Today I learned a sure way to reverse even the foulest, blackest, grumpiest of bad moods: sing along with "Movin' Right Along."



Gungadun gungadun.

How DOES Kermit ride that bicycle??

Today I learned - well, I've been learning this for two weeks now, but today was another reminder - that I really don't like singing Bach. Or the St. John Passion, at any rate. I love playing Bach, but singing him seems to be a whole 'nother matter. It's the reverse of Mozart, who is great to sing but lousy to play. It's interesting that although alto and cello lines often share many characteristics, I can have such strong opinions on whose work I'd rather sing vs play - the same line has totally different fun-ness properties depending how it is produced.

Sometimes, however, the finger can really be pointed at the composer. Yes, I'm looking at you, Ralph Vaughan-Williams. Fantasia on Tallis AND God Bless The Master? Really? Really?

Thankfully, today I also learned to preserve the quality of my day through a Bach rehearsal by tying up my good mood in one of Jim Marvin's Santa Claus bags and throwing it into the balcony for safe keeping till 6:30.

Philharmonic drinking game

What could possibly make the Philharmonic's concerts in Central Park better? By adding a drinking game, of course!

Every time the audience claps inappropriately (ie, between movements), chug through the length of the applause.

One drink for every time Didi & Oscar Schaffer get a shout-out
...for every fundraising plug
...for every mic glitch

During the pieces, drink when a cell phone rings
...when a cell phone is answered
...when a baby cries
...when someone walks directly across your picnic blanket

In the music, drink whenever there's a false ending
...whenever you can hear the violas
...whenever there's a chromatic scale

If something is repeated three times in the music, drink. This rule actually can increase your appreciation of the music! Tonight's program was Mozart and Beethoven, and it was interesting to keep track of how they each used and manipulated sequences and expectations.

Bonus rule! Drink every time Grace does a prairie dog dance.

We have overcome.

I am not in DC for the inauguration. I am not in DC for the inauguration, because my ride left without me. My ride was with my parents. How's that for pathetic?

But I went to BAM's screening of the festivities and watched in a big happy crowd of semi-employed hipsters, complete with enthusiastic cheering at every mention of Bush leaving, and mass waving at the departing Marine helicopter. Buh bye!

Anyway, some thoughts about the inauguration. Predictably(?), they are almost all about the music.

• It's a little bit sad that John Williams is the closest thing we've got to a national composer.
• That being said, his Simple Gifts arrangement was 1) less annoying than Copland, and 2) significantly better than that of Aretha's song. Seriously, wtf was that? The hat made it okay, though.
• Hail to the Chief ain't got nothing on Domine Salvum Fac
• and relatedly, anyone else notice that inauguration is just Harvard commencement on steroids?
• OMG playing reed and brass instruments in 11 degree weather. Ow ow ow.
• The folk who own Yo Yo Ma's cello probably weren't too thrilled either...
• I have an entirely irrational love of Stars & Stripes Forever. I know, wtf right? But I hope that, somewhere, John Philip Sousa is happy that his tunes are still the default for anything patriotic and/or outdoors.

Joking aside, it's so rare that we have an opportunity to actually feel patriotism - and even rarer if you omit patriotic feelings inspired by by 1776 or an episode of West Wing. Today, when the CNN camera swooped past an old black woman holding a WE HAVE OVERCOME sign, I felt that shiver of glee that's usually reserved for fictional or historical politics.

Thank you, President Obama, for making it okay to like our country again.

Ate a violin

The xkcd blog yesterday featured a list of phrases with no google hits, like "aww, a baby hooker!" and "unlike normal furries." At the top of the list was "ate a violin." How could there be no google hits for violin-eating?!

I sorta feel... jipped? In a way. That radio play I wrote senior year, it featured a space monster that ate a violin. It was a decent little gag. But if only there were a proper description of the radio play on the Pops website (and perhaps then they'd remember to sell it at concerts?), then I could have ever so briefly gotten Randall Munroe's attention! Which would be like winning the internet.

Follow-up: Hello, strangers!

I have no pictures of our violin-eating monster, since it was radio, but here's our man-eating viola: