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Inspirational Music

On Tuesday October 30th, the Mormon Tabernacle Choir announced that it joined YouTube! I was there for the announcement, and it was fun to be part of this next step into the digital age. I am particularly excited that they will post the Music and the Spoken Word. I hope the Christmas Special gets posted! We'll have to wait and see.
Part of the launch of their YouTube page included an amazing music video of Alex Boye and the Mormon Tabernacle Choir singing  I Want Jesus to Walk with Me. The video was shot in Ghana at the Cape Coast Castle. Here, slaves were cramped into squalid dungeons before being transferred onto slave ships bound for the Americas. I love the aural and visual tones of this music video, because I feel like they really capture the solitude and desperation each slave must have felt inside. 

 What does this piece of music inspire inside you? Do you think the video helps convey a feeling or reinforce one?
Worldancer No comment yet

Classics for Halloween

How do you really feel about Halloween? I feel like this holiday is really for the kids. They love getting dressed up and raking in pounds of free candy. And while I too love those things, somehow the holiday itself just doesn't have the same appeal for me currently. Maybe it's because I don't have any cute kidlets to dress up and take pictures of as they march in their school parade. And I am fairly absolutely certain that I am too old to dress up and ask for candy for myself. (Not to mention what that will do to my non-child figure.) It's been a few years since I really felt any excitement at all about the Halloween holiday. Last year, I decided to change that. 

 It all started with the ballet. I know, you are all wondering what ballet has to do with Halloween or even the classics. Well, last year, Ballet West performed the ballet, Dracula. Oh yes. It was just as amazing as it sounds! They had fantastic dancers, of course, the choreography was excellent and well-executed, and the story-line really came to life for me. The ballet was so wonderful, in fact, that I decided I must read the novel. And in that moment was born the idea that a fabulous way to get into the scary Halloween mood is to read classic novels. 
Image from Blogolgy

 Halloween is all about ghosts, the otherworld colliding with the mortal world, altered states, death, fear... basically, everything that classical horror novels touch on. So here are some spooky reads that not only build your cultural awareness, they get you good and scared for Halloween!!
  • Dracula - Bram Stoker
  • The Legend of Sleepy Hollow - Washington Irving
  • Frankenstein - Mary Shelley 
  • The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde - Robert Louis Stevenson
  • The Phantom of the Opera - Gaston Leroux
  • The Essential Tales and Poems of Edgar Allen Poe - Edgar Allen Poe
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