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Totally off topic, but I had to share this. It’s even funnier coming from a 94 year old woman, knowing the incident must have happened in the 1930s.
Today is officially Pope Mania day in Washington, DC. Pope Benedict is stateside for a few days and will be giving a mass at Nationals Ballfield this morning at 10:30am before moving on to NYC. People have come in from all over the country and the world to attend, as was fairly evident on my very crowded morning commute.
The most delightful story coming out of Pope Mania is the involvement of a local acapella ensemble, the Suspicious Cheese Lords. I came to know the Cheese Lords when a friend and I were looking for something interesting to do one evening and saw an announcement for a free concert at a church. We really had no idea what they were, but how could a person in their right mind turn down the opportunity to see a group called the Suspicious Cheese Lords?
Turns out, they are an all-male acapella group that specializes in “sacred renaissance polyphony.” As the hauntingly beautiful vocal harmonies echoed around the chapel of the Franciscan Monastery, we knew we had discovered one of Washington’s jewels.
Fast forward to yesterday, when I received an announcement on the Cheese Lords’ mailing list, that they had been selected to perform at this morning’s papal mass. There was just one small catch: the name.
“Despite having performed at such venues as the Kennedy Center, the National Gallery of Art, and the Smithsonian Institution,” says a press release entitled Too Cheesey for the Pope?, “their name still seems to make some folks a little uncomfortable: they’re listed in the official program for the April 17 event as ‘Sacred Music Ensemble’, with their real name discreetly tucked away in the acknowledgements on a back page.”
To my knowledge, silly humor is not against Catholicism, but perhaps some people think that such a name lacks the appropriate gravitas to be appearing in such close proximity to the Pope’s.
“Dr. Hugh Dempsey, Deputy Director of the [Pope John Paul II] Cultural Center, is a fan of the group. It didn’t hurt that the group has presented several concerts at the Center, and that one of its members, George P. Cervantes, works there. However, this did not guarantee that the Lords would be asked to perform. Dr. Dempsey had to convince the staff at the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, the primary organizers of the event, that having a group called the Cheese Lords sing at such an historic and dignified event wouldn’t be such a crazy idea.”
I know the Pope and assembled guests will be thrilled to have the Cheese– er, ‘Sacred Music Ensemble’ performing for them, and as a local fan, I hope it serves as a springboard for more national and international recognition for this talented group.
P.S., You’re probably wondering how such an unserious name came to a group of such serious musicians:
“The Suspicious Cheese Lords’ unconventional name is derived from the title of a [Thomas] Tallis motet, Suscipe quaeso Domine. In a playful translation of the title, it was observed that Suscipe could mean “suspicious,” quaeso resembles the Spanish word queso meaning ‘cheese,’ and Domine is, of course, ‘Lord.’ Hence, the title of the motet was clearly ‘Suspicious Cheese Lord’ – which in time became adopted as the group’s name. ‘I hated the name,’ says West. ‘And the guys loved it.’ And to this day, thanks to Skip’s cooking skills, the Cheese Lords continue to have dinner together before their weekly rehearsals.”
you are what you eat…who’d have thought how much what you eat for breakfast says about you?
from jonhuck.com, courtesy of stumbleupon
For some reason, I’m really excited about this.
Could it be because I spend the entirety of 6th and 7th grades pining away for John and Donnie?
I just watched this video and after reliving those CRAZY sartorial and follical stylings, not to mention the dancing and cheezy video, I’m starting to feel old. I think this is what they refer to as nostalgia.
If you have been following the caucuses, you might be interested in checking out printperson’s blog. She has been sketching a lot of the campaign events.
This one was signed by the candidate herself!
We’re getting our first snowfall of the winter today, with an accumulation of 1-2 inches predicted. I’m home nursing a cold, and I have to say it’s a pretty good day to be inside and look at the pretty snow without having to actually deal with the cold wet stuff.
We lit our menorah last night for the first night of Hanukkah and I’m thinking about making latkes. I got a big package off to Italy at the post office. Hopefully it will arrive in time for Christmas. Pandora is playing a nice interdenominational mix of acoustic-type holiday songs (station based on Hanukkah Blessings by the Barenaked Ladies). Yes, I’m finally getting into the holiday mood…
Two songs I love, that together make a great (if tragic) couple.
Samson, by Regina Spektor
Hey There Delilah, by Plain White T’s
My bro-in-law and programmer extraordinaire Colin has just launched a new web service that turns wine criticism and recommendations to the masses. The site is called Splash of Wine and it promises to be a great source for opinions about wine once it has established a good user base. It is still in alpha mode, so Colin welcomes your suggestions on improving it.
Splash of Wine is a new home on the web for information about wine. It’s a brand new site, so although everything should (hopefully!) work, I need lots of feedback on how it can be improved.
The main feature right now is the ability to review wines, so you can build up a list of which wines you like. Reviews can also be shared with other user’s (by selecting “publish” on the edit page), and you can follow other user’s reviews using syndication (Atom) feeds.
Other features include: record purchases, export your reviews to CSV files, embed reviews in your blog and search for recommended wines. Additional features are in the works and suggestions are welcome!
Dance stuff I found from around the internet:
- from Infinite Body shares a video celebration and tribute to black dance. I love the diversity of dance styles, the diversity of people, the editing, and the spirit of the whole thing.
- Gray on Fame or Famine pays tribute to Baryshnikov, and shares stunning opening dance sequence from White Nights (must rent! choreography by Twyla Tharp!(Correction: though Tharp is the main choreographer for the movie, the opening sequence seems to have been choreographed by Roland Petit)).
- NYT’s Gia Kourlas explores Danny Tidwell and the SYTYCD phenomenon. As an aside, I had no idea that he and Travis Wall were brothers. Their mother should be proud of herself for producing the rightful winner of last season and the probable (and probably also rightful) winner of this season. What is it with family dynasties on this show? Travis and Danny. Faina and that other Russian ballroom dude. Lacey and Benji.
- Anthony from Addicted2Salsa gives a primer on my favorite musical and dance style– cha cha cha. He makes two key points: that it must be danced on the 2 (thank you Anthony! please send this memo to all the salsa dancers in DC!), and that cha cha gives us more space to play around with the music. You just can’t get into styling with a fast mambo as much as you can with cha cha.
- And finally, I leave you with another random photo from the Winger. What can I say, I’m a huge sucker for cute.
We are in the middle of a spectacular thunderstorm here in Northern Virginia. We had originally planned to take metro down to the national mall to watch the fireworks over the monuments, but we just may end up staying in to watch it on PBS (assuming they are still doing it– they are saying on TV that they’re evacuating the mall right now). There is nothing like watching 4th of July fireworks behind the Washington Monument, accompanied live by the National Symphony Orchestra playing Tchaikovsky’s “1812 Overture,” and real cannon fire. Last year we sat on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in our Italy shirts, celebrating one of their victory in the World Cup semifinals and US independence. It was a great day for both countries.
For those of us that can’t be there, and most especially for my family and friends overseas that are not able to celebrate the 4th properly, here is a video of it from last year.
A Time to Dance 