Author Archives: Autumn

New Music

So, orchestra last night, and we got new music (a necessity, since we handed back all the old stuff after that smashing concert). We’re doing the Peer Gynt suite, Haydn’s Military symphony, and Beethoven’s Prometheus overture. Not bad – at least, nothing I looked at and went “eep!” at tenor clef or evil sixteenth note passages by an idealistic pianist. (Okay, the Mendelssohn might have gone well at the concert, but that doesn’t mean I’m not bitter about the months of failure before that.)

My old stand partner and I were the only two cellists there last night, which meant that (a) we occupied the first and second chairs, and (b) we got to be stand partners again, which I’ve really missed. It was slightly harrowing, because we were sight-reading things we’d never seen before, but we pulled it off really well, expect for one place in the Haydn where we had a three-bar compressed rest whose numeral looked like an eight.

All in all, a spectacular night, and we were pretty damn proud of ourselves. Two celli holding their own against twenty violins, a wind section and some violas. There were places where we were supposed to play divisi, too, which is where half the celli play one part and the other half play the second part. With only two instruments, of course, that means one of you is carrying an entire line on your own. We pulled it off, and were heard. Go us.

And I wrote 2,693 words of the Great Canadian Novel yesterday afternoon when Ceri came over to work. I am wonderful. Yay me!

Now I must scurry to work through the – snow? Argh!

Family Visit, Virginia Woolf, Brief Miracles

We had glorious weather all weekend in Oakville until a wonderful thunderstorm during Sunday dinner (mmm, rack of lamb). I saw my grandmother from the west coast, old family friends, and all in all enjoyed a lovely trip. I wish we could have spent another day or so with my parents, but both my husband and I have to work today.

I managed to get a thousand words or so written on Saturday afternoon, too. I’d been dithering about a chapter in the Great Canadian Novel, unsure about how to handle the next step (or, rather, to choose what the next step should be from a pool of four different events). I plunged in and finished the chapter, and even started the next one.

And then, I crashed. Why, you ask? I picked up a secondhand hardcover copy of Michael Cunningham’s The Hours. When I read work like this, I wonder why I even bother. (Yes, yes, I know: different styles, all kinds to make a world, different tastes in readership, blah blah blah. I’m sharing. Be quiet.) I despair of ever becoming capable of painting word and thought, of arranging language to convey a depth of emotion with only a few words.

I’ve read scraps of Virginia Woolf’s journals, and she too uses sparse language, and yet conveys something so much larger than what the words say. Is that what genius is? Everything I read of mine seems mawkish and heavy-handed (though not as heavy-handed as some of the published stuff I’ve read, thank all the gods), no longer as airy and bright as it seemed when I set it down. I’ve ordered a copy of Woolf’s journal so I can read the whole thing, not to further depress myself, but to try to understand how it is that she manages to succeed at what she does, even in her own private notes.

When I moved I found a humour coloumn that I’d clipped from the English department newsletter during my BA. It’s an “Ask Your Author Agony Column”.

Dear Author:
Lately I’ve been feeling that my life has no meaning. What should I do?
Signed, Pondering the Meaning

There are several witty samples of what various authors might have responded (“Get your archetypes straightened out,” recommends Robertson Davies), but here’s Virginia Woolf’s imagined response:


Life is just a series of brief miracles. Stay away from water
and for heaven’s sakes get a room of your own.
– Virginia Woolf.

Life’s just a series of brief miracles. This comment was meant to be fun, but it says something important. Juxtaposing the words “just”, “brief” and “miracle” creates a tension that Woolf’s work displays as well. How can something be “just” a miracle? Is it a miracle because it’s brief? Shouldn’t miracles, by definition, be life-changing? Or is it our observation of the miracle and how we choose to be changed by it that defines it as brief or enduring? If they’re brief, is it the knowledge that life is made up of miracles that keeps us going?

More people should see the miracles around them, however brief. And more people should remember that life is a series of miracles; we just have to find them.

Wiktory!

My first ever seminar taught at CEGEP went terrifically well. I was blessed with forty attentive Champlain College students who made eye contact, smiled, and asked questions, some of whom even thanked me personally afterwards. I always forget how young CEGEP students are; they’re almost half my age (let’s not dwell on that for too long, shall we?).

The problem, of course, is trying to narrow down one’s sphere of knowledge to an hour and ten minutes of lecture. What do you leave in? What do you abandon? What concepts are important? How can you explain them simply enough that they will understand, but in enough detail that the depth of the concept isn’t lost? Do you have to present X other concepts first in order to make the final concept understandable?

I know I gave them a lot of information, but they all kept up with me. I mixed my personal experiences and choices in with technical stuff so that they’d have a balance of the two. All in all, I think I managed to prove to them that yes, there are still people out there who live their lives inspired by the same beliefs and principles held by the ancient Celts, which was the point of my guest lecture.

I’d love to do it again. Heck, I’d love to teach a full-semester course on alternative spirituality. I hope they enjoyed it as much as I did.

April 2003 Concert Review

I had an absolutely smashing concert last night, attended by friends whom I hadn’t known were going to be there. Apart from not being thrilled about half the selection of music, I enjoyed myself immensely. It was decided that rather than using the traditional concert seating, the viola section and the cello section should switch, putting the violas on the outside and the cello players between them and the wind players in the centre. I think it worked quite well, and I hope we stick with it.

I know I’ve complained about the Mendelssohn for months, but it came off beautifully. Pretty much everything did; there were no major or minor disasters, although the music was technically challenging. The pieces were mostly crowd-pleasers, and the audience certainly seemed pleased. I’m pleased to say that the only place I lost my focus was in the Brahms Hungarian Dances.

During a concert, I’m living in the moment to such an extent that it’s always a surprise when it’s over. Now I’m stuck humming the last piece on the program (Strauss, who’s not my favourite composer by a long shot, damn it all), defiantly pleased that I can pack away most of the music, sad to leave other pieces (such as the overture to Mozart’s Don Giovanni, which I have always adored; playing it in concert fulfilled one of my life-long dreams). It was an enjoyable evening, followed by coffee and doughnuts at our place and a darned good sleep.

I wonder what we’ll be playing next, for the Canada Day concert.

My private seminar on Friday night was lots of fun, too. Whenever I teach a basic class, I wonder if I’m just rehashing stuff they already know, but I’m always told that no, I’m filling in blanks and connecting dots for them and they’re terribly grateful for being shown the whole picture. I suppose I lose perspective a bit, having studied all this for eight years or so. Anyway, lots of fun, yummy food and wine, and we’ll definitely do it again. Also on the class-subject, some of my current Saturday morning students have asked me to put together a meditation class for them. I feel a fuzzy inside when things like this happen – you know, sort of, “You like me! You really like me! And you evidently think that I’m a good teacher!” I also appear to be inspiring students to create their own one-session workshops to share with other students, which flatters me beyond belief. I never, ever thought that I’d be An Example someday. Never. Now I feel like I have to live up to it, somehow. Okay, yes, evidently I believe that I’m a passable teacher, or I wouldn’t keep on doing it; but a compliment like this always surprises me, for some reason.

Grumblings About Store Reorganization

My posts have become infrequent because, well, there just hasn’t been much going on in my head, really. Most of my time is spent sleeping or reading or rearranging that last pile of boxes to look smaller, somehow. I appear to have developed a need for a mid-afternoon nap, which is slightly embarrassing although not surprising after three weeks of sick and insomnia and moving. I think my body has taken the bit between the teeth and is now setting its own sleep-rules, denying my conscious mind of any input. I can’t seem to focus on work for any long period of time, and I think I’m undergoing an enforced vacation imposed by psyche and physical body alike.

It’s kind of a relief, actually.

I went downtown today to HMV to pick up a couple of recordings to help me out as I practice for orchestra, because I’m getting really frustrated. When I got there, I spent time upstairs in the relaxing classical section, bought the required CDs (three for $20, I feel so smug) then went downstairs to the basement to cast a quick eye over the soundtracks.

They’ve moved everything around. Again.

It made me grumpy, although the terrible, awful, horrible music they were playing might have had something to do with that as well. Then, I thought I’d check on the new DVDs releases, since it’s been forever since I’ve been in HMV, but the massive DVD section had somehow shrunk to a measly two displays and that little room once devoted to film is now acid. I walked around it in disbelief – what, had they decided to stop selling DVDs or something? – and finally went back upstairs to the main level, where I discovered that they had moved the DVD section there, so unsuspecting clients walk right smack into the stuff (unless, of course, you avoid the main floor like the plague, as I do, and head right upstairs for jazz and classical.). I walked through it to get my bearings and saw way, way too many movies I wanted to own in among the 2-for-$30 stickers. I was trying to decide which two to whittle my vast list down to when I realised my folly and made my escape into the clear cold morning. If I trip across a couple of hundred dollars, I know where I’m going.

I’ll just have to bring a guide with me, because they no doubt will have hidden what I want from me between now and then.

New Article Published!

Urk. When I wasn’t looking, the Owlyblog’s counter passed 10K. How did that happen?

My commentary on Oscar-nominated Lilo & Stitch has been officially web-published, and is up over at the fps site! It’s a five-fold project that looks at all the films nominated for Best Animated Feature Film category this year, each film examined by a different writer in a different light. The project centres around how each Oscar-nominated film stands for something within the animation industry, as opposed to “reviewing” or commenting on “Oscar-worthiness”. It was a really interesting exercise, and I enjoyed it a lot. I thank all the gods out there that Emru responded to the cry of “Who edits the editor?”, so that errors could be corrected and things flowed better. I can fix other people’s writing, but I’m always too involved with my own abstracts and thesis statements to do a final polish on my own work, because I know what I was trying to say all along.

By the way, do you think spring’s finally catching up with the calendar? Winter’s only got another three days, after all.

On Convincing Oneself That One Really Is Worth It

Ever feel like you’re racing to catch up with everyone else’s opinion of you?

I do, all the time. Skippy got me thinking about it this morning. Some of it is, “Why do they like hanging around with me so much?”, and some of it is, “I can’t possibly charge that much for my time.”

My husband sat me down last night, took my hands, and said, “Darling, I want to tell you something, and you have to promise to listen. You’re an awesome, awesome person. Far more awesome than you believe yourself to be. You can perceive the awesome in others, so why can’t you perceive it in yourself?”

Well, it’s embarrassing. As kids, we were mostly taught that to accept a compliment was to be selfish. It’s more modest to demur, to protest politely. We were also schooled to believe that pride was a bad thing. So if you were good at something, you weren’t allowed to appreciate your skill, or to even really have fun at it in case you made other people feel bad.

Then, of course, there was the geek factor. If you enjoyed reading, liked to be alone, had any interest in music other than the mainstream, films other than action or comedy, or technology other than a phone and a vending machine, you were uncool, and you resorted to lurking and not calling attention to yourself.

What has all that socialisation produced? A generation of people who have difficulty understanding that they’re cool people. What, me deserve something? (Praise, money, social interest, whatever?) No, no. Please, stop. It’s not just that you’re embarrassing me, you’re actually making me uncomfortable and self-conscious because like so many others, I can’t truly understand why you think I’m so great.

Argh. Scores of us are out there. Scads. Bushels.

It’s probably all connected to how incredibly bad some of us are at selling ourselves. Almost everyone I know hates writing a cover letter for a CV, because it feels like exactly that: selling yourself.

A healthy dose of pride in the self is a good thing. Now, if I could just cultivate it…