Many years ago, I learned of a poem that the late, great Leonard Bernstein wrote shortly before his death. I recently rediscovered this poem when unpacking the dozens of boxes that moved with me to my new house in May. Since it's not readily available, I thought I'd share it with you all here. No copyright infringement intended, just another homage to one of the greatest artists, thinkers, teachers, and people the world has ever known.
-----------
FINALIZING THE DEAL, I BELIEVE YOU CALL IT
1. Trimeters
I made a deal with God.
God, she was tough to deal with.
Dealt me a tempting clause—
Then a sharp zap to the kidney.
It wasn’t a real deal,
Really, just a sort of
Gentlepersons’ Agreement.
We almost shook on it;
The snag was Time, time
Not just to live it out
To the maximum, only to write
That one Important Piece.
“How do you know it will be
That important?” she asked.
“I’ll know, all right, but there’ll be
No way to prove it. Not in a court
Of law, especially our kind
Of court. No witnesses.”
“Bullshit,” she murmured. “It’s the same
Old Thing again: Afraid
To Die, afraid to try
The consequences of Not-To-Be.”
“Wrong,” I said. “Afraid
Died in my vocabulary
Long ago—except of hurting
Someone I love, and then
Of not writing my Piece
Before my Not-To-Be.”
Long discussion; not to bore you
With it: We swapped equations,
We weighed the torts and liens.
2. Tetrameters
Then she became suddenly tender,
At the same time changing gender.
“I offer the Answer to the Unanswered Question
In trade for cancer, or lethal indigestion.”
I thought to myself: unfair bargaining.
Much more painful to know the Answer
Than any form of mortal cancer.
3. Mixed Doubles
“But the Cosmos,” he wheedled,
“The ultimate macro-atom.”
“No deal, thank you, madam.”
Changing gender, she played her ace
In the hole. The biggest. “Beginninglessness.”
That did it. I signed on.
We shook on it.
I’m still shaking.
-----------
For HK.
Revised and given to him in
Prague, June 3, 1990
-----------
(This poem was written by Leonard Bernstein in Prague late May 1990, after he had learned that a malignant tumor had appeared on the pleural lining of his left lung. The poem is addressed to Harry Kraut, LB’s manager and friend.)
Tuesday, July 10, 2012
Wednesday, August 12, 2009
"New Music: It's Not Just for Your Classical Series"
The following is an article I wrote for NewMusicBox that was published earlier today. (If you'd like, you can view it on that site by clicking on the title of this blog entry.) I'd love to hear your thoughts, so please feel free to share them in the "comments" section immediately below. Enjoy!
As a staff conductor at a major American symphony orchestra, I'm called upon to conduct a wide variety of concerts, not only on our classical series, but also on our education, family, community outreach, and pops series. Programming for concerts outside an orchestra's classical series typically consists of a mixture of the tried-and-true (i.e., the instantly recognizable) and easily digestible pops arrangements. I've been trying a somewhat different approach over the past several seasons with the Houston Symphony—and with great success, I'm happy to say: On every program I conduct, I try to incorporate at least one contemporary American orchestral work.
As a new-music lover, finding ways to introduce audiences to great new orchestral works has always been important to me. I became a conductor because I love to share music with people, and sharing contemporary music in particular has always been at the top of my list of artistic priorities. I have a degree in composition, and I conducted a new music ensemble for five seasons, so incorporating new music into any concert I lead—no matter the genre or venue—is not only important to me, but is an organic, integral part of who I am as an artist.
It may seem that incorporating new works into an orchestra's concert season might be accomplished most logically through inclusion on its classical series. I propose, however, that the classical series is but one of many in which new music might find a viable, sustainable home. In some cases, it may actually be easier to include contemporary works outside the typical classical concert. Oftentimes, traditional classical audiences may view contemporary works as something to be "gotten through" on the way to the evening's main course; uninitiated audiences tend to have fewer preconceived notions of what music their orchestra should (and should not) play, and are generally more open-minded and receptive to a broader swath of music.
In my experience, I've found that there are three keys to the successful incorporation of new music on pops programs: 1) accessibility of the work itself; 2) a solid rationale for the work's inclusion on the program; and 3) an effective, concise verbal introduction of the work to the audience.
"Accessibility" has come to be a dirty word in some circles, so let me first define what I do not mean when using this word: mindless, one-dimensional works that are nothing more than ear candy. That said, denying the influence that 20th-century pop music has had on many of today's composers is counterproductive, especially when an audience is coming to see one of those very acts on the second half of a pops program. The contemporary music I have found to be most successful on such concerts is by composers who take the best attributes of pop music (e.g., rhythmic regularity, simpler harmonic language, and sometimes even a melody or two) and skillfully, artfully incorporate them into their music. Whether one categorizes these composers as neoclassical, neo-romantic, post-minimalist, or something else is secondary to finding music that works well—both musically and programmatically—on a particular program.
A guest artist on the second half of a pops program presents an ideal opportunity to program a new work. With a little imagination, ingenuity, and background research on the artist, one can almost always find a programmatic link between that artist and a contemporary orchestral work. When the Houston Symphony presented Peter Cetera (former lead singer of the band Chicago) in January 2009, the orchestra and I presented an orchestral first half before Cetera and his band performed after intermission. Knowing that Cetera had been a founding member of a band named after one of America's great big cities, I thought it would be interesting to present different aspects of big-city life on the first half. I wanted to find a contemporary work that captured the bustle, sounds, electric excitement, and fast-paced nature of a city like Chicago, and I found exactly that in a piece by Kevin Puts called Network. This work is around six minutes long and is of the post-minimalist school, which has several advantages: it lives in relatively simple harmonies and has just a handful of ideas that audiences can easily remember while listening through the piece. Before playing the piece, I explained to the audience a bit about the composer, the work, and our reasons for including it on the program; I pointed out what to listen for as we went through it, describing big-city scenes and how that related to the work they were about to hear. We found it to be a perfect complement to the rest of our first half, and, having the right context, the audience enjoyed it immensely.
Even on programs without a guest artist, opportunities may present themselves through an extra-musical theme you're exploring. Our New Year's Eve concerts in Houston typically consist of classical/"light classical" fare on the first half, followed by a more pops-oriented second half. On our New Year's Eve concert in 2007 (my first with the orchestra), I decided to focus on the concept of time and how that relates to New Year's celebrations. We performed the overture to Rossini's La cenerentola (Cinderella), a movement from Haydn's "Clock" Symphony, and selections from Tchaikovsky's The Nutcracker. I needed a fourth piece to complete our first half, and found it in a work for string orchestra by Michael Torke called December. As with much of Torke's music, the work is post-minimalist and quite tonal, and thus quite accessible. The great thing about including this work on the program, however, was that it fit in perfectly with my "time" theme for the first half. Torke provides program notes for his work, and I shared a portion of these with our audience from the stage before we played the piece. These notes are wonderfully descriptive, and explain the narrative of the work and what Torke was envisioning as he composed it. Every audience loves going behind the scenes, and getting a composer's perspective on his work before hearing it lets an audience feel that they've got the inside scoop.
A conductor really can help enormously in regard to a work's accessibility simply by priming the audience well; even a "tough" work can be rendered more accessible by a few well-chosen, articulate words of introduction. An example from my work that I often cite comes not from a pops program but a series of education concerts I led several seasons ago. This program was all about composers who came to America, one of whom was Arnold Schoenberg. Schoenberg is not an easy "sell" to any audience, but finding a way to relate your audience to a composer and his methods can work wonders for an audience's reaction to a piece. After introducing Schoenberg the man, I briefly introduced the concept of his twelve-tone method by relating it to the similar "unrepeatability" of Sudoku. As most of the young people already knew, in Sudoku, you cannot repeat a number within a given box, row, or column; I then explained that, in Schoenberg's music, you cannot repeat a note until you have used the other eleven. They then understood (to some degree, at least) why there was less regularity to Schoenberg's melodies than to those of Dvorák, whose music we had played earlier on the program. Again, with the right context and good explanation, even children can listen to and enjoy something as complex as Schoenberg with new ears.
A quick word to those concerned that composers might be "insulted" by having their works included on something other than a strictly classical program. No composer I've ever personally known has ever expressed any feeling of being "relegated" to a pops or educational program. The composers I know create their works out of a genuine desire to communicate, and having one's music heard by thousands of people over the course of a weekend—whatever the venue—is an opportunity I can't imagine many composers turning down.
There are myriad reasons to program new works outside the traditional classical series. For one thing, orchestras love the chance to sink their teeth into "real" music on concerts that are typically less engaging and less artistically rewarding for them. I must say, though, that I never program contemporary works on pops programs with the aim of converting our audiences to new music devotees. Will audiences go out and buy a 10-CD retrospective of John Adams's work after hearing Short Ride in a Fast Machine at a pops concert? Probably not, but that doesn't mean that they haven't heard something new, something that they might have genuinely enjoyed, something that might stick with them.
For me, sharing new music with any audience demands finding a piece in which you believe, which works organically with the rest of your program, and which you are willing and able to "sell" to your audience. A well-programmed, well-introduced, well-performed piece of contemporary music can have an impact on any audience like nothing else.
* * * * * * *
As a staff conductor at a major American symphony orchestra, I'm called upon to conduct a wide variety of concerts, not only on our classical series, but also on our education, family, community outreach, and pops series. Programming for concerts outside an orchestra's classical series typically consists of a mixture of the tried-and-true (i.e., the instantly recognizable) and easily digestible pops arrangements. I've been trying a somewhat different approach over the past several seasons with the Houston Symphony—and with great success, I'm happy to say: On every program I conduct, I try to incorporate at least one contemporary American orchestral work.
As a new-music lover, finding ways to introduce audiences to great new orchestral works has always been important to me. I became a conductor because I love to share music with people, and sharing contemporary music in particular has always been at the top of my list of artistic priorities. I have a degree in composition, and I conducted a new music ensemble for five seasons, so incorporating new music into any concert I lead—no matter the genre or venue—is not only important to me, but is an organic, integral part of who I am as an artist.
It may seem that incorporating new works into an orchestra's concert season might be accomplished most logically through inclusion on its classical series. I propose, however, that the classical series is but one of many in which new music might find a viable, sustainable home. In some cases, it may actually be easier to include contemporary works outside the typical classical concert. Oftentimes, traditional classical audiences may view contemporary works as something to be "gotten through" on the way to the evening's main course; uninitiated audiences tend to have fewer preconceived notions of what music their orchestra should (and should not) play, and are generally more open-minded and receptive to a broader swath of music.
In my experience, I've found that there are three keys to the successful incorporation of new music on pops programs: 1) accessibility of the work itself; 2) a solid rationale for the work's inclusion on the program; and 3) an effective, concise verbal introduction of the work to the audience.
"Accessibility" has come to be a dirty word in some circles, so let me first define what I do not mean when using this word: mindless, one-dimensional works that are nothing more than ear candy. That said, denying the influence that 20th-century pop music has had on many of today's composers is counterproductive, especially when an audience is coming to see one of those very acts on the second half of a pops program. The contemporary music I have found to be most successful on such concerts is by composers who take the best attributes of pop music (e.g., rhythmic regularity, simpler harmonic language, and sometimes even a melody or two) and skillfully, artfully incorporate them into their music. Whether one categorizes these composers as neoclassical, neo-romantic, post-minimalist, or something else is secondary to finding music that works well—both musically and programmatically—on a particular program.
A guest artist on the second half of a pops program presents an ideal opportunity to program a new work. With a little imagination, ingenuity, and background research on the artist, one can almost always find a programmatic link between that artist and a contemporary orchestral work. When the Houston Symphony presented Peter Cetera (former lead singer of the band Chicago) in January 2009, the orchestra and I presented an orchestral first half before Cetera and his band performed after intermission. Knowing that Cetera had been a founding member of a band named after one of America's great big cities, I thought it would be interesting to present different aspects of big-city life on the first half. I wanted to find a contemporary work that captured the bustle, sounds, electric excitement, and fast-paced nature of a city like Chicago, and I found exactly that in a piece by Kevin Puts called Network. This work is around six minutes long and is of the post-minimalist school, which has several advantages: it lives in relatively simple harmonies and has just a handful of ideas that audiences can easily remember while listening through the piece. Before playing the piece, I explained to the audience a bit about the composer, the work, and our reasons for including it on the program; I pointed out what to listen for as we went through it, describing big-city scenes and how that related to the work they were about to hear. We found it to be a perfect complement to the rest of our first half, and, having the right context, the audience enjoyed it immensely.
Even on programs without a guest artist, opportunities may present themselves through an extra-musical theme you're exploring. Our New Year's Eve concerts in Houston typically consist of classical/"light classical" fare on the first half, followed by a more pops-oriented second half. On our New Year's Eve concert in 2007 (my first with the orchestra), I decided to focus on the concept of time and how that relates to New Year's celebrations. We performed the overture to Rossini's La cenerentola (Cinderella), a movement from Haydn's "Clock" Symphony, and selections from Tchaikovsky's The Nutcracker. I needed a fourth piece to complete our first half, and found it in a work for string orchestra by Michael Torke called December. As with much of Torke's music, the work is post-minimalist and quite tonal, and thus quite accessible. The great thing about including this work on the program, however, was that it fit in perfectly with my "time" theme for the first half. Torke provides program notes for his work, and I shared a portion of these with our audience from the stage before we played the piece. These notes are wonderfully descriptive, and explain the narrative of the work and what Torke was envisioning as he composed it. Every audience loves going behind the scenes, and getting a composer's perspective on his work before hearing it lets an audience feel that they've got the inside scoop.
A conductor really can help enormously in regard to a work's accessibility simply by priming the audience well; even a "tough" work can be rendered more accessible by a few well-chosen, articulate words of introduction. An example from my work that I often cite comes not from a pops program but a series of education concerts I led several seasons ago. This program was all about composers who came to America, one of whom was Arnold Schoenberg. Schoenberg is not an easy "sell" to any audience, but finding a way to relate your audience to a composer and his methods can work wonders for an audience's reaction to a piece. After introducing Schoenberg the man, I briefly introduced the concept of his twelve-tone method by relating it to the similar "unrepeatability" of Sudoku. As most of the young people already knew, in Sudoku, you cannot repeat a number within a given box, row, or column; I then explained that, in Schoenberg's music, you cannot repeat a note until you have used the other eleven. They then understood (to some degree, at least) why there was less regularity to Schoenberg's melodies than to those of Dvorák, whose music we had played earlier on the program. Again, with the right context and good explanation, even children can listen to and enjoy something as complex as Schoenberg with new ears.
A quick word to those concerned that composers might be "insulted" by having their works included on something other than a strictly classical program. No composer I've ever personally known has ever expressed any feeling of being "relegated" to a pops or educational program. The composers I know create their works out of a genuine desire to communicate, and having one's music heard by thousands of people over the course of a weekend—whatever the venue—is an opportunity I can't imagine many composers turning down.
There are myriad reasons to program new works outside the traditional classical series. For one thing, orchestras love the chance to sink their teeth into "real" music on concerts that are typically less engaging and less artistically rewarding for them. I must say, though, that I never program contemporary works on pops programs with the aim of converting our audiences to new music devotees. Will audiences go out and buy a 10-CD retrospective of John Adams's work after hearing Short Ride in a Fast Machine at a pops concert? Probably not, but that doesn't mean that they haven't heard something new, something that they might have genuinely enjoyed, something that might stick with them.
For me, sharing new music with any audience demands finding a piece in which you believe, which works organically with the rest of your program, and which you are willing and able to "sell" to your audience. A well-programmed, well-introduced, well-performed piece of contemporary music can have an impact on any audience like nothing else.
Friday, May 22, 2009
Wednesday, May 20, 2009
"Mad King" Tweets
About to head out the door to San Antonio for a week of rehearsals with SOLI Chamber Ensemble, leading up to our two performances of Peter Maxwell Davies's Eight Songs for a Mad King next Tuesday and Wednesday (May 26 and 27). While our rehearsals are closed to the general public, I thought it might be nice to give you all a little glimpse of the insanity that is this piece before we open next Tuesday night. Throughout the course of these rehearsals, I'll be posting frequent updates (as frequent as possible, anyway) about our progress on this seminal twentieth-century work on my Twitter page: http://twitter.com/brettwmitchell. Stay tuned, and enjoy!
Saturday, May 9, 2009
Fourth Song's the Charm
When I arrived at our first rehearsal in Paris this past Monday for our world premiere of Henri Dutilleux's orchestral song cycle, Le temps l'horloge, I began to hear chatter in the hall about a brand new, freshly composed interlude and fourth song--a potentially panic-inducing proposition for those in a field which prides itself on meticulous preparation. (To be fair, I had heard of this possibility almost a year ago, but when a copy of the score was mailed to me just last month, there were still only three songs.) Sure enough, though, Mr. Dutilleux arrived, and with him this rumored additional music. I got a copy of the new score--unbound, ink still drying--from the orchestra's librarian just before its first notes were played.
Always be drunk.
That's it!
The great imperative!
In order not to feel
Time's horrid fardel
bruise your shoulders,
grinding you into the earth,
get drunk and stay that way.
On what?
On wine, poetry, virtue, whatever.
But get drunk.
And if you sometimes happen to wake up
on the porches of a palace,
in the green grass of a ditch,
in the dismal loneliness
of your own room,
your drunkenness gone or disappearing,
ask the wind,
the wave,
the star,
the bird,
the clock,
ask everything that flees,
everything that groans
or rolls
or sings,
everything that speaks,
ask what time it is;
and the wind,
the wave,
the star,
the bird,
the clock
will answer you:
"Time to get drunk!
Don't be martyred slaves of Time,
Get drunk!
Stay drunk!
On wine, virtue, poetry, whatever!"
As a recovering composer myself, I must confess that there are few things more exciting than being in the room the first time a new work is brought into the world. Hearing the first sonic realization of one's own music is indescribably exciting, but being in the room for the unveiling of the newest work of an unparalleled, 93-year-old master like Henri Dutilleux is a privilege beyond words. As with seemingly every other piece he's written over the last six decades, Le temps l'horloge is, in my opinion, an unqualified masterpiece. Being even a small part of its premiere was a huge honor.
One final note before I share the text Mr. Dutilleux set for this final movement. As recreative artists, we performers tend to view scores as having descended from on high, springing fully formed from the head of Euterpe. While we know intellectually otherwise, it seems inconceivable that there was ever "another" version of the works we know and love. Watching Mr. Dutilleux add, omit, revise, and sometimes do a wholesale rewrite of a passage right before our eyes throughout the rehearsal process this past week was an excellent reminder of the malleability of a work of art in its initial stages. These birth pains--these vulnerable, tentative first steps of a work as it cautiously makes its way into our world--go undetected in a work's final form when crafted by the hands and heart of a master. Great art projects inevitability. Great art conceals its own artifice.
Since I shared the text of the first three movements of this work in a previous entry, I thought I'd share the text of this new, fourth movement here as well. Here is a translation of the text for that final song, "Enivrez-vous". It doesn't have quite the same punch (pun intended) as the original French, but I hope it will suffice for our purposes.
IV. Get Drunk
Always be drunk.
That's it!
The great imperative!
In order not to feel
Time's horrid fardel
bruise your shoulders,
grinding you into the earth,
get drunk and stay that way.
On what?
On wine, poetry, virtue, whatever.
But get drunk.
And if you sometimes happen to wake up
on the porches of a palace,
in the green grass of a ditch,
in the dismal loneliness
of your own room,
your drunkenness gone or disappearing,
ask the wind,
the wave,
the star,
the bird,
the clock,
ask everything that flees,
everything that groans
or rolls
or sings,
everything that speaks,
ask what time it is;
and the wind,
the wave,
the star,
the bird,
the clock
will answer you:
"Time to get drunk!
Don't be martyred slaves of Time,
Get drunk!
Stay drunk!
On wine, virtue, poetry, whatever!"
-Charles Baudelaire
P.S. Mr. Dutilleux was also kind enough to sign my score for his brilliant orchestral work of 1978, Timbres, Espace, Mouvement. His inscription reads "To Mr. Mitchell / With my best wishes / Remembering our first meeting at the first performance of 'Le temps l'horloge' / Henri Dutilleux".
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
I Love APM
Hot on the heels of SymphonyCast's nationwide broadcast of my performance of Shostakovich's Tahiti Trot with the Houston Symphony in January, Performance Today just announced that they will broadcast our performance of selections from The Gadfly on tomorrow's show. To learn when your local station will air this program, please click HERE, or listen online anytime between April 22 and 28 by clicking HERE.
Friday, April 17, 2009
Short Notice
Stepping in for Thomas Dausgaard at the Houston Symphony tonight. Would love to have you there if you're in town! 8 p.m. @ Jones Hall.
Nielsen: Saul and David: Prelude to Act II
Adams: Violin Concerto (Leila Josefowicz, violin)
Brahms: Symphony No. 1
Wednesday, April 15, 2009
The World in a Phrase
Just finished James Geary's wonderful survey of aphorisms, The World in a Phrase, and thought I'd share a handful of my favorites. Enjoy!
* * * * * * * * * *
Your worst enemy cannot harm you as much as your own thoughts, unguarded. But once mastered, no one can help you as much.
-Buddha
I am not concerned that I have no place; I am concerned how I may fit myself for one. I am not concerned that I am not known; I seek to be worthy to be known.
-Confucius
Acquire knowledge. It enables its possessor to distinguish right from wrong; it lights the way to heaven; it is our friend in the desert, our society in solitude, our companion when friendless; it guides us to happiness; it sustains us in misery; it is an ornament among friends, and an armor against enemies.
-Muhammad
Nothing is sufficient for the man to whom the sufficient is too little.
-Epicurus
Go around with your middle finger up, and people will say you're crazy; go around with your pinky up, and they'll cultivate your acquaintance.
-Diogenes
Every man is worth exactly as much as the worth of what he has set his heart upon.
-Seneca
Avoid outshining your superiors. All victories breed hate, and that over your superior is foolish or fatal. So make any advice given to them appear like a recollection of something they have only forgotten rather than as a guide to something they cannot find.
-Gracián
- To refuse to accept praise is to want to be praised twice over.
- Pity is often feeling our own sufferings in those of others, a shrewd precaution against misfortunes that may befall us...a gift we bestow on ourselves in advance.
-La Rochefoucauld
The poet must not cross an interval with a step when he can cross it with a leap.
-Joubert
It is impossible to carry the torch of truth through a crowd without singeing someone's beard.
-Lichtenberg
Hope is the confusion of the desire for a thing with its probability.
-Schopenhauer
One repays a teacher badly if one always remains nothing but a pupil.
-Nietzsche
If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them.
-Thoreau
I have often been forced to my knees by the overwhelming conviction that there was no place else to go.
-Lincoln
An original writer is not one who imitates nobody, but one whom nobody can imitate.
-Chateaubriand
- The loss of a thing affects us until we have lost it altogether.
- The fear of separation is all that unites.
-Porchia
Honor thy error as a hidden intention.
-Peter Schmidt and Brian Eno
- Optimists and pessimists differ only on the date of the end of the world.
- "Definition" and "finis" have the same Latin root.
- No snowflake in an avalanche ever feels responsible.
-S.J. Lec
The difference between a rut and a grave is the depth.
-Gerald Burrill
Tuesday, April 7, 2009
Ex libris
So, how to explain away one's blog-linquency! Well...
Exhibit A: The joy of tweeting. (If you're unfamiliar, see the sidebar at right, or just hop on over to my Twitter page.) Now, wait a minute, I know, I know, I felt the same way, too. But listen: it's actually much more enjoyable than I had imagined before I dove in about a month ago. There's something very appealing about the challenge of using only 140 characters to attempt to share a part of yourself--sort of like an online, instantaneous, Smith Magazine-esque encapsulation of yourself. Anyhow, now that Facebook has officially gone down the tubes, Twitter is here to stay, at least for me.
(Please know how strongly I am fighting the urge to point out that I began a sentence in that first paragraph with a conjunction. I'm sorry, dear Mrs. Grimm, wherever you are; please resist the temptation to revisit my 3rd-grade transcripts.)
Exhibit B (and the real focus of present entry): I've been making a conscious effort to carve out some extended, meaningful time with a select group of my ever-expanding trove of books. Without slathering the following with my editorial opinions, I thought I'd share a few of the titles I've been especially enjoying of late. In case you'd like to join in the fun, each title is hyperlinked to its respective amazon.com page (as RB would say, other sites are available).
Monday, February 16, 2009
25 Random Things About Me
1. My profession notwithstanding, dressing up is entirely antithetical to my sartorial nature. I would wear jeans and a t-shirt every day if I could.
2. I am addicted to Tetris. My best 40-line sprint time is 0:49.273. Seriously.
3. I write pop songs, and I like them.
4. I hate spending money. I have little money to spend. This works out well.
5. If I could, I would eat Tejas Trios for every meal, and wash them down with Mexican martinis...yes, even for breakfast.
6. If you're reading this, I probably miss you more than I'd admit.
7. There are no words to express how much I love learning.
8. I never knew my biological father, but my dad is one of the greatest people I've ever known.
9. Though I have loved living everywhere I've moved (especially Austin), Seattle and Bellingham will always be home to me.
10. I am a cat person, and have only had three throughout my life: Figaro and Charlie at my parents', and M'ow. I will discuss neither the Cleo fiasco nor the lifelong toll it has had on my psyche in the present note.
11. I am addicted to my computer and the internet, and have been a Macophile since 2001. I've owned an iBook, a PowerBook, an iPod, an iPod nano, and an iPhone. I will never go back.
12. I need time alone. Like, a lot of time.
13. I've owned two cars in my life: my 1994 Ford Aspire (Coche/Ass-Pyre) and my 2001 Honda Accord (Coche Dos).
14. I've voted for either one or two winning presidential candidates (depending on who you think won in 2000).
15. I love reading aloud.
16. Vodka in the summer, scotch in the winter. Who am I kidding? Anytime, anyplace, whatever you're up for.
17. I am horrible about appreciating things while I'm living them. Thus, I'm sure, the persistent streak of nostalgia running through my life.
18. I had my left ear pierced throughout high school.
19. After getting off the school bus in elementary school, I used to run--arms extended--down our cul-de-sac in the hopes that I would take off like Superman. I will not disclose whether this ever worked.
20. I've had four surgeries, and would like to hold there for a while, please.
21. I cannot draw to save my life.
22. I am absolutely, without question a night owl. Post-midnight is prime time for artistic productivity.
23. After concerts, I go home...and study.
24. I love classical music, but almost never listen to it for pleasure.
25. I love traveling, but I love home more (i.e., I was born a house cat by the sleight of my mother's hand).
2. I am addicted to Tetris. My best 40-line sprint time is 0:49.273. Seriously.
3. I write pop songs, and I like them.
4. I hate spending money. I have little money to spend. This works out well.
5. If I could, I would eat Tejas Trios for every meal, and wash them down with Mexican martinis...yes, even for breakfast.
6. If you're reading this, I probably miss you more than I'd admit.
7. There are no words to express how much I love learning.
8. I never knew my biological father, but my dad is one of the greatest people I've ever known.
9. Though I have loved living everywhere I've moved (especially Austin), Seattle and Bellingham will always be home to me.
10. I am a cat person, and have only had three throughout my life: Figaro and Charlie at my parents', and M'ow. I will discuss neither the Cleo fiasco nor the lifelong toll it has had on my psyche in the present note.
11. I am addicted to my computer and the internet, and have been a Macophile since 2001. I've owned an iBook, a PowerBook, an iPod, an iPod nano, and an iPhone. I will never go back.
12. I need time alone. Like, a lot of time.
13. I've owned two cars in my life: my 1994 Ford Aspire (Coche/Ass-Pyre) and my 2001 Honda Accord (Coche Dos).
14. I've voted for either one or two winning presidential candidates (depending on who you think won in 2000).
15. I love reading aloud.
16. Vodka in the summer, scotch in the winter. Who am I kidding? Anytime, anyplace, whatever you're up for.
17. I am horrible about appreciating things while I'm living them. Thus, I'm sure, the persistent streak of nostalgia running through my life.
18. I had my left ear pierced throughout high school.
19. After getting off the school bus in elementary school, I used to run--arms extended--down our cul-de-sac in the hopes that I would take off like Superman. I will not disclose whether this ever worked.
20. I've had four surgeries, and would like to hold there for a while, please.
21. I cannot draw to save my life.
22. I am absolutely, without question a night owl. Post-midnight is prime time for artistic productivity.
23. After concerts, I go home...and study.
24. I love classical music, but almost never listen to it for pleasure.
25. I love traveling, but I love home more (i.e., I was born a house cat by the sleight of my mother's hand).
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