Led Zeppelin is Good Stuff, and I guess Quakers are Frightening
Welcome, to all of you who, I'm sure, accidentally stumbled upon this humble blog. You're in for a real treat, I actually have some stuff I wanna write about. How fortionate for you.
So I had a very enjoyable weekend, for the most part. I auditioned for this new choral group a couple weeks ago here at Akron called A Capella Nuance, got accepted in, and went to my first practice on Friday. It's an all-male group that sings a capella music (obviously), so it sounds pretty sweet. I think that should all work out okay if I can get around to motivating myself to actually be responsible (a constant work in progress). As for now, I don't have time to get myself motivated, because I have a performance for this group on Thursday at "Guzzetta Idol" (A bizarre ideaofashow in itself that I won't get into here), so... yeah. I should probably get looking over that music...
Saturday, I sang in the Honors A Capella choir (I guess accompanied choirs are out of style nowadays) at a program for incoming freshman interested in the honors program. We did this once previously last semester, and it went pretty well, but I really didn't have a good feeling walking out of this one. Albeit, it was probably partially my own fault for missing the rehearsal last weekend, but overall, we were just missing a lot of people that I guess couldn't be there and things just didn't click. I was pretty embarrassed. The audience wasn't quite as responsive as I would have liked, and things just felt a little less solid. *sigh*. That's one thing I really don't like about playing an instrument- some days, you pick up the intstrument (unless you play piano or harp or something heavy like that) and it seems like an effortless endeavor to produce a sound of desireable quality, while other days you can hardly stand to play because things just aren't working. It really puts a damper on the festivities. That, combined with the on and off tendancy of my desire to get really good at singing or playing my trombone would be my largest hurdle to actually being successful this semester. But I think I'm getting a little too deep into my worries for a post that's supposed to be about my weekend.
So that didn't go so hot. The rest of the day, however, made up for it. My 'rents, Erin and Laura came on up to Akron and let me play host for the weekend. We chilled for a while, my parents got set in their Crowne Plaza Quaker Square hotel (more on that later) while Erin played her Game Boy Advance and I caught up with Laura. After that was all over with, I treated Erin and Laura to Starbucks, which was mostly just a ploy, because Laura loves Starbucks, a fact I will never understand, and I knew that they were not going to be keen on the idea of walking to the hotel in the ten-degree weather. Well, we persevered anyway, through a whole 10 minute walk of "It is so friggin' cold"s and "We need to walk faster!"s. I decided that, after the Thanksgiving Day Bowl here in Akron... well, nothing really feels quite as cold since then for some psychological reason. Unless maybe my genes mutated that day to adapt to the cold. I bet that's it.
Well, I've heard a lot about this Crowne Plaza Quaker Square hotel place. It's main selling point of novelty is that it's constructed out of old grain silos that were originally used to store oats for the Quaker Oats company. It all makes sense now, doesn't it? Anyway, It was kinda neat, a lot of rounded edges found here and there, and of course, the rooms were mostly round. A good idea and all, but in the meantime, Laura was freaking out about how weird quakers were, info I guess she learned in Government. I never really understood what exactly freaked her out so much about Quakers, but... I guess they must be scary. Although my father reassured her that the odds were that there weren't any Quakers in the hotel at this moment in time, and that it was just an advertising gimmick used in 1800s by the Quaker Oats Company, she was still really uncomfortable by the whole atmosphere of the place. Still, I thought it seemed pretty intense. I mean they have, like, a hotel, and a huge restaraunt filled with old, real trains inside that you can sit in to eat, and a ton of gift shops filled with comic books and retro posters and a whole room of humorous road signs, such as "The last car that parked here is still missing" and a bunch of "antique" crap that dad and I agreed we could probably make ourselves if we really, really wanted to, and a pie shop, and one of those old photography kind of places that dresses you up in pioneer stuff that you always see at places like Cedar Point and everyone claims that you'll get lice from, and ANOTHER restaranut place that was pretty big that we ate brunch in Sunday morning, and... who knows what else. Probably some secret rooms that the people who are still Quakers meet in and plot to destroy the evil in modern society... or whatever they did. Maybe I'm thinking of Puritains? I dunno.
After all that, we went to the main attraction: "The Music of Led Zeppelin, featuring The Akron Symphony Orchestra". It was pretty funny, there were a lot of people there wearing Led Zeppelin attire, looking rather Led Zeppelin-esque, and they were all very excited. It all started normally enough, but right before the first song, this guy a few rows behind us yelled, "Zeppelin!" and everyone started cheering. I'm not exactly the most experienced Led Zeppelin fan, I just have a few albums from Scott that I really enjoy, so most of the material was new stuff to me, but the ones I knew were really well done. Dad and I agreed that a lot of vocal backing used in the real songs felt missing from the arrangements, since it was basically just a guy singing every song a la Robert Plant with an acoustic guitar for some songs, accompanied by the symphony (including an electric violin, which I had never really seen before). So, all in all, it was a really good concert, and an equally good weekend.
As usual, though, I didn't do much schoolwork over the weekend, so... uh... maybe I should get on that.
-Jimmy
So I had a very enjoyable weekend, for the most part. I auditioned for this new choral group a couple weeks ago here at Akron called A Capella Nuance, got accepted in, and went to my first practice on Friday. It's an all-male group that sings a capella music (obviously), so it sounds pretty sweet. I think that should all work out okay if I can get around to motivating myself to actually be responsible (a constant work in progress). As for now, I don't have time to get myself motivated, because I have a performance for this group on Thursday at "Guzzetta Idol" (A bizarre ideaofashow in itself that I won't get into here), so... yeah. I should probably get looking over that music...
Saturday, I sang in the Honors A Capella choir (I guess accompanied choirs are out of style nowadays) at a program for incoming freshman interested in the honors program. We did this once previously last semester, and it went pretty well, but I really didn't have a good feeling walking out of this one. Albeit, it was probably partially my own fault for missing the rehearsal last weekend, but overall, we were just missing a lot of people that I guess couldn't be there and things just didn't click. I was pretty embarrassed. The audience wasn't quite as responsive as I would have liked, and things just felt a little less solid. *sigh*. That's one thing I really don't like about playing an instrument- some days, you pick up the intstrument (unless you play piano or harp or something heavy like that) and it seems like an effortless endeavor to produce a sound of desireable quality, while other days you can hardly stand to play because things just aren't working. It really puts a damper on the festivities. That, combined with the on and off tendancy of my desire to get really good at singing or playing my trombone would be my largest hurdle to actually being successful this semester. But I think I'm getting a little too deep into my worries for a post that's supposed to be about my weekend.
So that didn't go so hot. The rest of the day, however, made up for it. My 'rents, Erin and Laura came on up to Akron and let me play host for the weekend. We chilled for a while, my parents got set in their Crowne Plaza Quaker Square hotel (more on that later) while Erin played her Game Boy Advance and I caught up with Laura. After that was all over with, I treated Erin and Laura to Starbucks, which was mostly just a ploy, because Laura loves Starbucks, a fact I will never understand, and I knew that they were not going to be keen on the idea of walking to the hotel in the ten-degree weather. Well, we persevered anyway, through a whole 10 minute walk of "It is so friggin' cold"s and "We need to walk faster!"s. I decided that, after the Thanksgiving Day Bowl here in Akron... well, nothing really feels quite as cold since then for some psychological reason. Unless maybe my genes mutated that day to adapt to the cold. I bet that's it.
Well, I've heard a lot about this Crowne Plaza Quaker Square hotel place. It's main selling point of novelty is that it's constructed out of old grain silos that were originally used to store oats for the Quaker Oats company. It all makes sense now, doesn't it? Anyway, It was kinda neat, a lot of rounded edges found here and there, and of course, the rooms were mostly round. A good idea and all, but in the meantime, Laura was freaking out about how weird quakers were, info I guess she learned in Government. I never really understood what exactly freaked her out so much about Quakers, but... I guess they must be scary. Although my father reassured her that the odds were that there weren't any Quakers in the hotel at this moment in time, and that it was just an advertising gimmick used in 1800s by the Quaker Oats Company, she was still really uncomfortable by the whole atmosphere of the place. Still, I thought it seemed pretty intense. I mean they have, like, a hotel, and a huge restaraunt filled with old, real trains inside that you can sit in to eat, and a ton of gift shops filled with comic books and retro posters and a whole room of humorous road signs, such as "The last car that parked here is still missing" and a bunch of "antique" crap that dad and I agreed we could probably make ourselves if we really, really wanted to, and a pie shop, and one of those old photography kind of places that dresses you up in pioneer stuff that you always see at places like Cedar Point and everyone claims that you'll get lice from, and ANOTHER restaranut place that was pretty big that we ate brunch in Sunday morning, and... who knows what else. Probably some secret rooms that the people who are still Quakers meet in and plot to destroy the evil in modern society... or whatever they did. Maybe I'm thinking of Puritains? I dunno.
After all that, we went to the main attraction: "The Music of Led Zeppelin, featuring The Akron Symphony Orchestra". It was pretty funny, there were a lot of people there wearing Led Zeppelin attire, looking rather Led Zeppelin-esque, and they were all very excited. It all started normally enough, but right before the first song, this guy a few rows behind us yelled, "Zeppelin!" and everyone started cheering. I'm not exactly the most experienced Led Zeppelin fan, I just have a few albums from Scott that I really enjoy, so most of the material was new stuff to me, but the ones I knew were really well done. Dad and I agreed that a lot of vocal backing used in the real songs felt missing from the arrangements, since it was basically just a guy singing every song a la Robert Plant with an acoustic guitar for some songs, accompanied by the symphony (including an electric violin, which I had never really seen before). So, all in all, it was a really good concert, and an equally good weekend.
As usual, though, I didn't do much schoolwork over the weekend, so... uh... maybe I should get on that.
-Jimmy
posted by Jimmy at 3:49 PM
4 Comments:
Shakers, AND Quakers are freak as heck! FREAAAKKYYY.
...so now we(mom and I)are just abbreviations?
Sounds like a rockin' good time!!!! Whoo!!! Oh, and Quakers aren't necessarily weird...just different...for instance they sort of evolved from Medieval Mysticism, which was the believe in a 3 step approach to going to heaven...Puging yourself of sin, Illuminating through God, and finally have a union with God. An example of this was an individual named Hadewijch (spelling?) who had visions of God, which were was the illumination step...and then God came upon her....and yeah...she had sexual fantasies with God, which were considered the Union part of the deal. Now whether or not Quakers actually evolved from these dudes...I don't know, but I do know that all that mumbo-jumbo about the medieval mysticism might be on my religion final so I should probably study it some more...jeesh...
Oh...and the anonymous entry was me...Scotty.
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