how it fits

This afternoon I was at Davies Symphony Hall, viewing a performance by organist Chelsea Chen. She was wearing an asymmetrical dress with only one shoulder strap. The organ is a big instrument, and requires a lot of movement to play: the lifting and pulling and crossing over of arms, the swinging of legs and tapping of feet. I thought of the small tests I run in fitting rooms, lifting my knees, sitting and standing repeatedly, trying to gauge whether a skirt or dress will be easy to bike in. I wonder what strange fitting room contortions professional organists go through, stretching and bending in tiny spaces, trying to see if the fabric will tear here or chafe there, before purchasing a dress for performance.

music makes the people come together

I saw Fiona Apple in concert Saturday night at the Fox theater in Oakland. I've loved her music for so many years that she'd long since acquired a kind of far-away-ness in my mind which meant, somehow, it hadn't occurred to me that someday, I might see her perform. 

When her new album came out, "The Idler Wheel Is Wiser Than the Driver of the Screw and Whipping Cords Will Serve You More Than Ropes Will Ever Do," I did a flip. Fiona Apple's lyricism, her smart yet raw emotional language, her often catchy, haunting, aggressive melodies and incredible vocal control shoot an arrow the size of Cupid's Span straight through my heart, every time. 

So, housemates John & Kristin & I BARTed over to Oakland to see the concert. We had tickets for standing room, at the front. I was happy about this. I like going to concerts when I can see the facial expressions of the performers. I am not excited by massive crowds, with giant screens projecting the show for the people in the back. If I am paying for a live performance, I want to experience some physical closeness, some sense of reading a real person. I was happy to be standing. Fiona Apple's music isn't stuff I dance to, really, but I figured at least I'd get to see her play the piano. Neat. 

She ran onstage with a painting of her dog I recognized from the photo accompanying this New York Times interview, which she flat on the piano, parallel to it, and did not interact with for the remainder of the show. When we'd entered the Fox, there had been signs warning about strobe lights. At a Fiona Apple show? I'd wondered aloud. It was true. This was a very rock n' roll Fiona Apple. That was fine. I actually quite enjoyed the lighting design, although some of the guitar solos were a bit too much for me. I would have preferred longer solos of Fiona on piano. Still, I wasn't really there to complain, I was there to be mesmerized and have a big emotional experience. And to some extent, so was the rest of the crowd. To some extent, but in a different way than I was. A way than was drunker, shoutier, pushier, and far more raucous than mine. Now, I know that I cannot dictate how people behave at concerts. But just for fun, I'm going to pretend I can. Ok? So here we go:
Rules for Concert Behavior

1. Put away your damn cell phone. Yes, I know: This is an incredible experience, and you want to remember it forever, which is why you're using the shitty, low-quality camera on your cell phone to take bouncy, shaky video that you'll no doubt later upload to YouTube. Let me take this opportunity to tell you I don't care. Your cell phone is getting in the way of my incredible experience. It is a little glowing box in my line of vision, and it is filling me with rage. Put it away before I smack your hand and confiscate your phone. Thank you.
2. Shut up and stop singing. I know all the words too! I love this singer/band! That's why I bought a ticket, to hear them sing their songs. Not to hear you sing them, shouting, screaming in my ear. You are not a good singer, actually. Please stop. Also, all of you sing-screaming at the same time like this makes me think we're at a fascist rally. It's creepy/scary. Let's all be quiet and listen to the beautiful music together, ok? (Note: I am fine with you singing under your breath, softly. But not so loud, please, as though you are trying to drown out the artist we are all here to see. And not in my ear.)
3. No shouting at the singer. This is so rude. This is like the rule that (maybe) your parents taught you about interrupting people: Don't do it! For example, when Fiona Apple is singing a beautiful song, and it's a soft, gentle, sad part, her voice low and full of an ache that, for a moment, we all share, we all feel pulling at the base of our spines and the soles of our feet, this is not a good time to get together with your two BFFs and shout in unison, "WE LOVE YOU, FIONA!" because that is rude. She is showing you her art, and you are shouting at her. That is a bad kind of love. Go sit in the corner and think about how to be a better, more supportive, more respectful lover. Corollary: No song requests! The artist has a set list. They will play the songs they want to play. Now stop shouting.
4. Stop talking. This is so obvious, I can't believe I have to say it. But really? Stop talking. Go outside or something. Jeez. Sure, sometimes there are logistics to sort out. But if you are catching up on the gossip or whatever, at least move yourself out of the front area which is largely populated by people who are excited to be where they are, experiencing what is happening.

Hey, that's it! Only four rules! Basically, they could all be summed up under one rule: Enjoy yourself, but not at the expense of other people. Which I tend to think of as a good life-rule. Apparently, though, there are a lot of people out there who disagree with me.
In the end, it was one of the most isolating concert experiences I've had. I was in a place with so many people, and we were all watching the same performance, and I would even say we were all enjoying it, but the ways in which we were enjoying it, in which we wanted to experience it, were so different. Am I the problem? Should I just sit at home in my bedroom listening to music in private? If I hadn't so many other, positive concert experiences, experiences of joy and dancing and connectivity, I would unreservedly think the problem was me. But here, I don't know. There was a disconnect so engulfing, between how her music makes me feel and how it made so many other people feel Saturday night, and I don't think it can be explained away by alcohol and/or drugs alone. I'm not interested in making the case that I understand or appreciate her music "better" because of the way I wanted to experience the concert, and I am glad she has so many fans. I am especially glad there are so many dude-y looking dudes in polo shirts who know all the words to her songs, her songs that to me are so emotional, and so female. Way to confound my expectations of you, dudes! Now if we are ever drunk together and waiting for a bus in North Beach and I somehow feel obliged to make conversation, I will ask you about Fiona Apple!

I suppose what I am trying to get at is that all of this brought home for me the intensely private nature of experiencing art. Duh, I know; but I'd never had it hit me in quite this way before. I was really happy to have gone, but at the end of the evening, I felt alone. The next day, I sang her songs in the shower and then listened to "Extraordinary Machine" and it felt just as real and near and impossible as always.


Do you have any Rules for Concert Behavior you would like to add? You may submit them here for the committee's consideration.

riotriot

This is so badass, I don't even know what to say. Back in January, feminist punk group Pussy Riot scaled some fences to enter the Kremlin and, wearing some really brightly colored clothes, rocked hard to their song "Putin Pissed Himself." In the snow, because it's Russia. You have to watch this. Rock out with them and their pelvic thrusting until they get arrested by the police. And then they performed in a cathedral! Amazing.

I don't know Russian, but Google offers me this (incomplete and no doubt imperfect) translation of their song about Putin (their cathedral song was called "Holy Shit"):

Go to the Kremlin is the rebellious colonies
In FSBshnyh offices explode window.
Females ssut for red walls
Riot announce Abortion System!

Attack at dawn? I will not argue
For our freedom and yours a whip to punish
Madonna in Glory teach to fight
Feminist Magdalene went to the demonstration

Revolt in Russia - the charisma of protest
Revolt in Russia - Putin zassal
Revolt in Russia - we exist
Revolt in Russia - rayot rayot

Come out to the street
Live at the Red
Show me the freedom
civil anger

(a loss on the square)

Dissatisfaction with the culture male hysteria
Wild leaderism eats brains
Orthodox religion is a hard penis
Patients are invited to conformity

The regime is going to censor the dream
It's time to disruptive clash
A flock of females sexist treatment
He asks for forgiveness from feminist wedge.

Revolt in Russia - the charisma of protest
Revolt in Russia - Putin zassal
Revolt in Russia - we exist
Revolt in Russia - rayot rayot

Come out to the street
Live at the Red
Show me the freedom
civil anger

What can you do? Honestly, today I would just love you to share this video with someone. and, y'know, you can always get involved with or give money to your local chapter of Girls Rock Camp.

spin it, sister

It's true that I'm pulling a lot of examples from the Bay Area, y'all, I know. But hey, I live here. (Also, I will happily take suggestions!) Anyway, I think it's pretty kick-ass that there's so much to talk about here in my own backyard, and I'm making a point of covering organizations that focus on various aspects of oppression/liberation. 

So I'm moving on to the utterly fabulous folks at Women's Audio Mission. Here's the skinny: "Women's Audio Mission is a San Francisco based, non-profit organization dedicated to the advancement of women in music production and the recording arts. In a field where women are chronically under-represented (less than 5%), WAM seeks to 'change the face of sound' by providing hands-on training, experience, career counseling and job placement to women and girls in media technology for music, radio, film, television and the internet. WAM believes that women's mastery of music technology and inclusion in the production process will expand the vision and voice of media and popular culture." So cool! They offer a variety of classes, a super-fab program for young girls, and (hello!) online training. Did you catch that statistic a minute ago about how fewer than 5% of the people in music production and recording are women? 

Per usual, you can give them your monies. You can also buy a tshirt! And you can encourage a girl or woman in your life who's interested in making music to take some control and responsibility for her sound, and get involved in WAM!

bang bang bang

Today I want to talk to you about Tom Tom Magazine. This is so transparently cool, I'll let it speak for itself: "Tom Tom Magazine® is the only magazine in the world dedicated to female drummers. It serves as the ultimate go-to guide for the latest and hottest info on lady drummers and beatmakers. Tom Tom seeks to raise awareness about female percussionists from all over the world and hopes to inspire women and girls of all ages to drum, all while strengthening and building the community of otherwise fragmented female musicians." They have a tv channel, the aforementioned magazine, a shop, and they even host events.

Can I get a hell yes? To community building, and to making loud noise. It's only been around since 2009, but I hope it's here to stay. 

grl lookit that body

For reasons too complex and irrelevant to detail here, I've spent a fair amount of time this fall driving around the suburbs of the south bay listening to contemporary pop music. There only seem to be four or five songs in contemporary pop music right now. At least, that's the conclusion I've been forced to draw, since the radio plays the same four or five songs every hour over a six hour period. This is enough to make me lose my mind.*

But it got me thinking about pop music again (which doesn't happen all that often) and it seems to me that with the rise of the internet, culture is experiencing a simultaneous unification and fracturing. We seem to me to be moving towards an increasingly graphic, increasingly bland, hyper-mass culture, while simultaneously creating countless increasingly specialized micro-cultures. And perhaps we are losing (or eroding? or destroying?) our middle ground. I'm not sure what I think that means, quite frankly. Except that it does seem to only deepen issues of access and diversity when the "dominant" culture is only becoming more dominant and more narrow in its message and representation.

What is that message? As far as I can tell (and as the above links more than suggest), it's party like there's no tomorrow. And it doesn't even feel like editorializing to say that this sounds like the music of a civilization in decline.

*Hey kids! Want to do something really surreal? Watch those music videos with the sound off.

ODing on SF

pandora, I love you but

hello, purple prose! Seriously? Seriously.

I've got news for you, honey

tUnE-yArDs! I will easily forgive you the nonsensical capitalization for this.

we five

If you can show me something cuter than this, I'll probably make out with you.

in new york

 

in Times Square

Didn't I just. Scott Joplin's "Solace," specifically; my favorite for a long time, now.

from heroism to pathos

while I'm still excited about scanning things, I thought I'd share this:

(please click on the picture to enlarge. please?) 

If you can't read my scrawl, the note at the bottom says: "these notes were on the board when I arrived at my classical Indian singing class this evening. They're from the classical Indian theory class which immediately precedes it."

I would love to take the theory class, too, but I don't reliably leave work early enough for a seven o'clock class. I got my teacher to explain some of it to me anyway, though.

I don't mean to suggest

I could sing that all night. Cry all night, too, if I did, I'm sure.

if all is going well

then I am currently learning how to sing like this (more or less):

It's pretty exciting. I had my first class at Zambaleta this evening. Only 5 more, so I don't expect proficiency at the end, but something. So interesting/challenging/fun. I like it I like it I like it.

how to do

"...it's not the notes.  It's the spaces between the notes that make the music."

                  - Masimo Vignelli, Helvetica

all hallowed out

My feet ache, my ears are ringing, and my fingertips are covered in superglue.  Yesterday must have been Halloween.  
Last week I made a truly excellent kite costume:

but by the time Halloween rolled around I'd worn it twice and was bored with it.  So I decided to be a dead princess.  I bought a child's princess dress at a thrift store, cut it up, and gave myself sunken-in dead eyes, black lips, and  judiciously applied pink glitter.  I tried to make myself a tiara but it wouldn't stay, so I improvised one out of headbands and a fake pearl hair clip.  Before that, though, we carved pumpkins:

and in the evening, we went to Zambaleta's Halloween Hullabaloo.  Such a fabulous party!  Zambaleta is a new project conceived and run by my downstairs neighbor, he whose wonderful friends created the fabulous music in my backyard a bit back, so my expectations were high.  I was not disappointed.  I was on the dance floor all night, or at least until they turned all the lights on and made everybody go home.  At one point I was in a can-can line and someone kicked one of my shoes off and I had to go chase after it.  I danced so much I tore up my shoes, look:

I always did have a Cinderella complex.  Mostly because I have such hard-to-fit feet.  I was never going to be the glass slipper girl.

negotiating with the living

If I hadn't been so sick, I might have thought of a question to ask Margaret Atwood when I saw her Tuesday evening at the Herbst (she was appearing as part of the City Arts & Lectures series).  As it was, I put on a nice dress and drug myself to the theatre.  She is sixty-nine years old.  Who knows when I'll get a chance to see her again.

Besides, she sang.

Apparently she wrote some hymns for her new book, The Year of the Flood.  Pre-publication, the book was lying around the home of her L.A. agent, whose partner, Orville Stoeber, a professional musician and composer, picked it up and started writing music for the lyrics.  Now it's been performed all over the England and Canada, and the U.S. is next.  Atwood claimed that this was the only tour stop she was going to sing at.

Some highlights from the evening which I hastily scribbled down:

 "Teachers sometimes pose the unfortunate question 'What was poet trying to say?' as if he had some kind of terrible speech impediment...he really wanted to say 'I love you so much' or 'War is terrible' or 'Death is scary and I don't want to do it' but instead he stuffed it into 14 lines of ABAB..."

after a long discussion of why she thinks it's important for characters to have different, distinct voices, referencing Faulkner and Blake

"I also like to have characters with different colors of hair."

In response to the question, "Was your most recent book written for a specific audience, and if so, who?"

"...Readers are readers.  They have a republic of their own.  So I write for readers.  I think they're very good people to write for."

She was wryly hilarious throughout.  As I walked into the lobby, she was ushered right past me.  She is very short.  I didn't join the long line of people waiting to get their books autographed; I remembered an article I read years ago in the New Yorker in which she complained about how tiring it was to autograph books.  Supposedly she invented a gadget which would enable her to autograph books long distance.  It was not in evidence.

an axiom from Annabel, or: I love my home

I was out running errands on Monday. On my way home, I stopped briefly at a yard sale and bought a gorgeous vintage cardigan which looks a lot like this except that I paid $5 for it. Came home in a sunny mood to find this going on:

jubilation from Margaret McCarthy on Vimeo.

I put down my bag, whipped up some guacamole, grabbed a bottle of wine and joined them. All-singing, all-dancing. Everything became an instrument. It went on for hours. In the words of my new housemate Annabel, violinist and children's orchestra instructor (seen at one point in the bottom right, scraping cups rhythmically and vigorously shaking her head): 'sing, dance, and play everyday.' What a motto. Of course, as I am more parts child than musician, I have a slightly different interpretation of the third stricture.

san franciscan Gemütlichkeit

Endless sun in Dolores park on Saturday, followed by endless and very hearty dancing at Stern Grove on Sunday, followed by outstanding cioppino for dinner that evening. I did not make it, I merely consumed a great deal of it, with intense and heartfelt and often-verbalized gratitude. Wow. But back to the music - Toto la Mompasina and Nation Beat (some audio clips available here), neither of whom I knew anything about but either of whom I would gladly and unhesitatingly see again, played and played and played and everyone in the grove danced and danced and danced. Except at one point some men to my right, who stood, arms crossed, heads nodding slightly in time to the beat. We were then a mere 6 or 8 feet from the stage. I watched them out of the corner of my eye. I led by example. They did not follow. They just stood there, nodding. Fellas, I wanted to say, this just ain't that scene.

hang the dj

Billy Bob Thorton is old! irascible! and he really wants to be treated like Tom Petty!