Until 3:00 yesterday, I could still have told myself that going to Italy wasn’t actually going to happen.  Sure, I’d thought about it for months, planned out my fall break, done research on the town and the villa and the language, but it is hard to believe that travel is real while you’re packed in an airplane or a bus.  The second I stepped into the gravel parking lot of the Accademia and walked to the edge and looked down into the town, it became real, in a palpable, visceral way.

The first view

I had looked at photos of Arezzo since I decided to apply for the program, and it is hard to describe the kind of views here without saying how much of a difference there is between the photos and real life.  There is something about the terra cotta roofs stretching out into the distance, seeing people and cars moving through postcard scenery, and the scope of standing back and seeing the landscape stretch out in all directions drops you down in a place instead of making you look through a window.  But, god, the view through the window is stunning too.

The view through the window

It is morning here.  My feet are sore from all of the walking we did through the town yesterday.  I’ve had my first gelato.  La vita e bella.

The flights yesterday were rather uneventful.  I managed to get a decent amount of sleep on the overseas flight (in addition to having a TV screen and movie discretion to myself on the flight, props to Lufthansa), and I slept a bit on the flight from Munich to Florence.  Granted, it felt like a roller coaster for a minute or two, but once I got back on the ground, I was fine.  Two of our new friends (one from the theater department, one joining us in the music program) were on a flight where all but one person’s luggage was lost.  Luckily, it was Emilee, our amica musica.

I am just glad to be here, to feel settled in already, and to be in the middle of a living postcard.  More to come.

Looking at home

Sophomore year of high school, I was Marius in Les Misérables.  Everyone involved worked as hard as they could, day after day, because we could all see that this was a play to transcend what we all thought of as a “high school musical”.  It was the first year being in our new theater at my high school, and the cast was as talented as I’ve ever known.  To this day, I can count on one hand the number of artistic experiences that have meant more to me in my life than being in that show, and I continue to be intensely proud of my involvement.

Marius and Cosette

I will never forget, during the opening night performance, waiting backstage before my first entrance.  I’m the kind of person who typically never gets stage fright, never gets apprehensive, never gets nervous about dropping my lines.  That is, until the 30 seconds before I actually go on.  In that half-minute, my heart rate shoots up, and I go from pleasant anticipation to the kind of nervous excitement you would expect from someone about to jump out of a plane (preferably, with a chute).  It isn’t a bad feeling; not worry or fear or panic.  It is just anticipation.  Intense, palpable anticipation.  In all 6 years I did plays and musicals, no experience was like that one.  It is a moment, like so few in our lives, that is always there, whenever we choose to look back at it.

That moment is all I can think of this morning, as I get ready to start what will be my first chance to live overseas, to exist in a place that has existed for a millennium, without feeling like just a visitor.  I’ve worked for a long time to get to this point, the same way we worked on Les Mis.  Here is the moment where all the work comes to fruition.

Ellipse

Every song on this album has a message.  Whether it be personal, philosophical, or esoteric, each song is a thesis in miniature.  From the super-personal “Between Sheets” that describes sweeping away the “many windswept yellow stickies,” the reminders and to-do-lists that make our existence frantic, in the bliss of a perfect evening, to the environmental cry from (mother) “Earth”, a plea for coexistence “in stereo symbiosis,” each song exists in and of itself, while still bearing the characteristic marks present in all of Heap’s songs: layered vocal harmony and a touch of the eccentric.   Perhaps the most well-recorded and well-produced song on the album is “Canvas,” a quasi-minimalist exploration of electronic and acoustic timbres in 9/8.  Heap’s characteristic layered vocal harmonies meet with a compositional sophistication here that explores different tonal centers and modal harmonies, going out on a limb in a way that few contemporary artists are willing to.  The only thing that makes this song better?  The stunning music video.

Aside from standing on its own as a highly engaging and re-listenable album, it is a testament to Imogen Heap as an artist (and a person), and to her effort to connect to her fans with every ounce of the album itself, that the more you learn about the album (and the more you listen to it), the better it becomes.  Indeed, it is this desire for connection and human contact beyond the music that drives the album.

It is this kind of connection that supported the gestation of the album, through Imogen’s desire to connect with fans through social media.  Thousands of tweets, blog updates, and 40 vBlogs gave fans (like myself) the chance to hear and see bits and pieces of the album and the process that went in to making it before a single finished demo was released.  Something about the desire for connection has resonated with me throughout the process, and even though chances are I’ll never meet Imogen in person and shake her hand (although I’ve been to several of her shows in and around Asheville), the effort that she made in reaching out with this album makes me feel like she could be an old friend, someone I would call up and go for coffee with, talk about music, politics, the environment, and all manner of mundane and profound things.

In the end, I think that’s the effect this album will have on me (aside from being the kind of music that I could pick up in any mood and find something to listen to): In sharing so much of herself and her hopes and dreams in this album, I have gained a greater respect for the intense amount of work that goes into making an album from scratch, and a respect for Heap as a person and an artist.  So many people say that as the world has gotten bigger, we’ve all begun to lose our humanity, but to me, it is the exact opposite.  As the world gets bigger, we are able to connect with people we may never have known if it wasn’t for the technology and communication we share.

My verdict?  Go get this album.  Now.  It is beautifully recorded, eclectic, and original.  If you can, spring for the deluxe edition (only 2 bucks more on iTunes).  It has “instrumental” versions of all the tracks that, while uneven in their ability to stand alone as songs because of the vital importance of Heap’s lead (and backup) vocals, give the listener a chance to hear what is going on behind the vocals in any given song, what makes it tick.  At the very least, they make great karaoke tracks!  And, if you get a chance, check out the background.  Watch some vBlogs, read some tweets.  See if you don’t feel the connection Imogen Heap has worked so hard to foster.  Trust me, it makes it all even better than it started.  ”The best way to pay for a lovely moment is to enjoy it.”  - Richard Bach

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GseQVFL-aIQ&feature=PlayList&p=B6F9E876A32D3F52

I’m blown away.  Such a wonderful acoustic, and sung so well.  It is so nice to get a chance to hear this piece while not playing the piano.  It gives me a chance to listen to what I need to change in the score to get it just the way I would have played it, but at the same time, it gives me ideas about what I might want to take from this performance, or what I might want to leave ambiguous.

Click Here for more information about the piece.

I can’t say that I’m upset about going to Italy, and I certainly don’t think that I made the wrong decision in applying, but that doesn’t mean I won’t miss being back at Furman, eating the DH food, seeing all of the music people, playing (and watching) Halo, having my own room, hanging out with NGU people, having lazy afternoons in the dorms apartments.  It was a fun week (albeit without all of the homework and class stress and people drama), and I very much enjoyed decorating the apartment.

Woodstock and Tapestries

Xbox, movies, and Jazz

It is less a feeling of regret as much as it is an acceptance that I don’t have an infinite amount of time to spend at Furman, and that there are only three terms left there for me, as opposed to four for those people with whom I entered school.  Life is too short to be able to have all of the opportunities presented to you.  We all have to make choices.  This week was a reminder of that.

Blockbuster film directors and Hollywood movie studios have very low expectations of their moviegoers.  They know that people go to the movies to be entertained, and very rarely do they break out of the molds: romantic comedy with attractive leads, action films, and movies with Will Smith and Sandra Bullock (although hopefully, never at the same time).

The films that break out of the mold, the ones that take dramatic risks are the ones that we see come out of the Sundance Film Festival or an “independent wing” of a major Hollywood Studio to get wide acclaim or win Oscars.  The thing is, most movie studios aren’t looking to win Oscars. They want to make money, to recoup their investment, and then some.  Slumdog Millionaire, the winner of the Best Picture Academy Award for 2008 and widely acclaimed as one of the best films of the year, does not come close to cracking the list of the top-10 grossing films of the year (a list that includes such cinematic masterpieces as Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull and Madagascar 2).  In fact, none of the 5 films nominated for the award cracked the list.  The last time a Best Picture nominee also was a high-grossing film was 2003, when the final Lord of the Rings movie took the Best Picture Academy Award and was also the highest-grossing film of the year in the United States.

The Harry Potter movies, like the Lord of the Rings movies, have been built on a series of books and mythology far too large to translate word-for-word to the screen; anyone who expects a faithful re-creation of every detail is setting themselves up for disappointment, because they will never find exactly what they’re looking for.  But, because of the wealth of backstory and the richness of the narrative, both film series have had great potential for conveying the most important parts of the books and elevating the drama in a way only cinema can.

For me, the parts of the Harry Potter movies that have fallen flat are their attempts to increase the drama over fidelity to the themes of the story.  I understand leaving out large narrative arcs like Aragog’s death and Fleur/Bill, and I know that there is a necessity to get through all of the major plot-points that drive the narrative of the story.  The inclusions that diverge from the major plot points, though, are often total fabrications within the context of the book and do little to advance the themes, and are added to the detriment of some of the major thematic elements of the book.

I got the impression right from the beginning of the movie, during Harry’s encounter with the cute barmaid on the London Underground.  This is not a Harry Potter profoundly upset by the loss of Sirius Black, a close friend, and the only person in Harry’s life who resembled a father figure.  This sense of loss is replaced with… well, what is this supposed to tell us about how Harry feels?  It’s unclear that the director even knows what he wants to convey.

The scene where the burrow is destroyed by Death Eaters, another (imho superfluous) addition with no relation to the books, is included solely as a chance for cinematic fireworks.  This is the logical place in the flow of the movie where we need an action scene; forget the fact it makes no sense for Bellatrix to lure Harry out of the house only to firebomb it later.

These additions (among others) come at the expense of more time spent with the (less cinematically inspiring) backstory of Voldemort.  Although we don’t see Voldemort at all in the sixth book, he is certainly present throughout, as Harry and Dumbledore recreate a portrait of his youth and the decisions that led him on the path to splitting his soul.  The director made sure that the audience was made aware through Dumbledore’s memory excursion about the horcruxes, but that was only half of their purpose in the book.  Gone is Voldemort’s penchant for collecting odds and ends, the parallels to Harry’s troubled childhood and absence of parents, and allusions to the formation of the Death Eaters during Riddle’s time at Hogwarts, all of the things that made Voldemort as much a character in the 6th book as he was in all the rest.

J.K. Rowling has created a series of books that do so many things well, from creating a unique world to telling a story of epic scope and craft.  But, the best part of the books to me is their soul, their ability to discuss some of the deepest and most profound subjects with subtlety and hope.  In my opinion, the movie is a clear reflection of the low expectations that the movie studio had for its audience.  They wanted to deliver a movie that had the marketing pull of the Harry Potter franchise and enough comedy and action to get people to come out of the theater saying “Awesome!”.  They weren’t looking for a work of art that attempted to capture the soul of the books; they wanted to cash in, and are succeeding.

Don’t get me wrong.  The HP6 film was fun.  I enjoyed watching it, just like I enjoyed I Am Legend and Two Weeks Notice.  Standing on its own, it deserves to be a summer blockbuster, and I know that my quibbles aren’t going to resonate with anyone who hasn’t read the books.  But, in my humble opinion, the movie (like the others I’ve seen), while doing miraculous things to capture the magic and grandeur of the books, do little to capture its soul, and miss out on the potential to keep the soul of the books intact.

Compare two different events: learning of the death of a close family member, and reading a news report about the death of a protester in a foreign country.  Naturally, a person would likely have a much stronger reaction to the family member’s death because of the close personal knowledge.  Call it love or care, in the end it is deep knowledge.  This disparate impact doesn’t imply that the two lives are somehow unequal in their weight; that’s a judgment no one could make.  But it is hard to weep over each nightly news report of the death of a protester in Iran when all I hear is that report.

As I mentioned in a blog post here a few weeks ago, I have compassion and empathy for those people in Iran because I feel a connection to those people: I see a bit of myself in them, and I know (or at least, I think I know) something about them beyond the statistics I read.

At first blush, the natural conclusion from this theory seemed to be that we should abandon any hope of knowing those people outside our realm of perception.  If we can’t have compassion for people without knowing them, and it is impossible to know them, then why should we worry about people dying across the world?  I was upset by this, because it goes against the philosophy by which I try to live my life, trying to step into people’s shoes whenever possible.

It took me a while to realize that technology has catapulted us into a world where all it takes to know something about a person is a few minutes and a computer.  The global free-flow of information brought us live-updates of the struggle in Iran via Twitter and brings us news and information about the world daily.  I’m not naïve enough to assume that by using Wikipedia I can know all there is to know about the struggles of the Iranian people, or what it’s like to live in Palestine or Israel, or the generations-old greivances of the Uighurs.  I will never be as invested as those people in their individual struggles; to even lump them all into a group is to profoundly misunderstand the issues they face.  But having the internet no longer limits people to their geographic community.  Now, people can follow their favorite performing artists on Twitter, communicate with friends across the country via Facebook.  Now, we can be a part of and make a community with people from any corner of the world.

The true conclusion is this: all it takes is a little knowledge to have empathy and compassion for a person.  It’s not going to come right away, but the potential is lurking right underneath our noses.  That’s why I get so frustrated when people say that we should go ahead and bomb Iran and get rid of the problem once and for all.  That’s why I get so upset when people dismiss the nomination of Judge (soon-to-be Justice) Sotomayor to the Supreme Court as an affront to all the white folks who built this country.  All it takes is a little effort to know someone enough to begin to see things from their perspective, to have a little empathy.

I had a privileged upbringing.  I was born a white male into a middle-class household.  I have never had to wear second-hand clothing or work to support my family.  Even more simply, I have never gone hungry.  By any reasonable account, I have been incredibly lucky to be where I am today.

I don’t want to imply that I’m somehow ashamed of my family or my upbringing; quite the opposite.  My parents both worked very hard to get where they are and to provide my sister and I with everything we could have wanted.  They’re both quite fond of telling the story of their first apartment, a small place where the rent and utilities were only $75 a month.  My dad was originally a bluegrass musician who has worked his butt off since he and my mom got married, and now owns his own business.  Within the context of our society in America, I’m very proud of my parents and all they have given me.

That being said, it is important to understand that there are countless millions who will never get the chances I have had, millions who have been denied these opportunities and luxuries through no fault of their own, but the luck of being born into a different level of our global socioeconomic strata, whether it be in this country or in others around the world.

I’m not asking the John McCains and Pat Buchanans of the world to go live in a housing project or a third world country; just to realize that growing up as a white, educated male in one of the richest industrialized countries on the planet has given them a leg up that billions of others have not been afforded.  I’m just asking them to have some humility and common decency.  Even some empathy.  Since when has that become a dirty word?

This town is as close to a 21st century Pleasantville as anything I could ever imagine; a capitalist chain-store mega conglomerate paradise with parking decks, retail space, and town houses.  About the only thing missing was a soul.

Unlike any town settled by people for geographic or political convenience, this town was pre-manufactured in a boardroom and architecture firm, plopped onto a large plot of land wholesale, complete with apartments, , and plenty of space to lease to your corporate firm of choice.  Whereas a town like Asheville has a culture, independent merchants, nightlife, art, Biltmore Park Town Square invites you to live in a mall: a place devoid of any conflict, contradictions, or originality, where all you need to get by (buy?) is a credit card and an ignorance of the difference between having lots of stuff and living.  Wake up in the morning, shop, go home, eat, shop, eat, sleep, wake up, shop…  It is, truly, the logical fantasy paradise of capitalism.  Everything measured by its monetary value.

Makes me sick to my stomach.  The movie was good, though.  Artsy.

giant hollowed out mesa / luxury palace

little kid goung on about killing someone

big group of bounty hunters/assassins

wanting to kill the head of the school board

Rhyming couplets.

Bizarre.

Far, by Regina Spektor

From the very first song, you know it’s Regina Spektor; the characteristic bouncy piano riffs and staccato of her voice in “The Calculation” is classic.

So we made our own computer out of macaroni pieces
And it did our thinking while we lived our lives
It counted up our feelings
And divided them up even
And it called that calculation perfect love

But at the same time, there’s something immediately different in her voice.  Since her last album, Begin to Hope, her voice has grown and she’s become more confident in singing full out, as she does on the second song “Eet” (as in part of the world “Beat”, but split up and repeated a la “On the Radio”).

But, after the first two songs, the album takes a very different turn toward the symphonic and the profound, diverging from pop-ish lyrics and bouncy fun into not-so-oblique indictments of our disconnected reality.  This album, unlike Begin to Hope, relies far more on social commentary as a centerpiece of most songs.  In some cases it gets heavy-handed, as in “Machine,” a view at a future where humans are uploaded to a computer consciousness, but even for being so blunt, there are some incredible lyrics.

Living in your pre-war apartment, soon to be your post-war apartment…

Her voice especially stands out on “Human of the Year”:

Hello
Hello
Calling a Carl Prejektorinski to the front of the catherdral.
You have won, dear sir
may i congratulate you first?
Oh what an honour.
Human, human of the year, and you’ve won.
Human, human of the year, and you’ve won.

Why are you so scared?
You stand there shaking in the pew.
The icons are whispering to you,
they’re just old men,
like on the benches in the park,
except their balding spots are glistening with gold.
Human, human of the year, and you’ve won.
Human, human of the year, and you’ve won.

For the most part, the album is incredibly executed, balancing the music and the lyrics for some stunning results, be they funny and quirky as with “Dance Anthem of the 80′s,” an up-tempo chaccone that shows off Regina at her strangest, or incredibly poignant like in (my favorite song of the album so far) “Laughing With”.

No one laughs at God in a Hospital
No one laughs at God in a war
No one laughs at God when the doctor calls after some routine tests
No one laughs at God when it’s gotten real late and their kid isn’t back from that party yet

But God can be funny
When at a cocktail party listening to a good God-themed joke
Or when the crazies say He hates us
And they get so red in the head you think they’re ‘bout to choke
God can be funny,
When told he’ll give you money if you just pray the right way
And when presented like a genie who does magic like Houdini
Or grants wishes like Jiminy Cricket and Santa Claus
God can be so hilarious
Ha Ha

For me, Regina Spektor is at her best when she lets the creativity of her lyrics and the quirkiness of her voice carry the songs, which is certainly true for most of the album.  Above all, her voice has matured, as has her songwriting, making this (in my humble opinion) her best album yet.  Go get it.  Now.

In 1832, the situation in France for all but the most powerful and the most wealthy was dire.  Following the Revolution at the end of the 18th Century and the defeat (and subsequent return and defeat at Waterloo) of Napoleon leading to his exile, France returned to a monarchy under King Louis XVIII.  With the 1815 Treaty of Paris requiring France to pay reparations to the other major European Nations and the King’s power resulting in an absence of any democratic checks on power, an extreme gap between the rich and poor re-opened.  In response, the people of France rose up again in the July Revolutions of 1830, of which the last violent vestige was the June Rebellion of 1832.

Lady Liberty

This is the background on which Victor Hugo’s novel Les Miserables is set.  The history of France before and after these events was tumultuous, to say the least, but Hugo’s epic has imbued these events with resonance to millions, long after those who experienced them firsthand have passed away.  While the narrative of the story centers around the life of Valjean, it is his accounts of students, motivated by a desire for freedom and justice for those around them, that are arguably the most important thematic and ideologic thrusts of the story.

It is in these portraits that I saw so much of myself when I read the novel in high school.  After being cast as Marius (one of the student revolutionaries) in our High School’s musical version of Les Miserables, I took it upon myself to learn as much as I could from the book about my character, who has a relatively minor role in the musical.  In Marius, I saw myself under different circumstances; a young idealist, struggling against a tyrranical order, conflicted as to his usefulness in the fight, but knowing that it was his duty to something greater than himself to risk his life to fight the injustice.

I’ve been very lucky in my life; I was born into a democracy where my voice and my vote is respected; where (for the most part) people have a high quality of life, and where dissent is encouraged.

Not so today in Iran; after a campaign in which students turned out in huge numbers for reform candidates and polling saw the current hard-line president standing little chance of being re-elected, their hopes were dashed when President Ahmadinejad’s government stole the election, with official counts showing the sitting president receiving a landslide 63% of the vote.  Since Friday, people of all ages, but especially students, have been turning out in the streets under the threat of beatings and death at the hands of pro-government militias to protest.

Facing down the riot police, a young woman with a backpack, who until days ago was probably a normal student at a university, politically active, but living a life much like mine.  And now, facing death straight-on.

I’ve been following the coverage almost non-stop on several blogs and Twitter, getting first-hand information from people with posts like this:

it’s worth taking the risk, we’re going [to the protest]. I won’t be able to update until I’m back. again thanks for your kind support and wish us luck

It scares me for their sake; it inspires me, it angers me, but most of all, I have been awakened to the fact that all over the world, there are people just like me under different circumstances; people who want to see a just world, and who are willing to face down the dictatorships under which they live.  Brave people.  I want to hope that I would stand where they stand, were the situation reversed.  I don’t know.

But in the end what it boils down to is the fact that global communication hasn’t cut us off from community; it has included us in a community far larger than any that was ever possible before.  It allows us to see and stand with those in Tehran today, standing up, standing beside them.

I was thinking about this tonight… are young people destined to view older people as far behind the times?

A younger generation has always led the way to cultural change: it happened in the 60′s with those in the student movement who risked and sometimes lost their lives to get their comrades out of Vietnam; the French revolution of the 1830′s, which paved the road for the destruction of Napoleon III’s reign and a return to the egalitarian ideals that were the catalyst for the 1789 revolution, was spearheaded by young people in their teens and twenties. On top of that, there’s no question that the proverbial pace at which the world spins has gotten much faster, with technological leaps coming in months instead of decades, monumental changes in communication and transportation that have global effects. It is getting harder and harder for those raised in a different culture and with different technology to “keep up,” and the gap between those who can and those who can’t is becoming blatantly obvious.

All of that in mind, it is easy (and natural) for those of us who are growing to adulthood to take what those who are older than us say with a grain of salt, in everything ranging from political issues to relationship advice to the generals of life. We have been told our entire lives the cliche that is palpably obvious in every conversation with parents: “respect your elders.” And by this point in our lives, we are angry, sick and tired of hearing it, and want to be able to make our own decisions, goddammit.

Because, for everyone, somewhere along the line was an incident that shattered the foundation of our childhood: the moment we first learned that our parents were fallible. Our entire lives, we had believed that what our parents said was always true, always in our best interests, and that we could turn to them about anything and everything. All of that died somewhere along the line, and that inherent trust has never wholly grown back.

After all, at some point in their lives they were just like us, starting for the first time to become aware of the shades of gray that categorize every contradiction and unfair circumstance in this world, eager to begin looking at the world through their own set of lenses instead of the ones their parents had pushed on them their entire lives. And the age and experience has done a lot for their decision making and their ability to deal with the challenges in their path, but experience isn’t a be-all end-all. There’s something to be said for fresh perspective, for an outlook on life that comes with the optimistic mindset of the young, a mindset in touch with the realities of a changing world.

So… do what extent do we heed the words of our elders? Where lies the balance that must come between trust and honesty?

Hell if I know.

St. John the Divine

Gorgeous church.  Of course it’s impossible to get a steady picture without a tripod…

Rose Window and State Trumpet

Supposedly the loudest organ stop in the US.  There’s about 4/5 of a second delay between pushing a key and hearing the sound at the console.  Very cool.

James at the Organ Console

Moe’s friend James Wetzel at the organ console.  Incredible organist and quite talented with transcriptions (he played a transcription of the chaccone first movement of the Holst Suite for Military Band in Eb).

Okay, so the pictures from Monday are done, and we were too busy yesterday to take any pictures.  Sad.  However, the story from yesterday is quite interesting, and may yet end up being 1,000 words.  It does need a bit of background first, though.

My sister Virginia is going to spend 3 weeks in Venice this summer, auditing courses on printmaking, and she flew out of NY’s Kennedy Airport yesterday.  Of course, as the case may be, with Dad and I being in New York, there were things that we needed to bring her (and a camera cable that she needed to bring me).  Her flight into Kennedy was scheduled to leave around 11:30, and so Dad and I planned to be at the airport to meet her around 2:00. After that, we’d go back into the city, change, and be at Lincoln Center to see the NY Philharmonic at 7:30 for a concert that is part of Lorin Maazel’s farewell after 8 seasons as the music director of the NY Phil.

After going to B&H photo superstore in New York (which, if you’ve never been, is quite an experience.  With a mostly Jewish crew of service personnel and a computerized system which delivers products from a warehouse on-site to pick-up after you pay via conveyor belts, it’s a sight to see) to pick up what Virginia needed, we headed over to Kennedy.

Well, her flight didn’t leave until 3:30.  Dad and I waited in the airport until 5:30, and despite our best efforts to get back to the room, change in record time, and catch a cab uptown to Lincoln Center, arrived 6 minutes late for the concert.  I inhereted from my dad an absolute loathing for being late to anything, so the two of us in the back of the taxi were nervous wrecks.  No fun.

The concert itself, however, was spectacular.  We waited outside and listened/watched on closed-circuit TV as the Phil opened with Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto no. 4.  A spectacular piece featuring a solo violin and two solo flutes (in Bach’s day, probably written for recorders), the use of a cut-down ensemble worked very nicely from a major symphony.  Following the Bach, we were seated, and listened to a Haydn trumpet concerto from late in his life, played quite well (if a bit unenthusiastically) by the principal trumpet in the Phil.

The second half of the concert, which opened after intermission with the Copland Clarinet Concerto (originally written for Benny Goodman), was what stood out for me.  Stanley Drucker, who joined the NY Phil when he was 19, has been in the ensemble for 60 years, and the principal clarinettist for 38 years.  At 80 years old, to give such a warm and energetic performance of the Copland is incredible.  With an unusual ensemble for a concerto (strings, harp, piano), one got to experience Copland’s uniquely American lyricism in a bit of a new context.  Great piece.

And, of course, to end the program was Bolero by Maurice Ravel.  One of Lorin Maazel’s standards, it was as tight as I’ve ever heard it, and there’s nothing like hearing it live.  Great concert.

As neither Dad nor I had eaten since breakfast (not wanting to waste $8.00 on a crappy airport sandwich, and rushing too fast on the way home), we stopped at the Brooklyn Diner for Dinner.  I’m still full.

Today will be more relaxing.  Hopefully.

We’re staying in the Salisbury Hotel right below Central Park in NY, almost right across the street from Carnegie Hall.  Cozy room, two beds.  It’s a fun time for me, having stayed here five years ago when I came to Carnegie Hall with my high school choir.  We’re about 15 blocks north of Times Square, putting us in the middle of Midtown, close to all the action but far enough away that we don’t get a whole load of tourist travel.  There are three Starbucks within walking distance, a pizza place four doors down, and a newsstand across the street for the NYTimes.  Life is good.

This afternoon, Dad and I went up to 112th and Amsterdam to the largest Gothic Cathedral in North America, The Cathedral of St. John the Divine.  Aside from having a nave that could comfortably hold the Statue of Liberty (lying down, of course), the choir has an Aeolian-Skinner organ originally built in 1911, restored in the 1950′s, and recently cleaned following a fire in the church.  I’ve been in St. John’s before, but most of the nave was closed off the last time to allow for cleaning following the ’01 fire.  Today, the full church was open, and truly a magnificent sight.

And, small world, I got to meet the organ scholar, who happened to go to high school with a friend of mine from Furman.

Ending the day at the Village Vanguard, we saw the house big band play, the Vanguard Jazz Orchestra, and they were tight.  The rhythm section was dialed in from the first number, and they closed the set with a truly original arrangement of Skylark.  Couldn’t ask for anything better.

Eye candy tomorrow, I promise.

We sat across from each other on the train out of the city.  You looked out the window at the passing skyline, smiling with your eyes as the buildings disappeared in a blur behind us.   We talked about the way that Mozart made us feel, what it was about Brahms that made chills go up your spine, and the politics between friends and teachers that mars the beauty of music.  You talked about your family, and how close you had grown to Dr. V, asking him weekly if he was going to stay an extra year.  You were facing forward, I was looking back.

Musiker

We got off the train, neither one of us really knowing which direction to go, but you set off down the street anyway with a laugh that spoke of confidence.  As we walked through the gray streets with a gray sky above, you told me about your boy, and the frustration of him slowly taking away the joys of your life, first your artistic pursuits, and then piece by piece, your peace of mind.  I listened as you almost apologetically told me what kept you with him, and how the descent dragged on for months until the hurt was too much to bear.  You didn’t need to tell me that leaving did nothing for the pain.

As we walked into the graveyard, sprawled out in a kind of dark beauty, you asked me about my story.  So I told it, starting from the beginning, back when I believed in forever.  We meandered halfway through the graves along stone paths, getting lost half a dozen times in the process, as the story wound its way to its present-day lack of conclusion.  I didn’t have to explain to you why I had feelings for her, but I had to ask myself why it was the first time I was able to tell the whole story without choking up.

Beethoven, Mozart, Schubert

We found ourselves in front of the most influential musicians of all time, six feet away from the remains of the composers whose work had taken on the immortality denied to the men themselves.  As I walked by a strip of grass between Beethoven and Schubert, I mentioned in an offhand way that I wouldn’t mind being buried there.  You turned to me and told me that there was plenty of time, and plenty room left in their company.  I stopped for a moment, looked back on the scene, and nodded.  You smiled.

You told me about your family on the way back to the street, how you handled your father’s death in a way that the rest of your family couldn’t understand, and how you were so close to your mom that you had only moved into your own room in the past year.  I tried to imagine what living in a world without my father would be like, and realized I couldn’t begin to fathom how it must have impacted you, a young girl of seven.

We hailed a cab, got in, and I told you that I would cover dinner if you would get the cab.  You agreed quickly, and I was glad that you hadn’t taken the time to think about the fact the meal would cost four times the cab fare.  It didn’t take you long to realize though, and I laughed as I told you that it was a done deal.  I stepped out of the cab, intending to open the door for you on the other side, but you were out and paying the driver before I reached the curb.  You called your mom, asking for directions to the restaurant, and I watched as you smiled, mildly exasperated, as she launched into a story about her trips to Vienna with your dad.

Wien

We walked the two blocks to the hotel cafe, and marveled at the history and grandeur of the place.  You looked around, and I knew you were thinking about your father.  You wondered aloud, half to yourself, where your parents sat when they were here.  The food was wonderful, of course, and the dessert was spectacular.  The conversation was better than both.  You asked to see the bill and I refused, smiling from ear to ear.  You sat back in your chair, staring at me with a grin starting to form at the corner of your lips.

We rode the subway back to the hotel together, exchanging only a few words.  The buildings passed by in the night, streaks of white against the sky.  We met a group of friends in the lobby of the hotel and parted ways at the top of the elevator, without a hug or goodbye.  Neither one of us needed to say a word.

Karlskirche

The (failed) Bush Administration notwithstanding, the United States can boast poverty and unemployment levels well below the world average. The standard of living here is wonderful, and many people are able to live in peace and comfort. My problem is with the common wisdom regarding the concept of “standard of living.”

The principal marker of the success of a country is its GDP, or Gross Domestic Product. Essentially, this number is a measure of all goods and services manufactured/provided in a country over the course of a given year, measured once (so, you don’t measure the cost of the lumber, you measure the house; you don’t measure the manufacture of the individual parts that go into making a car, you measure the sale of the car itself). In the same way, the principal measure of success of an individual person (more often than not) is Net Worth, or, “How Much Stuff I Have.”

The common wisdom in America is this, ingrained in the minds of school children from their very first career day: ‘The more money you make, the more stuff you’ll get. The more stuff you get, the happier you will be. People will measure your success by the stuff you have. So, your goal in life should be to make as much money as possible!’ From here on out, their entire lives will be a confusion of the difference between comfort and happiness. Because, it’s true: if you make enough money to buy you that floating pool chair with the cup holder, or the vacuum that automatically detects walls, or that hummer that gets you 12 miles a gallon, you’ll be comfortable. I’d be willing to bet, though, that there is a big difference between having all of the stuff you want, and being happy.

And so starts a cycle that will continue through their entire lives. They will go to school to get into a good college to get a degree to get a good job to make money to buy stuff so that their kids can go to a good college. It was never going to college to learn because you were curious; it was never going into a career because it was something interesting, a motivating drive in your life; it was about making money, so that you could be comfortable.

In the end, the fatal flaw in the system was hidden right there in that first day of Economics, the class extolling the virtues of the “stuff=happiness” system:

“People have unlimited wants and desires.”

That’s right! No matter how much money you make, if what you want is stuff, you’ll never get enough of it. You’ll always want more. Because, as John, Paul, and George put it so well, “Money can’t buy me love.” (Ringo isn’t important.)

Living within this system is a choice. It’s not the easiest thing in the world to realize that we’re all given a choice. But we’re all Robert Frost in the woods; some of us are too focused on comfortably traveling the path we’re on that we never recognize the one that is grassy and wants wear. Our first instinct when we see people on the Nightly News who take the other path, usually in some “Special Report” meant to highlight their eccentricities, our first reaction is to think they’re nutjobs who could never cope with living a normal life.

These are the people who sail around the world, taking heavy construction jobs every once in a while to make the money they need, but gaining true happiness and abiding satisfaction from the adventure that comes from knowing you’re going to wake up under an unfamiliar sky, with new horizons out the window every day. I wonder if the man who goes to work every morning and sits at a fancy chair in a corner office with lots of stuff would remember the last time he felt a sense of wonder like that.

That’s not to say that people who are successful and do “very well for themselves” don’t have hobbies, passions outside their Monday-Friday jobs, or that they can’t be comfortable AND happy. What concerns me more is the common wisdom mindset that those people in our culture who are the most successful are the ones who make the most money. If you were to go on the street and ask a person who they think the most successful person in the US is, it wouldn’t be a Nobel Prize winning geneticist, or a Pulitzer-Prize winning poet; it would be Bill Gates, or Warren Buffet.

This is why it is so difficult to explain to my friends my (somewhat) secret passion to be a truck driver. “Just imagine: getting to live a lifestyle that caters to simplicity and the love of the open road. Meeting other travelers, seeing the country, sleeping under unfamiliar starts every night.”

“Yeah, but it can’t pay well.”

Let me back up a bit.

Last night, I went down to the drum circle in Pritchard Park for the first time in a long time.  For those of you who don’t know the Asheville culture, every Friday night between about 6:00 and 10:00, a few hundred people gather in Pritchard Park in downtown Asheville to listen, dance, and play all manner of drums.  The park is a triangle that borders three streets right off of the heart of downtown, and sloped so that most of the park looks down on a central circle, with concrete terraces about halfway around the circle.  Every Friday, 70-100 people bring drums of all kinds, african, native american, indian (and even some cowbells and claves mixed in) and sit on the terraces, while others stand behind and beside them, listening, and dancers of all ages and all cultures collect in the center.  The beats are transient; changing tempos and time signatures every few minutes, everyone follows everyone else, making the kind of music that is at once relaxed and frenetic. One minute, they’ll be playing a slow two, with one of the drummers pounding out a rhumba pattern on two huge drums, until seconds later the beat will speed up, with the emphasis changing, always grooving with a beat that constantly evolves, adding and taking away instruments, patterns…  It’s a truly remarkable experience to watch, and even better when you’re participating.

I used to go to the drum circle quite a bit when I was in High school, whether by myself or with a group of my theater friends, and more often than not, I would be dancing.  Not any kind of formal dance, not the Salsa that I learned in High School, just the kind of free dance that speaks of a joy oblivious to the people watching you.  It was fun, and it was freeing in a way.

Not having been back in three years, it was strange to see it all again, strange in the same way it’s strange to go back to your old middle school: all of the halls and the desks and the people looked so much bigger back then.  There was nothing on that same tangible level to express the familiar yet disconcertingly detatched way that I watched the drum circle from the periphery last night.  Tiffany and I have planned to go back as soon as I’m back in town for another Friday (which might be a while), but we’ll see.

Drum Circle (thanks to Terry Tyson for the photo)

(Keep in mind, the above picture is about 25% of the people that are there on a typical Friday)

Then, today, I connected with another part of my youth in a very visceral way during my mom’s birthday party.  Our family owns a bunch of land outside of Hendersonville that my grandfather bought 75 years ago for $5,000.  It’s beautiful country on the side of a mountain, with a creek bordered on both sides by laurel and rhododendron.  We call it Jeeter Creek.  Heaven knows why.

When I was younger, I went to camp at the Green River Preserve.  2 weeks spent in the mountains of North Carolina every summer, studying the outdoors and connecting in a very spiritual way with the land.  Looking back, I can see that most of the camp counselors were hippies, believers in something more important than wealth, trying to impart their transcendentalism to a younger generation.  Needless to say, they succeeded in my case.  I keep copies of Leaves of Grass, Walden and Emerson’s essays with me wherever I go.

Our family went out to Jeeter Creek today.  I was wearing a white polo shirt, khakis, and pumas, thoroughly unprepared to be trekking around outside.  Little did I know, I’d be walking through the rhododendron, dipping my feet in the creek…  The longer I was there, the more I remembered what it was like when I was younger, walking through the woods while trying to make my footfalls as imperceptible as possible, stopping to examine plants, making it a point to take off my watch and not look at the time all day.  It was, again, a bizarre experience.  But, I agreed to come back and work every weekend I have free for the rest of the summer.

GRP

Evening Prayer

I’m working on setting to music a poem by Carl Sandburg, a poem that’s in the public domain…

Four Preludes on the Playthings of the Wind
Carl Sandburg

I

The woman named Tomorrow
sits with a hairpin in her teeth
and takes her time
and does her hair the way she wants it
and fastens the last braid and coil
and puts the hairpin where it belongs
and turns and drawls: Well, what of it?
My Grandmother, yesterday, is gone.
What of it? Let the dead be dead.

II

The doors were cedar
and the panels strips of gold
and the girls were golden girls
and the panels read and the girls chanted:
We are the greatest city,
the greatest nation:
nothing like us ever was.

The doors are twisted on broken hinges.
Sheets of rain swish through on the wind
where the golden girls ran and the panels read:
We are the greatest city,
the greatest nation:
nothing like us ever was.

III

It has happened before.
Strong men put a city up and got
a nation together,
And paid singers to sing and women
to warble: We are the greatest city,
the greatest nation,
nothing like us ever was.

And while the singers sang
and the strong men listened
and paid the singers well
and felt good about it all,
there were rats and lizards who listened,
… and the only listeners left now
… are … the rats … and the lizards.

And there are black crows
crying, “Caw, caw,”
bringing mud and sticks
building a nest
over the words carved
on the doors where the panels were cedar
and the strips on the panels were gold
and the golden girls came singing:
We are the greatest city,
the greatest nation:
nothing like us ever was.

The only singers now are the crows crying, “Caw, caw,”
And the sheets of rain whine in the wind and doorways.
And the only listeners now are … the rats … and the lizards.

IV

The feet of the rats
scribble on the door sills;
the hieroglyphs of the rat footprints
chatter the pedigree of the rats
and babble of the blood
and gabble of the breed
of the grandfathers and great-grandfathers
of the rats.

And the wind shifts
and the dust on the door sill shifts
and even the writing of the rat footprints
tells us nothing, nothing at all
about the greatest city, the greatest nation
where the strong men listened
and the women warbled: nothing like us ever was.

Incredible poem, I think.  The shifting points of view between this (less than) ideal society and the natural animals that are left behind to listen.  All of the animals being rather unsavory to “civilized” human beings, one would think.  Rats, crows, lizards; no songbirds here.  Is it an indictment of the current human path, or a foreshadowing of what the poet thinks is to come?  I think the intrinsic part of the poem here is the one repeated most often, “We are the greatest city, the greatest nation: nothing like us ever was.”  The first time we hear it, it seems hopeful, almost as if we could believe it.  But, as time goes on, it becomes such an ironic statement, that by the time we hear it at the very end, it almost shouts out “Things were before you, and will be after you.”

And, as a composer, quite a challenge. Setting a poem with so much repeated text, but each time in a different context, presents a unique set of issues.  It’s a bit like a jigsaw puzzle, in that you create a musical idea for each line of text, much in the same way that leitmotifs are used to convey specific musical ideas within an extended work, like an opera.  Using the same (or similar) bits of music in the vocal part for repeated lines of text gives the work a musical continuity that doesn’t exactly follow through with the rapidly shifting tone of the poem, and also makes for great fun with transformations of the musical motives; that the way the girls singing “we are the greatest nation…” will be different from the singers/women singing/warbling it, will be different from it being read on the panels of hingeless doors, will be different than the rats’ lack of memory.  So many opportunities, so many possibilities…  Should be fun.

Oh, and a bit of eye candy before I go.

Sorrento

It’s an interesting experience, after being involved in so much music these past two years.  As a musician, a lot of the time you spend on your work is spent alone, in a practice room, with a book, memorizing, learning, thinking.  Everything leads up to one date, be it a recital, a jury, a final test, some singular point of evaluation.   In an office, your time is spent at a desk, working on a variety of different projects that (for a seasonal employee) don’t ever get finished, at least not by you.

My time is booked under miscellaneous, a grab-all for those things that the non-seasonal employees are too engaged to pick up, people too involved in other projects.  The engagement is filed under general, nothing so specific as to involve particular people or particular importance.  Everything needs to get done; that’s how an office runs, when everyone knows what is going on, what they need to be doing, and they have the tools and the resources to keep on doing those things without having to worry about miscellaneous generalities.  Dealing with the generalities is my job.

And it’s absolutely worth it that I get to eat lunch with my dad every day.  I just need to start waking up earlier, because this whole business of waking up early in the morning to sit at a desk isn’t going to go over well unless I either get a chance to work out in the morning, or I get hooked on coffee.

A View of Arezzo

A small town right off the central train route in Italy, Arezzo is a town of less than 100,000 people located in the middle of Tuscany.  For three months I’ll be living amongst history that would make the work of Jefferson seem like recent news is the stuff of everyday life, where a street that has been walked for a thousand years doesn’t elicit a second glance for the ancient sights, natural and man-made, all around it.

And this is the Accademia dell’Arte:

The Accademia (image courtesy Dell'Arte website)

Just outside the city, the Accademia plays host every year to musicians, actors and dancers from across the United States, students given the opportunity to study in the cradle of western civilization, a country that bore Monteverdi and Michelangelo (among a countless million more) and retains the treasures of their work.  On September 4, I’ll be moving in.

I’d be happy to share it with you.