Christmas in Tyringham

Some photos from our stay in Tyringham to see my dad and Joanie over Christmas.  We arrived on Sunday, the day before Christmas eve. Cold but not too bad by Tyringham standards, no snow to speak of. Rivers and streams are all ridiculously full (lots of rain the previous week).

The house:

Dad and Joanie relaxing in the living room:

Reed reading Roz Chast:

The dog loitering in the living room, trying to figure out where to stand so as to maximize the inconvenience level for the collected humans:

On Christmas Eve the longstanding tradition in Joanie's family is to cook "Seven Fishes": some sort of menu that involves seven distinct kinds of seafood or fish. This time around the dishes were five hors d'oeuvres: her ever-popular smoked trout spread, salmon mousse, smoked eels, a lovely curried shrimp thing, and a pie made from caramelized onions topped with bits of anchovy. All delicious! For the main meal she prepared broiled branzino and baked monkfish (also very tasty).

Photos:

Drinks before dinner:

There was quite a bit of music-playing as always:

Rustin was working furiously in his shop, this time around putting together a cool set of cutting boards made with a striped effect from different kind of wood. The shop:

Opening presents:

Bingo finally found someone who would give him some "lap time". I should add that when this photo was taking he was snoring loudly (I could hear him across the room):

On Christmas day Joanie let us cook brunch, so we made the traditional family Christmas morning meal (the one started by Paul and Frances): smoked salmon, dill, capers, cream cheese, scramble eggs, bacon, oranges+grapefruit, and (in our variant) fresh cinnamon rolls:

For dinner Joanie decided to cook a "Turducken" -- a huge undertaking, with complicated construction and a very long baking time. It turned out wonderfully this time, fabulously moist and very flavorful.

It was a nice visit -- no skiing or skating to be had unfortunately, but plenty of long walks and lots of "internet free" time.

Ethan Quartet

Here is a video of Ethan playing a smallish quartet with some of his LHS buddies; I think I emailed it to Ethan but haven't posted it on the blog until now.

http://youtu.be/dN3Jw-uS_LA

This is from back in June.

Pitch Pipes

Ethan has joined an "a capella" singing group this fall at the high school. It's been an interesting experience so far. Amy and I were a bit surprised when he told us that he was trying out for singing groups, since he hasn't really done anything like that before, but: why not?  These singing groups are actually a fairly big deal at the high school, and there are quite a lot of them (8-10). They are entirely student-run; aside from consulting with a faculty advisor on performance dates/times, they are responsible for everything: planning the shows, organizing the practices, you name it. Some of the groups are co-ed, and some single-sex; Ethan's group, the "Pitch Pipes" is all boys. They practice twice a week, once on Tuesday nights from 8-10 and once on Sunday from 5-7pm. The practice rotates around from one kids house to another, so it seems as though we've driven all over Lexington getting him there and back.

The groups may have smaller events and gigs during the year, but they come together two or three times a year for a "jam", where all of the groups perform. Each group sings three songs, and then at the end they usually try to invite another singing group from one of the local colleges/universities to perform.  Things are pretty low key, and there is a fair amount of goofing around (including the wearing of weird costumes). The jams are very well attended. Here are the Pitch Pipes as first seen on stage:

The group had some fun for their routine this time by turning out the stage lights and putting on a 15-second show with glow sticks, which was fun but rather difficult to photograph:

Listening to the actual songs is a slightly weird experience for people of my generation, since 95% of the time I have no idea what the original song is that is being remodeled/rearranged. For example, Ethan's group did a remake of the song "She's a Lady" by the group "Forever the Sickest Kids"-- never even heard of the band, let alone the song.   The groups don't seem to have any qualms about picking oddball songs. For example, one group did a rendition of "Creep" by Radiohead, which is about as anti-a-capella as you can get (probably the reason they picked it). The other way that "a capella" has changed since when I was a kid is that there is now a "beat boxer" who accompanies the singers, making various clicking and popping noises to simulate percussion. Photos of a couple more of the groups:

Ethan is having a lot of fun with it so far.   When we drive him around in the car these days we get to hear his "beat boxing" practice, and it seems as though he's constantly singing some tune or another at home (family dinners have become a good deal more noisy, at least during the lead-up).