October 1, 2022

 

My writing projects have their source in strong emotions, which typically take one of the following two forms.  Shorter pieces (mainly poems) start with a feeling attached to an experience or memory or image or even phrase, that is, they're "lyrical" in the traditional sense of that word, though they not infrequently have a sociopolitical focus.  Longer pieces (mainly essays) tend to begin with a hunch that something I'm drawn to is worth exploring.  Why do I collect vinyl records?  Why does Greek mythology resonate so strongly for me?  Why was I so drawn for so long to Conrad's Heart of Darkness?  What might I discover about myself in those boxes of memorabilia from my 20s?

 

A new hunch-based project has been constellating in my mind for a while now based on Pierrot Lunaire.  At first, I was drawn to Schönberg's famous suite for vocalist and small ensemble, ironically called a "melodrama" -- its emotional timbre is detached and mocking, anything but melodramatic.  I recently purchased a vinyl copy of an older recording conducted by Pierre Boulez, and learned from the liner notes on the back cover that the Commedia dell'Arte figure of Pierrot became a sort of analogue for the artist in the 19th century, the period that was the focus of my doctoral work.  And just like that, my emotional response to Schönberg's piece acquired a subject that was near and dear to me, and the possibility of updating and queering the artist's plight was birthed.  And then I learned of the piece's source, an 1884 collection of 50 poems (fewer than half of which Schönberg set to music) by the Belgian poet Albert Giraud.  Amazon search: an affordable bilingual edition was available (I read French, sort of).  Et voilà!  Surely reading Giraud would give me some ideas for a queered response, which could be in dialogue with it as well as Schönberg.  I just started reading Giraud's collection today.  Beyond a few vague ideas, I'm not sure where this project will go, or even if it will take off.  But I feel certain that at the very least it will be an interesting journey.

 

September 28, 2022

The last two personal essays I've completed, and the one I'm working on now, have reminded me that one of my greatest challenges as a writer is emotional resistance.  Over the winter and spring, I tackled two pivotal years from college, centering the essay on the creative stuff I wrote during those years.  It wound up being a rewarding journey of self-discovery, since I had repressed a lot from that time, but the pain of those years prompted me to take frequent breaks, up to a few weeks on a couple of occasions, so that the resulting essay took me five months to feel satisfied with (though in fairness to me, it's long: 8,400 words).  I moved from that to a shorter essay about memories from my early childhood.  This was a more straightforward project, and one that enabled me reclaim a richer, more mixed picture of that time in my life than I'd previously had.  As such, it was a joy to write, and took me just a few weeks to complete.  Now I'm tackling my time in, and relationship to academia.  I've articulated some core ideas that I think will make this essay a rewarding piece, but the subject is one that I feel a lot of ambivalence about because it spans three decades of personal struggle -- a great deal to digest and express succinctly -- and features multiple failures (two divorces and an abandoned career).  I'll emerge on the other side having finally embraced who I am, but after so much denial, it's hardly a heroic outcome.  The essay will require more than a little emotional nakedness to come out well, and I find myself resenting that, and myself for my hesitancy and my failures over those decades, necessary though they ultimately were.  Part of me would love to abandon it already, but it's an integral part of a larger project, an essay collection that will be my "memoir in shards."  With my work schedule and other commitments, I'll be really surprised if I finish it before the new year.

September 25, 2022

Fabulous kickoff to the PSO's new season, featuring the gloriously eccentric Symphonie fantastique by Hector Berlioz. Oh yeah, and then I passed that yellow bubble pyramid in an empty lot on my way back to the parking garage (as one does).

September 23, 2022

I was in the mood to do something this afternoon that had nothing to do with my job, my writing, or my to-do list, aka something fun, so I went to see the new documentary on David Bowie, Moonage Daydream.  I've never been a yuge Bowie fan, but I like several of his songs, and I've always liked the Ziggy Stardust album; and since the trailer featured lots of footage from the Ziggy period, and since the movie's title was taken from a song on that LP, I figured it would be a good bet, and so I didn't bother reading any reviews beforehand, which is something I never do.  In a way, I'm glad I didn't, because if I'd come across any that expressed the reservations about the film that I walked away with, I probably wouldn't have gone to see it.  And I'm not sorry that I saw it, as I thought it was an interesting film.  It was certainly more interesting than the biopic of Bowie's younger contemporaries Freddie Mercury and Queen that I saw when it came out a few years back.  But I don't think it was better.  Moonage Daydream is an often phantasmagoric mashup of concert and interview footage, and audio snippets of Bowie talking about art, life, fame, his past, etc., played over music-video style collages of images, home movies of him traveling, etc.  Its structure is loosely chronological, though with lots of jumping ahead and back.  These compositional features nicely complement, and in a sense mirror, the largely improvisational nature of Bowie's various artistic phases that emerges over the course of the film.  At the same time, though, the foregrounding of these features, and their repetitiveness, betray an emptiness at the film's core.  Moonage Daydream does not meaningfully interrogate Bowie's various stances and pronouncements.  There are no independent voices except those of his different interviewers, and these always brief encounters are with few if any exceptions edited so as to give Bowie the last word.  Ultimately, the film feels like a clever but overlong fan tribute.  Bowie himself, at least as presented here, seems to have (mostly) rejected the idea that any of us are knowable in any meaningful way, so I can imagine this being a documentary he would have liked.  However, I'm not sure that it's the documentary he, or any of us who appreciate his music and art, deserve.

 

September 21, 2022

Lots of goings on in Chez Stas's kitchen last night: peach crisp (ur-phase and finished product) and fresh salsa with tomatoes from friends. Not pictured: prosciutto and onion quiche that I tucked in the freezer for later. NB: Spike seemed intermittently curious (mainly once dusk fell and she wasn't busy photosynthesizing). The Aubrey Jr. twins were nice enough not to interfere.

September 20, 2022

Just got my updated COVID booster and flu shot, and am hoping my left arm doesn't fall off in the next 48 hours. 😬

September 18, 2022

First program of the 2022-23 season: the opera Rusalka by Antonin Dvořák, a Czech adaptation of Hans Christian Andersen's folk tale, "The Little Mermaid." The plot is simple, but the music is gorgeous -- the ending is exquisite -- and the opera plumbs some interesting psychological depths that the leads did a nice job of teasing out. A very worthwhile experience! (NB: Sporting a new haircut.)