Well, nothing like a happy reading for a celebration, huh? I am sure Mark wondered what I was thinking when I chose it. He may still be in five minutes when I’m done,but I hope not. It is read each year on the Jewish festival of Purim, and the congregants use a noisemaker called a grogger to drown out the name of the evil Haman each time it is read.
Grogger at the Purim Exhibition at Heichal Shlomo in Jerusalem
The Jewish people have known many instances of persecution during their history. As American Christians in the 21st century it is hard for us to identify personally with the idea of an evil figure cozying up to our head of state and successfully influencing him or her to have us removed from the scene, even if it meant an end to those long speeches at the National Prayer Breakfast. I also like to think Michele Obama would not need Gene Robinson or even Desmond Tutu to convince her to intercede with the President on our behalf.
But our world knows no lack of threats to our way of life, or our way of prayer. We continue to trivialize the impact of our way of life on the planet at our peril, spinning our own mental groggers when the news becomes more than we can bear. and -- despite all the electronic gadgets that purport to keep us connected -- many of us move through our lives in increasing emotional isolation. Many of our once-vibrant parish communities are waning, as individualistic, spiritual-but-not-religious ideologies and even atheism gain popularity, and volunteer programs to help those less fortunate must compete with other demands on our time. The church finds itself in a struggle for relevance, as Americans, particularly the young, are increasingly turned off by the way Christianity has been defined by those holding the microphone.
I think each of us can see aspects of ourselves in each of the major figures in this story, if not in the profound examples it offers. How often are we Mordecai, sitting in our own personal sackcloth and ashes, despairing at the state of the world, or our corner of it? How often are we Esther, taking refuge in the false security of our present comfort, or remaining silent because we don’t believe others will take our ideas seriously? Do we ever acknowledge how often we are “king” over others – even across the globe – whose lives are affected by how we spend our time, money and resources? And, being honest here, are we ever Haman, using our influence to get what we want, even when we know someone else will be hurt?
And yet, there is also redemption here. Mordecai, by making a scene his niece and the neighbors cannot ignore, triggers her to respond with compassion. Esther, in turn, is challenged by her uncle’s admonishment to risk, as our bishop often challenges us, something big for something good. If you read further, you’ll learn that The King, after learning that in fact he owes Mordecai the debt of his own life, consents to Esther’s request that the Jews will be spared, and Haman goes to a murderer’s reward.
And thus it can be for us. As we are each of the characters in this story, we can choose to use our influence for the greater good. EfM has gives lay people the scriptural, historical and theological context to respond to the many challenges and opportunities for ministry that surround us. So armed, let us not hide within the walls of our homes and churches, but show the world with our lives and our actions what people of faith can accomplish in a world that cries out for justice and peace.
Much is made of how complex our lives have become. In addition to the people with whom we interact with in real life, most of us are entrenched in social networks of virtual friends, interest and action groups. Besides choosing from 300 channels of TV programming available 24/7 and automatically getting recorded for you to watch some other day, there are myriad streaming and on-demand selections to choose from right now. I read the other day that one TV service lets you record up to five programs simultaneously. I’m lucky if I can find one thing I want to sit through.
A whole store devotes itself to giving you new ways to put stuff away. You can subscribe to a magazine whose touted purpose is to unravel the mysteries of decorating, child care, and emotional health. Squads of “geeks” stand ready to spring into action and make all the bells and whistles jingle and toot in harmony. An invisible cast of thousands labors unseen to ensure that your ability to watch “Cat Friend vs. Dog Friend” on your phone at a traffic light is unimpeded, and if you feel tempted to get a new phone before your two-year commitment is over, there are companies ready to take the old one off your hands... for a fee of course.
When I first saw today’s “most emailed” article, I assumed it was going to be about an individual or a family whose consuming habits were suddenly cut to the quick by the ongoing economic situation which seems to be if not directly affecting everyone, at least keeping us all under the same anxious pall.
In fact, it was the experience of a successful entrepreneur named Graham Hill (founder of treehugger.com) who has the means to live however he wants to, but discovered -- completely by accident -- that his consumer habits seemed to be driven more by inertia than actual need or even desire. Having made a bundle on the sale of a successful start-up, he purchased a large house, and hired someone to fill it with things: in many cases, his role was limited to a hasty choice from a series of Polaroids. He then ended up seeking roommates because the house was too big for him, especially because he was rarely there. By this point, his vocation had taken him to the opposite coast, where he did the same thing with a big loft before he realized how much time, cost and energy was being expended for so little personal payout.
The next chapter of Hill’s life brought him to Europe, where he discovered that -- in the right company -- he could be happy and productive with just what he could transport in a backpack. Today he lives in a tiny but extremely functional studio, which can be adapted to host dinner parties for 12 or a pajama party for four.
What few of us stop to think about is what compels us to purchase, engage, and accumulate so many objects and obligations , let alone to what degree they actually make us happier people. The Gospel reading on Ash Wednesday, which kicks off the Lenten season, invites to rethink our priorities a bit:
“Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust consume and where thieves break in and steal; but store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust consumes and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”
MATTHEW 6:19-21
While not everybody subscribes to the notion of an afterlife, for me this passage definitely invites some reflection about how I spend not only my money, but my time. I'm not 22 any more, and -- just because I can -- I don’t necessarily have to get a new outfit or drop a chunk of change on drinks in the city, just because “everybody else is.” As we face more economic and vocational uncertainty, I take more pleasure in a zero-balance credit card.
“Airstream Sunset on South Beach” by Monica Bennett
Copyright, all rights reserved.
We live in a house which is -- like Hill’s -- far more than we really require. When we first met, the same two people and two cats survived in what was essentially two rooms for many months. It did not take us long to “grow into” and find uses for all the space we have now, but it isn’t necessary, and the amount of money and work it takes to maintain it often makes me think the protagonist in Joshua Kadison’s ballad was on the right track. I spend an annoying amount of time staving off unwanted catalogs and recyclables, purging clothing out which I've grown (or aged), and
-- after ten guilt-inducing minutes of Hoarders: Buried Alive on a recent Saturday -- cleaning out an entire closet, most of whose contents hadn't seen the light of day in years. While I'm not quite ready to live out of a backpack, we could certainly pare things down quite a bit and get along just fine. When it comes down to it, if you can’t find happiness by surrounding yourself with the kind of people who bring you joy, no amount of bling is going to fix it.
The same can be said for the “networks” into which we become immersed. A foray into the game Second Life was cut short when I realized how much it was eating into the first one. We have a family joke about people bringing their little electronic friends to the table: we are all trivia buffs, so inevitably an argument will require someone to look up a batting average or film credit. Even the biggest protester is occasionally guilty of whipping out the digital version of Grandma’s Brag Book, but we do strive to be “in the moment” on the rare occasions that we are able to get everybody together.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to IKEA... I just need something real simple to hold all these magazines!
We spent the last week on Captiva Island, in the Gulf of Mexico off the Florida coast. It is a place of rustic beauty, largely overgrown by palms, sea grape and scrub pine. The weather somehow seems more "real" when not competing with traffic and neon and jet exhaust, so one can actually sense the subtle changes to light and wind and water each day. There are few people around during this "shoulder season" between the end of hurricane weather and the arrival of the snowbirds, most of them retirees from Minnesota and Wisconsin. It is not unusual to have a quarter-mile or more of shoreline completely to yourself, other than a bustling tide of sea birds who always seem to be working so busily that one feels almost enough guilt to reach for the corporate Blackberry. Almost.
"In one of the stars, I will be living. In one of them, I will be laughing. And so it will seem as if all the stars are laughing, when you look in the sky at night."
ANTOINE ST. EXUPERY
Thursday night, we made plans to watch the Geminid meteor shower from the beach. With very little artificial light, it's possible to see an amazing array of celestial detail on Captiva, and the coincidental new moon meant we should be able to take in the show with very little interference.
Alas, when the time came, a swiss-cheese blanket of clouds had spread across the island. Nevertheless, we took advantage of what gaps there were and glimpsed at least a handful of the quick darts of light the particles made as they zipped by.
Our last full day of vacation dawned warm and muggy, and the clouds cleared up by the time lunch was over, promising a solid beach afternoon to wrap up our week. The youngest member of our party was my companion on boogie boards in the gentle surf until he found a buddy his own age and left me to seek company with the grown-up types.
We learned the news of the school shootings in Connecticut from passers-by, and instinctively reached for smart phones to see what was happening. It was hard to reconcile the squeals of laughter from the kids at the water's edge with the nightmarish experience I knew other kids, very close to their age, had been through. As the details were pieced together, the predictable pattern of debate was playing out on Facebook walls and blog posts: gun control, mental health care, school prayer.... a kaleidoscope of speculation and rhetoric, all coming from a place of confusion and pain. Because of course nobody, regardless of politics, would wish the scene in that school on a sworn enemy, let alone a first-grader.
I have my own thoughts about guns, and health care, and school prayer, and I was not immune from the impulse to share them in the raw voice of someone trying to process the unthinkable, in what appears to be an arms race of ever-escalating unthinkables, because we can't seem as a nation to figure out what's driving people to such acts.
That night, after trying to stay out of earshot of TV gunfire, I hit the beach again with a longtime friend and the dad of my little surfing buddy. We didn't talk much as we scanned the much-clearer sky for laggard shooting stars we were told we might see. Staring up at the bejeweled blitz overhead, I remembered what the Little Prince told his pilot friend after meeting the snake whose bite he knew was his destiny: "In one of the
stars, I will be living. In one of them, I will be laughing. And so it
will seem as if all the stars are laughing, when you look in the sky at
night."
We saw one meteor each, and trudged home again with stiff necks for our trouble.
On a scrap of paper on my bulletin board at work are four words I scribbled to illustrate something to a co-worker who was coming to grips with a difficult family situation
HURT PEOPLE HURT PEOPLE.
People are calling for -- in addition to gun control -- stronger mental health systems which would ostensibly identify and separate the about-to-become-unhinged from our innocent kids. But -- to repeat an old adage I heard The Right Rev. Gene Robinson quote in a sermon -- it's not enough to keep pulling drowning people out of the water. We've got to head upstream and figure out who is throwing them in! I believe we should as a society take a closer look at how we treat each other, particularly how we treat those who don't fit the mold. Let's face it: we haven't exactly achieved the "kinder, gentler nation" we were promised back in 1988, right after I survived high school relatively unscathed. Instead it appears we have appointed Anne Robinson from The Weakest Link to determine who is smart, Simon Cowell to determine who is talented, and the Peter Pan chairman of Abercrombie & Fitch to determine who is attractive. In case you haven't noticed, these are not especially nice people, at least not the personas they wear for us. It's not especially cool to be nice, is it? We trade casual put-downs with our friends and cheer at TV shows whose purpose seems to be to determine who can be the meanest. And those who don't impress us or have anything to offer, we simply tune out.
If you are blessed with good looks, talent, and/or a good support system to constantly reassure you of your worth, you can survive the daily onslaught of unrealistic standards and "good-natured" barbs. But in the America of fractured homes and three-career families, where spend our days bumbling from one screen to another (I bought a week's worth of groceries today without interacting once with another human... is this really progress?), who's doing that for the people who aren't quite that strong? Who is noticing the misfit who eats his lunch alone? Whose job is it to compliment how well she draws on every surface that will take the marks of her pen?
When I wrote about suicide a while back, I wondered if teachers have the bandwidth to understand the social dynamics of their classroom and keep anybody from falling through the cracks, but I don't think it can all fall on them. It's got to come from all of us. Nobody should be unworthy of a smile or an inquiry about their day. They may not respond in a way we would call grateful or even appropriate, but they were noticed, seen; they mattered, if even for a minute. Another Facebook poster railed that we should never mention these high-profile killers' names again, because recognition was all they were looking for. If that's true, if a tortured mind has been screaming to be heard to the point where it takes murder or suicide to get our attention, then shame on us. Maybe if they got it at age seven, we wouldn't be in this predicament. Maybe.
Clement - Bishop of Rome (100)
The hoopla about the comparative morality of shopping on Black Friday is largely a rhetorical debate for us. I have long tried to make gift purchases as the opportunity presented itself, complicated in recent years by the fiscally prudent decision by both my family and the Archwarden's to adopt a "secret Santa" scheme among the adults so one is only shopping for a single person (however one must know for whom one is shopping before any purchases take place and Thanksgiving was -- until this year -- the occasion on which the names were drawn. I'm working on easing that puppy back to Labor Day.
That said, not much retailing going on today in our house. We came home with an assortment of left-over goodies but -- paradoxically -- no turkey, so I concocted the following recipe for chicken, which the Archwarden complains I cook too much, so I am constantly challenged to disguise it in new ways:
Take out three cereal- or soup-sized bowls
In the first, put flour
In the second, mix up eggs, a little milk, and a few tablespoons of mustard (we experimented with a raspberry wasabi flavor this time, but you can use any kind)
In the third, a combination of cashews or almonds, crackers, pita chips (whatever you have open), and bread crumbs, bashed up in the food processor. For those who can't have what, ground-up nuts make a good substitute coating with some texture... unless you can't have nuts either.
Dip the chicken in each dish in the order above, making sure they are good and coated. Brush the remaining egg on any "bald spots" then sprinkle on the contents of bowl #3. Bake in an olive-oiled glass pan at 350° until the center of the meat is at least 165°. I usually make a pound of chicken and this takes about 45 minutes in my oven.
"No gifts have we to offer For all Thy love imparts But that which thou desirest Our humble, grateful hearts" FROM "WE PLOUGH THE FIELDS AND SCATTER" BY MATTHIUS CLAUDIUS, TRANSLATED BY JANE MONTGOMERY CAMPBELL
Hmmm, what am I grateful for:
1. My long-suffering partner: His Considerable Disapproval, the
Archwarden Emeritus. God grant him patience and wisdom to endure life
with the Chaos Muppet.
2. Family and friends of all stripes to celebrate with, grieve with, share food, drinks and stories with
3. Gainful employment, though I grouse about it. Often.
4. A church that is evolving into full inclusion and celebration of all
its people, and the guidance and direction of various folks therein
which have been a great comfort of late.
5. A home that kept us
safe in the crazy weather, and the fact that the hot water heater
magically keeps working without electricity. Don't ask questions.
6. Living close enough to an epicenter of culture, music and food to be
able to enjoy it, but also being able to hit the beach or the woods
within an hour or so.
7. Things like e-books, iFruit, on-line
bill pay, calendar-in-the-cloud, and dialing 5-1-1 for instant traffic
information, which were the stuff of science fiction when I was a kid.
The rate at which technology makes life easier almost keeps up with the
rate at which I become more befuddled.
8. Coffee, chocolate, vodka and raspberries, sometimes in combination.
What are you thankful for?
The lyrics above may be familiar to you from the cast album of the rock opera Godspell but I discovered from my adopted church that they were in fact purloined almost verbatim from the 18th-century German hymn "Wir pflügen und wir streuen" by Matthius Claudius, as translated by Jane Montgomery Campbell in 1861.
Here are the good people of St. John's Detroit, an Anglo-Catholic parish, celebrating Rogation (harvest) Sunday by singing this hymn.
This is the second of two posts about my experience at the 77th General Convention of the Episcopal Church. At this triennial meeting, all the active bishops, plus elected lay and ordained representatives from each diocese vote on legislation (called resolutions) which affects the operation and direction of the church. This convention addressed numerous resolutions around social justice, particularly for the LGBT community.
By Monday morning, we were very much in the General Convention groove. Members of the Legislative Team had assigned resolutions which they would follow from committee to house to vote, and one of our volunteers had created a "leaderboard" of sorts, so that the rest of us would know the status of a particular bill at any time. We also relayed this information to our booth in the Exhibits Hall, as people would frequently ask.
At the same time, the Communications Team would not only share the news on our website, blogs and social networks, but interview various people who were playing a part in General Convention: volunteers, speakers and those whose lives and relationships to the church based on the outcome of decisions made there. These were also used for the daily IntegriTV videos posted to YouTube, which gave daily highlights of the Convention from an LGBT perspective.
Our videographer was a young woman who I learned secondhand was a combat veteran of the Iraq war. As a chaplain in Basra, her unit came under fire and several of her comrades were killed right in front of her.
Upon returning home, she had attempted to begin the discernment process, only to be told by her diocese that she was unsuitable for pastoral duty, because she is transgender. This is sadly not surprising; unemployment among transgender folk hovers around 70%. And yet, no bitterness came across in her gracious and engaging manner. On the contrary, she put her interviewees at ease and dashed uncomplainingly from place to place for upwards of 14 hours each day, a good reporter getting her story.
I had gotten up early to attend a committee hearing which would consider the resolution calling for trial adoption of a blessing rite for same-sex relationships. Not being a deputy to convention, I was not able to have "voice" (opinion) or vote in the session, but was graciously allowed to observe and -- as a "subject matter expert" -- my advice on how the LGBT community should be named was appreciated and adopted into the language of the resolution.
No-one spoke against the resolution in this session, unlike one on Saturday at which a priest stated that the LGBT community here should forgo recognition of our relationships because -- by doing so -- the church would be putting Christians in other countries at risk. As Marcia Ledford (who testified right before her in favor of the blessings) pointed out, there are already Christians being placed at risk by the church, including the LGBT ones. Perhaps seeing their Episcopal brothers and sisters embrace those in loving committed same-sex relationships will help counter the anti-gay rhetoric and misinformation spread by other religious leaders!
That done, I returned to the Integrity Nerve Center. We knew how much was at stake, but yet everyone remained calm and efficient, and the mood was pleasant, with people coming and going and sharing news. We had one ear on the live feed from the House of Bishops, because we knew they were planning to take up a resolution that was significant to us.
Then, just as the House was opened to observers, we got word that "something was going down." Several of us sprinted the length of the mammoth Indiana Convention Center like O.J. hoping to get the last rental car at the airport.
As we got there, the Right Rev. Gene Robinson, outgoing Bishop of New Hampshire, had asked for the floor for a "point of personal privilege" a parliamentary procedure used either when someone's physical needs are not being met or they have been personally misrepresented by another party in the meeting. In this case, I suspect both were true.
You can also read the full text if you need to, but I think if you can listen to Bishop Robinson's voice, you'll hear his frustration and sadness. Having followed his story with the church since his election in 2003 and arranged numerous screenings of For the Bible Tells Me So and Love Free or Die, I was well aware of the threats, harassment and disrespect that had been leveled at him, both from inside and outside the church. But it was still jarring to witness it first-hand. My heart went out to him, and I was pleased when one of the most outspoken opponents to our platform in the House of Bishops rose to call out the two "mystery bishops" on their behavior. At the behest of another bishop, Robinson received a standing ovation from many in the room for his call to actually try reconciliation rather than just talk about it.
There are more details about the shenanigans that led to Bishop Robinson's missive here, I find the back-biting and vitriol pretty much negates any claim of biblical or pastoral authority, and thus will neither comment nor reiterate what I had the misfortune to learn about it, but if you are unfamiliar with the back-story it may be helpful in understanding how we got to where we are.
Later that day, the House of Bishops voted to approve the blessings bill, by a wide margin. The House of Deputies affirmed a resolution the bishops had already cleared, making it official that being transgender was no longer a valid reason to be denied access to the discernment process for ordination. Once both houses agree on a resolution, it becomes "law" or -- as we say -- an Act of Convention.
Buoyant from that news, but still thinking about Bishop Gene, I did my second round-trip of the day to my hotel, about a half mile from the Convention Center, to get ready for the Integrity Eucharist that night, which would be preceded by a reception honoring Dr. Louie Crew, who founded the organization back in 1974.
But first,
my new friend Vivian invited me to accompany her to an event I hadn't heard about. A program within the church known as the New Community was sponsoring a festival on the grounds of the city's cathedral, which is conspicuously located on Monument Circle, right in the middle of town. Timed to be available for commuters returning home, the festival was representative of four ethnic/cultural communities that are focuses for mission and ministry of the church: Asian, black, Latino and Native American. Vivian promised me good food, and she wasn't lying. Empanadas shared a plate with colorful salads and spicy curries, washed down with a wonderful hibiscus juice or tea, as Rosebud Sioux drummers took turns at the mike with a mariachi band. People danced and sang and whooped, and curious strangers were lured into the warm and inviting atmosphere. Vivian and I ended up sharing a small table with a young local couple, who were Episcopalians but didn't know about the event and only stumbled on it by luck. We learned about their parish and shared news about the exciting developments we were seeing at Convention.
We got back to the Convention Center just in time to hear Louie Crew be honored by Kim Byham, and the Rev. Elizabeth Kaeton, both stalwarts in the movement from the Diocese of Newark. Then, it was into the Eucharist.
After a few days in a convention center, the enormity of spaces starts to escape you, but the Sagamore Ballroom (and we weren't even using all of it) is simply colossal. There would have been no way to decorate all of it tastefully, so our team concentrated on the elevated platform that held the altar, and a small "chapel" of sorts at the entrance, from which the processions would depart.
The Integrity Eucharist, which used to be a prayer of a people literally in exile when we were not a recognized part of General Convention, is now a highlight for many attendees, LGBT or otherwise. I can't tell you how many people who are not involved in this work voiced their anticipation, and now -- having been to this one -- I can understand why.
I wrote already about details of the Eucharist and posted pictures here for those whoare interested. I will, however, include videos of Bishop Gene Robinson's sermon. He had recovered markedly from the morning's episode and was truly on his game.
Having worked with and learned from Louie and various current and former
members of Integrity and our diocesan ministry The OASIS for the better
part of ten years, knowing some of them have been fighting this fight for four
times that long, and looking around at the new friends I'd made and the little snippets of their stories I had gained. It was truly a gift to be among them as they celebrated
this moment in our history. I am not ashamed to say I had many a laughter-through-tears moment, watching their faces as they embraced and tried to comprehend that we'd moved forward as far as we had.
I saw the young transgender vet, who might now actually be allowed to answer her call to further ministry; the priest in her 70s, who waited decades for her church to recognize her love of her partner and was finally married by Bp. Robinson in 2010; the college student whose personal witness even managed to move those who disagreed with them. And in that moment I truly loved my church in a way that I don't think those who never leave their own congregations and attend one of these crazy events can ever appreciate. Breaking bread with 1,500 other people, all of whom are there on their own journey but celebrating this moment with you, is the closest I reckon I'll ever come to a "megachurch" experience, and -- even if it's once every three years -- I hope not to miss one. As the words of the consecration (from Prayers for an Inclusive Church by Steven Shakespeare) stated, it truly was "a meal that tasted of freedom."
This is the first of two posts discussing my participation in the 77th General Convention of the Episcopal Church, which took place in Indianapolis over the past two weeks.
On Saturday morning, a number of us were blessed to participate in an event we weren't planning for in the hubbub of activity of General Convention. A woman who has been a part of the church for long time had decided she was ready to solemnize her relationship with us. She wanted to be baptized. At her request, we're not sharing her name, but she did give us permission to tell her story. She and I recognized each other, but we weren't sure from where. At events like this, "small world syndrome" runs deep.
The Rev. Elizabeth Kaetonblogged about the request, so a number of us had heard about it by the time came. And so, accompanied by members of her family, four priests, two nuns and a handful of us who were swept up in the enthusiasm of the moment, she stepped out into the bright 105-degree sunshine outside the Convention Center complex and headed across the street into a quiet plaza with a fountain at its center, which was technically part of an office tower. Being from New York, I was watching over my shoulder the whole time waiting for the property management to come chase us away.
The Rev. Jon Richardson read from Matthew's gospel, and Elizabeth a sermon which touched on the life of Conrad Weiser, whose feast was yesterday. In it, she compared baptism to the transformation of Pinocchio, at which point the strings that bound him were cut, leaving him free and "real."
"It was the most meaningful baptism, other than my own and my son's, that I have ever been witness to," said Susan Pederson, a member of Integrity's convention team.
Elizabeth led us all to the edge of the fountain. After renewing our own vows and confirming our intention to help our sister live into hers, we watched as Elizabeth baptized and anointed her with the oil we were able to have blessed by one of the readily-available bishops.
The hotel provided the elements for Eucharist, and we proceeded into a merciful patch of shade and shared Communion, celebrated by The Rev. Michael Sniffen.
Afterward, Michael invited us into a time of silence. Our new sister's kids played quietly in the shade, tired of the grown-ups' talk. With the refreshing backdrop of the cooling water, and under the curious eyes of a busload of tourists, the Holy Spirit's power in that moment was more powerful than the sun.
On a rainy Sunday we visited a grad school professor of mine, Diane Mitchell and her husband Marko Gosar at their studio in YOHO, a wonderful cooperative gallery space in a converted prewar factory building in Yonkers, N.Y. They work, sometimes collaboratively and other times on their own, in a variety of media. In this show, they featured a number of panoramic prints from their travels in Europe and the Chesapeake Bay area. Diane works predominately in digital art, and Marko is a photographer and printmaker, and also creates decorative textures for custom interior designs
After checking out some of the other art, we headed back into Manhattan for our first Girlyman concert in a while, at City Winery. This is a fun venue if you pick your seat carefully and don't mind sharing a table with strangers. You can have dinner during the show if you want to, but this time we hit Bubby's Pie Company beforehand instead.
The opener was new to us, a singer-songwriter named Edie Carey who is touring with Girlyman this time around. Her banter between tracks was light-hearted and self-effacing, contrasting with a somewhat melancholy set. A stand-out for me was "Lonely" off her 2006 collection Another Kind of Fire. She is definitely worth further exploration.
Girlyman also brought a few guests, including cellist Julia Biber and Ingrid Elizabeth from Coyote Grace, whom we "discovered" when they opened for Girlyman in this same room last year. Carey also joined them on a number of tracks. Rather than a typical box-format, the foursome-plus were set up in a line right at the front of the stage. I was happy because I love watching drummers ply their trade, and Girlyman's percussionist J.J. Jones was at our end of the stage, moving in a hypnotic dance with what seemed like eight limbs producing a wealth of sound. Jones joined the band in 2010 after they were well-established (percussion used to be a shared task with Ty Greenstein frequently playing the djembe) and I was a little bit concerned about the effect the shift would have in their sound. Luckily it was for naught; Jones complements the others without giving the band an outright rock feel. On this tour Nate Borofsky introduced a keyboard to the line-up, producing some effects that were previously only included in studio versions of their songs.
Maybe it was the weather but Girlyman's set was also a little downbeat, dipping heavily into their newest release Supernova. This offering was shaped in part by band member Doris Muramatsu's recent experience with leukemia (she's in remission, thankfully) which she relays in the title track. Towards the end they brightened things up a bit, including their tribute to the Andrews Sisters, "My Eyes Get Misty" and Greenstein's rallying cry to tomboys everywhere, "Young James Dean".
The band's rapport with its NYC audience remains strong despite moving from Brooklyn to Atlanta and signing with Indigo Girl Amy Ray's Daemon Records. The crowd hollered out requests and laughed knowingly at the inside jokes between songs. I was glad to see that they haven't forgotten about us amidst their success; after a stint in Europe they will be back for a show in Brooklyn in July. Check them out if you can.
