Little Dancing Queens

I cannot tell you how many times my sisters and I listened to this album with when we little.

When I was about eight I used to 'choreograph' routines to my favourite ABBA songs then I'd rope my friends into performing them with me in front of the class (and any other class who'd let us in if I remember correctly!). Never in my wildest dreams could I have imagined that one day I'd have a daughter of my own who would be doing the same thing. Well, it seems some things never change. Today Bella is playing out the same scenario performing 'Dancing Queen' to her classmates with her her friends from the ABBA Club.

Bella and her friends started their own ABBA Club some time ago so they could write out lyrics at lunch time, talk about their favourite songs and do the odd performance. It intrigues me to think that ABBA still holds sway over little girls after all these years. What's really interesting is that it's all about the music. They don't seem to attach themselves to the personalities the way we did (I was definately a Frida girl) and I'm sure they must wonder why on earth they're dressed that way!

They love their Lady Gaga, Katie Perry and Adele too (I'm glad they're not writing down some of their more colourful lyrics!) but there is just something about ABBA that they all love. Is it the music, the lyrics, the harmonies? Perhaps I'll never know but it is a lovely link with the past for this aging ABBA fan who doesn't mind joining in when no-one is looking...

A Bit Of A Circus...

Well the bathroom is almost complete and I have lots of photos to show you but I can't find the photo cable to upload the images! Life's a bit like that at the moment - it's a bit of a circus here. Things are not where they should be. Books have gone missing as have shoes and vital paperwork but by next week things should be returning to a more manageable kind of domestic chaos. In the meantime I thought I'd up date you one what else I've been up to...

Marvelling at what the human body can do. You know how they say we only ever use about 10% of our brains? Well, after seeing the awe-inspiring Nederlands Dans Theater and Circus Olympia recently I'm convinced I'm only using .0001% of my physical capabilities!

Reading two great books about Australia in the 1930. The first one 'The Lost Mother: A Story of Art & Love' by Anne Summers is a memoir centred around a portrait her mother sat for as a child. The book explores the life of the artist who painted the work, Constance Stokes and the collector who held onto it for many years, a mysterious Russian emigre, Lydia Mortill.

If fiction is more your style and you're looking for some quirky local colour you might like 'A Few Right Thinking Men' by Sulari Gentill, the first in a planned series of mystery novels set in Sydney during the 1930s and starring gentlemen artist and amateur sleuth Rowland Sinclair. Very snappy dialogue and a colourful cast of characters. Sulari has a pretty nifty website over here.

Listening to Debussy. Many years ago I bought a CD called 'Debussy for Daydreaming'. I usually play music to the kids as they go to sleep and this CD is the current favourite.

Coverting this gorgeous glass Babushka drinking jug and glass.

Waiting patiently for the bathroom to be finished and the midnight treks to the outside portable bathroom to be over!

What have you been up to?

Busy, busy, busy...

School holidays have been over for nearly two weeks and I still can't seem to get back into the daily routine. The days just seem to whizz by. Here's how I've been spending them..

Reading the Millenium Trilogy by Stieg Larsson. I'm a bit late on the bandwagon but they've been worth the wait.

Listening to lots of classical music. Henry has discovered classical music in a big way. He listens to it when he's going to sleep, in the car and anywhere else there's a player. He's especially in love with anything by Bach but also likes Beethoven's Piano Concerto No.5 and Mozart's 'Jupiter' symphony. He said to me the other day, 'Mum, I've gone crazy for this music, I can't stop listening to it and it won't get out of my head!'. Bless (keep in my he's only 4).

Making this Lucy's Tomato, Walnut and Pomegranate Molasses Salad (with our own tomatoes and the pomegranate syrup Deb sent me - thanks Deb!) and this Lucy's Apricot Almond Chews. Delicious...

Re-organising my kitchen cupboards. Over the past fortnight I've broken two glasses, two mugs and a vase. My cupboards are so crowded that every time I open them something jumps out at me. I've been meaning to do it for a while but these recent losses spurred me into action. As a result I now have three lovely new fying pans (replacing six dreadful ones that can now be found in the local daycare centre sandpit) and room for all my many, many, many baking trays and tins.

Researching bathrooms - we need a new one.

Looking forward to the launch of two of the websites I've been working on for the past 18 months - not long to go now...

Marvelling at the Google Art Project. Have you seen this yet? Check out this post first and then go and have a play yourself - you won't be disappointed.

What have you been up to lately?

Four Simple Goals Update III

Image via

Time for another update on the Four Simple Goals Project. Way back in September my first goal was to 'bring music back into my life'. I'd envisaged doing that by finally getting the iPod I got LAST Christmas up and running but that still hasn't really happened. Instead I've found inspiration in some unlikely places.

The first place was my car. For the first time in my life I have a car with a CD player (sure it has iPod-compatability too but I digress...) so I've been able to drag out all my old, unloved CDs and play them end-to-end to see if there is anything worth saving. Turns out there is and I've been mentally compiling flamenco, big band, 60s and indie pop playlists ever since.

The second place was watching Glee and listening to the Glee CDs with the kids. The great thing about kids is they have no pre-conceived ideas about what's cool and what isn't (Henry took a 'Chicken Dance' CD to daycare last week and a Debussy CD this week). Through Glee they've become very excited about KISS, Madonna, U2, Lady Gaga, The Beatles and Ella Fitzgerald which I think is great.

The third, and perhaps most unlikely place, was the Rock Chicks concert where I saw Nat Allison wielding the most beautiful guitar in the world - the Gretsch White Falcon. I simply could not take my eyes off that guitar (which is almost as big as Nat!) and went home and dragged out my own acoustic number for a bit of a strum. Like many things (the tennis racket, sewing machine, flamenco shoes...) my guitar has spent way too much time in the cupboard over the years. I used to love playing guitar alone in my room and it seems my newfound enthusiasm has rubbed off on the kids because they've both asked Santa for guitars! Who knows perhaps we'll start our own retro band...

Five Faves - the Swinging Sixties

Pip from Meet Me At Mikes is doing a musical Five Faves so I thought I'd sing along. Over the past year I've been working on an online Australian music timeline so I've spent lots of time listening to music from the 1950s onwards (pretty sweet job I know). Here are five of my all-time favourite 60s songs (not Australian I know - except the Easybeats - but my research takes me far and wide)!

God Only Knows - The Beachboys
Friday On My Mind - The Easybeats
No Milk Today - Herman's Hermits
Sunny Afternoon - The Kinks I Call Your Name - Mamas and the Papas

Four Simple Goals...

Recently I visited Tracey over at Quiet Paws and saw that she had joined the Four Simple Goals project started by A Beautiful Mess. The idea behind the project is to think up four simple (easily achievable) goals that will make your life richer and happier before 2011. Who doesn't want that? So here are mine.

1. Bring music back into my life. I'm embarrassed to say that I've had an iPod since Christmas and have never really used it. I did set it up when I first got it but then I sort of forgot about it. A few months ago the radio in my car broke and I haven't replaced that either. Going back to dance classes recently reminded me how much I've been missing music in my life.

2. Buy some beautiful new bed linen. Tom and I have trouble agreeing on colours and patterns and as a result we pretty much do nothing and struggle on with whatever boring stuff we already have. Well no more I say! Beautiful soft linen here I come.

3. Get more sleep (in the bed with beautiful bed linen). The older I get the more I realise that if I don't get enough sleep over the space of a few weeks I get a bit (a lot!) ratty. With Daylight Savings just around the corner I know that Henry will be getting me up at 6am rather than 7am so this going to bed at midnight for no apparent reaon needs to stop. I'm going to aim for 10.30pm with some reading time on top.

4. Resurrect the vegie garden. I have tried, really I have but I just can't seem to keep the up the momentum. Yesterday I read that the best way to plan your garden was to make a list of things you like to eat rather than a list of plants and the lightbulb went on! So this Spring I'm going to plant tomatoes, strawberries and salad greens. I'm also going to add to my herb garden and buy a lemon tree.

Doesn't sound too hard does it? And I think I'll be happier and springy-er if I can get them all ticked off. Perhaps you'd like to play along too? More details are available at Elsie's blog here and I'll keep you posted on my progress as I reach each goal.

Haunting melody...

Over the past few weeks I've been learning a wonderfully sinuous neo-classical dance to this beautiful piece of music by Lisa Gerrard. I just can't seem to get it out of my head...

Aloha!

Sheet-music from hulapages.com

I was thrilled to see through the comments on my last post that some of you share my fascination with the ukelele! So now I'm going to let you in on a little secret...I have a bit of an obsession with all things Hawaiian. I'm not sure when it started but I know it peaked sometime during the late 90s when I was researching dance bands in Melbourne in the 1930s and 1940s.

So here for your edification are a few little bits of Melbourne/Hawaiian music history for you. The first Hawaiian troupe came to Australia in 1911. It was lead by Ernest Kaai, a Hawaiian musician interested in jazz. He visited Australia again in 1924 and 1926 playing both traditional Hawaiian music and a style known as 'hapa hoale' (half white) which was characterised by the Tin Pan Alley style of lyric and musical composition made popular through sheet-music and movies during the early part of last century.

During the 1930s Hawaiian Clubs popped up all over Australia with the Melbourne Hawaiian Club opening on the corner of Collins and Swanston Streets (where the City Square is now). Here you could learn steel guitar, ukelele and even hula dancing. There was also a small midnight cabaret venue there during the Second World War called the Blue Lagoon. The interior of the club was painted blue with dim lighting and lots of palms helping to create the desired atmosphere.

For those of you familiar with the Melbourne seaside suburb of St Kilda there was also a large Hawaiian-themed venue on The Esplanade know as the Palm Grove (previously Earl's Court and subsequently The Venue before it was demolished in the 1990s). Here musicians such as Jim Jensen's Hawaiians, The Hawaiian Kings and Les Adams Hawaiians served up swing-inspired Hawaiian music for American servicemen and their partners. Unfortunately there has been very little written about these places and few photographs seem to be in the public record.

So there you go. More arcane knowledge from my endless store of trivia. If you're in Melbourne and feel like catching some sweet Hawaiian tunes you might like to go and see The Ukeladies perform or maybe even join the Melbourne Ukelele Kollective. If that's not your thing you might like to teach yourself to play using one of the many tutorials on YouTube or you could hunt down this book for the great photos and illustrations.

The Virtual Choir

The Virtual Choir is an amazing project set up by composer/ conductor Eric Whitacre. Whitacre has never met any of these people in real life. They all auditioned and performed online responding to his conductor's track and their performances were then edited together to create this beautiful work.You can read more about the story behind its creation here.