"To all of my children in whom Life flows abundant..."
2019-Sep-15, Sunday 19:30![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dorchadas
Just recently we learned that part of the flight-or-fight response involves a hormone secreted by our bones, which means that from a certain point of view, all those bone-hurting juice memes are real.
Or, from another, the true Skeleton War was inside us all along.
I went to Mishkan on Friday and it was just as lovely as it always is, but what I really want to highlight is that we had two melodies for "Lecha Dodi." The second one, for the second half, was Mishkan's tradition one, but for the first half we sang it to the tune of Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah." You can hear a version by the Maccabeats here, and while we obviously weren't as smooth and practiced as they are, I think the impression on me from the music was the same. People make jokes about how easy it is to write new verses to "Hallelujah," but here's a five-century-old liturgical song and look how easily it fits in?
Come, beloved, and greet the Bride.
Yesterday afternoon I went to Distant Worlds, which I bought tickets for at almost the last minute once a discount code popped up and I learned that![[facebook.com profile]](https://www.facebook.com/favicon.ico)
Aaron.hosek was going to. And...hmm. As I described it to my friends later, it was good but not great. They played a Chicago premiere of an orchestral arrangement of Searching for Friends, the world map music from the second half of Final Fantasy VI which was nice, and another Chiago premiere of an orchestral arrangement of Suteki Da Ne from Final Fantasy X which was...not. They had Rikki, the original performer, there to sing it in person, but it's been twenty years. She tried, but her voice is not what it was.
And the second half of the concert was all Final Fantasy VII, which has good music, but I've never played it so I don't really have any connection to it.
Though, that's also true of Final Fantasy XIV, and that didn't stop Answers from being the best song they played.
I was also happy that Shimomura Yōko was there, even if she never said anything and just waved a bit from the stage. She's much better known for her work on the Street Fighter II and Kingdom Hearts soundtracks, but I just heard an interview with Tateishi Takashi, the composer of Mega Man 2's soundtrack, who didn't know until a few years ago that Western fans thought of him as a video game music god, so I think it's a good thing any time any of those Japanese composers can see how well-regarded they are abroad.
As I left, I heard a woman explaining to her friend why Final Fantasy VII has so many die-hard fans--she said it was because it was the first 3D entry in the series, like Ocarina of Time for Zelda.
After the concert I went out to cake withAaron.hosek so we could talk for a bit--we made plans to try to make the A New World chamber music concert in January when it comes back to Chicago, since we've been to a bunch of Distant Worlds concerts and, as he said, they're having to make increasingly deep cuts to avoid getting repetitive, but chamber music is a new frontier--and then I hopped on the blue line and went out to Rosemont to meet the suburban friend crew at Hofbräuhaus for German food.
Now, I know what you're thinking: isn't German food full of pork? And yes, it is, but before I went I consulted with![[instagram.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/profile_icons/instagram.png)
thosesocks, who lived in Germany, about what I should get. With her assistance I decided on the fish, and then I ordered it and...it was almost completely tasteless, as were the vegetables that came with it. 
I ate it, but mostly because I was hungry. No one else finished their food, and while some of that is that I wasn't drinking liters upon liters of beer like most of the others were, I don't think that's all of it. As thosesocks said:saiyukisiren is organizing another trip to German food for a different restaurant, so. She said they went there more for the beer and the atmosphere than the food, which is fair. I compared it to a maid cafe, where you pay ¥2000 for mediocre omurice and coffee but the maids blow on it to cool it and play silly games with you while you eat. Hopefully this new restaurant has better food!
Today I've played Kirby's Adventure, went looking around Andersonville for a set of chairs for my home--didn't find one I liked that would fit, sadly, though I have one other place I can check--and otherwise did chores. This week I'm finishing up Cowboy Bebop with![[twitter.com profile]](https://p.dreamwidth.org/e0caa790ec10/-/twitter.com/favicon.ico)
lisekatevans on Monday, going to lunch at Hanabusa Cafe's soft opening with worldbshiny on Tuesday, and having my final meeting with my therapist before she goes for real on maternity leave on Thursday. Hopefully everyone has a good week! 
Or, from another, the true Skeleton War was inside us all along.
I went to Mishkan on Friday and it was just as lovely as it always is, but what I really want to highlight is that we had two melodies for "Lecha Dodi." The second one, for the second half, was Mishkan's tradition one, but for the first half we sang it to the tune of Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah." You can hear a version by the Maccabeats here, and while we obviously weren't as smooth and practiced as they are, I think the impression on me from the music was the same. People make jokes about how easy it is to write new verses to "Hallelujah," but here's a five-century-old liturgical song and look how easily it fits in?
Come, beloved, and greet the Bride.
Yesterday afternoon I went to Distant Worlds, which I bought tickets for at almost the last minute once a discount code popped up and I learned that
And the second half of the concert was all Final Fantasy VII, which has good music, but I've never played it so I don't really have any connection to it. Though, that's also true of Final Fantasy XIV, and that didn't stop Answers from being the best song they played.
I was also happy that Shimomura Yōko was there, even if she never said anything and just waved a bit from the stage. She's much better known for her work on the Street Fighter II and Kingdom Hearts soundtracks, but I just heard an interview with Tateishi Takashi, the composer of Mega Man 2's soundtrack, who didn't know until a few years ago that Western fans thought of him as a video game music god, so I think it's a good thing any time any of those Japanese composers can see how well-regarded they are abroad.
As I left, I heard a woman explaining to her friend why Final Fantasy VII has so many die-hard fans--she said it was because it was the first 3D entry in the series, like Ocarina of Time for Zelda.
After the concert I went out to cake with
Now, I know what you're thinking: isn't German food full of pork? And yes, it is, but before I went I consulted with
thosesocks, who lived in Germany, about what I should get. With her assistance I decided on the fish, and then I ordered it and...it was almost completely tasteless, as were the vegetables that came with it. I ate it, but mostly because I was hungry. No one else finished their food, and while some of that is that I wasn't drinking liters upon liters of beer like most of the others were, I don't think that's all of it. As thosesocks said:yeaaah, this is why I'm not generally a fan of German cuisine, despite loving lots of other things about Germany… 😅The company was great! The food was...well,
Today I've played Kirby's Adventure, went looking around Andersonville for a set of chairs for my home--didn't find one I liked that would fit, sadly, though I have one other place I can check--and otherwise did chores. This week I'm finishing up Cowboy Bebop with
no subject
Date: 2019-Sep-16, Monday 04:16 (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-Sep-16, Monday 14:10 (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-Sep-16, Monday 08:50 (UTC)I'd love to go to a game music concert, but Distant Worlds doesn't appeal to me. not that I don't like Final Fantasy music or anything, but ehhhhhhhhhh... I never got that into Final Fantasy as a whole. I don't care to play or watch someone else play most of the games. there's also the fact that Uematsu is not a big favorite composer of mine.
I did watch a TAS of FFVII recently. tho RPG TASes tend to be not very interesting since you can't read shit and it stops being fun to see every boss be taken out in the same way after a few of them... it was still a pleasant watch. was funny to see Sephiroth taken out the same way as every other boss. so fast too. not even time for the music to play.
I just learned that there's a dedicated Metal Gear concert... now that's something I'd go see. if it came to more than 2 US locations. or if I had more money to afford a trip far away, I guess.
no subject
Date: 2019-Sep-16, Monday 14:12 (UTC)I've seen ads for Kingdom Hearts and Pokemon concerts here, but I don't have a big connection to either series, so I didn't go.
no subject
Date: 2019-Sep-16, Monday 17:22 (UTC)ooh, a Kirby concert. that's one I never knew about. I would also really like that. definitely a lot of Kirby music I like.