The family couldn’t get enough “Hayloft” as covered by Nickel Creek today. (Well, that and Éa liked Dave Edmunds’ “I Hear You Knocking.”) This made me uncomfortable.
“When informed that someone has achieved an American synthesis of Led Zeppelin and Yes, all I can do is hold my ears and say gosh.”
— Robert Christgau, of Boston (1976), in a capsule review makes me laugh out loud
They remastered Aqualung in 2011, and somehow I missed it. Now, if only Ian Anderson had been less crotchety about God and religion.
For the second consecutive year, I’ve been referred to Chris Kiver by an outstanding member of the State College Choral Society to audition for the Orpheus Singers: Colleen emailed me today about it.
Other than the remarkable depth to which my telling her as an aside that I wasn’t going to sing with the Choral Society this season felt like a confession, the thing I found most remarkable about my emotional response to this message was how much it stirred up again my desires to be a specialist. To pick something, just one thing, and concentrate all my energies into mastering it. Choral singing, solo singing, pop singing, hootenannies, improving neighborhood walkability, improving neighborhood bikeability, building relationships in my neighborhood, front-end web development, sales, tweeting, music appreciation—the list of possibilities feels endless. However, nothing pulls my affections like singing, perhaps because it’s the one with which I have the longest history, the one for which I feel most guilty not having pursued.
But unless my soul changes, I need to consider the following: I want to do those other things. If I plunge into singing to the depth I feel like I want to, I will not be able to tweet, organize Houserville Social Club, engage civically, work on my house, listen through the classical repertoire, or any of the other activities I so enjoy. I would only be able to stand utter commitment to becoming a singer for so long before I’d bail in favor of my life as an enthusiastic generalist.
With “40 (How Long),” U2 beat IHOPKC to harp & bowl by fifteen years.
I bought Carla some flowers today. Consider it an improvement on the one cut rose per year we’ve been married.
Singings lessons didn’t feel as good this week as they did last week. But I’m taking it in stride: As with Carla and local governance, I still have so much to learn about singing.
A cheer for the red team, whom we beat, 12–8, sung to the tune of “Rudolph, the Red-nosed Reindeer”:
O, how the black team loves you,
And we’ll shout it out with glee:
Good game, Red Bull frisbee,
You’ll go down in history!
I should either discontinue fasting on days when I have choral society rehearsal or eat a light dinner despite my hunger. I arrive at rehearsal ready to sing and then peter out after twenty minutes.
Mommy, I love music more than chocolate chips, more than cookies, and more than princesses and beautiful ponies.
— Éa on hearing Vanhal’s Double Bass Concerto in E flat major on WPSU in the car with Carla
The most significant thing to occur in my life today besides continued (2 in a row!) lack of meltdown at singing lessons with Norman Spivey is the very pleasant date time I spent with Éa. All we did was sign her up for gymnastics classes on my computer and then dance and rock on the rocking chair together, mostly to Elvis’ debut album (because she learned yesterday to do the lip curl thing). But that’s all we needed to do. We genuinely enjoy one another.
Song of the day: “Blue Moon“ by Elvis Presley
Carla and I are both very happy today.
We’re in the groove, so to speak. I remained calm and focused the entire day at work. She enjoyed a lunch date at Panera with Éa during which she heard several other OCC moms complaining that they’re lonely and without close friends, which caused her to reflect that she is full of friends. I enjoyed a brisk walk in polar temperatures to and from lunch at Ethan’s house for forty-five minutes of conversation with the single friend of mine who is closest in outlook and makeup to me. Éa and I enjoyed me dancing with her in my arms during “25 or 6 to 4” and “Tusk.” Carla volunteered to clean up the sewage solids from the basement floor tomorrow morning.
About the worst thing you can say about today is that we finished up the coffee banana chocolate chip scones.
I could go on and on. O God, that we be very grateful.
Today was Salesforce migration day at DiamondBack. Lots of phone calls and IMs about what to do, at least an hour of screensharing with Jerry. Cuh-razy. But fun.
It also was a day when our wastewater line backed up to form a roughly 6’-diameter irregular puddle of in the basement, we suspect because the chemical “sponging” that S. Wimmer & Son gave our toilets—an act that should improve our quality of life by all but eliminating our frequent need to plunge the toilets (I broke the plunger today), along with embarrassment that comes with a toilet bowl hat has urine solids built up inside—probably loosened up a bunch of junk that got stuck in the trap just outside the house.
Carla and I got to poke around outside in search of the UAJA cleanout and our own trap, vent & cleanout. In 12°F weather on snow. Hence I thought Carla’s NPR find of ice music worth posting as well.
I’m tired. I didn’t enjoy learning Bach’s St. John Passion this evening at Choral Society rehearsal. I’ve been working hard on DiamondBack’s migration to Salesforce. I carry a slight dread of singing lessons. Why?
In brief, je me suis surmené. And I think my heart, having been dragged along for years now in my mind’s crusade for productivity, order, self-control, and a final end to absent-mindedness, is flagging. Or perhaps it has been flagging a long while before this, but I hadn’t enough self-awareness to notice.
God, Your word to me about how to handle the human heart from Scripture is, I think, another monument along this now 16-month-long, post-Fiddler journey into letting my heart come alive. Thank You. And please keep going.
We played a good bit of a modified version of the game above today in the Stilson house. But goshdarn if Sullivan couldn’t manage to let previous answers shape his subsequent questions.
Anyway, two important things today:
- I had my first singing lesson with Norman Spivey today.
- Ethan and I got together for the first of what I think will be a long, mutually beneficial series of weekly lunches.
In some sense, both of the above are a return to the past. But they’re different: I’m mature enough now to actually avoid melting down in a singing lesson even though Norman and I are working on very basic stuff like “vocal hygiene.” And Ethan and I are less naive about God and life.
We started dating the kids again. I took Éa to the Creamery, where we shared a vanilla cone. We then headed to Schlow Library for a storybooks, violins & pajamas event put on by four undergrads in the Downsborough Community Room.
(My five favorite ice cream flavors are currently Meyer Dairy Grape-Nut, Creamery Death by Chocolate, Turkey Hill All Natural Vanilla Bean, Meyer Black Raspberry, and Turkey Hill Mint Cookes ‘n Cream Frozen Yogurt.)
On a different, sadder subject, Rich Biever told me today in a reply to an email inquiry I sent him about his production of Les Misérables that he lost his job at the State Theatre and that LES MIS is therefore not happening.
It’s a disappointment to me, but a relief to Carla.
After the make-up concert for the snowed-out Choral Society Christmas concert, during the second half of which I had no high notes to speak of, Janet joined us for dinner at Harrison’s, where we continued our quest to eat at all the restaurants in College Township. All the food was tasty, but either the ambiance or the value leaves me wanting. I’m not sure which.
I finished the proactive portion of my Christmas shopping today. All that remains is about seven tasks that are queued up in Remember the Milk. I mention this as the most significant portion of my day today because I’m still not completely comfortable with multi-step, very detail-oriented projects whose deliverable are people I. The discomfort is a lack of confidence that I have thought of everything and am making proper progress. It causes me to ponder over my project management systems instead of getting things done. And it leads to me idolizing and being selfish about my time.
Lord, as usual: Help!
In other news, we discovered last night that Zeppelin is on Spotify. I exclaimed to Carla that this news trumped the handbell concert as my high yesterday.
Éa and I enjoyed the above concert today very much. Plus, we got to see Jimmy Hutasoit, Jo Lash, Joyce Robinson, Dana Carlisle, and a Russell Bloom who heavy-handedly—literally, with lots of downward pressure applied on my left shoulder by his hand—tried again to recruit me to Pirates of Penzance.
While shopping for a Christmas gift for my mom, I found online lists of the best worship albums of the year. I felt convicted: Why have I not been more avid a seeker of music that is not only musically marvelous but thematically rich? Why have I not more frequently combined my favorite medium (music) with my favorite theme (God)?
Don, a fellow tenor at the Choral Society, shared with me this evening that last week at his usual post-rehearsal social hour at Texas Roadhouse, Russ Shelley, the music director of the Choral Society, gushed momentarily about the beauty and power of my voice.
Obviously, that’s a heady sort of thing to hear. It inspires me to pursue more opportunities to share my voice. But at first, at least, this inspiration feels akin to the addictive high that I imagine you get from using recreational drugs. That’s dangerous.
It’s good to sing for my own enjoyment (or Yours, God), and it’s good to sing to delight someone else. But it’s unhealthy to sing to elicit praise.
Father, as I get deeper into singing performance in State College, please protect me from the intoxicating effects of people’s praise.
Scott: Éa, would you mind if I put on some tunes?
Éa: Yeah.
Scott [to clarify]: Should I put on some tunes?
Éa: Yeah.
Scott: Any objections anyone?
Éa: Tunes! But don’t put on any objections!
Be it so resolved that I will not attempt to listen to music while at work except if I am doing very rote tasks.
“I was a lover before this war.”
— TV on the Radio, in a lyric that at the moment reminds me of my comment to Carla last night, “Who needs emotions? They’re so unreliable.”
Carla and I had our first Friday Night Music Night with Kid A in the bedroom this evening. She has these fascinating and often poignant movies that play in her head as she listens, as if each track were meant to be a soundtrack. It’s amazing, and it makes me want to practice the same as a way to increase my creativity.
For her, of course, it comes naturally. For me, methinks it will take self-discipline.