No Tiki Tumblers but Plenty of Plastic Papyrus

I survived Early Music Camp and am now back at work. What I learned about tuning confirms so much of what I have observed about music over the years, like why I preferred minor key music or harmonies in fourths and fifths over major thirds, yet in folk music and early music major keys seemed fine. What I propose is that either we return to a more sane tuning system, such as extended sixth-comma mean tone, or that we stop using the major third which is so decimated in equal temperament, and go back to using only fourths, fifths, and minor thirds. Why major-key music gained such ascendency in modern music when it sounds so awful in modern tuning is beyond me, but I guess it fits with the general preference for ugliness in art during the 20th century, so obvious in visual art and architecture. It's time we stand up and fight this scourge upon modern music! Especially when there are so many remedies.

Yesterday Tiffy and I went downtown to the sidewalk sales and bought really practical things like jewelry, Hawaiian shirts, and a didgeridoo that I will someday figure out how to play, even if currently I can only get it to make a sound like a conch shell. Ah well, at least it has stylized carvings of geckos and turtles on it, and the saleswoman (who patiently tried to teach me how to play it) said I can set it in a corner because vertical bamboo in a corner is good feng shui. (As if my house has any kind of feng shui going for it!) Then we sat outside drinking tropical drinks, and then we went to the Random Store, which sells everything. Among its various wares it has tiki wind chimes and tiki candles, but - can you BELIEVE it? - no tiki tumblers! My parents have some attractive tiki drinking glasses that are quite old, but when I inquired about them, they said my brother had already asked for them. Bummer. The most surprising thing I saw was a plastic papyrus plant complete with plastic clover growing around the base, which shocked me because my Nola (the papyrus plant that came back with me from New Orleans) has a trefoil plant growing around the base. I didn't think it was actually clover but some sort of oxalis, but internet research revealed no connection between papyrus and either clover or oxalis. However, there is a kind of fern called "water clover" because of its resemblance to clover, although it is typically four-leafed. I will have to inspect my "New Orleans shamrock" more closely, because it does unfurl each new leaf like a fern, but I could have sworn it had three leaflets, not four.

Also, the banjo player does not want to be known on this blog as "the banjo player" but she has no suggestions for an alternate name. Does anyone else?

Famous Hat