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Oct
26
2005
This post is a lesson in "connections":

Back in 1992, I was a student at TPAS, and operated the sound board for the mainstage show under the supervision of Bill Palladino, a man who cut his teeth at MPR -- and he even met his wife there, folk singer Claudia Schmidt.

Bill also had an amazing CD collection, acquired during his radio work. Fargo was a dull void of music, limited to either Rock or Country, with a few highlights piped in from the Cities by public radio. Bill's CDs were a fine mix of folk, jazz, and world music, which he played as entry music before the shows: one of the groups on his CDs, Trova, was even scheduled to play in Fargo that summer. They appeared twice in front of a small audience (of which I was a large portion for both shows) on a slow Sunday afternoon. During the break between performances, I approached the stage to buy a copy of their self-titled CD. As I wrote out the check, I spoke briefly to the singer, Ruth Mackenzie, who had retrieved a cellophane-wrapped brand-new CD from a nearby cardboard box for me. I'd heard all of the songs before, by listening to Bill's copy. Many were written for the group itself, but several were from a pair of stage-plays written by Steven Dietz and Eric Bain Peltoniemi, Ten November and Happenstance.

Now, there's a 10-year interlude.

Fast-forward to the early 00s, and I am unable to leave the bathroom at work. No, nothing medical nor obscene: I often had these moments due to the building muzac. It was composed primarily of 1970s easy-listening music, and often songs came on that I remembered from my distant youth -- when such an event occurred, I was forced to stop what I was doing, and listen closely for a unique string of words that could be put into Google, to determine the title of the song for downloading later. This bathroom event produced one title: The Wreck Of The Edmund Fitzgerald, by Gordon Lightfoot. So, I downloaded it, and found I really enjoyed the song.

A few years later, I sent my girlfriend (and future wife) a mix CD that included the Lightfoot song. Now, light-hearted mockery is a talent of my wife, and she chose this odd song as a target for her sarcasm. Despite her mocking, she did choose it as the reason to buy me one of the first gifts she ever gave me: One day, the postman brought me a copy of The Edmund Fitzgerald, an illustrated children's book by Kathy-Jo Wargin. The Edmund Fitzgerald has become an icon of the loving mockery we have for each other: my wife mocks my loose attachment to the sunken ship, and I mock her lack of understanding of Gordon Lightfoot and Lake Superior. Both my attachment to her and the SS Edmund Fitzgerald have grown over the past few years.

Today, Bill Palladino's wife Claudia Schmidt is on MPR to talk about a new project she's participating in, along with Ruth Mackenzie of Trova, and Eric Peltoniemi -- an adaptation of Peltoniemi's musical Ten November...a musical that recounted the sinking of the Edmund Fitzgerald. The Gales of November, this new show, will be performed around the anniversary of the Fitzgerald, around the state of Minnesota.

Since the last 15 years of my life all seem to be leading towards seeing this show, I suppose I better start looking for tickets for the Fergus Falls show. That is, if I can get them without too much mockery from my wife of my pursuits: I suppose it would be a reasonable punishment of her comments for her to be forced to watch the play. Then, I suppose, everything will have gone full-circle and this annullet of my life will be done.

"Loving mockery" keeps marriage strong!

--busmun, 10/31/2005 4:11:41

I like to hear stories of the gentle chiding spouses put each other through; it speaks to a strength in relationships you don't hear discussed too much. Often the source of that chiding goes back many years, or as in your case, the earliest days of the relationship. Without ever discussing it, each spouse knows how far to go in poking fun at their opposite number. There's resilience there----- a long gentle span of mockery vs. education extending far into the future. The reason this strikes a chord with me right now has to do with a styrofoam cup. I came into the kitchen yesterday after a long bike ride and found Erica on the phone with her mother. Erica was looking over my shoulder and saw something that made her laugh and she explained to her mom that,"Dave and I are having one of those fights that go on forever between couples..." Then I realized that she was talking about my Indestructible Throwaway Cup Project. So far Erica has thrown out that styrocup three times and of course I've retrieved it thrice. But, up til then we'd never discussed why I was saving and reusing it, and not wanting to be tarred with the broad bush of (default) Eccentricity I rushed to an extension phone and declaimed merrily to Mother & Daughter: "This cup symbolizes my lost youth--- 30 years ago, when I was hiking the Appalachian Trail I found that I could expand my meager supply of dining ware by reusing the big stryofoam cup from my weekly Cup O Ramen Soup ration. I would rinse it out after use and carefully nest it in a cooking pot and use it at the next meal. And so I got used to seeing styrofoam cups as useful for 14 drinks (usu. tea or coffee) over the span of 115 miles of backwoods trekking. I loved the organic stained look it took on at the end and how it became flimsier and flimsier. Other hikers would look at it and wonder how something so fragile could be part of anyone's cook kit. So here I am now, in 2005 and I want to see that stained progression again, that's why I keep saving it from your nefarious tidiness, wifey dear."

--busmun, 10/31/2005 5:16:28

Little pieces of celebrity doled out in portions small but plump, like those rounds of fried dough served up at the state fair. As one who is married to such a portioned out celebrity, I must gladly say this is the first time I've ever seen a reference to "Bill Palladino's wife Claudia Schmidt." Thanks Derek! I've spent 15 plus years as, YES, "the husband of singer Claudia Schmidt." The balance is long overdue. I write this, just a block from the Fitzgerald Theater, where I've just seen the opening run of the Gales of November. Powerful piece. DO SEE IT IN FERGUS! Ciao, Palladino

--lostcity , 11/12/2005 18:53:11

I LOVE GORDON LIGHTFOOT!! Seriously, I do. I can still remember how the depressing melancholia of "Pussywillows, Cattails..." by Lightfoot helped me battle homesickness when I went off to the big city of Fargo to attend NDSU in the fall of 1977... I definitely love what you've done to the site. I really gotta get back here more often... ...and you two have got to get your butts over here one of these days!

--Trish , 11/28/2005 0:08:37


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