The trouble with magic is that it doesn't work right unless people know that you're doing it. So, I'm going to do some magic.

And don't be thinking that I'll be dancing naked under the blue moon, because it's far to chilly out for that sort of nonsense.

I was going to avoid talking about how much 2009 sucked or how much the Decade of Nought sucked or what have you, but it seems like that won't be possible. So, rather than talk about it, I'll do something about.

I am going to write down all the sucky things that happened in 2009 on slips of paper. I have a little pile already. At midnight on New Year's Eve, I mean to burn them. On New Year's Day, I'll find some spot where I can bury the ashes. Then I'll plant something over them. Probably something hardy.

Call it a sort of exorcism. It's letting go of the bad and moving forward so that something else can take root.

And if you have anything that you would like me to write down and add to the pile, feel free to mention it here and I'll throw it in. It doesn't really matter what you want to let go of. I've written down bad things that happened, bad moods I've been in, stuff people do that annoys, a TV show that sucked and some things that I need to just plain get over.

Or feel free to do your own cleansing.

And, as always, I will clean the bathroom. It won't fix my problems. It won't change anything. But at least I'll have a clean bathroom.

Because she's so darn cute...

At long last, my local PBS station decided to broadcast the latest Celtic Woman special and now that I'm on break, I have time to talk about it. Let me begin by saying that I have enjoyed the heck out of Celtic Woman in the past. I love pop classical music and pretty dresses and their last specials introduced me to Irish music and Irish Gaelic which have become passions of mine. Sadly, however, a couple of the most accomplished performers have since left the group, so I put on the new special half-expecting to love it and half-expecting to hate it.

I also knew that one of the numbers I'd been looking forward to the most (Carolina Rua) would not be featured on the special nor will it be on the DVD although it was filmed and was part of the last Celtic Woman tour. They apparently also filmed True Colors which will be on the DVD but was not broadcast on PBS. Now, here's the interesting part, You'll Be in My Heart was broadcast on PBS but won't be on the DVD. Apparently, all of this has to do with not being able to get the rights to the music. The rights to do a live performance versus an audio recording versus a video recording versus broadcasting said video recording are all under different contracts and rules, or at least that was the response from EMI when fans complained about omitted musical numbers. When the Songs from the Heart CD is released, I will most likely purchase several of the songs:

My Lagan Love- this is a very pretty choral arrangement with soloist Lynn Hilary. On the minus side, I feel like the choral setting draws attention away from the soloist and the intimacy of the song. I prefer the arrangement used by Charlotte Church but the singing in this version is so much better that I think I'll want to listen to it.

Nil s'en la- this is an Irish folk song that has been performed by Clannad. The Celtic Woman version adds some fun English lyrics and good harmonies. It's upbeat and fun to listen to. I'd say this was by far my favorite number on the program.

Non c'e piu- I love the tune (taken from Dvorak, so of course it's good) and the arrangement is lovely. The singing is marred by one glaring mispronunciation on the DVD, but that may be corrected by the time they make a studio recording. Bear in mind, I put up with Sarah Brightman's Italian so I can put up with Celtic Woman's Italian.

Fields of Gold- I'm not sure that this is the greatest arrangement ever, but the soloist (Lisa Kelly) does a lovely job with it and it's a great song. I think this one is actually a good choice for Celtic Woman to cover.

I watched Songs from the Heart with my mother who happens to be a sweet little old lady and therefore, by definition, pure evil. So, I don't have to critique the show because Mom was there to complain about every last little thing. Mom was not pleased by the proliferation of pop songs and Disney songs on this latest DVD. In fact, I'd say that a good 70% of the songs were power ballads which is kind of a problem. There are only so many soaring songs with an army of bagpipes, pyrotechnics and fireworks you can hear before you lose interest in them (The Call, Amazing Grace, Isle of Hope Isle of Tears, Oh America, You Raise Me Up.) When you factor in all the slow and meaningful numbers without fireworks (Fields of Gold, Galway Bay, When You Believe, Goodnight My Angel, You'll Be in My Heart, The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, My Lagan Love, Pie Jesu, Danny Boy) it makes for a dragging evening. Don't get me wrong, I could program an entire concert of slow, depressing songs that I really adore, it's just that I'm pretty sure I'd bore my audience to sleep.

I was going to complain about the recycling of numbers from past concerts, only then I remembered that I have yet to ever complain about Sarah Brightman singing Time to Say Goodbye on every single concert DVD she's ever done. I think the problem is that Sarah has original songs whereas Celtic Woman mostly does covers so when they recycle a Josh Groban cover, you're left wondering why they don't cover some other song. Additionally, because Celtic Woman is a group of soloists, when a soloist leaves, they're pretty much stuck finding new songs to replace that person's signature pieces. They really need their own megahit single and it probably won't happen with this concert because there just isn't enough original music on the program. The most likely pop hit is Oh America, but that's already out there as a single and to be honest, when I want a patriotic song about America, I don't turn to Celtic Woman. As Mom watched the women singing their little hearts out about how they heard America's call, Mom turned to me and we had this conversation:

Mom: Aren't they Irish?
Me: Yep.
Mom: And they're in Ireland.
Me: Yep.
Mom: So this song really has nothing to do with anything.
Me: Pretty much.

They also sang Danny Boy because we haven't heard it enough times on their other DVDs.

Mom also noted that the DVD appears to go out of it's way to feature Chloe Agnew. My guess is that they're already figuring that Celtic Woman is starting to wear out its profitability and that Chloe is the best bet for a break out soloist who could tour on her own. At least, that's my best guess. Last year, Celtic Woman's tour came to several different locations in my area. This year, their closest concert is in Sacramento. That suggests that ticket sales in this area were not all that might be hoped for.

All that said, I watch Celtic Woman for the pretty dresses, pretty sets and synchronized waving arms, all of which were there in abundance. The show was filmed at the Powerscourt mansion and gardens which are lovely. Sadly, the set is designed so that you don't get much in the way of background. I think this may be to allow for the pyrotechnics and fireworks during the big numbers. The first half dresses are slim and appear to be a white/grey/beige/ivory palette. They're some of the most flattering dresses they've worn, although my Mom still prefers the ANJ dresses. The second half dresses are pastel colored and very very very very poofy. We're talking the full on six-tiered princess hoop poofy. The bodices are lovely, but the skirts have some strange shapes thanks to the madness of the poof. You just have to see it. Actually, the very prettiest dresses are worn by the choir, surprisingly enough. The women in the choir have lovely green gowns. There are also a small army of hot celtic drummers and an entire corps of bagpipers. Good stuff.

So, if you're new to Celtic Woman, I'd suggest buying A New Journey, which is probably the most fun Celtic Woman DVD. If you love Celtic Woman, you'll probably enjoy Songs From the Heart and if you hate Celtic Woman, you'll probably end up hating them even more after this DVD. 

For extra fun- songs you won't be seeing on PBS:

Carolina Rua- sneakily recorded at a live concert

True Colors- on the DVD but not on PBS special

Tags: celtic woman, reviews

This time around, I have promised myself that we are putting an end to the cranky faces and entitled attitudes at performance classes. Everyone is expected to stay the entire time (unless they have a very good excuse, like being 5 years old or under.) I am not allowing people to show up halfway through class, demand to sing right now and then proceed to talk or text while waiting for their turn because they don't think they should have to wait for the people who arrived on time to have their turns. Come to think of it, I'll make them draw numbers out of hat. That way, the process will be 100% fair and unbiased. I'll start off with the Mildred Binglebat version of my solo which they get to tear apart like it's American Idol, then I sing it again taking their critique into account. That way, no one has to sing first and they can all get the hang of how things work and they get to laugh a bit. Then we're off and running with the performing.

As fate would have it, I was actually pretty content about tonight's eliminations on SYTYCD. All I really wanted was for the married couple to either go to the top 6 together or get eliminated together. I hated losing any of the guys and I thought all the girls could be great in the finale. All in all, I think the last dance show could be pretty awesome, provided the choreographers bring it this time around.

And here's your excerpt for the day. I'll probably have to stop doing these pretty soon or friendslock them, since I think there are rules about how much of a novel I can give away and still make it publishable:


“I don’t cheat,” Little Sally insisted, “I would never cheat. I just know things because I know them, that’s all.”

“I got the impression that knowing things isn’t really the point,” I said. I was treading carefully because I had friends for once, and I wasn’t going to risk screwing that up.

I find it odd that last year's holiday season was so sucky that I'm actually flashing back to it. Last year, I had Jury Duty the week of Christmas which was a pile of suck and we didn't get out of school until after Solstice which was another pile of suck and everything seemed kind of dark and miserable all the time. I think "Can it really have been that horrible?" then I remember that I'm actually still creeped out by last Christmas so it probably was that crappy. *sigh*

This year is better. Well, we have LED lights now so the front yard doesn't look all tatty and ghetto, so it must be better. So there. Today, I'm dropping off presents for the office staff at work. It's all part of my campaign to get this stuff out of my cluttered up personal space, but in a nice way. Or something like that.

I'm terrible at writing villains. In fact, I think most "evil" is entirely fictional. No one goes around thinking "My god, what a loathsome, greedy monster I am. Well, off to make the world a slightly less nice place!" Everyone thinks, however misguidedly, that they are doing the right thing and that their ends justifies the means, no matter how terrible those means might be.

Oh, and have an excerpt, while you're here:

We were supposed to be learning about phytoplankton and algae. That meant taking a lot of notes, and then looking at slides under the microscope, which the three of us passed back and forth in total silence. I think the only thing the three of us had in common was a lack of hoodies. Most kids, you know, the normal kids who had friends and didn’t look like angry supermodels, wore a zip-up hoodie in black or grey under their blazer that was allowed as long as you didn’t have designs or writing on it- well, designs or writing that people could see, anyway. Both Isabeau and Will wore pullover sweaters under their blazers like I had. You had to wear layers because the building was pretty old and it wasn’t very warm. I’d actually been figuring that I’d ditch the sweater after chapel, but once I was inside my first classroom, it was clear that wasn’t going to happen.

All of my students who auditioned for the upcoming youth theater musical have callbacks for leading roles. One has his first callback ever for a singing part and it's for the lead which is a big accomplishment.

I need a new black dress. My old one shredded at the seams. It's sitting in my waste basket because I can't bear to carry it out to the trash. It seems like such a waste, even though I know the dang thing can't be repaired and I can't exactly give a busted dress to charity because it isn't as if anyone else can fix it. Unless they have magic. Which doesn't seem at all likely.

It was freezing cold today. It even snowed in my area. But not here. We got freezing rain. Which sucked considering that other people had snow. I am so done with the cold weather kthnx. It isn't even pretty cold weather, it's just cold.

And here's the latest in novel land:

I don’t need to bore you with the details of my entire school day, do I? I had classes. There were other kids in them with me. Talking happened. Learning happened. Do I really need to spell it all out for you? Even I’m not that interested in the minutia of my class schedule. So, I’ll just cover the interesting bits and you can imagine whatever you want to for the rest. Pretend I was taking AP Ancient Sumerian and Underwater Basket Weaving, that should keep you entertained.

Know what sucks about being a professional singer? Saving all those dang tax receipts. My 2009 envelope is stuffed to overflowing and I am constantly sorting through every last paper to find the ones that can be deducted. It is so ridiculously annoying. When people tell me they want to be professional singers, my first question is "How do you feel about doing your own accounting?" In theory, I could attempt to organize the papers as I go, but the reality is that I don't have a complete picture of my year until December 31st and I can't organize and file until I know what I'm going to be dealing with.

I am writing Chapter two right now, so here's the last bit of Chapter One. I actually had to look up Junior Year AP English Classes to figure out what books they might be reading:

We were supposed to be reading The Great Gatsby. I had already read it, so I had no trouble catching up. The only empty seat was towards the far side of the room, next to the meanest girl in class. I don’t mean that she was a bully, she just made it really obvious that she was above all of petty high school concerns. When we were supposed to be doing group discussion, she pretty much ignored me, forgot my name and rolled her eyes when the boys talked to her. Apparently, boys really like girls who are really cranky. Go figure.

“That’s Isabeau,” Laura told me in the hall, “she’s like that with everyone. She’s much too good for peons like us. The only person she talks to is Will Brightson.”

“Who’s Will Brightson?” I asked.

“Oh don’t worry,” Laura said as we headed to our separate classes, “you can’t possibly miss him.”

I dunno guys, I think I can't read the singer forums anymore. It's like someone going to AAA and saying "I need a road map for my journey of the soul. Also, could you highlight the best route to personal fulfillment?"

This is stuff that you have to work out on your own. These are questions that strangers on the internet cannot and should not be answering.

Speaking of personal journeys, I am having the worst time shopping for my friends. All of them are depressed and making big changes in their lives. Sadly, people don't respond well when you send them gift certificates for therapy. "Wishing you all the blessings of this holiday season. I am so grateful to have you in my life but your personality could use some work. Enjoy!" Yeah, I just don't see that working out. *

I can't get everyone the same goodies as I gave them last year, because it would be lazy and unfeeling and the last thing that a depressed friend needs is further proof that no one really cares about them all that much. Lazy giving is only acceptable when we're all in a good mood. So, I have to figure out who needs to drown their sorrows in chocolate versus who just committed themselves to a diet of seaweed and styrofoam. I have to remember who would be perked up by some cheesy entertainment on DVD versus who has sworn off all forms of entertainment until their latest novel/film project/performance art involving raspberry jello and an upright vacuum cleaner is finally completed. The giving part is fun, but the shopping part kind of sucks.

On a positive note, at least we're all depressed which puts us on the same page. It's so much more pleasant this way than when we have one shiny happy person gumming up our lovely misery. Misery loves company but only the company of other equally miserable people. If one of us was all happy, we'd probably have to exclude them until being excluded made them depressed enough to be included again.

I see by the clock that it's time for me to eat my delicious, healthy salad. Joy. So here's a book except to keep you amused while I eat like an angry anorexic rabbit:

“You’re Cherry, right?” I heard a girl’s voice behind me. I turned and saw a pair of chocolate eyes in a chocolate face looking back at me, “I’m Little Sally. My mom is Big Sally. She works with your mom. She said I should look out for you.”

I said, “Hi.” Yes, I know. I’m a brilliant conversationalist.

* I'm just going to take a moment to point out that all of my friends who went to therapy have nothing but good things to say about it. Therapy is a really positive thing when you're terminally cranky.

I think that the last week of music lessons before the holidays will be devoted to partying. We might as well make things fun for the people who can make it to lessons, right? Since we have the vacation coming up, I know that most people won't be practicing, so there's not much point to starting new music. The recital will be done, so we won't have old music to work on either. So, it's a good time to celebrate a bit as we chat about what we've achieved and what we want to work on in 2010. I'm also thinking that a mock audition party would be fun. The kids seem to love it, especially when I perform as Mildred Binglebat the worst performer ever and then I ask them to tell me everything that went wrong with my performance. That was very well-received.

At this point in time, people have stopped sending me hateful e-mails about this group or other. I don't get mad or nasty about that stuff. I just point out the dreadful things that my own racial/religious demographic has perpetrated and then I explain that I don't want to be a the kind of person who thinks that it is okay to inflict suffering on anyone else. Hurting people cannot change the past. It cannot heal my injuries. All it can do is turn me into a crueler, colder person and I don't want that. I want to be better than that.

The hardest thing about writing my current project was getting away from the "That stupid book about vampires sucks and I'm totally going to riff on it" to a more honest place where I could write characters who made sense. I'm also thinking that our heroine might just barely survive this time around. So, have another excerpt from Chapter One in all its lengthy glory:


I bet you’re wondering if I’m pretty. This is the part where I stand in front of the mirror, so I can describe what I look like, right? That’s what you’re expecting, isn’t it? I think you need to ask yourself whether or not it even matters. Would I be a different person if my hair was darker or lighter? Would it give you some special insight into my soul if I said that I had freckles? You’re just going to have to deal with not knowing. I’m not going to dissect my appearance for your amusement. I didn’t look as old as I would have liked. I was probably better looking than I thought I was. That’s all your gonna get from me.

Dear LJ:

Why are you suddenly defaulting to HTML instead of rich text? Don't you understand that I only use HTML to adjust the cut tags because Rich Text always makes them come out all goofy?

And in other news, I completed chapter one of the worst novel ever. It's about 4200 words long. Here are a few of them:

“What gotten into you, Charlene?” My mom had asked almost before I’d finished the first sentence. Look, you try and be cool when your name is “Charlene.” It can’t be done. There are no cool people named “Charlene.” So, I had decided that from now on, my name was going to be “Cherry.” No, I don’t really have a good reason for that. It just seemed like the kind of name that a girl who was cool might have. You could always get stuff with cherries on it, and that way no one could possibly forget who I was. It would be obvious. I was Cherry. Duh. I already had a pair of bright red plastic cherries clipped to my backpack and they made a clacking sound whenever I moved. You couldn’t miss me. It was perfect.