Playing with Electronics/ "Blues in the Night" by Cleo Laine
January 28, 2009
A bright side to my knee problems this week. As long as I have to spend more time sitting around, I've got something to keep me busy.
Okay, there are many things I could do to keep myself busy, but this is a fun one (grin). My mp3 player came on Monday so I've been putting lots of music on it. Dear husband also installed the computer cassette deck that he got me for Christmas so I can record songs from cassettes to mp3s.
I'm not sure which is more exciting. The mp3 player will be lots of fun - bringing music various places. However, there are numerous tapes that I've had for years which are not doing so well, and I'm very cautious with them - meaning that I rarely play them. The cassette deck helps me get some of my favorite music back (and onto the mp3 player too).
Two of those tapes are the first things I recorded to the computer with the new deck. Both albums are difficult to impossible to get - Born on a Friday, which is an expensive collectible, and Cleo Laine, Return to Carnegie Hall (right), which is the impossible one. The latter is the album which started my lifelong love of Cleo Laine's singing. After making it into an mp3, the opening song, "Blues in the Night" was the first song I put on my mp3 player. I would love to be able to sing like she does.
I'm back to taking short walks - though I was able to go past the end of the court this afternoon so that's progress. I tried listening to my new player on the walk, but I don't think that's where I will use it. It was a wonderfully blustery day today, and it was fun to watch the trees sway back and forth. However, instead of listening to the wind while watching the trees, I was hearing Janis Ian singing:
You play like a girl.
It's a matter of genetic history
You play like a girl.
You can't be in our band.
You can't play like a man.
There's one thing you can do
Teach us to play like you! (Play Like a Girl)
I love the song, but the juxtaposition made me feel like I was, sort of, inside looking out at the weather. I'm not really an inside-y person so this is not a good result - particularly this winter when I've been stuck inside more than usual!