Tag: Hamilton

He is back

Tonight, my cousin – who is back in town again at last – and I played a kind of duet. I played piano chords, and he played the fretless banjo that he made from cherry tree, a gourd, and a roadkill deer hide, and we both sang. It was “You’ll Be Back” by Lin-Manuel Miranda, from Hamilton. It was spectacular, and totally fun for the both of us.

And it was only one piece from a whole delightful chunk of music for the two of us tonight, all for which I am extremely grateful. 🙂

Happy eyes watched me bounce around with delight and freedom, as we listened to the track of “You’ll Be Back”, and warmed ears heard our self-produced music the whole rest of the time, feeling the passion and love through our notes and words. I even played one of my own songs for my cousin to hear for the first time, and it was basically no big deal to me, in terms of nerves – it was awesomely easy for me to do.

Man…

This late-night / early-morning hangout was a solid one, for sure. 🙂

Thank you… gratitude, dearest World… gratitude… 🙂

Post-a-day 2020

Success, specified

How do you define success? 

Success is doing what you love and loving people while you do it.

That answer was from the glorious, adorable performer Anthony Ramos.

He is an absolute joy to watch, to hear, to feel through his performances, and I highly recommend taking note of him in the recent release of the recording of “Hamilton”, found on Disney+.

But that is somewhat beside the point here… the point is that his words in response to this simple question speak quite strongly to me.

I have never worded it as he did, but his words give exact language to my wordless thoughts and feelings on the subject of success…. success is not about money for me, not about social status nor fame nor beauty nor where nor how I live… as Anthony Ramos said (or, perhaps he wrote it, as it was a written article, and didn’t use quotation marks [nerd alert here]), success in my life is about doing what I love and loving while I do it.

Thank you for the words, sir… they are greatly appreciated. 🙂

P.S. Gosh, in a different world, I would love to learn to love this man, and for many reasons! Alas, he has found his partner in love, and I wish them all the best as partners to one another. 😉

Post-a-day 2020

32,000 troops in New York Harbor

I just e-mailed a history expert in order to find a possible answer to two questions my mom and I had out of watching “Hamilton”.

1) How many men would have been aboard each ship?

2) How long was the journey from England to New York in 1776?

We wanted to know how many ships were in the harbor in order to produce 32,000 troops, as the line in the song says, and realized that we had no idea how big the ships even were and what their capacities were for men (and ammunition, etc.).

And that set of thoughts led us to wondering how long they had had to spend at sea.

And so, rather than put forth lots of effort in researching myself, I figured it smartest to reach out to an expert first, and doing further personal research second, if needed.

Why does this even matter?

Because we are total nerds in my family, and we care about things like this. 😛

I mean, what else would one be asking after watching “Hamilton”? Haha

Post-a-day 2020

Homophones ;)

I never quite understood what was going on in the song, though I listened to it multiple times… I attributed this to my lack of knowledge on the history being referenced within it…

Even when I watched it happen on the stage, and I listened carefully and understood almost every single word in it, I was still slightly lost… as I considered it afterward, I saw that it just still didn’t quite make sense to me – why such a title and then have the song be talking so much about what it was discussing?

I was guessing that it was showing how problems in the government’s leaders’ lives always had a risk of being life-threatening, and so there were two sides to being in politics at the time (and a third during the war itself, but from an enemy, not an ally)… thus the “dual” of it… the duality, would it be?

Anyway…

It suddenly clicked for me tonight, though, as I prepared myself for sleep, and contemplated Lafayette’s 19 words in under three seconds –

And I’m never gonna stop until I make ‘em
Drop and burn ‘em up and scatter their remains, I’m

…

Is it “duel” instead of “dual”?! I asked myself in sudden doofus–feeling inspiration.

I quickly checked, and, of course, it is, indeed, the “Ten Duel Commandments”.

Still a play on history and phrasing, but not in the way I was interpreting it… similar, but not really at all the same idea. 😂

Oh, the fun of spelling. 😛

P.S. Extreme gratitude yet again for the beautiful gifts that Lin-Manuel Miranda shares with the world at large… Thank you, good sir… 🙂

P.P.S. Daveed Diggs,…. dude… I kind of love you for your space of fun and for your spectacular precision. 😀

Post-a-day 2020