Dark-Eyed Susanna

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Dark-Eyed Susanna

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Length: 3:42

Been tweaking this thing for hours in the attempt to disquise my occasionally off key singing and the fact that I recorded it with terrible microphones (the Xacti HD and PowerBook G4 internals, to be precise).

Decided to call it quits, went back and (mostly) de-effected it. The vocal and banjo overdubs remain, but the instrumental break is sans solo.

I used to perform music live, but I'm desperately out of practice.

I'll stand by the song, though. Poor white steamboat worker from the wrong side of the river falls for middle-class mulatto city girl, circa 1861. (Historical language in effect.)

Feel free to drop me a line if you'd like to know why a Gen X California Hapa would be writing a song like this in the first place.

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semanal08, semanal08week13

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Nana
Posted: 2008-08-12 01:50:00
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Length: 1:15

A bit of summer backyard fun with one of the boy's favorite playmates, my mom. Moments like this help us set aside our vexations over his rigidity and anxiety attacks. It's this kind of interaction the specialists tasked with assessing his social skills never get a chance to see.
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semanal08, semanal08week32
Open Mic
Posted: 2008-07-09 01:07:00
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Length: 2:56

In the kids' area at the county fair this year there stood a small stage in front of a couple of benches. There was no schedule of performers or showcases, just a live gooseneck microphone at a kid-friendly height.

When we first walked past, a couple of girls were using it to sing "Happy Birthday" together. The boy appeared not to take notice. A few minutes later, however, when there was no one on stage and no one in the audience, he wandered up the ramp, muttered a few words into the microphone, and stepped back down again. After a few more tentative experiments, he marched back up and launched into a complete song, an En Vogue number from Sesame Street (complete with the requisite melisma).

While his diction is... imprecise, his rhythm is surprisingly good. He even attempts to sing much of the song while inhaling, in his attempt to keep the beat. I have included the song in its entirety, so nota bene.

The general shakiness of the video is due to the effect of Christa's foot tapping on the bench on which we were seated.
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semanal08, semanal08week27
City Chase Bowling Challenge
Posted: 2008-06-30 01:19:00
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Length: 0:48

Saturday I participated in City Chase San Francisco, an "urban adventure" in the mold of The Amazing Race. Our final challenge was to bowl a strike or a spare. With one small catch.
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semanal08, semanal08week26
Recitation
Posted: 2008-06-23 23:06:00
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Length: 0:27

A spontaneous adaptation of a poem entitled "I Like Peanut Butter" from an out-of-print children's book the boy has at one of his two schools (he won't say which).
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semanal08, semanal08week25