Evanston: dreary
Evanston: dreary
Although storms continue to miss us, passing both north and south, so that Chicago has yet to have an accumulation of one inch of snow, I don’t recall when I last saw the sun. Even in North Carolina over Christmas it did not shine.
A thin mantle of snow improves cities, covering blemishes and ugliness, as does night and distance; but when Carol and I rode the taxi from O’Hare on Wednesday, what little snow was on the ground had frozen into dirty lumps. A few flurries blowing off the lake yesterday and this morning have made it, briefly, white again.
A few years ago I wrote that the Canadian, Loreena McKennitt, is my favorite female singer. If I had to choose just one, that is probably still true, but there is not much separation between her and several others, among them Lucy Kaplansky, Eva Cassidy, Mary Chapin Carpenter. Under guilty pleasures, I must confess that I even like Sarah Brightman, billed “as the world’s best selling soprano,” and own several of her albums.
Lucy Kaplansky sings three of my favorite songs: “Scorpion” “Blue Chalk” and “The Tide.”
“The Tide” is one of the most original songs ever written and the antithesis of “Scorpion.” In “Scorpion,” she sings, “I want to show you everything. I want to give you everything.” In “The Tide” she sings, “The tide has washed the nice from me. I have nothing for you tonight.”
But Loreena McKennitt has the music I need this afternoon. The album: TO DRIVE THE COLD WINTER AWAY.
Friday, December 28, 2012