Kids today! With their hair and their clothes and their hip-hip music!
Do you remember being this feted on the last week of school?
MONDAY: Holiday
TUESDAY: Kid Olympics
WEDNESDAY: Swimming Day
THURSDAY: Polo Day
FRIDAY: Lobster and Caviar Day
Well, okay, I joke just a bit. Everyone knows kids don't like caviar. :-)
Lest I start to believe my daughter isn't learning anything constructive this week, she did come home from Kid Olympics day with a new appreciation for basketball. She thinks she'd like to join a team someday soon. This is brand-new. She was never interested in any organized sport, even soccer, which is the requisite kid sport around here.
Also, the buzz is that in fourth grade they will begin to learn musical instruments for junior band and orchestra. "If I take viola," Bunny told me seriously, "You'll have to set me up in this room and then go to another part of the house while I practice. My teacher told me." Dude, I hope the teacher was teasing the kids, because what a thing to say to them! Even if it's true, which, hello, it is.
What, given the level of musicianship which floats on both sides of her gene pool and you're surprised that she's interested in the viola? (Actually, of the known instruments of world music, the viola places only moderately ahead of the oud and the sistrum in terms of kid interest!) Now get her interested in Courtney Love or Tori Amos and you can kiss needing a regular job goodbye!
Posted by: Anthony | June 01, 2005 at 08:02 AM
You people in Marin County and your problems - I swear!
We still have 2.5 weeks left and there's nothing to do.
Mr. Man has expressed an interest in taking up an instrument as well. He's still undecided on which one thought.
Posted by: pops | June 01, 2005 at 12:36 PM
B is out of school as of last Friday! He's already wasting time on video games. He has also refused team sports, like your third grader. "Mom, in soccer, you can get KICKED!" He likes tennis, though. He's also interested in the trombone. Why oh why couldn't he be interested in something other than brass?
Posted by: Snow | June 01, 2005 at 01:52 PM
Snow, at least he's not a DRUMMER. Imagine!
John Cale is a Great Violist! Why, what schoolgirl can't name at least a dozen more famous viola players! Maybe you could get some Team Viola gear, posters and etc, you know, all the licensed stuff, even though it's so commercial and everything...
Posted by: Jo | June 01, 2005 at 03:26 PM
Um... Pops... are you diggin at people in Marin County? Don't be dissen on Marin, now. That's MY job.
Oh, for the record, NO ONE IN MARIN has any problems. (snark)
Posted by: Wende | June 01, 2005 at 06:12 PM
Nothing $50 and a night in Tijuana wouldn't fix, anyway.
Posted by: Jo | June 01, 2005 at 08:11 PM
The answer:
Paul Hindemith (!), William Primrose, Lionel Tetris (!!), Pinchas Zuckerman, Tabea Zimmerman and that, kinder, is the LIMIT of how many famous violists there have been in the last CENTURY or so. Seriously. John Cale was never a very good violist, he just knew how to make noise and write interesting music. The number of viola concertos wouldn't fill a single kb of memory. The viola is the Rodney Dangerfield of instruments and about as lively... I have been reasonbably informed by orchestral musicians that viola players are by and large deeply resentful people whose "dedication" to the Chris O'Donnell of instruments (how low can you get?) is merely mask for a burning anger against all other string players, including bassists, who can at least get minor jazz gigs sometimes...
Posted by: Anthony | June 02, 2005 at 05:43 AM
What?!? Now you've gone too far. I refuse to believe that much latent hostility seethes below the surface of the average viola player. What is it, do you reckon - having to learn alto clef?
Posted by: pam | June 02, 2005 at 06:34 AM
Playing the viola regularly seals off the inner ear. It's a known scientific fact.
Posted by: Jo | June 02, 2005 at 07:20 AM
75% of all serial killers were forced to play viola by abusive parents. Cliff Claven told me so! David Berkowitz was too ashamed to admit that he was really getting instructions to kill from a viola played by a disgruntled NY Philharmonic member! So he had to make up the bit about the neighbor's dog, which was only slightly less lame as an excuse...
Posted by: Anthony | June 02, 2005 at 09:16 AM
A little-known sign of the Apocalypse is the Choir of Violas that will descend from on high!
Posted by: Jo | June 02, 2005 at 12:17 PM
Little known facts:
Pol Pot tried to make the viola the "National Symbol" of Khmer Rouges ideology!
Prescott Bush: Assistant violist, Yale Symphony orchestra, 1923-25.
G H Bush: Confessed to his Skull and Bones Brothers about youthful addiction to viola playing.
G W Bush: too stupid even to play viola! Thought that was name of black maid at Bowdoin.
Stalin: in last year of power, tried to get all Soviet trained violinists to take up the viola. Rumors abound that plot to kill Stalin originated from Moscow Central Music Conservatory!
Rush Limbaugh: played viola before becoming right-wing talk show idiot.
Sean Hannity: too stupid to play viola as well. Thinks it's that word you use when you want to say "there it is" in a fancy way!!
Kurt Cobain: shortly before tragic death was given a viola as a "present" by Courtney Love.
Posted by: Anthony | June 02, 2005 at 01:51 PM
Gosh, people, I can't wait for these viola-related mendacities to hit the search engines. I'm going to get some real (though geekish) hate mail from viola lovers.
Posted by: pam | June 03, 2005 at 06:43 AM