Sippican Cottage
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Who’s Gonna Let It Roll? Unorganized Hancock, Of Course

November 28, 2012 16 Comments

My boys are making their way through their list of requests. Here’s one for my friend Bird Dog over at the aptly named Maggie’s Farm: Bob Dylan’s Minstrel Boy. Got good taste in everything but friends, that guy does.

If you’d like to throw our minstrel boys a coin, there’s a PayPal button at the top of the right column. Any amount over a buck will work. Many thanks to everyone that gave already; we’ve purchased a PA system for the boys that will arrive later this week. No more singing through a bass amp!

[Update: Thanks, Karen M.(via mail!) and Lorraine! Thanks, Kathleen! Thanks Cynthia!] Up-update: Thanks, Michael, for your coins and your kind words]

Because At Night The Sun In Retreat Made The Skyline Look Like Crooked Teeth

September 23, 2012 7 Comments

I know, it’s not very good; maybe only 43 percent better than the original:

The Heir and The Spare play in a room with no heat; it doesn’t even have electricity. If they play too loud, plaster falls on their heads. When they want to practice, they have to run an extension cord in there first. But somehow, they manage to play together every day — often twice a day. The Heir has to sing through a practice bass amp, and it doesn’t even have reverb. The Spare is only nine, and his legs still have trouble straddling the snare to play the high-hat and the bass drum, but he never falters, really; he’s as reliable a timekeeper as most adult drummers already. These videos are just practices recorded on a Flip camera with an ambient microphone.

They’ve tried to play with a hearty handful of neighbor kids, but they always drift off; they can’t seem to concentrate on any one thing for any length of time. Their parents and the schools have them doing forty things at the same time, as if they were polymaths on diet pills, but they end up being as reliable as electricity in India at everything.

My boys press on. They have no natural advantages, and lots of impediments. How can they fail?


Snack Shack Billy

September 19, 2012 No Comments

Meanwhile, in Maine…



The original, obviously inferior version, if you’re interested:

More Beatles Bolognese

June 14, 2012 6 Comments

(Galeazzo Frudua on YouTube)

My sons are up to around twenty-five songs that they can play together now. After dinner each night, my wife and I go for a walk around the neighborhood while they practice together in an unused bedroom. The plaster is falling off the walls rather nicely in there.

The nine-year-old is entirely immune to praise. If you tell him,”You played that really great,” he might say,”Yes, we did,” in his best Chance the Gardener monotone, but he’s more likely to start rambling about something he’s building on Minecraft, which is apparently what he’s thinking of the entire time he’s playing the drums. My older son teaches him the songs. They have become self-contained now.  I used to give the little one a lesson at lunch every day, but it became superfluous.

They use Spotify  and YouTube to find out what they need to know. Our children do not attend the public schools. I was amused –if that’s the right word — to read that the local schools hand out laptops to all the children, but are reconsidering allowing the children to fully use them for school. They’re thinking of blocking certain sites because the kids waste too much time there. Only a few websites, one being YouTube, were mentioned as needing to be blocked.

After all, what could an intelligent and curious youngster find on YouTube that’s worth knowing?

Tag: the spare

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sippicancottage

A Man Who Has Nothing In Particular To Recommend Him Discusses All Sorts of Subjects at Random as Though He Knew Everything.

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