the famous Underground Railroad conductor Harriet Tubman was known, the song operates on at least two levels: 1) It draws on the Biblical story of Moses as a source of inspiration, and 2) it offers encouragement to the African American “Moses” – Harriet Tubman – in her divinely inspired work. The lyrics point to the danger surrounding the Underground Railroad: the danger of approaching horsemen on a chase, the risk of getting caught and rendezvous points (e.g., the graveyard), the risk of disapproval by children or other relatives. The lyrics also provide a picture of the sacred aura surrounding the work of the Underground Railroad: “Jordan rolling,” “angels moanin’!”


On Sunday we went to see "The Men Who Stare at Goats" which we both really liked, and recommend. Monday came around too soon.

4 comments:

Unknown said...

Thanks!

yellowdoggranny said...

cool idea on the bottle caps. I remember when we used to pry the cork of the lids and then attach them to our tshirts..
shady lane has taken up bollywood dancing along with her african drum dance classes and 2 trips a week to golds gym for boxing..damn, she wears me out just thinking about it..

AArdvarker said...

We thought of going until we realized that the 2 year old was in our care, which made it a big no-no.

This is a tie said...

Hard to beat a free Kill-a-watt! :)