My next recital will be played sans pants.

I am totally ripping off this posting from Yarn Tootin because these people are very very awesome and I thought you'd want to see.

I'm fine, and you?

I have been busy taking inventory.

Sadly, I lack a boop-ing scanner-gun device like they use in commercial inventories and to make registries at Target.

I'm making another recording, this time a demo with my pianist friend Anne. We have to decide what exact path to world domination we'll take. We have thus far narrowed it down to not wanting to be a wedding gig duo. Our name is Nocturna.

Toby is obsessively walk/run/careening about. He did a face plant twice today in the same corner of the kitchen because he missed attempts at handholds on my skirt. The world is made of monkeybars for his feet. My day's work now resembles nothing so much as one of those people waving flashlights over their head in an attempt to help a plane land on an aircraft carrier. He's started saying Hi and Cracker. He doesn't mean it racially, as far as we can determine.

J bought us tickets to Lyle Lovett and his Large Band. Do I need to repeat that? I'd like to, but will do so on my own time. I want to see his show more than any other, edging out even U2 just very slightly.

As you can see I don't have much to say, but J told me I should post. There it is.

There is no title cute enough.

Excerpt 1, Take 2

False start.

The recordings are for audition cds. I had assumed I wouldn't have to make audition cds anymore, since I'm done with summer camps. Screw you, unnamed symphony. Unless you hire me, in which case praise your high paying yet slightly union-troubled ass.

Used to be, back in the day*, somewhere in this great country a violist would retire or perhaps be taken out by union sanctioned hitmen on the job for a recent graduate with a quillion dollars of student loan debt and expensive taste in name brand diapers and soft drinks.

A JOB OPENING would come to exist. Hundreds of violists would dust off their various rollercoasters of technical whizardry from Don Juan, their first-three-pages of the Bartok concerto, their sassiest (while remaining entirely rhythmic and soft but focused and consistent while sounding easy but confident) Mozart 35's. Hundred dollar checks would be sent to the symphony with the JOB OPENING, and if you showed up for the audition or gave proper notice that you had decided to live without anything LOOOOOOOOOOming over you for the next month or so and were NOT coming to their town to play for 4.3451 minutes for 5 bored and combative people behind a screen, thank you very much--- then you got that check back. If you flaked, they cashed the check and bought doughnuts for the brass section to chuck at the sound shields protecting the last stand of violas during the next rehearsal.

If you did show up, you would be in a room packed with more promiscuous folks than even a NASA astronaut convention could bring together. (I hope the people in charge of protecting our future have this in mind- we should all be aware of our surroundings, right, NSA?) Anyway, they would somehow narrow it down from hundreds to like, 7 or so, and then to 3-ish and then one or none of those would get to have health insurance and a "cushy gig" for as long as the orchestra remained in existance or the hitmen struck back. Or, there would still be a JOB OPENING and every single person who applied, prepared and traveled had wasted their money & lifeforce points.

Now, because as you can imagine auditions were such a hoot, a wrinkle has been added. No one told me, but it's probably been there a while. A Seartain Symphony has begun to require anyone who has yet to win a major job to send a cd of 7 excerpts and one movement of Bach
(Geeze, you guys, I totally just spelled that Back and had to go bach. See how you can end up almost getting something perfect and having to go bachk and do it over and over and over?) (Also, see how dulled a sense of humor becomes after recording oneself for several days?) (Really, really dull.)
in order to be given the honor of playing for them in person. It doesn't matter what's on your resume, unless it says "Section member, So-N-So Symphony"** somewhere on it.

So this isn't some cool "recording" like as in "studio" or "for money" or "glamour shots on the cover". Plus, remember, I play the viola- and I'm not that into self-tanner, so it's boring old home recordings for me for now.


*Phrases like "back in the day" drive me nuts. Also "and whatnot" (what not?), "know whut i'm sayin" and "and a bag of chips".
**Quote marks are also*** a terrible habit and annoy me greatly. I'm so agitated now, I'm leaving.
***I use "also", "so", and the comma way too much. Do NOT go back and look, I'm sure you've noticed before.

This one? No. Maybe this one?

It's awesome to recognize that my playing is the best it has ever been.

But making recordings still sucks out precious kilovolts of life energy.

Anyway, that's where I've been. My best teacher said perfection isn't as high a goal as greatness. But it would be nice.

My newest acquaintance

Isn't she a beaut?

Buying a lie.

What rights would you give up for your family's safety? What would you give up for the illusion of safety?

Seems to me most rational people can find sacrifices they would make for the first category. The problem comes when they believe they're getting tangible results, but are in fact getting 100% illusion in the end. And in reality, a false sense of safety makes life more dangerous, not less.

We watched part of the evening news on one of the alphabet channels (abc, nbc, cbs) the other day and they ran a story about neighborhoods banning sex offenders from buying a home and living there. Sound reasonable? They recheck all family's records every 6 months.

These families are paying a premium and are voluntarily sacrificing privacy for what? It is so very exceedingly rare that a predator will strike outside of children who have some remote aquaintance with him. If he is that one-in-a-jillion kind of evil, isn't your neighborhood just as susceptable anyway? Do those parents relax a little? Are they tempted to just let their cloistered kids play in the culdesac unsupervised? Do they wait just a little longer before telling their innocents that not everyone who wants to be your friend really can be? That not all adults are in charge?

It surpised me how mad and frustrated this story made me. I just couldn't believe what they were buying into. It didn't help that every homebuyer they interviewed was a WASPy guy in a cardigan. The people selling this are nothing but predators themselves.

Hairspray

Thursday
I'm holding on to my upswing so far. Yesterday I didn't get as much done (really no good reason there, except that I took a huge nap) but when bedtime came I didn't mind myself.

***

Friday
After writing the incredibly well-crafted fascinating post above, I drove to Salem to practice and schmooze with 50% of Toby's genetic donors. First I had a locked-in keys false alarm involving my gnat-sized short term memory and the hood of my car, but it all worked out I suppose. I kept saying, "I just HAD them in my hand," to J who was about to drive home from work and to my parents who were going to drive an hour and a half round trip just to make sure I hadn't forgotten the Toby, too.

So today I've left him and his snot (geeze, the little guys sure can produce in quantity) in their doting hands and am back in Portland for a lesson with another more high-profile local violist. I realized as I prepared to practice that this is the first time I have been alone in our house. Since moving here. Ever.

It's pretty quiet.

***
Look how much his hair has grown. How am I supposed to cut it? It's so cute when it curls up. Maybe I should just buy some baby gell and give him a gericurl.

Ascent

I've been downhearted, baby.

Last night I was trying to describe it to J in a wee hour of the morning, a time when I often bring up weighty tearful sleepover-in-pjs topics. In my defense, he asked and encouraged me- nay, propelled me- by listening like he does to my rambling quivery-voiced confessional.

It's not that I'm unhappy, generally. I have the rare privilege of enjoying some semblance of perspective on my life just now. I can savor most of it on most days and appreciate the grace I've been given and so on.

It's just that I'm not very happy with myself.

I know I could be satisfied with a few small changes, could put small routines in motion now that will keep me on the level for the next few years. When I get to the end of a day I generally feel a little disappointed in me, and where that used to be enough to get me going the next morning instead it seems to pile on like green cookie dough, encasing me in a thick goo of inertia.

Today helped. It's 63 degrees here, and the sky is a very fashionable Scandinavian blue with high cirrus clouds wisping around whimsical jet trails. It looks like the folks up there are drawing something recognizable from some other angle.

The air smells. It's a distinctly Oregon mix of grass growing + sun on rich soil + a breeze blowing across mountains & vineyards & Nordstrom's perfume counters from the sea. It makes me feel cleaner, even though I could frankly use a shower and am hoping for a late evening nap to help me out there.

I wonder about the ways being a mom has changed me that have nothing to do with my actual parenting. Maybe these are just things that come when you've done all the schooling they can come up with degrees for, and you move to a new town from a place with your first truly adult life. Maybe I've always been lazy like this but the structure of my schedule helped me ignore it.

Anyway, today is better and I hope tomorrow will be like this, too. Even if it rains I'm going to try to sit on the deck for a bit and catalog the fresh air.

Recipe: Greenies

Don't say this blog never gave you nuthin'.


So t'other day I was sitting in my living room and a craving overtook me for something a little sweet but also substantial, y'know? And I thought to myself: Oatmeal Cookies.

Just minutes later I found myself thinking another thought entirely. That thought? Vanilla extract and green food coloring bottles should look differenter.























Luckily last night was a New Music concert, and the green thumb went over well.

More stuff lust.

So, I am totally not getting paid for this- sadly. And I promise I am not spending all day shopping the internets.

But I love metal and glass. Stone's nice. Substantial, elemental. Neat.

This bowl's spendy ($88 at Resource Revival) but how groovy, for the cyclist who has it all.

Oscarfishes.

We watched part of the Oscars last night, or at least we watched the first section of it before Tivo pronounced it complete and failed to catch the last hour. These are the dark ages of that technology, right? Soon it will just download our whims and guilty pleasures directly from our iMedula (tm) in order to serve and control us better. Ahh, technology.

Since J had work to do and I wanted to work on Toby's first years journal anyway we poured a couple glasses of nice Merlot and settled in to watch. Toby insisted on a wine glass, too, but we only had one bottle of wine so he had milk. Oh I know, we're spoiling him and setting him up for a lifetime of addiction to vapid startlets proving how taxing it is to utter only words provided by a glowing LCD screen nestled among the foot lights in bajillion dollar get-ups made entirely of Swarovski crystal. But what the hell- he's our first.

Usually I hate the pat-on-the-back shows and celebrity crap in general (look at me, I'm pleasantly shaped!), but I thought this year it had more of an artsy focus. I had also missed about 70% of the shows even nominated, so it was nice to get some viewing ideas.

I loved that they feted Morricone and how sweeet his speech was. Also, he did the score for Cinema Paradiso which is another required film that J has NEVER seen. This necessitated a quick jaunt to Best Bribe, and allowed me to later fast forward through Celine Dion's freakishness entirely. Man, I try not to hate anyone, but...

So if you're feeling carpy (GET IT? Oscar fish, Carpy?!?!?!) you should read this blog in general, but especially for the red carpet reports.

Today I'm in a skirt by TJ Maxx with adornment by Gerber Firstfoods and my haircolor is provided by L'Oreal Feria, though it's a work in progress. I'm not showing you until I get rid of the Raggedy-Ann as streetwalker red. It looked a little higher-brow on the box, is all I'm saying.

We napped! Oh, and practiced.

O Aumsville, my Aumsville!

Geez, it's nice practicing in a practice room. I've gushed before about the campus at Willamette University, but dang I'd love to teach there. There's old brick buildings, enORmous old pines, and a bubbly stream tastefully lined with tiny yellow crocuses winding through it all. Seriously, I feel smarter and more affluent just walking around there.

So here we are, back in the throbbing metropolis. Sushi! Industrial buildings converted to overpriced vanity space! So much to covet, so little... meh.

profile picture- gotta post it somewhere...

Ignore this, please.

Aumsvillian

So the other day, we drove to Sauvie Island. We got out the jogging stroller (much more of a pain than our tiny backpack stroller) and bundled the kid and arranged both our cameras about our persons. Then we walked over to the trailhead and started taking pictures. THEN we noticed the big closed gate and this enormous red sign announcing our candidacy for village idiots. See, the picture's not out of focus; just like me, it's centered on the friendlier brown sign in the background. Heh. We want to live on Sauvie Island, but we'll need it to move a little further south to be closer to my Aumsville practice retreat.

Toby's got it so sweet there with the grandparents- his entire body pretty much lights on fire when he sees them. I am but a conveyance to him, and we're going there today.

See you tomorrow!

My baby is a carnivore.

Not this baby, silly.











... that one.

I drove a half-hour into the Columbia River Gorge to Damian Dlugolecki's place and got my second viola all gutted up. Mmmm, cow parts. I was prepared for the studio to smell just a little, but it didn't at all. Maybe a bit intellectual- it had the scent of education to it. Booky, with a hint of electronics dust and a pinch of journal ink, know what I mean?

Preliminary report: It sounds neat. A titch fuzzy, but very direct and throaty, too. So now all that's left is to get a whole bunch of seriously historically imaginative and conscientious gigs. Maybe also some Birkenstocks.

And then?! World domination.

You can all say you were there the very day it happened.

Moo.

Muggsy represents.

Photo: Ray Stubblebine, in USA Today.



Because I still belieeeeeve. (Celine, Cher or that currently hairless wonderfreak should have a song that would be the soundtrack for this post. And they should have a way to let us supply soundtracks to posts. Hey, THAT's what we can invent instead of selling drugs to pay those pesky student loans.)

From everybody's bff, Wikipedia:
"The shortest player ever to play in the NBA is Muggsy Bogues at 1.60 meters (5 ft 3 in). Other short players have thrived at the pro level. Anthony "Spud" Webb was just 5 feet 7 inches (1.70 m) tall, but had a 42-inch (1.07 m) vertical leap, giving him significant height when jumping. The shortest player in the NBA today is Earl Boykins at 5 feet 5 inches (1.65 m). While shorter players are often not very good at defending against shooting, their ability to navigate quickly through crowded areas of the court and steal the ball by reaching low are strengths."

It's hard to be very good at anything. People will have countless opportunities throughout their lives to learn that; teachers & parents are more useful directing a kid with successes, but I don't think they usually have to dissuade them from doing what they love. I would lay MONEY that the worst people on American Idol (or any other "reality" show) have wierd histories and even stranger family dynamics. The problem there is with perspective- no WAY an otherwise sane, well-adjusted person would be as delusional as some of those sad souls. That's why those shows depress me- just like COPS, it's one of the worst moments of their lives and half the time they don't even have the sense to REALIZE it. Not only are they screwing up their lives, they are missing them completely.

Anyway, the original article and study on kids & praise basically said one thing. People do better when they focus on progress and on level of effort, not on an unchangeable/uncontrollable state of being. (smart/not smart)

I plan on teaching Toby how to do school. How to learn, how to figure out what a teacher wants, how to imagine the best version of an assignment. I think the earlier the better on that stuff, because there will for sure be stuff he doesn't want to do (life is hoopy) and stuff he doesn't do well, so why risk either experience defining his academic life?

Anyway, blah blah blah. He's asleep and I need to practice. In some tiny windowless room at 66th & Broadway a violist is playing the crap out of Don Juan.

Inverse power of praise.

Here's an incredibly enlightening article from New York Magazine.
Photo: Philip Toledano for New York Magazine


If you're too busy to read it, I'll just capsulize it: praising kids for "intelligence" rather than emphasizing hard work and the ability to grow intelligent backfires. Immediately.

This is a great piece of information, and it's applicable to so many of my own internal scripts (Do I sound like I've been in therapy? Perhaps that's what I'm missing...).

Especially when preparing for auditions, I am constantly wondering if I'm as good, good enough or talented, period. Most of my teachers have worked on that aspect of my playing- they talk about being able to tell exactly when I start judging myself, and when I'm testing to see if I can play something. It's hard to focus on playing something well when you're thinking about what it will mean if you don't.

It also blends together J's assertion that encouraging kids by telling them they can work hard and do anything screws them in the end (the American Idol syndrome) and my latent belief that given enough focus they probably can do (almost) anything.

One of my best teachers said talent is only potential, and that after the first few years of undergraduate study it means just about nothing because everybody's either worked hard or quit by then. People certainly learn at different rates, but I think even that can be adjusted.

Anyway, I loved this article. I'm printing it.

What to do...

...with all that disposable income? Take it to Elsewares!

We just bought this book for a friend.











And these are all super cool, too.
I want that onesie at the end for our pot bellied sweetie.

Wild Alaskan Conductor Man

Violist and environmentalist original hippie Gordon Wright conducted the Arctic Chamber Orchestra on the first international tour I ever played. We spent nearly 3 months in Spain, which was a very posh way to experience touring and pretty much doomed me to pursuing music as a career. Who wouldn't want a life infused with the scent of fresh baguettes, ripe tomato, musty cathedrals and Euro-diesel busses?

Maestro Wright died this week, but he lived a very full life and I don't think he'd expect sadness at the news. Apparently he was found dressed in warm clothes, sitting under the birch tree growing through his back porch. He was a total character- what in Alaska is known as a "bush master", pun most likely intended. After retiring from the symphony, he lived off the grid in a cabin four miles from any real road, where he had a legendary hot tub and enjoyed gourmet food, famous friends and the occassional bout of communal reefer madness. He spoke on A Prairie Home Companion and had famous people over for cabin parties.

I remember being a little scared of him. He was 6'6" and had a crazy big beard- way more hair than in this picture. He did nothing quietly. I would guess he loved smoked salmon, wine and long New Yorker articles. He smoked a pipe.

He once forgot how many chords there were at the end of some symphony we were playing and stopped before most of us did. That made for an interesting round of applause. "Should we clap, Marge? Was that the way it ends? It sounded so triumphant there until that poor trumpet-second violin-third flute solo on the last chord. Odd, considering Beethoven's not really whatcha call a Modern, but hey, this is Fairbanks and we're friendly- why not let's give them an encore. Bravo!"

On that Spain tour, I once had the hotel room right next to him and his lady friend. I decided one afternoon in angsty teen fashion I would practice the slow, chocolatey movement of my concerto- over and over and over- as Soulfully, Spanish and Deep as I could muster for all my (read: complete lack of) life experience. It must have been pretty annoying to listen to, but he leaned over the balcony with wine in hand to say something complimentary and since I was a high schooler I was simultaneously elated, humiliated and blushing. Of course I had known they could hear me.

It was like him to be merciful- he created the Fairbanks Symphony, which must have been interesting and trying to say the least. Can you imagine the line-up at that first rehearsal, in 1970? This was before the university had a music department, before there was a youth symphony, before any serious music was going on- incredible. Today it's a booming organization for the size town it occupies. While I played there (grades 7-12), we had YoYo Ma, Benny Kim, Pinchas Zucherman, and other big names come through. They take it seriously, and the concerts go well for the level they occupy.


Anyway, I think Gordon's story is inspiring. You can read more about him in the Fairbanks Daily News Miner. I'm grateful for the things he started and hope he knew how many musicians he created by proxy. In my old group of friends alone, 2 went to Juilliard, one to Oberlin, one to Manhattan School of Music and another to Curtis. Not bad for a little town in the desolate wasteland of frozen tundra.