Zauberwelt

Sacrifice

2009-06-15T23:00:00.000-07:00

No time to taste the sacrifice and stumble in the reeling dance tonight. But how I'd love to roast meat over the beach's bonfires or simply drink in the seaside woodsmoke.

I've dreamt enough the past few nights: that powerful but useless love from long ago . . . It was in strangeness that we met again, but it seemed natural to be affectionate; that had always been so easy. Oh -- house on legs in Florida! The second time Florida was ever beautiful. I read my first Patricia Highsmith book then and smoked Dunhills on the porch. One was frequently intimate in those days, and as Dorothy says, We named it. At any rate, we looked it square in the eye. But our relationship was already dead: there was awkwardness in the car. We had broken up many times. On the way home he took delight in a recording of A Handmaid's Tale but fell asleep. (Ah, the skin's constellations! Changing now, I suppose, like my own.)

And then another love, more recent, and I was a traveler: At first I was in a foreign land on a corner much like that of Sixteenth and Potrero, across from Safeway, and there was a beautiful blond-haired young man hawking T-shirts in a profound-sounding Dutch. I frantically tried to text my American friends that "Tadziu is selling T-shirts!" but dream logic wouldn't let me. (I was also afraid about international charges.)

And then I was at the airport in Amsterdam (as I once was in real life), insisting that C. was wrong when he said that the airport was right downtown and I should have strolled out and lived it up a bit instead of spending the night sleeping in a plastic chair. Even so I had left the airport, traveled down a short road lined with worn volcanic rock (borrowed from my trip to Maui), and ended up at a mall where, according to Google maps on my iPhone, there was a gay bar. It was about seven levels up and reachable only by Donkey-Kong-style moves. I saw J. (whom I just ran into tonight with his beautiful boyfriend, the fuckers! though I must be happy for J. and extremely happy for the lucky guy who's snagged him) and M., who naturally were living it up, and we did our hugs and things and I explained I was about to go in. Finally made it to level seven and saw the bouncer judging the gays trying to get in . . . Decided it wasn't worth it. (No doubt the beautiful Belgian Sylvain Daelemans and his suspiciously divine friends would be allowed, if they weren't in fact running the bar and my dreams in the first place.)

But then I suppose it was time for my flight, and I was in Turkey visiting C. It was not clear why he was there, though he was teaching a bit. He lived with a Turkish family, the son of whom had a curious patch of hair on the bridge of his nose. Istanbul was splendid -- bridges and underpasses of marble, grape vines growing on distant hills. We were not intimate; he loved another. His mother cried and confided to me:

"I don't know what to do!"

Was there something wrong with the new love? (Did she want me?)

"When they are together . . . it consumes them!"

* * *

But let us come back to Earth. When I'm dead I will say to my compatriots, "Every night I watched an episode of this television show called 'Golden Girls.'"

9:30 pm it is

2009-06-08T22:21:00.001-07:00

9:30 pm. I should probably continue copyediting or learning music for next week, but it's been a long day and it's time to . . .

wrap myself in the blanket of my childhood and walk down to the beach and . . .

dig with my fingers until there is only sand to breathe
lie down in the surf and let the cold creep up and take me away
offer myself as a sacrifice and burn on one of the beach's many bonfires

Remember: The ocean told me to burn the evidences of tristesse. I have burned them time and time again, but only recently have the ashes remained scattered. In the absence of evidence there can be no tristesse. Indeed, the ocean may even think me happy. And in many ways it may be correct: the lungs and liver it sees are much improved, and the casing has gone from sea lion to seal.

But there is a real danger: I feel unhinged from the lives around me. If I am living as if I've been given six months to live, then I may have only six months to live. The happy perceivers are living for the moment, but the unhappy perceivers are expecting the end.

Ah, well. This is what backyards are for. This is why we are covered in hair and growl at the raccoons. This is why we eat dirt and rub grass on our faces.

Ginger pianos

2009-06-06T23:09:00.000-07:00

We now bring you an excerpt from an unfinished post:

Ironically, perhaps, I'm more conscious of the dangers of blogging now that I am actually free from a regular job full of evil supervisors and high-profile governmental clients. . . . Where I used to write freely about the musical creatures that either inspire (Isabel Leonard in Don Giovanni at Chicago Opera Theatre) or terrify (Jane Eaglen, Jill Grove) me, I now have to be careful because I'm trying to move deeper into the musical world -- and, in truth, I'm beginning to understand how difficult an opera singer's life is. So I can't even talk about the various local/regional singers I love, because it means I don't love the ones I don't mention. Nor do I want people I work with regularly to fear that I might write about them (not that my readership surpasses six people on a good day).

But today, in vague terms, I sightread the first movement of the Saint-Saens' bassoon sonata, then rehearsed the . . . [Transmission seems to end here.]

I tried out my set of three Chopin etudes (Op 10 No 8, Op 10 No 6, and Op 25 No 11 "Winter Wind") in a little recital today. They went well. Sure, I might wish my performances might be as confident and smooth as a concert pianist's or a piano-performance major's at least, but perhaps that's hoping for too much right now. I must remember that I could barely imagine memorizing a piece of music a year and a half ago. So, 10-8 had a significant memory burple that I'll have to look into tomorrow; I was so shocked to have jumped off the track at some point that never caused me a problem before that I skipped back a good ways to have another go. 10-6 felt quite good -- just a few moments of panic that I barreled through, which is fine given how chromatic the accompaniment pattern is and the fact that it's in e-flat minor. And since I didn't melt into a quivering blob, 25-11 must have gone pretty smoothly. I have no idea what it sounds like on the outside, but a few of my teacher's students thought it was strong. I can live with that.

But I mean, how boring can you be?

It's true though, what that previous Paul wrote. But I'm blog-shy also because certain parts of my future matter more than they used to. It's easy to say I don't give a fuck if some manager at NCLBCo finds my blog and thinks its inappropriate for me to blog about trying on my outfits for a business trip. But I do possibly give a fuck if a great singer is frightened away. I shouldn't -- because no singer or instrumentalist can be too great without an appropriate sense of compassion and forgiveness.

That said, let's talk about gingers. There was a ginger by the grace of goddess at Ocean Beach yesterday: a divine redhead in mustard-yellow pants, accompanied by a redhead of indiscriminate gender. Imagine! Double redheads! One androgynous! And today there was a redhead on the bus in front of me. He made me think of Isabelle Huppert, whose freckles are vast as the cosmos itself. His hair unique: "fine strawberries mixed with oranges (albeit slightly balding)," as I texted my sister dragonfish earlier.

I'm lonely, just so you know. I'm 33 years old. Mating . . . The happy couples I know have been lucky. Think about your favorite couples: they are compromising but also not compromising. You know why they are together. You could love either one of them. I have not found that. (One begins to think, with a roster of exes like mine, that perhaps I've made a mistake, overlooked a true love with one or another -- lord knows I've redated most of them -- but then one realizes: No, he is not right.)

Or is he? Or is he? Out of the parentheses, new paragraph. It's only one small part of the package that makes one or the other wrong . . . Perhaps conversation is right with one and romance impossible, or romance with one and conversation impossible.

But I can't reignite a passion of the heart. (How did the heart get associated with love? And in what alternate universe of geometric organs was the heart symbol born?) Someone is hiding out there. Someone new. My dear friend Morrissey says:

My love, wherever you are --

whatever you are --

don't lose faith.

I know it's gonna happen

someday to you.

Please wait. Please wait.

Don't lose faith.

You say that the day

just never arrives,

and it's never seemed

so far away.

Still I know it's gonna happen

someday to you.

Please wait.

Don't lose faith.

Living

2009-04-11T09:57:00.000-07:00

My dears. Oh. This is what it's all about. I promised you drunken ramblings, but you get hungover reflections instead.

At 33 I am not so old that I cannot be moved like a teenager. Sure, in my old body: my eyes still can't focus, my throat is raw with whispering sweet somethings over a crowded bar, my stomach is churning with disorientation, and my limbs must think about each move. This is the gift of six rums and Coke in the space of an evening.

And how do I cope with this new day, aside from coffee and croissant? With my hoodie raised and my favorite moments from Strauss DVDs (currently "Diese Liebe, plötzlich geboren," Flamand's love for the countess Madeleine, as I translated here).

And, sadly, sober thoughts of the new day battle with the happy and fantastical memories. But "I am such a tender ass, if my hair do but tickle me, I must scratch" -- let me hold to that! Let me hold it today and tomorrow at least.

What I'm talking about is (of course) the stranger. And as I'm saying this I'm also cursing my future: for how many times can a person go out and be moved? How many strangers before they all achieve a pattern? When one can no longer trust one's fluttering emotions, one makes a more concrete, sexual, goal. I am not there yet.

I curse also the present, as J. warned: Do not write about them now. It is true: words are scary. I write to capture and to understand -- little wonder that the captured and defined find their ways of escape, leaving me only the words. If I did not trap, I might find myself surrounded.

Do you want me to get on with it? Do you want me to say what I have to say?

What -- some kind of narrative?

Bar. Great friends. Drink. Dinner. Great friend. Drink. Bar. Drink. A darkly handsome but not attractive old-looking late-30-something fetches us to amuse his daddy, who molests my friend more aggressively than he does me. We say we have to go. We move to an opposite corner of the bar. My friend alerted me to a stranger propping the wall. Something -- my drinks, my promise to be social, his face -- impelled me to move: "Are you here alone?" or some such.

Narrative destroys! And I have only a few more minutes before today's sun dries yesterday's tears of tomorrow's loss. Before today's loss becomes real -- yesterday, ah yesterday!

It is tenderness. It is ego as well, and infancy. Sure, it is a yearning for mommy-love and for the approving smiles of both parents.

We bored into some dark corners and came out brighter. True, my body reacted: lips and teeth and hair and eyes, the mommy-love and puppy-love. I became tentatively affectionate: testing (drunkenly, not always consciously), a hand on a back, fingers poking a belly.

The change -- can I find that point in my memory? I can't. Only that at some point fingers sought my own.

Blanche DuBois sings (and these are not beautiful words, but direct), "Real? Who wants real? I know I don't want it. I want magic! Magic, yes -- that's what I want. That's what I try to give to people . . . I do misrepresent things; I don't tell the truth. But I tell what ought to be the truth -- what it ought to be. Yes, magic's what I try to give to people. If that is such a sin, then let me be damned for it . . . Don't turn on that light. It all looks so ugly in that light. Why not see it by candlelight, or moonlight, or by starlight? They are bright enough to see by -- sometimes too bright."

Meanwhile: I can no longer avoid the new day. Those other parts of me -- there is music to learn, a rehearsal of four-piano music. A conservatory awaits.

Oh wonder and dread -- a phone call as well.

Musical reckoning

2009-04-10T11:00:00.000-07:00

And it's time for another reckoning.

On April 7 I celebrated my one-year anniversary with my new piano teacher. In that time, he and I have accomplished the following:

Bach Concerto for four keyboards (BWV 1065)

Beethoven
Sonata No. 7 in D major (Op. 10 No. 3)
Sonata No. 18 in A-flat major (Op. 31 No. 3)

Chopin
Etude in F major (Op. 10 No. 8)
Etude in a minor ("Winter Wind"; Op. 25 No. 11)

Feldman, Morton Piece for four pianos

Liszt Hungarian Rhapsody No. 12

Mozart Piano Concerto No. 27 in B-flat major (K. 595)

Poulenc Three Novelettes

Rachmaninoff
Prelude in D major (Op. 23 No. 4)
Prelude in A-flat major (Op. 23 No. 8)
Prelude in g# minor (Op. 32 No. 12)

Ravel Sonatine

Stevens, Halsey Sonata for trumpet and piano

All in all, it's been a pretty good year. Certainly I wouldn't have guessed a year ago that I'd leave a job that was doing more harm than good and that I'd be living a life so much closer to that difficult ideal: What would you be doing if you had only a month to live?

Next time: semi-drunken ramblings.

Some updates

2009-03-23T16:14:00.000-07:00

1. Come to the San Francisco Conservatory (50 Oak Street at Van Ness and Market) at 5 pm this Saturday, March 28, to hear lots of great music by students in my piano teacher's studio. I'll be performing Liszt's Hungarian Rhapsody No. 12 and pieces for four keyboards by Bach and Morton Feldman. The concert is on the lower level in the Osher Salon.

2. I was slowly, slowly inching up some tempos on Chopin this morning. I had just played a page successfully, so I notched up the metronome and took a swig of coffee. Suddenly, a great cough came upon me. I don't think my body had time to realize my mouth was full. Chopin was covered. Coffee of lesser velocity landed on my keyboard.

3. For the first time ever, I bought and ate my own avocado. What an amazing substance. They seem so magical when other people prepare them that I just couldn't imagine being responsible for bringing such deliciousness into the world by myself. But I did today. I picked out a dark squishy one, brought it home, cut it open, and spooned out that amazing butter. I scooped out the pit and licked it clean. Then I nested the two leathery halves of avocado peel and put the pit inside. I squeezed the pit through the peels a couple times. Then I went about the rest of my day.

Cecilia!

2009-02-24T00:02:00.000-08:00

Let me take a few moments to write about the days, lest I forget.

Yesterday I saw Cecilia Bartoli. I was trying to decide in talking to S. if she was in fact the one singer I most wanted to see. Given that Callas is dead and Joan is . . . retired, and I've already seen Kiri, Cecilia is The One. She did not disappoint. I was in the front row, in the farthest left seat, so the experience was quite personal. I had a perfect view of her profile (that beautiful face, that incredible hair, and ample bosoms -- it must be said) and of the back of her commedia dell'arte pianist.

Why is Cecilia the greatest singer in the world? Many reasons. She sang twenty of my least favorite songs -- those light Italian songs of Bellini, Donizetti, and Rossini with plain accompaniments and none of the drama of Mahler and Strauss. And I loved every one. And even if Cecilia is limited, and even if she does not possess the calm body and relaxed vocal technique I love to see (as Susan Graham once displayed at point-blank range in Nuits d'été), her music (and with it her expression and gestures) comes from some central part of her that understands song. Like my ideal singer, she seems to understand that the breath is all. She loves breath and invests her own with all the joy and sorrow of we who breathe.

Ay, she's fantastic.

In other news, I spent a full workday accompanying flutists today. I'm playing for twenty-four flutists in recital on Sunday. On Saturday I'm playing an opera rehearsal for which I'll need to know all of Cosi fan tutte. I've worked out many parts already, but it's a daunting task to learn three hours of music well enough to keep my eye on both the conductor's baton and the vocal lines to shout out the occasional forgotten Italian. Must wake up early tomorrow to work on flute music for rehearsals the next two days, and then Thursday and Friday are devoted entirely to Mozart.

Want to get your own Cosi on? Come see it!

Mulling

2009-02-16T12:20:00.000-08:00

Occasionally I do worry. I have abandoned a path that I had grown used to: a nine-to-five job with all the social and financial consistency it brings, and in a company I could have stayed in for life, watching my TIAA-CREF retirement grow and taking my yearly six weeks of vacation to New York, Chicago, Hawaii, and beyond. Certain things are sacrificed, at least in the near future: a new car, an upgraded apartment, hundred-dollar tickets to the opera, the freedom to buy whatever catches my fancy.

Last year JT asked what I would really like to be doing with my life. I couldn't really conceive of "just music" unless I pretended that I met some rich man who would be delighted to have me sit around all day playing the piano. I imagined our parlor, and me spending the day working on Beethoven trios or Debussy art songs and hiring famous musicians to join me in home recitals. But that seemed too unrealistic -- and I could never imagine luxuriating in someone else's money.

I spent much of the conversation trying to convince JT that I was too mediocre: there are tons of fabulous pianists with greater ability and greater understanding of music as a language. Even still, I could admit that I might be able to fill some middle niche -- young players or singers who need an accompanist, or beginning pianists. But I could definitely imagine how much fun it would be to sit around and play all day.

I've basically been sitting around and playing all day since I left my job on October 31, 2008. In that first week of freedom I polished up and memorized two movements of a Mozart piano concerto that I would later play in recital. When the job was still consuming my time, I figured I'd have to perform the movements a little rough and with the music, if at all.

I've retained a small amount of contract work and have some potential copyediting work in the future (if I passed the tricky copyediting test), and some music opportunities have blossomed -- enough that it finally felt necessary to have business cards made. I'm still coasting on lentils and some savings, but I'm not yet at the point of resorting to back-up plans: trying to get in with one of the private lessons schools around here or (gulp) signing on with a temp agency.

Though I'm sometimes afraid, what I feel more is that I'm living my life honestly and honoring my loves and abilities, and I'll have something to remember and talk about when I'm dead.

Self-review

2009-02-12T08:52:00.000-08:00

I performed the first movement of Beethoven's Sonata No. 18 in E-flat major (Op. 31 No. 3) in a master class with Jonathan Mann at the San Francisco Conservatory last Saturday. I was the last of three on the program, and I was nervous because Jonathan was so specific with the first two performers. There are so many repeated ideas in the first movement that require nuance, and so many areas besides that invite or require musical decisions. But I walked up to the piano and enjoyed its easy sound in the Conservatory's large but snug recital hall. Jonathan seemed pleased with my interpretation, and instead of being specific, he offered some large-scale ideas, pointing out how the movement shows both Beethoven's romantic and classical sides. The opening measures, for example, show Beethoven improvising at the keyboard, testing out chords and ideas, delaying the arrival at E-flat and the classical scales and arpeggios that it will bring.

Later that day I tried out the complete sonata from memory in my piano teacher's studio recital in the same hall -- the first time I had played a full sonata from memory. There were memory hiccups, but no train wrecks. My nose began to run, as it has been doing when I perform from memory, but I think it is getting better. The shaking hands and general terror are now gone. All in all, I was able to enjoy the performance.

From my own perspective, I knew that the second-movement scherzo was a little out of control, though one discriminating audience member told me it was quite effective. I felt the third-movement minuet should have been a place for me and the audience to relax, but it fell just a little short of that. The fourth movement presto was fast and exciting, though certainly not as accurate as a studio recording.

In talking with my teacher, we decided that the whole sonata needs some more shape and distinction between the movements. As I performed it, it seemed like three similarly fast movements and one somewhat slower minuet. My teacher had recently listened to a recording Rubinstein made when he was 90. His minuet and presto are a little like mine, but he takes the first movement at a much slower tempo, fully enjoying some of the romantic moments, as Jonathan Mann suggested. His scherzo is still humorous, but must less manic than my own. The good, fun, fast times are saved for the presto.

I'll be playing the sonata again on February 21 at the Conservatory's official recital for the Adult Extension Division, so I hope to incorporate some of these improvements.

Intrusion

2009-02-02T09:00:00.000-08:00

Something woke me, but in my sleepy state I was not alarmed. I let my eyes adjust to the dim light from the street lamps. The floorboards creaked on the opposite side of my studio apartment.

She was here.

I lowered my lids and controlled my breathing, thinking of the best attack. Countless thoughts ran through my head: What does she want this time? How did she get a key? I'd have to get a new padlock for the gate and a new lock for the door. The landlord wouldn't mind; but how much would that cost me?

I mumbled a little and turned in bed, pretending to see her shape for the first time. Like many a reasonable person with a dead-hour intruder, I screamed. Louder and higher in pitch than I intended -- perhaps I was still a bit tipsy with drink or dreams.

The two thick discs of her glasses turned to capture the light, and I jumped out of bed and ran toward her with an angry snarl. My apartment was smaller in the dark, so in a second I crashed into her -- or rather, sunk into her. It felt like her body absorbed mine for a moment: her neck grabbing my own, her bosoms wrapping around my torso, her thighs closing around my legs, her twisted feet embracing my own toes.

In another moment she was gone, out the door she had snuck in. I followed her, watched her amble across the backyard. I pretended to recognize her for the first time.

"LouAnne? LouAnne, is that you?" I called after her. I pretended to be my helpful self. "LouAnne, what is it? Is there something I can do for you?"

But she was gone.

Recitals!

2009-01-30T21:31:00.000-08:00

Some recital announcements:

Thursday, February 5, 7:30 pm
A Casual Recital of Music for Piano Trio
Berkeley, CA
My friends G. and D. and I will be performing Beethoven's "Ghost" trio along with short works by Frank Bridge and Theodore Dubois. I'll also be performing a few movements from Beethoven's Sonata No. 18, Op. 31 No. 3. Contact me for directions.

Saturday, February 7, 5:00 pm
My Piano Teacher's Students in a Casual Recital
San Francisco Conservatory of Music Recital Hall (down the steps from the main lobby)
I'll be performing the complete Beethoven's Sonata No. 18. Other adult students in my teacher's studio will perform a variety of works for piano.

Saturday, February 21, 2:00 pm
Adult Extension Division Recital
San Francisco Conservatory of Music Recital Hall (down the steps from the main lobby)
I'll be performing the Beethoven sonata again. Other students in the Conservatory's Adult Extension Division will perform a variety of works, usually for piano but occasionally other instruments.

It's almost February.

2009-01-27T11:22:00.000-08:00

Don't be grandiose.

What's new? How is the world treating you?

I have now been out of the salt mines for three months. No regrets. I am confident it was the correct and only possible decision. The work was doing very little to make me or the world better, and many of the people I worked for were among the least enlightened and beautiful humans that I've ever met. True, I'm still engaged by the company in a small capacity, but the work I've retained is aligned with my passion for the arts -- and it may soon disappear, as No Child Left Behind continues to force states to focus punitively on reading and math.

I'm currently enjoying a new relationship with an old friend. We rejoined magically under Mozart, the color orange, a V-6 stallion, and a blazing apartment. When we first dated and lived together, I was a weak little bird. Now I'm strong, as Jillian Michaels tells me in Level 1 of the 30-Day Shred. You can see us in action on Dax in the City.

Pianoing is going well. D & G and I are playing Beethoven's "Ghost" trio and assorted other pieces on a house recital on February 5, and I'm testing out a complete Beethoven sonata (No. 18, Op. 31 No. 3) from memory at my piano teacher's studio recital on February 7 and playing it at the San Francisco Conservatory's official recital on February 21. I have some freelance accompanying in the works for February and March, and my piano teacher has talked about me to two of his accompanying contacts. I've sent cover letters and resumes to both.

I'm also due to take a copyediting test and hopefully return to freelance copyediting, this time with a fantastic independent press that does a wide range of books from raw-food recipes to martial arts instruction and from political songbooks to fiction.

So, there is creatively earned money in the future. That means more lentil soup and the occasional iPhone app.

In closing, a paragraph from the secret diary of Walter Bally:

"After Chevy’s I walked down Market to the San Francisco Opera: Rheingold. It was fairly dreadful. But I suppose I was mostly biased against it because my seat cost $110 and was still (in the dress circle) really too far to tell which mouths were opening to sing. Other major flaws: too much fog, too much fire, too much noise changing boring sets, high school gestures by all performers, two warhammers for Thor (an architect’s t-scale and a regular hammer), translation of Rheingold as “Pure Gold,” and Jill Grove. Actually, she didn’t sound so bad in this (compared to Cornelia in Giulio Cesare at the Met). But she rose up (naturally) from a damn trap door that we saw open and waiting for her. One woman in the audience was disappointed by the bridge to Valhalla, which was an aluminum-looking cruise-ship launch."

Guilty pleasure

2008-11-12T11:11:00.001-08:00

Let me take a break from piano practice to reflect on my new life. It has been enchanted: I spend as much time as I want working on music, going for walks, traveling about the city, and enjoying the company of friends. It seems undeserved: deep down I feel like everyone should suffer eight hours of uselessness to keep the markets running. But for now I will accept it as a break and a sabbatical.

I've retained a small amount of contractual work with my former employer. It is the best and most rewarding of what I did there. The work, though small, means I do not have immediate worries of going hungry. (My new diet of fruit, beans, tuna, and crackers, however, is not very expensive.)

I have not moved far in my plans of being a freelance musician. I'm still not sure whether that's what I want to do, though I may only be afraid of failure. I think the main thing holding me back right now is this independence and freedom to work on solo music. In my first week away from work, I was able to memorize a piece in time for a mini-recital, as well as make true progress on two very difficult pieces that have been on the back burner.

I have been toying with the idea of pursuing a more altruistic career. Wanting to help people is supposedly a characteristic of my personality and my sign, but I've never tried it before. Though I love people and need them to love me, I have a strong streak of self-absorption and introspection. And even though I suffer, I am often skeptical of pain: when confronted by it in others, I tend to philosophize it as temporary and unimportant in the larger picture. (I am only occasionally able to do this when I am experiencing my own blahs.)

Defining goals has occasionally been successful (though it makes me feel dirty). A goal of learning to play the flute was rewarded with learning to play the flute (though I've since gone back to the piano). A goal of financial stability was rewarded with financial stability (though I've since given it away). I'm not yet prepared to make goals, though I think early 2009 is my target for moving toward the next thing.

Yes, my dear screenwriter friend, it would be nice to find a sort of love that can support my current life: doing a bit of work for the outside world, working on my music and other slightly creative ventures, and loving or helping the strangers of the world. And while it would be nice to find such a prince, I can't even land a pauper.

Ay, sure, I've come a long way from a dirty house in Athens, Georgia, with melting-plaster walls, dial-up Internet, and grass up to my 24-year-old, 28-inch waist. Most all of the movement has been in the right direction.

First days out of the saltmine

2008-11-06T12:47:00.000-08:00

A few thoughts from the last week or so:

I could have lived forever in this night. Drunk by the will of friends, my hand on the knee of one, my flirtations at the ears of the other, and two beautiful women.

We all go to bed . . . such swoozy masses. And I am . . . such a tender ass. And all I ask is . . . a knee to hold . . . and a shoulder to collapse on.

When I am old, and dead, I will remember tonight, and the living poems that loved this gargoyle.

* * *

That was several days ago. And I don't know why I would use the word gargoyle when a very strange man recently told me that most things we think of as gargoyles are actually called chimerae; gargoyles must channel water. Ah well.

Yesterday was my first jobless day. All in all, it was challenging and lonely. But I did some things that suggest I may be able to be happy and healthy: I started with a nice walk down to the ocean, stopped by the grocery store to get healthy food (apples, bananas, cereal, soy milk, lentil soup), and came home and practiced some Mozart. Went to the library in the middle of the day to post photos of the beautiful marriage I witnessed at San Francisco City Hall (look here), tinkled more on the piano, and headed downtown for my piano lesson. I kept my beer intake at 0, and my calories were substantially less than the 4000 a day that have been making my skin undulate.

* * *

And now it is Day 4. Each day has been better than the day before. Yesterday was a nice balance of piano practice with friends and family -- talking to my mom, to my coworker, to my friend abroad, and then dinner with a new friend, her husband, and their beautiful baby.

Does it matter if it just rained into my kitchen? Does it matter if I was lurking around my old carpet, resting my fingers, planning to do a little meditation, when I heard a suspicious drip-drip in my ceiling? Does it matter if one of the lights in my kitchen then welled and began to cry?

It was a small leak, easily caught in the metal trash can that had received some (but not enough) of a friend's vomit. I called my neighbor -- thus betraying that I was home -- and this time it was merely water from the shower. The towels she put down were not close enough, it seems. (One wonders if there is a large abyss between her tub and the floor, and if she's always relied on towels to fill it. One can only expect more in-house rains.)

It is a thing like this that in the olden days would have sent me into a panicked depression. Nowadays, well . . . The struggle not to be pointless distracts me. And I am waiting.

Music time

2008-10-23T11:06:00.001-07:00

This Saturday I'm playing the first movement of Mozart's 27th piano concerto in a student recital at the San Francisco Conservatory:

Saturday, October 25, 2008
2 p.m.
SF Conservatory Recital Hall
50 Oak Street, San Francisco

Next month I'll perform the second and third movements of the concerto (and possibly accompany a soprano in songs by Wolf) at another student recital:

Saturday, November 22, 2008
2 p.m.
SF Conservatory Recital Hall
50 Oak Street, San Francisco

Change

2008-10-21T08:45:00.001-07:00

Darlings, I've given my notice and am leaving a job that has been my home for three and a half years. It has seen my transition from my first home in California, Redwood City, to the city that looks like Heaven and holds the craziest rejects from Hell. It has seen two artist-boyfriends who challenged and inspired me to greater creativity and independence. It has seen my writing, my flute, and my piano. Crushes and loves wholesome and misplaced. Before it there was no Ibsen, Shaw, Balanchine, or Handel. Harry Potter was still quite young before it. My teeth zittered years in fear of cavities. And the people who did not exist! K. and S. and J. and C. and J. and J. and P. and the dozen others (many already gone).

Doubtless I will grieve even more after my last day. I only know what is gone after it is gone. Yellow tags, Post-its, and pens. My stapler and stapler remover -- the nemesis who inspired a compassionate short story. My opening and closing metal drawers. My fragile cubicle walls. Mini, small, medium, and large binder clips. Stems, ACs, distractors, DoKs, subdomains, indicators, pVals, differentials, genres, proc/doc elements. An $800 office chair skating on a plastic pond. The blinds, raised and lowered each day.

Joy: I am leaving before the days grow short, and will no longer battle the sunset at my window. For a time at least, my days will be where I put them. The future is an exercise in ridiculous entitlement. Having nothing, I dare everything to come. But could I survive a meaningful life? Could I trust the life that I myself wrote?

Trying to break it

2008-10-08T13:25:00.001-07:00

What a mess. I took a vacation day today and stayed home to learn some music and be generally productive. Only an eighth of the day was spent at the piano. Many hours were lost in uselessness. The day was saved, at least, when D. texted to see if I was up for going out. I was tempted toward something new and slutty, like checking out the male strippers at Nob Hill Theatre, but we decided on dinner and drinks in the Castro. Fish and chips, yum, and meanderings through Midnight Sun, 440, Badlands, The Bar, and Lookout. Of boyfriends found I none.

What is remarkable is the number of teeth: shiny white teeth. Jawlines, no, Emperor's noses, no. But teeth smiling in tanned faces, yes.

* * *

Sure, I may escape at this point into a video game rather than explore unhappiness here.

But I so want to steer my own happiness without relying on the ugly mechanisms of this society's capitalism.

* * *

After a sleepless night I woke up half-asleep and decided I couldn't possibly face the enemy.

And last night I was crazier than last Friday, even. Well, not quite as destructive -- but let us say that I roamed the streets rabid.

* * *

I am such a timid creature.

Phantom email

2008-10-02T13:18:00.001-07:00

It's very frightening to be alone: loveless, kidless, essentially jobless. I walked the labyrinth asking how to be happy, but I ended up wondering what happy was and how to measure it.

* * *

Was that email a phantasm? There was a work email from X. that instantly felt like the back-breaking straw. Now I can't find it. Did I make it up?

* * *

I should tell you, darlings, that I went to the opera incognito. I was going to go to my recital incognito, but I changed my mind at the last minute. Incognito = in this case a different hairstyle. A part in the middle, rather than on the side. Rather more practical with long hair.

The opera = Dmitri Hvorostovsky and Barbara Frittoli in Simon Boccanegra. A decent but lackluster production. My new experiment in "orchestra rear" a great success, however: Row K, one seat away from the expensive seats (a woman who said, "Are you familiar with this opera?" I said, "I've heard recordings but never seen it live. . . Have you seen it before?" "Oh, at my age," erwiderte die Alte, "I've seen it many, many times."). At this distance, the singers had facial expressions.

* * *

Let us think about the last time we worked on the Brahms A-major piano quartet. R. was visiting when I received word that I would be playing it in two weeks at a workshop. In that month, May 2007, I was in love even though the end was near. In that month I watched Dog Day Afternoon, The River, Pennies from Heaven (Steve Martin and Bernadette Peters), The Double Life of Veronique, Fracture, and Angels in America. I also saw an experimental theater piece involving an audience sitting at a dinner table, Kathleen Turner in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf, The Bad Plus at Yoshi's in Oakland, DJ Desultory at Argus Lounge, Chanticleer in Berkeley, and Susan Graham singing and oopsing "Non so piu" at a free concert in the park.

Since we're growing tumescent with nostalgia, consider May of the year before: that month I met B. and moved into my square near the ocean. In those days I was going piano shopping with Anjuska, playing at the Claremont in Berkeley with G., fluting heavily, and of course navigating the waters of a new relationship.

In May 2005, I was only recently employed (dishonestly, as I like to say, since I was asked to do important work for six months for $20 an hour and no benefits) by my current employer. I was happy to have escaped from the video store with sparking sockets and cat-pee stains and sufficiently distracted by the strange joy of discovering missing punctuation and triple letters.

* * *

What improvement can be claimed? A steadily increasing acceptance of independence.

Bitter shell

2008-09-29T08:36:00.000-07:00

Last post in June? Boy, that's sad.

Here's a little something from a few weeks ago that's just now making it to the Internet.

This place is not yet dead. I've been scared away by three things:

(1) Embarrassment. There are too many people around me who think blogs are ridiculous. They make fun of me maliciously or accidentally.

(2) Indifference. It's easy to complain that no one cares about these words. I've seen other blogs really blossom, while mine (after four years) has yet to really . . .

Sometimes that damn plastic bad is so beautiful I want that shadowy figure at the corner to stab me in the heart so I can look at his stubble as I . . .

And sometimes I want to turn up the volume so much that I never hear again . . .

Tonight someone said, "You know, Paul, you're allowed to eat nachos with your fingers" because he had caught me cutting a large one with my fork.

Though in general the meeting with friends was successful. Oh, how my age is beyond my maturity! I'm growing up a bitter shell. Compassionate, sure, but a little empty.

I'm listening to random loud music on my damn iPhone. Right now it's Liza Minnelli singing "Yes" from the concert filmed by Bob Fosse. My laptop is right in front of my TV, which is showing (on mute) some show where three or four couples are wearing shell necklaces. Two blond men and a brunette, at least.

I realized that one of the reasons I stopped writing here (possibly the third reason interrupted above) was my job. And jobs in general. Most companies do not consider drunk blogging to be desirable. Don't ask me why. Then I remembered: Fuck jobs; they don't sublimate after death. Correct action? Is that what the old wise one said? I am too seldom guilty of correct action.

We nearly all of us operate on a level of moderate intelligence. And we serve an important function as majority stakeholders. Sure, we may hate those above and under us.

But let me be direct: I smoked a tabacky cigarette the other night for the first time since, say, July of 2004. Remember, the Croc-bedeckt Doktor told me I had the lungs of a 40-something-year-old. Big empty useless bags. And I should never smoke again, because smoking is bad and it will kill me. And stay away from cats. I believed him, and believe him. But I was in the middle of the city with the rugged gay Marlboro man and the enlightened K., and it seemed the right time to prove my strength. In that regard.

Certainly I've given up on love. I don't need it. I'm on autopilot. Coordinates set for . . . mild self-improvement hell-bent on distracting the chaos of the universe with a little complexity. Certainly I can no longer believe in a two-legged creature that will walk or roll with me across that new Bay Bridge. Because what are bodies?

Today on Tyra Banks I saw men who like large ladies. They particularly like them to roll over them. Ah, to be twerpy! In the olden days I could want some more substantial creature to press his atoms into mine. God -- where are the days of Marble Boy? of Rock Lobster? of Spoken-Word Poet? of Wes, Aaron, Apple-Paul? Do you remember selenium? Capsules of selenium? Brought to you by the father of Star Star.

But seriously, folks, there once was a tall creature with a wooden necklace. Catherine Deneuve in the background. There once was a creature of forehead, curls, and moles -- and birds deep, deep, deep into the morning! How we fucked that up. There once was a mirror image: moles again, a constellation of moles on a back that I wanted to remember beyond time. And nothing deep connecting us! Nothing but video games and that mysterious gaze born during sex . . . Alles vorbei.

Do you remember that first time, in a tent? Or in a hotel? "You've got to work out." J., you troubled child, you are undoubtedly the best. Because you are first? Because you are the best? Can the first ever be the best except under the direst probabilities? I remember a room with two beds and your sister and mother knocking on the door. I'm talking about imaginationland: fourteen years ago. A tent. Thanks for being such a good friend all this time, Jim. Shit, was I useless from January through at least March of 2003. I was afraid for my own life.

Can I claim to have met my truelove? Of course not. I've balked at the ones who have come closest. Occasionally I've thought I've been too persnickety. But the trueloves I've seen have been obvious, despite the extreme amount of work and compromise they've required. I have not yet been so fortunate.

I am pursuing musicality, even though I'm only so-so. I have a "natural" sense of the classical style. That is to say: I'm Target through and through.

This is not a laundry weekend: tomorrow I'll wake up, make some coffee, consider my lovelessness, and start practicing some Haydn and Beethoven. Later, I'll stop to consider the weather: what combination of sun and fog? I'll try to get all of a Chopin etude hands together, as one says. Family will call. Maybe a few flirtatious texts with past and present. I'll have to eat, and it will be more calories than I burn, as usual, and I'll pad a little more on against the coming armageddon.

Let me wrap this up: I'm back. Drunk. But with good excuse: the friendship of coworkers. And I'm here to stay: I haven't found a better way to be honest with my thoughts. It little matters that I'm 32 and have a number of friends who cringe at my slipshod confessions. Fuck, in fact. Fuck them. And in a very unenjoyable way. Probably involving sugary powders that are supposed to be tasty and scintillating but are in fact abrasive.

Sweet Jeez, Robin Williams is in rerun on Letterman. I'm off.

Fashion

2008-06-24T20:06:00.000-07:00

OK, I'm ready for my Businessboy Fashion Show. Got to get this thing done so I can enjoy my evening.

Loading Dark Pants Number 1 . . . Interfacing with big blue shirt and belt. Sheesh. Apparently I'm a little bigger in the middle. Let's see: move around a bit. Go look in the mirror. Not bad. A bit of a kid playing grownup, but passable. Testing out charcoal blazer. Um, somehow not with these pants.

Testing Brown Shirt Number 1, a fairly ugly thing by Calvin Klein. OK. Jumping around. Pretending like I'm doing business, business, business. Reaching here, reaching there. Moving papers. Not bad. Let's try a tie just for kicks. Feels like something to wear under a graduation gown, but serviceable.

Let's switch to Dark Pants Number 2. (But first: I just remembered that I have a scale. Let's see how gravity's pulling these days. Ha! I can blame the pants! I'm still floating between 140 and 145. I can live a good two weeks into Armageddon with that mild amount of stored food.) OK, with these nice pants we'll try our funky shirt with a bit of peach in it. Um . . . this is definitely a last-day, going-back-to-California ensemble.

Now for the Grand Finale: a faithful old Ben Sherman shirt followed rapidly by Brown Shirt Number 2. . . . And we're good.

With a little help from a hotel iron, I'm ready to go. Go Businessboy, Go!

Ungkaharla

2008-06-24T00:01:00.000-07:00

K., darling: nothing cut and pasted here!

. . . and watch me blog despite all. It's 10:30. Frankly, I've had a coffee cup full of oat and honey cereal and half a glass of partly frozen Gatorade. And this is an improvement over the heaviest ten-dime bag of BBQ corn chips and the darkest Guinness I can find. And my armpits smell like stale onions -- both of them!

But I tease you: I've been rawkin' out! What you do, see, is hop on that F-line and get off at Van Ness, stroll into that Conservatory, say hiya to Manny, and cruise on up to the fifth floor. Just for kicks, let those window seats go -- those grand pianos with a view of the setting sun -- and take the Schimmel in the practice room with the support pillar.

Take out your Ravel and try out that third movement you started Saturday morning. Damn, girl, those notes are setting up house in your fingers! A month ago there was no Ravel. Then there was a Modéré. Then there was a Menuet. Then there was an Animé. Voilà: une sonatine.

Last night in a dream I fell upon my piano teacher: "This is my piano teacher," I explained. "I love him!" and I hugged him like a tree. After my lesson (in the recital hall) I found a large classroom with a beautiful piano and worked some of the new ideas into the Ravel, then tried out the complete Beethoven sonata (Op. 10, No. 3) and the two Rachmaninoff preludes.

I also awaited a reply from the East:

East: "Have you made right by the master of might today?"
Me: "Love is sharing."
East: " . . . "

Did I break the pattern? Was there a specific answer to the East's question? Certainly there is a response to my statement . . . but where is the East's reply? Tomorrow perhaps.

Review: Ariodante

2008-06-19T10:55:00.001-07:00

I may occasionally resort to trickery to keep my blog alive. The following lists come from an email I wrote to a dear friend this morning, and they qualify as a dying blogger's review of San Francisco Opera's production of Handel's Ariodante, which I saw last night after spending the day at home in a malaise tragique:

Ariodante was fabulous! And that's despite several bad things:

1. It lasted from 7:30 to 11:00.
2. The dress circle was its usual 80 degrees and stuffy. One woman near me said, "What's that smell? Someone needs to bathe. It smells skunky." The man next to her said, "It's probably Italians." Ah, the opera.
3. The opera takes place in Scotland, but everything was Roman. Lots of columns.
4. There was MUCH MUCH swishing of very large capes -- not nearly as bad as Giulio Cesare at the Met, but still: stop the capes!
5. All the men were pretty weak, especially the bass. He chose to perform his role in a warbly Sprechstimme. I don't think he ever landed on a pitch, especially when he aimed for those impressive low ones.
6. Ruth Ann or Susan may have forgotten a line at the end of Act I. There was a strange silence, some half-hearted singing, and then the full voices got back on. (The lukewarm village dancing behind them may have caused the kerfluffle.)

In other Ariodante news:

1. The audience clapped when Ruth Ann walked on, but not when Susan did.
2. Ruth Ann blew us away with her fast, high arias and da capo ornaments.
3. The audience went WILD WILD WILD after Susan's slow aria in Act II. The B section emotionally drained her Ariodante, and she performed the repeat lying on the floor. One of her ornaments took her to the very bottom of her voice (I'm guessing F or E?) and then leapt up to her very top (B?). A man who sounded like Harvey Fierstein screamed out "BRAVA!"
4. I still felt like Ruth Ann stole the show, but the audience was most excited about Susan in the final bows. (But then Susan was also last.) They were both great.
5. I have a renewed admiration for Handel and for singers of Handel. I found myself nestling happily into each new aria, listening for that B section, and looking forward to the virtuosity in the repeat.

Dying blog

2008-06-17T07:48:00.000-07:00

My blog is dying! I don't want it to die! There are still beautiful things to write about:

San Francisco for Chicago

2008-05-08T01:01:00.001-07:00

It's vacation time! Time to leave the eternal vacation of San Francisco for the temporary vacation of Chicago.

And I've been sent off well. Last night I explored San Francisco in new ways with a new friend. We had planned for a walking adventure, but I doubted there were places we could walk that would be truly new to me. Wrong I was! Only take to the streets, my child, and you will find secret glimpses of heaven just when you stop looking.

Around Coit Tower, for example. Amble aimlessly, or stumble a little down the hill, and you may find yourself on a brick path leading through secluded, cute, and obscenely expensive homes. Or in a wild tropical garden clinging terrace-wise to a daring incline. A more leaned adventurer may tell you the names of the fragrances and blooms surrounding you -- purple things, yellow things, heavy-drooping orange things, frondy things, big-leafed things, jasmine, sure, and birds of paradise.

After sunset, you may be drawn to civilization and find yourself on a raised plaza decorated with glass and metal moons and stars. This would be just after the virus rages through the planet's meat but before the mechanisms shut down, so there would be silence and six tall buildings glowing down on you.

* * *

Update! I've arrived in Chicago, met up with my dear old friend M., seen a long-form improv show at ImprovOlympics, had late-night breakfast at a diner with M. and her boyfriend, and am now getting ready to climb into bed in my large, luxurious, corner room at the Amalfi.

Showgirls

2008-04-15T16:35:00.000-07:00

Whee!

I'm playing two little pieces -- Debussy's second Arabesque and a Moszkowski etude (Op. 72, No. 2) -- in a student recital at the San Francisco Conservatory's beautiful recital hall at 2:00 on Saturday, April 26.