A blog about New York City, my books, and my cats. Mostly.
Watch part 1 if nothing else, just to hear what Maurice Sendak has to say about Newt Gingrich.
Oh and this guy, Dicken Schrader. This is rightfully making the rounds. Be prepared to fall in love with a man and his children.
My desk at dinnertime. Like I would ever forget, little fur dudes. Don’t worry. I live to feed you and give you your medication (sorry about the second thing).
If you can sing and don’t do this you’re going to regret it. I’ve posted this before, but if you haven’t watched Eric Whitacre’s Ted Talk, watch it now. Then come back here.
Virtual Choir 3 is going to be set up as an art installation in addition to being released as an online video. Visitors will be able to walk among the singers. It immediately made me think of this powerful Gary Hill video installation called Tall Ships that was set up at the 1993 Whitney Biennial. You walked into a completely blackened room and on the walls were videos of people. As you walked up to them the people in the videos walked up to you. It was eerie and beautiful and I’ve never forgotten it. It was strangely intimate, even though you were interacting with a video and not the person.
The idea that this time those people will open their mouths and sing, it’s just one of those perfect ideas that makes you wonder why no one ever thought to do it before. When you’re a member of an audience, it’s wonderful, but you miss out on what it feels like to be in the middle of a song, to be right there in the thick of it, surrounded by all the harmonies that emerge. If I’m correctly envisioning what the final installation will be like, people will be able to walk in and around all the singers and pick up on different harmonies, different voices—it should be even more strangely but also more beautifully intimate. It will not only intensify your experience of the music but also of the singers.
Don’t miss your opportunity to be a part of this. You have until January 31st.
This used to be the strangest drugstore. It was always filled to the brim with stuff, but I’d go in there and they never seemed to have what I was looking for. It was like the 99 cent store of drug stores, a lot of cast off, remaindered items. I wonder if it was a front for something else.
Reasons Why Yesterday Didn’t Suck
1. My visit to the dentist didn’t involve a novocaine shot.
2. A guy on the street told me I was cute in a particularly sweet way.
3. I’ve actually lost too much weight, and I don’t want to exercise or swim less so that means EAT MORE. I had grilled cheese and french fries for lunch.
4. Went out to dinner after Teresa Carpenter’s reading last night, saw an old-friend, great dinner conversation with his wife. Oh, and another nice compliment at dinner about how I looked.
5. Came home to a dinner invitation from a friend who is a GREAT cook.
6. Positive response from Howard who looked at the re-worked beginning of my book.
The Second Cemetery of the Spanish and Portuguese Synagogue on 11th Street, which I pass by almost every day. I took this Tuesday night on my way back from choir practice.
Before submitting a video for Eric Whitacre’s Virtual Choir 3 I wanted to see what I looked like when singing. The piece we’d be singing hadn’t been announced yet, so in this video I’m singing a snippet from Randall Thompson’s Peaceable Kingdom. (My choir was working on that at the time, and I love this chorus at the end.)
I know I’m repeating jokes I made early. I’ve only got the two.
Apparently you had to register for tickets to watch the So You Think You Can Dance auditions, which I didn’t do until the night before, and now they are over, according to Nigel Lythgoe’s tweets (could he have a more British name??). Damnit, damnit, damnit.
Here are the sections of the Verdi Requiem that we worked on last night. The Libera me section is going to kill me. It’s going to be like those murder mysteries, my body will be found and next to my outstretched hand will be the name of my murderer, which I will have written in my own blood, “Verdi!”
Actually, it’s stunning and fun, although the fugue in the Libera me is a challenge, it’s true. But so deliciously dramatic.
I took this walking home last night. At the end of this corner is where I will stop for pizza before turning right and heading home.
