Cain and Trudy REALLY try to keep it together (and not kiss!) until Abel FINALLY prances in... you can hear cameraman Kellen laughing, and of course, my howling at the end :)
From "Cain and Abel: The Naked Truth"
Book by Myrna Emata, Music by Madley Katarungan, Lyrics by Kellen Blair.
So much to say -- I'm overwhelmed! More to come...
In the meantime, here's the video of the Electronic music piece I did in 2003, where I added the video this month... well, okay, so I finished cutting it the morning of the recital, what else is new? I'm really happy with it. What do YOU think?
Program notes:
PLUTONIA (music 2003; video 2008)
I was terrified of working with pure electronic sounds and no written score, but was convinced by my much younger student cohorts that I needed to learn how to “work the machines” if I was going to continue in the field of music. After hours locked in the studio with ProTools and a Mac and using only samples, the result is this apocalyptic musical landscape.
"him" Travis Kraft
"her" Aubrey Elson
Kudos to this woman! Nancy says (it's a big "Nancy says" day today!) it's another example of "Fabulousness is worth waiting for."
Even as a tiny kid, I always thought one day I'd play this fun and crazy role as no other Broadway part looked like me, and how perfect, a show about the SOUTH PACIFIC. But of course I always wanted to be the stinking ingenue, Liat. She of course doesn't talk or dance or anything... she just LOOKS BEAUTIFUL.
Damn.
Here's hoping Loretta Ables Sayre gets a Tony -- break a leg!
Wabi-sabi represents a comprehensive Japanese world view or aesthetic centered on the acceptance of transience. The phrase comes from the two words wabi and sabi. The aesthetic is sometimes described as one of beauty that is "imperfect, impermanent, and incomplete" (according to Leonard Koren in his book Wabi-Sabi: for Artists, Designers, Poets and Philosophers). It is a concept derived from the Buddhist assertion of the Three marks of existence — Anicca, or in Japanese, (sanbōin)), Impermanence. Note also that the Japanese word for rust, is also pronounced sabi (the borrowed Chinese character is different, but the word itself is of assumed common etymology), and there is an obvious semantic connection between these concepts. Characteristics of the wabi-sabi aesthetic include assymetry, asperity, simplicity, modesty, intimacy, and suggest a natural process.
Thanks for Nancy -- this means I don't have to stand over myself with a whip trying for a Perfection that doesn't really exist. Wow.
I'm ready to begin an Enchanted April -- the most significant April for me in a long, long time! My birthday's on 10th (Aries Rat -- 1st of each cycle) and finally, my recital:
Sunday, April 20, 2008
2-3 pm My Music
7-7:45 pm Orchestral Performance (including my Pilya)
Occidental College
Bird Studio, Music Department
1600 Campus Road
LA 90041 (Eagle Rock)
Please save the date -- I'd love to have your presence (if you can), support and good wishes that day!
Right now I'm busy finishing up a few pieces, booking and rehearsing talent, writing a little video script for the electronic music piece... remind me when you can that I need to keep breathing!
And away we go...
Coming from a break in working on my Milonga, the one piece that's really hanging me up because I have such high expectations for it.
I took a little drive to the park where I used to walk my dogs, and I heard just a snippet of Dr. Laura talk to a young singer who really was freaking out whenever she would practice her singing... the girl would work herself up to a frenzy so much so that she'd started having panic attacks and start beating herself up for anything short of perfection.
Dr. Laura calmed her down. Said no one notices if something is not sung perfectly, but if it moves the audience. Does she do that, Dr. Laura asked her -- do you enjoy yourself? Because that's what we'll pick up on -- not perfection.
And then:
"Remember what a privilege it is to be able to make music with your body."
My god, exactly what I needed to hear today, as I struggle. I am so lucky!
Anyone can whistle
That's what they say -
Easy.
Anyone can whistle
Any old day -
Easy.
It's all so simple:
Relax, let go, let fly.
So someone tell me why
Can't I?
I can dance a tango,
I can read Greek -
Easy.
I can slay a dragon
Any old week -
Easy.
What's hard is simple.
What's natural comes hard.
Maybe you could show me
How to let go,
Lower my guard,
Learn to be free.
Maybe if you whistle,
Whistle for me.
Who knew this was a Stephen Sondheim song? I sure didn't! And after seeing him -- the Dalai Lama of Musical Theater -- last week at The Colony with all my ANMT brethren (my god, what a moment in time... I'll never forget that day!)... how could I not know that song and show? Hm... just another instance of something "typical" that I don't know.
I've had the song on cassette tape that Kevin Schaeffer made me when Shaun and I broke up and it never meant anything to me. Just cute.
But today -- this week -- these past few weeks... it hits me hard:
I don't know ANYTHING about really falling in love. And that not easy to take when you're this side of the proverbial hill.
Well... live and learn. :) I have to be okay with not knowing everything, don't I?
Last night at the Bodhi Tree I let a book "fall off the shelf" -- you know, gather wisdom from whatever happens to catch your eyeball. Well, it just happened to be Marianne Williamson's The Age of Miracles: Embracing the New Midlife. How's that for copacetic?
Then I opened a chapter where she was talking about making up all these excuses for why she couldn't be with this very much younger man because "why would he want to be with someone like her" who couldn't give him children, who was so much older, etc. etc. etc. (apologies to Marianne for not quoting her well).
AAGH. Just hit it all on the head and my insanity these for these past few weeks... and then I finally read something like AGE DOESN'T MATTER -- WE'RE ALL SPIRIT.
It totally calmed me down.
I forgot.
Spirit has no age. I won't forget again.
I'm feeling a big one coming on about white boys and not-so-white girls... but I don't know if I have the itlug* to post here -- if it's appropriate here or if it's morphing into a one-act! I'll let you know.
*cojones, nuts, etc...
Here's the four of us in the parking lot of the MBar in Hollywood, right after Rick's cabaret debut "Dare To Be Truthful" with ANMT's Performers Workshop taught by Joshua Finkel.
As someone commented on my MySpace: "That's whole lotta Memorial [High School] there!"
Diane, yours truly, Jeffrey and Rick.
What a powerful group of artists. My grounding.
What a whirlwind week! D. came into town to see Ricardo debut at the MBar in the ANMT Performers Workshop Cabaret... I worked the door before the show, and then had a terrific time inside. You done good, Rick -- I'm so proud and excited to see marching through to your dreams! And you're getting quite good!
The night before I'd just seen Wicked for third time -- always a lot of fun. (Ran into Matt C, who was there with his mom... that was cool -- so sorry to hear later he'd broken up with my girlfriend:( I'd planned to watch it this time from a writing point of view -- but that lasted about 3 minutes until I got into the story again. New Elphaba for me, but quite an experienced Galinda... (M.H.) who, IMHO really has milked it -- in a good way, got the funniest laughs ever, but in a bad way, taken so much liberty that you can't hear her whispers and gasps if you've never seen the show before... it really got annoying after awhile. Whatever happened to KEEP IT SIMPLE? I don't want to "see" the performing in shows... I want to see CHARACTERS. Last night D. and Jeffrey and Alan came to see the show at my theatre, where the director was brought in to "tame" an out-of-control actress... yeah, people do take pacing and professionalism seriously!
I've practically slept all day and now it's off to the theatre again -- they've increased my hours now to stay into intermission, and I'm happy to do it -- it's good to feel wanted and needed.
And as always great to be around my "high school" gang again... I get so much strength and support and laughs... the next time we're all together I'll be on the hot seat for my recital! :)
I let myself cool down for a few hours listening to my beloved Yahoo Show Tunes channel and playing spider solitaire...
I've been nerve-wracked for the past week or so because my schedule at the theatre has increased a lot -- this for a woman who hasn't worked a 9-to-5 for a half a dozen years -- and getting stressed about passing this g.d. jury on March 18.
Seems the world of academia is 10 times more unorganized than my world of late. Prof doesn't know our recital dates, or what he told us the week before, or even how the juries will be run -- concurrently or individually. He can't wait to get into the compositions that people are finishing up -- and yet this isn't really a "workshop" so what the hell are we supposed to say? Or rather, what am I supposed to say to these arrogant 21-year-punks who think...
Okay, so there's only one guy, but he's the frickin' ringleader here. Working on a five-song song cycle about the five senses, writing his own lyrics and playing his own guitar. Do I need to know about the "all beef Chicago hotdog and mustard" and the "boy-girl kiss"? Prof says thanks for sharing your "3:00 am Self" which I gather means what you're driven to write when you are REALLY FEELING IT at three in the morning -- but I just want to kick him in the ass.
Granted, when I was 21 I started a 16-song song cycle based on tiny short poems called "What Does She Want?" (and I was SHE-ila -- get it?!) which probably would have been as mastabatory (is that a word?) -- but I'm just SO NOT HERE now, and I couldn't stand the lack of authority in the room. I actually walked out for five minutes to take a walk.
After an great week of a writing workshop, concert readings (it was great, Clay, and I really enjoyed your music and lyrics of Dr. Heidigger's Experiment!), dinner with musical theater folks, seeing Christopher as Clifford Bradshaw in Cabaret (dude, you kicked ass singing "Why Should I Wake Up") and last night, hanging with fellow musical theater writers last night watching the Academy Awards... damn, my life is rich!
And last I watched the documentary that was made about my team writing our mini-musicals at the Academy last year three times last night(!)... just relieving the whole experience, and so proud of the end result...
What the hell am I worried about?!?! Punks?
As we used to say in the early 80s: FUCK THAT NOISE! I'm makin' me some music.
You start doing meez! You should be listening to "Bebot" too -- like on my myspace.com profile... hehehe
And yes, that's a PINK TIARA ;)
...of "how the mini-musicals are made at ANMT" -- featuring my team -- and I'm nervous. I've already seen how awful I look in it -- but hell, it's real.
I think I'm going to be sick.
At least there's an Opening Night Party at the theatre tonight and there's wine... I'll let you know how it goes...
What a big old crazy weekend... second day, eh, not so thrilling. Mostly because it comes right during the time I'm thinking about having a real meal (5 pm) and by the end of it I could eat... just about anything. Thank god I had a little maple syrup hard candy directly from Vermont (thanks Jeffrey :) in my purse... my, I'm turning into my mother with all her emergency foods, etc.
New news: we may be consolidating all our chamber orchestras on ONE concert for logistical reasons. Three of us have a massive group of instrumentalists to try to gather together and rehearse, so... why kill ourselves?
Although I'm not thrilled with splitting up my recital, I did put in for the concert to still be on my original date, Sunday, April 20, especially convenient since my classmate's recital is later on that evening. And I'm also thrilled at the idea of getting LOADS AND LOADS of people on a big huge stage (Thorne?) so I can hear "Pilya" played the way in all it's whacked out glory ;)
In the meantime... this whole thing is a logistics mess... and I have lots of scores to re-enter since I lost all my music when my PC crashed last November.
===
But the good news: After a disastrous disappointment of not getting an online ticket to the ANMT 80-seat salon starring the visionary MUSICAL THEATRE ICON and my hero :)
Stephen Sondheim
... I got a ticket from a classmate, who had an extra -- SHOUT OUT TO YOU AND THANKS, MAUREEN! Then today, after many upset emails between members and staff -- ANMT fixed it all and moved the salon to a larger venue to accomodate all the members plus some. YAY!!! Now my colleagues can go too... whew... and guess where they moved it to? Yes, the Colony... the theatre I now work at! Life's so weird, isn't it?
Here's the man teaching students how to do Sweeney Todd's "My Friends" -- wonderful, eery... incredible. The man thinks character and motivation before a lick of music or lyric... witty as all hell and though it may not seem like it -- big-hearted.
Darn, I can't stop grinning!
Not quite as anxiety-ridden as kindergarten but I was just a bit nervous today, especially with all these car woes. Yet I made it to the Composers Symposium in good time... AND I LIVED! And may actually be thriving (don't tell anybody!)...
I'm in there with four confident seniors -- and I don't mean almost senior CITIZENS comme moi -- and it's really quite refreshing. We're in there to woodshed music, share resources/personnel, get our various "chores" done for each of our recitals -- all together so we don't burn out the Composition professor!
Although Mason and Tyler have chamber orchestra pieces, I'm still the one who with the biggest ensemble, so I'm a bit nervous about that. At least we're going to share rehearsal dates when we get this ad hoc orchestra together -- such a great idea. I'm going to use Oxy/Cal Tech students whenever I can for all the non-musical theater music... and then I'm going to bring in the pros :)
BTW, it's final:
Sunday, April 20 @ 2 pm
A lovely Sunday afternoon recital AND I'M DONE!
Funny, as of last year they got rid of the senior comprehensives TESTING -- I can hardly believe it. But we all have to write thesis papers -- even if you're having a recital -- geez, when did I last write a 10-12 paper?!? And this has to get done first: our mission statement/"constitution" as it were.
It's cool. I can roll with the punches. It all actually feels like a wonderful adventure and I haven't felt this proud of myself in a long time...
PS. I'm looking for an excellent percussionist (who can also solo on marimba)... know anyone please? AJ? :)
I forgot I took this test in November, 2005 and I was a "The Dirty Little Secret
Deliberate Gentle Sex Master (DGSMf). So I decide to take it just now... what's happened to me??? I'M A WIMP! (though I do like who I should "consider" this time :)
The Window ShopperRandom Gentle Love Dreamer (RGLD) Loving, hopeful, open. Likely to carry on an romance from afar. You are The Window Shopper. You take love as opportunities come, which can lead to a high-anxiety, but high-flying romantic life. You're a genuinely sweet person, not saccharine at all, so it's likely that the relationships you have had and will have will be happy ones. You've had a fair amount of love experience for your age, and there'll be much more to come. Part of why we know this is that, of all female types, you are the most prone to sudden, ferocious crushes. Your results indicate that you're especially capable of obsessing over a guy you just met. Obviously, passion like this makes for an intense existence. It can also make for soul-destroying letdowns. Your ideal match is someone who'll love you back with equal fire, and someone you've grown to love slowly. A self-involved or pessimistic man is especially bad. Though you're drawn to them, avoid artists at all costs. Your exact female opposite: The Stiletto  Deliberate Brutal Sex Master Always avoid: The Hornivore (RBSM) Consider: The Gentleman (DGLM), The Loverboy (RGLM), The Boy Next Door (RGLD) |
| Link: The Online Dating Persona Test @ OkCupid - free online dating. |
"I want a community around me again. YES to that! I don't know where or any of that sh*t is anymore as two of my bestest friends are leaving town... and my immediate family is elsewhere... but I'm sure that'll all come to me if I keep saying yes and face my fears of being swallowed up..."
I got a call this morning to work a few hours a day/a few days a week at the theatre in Burbank that I interviewed with last summer for a marketing position! I really liked those folks, the commute would've been great (nil!) but they went with someone else, which is cool. They liked me, it was a good experience... and lookie, they called me out of the blue!
Just a few hours a week -- running around money, as they say -- but I'll be in the theatre with my peeps! YAY!
Joanie "Chyna Doll" Laurer, Brigitte Nielsen, Mary Carey
I thought it would be a train wreck, so Sunday night I had to watch VH1's Celebrity Rehab, just to see who these poor wretches were. Ends up, I got to meet "me" again... it felt familiar, and yes, even cocoon and homelike.
I don't want to rehash all my war stories about my life in 12-Step programs (there are other places in this blog to find that, I think?), because that's not the point right now; and if you've not known me that long... heck, one of these days we'll have a drink and yak about it all (just kidding!).
What IS the point of it, is that I just realized it's been 20 years since I set foot in my first 12-Step Room -- in the bottom of a church basement in NYC, June 1988. My first meeting was a Debtors Anonymous meeting where I literally thought they were going to take my credit cards away and close my bank account on the spot. After all, isn't that why that nice man in a suit and tie was there at the door?
How naive of me -- he was as sick as I was, and having never even known what AA was, I had no clue as to what I was going to happen to me. But that night I heard the phrase "I am a child of God" and the word "fellowship" and for about eight weeks I was in a meeting every day, sometimes even two -- I never had to be alone in this again. Yes, I was one sick puppy, and the only place I felt "well" was in a meeting. When I moved back to LA after those eight weeks (thank you NY DA!), I got into DA full force here, joining other program(s)!, speaking and sharing, and feeling "seen" for the first time in my life. To this day speaking in front of a crowd doesn't bother me because if you can tell 200 folks about the IRS garnishes and collection agency nightmares you have and that you live hand to mouth all the time... well, there's more to it than that, but let's just say it's easy, and I even grew to like holding the floor.
I loved being in the rooms 3-4 times a week because I got tons of truth -- and pain and suffering and hope -- in there. And I could be of service and help... and it was perfectly okay for the next minute to be the one bawling into the microphone and in NEED of those hugs and understanding...
Eventually (1993?) I saw my last meeting because I needed to know I could think on my own, now that I knew what I wasn't just full of "stinkin' thinkin'." I have never really thought about those days until that Celebrity Rehab show Sunday. Mind you, I didn't have a substance-abuse issue as these guys did... but I sure remembered the open-hearts and the difficulty of facing life head-on, with no crutches. It's good to know those meetings are still there... and I can go back if I need to. Do I need to?
Today, Andrea sent me this article in the USA Today, Psychologists now know what makes people happy that starts out:
"The happiest people surround themselves with family and friends, don't care about keeping up with the Joneses next door, lose themselves in daily activities and, most important, forgive easily."
HUH?
"Lose themselves in daily activities -- what?! That's supposed to make people HAPPY? Boring-ass CHORES?! How come nobody ever told me that before (Mom?) -- I've always KNOWN that happiness only came in the events you planned and goals you reached. NOT in making your bed, cleaning your house, keeping your gas tank and checking aocount full, making a meal... but wait, I DO feel happy when I get lost in my daily activities. HOLY F*CKING SHIT. What a revelation. I don't have live in the anticipation of all the highest of highs... and its corresponding depression and low. Thank God.
The other thing I saw in that article: "The happiest people spend the least time alone."
This little ditty has been coming to me hard and fast the last six months. After "enjoying" (!) a self-imposed, deep, painful, solitary, and yet healing period of ten YEARS -- yes, it's been ten years since I hit my head at Raging Waters -- I know it's time to come out again and play with others! And hey, if it means with a Mr. too, well, that's even better! After all those zillions of people in those trillions of meetings and all that service... I kinda couldn't hear myself and I needed to shut the world up... and now I'm peeking out just a little, enough to get out of all the little depressions I can get myself into when I hibernate too much.
It's been a slow, sluggish New Year... that finally has revved up because I'm seeing old friends again... slowly, slowly. Last week, a Saturday night out with Jeffrey to see Juno (movies), a beautiful lunch with Heidi Rose (metaphysics), and a great coffee catch-up with Christopher (musicals ) today... I feel good and am doing it slowly and gradually so I don't have to curl up and hide by being overwhelmed.
I know it sounds stupid, especially to people who've known me as a social butterfly, but this depression can be and is BAD. She's (Miss Social Butterfly) still in there, believe me... but she doesn't run the show anymore (she must be like 15 years old in there, dude). I have to finally admit it -- this peri-menopausal time of my life truly affects me... and it's hard to get out of that "pit" when I'm there...
And I get older, life's getting simpler again -- like in high school. Good friends, old friends, loving family, heartfelt connections, good laughs, fab food, healthy body, life purposes, life lessons. Life is simple. And happy.
Lastly, an inadvertent confirmation was this Saturday evening past. I spent it with an old family friend, Greg, and his wife Joy, who'd come up from San Diego with their daughters Tori (6) and Catherine (almost 2) to participate in a Tori's dance competition at the Burbank Marriott. That little Tori is a knockout singer and dancer, and she just sucks that stuff up -- of course to my absolute delight! Go Filipina girl! Joy, who like Greg is an engineer, was wondering how she got a little performer out of their genes... but I think she's got another one coming up in Catherine too...
In any case, it was fun to be around all these families and serious little (well, up to high school) dancers. Of course, I walked in as a senior division class did "Thoroughly Modern Millie" and I wept -- as I always do when I hear a musical theatre overture/number. (That was just for you, Maureen. :) Maybe one day some of these kids will be dancing in MY shows... it was inspiring to be around. [Even though it did remind me that when I saw my first dance recital at age 6 or 7 and our little Filipina friend was in a cowgirl outfit, I asked my mom if I could learn how to dance like that. Got shot down in a second: "You have flat feet" and that was that, no dancing for me.]
But the best part? Hanging with Greg and the baby almost the whole night. Mind you, I've known Greg since I was 14 and he was 4, he used to visit with his friends when he was high school for vacation, and flown out and stayed with me and his sister in NY, and we lived in the same house while he was in college. Now he's a grown man with a wife, two kids, a house, mortgage, cars, an officer, a pilot, and getting his Master's degree... how did that happen, and I'm still where I am?
[Cue: "Sunrise, Sunset": Is this the little boy I carried...] hehehe
Oh for Pete's sake, I wax poetic. The point is, it was incredibly good to be with family again, who see and love me without judgment and unconditionally. Nothing has changed over the years! I felt this this past Christmas in a big way with my brother's family, and Mom and Dad and their friends, and it came to home to me on Saturday. What a blessing... to feel such an embrace, to know I am loved. Thanks always, Greg... I love you back!
The next day, I did make it out of the house to see 27 Dresses (2-1/2 stars of 4 from me, only because the leads, Katherine Heigl and James Marsden were great and of course, it's my story, she of 43 weddings)... and didn't sink too low recovering on that usually loneliest night of the week (Sunday).
I can admit now: I want a community around me again. YES to that! I don't know where or any of that sh*t is anymore as two of my bestest friends are leaving town... and my immediate family is elsewhere... but I'm sure that'll all come to me if I keep saying yes and face my fears of being swallowed up...
Enough! Have a good one...
1979-80 Occidental College Glee Club -- that's me in the front row.
Yes, I turned in my application so I can get the ball rolling and take my last class at Oxy:
457. COMPOSITION SYMPOSIUM.
The objective of this course is two-fold: first, to aid students strongly inclined towards composition in the preparation of their senior recital, and second, to ready students for continued professional growth in composition. Emphasis on individual compositional projects, performance workshops, analytical listening, and score reading. Prerequisite: Music 357. 2 units, CR/NC grading.
Holy Heck... wish me luck! (<--- that would be a "false rhyme" by the way, popular in pop music, NEVER acceptable in musical theatre! :)
