“Over My Head”
“The Gospel in a Word”
Virtual Choir: Sleep
This talk on TED by Eric Whitacre gives context to this beautiful video:
Maybe Mediocre and Loving Life Anyway
A while back there was this delightful comic, and then there was this delightful Fresh Air interview that my mom told me about:
I feel so affirmed!
And by the way, my band has a gig in the works for which the venue is confidently charging admission. This is new and strange for us. You mean there’s a contract we sign? Our website will announce details as things are sured up.
Shameless Self Promotion
I have never once said there has ever been a time when my primary concern wasn’t making myself look good. If I had, it wouldn’t have sounded very sincere, since I’ve had a blog now for quite some time, and there can’t be anything too much more vainglorious than a blog.
But it’s true: As a single dude, I had to sell myself to potential spouses. (Don’t worry, I didn’t turn into a slob as soon as I married.) As a teacher, I have to sell myself–almost as a personality, I like to imagine–to my students, both to command authority and to be interesting enough to learn from. As a musician, I need people to enjoy me and my music so they will buy recordings and leave tips (and so they will enjoy themselves, too).
Anyway, you know those ads that show up along the side of your Google searches? Let’s say you type in “generators”; an ad for “Vainglory Generators, Inc.” might show up on the side. I confess: For a time, I became one of Them.
See, Google mailed me a first-time-user promotional code worth $100 to start using Adwords. The deal was that my ad would run alongside results for searches using keywords that I would select, and each time the user clicked on my ad (thereby visiting my website), a small amount would be deducted from the $100. When my money ran out, my ads would slurp to a stop.
I quickly put together an ad for my band’s cd, and now, about two weeks later, I have 28 promotional cents left. My ad showed up 438,624 times, netting me 397 clicks. Website page views skyrocketed. Sales…well, the jury’s out hanging on that one. iTunes and Amazon don’t report their sales to our distributor, CD Baby, for like millions of weeks, so maybe the band’s made it big on those sites but I just don’t know it yet.
As for sales from CD Baby, which reports immediately, we’ve had none since the campaign launched.
But as M often sighed when I gave her website traffic updates, “C, does any of that really matter?”
Sleeping Child
I dug this out of last month’s folder; N was going through a phase (it lasted an interrupted two nights before I insisted on her sleeping in her bed) of cozying up with her tape player on the floor for the night.
Delicious
While the storms that crossed our region have cost much of many, for me they provided a surprise two-hour delay. I relished that email notification, especially since it arrived along with verification that our band’s new album is now for sale on iTunes and CDBaby.
I used the morning hours to update our website, read books with my daughter, enjoy the fresh smell of rained fields, and bicycle off to school at a more-than-sane hour.
Along my ride, who should putter onto my rear-view mirror but my brother-in-law J. I had a good lead on him, but knowing he would eventually pass me–he was in a truck, after all–I put the sneakers to the pedals and, with the wind behind me as it was (and the slope being downhill, all in all), enjoyed the glory of maintaining a noteworthy distance for quite a little distance.
“I bet he’s thinking, ‘Now I know why he eats so much!'” I thought to myself.
I called him later to find out just how fast I was going: 30mph.
“That was impressive,” he said. “Now I know why you eat so much!”
Musical Exposure
Believe it or not, it was only the other week that I began to appreciate Michael Jackson. I was learning a couple songs for a school event, and came across these videos:
And then there were others also refreshing:
God’s Right Hand Man
It was spookily not unlike what some might call not coincidence but Godincidence.
See, I’d been inspired, in church yesterday, to begin writing a song. Inspiration often strikes me in church, when people say things that either puzzle, intrigue, offend, or appall me. An example of a typical inspirational tidbit would be “God told me to do such-and-such,” or “God made this happen,” or “I am grateful to be the hands and feet of God at my work.” This type of talk just strikes me as, well, I don’t know. Not right? Overly ambitious or knowing? Extremely dangerous? Oh, I know! Great material for a song!
Then, after church, before I’d developed the song beyond a few key phrases, M and I loaded N into her backpack and went for a little walk during which M debriefed from her reading of Jon Krakauer’s very sobering Under the Banner of Heaven: A Story of Violent Faith about Mormon fundamentalism in which God “tells” certain people (narcissistic men, anyway) to do things (including murder) and the people around them go along with these divine edicts. (Note to self: read the book sometime.)
The resulting song is obviously one to be sung only in devout sincerity. Here it is in its stately day-old perfection:
N Sings “Baby Jesus”
Hoping to tone down the Christmas story’s happiness hype that is probably blown way out of proportion, I decided to write a “subcant” for what has been one of N’s favorite songs for quite some time. She helped me by singing the original tune so I could figure out some of the back story text and melody (neither of which is decipherable here):
Taylor-Krauss Sweetocity