Summer festivals are in full swing, so let me “walk the Blue Ridge” and tell you about a roots music festival starting tomorrow in Natural Chimneys Park right here in the Shenandoah Valley.
The Red Wing Roots Music Festival decided to call this more of an Americana music event, and make its premiere debut family friendly to boot. Music styles encompass Blues, Cajun, Old Time, Bluegrass, Early Country, Gypsy Jazz and all variations on a theme. Unfortunately, the Rocker will be busy hosting his sister this weekend for a friend’s Bridesmaids Party Spectacular Jersey Shore Style. I’m figuring he would have been here in a heartbeat otherwise! http://www.redwingroots.com
And speaking of Melissa McCarthy, who seems to be everywhere at the moment, there is one movie I highly recommend this summer amidst blockbuster action thrillers. Go and see The Heat! It’s a really funny, good old fashioned buddy/cop movie except both cops just happen to be women. I always loved Sandy Bullock, but now I’m head over heels gaga over McCarthy:
“…it also doesn’t deny McCarthy the delightful contrast between her dimples and her dirty mouth, because her combination of sweetie-pie and vulgarian has always been a major element in her comedic style (which wasn’t entirely obvious before Saturday Night Liveand Bridesmaids). It’s a movie that respects her, but doesn’t patronize or try to protect her from the acting-a-fool elements of making broad comedy in order to be adequately feminist about her body.”
And finally, if the real heat and humidity lately has got you down, and left you gasping for air inside your nicely air conditioned home, tune into PBS and prepare to be amazed by the latest Ken Burns feature “Lewis & Clark; the Journey of the Corps of Discovery.” If only history had been taught like this when I was a wee one. Did you know that Sacagawea (yes, that is the correct spelling) was only sixteen years old when she tagged along with these men? Did you know that she carried her newborn baby on her back, and that her knowledge and language skills were essential to their success? When you think about it, she had been enslaved and sold by her Native People, then “entered” into a plural marriage with a French fur trader who was conscripted for this expedition into the unknown – there are so many human rights violations here, they are too numerous to count.
Meriwether Lewis was born on a farm right around the corner, in Albemarle County, VA. Monuments in his honor speckle the landscape. He and Mr Jefferson were good friends, and Burns’ narrative kept me glued to the first part of this PBS documentary long past my bedtime. http://www.pbs.org/lewisandclark/
It was a staggering feat to walk, ride and keelboat their way through the northwest passage to the Pacific Ocean; a herculean task in 1804 to set off from St Louis’ “…Camp Dubois “under a jentle brease, Clark writes.” And only the small Native American bride has seen the mountains to the west of the Mississippi.
MountainMornings 