strange radiation: the pool of radiance archive
Adventures with an unreliable narrator.
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Nov 14 06: on the lifting of voices
Last night the JCU performed at Carnegie Hall, as part of a leukemia foundation’s annual gala. It’s easy to be blasé about singing there once you’ve done it a few times—until that moment when you walk out on the stage and look out into that magnificent hall and think about all the people who have stood where you’re standing. (And how does one get there? Easiest to take the N/R/Q/W to 57th, but it’s within convenient walking distance of pretty much any subway line.) The NY Pops played the music. Marvin Hamlisch was the special honoree, meaning there were all kinds of famous people there to sing his material: Judy Collins, Robert Klein, Lucie Arnaz, Maureen McGovern (awesome), Brian D’Arcy James, Charles Osgood (!), Liza Minnelli. Liza Minnelli is the most amazing Liza Minnelli impersonator I’ve ever seen. Hamlisch was hilarious. The JCU was better at the dress rehearsal, alas, but I think that even so we managed to be okay.
Meanwhile, in Finland—and haven’t you always wanted to have a reason to write that?—the Helsinki Complaints Choir sings on. As Neil Gaiman points out in the blog-post where I found this, some of it is universal, and some is Finn- and Helsinki-specific; but it’s all fun. (Note that there’s no big surprise at the end after the clip fades to black; just twenty-odd seconds of blackness.)
Maybe, though, dreamy pop-inflected odes to inconsiderate sauna-users and ubiquitous Nokia abuse aren’t what you need right now. Oh, sure, the Finland thing is right, but couldn’t there be more… more shouting?
Your wish is granted. Try the Mieskuroro Huutajat: a whole buncha Finns shouting at the top of their lungs. They’ve screamed at icebound ships; they’ve hollered The Star-Spangled Banner; and now they’re in a documentary that I really really want to see.
Maybe they should appear onstage at Carnegie with Liza Minnelli. Now that would really be something.