belgische chocolade

2012-01-26T12:47:00.000-08:00

I haven't a photo, but last night I saw the Campanile looking more beautiful than I'd ever seen it before. It glowed white against a marbled sky of unusually curlicued cirrus clouds, and the bright stars of Orion peeked out from behind it, framing it with points of light. I was glad to have taken the longer route through the grove.

farmer's market

2012-01-10T16:05:00.000-08:00

My mouth is full of so-sweet-it-melts-in-your-mouth Warren pear and the olive aftertaste of my favorite bread, Phoenix Pastificio's rustic olive bread. Golden rays of sun hang in the warm air, and a slight cool breeze ruffles my hair. To my left, a young woman at the Ici farmer's market stand is laughingly telling two little girls that she doesn't have free ice cream today. A girl is singing folk down the street to her guitar, and two little blonde girls, elfin-faced sisters, are dancing in circles next to me. They're straight out of a Marc Jacobs advertisement for Lola perfume, except that they are actually little girls and are actually wearing no makeup. Whether their rustic clothing is actually rustic is kind of a stretch, but as I walk home past clean cans of freshly emptied recycling and a smiling boy carrying organic groceries from some other Berkeley place, I wonder at how idyllic Berkeley is. Not the kind of place you'd want to be if you wanted to actually make the world better, perhaps. Berkeley doesn't need too much bettering.

2011-08-18T12:13:00.000-07:00

As I study for oral exams, I'm realizing that I really enjoy listening to Cowell's piano music. It's basically like listening to particular kinds of carillon repertoire. Muscular, masculine music, played mostly with fists (i.e. clusters), eliciting a riot of overtones from the instrument. Ha.

SoCal

2011-03-25T22:14:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I drove the whole two blocks to In-N-Out to order a grilled cheese sandwich and fries. Today I drove from Claremont to Pasadena to catch up with a friend, and then went to the McDonald's drive-in right in front of my hotel just to order fries. Did I mention that I never get fast food, and that this fast food was within walking distance? It's just too amusing to pretend to embrace the car lifestyle here. And you can't help but be amused by the sign for the Shamrock Shake still sticking out of the Astroturf as you idle.

novelty never ends

2011-01-14T18:40:00.000-08:00

Afraid I was running out of new streets to jog, I took to busy Sacramento to the strains of Béla Fleck's Throw Down Your Heart on my iPod. To my wonder, the front gardens were lush and the houses were warm, inviting, and charming in the pale pink evening light. White wooden accents turned warm shades of peach, and boarded-up driveways beckoned like doorways into other worlds. I continued to the historic plaque marking the Ohlone Trail, read up a bit on my local history, and turned back to discover a house near North Berkeley BART with great rustic fences built using the redwoods in its front yard as pillars. Strings of multicolored Christmas lights extended fancifully into one of the tree's upper reaches, and outside a hatchback van sported a life-sized wooden grizzly bear sticking out of the trunk.

I continued past Phoenix Pastifico (note to self: eat there) to find myself on the strangely otherworldly Bonar Street. Under an undifferentiated darkening blue dome, the quiet world of one-story houses seemed in the middle of nowhere, a gentler, differentiated version of D.J. Waldie's Holy Land. Knowing that the out-of-sight skyscrapers of San Francisco rose just a dozen miles away made the street miraculous; a similarly charming neighborhood actually in the middle of nowhere (I thought of Waverly, PA with a shudder) would have seemed desolate. Past warmly lit living rooms of charmingly narrow Second Empire homes and a California Mission bell marker replica I'd never noticed in the entryway of a house at McGee and Parker, and I was home.

2010-12-27T09:10:00.000-08:00

Powdery snow blows in a steady stream off the tops of buildings, creating layers of mist that separate groupings of buildings at different distances like the misty mountains of Chinese landscape paintings.

I checked into Snowpocalypse 2010 on foursquare and was unexpectedly awarded what I presume to be a fairly rare badge: Super Duper Swarm. It's hard to imagine how over 500 foursquare users could check into a single location unless that location is defined as a ginormous weather system (or a foursquare mob). Having just earned the Mile High badge a few days ago for checking in from the plane, I seem to be doing well for just having an iPod touch 1G!

underwater

2010-12-26T20:36:00.000-08:00

In the blizzard, Times Square looks as if it's underwater. Besides the whoa-I'm-in-Bladerunner feeling the place usually gives me, its air now glows dozens of stories into the air, asserting its palpability as it whooshes past radiant billboards. The limned currents sweeping around buildings are more visible than the currents of any river, seeming more rational for their visibility and more chaotic for their wildness.

On the walk home from the subway in LIC, every vicious needle of snow seems to pierce my skin. Cars whirr futilely on every corner, and I want to volunteer to push, but doubt that my 105 pounds of force would help. From the upper floors of my parents' apartment building, the blizzard looks like a pestilence of locusts, swarming and dissipating randomly, dimming the streetlights almost to darkness as thick clouds rush horizontally across the ground. The windows, not fully sealed against the outside, emit high-pitched whines. I wonder if snow is blasting horizontally past our window up some two dozen floors; there are no street lights to catch it in the act, but I see it billowing past another high rise some stories below.

Just for fun, I imagine that I'm in the great ancient city of Herzog's Lessons of Darkness, beset by an epochal sandstorm. But it's hard to believe it when the corners of the buildings haven't been worn down into curves by the slow but sure grinding wheel of flying sand. I have an easier time imagining the panorama of flickering streetlights as the flickering of celluloid. I'm glad to be a spectator inside, listening to the occasional creaking of the walls as air -- just thin air, but so powerful -- rages past.

2010-12-25T20:50:00.000-08:00

I didn't leave the apartment at all today. Instead, I spent Christmas day lofted high into the Long Island City air over a squat, curlicued red sign that beamed "Drink Coca-Cola" brightly at the multitude of Manhattan skyscraper windows and passing cars along the East River. My parents, a smiling beanbag dolphin, and Neal Stephenson's The Diamond Age kept me company.

When I recall Derek recommending the book to me in 2004 as A Young Lady's Illustrated Primer, I feel the ironic urgency of my ever-increasing leisure reading list. Near the front door, the massive black first part of Taruskin's twentieth-century music history looms, ready as a brick to be wielded against intruders or to knock me out of my daydreams, should I for a moment think I can afford more than this one indulgence.

nostalgia

2010-12-07T14:38:00.000-08:00

And it hit. Like clockwork. My yearly nostalgia for Europe... today in the form of Christmas in Antwerp (which ironically never even happened -- I was trapped in my room with a broken femur for the holidays). I'm longing to wander snow-covered, winding cobblestone streets and to drink genever in arcaded, candlelit underground brick cellars... Maybe Christmas in NYC and New Year's in DC will at least take care of the ill-advised snow craving.

To feel nostalgia today is particularly odd. This morning I was thinking about nostalgia quite clinically (or at least psychoanalytically) as I pondered Richard Pine's introduction to Creativity, Madness and Civilisation (2007). He points out that unheimlich really translates to "unhomely," relating it rather obliquely but intriguingly to nostalgia (Greek: nostos, the homeward journey; algos, pain). And here I am, feeling a nostalgia for an invented home, constructed in my own mind as a false memory, yet vivid enough to gravitate me towards a place that has no bearing on where I grew up. And I keep trying to critique the American carillon as nostalgic sonic mark of an invented European heritage. Maybe I'd do better if I could first sort myself out.

the reenchantment of the world

2010-11-27T18:02:00.000-08:00

I was all dressed to jog when I looked out my window and saw needles of rain slanting past. Exasperated, I undressed and watched the rest of When In Rome, feeling guiltily entertained and unproductive. Romantic comedies have never been my thing (they make me feel too girly), but what's a guilty pleasure if it isn't unpleasant and dislikeable in some way?

After the movie, golden sunlight made the slick world glow outside, and I bounded back into my workout clothes and out the door. Everyone was putting out free stuff, and just as I nearly fell over myself noticing a narrow, asymmetrical two-story boat-shaped house on McGee, I stumbled upon a curbside box with all the colors of thread I'd been wanting for months, and a seal keychain and tennis balls and poster tape. I couldn't believe how useful it all was and stashed some into my back pocket, resolving to take the rest on the way home. As usual, I deliberately chose random streets I hadn't seen before and eventually wound my way through a charming Victorian-lined lane to the Ohlone Trail, where I discovered that there were two halves to the community garden, one of which I had never noticed. I turned around at Gilman, but not before wandering into a plant nursery and realizing I could buy all the garden things I'd been wanting here and wondering at the beautiful flowering kale and dreaming of having my own garden, built from scratch, a clean doorstep, and time to cook dinner every night. Fat chance, you tenure-dreaming academic, you.

Normally I avoid wide car-dominated streets like Sacramento, but on the way back I was drawn to an outdoor tent on the sidewalk that seemed to be exploding with wooden wares I couldn't quite identify from a distance. To my amazement, it was the birdhouse tent I've often driven past. The artist Michael introduced himself and invited me into the backyard. I picked my way through his garage, which was clearly a basement performing arts venue with an elaborate upright piano and bar, and up a steep flight of stairs where I found myself beneath the shade of trees in a bewildering maze of birdhouses, each so different from the rest. It was another world, right off that busy commuter thoroughfare--a world of debris-turned-magic. Amongst the rows was the birdhouse of my dreams: a chapel with a little belltower. Save that one for me, Michael (how you remind me of Paul and his loft-turned-performing-arts-center), until I have a chance to break open the piggybank and return for the Friday music!

As if this wasn't enough, after picking up the rest of the loot on McGee and doing another double-take at the nautical house I must have passed multiple times and never noted, I stumbled upon Helly Welly's lighting store. I was walking now to cool down and the storefront, past which I had driven so many times, issued a challenge to the greying sky with golden light and musical instrument lamps. Helly led me through a wonderland of clarinet lamps and chandeliers made with transparencies she'd created in 1970s performance art events.

I made the final leg home in twilight, when all the world holds its breath in anticipation of the night. Time comes to a standstill at twilight, and it seems that time could stay stopped forever, and yet twilight is the most fleeting and rapidly changing part of the day, yielding to dusk and then to darkness. I can't love it enough. I was regretting missing Berkeley Artisans Holiday Open Studios this weekend, but the open studios found me, as they often find wanderers.

thanksgiving

2010-11-26T00:23:00.000-08:00

I made pie and matzo ball soup for the first time. I biked the Tunnel Road - Grizzly Peak - Centennial Drive loop to completion for the first time. It all proved way easier than I expected. If I had a vacation every month there might well be nothing left in the world to do for the first time.

shooting stars

2010-11-19T01:10:00.000-08:00

Although my short-term memory is abysmal, I'm starting to realize I have a long-term subconscious calendar memory that's uncannily precise. I've suddenly remembered to look up people's birthdays only to find that it was their birthday that day. And tonight I suddenly thought to look up when the Leonid meteor shower, an event I only seem to remember once a year or less, was going to happen, and found that it peaked yesterday. Alas, no staying up late for me until my organ recital at St. John's is finally squared away this Sunday.

blast from the past

2010-09-11T23:15:00.000-07:00

Last December, I ordered a bottle of Liefmans Goudenband from an online Irish retailer for my friend Sue in Dublin. Today, nine months later, I receive the receipt in the mail. It was processed by the Irish post on September 9, so it's not like it ended up in an obscure corner of a USPS facility. I wonder what series of events led to someone printing out and posting this old receipt via airmail to me.

I was much amused by the inclusion of the gift note on the receipt. It concluded, "Keep that bunny [Fionnuala] away from the beer or you might not have any left to drink!"

highway robbery i say!

2010-07-11T22:17:00.000-07:00

Last year I confirmed my suspicion that ZARA marks up all its clothes by $5 or more in the US. But today I discovered the full extent of some of those markups. It seemed like a miracle: a classy high-waist black skirt I'd longed for in April was on sale in my size in July (what?!). Marked down from $39.99 to $19.99 ... what a steal!

Until I peeled off the layers of sale labels and discovered that it sold in the EU for 19.95 EUR retail price.

In the years after I returned from Belgium, I waited each year until I traveled to Europe to shop at ZARA. Then I started to think I was being absurd, especially as I now live so close to ZARA in the bay area. But apparently I had it right the first few times around. It also seems absurd that I only shop for shoes on the fourth floor of the Herald Square Macy's in NYC while living on the west coast, but the payoff in stylish comfort shoes that don't hurt my feet makes the whole absurd procedure almost logical.

2010-06-03T22:32:00.000-07:00

Okay, I finished my essay. The Freudian uncanniness needs to stop. But no, now Hugh emails me with the fb profile of a girl in SY'11 who does indeed look uncannily like me. I guess the effects will take a while to wear off.

An hour of ring time at Harkness and white shrimp pie at Pepe's. Life is gooooooood.

2010-05-31T21:22:00.000-07:00

Another uncanny double in my life. So uncanny I can't even write about it. Something to do with names. Hopefully, when this paper is over, I will be free of much more than just the weight of responsibility of scholarship.

double trouble

2010-05-25T21:09:00.000-07:00

Further proof that I need to stop thinking about Freud as soon as possible: I went to the Media Center today to watch the VHS of Die Tote Stadt I'd requested from UCSD, and saw someone at another video cubby who looked almost exactly like a friend of mine. I gave him a big smile and a wave, then realizing my mistake, apologized and hastily sequestered myself at my assigned television.

Terrifying. What's next?

Das Unheimliche

2010-05-24T23:38:00.000-07:00

"I don't read Freud anymore," Harold Bloom wheezed at our seminar at Yale, which only Harold Bloom could entitle How to Read Poetry. "The more I read back in my student days, the more Freudian slips I made, until my conversations were full of them! So I stopped reading Freud." Hanging on his every word, I duly noted his indirect warning in my notebook.

Yet even Bloom's injunction did not finally prevent me from approaching Freud from two directions this past semester. At Gail's suggestion, I read Freud's essay on the uncanny in order to frame my discussion of belfries and musical automata and their relationship to the supernatural, extraordinary, and violent. Starting on my second writing project with Erich Wolfgang Korngold's opera Die Tote Stadt with the uncanny on the brain, I began to think more about uncanny doubles. The protagonist, Paul, meets a dancer named Marietta--the spitting image of his beloved dead wife, Marie. The same singer plays both Marietta and Marie's ghost, and many directors take the opportunity to splash a proliferation of images of Marie (Paul fetishizes her portrait) across the stage, double other roles and other props, and even double the characters themselves (e.g. Willy Decker's production, shown above).

The more time I spend grappling with the uncanny, the more uncanny doubles have started to appear in my life. It began on the day I was to present the ideas structuring my paper to the seminar. To bolster my self-confidence, I donned the sole pink article of clothing in my wardrobe, a draped, caped McQ shirt that is my pride and joy and surely utterly unique in form and color. The other half of my H&L cohort appeared wearing a multilayer draped pink shirt--one of the only pink items in her closet.

After giving my presentation, I was duly informed by two classmates that a student of Carolyn Abbate had recently given a paper on the same stagings of Die Tote Stadt and highlighted the exact same scenes. (Thankfully, his argument was of a different nature and purpose.)

And today, Bruno informs me that my Doppelgänger is marching around Brussels: a Francophone girl several years my junior. Thank goodness we established that I am surely the evil twin, and she the boring one.

Doppelgängers and das Unheimliche are closing in on me. Why didn't I listen to my sage professor? Bloom knew what would happen to me all along. He foreshadowed it when he sent identical letters of recommendation to the Lizzy for myself and another student at the same time. For which I am still entirely grateful--what a splash we made, whoever we two were!

multitasking

2010-04-10T23:53:00.000-07:00

It's been years (if ever) since I was able to listen to music and concentrate on my work. Particularly since Eastman, I've found it virtually impossible to not focus on the music playing when I'm trying to multitask.

On the eve of my MA exam, I find myself able to do it again. What has changed? The way I work, the way I pay attention, the depth of my attention, my attitude towards music, my disgust at continuing to labor past the satiation point? As I read and take notes, for chapters at a time I don't notice the music, and its occasional intrusion into my consciousness is proof that I'm not hearing it. This seems vaguely inappropriate for a musicologist, but also a most welcome skill when my life feels entirely too narrow, musically and otherwise.

2010-01-20T22:28:00.001-08:00

Contemporary architecture in San Francisco is certainly on the conservative side, but the Chronicle's top 10 list for the decade highlights a few buildings of some interest, if not innovation.

[complete the blank] city song

2010-01-04T22:03:00.000-08:00

Speaking of music and cultural geography, CNN just published an article on "The song that inspired a nation of remixes" about the way the lyrics of Empire State of Mind have been localized by every American hamlet.

Eastman's glorious new organ in the NY Times

2009-12-22T19:35:00.000-08:00

In a small way, I helped Munetaka Yokota voice this gorgeous instrument. Admittedly, I got a lot more out of the experience than he did. Nevertheless I feel very connected to it and am so pleased to see it garner national attention.

rusty bolts

2009-10-29T21:01:00.001-07:00

At least Grace Cathedral cares enough about the bells of its almost-but-not-quite carillon to make sure the bells don't fall out of the tower. In fact, you can acquire one of the rusty bolts for a donation of $1,550.

many happy returns

2009-10-23T10:54:00.000-07:00

I think back on all the times I visited a place and thought, "Oh well, I'll probably never see this or stay here again" -- the Calhoun common room and Longwood Gardens carillon in 2000, Mechelen and the Utrecht clothing store in 2003, Berkeley in 2004. Why do I keep returning? What's next?

"free" museums

2009-08-24T22:51:00.000-07:00

Hand-drawn maps of how to get into various museums for free. I almost like the awkward drawings more than the concept.

2009-08-17T16:36:00.000-07:00

2009-08-17T14:53:00.000-07:00

666 photos on my DSLR from Seattle/Alaska cruise.

European shopping

2009-07-31T05:28:00.000-07:00

I knew it. They do jack the prices up in the US. I bought a dress from Mango on sale for 20 EUR in Germany, and found the same dress on sale for $33 in New York. It's about a $5 difference. Something tells me that Zara does the same. Good thing I spend all that money traveling to Europe to buy the clothes for a few bucks less.

noodles

2009-07-27T16:13:00.000-07:00

I'm not one to get homesick, but I am starting to lack a hearty bowl of soup very badly, or at least food cooked by myself. Soup noodles would be nice. I'm desperate enough at this point to have looked up the location of Wagamama in Newcastle. Not the most authentic, but it should hit the spot.

Zurich Day 2

2009-07-10T19:30:00.000-07:00

I began today with a big mistake. Not stopping to question the oddness of playing a concert on a Friday at noon, I bought a 60 CHF roundtrip ticket to Zofingen. Very charming town and a charming ride, but as it turns out my concert is tomorrow. At least now I know precisely how to get there, and I took the extra precaution of pre-purchasing a ticket for tomorrow as the machines don't always accept the bills you feed them.

Despite the not inexpensive mistake, it was difficult to stay angry at myself for long since I suddenly had a day to explore Zurich. I’m sitting now by the corner balcony of the lovely African Lodge Room on the sixth floor of the Hotel Otter, listening to a lengthy concert of swinging bells coming from perhaps two churches northwest. The named penthouse room had better be a free upgrade, because it’s slick--a masterful blend of African savannah and cosmopolitan neo-Baroque. What is it with me and penthouse upgrades? It’s evident from here that the Swiss love plants. Every spare bit of rooftop is lined with them, more so than with lawn furniture. Densely built as this old city is, everywhere you look (presuming you do a good job of looking up) there is green.

My first stop was the Migros Museum, Kunsthaus, and surrounding galleries, all tucked into a sleekly designed former factory space. After a delicious cheese sandwich, I happened upon an exhibit on urban renewal at the ETH Zurich--how I’ve missed these European topics presented in their modern European designs. The Law Library of the University was difficult to find, but as the Wallpaper City Guide mentioned it multiple times, I kept looking. Everyone I asked on the block remarked that the photo was beautiful but they had never seen the space. I hope they seek it out, because the moment I walked in I felt as if this Santiago Calatrava building had changed my life (and I hadn’t even opened a book)! An eye-shaped receptacle of natural light framed by wooden beams, and dramatic glass elevators that whisk you past each eye-shaped level lined with studious aspring lawyers to the top skylight. I’d been skeptical of spending my time in Zurich finding an academic library, but the guide was right to mention it multiple times. Few buildings have caused me to smile.

A stop by cash-only vendor of used designer purses SecondBag and I was trotting down the Bahnhofstrasse with a cheap orange Longchamp (boy will Ingrid have a fit!) in near-perfect condition on my shoulder. The Champs-Elysées certainly defines class and bling, but I wonder if Zurich’s most expensive shopping drag couldn’t give it a run for its money. Gorgeous Burberry blondes and high school girls with designer purses I haven’t even considered buying yet mingle on the tram with backpackers and immigrants, cyclists ride perilously between trams on tram-only roads, bike messengers with wing-like reflective yellow backpacks wave to each other, and a bespectacled man rides calmly and quietly alongside my tram on a Ducati 900 Supersport. On the winding cobblestone streets leading south to Grossmünster, I am pulled to and fro by delicious smells emanating from chocolateries and crêpe stands. Several photography postcards and musical stamps later, I’m back in my room impatient for my roommates to arrive two hours late. I suppose they did me a favor hurrying me wide-eyed through the Bahnhofstrasse to meet them on time, but I rather wish I’d spent more time there... and was eating now.

The only thing that has bothered me so far about this place is the abundance of fake blondes (is it that desirable?) and shoe stores. Expensive shoe stores. Zurich has a citywide shoe fetish. Why?

As if the world wasn’t small enough, Sue has elderly relatives living in Zofingen. I hope they enjoy my concert tomorrow if they can hear it.

It’s half an hour after I started writing (19:00), and another bell has started ringing. I could sit here listening all day.

2009-07-02T08:10:00.001-07:00

I started following Dezeen yesterday and today Dezeen started following me. I have the unique honor of being the 999th person followed by Dezeen. Enchantée.

many happy returns

2009-06-24T22:05:00.000-07:00

It's been nice to return to Longwood Gardens again and again. In a sense, that's where things started for me and the carillon. During my college visits as a high school senior in 2000, my family and I stopped by to visit the gardens. I saw the little Italianate tower and looked wistfully through the gate barring the entrance; there was no admission and nothing in the tower, but I still wanted to climb it. As a freshman, I returned to Longwood with the Yale Guild and suddenly found myself atop the tower laughing and waving at startled tourists, and playing pieces for them on the newly installed bells. That carillon and I were initiated into the campanological world around the same time.

The carillon keeps leading me to strange coincidences. I'll never forget how we left Mechelen after our first Eurotour, and I thought I'd never see the quaint town again. Three years later, I was Mechelen's newest resident, exploring the city and stumbling upon the same sights I'd drunk in years ago, when I was sure the opportunity to look was a one-time deal.

architectural form

2009-04-24T11:38:00.003-07:00

Chip was right... it is quite telling that amongst the renderings and floor plans for the Eastman Theatre addition (still questionably called "completing George Eastman's vision"), a full photo of Doug Lowry takes center stage. A highly architectural photo, I might add.

Rock The Bells

2009-04-22T22:32:00.002-07:00

Thanks to Seth, I now know of the classic "Rock the Bells" (released when I was three) as well as the eponymous festival, which is coming to San Francisco. There must be room for a traveling carillon in there somewhere.

Tower iconography

2009-04-17T11:32:00.007-07:00

Artist Ji Lee is photographing all the logo representations of the WTC around New York (storefront signs, truck logos, printed shopping bags, etc.) before they gradually disappear. What a tremendous project.

I've always thought it would be an endless project to collect all the things that depict the carillon towers I've played (just try searching in ebay on "Harkness Tower" over the course of a few weeks and you'll see it never ends), since towers tend to be a strong informal aspect of the graphic identity of universities. It's a luxury to be able to buy memorabilia for your instrument that you never had to commission. But what a peculiar link -- I always assumed that the carillon tower is different from other towers, but this semester in Steven Feld's class I've been realizing how conceptually related it is to all sorts of other towers. The semblance of the belfry to lighthouses particularly excited me while Andrew and I were at Point Reyes. Which leads me back to my fascination with ephemera... there are plenty of postcards on which all these tower typologies are depicted (did Walker Evans collect any?). Other collections of towers, such as those by Bernd + Hilla Becher, have had a significant cultural impact too. I can think of quite varied academic disciplines that could be interested in Ji Lee's archive of logos and Evans' massive postcard collection, from visual studies to geography. How does the carillon play into all of this? Feld mentioned that someone wrote a history of high buildings. Time to look it up.

A number of my seemingly unrelated curiosities have started to merge, albeit bumpily, into a convoluted train of thought. Perhaps some meanings will emerge from it soon.

O Haupt voll Blut und Wunden

2009-04-07T23:09:00.002-07:00

Palm Sunday's service was the most beautiful I've played at St. Joseph. The congregation sang the final hymn, which Bach used for the St Matthew Passion, in harmony, and that hymn moves me more than any other. I don't often think of myself as a church organist, but if every service were like that, I wouldn't mind it at all.

There is an interesting carillon event coming up:

CARILLON 2009
A Special Program including Lou Reed’s “A Perfect Day”
The Riverside Church, 91 Claremont Avenue (at 120th Street), New York City
April 30, 2009 at 11:30am-12:30pm

The Riverside Church carillon is the largest in the world and made partly by Dutch craftsmen. On Koninginnedag, it will be called into service by the Dutch mastercarillonneur Sjoerd Tamminga, who has played “A Perfect Day” by Lou Reed for the past ten years in at the Maria Magdelena Church in Goes. This will be the finale to a series of carillon performances beginning in the Netherlands earlier in the day and ending at The Riverside Church at noon, where Lou Reed will be in attendance.

It reminds me of Doug Henderson's bell installation, Requiem for a Penny (2005). They both seem to imagine a worldwide synchronicity and sounding of bells for a "third listener" up in space.

2009-03-24T21:03:00.006-07:00

Walker Evans and the Picture Postcard. Possibly the most modest and most fascinating exhibition I've ever seen in a museum. Evans and I had a lot of important things in common. Photography, postcards, ephemera. Did I mention postcards? Evan's commentaries sound strangely reminiscent of Paul Groth's in our cultural geography survey. Art + academia. It's so rewarding when the parallel. (And it happens a lot with CG.)

2009-01-07T17:33:00.003-08:00

Apparently I lapse into not being a photographer if I stop wandering around just to look at things. My photographic eye then shuts down. I'm glad I took off on my bike today headed west. Artisan studios, beautiful strange additions to buildings, quaint office areas, hip yet surreally still residential developments, ironworks, artistic scrap metal yards, presses, fountains, pedestrian paths, travel libraries, dead ends overlooking water and sunset, extraordinary houses, hippie vans, gorgeous indian furniture, forgotten and newly discovered restaurants... somehow it all opened my eyes to the tree right outside my house. I think the twilight photos of it worked out well. And to think I never saw the soaring, complex tree as photogenic before.

beginning of the end of the semester

2008-11-12T13:21:00.000-08:00

Beginning work on Davitt's manuscript "Recueil d'airs Choisis" has been intimidating, but is it not a good sign when you discover two concordances within five minutes of beginning your search for concordances?

Studying the MS tired me out today however. I was so desperate for a break that I even deigned to walk into American Apparel (the thought of walking in had never occurred to me) and Wet Seal. I should really go window shopping at University Press Books or the Musical Offering, but that involves reading and thinking (about academics)... I need to find more hobbies that involve neither.

At 10 pm...
Bam. Thirteen concordances/sources or leads. Mostly cross-eyed, and very behind on the rest of my work. The pros and cons of OCD...

2008-09-29T13:26:00.002-07:00

Does music really express that which is beyond words? (At least music of the Wagnerian brand.) Or simply that which is beside words, but which does not supersede them?

rochacha

2008-09-27T10:38:00.003-07:00

Easy as it is to dismiss my former hometown, there are definitely things I miss about it. Not about living there, but the delightful parts of living there. Most of these aspects of Rochester have their corollaries here, but to my surprise that doesn't make them replaceable. Most of all, of course, I miss the organ culture. That can hardly be replaced anywhere.

walking the tightrope

2008-09-24T16:47:00.006-07:00

In the closing scne of the film Still Life, the protagonist and he alone notices a tightrope walker crossing from one ramshackle building to another in a town being "deconstructed" for the filling of the Three Gorges in China. I am starting to realize that I can understand my own path into music as a tightrope walk.

While at Eastman, I struggled to retain a sense of purpose and meaning as I made music without having the opportunity to contemplate what music meant or its place in society. Without reference to a context, music-making began to seem purposeless. As a musicology student, I now struggle with the meaning of music and its place in society on a daily basis. And yet I have not been satisfied over the past weeks because this struggle has left little time for performance. No longer an onerous chore, sitting down to learn new repertoire has become as mind-clearing and salutary as a long bike ride.

So musicology loses its meaning without performance and vice versa. And yet it's a tremendous challenge to excel at both. I'm giving myself ample time to learn the walk, but I have to find a balance before I stumble.

random maliciousness

2008-09-16T21:09:00.013-07:00

The 30-lb package of carillon monographs and sheet music and CDs and the almost-complete Klok en Klepel that I so lovingly assembled over the course of several days at the WCF Congress, squandering many Euros on knowing that I would never find these items in the US, and struggling with twice across many blocks in hot weather barely able to carry the weight, arrived.

And at least half of it was gone.

On top of the sorry-looking pile was a paperback book about the Old Testament that I had not purchased.

Perhaps I should not have let the package remain at the Daly City post office for over a week, but it was hardly possible to make it there earlier. Are my carillon books and magazines and CDs still there? Or at some central USPS processing office? Who in the world would find Dutch literature on the history of the carillon so morally repugnant that they would send me a morally repugnant message of their own -- in the form of an interpretation of the Old Testament from Southern Evangelical Seminary?

I waited years to find these items and fully intended to use them for my dissertation writing. Now I will have to wait years (certainly after I've started my writing) to buy them again. Unbelievable.

Some zealous Christian (an American one, I might add, looking at the imprint of this "gift" of a book) may fail to understand his/her disappointing reward in the afterlife for efforts such as these. Should I feel sorry for myself or for the perpetrator of this misdeed? Where do I find the energy to practice carillon this evening after this hoax of a betrayal by a total stranger? All that music I was going to learn, all that knowledge I was hoping to synthesize... gone. Senselessly.

One can hardly imagine a more absurd fate for carillon books.

2008-09-04T12:56:00.003-07:00

Biking to the Berkeley Bowl at noon, I was struck by what a Californian day it was and how Californian my surroundings were, as both are aspects of life here I no longer take for granted. The dry heat, the open sky, the rolling golden hills framing it all -- I found myself experiencing the state as one thinks of it beyond the borders of that peculiar entity of San Francisco. Sitting in the garden each day eating lunch in the warm sun is perhaps the very best part of it.

Belgian modesty

2008-08-23T12:16:00.003-07:00

From the Gazette van Detroit:

The CEOs of three large breweries meet at a convention and decide to go for a drink together.

When the waiter arrives to take their order, the Heineken boss naturally orders a Heineken beer, the Budweiser boss orders a Bud, and the boss of Stella Artois orders... a Coca Cola.

To the astonished looks of his colleagues the man says, "Well, seeing as neither of you is having beer, I had no other choice but to keep you company."

metros II

2008-08-19T17:21:00.005-07:00

I'm back in the Bay Area, and it's high time I updated my metro graph.

b3co.com

WCF 4

2008-07-16T20:56:00.007-07:00

I woke up relatively easily this morning at 7:15 and hurried to the Academiegebouw. Apparently seventy people had crowded into the little tower yesterday while second thoughts about losing sleep over major third bells kept me in bed, but today only Ted the Aussie and a Dutch lady showed up. Auke de Boer demonstrated the carillon, emphasizing that one must use a light touch to play the little instrument, but I must admit the faint sound of the bells was dreadful inside the playing cabin. Then it was my turn. Without realizing what an suitable repertoire choice I was making, I took out Peter Vermeersch’s Bellbook nr. 2. Auke seemed immensely pleased—its requisite fleet, light touch and modern sound aesthetic made it perfect, in his opinion, for the instrument. I took to the ladders (not meant for any human however, only monkeys) and climbed into to the belfry, where to my surprise the bells sounded perfectly pleasant. Distance seems to make them ugly.

Afterwards Auke and I spoke at some length and discovered that our lives met at many intersections. Just three years ago, he had played a summer concert in Rochester, and still prizes his old LP of the Eastman Brass as one of the best brass recordings he owns. He plays the organ and a brass instrument as well, and has a repertoire of about twenty pieces for horn and organ that he used to play with one of the hornists of the Concertgebouw. Even more strangely, he knows Rudy Zuiderveld of Middelburg infamy. John Brombaugh based a few of his stops for Rudy’s organ on an organ that Auke either plays or is close to.

Apparently Auke has recorded his carillon with brass ensemble – this will be very interesting evidence for my business proposal, which is still valuable to me even if it didn’t merit acknowledgement of receipt. I will need to order the CD from abroad from the RuG Winkel.

My stay in Groningen is confirming my lessons in Middelburg. Go to the Netherlands (or New Zealand, I suppose), and you’ll make all manner of new friends within in the week. Live in Flanders for a year and you’ll be lucky to feel comfortable keeping in touch with anybody. I hope to keep in touch with Auke and other Dutch folks I've met and to see them again in the States. Perhaps Berkeley will host more guest carillonneurs, as was done for Winsemius in 2004. I know it would take a huge budget as there’s no Cali concert circuit, but even one guest would surely be worth the expenditure.

We proceeded to the Bellfoundry Museum in Heiligerlee, where the new Scandinavian traveling carillon was stationed for the evaluation of the membership. Despite the surprising fear of heights and terror of my public debut for 2008 on a non-American keyboard that the contraption inspired, I felt out the World Standard Keyboard with Geert’s Evening Meditation and found it a very odd fit. My performance was less than ideal, yet amusingly enough, Eddy asked the name and composer of the piece afterwards, and Frans Haagen invited me to give a recital in Almelo next Saturday.

Afterwards I shared a good laugh with Hylke and Vegar popping out of the bell moulds in the museum garden (I could fit myself in entirely) and chatting about Vegar’s new iPhone--I hadn't realized the iPhone had until now been unavailable in Europe. In the museum shop I discovered a van Bergen booklet about its exhibition at the World’s Fair in Chicago, truly a gem of a discovery for my most recent research.

We were entertained next with an organ and vocal concert in Appingedam by Adolph Rots and his wife, followed by Geoff Armitage reciting all sorts of facts Koen Cosaert and André Lehr had already emblazoned on my mind. I went in search of a salon in the quaint city centre, realizing too late that one stood virtually across from the church. I managed to get my hair washed and conditioned, but cut the blowdrying short only to discover that the Walloon artist had played a 50-minute concert for his 30-minute timeslot and that Jan was just beginning. It was better that I heard him—my hair still looked far better after the shampooing and drying in the sun, and didn’t even poof up. Mysterious good luck or defiance of nature?

My bus buddies over the course of the day were numerous—Bauke, Erica, Janno, Hylke, Koen van Assche. Yet somehow Phyllis managed to reserve me for her table with her granddaughter, whom she hopes will consider Yale, as well as UF student Ben, and Arendt and his wife, who was extremely urgent about nobody cutting Ben and me in line for dessert. I roved amongst the other tables as my charge seemed indifferent about Yale and responded “I don’t know” to most of my leading questions (and even my non-questions); I don't know which of us was more frustrated, really. And who cares--for a buffet feast was laid before us, with piles of herring, fish grilled before your eyes, salad, cheese, fruit, and desserts of all kinds, most of which I took care to sample. For my social rounds I went first to the British table (to which Trevor commented “So this is the rabble table!” as he passed, to my heated objections) where the (Loughborough?) carillonneur reminded me of our Elgar correspondence. I then made my way to the American table, where our GCNA president recounted my Langlais story to Janet, Todd and I snuggled up for our scandalous “traditional photo,” and Carol, the unexpected recipient of a 5 EUR cordial, waved “Goodbye butterfly!” as I left to be re-interviewed for the Congress DVD, perhaps hoping to nurture a life-of-the-party successor.

The real highlight, however, was introducing Sinnika and Min Jin to each other—the two lone (women!) carillonneurs of their respective countries. How good it feels to introduce two people, see them connect intensely, and suddenly realize you no longer exist for them—something I imagine Margo would do.

I was late for my chat with Andrew, but fortunately he was also late due to the bus. As my laptop wouldn't connect to the wireless network, Hylke installed Skype for me on his laptop, which we discovered had a built-in mic. After Andrew hung up (perhaps disquieted at the voice commenting and laughing in the background), Hylke showed me his websites for his choir and Rosemarie, as well as photos of his brother’s mansion in Aberdeen. I left at a quarter to one... a lovely way to end my last congress day.

pre-Groningen

2008-07-12T09:40:00.003-07:00

The shower is going and I don’t know how to turn it off. Curious about how to start it, I had pressed the little red button on the 70’s-era coin machine without inserting any coins and nevertheless water started splashing, first dismayingly cold, then warming up and going... and flowing... and going. As I had no designs on a shower, I started blogging to wait it out, hopefully before someone else arrived. To my chagrin, two German girls strolled in shortly before it stopped.

I’d been amused when the Hungarian girls compared the Stayokay Zeeburg to a hotel, but this hostel shows that they were right. Besides the modestly attractive lobby, the Simplon Jongeren is spartan. Even the ‘Clouds’ painting by Margreet Ubels sprawling across the gridded ceiling doesn’t soften the barrenness. In contrast to what the shorter Hungarian girl noted was a “good view” (of a young man undressing in another window) from our Stayokay room, this hostel has a view of a wannabe construction site and an unphotogenic industrial roof.

I should have been grateful for my Japanese and Korean roommates. Quiet as they were, they were unquestionably preferable to the obnoxious Dutch girls who just walked in chatting at the top of their lungs. Their nasal accent is even more grating. They casually butt into the German girls’ low-voiced but animated conversation, but stay away from me.

When it comes to hostels, you get what you pay for – roommates included. Those Japanese girls though, they were a riot. They had both brought heavy pieces of luggage filled with hairdryers and heaven knows what; they spent egregious amounts of time patting their smiling faces with makeup; unfortunately they took showers barefoot and probably won’t last for long without athlete’s foot. Although they came from the same time zone as the Korean girl, they went to bed early while she went to bed late. One of them locked herself out while putting the bedclothes outside. Never a dull moment with them around.

The Hungarian girls, friends since kindergarten in Budapest, were the friendliest folk I’d ever met in a hostel. I need to visit Budapest. And I should have invited them to visit me in the Bay Area, as one of them loves SF and is starting at UT Austin. My mind is clearly still on vacation.

As a college town, Groningen is lively for its size. Gezellig restaurants and bars buzz along the streets leading from the hostel to the Grote Markt, and my American sensibilities noted two cozy cafes serving frozen coffee and good tea. There is a sizable shopping district, much of it standard chain stores which are relieved by interesting businesses such as a surprisingly run-down Bijenkorf, upscale Dutch boutiques (ick), and specialized bicycle shops. Passing the open-air markets, including a mouth-watering fish market, I reached the Aa-kerk—The famed Aa-kerk with its Schnitger-orgel!—and made a mental note to return for a musical pilgrimage. To my surprise, the church was open late—for an exhibition of contemporary art, all of which was available on loan! A female DJ was spinning; perhaps this was an exhibition opening as people were lingering at tables drinking and crunching on bar snacks. What a strange sensation to walk into my holy Aa-kerk to be met by large-scale photographic portraiture of black gangsters from Amsterdam (clad in American ghetto), this female DJ, and the organ nowhere in sight. Perhaps Groningen is my type of city, to a degree. Perhaps it is only my accommodations that feel bleak.

The clash of old and new, secular and sacred entertains me here. Beyond the Aa-kerk stands the grand Korenbeurs, a historic monolith flanked by two impressive statues. It now houses one of the omnipresent Albert Heijn supermarkets.

There is a little Chinatown a block away from the hostel. It can’t comprise more than ten or so businesses, but it is there nevertheless, with even a Chinese salon. I had dinner in a very nice combination Chinese-Thai restaurant with white table cloths and tall red candles. The cross-influences amuse the knowledgeable eye to no end – Thai art suspended beside upscale Chinese kitsch, and my Buddha vegetable dish served on a warmed “rice table” tray heated by candles. I was one of only two parties there for dinner on that Saturday night. I hope the restaurant does brisker business on other nights; I can’t imagine how it could survive otherwise. The food was fine, and the check came with the largest mint I had ever seen; certainly larger than a quarter. I folded my chopstick wrapper into a caterpillar and set him there feeding on it before I left. A terribly good value for 8 EUR. This is the Netherlands after all.

It’s a small world, running into Boudewijn on my second day in Amsterdam and John Courter on my third. But in Groningen I feel alone. I hope tomorrow that feeling will be dispelled. I also have an interesting breakfast to look forward to. Returning to the organic foods store, I pored over the cereal shelf and bought the highest-fiber package I could find, only to discover at the hostel that it was a rough, powdery substance that would form a paste in milk. Yum. A subsequent trip to Albert Heijn scored a more reassuring box of All-Bran.

I need to stop going to the Netherlands. Especially with $3,000 from Berkeley for the next two years, I should be able to get myself to Scandinavia for a concert tour. Of course I had a delightful time in Amsterdam and am charmed to a certain degree by Groningenas well, but I know the type. I need new horizons. Germany needs to be in those plans too somewhere. My other head will surely show me a good time in München.

My days here are long because the sun goes down late at this northern latitude. At 9:07 pm, golden sun suddenly floods the room and we all turn our heads to see what has changed. The shower is silent.

Amsterdam nº2

2008-07-11T20:59:00.001-07:00

I made good use of my second day in Amsterdam. First I wandered through the Anne Frank House (I should have known that Anne’s original diary was in Dutch!), bare of furniture the way it was when the prisoners were taken away and all the furniture confiscated. Echoes of Corrie Ten Boom seemed to resonate throughout the house and Anne’s story. The depth of thought she expressed in her diary shocked even her father. “I can only conclude that parents do not know their children as well as they think,” he tells us in a video. Most touching of all, earlier in the year of her death, Anne learned that diaries and correspondences would be collected and archived after the war. She set about revising her diary letters to the imaginary “Kitty,” but she could never have imagined how the world would come to love her in so many languages. The world gave her little, but she gave us so much as the voice of her people. The last time we know of her being seen in a concentration camp, she believed she was all alone in the world. Her friend, speaking to her across the fence, brought a care package of trinkets to give her something to live for. A woman caught the package as it flew over the fence and rushed away with it. A second package did reach Anne, and that was the last time that this particular friend saw her.

After this haunting affair, I decided it was time to indulge and had my first Hollandse nieuwe broodje of the year at a stand at the foot of the Westerkerk. The frieten from the next stand were the worst I’d ever had, but the broodje was satisfying psychologically and physically. A carillonneur who was rather in need of more training made music to accompany my tiny feast. Afterwards I set out in search of a post office marked on my map, only to find that all local post offices had been inexplicably shut down. This led me back to the Singel, where I saw Boudewijn strolling down the sidewalk speaking to a young woman. People tell me he knows everybody, so one cannot assume she was a carillonneur. Small world here – even in Belgium I never ran into people I knew.

With little time left, I hurried through Mango in the magnificent historic shopping center, then skipped the alluring photography exhibits at Huis Marseille and Stadsarchief in favor of ARCAM. However, I made my roundabout way there via the Stedelijk Museum CS. This allowed me to take more photos at the same underpass as in 2005, realizing later in the SMCS that I could cleverly revise their titles to “Vers Un Nouveau Stedelijk Museum” from my old “Towards the Stedelijk.” Despite the promise of its wild undulating exterior, the free-entry ARCAM offered only one exhibition room, but plenty of architectural biking tour maps to make my mouth water. The text of the captions was typically tiny; attractive but hardly functional for sore eyes. I made a 15-minute run through the SMCS (my Museumkaart is still good for a few days yet) afterward and was glad for it, as the museum is closing in October for the one-year return to its old living quarters, version 2. I wish they sold copies of their posters with the crossed-out names of ~~RIETVELD~~, ~~MONDRIAAN~~ and so on over the names of lesser known contemporary artists, in reference to the collection on display—the climate control of the old Post CS isn’t precise enough for the exhibition of their most renowned masterpieces.

Hurrying out of the Stedelijk Museum, I rushed in my flipflops to, up, and down the dock behind the station for half an hour until my knees began to complain. As it turned out, the Pannenkoekboot departed from Amsterdam Noord, which is across the Ij. I had forgotten how bad the Dutch are at giving directions, even those who work for tourist enterprises. So I took the free commuter ferry in order to sightsee, and boy did I get an eyeful of new architecture and a magnificent industrial area further south. A rainbow Greenpeace boat partially powered by an aggressive-sounding windmill was docked for the festivities that night, but I wanted to catch Andrew on Skype and go to bed early and so returned for dinner at one of the pannenkoek places on the way from the Dam to the Westerkerk to satisfy my protesting pannenkoek appetite. My stomach declared victory after a couple of poffertjes for dessert.

Jazz at the venerable Concertgebouw put me to sleep, so I slipped out during intermission, made reservations for my final day in Europe at the Stayokay Vondelpark, took note of the nearby Wagamama for a late-night dessert after Gouda, and headed back to the hostel. Thankfully, I was able to video chat with Andrew, and FON.com continued to work in my room just for Gmail. What a luxury, to have free wireless Gmail in your hostel room! I like the FON concept, although I don’t know how workable it is. Seems that there are quite a few hotspots in Groningen, including a cafe. Definitely worth testing.

Amsterdam is no less under construction than it was when I came for the second time with the Yale Guild. The magnificent Central Station is still an unsightly mess, the SMCS is still in the unclimate-controlled Post CS, and the Rijksmuseum is still under renovation. Things move slowly around here. The results had better be good, because I will end up back here soon.

Amsterdam nº1

2008-07-10T20:59:00.002-07:00

The first half-day in a new country is a foregone conclusion. You will waste your time figuring things out, no matter how confident you are. I failed to prepare myself mentally for this fact, despite the foreboding location of my hostel in the boonies of Amsterdam.

After finally settling into my lofted dorm room in the Stayokay Zeebrugge (having been let in during lockout by a sweet Asian housekeeper), I hopped the 22 bus to the opposite end of the line at Museum Het Schip and savored the creativity of Amsterdamse School architecture. Pumpkin soup, a tomato-basil sandwich, and a cup of tea kept me going through the utter exhaustion and the damp of the overcast day. After wandering through the furnished exhibition apartment and exhibit (learning along the way that the Amsterdamse School’s official organ dedicated an issue to Frank Lloyd Wright—makes total sense), I made my way to FOAM and discovered Adama Bamba, an African photographer who promised to open a new world to me, although his work was only visible in the brochure. I was also lucky enough to attend an exhibition opening on the first floor, and felt an extra rush of artsy-fartsiness as a result.

By the time I was through with feeling artsy (and woefully underdressed, especially when trying to prevent my ginormous EMS backpack from smacking fellow art lovers in the crowded halls), the rest of the (legit) museums had closed, so I bought a new SIM card and then allowed myself to be pulled into De Slegte, where I purchased two carillon-related books, although I found nothing particularly drool-worthy in the photography or A+A sections, and then into ZARA—the four-story ZARA on the winkelstraat. Boy did I make a killing in there. I certainly could have stayed and bought more, but fortunately I ushered myself out in time to stave off sartorial disaster. I doubt my luggage could have fit much more for the rest of the trip. It’s terribly irksome that after all the trouble I went to tracking down an affordable product, I forgot to bring my vacuum-packing bags with me for the return trip.

By accident (or perhaps because it’s the only authentic and cheap Cantonese restaurant in the area), I ended up at dinnertime at the same joint at which Ingrid and I had gone two years ago when I was dreadfully ill and needed to live on a diet of jook. The food was authentic, but only when I strolled out the door did I discover that the next place was an affordable and appetizing fusion restaurant. Next time. I had to end my long, long flip-flop walk somewhere.

Asian food (as well as Mexican and Argentinean) is quite a delicacy here, although it’s usually considered cheap cuisine in the US. Curious.

To my delight, my roommates from Budapest were extremely friendly. Perhaps Hungarians look more mature than their age compared to your average American, because I assumed they were nearly my age. They were in fact starting college in the fall, and marveled at my independence and achievements at the age of twenty-five. I didn’t know whether to feel like a proud woman role model or an old fogie.

a haunted artist

2008-06-26T23:29:00.004-07:00

With the monumental spectacles generated by today's film industry, I expect to emerge from a film more emotionally affected than from an art exhibit. Not so for the haunting Frida Kahlo. Her art speaks more loudly for her than anything or anyone else can.

After the delightfully bird-like mischievousness of her self-depiction in "Frieda and Diego Rivera" (1931), her art as exhibited at SFMOMA is a series of intensely painful and individual experiences. She poured her pain directly into her paintings, transmitting it to the viewer in an uncannily visceral way. The honesty of her autobiography in art is stunning enough, but seeing her torn asunder by her philandering husband in "The Two Fridas" (1939) is almost mortifying. Staring into "Moses" (1945), her ongoing search for a belief system, one sees a fanatically cluttered foreground which reveals almost no depth, and yet one gets the distinct experience of looking into infinity.

Kahlo's pain seems to end or at least reach a reconciliation as one enters the last room, filled with eye-popping, joyous still lifes and "The Love Embrace of the Universe" (1949). This redemption is just as a viewer would hope. Yet she was in her worst physical condition by that point, having undergone endless operations and an amputation. Had she truly achieved peace, or was her artistic joy a forced Act III? "I hope to leave joyously -- and never return." What happy, unhaunted soul says such words?

Diego Rivera specified that Kahlo's room remain locked for fifty years after her death. It has finally been opened, her extraordinary Tehuana / Chinese / Indian wardrobe discovered in pristine condition, the colors still intense. One cannot help but wonder at how she stands out in every photograph, whether she is alone or with a crowd. She is inevitably the most dignified, proud, and eye-catching. Is it her majestically un/traditional wardrobe, her tightly-bound hair, her features, her high forehead, her masculine air, or the way she holds her chin that mesmerizes? Or can the fire of one's spirit blaze through one's face to the camera lens?

Speaking of Kahlo's wardrobe, if you are looking for a reproduction of the shirts and skirts she wore in her self-portraits, you can buy them at SFMOMA for $200 to $1800 a pop. Having garnered limited recognition during her lifetime, I am sure Kahlo would have been proud to see the queues winding down the stairs at SFMOMA for her exhibit. But what of the gift shop?

2008-06-25T20:49:00.000-07:00

"In March, Americans drove 11 billion fewer miles on public roads than in the same month the previous year, a 4.3 percent decrease — the sharpest one-month drop since the Federal Highway Administration began keeping records in 1942." -The New York Times

goodbye cody's

2008-06-24T19:11:00.004-07:00

The Berkeley air was choking with the smoke of wildfires blowing in from all around NorCal. Perhaps some particles of San Bruno Mountain gorse even reached the Campanile -- who can know?

What would you bring with you if you had to abandon your house to an approaching wildfire? Photos? Stuffed animals? Jewelry? Other monetarily worthless things that can never be replaced? My things are still all in boxes, awaiting their Berkeley home. I would have run out with little more than my passport, Social Security card, and laptop in hand, frozen by the choices between all the rest of those worthless, precious things. Perhaps my bike would have come with me. And my carillon sheet music, if I had the presence of mind.

Berkeley's iconic Cody's Books closed on June 20. I stood reading and rereading the tabloid-sized notices posted on the wall-to-wall windows, stricken. Passersby, perhaps noticing my expression, stopped to glance at the notice, but nobody lingered. Perhaps it was old news to them. Perhaps it was meaningless news to them.

Moments earlier I'd been in a wonderfully thought-provoking bookstore on Bancroft, picking up "The Book is Dead: Long Live The Book" and then setting it back down again with revulsion, unwilling to believe its warning, determined to believe that it was just the sort of book it warned against, a sensationalist product designed only to sell. But the fact is that I neither read it nor bought it. Perhaps the book is dead unless we change something fast. We buy our books from giants like amazon to save a few bucks. And here is the evidence, in these tabloid-size letters. I never suspected that my last visit to Cody's was unrepeatable. And my last visit four years ago to the 4th Street store. And the visit to the Union Square shop that never happened. How Cody's has been shuffling around. To what end?

The end, I suppose. Just as I was starting to take up the slack on the reading list I've been growing but otherwise ignoring since high school. And just as I've stopped moving house often enough to want to actually own my books.

Incidentally, the newest item on my travel itinerary: Shipton's Arch, known for ages by locals, revealed to the West in the 1950's, lost, and found again by National Geographic in 2000.

2008-06-23T00:04:00.000-07:00

The moon is orange tonight under the heavy smoke as the south face of San Bruno Mountain goes up in flames.

fini

2008-05-29T05:13:00.001-07:00

It's a quarter past eight ante meridiem and I am done packing. Only I know what it took to reach this point.

2008-05-27T20:29:00.002-07:00

"Three moves are equivalent to a fire," Andrew's father quipped. I've jettisoned several reams of paper over the past week, but only now that most of my apartment is in boxes am I throwing out the 30% DEET roll-on I purchased in Belgium. My unwillingness to part with it is less pack rat instinct, I suspect, than mortal terror. I'm keeping the rest of my arsenal stuff around to arm myself against the Groningen mosquitoes.

AGO Fight Song

2008-05-25T13:07:00.002-07:00

We're AGO, we're AGO
We guard Cecilian flanks;
Through music's fray
We gravely go forth
Undivided, united
And armed with pipes in ranks
We know with Diapasons Great and Swell
And with just two feet and hands
Our sound
Can astound
And confound
All philharmonic bands

With registration, Gen'rals set,
Our armed Aeolian squad
With loud Cornet, Posaune, Trompette
At the ready, all steady and mounted en chamade,
To shake the walls we'll couple our Bombarde
And with Tuba daunt the foe.
We say
It's OK Hip Hoo-ray
For we're the AGO.

AGO carillon concerts

2008-04-26T15:45:00.001-07:00

Dave Johnson is playing two carillon concerts at the AGO national "Twin Cities" convention! Awesome!

Sorabji and me online

2008-04-15T06:58:00.003-07:00

Unbelievable! Within twelve hours of writing to the Sorabji Archive, I have my one page of Sorabji fame. Thanks to Ryan and Randy for telling me about this piece.

carillon as installation art

2008-03-30T09:09:00.005-07:00

"Does it work as a stand-alone piece?" I asked about the carillon piece meant for the Yale School of Drama's winter production, a piece axed by the administration as the carillon couldn't sound during finals week. "Well, Miss Tiffany Ng," Dr. S said, turning intently to me. And so the idea of a carillon installation has taken seed.

I am--joyously--getting up to my ears in new music for carillon, both acoustic and electroacoustic. But what about the overwhelming physical presence of the carillon, the visual, the visceral aspect of the bells and the belfry? (Never mind that the UR's carillon is basically disembodied.) How many composers and artists have taken advantage of that? Jeffery Bossin has done cool projects in Berlin, but what of interest has happened in America?

Eastman had better figure out what's going on with that Hanson Commissioning Fund, because I have big plans for it. I envision an installation that isn't so site-specific that it can't be recreated in other cities, or even with a traveling carillon in a large art gallery.

Speaking of which, new organ music mission accomplished this week. Twofold.

iPod crime

2008-03-05T15:44:00.003-08:00

Brussels should team up with think tank The Urban Institute to discover that kids kill kids for iPods the world over. Thanks to Chip for this link.

2008-02-24T21:04:00.004-08:00

First, Bobby and I chat for an hour in Dutch at Java's without any idea of how strange we must have seemed. Next, I find that Yale Educational Travel is hosting a Waterways of Holland and Belgium trip, and the Little Theatre is showing In Bruges. Today I manage to memorize Geert's organ piece in a single day. What's next, Low Countries?

Now I can finally make up for the fact that I never took a polisci course at Yale: Open Yale courses online. Sweet.

clavichordium

2008-02-12T22:37:00.003-08:00

It would appear that I've passed my clavichord jury to good approval--just about the last outcome I was expecting. I must admit that every time I'm forced to practice it seriously, I develop a fondness for the instrument. After a break from bad habits and confusion, my technique has certainly improved this year. With the instrument's sensitivity as more friend than foe (though it will probably always retain the characters of both), I'm finding the clavichord rather satisfying to play. Perhaps one day I'll have one for myself... it will be cheaper than an organ after all.

2008-02-04T09:03:00.000-08:00

Here I come Chicago carillons! Now if only I had any idea what I was doing afterwards.

2008-01-29T00:28:00.000-08:00

John Ashbery was born a Rochesterian. Certainly makes me feel a little better about this place.

2007-12-27T07:20:00.001-08:00

As the US watches coverage of the assassination of former female Pakistan Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto in indignation (during a return engineered in part by the US), let us also ask ourselves how a woman, from 1988 to 1990, led a nation as far behind the US as we perceive Pakistan to be, while we still elect our male-dominated governments smug in the knowledge that we are far more civilized that most nations in the 21st century.

Member of the 80's "Antwerp Six" Ann Demeulemeester is apparently as much of an architectural enthusiast as ever. Owner of the only Le Corbusier house in Belgium (in Antwerp of course -- always another discovery to be made in Antwerp), she's now selling her line in a remarkable new building by Mass Studies in Seoul. Reading an NYT article about her in 2006, I'm flustered at how typically Belgian her attitude is (and how uncomprehendingly the reporter capitalizes on it), and yet how delectably different this makes her as a fashion designer.

To bookmark this entry with another death, Carlos Sousa Jr. left his parents on Christmas Day and didn't come home for Christmas dinner. He was never to come home -- his parents watched the coverage splashed across dinnertime Christmas news about an escaped tiger mauling three people at the San Francisco Zoo with no clue until the next morning, when they were called in to identify the corpse in a body bag, that the victim was their own son. The Siberian tiger Tatiana was shot by police as it mauled on of his two friends -- friends who may have been taunting the tiger to provoke it as the zoo emptied out towards closing time on Christmas Day.

Potentially aggressive young men attacked by a Siberian tiger in California on Christmas Day splashed across the media -- another day in our globalized, violent, voyeuristic society.

2007-12-13T06:56:00.000-08:00

Snow is pouring like heavy rain on pavement that was clear this morning and winter-sun-drenched yesterday. I could have been wearing sunglasses yesterday had my eyes not been raw from nonstop paper writing.

I suppose if I had a fireplace to cuddle beside reading a good book, and I could sustain this activity through the entire winter, the Rochester weather wouldn't seem so dismal to me. Alas, this is not so.

2007-12-03T17:57:00.000-08:00

After three years, I have rediscovered it: The quote that expresses my understanding of and approach to the perceivable world.

"It is the mark of our period that everything can be regarded as a work of art and seen in textual terms. I count this, to vary a title I envy Suzi Gablik for inventing, the re-enchantment of the world. Contemporary art replaces beauty, everywhere threatened, with meaning."
--Arthur Danto, "Art and Meaning" in The Madonna of the Future

This means so much more to me than it did when I first read it, before I had developed a more nuanced and wide-ranging appreciation for art, a sense of my own artistic identity, and a grasp of all the facts needed to understand Danto's arguments. Thanks, Professor Seeley.

It can't be coincidence that while writing this entry I learned of the movie My Kid Could Paint That.

My next struggle: How to apply Danto's claims to music and sound.

2007-11-29T07:03:00.000-08:00

Despite my frustrating status as an errant publicist, I have been offered the privilege of joining the recently established Society of Friends of Belgium in America for a tour of the spectacular Tapestry in the Baroque: Threads of Splendor exhibition at the Met. My old BAEF cohort Ben Gateño will play guitar at the reception following at the Consul General's residence. I am curious to know what a Fifth Avenue residence looks like, as well as to meet the Friends in attendance. The Society's website has an excellent introduction to Belgium.

Un Sport Combat

2007-11-28T20:22:00.000-08:00

It has become patently clear to me that I cannot interact with people who act primarily on intuition, even if I admire them greatly. A lot makes sense now.

My long search is perhaps coming to an end -- Pierre Carles' documentary on Pierre Bourdieu, "La Sociologie est un sport de combat," will be released on DVD in December with multilingual subtitles. I hope, hope, hope some retailer will offer it. Amazon isn't planning to, so I'm a bit distressed. I'm pretty clueless when it comes to shopping for TV-type things.

I have surprised myself again by writing an extended essay without a conclusive thesis in mind (I wasn't decided between one possible thesis and its opposite) and without the mental coherence to consciously develop a big picture, and yet ending up with a relatively coherently argued paper. I suppose all those years with CyberEdit reorganizing bad essays did me some good. It was exciting to finally get to analyze an electronic musical work, to feel like I was doing something new to me that employed the skills I've spent five years developing. I hope Professor Watkins buys it.

2007-11-18T21:21:00.001-08:00

I usually excuse myself from portrait requests and justify the lack of humans in my photography by claiming that I'm terrible at portraiture. Architectural spaces, especially large and deteriorating ones, are my forte. But this season, Zara's catalog has proven that portraiture and deteriorating industrial spaces can be dramatically combined. Wild.

2007-11-12T21:26:00.000-08:00

Carillons and poppies aren't important only in Belgium. This article on Remembrance Sunday with carillon music in Loughborough brings back memories of Ieper (Ypres).

Oil spill in SF Bay :(

2007-11-09T14:44:00.000-08:00

About 58,000 gallons of oil were spilled into the bay after a container ship hit a tower of the Bay Bridge in San Francisco in Wednesday morning's dense fog.

The spill, believed to be the biggest in the bay since 1988, has fouled miles of coastline, closed several beaches, canceled weekend outdoor events and threatened thousands of birds and marine animals.

"How does a ship, with that much space available, how does a ship hit the bridge?" Governor Schwarzenegger asked as he was shown a map of the bay and where the vessel struck the bridge. Everybody else is asking the same question, as well as why it took the Coast Guard until evening to announce the massive extent of the spill.

2007-11-06T21:07:00.000-08:00

The possibility has arisen that someone has been using my resume in order to pose as me for job interviews. For the record, I am not currently seeking a job in the Bay Area or New York, or in fact anywhere at this time.

2007-11-01T20:49:00.001-07:00

"What? What? Am I seeing things?"

In my short life so far, those are some of the few words I've uttered loudly and unabashedly to myself and myself alone. I am flipping through Kerala's The Organ as a Mirror of its Time on a whim, idly wondering if an article in it might be obliquely related to my 19th-century carillon/organ research into Bollée, Cavaillé-Coll, etc. And what should my eyes fall on when I flip to Owen's "Technology and the organ in the 19th century," but

"...in Birmingham, [Hill's] all-mechanical action was so stiff and heavy that... Cavaillé-Coll compared the Birmingham action to that of a carillon."

I feel as if I'm just awakening from a shock and a fainting spell. Was this M. Aristide's conjecture or did he try a carillon somewhere? Bollée's at the Exposition or later in Perpignan? Better yet, elsewhere??? Perhaps I ought to take Erica's advice and write to Douglass. Perhaps I also need to map out CC's travels to figure out where he might have encountered carillons. There is more to this story than meets the eye.

And to think that this piece of the puzzle came to me from Hans Davidsson.

materialism

2007-10-28T20:57:00.000-07:00

Further addition to the absurdity of purse as status symbol: Rent a luxury handbag at Bag Borrow or Steal.

Pre-release and it was already possible to run Leopard on Intel PCs. Here's a rundown on how Leopard stacks up against Vista, as if that was even a concern.

2007-10-24T19:39:00.000-07:00

You know your life is absurdly busy when you come to the realization that for two weeks you've desperately been wishing for the luxury of having the time to do your laundry.

Carillon and Organ: Uncovering a Missing Link

2007-10-18T23:30:00.000-07:00

Here they are, my submitted Fulbright essays. All this work had better get me somewhere (literally) this time:

In 2006, the sun flooded an overcast February day as I began to ring the bells of the University of Rochester’s carillon. Students emerging from classes gathered before the belfry, asking questions. Is there a musical instrument in that usually silent tower? Can students learn to play?

I enrolled at the Eastman School of Music filled with the hope that as an organ student, I could also realize the potential of this magnificent forgotten instrument, comprising four octaves of bells in a tower played without electric assistance from a keyboard and pedalboard. Over the past year, I have drawn the interest of community groups and the university president alike to this Dutch-crafted treasure, achieving my most urgent public awareness and repair goals and initiating long-term development. The Eastman Organ Department, Eastman Computer Music Center, College Music Department, and a new carillon scholar are cooperating with me in this rejuvenation. I will ensure that the movement becomes self-sustained, because my next degree will prepare me to spearhead the development of a university carillon program from which I can, as an influential teacher, set in motion the revitalization of instruments well beyond Rochester.

My twofold goal combines the organ and carillon in an unprecedented program of study. The American carillon is in jeopardy because instruments outnumber competent players. Historic instruments have fallen silent, their potential to enrich public life forgotten. My answer to this crisis is to attract new talent as a teacher and to call on organists to become stewards and even players of carillons in their churches. I am already bridging the historically related instruments through my research and professional activities. Through university teaching and research, I will establish the carillon as an academic and artistic discipline and create the first environment in which an international panoply of styles can flourish. In the Netherlands, Utrecht University is expanding the music program of its English-language international honors college, the Roosevelt Academy (RA), into the graduate Roosevelt School of Music (RSM). This offers the first chance in history for a carillonist to help realize both goals in preparation to implement them in the US.

At RSM I will study performance on both instruments and, in preparation for a teaching career, develop methods of integrating the studies with experts in both fields. My thesis for the one-year Master of Arts in Musicology & Applied Performance (Carillon) degree will build on the two years of research I will have already pursued through the interdisciplinary sequence “The History of the Organ, its Literature, and Social Context” at Eastman. I will graduate prepared to integrate the study of these instruments in doctoral studies as very few musicians or scholars can.

I am expanding the campanological collection of Eastman’s library and teaching carillon students. But in my research on parallels in the developments of the Dutch organ and carillon in terms of construction, repertoire, and social function, I have found American libraries lacking. One of my papers proposed that while organs and bells developed separately for secular use, the invention of the carillon in the early 16th century allowed their evolutions to partially converge, and during the Reformation to temporarily exchange societal roles. Furthermore, I have found that the carillon underwent equivalent developments to the organ but at intriguingly later dates. My most recent paper analyzed the growing carillon repertoire derived from organ and harpsichord music in the 17th and 18th centuries and causality in the eventual decline of carillon performance and of both carillon and organ building. At RSM, I will be able to make detailed studies of source materials such as early keyboards and carillon, organ, and harpsichord manuscripts, read the large body of carillon research centered in the Low Countries, and consult leading scholars. My thesis will probe connections beginning with the early development of the instruments, and those findings can help bring the carillon back to the forefront of organ studies.

The broader future of the carillon in America is of great concern to me. Much of our carillon heritage is in disrepair or forgotten, in part because the carillon and organ worlds have drifted apart. Carillons were first built and played largely by organ builders and organists in the Low Countries, but today organists are often given authority over carillons about which they know little. By reestablishing the carillon’s importance to organ history, I am providing knowledge that organists need to protect neglected carillons from destructive modification.

Upon attending a 2005 performance by Geert D’hollander, who would become my teacher at the Royal Carillon School, I understood for the first time what it meant not just to play the carillon, but to make music with it. His artistry rivals that of touring concert pianists. The lack of such performers in the US prevents the carillon from being taken seriously. His instruction can help me achieve a professional performance level in order to attract outstanding musicians to my program. I hope to teach a new generation to win the instrument the place it deserves in our country’s public life, revive silent carillons, and see that carillons rather than synthesized chimes are built. It is organists who can best ensure the conservation of this heritage from the Low Countries; they often fail because they are unaware of the carillon’s expressive capabilities, though it offers the largest dynamic range of any acoustic instrument. An electric chime machine and a carillon seem equally musically viable to the uninitiated—and that misconception is at the root of the disasters I want to avert. The Eastman organ department has set a precedent with its model of integrated teaching of the organ, clavichord, and pedal piano, and my curricular investigations at RSM will help me develop a similar program. Through artistry in performing, public outreach, and education, I hope to recover the carillon and to enlist defenders nationwide to recoup the tradition. I am already forging connections with organ builders and restorers. During the 2007 Eastman Rochester Organ Initiative Festival, I gave a recital and talk on the need for carillon preservation. Many of America’s prominent organ builders and scholars embraced my message and its immediate relevance to organists, urging me to bring it to yet wider audiences.

The future of the carillon also depends on international collaboration. I joined a diverse class at the RA’s past two summer carillon courses, first as a student and then as an Eastman Arts Leadership Program intern. In addition to teaching lessons, I helped adult students lay foundations for cross-cultural partnerships in education and carillon restoration between three continents. D’hollander, widely considered one of the world’s leading carillon composers and performers, acts not only as RSM carillon professor, but also as a guest teacher and liaison between national schools. I intend to continue his mission, exploring each style in my teaching to foster well-rounded musicians able to initiate change by bringing disparate communities together.

I want to participate directly in the founding year of RSM’s carillon and organ program, working with director Albert Clement, my trusted advisor and former internship supervisor, to give direction to the program and gain insight not only into educational planning, but also into the administrative challenges of establishing a graduate school. By weaving together carillon and organ training towards a doctorate, I can best meet the challenges of my career—developing an teaching practice that explores the carillon and organ as related musical instruments and that establishes a new level of carillon artistry and scholarship in the US. I want to create an interdisciplinary environment for research into historical relationships and their consequences for construction and performance practice today. The chance to prepare through direct involvement for such a goal will certainly not come again before I begin my task. Thus, there is no better time or place for me than the Roosevelt School of Music from September 2008 to May 2009.

Personal statement

2007-10-18T23:00:00.000-07:00

This is my "CV" or personal statement, intended to give background about me as an individual. I was unhappy with it nearly until I submitted it, but after drastic revision it's doing okay:

During my first months in Belgium as a Fellow of the Belgian American Educational Foundation in 2005, I discovered a principle governing my new life: All that can go wrong may well go wrong on the same day. But through a lens of frustrated tears, I focused on a new under-standing of life: Even the worst situations may conceal reasons to be thankful. My adjustment woes were proof that I was realizing my dream of studying the carillon. I have since met chal-lenges and setbacks with gratitude, approaching them as the complement of real progress.

That I came to music at a late age and found my calling in it even later has positively shaped my goals. I grew up more used to distant gunfire in my low-income neighborhood than the strains of art music. The piano I wanted since age four was beyond reach until my family’s hard work bought one when I was ten. Eventually I made it to Yale, where the premise that stu-dents can dive into new fields and take leadership roles brought me to two new instruments, the carillon and organ. Spearheading the carillon’s restoration and the 2006 Congress of the Guild of Carillonneurs in North America, I found power to effect change through music leadership.

Yale broadened my development in other ways. Joseph Soares’s powerful sociology course, “Public Culture in America,” gave me a new perspective on my past and a sense of my responsibility to promote equality of educational opportunity. My Yale and conservatory educa-tions have placed within my reach a wealth of possibilities from which my childhood peers re-main isolated. The love of teaching I developed over three years of teaching carillon to Yale classmates and over a summer of teaching underprivileged middle-schoolers will drive my ef-forts to level the playing field through a university career bound to public outreach. In Belgium, I took my first steps by authoring the underfunded Mechelen Carillon Museum’s first multimedia catalog to rekindle community interest and create an accessible and dynamic visitor experience. Moreover, no instrument enriches the public sphere like the carillon. In Rochester, I am drawing new audiences with innovative programming by commissioning electroacoustic composers at Eastman and local poets to create multidisciplinary performances. These events place the carillon in the vanguard of public culture and reveal its potential to enrich the arts in the community.

A mostly self-taught carillonist, I finally trained in Mechelen and earned what is normally a six-year performance certificate in one year, despite a severe bicycle accident that left me bed-ridden for five weeks but all the more grateful for the time I had remaining to achieve my goals. Although on par with some of the best American carillonists, I know I have the potential to offer students more after further training in Europe, where standards are far higher. Giving lessons at the 2007 Roosevelt Academy Summer School and now at the University of Rochester, I have found tremendous inspiration teaching students of all ages, levels, and degrees of talent. As the university’s carillon instructor, I am building on Yale’s student-centered model, delegating im-portant performances and projects to students so they experience the carillonist’s responsibility to the public. In Middelburg, I can improve my teaching and strengthen the school’s community ties by giving free music lessons and serving as a community English writing consultant.

The organ and carillon make music for all, and learning to play should be within any-one’s reach. This is the challenge I want to meet with community programs and creative concerts that draw young audiences. By organizing an annual subsidized carillon course like Pipe Organ Encounters, a program that introduces young people to the organ, I can bring music into the lives of youths who might otherwise follow the long path I have. The carillon and organ stand in churches and universities, in memorials and city halls. Like me, many learners and listeners will not reach them until they are welcomed and encouraged to pass the great institutional doors.

carnivores responsible for much global warming :)

2007-10-14T22:20:00.000-07:00

The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization has issued a report stating that the livestock business generates more greenhouse gas emissions than all forms of transportation combined. This NYT article follows the efforts of animal rights groups to spread the news, particularly to environmental organizations that don't seem to be taking notice (perhaps because some of them are carnivores :). Matt Ball, executive director of Vegan Outreach, supposes that "environmentalists recognize that it’s a lot easier to ask people to put in a fluorescent light bulb than to learn to cook with tofu.”

2007-10-08T14:26:00.001-07:00

According to De Post in Belgium, which transmitted the info to DHL, my name is now TUFFANY NE. Brilliant.

2007-10-05T00:01:00.000-07:00

A full page feature on the carillon summer series appeared in Currents on July 2.

Help Burma.

2007-10-03T20:54:00.000-07:00

Think you have it hard at school?

It's not easy being a student in Burma. Many have been working with the monks in leading the peaceful protest being hailed as the Saffron Revolution. On September 29th, there was a massacre at State High School No. 2, Tamwe in Rangoon. An estimated 50 to 100 students and parents were killed.

China is preventing the UN Security Council from taking action. Please sign this petition to China urging it to support the people of Burma, not the cruel junta in power.

Why I love Berlin.

2007-09-25T20:25:00.000-07:00

New York Times, why do you tempt me with two of my favorite aspects of Berlin, cycling and architecture, and finally clear up the question of the name of my favorite building along the Spree? I know I have a "Take me to California" shirt, but really I'd rather be enjoying all that this article reminds me of!

Is it not bizarre that CNN.com is using some pedestrianized sort of 1337?

2007-09-25T19:02:00.000-07:00

A poster for the kickoff Humanities Project lecture in exchange for a seat at Humanities Project meetings. Works for me.

2007-09-19T06:25:00.001-07:00

I'm not insane after all. I do get fatter the moment I set foot back into the United States -- and so do immigrant children. Take the example of 13-year-old Adrian McHargh, who grew up "active and skinny" in Kingston, Jamaica and put on 30 lbs upon moving to Atlanta. 30 lbs on a 13-year-old is no small change, and it was accompanied by hypertension, high cholesterol and high risk for type 2 diabetes.

We live in a country of plenty. Plenty of junk.

In other news, Rochester is one of the least congested metropolitan areas in the country. That doesn't make me like the transportation infrastructure of Rochester any better, although it makes me suspect that population loss is freeing up space on an infrastructure built to accommodate more people. The study estimates that drivers wasted 2.9 billion gallons of fuel while sitting in traffic, and that a total of 4.2 billion hours were whiled away in 2005, up from 4 billion the year before. I'm sad to say that San Francisco ranks 3rd on the map for worst congestion.

Speaking of San Fran, I just came across architect Pietro Belluschi and learned that he is responsible for the BofA Building, Davies Symphony Hall, St. Mary's, as well as... Juilliard.

Vanishing Point: 50 Years in Photography

2007-09-17T07:17:00.000-07:00

Oh my goodness I'm glad I receive the George Eastman House's mailings because even with the flyer right in front of me I nearly missed the fact that one of my favorite photographers is coming to town for a lecture in October: David Plowden!

2007-09-13T20:35:00.000-07:00

The (B) for the Belgian Rail may look a bit outdated, but its history is distinguished: it was designed by leading Art Nouveau artist Henry van de Velde.

The Young Listener's Guide to the Organ

2007-09-09T19:54:00.000-07:00

I was beginning to wonder if Paul Takahashi was still alive, considering his long email silence. He had good reason to disappear, however. On September 15, he'll give the world premiere of his latest work, "The Young Listener's Guide to the Organ" at the Church of the Place de la Chapelle in Brussels on September 15, 11:00 - 12:00 - 14:30. Go if you can, because I wish I could!

2007-08-29T12:55:00.001-07:00

I'm in a news release from Berea College about the summer carillon series. What's news to me is that I'll be broadcast on a video monitor. I'm still determined to wear my amazing new EMS gear for the concert, but I guess I'll have to find a dark corner somewhere to do a quick glamour change after the show.

yellow skies

2007-08-25T16:41:00.000-07:00

There's a rainbow arcing over the parking lot, perfectly steady as the wind rushes the trees. The atmosphere is unreal in color, a strangely intense yellow tinted with pink, much as it was at the end of the day in Cambridge, England. Today wasn't the first day of brilliant skies. Driving out to Batavia yesterday evening, Nicole and I swept through the most gorgeous New York scenery I'd ever seen, dotted with solitary barns and silos and lit by dramatic clouds of contrasting shapes and a fiery orb that looked ten times its normal size wrapped in clouds near the earth. On the way back, although we never encountered rain, we headed towards the most intense lightning storm I'd ever seen. I counted up to seven bolts per second, some that illuminated a quarter of the sky though eerily hidden behind clouds. Funny that I should have spent the summer talking about wanting to see a good lightning storm -- I got my wish without even getting wet!

Matilda and her boyfriend hosted a lovely party with varied guests -- composers, med school employees, a music ed instructor, and even a hamster. Nicole fell for the hamster immediately, and Jairo was positively a magician with it. It's good to have a slice of summer left to enjoy.

Today after Mex with Jeff and a surprisingly deft run at the carillon, I found myself in the Friends of Rush Rhees Library book sale, rifling through volumes ranging from 50¢ to $1.00. I must have unintentionally browsed for an hour, because suddenly a lady was handing out plastic bags for the final $3-per-bag clearance. I was beside myself in the mad rush to fill my bag. 17¢ per book later, I had a somewhat-full bag with treasures such as the Stinking Cookbook from my favorite SF restaurant (and straight off my wishlist to boot) to several volumes of poetry, literary history, art (including a massive hardcover volume of American art), Yale memorabilia, San Francisco memorabilia, almost-antiquarian mini-volumes in German, gifts... The literary bargain shopper's dream come true!

Pink is infusing the yellow light and this blog entry is coming to an end. As a contrasting last note I want to observe that the fashion for hoodies this summer has involved prints that are amusing because they don't work as prints. Said hoodies are also made of nearly useless thin material, and the only store that stocks properly warm zip hoodies seems to be the eternally overpriced A&F. It's infuriating to think that someone in Amsterdam is probably wearing my 5-year-old Urban Outfitters military hoodie with its fake medals and gloating. But maybe this book bargain is my payback.

2007-08-25T15:30:00.000-07:00

I hate cheap knives. Especially cheap serrated IKEA knives that can't be sharpened. Everyone knows I'm perpetually daydreaming about my future kitchen with its space-age juicer and million-dollar kitchen knife, but can anyone even fathom the depth of my hatred for my apartment's kitchen knife today? It slipped off the onion I was chopping (an onion, of all things, should not pose a challenge to a kitchen knife) and straight into my left index finger. The bandage on said finger makes it rather hard for it to play just one note on the organ.

Cheap kitchen knives, die!

mirror world ii: University of Cambridge (backblog)

2007-08-22T20:07:00.000-07:00

Despite a late start, I made an afternoon of Cambridge, the English-speaking world's second oldest university and thus perhaps the closer sister to Yale in American collegiate history. Despite my hasty online research the night before, I was woefully unprepared to find my way, particularly as there were so many colleges and few were visible from the main thoroughfare leading outward from the station.

But first I meant to exchange my euros as drawing on my American account was getting very painful with the horrendous exchange rate. Owing to a block-wide power outage, a long queue of customers formed behind me at the bank by the farmer's market as I fidgeted impatiently. I was first in line for the longest time, but heaven knows what kind of transactions the two customers being served were closing. A third employee whose computer wasn't working was busily counting cash and piling it into a bag to hand to the Asian male customer, and the other fellow was trying to wire several thousand pounds to some middle eastern country. Oddly, they were both quite poorly dressed considering their transactions. Clearly the mafia was at work. "The British love to queue," Chip advised me later, making me hope this had been an invaluable cultural experience.

Even after purchasing a map at the tourist office, I was at a loss as to where to start amongst the thirty-one colleges. There wasn't even a university bookshop; there is a Cambridge UP Store (filled with decidedly unsexy-looking book jackets relative to my former employer Yale UP) but no Cambridge Bookstore, the reverse of the situation at Yale. Fortunately I eventually tailed a group of Japanese tourists into King's College (1441), the place to start if you're looking for magnificence. Its ceiling, the largest fan vaulting in the world, ensured that I would never be proud of Harkness Tower's singular fan vault again, despite its uniqueness in American architecture. I was also surprised by the presence of Flemish art -- Flemish stained glass glowed from the clerestory and Ruben's magnificent "The Adoration of the Magi" (1634) crowned the altar (lowered specifically for the painting, to some continuing consternation). The northern arcade contained an interesting exhibit that perhaps explained the silly entrance fee, but then I was sent out into the courtyard and experienced the déjà vu of walking into Christ Church at Oxford. (Apologies to all insulted.) The Gatehouse and Great Tom, the vast green courtyard, the overcast skies... At least to a dumb American they look very much alike. Very breathtaking, too.

The guard who took my admission fee at Trinity College knew where Rochester was, although he couldn't recall why. A fountain at the center of the courtyard was surrounded by a shock of bright red flowers that looked surreally luminescent beneath the grey skies, and I wondered if this was the gardeners' way of staving off the meteorological monochromaticism. I found some comedy in the magnificent dining hall; first was the contrast between the purely functional and slightly ugly cafeteria equipment and the stained glass and soaring open timber roof, second was the sign casually mentioning that the dining hall had been continuously used as such for six centuries. One finds this kind of history all over the place at Cambridge... one finds little from that era in the US; the Native Americans may have been around but they lived lightly off the earth and didn't endeavour to build their cantines as eternal monuments.

By the time I was done gawking here and there 'round Trinity, it was 17:00 and, I reckoned, too late to enter the other colleges as a tourist. Fortunately I had dressed the preppy student part just for this purpose ("Are you going sailing with that sweater tied around your neck?" Jon asked me in the morning), and strode confidently into several other colleges from the Backs (literally referring to the backs of the colleges on the Cam) without being questioned. St. John's became my absolute favorite, a veritable architectural wonderland of fairytale white spires, magical courtyards upon courtyards, quaint passageways, and the Venetian Bridge of Sighs under which tourist-filled punts were still floating.

After wandering Sidney Sussex, Naomi's alma mater, and taking a peek into one of its marvelous red common rooms of which Yale's are only an echo, I rolled up my sleeves in search of nourishment, finally settling into a busy Indian restaurant on Regent next to a table at which an educated middle-aged man was talking to two teenagers with classy accents. I found the place not without a great deal of wandering, intent as I was to get a feel for the city. My wandering nearly got me into trouble as I took a long way back to the station in hopes of spotting Lammas Land (just for the kick of being a TDer initiated at Llama Land), but I made my train with time to spare and returned utterly exhausted to Balham, where I went straight to bed.

P.S. While consulting Wikipedia's article on Cambridge, I chanced upon the origin of the Harvardian epithet, cantab. Somehow the term Cantabrigian, abbreviated in post-nominal letters as Cantab., found its way into our vocabulary for the Harvardian. Whether this is meant as pretense or irony is not yet known to the author.

2007-08-22T12:17:00.000-07:00

The next obvious step after choosing to cook with what's in season is joining a CSA. This will have to wait until I have a home and free time in the evenings to learn to cook new things or devise recipes with what I have, but it's something to look forward to.

Finally went shopping at Ocean Garden for Asian groceries and scoped out India House. The latter is quite promising, if I can ever learn to cook Indian food properly (anyone want to give me a cookbook for Xmas? :), but I wish amongst their Tibetan bells and things there had been some colorful prayer flags to liven up my whitewashed place.

Speaking of making things interesting, why doesn't the Eastman School of Music have any decent photography on its walls? Besides the Music Ed floor, there's really nothing, and certainly no student space.

swing

2007-08-21T17:49:00.000-07:00

Getting back into the swing of things. The Eastman organ department has a snazzy new front page featuring a newsletter for which I've written two articles (one misattributed in the current PDF). I've caught up with Joe and heard about the more colorful events of the summer series (including foreigners' predilection for the Dinosaur BBQ and its attendant Harleys), claimed my key to our dedicated and newly painted carillon practice room, and am working with him to get new mics in the belfry with Paul's help. I've got Henk Bading's "Aria Hexafonica" down pat after once practice session. Paul Takahashi's "Jumper Ralley" is proving much more intractable, however. And don't even get me started on "Een Aangename Voois." Nevertheless, I've submitted my rather ambitious concert program for Berea today, so there's only one way to go. Fantastic preparation for the EROI carillon concert, if you want to look at it that way.

2007-08-20T23:02:00.000-07:00

Sewing a bell-patterned apron while listening to Talk of the Nation on NPR. Oh, this won't last, but it's awful nice. I know I'm in a state of desperate procrastination, but often this equates with tremendous domestic productivity. So it's not all loss.

Returning to practicing organ was the cure for the demotivation engendered by my success in organizing my room and lack of sunlight outside (and until this morning, lack of a bicycle). I hope it always works that way.

the ESM hotcake?

2007-08-20T19:51:00.001-07:00

Bull. Did the Kaplan/Newsweek College Guide actually talk to more than one ESM student before selecting Eastman as the "Hottest Music School," in part for "students’ ability to take additional academic classes in the University’s College of Arts, Sciences, and Engineering?"

Eastman is heaven for instrumentalists, but students also get to study at the University of Rochester, of which it is a part. It's perfect for aspiring musicians who don't want to sacrifice academics. That's why bassist Erin McPeck of Aurora, Colo., chose Eastman; she's now planning a scholarly career in music research while working as a physics teaching intern at Rochester and participating in Eastman's Institute for Music Leadership. Applications were up 10 percent this year, more than the national average.

This makes me wonder how useful any of Newsweek's claims are. Coincidentally, I'm listening to Jeff Brenzel's Yale podcast on "Undergraduate Admissions" with two insider POVs (being a former employee of the booming college admissions consulting industry and an admissions interviewer) and some recent grains of salt from recent reading.

eggplant take 2

2007-08-20T11:21:00.000-07:00

My first success with eggplant: Linguine with eggplant. The olive oil-tomato-eggplant sauce was delicious, as I finally sautéed the eggplant with the proper amount of olive oil. Perhaps next time I'll try baking it. This recipe is simple and delicious; try it with less oregano and oil and use fresh garlic.

Why has it started raining now that I've retrieved my bicycle and want to ride to the carillon?

the glory days

2007-08-19T17:55:00.001-07:00

Observe that trams, cyclists, and pedestrians once ruled the roads of Rochester.

epodunk is worth a browse, not least of all because of its name.

And please don't forget The Refrigerator. Great collection of signs and roadside tours, including this retro pedestrian crossing sign in which the child seems to be running away and the parent is carrying a violin case or something else very long.

Rochester day 1.5

2007-08-19T07:30:00.000-07:00

It's lovely to wake up in your own sun-drenched room after a long night of sleep. Especially if you have the Rochester Public Market to look forward to. By American standards, it is a pretty long-standing tradition -- in continuous (if itinerant) operation since 1827. This is young relative to my alma mater, but even the latter seems juvenile now that I've walked through university dining halls at Cambridge that have served continuously as dining halls for 600 years. In Dorset, I settled down with Naomi's latest copy of Cambridge Alumni Magazine and read and reread the final sentence on the back page: "And now for a literary return to 1350's Cambridge." For the new dean of a college to operate atop a stack of so many centuries of history, and to simply take it in stride and enjoy a fictionalized version of it at the end of a long day... does she not find joining such a vast academic family tree intimidating? At least in a post-Modern sense?

I digress. The post office is now issuing Louis Comfort Tiffany stamps, which I happily stocked up on in nominal vanity. The Rite-Aid pharmacy was next, but closed again -- in fact, shut on Saturdays until further notice. Lame factor doubled. After popping in cheerfully at the Little Bakery, I trekked out to the Public Market and emerged with a large backpack and two tote bags worth of fresh produce. But this wasn't my usual style of shopping. I arrived with no shopping list, only a mind determined to scope out what was in season and to buy it. It was a liberating experience, made possible by my experience of cooking with garden-picked produce in Belgium. And a better choice for the environment.

I can't say that the Eggplant Catalana recipe I dug up and tried to make with my fresh loot was quite a success, but that's because I'm still incapable of cooking the eggplant itself. The recipe should be worth a second shot.

John and I ran joint shopping errands and spent some time at the sample iPhone at the Marketplace Mall. EMS had some good discounts on clothing I may revisit if I somehow scrounge up the cash. As usual, the Wegman's there disoriented me a bit, but what disoriented me most was John's brief history of grocery shopping in Rochester. Neither of us buy into the Wegman's fan club or appreciate that its only city branch is on University. But Wegman's used to have stores in the center of town. Yes, in the center of town! But take a look at your average joe on the downtown sidewalk. He is the not person Wegman's is interested in serving. So although these stores weren't unprofitable, they were closed in favor of more educated, higher income populations in the suburbs--leaving us with nary a neighborhood grocery, as those couldn't compete when Wegman's was in town and don't have the capital to start up now. Trader Joe's was recently courted for the empty space across from RoCo by the parking lot, but wasn't interested in areas in which less than about 40% of customers have college degrees. Central Rochester's figure? Half that.

Assessed Values, Rochester NY
The "Crescent" is clearly visible.
Originally uploaded by Mikros.

All this informal history aside, no grocery store seems to think that opening in central Rochester would be profitable. There are plenty of models of successful city groceries. There's a Whole Foods on one of the hillsides by downtown SF. Exiting at Putney Bridge in London, I noticed that a good 75% of the business people were going home from central London with one or two Sainsbury's bags although they lived on the outskirts of town. Antwerp has a GB outside the station beneath the cinema complex and Wagamama, a stone's throw from the city's most exclusive fashion shopping, as well as an organic grocery off the Meir. People drive out to the middle of nowhere Rochester to buy groceries. What makes supermarkets think that they wouldn't drive into Rochester or stop in after a day's work in downtown? They've been buying produce at the Public Market for 180 years, and nowadays it's in a rather worse spot than the area Trader Joe's examined beneath premium condominiums.

Speaking of which, the tremendous traffic jams at the Public Market are entirely counterintuitive. The sale of local produce is just not the sort of operation that inspires visions of urban sprawl's worst problems. But there you go--no decent public transportation and nary a bicycle rack. The amount of fuel and energy you save by buying locally grown produce is pretty much offset or overwhelmed by the exhaust you release waiting in traffic and cruising around in search of a parking space.

Reverse culture shock. It's back.