Choir Festival

Last night my choir, Crowd Around, sang at the Blackheath Choir Festival. We've done the festival before but never on a Saturday night, which is the biggie, so to speak. August company included, Bellacapella, Icing On the Cake, Gay and Lesbian Choir and Men Wot Sing. We are like small town yokels amongst this group of giants, who all 'audition' prospective members. So there was pressure, if you know what I mean.

And I felt it. It was, I think the most difficult performance I have ever has to do. My throat was like a desert from our first walk-on and right before my solo in And So It Goes, I truly thought that my vocal folds would seize up. They didn't and I think the solo came off okay - through sheer force of will, if nothing else. But tough, yes, and later on I was exhausted.

It's funny really. I've done plenty of solos in front on many kinds of audiences. And yet, crank up the pressure, situate the performance in a more formal environment, add in unknowables (the choir after us was singing And So It Goes too) and the body can become a nervous shambles.

Rising above the shambles is the key. How to find that key is mysterious and beyond my reckoning, for no matter how prepared one is, the moment can sneak up like a shadow in lamplight.

Book Parade

Back in the dark ages when I was in infants and primary school, there was no such thing as book parades. There weren't mufti days either. School was much less inclusive than it is these days. There was probably less pressure in terms of curriculum, but there was also less fun.

This dismal introduction is a way into the subject of Tom's schools book parade. Today a lot of parents attended Hazelbrook Public School to bear witness to a massive literary dress-up. It was fun. It was time-wasting. It was chatty and a little chaotic.
Tom went as Wally from Where's Wally? fame. He looked the part, on a miniature level.

Do you know here Wally is? See if you can find him in the photo.

I have been busy in the last month so much less time has been given over to things like writing in this blog. My counselling practice has shifted into gear and I have been doing extra reading and preparation on that front. At the same time I have taken up some volunteering work at an emergency centre in Mt Druitt. Both are challenges and I find myself feeling happier and more productive.

Recently I bought a Philips Ariaz MP3 player, a significantly cheaper alternative to the ubiquitous ipod. It's not half bad, has decent sound and a pretty good supporting software program called Songbird. I am using it mostly to listen to podcasts, a format I have hitherto ignored entirely. In a few days I have discovered loads of quality programs, particularly those with political and social commentary. Public broadcasters are an especially rich vein for balanced, decent programming. There are podcasts at places like Fox News but who would even bother. How many times do I need to hear right wing apologists shouting slogans?

It's possible that I know more about the (Republican) Iowa straw poll in Ames than most Americans do, courtesy of NPR and PBS. I must be a strange sort of person to like American politics, or any kind of politics really. But ideas are interesting and national policy debates can can ignite the cerebral fuse. Sometimes.