hello friends, wally here. been playing with Sully for 2 days, and i’m gassed! and you know, when you work hard and play hard you get really really hungry, right? well, there’s no breaking the rules in this house, 3 meals a day, 7am, noon and 5pm, and no deviations. and 1/3 of a cup of puppy chow for each meal, and it has to be level to the top and not heaping. i love mom but she’s a meany-cat and immovable. just look at those pics of me, i’m withering away and you can see my hip bones. this is a dangerous situation. so i decided to share with mom Pearl Jam’s tune “Hunger Strike” so maybe she’d get it or i’m going on a no-more-cute strike. will keep you all posted. have a great evening. yours truly hungry Wally.
Category: Music
Wally’s Great Adventures (58 – VOLUME UP – I had a lot of things to do today but…)
hello friends, wally here. decided rather than telling you all about my adventures, i would share lyrics from a great song by Gunnarolla titled “I Took a Nap” that captures my day…here we go: “I had a lot of things to do today / But you know what I did instead / I took a nap / It was a very good nap / That email / I took a nap / Zoom call / I took a nap / What about your lunch plan / I (ate lunch then) took a nap / House chores / I took a nap / Home workout? / I took a nap / Bath time? / I took a nap… / I woke up from the nap to get things done / But you know what I did instead / I took a nap / It was a very good nap…..” have a great sunday. Wally.
You ask me am I crazy for playing the cello in a war zone
One night, I dreamed that I was meeting my friend, a poet named Mariana, in Sarajevo, the city of love. I woke up confused. Sarajevo, a symbol of love? Wasn’t Sarajevo the site of one of the bloodiest civil wars of the late twentieth century? Then I remembered. Vedran Smailović. The cellist of Sarajevo…
You ask me am I crazy for playing the cello in a war zone, he says. Why don’t you ask THEM if they’re crazy for shelling Sarajevo?
His gesture reverberates throughout the city, over the airwaves. Soon, it’ll find expression in a novel, a film. But before that, during the darkest days of the siege, Smailović will inspire other musicians to take to the streets with their own instruments. They don’t play martial music, to rouse the troops against the snipers, or pop tunes, to lift the people’s spirits. They play the Albinoni. The destroyers attack with guns and bombs, and the musicians respond with the most bittersweet music they know.
We’re not combatants, call the violinists; we’re not victims, either, add the violas. We’re just humans, sing the cellos, just humans: flawed and beautiful and aching for love.
— Susan Cain, “Bittersweet: How Sorrow and Longing Make Us Whole” (Crown, April 5, 2022)
Image: Manny Becerra via Unsplash