"The constant presence of the beloved, even though space may separate a couple by thousands of miles, or time by eternity itself after death, is not readily diminished. The beloved's presence is too strongly felt; it is too much a part of one; it is too deep in the air we breathe and the mind we reflect with to be forgotten. In this sense (Gabriel) Marcel is accurate when he declares that a beloved bestows immortality on another by his love: To say "I love you" is to say "You shall never die." Love is mystery opening up to mystery. No wonder its token is most regularly the granting and encouraging of freedom unto another: the freedom to be his or her own mystery and to live this mystery, loving it."

--Matthew Fox ("On Becoming a Musical, Mystical Bear")

(a page opened at random yesterday from this book on my bookshelf that I've never read but I thought looked interesting. It's a nice thought for the new year, don't you think?).

A St. Patrick's Day Jell-O Dessert for You

There's something special about eating foods you loved as a kid.  The last time this lime jello concoction passed my lips was probably about twenty years ago--sometime in my teen years. It was a dessert made by my grandma or mom for St. Patrick's Day, and has been a family favorite since the 50's. Tasting it again last week was like remembering something lovely I had forgotten. The top layer is whipped, chilled evaporated milk, lime jello, lime/lemon juice, and sugar, and its fluffiness just melts on your tongue. It's not a texture you'll taste often, but it's something you'll continue dreaming about once it's gone.

Lime Fluff

1 large package lime jello
1 1/4 C boiling water
1 C sugar
1/3 C lime juice
2 Tbsp. lemon juice
1 can carnation evaporated milk (I believe it was 12 oz; chilled a day in the fridge)
1 package chocolate wafer cookies or chocolate-covered graham crackers (the Keebler Elves make these)
1/3 C melted butter

Mix jello, water, sugar, lime and lemon juice. Let this slightly congeal in the fridge (or for a layered effect like the above picture, don't let it congeal much at all--just cool slightly in fridge). Crush cookies and mix with butter. Press into a 9x13" pan (reserve about 1/3 cup for topping). Whip the chilled evaporated milk until fluffy; fold jello mixture into the whipped milk and pour slowly into the pan with the cookie crust. Refrigerate at least 2 hours. Sprinkle the rest of the cookies over the top. Cut and serve. Serves 12-24.

Served on my grandma's grocery-store china.

Something Yellow

I've been craving a sugary butter cookie for days so today I finally made Zuckerkager (Danish Sugar Drops) from The Great Scandinavian Baking Book by Beatrice Ojakangas. The cookies turned out thin and crisp and very sugary (in a good way) and I'm trying to not eat the whole batch in one sitting.

While I was baking I discovered the manual functions on my Canon PowerShot (and I almost let the first batch of cookies burn). Here's the same photo but in sepia tone (yeah, it doesn't take much to excite me):

These pictures aren't staged. I'm not into perfection (or twee-ness) but reality, even if there are some ugly elements, such as the black cord and the box of mac and cheese in the background. However, I do try to make the picture somewhat interesting......

Nancy Drew collection (yup, I've got 'em all).

"Jesus Pansies."  (they came back to life after appearing dead for several days).

My 3-year-old took this picture. Not bad, eh?

Looking Up/ Looking Down

I have a renewed interest in photography. I happened upon the Shutter Sisters website the other day, and for August there is a theme for each day, for their "Elevate the Everyday" photo project. I decided to try it with my little point-and-shoot camera.

Vintage postcards, hanging on a mobile in my piano studio.

Blue + Lines.

Dead tree in August.


I love these little Fluxus/ Keri Smith-type projects: the art of the everyday; simplicity over complexity; d.i.y.; anti-commercialism. I can handle these small, daily art projects in the spirit of John Cage (whose 100th birthday would have been September 5 of this year):

"[The residual purpose of art is] purposeless play. This play, however, is an affirmation of life-- not to bring order out of chaos or to suggest improvements in creation, but simply to wake up to the very life we're living, which is so excellent once one gets one's mind and one's desires out of its way and lets it act of its own accord."

and Paul Klee:


"It is a great difficulty and a great necessity to have to start with the smallest. I want to be as though new-born, knowing nothing, absolutely nothing, about Europe, ignoring poets and fashions, to be almost primitive. Then I want to do something very modest; to work out by myself a tiny formal motive, one that my pencil will be able to hold without technique. One favorable moment is enough. The little thing is easily and concisely set down. It's already done! It was a tiny, but real affair, and someday, through the repetition of such small, but original deeds, there will come one work upon which I can really build."

A three-year-old's tableau ("looking down").

Belly/feet/dog.


This project is coinciding nicely with my media fast (can't....take....any.....more.....ridiculous/sad/irritating....news....for....awhile......). I feel much more uplifted reading Hula Seventy's blog.

Hello.

Hello, it's been forever. But I'd like to start posting again.

The highlights of today:

*Homemade chicken noodle soup
*The smell of freshly-cut wood at Menards
*Taking a nap on the couch

It finally feels like winter, with the temps in the teens and a light covering of snow, and fine ice crystals making the sidewalks slippery. Winter is good, but I need some wintry projects to keep me from hibernating under my down comforter all day:

To-do's this week:

*Take pictures with new Blackbird twin lens camera!
*Make granola and granola bars
*Find a good book to read (in between novels right now)
*Letters, thank-you notes, postcards, etc.
*Learn some more folk songs on guitar for E., who turned 3 last week!

Noble deeds and hot baths...

Frost in the upstairs bathroom window.

So much for new year's resolutions. I haven't done anything on my daily and weekly to-do lists yet. I feel lots of resistance for some reason this year. Instead of cutting back on sugar, at the start of the new year I ate more than I did during Christmastime. Well, actually it's tapered off a bit--I haven't been eating much sugar lately, but it takes awhile to stop craving sweets. The week of Christmas I made a double batch of sugar cookies, and these amazing Czech cookies. Then, because I canceled our New Year's Eve party, I ended up eating the chocolate Lindt truffles and raspberry Ghirardelli squares I had bought for the party. Needless to say, I had a few monstrous headaches as a result. Now I'm back down to my few bits of dark chocolate per day (if that) and maybe some honey in my tea.

Speaking of tea, I've started doing a British-sort of tea time everyday, around 3 or 4. That's when I get a little peckish anyway, and it just seems like the right thing to do. What's cozier than a cup of tea and some crumpets slathered in homemade blueberry jam? Yes, I bought some actual crumpets at Kowalski's--they are much spongier and more moist than English muffins. I made some years ago too--they are pretty easy to make if I remember correctly...

But the British tea thing may also be due to my recent reading of I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith. I loved it. It's all about living in an ancient castle and the English countryside and quirky characters. Here are some of my favorite quotes:

Noble deeds and hot baths are the best cures for depression.

 "Oh, what's the use of messing about with summer clothes, anyway," she said. "I can't imagine it ever being warm again."
  "There's quite a bit of spring in the air to-night," I told her. "You go out and smell it."
  Rose never gets emotional about the seasons so she took no notice, but Topaz went to the door at once and flung it open. Then she threw her head back, opened her arms wide and took a giant breath.
  "It's only a whiff of spring, not whole lungs full," I said, but she was too rapt to listen. I quite expected her to plunge into the night, but after some more deep breathing she went upstairs to try on her tea-gown.
  "It beats me," said Rose. "After all this time, I still don't know if she goes on that way because she really feels like it, if she's acting to impress us, or just acting to impress herself."
  "All three," I said. "And as it helps her to enjoy life, I don't blame her."

We left our wraps in the hall--Topaz had lent us things to save us the shame of wearing our winter coats. There was a wonderful atmosphere of gentle age, a smell of flowers and beeswax, sweet yet faintly sour and musty; a smell that makes you feel very tender towards the past.

I watched the movie last night, which is streaming on Netflix, and I felt it was a very good adaptation. It's been a lovely diversion from all the news about the Tucson shooting (which stresses me out so much, I can't stop thinking or reading about it. My new cause is gun control.....).

Then tonight I made some chicken croquettes (which I've never made before! I always requested these for my birthday dinners when I was a kid):

I used the Joy of Cooking recipe, which was fun but slightly time-consuming as I had to make a Veloute' sauce to stir into the cooked chicken mixture. I had never made any sort of roux-sauce before so I felt very French, watching a huge pat of butter melting in the pan....

....which isn't good if you're suffering from a cold as I am now (dairy products = more snot).

Happy 1-1-11

Happy New Year!

Shamrock plant in the window

Highlights of the day:

--hubby sick :(
--typed up some practice sheets for my music students
--made black bean soup, potato pancakes, and quinoa for supper
--cleaned up a wet spot little Elliot left on the couch
--blogging (and trying out new pictures on my banner)
--more writing (yet to do)
--stretching (yet to do)
--a teeny tiny bit of music practice (yet to do)

Very "Willa Cather/Bohemian/German/Pioneer woman to put red geraniums in window during the winter

Some fun goals for this year:

--ride a horse across (a small portion of) the Sandhills of Nebraska
--meet a new friend
--take a modern dance class
--start a singing club
--learn a little Czech (or French or Spanish or Italian or Latin or German....)
--learn "The Priest" by Joni Mitchell on guitar
--be able to do the splits at some point
--go vegan for (at least) 21 days
--take lots of pictures (film and digital; themed; ordinary)
--be able to sing spontaneous harmony
--research ancient history (biblical, Egyptian, Roman, etc...) and esoteric symbols
--gather a repertoire of polkas, waltzes, and cafe songs on accordion (play on street corner)
--swim with a dolphin (if not this year then someday....someday!)

It's Never Too Late to be Sassy

For the last 12 hours or so I've developed a new obsession: finding back issues of Sassy magazine (which is proving to be quite futile, unless you want to spend about $20 for an issue on eBay).

It all started with looking up Kirsten Miller, my new favorite YA author (yes there is some jealousy involved...) and finding this blog she's writing based on her Kiki Strike books (which are about a group of urban grrl scouts called the Irregulars who spend their time exploring and defending the Shadow City: a series of mysterious underground rooms and tunnels underneath New York City). Anyway, from this blog, I found a post about Tavi Gevinson, a 14-year-old fashionista from Chicago who keeps this amazing blog, The Style Rookie. There was one particular post (or several, actually) about how she's obsessed with Sassy. That got me thinking about it, and wanting to look at back issues because I wasn't cool enough to read or subscribe to it when I was a teenager.

I'm feeling like I totally missed out! The more I read about it online, the more I find women of my generation who loved this magazine and say that it changed their lives.

I remember I had friends in elementary/jr. high school who subscribed to it, and I must have looked at a few issues and thought, this is way above my head. It's too cool for me. I don't get it. If I had been the person I am now I totally would have subscribed to it (not saying I'm cool now, but I get it). But unfortunately? I was a goody-two-shoes. I was first-chair flute in band. I wore Guess jean skirts with my pink oxford shirt tucked in when other girls wore shorts and tee-shirts to slumber parties. I listened to Debbie Gibson, NKOTB, showtunes, and classical music (meaning pre-20th century "classical" music). I subscribed to YM and Seventeen (but even I thought Teen magazine was too vanilla and twee). I read Nancy Drew. I never picked up Tiger Beat or hung up posters of boys on my walls (my walls were covered with ballerina and music-themed posters and paraphernalia). I loved (and wanted to be) Maria from The Sound of Music.

However, thinking back on things, maybe there was a glimmer of coolness in me. I'd sequester myself in my room (stenciled with mint-green bows across the top; a mauve homemade quilt on my bed; my pink boombox on my night stand--you know the kind I'm talking about--the ones that came in mint green, purple, and pink?) and dream up my own fashion designs, drawing them into my sketchbook (could I have been a Tavi had I grown up in a big city as opposed to a small town?). Also, mom used to let us watch MTV in elementary school, so I was hip on all the current music videos. I used to wear my mom's silk scarves around my ponytails and hoop earrings. I could play Mozart's Concerto for Two Pianos on our living room carpet (the Amadeus soundtrack played endlessly in my childhood). My grandma used to let me look at my aunt's Seventeen magazines from the 70s. I wrote tons of poems and short stories. I knew who Toulouse-Lautrec was (thanks to art-teacher mom). I was also the only girl with an asymmetrical haircut in high school.

Since I can't go back in time and listen to Sonic Youth on my record player at the height of their popularity or read copies of Sassy on my bed, I'm determined to discover what I missed out on. For some reason I need to know what my generation is about, from the point of view of Sassy. I want it to change my life. I want to be that hip kid in school wearing green tights, a purple mini skirt and plaid Doc Martens. I want to reacquaint myself with 80's and 90's indie rock (even in the 90's, in college, I wasn't listening to what my friends were listening to--i.e. Radiohead and Cake. I was listening to Joni Mitchell and Neil Young. Luckily my punk friend Margo made me a mixed tape entitled 'No more hippie shit for Chiffon').

If you or anyone you know have any back issues of Sassy, I would love to borrow or buy them from you. My childhood depends on it.

My Dream House (part 1)

I was browsing through my favorite blogs just now when I came across this. Yes. That's my house.

That is, I wish it were my house, but it was Gabrielle Munter's house in Murnau, Germany, about an hour outside Munich. For a long time I had a picture of this house on my desktop. It made me so happy--the bright blue shutters against the white paint, the barn-style house overlooking a yard overflowing with flowers and trees.

I first saw this house in a book called "Artists' Houses" at a bookstore/art gallery in Spokane. In it, there are pictures of the interior of Gabrielle's house. Simple geometric stencils are stamped across the walls, and paintings of German and Scandinavian folk art and designs are hand-painted by Gabrielle and Kandinsky along the stairs and on furniture. I didn't buy the book but I kept going back to the bookstore to look at those pictures because I wanted my house to look like that.

Do you ever have past-life fantasies? I do. This is mine. It's been especially acute lately since reading Kirsten Miller's YA novel, The Eternal Ones. This is one of the first contemporary YA novels that I've read that I actually liked. The story is so fun, and I love how she's kept a blog where she makes up past-life scenarios for anyone who sends her a picture. But going back to my past life fantasy--for some reason I'm really drawn to Gabrielle Munter (1877-1962) and Paula Modersohn-Becker (1876-1907)--two German Expressionist painters. Maybe it's because they were born about 100 years before I was, or they are both from Germany (Paula grew up in Bremen, where I think my German cousins live. There is some mystery surrounding that part of the family...).

Composer Smorgasbord!

Ug--September's getting away from me and I only have 3 or so blog posts to show for it. I was trying to be a better writer this month! Mostly I've been looking at other people's blogs, like this one.

Oh! But last Friday was amazing. Recently transplanted (from Spokane!) friend, T and I attended an American Composers Forum party at MacPhail Center for Music in Minneapolis. Can I just say, wow? We walk in, us two itty-bitty minor composers-to-be, and immediately we see our friend and mentor Elizabeth Alexander. Then, OMG Libby Larsen walks in. Poor Ms. Larsen--we bombard her right away, saying "hi! do you remember us? you came to our college in spokane?" And she just kind of stared at us and smiled (I'm sure our school was a distant memory to her--she travels extensively), and then someone else bombarded her....

Oh, but how I remember 3 years ago, how I walked around our campus with her (Larsen) and we were having a very cool conversation in the student lobby and she seemed genuinely interested in my projects. Sigh!

Then we walked upstairs to plates of gorgeous food and the most composers I've ever seen in one room. It was fun looking at name tags to see what other famous people were there (at least, famous to me). Stephen Paulus, Ann Millikan, Carol Barnett, Abbie Betinis (whom T had met a few weeks ago and introduced me to her---an amazing and prolific composer who's our age)....

I also had a great conversation with an old flute teacher of mine, Julie Johnson, who remembered me from about 10 years ago.

It never really hit me before how many amazing composers live here. And for the most part they all know each other in addition to knowing many music directors and musicians around town. I can't help but be immersed in this music culture here, with all the collective creative energy.

Book Scout

I added another link--Book Scout

Lots of good middle-reader and YA book suggestions.

Just paint...(think later).

I made these cinnamon rolls (with cream cheese frosting!) for the in-laws this past weekend. As I was rolling them out on Saturday night, around midnight, the power flicked off and I was left in the blackness. Because I'm a little afraid of the dark (haven't outgrown that one) I had to wake up K to go into the (scary) basement to grab the flashlight and candles.

Once the candles were lit, I finished my rolls and thought about electricity and how lovely it was to roll out cinnamon and mace-scented dough by candlelight instead of lightbulb.

Which reminded me of this from May Sarton's "Journal of a Solitude" (thanks for the recommendation, Jenna!):

"It is troubling how many people expect applause, recognition, when they have not even begun to learn an art or a craft. Instant success is the order of the day; 'I want it now!' I wonder whether this is not part of our corruption by machines. Machines do things very quickly and outside the natural rhythm of life, and we are indignant if a car doesn't start at the first try. So the few things that we still do, such as cooking, knitting, gardening, anything at all that cannot be hurried, have a very particular value."

I like this idea of the natural rhythm of life. On a related note, another quote from M.S.:

"I always forget how important the empty days are, how important it may be sometimes not to expect to produce anything, even a few lines in a journal. I am still pursued by a neurosis about work inherited from my father. A day where one has not pushed oneself to the limit seems a damaged damaging day, a sinful day. Not so! The most valuable thing we can do for the psyche, occasionally, is to let it rest, wander, live in the changing light of a room, not try to be or do anything whatever."

I love that---"Live in the changing light of a room." 


Sometimes I get so plagued by not getting enough things done that I freeze to the spot and am not able to do anything at all. Like this standoff in my mind between the urge to make pretty domestic objects vs. making "art" (I can't say for sure that what I do is "art." It's more like--"activities that keep me entertained"). But I love this quote from another art/craft blog I found today:

"Just paint....(think later)."


"

Tiny Happy Obsessions

Two more new blog obsessions:
Tiny Happy

and

Design Sponge

I'm trying to get interior decorating ideas, as well as ideas for craft projects, and these two blogs are amazing. This is how I've been spending my time! And I've been trying to spend less time on the computer after reading articles by Matt Richtel such as this one from the NY Times.

Crop Rotation

Over the last 24 hours I've been obsessing over this blog:
Crafty kin

She's a mom from New Zealand and I love her photos and her crafts. Within the blog there are also links to other cute sites from down under.

The more I look at this blog, though, the more I get the itch to make something crafty and make my house all cute and cozy, filled with fabrics, pottery, and other vintage finds. I'm also dying to bake (haven't done it all summer due to the hot/humid/icky weather). Tonight I threw together some granola (came out a little too crisp--I'm out of practice!) and if tomorrow night is cool I want to bake some bread.

Her blog and homelife are so (seemingly) sweet and cute though that I feel like a totally inadaquate housewife/mommy. I haven't been making enough homemade toys or clothes for E., or planning and making enough meals, or sewing enough aprons, or embroidering enough tea towels. Instead my head has been in the clouds, involved in heady artistic pursuits like writing and composing and practicing piano. Why can't I be a normal domestic momma?

The trouble is, I have a limited amount of spare time and I feel I can only devote myself to one or two things, and (unfortunately?) the abstract, heady stuff wins (most of the time). I remember reading something Madeleine L'Engle wrote (from A Circle of Quiet? I can't remember) where she said her children cheered if she did dishes that day (because most of her time was spent, y'know, writing). Not that I'm comparing myself to her ( I looove her....!) but still....

....there is a tiny voice in my head that reminds me to attend to the details in my life. It's totally pathetic that I can't send a birthday card on time, or update photos on Shutterfly more regularly, or weed the garden more than once a month. I'm finally learning that stuff doesn't take long to do. I've actually been keeping a mental log of How Long Things Take (because I have Time-Awareness Disorder or something where I always misjudge how long it takes to accomplish a task). The average time it takes me to write a letter: 20 min. The average time it takes to put dishes away/do dishes: 30 minutes. Weed the garden: 15-30 min. Etc.  In my mind, these tasks take at least an hour to do, and therefore I put them off.

I want to be an artistic genius (ha!) and a crafty momma. Can I do both?

I've decided to take Joni Mitchell's lead and do some crop rotation (she would spend a few weeks writing songs, then a few weeks painting). Sometime soon, maybe even next week (because I can't stand looking at that cute blog any longer without doing something about my own house) I'm going to spend a whole week focusing on crafty/domestic projects. I'm going to set up the sewing machine in the spare room and get to those curtains and pillows I've been dying to make. Also, I want to get a heads up on Christmas gifts. And if it kills me, I will plan a week's worth of meals and actually do some cooking (K's the cook in this house most of the time) and baking. Last of all I'm going to write some letters because I can no longer stand a mailbox full of junk mail everyday :(

After that week I will focus on more heady/abstract projects. I'm hoping that someday I'll have time to do both regularly.

Now here's a totally pointless photo of a cup of tea I had today (actually it was taken weeks ago, but I did have some tea in this cute cup):

The sea is a long, long way....from me (Low lyrics)

I'm in my ocean mood again.

We got spoiled living out west. Once or twice a year for five or six years in a row we'd drive to Portland Oregon, stay overnight at a hostel or cute hotel, and then drive to the coast the next day. We'd spend a few days there in our favorite B & B, which was a very luxurious place with rooms and porches overlooking the ocean. I loved waking up and falling asleep to the sound of the ocean, and walking along the beach, taking pictures of the patterns in the sand and of interesting wind or water-blown compositions of seaweed and bits of shells. There wasn't much to do in this town other than look out at the ocean from our room or walk around the musty bookstore next door, filled floor-to-ceiling with out-of-print dusty books and cardboard boxes for the 3 or so cats padding around the store. Sometimes we'd drive down to Newport to visit the aquarium or walk along Nye beach or listen to the sea lions bark on the docks in the bay.

On our very first trip to the Pacific coast in 2002 I didn't like the ocean much. Compared with Lake Superior, which I loved, it was loud, wild, rocky, and smelled fishy. It was always draped in fog and very windy. I was also scared of it. There were warning signs all around about possible tsunamis and getting swept away by the tide. There were tide pools full of strange and gelatinous creatures with slimy green arms and spiny backs. You couldn't really hang out on the beach for too long--not only was it too windy to have a sustained conversation but it was chilly and damp.

But after spending a few days and then returning year after year, the ocean got into my blood and now, being so landlocked, I miss it more than ever. We got our fill of an ocean-like lake a couple weeks ago when we escaped the heat and drove to Duluth. It was about 15 degrees cooler there and overcast, and yes--there was fog. We brought a picnic lunch and some of E's toys to the beach and hung out there for the afternoon. The day before, while I was trying to find a vintage bread box at my favorite antique store, I found a neat 1955 edition copy of Anne Morrow Lindbergh's Gift from the Sea. I had heard about this book but never read it before, so I brought it with me to the beach.

It was the perfect beach read for that gray day. It's a short book so I almost read the whole thing. Mostly it's about solitude, and how solitude is necessary at times: "If one is out of touch with oneself, then one cannot touch others...Only when one is connected to one's own core is one connected to others, I am beginning to discover. And, for me, the core, the inner spring, can best be refound through solitude." And this: "I walked far down the beach, soothed by the rhythm of the waves, the sun on my bare back and legs, the wind and mist from the spray on my hair. Into the waves and out like a sandpiper. And then home, drenched, drugged, reeling, full to the brim with my day alone; full like the moon before the night has taken a single nibble of it; full as a cup poured up to the lip..." (A.M.L.)

After that day I wanted to read more books like this. If I couldn't go to the ocean this year, I would read about it instead. There's always my copy of "The Edge of the Sea," by Rachel Carson, found at Powell's bookstore a couple years ago (I love her...). I also recently came across a series of short memoirs by Joan Anderson. I'm currently reading "A Year by the Sea" in which she decides to spend a year at her beach cottage on Cape Cod rather than move with her husband to a new city. The other book, which is a sort of follow-up to this memoir is, "A Walk on the Beach," which is all about her chance meeting on the beach with Joan Erikson, who was the wife and collaboraor of the social scientist/psychologist Erik Erikson. I had never heard of her before, but she was a really interesting person. In the 20s she went to Europe to study modern dance with Isadora Duncan. Then later I think she got a master's degree in sociology and wrote books, including "The Universal Bead," and "The Wisdom of the Senses" (both supposedly at the downtown library, but the Wisdom one was missing!). Anyway, the book is full of conversations between Anderson and Erikson (who was 91 years old at the time and still active).

In the prologue, Anderson distilled the essence of Erikson's philosophy:
"Welcome each day like a good meal."

"The essence of a life well-digested comes from knowing your strengths, overdosing on the senses, and remaining active and playful."

"Keep your hands on the plow--push--don't ever stop pushing."

"Always be willing to give a little more energy--the tension should always be there--then your life will never go limp."

And here are some of my favorite quotes from the book:
Joan Erikson:
"Learn any skill that opens up the world and sets you free."

"The important thing is to do something, even if it's as simple as making a pile of pebbles. For it is always the doing that leads to the becoming, and before you know it you're on to the next stage of life."

"Either people pay no attention to their clothing and risk being misunderstood or they pay too much and risk being disingenuous. I'm not suggesting that you need a facade. It's just that a total stranger needs to get it the minute you walk over his or her threshold. Your work, your intentions, your goals all become evident when the total package is just right.... You want your individuality to shine....I adopted my look at Harvard right after attending my first faculty wives meeting. There I was in a roomful of women dressed in tweed suits with bouffant hairdos, and I was in shock. Where was the individuality? Would I be expected to conform as well? I walked away from that experience saying no way, not me, and headed straight for a store which sold exotic and colorful clothes from India, buying several pairs of leotards to wear under unusual jackets and smocks."


I'm so glad I came across these books. My appetite for the sea, however, remains to be satisfied. I'm thinking of painting my dining room wall a sea-glass green to go along with my collection of starfish and shells (found not at the beach but bought in a plastic bag at a thrift store in Spokane).

Of (music theory) freaks and geeks

I wonder how much time I spend changing the colors and templates....
If I could do the same thing with paint colors in my house, I would.

I love this background. It's so Napoleon Dynamite or Freaks and Geeks (which K and I have been watching through Netflix lately). There's something about school drama-type shows that I love. Maybe it's because there are so many great opportunities for interesting characters and awkward teenager-type situations. Maybe that's why I read so many YA novels too. And write about YA stuff. Maybe I haven't really grown up yet....

On a different note: music. I spent some time today working through a passage of Debussy's Reflets dans l'eau (reflections dance on the water). There are so many reasons why I love this piece and why I love Debussy in general--especially his Preludes and Images for piano. He does these really interesting gestures and patterns involving minor 3rd relations and quartal harmonies. Each measure seems to have a deeper meaning: some secret of the universe embedded in melodic and chordal patterns. I really do think he was literally painting with music (he said that he was more of a painter than a musician, or would rather have been a painter but became a composer instead). Sometimes it helps me to think beyond (impressionist) music theory and look only at the pattern of black and white keys, or at the curve of a melodic line or gesture. It's hard to explain. It makes my head spin (with pleasure) just thinking about it (yeah, I'm a total nerd).

What's difficult about this piece are all the fast runs and arpeggios all over the keyboard. They aren't hard to play at a slow tempo once you know the pattern, but I imagine getting them up to speed will be pretty tough, especially with my intermediate-level technique. But if I ever do get them (which I consider to be more flowing, water-like gestures than precise, tempo-perfect runs) I think my technique will improve greatly. Definitely more fun than working on Czerny exercises.

Here's what I was working on:

Today I looked at the middle system--the notes that are way up in the stratosphere of the treble clef. Not so easy to read, although through playing flute I can tell right away what the notes are.










But in order to practice it, I re-wrote the passage down a few octaves so I could read the pattern easier: 

 Sorry--the picture quality isn't great. I added fingerings and also colored boxes around important notes in the pattern--notes that would help me remember variations in the pattern.

Suddenly, the pattern made more sense and I could actually play it at a slow tempo.

What's so cool about this pattern is that the middle notes stay pretty much the same in a set (in this re-written example, system-to-system) while the first note and the colored-box notes change, going down chromatically from F (F, F-flat, E-flat, D).

I think I could spend the rest of my life studying Debussy and still learn new things about his compositional technique.

Here's some more of my composition sketch from the other day. I added more to it, and was thinking that when/if I finish the piece I could show the process from beginning to end (notated and recorded).

Again, yucky picture quality.

Everyday "Art" (does your grandma put everything in quotes too?)

I love the idea of everyday art. Nothing too fancy or finished, and nothing that takes too long. I'm getting all these great ideas from looking at artist blogs where they post their sketchbook pages or craft projects in the works (like my friend Klay).

But it got me thinking. There are tons of artist blogs out there by women (visual art or crafts) but little to no music or composition blogs by women. If there are some out there, could you send me a link? I know there are women composers out there, but where are their sketchbooks? Where are their improvisation or sound art samples? Then I thought that maybe I could get the ball rolling. I'll post some of my sketches, and hopefully later add actual sound files (maybe on a myspace page?). Bear in mind these are only everyday sketchbook music ideas--not finished compositions. I'm following the lead on these artist blogs by showing what I've been working on, which will hopefully get me creating something everyday (even if it has little or no artistic value). It's everyday, run-of-the-mill, laundry and scuffed-up jeans kind of art. Actually, I don't know if it's even art, but it's something that didn't exist yesterday. And the point is to get me working every day. Also, it's kind of like show and tell for music geeks.

I'm also trying to think of ways to adapt some of Keri Smith's ideas for music and sound (I love her book How to be an Explorer of the World: the Portable Life/Art Museum).

So, tonight I made a music sketch. It only took me 20 minutes or so (a self-imposed rule for everyday art, and because I've got a toddler: each session can only take between 15 and 60 minutes--for naptime and bedtime). I'm not showing the whole sketch because....well, I haven't decided if I want to show whole sketches or not....

It took up about a half page of staff paper, and was numbered 1-3 for different motifs. It's based on a magic scale (a scale based on a typical major or minor scale, where the root and fifth stay unchanged, but any other note in the scale can be altered). The pitches I used were: F, G-flat, A-flat, B-flat, C, D-flat, E/E-flat. So, similar to a D-flat major/B-flat minor scale but starting on F (I guess that makes it F phrygian. I love flat 2's).

The magic scale idea comes from W.A. Mathieu's The Listening Book, which is a book everyone should read, musician or not.

Anti-climactic, isn't it? Hopefully, after I sketch a few more, I'll record and post them. For fun. Also, to inspire other women musicians to do the same?

33 Going on 14

I just spent an amazing weekend at a friend's parents' house for her bachelorette party. They live on a lake and have beautiful, sprawling grounds with a deck, patio tables, huge firepit, and sandy beach. The weather was perfect--warm, dry, breezy, and blue-skied. Surprisingly, there were very few mosquitoes out, and it was a full-moon night.

Not only was it fun because of all the pontoonin', swimmin', and grillin' involved, but I felt like I was 14 again, just hanging out with friends and having a slumber party. We set up tents close to the water and ate a chocolate-raspberry ice-cream pie and gooey store-bought cupcakes by the fire. My bachelorette friend A and other friend C made a late-night cigarette run, and when A's mom asked where she was, we lied and said they ran to the store to buy more tonic water. We're all over 30, for chrissakes--why did we lie to her mom about buying cigarettes?

Then, just as all of us ladies were about to fall asleep, A and S proposed a late-night pontoon ride (2am-ish) and swim. I hadn't jumped in the lake all day because it had been breezy, but the evening was still and warm, with the full moon blazing over the water. We were the only ones out on the water so the lights stayed off. Only 3 out of 7 of us jumped in, and I'm glad I did. It felt like some sort of ancient pagan pre-wedding ritual, with the moonlight blue on our skins.

Earlier in the day, we stopped to "borrow" someone's lake trampoline, which felt very rebellious.

When we got back around 2:30am, A. grabbed a bottle of whiskey and a few of us retreated to a tent to read tarot cards and talk about relationship stuff (a very teenagery-thing to do, but which I never did as a teen because none of my friends did tarot and I didn't drink till I was in college, so I was catching up, in a way).

We fell asleep around 4:30 am.

The next morning and early afternoon we boated and swam some more, and layed out on our beach towels with a few bags of chips. It reminded me of hanging out with my cousin during the summer, where we'd sit on her porch after a day at the pool, and binge on Twix bars. I loved the laziness of it, and the guilt-free indulgence of non-stop junk food. A and S were singing Aerosmith songs, and later, on the ride home with A, I noticed she had a small collection of CDs in sleeves on the sun visors. For some reason it was so refreshing not to listen to music on an iPod, to hear the soft click of the CD being sucked into the stereo.

It's just what my soul needed. But I'm afraid I'm going to need this every weekend for the rest of the summer....

Anyone need a house-sitter for your lake-front home?

Fun with Templates!

Changed the look again, just for fun. I'll probably change it again in a few weeks.

Oh, by the way, I'm still here. I haven't posted lately because I feel like I have to post a picture to keep my readers interested, but most of the time I'm too lazy to add a picture, so I don't post at all.

Here's a picture, just for fun:

A butterfly on a license plate. Taken months ago, probably around Easter.

This reminds me of last Monday, when we went over to a friend's apartment for dinner. She's a composer friend of mine from Spokane, who moved here to take advantage of all the wonderful cultural opportunities the cities have to offer. Anyway, there was a period of time after dinner when her three elementary-school-aged kids were showing us all their creative skills and hobbies. Little girl W was showing us her fairy book and stuffed animals and how she can change a baby's diaper (she changed E's diaper and did a very good job).  She also drew a picture of E. using a peach colored pencil. Then, eleven-year-old boy T showed us his miniature skateboards, trucks and cars (mostly for E's benefit), and also his dead insect collection (very impressive: butterflies, wasps, beetles) and his living frog/snail collection. Then he entertained us with some free-improv on the accordion, and then showed us some tricks his robot dog could do, all the while wearing Star-trek-like 80s glasses. While this was going on, 12-yr-old boy C played some Philip Glass etudes on the antique upright piano (and then later from the organ in his bedroom). Then dad W played some Hotel California and misc. Led Zepplin on the classical guitar.

Have you ever heard of a more creative family? I love it. BTW, these kiddos are homeschooled, so I wonder if that has anything to do with their unbridled imaginations. There was no TV or computer in sight (maybe hidden away when the necessity arises?), but an abundance of instruments, books, and toys.

But that's not to say schooled children are any less creative (deep down). I think the lack of creativity/energy in many kids has to do with the amounts of TV watched, video-games played, and sugar consumed. Also, the lack of unstructured (outdoor!) playtime due to excessive homework/busywork and scheduled activities (including piano lessons, sports practice, etc).

I'm thinking about all these things because in a few years E will be ready for preschool/kindergarten. We'll try school, because we might find a good one that he likes, with a fabulous teacher. But he also might do better in a non-school learning atmosphere. We'll see.

Books--amazing old and out-of-print books from the South St. Paul library. See my post at my other blog:
http://rescuedfromobscurity.blogspot.com

What if I.....

Starting tomorrow (or sometime in the near future), what if I:

--became vegan?
--joined the Unitarian Univeralist church (or became part of something else uplifting/enlightened)?
--moved to the country (or at least spent time in nature everyday)?
--practiced yoga everyday (exercised and meditated too)?
--wrote everyday?
--stopped playing classical music for 2 years (or any other written music--and focused instead on aural folk music)?
--used the internet just once a week (including checking email)?
--cooked more, baked more, gardened more, crafted more?
--got to know more neighbors?
--got out of the house more?
--joined a homeschooling group (I know, E's too young, but it's something I'll have to think about sooner or later.

I'm feeling like I need radical change for the better. If I did all these things, would I feel different? More connected? I think social media only enhances my feelings of loneliness--it's a poor substitute for real contact.

If I ate better, would my body feel lighter/younger/cleaner? Would I lessen my chances of contracting major diseases? It's just a little upsetting to hear of more young people (and old people, for that matter) getting cancer and having strokes.

If I did more things rather than thought about them, would my brain change? I've been reading that if you practice something daily (writing, meditation, music, crafting, gardening, etc.) it literally changes the structure of your brain. I like the idea of a daily practice.

Just wanting to feel different. Just wanting the world to look a little different.