The Navy has changed a great deal. Not that the officers of my day were bad, because I served under a lot of good officers, believe me. But there were a few bad ones, too.
I can bear a lot but not that pall
My voice in combination with the harp - which, by the way, I use because I've played it my entire life, not to make some statement about the harp - somehow has. . . coloured people's interpretations of the music and projected an idea of childlike or fairytale quality or innocence. Which sometimes prevents people from listening to the songs the way I would like them to be listened to.
The very first Walnut Whales recording was recorded just a few weeks after I had started singing, out of the blue, started singing. And the voice, you can hear how uncomfortable I am with it, and how terrified I am with it.
Families of privilege and money would have harps in their parlors, and their cultured daughters would learn to play. It's got such a strange history. But that wasn't the context that I learned it in, so the inherent friction between that history and the more humanist folk-y history wasn't in my conscience at all.
I never thought people would be mortally offended by the sounds I was making.
I don't look at people's expressions, because I still get nervous when I play, especially when I first put the harp up there. I just try to tune - it takes me a half-hour to tune, and I get nervous if I look at anybody when I do it.
The fears and anxieties and obsessions wrapped up in being a parent.
You know you're old when your family talk about you in front of you. What are we going to do with Pop? We have company tonight.
Well, President-elect Barack Obama and his family are gonna spend the holidays in his home state of Hawaii. And you know who couldn't be more thrilled with this? The press, the reporters who follow the president. Well, think about it. After eight years of spending every holiday cutting brush in Crawford, Texas, they get to go to Hawaii!
I fell in love with Boston, so hopefully, I'll be here for a long time.