Wednesday, September 30, 2015

Kids Say the Darnedest Things About Accidentals

A student didn't carry a sharp through a measure in a recent lesson, and I started to review the procedure with him...

ME: What is the rule for accidentals--what do they do?
KID: They mess you up.

Friday, September 25, 2015

Oldtimers Say the Darnedest Things

Having lunch at a barbecue place today, I'm pretty sure I heard an older guy with a country accent order two "cold slaws." I laughed to myself when I heard that, but after some thought, I realized that "hot slaw" would probably be really nasty...

Friday, September 18, 2015

(College) Kids Say the Darnedest Things About Musical Styles

I haven't had time to post any KSTDT's lately, so here's one if the better recent ones: Someone fairly new to Latin music had an interesting question: "So how do you tell the difference between the samba, the mamba, the mambo, and all that?"

(After explaining the difference between the samba and the mambo, we were able to establish that the mamba is, in fact, a snake.)

Friday, September 11, 2015

The Years Go By, and Still, We Never Forget

Fourteen years ago today:
I was on a break from teaching, like every Tuesday, and actually spent the time of the attacks in blissful ignorance at the Rockwall Starbucks. I had CD's on in my car instead of the radio, so I totally missed the news on both the way over and the way back. I did hear someone listening to a radio on the patio and they were talking about "the second plane," but it didn't register with me at all. (It amazed me later that nobody walked inside and told us about it.)

When I got back to the school, the flute teacher stopped me in the hallway and asked me if all my students were being pulled out of school (evidently hers were). I said, "No, why?" and she told me what had happened. I spent the rest of the day like everyone else, in shocked, depressed amazement, catching the news when I could. There I was, not even two weeks into being a homeowner, and the world suddenly felt so different. It added to the pall cast over everything when I found out that the sister of a girl I graduated from high school with was on Flight 93, the one that crashed in a field in Pennsylvania. (Since it's common on this day to have roll calls of the people who were lost, I'll state her name here, with a link to her foundation: Lauren Catuzzi Grandcolas.)

The whole thing felt so surreal; how could anyone hate us that much? The concept of the suicide hijacking was unprecedented as well (before that, hijackers just usually wanted to go to Cuba, and that's why airline personnel were taught to cooperate with them rather than try to subdue them).

I know there are still terrorist plots being hatched, and people capable of carrying them out...but I hope nothing like this ever happens on U.S. soil again. Or anywhere, for that matter.
As I repost this in 2015, we know that the evil in our world is far from being eradicated (indeed, the past few years have seen evil showing its face even more, so it would seem). But I say once more, may we never forget, and may something of this nature never happen here again.