the rix mix

Ernesto hasn't poured torrential rain on this location but the drizzle is almost continous, there's overcast skies as far south as Ocean City Maryland, & it's sad to look at the Seaside Heights cam & see the Midway Steak House shuttered on Labor Day weekend. Yet I'd enjoy watching the churning surf & then retreating to an arcade for a couple hours of pinball. Letting go of summer is difficult at the shore if you don't live there. I used to visit my grandmother in Atlantic City the final week before school started; a few times it coincided with the Miss America Pageant, & one incredible summer the Democratic National Convention was in town & my mother ordered me home just as I was zeroing in on a ticket to see The Beatles at Convention Hall. But's that another tale.

NPR featured a story on The Raskalz, a project musician Dave Soldier has going with Harlem grade school kids using a small, portable midi studio. Soldier is an excellent teacher. Although what he does with the kids is described as "hip hop," I hear something older than that: children's jumping rope rhymes, which used to be common form of creative expression in urban neighborhoods & hasn't completely disappeared if you've ever seen competitive rope jumping or come across kids playing double dutch on a city street.

Labels: jersey shore, music, weather