I cannot wait for New Year's Day. It's the best holiday. Even if I'm hungover, I always feel new and fresh on New Year's. It's arbitrary, of course, to feel new. It's all in the mind, but so are we.

That reminds me of a professor who said to one of my classes that dreams don't really have a narrative strand. He said that people just experience abstract stimuli like colors and sounds, and the mind makes a story out of it. At first I felt saddened by this, but then I realized that right at that moment, all I was getting was a mess of sensory information, and that my mind was putting it together. Heh. I thought of that a few beats too late to raise my hand, though. Probably just as well.

Remains of the Holiday

As usual, Christmas has blown through our lives like grapeshot, and now it's time to see what's new and what's left. Today I'm back in the office with the same tenacious cold with which has been my constant companion since last Wednesday. But today I'm wearing a new sweater and this huge ring that looks like an ivory rose, so that's an improvement. It's very quiet here today, and it's supposed to snow. I will believe that when I see it!

Human beings need light. I am convinced of this. I am also convinced that my concentration is being severely effected by the fact that I don't get any from the sky. Ever.

Aside from that, I've had one small triumph today. I had hoped to find some medieval polyphony that came from a nunnery OTHER than the famed Las Huelgas codex, but the desired manuscripts were out of reach. Not even IU has these things! And even if I were to get my hands on a facsimile, there's that concentration issue. Oh yeah, and Christmas. So I just wrote to the scholar who had listed the sources and asked her if she knew of any individual pieces that might have been published. She was very nice and gave me a couple of dynamite leads...on English polyphony from nunneries!!! This is exciting, because English polyphony is irresistably sweet and charming. Anyway, my bosses are letting me go early tomorrow to go to the library (which closes at 5, dammit).

Maybe I should go back to grad school just so I could have enough time to study. It breaks my heart to think of my poor, neglected German project, just languishing there in its binder.

In other news, our office building had its Christmas breakfast today. Mini-quiches, lattes, spanikopita, tiny cupcakes, which were the best thing by far. Lots of fluffy icing and not too sweet. And "Dickens" Carollers. I nearly cried, for some reason, when I heard "Angels we have heard on high." It was not moving. It's just that there's no sunlight, and my emotions are confused right now.

More Compline-ing

I'm all alone in the office today, which almost never happens. There's nothing for me to do except tidy up the notes and translations for January, and sort of sit here and wish I could take a nap instead. I started my new practice regime this morning, which is to say that I rose early and went to a nearby church to wail in the new day. It was great! It was also dark the entire time. This, combined with the memorization of chant, gave me a nice well of concentration, from which I also drew the feeling of being an actual nun at my own private Matins.

I learned recently from that thing that is currently circulating the web, that I am left-brain-dominant. At first, I was surprised, but the more I think about it, the more sense it makes; even as a musician, I tend to think of things in the most practical terms. Go ahead and laugh, but I'm talking about the way I go about learning the music and words, and the way I conceptualize it. It's hard to explain. This is something that has always frustrated me. Some people seem to grasp music intuitively, and I've always felt sort of locked out of that level of understanding. But what the heck; one keeps trying.

Heat is work and work is heat

This is Sisyphus, enjoying the rolling of the rock. Did the rock feel cool and smooth on his hands? Did the endorphins kick in?

The need for the work must be generated, the way made clear, and then the work must be done. It does not have to mean anything. It means you can pay your bills. It does not have to resonate with your deeper beliefs about the world and your place in it. It is work, and it must go on. The work will never be done, and that is the blessing. If the source of the work- the great pipe that belches out tasks for us- should be severed, there yawns disaster and the abyss. The abyss is more beautiful than the work. Like all space, it is full of intangible possibilities. It is too beautiful to behold, really, because it is a terrifying, feral beauty. The stone cold beauty of truth. The universe in a grain of sand. The last word.

Today, I am putting up Christmas decorations in the office. It has been very strange to tangle with lights without a cup of spiked eggnog, Johnny Mathis and my mom on the couch, reminiscing over ornaments as they come out of the box.

It's Friday night and I'm at a coffee shop, posting old photographs on facebook because I miss my friends. I'm now one of those people who sit alone in the cafe with a laptop, just screwing around. To my credit, I am not wearing headphones.

The nights are very long these days. There is that sense of always having one's shoulder to the wheel, like Sisyphus, trying to be forthright about it, trying to work hard and look forward to the payoff in sunnier days. It's hard, though. I feel a tension around my eyes almost all of the time, like they just want to close and I won't let them. It was actually a sunny day, but it was all gone by the time I got off work.

In other news, I have all kinds of action coming up, starting in January, and I'll have to have ALL KINDS of memorizing done by then. It's so hard to focus on what seems like a lonely endeavor at this stage.

Okay, there is one wonderful thing about sitting at a desk all day and emerging into the dark street. It does make it easier to get my head together and plan and scheme my concerts. I don't tend to hem and haw and hesitate. I think: what have I got to lose? Nobody's going to hand me any musical opportunities in here.

Slowly but surely (I hope) is my musical career advancing like a very tiny steamroller. Here is a picture of one of my ensembles, Stolen Bread. (I always wanted to use that name for a tango band, but I don't think it's in the cards.) I am currently putting all kinds of irons in the fire, and wondering when I'm going to learn and practice all this music enough to perform it. Oh well. I always say: book the hall and choose the dress and somehow the music'll get learned. Is that what I always say? The thing I really do always say is: Is it dark ALREADY? (sigh).

Office Talk

I seem to be becoming a real Seattlite. The sun has made no hint of an appearance today, so I'm combatting the resultant ennui with an expensive double mocha. I got to put up Halloween decorations in the office yesterday, and all the orange is helping, too. (Yeah, pretty much grasping at straws here...)

I work in a tall, fancy downtown building, mostly inhabited by law firms, I think, although our floor also shelters court reporters and some kind of cell phone company. Yesterday, one of the smartly dressed concierges told me that the bad weather lowers the crime rate. The building evidently provides complimentary unbrellas; I've seen people take them before, and I assume that they bring them back, but I don't think I'd have the nerve. Betsy's guidebook said that locals don't carry umbrellas, so I've been a bit cocky and gotten soaked a few times. Maybe the locals are wet idiots.

Right at the moment, I am hunkering down for what promises to be a long afternoon. One of my bosses is out, so I couldn't double up the temp appointments. This means that, even though the calendar is full, nobody will show up. When I double up several appointments in a row, they all come herding through the door. It's just the way things are. I don't mind wasting time or, certainly, studying or reading during work hours, and my bosses don't mind it either. But my mind does tend to get a little squidgey, and I fear that someday I'll say something weird when I answer the phone, like : "Your mouth is like the sound of many waters. Good afternoon."

Incidentally, there is more to come on the lion story, in case anybody wants to know his/her fate.

You Chose IIA: The Biology Major

YOU CHOSE A (Veterinary school in Tuskegee)

You have completed your coursework and are employed at an animal rehabilitation facility in Texas. One day, a new lioness is brought in, all the way from Africa to recover from wounds inflicted by a would-be poacher. You are assigned to examine the heavily sedated cat. With your hands, you inspect her great, heavy paws, her downy belly and the gunshot wound on her shoulder. You clean her teeth and lift her eyelids to observe her dreaming golden eyes. This is the closest you have been to a big cat. You begin to call her “Lenore.”

It is decided that, when fully recovered, Lenore will go to work at the circus. You are devastated that such a creature will, once again, be robbed of liberty by the callow hands of men. You rail against your superiors. “If we let her be exploited this way,” you say, “how are we any better than the bastard who shot her?” But nothing can be done. If only you had the resources to care for her yourself... Do you:
A) Quit your job at the facility, determined to find a way to make a difference
B) By cover of nightfall, steal Lenore and the equipment to care for her, or
C) Accept the disillusioning blow, say goodbye to Lenore and keep on as you were

GO!

YOU CHOSE B (Job at the zoo)

You spend the summer cleaning cat cages at the zoo. The circus comes to town, and you use your meager connection to meet the lion tamer. He is a craggy man who fixes you with a beady eye. He is in need of a keeper, since his apprentice has had an accident and is now working as a backstage dresser. Despite your limited experience, he hires you on the spot and you accept. The old tamer allows you a small role in his act, but is reluctant to take you on as full-fledged apprentice. He seems to have a soft spot for his former apprentice, and you suspect that the old man is hoping that he/she will change his/her mind and come back to training. Adding to your frustration is your agonizing crush on the makeup artist who is dating the dresser. On all counts, you are determined to prove yourself.

A new lioness named Lenore is brought to the circus from a rehabilitation facility in Texas. She is troubled and restive, and the old man is unsure of what to do with her. One night, out of nowhere, you see the big cat out of her cage near the trailers, standing on a card table where the clowns play gin. She glances up at you, her tail twitching. Suddenly, the makeup artist for whom you long comes around the corner, sees the lion and freezes in terror. Lenore snarls at him/her and turns back her ears. The old tamer appears at your side and softly says “I can take care of this.” Do you
A) Step aside and observe the old tamer’s mastery
B) Pick up a wooden chair and maneuver yourself between the lion and the makeup artist while the old tamer unfurls his whip or
C) Say to the tamer “Let me try”

GO!

YOU CHOSE C (Time off to travel)

You scrimp and save and travel to Africa. On the plane, you meet an independent tour guide named Julia, who entices you to join her party on an extended safari. Her face bears the lines of time and experience, and she wears a patch over one eye. Once in Tanzania, you settle into a nearly abandoned colonial hotel. Ongoing political strife and disease have diminished tourism here, but the hotel remains open in a state of elegant decay. The other people on your tour include a young diplomat named François(e) and an oil tycoon named R.L. Shromp. The four of you are the sole inhabitants of the hotel, and you dine together each night after Julia guides you through the Serengeti by day. While Julia and Shromp retire early, you and François(e) stay up late, drinking Pastis with water, talking. As the rainy season begins, you find yourself falling in love. One day, Shromp disappears with the Jeep. He returns in the evening, covered with mud and scratches, unwilling to explain where he has been. Later that night, you and François(e) idle in the dining room, listening to the pounding rain and the muffled argument upstairs. You hear a growl. Peering from the darkness by the open French door is a full grown lioness, her shoulder streaked with blood and rain. François(e) looks at you, paralyzed with fear. You notice Julia’s whip coiled near her chair. The wounded lioness advances. Do you
A) Take the whip in one hand and a wooden chair in the other and face the lion
B) With a candle, ignite the decanter of Pastis and hurl it in the direction of the door, or
C) Take François(e) by the hand and run like hell

GO!

You chose IIB: The Stage Manager

YOU CHOSE A (Graduate school in Syracuse)

You complete your graduate studies in upstate New York, where your thesis project, a Brechtian production of Cats, earns you maverick status. You move to the big city to search for work. In the classifieds, you find an opening for a crewmember on a new, musical adaptation of Hemingway’s story, “The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber”. The producer, R.L. Shromp, is a gregarious, pink-cheeked man, but your gut tells you there is something sinister about him. At the first production meeting, he insists that a live lion must appear onstage. After much fuss is made, a lioness is hired on contract from the circus, as is the young lion tamer who is to maintain (and contain) her. The tamer turns out to be the very same smoldering beauty whom you saw during your visit to the circus, years ago. The spark you felt then now becomes an inferno, though he/she is cool and impossible to read.

One night, you arrive at rehearsal to find that the production has been shut down by the successful efforts of animal rights activists. Shromp vanishes. The lion tamer now needs a place to stay for a few days, and you would like it to be your apartment. Of course, the lion must stay somewhere, too. Do you
A) Take the tamer home with you and hide the lioness in the basement of your building
B) Let the tamer borrow some camping equipment to hide out with the lioness in Central Park or
C) Let this one go and look for another job

YOU CHOSE B (Makeup artist in circus)

You are employed as a circus makeup artist. You try to attract the attention of the apprentice lion tamer with the evocative limp, but he/she is too focused on work to pay you any heed. Finally, in a burst of inspiration, you make an elaborate and life-like lion costume for yourself. You wear this to the Halloween party and finally see a flicker of interest in the smoldering eyes of the apprentice. You manage to get him/her alone behind the big top, where at last you taste the lips for which you’ve longed. The two of you become an item, but you often feel insecure. The glamorous machismo of his/her profession, you feel, so radiantly outshines your own.

A new lioness named Lenore is brought to the circus from a rehabilitation facility in Texas. From the talk in the makeup trailer, you gather that the cat is troubled and restive, and the old man is unsure of what to do with her. One night, walking back to your trailer alone, you see the new lioness, near the trailers, standing on a card table where the clowns play gin rummy. She glances up at you, her tail twitching. She flattens her ears and issues a throaty snarl. Do you
A) Call for help
B) Pick up a wooden chair and attempt to distract the lioness yourself or
C) Run like hell

YOU CHOSE C (Internship)

You successfully complete an internship at the local opera company and are hired on as a costume assistant. Some nutcase of a director wants to use live animals in a new production of Aida, and you spend many hours gluing sequins onto harnesses. At the first dress rehearsal, you meet an animal wrangler, who is a young apprentice lion tamer from the circus. With smoldering eyes and an slight limp, he/she is the most mesmerizing creature you have ever met, and you hurry your cleanup each night so that you can linger by the lion cage each night. Your friendship blossoms into mutual love, the likes of which you have never known. As the show draws to an end, he/she asks you if you could be persuaded to work for the circus. You know that you might never see him/her again if you don’t join the troupe, and then there is that childhood dream of yours to work with lions... Do you
A) Run away with the circus
B) Tell him/her you will give it more thought
C) Ask the lion tamer to stay with you

GO!

You chose IIC: The Apprentice Lion Tamer

YOU CHOSE A (Go back home)

You have returned to your hometown, gone to college and are about to graduate with a BS in biology. At school, your story and your limp have given you great romantic cachet among your peers. You have been accepted into Tuskegee University's esteemed veterinary program, but you have mixed feelings about it. You have become genuinely invested in your studies, but are frustrated by the lack of hands-on experience with animals. You often wish you could things over again, knowing what you know now.
One day your old roommate, Frances, calls you and says that there is a new lioness in the circus. The beast was wounded somehow and is troubled and restive. The old tamer is unsure of how to deal with her. Frances fears for the fate of the lion and, knowing that you are studying to become a vet, thought that you might be interested in her case. Do you
A) Go to Tuskegee as planned
B) Join the troupe once more, for the sake of the lioness
C) Take a year off while you have the chance, maybe travel a bit

GO!

YOU CHOSE B (Work harder to improve as a tamer)

You face your demons and apply yourself. The old man is proud of you. To your surprise, the fresh-faced student you saw before joins the circus as a makeup artist. He/she haunts your trailer and everyone tells you that he/she is besotted. Busy with your work, you take little notice until the Halloween party. The makeup artist arrives dressed in a detailed and realistic lion costume. He/she catches you behind the big top, and you happily surrender to his/her faux-feline advances. The two of you quickly become an item.

A new lioness named Lenore is brought to the circus from a rehabilitation facility in Texas. She is troubled and restive, but you have a good way with her, and the old tamer puts her in your care. One day, you are given the strange assignment of leading Lenore across an opera stage in a production of Aida. Dress rehearsals begin. Your pants don’t fit properly, and you go to the costume room and meet the most mesmerizing creature you have ever seen. He/she confesses a childhood dream of being a lion tamer, so you take him/her to Lenore’s cage after the show. Each night, the costumer appears like clockwork to help you pack up your equipment and linger with you there. You are besotted. One evening, as the show draws to a close, he/she tells you that he/she is planning a trip to Africa to observe lions in the wild. He/she invites you to go with. Do you
A) Go to Africa or
B) Feel flattered, but return to the circuit

GO!


YOU CHOSE C (Stay at the circus, work as a dresser)

To your surprise, the fresh-faced student you saw joins the circus as a makeup artist. The two of you stay up late together talking under the stars, and you find yourself falling in love. The old tamer hires a new helper, but he tells you that you have the right stuff and he wants you to come back when you’re ready. The new “apprentice” is frothing at the mouth to impress the old man. Even worse, the makeup artist whom you love begins to put you off in order to be with the new guy/girl. You think it’s because you now lack the glamour proffered by lion taming.

A new lioness, Lenore, joins the troupe from an animal rehabilitation facility in Texas, having been wounded by a poacher in Africa. She is still quite wild, and the old man seems unsure of how to deal with her. Her haunted eyes seem to reflect the angst that weighs upon your heart, and you take to spending listless hours by her cage. One night, you spy a person in the shadows. You call out to him/her, and an attractively nerdy looking guy/girl emerges with a gun in his/her trembling hand. “What do you want?” you ask the stranger. As it turns out, he/she is a veterinary post-grad from the facility in Texas. He/she has tracked Lenore to this very spot with the intention of smuggling her back to Serengeti National Park. You take him/her back to your trailer and talk things over. His/her case is convincing; you never felt sure that this was the right place for Lenore, and the more you think about it, the more the post-grad has it right. Do you
A) Join forces with the post-grad and take Lenore back to Tanzania
B) Agree to turn a blind eye and allow the post-grad to take the lion or
C) Believing that this is a misguided course of action, guard the cage personally, so that the post-grad cannot steal away with Lenore

GO!

The Elusive Lion, Part II

YOU CHOSE A (The pre-med track)
You are about to graduate with a BS in biology. You have been accepted into Tuskegee University's esteemed veterinary program, but your heart rebels. You still want to be a lion tamer. Do you A) go to vet school, B) Get an entry-level job at the local zoo, or C) take time off, maybe travel a bit

GO!

YOU CHOSE B (Drama major)
You are about to graduate, and have become a promising makeup artist and stage manager. You are known for your abilities to soothe even the most tempermental and neurotic of your fellow students. You have a chance to further your study at Syracuse University in New York, but you sometimes wake up in a cold sweat with foggy dream lions still padding through your mind. One day, the circus comes to town, and you finagle a backstage pass through your department. On your way to the makeup trailer, you see an apprentice lion tamer in shiney black boots and a shiney red shirt. In the dust-filtered light of backstage, he/she walks with a faint limp and his/her heavily lined eyes pierce you smokily. Your head swims and you are besotted.
The head makeup artist is a sassy man named George. He is desperately short-handed and offers you a job. Do you A) go to Syracuse, B) Accept George's job offer, even though it doesn't pay all that well, and run away with the circus, or C) try for an internship at the local equity theater

GO!

YOU CHOSE C (Research lion taming)
After two years of toiling for a pittance at the local zoo and writing fruitless letters to self-professed lion tamers, you simply go to the circus and snoop around in back until you spot the lion tamer. He is old and cantankerous, but he likes the looks of your calloused hands. "You've got heart, kid," he says, and takes you on as his apprentice. Two years after that, you are still cleaning animal cages for a pittance, but now you are learning the basics of lion taming, and you get to wear a shiney shirt. One night after the show, you go to feed the tigers and find that Cleo, the youngest, is sick from having swallowed a tube of greasepaint. In her pain and confusion, she slaps you with her massive paw, sending you reeling into a pile of hay with blood gushing from your wounded thigh. You and Cleo both recover, but the experience haunts you. One night backstage, you exchange glances with a kid your age. He/she is wide-eyed and has college written all over him/her. You go to the room you share with Frances, the trapeze artist, and wash off your makeup. You look at your face in the mirror, framed between Frances' drying tights and a picture of your mother, and wonder if you might have been better off staying in school. Do you A) Hang up your shiney shirt, go back home and apply to schools, B) Decide to step up your felinology game and take correspondance courses in veterinary science, or C) Stay with the circus, but ask your boss to let you work as a dresser while you get your head together.

GO!

A full time job, like life itself, is a fundamental limitation on time. The trick is to balance necessity with desire, and somehow realize your selfhood within the context imposed upon you. Optionals include trying to exert control over that context, stirring up a stimulating mess (forbidden romance, for example) or trying to pretend you're not there at all. Things go better if you sleep enough, eat well and bathe.

My friend, Betsy, had a wonderful notion yesterday: Wouldn't it be grand if life were like the Choose Your Own Adventure series? Do y'all remember those? Let's try one out, just for kicks:

You have just graduated from high school. You have been accepted into a decent state school, but your heart rebels. You have always dreamed of being a lion tamer. Your parents want you to start a pre-med track. Do you A) start a pre-med track B) delare yourself a drama major or C) defer enrollment and secretly begin to research lion taming.

GO!

Baroquenhearted

To be an artist, one must suffer, but how much? Why is it so psychologically wrenching to sing baroque music? I'm not sure if I even like baroque music enough to be wrenched that way. The same way I don't know if I like Seattle enough to scrape and scurry in order to live here. My heart is full of questions.

Back in Seattle Again

I've been in Salt Lake all week, where the weather was heavenly fine. I am very sorry that I didn't have enough time to visit more of my friends, and if you are reading this, fuming, know that I wanted to. The funny thing is that I don't have many people at all to hang out with here, because all my fabulous popularity is somewhere I'm not.

Anyway, I absconded with all kinds of business casual wear this time. Sweaters galore...without moth-holes, even! I have a little concert tomorrow, then I start my job in earnest. I still don't really feel like I live here, and I wish I had a private space for practicing. I wish I were a little bit taller. I wish I were a baller. But at least I know a German medieval scholar; I think I'll call her.

Last night, we were given tickets to ballet! ...but not just the ballet, the preview/gala for the coming season, including a free glass of champagne at intermission! Also an extremely rare, if not unique, chance to see Seattle residents decked out in full regalia. Not an REI logo in sight. The show was a great treat. One of the dances was the balcony scene from Romeo and Juliet (Prokofiev). Maillot's choreography (which I had never seen) was rather naturalistic; the dancers were believably teen-agey. I can't wait to see the rest of it! My favorite dancer, however, was Carla Körbes, who was awfully expressive. Luckily, they post press releases about the casting online, so I can be sure to see her again.

At last, I have The Item. Olive Sayce's Poets of the Minnesang is the book for me! Not only is it a beautiful edition, but Sayce describes each poem and gives its metrical form. Besides that, there is a concise and well written introduction in which she describes genre, development and sources. Finally ...hold on to your hat... there is a glossary of Middle High German terms in the back. Oh man.

In other news, I spent most of the day trying to absorb all of my new receptarian duties. Millions of little things must I do. Today was Friday, which brought papercliply fun in sending out birthday cards and setting out candy for the people who picked up their paychecks. I have to say in favor of this job, there is a certain aura of freshness that hangs about the idea of temporary employment. (I hope I still think that in December, when I'll be locked in the tower for all the hours that the sun is (or isn't) out...)

The Temptress, Part I

I have been hired as a secretary at the temp office! Good god. I have to be there at eight tomorrow. The thing about having a real job is that it reminds one of what one would rather be doing, thereby whittling one's mind to a fine point of will during one's off hours. If one is not too knackered. The other good thing about this (apart from staying out of debtors prison) is that I can memorize lyrics while I walk to work. To be an artist, one must walk!...or so I've heard.

Sunday Morning with Sid and Nancy (and George Foreman)

The people downstairs have been keeping strange hours lately. They were up until at least 2 last night, and yet they were grilling a rack of ribs by 10 this morning. They are devoted barbecutionists. The fellow often expedites the readiness of the charcoal by focusing a blowtorch upon it. Perhaps to procure spices, they go in and out of the apartment, slamming the door for all it’s worth. They sounded upset last night, but this morning’s conversation involved the continual dialing of the wrong number to reach someone called Ernie (who would surely have perished if not for the intervention of our neighbor), and the virtues of George Thorogood.

In other news, there is a hint of fall in the air. The weeping willow by the window now sports a cheery festoon of yellow, and I noticed a leaf falling past by face at the farmer’s market today. I like the fall. Maybe it’s my introverted Norwegian coming to the surface, but I think it’s easier to think clearly when the weather is cool, better still if it’s raining. (I also think that there are ways of learning and improving that don’t really involve clear thinking. That kind might better be called a “letting in” of the world, if it must be called anything.)

Yesterday, we drove towards Mt Rainier. Faced with a breathtaking scene, it seems like it ought to be possible to enter, break open and taste a landscape as if it were a nectarine. But rather than consuming, one is consumed; you cannot observe a whale that has swallowed you. Anyway, we came upon a lake with clear water. Sunk to the bottom were fallen trees, stacked spookily in the basin like ghostly bodies.

Oh, the fun of doing some scholarly research with no grown-ups about! Ironically, this makes me want to do solid work. Heh. I had a dream that I'd pulled together a vast group, and we were reading through stuff for the first time. Everybody was improvising astoundingly well! I was trying to take notes on what they were doing, but it was all I could do to keep up. My thought was: we need good publicity for this! So, that was a nice dream. I'm sure that's just how it will go, too.

Sing up, my golden cock, and I will feed you grain

On it goes. I have been reading German verse a-plenty, usually in goofily rhymed English translation. From this, I have gleaned poems by topic, for to spice the tale of Iwein and his lion. Predictably, most of them are about love, so I must still search for poems of jousting, storms, evil dictators and lions. If only I could find a poem about a stormy beast who slays an evil dictator with a lance! Argh. I have a nice bibliography of music sources and have begun to search for settings of my chosen verses. But today is labor day, and so I am blocked from laboring. Instead, I am at a cafe, watching the cool people walk to and from the totally cool Bumbershoot festival, from which we hear the nightly roar of adoring fans. (Oh, to be a rock star! If only people called out for medieval German song like that!) Also the impotent rage of some bum who Leared it up in the general direction of the poor baristas just now. There are lots of crazy homeless people in Seattle, I'm sorry to say.

Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare eat a peach?

At long last, the Queen Anne branch of the public library has reopened. I've never been here before. It's an old-fashioned kind of space, with high ceilings and wooden shelves. I'm a bit relieved to have it here; one can feel at home in a library, and this one is much closer to our apartment than the ghastly downtown branch.

Today- often- I am plagued by the basic problem: why do people do things? Where does all this will come from, and what difference does it make if we have existed or not? Is hedonism the answer? We believe that our lives matter, we try to do things well (or not) and then we get old and die. I don't think posterity exists.

Lion in Wait

I am hatching a concert based on a medieval German narrative. The story I want to tell is about Iwein, one of King Arthur's knights, who travels around with a lion as his companion. He does boneheaded things as well as heroic ones, which is part of his appeal, I guess. The lion, I confess, is the best part. So now it's a question of deciding which snippets of text to recite (over some kind of beat poetry accompaniment) and finding music to highlight events in the story. I'm now of the opinion that the spoken part should be in English (the other possibility being Middle High German with supertitles....highbrow, yes, but more technical hassle and expense, and probably less fun for most audience members.) Learning enough about the German repertory to fill in the story falls under the category of "fun challenge," I believe, but oh how I wish I had the IU library with me now! The good news is that I'll be looking for poems based on their topic. One thing that might bring me good fortune is the fact that there are many strong female characters in the story, and I have found a bunch of sad love poems (Neidhart von Reuenthal, I think) in the feminine voice. This is good, because my singers are women. Not that is matters ultra much, but it's nice when things jive that way.

Listen to the Flower People

Yesterday was my triumphant Seattle premier! Sure, it was a modest venue, but the crowd was warm and more people trickled in than out. Also, they stood up and asked for more when we finished playing, and I call that a triumph.

The act before us was even quieter- and earlier- than the the so-called early music. Their act involved six people sitting on the floor with piles of rocks, shells and sticks. The leader informed us that they had endured rigorous rehearsals to do what we were about to witness. Then they took turns rolling the rocks, shells and sticks around in their hands. One at a time. Playing quietly with the rocks, shells and sticks. The high point came when the leader gave each of us a pine cone to mess with, and then he took them away and it was over. No problem, man; I can get my OWN pine cone!


In other news, I had a dream about a really catchy pop song that went like this:

I knew that you wanted me!
What did you want me for?

That's about it for now.

Last night, I went to Tacoma with some people and crashed Conclave, the big viola da gamba powow. It was nice to see some Bloomington friends again, and it made me miss my time there. Of course, I knew when I left that sooner or later I would be struck by the hammer of nostalgia that can only be generated by incomplete satisfaction. I wonder how long it will take until I feel purity and goodness again when I practice early music. I think I take things too seriously.

Betsy was here for the weekend! Among our toury flurry was a day trip back to my old hometown of Grayland. It was nice to be there, and also sort of strange and profound. I was struck by the notion of my parents moving there. They were the same age as I am now. They moved from San Francisco to this tiny, dark, rain-drenched outpost in rural Washington, and it must have been pretty weird. Anyway, our house is still there, but nobody lives in it, and nature is quickly reclaiming what's left. Most of the trees around the house are gone and somebody mows the lawn, which wasn't there before. I was able to walk through mom's old sewing room and my bedroom, since one of the back walls is gone. We also went to the beach, which was my favorite part of the day. It was wide and stormy, littered with sand dollars and roaring like the freeway just as I remembered. I could have stayed there with my feet in the water forever, honestly.

Two Elemental Odes

Ode to Starbucks

Oh Starbucks,
how your sameness evokes memory.
Corporate continuity of experience-
The shareholders
must be so proud.
Storrs, Bloomington, Boston, New York,
every airport,
always tasty coffee
and the heebie-jeebies.
Do these people
desire this pre-fab community?
The elegant corkboard
with its solitary flyer,
A song we all like,
but have not heard for awhile.
I wonder if they fear
the real places, like Soma
and the way the Coffee Garden used to be.

…heh, I guess there could be only one Pablo Neruda. Okay, how about this?

Ode to Bahoo

Oh silken-footed beast,
watchful keeper of our socks,
silent empress of
your mystery.
As a kitten,
we brought you home,
drowsy, bottle-fed and
entirely gray.
As your body grew,
the new spaces emerged
golden beige.
Bahoo,
mottled specter of corners,
master of subtlety,
dusky mote of gentleness,
your footstep is so light
that we notice you
only after you have arrived
and are curled
on our feet.

As it turns out, I LIKE BAROQUE OPERA. I was a chamber music snob, but not anymore.

In other news, I'm in a cafe, in which they are playing The Best of John Mayer, the Worst Album Ever (if it exists). Especially unbearable is the song about fathers and daughters. "Fathers, be good to your daughters," he croons, "so they will be nice to me" (paraphrasing). Misogynist crap (however unintentional), which voids Mayer's dreaminess utterly.

Apart from that, I am enrolled in an early music workshop here in Seattle this week, and am enjoying it very much. My feet hurt from the pavane. People must have had amazingly strong arches and calf muscles in those days. I suppose that's why the fellows wore tights and turned out their feet to bow and stuff. I think it would be fun to walk around in a big hat covered with ostrich plumes with a sword on my belt. Much more interesting than those big dresses. I wonder if I could have been the George Sand of the baroque....

There is an wonderful water feature next to the theater. It is a basin with a drain at the bottom, and two jets of water stream into it at an angle, causing the water to swirl around as it goes down. It forms fluid geometric patterns in its center. Then the fountain is programed to pause and restart in a way that causes the water to swish from side to side as it spirals down. It drains all the way out in this pattern, and then fills up again. It reminded me of Sartre's assertion that the entire universe is constantly being pulled out of existence, as if sucked by a giant drain, and being reinvented by us all just as quickly as it disappears. Sometimes I think it feels like there's an imbalance in that, like there's a clog in the universe-drain, and Being gets backed up and crowds in on itself. And sometimes the drain works faster than the reinvention.

The texture of Seattle: Seattle feels, looks, tastes like the cinematic 1980s. Is it because I lived here as a child in that decade? Is it the civic yearning for modernity? Seattle is fairly urban, with big city stores and homeless people. But it lacks the energy of survival, somehow. There is a sense of prefabricated comfort and convenience, like it's not a city at all, but an enormous Pottery Barn.

There must be something I am missing.

Creeping nasties of the interior

I took a nap this afternoon and dreamed that I was in a dank and filthy basement that was empty except for some creepy crawlies on the floor that I didn't really want to see. I became aware that I was dreaming, and that the basement somehow represented my psyche, which made me want to observe the nasties, but I still didn't do it. Oh! I have shared too much.

Better hang on to yourself

I spent the earlier part of the day walking along a paved path along the water, bright and sunny. I would have preferred to prowl a filthy harbor, a-crawl with giant wharf rats and grizzled fishermen, the weather-grey boards slick in the steady drizzle. But it was all smiles and no slime. Did not match my mood. Have you ever had that dream in which you have finally returned to a place for which you have yearned, but everything is different and Italy looks like Provo, or whatever? Sometimes that's how Seattle makes me feel. I used to miss the water so much, but now I'm a stranger here.

Seattle is also strange. People act funny here. They kind of do what they want, I guess, and seem to be less self-conscious than in other places. They dress how they want, age appropriateness be damned. I guess that's kind of cool. I saw a middle-aged white guy in Greenlake park, teaching a young black guy how to dance on roller skates to hip hop music. Kind of a skeevy, slow sort of roller-dance.

So now I'm perched in the cafe with orange walls, listening to David Bowie (Ziggy Stardust) next to an open window. Next to me, outside of the window, is an old fellow who looks like a regular citizen (without my glasses on), but is betrayed by his street smell of stale perspiration of booze, which wafts through the screen now and then. It's fun to sit here, because I can here his comments to passers by; he's looking for someone from whom he may purchase a cigarette. He begins each query by complimenting some article of clothing, and sometimes he whistles at the women. Seems to be enjoying himself.

40 tiny fires

So there's me and John and our friend, Jacob, in a yurt in the middle of the forest. There are about 40 candles burning and the sound of rain falling on the tarp that protects us. It is warm and clean and we are eating bacon. We have been reading three-part medieval music by candlelight for hours, drinking mead and 2-buck chuck. I have been playing around with Jacob's hurdy gurdy, which is at least one hundred and fifty years old, loud and addictive to play, even though I have invented my own kind of cadence by missing my note over and over again. We are on the outskirts of Camlann medieval village, where Jacob makes masks and backdrops for plays, and for which he tries to recreate dances from pictures. Jacob would like to make a puppet of a pig wearing a henin* and walking on stilts, but henins didn't come about until the 14th century, he says, and the village is a 13th century one. The forest is in one of those places where there is no shield from the rain, so it's very verdant and wet all of the time. The woods smell uncannily of scented heliotrope, which is my favorite smell in the whole world.

Today, I got a couple of tiny house plants, which I hope will grow into great big ones. I have named them Sappho and Lusk.

*conical medieval hat

Bialystock und Bloom, God dag pur day!

Today, I donned a clean white shirt, went downtown and signed on at a temp agency. 41 words a minute, they said. Probably something for me to do behind a desk within the week, they said. I hope so, for I am broke and desolate of opportunity here in Seattle. I am putting together an early music concert proposal for later this year, and I hope I can get a little grant for it. I want to sing something meaningful and storyful. Who cares if they listen? Okay, I do. But in the meantime, there is still practice for me. And hopefully answering phones for some office or another. Maybe there will be a shiny elevator or an amusing hand dryer. "Ulla, go to work!"

The other thing pressing itself to the surface of my sluggish mind is an idea I have for a concert back in Salt Lake later this summer: French Song from Those Painted Cave Bison to Jacques Brel , and Everything In Between! Yeah, maybe just from the
troubadours on. But wouldn't that be a kick? (I'm talking to YOU, Miss Anna.)

Other than mein Sturm und Drang, I have enjoyed the the ballet, in particular. All Stravinsky. The Balanchine pieces were wonderful. There was also a solo dance to Sacre du Printemps, scrubbed of Stravinsky's intention- not a bad thing in itself, but the dance got pretty tedious. An amazing feat of endurance, to be sure, but
to what end? Loving the music, I missed the spectacle and the story.

So anyway, I miss everybody, wonder if I will last in the big city, and really like it when you all email me.

Seattle: Pines for you!

Here I sit in a cafe around the corner that offers free wireless, great
music, the soothing hum of jackhammers and a view of handsome road
workers and theoccasional strolling ballerina. Very nice! I spent
yesterday with John, shopping for tall mirrors. If you're a singer, you
need a tall mirror for practicing, among other things. I had worried
about our close quarters being an obstacle to my discipline, but it's
working out okay. I can't say whether or not he feels the same, since
I'm generally louder than the lute.

We live on Queen Anne
hill. From our parking lot, there is a postcard view of the space
needle, the harbor and the city skyline. It seems to be a surprisingly
real neighborhood, relatively speaking. There are neighborhood bars and
an old hardware store. There is a dazzling array of roses,
rhododendrons and rosemary. There are fancy grocery stores with
affordable organic produce and heaps of grumpy yoga teachers.