sometimes you wanna go where everybody knows your name...

sometimes you wanna go where everybody knows your name...
Current mood: nostalgic
Category: Friends
monday, october 30, 2006

i've realized over these past few weekends, my friends are a bit of an acquired taste. While eccentric at best, they are the people i always wanted to be growing up. they say that you surround yourself with people who complement your personality. not neccessarily those who are most like you, but who contain the qualities to which you aspire... They are teachers and students, musicians, artists, healers, writers, lovers and listeners, dancers, doers, thinkers, the loves of my life and the backbone of my social strata...old friends and new... local and long distance...they remind me to smile and not to take life to seriously.

And now, said Max, Let the Wild Rumpus Start!

sellout

sellout
Current mood:ashamed
Category: Fashion, Style, Shopping
wednesday, october 25, 2006

i remember when i was younger i would always nibble away at the cuffs of my shirts. a nasty habit to be sure, but an inescapable one. I would wiggle my thumbs from the inside and gnaw on the edges of my cuffs from the outside in moments of extreme boredom, frustration, agitation (insert emotion here). ultimately what i would have are two nifty thumb holds - so that the cuffs of my shirts could extend down well past my callused palms (can you say former gymnast?) but i would still have full use of those wonderfully opposable digits which separate us from the missing links of the world (tom robbin's description of said links notwithstanding).
today i am a sellout
today i am wearing a shirt with precut, prestitched thumbholes.
what seemed a novel and exciting idea in the store quickly lead to a quirky form of shoppers remorse. not over the price (a measely $14.99) but over the preconstruction of it all...i am so ashamed.
oh don't think the shame of it all will stop me from glancing down from time to time today and smiling at my shy palms and exposed thumbs...but the shame is there all the same.


Currently listening:
A.M.
By Wilco

lyrics

lyrics
Category: Music
wednesday, october 18, 2006


Shamelessly reproduced here without any form of official permission:
Jeff Buckley's "Hallelujah"
Because i just love the lyrics...

Well I heard there was a secret chord
That David played, and it pleased the Lord
But you don't really care for music, do you?
Well it goes like this
The fourth, the fifth
The minor fall, the major lift
The baffled king composing Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah

Your faith was strong but you needed proof
You saw her bathing on the roof
Her beauty and the moonlight overthrew you
She tied you to her kitchen chair
She broke your throne and she cut your hair
And from your lips she drew the Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah

Well baby I've been here before
I've seen this room and I've walked this floor
You know, I used to live alone before I knew ya
And I've seen your flag on the marble arch
And Love is not a victory march
It's a cold and it's a broken Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah

Well there was a time when you let me know
What's really going on below
But now you never show that to me do ya?
But remember when I moved in you
And the holy dove was moving too
And every breath we drew is Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah

Maybe there's a God above
But all I've ever learned from love
Was how to shoot somebody who outdrew ya
And it's not a cry that you hear at night
It's not somebody who's seen the light
It's a cold and it's a broken Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah


Currently listening:
Grace
By Jeff Buckley

he said...she said...

he said...she said...
Current mood: contemplative
friday, october 13, 2006

is the truest definition of a woman one who can both inflict wounds and tend them?
are we cunning and courageous as the bloodthirsty biblical judith?
are we soft and serene as Bouguereau portrayed us?
are we all both indira and eve?
devis and devils?
does it matter?

i mean, let's face it, we're talking chromosomal differences here...but the chasm is at turns so narrow that one could hop from side to side...and at others yawning so wide that there is no sight of the other side. why is that? venus and mars notwithstanding why do we need interspecial translators to speak to one another. a very wise friend of mine once said that in her experience women need to first experience some level of intimacy before having sex, and that men often need to have sex to experience intimacy...i always wondered for how much of the populas this held true...if any (exceptions apply - let's not split hairs now) When i ask a favor it's never so much that i need assistance, only that i want my husband/brother/father/insert male quivalent here to have wanted to help me...to have wanted to put my needs before their own - in and of itself a twisted notion to be sure and purely unfair...oh i know...but it doesn't make it any less true. which begs a new question - can we even help ourselves? or more importantly - why should we even want to?
why pick at the scabs of our differences when we can revel in them. i will never stand up to pee...i will never bodily move another out from the line of sight between an arm chair and sports center...i will never grunt an approval...and i'm really very fine with all of that. Equally i hope that the males in my life never secretly long for a candlelit bubble bath, or shed a tear over a cotton commercial (while post-partum...cut me some slack here) or sigh and shiver uncontrollably at the removal of certain societally-required undergarments. Its these differences so integral to our beings that help to define who we are... whether these differences are learned or programmed into that single chromosome may not matter so much in the long run. the chasm will always be there...i'm just looking for a reliable rope bridge along the way.


Currently listening:
Sympathique
By Pink Martini

my morning...e e cummings style

my morning...e e cummings style
Current mood: exhausted
thursdsay, october 12, 2006



i fell asleep in the shower thismorning

and dreamt of you

in technicolor

with subtitles

just for a moment

until the sharp hot needles of the shower head

brought me reluctantly back

running late for work again...

writers block

writers block
Current mood: sleepy
Category: Writing and Poetry
saturday, october 07, 2006

this evening's blog stands as a testament to my utter and complete writers block this weekend...blah.


Currently listening:
A Ghost Is Born
By Wilco

Concertino for Cellular Phones and Orchestra

Concertino for Cellular Phones and Orchestra
Current mood:inspired
Category: Music
october 03, 2006

when i was a senior in college i took what ended up being one of my favorite classes of my entire college career - it was History of Jazz and it was taught by David Baker (renowned jazz musician, composer, music director for the Smithsonian Jazz Masterworks Orchestra, nominated for both a Pulitzer Prize and a Grammy). Each Wednesday this enormous storage room/classroom in the basement of the music building would be packed to the gills with students. Only about half were actually approved to sit in on the lecture each week, and each week I had to struggle to find a free desk. I saw people snuggle up to a wall joint, perch on choir steps, kneel between desks, just to hear this man talk. He had the most wonderful voice - soft and gravelly - and he would tell stories, name-dropping legendary musicians while relating bits of history and explaining drink preferences as they all gathered at some smoky club or hole in the wall. Dr. Baker would pace, shoulders hunched, gray suit pants uncreased - I never saw the man sit down. i was in awe...

The reason i bring this up? the man continues to impress...i caught a story on Newswise.com - and followed the trail back to a press release that IU Media relations put out concerning Dr. Baker's newest piece - debuting the 1st and 2nd of this month to kick off the 20th anniversary season of the Chicago Sinfonietta under the direction of Maestro Paul Freeman. The piece, entitled Concertino for Cellular Phones and Orchestra, by all accounts is to be a lively piece designed to not only encourage, but require audience participation. How will this work??? the concertino calls for audience members and members of the orchestra's percussion section to make user of their cell phones at various specified points throughout the piece. They intend to divide the audience into different sections and then cue the sections with red and green lights. Audience members will also be encouraged to experiment with the volume and ring tones, while the orchestra will also be working strains from recognizable ring tones into their work as well.

Sound chaotic? definitely. but i'm intrigued and think that the combination of the orchestra's staid presence and the cell phones normally intrusive sounds will complement each other well.

Baker had some must read quotes within the various articles I found...i'll just toss them in below...classic Dr. Baker.

"There's a wonderful balance between [chaos and organization] because that's how our lives are" he said. "Moving from the known to the unknown is very exciting"

"Cell phones inevitably awaken memories. It's kind of like a sonic perfume" (on how certain sounds around the audience can impact how they hear music and spark the mind)

"It's like a jazz piece. Once you've established the basic form of the piece and the tempo, then you don't know. I do know that very little happens for me when I'm in a passive environment" (on his uncertainty of what to expect with the music starts and the phones start ringing)

Baker, with over 2000 compositions under his belt admitted that this piece took the longest not just to write but to conceptualize.

"It think some people would think it is insane to even think about trying to combine the cacophony of cell phones with the pristine purity, sometimes, of an orchestra".

But what if no one participates?

"Girl, my heart stops just thinking about it," Baker says. "It would be like your soloist didn't show up for your concerto"

If anyone finds a sound bite on this out there - send it to me - i'm dying to hear it.

say ahhh...

say ahhh...
Current mood: frustrated
october 02, 2006


whatever happened to trust?



Currently listening:
Are You Gonna Be My Girl?
By Jet