Sing for the kid in the back who refuses to sing

If there is not shortly a video of Amanda Palmer at the Boston Pops, I will be very disappointed in the internet. Somebody should have a record of the moment in "Coin-Operated Boy" when she pushed Keith Lockhart off the podium and took over conducting the orchestra herself. (He shrugged, went around the piano, inspected the sheet music, and proceeded to play that spidery crawl up and down the keys that follows the bridge, adding a few dissonant flourishes as he went—she evicted him just in time to get back to the last verse.) Not to mention the start-and-stop fakeouts of pianist vs. conductor ( I . . . want . . . [feint toward keys; downbeat averted at the last minute] . . . a), or the skipped-record moment of the third verse (and I'll never let him go and I'll never be alone—go and I'll never be alone—go and I'll never be alone—) that had to be fixed mechanically, and of course just how impressively louche a full orchestra can sound, I'm not kidding, it was like the Kit Kat Klub with a MacArthur grant. Or the rest of the concert, truly. The four songs from her upcoming solo album Who Killed Amanda Palmer?, which is now on my wish list even more than before; familiar material by the Dresden Dolls, arranged for the Pops and wonderful for it; a handful of covers, one by Ben Folds which I did not recognize, a very funny rendition of Oklahoma's "I Cain't Say No" and an even better one of Cabaret's "Don't Tell Mama," closing with "What a Wonderful World" that started camp and ended oddly sincere, with Brian Viglione. One of the chorus who joined her onstage for "Have to Drive" was her father, Jack Palmer. There were white-faced students like clay ghosts in the aisles for one of the new songs, written about Columbine, recorded the week of Virginia Tech. The audience was on its feet and singing for the last encore, "Sing." Exactly as it should be. After the show you can not sing wherever you want. But for now let's just pretend we're all going to get bombed. So sing. And everyone did. That's what you don't need a cathedral for. You can do it with a thousand voices and a piano, symphony regulars and living statues, striped stockings and suit jackets. That's sacred.

. . . and I would have brought home one of the gorgeous, Art Deco-style posters they were selling at the merch table, except that the line went literally around the block. Maybe they'll be available online. I can dream, anyway.

This was music I needed.

How gravid the moon on the cusp of the sea

nineweaving found this for me: the solstice moon over Cape Sounion. That's the temple of Poseidon, those columns in the floodlight. I want to see it for myself.



Shortest night, all.