Whew, this was a busy day, we started off our first film at the Palm Springs Art Museum, the theatre there is called the Annenberg, and we watched the most terrific film, made by a German man. It was Kinshasa Symphony and told the story of how in the midst of complete poverty and chaos in the Congo, in Kinshasa, one of the 3 biggest cities in Africa, a symphony was formed, comprised of the most normal and least likely people to be playing symphony.
Watching them play amidst such rustic surroundings, and against such incredible odds, was so uplifting and positive. Their lives are so dreadfully poor and challenging compared to ours, and yet they were playing Beethoven's 9th symphony, and the dedication was a real marvel to behold.
And the film maker gave a bit of a talk, and answered audience questions afterwards, due to his documentary film, he has been able to raise more money to sponsor more instruments for the players, they are all part of a kind of church there. The poverty and living conditions were totally gruesome, but very average people seem to have been lifted above their misery to rise above it and put on the wonderful music, and even inspire others to try thinking about classic music.
The second film we saw was at Camelot, after we had lunch at Annenberg cafe, outside in the chilly air, but surrounded by lovely free standing sculpture art. It was called Fifty Nothing, and both Lary and I found it a bit dull, 2 guys having a bit of a mid life crisis in L A headed out to Palm Springs to spend a weekend, and all that entailed. Not as impressive as the first film, though we sure enjoyed seeing lots and lots of shots of the Palm Springs area. At each film you have a chance to rate it on a scale of 1 - 5, 1 is excellent, 5 is not.
We both have a set of 6 tickets for films, and that cost us $54 each. That got us vouchers and we exchanged those online for the specific films we wanted to see. And the process also went very smoothly when we went in to the Film Festival office to pick up the tickets for our specific films, they just hit the button with our name, and out popped the tickets we had requested. Slick.
After watching that second film we headed over to Annie's to the monthly get together of the Coachella Valley flute circle, as usual an incredible evening with gorgeous music, Lesley gave a kind of demonstration of how differing combinations of keys of flutes played together created different moods. Then we all played, and it was such fun once more. There were some new people there who we hadn't met before, Mundo and Janice, Diane, Babs and her guest Loretta (?), we really enjoyed the evening there, and plan to meet as a flute class, myself, Lary and Chip next Thursday. Annie is playing her flutes up at the monument tomorrow, we may go and keep her company and play a bit if she wants that.
I had been at Annie's on Weds for the first of four drum classes, that was very interesting, led by Sharon Stevens, who is a certified Remo instructor. We put my new frame drum outside in the warm sunshine to shrink up a bit, Sharon said it wasn't very tight. Seemed to do the trick, and Annie lent me a Djembe drum, which you hold between your legs, with the bottom end of it off the floor for better sound. We all beat out our names as a memory game, after we had learned that the centre of the drum makes a deeper sound, and the edge is higher pitched.
Then she started a beat with her big drum, and we each added another "color" by adding our own beat that we had to continue to play, going around the circle we all added our new beats, and played them together as a group, then one by one we stopped our beat, it formed kind of like a wave of sound, and was very interesting indeed. Annie and Al were students, we were quite a big bunch of folks playing drums, very stimulating for me. When you try and think too much, you forget what you are doing, if you just let it flow you do much better.
Sharon also tightened a djembe drum, it is called pulling diamonds or something like that, it is adjusting the strings that hold the skin or head of the drum tight. It seemed to take a lot of strength in your hands and fingers to do that, it was fascinating to watch, and very effective. What you make when you adjust the strings are groups of diamond shapes.
Thursday we were just heading out to Annie's for our flute lesson when she called to say she was feeling very sick, so we stayed home, I played my flutes outside for a short while. And I cleaned some stuff out of the shed, too, and threw it away in the garbage.
Read an entertaining article talking about the new landscaping and outward facing triangles that are jutting right out into the busy road on the main thoroughfare of Desert Hot Springs. They are catching unsuspecting drivers unawares, and many folks are doing lots of tire and wheel damage on these stupid jutting out triangles, which really narrow down the road, too, not to mention impede and constrict traffic.
Apparently during the floods the triangles filled with water, and washed out the new plants and the watering for them too, not to mention these triangles were next to impossible to see under the flooding rains, and caused even more inconvenience for people that challenging day.
About Me
- Di and Lary
- Di and Lary are both retired, Lary was in the Canadian Armed Forces as an Air Navigator, 32 years, and Di did many things, but the most fulfilling was teaching, for 3 years on an Indian Reserve in Central BC and later 7 years teaching ESL, both in Canada and in Europe, in Spain and later Germany.