Plugging My Friend's Book

I am so proud of my friend, aka The Ironic Mother. Leaving our organization and New York was a big step, but she had gone on to some great things, including writing a BOOK! Arts & Numbers

Now she's on a series of book tours.

Guess what I'm doing tonight?

I'll be the one in the back, cheering loudly. Maybe with Levain cookies, banners, and a grin.

For ONCE, I will link to Amazon. BUY IT. It'd be a perfect graduation gift for arts grads, along with Neil Gaiman's Make Good Art.

Wreck it Wednesday: Wreck this Journal Updates

From the Preface: 
Warning: During the process of this book you will get dirty. You may find yourself covered in paint, or any other number of foreign substances. You will get wet. You may be asked to do things you question. You may grieve for the perfect state that you found the book in. You may begin to see creative destruction everywhere. You may begin to live more recklessly. 





 
It's been a while since I've posted the updates about my Wreck this Journal, but I have been slowly working on it. This past week, in particular, saw a burst of activity - mostly while I was waiting for other things to happen. It was good to use it to process other things that were going on.

Updates on existing pages:

The above is a riff on the apocryphal library school story about raw bacon being used as a book mark. It's a print add for Oscar Mayer (? I think) bacon, that uses Boolean operators. I'm a geek.

New pages:

Everything smells like Tea Rose perfume now ... It's kind of nice, especially when you don't have time to go out and smell real roses. Also, I bet people of a certain age can't get a Tears for Fears song out of their head. (This one.)

This one word is PATIENCE - what I was trying to exercise one night at Symphony Space while waiting my place in line for Neil Gaiman to sign The Ocean at the End of the Lane.

I filled this page up too quickly, to the amusement of an usher. So I moved on to this one. I had already slapped the two Janet Evanovich stickers in there, and it let to some interesting internal debates. It started in the lower left corner of the Morelli page and wrapped around, saying things like:

~8:30 pm  6/19/13 waiting for GAIMAN @Symphony Space OCEAN AT THE END OF THE LANE

It is completely silly that I am actually dedicating these two pages to an internal monologue - especially one that now has to focus on two fictional characters in a series of novels that has unfortunately gotten to be formulaic but I stuck these stickers here so I might as well commit. Plus I have time to kill waiting for a much more intriguing novelist to sign his most latest book. The usher may have a point ... Why do I/we need autographs from writers? Shouldn't the book be enough? Obviously NOT, as a full sold-out house is waiting for this guy to sign their book, and their stuff, so they have another piece of him. But this was supposed to be a monologue about MORELLI vs. Ranger. Morelli - reformed bad boy, house, home, dog, job, family, still enough bad to attract. Ranger - international man of mystery, sexy as hell - but... Not one to settle down with, no shared childhood/cultural BURG history. After all the back and forth, it's really annoying. Pick one or choose yourself. It's 2013! You don't need a man. Really. I mean, it's nice and all, but ... seriously. Time to grow up Stephanie, the character. Janet the novelist should have moved on 10 books ago. The audience has, and I have wasted two pages writing about this and the signing line hasn't moved!

P.S. After writing this, getting dinner @ 9:30 and waiting 2+ hours, watching train schedule -- decided author's work more imp. than autograph. Gave him 1 less interaction, me home around midnight, less commute stress, and some sleep. May be short-sided, but there it is. 
11:50 PM 6/19/13

Post-note: According to the author and organizers, Neil Gaiman wasn't done signing until after 1 a.m. If I had left at the end of the reading, like my colleague, I would have gotten a pre-signed book. I waited until 10:30 and left with an unsigned copy. Who was the smarter one?

Wreck it Wednesday: Wreck This Journal Updates

 From the Preface: 
Warning: During the process of this book you will get dirty. You may find yourself covered in paint, or any other number of foreign substances. You will get wet. You may be asked to do things you question. You may grieve for the perfect state that you found the book in. You may begin to see creative destruction everywhere. You may begin to live more recklessly.

Retroblog November 15, 1985

The United States Air Force Symphony Orchestra

Friday, 15 November, 1985 - 8:00 p.m.

Albert N. Jorgensen Auditorium, UCONN - Storrs

Haydn Sinfonia No. 86

Davidov Konzert No. 1 in B Minor, for cello and orchestra, Op. 5

Foote Four Character Pieces after the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, Op. 48

Still Afro-American Symphony

This must have quite the impression, because I kept the program for all these years. Perhaps it was even my first symphony concert. Looking at it now, this is quite an evening of music. I'll have to find some audio clips to re-live the evening.

We were fortunate enough to live 15 minutes from the UCONN campus and my dad's office was in the basement beneath Jorgensen (near the shark -- not kidding!). As the cultural center of Eastern Connecticut, Jorgensen did, and still does, program a wide variety of events and presentations and I'm very fortunate that my parents recognized the importance of supplementing my exposure to the arts. It set me on the path I'm still wandering down.

State of Arts in the Country -- Appalling

I was talking to my Mom the other day and she let me know that the choral department at my old high school had been cut. This news didn't complete surprise me, as arts funding is being cut around the country in record numbers. It does really sadden me though. I was hoping that the old hometown would buck the trend. During the many years that my family was in the school system, the high school choral program had students go to All-State and All-New England Choral competitions. T thanks to the music program, my brothers and I travelled to Puerto Rico and participated in events around the region. The choral department was an established community presence. We had holiday sing-alongs in the mall and retirement communities. We had fund-raisers that were annual events. Students looked forward to going to high school to sing in the chorus.

The choral department was literally my lifeline in high school. I wasn't a cool kid. I wasn't a jock. I wasn't one of the popular girls. What I was, was the musical girl. The one voted most likely to ... um, actually end up where I am now, ironically. I was in almost all of the various choral groups, but mostly I was the primary pianist for the school from my sophomore year through graduation. If it needed piano accompaniment, there I was -- for college auditions, spring and winter concerts, various recitals, the major high school spring musicals, you name it. While I did get to sing occasionally, I usually had to "shut up and play." Fine with me. That was my niche. I was comfortable with that. I was good at it. I had a place. I had friends. More importantly, because I got to hang out with very talented and diverse actors, musicians, and singers, I had a community. We had our own wing where we used to hang out. We had a common bond and a common language. Until senior year, all the cool kids and the jocks used to taunt us, until they realized that a) they needed tutoring from us "smart" kids and b) they needed extracurriculars like chorus and the musicals on their college applications. Once they spent time with us, they realized that those hey, those music nerds weren't so bad. I even have yearbook entries to prove it.

I bet that if a survey was done on my fellow choral program alumni that most of us have done pretty well for ourselves. I'm sure that there are college degrees of varying advanced levels. I'm sure we've gone on to a variety of professional and interesting careers. While we may not have gone on to be professional or even still-practicing musicians, I bet most of us still have a love of the arts that was fostered in those hallways, in those practice rooms, on those stages, and on those rickety risers. Thanks to the choral program, we learned to sing in unison and harmony, so I wouldn't be suprised if they could join in me in a chorus of protest about the situation. We should "pitch" a fit.

I think that it's just shameful that, in order to save money, or for what ever reason, this important program has been cut. I feel for those poor kids in my hometown and the local communities. Somewhere out there in the quiet corners of Connecticut are students who have the desire to be musicians, but may not have the money for an instrument or lessons. Chorus may have been their one way to participate, their glimmer of hope at some musical fulfillment. What will those kids do now? Where will they find their community? Will the instrumental programs be next? What about the fine arts classes?

For shame hometown, for shame.