Friday, May 26, 2006

Critic

The Web site Kiki's Magical Music Reviews has weighed in with a much appreciated review of the Junkers show the week before last. Grazie, Kiki!
Islands in the wha?

dane101.com has posted a video of Martin Price and me performing "Islands in the Stream" at the cabaret last night. (Permanent link here.) Thanks, dane101.com!

As we sang I felt tremendous love and thankfulness for Martin, in all his gorgeous, brilliant glory. When we are making music together, we indeed are islands in the stream. I am privileged to call him my friend.

Yesterday was his birthday. Happy birthday, Martin Price!

Wednesday, May 24, 2006

Life is a wha?

Be sure to come to the Mad Cabaret tomorrow, because I will be appearing for a solo performance and a duet with MC Pierce Bottoms, sometimes known as Martin Price. The Mad Cabaret is at the Slipper Club, 121 W. Main St. in downtown Madison. Showtime is 10 pm.

Tuesday, May 23, 2006

What's that device

The death of Lloyd Bentsen is an occasion to think about some principles of rhetoric involved in the most celebrated moment of his life, that famous exchange with fellow vice-presidential candidate Dan Quayle in the 1988 debate:
Quayle: I have as much experience in the Congress as Jack Kennedy did when he sought the presidency.

Bentsen: Senator, I served with Jack Kennedy. I knew Jack Kennedy. Jack Kennedy was a friend of mine. Senator, you're no Jack Kennedy.
Bentsen was calling Quayle out on some logical fallacies, specifically the fallacy of honor by association (A was good, A did X, I did X, therefore I am good); and also argumentum ad populum, or appeal to emotion.

Bensten threw in some conduplicatio, or repetition; some accumulatio, or heaping up; even some anamnesis, or fond recollection. He also used a tricolon crescens: a series of three items, each more emphatic than the last (cf. "I came, I saw, I conquered").

Not bad for an ad lib. With it he destroyed Quayle and triumphed in the debate. He also lost the election.

Just goes to show.

Monday, May 22, 2006

Love is in the air

Congrats to Jesse and Noah, at whose wedding reception I was honored to sing yesterday afternoon. It was perhaps my favorite wedding gig ever -- the setting: a relaxed backyard barbecue -- and my favorite moment came when it was time for Jesse to toss the bouquet. Just before she did, she flashed me a devilish grin and showed me that inside the lovely arrangement of wildflowers she had tucked a freshly roasted weiner.

There was the traditional lunging of women for the bouquet, then an intensely comic moment as the victor realized just what she had caught. She did a double take and, without missing a beat, stuffed the weiner into her mouth.
Good word

"There are also some misjudgments that were not made."

-- Condoleezza Rice