yo mo fos

a new bloggie-poo.
Non Sequiturville.

sad and dreamy

How awesome is this poster?

Another song that I just can't stop listening to. OK, the lyrics are positively ridiculous (go Lorenz Hart!) but you've just got to hear the song. Oh, and of course, it's sung by Maurice Chevalier. It's been a bit of a standard since it was a hit in the '30s:

Mimi, you funny little good-for-nothing Mimi,
Am I the guy?
Mimi, you sunny little honey of a Mimi,
I'm aiming high!
Mimi, you've got me sad and dreamy,
You could free me, if you'd see me,
Mimi, you know I'd like to have a little son
Of a Mimi by and by.

since it's almost over

here's some Holiday Road for 'ya.

And here's another treat: "we're ten hours from the fucking fun park and you wanna bail out!"

bhishma and shyam

had better watch out! Laurie sent me this link to Fish School. Check out the theme song!

brokeback flatpoint

my friend told me she'd seen this but not Strangers with Candy. It's actually a bunch of clips from Strangers with Candy.

Brokeback Flatpoint

why I like strangers

with candy.

I just saw the best episode ever, where Jerri is in the jazz band and "scats" and where Mr. Jellyneck (Paul Dinello) and Mr. Noblet (Stephen Colbert) are torturing their students by making them pose nude in front of their classes or by drawing their private parts on the chalkboard. Mr. Noblet tells one of them: "Oh my God. Is that what yours looks like? Sit down! Ugh. Somebody else give it a shot. Who's got a pretty one? Suzie, you look clean. Come on up here."

I by accident saw the end of an episode of "America's Next Top Model," where someone said that one of the pictures looked like a squashed insect. As far as I can tell, all of the contenders look like squashed insects even when their images are not frozen in a picture. All of the contenders have smashed-in pig noses, bug eyes, and weird teeth. In fact, I was impressed that they were able to find so many people who looked like insects bulging from death all over the spectrum. Oh, well. I remember when I used to actually pay attention to super models back in the late '80s and early '90s and there was this one chick named Kristen-something, I think, who was almost ugly. She was a big deal, too. Hey, I found her! Kristen McMenamy. Here she is in all her glory (and yes, I think she's ugly):

this is how old I am

Isn't it amazing how well we remember the horrors and tragedies in life? I just realized how many tragedies mark this list in particular. Anyway....

I am the same age as Leonardo diCaprio, Drew Barrymore, the Beckhams, Tobey Maguire, Joaquin Phoenix, and Angelina Jolie.

I was born on the day of a major plane crash that killed 92 people out of Dulles. I was born during the Ford Administration, just fewer than four months after Nixon resigned, two weeks after the murders in what became the Amityville Horror house, the same year in which Blazing Saddles and Monty Python and the Holy Grail premiered, and when disco was really starting to take off. (Yeah, yeah, the world was having problems in 1974, much like it is now.)

I was alive when "Saturday Night Live" premiered and when "Monty Python's Flying Circus" ended.

I distinctly remember when John Lennon was shot. It was exactly a week after my sixth birthday. I was not only aware of the importance of the event; I knew who John Lennon was and the Beatles were the only rock group my father ever listened to.

I also distinctly remember when Ronald Reagan was shot, as well as Anwar el Sadat.

I watched Charles and Diana's wedding on television, and I also watched Andrew and Fergie's wedding.

I remember when Prince William was born and all the dolls that commemorated the event.

I was old enough to be a Madonna Wannabe, and I was one, complete with stockings tied in my hair, lace mitts, and everything except the Boy Toy necklace (circa 1983).

I was in love with Michael Jackson when "Thriller" came out and we used to watch the "Making of Thriller" at Girl Scout parties. Thriller also happened to be my first LP album. This was before audio tapes were really popular, though. I am also old enough to remember people having eight-tracks in their cars.

I was completely obsessed with Cyndi Lauper and my first audio tape was She's So Unusual.

I am old enough to remember what it was like when people smoked everywhere, especially in airports.

I remember when Boulder's Downtown Mall was built (1978).

When I was little, we watched "The Muppet Show," "M*A*S*H," and "Sha Na Na" every week.

I remember when Princess Grace was killed in a car accident (September 1982).

I watched the 1984 Summer Olympics televised from Los Angeles and remember how obsessed everyone was with Mary Lou Retton and Carl Lewis. According to Wikipedia, that Olympics marked the premiere of John Williams's Olympic Fanfare and Theme, so I guess I'm not crazy when I consider that I have always heard that theme whenever the Olympics is on.

We happened to have cable television one summer only. These were the things we watched: MTV, HBO's Video Jukebox, "You Can't Do That on Television," and the premiere of "Fraggle Rock." We were so mad that my parents yanked the cable right when THAT came out. That summer, we watched Poltergeist on HBO about one hundred times. We saw the videos for "Every Step You Take," "Hold Me" (Thompson Twins), "Hey Mickey," and "Like a Virgin" over and over.

I think the summer of 1983 was also the summer when we got our first VCR. We were the first ones of all the kids we knew to have one. We rented Annie, Airplane! (which we weren't allowed to watch right then), and Bedknobs and Broomsticks to christen it. 1983 was also the year we got our first compact disc player, I believe. My father's friend had loaned him Handel's Water Music and this weird iridescent thing was sitting around on our dentist's cabinet in the front hallway for, like months.

I wore a Mondale/Ferraro campaign button to school for several weeks in the fall of 1984. Reagan won again, of course. The first Presidential election of which I was conscious was in 1980, when my mother voted for Anderson over Carter and Reagan. I turned eighteen three weeks after the election in 1992, so I couldn't vote until 1996, when I was a senior in college, and voted for Clinton.

I saw the three canonic Star Wars movies in the theater when they came out, as well as E.T., Ghostbusters, Amadeus, and Back to the Future. I was E.T. for Halloween the fall it was still in the theaters--my mother made the costume and QUILTED it. My parents were really strict about audience regulations and age, so we didn't see nearly as many films as other kids our age did. Movies about my generation that came out when their characters were my age: Goonies, Heathers, Reality Bites, Before Sunset, Clerks, Chasing Amy, and Mallrats, and Office Space. I saw Heathers again recently with some friends of mine who are about eight years younger than I am, and I couldn't believe how dated it looked. When it came out, it looked so brand-spanking new and I was jealous of the clothes and hairstyles.

Our family's first home computer was a PC Jr. We had Apple IIs at school and used great programs like Basic and Logo. My first computer game was King's Quest (circa 1983 and 1984).

My brother had a Nintendo II (we personally didn't have an Atari) and we played lots of Super Mario Bros. 1, 2, and 3. To this date, those are the only video games I will play (circa 1988 and 1989).

My cousins, brother and I were all at Flatirons Elementary School when the Challenger exploded on January 28, 1986. My cousin and brother saw it live. I was in fifth grade.

I was involved in a demonstration against Operation Desert Storm in 1991, when I was a sophomore in high school.

I participated in a massive school demonstration and walk-out during the Rodney King riots in April 1992. I got a terrible sunburn. I was a junior in high school.

That same spring, I watched the last week of "The Tonight Show" with Johnny Carson.

I was a sophomore in college when the Oklahoma City bombing occurred on April 19, 1995.

I had graduated from college on August 31, 1997, the night Princess Diana was killed in a car accident.

I was living in New York City when Matthew Shepard was murdered in October 1998. I was in a peaceful demonstration that quickly became out of control in its numbers and was nearly seriously injured by police several times. They brought in mounted police and beat the crap out of innocent bystanders. To this day I hate and detest the NYPD and I resent seeing people who were obviously tourists in New York wearing NYPD shirts, hats, etc.

I had moved out of NYC by the time the WTC was bombed in 2001. I watched both towers collapse on television and was acquainted with a few people who died in them. Anyone who has ever lived in New York has an organic connection to the city in a way that one doesn't with other places. Walking everywhere makes one much more familiar with a city and all its blocks and buildings than driving everywhere. I could see WTC from my bedroom window in Park Slope. I was 26 when September 11 occurred.

On March 20, 2003, I was involved in a massive anti-war demonstration in Chicago that grew rapidly in numbers. We took over Lake Shore Drive. The cops wouldn't let anyone leave at that point and they wouldn't let people move. My friend and I managed to escape before the block points where they were just randomly arresting people, even though anyone who was there didn't really have any control over leaving the demonstration before that point--there were just too many people flooding the expressway.

Maybe I'm a little young to be writing my memoirs. But in this town, I'm constantly told how old I am--everyone says "You look SO good for your age," and "Oh my God you are so old--what have you been DOING wasting your life away for so long before grad school?" (SERIOUSLY I have been told this more than once). But this town is a vacuum of space in terms of age, whereas 31 is considered pretty young anywhere else you go. :) If any of my readers think I'm old, check out the top of this post again and see if you think any of my comrade celebs are old. Anyway, happy spring!

ozarkian accents and mercury, again

Am watching Million Dollar Baby. My biggest complaint is that no one from the Ozarks talks with a drawl. My aunt's biggest complaint is that no one can talk with a respirator running, unless they shut off the equipment, etc. She says they should have used a medical consultant. I say they should have used a dialect coach. I've never heard a twang like what one hears in Southwest Missouri state. (I guess Hilary et al figured no one would notice if she just used a generic accent.) I can't mimic the Ozarkian twang, but I start talking that way whenever I'm there. It's kind of weird. My mother's mother was obsessed with not talking like other people from that area and tried hard to talk without a twang. When my mother got a job when I was in eighth grade, she mentioned to a coworker or boss that she was worried about the way she sounded on the phone, and her boss or whoever said "What? I think your twang is cute." If my mother talks about Missouri, she starts to lapse a bit. I'm not sure if it's because of her inflections or just because I'm used to that twang but I really do embarrass myself if I'm in Lebanon, Missouri for more than a couple of days.

When I know that Mercury is in retrograde, I just start to roll with the punches. The saga continues. Today, my temporary card to get into my building was supposed to expire at 10:40 tonight. However, I got locked out around 1:15. So I called Family and Graduate Housing and I need to take my new ID (that I got on Friday) all the way to Orchard Downs. Problem is, my bike is in the shop, the buses aren't running on a useable schedule, and I don't own a car. So I walked all the way to Orchard Downs (two miles each way from where I live). When I got there, the woman looked at my card and said that it hadn't even been entered into the system. Furthermore, the ID card I lost that was activated to supply access to my building was still activated. So if anyone found that ID, he could just walk into my building whenever. So I walked THREE miles to the bookstore, which is closed. I can't fix the situation until the folks in the ID office fix THEIR mistake. Fun, fun, fun. Given that Mercury is in retrograde, I need to be prepared to be randomly locked out of my building anytime, regardless of the fact that they extended the use of my temporary card (not my new ID which according to the entire system of the University of Illinois doesn't exist). Plus we're expecting some snowstorm. Maybe I should just lock myself in my apartment all day tomorrow so as not to run into too many pitfalls with the storm. :)

I probably needn't say yet again how very glad I am that I didn't have to deal with a bureaucratic state system as an undergrad. It's so great how all the responsibility falls on the shoulders of the student, who has to drudge around for miles because the system keeps fucking up.

today's songs

I get into ruts sometimes. Well, not exactly ruts--more like grooves. I suppose all of us have problems playing certain songs within an inch of their lives for certain time periods.

Right now, over and over, I keep playing several songs. One is Basie's "April in Paris," and I do sincerely hope that one day I will no longer associate it with Blazing Saddles, when the entire orchestra is in the desert playing it. Another is Basie's "Corner Pocket."

I also keep playing a couple of Tito Puente songs: "Cual es la idea" and "Baile como es."

Virtually unknown "pieces" to most of my readers that get me going these days:
Sans frayeur dans ce bois - Chaconne H. 467 from Charpentier's Divertissements, as well as Charpentier's La Pierre Philosophale, H 501: Menuet pour la petite gnomide. So fun. The first has an absolutely fabulous bass line, as I'm finding most Chaconnes from the early 17th century do. It makes me want to learn viola da gamba something awful. But more than anything I want to learn theorbo. Which means I really, really ought to get back to playing the lute (or relearning it in my case since I only played it for a YEAR over ten years ago). The reason I didn't continue is that I ought to get my own freaking lute--I can't keep borrowing them. And they're not exactly available on any old street corner. But for any interested reader's information, I've attached pictures of a lute and a theorbo to this post. :)

Lute (theorbo at top):

SO in retrograde....

After many blunders yesterday and today, I decided that Mercury has GOT to be in retrograde.

It all started with a very depressing rehearsal for the "soloists" in Chamber Singers. There are a bunch of solos throughout, divided by soprano, alto, tenor, bass (naturally), and our conductor put three of us on each part (except for the two basses). He didn't really sit down and figure out who would sing what ahead of time; he just told us that he wanted it to be divided up equally. Well, he gave me all "amen" passages. In other words, I only sing the WORD amen. And I'm the one with good Latin diction (and translation--see below). Also, each of the passages I'm assigned is in about a four-note range, and right in my break. Which totally sucks. The other two people assigned to alto solos are a friend of mine, who has a lovely voice and one I find appropriate for the mid-Baroque work we're doing, and another woman who has a nice voice but one that doesn't jive well at all with that time period. Both of them got more than I did. I found out later that there's at least one person per voice part who is really ticked off about these decisions, and that I wasn't the only one screwed (a couple of people were much worse off than I was and they are both excellent singers). Which led me to believe that it wasn't intentional at all and wasn't well thought-out and....was a big miscommunication.

I went to Krannert yesterday evening and got drinks with my boss and his wife, after we went to a musicology/ethnomusicology lecture on Gideon Klein and a trio he wrote in Auschwitz or Terezin or some horrible death camp. I got completely plastered on two glasses of wine (really, really pathetic) and came home and accidentally used bleach cleaner instead of Shout on a stain on my slacks. Then I went to another rehearsal (for a doctoral recital) and lost my ID, which meant I lost access to my building. By the way, don't EVER try to sightread Bach cantatas (sans chorales, of course--those are easy) when plastered. I was making a total ass out of myself. (Bach is next to impossible to sightread even when you're sober, but with all the other stuff we were sightreading, I was surprised at how well I was doing, even while drunk. :)

So today I had to go get a new ID. Then I went to Espresso to get coffee. Their credit-card machine wasn't working. So I went to the ATM. Which was out of cash. Then Espresso told me they don't take checks.

All of these things point in one direction--Mercury is in retrograde. I checked it out online and it IS. Until March 25 everything is going to be freaking miscommunicated, misdirected, misunderstood. And bad things are more likely to happen like plane crashes and train wrecks. I know it sounds crazy but pay attention and you will see that I'm right.

Anyway, that aside, I had to do a booktalk today on Helter Skelter. Which I totally messed up. I should have practiced in front of someone. The biggest mistake I made was assuming that everyone knows about the Manson murders the same way everyone knows about September 11. It was too easy for me to conveniently forget that most people in my class were born well into the 1980s. I was born five years after the Manson murders, so in my lifetime it was considered recent history. So I just figured I didn't need to go into any background because that would be redundant and boring. I will never make THAT mistake again.

caue

So I'm a complete nerd, and historically on this day, I give out little badges cut from paper that say CAVE IDVS MARTIVS and have a picture of Mr. Gaius Julius Caesar on them. Beware the Ides of March. This is the sort of thing that happens when you're required to take a shitload of Latin in college for your oh-so-useful medieval studies degree.

I always take so much time doing it and handing them out to friends and colleagues.

And then I'm the only one who wears one. So I decided not to do it this year. I'm too tired. Maybe next year. Besides, today I applied for jobs at Harvard, Yale, and Brown. And realized too late that I said something really stupid in my cover letters to two of them. Oh, well, at least it was spelled right and it was true. (I was talking about my language qualifications and said that not only have I studied German and Latin, I've also studied some English! I meant to say Swedish.)

um

I'm at home now trying to get work done and for some reason the traffic is DEAFENING today. The small-penissed motorcyclists are starting to come out from under their rocks, I'm afraid, and they like to draw attention to themselves by angrily revving up their engines whenever they have to wait for anything. Um, so then why the hell are they on campus?

I can almost taste my escape from the Land of the Small Penis. I only hope I don't wind up in another small-penissed place, where noise ordinances are not enforced. Never in my life have I had to live near so many boom cars, spinners, modified tailpipes, and expensive car audio equipment. Did you know that in Chicago, any vehicle that is plainly audible from a distance greater than 75 feet can be impounded on the first offense (and the fine is $500)? Not so here. And in Chicago, they enforce a lot of those laws. Chicago and New York are much quieter than here. I've lived in both places, 'ya know. There is a constant bustle sound but the boom cars and motorcycles are pretty minimal. And their noise ordinances are strict and utilised.

Maybe people are just so bored here and don't know what else to do that they spend thousands of dollars souping up their pathetic vehicles. I think it's a combination of not enough intellectual stimulation, perhaps; way too much testosterone in an under-25 age bracket; and way too many small penises per capita. Maybe their penises aren't so small, but they're doing a bad job of advertising to the world that they are, then.

sweetie darling

Have I mentioned lately how much I miss Edina and Patsy? Good times, good times.

fuh2

Awesome site! They have a campaign where they ask people to flip off Hummers. Anyone who knows me well knows that I have two very flexible middle fingers and am liberal in using them with Hummers and boom boys.

Check out their cool new poster.

it's something daring

the Continental. A way of dancing that's really ultra-new. It's very subtle, the Continental, because it does what you want it to do.

I highly recommend The Gay Divorcee. It's totally ridiculous and great at the same time. The Continental sequence is wayyyyy too long but you do have to wonder how long it took them to film it.

It inspires me to look into some Sonia Henie and Esther Williams films (think long, drawn-out synchronized swimming and ice-skating on Hollywood sets).

die Königen der Nacht?

mother of Pamina.

Aleechay sent this to me.

OK, so he ain't exactly Sumi Jo, but I think the attempt at Lederhosen is a nice touch.

wiener fest 2006

Last night, the community of Champaign-Urbana had the luxurious opportunity to see the world's most ethnocentric orchestra right here in the middle of the cornfields. The Wiener Philharmoniker played here for the first time ever. Like that should be a surprise. Some benefactors paid handsomely or they never would have come, obviously.

I don't think I've ever seen more white, male fuddie-duddies in my life. These Austrian men in tuxes wandered around looking for food before the concert and I felt sorry for them--I don't think I've sampled restaurants worse than the ones in the immediate vicinity of Krannert. In fact, these restaurants are my examples of How Restaurants Suck Really, Really Bad in Champaign-Urbana. (That's another rant entirely--there is absolutely no excuse for the townships of a Big Ten school to have such deplorable restaurants--the restaurants are undoubtedly why Indiana has such a pull on many good students over Illinois--if I'd had the choice, I certainly would have chosen Bloomington, if only for the restaurants. But to be fair, there are a few restaurants over in Champaign that I don't have any complaints about--if only the Wieners could have known!)

Back in March of 1997, it was announced that the Wiener Philharmoniker had finally allowed women to be in their ranks. They'd already been paying a female harpist per diem for about twenty-five years. Of course, they've only added one or two women since then. And they're all white, white, white.

The funniest cartoon I've ever seen in The New Yorker appeared that month, too. I kept that issue for years. I have an electronic copy of it on my Complete New Yorker, but it's not copyable. The text, however, is here:

Hazing in the Vienna Philharmonic
First, “Somebody” coated Anna L’s harp strings with Vaseline. ("Was ist das?")
Shortly thereafter “a person” stuck a piece of Sacher torte in Olga N.’s oboe.
Lena S. was surprised to discover that “an individual” had welded a tiny wheel to the bottom of her cello.
And, just last week, “it could have been anyone” replaced all of Sophie T.’s sheet music with works of Andrew Lloyd Webber. ("Gott im Himmel!")

But, all said, they are of course one of the best orchestras in the world. They kicked the shit out of Schubert's Great Symphony, which did in fact merit a standing ovation. Not that that says anything in these parts--some folks will stand for someone playing nose flute around here (lest we forget that we are, in fact, in the middle of the cornfields--they're not the regular season-ticket holders in Symphony Hall, after all), but it was deserved this time. The audience embarrassed me quite a bit from time to time but at least they didn't clap between movements.

An aside--I first recognized how overly generous audiences are here when I sang in Haydn's Creation last spring. It was a terrible performance, and of course, we got a standing ovation. It was embarrassing, because I could see Professor Temperley in the audience and he had to stand because everyone else was. He is a well-known scholar on the work and in fact edited the vocal C. F. Peters score, which we were NOT using. Yeesh.

Back to the performance at hand--Riccardo Muti kicks ass. He's pretty unbelievable. I've seen quite a few famous conductors in my time. I've even sung under some of their batons (the choruses I sang in in New York had gigs in Carnegie Hall (where we also rehearsed), Avery Fisher (the home of the New York Phil), and Alice Tully Hall in Lincoln Center). But much of the time, I don't see why they're so special. This guy is pretty special. He's extremely dynamic and charismatic. Although I suppose to get anywhere in the conducting field, you need to be born with some charisma--it's arguably the most difficult field anyone could ever go into.

However, in summary, I shouldn't be so hard on folks attending these performances (the CSO was here last year). After all, it is a privilege to go to performances of great orchestras even in Chicago--you need to have the money and the time to do it if you live in central or southern Illinois. And it is nice to see all the folks who you can tell never go to performances like that making an effort (they stood out in their formal wear). Truth be told, I am among the handful of youngest people at most performances I attend. The Lyric is usually full of septagenerians. I find myself to be the youngest woman in the women's restroom by about thirty years at any given time. This needs to change.

There are two big possibilites here. One is that art music needs to be made more accessible to younger people. That could be helped by horrible snobs like myself relaxing more about audience behavior. And I have relaxed more in the past couple of years. I used to glare at anyone who coughed or rustled their programs before. I'm a lot more forgiving now, which is kind of essential.

Another possibility is that people become more interested in art music as they get older. I can't tell you how many people I've met through working in music libraries, CD stores, and a CD recording label who have starting "getting into 'classical' music" at the age of forty or so. I think people tend to calm down and get more introspective as they get older, by default. I know so many people who can't deal with noisy music anymore, even though they admit that they probably more or less shot their eardrums when they were in their teens and early 20s. And yet another thing to consider is that geriatric people are more often retired and have time (and money sometimes) on their hands to go to such events on a regular basis.

I do sincerely wish that more people my age knew what they were missing out on.

sea monkeys™

When I told my friend at work that I'd gotten Bhishma, he mentioned something about Sea Monkeys™. I can't remember exactly why, but we got in a pseudo-argument about it, and he asked if bettas were as cool as Sea Monkeys™ and wore crowns.

Well, now I'm trying to feed Sea Monkeys™ to said betta and new betta. I had read that they like freeze-dried brine shrimp so I bought a ton. Do they eat them? No. They say "patooie" and spit them out. So since they're spoiled little queens (they're both boys but princessy queens regardless), I went out and bought them frozen brine shrimp. These packages are totally disgusting--you take a tiny little chunk of what looks like frozen mud, pop it in some of their tank water, and pow--you've got expanded dead brine shrimp. Grody to the max. But do they like the real thing? Nope. Patooie again. Apparently they just like their goddamned Betta Bites. ™.

Who the hell died and decided freaking brine shrimp would make decent pets anyway? My friend's roommate at Interlochen apparently decided to feed her Sea Monkeys™ glow-in-the-dark stuff. According to my friend, the Sea Monkeys™ glowed for a few days and it was real cool and then they died.

I wonder what my friend at work is going to say when I tell him I'm feeding those oh-so-glamourous Sea Monkeys™, crowns and all, to my fishies.

what a day

for an auto de fey. Kidding. :)

I just got back from Chicago where I went to see Der Rosenkavalier. We left at 10 this morning and I got back at 10 tonight. Fun and games. Actually, it was so unbelievably worth it, I can't even explain it. I now have a new favorite opera. I heard it would get tiring and long and that I'd fall asleep but I was on the edge of my seat the whole time. I "studied" it in college but I think it was toward the end of the semester and I was getting lazy. The only CD we had was in German and Japanese and my German is sehr schlecht. And I didn't feel like dealing with the LP at the time. I don't think we discussed it much though so I didn't learn nearly as much about it as I did about Tristan, Lohengrin, or any of a number of Handel's operas. Hmm.

I am especially glad I got to see Susan Graham as Octavian. In case any of you fair readers need a quick background, here goes:

In the early days of opera, many of the big male roles went to men called "castrati." They had been castrated at a young age to preserve their soprano voices. Successful castrati led quite colorful and rich lives. Many castrati, however, were needlessly castrated. :( For an amusing rendition of this history that is not accurate, you might want to watch Farinelli, a movie about Handel's favorite castrato. Supposedly they melded together the voices of a female soprano and a male countertenor (male alto) to achieve the castrato sound. The last castrato was recorded at the Vatican in 1927 and he sounded AWFUL, most likely because he was old and his vocal chords were too wobbly.

But I digressify (to quote GWB on whitehouse.org). I need to look into the exact reasons why Richard Strauss, a composer who died in the twentieth century, decided to make his male lead a female "pants role" as he obviously did not have to deal with the castrati thing. I imagine he wished to compose several duets and trios for all-female voices and that he may have considered it to be in a great tradition. Cherubino in Le Nozze di Figaro of course is a female pants role (one which requires the woman in it to cross-cross-dress), and Nero in L'incoronazione di Poppea is a soprano role. So the story in Der Rosenkavalier is that of Octavian, a young nobleman (seventeen, actually) who is involved with the Marschallin, who is a married noblewoman, essentially a princess. She breaks up with Octavian because she knows that he will have to leave her eventually. He is then required to present a silver rose to his buffoonish cousin's fiancee, and he falls in love with said fiancee and so the rest of the opera involves his getting her out of her engagement and the Marshallin's finally letting him go. It's a very "655 male female relationships, sub-field V drama" (in meta-library-MARC speak) sort of situation, and I think it resonates strongly with females in particular. Because it's about aging and wisdom and grace and tact. It would make me cry if I wasn't too proud. Plus the music is the best I've ever heard. I had to grow into it though. I listened to Strauss's Vier Letzte Lieder just after I graduated from college and I can barely deal with them. They're too painfully gorgeous. I mentioned this to a friend of mine and she said she first heard them *in the car* on NPR and had to pull over.

Oh, and no, Susan didn't kiss Ofelia. Incidentally, the chick in the dress in the pic is the soprano who played Sophie today.

(Heh, heh: 655 Girl on girl action $v drama)

and how

The Nation has had a lot of VERY interesting columns about mine safety (as well as safety regulations for the coal industry in general and how it affects so many aspects of every American citizen's life) lately, since the tragedy earlier this year. That's why this poster is bittersweet in its funniness.

Yuck. You know how all these gum manufacturers are coming out with addictive fruity flavors for adults? I have to say that the new cherry Eclipse flavor tastes like ass.

I am psyched today because I was chosen as a "soloist" for the Biber vespers. He chose three sopranos, three altos, three tenors, and two basses. I don't know how many of the "solo" bits will actually be solo, or if I'll be singing with the other two the whole time, but I guess it remains to be seen.

I am considering going to visit my Mo Fo up in Michigan one of these days soon. The drawback? Her haunted house. I'm totally not kidding. We've been discussing some of the occurrences in her boyfriend's house over the past couple of months and there is no question in my mind that they have a ghost or entity. While we were talking the other night, I looked up some bulleted lists of ghostly behavior on the Web. My brother and I have been pretty well-versed in ghost literature since we were kids, but there were a few things I hadn't thought of. One was the "electrical" smell associated with supernatural activity. I've heard of this happening a lot, but it hadn't occurred to me to ask her if she was experiencing weird smells. But she's also been smelling sulfur when things "happen." That's also supposed to be textbook. She and her boyfriend have been seeing black shadows, especially around their swimming pool. Also, her boyfriend saw a whole line of black shadows walking up the staircase a few weeks ago and disappearing into the wall. All this came up when her dog started flipping out without reason a few months ago, and I joked and asked if she had a ghost or something.

She told me about a friend of hers who lived in a Victorian house in Wicker Park about ten years ago. Her friend's boyfriend owned the house and had refurbished it and converted it into about four apartments. They had a beautiful Victorian fireplace and mantelpiece in their living room and one year, they decorated it for Christmas and took a picture of the mantelpiece and the mirror hanging over it. When it was developed, there appeared, clear as day, in the mirror a man from around the 1930s, in full top hat and tails. He was looking directly at the camera. But Mo Fo said that he was out of scale with the rest of the room--he wasn't standing reflected in the mirror or anything. It was like he was actually *in* the mirror. She said she'll never forget that photograph as long as she lives. The picture was in tandem with what the occupants of the building had been experiencing for awhile--unexplained cigar smoke and typical ghost activity (cold spots, etc.).

google is a wonderful thing

There is this song I've been looking for since it was popular in 1992. No one ever seems to know what I'm talking about when I bring it up. But I remember the words distinctly and I performed a search with a direct quote.

Thus, I finally found Meryn Cadell's Sweater and added the album to my Amazon wish list.

der Frühling

Note to self: While becoming an alcoholic may seem cool in theory, it is definitely not good on the messed-up tummy. Yeesh. Must. not. drink. anymore.

Mary Kay came yesterday and we had a good time. I dragged her to my friend's recital. She sang Schubert's "Der Hirt auf dem Felsen." The last stanza of the poetry is wonderful. I'm going to put it in all my email signatures:

Der Frühling will kommen,
Der Frühling, meine Freud',
Nun mach' ich mich fertig
Zum Wandern bereit.

The spring will come, / The spring, my joy, / Now I must make myself ready / To be gone from here.

How true. Although of course this dude like, totally wants to die and stuff. But *out of context* it's perfect for me. :)

And now that it's almost Frühling, lots of poetry will be nice for email signatures.

I was very pleased to meet my LEEP email friend, whom I befriended after noticing he had an accordion in his bio pic. I emailed him about it, since I'm sorta trying to learn (not really and seriously--but I plan to someday soon when I can get my own and not use the school's). I told him to bring it to the party last night, and he actually did! and entertained us all. He's really quite good! I met up with him today to talk about the ins and outs of music librarianship.

I am making carrot ginger soup. The last time I made it, my family was just about blown away. I've hated carrots since I was a baby. I don't even like chopped ones in soup--I'll eat around them. But for some reason, I like carrot ginger soup. Isn't that weird?

When I was about four or five, I realized that the reason I don't like carrots is that they make me gag. I think it's the flavor or something. They still do--I love the way carrots look and smell and crunch but I can't deal with them by themselves. I try them every year. Anyway, when I was four or five I told my mother I couldn't eat carrots because they make me fall over backwards. I will certainly never live that down. It's now a family favorite story. Of course, at the age of four or five I hadn't gagged that much so it did feel like falling over backwards....

grrrrrr

I just found out that my very least favorite person on campus is probably going to the party tomorrow night. I've been lucky enough not to have to see him hardly at all in the past year since we hooked up and he decided I must be a whore. If he comes, he will be bringing his girlfriend, who apparently to him was not whorish enough (even though he knew full well when we hooked up that I had slept with exactly two men in my entire life and hadn't kissed anyone in 2 1/2 years, and I didn't even have sex with him...I seriously doubt that she had as clean a record) and was more girlfriend material than I was. I would be perfectly happy to never see either of them again, and I've been lucky so far, considering that she is still in the program. They haven't been showing up to GSLIS things, though, because he made *quite* a bad record for himself (not just with me but with about four girls in about two months) and I imagine they like to avoid the GSLIS crowd as much as possible. He is a total and complete shithead. There is no better word for him. (Well, misogynist suits him, too.) But what it really boils down to is that he was the first guy (and so far the only guy) who has ever treated me like a whore. That's a bad thing to do to any girl, but especially if she's practically chaste. Just because I like sex doesn't mean I have it often (I have high standards so he should be flattered that I liked him well enough to hook up with him). And since he chose to treat me like a whore, he's got himself an enemy for life.

That party appearance, combined with the probable appearance of the guy I'm crazy about whom I told to have a nice life, along with the guy I went on a "date" with who has decided I must be obsessed with him or something (even though I was never even terribly interested--I was just trying to get over the first guy--plus, come on--he's a completely different person from me and totally incompatible) and so second guy doesn't even speak to me. It's all just grrrrrrrreeeeat. So why am I even going, you may ask? Because I have just as much a right, if not more of one, to be there. So there.

Fuckin' a.

But at least I wasn't the wrongdoer in any of the scenarios. I guess I can have some comfort in that. I would feel worse and even more uncomfortable if I was any one of the three (four) of them and ran into me.

Well, on a lighter note, today wasn't terribly bad, considering it's unofficial. I do find it rather disgusting that all these little twerps jump on the "corporate" bandwagon and turn out for this thing and make asses of themselves because some barowner wanted to rake in a shitload of cash. Thank God I went to Smith. But, anyway, it was a nice day and reminded me that we're only a couple of weeks away from spring. That's kind of surreal, actually. I had a great Bulgarian singing coaching and saw lots of nice people today in passing.

And, nothing can beat a Turkish tailgate party in the main library parking lot. That did happen after our gig last night. Strangely, today when our prof. was passing around readers' advisory books, I found that Codrescu (the author for whom we had the reception) wrote a book about the blood countess. Awesome. I must check it out. Plus, I get to have lunch with the author of The Historian next week. Cool beans.

batley townswomen's guild

It's all over. They just showed the Batley Townswomen's Guild's reenactment of the Battle of Pearl Harbor. They also showed the pantomime Princess Margaret harpooning her breakfast (couldn't find a pic).

ten tenors

I thought one tenor was bad enough! The Three Tenors are to me like nails on a chalkboard. But TEN tenors? Good grief. What is the world coming to? And where did they find all those tenors? Aren't they as rare as blue poodles?

hilarious

Yesterday, my boss told us that he'd discovered one of P.D.Q. Bach's works, entitled Hansel and Gretel and Ted and Alice. I always forget how much I love Peter Schickele (P.D.Q. is his pseudonym--sort of). The CD also includes Toot Suite for Calliope, Four Hands and Erotica Variations for Banned Instruments and Piano. The titles are always enough to make any classically trained musician laugh, but the performances are also excellent.

My friend Tracy and I really got a kick of out P.D.Q. in college, where she had a copy of Two Pianos are Better than One, which also had a trio sonata on it for flute, tamborine, and tuba. Or something like that.

He is also the composer of The Stoned Guest, The Last Tango in Bayreuth, March of the Cute Little Wood Sprites, Fanfare for the Common Cold, Contrary Dances, and a Capriccio: La pucelle de New Orleans.

Anyway. I am very glad to be going to Der Rosenkavalier after all--after having the date set aside for her since the beginning of September, my prof. has decided she doesn't need me next Wednesday, and my other prof. let me know that a ticket was still available! So I get to see Susan Graham! Cross-dressing, here I come!

A. and I went out to Cowboy Monkey after all, and I saw a guy I'd emailed a year ago on Nerve. I paid the money to email him and he never responded. I checked out the competition, too, and I must say--he's an idiot if he really wanted to meet someone that way. I've seen him at Aroma and Boltini, too, and he always is staring at me. Fat chance, bozo. He seems all jive-turkey, anyway. Totally full of himself yet at the same time completely insecure. I did get hit on by a couple of guys, though, and while that sort of thing happens to other women all the time, it don't happen to me! I think I make myself pretty unapproachable. I'm perfectly used to getting noticed when I walk in a room, but I'm not exactly friendly, and on top of that, I'm tall and usually over-dressed. Which I like. :) So in the rare moments when a guy takes the risk to actually *approach* me and even puts up with my snobbishness, I'm somewhat impressed. Probably not impressed enough to go out with the guy if he calls, but whatev. I need someone who's a bit sophisticated, and maybe this guy is secretly, but I seriously doubt it.

The only sophisticated guy to my liking in this area at the moment, who is available, is a professional violinist. I've been interested in him for two years. He's blond (I *always* go for blondies) and one of the best musicians in the country. Plus he's not American. Major plus. He's very hard to stalk, however, especially since he's on tour almost all the time. I had at one point considered camping out in front of his office so I could ask him to coffee sometime. Maybe I'll get more of a chance to talk to him when he plays with us at the Biber Vespers. :)

In the meantime, I need to get healthy and get exercising again. It's been tough to do it, but I think I can start again tonight or tomorrow.