family music

Matteo Mancuso at the Dakota Jazz Club

Hubby and I celebrated our anniversary with an evening out at the Dakota Jazz Club in Minneapolis to see Matteo Mancuso. Let me just say that we would both do that again in a heartbeat. We had never been to the Dakota before. It’s the perfect size venue for live music for this time in our lives. Yes, we’re now Olds, and we prefer more intimate venues where the volume doesn’t blow out our eardrums…

Continue reading

art design family music observations

Pre-Raphaelite Florence – Styling Musicians & Bands

Hubby bought me the entire collection of Florence + the Machine compact discs (CDs) for my birthday. There are five albums: Lungs (2009) Ceremonials (2011) How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful (2015) High As Hope (2018) Dance Fever (2022) I had heard the song “Dog Days Are Over” from Lungs quite some time ago and was impressed with both the song and video. Over the past year, I looked up more of the band’s videos…

Continue reading

family Frankensteining the Talent Pool inspiration music

FtTP: Aurora & Devin Townsend

Welcome to a new edition of Frankensteining the Talent Pool, a long-running but occasional series on my blog, wherein I express my wishes for talented people I’d like to see work together. I’ve done this series often enough that I have a category for it. Click the Frankensteining the Talent Pool link above the blog post title to see more in this category. Over the holiday season, I got Hubby a couple of Devin Townsend…

Continue reading

art family fiber art inspiration music products

Practical Christmas Gifts

I am surprised I haven’t written about this before, but I love practical Christmas gifts. While some might open a present of socks and groan, I’m like, “Socks? Sign me up!” Here is the funky pair of Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation socks Eldest Son and his partner got me this year for Christmas. They picked this particular pair because they know of my penchant for circles. What makes a gift practical in my eyes is…

Continue reading

music observations

Main Character Energy

My daughter recently used the term “main character energy” when describing a mutual acquaintance. As in, “That person has main character energy!” In the past, we might have said a person “lights up a room” with their personality. A person with main character energy is someone you can’t take your eyes off of because their personality is so magnetic. It’s meant to describe someone with positive energy, not a Debbie Downer or Dastardly Do-Badder. Obviously,…

Continue reading