What I read on my summer vacation

I am rediscovering the pleasures of the essay.

It's nothing like the grievous drudgery students often feel at an English teacher's request for three pages on the use of symbolism in "Jude the Obscure" (which request, I confess, never seemed to bring me down as it did my classmates). Nor is it about Ralphie's sly ambition, hoping that a school writing assignment will fortify his case when asking for a particular Christmas present.

I'm talking about the simple joy of listening deeply to another person speak fully about something/one that matters to them, or about an event or place they've astutely observed, or about a question pressed hard against their heart/mind/spirit. (Listening as you are now, Gentle Reader. Thank you for your generosity.)

Anyway, as you know, there's joy to be found in making that quiet connection, in reflecting on what binds us, on our common experience, our shared pain, our human aspiration. I've laughed and cried with Anne Lamott often, and chuckled at the mordant Bill Bryson; however, I've always thought of myself as a fiction reader. One of those limiting labels, I guess.

I've serendipitously been nudged toward three particular literary features in the last couple of weeks, and each of them has moved me deeply. They're not just non-fiction; they're about what's true.

First, NPR correspondent Scott Simon's Twitter feed this last week, which comprised the last days of his mother's life. Simultaneously aching, gorgeous and tender, they're like grief haikus. For all its strengths and influence, I never thought of Twitter as a vehicle for beauty, until now. Read them; you'll see what I mean.

Secondly, my fiction-junkie side has been aware of Chris Bohjalian for years; I've enjoyed many of his novels, including (last month) The Sandcastle Girls, which takes place during the Armenian genocide in Syria in the early part of the 20th century. It was a great read, and it led me to look for more Bohjalian books...so I found Idyll Banter. It's a compendium of his columns for the Burlington Free Press between 1992 and 2004--observations of life in small-town Vermont. Part history, part social commentary, all of it his lens on his life and the lives of those nearest him. One of these pieces, "Losing the Library," was particularly touching to me. His small-town library was drowned by the overflowing New Haven River during a storm. In eight short pages, he packs town history, literary history, meteorology, and reporting...all tinged with grief at the loss of a beloved town resource and the hope that underlies its rebuilding:

By their very nature, libraries are generationally democratic. They cater to everyone. School and work or classes and clubs may separate us, segregating us by interest and age. But libraries remain one of the few places in this world that still bring us together...on the morning after the waters had drenched much of the library and the town gathered to try to save what remained, I saw dazed adults crying softly as they worked...not for the roads or the bridges that had been lost...but they did cry for their books...

Stories like this are generously augmented with lighter pieces such as "Dead Cluster Flies Serve As Window Insulation for the Inept" and "Surly Cow Displays No Remorse," in which he and his wife, driving on a country road near their house, are pinned down by a herd of cows. They try to chase them back toward their corral, and

a number of times I even explained that I was a vegetarian, but obviously these cows were female, and they knew they were in no danger of becoming Quarter Pounders.

His columns are condensed generosity, humor and honesty, fortified with interesting reporting and observation. Well worth a look!

Finally, and most auspiciously for me as I plan for a new choir season, I found Imperfect Harmony: Finding Happiness Singing with Others." Author Stacy Horn is a 20-year veteran soprano in the Choral Society of Grace Church, NYC. For the most part, each chapter is grounded in a major choral work; within that frame, she explores her life, the history of choral singing, the foibles of a community choir and its directors, her soprano psyche...

Jesus Christ. How am I supposed to count this? It's in seven. Is that even rhythmically allowed? 

...and the magic of finding such beauty and shared humanity in the simple act of opening your mouth and making a sound.

I actually read most of a chapter aloud to my wife, who grinned at Horn's horror-turned-to-wonder as her conductor switched her from soprano 1 (melody) to soprano 2 (harmony): after some disorientation and paddling around in the music,

I was feeling harmony. Not just singing it, but physically feeling it. It was a rush. You don't experience this when you're singing the melody. I was completely in the power of the sound we were making together and I just stood there, afraid to move, thinking, Don't end, don't end, don't end. And it took nothing. A couple of notes. A D against a B flat. That's it. Two notes and I went from a state of complete misery and lonesomeness to such an astonishing sense of communion it was like I'd never sung with the choir before.

If you've ever sung in a choir, read this book. You'll grin in lots of places, learn some things and generally enjoy the ride.  If you haven't, read this book. You'll be auditioning for choir by the weekend...and I have some openings! :-)

Ever wonder what all that arm-waving is about?

If so, this post from the New York Times and Alan Gilbert might be illuminating.

For me, the experience of conducting is simultaneously one of suspended animation, dance and deeply analytical, multi-layered thinking. At any given moment, I'm immersed in rhythm, pitch, motion, melody, harmony, textual interpretation, phrasing, articulation, vocal technique, conducting technique, classroom management, collaboration with singers and accompanist, learning styles, teaching styles, how to ask a question, how to phrase a directive, how to paint with my arms and hands, facial expression as teaching tool, where to inject a bit of humor and where to push harder.

It's deep engagement with people, a task, an experience, art.

It's about interpreting a composer's road map, fostering my singers' abilities and inspiring something fresh. It's about inviting and leading; offering and receiving; pointing and looking; diagnosing and demonstrating; understanding and explaining; wondering and deciding.

It's choreography, storytelling, question-asking and getting people to use their heads, hearts, instruments and pencils.

It's play, prayer, proclamation, lament, exultation...in short, a deeply internal yet total out-of-body experience. Sound mysterious? It's shared alchemy that can turn black dots on a page into an experience of the sublime.

I'll let Robin Williams close, with a line from Dead Poets Society:

“We didn’t just read poetry, we let it drip from our tongues like honey. Spirits soared, women swooned, and gods were created, gentlemen. Not a bad way to spend an evening, eh?”

Community as a condition of the heart

I was talking tonight with my church choir about community. We started with a reading from the writings of Henri Nouwen, in which he spoke of community as sometimes a good thing (eating together, supporting one another, sharing a laugh) and sometimes not (having to subscribe exactly to a particular point of view, or naively glossing over genuine conflict to preserve the status quo). I'm paraphrasing here, but what struck me was his starting point that community is a "condition of the heart."

I spoke of the conflict so deeply embedded in our national/global/insert-your-group-here culture...of how easy it is to find examples in which each side of a dispute is rock-solid sure that their point of view is the right one...and (here's the disturbing part) that the other side is not just wrong, but bad, and even out to get them.

There's just so much shouting everywhere.

As a person who lives to create harmony, I've found this increasingly distressing over the last decade or so. I'm deeply concerned that we're losing the capacity for rational disagreement: that so great is the need to be right that it just doesn't matter whom we demonize, whom we hurt, whom we shut out in the process.

I spoke of my relief at coming to church choir every week: we're there to train not just our voices, but our hearts as well. Singing in a choir requires humility, the ability to truly get yourself out of the way and listen, and generosity of spirit. You can't hear the group if you're trumpeting your own part so loudly that you drown it out. You won't like every piece of music that you're called to sing. Sometimes the crazy director will ask you to take a risk, or do do something that seems downright weird or silly...and singers faithfully, courageously, generously try.

Don't get me wrong; I'm not naive to the fact that sometimes, there is evil that needs to be addressed. There are p-l-e-n-t-y of times when it's necessary to speak truth to power. But I think we have to be very careful about our own motives; it's so easy to become righteous rather than loving. It happens when you're not looking.

Not listening.

Jesus asks us Christians to "love our neighbors as ourselves." Every major faith system has a tenet very much like this. I love being a church nerd because it's a place where we try to pay attention to one another...to dare to open ourselves up to a greater possibility than anything we can construct on our own.

It's risky. It's messy. And it's exactly the training our hearts need to cultivate the condition of community.

The world needs all of us to take this training seriously. And to do it joyfully!

I can haz konduktr funneh

moar funny pictures

Choristers as citizens

Thank you, CBS Sunday Morning, for this!



And, according to Chorus America, there are 10,000,000 more choral singers in the U.S. than there were in 2003.

Excellent trend!

Oh, and for more information, our local public radio station has a story.

Playing injured

So...it's May, 2007.

The choir brought to birth so patiently and lovingly by the efforts of a truly exceptional bunch of people is about to sing its first spring concert season (we're excited, because the Christmas season went well!). The Wednesday before our first concert, my phone rings. It's the wife of one of our two tenors, calling from his hospital room. He's just had an emergency appendectomy. He's doing well, but you can guess where my head went next. Our concert is three days away, and this guy represents exactly half of one voice part.

Can you believe, he SANG the concert, plus the three that followed? Medal of Valor to him.

Fast forward. In the next three times around the track, our group of 12-14 people has had the following maladies occur within a week of the first concert of the season:

• broken ankle
• broken wrist (on the alto with a recorder solo)
• virus resulting in complete laryngitis

Not to mention another member's discovery (and subsequent treatment) of cancer.

All of them--ALL of them--rallied. They did everything possible to sing/play the concerts; barstools, casts, pain meds, slings (and don't even get me started about the accompanying "arrows of outrageous fortune!"). And the rest of the group comes through for them by learning extra voice parts so that we have coverage.

There is much joking about the InVocation Curse, and we've been considering a traveling trophy (and maybe a supplemental insurance policy of some kind!).

I wonder how Chanticleer and Cantus manage this; they're our size or smaller, and divide into at least as many voice parts as we do. (Perhaps I'll e-mail and ask them! If any of you choral types out there have wisdom to share, please do so!) Not to mention the million smaller groups out there.

Anyway, we had two concerts last weekend. We finish this season with one more tonight and one tomorrow night, along with a church service beforehand. And now what, you ask?

Yesterday, one tenor had a fever of 101; another got HIT BY A CAR. (He's OK, but left part of his face on the street, and is referring to himself as the Phantom of the Opera.) Both are planning to sing.

As a director and fellow singer, I'm grateful to these amazing people for their willingness to tough it out. And I hope it's clear to them that I'm aware that it costs them something to do so. And I hope that they take good care of themselves, and don't push beyond what's healthy for them. And I wonder where the line is, and how to care for both "the needs of the many and the needs of the one," especially an injured one.

And I ask you, is it too much to ask that this good-hearted group of people get ONE concert season in which no one gets sick or hurt? This is not a full-contact sport; usually, pads and helmets are not required choral equipment. And there aren't that many of us--statistically and karmically, I think we've got one healthy season coming.

Right? Seriously?

I do so love my peeps, and wish them well--on SO many levels. :-)

To err is human

If you've ever directed or sung in a choir, you're familiar with the difficulties associated with certain consonants. For example, a little bit of "S" goes a very long way. An "L" can smudge into the vowels that precede or follow it, distorting both vowel and pitch. And, what has become my personal favorite, the dreaded "R." It has a way of overstaying its welcome, adding a saber-like edge to certain words.

It is a tradition in my choir to celebrate International Talk Like a Pirate Day on September 19. In rehearsal, we sing whatever anthem we're preparing for the following Sunday as if we were pirates. The first time we did this, it was "If Ye Love Me," a Renaissance motet by Thomas Tallis. You'll have to use your imagination a bit here, but mentally stick a bunch of "arrrrs" in this:



High (seas) hilarity ensued. It has become something of a running joke with us. Last night, I was presented with a gift by my tenors and basses:



Thanks, me hearties. I'll nae be sendin' ye to Davy Jones' locker. Salmagundi and grog's on me!

Yer cap'n,
Anne Bonny

Christmas meme

I found this at my friend Ruth's place today. Fa-la, ho ho ho.

1. Wrapping paper or gift bags?
Wrapping paper! In my gift-giving glory days, I worked for a Hallmark store. Now, if I can get paper all the way around the gift, and a bow slapped on it, I'm pretty happy. To date, I have achieved exactly ZERO shopping for this particular Christmas. Sigh.

2. Real tree or Artificial?
Real. Frasier Fir, if possible. Need the smell. Like the short needles!

3. When do you put up the tree?
Whenever we can find a couple of unfilled hours in mid-December. Last Sunday afternoon, this time around...though, if circumstances would permit, I'd do it the old-fashioned way, putting up the tree on Christmas Eve and taking it down on the 12th day of Christmas. Oh, well.

4. When do you take the tree down?
Whenever we can find a couple of unfilled hours in mid-January...and the gumption, since this is much less fun than putting it up!

5. Do you like eggnog?
In a paraphrase of the old Alka-Seltzer commercial: "I like eggnog, but it doesn't like me!"

6. Favorite gift received as a child?
Hmmm...I'd have to go with boxed sets of the "Little House" books and five Judy Blume books, whose covers were read right off.

Embarassingly, I have a picture of me at 12-years-old-or-so, looking rather enraptured over Shaun Cassidy's first album. :-)

7. Hardest person to buy for?
My sister

8. Easiest person to buy for?
Beloved, hands down

9. Do you have a nativity scene?
Beloved collects interesting "folk art" sorts of nativity scenes; we have them from Finland, Colombia, the Maasai tribe, lots of places!

BTW...they are NOT anything like this.

10. Mail or email Christmas cards?
Mail, but not 'til Epiphany...it's one of Beloved's favorite projects to write and illustrate a newsy account of our year. She's great at it; they're funny and warm...much more interesting than we actually are!

11. Worst Christmas gift you ever received?
Two words: stretch pants.

12. Favorite Christmas Movie?
We have a tradition at our house...Beloved & I watch the following together (usually all in a row) every Christmas week:

• A Charlie Brown Christmas
  
• How the Grinch Stole Christmas
• A Christmas Story (this goes back decades in Beloved's family)

That'd be a three-way tie for me: I love the neuroses and music of "Charlie Brown," and the last scene where they're all "loo loo loo-ing" together (Beloved & I sent a photo card one year of the two of us doing that); love the "You're a Mean One, Mr. Grinch" song, and like to root for his little dog; "A Christmas Story" is the single best repository of great cultural-reference lines since "The Princess Bride," and makes me laugh every time.



This scene, BTW, may be the reason I wanted to name my dog Linus; it's the most consistently meaningful cultural Christmas experience of my life:




13. When do you start shopping for Christmas?
Spotty. No good answer.

14. Have you ever recycled a Christmas present?
Yep.

15. Favorite thing to eat at Christmas?
Homemade lefse and pepparkakor.

16. Lights on the tree?
White, please. Red wooden beads. Ornaments in mostly red and clear-varnished wood, with the exception of Beloved's penguins and my Snoopys.

17. Favorite Christmas song?
Situational.

• Best CD Anne Sofie von Otter, Home for Christmas. FANTASTIC. Her version of "Dancing Day" alone is worth the purchase price.
  
• Classical Britten's Ceremony of Carols
  
  
  

• Congregation Silent Night, done simply and in candlelight. This year, we're having a harp accompany us.
  
• Radio Amy Grant's "Tennessee Christmas" or Michael W. Smith's "All Is Well"
  
  
  
  
• Choir "Before the Marvel of this Night" or the Schulz-Widmar version of "Midnight Clear," both found in the Augsburg Choirbook:
  
  

I especially like this verse, which is so relevant this year:

Yet with the woes of sin and strife
the world has suffered long;
beneath the heavenly hymn have rolled
two thousand years of wrong;
and warring humankind hears not
the love-song which they bring;
oh, hush your noise and cease your strife,
and hear the angels sing.

18. Travel at Christmas or stay home?
It's the most churchiful time of the year (save Holy Week), so we're in town on Christmas Eve (traditional dinner with friends between services), and usually my sister's place on Christmas Day. Big family thing over New Year's weekend, for which we travel.

19. Can you name all of Santa's reindeer?
Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Vixen, Comet, Cupid, Donner, Blitzen, Rudolph (the most famous reindeer of alllllll)

20. Angel on the tree top or a star?
Rodney the Reindeer

21. Open presents Christmas Eve or morning?
Whenever we're together is OK with me.

22. Most annoying thing about this time of the year?
Vacuous parties, the fact that the retail season now starts in September/October, and electronic trees/snowmen/santas/ reindeer/penguins/night-of-the-living-ceramic-carolers beeping out carols.

23. Favorite ornament theme or color?
Red!

24. Favorite for Christmas dinner?
Swedish meatballs, mashed potatoes, green been casserole (with crispy French onions), lefse, a pretty tossed salad with pomegranates, sweet potatoes, pumpkin pie with real whipped cream. Mmm.

25. What do you want for Christmas this year?

• A light that shines through these rather dark times.
• Peace on earth.
• Safe travel for everyone.
• Time to sit down and just BE with Beloved and the pups.
• Practically speaking, more memory for the computer...so we can install the operating system upgrade...so that I can use my new orange iPod.

26. What do you like most about Christmas?

Hope, goodwill, and great choral music!

Relief on the reef

It'll be a short one tonight, but I wanted to offer an update about my Twisted Wrister. Beloved had surgery today to repair her spectacularly broken wrist, and it went well. It was a really l-o-n-g day, but we've made it to the point of "OK, let the healing begin!"

That healing has been helped along by the prayers, good wishes, and practical support of many, especially B and M, who have made a tough week easier with their many kindnesses. Family is a good thing, in all its forms.
Thank you to all of you.

On a brighter note, despite the practical challenges of Beloved's injury, she was an absolute trooper through our final two concerts of the season. In a 14-person choir, it's a big deal when one can't sing, and so she propped herself up on a stool and toughed it out. One of our basses was also on a stool, about 5 weeks ahead of her in healing his broken ankle.

We looked kind of funny.

I talked with the audience at a couple of points in the program, to shed some light on the more challenging music. I was joking about the Britten pieces we were singing, which aren't performed often because of the technical difficulties for the singers: "Obviously, we're a bit worse for wear. This is full-contact choral singing, people! Put your helmets on!" (cue audience laughter here)

It was a great experience. The choir really came into its own with these last two concerts, after two years of work and four concert seasons. And we raised enough money in these two concerts to feed forty kids for a year through our charity partner. And this is the second concert weekend of two. Time well spent. And we got some invitations for future concerts, as well.

And let's not forget Pentecost worship, which was stuffed with music. My church choir sang their hearts out. Perhaps the most obvious evidence of the Holy Spirit's presence: during the closing hymn, my dear, wonderful, straight-white-middle-aged-Lutheran choir danced.

Together.

Spontaneously.

It was my favorite moment of a full-to-bursting-with-wonders weekend.

With these happenings, another singing/conducting season draws to a close. I'm grateful to have arrived, more-or-less in one piece, at the fallow season. I expect that to last about two weeks before I miss it desperately. :-)

Peace, friends, and thank you for your kindness.