**IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT**

It's time for another Important Ann–

Joe's singing in an Advent Lessons and Carols concert, this Friday at 7:00pm. He will be music by Tye, Ferris, Cherubini, and Bieber.

Oh, wow. Thank you for the—wait, did you say "Bieber"?

Yes, Justin Bieber. It was on that flyer you showed me.

You mean this flyer?

Yes, right there. It says "featuring music by Tye, Ferris, Cherubini, and Bieber."

That's Biebl. Franz Biebl. Famous for the Ave Maria made popular by Chanticleer. Which is the piece we're singing.

Oh. That... makes more sense.

Yes. Yes it does.

And here I was looking forward to your rendition of "Boyfriend."

Maybe later.

But come to our concert! I promise there will be absolutely no Justin Bieber songs!

You Probably Won't Regret It!™ (Unless you're a fan of the Bieb.)

Wikipedia Fact of the Day

You know the movie Singin' in the Rain? Awesome movie, right? Y'know how the plot revolves around Kathy Selden (Debbie Reynolds) dubbing her voice for Lina Lamont (Jean Hagen), because Lamont's voice is so terrible?

Well, technically-not-ironically-because-it's-not-a-reversal-of-expectations-but-the-word-ironic-should-honestly-just-be-appropriated-for-these-kinds-of-funny-coincidences, Debbie Reynolds own voice was dubbed over in a couple numbers, "Would You?" and "You are My Lucky Star" by Betty Noyes.

Here's Debbie Reynolds singing "You are My Lucky Star", in a scene cut from the movie:

Quick Takes Addendum

Forgot some quick takes yesterday

What do you get when you have a cumulative 9.75% off at Target and a tax return? Everything, apparently. We are proud new owners of everything Target sells.

In our defense, I had been making a list for about two months of the things we needed, in hopes that one day  the gods of crass commercialism would look upon us with favor and bestow the means and opportunity to spend our fleeting wealth. Among the items purchased were:

New dress clothes for Damien. He had no dress pants that fit him. Well, I suppose technically they did fit, but they would have been better-classified as dress shorts at this point. Conveniently, Anthony automagically has a whole wardrobe that suddenly, mysteriously fits him.

A new belt for me. I should take pictures of my old one. It had run the gamut from hilarious, to sad, to hilariously sad.

New undershirts for me. I still occasionally wear undershirts that me dear mother bought for me in high school. You know, the ones I used to wear to dance?

New pillows. I can't remember if the ones we have now were bought new when we got married, 9 years ago, or moved into this condo, 7 ½ years ago.

Whiskey and rum, to end the torment and misery felt when looking up at the liquor shelf, sighing loudly, and muttering forlornly, "why is the rum gone?"

The Murloc also purchased sundries and miscellany. I have learned not to look too closely at the things she purchases. They might bite.

#

And Anthony is sick again. Fever of 102°-103° running for the last couple days. He just finished a dose of antibiotics for his last illness/ear infection on Monday. This marks the fourth consecutive Sunday that he's missed Sunday Mass due to illness.

The Murloc went into full panic/remorse mode, wondering why her baby gets sick so often, and questioning, among other things, if he's sick because of her cooking or because she doesn't clean the house enough. Discussing this with a family friend, it was remarked that nobody can beat oneself up quite like a mother. It was also mentioned by said friend that "if not cleaning caused illness, then we'd [her family] all be dead."

Gregorian Chant Friday

A few recordings from recent months, performed by St. John the Baptist Latin Schola. Apologies for the poor recording quality. These were made with a cell phone. Pretend they are vintage records or something.

Flos de Radice Jesse ("Es Ist Ein Ros Entsprungen", traditional German carol)

Alma Redemptoris Mater by Ciro Grassi, arranged for TTB choir
Loving Mother of the Redeemer, gate of heaven, star of the sea, assist your people who have fallen yet strive to rise again. To the wonderment of nature you bore your Creator, yet remained a virgin after as before. You who received Gabriel's joyful greeting, have pity on us poor sinners.
Jesu! Rex Admirabilis by Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina. Words by St. Bernard of Clairvaux.
Jesu, Prince ever-glorious! Thou Lord of Hosts victorious!
Of radiance more than marvelous' Master, be ruler over us!

Dwell, Lord, with us, and grant we may Behold They light upon our way,
Scatter night's gloom, and so array Earth, as heaven, in noon bright day.

Down the Rabbit Hole: Addendum

So, after some encouragement from Dave, I revisited Gregorio. After messing around a bit more, I discovered the reason it hadn't properly loaded and connected itself with TeX Live was that, when the installer was finished, I checked the "display readme.txt" option, which was causing the error message about not finding the TeX Live files (???). When I unchecked that option before completing the install, it appeared to connect up properly and I was able to get Gregorio and TeX Live to compile.

The process is a little tricky, but so, so, so much faster than my other option, which was to use the now-"free" copy of Adobe InDesign CS2 with the font Caeciliae. While that method produced very pretty scores,  it took an ungodly amount of time. Using Gregorio, I was able to produce sharp-looking scores in about 15 minutes.

Check them out:

Down the Rabbit Hole

Being of unsound mind, I decided to investigate that dark and frightening world known as Gregorian Chant notation software. Consider this your official warning: that way lies madness.

So far as I could determine, there are six options:

1. Chanter
2. Gregoire
3. GregEdit
4. Caeciliae
5. Gregorio
6. Build a time machine, go back to the sixth century, teach Pope Gregory the Great modern music notation, then come back to the present and use MuseScore, because Gregorian notation will never have existed.

So far as I can determine, option 6 is the simplest and least frustrating method.

What brought this on was a desire to be able to make fresh copies of the chant I use in choir. Sometimes, a chant will be photocopied to illegibility. Sometimes, I swear that we're using the original copies written by Brother McShakyhands of the Order of Blind Friars as he was dying of bubonic plague in the 13th century. Either way, sometimes it's nice to be able to fix up a score.

As our test case, I'll see which software can best duplicate the Alleluia Tone VIII that I've been using:

Korean Drummer Sighting

Remember this guy? He's been spotted again!