Sunday, June 29, 2014

The Real Frank Zappa Book (Conclusion)

FM:  Well, you can’t say he didn’t warn us.  “I didn’t want to write a book, but I’m going to do it anyway.”  The last five chapters of the book –even though they cover some of the most important topics of Zappa’s career – don’t live up to the level of intensity or interest generated in the first three quarters, with chapters covering more personal matters.  Here we have his involvement and testimonies with Congress over censoring album lyrics, his views on separation of church and state, his take on the Liberal/Conservative dichotomy in politics, and his attempts at expanding into entrepreneurial ventures outside of his music career.  These are admittedly heavy topics compared descriptions of his early counter-culture years in the sixties and seventies music scene, and he does attempt to tell about them with his usual outlandish flair.

CJ:  I agree that the last few chapters are kind of a let down after Frank's exploits of early years, but I imagine we felt just a little of his emotions while reading these chapters. He was fighting a system that is built on years of tyranny & nepotism.
FM:  In “Porn Wars,” he gives us a good accounting of the events that led to his appearance before Congress to battle the PMRC (Parents’ Music Resource Center) and their quest to censor questionable lyrics in music released to the general public.  This eventually led to the stickers we see on new recordings which indicate that the content is unsuitable for young audiences.  The PMRC was a group of several wives of Congressmen (including Al Gore’s wife, Tipper Gore) who decided to use the influence they had through their husbands to fuel their crusade.  Tipper had bought her daughter a copy of Purple Rain and was shocked at some of the content.  The song “Darling Nikki,” on this album by Prince, was the initial catalyst for this entire witch-hunt.
CJ:  The description of how fundamentalism has come to control our nation is a sad testimony. In reality we're not much different than that original group of Puritans who sought to have only their religion honored in this country. In "Porn Wars" Frank discusses how "things certain Christians don't like" become law. It doesn't matter how much evidence is presented or how common sense should play into purchasing music for your child, if the powerful in Washington decide to make a law, we just have to live with it.
FM:  Zappa, regarding Prince’s part in this whole struggle asks, “Where was he throughout all this?  He went apes**t and sued some spaghetti company for calling their product ‘Prince,’ but remained curiously silent during the recording-ratings stuff.  None of the artists who made it onto the list which became known as The PMRC’s Filthy Fifteen had anything in their lyrics even close to the stuff in my catalog, and yet, for some reason, I was never accused of being a ‘violator.’”
CJ:  The rest of the Porn Wars chapter was intriguing from a political standpoint. He touches on the unseen power of the rich and powerful with the "Radio Blacklist" report who seemed to vanish off the face of the earth and the retraction of his offer from Peabody Conservatory. I've recently seen rumblings of PBS dropping investigative shows because of Koch influence. Censorship is still alive & well in the old USA.
FM:  “I know you’ve heard it all before, but, one more time, folks:  The U.S. Constitution specifies that the church and state be kept separate.”  Yes, this was written before the advent of presidents and Congressmen and -women who have done all they can to trivialize the Constitution; and no, the wording in the Constitution doesn’t really get all that specific on the subject.  (The phrase “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion” doesn’t quite pack the same semantic punch as Thomas Jefferson’s “separation of church and state.”)  And this was also written shortly after Reagan’s controversial presidency and with a decidedly anti-Reagan viewpoint.  Like the rest of us, Mr. Zappa had no way of knowing how much worse it would get!
CJ:  The chapter "Church & State" makes me kind of sad. As a Christian, I daily fight what Frank describes in this chapter. A few idiots is who the general public sees portraying Christ. Hello - that guy who contacted him privately was probably the only person in this chapter who even has a clue. No wonder folks are running from the church! Frank had it right (I think like Jesus intended) when he said "Anybody who wants religion is welcome to it, as far as I'm concerned--I support your right to enjoy it. However, I would appreciate it if you exhibited more respect for the rights of those people who do not wish to share your dogma, rapture or necrodestination."
FM:  Zappa makes a special effort to debunk the idea that the “media” has a “liberal” slant.  “Suppose a … frothing ‘liberal’ … tried to sneak some form of ‘bias’ into a story, do we think he’d last a week?  Get serious.  Frothing right wing extremists are, however, prominently displayed and in plentiful supply on CNN.”  One has to wonder if he still feels that way today.  The title of this chapter is “Practical Conservatism” and he calls himself a Practical Conservative.  This may be largely a reaction – widespread at the time – against the “threat of Communism.”  He says, “Mr. Gorbachev has apparently stumbled onto one of the best-kept secrets in recent Soviet history:  Communism doesn’t work.  It’s against a basic law of nature:  “PEOPLE WANT TO OWN STUFF.”  And, “In every language, the first word after “Mama!” that every kid learns to say is “Mine!  A system that doesn’t allow ownership, that doesn’t allow you to say “Mine!” when you grow up, has – to put it mildly – a fatal design flaw.”  Thanks, Mr. Zappa!  Thomas Jefferson couldn’t have said it better!
CJ:  I found Frank's outlook on religion right in line with mine, although our beliefs are on opposite ends of the spectrum. He was dead on with the statement "How a person worships is a private matter, and should not be INFLICTED UPON or EXPLOITED BY others." He continues on about "bad facts" making "bad laws". Fear and ignorance will the  death of us all.  Chapter 17 Practical Conservatism is a synopsis of why capitalism (and communism) doesn't work. As long as there are humans there will be greed.   Chapter 18, Failure, made me wonder...did Frank come up with idea for the 3-D printer & Itunes? He never used either of those words and I'm not sure on dates, but this book may have been penned before either of those existed for the public. If those were his ideas, it just proves what he discussed in the previous chapters about the power of those in high places.  The text of this autobiography can be summed up in Frank's statement about stupidity. He spent his life trying to point out stupidity in our society and was basically told to behave or answered with "yes, we know, isn't it great?" I thought Frank would have made a great president back in the PRMC days. I wish he was still around, I'd write him in!
 


 





Join us in July for July’s book of the month; “Prodigal Summer,” by Barbara Kingsolver!

Week 1:  Chapters 1-7

Week 2:  Chapters 8-14
Week 3:  Chapters 15-19
Week 4:  Chapters 20-31


Barbara Kingsolver's fifth novel is a hymn to wildness that celebrates the prodigal spirit of human nature, and of nature itself. It weaves together three stories of human love within a larger tapestry of lives amid the mountains and farms of southern Appalachia. Over the course of one humid summer, this novel's intriguing protagonists face dispa...rate predicaments but find connections to one another and to the flora and fauna with which they necessarily share a place. – Amazon


Kingsolver is one of those authors for whom the terrifying elegance of nature is both aesthetic wonder and source of a fierce and abiding moral vision. She may have inherited Thoreau's mantle, but she piles up riches of her own making, blending her extravagant narrative gift with benevolent concise humor. She treads the line between the sentimental and the glorious like nobody else in American literature. - Kelly Flynn

There is no one in contemporary literature quite like Barbara Kingsolver. Her dialogue sparkles with sassy wit and earthy poetry; her descriptions are rooted in daily life but are also on familiar terms with the eternal. With Prodigal Summer, she returns from the Congo to a "wrinkle on the map that lies between farms and wildness." And there, in an isolated pocket of southern Appalachia, she recounts not one but three intricate stories. - Amazon
  

Friday, June 20, 2014

The Real Frank Zappa Book (Chapters 9-14)

CJ:  "I feel that if you live life in pursuit of 'certification,' 'appreciation,' or 'compensation' in any form from your parents you're making a big mistake. The sooner you can say, "okay, they're them and I'm me, and let's make the best of it," the better off you're going to be." This passage and so much of this week's reading confirmed that I'm not alone in my thinking. Frank's dad seemed to be a wise and insightful person, I'm glad he shared some of that wisdom with us in this book.  Frank's take on unions page 205 and large employers page 207 is so blatantly obvious in the U.S. today, it just amazes me that people can't see through the smoke & mirrors. I'd like to see an abridged version of this text put in the hands of every school child in our country. For someone whose music seemed so far on the edge of the envelope, Frank was brilliant.

FM:  But what about those DRUGS?  The Drug Question comes up all the time in interviews because people refuse to believe that I DON’T use them … If I tell them I don’t use drugs, they look at me like I’m crazy and question me about it.”  Marijuana?  “It gave me a sore throat and made me sleepy.  I couldn’t understand why people liked it so much.”  I can relate.  Many – many – years ago someone “turned me on to” some white powder.  It had absolutely no effect.  Alcohol?  “People choose an allegiance to a certain beverage.  Like bourbon guys – they’re bourbon guys and that’s it.  And scotch drinkers?  Forget it.  [Hear, hear!]  They don’t want to know from ‘pink gin.’
CJ:  "I don't think we have an honest president. I don't think that he is surrounded by honest people. I don't believe that most of the people in Congress or in the Senate are honest. I don't think that most people who head up business are honest. We have let them get away with it because we're not honest enough to face up to the fact that we are 'owned and operated' by a bunch of really bad people." AMEN! Preach on brother!! We have to remember that this was penned during the Reagan administration, and remember that the GOP has now memorialized Reagan right up there with FDR and Lincoln. In this election season this is forefront in my mind. I believe that somewhere deep inside democracy can work, however we have wandered so deep into dishonesty that I think the only way to recover is to throw the baby out with the bathwater & start over. I'll be voting Tuesday, not really "for" anyone, but "against" those who I perceive as the epitome of what Frank just described.
FM:  Something becoming increasingly hard to do!

CJ:  Chapter 10 is one that would not make the abridged version of this book. I may have found it amusing when I was 16, but I would have been just fine never having read that material.
FM:  I hear you.  Do you think maybe he felt that some of this kind of subject matter had to be here because, well, after all, this IS a Frank Zappa Book!  The man has an image to think of!  I have always wondered if there might be a certain element of “mashing the puppy’s nose into his poop” in Zappa’s art.  “Holding up the mirror,” so to speak – and baiting the critics, in the bargain, perhaps?
CJ:  The Sticks & Stones chapter brings to mind another quote, "the masses are asses." The older I get the more I see how we run like sheep to the slaughter with every trend. Just like the Iran Contra issue and Hitler. I try hard to teach my children to stand on the edge of that abyss and proceed with caution!
FM:  The chapter covering music critics is appropriately titled, “Stick & Stones.”  “Rock ‘journalists’ did not exist in 1965 or 1966 when the Mothers [of Invention] started out.  Anyone who put out an album back then ran the risk of having it reviewed by a person who wrote featurettes for the cooking section of the Daily Whatsis … [today] radio-station programmers and the record-company executives … decide if a group is ‘good’ by listening to a couple of cuts from the first album – then if the second album is ‘different’ they write that the band is f___ing up – it’s not ‘consistent.’  The rock press sends a message to performers that they should stay in their mold:  Don’t change.  If you do, we’re going to say that your new record is a piece of s__t.’”  But he goes on to point out:  “For each type of music, there are listeners who think that the reviewers don’t know what they’re talking about … These are the people who have made it possible for me to stay in music through the years – and I thank them for it.”  You’re welcome, Mr. Zappa; you’re welcome.  And I would add that the same thing is generally true of Movies.  The critics are clueless.
CJ:  Chapters 12-14 have so much good material about life in these United States, I'm not sure where to begin. Frank discloses the honest, embarrassing truth about the reason the world hates us. Our reckless behavior with drugs and alcohol, the way we've trained our children to be consumers and to suppress all natural urges, the way we blindly follow along: "The person who stands up and says, "This is stupid," either is asked to 'behave' or, worse, is greeted with a cheerful "Yes, we know! Isn't it terrific!"
FM:  “It isn’t necessary to imagine the world ending in fire or ice – there are two other possibilities:  one is paperwork, and the other is nostalgia.  When you compute the length of time between The Event and The Nostalgia For The Event, the span seems to be about a year less in each cycle.  Eventually within the next quarter of a century, the nostalgia cycles will be so close together that people will not be able to take a step without being nostalgic for the one they just took.  At that point, everything stops.  Death by Nostalgia.”   Zappa is speaking here, not just about musical trends, but about popular culture in general.  Part of the message is that the “captains of corporate America,” risk-averse to trying anything original, find it a lot easier and more profitable to simply recycle the style of twenty years ago.  (He wrote this before the prefix “retro” was made fashionable.)
CJ:  His take on Manifest Destiny and our "Christian Nation" should be posted on every church door in the country. (Yes, I call myself a Christian, and I agree with him. I think a lot of folks are going to be sorely disappointed when Jesus asks them "exactly when did I tell you to stomp all over the other guys??"
FM:  When Dweezil was born, “we had to fill out a mass of papers before they’d let us in, riddled with irrelevant questions like:  What religion are you?’  Gail looked at me and said, ‘What do we put?’  I said, “Musician.”  Ha!  Actually, Music as Religion is probably as supportable as most of the religions that have plagued mankind over the millennia, and a lot less harmful than most!  It was Jimi Hendrix (mentioned earlier in a different context in this book) who is famously quoted as having said, “Music is my Religion.”  Who am I to argue?  Music has certainly played a much larger role in my own life than religion does in the lives of most people – regardless of what they would have you believe!
CJ:  The school soliloquy on page 241 is going to be my Facebook fodder for the week. I think I'll skip giving Frank credit for a few days. I'm pretty sure my audience will think it is my writing




 
Next Week:  Conclusion - Chapters 15-19



Join us in July for July’s book of the month; “Prodigal Summer,” by Barbara Kingsolver!

Barbara Kingsolver's fifth novel is a hymn to wildness that celebrates the prodigal spirit of human nature, and of nature itself. It weaves together three stories of human love within a larger tapestry of lives amid the mountains and farms of southern Appalachia. Over the course of one humid summer, this novel's intriguing protagonists face dispa...rate predicaments but find connections to one another and to the flora and fauna with which they necessarily share a place. – Amazon

Kingsolver is one of those authors for whom the terrifying elegance of nature is both aesthetic wonder and source of a fierce and abiding moral vision. She may have inherited Thoreau's mantle, but she piles up riches of her own making, blending her extravagant narrative gift with benevolent concise humor. She treads the line between the sentimental and the glorious like nobody else in American literature. - Kelly Flynn

There is no one in contemporary literature quite like Barbara Kingsolver. Her dialogue sparkles with sassy wit and earthy poetry; her descriptions are rooted in daily life but are also on familiar terms with the eternal. With Prodigal Summer, she returns from the Congo to a "wrinkle on the map that lies between farms and wildness." And there, in an isolated pocket of southern Appalachia, she recounts not one but three intricate stories. - Amazon

Friday, June 13, 2014

The Real Frank Zappa Book (Chapters 5-8)

FM:  It’s tempting to accuse Zappa of exaggeration when he writes of how insane his life as a musician was in the late Sixties and early Seventies.  But this was the “hippy era” in southern California.  His perspective might be presented in an odd way (like much of his amazing music) but life really was as out of control (today: “off the chain”) as he depicts it here.  The account of the Plaster-casters, to which he was introduced by Eric Clapton – sorry, can’t go into it here; a tad too vulgar for most tastes – is truly memorable writing.  Let’s just say it involves a rather perverse interest on the part of certain entrepreneurial young ladies in the appendages of famous popular musicians…

CJ:  The Log Cabin chapter sounded much more like the 1960's California I had imagined. I'm not sure if I believe the plaster-caster story, but hey, it's Frank. Chapters 6-8 should be required reading for all youngsters thinking they're going to play guitar, sing, and get the...well, you know. I have a much better grasp on the cynical view Frank seemed to have on life. The man just wanted to make music and everyone he encountered seemed dead set against it.
FM:  Zappa’s harrowing experience of being assaulted on stage by a fan, resulting in a lengthy hospital stay and subsequent wheelchair stint is appalling. “Drool Britannica” is, in part, a transcription of a trial in England that explored the “pornographic” elements of his lyrics; an intriguing precursor to his court appearances in the U.S. which will be covered later in the book.  The oh-so-proper phraseology of the Barrister and the Justice makes for an amusing contrast with the subject material and direct quotes from Zappa’s edgier lyrics!
CJ:  I too found the Drool, Britannia chapter amusing. Video footage of that court hearing with the stuffy, wigged judge reading those lyrics is the stuff of Monty Python that landed on the cutting room floor. Oh well, I guess watching Tipper Gore quote lyrics for the PRMC will have to do.  Chapter 8, All About Music started as kind of a walk down memory lane as he described the "tribes" in the band. "The percussionist are another tribe altogether". I'd never looked at band in that way, but it makes perfect sense.
FM:  But the real meat of this segment of the book is the chapter titled, “All About Music.” Here, we drop the thinly-veiled pretense of “autobiography” for a while, and concentrate on this truly distinctive (and, yes, I think important) artist’s personal philosophies of music.  He talks about his gradual transition from “putting dots on paper” for orchestras to perform, to eventually giving up on music notation and real musicians altogether.  “Every so often you hear someone from the Musicians Union complaining about the possibility of devices like the Synclavier [Zappa’s electronic composing tool of choice] putting musicians out of work.  I don’t think that will ever happen.  There are still plenty of people who believe that the only real music is music played by human beings (wearing leather and large hair) ...  Music comes from composers – not from musicians.”

CJ:  About page 160 I began to read words but have no comprehension of what I was reading except for little snippets about how America has screwed up culture on every level possible. The bulk of the middle of this chapter is above the vocabulary and comprehension of those not formally schooled in music. The intricate details of composition, recording, specific microphone types, mixing, etc just bogged me down. I did however find myself listening more intently in (no laughing) church on Sunday. Trying to pick out the detailed bits coming from each musician. I believe that was the first time in my life I really "listened" to the music instead of just singing along with the happy 4/4 120 stuff.  Though I've never encountered a real rock and roll band in a personal way, The Anthropology of a Rock and Roll Band is dead on! One of my sons is a bass player, the other a drummer. If they weren't my sons I'd tell them to work on their singing and guitar playing skills. Later in the chapter Frank returns to the rock and roll band and his guitar solo description brings to mind some of my favorite bands from the 80's.

FM: 
He covers pretend performances (lip-syncing), conducting (“…when you draw designs in the nowhere – with a stick or with your hands – which are interpreted as ‘instructional messages’ by guys wearing bowties who wish they were fishing”), his approach to playing and soloing on guitar, being the leader of a band, the importance (or not) of lyrics, deviating from the norm (without which progress in not possible), “hateful practices,” and many things relating to these.  “Hateful practices” refers to the way composition is taught in college composition courses, learning “the rules” of composing:  “I find music of the classical period boring because it reminds me of ‘painting by numbers.’  There are certain things composers of that period were not allowed to do … The Ultimate Rule ought to be:  “If it sounds GOOD to YOU, it’s bi____n; and if it sounds BAD to YOU, it’s sh___y.” … American radio listeners, raised on a diet of ______ (fill in the blank), have experienced a musical universe so small they cannot begin to know what they like.”
CJ:  Deviation from the Norm on page 185 really struck a chord with me and made me a little sad for Foreverman.
FM:  (Referring to my years of “struggling” with the “Norms” in the Band Halls across Oklahoma and Texas, and fighting the urge to indulge in “Deviation!”)
CJ:  I hate the "that's the way we've always done it" mentality, apparently so did Frank. So what if a musician can play a piece of music that's 500 years old, they started playing bits of it the first time they picked up their instrument. Thank goodness our band directors still teach sight reading...it's good to learn something new. He carried this rant into "Hateful Practices". There I learned a new quote I'm going to share with many of my narrow friends here in Okieland. "If something is hateful, you should at least know what is is you're hating so you can avoid it in the future." !!!!!
FM:  Yes, an interesting variant on "Those who ignore the past are doomed to repeat it"!  Frank’s keynote address to at the 1984 convention of American Society of University Composers is priceless:  “I do not belong to your organization.  I know nothing about it.  I’m not even interested in it – and yet a request has been made for me to give what purports to be a keynote speech … For those of you who don’t know, I am also a composer.  I taught myself how to do it by going to the library and listening to records.  I started when I was fourteen and I’ve been doing it for thirty years.  I don’t like schools.  I don’t like teachers.  I don’t like most of the things that you believe in…”  What a unique approach to “relating to” your audience!  He goes on to talk about “Debbie,” the prototype of the American music consumer that is adhered to by the Music Industry’s powers that be.  Hilarious – a truly inspired speech!
CJ:  This section goes on to discuss funding and norms and......DEBBIE! Oh, Debbie, yes, I know this girl, and I've actually seen some statistics at some point that indicate that American teens ages 13-17 are the driving force of the American economy, especially in the realm of the music industry. It kind of makes me wonder if there has been any change in this phenomenon since the advent of the digital age. Record stores are a thing of the past, wouldn't be nice if Debbie was too?
 







Next Week:  Chapters 9-14
Week 4:  Chapters 15-19

Friday, June 6, 2014

The Real Frank Zappa Book (Chapters 1-4)

FM:  This is Zappa’s “autobiography.”  As with many autobiographies, it was created partly as an effort to “set the record straight.”  As with any creative endeavor by this enigmatic man, you should expect the unexpected, and presume he will color largely outside the lines, bending the definition of “autobiography” – as well as many other terms – way outside their normal parameters.  His Introduction begins, “I didn’t want to write a book, but I’m going to do it anyway” … “One of the reasons for doing this is the proliferation of stupid books (in several languages) which purport to be About Me. I thought there ought to be at least ONE, somewhere, that had real stuff in it.”  (This usage of italics and bold print is distinctive, and appears on almost every page in the book.)

CJ:  I'm not sure what I was expecting when I began this book, but I've definitely learned a few things. Apparently I am a little on the young side of Zappa fans as I had no idea about the first myth he dispelled concerning the poo incident. My Zappa fan life began with "Apostrophe.
FM:  The idea here is not to present a systematic progression of important events in his life, but to outline with various anecdotes, in loose chronological order, his own personal trip down memory lane, (including particularly irksome rumors, such as the legend that he ate poop on stage!).  The first four chapters cover his childhood and his early adult life – typical of any bio – with many of the atypical and downright bizarre things that stand out to him in his memories of those times.  If this approach seems to imitate his approach to lyric-writing; well, that is to be expected from this music iconoclast!

CJ:  The scientist chapter caught me laughing out loud and imagining my brothers, husband and sons trying some of the experiments. It was at the end of Chapter One I decided against recommending the book to my sons. This chapter also explained a lot about Frank's "oddness". My gosh! Puddles of mercury?? Maybe we should go back to letting kids play with the stuff. Frank was obviously more brilliant than the average Joe on the street today. Heck, I played with mercury as a kid (laughed out loud at breaking a ball of mercury with a hammer because I've done it!).


FM:  Interesting from a musician’s standpoint is his discussion of his early musical influences:  mostly 20th century classical composers such as Varese, Stravinsky and Webern!  How you get from that “point A” to the “point B” of the albums by the Mothers of Invention and Zappa’s later solo work is a good question, but the concept of the “avant-garde” in each aesthetic is certainly consistent.  His early interests in explosives and theater are given some space as well.

CJ:  Occasionally I found myself skimming because I didn't have a clue what he was talking about, specifically all the technical music terms. I'm sure my formally educated music friends ate those sections up.

FM:  A peek at some of the later chapter titles indicates a more thorough look at some of the larger issues he has concerned himself with in more recent times, but this section is more hit and miss, often focusing on particular (not to mention peculiar) friends and family members Zappa remembers from that period.

CJ:  As a history teacher I found his recollection of his father’s government service quite interesting. Personal accounts of what our government was really doing during the cold war will change the way we teach our kids history. Frank was really on the cutting edge of this movement, only in recent years have we been looking at history through something besides blindly patriotic eyes.

FM:  We do get a look at one of his earlier run-ins with the law; what is essentially an Eminent Domain issue, the power of politicians to take private property for public use.  His recording/filming studio in Cucamonga, California was under surveillance.   “The [San Bernardino Valley] vice squad had bored a hole through the studio wall and was spying on me for several weeks.  The local political subtext to all this had something to do with an impending real estate development which required the removal of the tenants before Archibald Avenue was widened.”  In a clear case of entrapment, a vice squad agent hired him to do a soundtrack of what sounded like an orgy, and then the vice squad busted him, taking his property in the bargain.  “I was charged with ‘conspiracy to commit pornography.’  The pornography charge was, under state law, a misdemeanor.  The conspiracy charge, on the other hand, was a felony…”

CJ:  The social commentary about "long hair" and stereotypes speaks volumes. Never had I imagined California being anything but on the edge of the envelope. (I've never been there.) Frank completely blew away every preconceived idea I had about the state. The story of his studio in Cucamonga sounded more like something that would happen in Sapulpa, Oklahoma or Selma, Alabama.

FM:  On the topic of playing live performances (mostly with his band, The Mothers of Invention) we see the marks of a true entertainer:  “On our worst night we had three paying customers.  We told them we were going to give them an evening of customized, personal entertainment.  There was a passageway in back of the Garrick that led downstairs to the CafĂ© au-Go-Go’s kitchen.  Everybody in the band went down and got hot cider and bunches of little snacks.  We put towels under our arms, like waiters, went back, served our audience their refreshments and talked with them for an hour and a half.”  Now that’s a concert!

 
 
 

Next Week:  Chapters 5-8
Week 3:  Chapters 9-14
Week 4:  Chapters 15-19