I saw Pirates last night, and instead of the usually wordy review, below are some other movies/cartoons that, mixed together with a dash of salt, would produce the same results. Additional cinema allusions, both intended and unintended, are welcome!
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A few weekends back, Patrick and I took a short trip up to Nashville, TN to attend the Loreena McKennitt concert at the Ryman Auditorium. While this trip might seem a tad extravagant, Loreena rarely tours (hasn’t toured in the US since before 1997) and has never before (since I started listening to her) performed further south than North Carolina. So yeah, this was pretty much a must.
While I had previously been to Nashville several times, this trip would be Patrick’s first experience of the city some call NashVegas. Given that we only had partial days both Friday and Saturday, I didn’t attempt to plan anything too extensive beyond the Ryman, its surrounding tourist strip, downtown Nashville, and a quick drive-by of the Gaylord/OpryLand complex. This was a mistake, though, because all of those can easily be “done” to a cursory extent in a short few hours. Even with a luxurious 4 hours of time until the concert, Patrick and I quickly found ourselves quite done with downtown Nashville in just under an hour.
So, we drove around, waited in some rather dense traffic, and with only our Garmin GPS as our guide, proceeded to seek out anything to pass the time. After only another hour or so of random driving, we eventually found our way to Vanderbilt University. It was next to its campus that we found a great way to spend at least an hour or so more - Borders Books and Music!
Why is it that I almost never leave a bookstore without having bought some new book, even though I currently have a ToRead pile that is easily an entire bookcase full? Thankfully, these days, I’m only scouring through the bargain bins looking for those gems that I had previously passed up. Of course, I found a few of those at the Borders in question - a few yaoi manga that I’ve been collecting and the new Tim Powers book, all at clearance price! Into the bookcase they go!
But I digress. After grabbing a bite at the cafe next door, we at last ventured over to the historic Ryman Auditorium. We were still about an hour early, so we could only walk around and check out the Ryman gift shop, buy a soda branded with the Ryman logo, and leaf through the various other trinkets proving to others that we were there. Loreena’s people also had a small shop upstairs, so of course we got in line and purchased a few concert items. Though I used to balk at the usually excessive prices for things like t-shirts and posters, I’ve since learned that the artists themselves actually get to keep a healthy percentage of those profits. Though Patrick wanted their tote bag (how very NPR/PBS of him), they were unfortunately out, so we left with her new concert DVD/CD and the Ryman-specific poster.
Not too long after the shopping, we finally got in to the auditorium itself. Our seats weren’t the best, but we had no problems seeing or hearing anything once the show began. I’ve attended many concerts over the years, but I can honestly say that Loreena and her band performed the most engrossing, musically proficient, and perhaps even spiritually enlightening I’ve ever witnessed personally. She doesn’t seem to tour much, but by all means catch her if you can. No opening act, just two hour-length acts full of happiness. Well, happiness by way of Celtic-world fusion music.
After the show, we decided to see if she would make an appearance behind the stage to greet the fans and sign autographs. Her program notes mentioned that this was a common practice, so I decided it was worth the potentially long wait. Thankfully, we got their almost first, because the crowd quickly grew past a number I would feel comfortable meeting with after performing a two hour concert!
When I met her, I told her of the long trip up from Florida, how she had inspired me to learn the folk harp, and asked her to sign my poster to both of us. I was a nervous wreck at this point, as expected, and concluded the brief meeting with a hug. A HUG! I rarely even hug friends and family, mainly from some long-gone awkward experience as a child hugging some stranger by accident. But I hugged Loreena, and we then quickly retreated to our car by way of the Nashville music drag.
The next day, we drove around looking at several area quilt stores. Patrick found a few interesting fabrics, some quilting notions, and gifts for his fellow quilters back home. We checked out the Grand Ol’ Opry shopping megaplex, mostly just for the shops. I was thrilled to find this huge monument to all things apples called the Apple Barn, and Patrick found some cool electric-powered tent system at the OutdoorWorld Outlet.
Our plane wasn’t leaving until 6ish, so after shopping for the entire morning, we were pretty much done with Nashville. Southwest didn’t, unfortunately, have any earlier available flights, so we drove around some more, stopping briefly by Cooter’s Place (aka the Dukes of Hazzard Museum), grabbing the traditional “meat and 3 sides” lunch at a rather rustically awful little dive, and winding up walking around the Nashville Zoo, which I did happen to enjoy more than the dreadful National Zoo in Washington, D.C. Someday, I too will have Red Pandas eating bamboo!
Nothing eventful happened on the way home, though I must admit that Nashville’s airport was pretty uninspiring in its selection of Hudson News stores and crappy food choices. We ate some reheated Uno’s pizza while watching the planes land before boarding the plane. The flight was uneventful, though we later found out it was that particular pilot’s first flight as the main pilot.
And that was how we spent our (brief) summer vacation…in April…so more spring than summer…you know what I meant.
I do not write this post to celebrate his death as others have. I am saddened for his family, both in their personal grief and in the inevitable glut of media they must now face. Jerry Falwell was not a man that I agreed with, obviously. In his own misguided way, he probably did more harm than good in both the recognition of normality in gays and lesbians and in the vast misunderstanding of Christianity.
The latter bothers me more than the former, because though I can understand his not accepting homosexuality, I cannot understand why the media in the country have latched on to his fringe and outright hate-filled beliefs as an accurate representation of the modern ministry of Jesus. I take that back, I can understand it, I just abhor it. And once again, the media will spin its tales, relating one caricature of a Christian with the rest of us, oversimplifying, distorting, and dishonoring the truth.
The only hope now is that Jerry, at least, knows the truth.
