Diary of An Irish Woman

musings of an irish lady now living in America.

Sunday, July 16, 2006

giggle loop

Remember when you were 8 or 9 yrs old and you started to giggle somewhere inappropriate like mass (church) and you just couldn't stop - you got stuck in a giggle loop. Well Friday night myself and himself got caught in one and it wasn't pretty..

We went to the Lick Observatory Friday night - MountHamilton Lick Observatory


The observatory was built on top of Mount Hamilton by James Lick and all of it brought up the steep mountain over months and years by donkeys and carts and opened in 1880. Its where himself asked me to marry him last year so we were looking forward to the night.

Amazing beautiful place on top of Mount Hamilton here in San Jose, urge everyone to go see it just even for the view - about an hour drive and 4500 Ft above the city. During the summer they have music/science lectures. Being the geeks we love going so we got tickets for opening night. So there was a Celtic kind of band supposed to be playing plus a science lecture from an astronomer and you get to look through the 36 inch telescope.

Through the telescope we saw jupiter with all raging weather system and moons and the cats eye nebula - millions of light years away. Very very cool.


Anyway - the band Celtic Bough were all fantastic musicians - Celtic Bough I'll give them that - one of them played harp, flute, tinwhistle and bohran, the other guitar, mandolin, banjo and another lass the violin. All very well. Problem was their choice of songs and their singing.

They picked Celtic tales of woe, anguish and pathos - cheerful tunes like the Irish Famine... And then sang them smiling their hearts out which made it so so very wrong it was funny

They sang like this

"Isle of hunger, isle of tears... Come on everyone clap your hands, isle of hunger, isle of tears - while grinning and smiling like Barney on acid...

They asked who was Irish in audience - this is one of those times I keep my head down.. Its Irish Americans like that who make me cringe that I even like Irish music. Myself and himself started giggling then and of course that made it worse. Every time they sung a part like 'and he died......' they sang with a cheer and smile and of course that made us giggle even more.

Then it was onto more sorrowful songs like workhouse songs, immigrants through Ellis Island dying and coffin ships all while the harp player smiled and sang like a parody of a bad folk singer, winking nodding the head and smiling all the while. Also they would tell the story of each song, making it even funnier in process as they told you about the sadness and then burst into smiling sound of music happiness...

Himself is a bad influence, I'm sure I would have stopped giggling at the first song - well maybe - but he kept me going through most of their set. We went outside and watched the stars eventually, who were quiet in their dignity and laughed out loud, releasing the giggle loops from their prison... Its good to feel like a 8/9 yr old every now and then...

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