Messiah Sing-Along

This afternoon I went with Sage and MaryLu to the annual Messiah Sing-Along at Centre Congregational Church. I started singing this music in high school and have attended community Messiah sings on and off ever since. The event benefits our local homeless shelter, and in my view their non-religious work is as Christian as anything can be.

For whatever set of reasons, this music, celebrating a miracle I don’t believe in, written in a style I ordinarily avoid, KILLS me every time. I’m choked up by the first big chords at the end of the Prelude, teary-eyed with the alto’s Good Tidings, and by the time His name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, I can’t really even sing at all. And of course I haven’t been a real tenor for a long time now, except alone in the car where I still got it (yeah I’m talking to you Nate from Fun). But it’s the part I know, so I sit with the tenors, clench my cheeks and aim for most of the high notes anyway.

This was a decidedly local production… I think the only soloist who makes a musical living was the mezzo/alto, who was hiding an enormous oak barrel in her abdomen and somehow singing from inside it… great! We had no orchestra, but a very spirited organist kept things moving beautifully. The soprano is an attorney in town, and her voice was just pretty until she opened up and smacked a couple of ad lib runs all the way out of the park, at which point we all knew this Jesus person is not to be trifled with.

My copy of the score was given to me 20 years ago !!! by a dear if now distant friend, and it’s a treasured possession… at least partly for the sinful smugness I feel when I bypass the score rental table.

Lee worked the phones to find me a date, for which I am very thankful. It was a great afternoon.

Dim sum carnage

What do you do with that last $20 in local currency when you are leaving a foreign country? Add to your wife’s blingy phone cover collection, of course.

Tactically inconclusive, but strategically victorious, but not victorious enough

My hotel for the week overlooks this statue of Gen. George B. McClellan, but I had to go to Wikipedia to learn/remember exactly who he was.

In reading the first several paragraphs their account, it appeared as if he lost the battle of Antietam. However, since Gen. Lee was the first to withdraw from the battlefield, the deadliest day in American military history (at least up to that point) was considered a win for the Union Army. And so, at the very end of the article summary, we get to a beautiful summation: tactically inconclusive, but strategically victorious.

The Union victory at Antietam led directly to Lincoln issuing the Emancipation Proclamation, and influenced France and Britain to hold off recognizing the Confederacy.

Personally and professionally, McClellan fared poorly even in victory, and was widely believed to have let the Confederate Army off too easy, given his superior numbers at Antietam and in the aftermath of the battle. He was relieved of his command shortly after, and many armchair generals have suggested that if he done a better job that day the war might have ended much sooner.