Choir’s Back
We’ve started rehearsals for the holiday concert. Among other pieces we’re doing this lovely one I’ve never heard before called Totus Tuus by Henryk Mikolaj Goreckil. It was written for Pope John Paul II, who said this prayer after he was shot:
Totus tuus sum, Maria, (I am completely yours, Mary)
Mater nostri Redemptoris, (Mother of our Redeemer)
Virgo Dei, Virgo pia, (Virgin Mother of God, blessed virgin)
Mater mundi Salvatoris, (Mother of the world’s Savior)
Totus tuus sum, Maria! (I am completely yours, Mary!)
Awww. The gorgeous guy in this photograph is Robert Gardner, the baritone I gushed about who sang Ellijah for us last season. HE’S BACK. Well, he will be. He’s going to sing the baritone solo in a Vaughan Williams piece we’re doing called *Fantasia on Christmas Carols. Buy your tickets now. You’ll thank me, I promise. From my earlier post about him: “I don’t think I exaggerate when I say every man and woman in the choir had a crush on him — you had to have been there, you would have developed a crush on him too, trust me.”
*It’s pronounced FanTAYsia, but I hear FawnTahSEEa in my head whenever it’s said, for some reason. I’m not sure where that pronunciation came from. I’ll bet when I was 12-years-old I decided that way sounded cooler.

First, a gratuitous cat belly shot. This is Finney resting on the couch, after trying to pull the keys off my laptop, scratch the screen, tear up my papers, eat the isight camera, kill Buddy, kill my shoes, bite my face, knock over the vase on my desk, con me into feeding him breakfast twice and finally pushing the ibook off the desk when I got up to get him a toy. Ah yes, you must be all tuckered out. Rest little devil, rest.
She was in the Bronx! For those of you who don’t know Manhattan, that’s a long, long way.
My friend’s dog Bean is missing since Wednesday night. I’ve posted pictures of Bean before — I love this dog. She somehow got out of an apartment on 17th between 2nd and 3rd.