This just in.
On March 28th I will be singing the song cycle, "Babinagar," with Princeton composer, Elliot Cole, played by the Curtis Institute of Music trio Jordan Dodson (guitar), Stanislav Chernyshev (clarinet) and Gabriel Cabezas (cello) at the Cornelia St. Café. As always, Cole's music is nothing short of heart-rending; you can preview his setting of Babinagar, based on an Afghan folktake, here.
6:00p
Thursday, March 28
The Cornelia Street Café
29 Cornelia St.
New York, NY 10014
reservations: 212-989-9319
Here's the listing.
Saturday, March 9, 2013
Monday, February 11, 2013
Slithering My Way Into the New York Times
I'm not sure if being counted as one among "Five other singers" who "supported the soloists" actually counts as a mention, but it's something! Check out Steve Smith's review in the New York Times of Sarah Kirkland Snider's new (and totally ravishing) song cycle, Unremembered, at the Ecstatic Music Festival this past weekend.
Sunday, February 3, 2013
Ecstatic Music Festival
This Wednesday I will be singing the music of Sarah Kirkland Snider at the Ecstatic Music Festival as part of a group that includes Shara Worden (of My Brightest Diamond) and Padma Newsome (of Clogs). How did I end up on this program? I'm starting a band called Diamond Clogs. (Just kidding.)
Sarah Kirkland Snider's music is stunningly beautiful, and the singers on this concert have some of the most enchanting voices I've ever heard. Think I'm laying it on a little thick? Listen to this.
Wednesday, February 6
Merkin Concert Hall
129 W. 67th St.
7:30p
Sarah Kirkland Snider's music is stunningly beautiful, and the singers on this concert have some of the most enchanting voices I've ever heard. Think I'm laying it on a little thick? Listen to this.
Wednesday, February 6
Merkin Concert Hall
129 W. 67th St.
7:30p
Monday, December 31, 2012
Majel Connery, Elliot Cole, Brad & Doug Balliett at The Stone this Saturday
In what promises to be the most packed concert of 2013, I will be singing with Elliot Cole and Brad & Doug Balliet at The Stone this coming Saturday, January 5, 2013. (2013?!?!?? I sometimes still accidentally write 2001 on my checks. Maybe this is because no one has used checks since 2001? I will get to the bottom of this.) The Stone, incidentally, is possibly the smallest new music venue in all of New York City, hence the packed.
We'll be singing a set of Elliot's Grimm's tales, as in, stories from the Brothers Grimm anthology. These songs are drop dead gorgeous. (Case in point, as my mother announced to me yesterday, Elliot Cole is now her favorite composer, and hers is possibly the most sought-after endorsement in new music today.)
The Stone (aka John Zorn's baby)
East Village,
corner of Ave 3/E. Houston
Saturday, January 5
8:00p
Friday, August 24, 2012
This might be the best thing you see all year
If I were responsible for making this video, I could die feeling that I'd accomplished everything I had ever wanted to.
Sunday, August 12, 2012
I worry that I'm losing my memory. When I say this, I don't for a minute imagine that I'm alone. I know that there are scores of people out there with the exact same fear, and the exact same shocking, mind-decomposing data to back it up. However, when I think of memory loss, I exclude from this pool people who forget where they parked the car, or forget where they put their glasses or their keys. This is a different problem. Key forgetters and car forgetters don't have memory problems, they just have something better going on. Manufacturing and storing a small memory about where the keys are can't compete with other, bigger thoughts. You're coming through the door, and you're throwing down the keys. You're not thinking "And here I place my keys on the upper left-hand corner of the bureau next to the footstool." You're thinking WHERE IS THE BATHROOM or FUDGE ICE CREAM NOW. And because bathrooms and fudge are so much more riveting than watching keys drop almost everyone has this problem. It's called obliviousness. It has to do with memory, sure, but it has more to do with not being present for something. You have to pay attention if you want to remember. Someone very important could be saying "Hi, I'm Cornelius" to you, but if you're thinking "OH MY GOD DID I PUT ON DEODORANT" are you going to remember Cornelius, or the deodorant?
My favorite story about obliviousness comes from my mother. My mother is an avid reader of the New Yorker magazine, and she frequently tells me I have to read a particular article. On this particular occasion, my mother was so excited to tell me about this article I had to read that she called me up on the phone. "Majel," she says, "you have got to read this article from this week's New Yorker." A lot of our phone conversations start this way. "Oh, yeah?" I say. "Who wrote it?" Now, bear in mind, my mother has just read this article. As in, she put down the article and the very next thing she did was to pick up the phone and call me. She thinks for a minute, and she says, "Well, I never remember the names... but you just have to look at it. It's hilarious." "Well," I say, "what's it called?" She pauses. You can tell she's thinking. But something isn't happening. "Um." she says. She thinks some more. "I don't know." "But Mom," I press, "you just read this article? What's the general premise? Like, what's it about?" She can't remember. Now, my mother would say she has memory problems. (And, in fact, I concur.) But in this particular case, something else is going on. Clearly, my mother was excited reading the article. Clearly, she read it cover to cover. Why can't she remember even what the article was about? She wasn't present for the article. She flew through it, but she forgot to think about it. If you're not thinking about something while you're doing it, you're not really owning it. Your brain skips over what it's doing like forgetting to hit the record button.
But the kind of memory problem I worry about is different. It has to do with information that isn't five minutes old, but information that is really old, that's been there for months, or years.
When I was younger, I remember feeling very acutely that I didn't have the vocabulary I needed to express myself the way I wanted to. In particular, I remember this because there was a guy I had a big, huge crush on, and this guy was an ace at telling you what was on his mind. I was the exact opposite. I would try to squeeze my brain to get the right words to come out, and nothing would come out. So, later in life, in college and after college, I became a word hoarder. I had words for everything, rare words, words in other languages, words that no one you knew had ever heard of. I used words like a cook uses condiments: a dash of Double Entendre, a drop of Irony. I could see Shy + Flirty + Biting Sarcasm working well here, or maybe I'll deploy Brash + Inappropriate + Hysterical...
Lately, though, sometimes I put the squeeze on the brain and I only get half a word, or the wrong word, or worst of all, not the word. When you think about how words get from the brain to your mouth, it's not a process you can really put your finger on. It's kind of like the old drive-thru way of getting money from a bank. You're you, and your brain is the bank. You pull up, you put your request in a container, shoot the container over to the small people behind the glass, and then they shoot it back to you. You put "Hey, uh, could you..." into your container. And then the container comes back and it says "DEBILITATING." And you're like, "Oh, yeah! Debilitating." Thanks, Brain! But when the process doesn't work, it's like pulling up to the bank at one o'clock in the morning when it's dark and no one is working. You keep trying to hit the button on the container, but it just stays there, empty. Not going anywhere. No words.
More and more I pull up at the bank only to discover it's one o'clock in the morning, and I am S.O.L. Maybe I'm tired. Maybe I got too much sun. Maybe I just watched two straight weeks of the Olympics. But how many times can you pull up to the bank in the middle of the night before you have to conclude you're losing your mind?
My favorite story about obliviousness comes from my mother. My mother is an avid reader of the New Yorker magazine, and she frequently tells me I have to read a particular article. On this particular occasion, my mother was so excited to tell me about this article I had to read that she called me up on the phone. "Majel," she says, "you have got to read this article from this week's New Yorker." A lot of our phone conversations start this way. "Oh, yeah?" I say. "Who wrote it?" Now, bear in mind, my mother has just read this article. As in, she put down the article and the very next thing she did was to pick up the phone and call me. She thinks for a minute, and she says, "Well, I never remember the names... but you just have to look at it. It's hilarious." "Well," I say, "what's it called?" She pauses. You can tell she's thinking. But something isn't happening. "Um." she says. She thinks some more. "I don't know." "But Mom," I press, "you just read this article? What's the general premise? Like, what's it about?" She can't remember. Now, my mother would say she has memory problems. (And, in fact, I concur.) But in this particular case, something else is going on. Clearly, my mother was excited reading the article. Clearly, she read it cover to cover. Why can't she remember even what the article was about? She wasn't present for the article. She flew through it, but she forgot to think about it. If you're not thinking about something while you're doing it, you're not really owning it. Your brain skips over what it's doing like forgetting to hit the record button.
But the kind of memory problem I worry about is different. It has to do with information that isn't five minutes old, but information that is really old, that's been there for months, or years.
When I was younger, I remember feeling very acutely that I didn't have the vocabulary I needed to express myself the way I wanted to. In particular, I remember this because there was a guy I had a big, huge crush on, and this guy was an ace at telling you what was on his mind. I was the exact opposite. I would try to squeeze my brain to get the right words to come out, and nothing would come out. So, later in life, in college and after college, I became a word hoarder. I had words for everything, rare words, words in other languages, words that no one you knew had ever heard of. I used words like a cook uses condiments: a dash of Double Entendre, a drop of Irony. I could see Shy + Flirty + Biting Sarcasm working well here, or maybe I'll deploy Brash + Inappropriate + Hysterical...
Lately, though, sometimes I put the squeeze on the brain and I only get half a word, or the wrong word, or worst of all, not the word. When you think about how words get from the brain to your mouth, it's not a process you can really put your finger on. It's kind of like the old drive-thru way of getting money from a bank. You're you, and your brain is the bank. You pull up, you put your request in a container, shoot the container over to the small people behind the glass, and then they shoot it back to you. You put "Hey, uh, could you..." into your container. And then the container comes back and it says "DEBILITATING." And you're like, "Oh, yeah! Debilitating." Thanks, Brain! But when the process doesn't work, it's like pulling up to the bank at one o'clock in the morning when it's dark and no one is working. You keep trying to hit the button on the container, but it just stays there, empty. Not going anywhere. No words.
More and more I pull up at the bank only to discover it's one o'clock in the morning, and I am S.O.L. Maybe I'm tired. Maybe I got too much sun. Maybe I just watched two straight weeks of the Olympics. But how many times can you pull up to the bank in the middle of the night before you have to conclude you're losing your mind?
Friday, April 20, 2012
What To Do with a Dissertation from the University of Chicago
I have spent ten years of my life writing a dissertation. Just to get the facts straight, a ten-year dissertation at the University of Chicago is nothing strange. A seven-year dissertation is rushed; a six-year dissertation is wrong. I'm told that in the History Department a certain professor does not allow his students even to contemplate graduation before year ten. All of this is to say that when I tell you I've been writing my dissertation for ten years, do not gasp because it's a hell of a long time to be working on a degree. Gasp because it occurs to you that spending ten years devoted to anything (finishing the basement, reseeding the lawn, or just filling an apartment with ten years' worth of newspapers) is life warping. The point is: ten years? Seriously? (And keep in mind that in this case, my life only includes three times ten years, and the first ten don't count because what does anyone really do before age ten?)
Let me tell you what I mean by life warping.
1. I am an ultra smarty pants. I punctuate my emails. I use many semi-colons and parentheticals. I save drafts of emails so I can edit them before sending. When I leave a voicemail, I listen to it, delete it, and rerecord it. Sometimes I rerecord a voicemail dozens of times. I was once on the phone for an entire hour leaving the perfect voicemail. I am the grammar police. Nothing escapes my gaze. I scowl at fortune cookie fortunes. I take pictures of misspelled signs even when I have no one to MMS them to. I interrupt my friends' stories to point out failed noun-verb agreement. I don't read "Eats, Shoots & Leaves" because I already know everything that is in it. Writing my dissertation, I have spent entire days inserting hyphens and then, after consideration, removing them.
2. I am a lazy buttnose. I don't have to go to work like you do. I have listened to midday NPR shows you've never even heard of. I have inordinate sleeping requirements. I sleep 8, 9, and sometimes 10 hours a night. Sitting around and writing is hard work, so I am often hungry. I go to the grocery store at least once a day. I am always out of gum. Why are there so many people in this aisle? I am part of the strange ambient crowd of people walking around in plain day in New York City. I am at Whole Foods at noon, at the dry cleaners at two o'clock, at yoga by four. How do I do it?
3. I am a pretentious A-hole. I throw around names you don't know. (And I don't just know Žižek, I've edited him.) I speak the names of foreign cities with an accent. The New Yorker is light reading, and the lack of footnotes is bad scholarship. I only watch films that predate 1965. When you say something I don't understand but I sense you are superior to me, I nod because I totally get what you're saying.
4. I am a doctor, and I am looking for a job.
Let me tell you what I mean by life warping.
1. I am an ultra smarty pants. I punctuate my emails. I use many semi-colons and parentheticals. I save drafts of emails so I can edit them before sending. When I leave a voicemail, I listen to it, delete it, and rerecord it. Sometimes I rerecord a voicemail dozens of times. I was once on the phone for an entire hour leaving the perfect voicemail. I am the grammar police. Nothing escapes my gaze. I scowl at fortune cookie fortunes. I take pictures of misspelled signs even when I have no one to MMS them to. I interrupt my friends' stories to point out failed noun-verb agreement. I don't read "Eats, Shoots & Leaves" because I already know everything that is in it. Writing my dissertation, I have spent entire days inserting hyphens and then, after consideration, removing them.
2. I am a lazy buttnose. I don't have to go to work like you do. I have listened to midday NPR shows you've never even heard of. I have inordinate sleeping requirements. I sleep 8, 9, and sometimes 10 hours a night. Sitting around and writing is hard work, so I am often hungry. I go to the grocery store at least once a day. I am always out of gum. Why are there so many people in this aisle? I am part of the strange ambient crowd of people walking around in plain day in New York City. I am at Whole Foods at noon, at the dry cleaners at two o'clock, at yoga by four. How do I do it?
3. I am a pretentious A-hole. I throw around names you don't know. (And I don't just know Žižek, I've edited him.) I speak the names of foreign cities with an accent. The New Yorker is light reading, and the lack of footnotes is bad scholarship. I only watch films that predate 1965. When you say something I don't understand but I sense you are superior to me, I nod because I totally get what you're saying.
4. I am a doctor, and I am looking for a job.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
