The Rite of Spring: 100 Creepy Years

The radio informed me this morning that today is the 100th anniversary of the premier of Igor Stravinsky's famous Rite of Spring.  Sadly, I probably should have known this fact without the help of the radio, but I graduated two years ago now, which means that things like the dates of various compositions are no longer stored in my brain.  Instead I think about things like "Why is this grade not showing up on this kid's report card?  How do I fix it?"

That's beside the point, however.  The Rite of Spring is a unique piece that caused a legitimate riot at its first performance in Paris.  The music is frightening enough by itself, but when you realize that the whole thing is a ballet, you're liable to be terrified.  If you're not already familiar with the story, I'll give you a brief synopsis: a pagan tribe in Russia believes that in order to appease their tyrannical gods, a young girl must be sacrificed each year by way of dancing herself to death.  Fun stuff! 

On my way home this evening, the same radio station that announced the anniversary played a recording of the entire piece.  It was dark.  The rhythmic, uneven chords pulsated and dynamic changes happened suddenly and without warning.  Then rain started pouring down and thunder rolled menacingly.  All at once I could see the ballet in my head, and I pictured the pagan tribe emerging from the trees on either side of the road.  Never has music been quite so emotionally effective as this experience.

I reached over and made sure that my car doors were decidedly locked.

For your viewing pleasure, I'm adding links to a ballet performance that recreates the original choreography by Vaslav Nijinsky.  Please promise me that you won't watch it right before going to bed...

Part 1:


Part 2:

Part 3:

Vegetables

Earlier this week, Jenni challenged her readers to blog every day through the month of May.

Obviously, I failed on Day 1.

However, in an effort to make up for it, I'm just going to go ahead and post more than once!  Since it's already the 5th of May, I probably won't go so far as to post five full times, but I have to start somewhere, right?

I forgot that spring in Massachusetts is gorgeous.  There are flowers everywhere and the weather just makes you happy to be alive.  I don't know how I survived 18 springs in Vermont,where "spring" is just a euphemism for Mud Season.  It snows, then it rains and the ground gets absolutely mud-soaked, and then it's summer.  So while I will exhort the virtues of Vermont for 75% of the year, Mud Season counts for the 25% during which I would caution you to avoid it at all costs unless you really enjoy having broken axels on your car.

I digress.

All that to say, spring in MA is perfect.  So perfect, in fact, that I chose this year to finally plant a garden.  For the first time in my life, I was more than excited to trek to Home Depot.  I was probably too excited, because as I went through the checkout line the cashier remarked, "Wow, someone's going to be busy for awhile..."

She was right.  I turned soil, dumped topsoil, raked, added garden soil, weeded, and finally planted for a good three hours straight.  But it paid off!  

I planted green and red peppers, lettuce, carrots, broccoli, strawberries, and cantaloupe.  Mentioning that I planted cantaloupe led a friend to exclaim, "Cantaloupe comes from the ground??"

Who knew?

Hopefully by the end of the summer, our vegetable shish-kebabs will have been homegrown!