1. Meagan and Patrick arrived safely in Portland today after leaving Kellogg between 11 o'clock and noon. I'm not sure how the winds were in the Columbia Gorge, but Patrick reported, as they left Washington and entered Oregon, that it had been windy up to that point.
Late Saturday night and on into early Sunday morning, our living room became a Babes with Axes performance hall, thanks to the two Babes with Axes live albums available at the bandcamp website. Over the years, Patrick has paid special attention to Babes with Axes' musicality, their harmonies, chord progressions, and arrangements of one another's songs. He also has significant emotional investment in this music. Babes with Axes most prolific time making music and performing occurred when Patrick was a little kid and he loved that Debbie, his very own mother, was in such a superb band that not only played terrific music, but played to enthusiastic crowds that loved their music and the performance art aspects of their shows.
Our living room concert Saturday night/Sunday morning also got Debbie charged up as she reveled in how great those albums sound, how musically brilliant they are, talked about the way the band "Babe-i-fied" one another's songs, and explained the futility of trying to confine Babes with Axes to any genre of music, to describe them in any single way.
I enjoyed some great memories, too. I went to the very first Babes with Axes show back December 2, 1993 and thought about memorable shows they performed after Debbie and I got together twenty-four years ago. I was transported to the WOW Hall, the Willamette Folk Festival, Sam Bond's Garage, and, most strongly, back to the two WOW Hall reunion shows -- the first in March of 2014, a few months before we moved to Portland, and the second in July of 2017, just a couple of months before we moved to Kellogg.
2. Bill, Diane, and I jumped on Zoom at 2:00 this afternoon to discuss Episode 3 of the first season of The Hollow Crown. We were having a great time talking about the chaos and confusion portrayed in the early part of the play, the way the tavern/brothel world was so much darker, shot through with infection and disease, and how in mirrored the corruption in King Henry IV's court. I think we all agreed that the play's dramatic power peaked during the Henry IV deathbed scene, as father and son, Henry IV and Hal, come to a final reckoning with one another. Hal ascends to the throne and then he must come to a second reckoning with his metaphorical father, the Lord of Misrule, Falstaff. We discussed the emotional complications of this reckoning and were in the midst of talking about the great acting in The Hollow Crown and discussing other Shakespeare productions on film and other superb actors when the power went out in Kellogg. I was able to text Bill and Diane the news of what happened. We were unable to resume our discussion when the power returned about an hour later. I look forward to our next Zoom meeting when we can review this discussion with those who couldn't make it today, move on to discussing the last episode of The Hollow Crown, and find out how everyone is doing.
3. The power came back on. I decided I'd like to watch Episode 2 of the Season 12 of A Touch of Frost. The central plot focused on two murders associated with a ring of people trafficking in exotic and often endangered animals. The human dimension of this story was grisly, but watching a story about animals being exploited and put in further danger was almost more than I could bear. The parallel plot involving the death of a man in a bed and a house not his own was not nearly as gruesome and, as is often the case in A Touch of Frost, scenes from Frost's clumsy private life lightened the otherwise grim content of this episode.
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