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Apple Picking

for my sins.... despite the fact that I am not Jewish.

I have just completed my third High Ho @ Hebrew Tabernacle located at 185th and Fort Washington...Dr. Ruth's Temple. She was there, I couldn't see her though because I was sitting in a room about 10 ft wide by 12 feet long, phoning in the Kedusha's via mic while clad in my usual High Ho wardrobe of jeans, a sweatshirt and studiously engrossed in the current issue of BITCH magazine in between the Kadosh Ata's and Baruch Schem's.....

Today was Yom Kippur, the day that makes me question why I do this once a year. I started singing at 9:30 AM, finished at 7:27. Yes, I kept track of the time, as I have the past three years. Jesus Christ....I have about three working brain cells and they're all screaming at me in harmonic minor... NO MORE!!!!!

I'll tell you this: High Holidays are a big deal in the Jewish church, so big that they sell tickets to them....and I guess I should count myself lucky to make some ridiculously easy cash for the time being. Decreasing attendance numbers in the temple year after year, and it's only a matter of time before they cut the choir.

In fact this year I was running late for Rosh Hashana, and as I sprinted toward the door, I was greeted by the president of the congregation holding the door for what I assumed was a late soprano. When I entered the choir crawl space and took my seat next to my mic, I was informed that there weren't enough people in the congregation for a Torah Service.... we needed a minyan (apparently 11 Jews)... which is kind of funny when one thinks of the phrase Satan and his minions...really just 11 Jews and a Satan they don't believe in...

And I'm spent......

Rock and Sand


Quick Post... I feel inclined to depart some Melly wisdom on you. Those of you who know me and love me for who I am have come to terms with my intensity for details, and organization. I've recently come across an application that's kinda awesome, so I thought I'd do a post on it. Sign up for TaDa List. Seriously.

Date it, label it, whatever. This ap helps you keep a running list of things that need to be accomplished and crossed off throughout the day. You can edit it, and e-mail yourself, or someone else the list. You can also subscribe to changes on the list in an RSS feeder, this is ideal if you're a project coordinator.

I've been keeping two lists, one for general things that I need to do and one for things that I need to do for my day job. I then take that list and break those items down based on 'sand' and 'rock' Rock is an task that can only be accomplished with a set amount of time and concentration, Sand is a task that I can chip away at while the phone is ringing off the hook, and I'm gchatting with my sister. I've learned recently that the key to getting things accomplished and staying focused is toggling back and forth between a rock task and a sand task. You're always accomplishing something, and alternating between more concentrated tasks keeps me alert. At the end of the day, I change the date, and re-email myself the list.

Writing a blog post was something on my list of things to do today...filed under 'sand'. Check.

Heading upstate today with George Steel's Vox Ensemble to perform the Tallis Spem in Allium and the Ligeti Lux Aeterna, both amazing pieces of choral lit. Joining us on the program will be the Albany Symphony and ICE, including Mafoo to open the new Experimental Media and Performing Arts Center at RPI. Apparently the hall is suspended or something...


I'm just psyched to perform these two pieces. I've performed the Tallis before, and for those of you that don't know it, or have never experienced it live, it's a 40 part motet. 8 choirs of SATBB, and is traditionally performed in the round for maximum effect. It's chock full of your typical Tudor show stopper moments, imitation and false relations (which make me hot all over)... how does one write 40 independent lines of counterpoint?? God, I don't know... but he does it, simply and slowly, beginning choir by choir sometimes with two voices in duet, moving from choir to choir and then back around, some antiphonal stuff from side to side, and then finally at measure 40 (and I'll talk about the numbers cuz I'm really nerdy like that) ALL 40 voices enter, and it's HOT.

Finally, the Ligeti. Damn. My first experience with this piece. 16 lines, again one on a part, which is near impossible with the staggered phrasing.... I'm quite skeptical of sacred text settings done by contemporary composers, mainly because the text stress and rhetoric are often lost for the sake of extended technique and all that jazz. Not knowing much about Ligeti, this sort of pointillistic approach to the text was jarring at first, but he contrasts the shorter sections with sustained suspended chords that keep the overall textual ideas moving. The piece is essentially a canon, with each of the parts moving with a different microbeat, 6,5,4,3, a soundsplash of chromaticism interspersed with real sexy consonants. The result is that someone always makes it to the end first, and has to wait for the others to catch up. That moment of moving from the dissonance to the sonority of the unison pitch gets me every time. It's truly amazing stuff.

You may have noticed that I haven't been posting lately. This is for two reasons:
1. I've been insanely busy with shows.
2. I've been insanely neurotic about my writing...

Fuck that. From a review of my 8/18 - 8/23 run of the Newspeak Non Sequitur show at the Flea:

It should come as no surprise the most transportive piece was that of composer David First's adaptation of Ansel Berrigan's dark and lyrical " Let Us Sample Protection Together." David First, one of Philadelphia's founding father's of experimental ambient sound, elevates Mellissa Hughes' vocal to hallucinogenic heights. "...Protection Together" felt like the longest single performance of the evening, but may have been surpassed in length by the cheerfully disjointed closing piece, "What Remains". If there can be any complaint, it is that Hughes' Sarah Brightman-esque vocals favored operatic stylings in favor of elocution; we could not always understand Berrigan's words, which is a shame since they convey perfectly the ambivalence of the outsider artist struggling to survive:
I won't belong to this scripted conversation/Though I might play along.

I HATE Sarah Brightman....tremendously. This is HILARIOUS. I think by operatic stylings they mean I used a little bit of vib above the staff, like once or twice to get through a phrase. I don't vib if a composer specifally says not to, because the human voice is actually capable of doing both... however, la voce was really really really tired, and it's just easier up there to let her rip when I start feeling tight. But interesting because so many people commented on how they could understand every word, even when the range was extended...hmmm.

My theory: my purple dress and sparkle leggings and Aqua-Net sprayed CURE hairstyle brought this to mind?

Tonight's the last chance to catch "NYC's new music supergroup" SIGNAL performing You Are Variations and Music for 18 of Steve Reich @ LPR, my home away from home this past week. Last night was pretty magical, despite how long the set change took. There was one guy heckling about a sound issue before we began, and I admit he was really getting to me, but he was quiet once we started, and was actually one of the first up on his feet as soon as it was over. I've never performed a one hour piece of that intensity before, combine that level of concentration with literally hundreds of people standing or sitting on the floor, completely surrounding the ensemble, it was pretty freaking awesome. The music itself is not so much difficult, it's just really taxing (there are three movements where I sing the same pitch for five minutes each, not hard, just EXHAUSTING) and, even scarier, it can unravel at the slightest waver in concentration. I worked my ass off on that piece. I can't remember the last time I was left speechless after a performance, just emotionally, physically, mentally spent, and in desperate need of a beer, well several of them. I grabbed the one pic I could find on the web this morning for ya. So Percussion lays down a mean groove, and groove we do. My friend commented that it was the best performance of 18 he had seen yet, and that Europeans need to hear this type of Reich as their performances tend to be highly accurate but square. Plus, when you're playing with 18 (technically 20) of your bad ass friends, it's hard not to groove your ass off. My God, this group needs to tour!!

Tix are $25, I know, I know... And there are 27 of us playing You Are, so no comps, but come on, it's Music for 18, how often do you get to see that live?? Steve Reich will be in attendance this evening, so come on out!!!

click blog title if video doesn't show up in RSS Feeder

the new buzz word is seminal people....

If only feminism had realized 40 years ago that the struggle for equality would have over if we wore skirts and bred like stock pigs.

Elroy Riggs, esteemed op-ed writer for the Central Kentucky News Journal has unlocked the mystery of the rising divorce rate.... The Pillsbury Doughboy.

He harkens to a time when good little wifey's rose early to make homemade biscuits for their husbands.... now the saddest sound in the world is the pop-pop-pop of the perforated can as "apathetic" women allow a plump doughboy to fulfill their wifely duties.

It is time, women of America, to come to your senses. Halt the alarming increase in the divorce rate. Bring the homemade biscuit back to your breakfast table. We can all work together. You make 'em, we'll eat 'em. What could be more fair? I must insist on taking a hard line on this matter.

Fair? What could be more fair?? Hmmm.. how about Elroy making breakfast more frequently than Mother's Day? That might be the inklings of the utter beginnings of fair. He then goes on to list several cookbooks he's found that seem to have decent authentic biscuit recipes, and exclaims how inexpensive and relatively easy and quick they would be to assemble.... Only 12 minutes to bake!!

Who has 12 minutes to bake biscuits every morning? Maybe on Christmas morning, or your birthday if biscuits are your kind of thing, but every morning? Perhaps Elroy should try making them himself, and experience first hand the joys of cooking with yeast, which can be real finicky. My guess, Elroy's wife (assuming he has one) has some very good reasons for not rising early to make the biscuits...

Growing up, the toaster was my best friend at breakfast time, and my sis and I packed our own lunches as soon as we were old enough (around 9 I think). This was mainly to give my Mom a break because my father to this day *can't* fix anything for himself, so my she rises early and makes him breakfast, packs his lunch (usually leftovers in tupperware) and makes dinner when she gets home from work. I'll say that again, when SHE gets home from work.

When I'm home, I cook dinner to make things run smoother for everyone, and because I LOVE cooking in Mom's kitchen, (my vagina is agreeing with me as I type) but I would have clubbed my father over the head with a griddle a decade ago, and he knows it. He is one of many men out there who are still mystified by the kitchen. Elroy, I'm guessing, like my folks, is of the mindset that women keep the home, even if a large number of those women are also working...It's just soooo outdated, even if it is somewhat cutesy.

You make 'em, we'll eat 'em Mr. Riggs???? Dude, you want 'em, you make 'em!! Honestly, what could be more fair than that?

A Podcast with Jacob Cooper, composer of TimberBrit is up at New Amsterdam. Jacob gives a great explanation as to some of the troubles young composers have today in writing Opera, or Popera, or Indie Operas...whatever you wanna call it.

Below is an excerpt from Jacob Cooper's TimberBrit, recorded at the Tank in May of 2008, with the help of Ted Hearne, David Skidmore, Trevor Guereckis, James Moore and JJ Lind. Come check out a staged performance of it August 16th as part of the East River Music Project, in which I'll also be performing in Matt Marks' The Little Death.... that nihilistic post-Christian pop musical I'm always talking about. Very exciting times indeed....


Every time I talk about TimberBrit I feel an explanation is needed. What you are listening/viewing are time stretched samples from pop songs that have been re-orchestrated for rock band and superimposed with highly tragic lyrics. Stupid-titles, as I've always lovingly called them, are in this case very helpful!! A beautiful show/TimberBrit's melodies are derived from the choruses of Brit's Hit me baby,one more time, and The Killer's Mr. Brightside. So follow that bouncing ball everyone!!

inspiring, huh?????

Radio personality Michael Savage stated this week that Autism is 'a fraud, a racket. ... I'll tell you what autism is. In 99 percent of the cases, it's a brat who hasn't been told to cut the act out. That's what autism is. What do you mean they scream and they're silent? They don't have a father around to tell them, 'Don't act like a moron. You'll get nowhere in life. Stop acting like a putz. Straighten up. Act like a man. Don't sit there crying and screaming, idiot.' "

I'd like to see Michael Savage transport a five year old autistic boy on the F train on Friday evening during rush hour, and see who's screaming and crying like an idiot.... my guess, and from personal experience, it would be him. Asshole.

Full scoop here, and thanks to Gurf for the link.

While I was at Yale I participated in a project entitled El Salto, or The Leap. My co-collaborators and I chose pieces of music and literature which, when stripped from their original purposes and placed next to other forms of media resulted in a new experience for the listener.

For me, as a student of the Institute of Sacred Music, I was in constant contact with music, art, and writing which I found to be both beautiful and challenging, but I was not a firm believer in the Christian faith. I found as much aesthetic value in a Nick Drake song as I did with an aria from Bach's St. John Passion. Finally, we were working on a non-churchy non-preachy venue for experiencing 'new' music in a completely new context.

Robin McClellan, fellow composer and collaborator has uploaded a video on El Salto. The video is not of the highest quality, but he gives a great explanation into the motivation behind this idea. We're hoping to start it up again in the city, now that we've all left the ivy-league nest. I'll be sure to keep you posted. (And the singing you hear is me, including a segment of my loop pedal performance of Bjork's Desiring Constellation- which I STILL don't have a decent recording of!!! And be sure to check out Robin's El-Salto song at the end, inspired by Gaelic congretational Psalm singing.)

Psssstt..... someone remind McCain that he voted AGAINST requiring insurance providers to cover birth control costs. You can see he's kind of scratching his head there...didn't I vote on that, wait,did I even attend that vote?.....Errrr

I'm a loyal subscriber to Jezebel, and in particular to Tracie Egan, or Slut Machine, her Jezebel pen name.... I first stumbled upon Tracie's writing for VICE magazine last year, in which she convinced them to fund her rape fantasy. I had some serious issues with the whole concept, first as a rape victim, secondly as one who is concerned with the fucking LACK of prosecution in rape cases, third, as someone against blurring the lines of legitimate rape, the whole concept of gray rape, remember that?? and finally as a feminist who's interested in the psychology of sexuality. Despite the raciness of the post, I was hooked on her writing both on her personal blog and on Jezebel, on her ability to describe crusty yeast infections, on her willingness to share and in fact over-share so much of both the excitement and ho-hum-ness of women's daily lives. She wrote the way I wanted to write, blah blah blah.

Jezebel has been a bit disappointing recently. It's not just a women's site for news... and I can't in good conscious call it feminist, although within the celeb tabloid gossip they tackle the same issues that the more hardcore sites like Feministing, the Feministe, and the F Word do...they just have a lighter, more comical, and sometimes completely destructively insensitive response.

Such is the case in the following video from Lizz Winstead's show Thinking and Drinking, in which Tracie and Moe were invited to speak. They both showed up drunk, despite the fact that lots of women had paid to hear them talk about issues that they knew would be on the table... they ended up making total asses of themselves...




Ridiculous generalizations about the type of men who are rapists, the IQ's of the type of girls that get raped...it's pretty sad..it pissed off a lot of patrons, and showing up drunk for a talk is kind of disrespectful to your audience. I'm open for a lot of interpretation on various feminist issues, and non-consensual sex is definitely an issue that extends beyond feminism... callousness from the Jezzies is thoroughly disappointing. Can we all agree that rape is a problem, and not one to be taken so lightly? I'm all for humor, but insulting your readers and indulging in victim blaming is probably not the best way to keep them coming back to your site.

A truly thorough look into Pixar's films and the lack of heroines.... I suggest taking a look.

Despite the names Wall-E and Eva (the female protagonist) these two characters are predominantly genderless, and one has to question why Pixar decided to go with a male name, especially when Wall-E's character could be seen as the more stereotypically effeminate of the two, (watching musicals, dancing, yearning for a hand to hold) and Eve was a little trigger happy for the first 45 minutes... Perhaps it was an attempt at gender fluidity? or perhaps the time has still not come for a female protagonist cartoon, and not one starring a princess in a far away kingdom needing to be rescued by a handsome prince!

Despite that, I thought that Wall-E and Eva stood on completely equal footing. Wall-E, again the more effeminate character longed for companionship until Eva was sent from outer space to seek out "life" and return it to the Axiom ship, where grotesquely obese humans suck meals from slurpy cups and ride around on hovering lounge chairs while high paced media is superimposed over their natural surroundings.

I'm not going to comment on the consumerism angle, cuz everyone else already has, but for me, the Eve symbolism was pretty awesome. Eva (which is the Latin form for Eve, first woman) comes from some heavenly source, and is kind of a bad ass chick robot femme fatale on a mission. When that mission is completed, and "life" is found, it is placed inside her "womb" she falls silent, having fulfilled her reproductive duties... After Eva brings life back to the Axiom, a new plan is revealed, and the pinnacle moment of the movie, I thought, was when her programming ordered her to report to the Captain's deck with the plant and she deliberately said no. System Override. Free Will in action, baby!

Eva's physical form is actually pretty womby. Completely footless, she could easily be seen as a giant hovering egg, with pretty blue LED eyes. In the Greek myth Pandora, we know that the original translation for pythosis not a box, but a large olive jar used to store foods for the winter. 'Box' has the obvious genital slang, but a roomy, womby jar has quite a different sense of symbolism. When Pandora opened the jar/box, the evils of the world were let loose, only elpis, or hope remained. Or, from within the vagina only comes trouble for man, except hope (life) clinging to the jar the way a fertilized embryo clings to the uterine wall. It is in this sense that Eva is the bringer of hope to Wall-E.

It's not a perfect retelling of the classic first woman narrative: For one thing, Eva is not sent be Wall-E's helpmate, nor is she created from Wall-E's spare parts, AND she comes pre-named! I'm not sure if there's some fancy schmancy name for womb imagery, like yonic is for the vagina, but Wall-E was rife with roomy womby visuals, and I thought it kicked ass.

Two links:

One to make you mad, and one to make you sad..

My love-hate relationship with Starbucks just escalated to borderline destructive.... Yesterday morning I entered a Starbucks directly across the street from the South Tower at Columbus Circle. I was greeted by an employee with a headset who took my order, barked into her headset alla taco bell drive thru style, handed me my drink card and my coffee was ready for me by the time I approached the counter. Not bad. Brilliant in fact, 'well played' I thought to myself...

This morning, when I arrived for my coffee, the line was literally outside of the store, so I had to wait with the lady who asks for your spare change for the homeless. Now, I don't give spare change away to anyone, so when I ignored her, amongst her ramblings of statistics, she managed to get in a "Always concerned with yourselves..." to which point I looked at her, yanked my headphones out of my ears and asked, "Really?" because really, standing here in my Target flip flops, in desperate need of a legitimate haircut, amongst the Coach bag clutching mani-pedi robots, I was hardly the enemy.

So yes, when I finally entered the house of coffee, the headphone chick took my order, but didn't give me my drink card. I watched as a light went off in her little head as she counted (with fingers) how many people in that line just wanted regular coffee, and took off like a flash. A barista to save the day!! And here I thought, for like the MILLIONTH time, that Starbucks should really think about having a specific line for fru-fru drinks, and an express line for people who just want COFFEE. No "grande soy half caf cinnamon dolce latte, no whip, heated to 125 degrees- in a venti cup...." I have nothing but hatred for you bobbleheaded little androids!!

And after all of the line shenanigans, I still had to wait over in that side section as I watched the whole team of baristas with headsets maneuver like little worker bees, and there was something sooo disturbing about it.

Please indulge me: As I stood there, again wearing the Target flip flops, waiting for my oh so difficult to procure medium cup of black cofee, a woman approached the counter and ordered a "half caf soy latte"- the register attendee repeated back "half caf soy latte"-the woman in head set "half caf soy latte"-barista in back "half caf soy latte", who after making the half caf soy latte hands the beverage back to the headset woman who repeated "half caf soy latte", as she handed the beverage back to the register guy who then reiterates that her beverage is indeed a "half caf soy latte". I watched this exchange for five minutes this morning as I waited for my grande cup of black coffee, and you have no idea how tempting it was for me to just run behind the counter, grab a medium cup, pull the freaking nozzle and pour my fucking cup of coffee...It was dark... and way darker than this Pike's Roast blend shit they're ladling out like yesterdays oatmeal to orphans.

1. “Long Live the Pope”…. While I accept that being a musician means profiting from the church pockets, I choose not to participate in some parts of the mass, especially the Creed and the Prayers. The actual mass is fine with me as it’s through composed and real purty, and most of the time, in Anglican churches especially, the Hymns are really great, (and are really fun to analyze during sermons). However, yesterday I sang at a Roman Catholic Church and had to sing one verse of “Long Live the Pope”…(I spent the sermon creating my own verses- they involved birth control, abortion and Sodomy…)

2. The three burly cowboy hat wearing. TRUST JESUS pink triangle sign carrying protesters on the downtown 5 yesterday....


3. But THIS takes the cake. From Denton TX, Southern Baptist Biblical scholar Bruce Ware states “One reason that men abuse their wives is because women rebel against their husband's God-given authority. And husbands on their parts, because they're sinners, now respond to that threat to their authority either by being abusive, which is of course one of the ways men can respond when their authority is challenged--or, more commonly, to become passive, acquiescent, and simply not asserting the leadership they ought to as men in their homes and in churches”

WARNING LADIES: If you in any way try to assert your own opinion, you'll be asking for a beating!!!

God, If I were in that congregation on Sunday morning, (and my parents ARE Southern Baptist, so I do occasionally attend their flavor of Jesus) I would absolutely have stood up and made some spectacle of myself. This article comes one week after McCain casually makes a joke about "not beating his wife anymore.." And while Ware points out that beating women is a sin, he also stresses that it's women's aggressiveness and refusal to submit that actually merits this type of abuse.... It's the old "The woman made me do it!!!" excuse. Oddly fitting.

....a woman will demonstrate that she is in fact a Christian, that she has submitted to God's ways by affirming and embracing her God-designed identity as--for the most part, generally this is true--as wife and mother, rather than chafing against it, rather than bucking against it, rather than wanting to be a man, wanting to be in a man's position, wanting to teach and exercise authority over men," Ware said. "Rather than wanting that, she accepts and embraces who she is as woman, because she knows God and she knows his ways are right and good, so she is marked as a Christian by her submission to God and in that her acceptance of God's design for her as a woman.

WHY do women go to church????

That's Mizz Pac Man Bitches!!!

Today is the 2nd Annual Make Music New York Festival.... there will be 800 live, Free outdoor concerts today spread across the city and boroughs... More info can be found on the main website, but highlights definitely include Newspeak at 6:30 pm at the Cornelia Street Cafe. (Take anything to the W4 stop)

We begin the set with David T. Little's Sweet Light Crude, a grungy rock ballad about loving something you know you shouldn't, and move on to a new composition of New Amsterdam founder Sarah Snider, This Is What You're Like ,a sort of modern day Penelope, sung from the perspective of a wife who's husband has returned from war and all the adjustments that come with, and we close the set with Frederic Rzewski's Coming Together which you remember from our 'loud enough to make Rezewski move to the back' rendition from the Rzewski show in May. That piece is just intense, and that's all there is to it. It's gonna be a great show. Hope to see some of you there.

Newspeak at Cornelia Street Cafe- 6:30 pm
29 Cornelia St and W.4th, West Village

Sweet Light Crude- David Little
This is What You're Like- Sarah Snider
Coming Together Fredereic Rzewski

David Broome, keyboard
Caleb Burhans, violin
Mellissa Hughes, vocals
Taylor Levine, guitar
David T. Little, drums
Brian Snow, cello
Yuri Yamashita, aux. percussion
Eileen Mack, clarinets

I'm still alive, and still burning as this lovely card that my bestest friend Kendra mailed to me from Illinois reminds me. It's been a light blog month for me, as I was traveling, and I haven't really had much to say recently.... being alone will do that to you I guess. Matt, the horn jock, is staying in Canada for another two weeks, but Gurf is moving into Bill's room tomorrow, so there will be another soul this far south in the borough to convince me to leave my hobbit hole every once in a while and interact with civilization.

To update you, my blackberry trauma is over, temporarily. After telling T-Mobile that I would not be purchasing a THIRD blackberry in an 18 month time period I bought the crappiest, oldest SAMSUNG model they had in the store. This phone is soooooo old!! Like, it doesn't receive picture texts old, and good old-school T9 did not know the word BLOG, and when I tried to type WAL-greens the other day, the predictive text recommended Y2K.... yeah, Y2K!!! But the Google phone is a-coming, and the i phone is so cheap now, I can hold out for a little while longer, right?? I'm not gonna lie to you, I miss some of the features, like my camera, and BB messenger, and Google Maps, my God I relied on that... yet I don't miss looking at my phone every minute for texts and e-mails etc. When all is said and done, it's kind of amazing what we can live without when push comes to shove.

I've been working for Classical Music Archives like crazy, cataloging and updating their database. Classical Music Archives will hopefully, someday, be a cross between i tunes and Grove Music. Right now I'm trudging my way through all the Handel Operas. There's a lot of them. I've listened to more Fritz Wunderlich recently than any human being should ever be subjected to.

In real music news, this Saturday is Make Music New York!! The one day where musicians take over the streets and pollute the city with loud noise. Newspeak plays outside the Cornelia Street Cafe at 6:30pm. On the program is Rzewski's Coming Together, Little's Sweet Light Crude, and a new piece of Sarah Snider's- This is What You're Like. Come on out! it's free, and I'm sure there will be lots of kids (like mine!) and balloons, and food and beer.... yes, beer.

Also, in between my cataloging and indulgent LOST re-viewing, I've made a muxtape. It's pretty chill summer music. I could listen to it all day, but it may not be your cup of tea. Give it a listen here. Wow, how's that for a recommendation? God, I sound so pathetic. Too much Fritzy will do that to you.

I left beautiful sunny and cool Cali yesterday morning, and arrived in the sticky humid pool that is NYC late last night. Oh my God!! this heat!!! the first thing I did after climbing the three floors to my apartment was to install the air conditioner.

So the Ojai Festival finished with a bang. Mad props to SIGNAL for a phenomenal opening concert Thursday night. 8 Lines and Daniel Variations went really well, despite some sound issues. So Percussion also offered up Nagoya Marimbas, and Four Organs, which, despite the legend stories of their premieres, I found really fascinating to listen to. The communication between the players was magical, and the M-Audio "organs" were awesome. As the patters got longer, the sample patches deteriorated, which was really cool. SIGNAL played with such intensity. Dare I say, the ladies of the string section played with the balls the Ojai Orchestra was lacking...I know, very unfeminist of me.

The thing about Reich's music is that it is insanely difficult, and highly dependent on the mixing, which is why Steve usually mans the sound board. People come expecting to hear the same quality they get at home on their CD's. That's NEVER gonna happen, especially at an outdoor concert. For me, the kick out of watching his music, and live music in general, is the excitement and anticipation of something being created right before my eyes, especially something so inhumanly difficult! I say this because one snarky blogger commented on how he would rather keep his CD of the Daniel Variations. To that I say, you don't come to a concert to hear great music, you come to see great music being performed, and with that comes all the good and the bad.

Sunday's afternoon concert began with Steve Reich performing Clapping Music with Russ Hartenberger from NEXUS followed by two Ligeti Etudes expertly played by Eric Huebner, and Ionization with NEXUS and So Percussion. Ionization is not a piece you get to see too often, it takes a tremendous ensemble in skill and number, so seeing rockstars perform a monumental piece like Ionization was really thrilling. But the highlight to Sunday's concerts was definitely Drumming, which Steve performed on also. I can't even describe how truly awesome this piece is live, especially with NEXUS, the original performers, and So Percussion. I will echo another bloggers comment that it was sort of like watching the baton of minimalism being passed down from father to son.

The final concert came together somewhat, but not with any help from the festival orchestra. I had hoped that they would have a better stylistic understanding of the Baroque stuff, but no. the performance of the Pergolesi was pretty stale, despite great performances from Dawn Upshaw, who sounds great, and mezzo Kate Lindsay.

The orchestra did not get it together for the Tehillim. The strings were a mess, and missed a repeat in the second movement, and the winds missed an entrance. The singers had to ask where the monitors were, the sound guys were sitting on them!! We pulled it off, but David himself had to work really hard to keep the orchestra together, and he was seldom able to give cues to the singers. Lucky for him we were really on top of things, and obviously the percussion was amazing.

Not quite sure what to say about the orchestra. Pretty puzzling. On the east coast, most of my colleagues literally give up their day jobs to play this rep. This sort of unpreparedness just wouldn't fly out here. Even more frustrating was the candid way that some of them joked about the difficulty of the piece, as in "the whole thing's in four, right??" Har-har. If it were me, and I were performing a new piece, I'd check it out before I played it, it's not like you can't buy a recording on i tunes for .99, right? Oy.


ps Dawn Upshaw definitely encouraged us to skip the after party to get In and Out Burgers instead! How cool is she?

Well, I landed in Burbank CA yesterday and had my one and only rehearsal for Tehillim at the Colburn School in downtown LA. First impressions: it's a little cooler here than I thought it would be, and not humid at all. (Don't forget I'm an east coast girl.) I haven't really had an authentic Californian meal, but I will say that the sushi I snacked on during my rehearsal was out of this world! and I just picked it up at a little deli.

Nexus kind of blows my mind. These guys have been playing Reich's music forever, in fact they're the ones that Steve wrote a chunk of music for. They're really chill, and totally on it. One of the guys told me this was somewhere near his 80th Tehillim or something. The set-up is a little different than I'm used to- the percussionists are sitting, but I guess when you've played it 80 times you don't exactly need to stand and deliver. They messed around with our placement too. Also, the voices and the organs are the only amplified instruments! I'm used to everyone being amplified, which makes sound checks a total nightmare! David Robertson said that when everything is amplified it just gets louder and louder and there's no dynamic variation, and while I totally agree with that, it's an outdoor concert, and the winds will already be fighting the outdoor heat, and then unamplified?? yikes!!

I will say one snarky thing: Tehillum is SIGNAL vocals with Nexus percussion augmented with two guys from So Percussion, plus the Ojai Festival Orchestra-a group of freelancers. I was kind of disappointed in the rehearsal last night. It seemed like a large number of the orchestra hadn't even cracked the score before the rehearsal- key signature changes completely not observed, repeats and da capo's totally missed... the strings in particular just never really dug in to the sound. So, we were subjected to this rinse and repeat rehearsal technique so they could kind of get it together. It was pretty frustrating, but luckily David gave the vocalists permission to mark. With the exception of the percussion and the vocals (which definitely brought the fire and brimstone to the rehearsal) it was the most passive playing of Reich's music I've ever observed- and btw- they were all MEN. (and how often are the vocalists the ones with their shit together???)

I know, I'm being kind of harsh, and this is a pick-up orchestra, and Tehillim is only one of ten pieces they will play, (also on this concert is Pergolesi) Contrary to the SIGNAL people, these guys don't eat sleep and breathe to play this rep... but still, stylistic nuances aside, I kinda hope they get down to business before Sunday's final concert.

Ok, I'm off to get "Bad Ass Coffee" and explore the beach, which is not even 100 yards away from my hotel. Tonight I'll be at the SIGNAL concert, (Four Organs, Drumming, Nagoya Marimbas and Daniel Variations) where my colleagues will crack this festival wide open!! (and we have girls in our band......)

You may remember a post that I did on Mother's Day weekend concerning the Iraqi daughter who was beaten and suffocated to death at the hands of her father in Basra. Her crime was speaking to a British soldier.

Her mother, who divorced the husband, and had her arm broken when she attempted to leave, was gunned down this morning as she exited a car. The women's rights groups she was helping was trying to smuggle her into Jordan.

Link

Previously on Mellysblog: Mother in Mourning

Link

If you've been wondering why the music posts have dwindled, it's because summer is approaching, and I'm slowing down a bit. However, next Tuesday I fly to California (for the first time!!) to sing the final concert at the Ojai Festival with SIGNAL. In Ojai SIGNAL will perform Steve Reich's Drumming, the Daniel Variations and Tehillim, a piece that makes my head swirl. I'm pretty sure that Steve himself is playing percussion in Drumming! Also on the program that evening is the Pergolesei Stabat Matter with Dawn Upshaw!

SIGNAL is a group that was founded after the June in Buffalo Festival last year. In short, we were kickass, and peeps liked us, so plans were set forth for us to keep playing together. This season SIGNAL will perform Reich's Music for 18, the You Are Variations, and music of David Lang and a tour with Helmet Lachenmaan.

California, Avacados, Beaches, Dawn Upshaw!! Anyone have a bikini that I can borrow next week??

Found on Brooklyn's Craigslist: Free Stuff


Wow

This weekend I found myself gawking at a $5 single bumper car ride at Coney Island. One ride, $5?? And then I remembered that $5 is nothing now. It'll be about the cost of one gallon of gas in the next three months. I realized that I was definitely entering a new point in my life......

That turn around point where you start to realize that changes in our economy have affected you? That happened to me sometime this month. Last week after my blackberry straight up broke, and all the insurance I've been paying on it for the past year is apparently a scam, the realization hit me: I was po' po' po', and after tallying that there was roughly $1200 owed me from gigs, it was time to put a plan into action.

The first thing I did, after cry, was make what I call a "stress list" where I just list out everything that is freaking me out, and then I tried to formulate a plan to make some progress on everything on that list. Sometimes just making that list helps me feel better.

Since I've made the decision NOT to work for corporate assholes full time, I've needed to cut back on frivolous spending, and instead of freaking out about it, I'm trying to make it an adventure. I've been pilfering great blogs like The Simple Dollar for great ways to save a little bit, and contrary to what you may think, even little tiny eentsy weentsy bits help:

1. Travel. Now that I'm not working in Manhattan everyday, a monthly pass isn't really necessary. There's plenty of days that I'm working from home. Buy a weekly unlimited pass for busy weeks, and have a $20 card for other times you aren't going to be in the city. And walk every once in a while.

2. Set a weekly budget for food, and leave yourself $20 bucks for frivolous spending, it's way easier to stick to a budget if you give yourself some money to play with and not feel guilty about.

3. Eat out once a week, but no more. I realized that I could feed myself for $30 a week, probably less if I didn't buy beer and ice cream, but I shop at the grocery store and look for deals.

4. Make one big meal a week and freeze portions of it for later. Last week I made Hamburger Stroganoff which fed two adults two big meals. (It would have lasted longer, but Matt had three helpings one night.)

5. See if there are things that you consume frequently that you could make yourself. Something I did recently was make my own oatmeal packets. I'm a sucker for brown sugar instant oatmeal. I bought a big tub of instant Oats, and a bag of brown sugar, and a package of smaller Ziploc baggies for less than $5. I made 48 dried servings of oatmeal. The ones you buy at the store are usually 8 servings for around 4 bucks. Obviously this was a smart move. (and you can keep a few on you while you're gigging. It's a quick snack, and there's usually hot water bubblers everywhere you go.)

6. Pay your bills weekly. Sometimes it's hard to find $80 for your phone bill if it happens to fall on the same week as your student loan payment. I found that if I stuck to my budget, I could find a spare 15 or 20 bucks each week that I could pay my phone bill with.

7. Buy produce. Way cheap, and healthy for you, especially if you're supplementing your diet with Ramen. I made myself a staple diet last summer of hummus, pita, cheese and grapes; a peach or a banana for a snack, and a bowl of cereal in the morning. Pasta with sauce that I doctored up with spices and broccoli and REAL parm cheese.

8. Make friends with beans. Also way cheap, and can be eaten as a salad, or fried up with tortillas and a little meat for kickass buritos. Protein extravaganza!!

9. Commerce bank - if you're like me you probably have change piles in various bags and jars. One Saturday afternoon Jack and I counted change that I had in one jar, and it was over $24. If you're close to a Commerce bank, you can take it in, guess how much is in there and win a prize, and they give you cold hard cash, without taking a cut. $24 buys a lot of groceries if you're careful.

10. Cut your coffee with cheaper coffee. Okay, I love, love LOVE my coffee, and I'm an unashamed snob about it. Last week I was running low on my Starbucks Sumatra whatever, and cut it with Cafe Bustella (which I call Cafe Busted, cuz it tastes like shit). It was the best coffee I've made yet. So, a $9 bag of grounds with a $5 can of whatever you can find, mix and you should have two weeks worth of blended coffee. Not too shabby.

And finally, this is something that I've been meaning to do: Start a garden. As much as I want to, I'm not sure I have the right skills yet. My ultimate dream would be tomatoes, basil, rosemary, peppers and cilantro growing right in my kitchen, but not yet. Tonight, I'm attending a Community Garden meeting in my neighborhood! Hopefully, I'll pay a set price, labor a few hours a week in the garden, and have a crate of seasonal produce delivered to my apartment each week. I'm really excited about this, especially the ability to teach Jack about community and labor. God, could I sound any crunchier???

Hey America, PBS just took a big shit on you.... and you liked it!!!


Musical Masturbation in its lowest form.

No lengthy diatribe here.... Video of sexist media coverage of Hillary's "campaign" and by that I mean her wardrobe, demeanor, looks, laugh, and body.


I'm not a fan of Hillary, I'm not a fan of some of the below the belt tactics she has used to garner attention from the media, but I will say that sexism is sexism, and it's a disservice to the progress of women to NOT say anything. I know that sexism sells, that it generates millions of web and you tube hits. Phrases like Take out the Garbage and Iron my Shirt are classic examples of sensationalism, but it's still wrong. You're either a part of the problem or a part of the solution. All I have is my voice, you know, as shrill as it may be.

Stuff that White Feminists Like

I've been reading a fabulous book (for nearly a year, have a bad habit of book jumping) called The Alphabet Verses the Goddess: Conflict Between Word and Image by Leonard Shlain. It's a fabulously scientific and anthropological telling of the journey of language, and how that journey was crucial into setting into place the patriarchal society women fight against.

I found the chapter about Hunters and Gatherers absolutely mind blowing. My upbringing was sheltered. I grew up in a small town in New Hampshire and attended a small private born again Christian school until my junior year of high school. I learned to laugh at the theory of evolution at the age of four, singing proudly, "I'm no kin to the monkey no no no, etc" I also never read mythology until my Freud class at Yale. The lack of that literature under my belt made my post modernist class almost impossible, but I fell in love with T.S.Eliot's Waste Land and The Love Song for Alfred J Prufrock anyways.


So, you all may know this biology stuff, but the connection that Shlain draws between the evolving of our bodies and the connection to the development of language is fascinating! I'll give a brief summary of the Hunter/Gatherers evolution. Humans first developed the opposable thumb, allowing us to manipulate objects. No longer forced to paw things, our sense of smell atrophied, but our sense of sight strengthened. Our eyes needed to calculate the strength of the nearest vine, the distance to the tree we wished to swing to, and the speed of the wind, and our brains grew to accommodate that.

It was around this time that there was a great climate shift, and the tree canopy thinned to the point where we climbed out of trees, and eventually developed the heel. This enabled us to stand up. Our legs were strong and stable, and our hands were free to throw, and kill prey. It was probably around this time that meat became a staple in our diets, and more meat meant more iron, which meant an EVEN BIGGER BRAIN.

But bigger brains meant a bigger head, which meant a smaller infant body to facilitate the journey out of the birth canal. This meant the woman's role changed drastically. She needed to stay with her young until they surpassed the point of vulnerability. Over time our bodies became hairless, and needed to be covered to maintain warmth, and both Mommy and baby needed sustenance. Mommies needed to bathe, feed, swaddle and carry their young. The stay at home Mom was born.

For the first time, a woman was not able to take care of herself after childbirth. Her body needed time to heal, and while nursing she needed more food. Hunters (men) began dragging their kills home to their families instead of eating where the meat fell.

Our whole concept of marriage has its origins rooted in meat. When human females experienced estrus, or heat, they ovulated, and the male species would mate with them. This is still evident in mammals today. When a kill is made, a circle of females will approach it. The females want the meat, but the male species seek out the females in heat for sex. Meat for Sex.

Female animals are able to replenish their iron supplies by licking themselves when they bleed (kind of nast, but interesting). The changes in the female hominid body meant that she needed iron all the time. And hence marriage was born-You bring home the bacon, and I'll cook it up real nice for ya!! Female hominids were now able to make themselves available for sex 365 days a year-if they wanted.

Interesting, huh? Just a guess, but the "natural" connection that advertisers feel between meat and women may have started here. When I was a veggie I was a little more sensitive to that type of advertising, but I've always found the meat eating as masculine and therefore better stereotype kind of interesting. "He's a total beefcake!" "You need to beef up your portfolio if you want to make the best impression." And then the reciprocal, vegging out, total couch potato, etc.

Back to language. Hand gestures only worked in the daytime and around fire, but our bodies continued to evolve. We needed a way to communicate and still accomplish the manual tasks of gathering, and nurturing. So our tongues muscles evolved to became limber and our vocal chords developed. Being able to signal to others vocally, and eventually impart culture to our young orally, a predominantly female activity, began.

There was a great amount of time when oral tradition or storytelling was not only our only form of communication, but an absolute art form. The rest of the book traces the demise of the female goddess with the invention of the written word. Think I'm crazy? Nearly every culture has multiple creation stories that began as oral tradition, and centuries later were written out, (by males, fuckers!) and then changed. Even Christianity and Judaism have the myth of Lilith, who wasn't penned out of the creation story until the 16th century! It's a fascinating read, and I highly recommend it to anyone who studies linguistics or anthropology.

WOOOOOOOO-HOOOOOOOO Two more victories today for woman's rights....

Less than a year after her appointment to Bush's Family Planning Office, Susan Orr, who I referred to as the Princess of Darkness, stepped down yesterday.

A controversial appointee from the beginning, Orr penned an article in 2000 titled "Real Women Stay Married", and worked against providing access to information and contraceptives to low income families stating "fertility is not a disease."

Orr's largest task while working under Bush was working to enforce the global gag rule of Title X, which restricts government money from aiding PP Clinics and other centers that provide abortions, info and contraception to families in need.
And in OTHER news, LAURA SESSIONS STEPP took leave of her space at the Washington Post today. You may recognize her name from her book, "Unhooked:How Young Women Pursue Sex, Delay Love, and Lose at Both", or perhaps from the arguments surrounding the concept of "Gray Rape," a term she coined to help label those less than clear moments in which sex may have been consensual, you were just too drugged out of your mind to remember consenting to it, right?? Yeah, I'm not a fan of her ......"work".....

She also stated that women don't like bars, we only think we do, and that we should reacquaint ourselves with the kitchen and make some baked goods, because MEN LOVE baked goods. AND she believes that women can use up their orgasms...poof, one day, NO MORE. And finally, when scientific research showed that 30% of erectile dysfunction sufferers are under age 30, she blamed *agressive* young women, (in truth she'd call them slutty, I'd call them sexually enlightened.)

She pretty much just makes me angry EVERY TIME she opens her mouth. So long ladies!! As my Mom used to say, "Don't let the door hit ya where the Good Lord split ya!"

In 1969 Al Adamson, (I Spit On Your Corpse, Psycho A-Go-Go,Satan's Sadist's) made an exploitation film about "women's lib", and GOD DAMN IT, it's pretty sweet....I LOVE this stuff. Every scare film I've come across has been chock full of swank soundtrack, fab hair and wardrobe choices, and sterotypical quotes you'd imagine cross stitched in Phyllis Schlafly's bathroom.

"Independent women...turning womens lib into a menacing reality......"
and check out the hair!!!



(Also, this was filmed 1969, at the Spahn Ranch in LA, at the same time the Manson family was living, and killing there. )

For more check out TEENAGE MOTHER!!! If you dare!!!!!

I've watched it three times now....


4 minutes in, winning question "Bottomline: Do you now believe that women can in fact provide men with combat leadership....."

DUDE. DOES. NOT. ANSWER. QUESTION. AT. ALL.

He quips out a knee-jerk "absolutely", but then quickly says something quite different. I was left thinking that Webb is riding on the coattails of the progression that military has made, albeit slow and somewhat reluctant, though he himself was not a part of it. ..... my impression is that Webb 26 years ago, and even 11 years ago is just not capable of visualizing women in leadership roles.

And "getting into the Naval Academy is any horny woman's dream"?????

How could you NOT think that would come back to bite you in the ass?

The best/worst series for women, I'm undecided..... it DID make this product a household name.....


Our rabbits have come a long way baby......

More in reproductive news! In addition to the 24 week victory in the UK, the Virginia Court of Appeals overturned the 2003 Partial Birth Infanticide Act. Although the 2003 law never went into effect, the April 2007 Supreme Court ruling has "trumped" more restrictive laws in Virginia and Michigan. (Still waiting for someone to go apeshit over that's happening in Oklahoma.) In a sense, the victory is somewhat redundant, but it's a victory nonetheless.


A lot of media attention on second trimester and late term abortions lately. After reading an interview with MP Nadine Dorries you'd think that clinics were chock full of women, bellies bulging, but no. In reading up about second trimester abortion procedures, I learned that only 10 percent occur AFTER 12 weeks, and something like 1.46% after 20 weeks.

So, what's the big deal? A bill like this obviously wouldn't effect the majority of the population, right? Why is this significant? because, despite those numbers being small, and although the difference between 24 weeks and 20, or even 22 is slight, it's a very sneaky attempt to take control over womens bodies an inch at a time-but the predominating issue here is still control.

I also learned that the number one reason for second trimester abortions is when the woman's health is in jeopardy, and read horror stories about women who's spouses and partners turned violent later in the pregnancy. Unfortunately, stress in pregnancy sometimes manifests itself in physical violence. In 30% of domestic abusive relationships, the violence began during pregnancy. I also read one story of a woman who went ahead with an unplanned pregnancy, only to realize that her husband had been molesting her other two daughters. For some women, being forced to continue a pregnancy after an emotional ordeal like losing a spouse or another child is more trauma than they can bear.

The 24 week protest mainly focused on the lowering of the abortion week limit from 24 weeks to 20, but also on the bill was the requirement of a "father" figure for women wishing to undergo IVF. Single heterosexual women or lesbian families who WISH to bring a child into the world are being denied that right, while other women, who for their own reasons are not able to create a safe environment for a child are forced to. How is this NOT a case of government meddling with my body???

But hey, TWO HUGE victories in TWO DAYS. That's amazing.


VA story here, UK story here.

Things I am unashamed to admit:


1. I like George Michael and bad 80's pop.
2. I prefer Sawyer and Kate to Jack and Kate.
3. Patrick Dempsey is a beautiful man.
4. I like jam bands - Dave Matthews, Phish included.
5. Ben Folds with or without the 5 is good shit.

Below, fellow ukelelist(??) Julie Nunes plays Gone, and harmonizes with herself. It's fun, and cute, and she has a fantastic voice, and great charisma. Take a break and enjoy. She's one of You Tubes highest subscribed musicians.

Today is Wednesday, otherwise known as hump day. In my nabe, the only way to beat the hump day blahs is to head over to Carvel, where you can enjoy a 2 for 1 sundae or cone or Carvelanche.... the only catch is that they have to be two of the same items, so if one person in your party wants a crazy mondo Butterfinger Oreo cookie extravaganza, and your mouth is watering for a plain vanilla soft serve cake cone (which haps to be my fav) you're SOL.

What's ironic is that I never even really liked ice cream until I got pregnant.... and now I pretty much need it three times a week, or I start twitching. My preg fav was B&J's Phish food with Barbeque chips crushed up inside, yummers.

 Anywhoo, not only is today hump day it's also Bump day!!! If you're preggers get yourself down to a Baskin-Robbins and get your free cone!! (Not entirely sure if they are requiring an EPT stick, or sonogram copy, but hey, why not put that puke-on-demand talent to work!!)

MPs have just voted against reducing the abortion time limit to 20 weeks by 332 votes to 190. They have also rejected plans to include consideration for the supposed need for a father when allowing women access to IVF treatment.

update forthcoming

From the smarties at Drexel University comes this little post on sexual limitations the Church placed on marital relations. I guess we forget how lucky we are today that the Church will basically let you do ANYTHING as long as it's with your spouse.... hell, I've even come across websites that advocate the use of porn, and even pegging!!! in Christian marriages. (Please click that link, I promise, it will not disappoint.)

Here: an excerpt on punishments from our Holy Catholic church in the Middle Ages.... The numbers correspond to the length of time you were to abstain from any sexual impurity. I challenge you: think about your own sexual activity this week, self-induced or whatnot, and see what your score is.

Dorsal sex (woman on top): three years
Lateral, seated, standing: 40 days
Coitus retro — rear entry: 40 days
Mutual masturbation: 30 days
Inter-femural sex — ejaculation between the legs: 40 days
Coitus in terga — anal sex: three years (with an adult); two years (with a boy); seven years (habitual); 10 years (with a cleric)

Theologians were divided on the punishment for coitus interruptus, the withdrawal method that frustrated procreation, arguing for a penance of between two and 10 years, while semenem in ore (semen in the mouth) could attract anywhere from three to 15 years. Pierre de La Padule added that sex during menstruation, sex in churches and sex preceded by kissing and fondling were almost as bad as the previously mentioned positions. Masturbation was so common that it only incurred a 10-day penalty for men and 30 days for monks, but women who used “erotic devices” did penance for one year.

I stopped counting when I had surpassed the 10 year mark.... In a way you could view this as the Middle Ages Abstinence Movement, and hey, what do you know?? The human race is somehow still here....Abstinence doesn't work people.

Via The Smart Set

So, apparently, a year ago, I moved to the big city. A look back on some NYC firsts.

1. Ate my first Coney Island Nathan's Dog.
2. Black bagged a beer for the subway.
3. Bitched out a parent at a Park Slope playground.
4. Verbally disrespected a NYPD officer.
5. Fell asleep on the F Train and woke up at Stillwell Ave.
6. Had a dude rub up on me on a crowded subway.
7. Had my karma shaken when someone genuinely wished me a nice day.
8. Had my karma shaken when a man peeled off a layer of his skin and offered it to me.
9. Had a dude masturbate within feet of me on the F Train.
10. Got my freak on, also on the F Train.
11. Witnessed my first subway fight.
12. Forgot and subsequently remembered what clean air smelled like.
13. Saw a subway tunnel on fire, and no one seemed to care.
14. Signed a petition for increased F Train service.


And since I've moved here:

15. Have not been directly affected by the price of gas per gallon, or ridonculous car insurance prices, nor have I sat in a drivers seat.
16. Can not fall asleep without the sound of loud Mexican music and garbage trucks
17. While home in my homestate: Gave the stank eye to a man who looked me in the eye, and smiled!! What an asshole!
18. Could map out the Subway System on a napkin if provided with 8 crayons (Jack would definitely help out,too.)
19. Have been obsessed with integration of all things Google. Coincidence?
20. Have stopped attending church, even when paid (NY is a godless city.)
21. Was labelled a NY'er (or the enemy) at a Mom & Pop coffee shop in NH.
22. Have become somewhat less idealistic, and definitely more cynical.
23. Can locate the nearest Starbucks location within half a block. Likewise, where the cheap bars are.
24. Could give two shits about fashion, unless I spend the day in Manhattan.... and then I just want to kill myself.
25. Have had my share of career uppers and downers.
26. Figured out (kind of) how to collaborate with a significant other.
27. Have never battled more with depression, addictions, poverty.... and have never felt more confident that I'm living/doing just what I'm supposed to be living/doing.

"Little girls pledge their submission to the phallocentric ideals of Christianity by promising their pussies to Jesus. Bonus points on the swords!" Creepy Slideshow here

Oy, virginity and abstinence and purity - hot topics indeed. Purity Balls are the newest Christian Conservative form of cultivating moral aspects in young girls. In a nut shell, daughters get all dolled up, and attend a ball with their Daddies. Dancing and frivolities ensue, and then after a speech, the little girls "give" their virginities to their Daddies for safekeeping, and promise to remain pure. Some lucky little ladies are even given 'lock' pendants on a chain. Daddies hold the key, until the hand it off with the husband.... (And how does that transaction transpire?? "Ok son, here's the key to my daughter's hymen. Enjoy her! She's a real beauty. She kicks a bit in reverse, but just remember to rotate those tires and change her oil every 10,000 miles!")


Creepiness aside, doesn't this Daddy/Daughter thing just reinforce the uncomfortable rift between Daddy's and Daughters?? (I felt far more comfortable talking to my Mom about that stuff than my Dad, and I know I'm not alone there.) But my main beef with the abstinence campaign, besides the cold hard FACT that it just isn't working, is that the campaign fails to put the same responsibilities on young boys, and in this case the mothers. Where are the Mom's here? Are we trying to reinforce this women as fragile flowers idea? How does giving Mom an active role in the moral shaping of her own children hurt them? Well, it would certainly shake the submissive image of the dutiful wife that the Christian Conservative movement wants to breed and uphold! Choice quotes and snarky retorts below:

“Fathers, our daughters are waiting for us,” Mr. Wilson, 49, told the men. “They are desperately waiting for us in a culture that lures them into the murky waters of exploitation. They need to be rescued by you, their dad.”

Ah, yes, the rescuing. Women are weak, and in need of rescuing, by men. Not by themselves, heavens no! Let's not teach autonomy, or the strengths of making good choices for yourself, especially because we want to perpetuate Daddy issues:

“Something I need from dad is affirmation, being told I’m beautiful,” said Jordyn Wilson, 19, another daughter of Randy and Lisa. “If we don’t get it from home, we will go out to the culture and get it from them.”

Honey, if you need your Daddy to affirm your beauty, you're already buying into it. Get yourself a hand mirror, and go to town.

The dancing continued past the ball’s official end at midnight. Mr. Wilson had to tell people to go home. The fathers took their flushed and sometimes sleepy girls toward the exit. But one father took his two young daughters for a walk around the hotel’s dark, glassy lake.

Ummm, ew? Journalistic cliffhanger. But back to the moral double standard. Purity Balls for sons? Nope. And if you think I'm just jumping on my oh so comfy soap box, a quick Google Reader search for abstinence education brought up these hits:

"Your body is a wrapped lollipop. When you have sex with a man, he unwraps your lollipop and sucks on it. It may feel great at the time, but, unfortunately, when he’s done with you, all you have left for your next partner is a poorly wrapped, saliva-fouled sucker." Darren Washington at the 8th Abstinence Clearinghouse Conference.

Or this image:

"You are like a beautiful rose. Each time you engage in premarital sex, a precious petal is stripped away. Don't leave your future husband holding a bare stem. Abstain."



From the website- "Abstinence helps to ensure a more successful future, avoid STDs and to avoid possible life-long dependency on the welfare system." And here I thought it was the lack of well-paid jobs that make women poor--turns out it's just the absence of a hymen. (Does that mean if I get hymen restoration surgery that my income will magically increase? Sweet!)

This one could be my favorite:


The thought of a diamond in my vag makes me laugh. If I had known my hymen was a diamond I would have made a kick ass floating necklace years ago.

Joking aside, abstinence does NOTHING to promote self-worth in a young girl. It reinforces the idea that the only intrinsic value a girl has, lies hidden between her legs, and when that is gone they are nothing but a "useless stem", or a "saliva fouled sucker". Not only is it misogynist, but it oppresses sexuality. All that emphasis on virginity and purity being EVERYTHING is very hard to recover from if you "stumble" with your promise, or if you are the victim of a rape or incest.

And as the oppositional defiant child I was/am, I would like to state that while I have unpure thoughts, I have my fair share of purely sexual thoughts as well. Sometimes they involve Patrick Dempsey. JK.

Via NY Times

I read up a little more on Schafly this weekend at a B&N. In addition to her ERA opposition, she was vehemently against government funded/discounted child care centers for families because it was the woman's place to remain inside the home (Unless you were a welfare Mom, in which case you better get a job!!!) She also campaigned for some sort of stay at home Mommy tax break, in which women who remained at home, earned less than $500 a year, and took their husbands last names would receive a little kick back from the government. Ironically, she was a mother to six children, a lawyer and editor of her own monthly political magazine, political activist, and lecturer at anti-liberal rallies, and was able to "have it all" as we feminists like to say, only because her husband John Schlafly Jr, also an attorney, worked side by side with her.

I leave you with a few choice quotes:

Non-criminal sexual harassment on the job is not a problem for the virtuous woman except in the rarest of cases. United States Senate (1981). Sex Discrimination in the Workplace, 1981: Hearings Before the Committee on Labor and Human Resources, 400, GPO.

The atomic bomb is a marvelous gift that was given to our country by a wise God. Topics; Invocations; The Godly Nuke", The New York Times, 1982-07-09.

ERA means abortion funding, means homosexual privileges, means whatever else. A new version of the ERA", CNN.com, 1999-08-25.

And the first commandment of feminism is: I am woman; thou shalt not tolerate strange gods who assert that women have capabilities or often choose roles that are different from men's... Men should stop treating feminists like ladies, and instead treat them like the men they say they want to be.Feminists On The Warpath Get Their Man. Phyllis Schlafly Columns, 2005-02-16.

By getting married, the woman has consented to sex, and I don't think you can call it rape. Sun Journal, 2007-03-29.

Sex education classes are like in-home sales parties for abortions (Unsourced, but that one's a beauty.

In my hasty post this morning, I neglected to link to the Detroit power plant video that generated all the sweetie-ness.....Obama called the reporter within hours of the incident, and apologized, and the reporter admits that she's been called way worse. As you can see from the video, he's a busy man, being pulled in a million directions, but sometimes when we respond in moments where we have no time to think about what the appropriate response may be, it offers insight into those uninhibited parts of our brain.....Either way, it's been a great dialogue starter on something that a lot of men and women feel passionate about.

I knew the other day that I needed to post on the "Sweetie" issue because the use of simple everyday words that diminish and oppress women is something I'm quite passionate about. While I enjoy being called Sweetie by my grandfather, and other loved ones, I do not enjoy being called Sweetie, or Beautiful, or Honey by the guy making my sandwich at Subway, or the Metro North train conductor, or especially, an old school exec at Time Warner.

You can argue that words are words, and especially in the case of the old school Time Warner guy that the generational gap here is definitely in play. I might not be as upset if a waitress called me Sweetie when she dropped my check at my table, or the older guy at the corner store where I buy cigarettes and beer when it's been a rough night.

When a term of endearment is used to create an environment of familiarity when that intimacy isn't there, it's wrong. I don't mind my cigarette guy calling me Sweetie, because we talk about baseball, and the weather and my son whenever I stop in. I'm cool with it because I feel a sense of community with him, and similarly with the waitress at the diner down the street. I have definitely been that uppity woman who has said, I'm not your sweetie to random shopkeepers, because I'm not YOUR  sweetie. In that moment, that intimacy that is built up over time in a real relationship, or through familial bonds, or through gradual friendship is being forced.

It's also quite dismissive. It's a passive way of unruffling feathers when there's a crisis at hand, such as a mistake in an order, or when a cashier is talking on their cell phone instead of taking your order. To assume that to compliment a woman on her beauty or demeanor will keep her in a submissive state is foolish. I'd also like to point out that Sweetie and Honey are diminishing terms, they don't help edify ones of self, they attempt to stun it into a state of submission and that's bullshit.

While I won't deny that I've witnessed my male friends being called Sweetie at restaurants, I'd like to also point out that that instance occurs so rarely to them that it may in fact not register as something that over time, compounded with the daily weight of walking down sidewalks knowing that most males view you as merely a sex object, could get a little tiring. And remember, when men are labeled with temporary intimate labels they are called EDIFYING terms, like Champ, Chief, Big Guy, and Tough Guy....

I guarantee you, if that had been a male reporter, Obama would not have called her sweetie. He would have stopped to learn his name,  which I'm NOT saying he should have done or most likely, adressed the man with an unfamiliar label of respect, probably "sir".....and you have to agree that the difference between sweetie and sir is pretty extensive.

At the end of the day, being called Sweetie is not the biggest issue I will face as a feminist,  but just because there are bigger issues, and this particular one does not mean everything, does not mean that it does not mean anything.

Link

Rob Paranovian and I share a common hatred. Canon in D. He laments his cello playing days, and I reminisce of the time my brass quintet played a benefit at my undergrad. Melly clad in a slinky black slipdress, forgot to hike up the middle of said dress to create some slack for the weight of my tuba. Yes, my tuba..... didn't know that about Melly, did ya??

Anywhoo, halfway through Pachelbel, I felt a pop. It seems both straps of my dress had buckled under the weight of my tuba. And when we finished the concert of typically Baroque flashy numbers and stood for our bows, I clung to that tuba like it was a lifevest, as it was the only thing holding up my dress, and preventing me from exposing my titties to some very important Alumni.

(And the musicologist in me is reminding me that Pachelbel was an organist, hence the "boring" ground line, intended to be played by the foot.....)

Enjoy.....

The judge found that since Ross and Day had previously had a sexual relationship, Ross should have known her claims were "frivolous... there was no reasonable belief that a court would accept Plaintiff's claims..."

The nightmare of this case, for Melanie Ross and for all future rape victims in Georgia, is that she was forced to discuss in elaborate detail her sexual past, and then she had her claims dismissed in part because she wasn't a virgin. Moreover, not only did Ross lose her case, the judge fined her $150,000 for bringing it in the first place - a fee sure to dissuade other victims from coming forward with their own claims. This case is currently being appealed to the Supreme Court of Georgia, which can choose to hear it or not - let's hope they right this wrong before it hurts more victims.

So, if you intend to pursue a rape case in Georgia, prepare to have your sexual history paraded and scrutinized on the stand, despite the fact that it violates BOTH state and federal law.... And remember that if you have engaged in consensual sex at one point in your life, the state of Georgia, who I can only guess is taking their logic from the School of Phyllis Schlafly, will only see you as a ho.

Via Feministing