Two disturbing realities (or, red state diaries)...

Disturbing/uncomfortable thing number one:



Disturbing/uncomfortable thing number two:

Conservative rap.

Block partay (or, my favorite news story of the week)...

As you may have heard, Tetris turned 25 yesterday.

(cue theme)



The music, like the game, is Russian of course. Actually, it is based on a Russian folk song called Korobeiniki. Here is an orchestrated version of the folk tune with balalaika and accordion.



But why stop there? People have way too much time on their hands to stop there. Let the games begin!

The Tetris theme...
With humans.
With legos.
With church.
With glass bottles.
With porn.

A slice of rural American pie...

Thanks to facebook and status updates from high school acquaintances, I happened upon this week's edition of my home town's local newspaper. Goldmine! I spent a considerable amount of time tonight reading about a fire in an old municipal building downtown that brought "hundreds of people" into the streets (the news story that was the genesis of my initial inquiry) and catching up on small town politics (um, can we say drama?!). I also came across the video below. The musical excerpt at the beginning of the clip - a rather fabulous bluesy/gospel keyboard introduction to a hymn played by an off-camera musician - is of some ethnomusicological interest. On a more personal level, it brought back memories of my piano lessons as a kid in which one lesson a month was spent learning how to embellish hymns (it worked, btw, i can embellish a hymn like you wouldn't believe).



*Note the confederate flag in the background of the pictures at the end of the video. You just can't make this stuff up.

fyi, here is another post about Erwin with pics

Nostalgia 101. Or, "In my mind I'm going to Carolina, Can't you see the sunshine, Can't you just feel the moonshine..."

1. Is there anything better than an upright bass in a gondola over a mountain?
2. Lyrics: "We sat at Lake Junaluska, and cried over where we would wed." I went to youth camp at Lake Junaluska in middle school and high school. Sheesh. Memories.
3. The Avett Brothers are from NC. Maybe they also went to youth camp at Lake Junaluska.
4. Maybe I went to youth camp with the Avett Brothers.
5. Regardless, Go Tar Heels!

Ludwig van Creepthoven...

I don't think I'll be giving this piano book to any of my students:

Notes from spring break. Or, a few more pretty true things...

Alas, spring has sprung and I have breaked (broken? breaken?). I thought I'd be ready to get back to work after a week off. Au contraire...

Regardless, I learned (or was reminded) of these facts on my week off:

1. This place has exceptionally delicious cuisine.

2. It is really, really fun to eat donuts for breakfast at noon on a Tuesday.

3. Taxes suck.

4. Grading papers inevitably always takes longer than I think it will. Always.

5. Chairlift is great live. Don't be deterred because you think you are too cool for school and/or the machine that is iMarketing. Just go see them, if for no other reason than the fact that the most evident utensil really is none other than a pencil...

"Gweetings music lovers..."

Here's a saturday morning cartoon for you. Brought to you (on a sunday morning) by Elmer Fudd, Johann Stwauss and youtube.



Wasn't that wovely?

What we really need is a rapid accelerando out of this largo economy...

According to this article, the Czech piano making company, Petrof, is cutting back, laying off, and switching from piano making to a more lucrative and recession friendly kitchen cabinetry business. Sad. Sadder still are the number of musical terms used as cheap puns in the article (i.e. "piano maker Petrof to hit the soft pedal" or "orders...have gone decrescendo").

Also, (I can't help myself...) if you're going to insist on using puns involving musical terminology in your article, please use the terms correctly. For example, it would have been more accurate to mention that orders are in the midst of a ritardando (which indicates a gradual slowing down) than to use the term decrescendo (which indicates a gradual decrease in volume). That is (the snarky graduate student/music professor in me continues), unless you meant to indicate that people are ordering pianos in increasingly hushed tones...

Good god, I need a break from grading papers and thesis writing!

The Zombies are coming!! Or, my favorite news story of the week...

According to the Austin American Statesman, "Someone reprogrammed two city construction road signs near the University of Texas early Monday morning in an attempt to warn Austin of an imminent zombie attack. Messages that typically alert Lamar Boulevard drivers to a detour for Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard splashed several warnings like “Caution! Zombies Ahead!” and “Nazi Zombies! Run!!!”

According to project manner for the Public Works Department, Dennis Crabill, “It’s a pretty childish prank."

Come on, Dennis, isn't it also just a tiny bit fun? In fact, I'd imagine it's one of the more hilarious things that has ever occured during your illustrious tenure as "project manager" for the Public Works Department. It's okay to laugh...

Do the shuffle. Or, musical schizophrenia...

When I switched computers recently I lost all my trusty iTunes playlists. I didn't mean to lose them, but I am a technological idiot and so they are gone. Tear. Anyway, this morning I was trying to make iTunes lemonade out of this slightly sour situation and so I turned on the shuffle feature. (Sorry for the terrible iTunes/lemonade metaphor just then...couldn't resist). Anyway, I thought this lack of playlists would be a good opportunity to rediscover overlooked music deep in the recesses of my music library. I never do this. And I was promptly reminded of why...

This is an exact transcription of what happened:

1. Cantaloop (Flip Fantasia) by US3
2. Messe de Notre Dame (Kyrie) by Guillaume de Machaut
3. Le fils des étoiles by E. Satie
4. Hungry Eyes by Eric Carmer
5. Buriedfed by Miles Benjamin Anthony Robinson*
6. Hey Ma by Cam'Ron
7. O Euchari by Hildegard of Bingen
8. While My Guitar Gently Weeps The Beatles
9. Black Cadilacs by Modest Mouse
10. Serenade en la by Igor Stravinsky**
11. Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer Harry Connick, Jr.

And then I officially gave up on the shuffle feature. Well, I think I actually gave up on it somewhere between Cam'Ron and Hildegard. If you need me this weekend, I'll be writing syllabi and compiling playlists...

*brief note: I just found this guy and I like him. Buriedfed is good...kind of Bob Dylan with thicker instrumentation and a backup choir. Good lyrics.

**brief note number two: This is my favorite piano piece of all times to perform. Fleischer is the only one who gets it right. He plays Stravinsky with loads of restraint (tempo and pedal) and an equal serving of enthusiastic passion. If you have a penchant for neoclassicism, download his recording of it.

2008: The year in photos...

This is a tad ego-centric (and more than a little cheesy), but whatever. It's a blog. That's the point. Here's my year in pics.

January

(new year's '08)


(who knows. we had glow sticks.)

February

(classiest valentine's day ever)


(leap year day party with boas. because it only happens once every four years...)

March

(i think they call this research)


(boston. harvard square with my sister.)

April

(a rare shot of me with beer)

May

(master...er...um...mistress(?) of music)

June/July

(look at those tans. ah, summertime...)

August

(L's going away party. the day i wore boots. also the day i'd officially been in texas too long.)

September



(austin city limits. live music is fun.)

October

(san fransisco treat)


(pacific ocean)

November

(edible hope)


(my neighbor's trash)


(friend's thanksgiving)

December

(birthday)


(scotland. christmas eve. gathered 'round the soft glow of the MacBook photo booth for the traditional family photo.)

**Unrelated note for those of you bored enough to make it to the bottom of this narcissistic trip down memory lane: One week until GWB is out and BHO is in. ONE WEEK!!

"What might have been lost?"

I was on an airplane for 10 hours last week on my way home from Scotland and I was really sick. I couldn't focus on reading or writing or anything other than just trying not to snot all over the poor guy next to me (who, incidentally, kept ordering orange juice, I think because he was terrified of my germs. Vitamin C, baby!). Anyway, I listened to this Bon Iver song on repeat for hours:



It was the only thing I could listen to that I could focus on as I drifted in and out of feverish sleep. So, I've been thinking about things lost. Or things that might've been lost. And what fills the void.

My old computer died the day I got back to the U.S. It has since been revived (thanks mac genius bar people!). Pre-miraculous-resurrection, I decided it was time for a new computer regardless of the outcome and went ahead and upgraded (three cheers for my new MacBook)! Anyway, while my old computer was under the knife, I went through the inevitable panic about what I might have lost if my hard-drive were never recovered. Luckily, I am smart enough to have backed up the two most important things in my digital life: my thesis work and my iTunes library. However, there are a million tiny things on one's computer that you don't think about and suddenly need when they're gone. Within 24 hours I'd remembered about 7 things I no longer had and would have sorely miss. They weren't necessarily all irretrievable. But it would have taken time and a little extra effort to obtain them. Searching, googling, emailing, downloading, etc. So basically, just time.

Which is the other thing I've been thinking about losing. Time, unlike Microsoft office and blog URLs is irretrievable. Lately I've been feeling an intense need to make up for some lost time. I tend to have a "no regrets" policy for myself in terms of life decisions and actions. If I make mistakes, I am usually content to chock them up to life experience. Some mistakes even manage to be good memories or at least amusing ones. But I realized recently I actually do have huge regret when it comes to missed opportunities. For a couple years of my life - college years mostly - I avoided many life experiences mainly out of fear. I lived carefully. And I regret that. So while I may not regret "bad" choices or experiences, I'm finding I do regret periods of my life in which there was a lack of experience. And I don't know what to do with that lost time. I'm not okay with it. It makes me angry at myself, or maybe at "God," or at the expectations of others for which I cared so greatly. I feel a need to learn something or make something of it so it will not have been a total waste. But what to learn or do and how? And if not, how can I let go of the regret and quit frantically trying to make up for it?

Another thing: Just before Christmas, my grandfather died. I didn't go to the funeral and I haven't even seen him in 8 years. His death does not affect me in any practical sense. Yet there is this weird way in which you still feel a sense of loss when someone dies. My grandfather was arrogant, unrepentant, cruel, and selfish. But despite that, my grandmother and my dad have lost someone -- someone who affected their lives directly and dramatically. It is hard to watch my dad try to come to terms with this loss.

This post is a bit brooding and morose. I guess that's what happens when you listen to Bon Iver on repeat for hours on end...

On the agenda for the rest of January: Less Bon Iver and more Beatles White Album (which always makes me smile and which, coincidentally, turned 40 in 2008). Oh, and a little hopeful thing called an inauguration!

Xmas day 2008 a la Scotland

Slept 'till 2:30 (let's blame that on the jet lag). Ate toast and tea. Phoned the fam. Cooked sausages and pears, sweet potatoes and broccoli (pics to follow). Ate and drank (two bottles of wine between the two of us I'm afraid...and a vodka tonic). Watched Love Actually. Passed out on the couch. Woke up at 2am. Listened to music and sang.

Merry Christmas!

Just because it's Christmas, (And at Christmas you tell the truth)...

I've seen Love Actually probably 200 something odd times. (Actually, maybe 500 times or maybe just 75 times. I'm terrible at estimating. "How many people were at the party last night," you ask? "Oh, I don't know...somewhere between 15 and 97.")

I mention this excessive viewing of Love Actually to explain my obsession with the clip below and the logic behind the seemingly illogical and annoyingly teenage-girl-crush feel of the following statements (but hey, didn't someone say 26 is the new 16?):

1. I'm going to be in Heathrow airport for several hours on Christmas Eve morning.
2. I'm going to meet Andrew Lincoln in line at the Heathrow airport starbucks whilst ordering a British latte.
3. When this happens, sorry, piano students and college kids, friends and neighbors, I'm leaving Texas! I'm moving to London immediately for the sole purpose of being Mark-from-Love-Actually's girlfriend. I, like any self-respecting independent woman, will gladly give up my career goals for my celebrity crush. Suddenly I feel like baking...
4. I need to go to bed so I can get my beauty rest and pick out a good outfit for the plane.



One last thing in the spirit of Christmasy disclosure. I really do love that Dido song, "Here With Me." I can't help myself.

And with that I'll say goodnight to the world wide interweb. Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. I'll catch you on the other side of the proverbial pond!!!

"I believe...I believe...It's silly but I believe..."

My all time favorite Christmas movie.



And why don't men look like this anymore?? Sigh...

Got myself a whiiirlitzer....

Brad, my gay maid, gave me an organ. (Yes, i have a gay guy clean my house twice a month. Embarrassing. But also really, really great. And totally worth the money. I hate dusting and mopping.) By the way, if you met Brad-the-maid, you'd know why I can't mention him without using the qualifying phrase "gay maid." The first time I spoke with Brad he told me, in what can only be described as a flamboyant texas drawl, that he was "just passionate about cleaning" and that he would never look through my personal things as he "is just NOT into drama, honey." Anyway, my gay maid offered me an antique 1965 Wurlitzer organ in pristine condition for $300. It was his grandmother's. Since I don't have $300 to spend on an organ, I said no. Then he called me back and offered me the organ in exchange for five piano lessons. He wants the organ to have a good home. And he wants to learn how to play show tunes on the piano. Deal.






(foot pedals).

When I was in college, I had to take two semesters of a "second instrument." My piano teacher said to me, "Oh, just take organ and harpsichord. Easy A's." He didn't want me to get distracted by learning some silly instrument like guitar or violin or clarinet. Just get an easy A on a keyboard instrument and get back to practicing piano. And so I signed up for organ. The glitch in the plan was that my organ professor turned out to be the organ nazi and organ lessons proved to be a rather intense challenge. Really, it was those goddamn foot pedals that got me down. Anyway, I managed to learn Bach's Toccata and Fugue in D minor and a few foot scales. But, I was miserable. I hated it. The organ nazi was not impressed with my bullshit practice. She gave me a B for the semester. She totally missed the, "this is an easy A" memo. She ruined my perfect 4.0 in college. That one, stupid, stupid, organ lesson kept me from a perfect 4.0. (I know, I know, over-achiever, dork, blah, blah...). But, I'll never forgive her or her stupid fucking foot scales.

All this college organ lesson trauma left a bad taste in my mouth and I used to hate the organ. On the flip side, I've always been fascinated by its sound. There is really nothing like an organ. No other instrument has its capability for range in sound; it is at once grand, intense, intimate, powerful, and technically precise and complex. My relationship with the organ is a love/hate relationship.

Right now, all I got for the organ is love. In fact, I love my new old organ so bad that I've completely forgotten about the organ nazi and my college GPA.

Also, I can still play Bach's Toccata and Fugue in D minor. So next time my obnoxious upstairs neighbors decide to vacuum at 3:00a.m., or drop huge loud heavy things, or have loud sex, they will be subjected to my B-grade organ skills and my Wurlitzer organ's swell pedal! A real life Midnight Organ Fight...

For that healthy after-birth shine every woman longs for...

Another stop I made tonight along the procrastination highway was a quick trip to my local CVS to pick up some shampoo. I don't like the shampoo I have right now so I spent some serious time on the shampoo aisle researching my options. You know the classic, "this one gives your hair body but it doesn't protect color/this one protects color but weighs your hair down/this one gives your hair body and protects color but costs $20" dilemma. So hard.

Anyway, while perusing I came across this bottle:



Which got me thinking. We've got a lot of problems in this country of ours: lack of affordable health care, the bursting of a housing bubble, wars, credit crunches, inflation then deflation, governors who sell senate seats, and the list goes on... But, is it possible that all these very serious issues are the result of a deeper problem with America in general (and free market capitalism specifically)? Namely, that people can make money selling a product called Placenta Shampoo. PLACENTA SHAMPOO!!??

Which got me thinking about simple economics. Someone gets a paycheck, pays for their kids' college tuition, and buys groceries every week because they work for a company that makes money selling Placenta Shampoo. The company makes money because people buy Placenta Shampoo. Just think, someone somewhere gets up every morning and washes their hair with Placenta Shampoo. Now, while I didn't take the time in CVS to check the ingredients listed on the back of the bottle, I'm pretty sure there are no actual human placentas (placentae?) in this shampoo. Still, the name itself is bad enough. You'd have to be crazy to pick it up off the shelf. And if you're crazy enough to buy Placenta Shampoo, you probably also bought a house you couldn't afford and ran up credit card debt so high that now you are broke because you defaulted on your mortgage and can't pay your bills. Which means you can no longer afford the finer things in life (i.e. Placenta Shampoo). Which means the poor factory worker at Placenta Shampoos Inc. loses his job and can no longer pay his kids' college tuition.

Which leads me to two conclusions: #1. Our economy is in shambles because some idiot somewhere washes his/her hair in Placenta Shampoo every day. And #2. The worst dating scenario you could possibly encounter in life would be to go to the bathroom in your date's apartment or house and spot a bottle Placenta Shampoo in their shower. It's what one might call a "red flag."

5 unrelated but true things...

1. I made a kid cry in his piano lesson this week. Really, though, he needs to practice. Life lessons and shit.
2. My roommate and I thought there were mice in our walls for weeks. We figured out tonight the squeaking is just a tree branch that rubs against our window. Whew.
3. I think Fleet Foxes made the best album of the year. I was wavering, distracted by other worthy contenders. And then it got cold today and I listened to "Your Protector," "Tiger Mountain Peasant Song," "Ragged Wood," and "Blue Ridge Mountains." The whole damn thing is brilliant. They are incredible live. Harmonies that fit like a 1000 piece jigsaw puzzle. Haunting lyrics ("Penniless and tired, with your hair grown long, I was looking at you there and your face looked wrong, Memory is a fickle siren song, I didn't understand"). And the beginning of "Your Protector" is reminiscent of Debussy (think Clair de lune). Need I say more?
4. I ate stale two-day-old homemade Ghirardelli chocolate brownies for lunch today. Gross. But also a little delicious. Except for the stale part. Whatevs.
5. I'm a little tipsy right now.

Night...

Long December and there's reason to believe, maybe this year will be better than the last...

I always get nostalgic in December. Maybe reflective is a better word. Not only is it the end of a calendar year, it's also my birthday month. Then, of course, there are the holidays and time with family and, since my life has always been organized around an academic calender, the end of yet another long semester...

I had big expectations for my 25th year (a.k.a 2008). Not sure why. Just seemed the time to make things happen.

And I suppose I did make things happen. I tried things and succeeded. I tried things and failed. I memorized everything I possibly could about music history, theory, and pedagogy. I took (and passed) two graduate comprehensive examinations. I stayed up all night in a library and analyzed Schoenberg's Op. 25. I skipped a lot of classes. I procrastinated. I taught class sober. I taught class hungover. I dyed my hair. I had the most memorable, fun, and ridiculous Valentine's day of my life. I went to Boston and did super cool original research at Harvard. I felt really big and really small. I earned my first of two Masters degrees and felt all at once that I was finally proud of myself and that the whole thing was a giant fucking waste of time. I taught a hell of a lot of kids how to play the piano. I moved into a new house. I bought real furniture. I read Plath and Salinger and James and Hemingway by the pool during the laziest summer of my life. I got my first official "professor" job. I went to California for the first time (hello, west coast, you are pretty damn cool!). I slept in the grass one night. I wrote half of my thesis for my second masters degree. I went to the symphony by myself. I went to the symphony with other people. I had fun with several cute boys. I was miserable over a couple of them. I passed half of a French exam. I failed half of a French exam. I caucused. I voted. I quit practicing piano for the first time since I was 6. I still played a hell of a lot of piano. I drank too much. I smoked too much. I learned that I have a hard time getting close to people. I continued to try to figure out what I believe about (or if i believe in) god. I continued to try to figure out who I want to be as a person. I cried a great deal. I gained 5 lbs. I spent too much money. I was completely broke. I listened - really listened - to music more than I ever have before. I bought a stupidly expensive plane ticket to Scotland. I watched operas. I stressed over the demise of yet another piece of crap car. I bought yet another used car. I ate a lot of tacos.

I'm really tired. Actually, I can't remember a December in which I wasn't exhausted. I wonder if I'll always live my life in a way that leaves me feeling spent and worn. (That statement was a little dramatic. Half of me wants to let the backspace/delete key swallow up the words "spent" and "worn" and type something more sensible.) I'm leaving the sentence because I'm tired. I'm not too tired to hit "delete," but too tired to care. I need to wonder these things.

Will life slow down?

Do I want it to slow down?

"These are the towns our lives abandoned..."

A new friend of mine recently introduced me to the poet Charles Wright (thanks wm!). Wright is a native of Tennessee and the title of this blog post is a line from his poem, "Appalachian Farewell." I don't know if it's the fall weather, the poetry, the approaching holidays, or some other more hidden, subconscious reason, but I've been feeling a bit nostalgic recently.

This is where I grew up:





I think when you are away from a place for a really long time (I moved away almost 10 years ago and haven't visited in nearly 5), you have to revisit it emotionally and mentally to make sure it's real.

And to make sense of who you have become.





Anecdotally, when I googled "erwin tn images", the second picture that popped up was of a guy I knew from high school whose cousin was my across-the-street neighbor growing up. And the pic is of him posing with Hulk Hogan. I kid you not. Also on the first page of image results was the "famous" (or rather, infamous) photo of Mary the hanging elephant. The elephant thing is really insane. If you have a minute or two, read about it and experience a little piece of sick and twisted Americana.

Small. Fucking. Towns.