Preparations...

I'm entering the final stages of rehearsals for my upcoming performance with the Artemis Chamber Ensemble. The program includes works by Westchester composer Michael Shapiro, and I'll be playing his Clarinet Sonata and Piano Quintet. It's free, and the Metro North trains are quite reliable, so no excuses allowed! The concert is Thursday Dec. 7th at Manhattanville College in Purchase, 7:30 pm. It's being sponsored in part by the Westchester Holocaust Education Center, so the composer will apparently be giving a talk about the influence of his Jewish heritage on his works. I'll be just as interested as the rest of the audience.

In case you live under a rock and haven't heard, the holidays are also imminent. I managed to have a spectacularly relaxing Thanksgiving break in the Adirondacks, nasty case of food poisoning excluded. Now I'm back to my usual fear that my supply of little black dresses won't be substantial enough to make it through prime party season. Seriously though, something else has been irking me. When asked, on this very site, what I was thankful for this year, I hastily responded with typically narcissistic materialism. I feel the need to amend my reply. Of course I'd choose my fabulous friends and family over a Dior watch any day. Especially those of you who were with me through the events of exactly one year ago, you are absolutely priceless, and much more of a necessity to me than shaping undergarments.

Miss Elizabeth Bennet's Thoughts on Practicing the Piano

"My fingers do not move over this instrument in the masterly manner which I see so many other women's do...But then I have always supposed it to be my own fault - because I would not take the trouble of practising."
--Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice

Ghosts in the Machine

I awoke this morning to the high-pitched squealing of running water mingling with the similar timbre of Prince’s “1999”, a tune that never fails to make me feel ancient. Imagine, a year that belonged to the distantly apocalyptic future when the song was a hit in the '80s is now nearly a decade behind us. Far too heavy a thought to be contemplating during the first two minutes of my day.

On to more important matters: who could be taking a shower at this hour of the morning, when all of my building-mates should already be at their offices, doing whatever it is that they do? I wondered if some phantom with OCD had overtaken the adjacent apartment, returning from the afterlife in desperate need of an Irish Spring fix. Perhaps it was just plumbing issues, but I seem to be surrounded by ghosts lately.

For example, last weekend I spent an evening visiting a few of my old haunts, places where I have spent countless hours and more dollars carousing with friends, but for various reasons have boycotted of late. Unfortunately several of my most cherished cohorts have left the area or simply dropped off the radar in the past year, some by choice and others rather against their will, and it still feels strange to be in familiar surroundings without their company. Recently I’ve been constantly reminded of the strange, fateful patterns of our interpersonal relationships, about the seemingly haphazard way in which new acquaintances appear in our lives at precisely the perfect moment, while others fade into the background, always with the possibility of reconnection months or even years into the future.

One of the most enjoyable conversations I’ve been privy to in the past few weeks involved Ernest Vincent Wright’s lipogrammatical book Gadsby. The novel was written without the use of the letter E, a ruse my companions and I attempted to emulate throughout the evening (although I must confess we were infinitely more successful at the start of the night than at its conclusion). On this Thanksgiving Break Eve, I would like to share a piece of the main character’s advice on taking a “vacation from financial affairs” (I expect it will work just as nicely as a respite from the irate grumblings of piano students and their parents):

Go out to a charming woodland spot on a picnic with a bright, happy, vivacious group. Sit down at a corn roast; a marshmallow toast; join in singing popular songs; drink a quart of good, rich milk; burrow into that big lunch box; and all such things as banks, stocks, and family bills, will vanish on fairy wings, into oblivion.

Prohibition

Several years ago, in one of the required reading assignments for Bradley Brookshire’s Research and Writing class at Purchase, I came across a comment that continues to haunt me. Unfortunately I can’t remember the exact source, but it may have been in Leonard Meyer’s discussion of Adorno that I was first introduced to the concept of “servile intellectuals”, those who fancy themselves to be members of the cultural elite yet still actively participate in popular culture by, say, reading their daily horoscopes.

Earlier this week, like the voice of my conscience personified in print on dogpile.com, my astrological oracle warned that I “may be running the risk of losing [myself] in the noise of socializing.” How true. In the past few weeks, my stress level has been gradually rising to the brink of unbearability due to my incessant juggling of professional and personal commitments. My normally chaotic existence has been further complicated by preliminary preparations for a concert in early December with the Artemis Chamber Ensemble. More details to follow, but the program features the works of composer Michael Shapiro. I’ll be playing his Clarinet Sonata and Piano Quintet, two works written in completely disparate styles – one channeling early Copland and Bernstein, the other purely minimalistic (or as I like to refer to my part in the Quintet, Czerny exercises on crack).

In order to salvage some semblance of my sanity, I firmly resolved to fly under the radar this weekend. No dinner parties, no late night visits to my favorite spot for French Martinis, and under no circumstances will I be consuming any beverage served in a shot glass. I didn’t even make it into Manhattan for the Carter docu-concert at MoMA. I did, however, indulge in a bit of well-deserved retail therapy (my reward for a challenging week: Earl Jean skinny corduroys, eighties-style with zippers at the ankles, a steal for $10). Another reason I relish suburban life: if I so choose, I can wear sweatpants and no makeup to Bloomingdale’s without fear of running into anyone except other suburbanites, similarly incognito in their ponytails and sneakers.