Tag: choir

Sister Leslie loves music

Happy birthday, Leslie!

No doubt: sister Leslie loves music.

I’ve known Leslie longer than almost anyone. Perhaps I met a cousin of my father in the couple of years I was alive before Leslie was born, but I have no specific recollection of that.

I grew up with Leslie. We went to the same elementary school with an ancient music book from which we sang. When I found a facsimile several years ago, I had to send her a copy.

I remember which LPs were hers and which were mine. She had, among others, Lady Soul – Aretha, Look at Us – Sonny and Cher, and Supremes A Go-Go. We, along with our little sister and a neighbor girl, would lipsynch to the songs of my Beatles VI album. Leslie was Paul because he was left-handed, like her, and cute. 

Of course, we attended the same church and sang in two different iterations of the junior choir. One was the MAZET singers, which our father directed.  MAZET is an anagram of the initials of Trinity African Methodist Episcopal Zion. Eventually, we both sang in the senior choir, though she was there longer than I did because I went away to college.

Trio

I’ve mentioned the Green Family Singers, which are comprised of Dad, Leslie, and me, in the past. She learned to play guitar functionally in about a month! Not incidentally, she now owns Dad’s steel-stringed Gibson guitar, but playing it is tough on her fingers.

Leslie and I sang in the Binghamton Central High School choir together for a year and a half. If we could find a soprano and tenor who knew the other parts, we could probably still sing some of that music from memory.

She was in a series of pop bands around Binghamton, the only one I remember being called Crystal Ship. Also, she attended what is now Binghamton University, where she participated in choirs. She was also in a few musicals in the community theater, including A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Forum and Hair; she kept her clothes on.

Her primary source of income was when she moved to Puerto Rico in the early 80s. I wish I had come down and seen her.

SoCal

When she moved to southern California,  she sang in church and community choirs. I have a couple of her church choir’s Christmas concerts, and she almost always has a solo. Occasionally, she’s even directed a couple of church choirs.

When she was on a tour ship with her daughter, the singer Rebecca Jade, in 2018, she got to duet with Larry Graham of Sly and the Family Stone. She participated in singing the Mozart Requiem at Carnegie Hall in 2022, which my daughter and I enjoyed seeing.

Leslie recently visited a music store going out of business and learned about a slim guitar from Canada with nylon strings called Godin. On her next visit, it was marked down, though still pricey. With the help of her favorite daughter, she bought it! Moreover, she’s enjoying relearning the tunes she used to play.

Leslie and I can have very arcane conversations about music on a Zoom call with our baby sister. “Do you remember how that chord structure worked?” Marcia’s eyes glaze over. When I wrote recently that I love to sing the bass harmony, even when I’m in the congregation, Leslie sent me a message saying, “Oh yeah, I totally sing alto in the congregation.” We have the same sort of sensibility.

This picture from the San Diego Master Chorale epitomizes her joy of music. So, happy birthday, Leslie. May music always be in your heart; I know that it will.

Albany County is in COVID yellow

The power of the Session

COVID yellowAfter months in COVID red, or orange, as the CDC seemingly now designates it, Albany County was designated in COVID yellow as of November 3. Other counties in the metro area, such as Schenectady and Saratoga, have been yellow or green during most of that time.

It was frustrating. “As of November 3, 2022, there are 78 (2.0%) counties, districts, or territories with a high COVID-19 Community Level, 614 (20.1%) counties with a medium Community Level, and 2,525 (77.5%) counties with a low Community Level.” So MOST of the country is in green. There are a few patches of red in eastern Montana and western North Dakota and a few other clusters. Why have my county’s numbers run so stubbornly high?

As we were rehearsing in the choir masked one week ago, one of the basses got a message on his phone indicating the change. There was an audible cheer as about 75% of the masks immediately came off. Fist-pumping may have taken place. While singing with masks is better than not singing at all, it still rather sucks.

The Session did it

My church’s Session met to update the orange/red COVID guidelines just the day before. As my wife is in the Session, I can attest that the online meeting was LONG. Among the new policies, choir members and soloists may take a COVID test on Sunday morning and, if they are negative, remove their masks for the service. The choir was THRILLED by this.

“In addition, Session voted to allow masked congregational singing in the orange/red level.” This is great because the church sounds dispirited without it.

The fact that the FPC Session hashed out these new guidelines with the huge assistance of an ad hoc practically ASSURED that Albany County would finally move to yellow. It’s the power of Presbyterians operating in good and decent order.

So if/when Albany sinks back to orange/red – which COULD happen again as early as 8 pm tonight – the church will have a new, somewhat less restrictive procedure. I still have a few COVID tests gathering dust.

Still, the liminal COVID time

to mask or not to mask

liminalSomehow, I had missed the word liminal until the last couple of years. One of my pastors used it in a sermon, more than once, referring to the liminal time we were in. And, I will argue, we’re still in it when it comes to COVID.

The word is an English adjective meaning ‘on the threshold’, from Latin līmen, plural limina.” In anthropology and religion, liminality is “the quality of ambiguity or disorientation that occurs in the middle stage of a rite of passage.” And in psychology, liminal experiences are “feelings of abandonment (existentialism) associated with death, illness, disaster, etc.”

Governor Kathy Hochul (D-NY) announced plans that the state mask requirement in schools would end starting on March 2, 2022. What that means is that people have the CHOICE whether to wear a mask in those settings or not. My wife, a teacher, is still wearing one. In fact, in addition to her own safety, she finds it important to model that behavior for her K-8 students. My daughter is also wearing her mask. She guesstimates that 75% of her high school colleagues are doing likewise.

Florida man

So the remarks of Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) surprisingly really roiled me. In 2021, he said, “It is prudent to protect the ability of parents to make decisions regarding the wearing of masks by their children,” and parents “absolutely have every right to equip their student with whatever types of masks that they want.”

Yet, at a Florida high school this month, “DeSantis on-camera Wednesday told the students, ‘You do not have to wear those masks. I mean, please take them off. Honestly, it’s not doing anything and we’ve gotta stop with this COVID theater.’ Clearly angry, he added: “So if you want to wear it, fine, but this is ridiculous.'”

So what happened to parental choice? He claimed he wasn’t bullying, only making sure that HE didn’t want people to think he was mandating their mask-wearing. Of course, I’m unsurprised, given his other policies.

As for me, I’m STILL wearing the masks indoors. Unlike Kelly, I don’t forget I’m wearing one, especially while singing at church. But at least I AM singing at church. And [crosses fingers] maybe that’ll go away soon.

It gets better

I was talking with my wife about how difficult going to the grocery store had been. There were arrows designating which lanes to go up and down. They were violated regularly, but they’d be coming in tandem the wrong way. Not only that but people who needed something where my wife or I were standing – and we didn’t shop at the same place – would reach over or even in front of us. Talk about lack of social distance. And this was WORSE in the pandemic. I theorize that people wanted to get in and out of the store as soon as possible. I seldom experienced the behavior either before COVID or in recent weeks.

My wish is that people show grace to each other in this liminal time. Let the masked be masked. And remember there are still places – some medical facilities, a lot of transportation, and individual business – that still require masks. Don’t be a donkey’s rear end.

My friend Mike Attwell, RIP

lives by the spring

mike attwell croppedI don’t remember exactly when I met Mike Attwell – the late 1980s or early 1990s – but I certainly know where. My friend, the late Norm Nissen,  and I played racquetball at the Albany YMCA on Washington Avenue.

Some combination of Danny, Charlie, Mike, and his co-worker Alan wanted to know if we wanted to play games with partners, two on two; or cutthroat, in groups of three.  We did, and from that point until 2010, when the Y closed, we all played about thrice a week with whoever showed up, which eventually included Tyrone and others.

You learn a lot about a person when you play racquetball with them. Mike wasn’t the fastest guy; that’d be Tyrone. Or the best (Danny or Charlie). But he may have been the most tenacious. When we played as partners, he’d almost always play the front, because he anticipated well and could get to a lot of shots.

But, in the earlier days, he was also the hardest on himself, often spouting an invective that included MF, always at himself. Interestingly, I think he played better after he stopped the cursing.

After the Y closed, he occasionally drove me to Siena College so we could play with some of the others, but it fell by the wayside.

Singing

In 2000, when I started attending First Presbyterian Church, I got to sing with Mike. I might have participated in a FOCUS service or two with him, but this was the first time on a weekly basis. 

You learn a lot about a person when you sing with them.  Mike, a tenor, was usually present unless he was traveling. He worked hard to get his part right. When the weather was lousy, he’d sometimes give me a ride home after choir rehearsal.

I got to see him in other aspects of church life, notably on the finances. He explained to the congregation the fiscal responsibility of the use of the endowment. This could be MEGO territory, but Mike, who dealt with numbers for New York State, explained it amazingly well. 

In August of 2003, he married Sue, again. They’d been married in a private ceremony six months earlier. But as the pastor noted at the time, they wanted to have a public event so their church family could be witnesses.

At the reception, Mike was discussing a nice resort in Poland Springs, ME that he thought my wife and I should go to. It didn’t allow anyone under 18. (I believed they’ve since changed that rule.) We went that very month and had a lovely time. No one knew yet that my wife was pregnant, so it was a particularly sound suggestion.  

Bible guys

After I retired in 2019, I joined the Tuesday morning at 9 a.m. group of Bible Guys. But when COVID hit, my daughter’s school was remote, so she didn’t need to get up as early. The two groups then operated on something called ZOOM(?), so I ALSO joined the Thursday at 7 a.m. gathering.

Mike Attwell was in that Thursday group. He shared a lot of his personal biography, from his roots to certain difficulties in his past. I did not know this: The meaning of Attwell is “lives by the spring”, as in water, which seems apt.

Though the facilitator rotated, it was always Mike, who introduced the group to John van de Laar, offering prayer by the liturgist. I suppose if I were to pick one for Mike, who died last week, it might be this one, which begins:

In the midst of grief, we choose to celebrate,

because it reminds us of hope,

and brings comfort to our broken heart.

Nobody claim 2022 as “your year”

please don’t suck

2022 asA friend of mine posted this graphic on their Facebook feed. Nobody claim 2022 as “your year”. And I get it.

I got to sing in my church’s Christmas Eve service for the first time in two years, which was great. Now, I felt rusty but that was OK. In 2020, the church had audio and video of the choir’s prior performances shown on the Facebook feed. Listening to the sounds of our voices was OK; I’d been doing so almost every week for months of the regular service. but watching the film of me, and others, singing made me EXTREMELY melancholy.

The Boston Globe readers commented on the past year. The intro: “If 2020 felt like a year like no other, then 2021 felt like more of the same. One step forward and two steps back, or vice versa? It depended on the day. We saw vaccines rolled out, then resisted. Bitter partisanship kept its grip on our politics.”

I love the word hegemony

If I read this article, The Respite Is Coming to an End. “All around us we can see the forces of white nationalist authoritarianism engaged in a second, far more methodical, far better coordinated, and already more successful attempt to do what they failed to do on January 6, 2021. If matters continue on this path, the Biden administration will prove only a brief respite before those forces snuff out the grand American experiment and secure a permanent, counter-majoritarian chokehold on the erstwhile republic.” And it’s a compelling argument.

And Foreign Affairs had a piece, The Real Crisis of Global Order. Illiberalism on the Rise. It addresses, among other things, the collapse of US hegemony, which Trump’s election helped to create and Biden’s election almost certainly can’t fix. For instance, as the Daily Show illustrated, Why China Is in Africa.

Rodgers and Hammerstein

I’m already exhausted from 2022, like Sinatra or Gordon MacRae singing Soliloquy from Carousel, musing what “my boy Bill” will be like. “Say, why am I carrying on like this? My kid ain’t even been born yet.” And neither has 2022. Well, maybe in New Zealand.

Perhaps I need more humour and a stiff upper lip, like Queen Elizabeth who lost her husband, Prince Philip, in 2021, who she’d only been married to since 1947, before I was born.

So I’m going to decide that 2022 will be great! Of course, I will also retreat to the ‘trust but verify” position about the new year, which is a quote Ronald Reagan cleverly pilfered.

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