Too many deaths in the music industry in recent days. My favorite Bee Gees’ song:

Levon Helm, member of The Band passed away last month.

And Donna Summers, the queen of disco, lost her battle to cancer last week. Very sad.

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My daughter gave me a gift today, a gift guaranteed to make me dissolve into a puddle of tears – Love You Forever, written by Robert Munsch and illustrated by Sheila McGraw.  I don’t even need to open the book.  One glance at the cover and I’m a goner.  It’s like reading Charlotte’s Web or listening to Joni Mitchell sing The Circle Game or watching the movie, The Ghost and Mrs. Muir.

I may be tough, but I’m not that tough. When it comes to those I love, I love them with all my heart.

Life is fragile and fleeting.  As my father says– We are less than a speck of dust  on a speck of dust on a speck of dust, ad infinitum, in the wake of God’s footsteps.

People come and people go, but like the book says, Love You Forever.  Okay, I’m going to start crying all over again.

I wanted one thing out of life, one single thing, to be a mother.  I’m a mother times three.  And for that great gift, I’m humbled.  

On a lighter note – Ya’ll remember the movie, Parenthood, with Steve Martin?  I was raising three little kids when that movie came out and it was amazing how much the movie resembled our life.  My kids were a little younger, but…

Even this scene was straight out of our life– it happened a number of years later, except picture my husband in Steve Martin’s place and the game was basketball.  My husband coached our daughter’s underdog basketball team and they beat the undefeated previous year’s city champs in the championship game.  My kids still talk about how my husband did this:

We parents are a bit meshuggeh.

Happy Mother’s Day! Love, Julia

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I’m aware that many bloggers post a Monday Morning music meme.  I’ve never done it.  I have pretty eclectic tastes in music.  Love classical, jazz, blues, swing, old-school rock (i.e. in the vein of Buddy Holly and Jerry Lee Lewis), classic rock, country, folk– especially if there’s a fiddle involved, Soul music, some rap.  I even like good gospel music – not new-fangled gospel music, I like old-fangled gospel music.  Grew up on it.  My dad listened to straight up traditional Black southern gospel every Sunday morning.

Nevertheless, I have to be really careful with some songs.  I get earworms so easily. There is nothing worse than an earworm.  Per Wikipedia:

An earworm is a piece of music that sticks in one’s mind so that one seems to hear it, even when it is not being played.  One reason that this occurs is that melodic music tends to have a rhythm which repeats. This cyclical nature may cause endless repetition unless some way to achieve a climax is found which breaks the cycle.

Yes, dear god, can’t we all use a climax???

For example I must be careful around Elton John.  Candle in the Wind causes one of my most persistent earworms.  Even worse than Elton John is Andrew Lloyd Weber.  Every single one of his musicals is like a microscopic brain cell destroyer.  It’s as if his songs get injected into my blood stream ala Fantastic Voyage. Remember that movie?  The soundtrack from Evita nearly landed me in the emergency room.

Must be something about those knighted British musicians.  I bet they blackmailed the Queen, threatening her with earworms.  I think Andrew Lloyd Weber is a baron or something – yeah, for sure his songs got stuck in the Queen’s head.  What could she do but baron him?

So what’s my cure for an earworm?  Well, first of all, I run screaming from any hint of Elton John or Andrew Lloyd Weber music.  Fingers in ears, yelling “Lalalalalalalalalala” and all that.  If I fail, if I manage to catch even the slightest hint of a song, I have to immediately sing a Hebrew ditty, I think the words are taken from the Book of Isaiah:

Henei ma tov umanaim
Shevet achim gam yachad
Henei ma tov umanaim
Shevet achim gam yachad

Hinei ma tov (Henei ma tov)
Lai lai lai lai lai
Lai lai lai lai lai
Hinei ma tov (Henei ma tov)
Lai lai lai lai lai
Lai lai lai lai lai

I don’t know why, but it works.  Love this Vietnamese version-

Here’s a more traditional version-

Anyone else suffer from earworms?

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I love this photo of Lillian Evanti, (Annie Lillian Evans), an African-American opera singer born in 1890.  She could not sing opera in America.  In 1925 she moved to France, where she remained until the outbreak of WWII.

The photo was taken by one of the few African American photographers of the time, Addison Scurlock, a unique and courageous figure in his own right.

Just an interesting factoid for you.

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I bought her very first release and listened to it obsessively.  Still have it on a cassette tape. She had one of the most beautiful voices of all time.  What a great gift and what a tragic ending.  Go in peace, Ms. Houston.

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