Beginnings

Friends and family have been urging me to put my madKnews newsletter online. This past holiday I did so with my first e-mail edition. I guess that broke the ice because now I'm taking Kathryn's advice and jumping headfirst into the wonderful world of blogging.

SPLASH!!!!!

But now that I've made it through the hard part (picking a suitable picture) I'm stuck with the insurmountable task of finding something to say. So to make it easy, I'll tell you about the picture.

In 2003, I graduated with a Master of Arts degree in music. One of the requirements was to perform a graduate recital, which took the place of writing a thesis paper. Of course, writing the paper was also an option, but who wouldn't rather slave for a full year choosing, researching and rehearsing songs that you might not otherwise choose to sing? And to make it even more fun you got to write a bibliography and program notes so in a sense, it was double the fun!

My challenge was made even greater because I prefer to sing humorous songs and while my advisers allowed me to plan a humor based program, I still had to adhere to the academic guidelines. It was hard work finding songs that fulfilled all the requirements AND would still be at least moderately amusing to my audience (songs that may have been funny to audiences a few hundred years ago were less likely to be funny today on all but the most cerebral of levels). But when I discovered that Rachmaninoff had written a comic song, I knew I was in business.

The drawing, which the designer at the printer dubbed the "Laughing Diva", was done by me. I wanted something fun to put on my program cover and posters and post cards and it was a case of me saying "I want something sort of like this" and the printer, who is also my spouse, saying "Why not just use that". So I did. The designer scanned my line drawing into a file and my personal logo was born. My posters and program were printed on card stock of the same lime green as the blog design and a theme was born. I love my laughing diva and I make offerings to her regularly to keep her appeased.

Everybody sing!

Quotable Quotes: in the category Divas are like that

"I would not kill my enemies, but I will make them get down on their knees. I will, I can, I must". Maria Callas