This past weekend, I experienced a very strange psychic phenomenon. On saturday I was supposed to play in a Leone Buyse flute masterclass at school. That afternoon I was planning on practicing and also getting ready for our orchestra concert on monday night, in which Leone would be the featured guest artist. So early saturday afternoon I was puttering around my apartment, getting my things together for the masterclass at later that day when it suddenly hit me that the masterclass was going to be cancelled. Just like that--out of the blue I had a strange feeling. I went to check my email to make sure it was still on. My stomach kind of lurched when I saw a message in my inbox from my flute teacher: URGENT: masterclass cancelled. I was a little weirded out for awhile--and also proud in a weird way that my brain had managed to pick up on the collective energies of the people involved with the masterclass.
This was not the first time something like this has happened, but this time it was a really clear message--and almost physical. I could actually feel it entering my mind, like actual brain waves. I doubted myself of course--I thought it was just wishful thinking because I was dreading playing for this really famous flutist in front of my peers and professors. It was a relief to find out that it had actually been cancelled. Apparently she got really sick the morning she was supposed to fly to Spokane--a combination of vertigo and nausea.
Anyway, on tuesday at my flute lesson I was talking with my teacher about the cancelled masterclass, and how I had a sixth sense that it would be cancelled just hours before it was scheduled. He thought that was interesting, because he was figuring that I was getting this sensation just as he was emailing people about it. He also said that I must be a "receiver." I had never thought about it in this way before, and I was intrigued. He went on to say that he has had occasions where he was a "sender:" particularly one instance in college where his boyfriend brought up the idea of playing a psychic game, where one person would think of an object, and the other would try to pick it up psychically. So the boyfriend was thinking up a word that B just couldn't pick up on and was getting mad in the process of having to play this ridiculous game. The boyfriend decided that B should try and think of a word instead, so B was picturing leaving this guy (and his stupid psychic games) and walking out the door, going down the stairs.....when the boyfriend said, "You're thinking of stairs?" just after B thought it.
So this got me thinking of "senders" and "receivers." Are some people inately senders or receivers? I can think of other instances where a similar thing has happened: dreaming the same dream as my mom one night, thinking of a specific song then it comes on the radio (has happened several times in moments of clarity), and just pretending I'm picking up on people's thoughts and imagining what they're thinking--when maybe I'm literally picking up on their inner thoughts and feelings? I've often wondered that when I dream of someone I haven't thought of consciously, in my waking life, in awhile, if they're also dreaming or thinking of me. In a letter sent by a boyfriend in college when I was a sophomore staying in NE for the summer while he was in MN, he wrote that he felt we were "coupled by an ethereal thread over the sea of corn and soybeans." I think I laughed out loud when I read that line--he always pretended to be so masculine and intellectual that a sensitive and cheesy line like this came as a surprise--but not a shock. The thing was, was that we both had the same birthday, and at times were convinced we were twins separated at birth. Our first psychic happening was when we first met, and we were sitting on a couch, and he asked me when my birthday was. I said, December 1st, and he got the strangest, most spooked-out look on his face. He then showed me a copy of a birth certificate he kept in his wallet: birthday: December 1st. He said that right before I told him what my birthday was, he was thinking, "she's going to say Dec. 1st." So maybe I'm also a "sender." Maybe everyone is both. I've had similar happenings with K, my family, and other people that I'm close to. But it really made me think about starting to take my sixth sense seriously. I tend to not trust my intuition, but when things like this happen, I wonder.
Maybe we could test it out? You could send me a psychic message, and I'll let you know if I received it.
Wednesday, May 03, 2006
Monday, April 17, 2006
Green Bean Casserole!
I don't really have time to post because there is so much other school stuff to do, but I'm going to do it anyway because I'm feeling bitchy. One thing I'd like to bitch about is the Easter vigil mass we went to on saturday night. It had been a few years since I've been to a vigil mass, and I forgot how insanely and ridiculously long they are. It started out very magically with the dark church, and everyone was holding a lit candle, and the choir director was singing a beautiful chant. Then, after the fifth reading of the Old Testament and fourth musical interlude we were wondering how many more readings there were and started passing notes to each other (we went with a couple friends of ours--2 of us were Catholic, the other 2 weren't) and getting the church giggles. After the seventh and final reading we thought we were getting close to the mass parts, but there were still baptisms and confirmations to be done. And the mass parts were super long--the choir director was singing every single saint name that ever existed: "St. Ann pray for us, St. Anthony pray for us, St. Francis, pray for us...." You'd think that after mentioning a few key saints they would sing, "and all the other holy men and women...pray for us....." But I think he sang about thirty saint names. Finally I dared to look at my watch. Almost three hours had passed. Well, at least the music and light show was good. The choir sang some great Renaissance polyphonic music, and also some more contemporary music involving an entire brass section with timpani (I was told later the brass people were Spokane Symphony members). Seriously, why can't they do baptisms and confirmations at a less jam-packed mass? I don't think I'll ever be able to go back to another vigil mass, which is too bad, because it really is lovely, minus baptisms/confirmations.
Also, school is again beginning to grate on me. I'm back to grading papers for the music history prof, who has the students write summaries of the chapters they had to read, to make sure they've read them. There are so many things wrong with this that I can't even begin to name them all (students are so sick of school by the time they reach college they don't give a shit; it's another way colleges are dumbing down, etc....don't get me started). Concurrently I'm reading a great book that in turn is making me feel very hopeless about higher education. It's called, Declining by Degrees, and I just finished reading one of the essays, which is basically all about how colleges throw students into huge lecture classes so the college can make more money, and they hire professors mainly to do research, with the teaching of undergraduates of little importance. Anyway, it's a great book and it will piss you off so you should read it. How can I possibly persevere to the end of grad school? I'm so drained from the week at school that by the time the weekend rolls around I want nothing to do with it, and so do everything but study and practice. On the weekends I finally feel like myself again, and all I want to do is go antiquing, go to the public library, read good books, and maybe do some crafty things.
Well, those were the two main things I've been bitchy about. On a lighter note I just read Kate DiCamillo's new book, "The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane." It's very good and it made me cry at certain parts. It was a good book to read on Easter, because it's about a china rabbit. Speaking of Easter, we had 14 people at our apartment for an afternoon feast. We managed to squeeze everyone at the gorgeous antique table that came with our apartment and everyone brought yummy side dishes. We provided the ham and I made an orange mango chiffon pie. A couple friends stayed late and we all drank more wine and had some good conversations, although I can't remember what about (did I drink that much wine)?
Also, school is again beginning to grate on me. I'm back to grading papers for the music history prof, who has the students write summaries of the chapters they had to read, to make sure they've read them. There are so many things wrong with this that I can't even begin to name them all (students are so sick of school by the time they reach college they don't give a shit; it's another way colleges are dumbing down, etc....don't get me started). Concurrently I'm reading a great book that in turn is making me feel very hopeless about higher education. It's called, Declining by Degrees, and I just finished reading one of the essays, which is basically all about how colleges throw students into huge lecture classes so the college can make more money, and they hire professors mainly to do research, with the teaching of undergraduates of little importance. Anyway, it's a great book and it will piss you off so you should read it. How can I possibly persevere to the end of grad school? I'm so drained from the week at school that by the time the weekend rolls around I want nothing to do with it, and so do everything but study and practice. On the weekends I finally feel like myself again, and all I want to do is go antiquing, go to the public library, read good books, and maybe do some crafty things.
Well, those were the two main things I've been bitchy about. On a lighter note I just read Kate DiCamillo's new book, "The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane." It's very good and it made me cry at certain parts. It was a good book to read on Easter, because it's about a china rabbit. Speaking of Easter, we had 14 people at our apartment for an afternoon feast. We managed to squeeze everyone at the gorgeous antique table that came with our apartment and everyone brought yummy side dishes. We provided the ham and I made an orange mango chiffon pie. A couple friends stayed late and we all drank more wine and had some good conversations, although I can't remember what about (did I drink that much wine)?
Tuesday, April 11, 2006
Crazy Percussion Fest
So sunday night I got home from being at the Northwest Percussion Festival this weekend. It's a really cool deal where percussion ensembles from colleges in Idaho, Oregon and Washington get together and play for each other. It's totally non-competitive and a chance to hear what other groups are doing. I think I want to be a percussionist now. I never realized in fifth grade that percussion was more than playing the snare drum, which I found boring. I've learned that anything and everything can be a percussion instruments. Some groups played these great compositions, most of them contemporary, consisting of hitting pots and pans, upside-down hanging clay pots, crystal glasses, the underside of the vibraphone, a box of rocks, clicking stones together, body and vocal percussion, and aluminum cans dropped on sheet metal. How cool is that? And the sounds they made were amazing when combined with the marimba, bass drum, and other more traditonal instruments. The group from Southern Oregon State did some great performance art pieces, one involving non-traditional notation and stones: different shapes had been placed over watch faces, and when the second hand hit a certain shape, a certain sound was made. For example, a square might signify a scraping sound, and a circle might mean a clicking sound, etc. The whole ensemble was making these sounds while two percussion instructors improvised on wooden boxes. The stones sounded like crickets, and the whole effect was amazing. Another piece involved students strategically placed around the recital hall with a pile of paper that each of them improvised ripping, shredding, scraping, tapping, and other sounds you can make with paper. Why have I been playing Chaminade when there is this?
Being around percussionists is different than being around flutists, or any other instrumentalist for that matter. They have always been the cool kids in band, and the guys and girls who stick with it emanate coolness. The few girls that were involved were cute and hipsterish, wearing chuck taylors, silk-screened tote bags, and edgy hairdos. The boys for the most part were either cool and aloof or goofy and friendly. I wasn't surprised that there were fewer girls than guys, but is that because most girls are drawn to the pretty, melodic instruments (flute, violin, piano, clarinet), or is it because they were discouraged to play the more boyish instruments of bass drum and snare? Or was it because they felt uncomfortable in fifth grade band being the only girl? I remember having a fascination with the drums in fifth grade, but either talked myself out of it, or was talked out of it by someone else. I was also very girly and prissy. Anyway, most of the groups consisted of mostly guys with one or two girls. Portland State featured a group of four girl percussionists on one piece, and they were amazing. It got me thinking that I would love to, if I ever had the chance, start up an all-girl percussion ensemble at St. Kate's. I really think more girls would be involved if they knew it involved marimbas, vibraphones, and other gorgeous instruments. I don't think I even knew what these were in fifth grade.
Anyway, aside from getting hit on by the Yamaha salesman (I think I was the only student there older than 21) the people dynamics were very.... interesting. Everyone in my ensemble is a freshman or sophomore, and I had to stay with them in an unchaperoned conference/retreat center across the street from Central Washington University (which has a gorgeous new music building). I really like my classmates--the guys are really friendly and helpful and very goofy and fun. But I had forgotten what 18-19-20 something boys are like--completely out of control and crazy. After each concert ended at night and we were left with some free time, the boys would go to Albertsons and buy three energy drinks each. Then they proceeded to climb up the stone walls of the grocery store, push each other around in a shopping cart, climb into and get stuck in dumpsters, toss a dry-erase marker around the foyer of the gorgeous new music building, and proceed to write with said marker on the windows of new music building, move around parking signs, slide down the stairs on a table in the conference center at 3 in the morning, etc, etc. The list goes on. Mind you, I did not accompany them on these exploits, but the two other freshman girls with me did (who can blame them? They're cute, charming, boyish boys, if a little rambunctious). As a result, I didn't get much sleep, because the girls would return at 4:30 in the morning, while the other girl that was staying with us, insisted upon staying up to watch a movie in the same room I was trying to sleep in. She thought that turning the t.v. around away from me would help, neverminding that the sound comes out of the back. And she was talking to herself outloud while watching the movie. And I was the one driving the next day. I really felt old. I felt like the old crabby lady that complains to the youngsters to turn down their loud music. Had I been ten years younger I probably would have stayed out til four in the morning. I was realizing that these kids were ten when I was twenty. That's a world of difference. They're not even in my generation. One night they were gathered around the computer in the lounge and looking on their MySpace accounts. They were stunned when I told them I wasn't on MySpace. I already have a blog, and I can chat with friends on gmail, so why would I need a MySpace account? They didn't understand this reasoning. I was also remembering that I didn't even know what email was until first year of college, and in the sixth grade we were playing the Oregon Trail on those Apples with the green screens. When they were in sixth grade, which was only about seven years ago for them, they already had XBox and cell phones and email accounts. It's like they can't live without technology. I felt completely out of my element, and wished I had someone to go have a beer with. So in a way it was refreshing to hang out with them and their craziness, but on the other hand even if I were their age I still would not be into climbing into dumpsters or drawing on new music building windows with a dry-erase marker or sliding down stairs on tables that weren't mine (or stairs that weren't mine, for that matter). The most trouble we got into as freshman was smoking a couple Virginia Slims in our dorm room, which was on a smoking floor, making forts out of blankets in the study lounge, dyeing our hair in the yellow bathrooms, and sneaking around Durham hall at night. I should have just hung out with the directors.
Anyway, percussion is my new thing, and to all my young percussion friends here: someday you too will need eight hours of sleep and drink decaf instead of Red Bull.
Being around percussionists is different than being around flutists, or any other instrumentalist for that matter. They have always been the cool kids in band, and the guys and girls who stick with it emanate coolness. The few girls that were involved were cute and hipsterish, wearing chuck taylors, silk-screened tote bags, and edgy hairdos. The boys for the most part were either cool and aloof or goofy and friendly. I wasn't surprised that there were fewer girls than guys, but is that because most girls are drawn to the pretty, melodic instruments (flute, violin, piano, clarinet), or is it because they were discouraged to play the more boyish instruments of bass drum and snare? Or was it because they felt uncomfortable in fifth grade band being the only girl? I remember having a fascination with the drums in fifth grade, but either talked myself out of it, or was talked out of it by someone else. I was also very girly and prissy. Anyway, most of the groups consisted of mostly guys with one or two girls. Portland State featured a group of four girl percussionists on one piece, and they were amazing. It got me thinking that I would love to, if I ever had the chance, start up an all-girl percussion ensemble at St. Kate's. I really think more girls would be involved if they knew it involved marimbas, vibraphones, and other gorgeous instruments. I don't think I even knew what these were in fifth grade.
Anyway, aside from getting hit on by the Yamaha salesman (I think I was the only student there older than 21) the people dynamics were very.... interesting. Everyone in my ensemble is a freshman or sophomore, and I had to stay with them in an unchaperoned conference/retreat center across the street from Central Washington University (which has a gorgeous new music building). I really like my classmates--the guys are really friendly and helpful and very goofy and fun. But I had forgotten what 18-19-20 something boys are like--completely out of control and crazy. After each concert ended at night and we were left with some free time, the boys would go to Albertsons and buy three energy drinks each. Then they proceeded to climb up the stone walls of the grocery store, push each other around in a shopping cart, climb into and get stuck in dumpsters, toss a dry-erase marker around the foyer of the gorgeous new music building, and proceed to write with said marker on the windows of new music building, move around parking signs, slide down the stairs on a table in the conference center at 3 in the morning, etc, etc. The list goes on. Mind you, I did not accompany them on these exploits, but the two other freshman girls with me did (who can blame them? They're cute, charming, boyish boys, if a little rambunctious). As a result, I didn't get much sleep, because the girls would return at 4:30 in the morning, while the other girl that was staying with us, insisted upon staying up to watch a movie in the same room I was trying to sleep in. She thought that turning the t.v. around away from me would help, neverminding that the sound comes out of the back. And she was talking to herself outloud while watching the movie. And I was the one driving the next day. I really felt old. I felt like the old crabby lady that complains to the youngsters to turn down their loud music. Had I been ten years younger I probably would have stayed out til four in the morning. I was realizing that these kids were ten when I was twenty. That's a world of difference. They're not even in my generation. One night they were gathered around the computer in the lounge and looking on their MySpace accounts. They were stunned when I told them I wasn't on MySpace. I already have a blog, and I can chat with friends on gmail, so why would I need a MySpace account? They didn't understand this reasoning. I was also remembering that I didn't even know what email was until first year of college, and in the sixth grade we were playing the Oregon Trail on those Apples with the green screens. When they were in sixth grade, which was only about seven years ago for them, they already had XBox and cell phones and email accounts. It's like they can't live without technology. I felt completely out of my element, and wished I had someone to go have a beer with. So in a way it was refreshing to hang out with them and their craziness, but on the other hand even if I were their age I still would not be into climbing into dumpsters or drawing on new music building windows with a dry-erase marker or sliding down stairs on tables that weren't mine (or stairs that weren't mine, for that matter). The most trouble we got into as freshman was smoking a couple Virginia Slims in our dorm room, which was on a smoking floor, making forts out of blankets in the study lounge, dyeing our hair in the yellow bathrooms, and sneaking around Durham hall at night. I should have just hung out with the directors.
Anyway, percussion is my new thing, and to all my young percussion friends here: someday you too will need eight hours of sleep and drink decaf instead of Red Bull.
Tuesday, April 04, 2006
Chad the folksinger lives here
This blog post is going to be pretty random. I don't really have any school issues to bitch about, because I've been on spring break, and just started up this week. It was only a week-long break--hardly long enough to recover from the hell that was last quarter. I've just learned that I won't have any research papers to write this term, unless I have to write one for my conducting class, which I doubt. I'm taking Baroque music, which involves preparing two presentations: one on Handel's Messiah, and one on Bach's Goldberg Variations. I already know a little something about the variations, so that should be fairly easy. I also get to be in orchestra this quarter, because the principal player has tendonitis. It's been years since I've played in a student orchestra--hopefully I won't suck too badly. You're a little more exposed as a flute player in orchestra--I'll be playing first so I'll get all the hard solos. I guess I have to practice this quarter! I also just found out I'll be playing in a Leone Buyse masterclass at the end of April, so I really can't slack off. I've always wanted to play in a masterclass, but it might be kind of scary. I hope she's kind.
Anyway, I've been having a sort of dilemma with the flute, like I always have. What am I doing? Do I really like it? I've realized lately that one doesn't have to stick with the instrument they started in fifth grade, and that sometimes people outgrow their instruments. It's not that I don't like it--I just feel indifferent to it sometimes. Is this bad? I'm really not a big fan of flute literature--most of it's very fluffy and girly. There are no great Beethoven or Mozart or Brahms sonatas in the flute literature, so we miss out on all the good, juicy stuff. I don't even know if I like practicing it. Trying to control the breath and stay in tune while energizing the abdominal muscles and trying to stay relaxed everywhere else is like trying to spin plates with your hands and juggle with your feet. And do people care about the flute? I mean, really? Maybe in church, and maybe in an intimate chamber setting. But will your average 20-40 something go out of their way to pay for a ticket to a flute recital? And in jazz--no one takes you seriously unless you also double on sax. I'm trying to decide how far I want to go with this instrument. Am I happy being a church-playing amateur, or do I want more? All these issues spin around my head as I try to practice, which makes for very unproductive practice sessions. But the other dilemma is this: do I start playing another instrument, one that I might enjoy more, but which could take years to get to a decent level of playing? I don't know, but for this quarter I've got to focus on flute.
Other unrelated things: I found out a couple weeks ago (and didn't remember until now) that Chad of the folk-singing duo Chad and Jeremy, lives in Spokane and buys furniture from this store in Spokane where a friend of mine works. And apparently some other folk guy lives here too, one from the New Christy Minstrels, or something. I can't remember. Isn't that great? Spokane is really weird and random that way. It is getting more cosmopolitan though. We're gradually getting better, fancier restaurants, and a ton of posh condos are going up downtown. I'm hoping it'll turn into a Portland jr. within the next ten years, although who knows if we'll stick it out that long? I really like it here, especially the weather, which is so vanillla, that I never have to get kidney stones worrying about severe weather again. I just really really miss going to art museums, having good Chinese and Mexican food (seriously, there is none to be found here), coffeeshops that stay open past six, good second hand stores (either you have Ann Taylor or Goodwill--there is no inbetween, like Ragstock or Buffalo Exchange), good record stores, and never-ending opportunities in the fields of folk-music, puppetry, modern dance, the Alexander Technique, etc (I'm thinking of Cedar Cultural Center, Zenon dance company, Heart of the Beast, Tapestry folk-dance center, and of a woman I'd like to take Alexander Tech. lessons from in the cities. There are none here). So, grrr. I'll be okay for now.
Books: I did get to read something for fun over spring break. Gintastic gives great book reviews, so I decided to read Pamela Dean's Tam Lin. I really enjoyed it, except I kind of got lost in all the Classics and English Literature speak. Don't get me wrong, I love that stuff, but it all gets so heady and dense that I get lost and my brain glazes over at the mention of books and authors I've never read or studied. It was like A.S. Byatt for high school students. Very interesting, but hard to read at times. I was also kind of shocked? surprised? but the ending, which breaks into this weird science fiction/fantasy thing for the last thirty pages or so. I get that it's based on this old Scottish ballade, but the rest of the book was completely based in reality. I was kind of thrown off by that. Call me a philistine if you will, but sometimes I just need to read trash to rest my brain. Maybe I should balance it out with a terrible harlequin romance?
Other things: currently obsessed with June Carter Cash (and the Carter family in general), percussion ensemble and the marimba (is it too late for me to be a marimbist?), free-writing shitty short stories in coffee shops (really really shitty, but fun nonetheless), old homemaking books from my school's library, and watching Rick Steve's Europe on PBS. He's so dorky that you can't help but love him. It also gives me ideas of places I'd like to visit: Toledo, Greece and Turkey, Copenhagen....
Anyway, I've been having a sort of dilemma with the flute, like I always have. What am I doing? Do I really like it? I've realized lately that one doesn't have to stick with the instrument they started in fifth grade, and that sometimes people outgrow their instruments. It's not that I don't like it--I just feel indifferent to it sometimes. Is this bad? I'm really not a big fan of flute literature--most of it's very fluffy and girly. There are no great Beethoven or Mozart or Brahms sonatas in the flute literature, so we miss out on all the good, juicy stuff. I don't even know if I like practicing it. Trying to control the breath and stay in tune while energizing the abdominal muscles and trying to stay relaxed everywhere else is like trying to spin plates with your hands and juggle with your feet. And do people care about the flute? I mean, really? Maybe in church, and maybe in an intimate chamber setting. But will your average 20-40 something go out of their way to pay for a ticket to a flute recital? And in jazz--no one takes you seriously unless you also double on sax. I'm trying to decide how far I want to go with this instrument. Am I happy being a church-playing amateur, or do I want more? All these issues spin around my head as I try to practice, which makes for very unproductive practice sessions. But the other dilemma is this: do I start playing another instrument, one that I might enjoy more, but which could take years to get to a decent level of playing? I don't know, but for this quarter I've got to focus on flute.
Other unrelated things: I found out a couple weeks ago (and didn't remember until now) that Chad of the folk-singing duo Chad and Jeremy, lives in Spokane and buys furniture from this store in Spokane where a friend of mine works. And apparently some other folk guy lives here too, one from the New Christy Minstrels, or something. I can't remember. Isn't that great? Spokane is really weird and random that way. It is getting more cosmopolitan though. We're gradually getting better, fancier restaurants, and a ton of posh condos are going up downtown. I'm hoping it'll turn into a Portland jr. within the next ten years, although who knows if we'll stick it out that long? I really like it here, especially the weather, which is so vanillla, that I never have to get kidney stones worrying about severe weather again. I just really really miss going to art museums, having good Chinese and Mexican food (seriously, there is none to be found here), coffeeshops that stay open past six, good second hand stores (either you have Ann Taylor or Goodwill--there is no inbetween, like Ragstock or Buffalo Exchange), good record stores, and never-ending opportunities in the fields of folk-music, puppetry, modern dance, the Alexander Technique, etc (I'm thinking of Cedar Cultural Center, Zenon dance company, Heart of the Beast, Tapestry folk-dance center, and of a woman I'd like to take Alexander Tech. lessons from in the cities. There are none here). So, grrr. I'll be okay for now.
Books: I did get to read something for fun over spring break. Gintastic gives great book reviews, so I decided to read Pamela Dean's Tam Lin. I really enjoyed it, except I kind of got lost in all the Classics and English Literature speak. Don't get me wrong, I love that stuff, but it all gets so heady and dense that I get lost and my brain glazes over at the mention of books and authors I've never read or studied. It was like A.S. Byatt for high school students. Very interesting, but hard to read at times. I was also kind of shocked? surprised? but the ending, which breaks into this weird science fiction/fantasy thing for the last thirty pages or so. I get that it's based on this old Scottish ballade, but the rest of the book was completely based in reality. I was kind of thrown off by that. Call me a philistine if you will, but sometimes I just need to read trash to rest my brain. Maybe I should balance it out with a terrible harlequin romance?
Other things: currently obsessed with June Carter Cash (and the Carter family in general), percussion ensemble and the marimba (is it too late for me to be a marimbist?), free-writing shitty short stories in coffee shops (really really shitty, but fun nonetheless), old homemaking books from my school's library, and watching Rick Steve's Europe on PBS. He's so dorky that you can't help but love him. It also gives me ideas of places I'd like to visit: Toledo, Greece and Turkey, Copenhagen....
Tuesday, March 28, 2006
Creepy Exploring Adventures
Thank God, spring break is here. But only for a week (damn!). I've been sleeping in, watching lots of t.v., reading a boat-load of books--including some homemaking books from the fifties I discovered in my school's library. One is called "Homemaking for Teenagers" and includes a recipe for milk fluff--some milky substance involving raw eggs and sugar. Ick. They also give suggestions for choosing fabric colors for a homemade apron: "Aprons are intended to be useful but this does not mean that they need be made with dull, uninteresting colors. Gay, lively colors are attractive for aprons. Of course, this does not mean that colors should be screaming reds or poisonous greens!"
I have visions of making all of these cool, homemade skirts, painting, batiking, baking, writing and taking photos during this brief spring break, but just getting started takes time and school starts on monday already. So I've decided to indulge in just a few of these pasttimes: writing, in the forms of blogs, emails/letters, and misc. free-writing, and urban exploring. This is a new name for something I've always been interested in. I was so excited to read in the new issue of BUST that a group of people in NYC already do this sort of thing, and it's called urban exploring. They basically trespass around and inside old buildings and take pictures and write about them. I love this sort of scary, Nancy Drew exploring. I'd give you a link but I'm feeling lazy. It's at DarkPassage.com. So creepy. But this is the sort of thing I did at CSC, while on the paint shop crew. This is how I discovered the secret Fontbonne pool, full of gorgeous yellow tile and fish etchings in faux-black marble lining the tall walls; huge windows, old creepy locker rooms, and tons of junk inside and around the blue-tiled pool: ceiling fans, toilet paper rolls, dirt, ladders, etc. I wanted to do an art/music installation inside this space as part of a senior project. But I was warned by the head of environmental services that it was unsafe to be in this area. Of course it was! Which makes it all the more creepy and interesting. I'll never forget telling my guitar teacher, Joan, about how I wanted to do this multi-media project in the pool itself, and showed her all the information about it from the archives: old synchronized swimming programs, press-releases about its opening in 1938 (one of the first fitness centers in the country for women, I think), and romantic descriptions of the pool by students found in yearbooks. Joan insisted on seeing the pool space, so we totally snuck into the area, which was locked by its main door. So intent was she on seeing this space, that she found an alternate passage through one of the spooky locker rooms. It was all very adventurous and exhilarating.
Since my fellow paint-shop workers and I discovered this space, we were hungry to find more creepy areas on campus. Working in the paint shop was a good front: it allowed us to explore secret areas without getting into too much trouble. While painting the basement of the chapel around the O'Neill center, during one of our lunch breaks we crept up to the choir loft of the chapel, which was usually closed off by an iron gate during the school year, but at that time during the summer, a crew was working on renovations, and it was open. Wow, was that place creepy or what. Everything was very dusty, and there were still music stands and shelves of chant-music books up there. Beyond the choir loft was a door, which led to a storage area. We found silk flowers, candleabras, and misc. church items. But above this area was a trapdoor, which was open so that we could see that above us was a room that looked like it was full of old heavy furniture. We could also see the rose window from our vantage point. One of the girls, Sheila, tried to climb up there, but it was impossible. I still wish I could see what else is up there. We could swear that we heard ghostly music coming from somewhere, but it only turned out to be the radio from the renovation crew.
Among our other adventures, we got to see the nun's quarters on fourth floor Durham, which was always rumored to be haunted, especially by a nun in a rocking chair. Supposedly a red light can be seen from her old window, and when I lived in Caecilian hall, I used to look for that light, half hoping I wouldn't see it. But our paint crew was scheduled to paint these rooms, which looked as if the nuns had just lived there the week before. In some rooms, the mattresses were still there, with pictures on the walls, and curtains on the windows. The walls were painted a lovely mint green, but the paint was peeling which gave it a slightly sinister aura. The whole place gave me the creeps. I loved it. This whole senario reminded me of being a freshman, and with a few other third-floor St. Mary's girls, took the elevator up to fourth-floor Durham, intending to explore it in the dark (it was after ten I think). We were half-expecting the elevator to stop at the third floor, because apparently the fourth floor was closed off. But when the elevator doors opened onto the fourth floor, we were scared shitless. It was dark and empty. I think there was some junk strewn about, but it was hard to tell. We pressed the down button as fast as we could. I had disaster fantasies of being stuck at the fourth floor all night, not being able to get back down. But luckily the elevator was working properly and we got out of there as fast as possible. It was so fun!
Needless to say I'm on my new-old kick of exploring places. I'm not sure about the trespassing thing, but I'll be on the lookout for more safe, yet scary urban explorations in Spokane.
I have visions of making all of these cool, homemade skirts, painting, batiking, baking, writing and taking photos during this brief spring break, but just getting started takes time and school starts on monday already. So I've decided to indulge in just a few of these pasttimes: writing, in the forms of blogs, emails/letters, and misc. free-writing, and urban exploring. This is a new name for something I've always been interested in. I was so excited to read in the new issue of BUST that a group of people in NYC already do this sort of thing, and it's called urban exploring. They basically trespass around and inside old buildings and take pictures and write about them. I love this sort of scary, Nancy Drew exploring. I'd give you a link but I'm feeling lazy. It's at DarkPassage.com. So creepy. But this is the sort of thing I did at CSC, while on the paint shop crew. This is how I discovered the secret Fontbonne pool, full of gorgeous yellow tile and fish etchings in faux-black marble lining the tall walls; huge windows, old creepy locker rooms, and tons of junk inside and around the blue-tiled pool: ceiling fans, toilet paper rolls, dirt, ladders, etc. I wanted to do an art/music installation inside this space as part of a senior project. But I was warned by the head of environmental services that it was unsafe to be in this area. Of course it was! Which makes it all the more creepy and interesting. I'll never forget telling my guitar teacher, Joan, about how I wanted to do this multi-media project in the pool itself, and showed her all the information about it from the archives: old synchronized swimming programs, press-releases about its opening in 1938 (one of the first fitness centers in the country for women, I think), and romantic descriptions of the pool by students found in yearbooks. Joan insisted on seeing the pool space, so we totally snuck into the area, which was locked by its main door. So intent was she on seeing this space, that she found an alternate passage through one of the spooky locker rooms. It was all very adventurous and exhilarating.
Since my fellow paint-shop workers and I discovered this space, we were hungry to find more creepy areas on campus. Working in the paint shop was a good front: it allowed us to explore secret areas without getting into too much trouble. While painting the basement of the chapel around the O'Neill center, during one of our lunch breaks we crept up to the choir loft of the chapel, which was usually closed off by an iron gate during the school year, but at that time during the summer, a crew was working on renovations, and it was open. Wow, was that place creepy or what. Everything was very dusty, and there were still music stands and shelves of chant-music books up there. Beyond the choir loft was a door, which led to a storage area. We found silk flowers, candleabras, and misc. church items. But above this area was a trapdoor, which was open so that we could see that above us was a room that looked like it was full of old heavy furniture. We could also see the rose window from our vantage point. One of the girls, Sheila, tried to climb up there, but it was impossible. I still wish I could see what else is up there. We could swear that we heard ghostly music coming from somewhere, but it only turned out to be the radio from the renovation crew.
Among our other adventures, we got to see the nun's quarters on fourth floor Durham, which was always rumored to be haunted, especially by a nun in a rocking chair. Supposedly a red light can be seen from her old window, and when I lived in Caecilian hall, I used to look for that light, half hoping I wouldn't see it. But our paint crew was scheduled to paint these rooms, which looked as if the nuns had just lived there the week before. In some rooms, the mattresses were still there, with pictures on the walls, and curtains on the windows. The walls were painted a lovely mint green, but the paint was peeling which gave it a slightly sinister aura. The whole place gave me the creeps. I loved it. This whole senario reminded me of being a freshman, and with a few other third-floor St. Mary's girls, took the elevator up to fourth-floor Durham, intending to explore it in the dark (it was after ten I think). We were half-expecting the elevator to stop at the third floor, because apparently the fourth floor was closed off. But when the elevator doors opened onto the fourth floor, we were scared shitless. It was dark and empty. I think there was some junk strewn about, but it was hard to tell. We pressed the down button as fast as we could. I had disaster fantasies of being stuck at the fourth floor all night, not being able to get back down. But luckily the elevator was working properly and we got out of there as fast as possible. It was so fun!
Needless to say I'm on my new-old kick of exploring places. I'm not sure about the trespassing thing, but I'll be on the lookout for more safe, yet scary urban explorations in Spokane.
Saturday, February 25, 2006
What the----?
Yet again, another rant on contemporary art music.
On thursday, I had the absolute "privelege" of sitting in a darkened classroom listening to a ten-minute recording of a "pling pling" song done on the piano. It sounded exactly like that: imagine someone playing completely random whole notes on the piano for ten damn minutes. Let me explain. This year, our school is hosting three visiting composers who present snippets of their work, followed by a discussion about composition and all that that entails. A few weeks ago, Gunther Schuller came and we listened to one of his symphonies (10 minutes of diverse, stimulating music), followed by a question and answer session. He was amazing and adorable. He wore a blue-plaid blazer, short blue socks exposing elderly ankles, loafers, and bifocals hanging around his neck, while clutching a green-flowered tote-bag between his knees. He talked about how writing a score with pencil (as opposed to composing on the computer) connects the mind with the heart through the fingers, and how a score can be visually stunning as well as engaging. He talked about, how as a child growing up in Germany, had to sing Bach chorales everyday at the start of school. His parents were professional musicians who played music constantly, and little Gunther, like a little sponge, apparently sang Wagner's Tannhauser in the bathtub--imitating all the different instruments, while he played with his rubber duckies. At eleven he was studying medieval scores in the New York City Public Library. He also talked about jazz, and how it hasn't changed since the sixties--the bass players having to play the "same goddamn E-Flat seven chord over and over again," (direct quote--he swears like a sailor). The whole discussion was amazing and enlightening. Contrast that with this: a man in his sixties with messy, balding gray hair and wrinkled clothes, as if he had just rolled out of bed or walked through a wind storm, prefacing his presentation with the promise to discuss "compositional methodology" after listening to his compositions for an hour and fifteen minutes. I jotted down "compositional methodology" in my notebook because it sounded important. The lights were dimmed, and a fifty-second contemporary piano piece tinkled through the speakers. Great. Second piece: Maple Leaf Rag by Scott Joplin, 3 minutes, 13 seconds (Okay, why is he playing this? There must be a reason? But must he play the whole thing? We've all heard it before...). Next: a 13 minute, 38 second EXTREMELY SLOW piano "pling-pling" piece (What the----?). For the first ten minutes I sat there stunned. Can he be serious? I looked around: the "composer" stood by the CD player, drinking, what I'll assume was coffee, out of a styrofoam cup. The screen was down and cast a blue haze around the room--I kept waiting for something visual to pop up to pique my interest. Nothing. I looked around. Everyone was looking at their desk--were they as confused as I was? I attempted to study for a forthcoming history test later that day. Meanwhile, I was feeling ill--it was such an uncomfortable feeling to sit there and listen to this, this utter bullshit--and I was getting angrier and angrier that he expected us to sit here and listen patiently. I looked on the list he gave us of other works he was planning on playing that hour. I just about passed out: the next pieces were, respectively, 3 minutes, 10 minutes, 12 minutes, and 19 minutes long. For f's sake! If this piece was any indication of what the rest of the pieces would be like, I'd rather watch ants eating crumbs for two hours. I was fuming. I sat there full well knowing that the vein in my temple was beginning to throb and imagined steam coming out of my ears like a Popeye cartoon. How arrogant! That we're supposed to sit here and take this crap, this utter waste of my time? His "music" embodied everything I hate about contemporary art music--it's inaccessible and borders more on annoying sound than music. Indeed, can this even be called music? I'm sorry, but John Cage was doing this in the forties, scraping seeds out of a pomegranite under a microphone. Been there, done that. I couldn't take it anymore. Knowing what torture lie ahead, I quietly closed my notebook (in which I had hoped to jot down some insightful thoughts on the compositional process), and left the room through the back door. Luckily there was a back door, and that I decided to sit there before the torture started. I was hoping that my leaving would start a whole stream of students walking out, to teach him a lesson. I'm still stunned. This man is supposedly a great theorist and composer, but what I witnessed was anything but. I was guessing that he had really come unprepared and just decided to thrust his crappy random whole notes onto us. For all I know they could have had a riveting discussion after the "music" was done playing. But the fact that he expected us to sit through this amount of "music" for over an hour made me want to vomit. If you want to present your music, please play only 1 minute of each. Then say, "Oh, it pretty much sounds like this for the next fifteen minutes. That would have been fine. I think I can tolerate anyone's music for 1 minute. Was it wrong of me to walk out? Should I have given him a chance?
On thursday, I had the absolute "privelege" of sitting in a darkened classroom listening to a ten-minute recording of a "pling pling" song done on the piano. It sounded exactly like that: imagine someone playing completely random whole notes on the piano for ten damn minutes. Let me explain. This year, our school is hosting three visiting composers who present snippets of their work, followed by a discussion about composition and all that that entails. A few weeks ago, Gunther Schuller came and we listened to one of his symphonies (10 minutes of diverse, stimulating music), followed by a question and answer session. He was amazing and adorable. He wore a blue-plaid blazer, short blue socks exposing elderly ankles, loafers, and bifocals hanging around his neck, while clutching a green-flowered tote-bag between his knees. He talked about how writing a score with pencil (as opposed to composing on the computer) connects the mind with the heart through the fingers, and how a score can be visually stunning as well as engaging. He talked about, how as a child growing up in Germany, had to sing Bach chorales everyday at the start of school. His parents were professional musicians who played music constantly, and little Gunther, like a little sponge, apparently sang Wagner's Tannhauser in the bathtub--imitating all the different instruments, while he played with his rubber duckies. At eleven he was studying medieval scores in the New York City Public Library. He also talked about jazz, and how it hasn't changed since the sixties--the bass players having to play the "same goddamn E-Flat seven chord over and over again," (direct quote--he swears like a sailor). The whole discussion was amazing and enlightening. Contrast that with this: a man in his sixties with messy, balding gray hair and wrinkled clothes, as if he had just rolled out of bed or walked through a wind storm, prefacing his presentation with the promise to discuss "compositional methodology" after listening to his compositions for an hour and fifteen minutes. I jotted down "compositional methodology" in my notebook because it sounded important. The lights were dimmed, and a fifty-second contemporary piano piece tinkled through the speakers. Great. Second piece: Maple Leaf Rag by Scott Joplin, 3 minutes, 13 seconds (Okay, why is he playing this? There must be a reason? But must he play the whole thing? We've all heard it before...). Next: a 13 minute, 38 second EXTREMELY SLOW piano "pling-pling" piece (What the----?). For the first ten minutes I sat there stunned. Can he be serious? I looked around: the "composer" stood by the CD player, drinking, what I'll assume was coffee, out of a styrofoam cup. The screen was down and cast a blue haze around the room--I kept waiting for something visual to pop up to pique my interest. Nothing. I looked around. Everyone was looking at their desk--were they as confused as I was? I attempted to study for a forthcoming history test later that day. Meanwhile, I was feeling ill--it was such an uncomfortable feeling to sit there and listen to this, this utter bullshit--and I was getting angrier and angrier that he expected us to sit here and listen patiently. I looked on the list he gave us of other works he was planning on playing that hour. I just about passed out: the next pieces were, respectively, 3 minutes, 10 minutes, 12 minutes, and 19 minutes long. For f's sake! If this piece was any indication of what the rest of the pieces would be like, I'd rather watch ants eating crumbs for two hours. I was fuming. I sat there full well knowing that the vein in my temple was beginning to throb and imagined steam coming out of my ears like a Popeye cartoon. How arrogant! That we're supposed to sit here and take this crap, this utter waste of my time? His "music" embodied everything I hate about contemporary art music--it's inaccessible and borders more on annoying sound than music. Indeed, can this even be called music? I'm sorry, but John Cage was doing this in the forties, scraping seeds out of a pomegranite under a microphone. Been there, done that. I couldn't take it anymore. Knowing what torture lie ahead, I quietly closed my notebook (in which I had hoped to jot down some insightful thoughts on the compositional process), and left the room through the back door. Luckily there was a back door, and that I decided to sit there before the torture started. I was hoping that my leaving would start a whole stream of students walking out, to teach him a lesson. I'm still stunned. This man is supposedly a great theorist and composer, but what I witnessed was anything but. I was guessing that he had really come unprepared and just decided to thrust his crappy random whole notes onto us. For all I know they could have had a riveting discussion after the "music" was done playing. But the fact that he expected us to sit through this amount of "music" for over an hour made me want to vomit. If you want to present your music, please play only 1 minute of each. Then say, "Oh, it pretty much sounds like this for the next fifteen minutes. That would have been fine. I think I can tolerate anyone's music for 1 minute. Was it wrong of me to walk out? Should I have given him a chance?
Tuesday, February 21, 2006
Grrr....
I need to vent. I feel like I'm working a 60-hour a week job with none of the benefits, like a salary, pension, or health insurance. Ok, yes I get most of my tuition paid for, and 80 bucks every other week, but still, I'm really just a slave working for 2 cents an hour. The amount of homework and paper-grading I had to do this past 3-day weekend was insane. And I was only able to get about 1/3 of it done. Saturday was spent recovering from the previous week, but Sunday and Monday I worked literally all day long. What is this slave labor that pretends to be graduate school? Ever concerned with how things ought to be done in education, rather than the way things actually are, it seems counter-intuitive that graduate students, A) have more work than undergrads (grad students have more responsibilities in general: bills to pay, children to feed, etc.), and B) the graduate students with assistantships have to take at least 10 credits a quarter, but yet they have more work to do outside of school work (grading papers, teaching classes, running the recital hall, making copies, sending out emails, heading committees--ie--the busy work of professors). And this makes sense how? I'm so busy with miscellaneous "stuff" that I don't have time to do the thing I came to grad school for: music. Writing music, performing music, listening to music. I'm wondering how I'm ever going to put together a recital when I've been averaging about one composition per 3 quarters. Seriously, I just finished a composition I started at the beginning of fall quarter. Ug! Not only do we have all this misc. "stuff" to do, our graduate program here is so stuffed with credits (60, compared with the 30 of most grad programs) that I am forced to take large ensemble and private lessons even though they are indirectly related to my specific degree program. Even more aggrivating, it that it is an unwritten rule that all grad students take 2 years of lessons and large ensemble when the graduate catalogue says I only have to take a year.
On top of all this, I don't have time for real life: exercising, corresponding with friends and family, sending thank-you notes for birthday and Christmas presents received, reading for pleasure, writing for pleasure, making crafts, playing piano for fun (I don't have time to play the used piano I just bought! It is a beautiful upright I found for 300 bucks), and the list goes on and on. By the time my weekend comes, I am spent. But if I don't do homework during the weekends, the next week is completely shot. If this is what being in the academic or real working world is like, I want nothing to do with it. I don't want to spend my life feeling frazzled and stressed out. I'm crabby, tired, always feeling like I'm coming down with something, stiff and sore from not exercising, and just plain not happy.
It all makes me wonder about the efficacy of graduate school, and of institutionalized education in general. I feel like I'm not learning anything except how to cut corners, speed read chapters in my music history books, practice once a week and get away with it, and in general, half-ass everything. I really feel like I won't be a "master" of music when I'm done--just a master of faux-learning.
On top of all this, I don't have time for real life: exercising, corresponding with friends and family, sending thank-you notes for birthday and Christmas presents received, reading for pleasure, writing for pleasure, making crafts, playing piano for fun (I don't have time to play the used piano I just bought! It is a beautiful upright I found for 300 bucks), and the list goes on and on. By the time my weekend comes, I am spent. But if I don't do homework during the weekends, the next week is completely shot. If this is what being in the academic or real working world is like, I want nothing to do with it. I don't want to spend my life feeling frazzled and stressed out. I'm crabby, tired, always feeling like I'm coming down with something, stiff and sore from not exercising, and just plain not happy.
It all makes me wonder about the efficacy of graduate school, and of institutionalized education in general. I feel like I'm not learning anything except how to cut corners, speed read chapters in my music history books, practice once a week and get away with it, and in general, half-ass everything. I really feel like I won't be a "master" of music when I'm done--just a master of faux-learning.
Sunday, January 22, 2006
Rainy day feeling
Since I've turned 29, (or really, when I turned 27), I've been realizing that people my age and younger are doing amazingly cool things with their lives. I've been feeling lately that I've wasted my twenties. This is partly in response to Kelly's latest blog on feeling envy for those Gen X'ers that are published authors now. I also feel not only jealousy but anger: what opportunities did they have that I didn't? What allows them to bypass all that mental bullshit that I put up with every time I try and create? Are these people trust-funders? Do they have the energy to create because they don't have to work? How do they get stuff done? Mostly it's anger at myself. I'm really just lazy. Every time my brain tells me I need to practice or write or whatever, I make up a good excuse like, I need to go outside and enjoy this beautiful day! Or I need to watch this Rick Steves show on Toledo so I can imagine that I'm there. What's the deal? Why do I deny myself happiness and creativity at every turn? Lately I've been suffering from extreme boredom, which K has told me might be a sign of depression. Which explains a lot actually. I always have to remind myself that I'm doing something exciting with my life now--working on a master's degree in a subject I love. But when I get home from school, and it's dark out, I feel extremely bored and apathetic. Which also might be seasonal disorder. Anyway, depression or not, I've decided I just have to do "it" and not think about it. A friend of mine in Eugene who plays the saxophone regularly at a local jazz club says "I practice whether I want to or not." I always try to keep that in mind. If I can just get to the intrument/notebook/canvas/sewing machine, that's the hardest step, and the rest takes care of itself. I also remind myself that Laura Ingalls Wilder didn't start writing the Little house series until she was in her 60's. I think sometimes seasoned creators are better than young ones anyway, because they have real life experiences behind them, and not just some MFA from Columbia.
Wednesday, January 18, 2006
Bursting Pomegranites=Sexy Symbolism
I did something I never thought I'd do. I read The Da Vinci Code. I wasn't ever planning on reading it although I've had coworkers recommend it to me. In fact it was my office mate at school who loaned it to me after I loaned him a few books from the Narnia series. I'm like, yeah, whatever, I can't read something that's on the NY Times bestseller list. I'm not snooty or anything, but I thought it would be a really cheesy read. Which it sort of was. But the thing is, I really enjoyed this book! I couldn't put it down! Do you believe that? It has everything a good novel should have--cheesy dialogue, a good plot, accessible, good writing and short chapters. It read kind of like a Hollywood script--the main characters are good-looking and virile, and it's non-stop, fast-paced action. It's a really damn compelling read. I had heard what the story was about--about the possibility of Jesus being married to Mary Magdalene, but it was more than that. It opened my eyes to the world of symbology, art history, iconography, cryptology, mythology, egyptology, and all those other -ologies that one could study at Harvard or some other such school. I became obsessed with this story--and not just the Jesus/Mary myth, but all the supposed symbols hidden in art and literature that tell this story. The author really did his research. All the stuff he talks about is based on real scholarship. I know, because I'm researching it all right now, in the midst of starting school and having to read about Renaissance music (which is related! There is tons of symbolism/numerology hidden in medieval/ren. music).
I'm getting reacquainted with my old love of ancient history. In sixth grade I was obsessed with Ancient Egypt and did book reports and diaramas on the Book of the Dead. I also loved the myths of Atlantis and the Loch Ness monster. I secretly want all of these myths to be true, because they're so magical. And, if you haven't read the book, did you know that supposedly the Holy Grail isn't a thing, but a person--Mary Magdalene? The ancient symbol for a woman is a "V", which was called the "chalice." And supposedly the "grail" once held the blood of Jesus. Which, when you look at this literally, you know what that means, right? And all this talk of "vines" and "branches" in the Bible--I wonder if they're secretly referring to Jesus' bloodline--his actual descendents. Wow, isn't that cool?
This interest in mystery, I think, all comes from my love of Nancy Drew and the History Detectives. Da Vinci Code was kinda like a combination of those two things. And it's full of art history and conspiracy theories! What more could you want? There's even a line in the book that made me laugh out loud: "Please.....no. That's Madonna of the Rocks!"
I'm getting reacquainted with my old love of ancient history. In sixth grade I was obsessed with Ancient Egypt and did book reports and diaramas on the Book of the Dead. I also loved the myths of Atlantis and the Loch Ness monster. I secretly want all of these myths to be true, because they're so magical. And, if you haven't read the book, did you know that supposedly the Holy Grail isn't a thing, but a person--Mary Magdalene? The ancient symbol for a woman is a "V", which was called the "chalice." And supposedly the "grail" once held the blood of Jesus. Which, when you look at this literally, you know what that means, right? And all this talk of "vines" and "branches" in the Bible--I wonder if they're secretly referring to Jesus' bloodline--his actual descendents. Wow, isn't that cool?
This interest in mystery, I think, all comes from my love of Nancy Drew and the History Detectives. Da Vinci Code was kinda like a combination of those two things. And it's full of art history and conspiracy theories! What more could you want? There's even a line in the book that made me laugh out loud: "Please.....no. That's Madonna of the Rocks!"
Monday, January 02, 2006
Happy New Ear
This is what the sign in front of the General Store said. I wonder if someone stole the "Y" or some cheeky employee made the sign that way. It's so fun when people tamper with public signs, don't you think? This past summer, Kelly, Ken and I had lunch at the Highland Grill in St. Paul, and while we were waiting for art history prof. Joanna to show up, we witnessed this very phenomena right across the street at the Highland Theater. I think the sign was supposed to advertise Bill Murray in "Broken Flowers" but some smartass changed the letters around so it said "Big Boner Shower." We laughed heartily and took a picture--and just in time too--not moments later an employee changed the letters back. It's not too often that I witness little passing moments like that. Just think of all the people who missed it. Fun with letters! It's like Sesame Street, but dirtier. Speaking of Sesame Street, Ken just downloaded the 12345-6789,10-11 12 video from Sesame St. It's so trippy, and it was sung by the Pointer Sisters. Have you listened to it lately? It's very funky and cutting edge for a kid's show. And now it's all watered down with Elmo's World. Grrr, don't get me started. Lately we've been immersed in the first season DVD of the Muppet Show. Talk about trippy! Their heads are always blowing up, or the monsters eat each other. There's even smoking and drinking! I love it. I have a new love for Sweetums, whom I used to be afraid of when I was little. He is kind of scary, but when you get the humor, he's funny too. How fun would it be to make puppets and then have them throw pies in each other's faces? Now that's art.
I just sent 11 inches of my hair through the mail the other day. What a relief! I had been thinking about cutting my hair for awhile and finally just did it. I managed to find a great hairstylist who isn't one of those annoying Aveda types. The salon is just this mom and pop kinda place where they played 80's music (getting my hair cut to Abba and Huey Lewis!). It was a great time. I was having anxiety the night before, wondering if I could actually go through with it, because it takes so darn long to grow out. But my horoscope in the newspaper said, "Try something different." So I decided to go through with it. It wasn't even scary. I got a cute short cut that's very Amelie, with some lowlights and highlights. It's weird. It doesn't feel surprising to me, or different in a way. It's like I was in this long, enchanted sleep where I dreamt I had long hair, and when I woke up it's just like I've always had it--short. I don't miss it at all. It was very heavy and tangly. And old-fashioned. I donated it to Locks of Love. The woman at the post office was pretty impressed I had just cut 11 inches off my hair. It's a brave thing to do but totally worth it. Especially to give it to someone who can use it.
Tomorrow we are headed for Portland, and then the Oregon Coast for a mini-vacation. I can't wait. I'm sure I'll have tales of sea lions (hopefully not puking ones. We witnessed that once and it was the most disgusting thing I had ever seen--or smelled) and octopi when I get back.
My new year's resolution? To stay motivated and find my creative process. And to not procrastinate. And to be flexible enough to do the splits.
I just sent 11 inches of my hair through the mail the other day. What a relief! I had been thinking about cutting my hair for awhile and finally just did it. I managed to find a great hairstylist who isn't one of those annoying Aveda types. The salon is just this mom and pop kinda place where they played 80's music (getting my hair cut to Abba and Huey Lewis!). It was a great time. I was having anxiety the night before, wondering if I could actually go through with it, because it takes so darn long to grow out. But my horoscope in the newspaper said, "Try something different." So I decided to go through with it. It wasn't even scary. I got a cute short cut that's very Amelie, with some lowlights and highlights. It's weird. It doesn't feel surprising to me, or different in a way. It's like I was in this long, enchanted sleep where I dreamt I had long hair, and when I woke up it's just like I've always had it--short. I don't miss it at all. It was very heavy and tangly. And old-fashioned. I donated it to Locks of Love. The woman at the post office was pretty impressed I had just cut 11 inches off my hair. It's a brave thing to do but totally worth it. Especially to give it to someone who can use it.
Tomorrow we are headed for Portland, and then the Oregon Coast for a mini-vacation. I can't wait. I'm sure I'll have tales of sea lions (hopefully not puking ones. We witnessed that once and it was the most disgusting thing I had ever seen--or smelled) and octopi when I get back.
My new year's resolution? To stay motivated and find my creative process. And to not procrastinate. And to be flexible enough to do the splits.
Saturday, December 24, 2005
So This is Christmas
I just found out today that a friend of mine from college has cancer. How can this happen? How can a young person have a malignant tumor in her colon? It seems so unreal, like a horrible dream. Christmas seems so superficial now, with all the shoppers buying last-minute thoughtless gifts. They're like zombies, expressionless and wandering through my store grabbing whatever off the shelves as a last resort. To quote Holden Caufield, "it depresses the hell out of me." That Charlie Brown "Christmas Time is Here" song keeps going through my head. It's the perfect soundtrack to this depressing holiday season. It sounds so blue--and it makes me think of people shuffling silently through the snow, going from store to store, not talking to anyone, not enjoying themselves. To top it all off, I just read the newest Banana Yoshimoto book, which is all about death, like a lot of her stories. The stories are so simple, beautiful, and mystical but a little depressing. Oh, and all the snow just melted, and it's raining.
Christmas morning, K and I will wake up, have some Christmas crepes filled with Nutella and bananas, open our presents, go to a buffet at a fancy hotel with a chocolate fountain, and maybe go bowling or watch a movie. K has to work for a few hours on Christmas, so we opted not to go home again this year, even though that would have been nice. But it's easy for us--unlike my friend, who is too young to be going through this (no one at any age is supposed to go through this). It makes me think, wow, this could happen to anyone. It seems so heartless and random.
Christmas morning, K and I will wake up, have some Christmas crepes filled with Nutella and bananas, open our presents, go to a buffet at a fancy hotel with a chocolate fountain, and maybe go bowling or watch a movie. K has to work for a few hours on Christmas, so we opted not to go home again this year, even though that would have been nice. But it's easy for us--unlike my friend, who is too young to be going through this (no one at any age is supposed to go through this). It makes me think, wow, this could happen to anyone. It seems so heartless and random.
Tuesday, December 13, 2005
Insomnia on St. Lucia Day
I've been trying to fall asleep for about an hour and decided to get up and get something productive done, like writing this. I'm planning on waking up at 5:30am to bake a St. Lucia Day coffee cake. The dough is all ready to go--I just have to braid it, let it rise for twenty more minutes, then bake it for thirty minutes. Hopefully it will be done before K has to go to work. I get in these moods during the Christmas season--wanting to be Martha with baking, making my own cards, decorating the apartment in lights and fake evergreen garlands from Michael's. It's a combination of boredom and my growing domestic urges, which I think, are brought on by age. I dream of being a retro housewife, with a totally 50's decorated house, with a pink-tiled bathroom, a bright yellow kitchen with pastel appliances and sheer white ruffled/yellow polka-dotted curtains on the windows, Ikea-like atomic-age/Palm Springs furniture in the living room, and a peach bedroom with a fluffy white rug below the peach satin bed and peach satin ballooned wall hanging, with a writing desk to write letters on my monogrammed perfumed peach stationery, and a white vanity with a big square mirror-- and not a speck of dust anywhere, with gleaming kitchen floors and glittery formica kitchen counters. What's gotten into me? A few years ago I wanted to be a hippie living in a VW Van, travelling the US and staying in random state parks, living off of my crocheted hats, scarves, and doilies. Now I dream of domesticity and read vintage homekeeping books and "Home Comforts: The Art and Science of Keeping House," by Cheryl Mendelsson--a huge book about seven-hundren pages in length devoted to housekeeping. But does my apartment reflect this dust-free/shining floors peach daydream? No. It's a mess, and there's dust bunnies on the hardwood floor, I'm ashamed to admit. Yesterday K came down with a little bug and wanted to take a warm bath and I had to scrub it out before he used it. I'm sure the nastiness is making us both sick, as I am trying to fight an oncoming cold. As in everything I want to undertake, whether it be writing music, writing stories, painting a picture or cleaning my house, I seem to come up with a billion reasons why I don't have time, yet spend endless hours in the library, at the computer (surfing), watching the same Simpsons episodes over and over, and trying to read about ten books at the same time. I really think I could do with some Ritalin. It seems I have a hard time with focusing and self-discipline. I'm out of shape, have bags under my eyes, and yet still do things to my body that make me feel like shit. Will I ever learn? Kelly and I have a theory that the people who make it in the art/writing/music world, are those that aren't necessarily super talented, but have the ability to cut through the mental bullshit and create/practice no matter what. I tend to stop myself before I ever get started. If I keep this up, how will I ever have my clean and lovely aparment? Or a career in the arts? Or a body that doesn't feel tired and tense all the time?
In four and a half hours I will attempt to wake up and bake my coffee cake. St. Lucia is the patroness of light, and it's an old tradition in Sweden for the oldest girl to don a white robe and a wreath of candles upon her golden head and bring this braided bread to her parents in bed. Sounds pretty dangerous if you ask me. But lovely, nonetheless.
In four and a half hours I will attempt to wake up and bake my coffee cake. St. Lucia is the patroness of light, and it's an old tradition in Sweden for the oldest girl to don a white robe and a wreath of candles upon her golden head and bring this braided bread to her parents in bed. Sounds pretty dangerous if you ask me. But lovely, nonetheless.
Monday, November 28, 2005
Crossing the Fission Boundary
Ug--I'm in the process of writing yet another paper I don't give a hoot about. Countless times since high school, I have been in this predicament--procrastinating until the last minute, sitting down at the kitchen table trying to straighten my thoughts out, drinking loads of coffee (half-caff, lots of soy creamer), sleepless nights, anxiety attacks, more procrastination (anything to avoid the uncomfortableness of slinging words onto a page that you know come from half-assed thoughts and b.s.-ing)....
This time my paper is about the psycho-acoustics of voice-leading--based on a 65-page article the graduate students had to read in our graduate counterpoint seminar, written by a man named David Huron from Ohio State. Here is one sentence from the article I'm using for a partial thesis statement:
"The principles of tonal fusion, the pitch proximity principle, and the pitch co-modulation principle all contribute to the achievement of the same goal--namely, the optimization of stream segregation."
It took me all quarter just to figure out what that means. Tonal fusion? Stream segregation? It's basically saying that the rules of voice-leading, i.e., avoiding parallel fifths and octaves, avoiding large melodic leaps, etc, can be backed by science--that the biological way our ears hear sounds apply directly to these rules. Therefore, this is why the rules exist. Okay, it's somewhat interesting, but to study this for a whole quarter? I enjoy and appreciate science, but sometimes I just don't understand it and all the scientific lingo that goes along with it. Which is okay, because I don't expect everyone to understand Neapolitan sixths and dominant sevenths and all that other music-talk. But just because our professor finds this article endlessly fascinating, does this give him the right to foist this upon us for the entire quarter, and then just two weeks ago, announcing that we must write a 10-15 page paper on it? What is it about our education system that gives professors/teachers and higher education in general the right to bore us with topics that only interest them? Is this what grad school is all about--pretending to care rather than actually learning something and enjoying it? Is this what my diploma will attest to? That I was able to withstand extreme boredom, sleepless nights and anxiety attacks due to the writing of research papers on topics of no interest to me?
What I don't understand is, why don't college professors go through the same training as elementary and high school teachers? For all practical purposes, the average college student is still a teen-ager, and therefore not too different from a high-schooler. Most teachers have to take classes in educational and developmental psychology, which, if college professors had to take these same classes, would learn how to facilitate discussion, how to teach so students care about what they're learning, how to motivate students, and how to teach toward different learning styles. I guess if you can get through a P.h.D. without killing yourself you can teach whatever the hell you want. Screw learning theories! You will learn about pitch proximity principle and you'll like it!
So what is the point of all this long-winded rambling? I just get so sick of college professors and their complete ineffeciency and teaching incompetence. Having studied education as an undergraduate, I am aware of learning theories, and get so frustrated when profs have these great classes to teach (Music history! Ear-training! Counterpoint! Theory! Piano!) yet they teach them in such a boring and inefficient way that I want to scream. How many hours have I spent in a music history classroom with a monotone-voiced professor on the cusp of retirement, reading from his lecture notes from 1965? How many hours did I waste trying to decipher Huron's article, and when I did, how many hours did I complain to friends about "crossing the fission boundary"? How many years of boring piano lessons and "Hot Cross Buns" playings did I have to endure before I could play Fur Elise (which is easily taught by ear/rote to a ten-year-old in her first year of lessons)? Here is a poem by Richard Brautigan that perfectly sums up my feelings on the whole deal:
I remember all those thousands of hours
that I spent in grade school watching the clock,
waiting for recess or lunch or to go home.
Waiting: for anything but school.
My teachers could easily have ridden with Jesse James
for all the time they stole from me.
This time my paper is about the psycho-acoustics of voice-leading--based on a 65-page article the graduate students had to read in our graduate counterpoint seminar, written by a man named David Huron from Ohio State. Here is one sentence from the article I'm using for a partial thesis statement:
"The principles of tonal fusion, the pitch proximity principle, and the pitch co-modulation principle all contribute to the achievement of the same goal--namely, the optimization of stream segregation."
It took me all quarter just to figure out what that means. Tonal fusion? Stream segregation? It's basically saying that the rules of voice-leading, i.e., avoiding parallel fifths and octaves, avoiding large melodic leaps, etc, can be backed by science--that the biological way our ears hear sounds apply directly to these rules. Therefore, this is why the rules exist. Okay, it's somewhat interesting, but to study this for a whole quarter? I enjoy and appreciate science, but sometimes I just don't understand it and all the scientific lingo that goes along with it. Which is okay, because I don't expect everyone to understand Neapolitan sixths and dominant sevenths and all that other music-talk. But just because our professor finds this article endlessly fascinating, does this give him the right to foist this upon us for the entire quarter, and then just two weeks ago, announcing that we must write a 10-15 page paper on it? What is it about our education system that gives professors/teachers and higher education in general the right to bore us with topics that only interest them? Is this what grad school is all about--pretending to care rather than actually learning something and enjoying it? Is this what my diploma will attest to? That I was able to withstand extreme boredom, sleepless nights and anxiety attacks due to the writing of research papers on topics of no interest to me?
What I don't understand is, why don't college professors go through the same training as elementary and high school teachers? For all practical purposes, the average college student is still a teen-ager, and therefore not too different from a high-schooler. Most teachers have to take classes in educational and developmental psychology, which, if college professors had to take these same classes, would learn how to facilitate discussion, how to teach so students care about what they're learning, how to motivate students, and how to teach toward different learning styles. I guess if you can get through a P.h.D. without killing yourself you can teach whatever the hell you want. Screw learning theories! You will learn about pitch proximity principle and you'll like it!
So what is the point of all this long-winded rambling? I just get so sick of college professors and their complete ineffeciency and teaching incompetence. Having studied education as an undergraduate, I am aware of learning theories, and get so frustrated when profs have these great classes to teach (Music history! Ear-training! Counterpoint! Theory! Piano!) yet they teach them in such a boring and inefficient way that I want to scream. How many hours have I spent in a music history classroom with a monotone-voiced professor on the cusp of retirement, reading from his lecture notes from 1965? How many hours did I waste trying to decipher Huron's article, and when I did, how many hours did I complain to friends about "crossing the fission boundary"? How many years of boring piano lessons and "Hot Cross Buns" playings did I have to endure before I could play Fur Elise (which is easily taught by ear/rote to a ten-year-old in her first year of lessons)? Here is a poem by Richard Brautigan that perfectly sums up my feelings on the whole deal:
I remember all those thousands of hours
that I spent in grade school watching the clock,
waiting for recess or lunch or to go home.
Waiting: for anything but school.
My teachers could easily have ridden with Jesse James
for all the time they stole from me.
Tuesday, November 22, 2005
Goodbye, land of diaries
I've decided to ditch diaryland because I just noticed they've deleted most of my old postings. Jerks!
This morning, walking to the bus stop, I came across a pile of cooked spaghetti and a pair of tennis shoes lying in the middle of the sidewalk. Feel free to come up with a story for that one. Oh, and then, not 2 seconds later, a truck drives by with a small, bare tree standing up in the middle of the bed of the truck, ala Harold and Maude. It was a very odd start to my day, which was full of foggy/clammy weather, my flute teacher helping me get through a tricky run in the Chaminade Concertino by having me imagine giving birth to a traffic cone, and procrastinating on homework, again.
This morning, walking to the bus stop, I came across a pile of cooked spaghetti and a pair of tennis shoes lying in the middle of the sidewalk. Feel free to come up with a story for that one. Oh, and then, not 2 seconds later, a truck drives by with a small, bare tree standing up in the middle of the bed of the truck, ala Harold and Maude. It was a very odd start to my day, which was full of foggy/clammy weather, my flute teacher helping me get through a tricky run in the Chaminade Concertino by having me imagine giving birth to a traffic cone, and procrastinating on homework, again.
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