You are currently browsing the tag archive for the ‘musicians’ tag.
The one thing about hanging around The Space, which is a free community art studio and community makerspace, is that you’ll never know what can happen. One Saturday I was there when a music jam suddenly broke out. I shot one minute of this jam sessions, which I uploaded on TikTok, Clapper, Instagram, and YouTube.
About once a month The New Deal Cafe in Greenbelt, Maryland hosts a Blues Jam Night where people can bring their instruments, go onstage, and jam with other musicians. I finally checked out this event for the first time back in November. I shot a few photos and a video.
I went as a spectator because I wanted to see what went on at these jam sessions. I should make an effort to pick my guitar up again and really practice so I will feel comfortable enough to go to this event and actually jam with other musicians.
Shocking portraits of people who lost their homes to climate change.
The face of a medieval man’s skull found in Aberdeen, Scotland is reconstructed.
This video explains the five reasons why musicians should stop doing gigs for $100.
How “Strange Fruit” killed Billie Holiday.
Dog with two legs gets wheelchair built out of Legos by 12-year-old boy.
Nas and Will Smith invest in app that will help teens learn financial literacy.
Airline passenger wears 2.5 kilos of her clothing in order to avoid paying excess baggage fees.
Aerosmith’s Steven Tyler opens second home for abused women called Janie’s House.
Meet the world’s largest cat, a 700-pound lion-tiger crossbreed called Apollo.
This year I took part in the Greenbelt Spring Maker Festival, which was put on by the Greenbelt Makerspace in Greenbelt, Maryland. The weather was warm yet windy. (At one point a guy who had his table next to mine had mounted his iPad on a tripod. He had to leave his table for a moment and a gust of wind blew over the entire tripod—iPad included—and smashed the glass on the screen.) Here is my vending area at the festival.
Yes, I used Giant’s off-brand version of Oreos to entice visitors to my area. (LOL!)
The thrift shop Barbies that I refurbished as Fairy dolls made their appearance along with other arts and crafts I have done in the past.
I brought back the doll couch that I made from a broken Dance Dance Revolution dance pad. I had two American Girl dolls—Julie Albright and Addy Walker—sit on the couch along with a stuffed lion that I got from Build-a-Bear Workshop. (I wanted to show that this couch could seat stuffed animals as well as dolls.)
A Barbie doll models this “fur” coat that I knitted using fur yarn.
I attempted to do a live demonstration at my booth where I would crochet a small amigurumi bunny rabbit. I had this ambition that I would finish the rabbit by the end of the festival. Well, I ended not finishing it mainly because I had to tend to people who were browsing my table and there were times when I toured the rest of the festival. I would finish it later on.
Here are my photos of the rest of the festival which I took while I was going to and from the bathroom. There were 3D printers that printed various 3D items, musicians playing live on stage, children playing with Legos, woodworkers, a sewing demonstration, numerous computer demonstrations, and an information table that dealt with things like composting. There were vendors that sold jewelry, knitted hats with matching knitted scarves, and ceramics.
This boy was checking out a table where one can play music with oranges that were connected with some kind of an interface with a computer.
When I first started going to these maker events, I saw 3D printed items in only one color. At this event I saw 3D printed items based on Winnie the Pooh and Snoopy and they were 3D printed in more than one color, which was cool.
This year there was an attempt to include the Greenbelt Library in the festival even though the building is located a few feet outside of Roosevelt Center (where the festival took place). Phil Shapiro brought his portable wind tunnel where he enticed families with young children to check it out. I happened to take this photo of him during downtime where he was reading.
He had me use his phone to film him sending paper streamers through the wind tunnel. He later uploaded the footage I shot on YouTube while he added some music in the background.
Each week the New Deal Cafe in Greenbelt, Maryland have an Open Mic night where people of varying talents can take to the stage and show them off. This particular night I attended ended in a jam session between all of the musicians who took part in that Open Night as they played the song “Rock Me, Mama.” This video was filmed on March 8, 2018.
Instead of crowding into some suburban shopping mall on Black Friday, I decided to check out some local alternative festivities that were going on with some locally owned businesses. I took so many photos that day that I decided to divide them into separate entries with each entry representing a different town or business that I went to.
I began Black Friday with a trip to Community Forklift, a warehouse store that specializes in used/upcycled/recycled items like appliances and hardware, which was having an alternative Green Friday celebration.
When I first arrived I noticed a few signs indicating that they welcome everyone no matter who they are. More and more locally owned businesses have been putting up such signs in their shops since Donald Trump moved into the White House.
Santa Claus was there that day.
One of the Community Forklift employees offered to take my picture with Santa so I allowed it.
There were all kinds of Santas that were available for sale at Community Forklift that day.
I really liked this cast-iron vintage oven and stovetop that was on sale. If I lived in a bigger house, I might consider buying it. But I have a small kitchen so I really don’t have the space. This oven would be an asset to anyone who is looking for vintage items.
There was a craft show at Community Forklift as well where local artisans were selling ornaments, jewelry, locally made honey, and other items.
Local musicians provided live music.
They had face painting for kids.
They had a couple of free make and take demonstrations. One was on making wreaths using natural materials.
The other was making coasters from recycled tiles. I’ve made such coasters in the past but this one had a technique I’ve never used before where you decoupaged backing paper on the tile first.
Then you selected a photo that you decoupaged on top of both the backing paper and the tile.
Afterwards you place a piece of cork on the table and add Modge Podge on the top.
Then you placed the tile on top of the cork and let everything dry for a few minutes.
I now have a new coaster with a blue-patterned background and a photo of the U.S.S. Constellation (which is docked at the Inner Harbor in Baltimore) on top.
After I went to Community Forklift, I headed to similar celebrations that were going on in Riverdale Park and Hyattsville but I’m going to write about them in separate posts.
One Saturday I decided to check out three different festivals that were all being held within a five mile radius on the same day. The weather was very pleasant. (It was sunny in the low 70’s with low humidity.) The first festival I decided to check out for the first time is the annual Port Towns Festival that’s held in the Bladensburg Waterfront Park in Bladensburg, Maryland. I thought that it would be a relatively small festival only to be pleasantly surprised when I found that it was larger than I anticipated. There were rides and all kinds of vendors that were located right along the banks of the Anacostia River.
Next I drove over to nearby Hyattsville, which was the site of the annual Hyattsville Arts Festival. That festival seems to get bigger each year with more and more people attending. I ended up parking at the parking lot next to Franklin’s Restaurant a block away. A portion of the Anacostia Trail runs right next to the parking lot, which had a sign pointing the way to the festival.
Walking along the trail led directly to the area where the festival took place.
There were many vendors selling all kinds of handcrafted goods as well as different music acts.
There was even a place where people were invited to draw icons.The idea was to draw something then hand it in along with your name and e-mail address. Then the organizers of this activity would e-mail an icon based on your own drawing.
I decided to take a stab at this activity, which resulted in this drawing. I drew a hedgehog and it’s based on similar drawings I’ve done in the past (back when I still lived with my late pet hedgehog, Spike).
The organizers of that activity really praised my simple drawing and were talking about how much they loved it. As of this writing I have yet to receive my icon based on that drawing. If and when these people get around to e-mailing my icon, I’ll post it in this blog for you to see.
After a while I decided to drive over to the third and last festival of the day. The Greenbelt Blues Festival was in full swing and, as you can guess from the name, it was devoted to a variety of musical acts performing various blues songs. This year’s festival was devoted to B.B. King, who passed away a few months ago, so I heard plenty of covers like “The Thrill is Gone.” The last few photos show just one of the many musical acts who performed that day.
Recently I was waiting for someone in Roosevelt Center in Greenbelt, Maryland when I came upon this group of musicians who were in a jam session. They played mainly Beatles tunes (they played the song “Here Comes the Sun” in this clip) but they were pretty good considering that they don’t really play together in a band. I don’t know if it will be a regular ongoing thing or not. I shot this short video to show you what it was like.
I was invited to a friend’s party recently and she requested that all the attendees bring side dishes or desserts and she would provide the ham and turkey. I finally had the opportunity to use something I had won about six months earlier in a fundraising quarter auction that was put on by the organization responsible for my support group for people who are separated or divorced. It’s a party preparation pack from Tastefully Simple and it included a couple of boxes of this cherry mix, two bags of cinnamon pretzels, and two bags of chocolate pretzels.
Over time I gradually ate the two bags of cinnamon pretzels but I had everything else in my kitchen cupboard. All I needed was to buy two 8-ounce packs of cream cheese for the cherry mix. (The instructions stated that the mix worked best with whole or light cream cheese and to completely avoid the fat-free cream cheese.) I also bought two extra bags of special Snyder’s of Hanover pretzel bags where all the pretzels were coated with Hershey’s milk chocolate. (It was basically to compensate for the two bags of cinnamon pretzels I ate earlier.)
Here is how easy it was for me to make this. Here are the ingredients I gathered.
I took the cream cheese out of the refrigerator and let it soften at room temperature for at least one hour. (The longer you leave it out, the most soft and pliable the cream cheese will become.) Then put the cream cheese in a mixing bowl. Using a spoon, slowly mix in one envelope of the cherry mix at a time until all the envelopes have been emptied. Put the cheese into a ball, place it in a serving dish, then refrigerate for at least two hours.
I managed to find an unused disposable aluminum serving pan that was leftover from the last time I spent a week in Ocean City with my husband and his sister in 2011 (just five months before he walked out on me) so I didn’t have to worry about asking the party hostess to return any serving dishes to me. I put the newly balled cherry cheese in the middle of the pan and refrigerated it for two hours. When it came time to go to the party, I emptied the chocolate pretzels around the cheese ball and it looked like a very elegant party dish.
I went to the party with my elegant looking dish and I had a good time. The weather was unusually warm that night (the temperature was in the mid 60’s, which is considered balmy for the Baltimore-Washington, DC area in December). Someone started an outdoor bonfire in the backyard and the flames gave off this purple-tinted effect at the edges that looked so cool that I took a picture of it.
The party was pretty cool and I had a chance to catch up with my friends who were also there. There were a group of musicians that were jamming along to Christmas songs.
I took this last photo because it was kind of cute. Rochelle, the three-year-old daughter of the party hosts grew tired and fell asleep on the couch.
Here’s the funny part. After Rochelle had been sleeping for a while, her father picked her up and carried her upstairs to her bedroom. The moment he put her in her bed, she woke up, screamed “NOOOOOO!!!”, and promptly ran back downstairs to rejoin the party. She sat on the same couch where she previously slept. Within five minutes she fell asleep again while the party swirled around her. Her parents decided to leave her there for the duration.
Children can be cute and funny sometimes. 🙂
Yesterday was my last full day in Ocean City, Maryland and I was determined to make the most of it. It was also one of the few days that had no rain in the forecast and it was sunny and hot all day long. That morning I finally was able to do the one thing that I couldn’t do earlier either because of my back problems or the weather or both—go for an early morning stroll along the beach. Aside from a few early-morning swimmers and angler fisherman, the beach was mostly clear, as you can see in this photo below.
After my brief stroll, I returned to the condo for some breakfast. After that my husband, sister-in-law, and I decided to make a last visit to The Bookend Cafe where we had some drinks, browsed the gifts and books sold there, and did some web surfing using the cafe’s free wi-fi. On the way back from the cafe, we stopped off at the same Fenwick Island lighthouse that I took a nighttime photo of just a few days ago. Here is what the lighthouse looks like in daylight.
After lunch we spent some time in the afternoon at the beach where we took a few last dips in the ocean then did some final book reading on the beach. Then we changed out of our swimsuits and headed to the Boardwalk for one final time. Unlike the last time I went to the Boardwalk, the day was much brighter and I was able to do some more walking than I was before since I didn’t have to worry about raindrops. Here’s a photo I took of the landmark Esskay Clock. When I used to go to Ocean City as a child with my extended family (including my cousins), we kids used to be instructed to wait by that clock if we somehow became separated. I remembered when I did just that one crowded night when I got separated by my family and they were all happy that when they found me at the clock.
Next to the Esskay Clock is a newer Boardwalk landmark. This is the Firefighters Memorial and it was erected to honor the firefighters who perished in the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on September 11, 2001.
Here’s a different kind of landmark. For many years a sculptor and minister Randy Hofman has been creating these gigantic sand sculptures based on events in the Bible. They are really a sight to behold.
If you want to see more of Randy Hofman’s work, check out his website right here.
The Boardwalk have long been home to would-be artists and musicians who try to ply their trade among the vacation-goers. Sometimes you’ll see someone who is both an artist and a musician, like the guy in the photo below.
After walking around on the Boardwalk, we headed to the Angler restaurant to take advantage of its dinner and sunset cruise. We ate a wonderful dinner in the restaurant then we went out on the dock in the back of the restaurant where we boarded a boat. I took a whole bunch of sunset photos. Here’s one of the sunset over the Route 50 bridge that leads into Ocean City.
Here’s another sunset photo, this one over Assateague Island.
And here’s sunset over West Ocean City, Maryland.
And here are a few sunset photos of the Boardwalk, where you can see the bright lights from far away.
In this photo, you can see the kites that are located right outside The Kite Loft. The kites are flown day and night during the summer.
Towards the end of the boat trip, things took a really dramatic turn. Our boat got word of another boat that had literally run aground and the boat I was on decided to go over to see if it could offer some help. By the time we arrived, the Coast Guard had already arrived to offer aid to the boat. I managed to take a few photos of that ship that ran aground but it was really dark and my camera had a hard time picking up the image so the next two photos are blurry. Here is the white boat that’s stuck among the rocks.
The blue lights in this photo are the ones from the Coast Guard boat.
Sagittarius Dolly 
You must be logged in to post a comment.