Salon post: September 21

[jenett]

Welcome to this week's salon post! It's my birthday tomorrow, so welcome to the birthday edition.


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Topic of the week
Pick one of these, or talk about something else:
1) Do you have particular birthday traditions? Any you'd like to share?

2) Music you'd recommend I check out? (My tastes are mostly folk, modern folk, filk, but I am open to listening to other intriguing things.)

What I've been up to
Moving websites to a new host (which is only partly done, but I'm getting there.)

My excitement for the week is that I'm going to see Hamilton tonight, because the touring company just arrived in Boston. I am very excited.


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Comments

[cosmolinguist]

Do you know The Imagined Village's music?

They're like a folk supergroup, and they integrate hip-hop and other styles into their songs. They find current settings for old folk songs, about immigration woes and disability benefits.

I especially recommend their album Empire and Love.

[jenett]

I don't, and that sounds like a thing I would indeed like to explore.

[alexseanchai]

ooh! that sounds intriguing :)

[cosmolinguist]

I really like them. :)

[havocthecat]

Birthdays! My birthday is coming up soon and I have no particular birthday traditions, but I do have to figure out what I'm doing for my birthday. I suppose "inviting friends out" and "making my family order me a cake" counts as a tradition.

I used to get a cheesecake every year, but Mr. Havoc hates cheesecake, so I compromise and I get a torte instead. I'll get a piece of cheesecake or two for myself and the kidlet instead another time.

[jenett]

I actually just picked up cheesecake (from Trader Joe's) in the grocery shopping. (My actual plan was "Go stare at the frozen dessert case and find something I like.)

[wohali]

We don't celebrate birthdays or anniversaries in my house, neither my partner nor I, as a way to reduce event-related stress.

In fact, the last year or two, I've finally forgotten how old I am on a regular basis. I consider this positive progress. :)

Folk: Have you ever heard Vance Gilbert? I fell in love with his album Shaking Off Gravity. Link: https://vancegilbert.com/cds/f/CDs/36

[jenett]

My birthday also coincides with one of the Sabbats of my religious practice (which is basically good food and harvest, so I usually end up with a good meal. This year, I was at "Argh, need a weekend to decompress" so I am roasting a chicken tomorrow.

I have not heard of Vance Gilbert, and will add that to my to listen to list, thank you!

[jazzyjj]

Anybody ever heard of Straight No Chaser? They are an a capella group which got their start at the University of indiana in Bloomington. One of their co-founders went to school with my brother and a sister. The co-founder's brother and their dad are both newscasters here in Chicago. Last I heard this co-founder was actually driving for Uber. But their website is http://www.sncmusic.com . There is also a podcast at http://www.sncfanchat.blogspot.com . I've not been able to tune in for a few years though due to a busy schedule, but I think that podcast is still going.





For birthdays: my neighbors in the building and I always celebrate each others' special day at our weekly meeting. We also host other fun events here, and celebrate the holidays. My next-door neighbors are half Jewish and I'm not, so I've learned about some of the Jewish customs. Next week we are going to some friends' Sukkah party, which is a yearly tradition here. It's always so much fun. Not only do we shake the tree branches and such, but we get to eat pizza and some other goodies.

[alexseanchai]

this is my favorite

[silveradept]

I don't really have birthday traditions as such, as my birthday falls on a major holiday for the United States. So it's really more "yep, it's going to happen, and everyone has had plans for months, and plenty of places will either be full or closed, so there's no real point, is there?"

For those that still insist on celebration, because they believe that I still should be celebrated, the requests I usually make are for some other confection than a regular cake and that there be no theming of any part of my celebration toward the other celebration on the same day. No color combinations, nor props nor well wishes in the style or theme of that other celebration.

[alexseanchai]

in your place I'd celebrate on the nearest weekend, honestly

and now I am wandering off into thoughts of the joke about how obviously Captain America's official birthday is not Steve Rogers's actual birthday, except wait yes it is

[silveradept]

Nearest weekends usually also already plans for people, but at least some of the bistros and such have figured out that birthday month is better than birthday only.

I might think, after several decades of missing in action, presumed dead, that the real information would have come out by the time he's thawed, and then there has to be some sort of reckoning of "Sorry, Steve, we doxxed you pretty badly in the intervening time."

[alexseanchai]

*nod*

ha yeah

[cosmolinguist]

My birthday is close to Christmas and I absolutely recognize this experience. If it weren't for my parents (who I'm almost always around as I have to visit them for Christmas), I don't think I'd admit to having a birthday at all.

[silveradept]

Yeah. I have a friend whose birthday is in that zone, and he said that there were always the people that wanted to combine birthday and Christmas gifts together into a single thing, which I found terrible as a child (and I'm not to find of as a more grown up child.)

[alexseanchai]

Yep, people pulled that shit on two of my sisters (early December birthdays) and me (mid-Jan). Frustrating! Except occasionally when I got something that cost more than one occasion's worth of gift budget but less than two.

[alexseanchai]

ooh, Hamilton! let us know what you think!

I think all Seanan McGuire's CDs are out of stock on CD Baby at present? but her work is definitely worth the money.

The birthday greeting of my people is "hippo birdy two ewes!" Should I feel like elaborating, that line is twice, then "hippo birdy, deer [na-ame]," and repeat the first line. This is funniest when the birthday person is frequently referred to as an animal already—beatrice_otter, for instance, or child_of_the_air goes by Lemur, or in Yuletide Discord several people regularly take on the 'hippo' role.

I'm freaking out about job and housing stuff. I thought I would have both solidly in place by now and...I have neither.

I'm also working on a business plan for a queer witchy solarpunk fiber arts business and...everything's skewed against me. Everything. Case in point, when the entrepreneurial experts in the books and podcasts say "self-discipline" and "organization" and whatnot, they presuppose executive function, which, I have four conditions where executive dysfunction is a symptom! FOUR!

[jenett]

There is a long post on my journal (locked, as most of my journal is, but I am very amiable about adding people not on my access list.)

I do in fact own all of Seanan McGuire's CDs, and agree with this rec.

Those are important plans. (I do in fact know people who have independent businesses and where executive function is in short supply, and it's a hard road. Simplifying the structure seems to help, the "Make a thing, sell a thing, keep the selling and tracking parts as simple as possible so that doing things like tax payments is as straightforward as can be." (and in several cases, hiring accountant or tax help as needed.)

[alexseanchai]

♥

Re business stuff: nod nod :)

[whispercricket]

I picked up Evocation II - Pantheon by Eluveitie fairly recently - they are folk metal, but the Evocation albums are their lighter / mostly acoustic stuff. I recommend checking it out. Happy Birthday :)

[jenett]

Oooh, I'll check that out.

(And thanks!)

[eeyorerin]

Happy birthday, favorite librarian!

[mrissa]

Happy birthday! My birthday tradition for myself is to make myself something lovely for breakfast, since that's not a thing for which I have to fulfill other people's expectations. My mother and grandmother want me to Have A Cake, for example, which I do, and usually it's a quite lovely cake, but it meets other people's expectation--if I said, "I'd rather have ice cream," that would not be okay with others. So my birthday breakfast is to please just myself.