Oglesbee Odes: Sting's Songs from the Labyrinth

Eric and I are going through yet another run (our third?  fourth?) of watching the single season of Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip.  (Brilliant show, by the way. What were people thinking when it got cut and 30 Rock was kept on the air at the same time? Anyway....)  Last night, we watched one of our favorite episodes in which Sting is a guest on the show, performing some songs from his album "Songs from the Labyrinth" that he made with Edin Karamazov on the lute.  It was that episode that led us to actually buy the album a couple years ago, and we love it.  Sting's alluring remake of "Fields of Gold" is one of the highlights of the album, but I'm going to leave you with another favorite:  "Come Again."


 

Oglesbee Odes @ 20 weeks

The news about the new addition to our family never made it onto this particular venue, and for that, we're sorry.  But later is better than never, right?

Meet Oglesbee Gamma:

Gamma is a boy, much to the delight of his older brother, who has all sorts of plans for his little brother and seems to have advanced ideas about how much the little guy will be capable of once he leaves Mommy's tummy.  We're working on it so there's not a huge disappointment when Gamma comes out unable to do much more than sleep, eat, and poop. And no, we're not going to call him Gamma forever -- it's just his name (based on his rank ordering in the family) until he makes his social debut in about 20 weeks, at which point, we'll reveal whatever crazy name we've come up with.

So, 20 weeks have gone and 20 weeks are left.  Here's to hoping the last half is a bit more comfortable than the first half, during which I became very good friends with the, um, porcelain throne, if you will, and spent almost 13 hours a day sleeping.  Now that my energy is returning and food is more appealing to me, I'm looking forward to the rest of this unexpected adventure.  We're halfway there, Baby!

In honor of this occasion, our song for the day is "Livin' on a Prayer" by Bon Jovi.  Turn up your computer speakers and celebrate with us to some classic power rock on this sunny Friday morning. 

Oglesbee Odes

For pure silliness' sake, here's a track from Ian's "Songs from the Street" CD by Sesame Street (thanks, Adam & Sherri!). It gets Ian singing every time....and us, too, for that matter.



And here's another one from the same CD. It's Eric's favorite. :)

Oglesbee Odes: Be Unto Your Name

As we've talked about before, Lent is a time for recognizing our need for God and adjusting our perspective such that we remember who and what we really are: dust, vapor, here for a moment, broken vessels. But with that comes the acknowledgment that God is forever, eternal, the Healer, and mighty enough to save us.

I first heard this song and learned to play it on the guitar while I was in Honduras in February of 2007, so it has an extra-special meaning for me.

Oglesbee Odes

More often than not, if you come to our house while we're making dinner, you'll hear either the entire soundtrack from the movie Once, or you'll hear this song in the middle of our own very special compilation of music we like to call "Rockin' Love Songs." It's one of our favorite songs from one of our favorite soundtracks to one of our favorite movies. Enjoy.

Oh, and if you haven't seen Once yet....well, um...you should.

Oglesbee Odes

Since music informs a lot of our thoughts, attitudes, and beliefs, I thought we might share with ya'll what we listen to by posting a song every Friday for the next few weeks. We'll see how it goes.

This first song is in honor this season of Lent. It reminds us of our need for God's mercy and calls us to recognize His sovereignty. This particular arrangement is performed by Jars of Clay on their album, "Redemption Songs," and is my favorite, with the version done by our church's worship band at a close second...but you have to come to SBCRC to hear that.

We Will Dance

This past weekend we had the privilege of taking a trip to Bloomington where we got to enjoy an IU football win on a beautiful sunny day, eat some of our favorite food, and see some of our favorite people. On Sunday, we visited our former church, where, I swear, they knew I was coming back and decided to play all of my favorite songs during worship.

As an added bonus, Pastor Bob preached a killer sermon (as usual) on Philippians 2:12-21 about Paul's joyful and eternal perspective in the midst of and even because of his imprisonment for the gospel. Here this guy was in prison, chained to a guard, sitting in his own filth...and rejoicing, simply because the good news about Christ was spreading and God was being glorified through his suffering. Sounds pretty crazy and super-human, huh? Pastor Bob encouraged us by pointing out that while Paul was exemplifying the perspective we ought to have, he was just as human as we are and didn't feel this way all the time. He surely had his moments of fear, doubt, and weakness (see the "thorn in the flesh" passage in 2 Corinthians 12), but by the grace of God, he was able to see things with an eternal perspective and therefore, was actually joyful that he was suffering at times and had sufficient courage because he had hope that God would be glorified through it all. That's all that mattered to him.

In response to the sermon, we sang with joy, "We Will Dance," an ECC classic that is usually sung after communion. They get all rhythmic and clap on the 2nd and 3rd beats, skipping the first...which is pretty progressive and difficult for a bunch of white people! I couldn't find a version to share with you that was up-tempo the way the ECC band plays it, but Clay Crosse's rendition is close. Enjoy:

We Will Dance - Clay Crosse

Loud...very loud

For my birthday, Lisa, Adam, and Sherri went together and bought me concert tickets for the Collective Soul/Counting Crows/Live concert in Indianapolis. When we got into Victory Field (the concert was in a minor league baseball park) we found out that all of the seating was general admission. As a sign of our age, we immediately bypassed the "standing area" in front of the stage and made a bee line for the bucket seats on the upper level.

When we got to our seats, we were comforted by the fact that we were surrounded by other 20+ year olds (and actually quite a few 30, 40, and 50+).

The show started with Collective Soul; they played a lot of songs off of their greatest hits album. Apparently, about a 1/3 the way through their set a fight/scuffle broke out among some fans in front of the stage, and Ed (lead singer of Collective Soul) called out, "Hey, stop that s***! Don't be interfering with my show!" When security went to throw the guy out, Ed then said, "Don't throw him out...just separate him...we'll all have a good time."

Next, Live performed. I haven't heard a lot of their music, but I really liked it. They put on a great, energetic show.

Finally, Counting Crows performed. Overall, I was kind of disappointed with them. Whereas Collective Soul and Live performed as if they actually wanted to be there, Counting Crows seemed like they were just phoning it in. One neat part of their concert though was that it started pouring the rain while they sang "December." Lisa and I sat in a section by ourselves (nearly everyone else left) getting drenched while we enjoyed "December".

On our way home, we had a major case of the munchies, so we hit Burger King for some cheeseburgers and onion rings.

Going to a concert like that was something I wouldn't want to do very often (based on my work in the Speech and Hearing Sciences department at IU, I have a pretty good idea of the permanent damage I probably did to my hearing), but it was definitely a blast. Who needs those upper couple thousand Hz of frequency response anyway.....