Moomin Light

"Flight of the Bumblebee" - Sandy Feat/Sir James Galway/Canadian Brass

Yesterday, younger son and I headed over to the West Point on the Eno park in Durham to see the sand sculpture from the Festival for the Eno.*  Every year, the sand sculpting group, Sandy Feat, makes a large sand sculpture about the yearly Festival theme.  This year, bees were the theme (click here).  

 The bees are launching one of their number with fireworks, bombs, and explosives.  

This one is giving the rider a boost.

The stinger of the rider.

The other side

Since they have four "arms," this one can light the explosives with one claw...

...while covering its ears with two more.

 

I always enjoy the sand sculpture, but, this year, I really got a kick out of it because the name is from one of my favorite classical pieces to play on the flute.  

Back in 1981, as reported by the New York Times, the flutist, Sir James Galway, challenged the Canadian Brass to see which could play Rimsky-Korsakov's Flight of the Bumblebee the fastest:  

It all began last weekend at the Chautauqua Music Festival in upstate New York when James Galway, the Irish flutist, played ''The Flight of the Bumblebee'' in 52.45 seconds. Mr. Galway challenged the Canadian Brass to play the Rimsky-Korsakov piece faster.

''We were at a distinct disadvantage Tuesday night when we accepted the challenge,'' Chuck Daellenback, a tuba player with the Canadian Brass, said yesterday in Toronto.

''I play the piece on the tuba, and not only is the instrument unwieldy, but halfway through my hand gets cramped, and Ronnie Romm, our trumpeter, must continue the fingering while I continue to blow the horn.''

The Canadian Brass was clocked at 60.05 seconds, but Mr. Daellenback figured that because of all the problems involved playing ''The Flight of the Bumblebee'' on the tuba, ''we were entitled to an eight-second handicap and we declared ourselves the winners.''

Then, on Tuesday night in Toronto, the Canadian Brass tried harder and huffed and puffed its way through in 55 seconds. 

One of  Sir James Galway's Bumblebee videos:

 

Canadian Brass:

 

 

2007 Festival sand sculpture post

 

 * I'm still not really sweating (since my partial thyroidectomy) so, unfortunately, I wasn't up for going to the Festival in upper 80's & really humid weather this year.  

Lina in the morning

"I'm very glad we did sing one turned out."

What Would I Say? takes your past Facebook posts and generates new ones based on them.  I only got four hours of sleep last night so I'm wiped out, but I find these very funny.  Here are some of mine:

• I'm very glad we did sing one turned out.

• A beautiful morning for gardening!

• had fun watching the dancers were extra.

• got rid of the stream in the choir in 32 degree weather left to go spend the time on Amazon.

•  

  In most families, the kids are the way

• managed to get rid of the glooms.

•  

  It's the night before, which explained the stench in Boston.

• and [younger son] is surprised if [older son] didn't get a Ninth Street and seem that she didn't have any dream of the first time at the downstairs bar. Dinner was looking at the double decker bus.

•  

  likes watching dolphins swimming by the first time in years and got from Kismet complete with gestures.

• Classic French literature last night Thank you!

•  

  Zumba with crowds.

• enjoys singing a second soprano part of the goats.

• I love the NC.

• It's the last time I traveled for Star Trek Babies Episode about to try an Eastern Swing dance tonight with opening night, and [daughter] and [older son] get back at choir again!

•  

  I love the women and I'm playing flute and daydreamed about kayaks no, I can't.
• because the spider webs outside were very loud.

• Hi ⊙.⊙☂ from extremely exhausted, but it

•  

  Yes but that was one of [dear husband]'s flannel shirts to get any Democratic junk mail or robo calls just Republican ones.
• Then I can feel guilty again!

• is glad she is totally silent.

The squirrel and the jack-o'-lantern

Ross's jack-o'-lantern was a large eyeball.  The squirrels in our yard love pumpkins.  By late afternoon on November 1, they had eaten the iris part - leaving a large hole.  This morning, I was able to take this photo of a squirrel having breakfast.

Lina and balloons

I was actually going to write this evening, but that was before I spent the evening with a bad allergy attack.  I can't even sing right now, and I'm not thoughtful enough to write. 

Here's Lina kitty with balloons:

Tom Hiddleston must have a sense of humor...

...either that or he's a really good sport.

On The Mary Sue this evening, I ran across this video with Cookie Monster:

... which reminded me of this Comic Con 2013 video of Tom Hiddleston hamming it up as Loki...

... which reminded me of one of my favorite scenes from The Avengers:

[I barely blogged tonight - after a voice lesson, choir, and a Skype conversation with daughter, I almost forgot.]

This doesn't look promising

At one of my favorite stores in Raleigh, NC - Accipiter:

The end of NaBloPoMo

Earlier today, I thought I would write a thoughtful post about blogging every day this month.  However, by this evening, this is how I felt:

[Tamlin's taken to sleeping like this lately.]

Happy Thanksgiving!

From http://cheezburger.com/4196177408

Brief post

We had a wonderful weekend in Asheville.  Daughter's dance concert was fun, and I'll be spending the evening going through all the pictures I took (hence no long blogging this evening).  We've had beautiful weather this weekend - sunny and in the 60's - so I've spent as much time as I could outside.  

Here's a LOLCat based on one of my favorite Seuss books: