Tag Archives: Teaching

Listen and ‘Remember, Remember, Remember…’

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"You ever just listen to a song and remember exactly how life used to be when you first heard it." @grumpyoldgits

A friend posted the above quote on Facebook. I felt it immediately, but I suspect not in the way it was intended. I won’t say certain songs make me want to reminisce about how ‘life used to be’, as the quote implies, because plenty of songs came out during chunks of life I would rather not want to remember, but the way the songs themselves made me feel. The songs that can transport me right back to that feeling upon hearing the first note.

The songs that hit me as hard today as when I first heard them.

I don’t just mean the songs that make me smile or want to move: Whitney’s “I Wanna Dance With Somebody”, Beastie Boys “Jump Around”, Pharrell Williams’ “Happy”, Nina Simone’s “Feeling Good”, The Champs’ “Tequila”, Sugar Hill Gang’s “Rapper Delight”, Madonna’s “Vogue”, “Le Vie Bohme” from Rent, Tchaikovsky’s “1812 Overture” -yes, you read that correctly, Isaac Hayes’ “Shaft”, Usher’s “Yeah”, “Hair” from the musical Hair, Bobby McFerrin’s “Don’t Worry Be Happy”, Beyonce’s “Crazy In Love”, Des’ree’s “You Gotta Be”, Kelis’ “Milkshake”, Propellerheads/Shirley Bassey “History Repeating”, Nelly’s “Country Grammar” and “Hot in Herre”, Stevie Wonder’s “I Wish/Sir Duke”, Mark Ronson/Bruno Mars “Uptown Funk”, Hair/Fifth Dimension’s “Aquarius” and as sort of referenced in the title of this post Irene Cara’s “Fame” et al.

I also mean the songs that made me think: Billy Holiday’s “Strange Fruit”, N.W.A’s “Fuck tha Police”, Marvin Gaye’s “What’s Going On”,  H.E.R.’S “I Can’t Breathe”, Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five’s “The Message”, Linkin Park’s “Hands Held High”,  Isley Brothers’ “Fight The Power”, Childish Gambino’s “This Is America”, RATM’s “Killing In The Name Of”, Gil Scott-Heron’s “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised”, John Lennon’s “Imagine” et al. Many are as relevant today as when first released.

And then there are the gut songs. The songs that make me feel some kind of way, it can be love, rage, or something undefined, but oh, I feel them: Foo Fighter’s “I Should Have Known”, Foreigner’s “I Wanna Know What Love Is”, Toni Braxton’s “Unchain My Heart”, The Chicks’ “Not Ready to Make Nice”, Beethoven’s “Moonlight Sonata”, Metallica’s “Enter Sandman”, “The Unforgiven II”, and “Nothing Else Matters”, Fleetwood Mac “Dreams”, Madonna’s “Frozen”, Sondheim/Bernadette Peter’s “As The Days Go By”, Fiona Apple’s “Criminal”, Eva Cassidy’s “Autumn Leaves”, Earth, Wind & Fire’s “Reasons”, “Day by Day” from the musical Godspell, Herb Alpert’s “Rise” – yes, I know it’s an instrumental – but I feel it, Fifth Dimension’s “One Less Bell To Answer”, “Out Here On My Own” from the movie Fame, Commodores’ “Easy”, Lionel Ritchie’s “Still”, Tracy Chapman “Fast Car”, Shirley Bassey’s “Diamonds Are Forever” and “If You Go Away”, Pink’s “Conversations with My 10 Year Old Self”, Led Zeppelin’s “Stairway to Heaven”, Sugarland “Stay”, Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody”, Linkin Park’s “Crawling” and “This Is My December”, Bruce Springsteen, “41 Shots”, Drowning Pool “Bodies”, Aerosmith’s “Dream On” and so many others. And as my former work wife knows, there is the drum solo heard ‘round the world, Phil Collins’ “In the Air Tonight”

Also, I was a literal child for quite a few of the songs listed. So older songs like “Stairway to Heaven”, “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised”, and “Strange Fruit” – I refer to how they hit and then stayed with me when I was old enough/mature enough to get their full meanings.

None of the above is in any order of preference and by no means a complete list of my genre-hopping polyjamorous tendencies, just a smidgen of what immediately popped into my head as I was writing this. And honestly, mini theatre kid that I am, I could probably do this same post solely with theatre songs, but more than half of Steven Sondheim’s Broadway catalog would be listed, because damn, that man knew how to write a lyric.

Still, all of the songs above have a certain something that moves ME to want to stop whatever I’m doing and be in the moment of that feeling. WMYMV [what moves you may vary].

Let’s see what’s moving others this Tuesday…

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A Quiet Morning

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I wake up to a nice quiet morning. Well “quiet” is relative given I live in New York City and it’s a weekday morning, but you know what I mean. I say quiet because in the past couple of years there are three multi-unit dwellings are in some process of construction within a block’s radius of my building. A three blocks away, people have begun to move into a new building that must house at least 50 apartments units. Another mixed-use construct rises across the street from it promising even more housing units, plus ground floor commercial space from the size of it.

Because Covid delayed much of for months, once they were allowed back it was with a vengeance. The usual 7am – 3pm became 5pm and later depending on where they are in the process. While clearly loud it was never so egregious to disturb any of the virtual training classes I hold remotely as I work from home. Suffice it to say, these days, any morning I wake up and am not immediately inundated with a wall of construction sound that has but become a form of white noise to my day is noteworthy.

So I enjoyed this moment of Zen. I rose, showered, dressed, made a light breakfast and sat at my desk prepared to work. Still quiet. Excellent. At 9:30am I begin my usual what I call “pre-boarding check” before each session to ensure I have everything I need at the ready. My screens display the correct information. I do not have spinach in my teeth etc.

9:45am I open the virtual training session in case there are early birds and sure enough at 9:50 someone logs in. I chat with the student as others sign in and at 10:00am on the dot all are ready to begin and…

CRASH! – BANG! – RATTLE!
THUD! – RUMBLE!

“What? On? Mother? Earth‽ Was‽ THAT‽ ‽ “

[Oh, my natural tendency to cuss like Martin Freeman (it’s safe for work I promise), becomes amazingly rated G when the audio is on for training. My students, all adults, don’t necessarily have that restriction and give a Samuel L. Jackson character a run for the F-bombs that I hear dropped in reaction.]

Oh, did I forget to mention the public school right behind my building? The public school that is closed as its denizens learn remotely? The closed public school which is surrounded by scaffolding and netting? The closed public school which is surrounded by scaffolding and netting that now is in the first stages of refacing its brick façade? The LOUD first stage where they break off chunks of bricks and dump it down a plastic and metal chained chute to land in a huge commercial dumpster oh so conveniently located right outside my [please stand by while I insert Martin Freeman’s imagined, albeit still impressive, string of foul verbiage here] window? Yeah, apparently that is going to be a thing in my life for a while; at least while they work on this side of the building. Grrr!

It could be just my over-active imagination, but I do declare all of the constructions workers had a pow-wow this morning when it was quiet. It must have ended just before 10am because every room in my flat has construction noise seeping or thundering in from outside.

The quiet morning is done.

And then was one.

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Verbal Diarrhea Diaries: Toot

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Verbal Diarrhea Diaries aka the crap that comes out of my mouth sometimes that surprises even me.

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A little ego tripping twixt myself and a recent attendee of one of my classes with whom a fun rapport developed via email exchange.

Me:  Weren’t you supposed to email me and remind me to send you this information?

Erstwhile Student:  I had full faith in you that you would remember 😉 Thanks for a seriously awesome training day! You rock…but I’m sure you already knew that.

Me:  * clutches pearls and gasps *

Why, it would be far too immodest of me to self-accolade in such an unseemly manner! I cannot openly concede the methodical superiority in which trainings held under my exacting tutelage are conducted. It would merely serve to further exemplify the depth of all other instructors lacking and that is unkind and unfair.  Luckily, I’m not fair, kind or modest and the horn in which I personally toot is often of a decibel suitable to guide coastal ships in inclement weather.  😉

Besides, the class is only is good as the attendees, many thanks to you for being an equally awesome student.

Erstwhile Student:  LOL! Oh, if only an eighth of my technical classes were even half  as entertaining as yours. Thanks!

Note to my fellow trainers, instructors and teachers reading this. JUST KIDDING!!!!  As I said ego tripping, but it is always wonderful to receive such emails acknowledging your work.

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Let’s see how others are slicing through their Tuesday…

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