Intery Mintery Comes to Greece

Today is Halloween. One feature of holidays is the opportunity to recall where you were on this day in other years of your life. A great conversation starter—“What was your most memorable ____________? (insert holiday of choice or birthday).”

 

I’ve had memorable Halloweens at Antioch College (full confession—one of the most intense of the eight LSD trips I took back then), in the mountains of North Carolina at a Quaker Boarding School, in my first celebration at The San Francisco School where we had a costume parade and contest. My wife worked so hard sewing a costume and I woke up that morning, put on my overalls, went to the horse stables in the park to gather some hay and stuff it in my overalls, grabbed an old hat and that thrown-together scarecrow costume won first prize!!! My wife was not happy. :-)

 

Halloween became a favorite at the school as I created a unique Intery Mintery ritual performance with all 100 elementary students somewhere around 1984 and it continued unbroken until my last one in 2019— and still continues unbroken today with colleagues James and Sofia. (The whole performance was captured on film and viewable at www.thesecretsongfilm.com). After the performance, the Middle School hosted various booths and a haunted house and we ended with me telling a scary story back in the music room. And then ending that with the classic Skin and Bones song when I make the whole room jump with a BOO!!! erupting in an unpredictable place in the song.  My favorite day in the whole world!!! 

And then made more fabulous between 2013-2019 when James, Sofia and I took our Interns from around the world (Italy, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Spain, Finland, Czech Republic, Turkey, Iran, Philippines, China, Thailand, Australia, New Zealand, Colombia, Brazil  and various US states) to Belvedere Street for one of the most spectacular Halloween celebrations you can find anywhere. 

 

And so on this Halloween, I awaken in Athens, Greece, also the site of a memorable Thanksgiving my wife and I spent here in 1978 at the beginning of our trip around the world. Our Thanksgiving dinner was moussaka, mashed potatoes and Greek salad and that night, we went to the airport to fly to India via Cairo. A most memorable time indeed!

 

So with a morning free, I hope to walk to the Acropolis and then in today’s class, re-create a version of Intery Mintery to share as a model of an integrated performance, with a chant, song sung in canon, percussion instrument sound effects, Orff instrument ensemble accompaniment, alto and soprano recorders, creative movement and drama. 

 

The day Intery Mintery came to Greece. That should be memorable!