once upon a time

i was stuck in anton's apartment in stockholm in mid february without means to get out. now, fatefully it seems, i am sweltering in the midmorning early july heat in iván's paris studio waiting for my baggage. not the most thrilling or hilarious of exploits, but nevertheless i am falling under the spell of rushdie´s newest novel the enchantress of florence, reminding me simultaneously of 100 years of solitude and the moor´s last sigh. 

not to seem ignorant or judgmental but: i hesitate to succumb to any great writer's chef d'oeuvre because i prefer to be entranced by a book on its own merits, not by the reputation that precedes it. three cases in point: jonathan safran foer, everything is illuminated; milan kundera, the unbearable lightness of being; and dave eggers, a heartbreaking work of staggering genius. the first i read having heard magical, transformative things, so in a sense i had already set myself up for failure. i found the narrative convoluted and contrived at best, and so i followed up a few months later with his second novel extremely loud and incredibly close, which i treasured for its precociously naïve and hauntingly poignant narrator, oscar.

...not that you signed up for my rarely astute literary ramblings, margaret vignola, but when i have had my share of heady narrative for the morning and foggily reminisce of my erstwhile turn as children's book reviewer for Junior Editions, such is the result...

the second novel, by kundera, had received brilliant and reverent accolades from every source, it seemed. the story for me was neither revelatory nor charming. i later gave kundera multiple chances, finally loving laughable loves if only for its sentimental proximity to hanif kureishi's spellbinding collection of short stories, midnight all day.

dave eggers sits in a strange place with me. i had first heard meta, a beautiful, if slightly spacey, cellist from rice rave about it the summer i spent a few weeks in colorado springs. i was still in the thick of my southeast asian lit phase, scribbling book lists for anyone who cared, espousing my passions for kureishi, roy, kunzru, mistry, et alia. so, when i approached this tome by eggers i was disgusted to discover word vomit from an american writer with an overwrought sense of self. when diving into the purchase library's collection of african literature in english, however, my interest was piqued when i discovered that eggers had ghostwritten the gutwrenching and staggering memoir what is the what. 

my conclusion? just because you win a booker, or a pulitzer, or a great Times review, does not grant you license to follow up with crap literature. for me, i know i should stop with this negative slander and just buckle down and read joyce's odyssey, chased by the boris vian and italo calvino narratives that have thus far eluded me. 

to be continued from acanthes...

ahi, vita mia.

uncloistered's recording of monteverdi's "si ch'io vorrei morire"

i leave for france tomorrow (!). 2 weeks in acanthes. what will it be like? i can only speculate.

so, amants, my blogging will be anything but constant over the next month- 3 weeks in france, 1 week in istanbul, sans laptop or much in the way of spare change for internet cafes.

ghostlike

i am remiss.

after a brilliant show at miller theatre june 10, i sped away (with the generous help of the lovely önder cebeci, full of yummy turkish-style eggs and faux champagne) for home (b-more, ish). my mom and i jetted to albuquerque for a wedding - topaz and abby (sp?) and their pirate-clad crew had the ceremony at jeff's place (topaz's bro, not really my cousin, but family all the same)...the sunset was absolutely glorious, the ceremony perfect, the mood tangibly warm - and turkey legs to boot.

next day (can i get this chronology right? we'll see...) my mom and i drove in our sage-colored cruise control-equipped ford focus up the turquoise trail to santa fe, passing through madrid, where my uncle chris and cec once lived and ran a montessori school, and i bought a bracelet, though not the needlepoint style that i had so pined for in old town albuquerque. we stayed at the el rey inn on the outskirts of town.

we spent the next day prowling around bandelier (no fear of ladders, not me!) and afterwards spent a bit of time at ghost ranch. it's fascinating to muse about what georgia o'keefe saw in the landscape...eva got me started at sharon's beautiful home, where we feasted on curried tofu, white rice with coconut milk, bbq-ed salmon and green salad. i had some wine before i was convinced to play a little flute for the crowd, which included my aunt and uncle, cousin lukas, jeff, his two kids sydney and jace, cecelia and sharon herself.

we went up to taos (now the days are bleeding together for me...), were a bit miffed at the sheer touristy-ness of it all, quickly saw the museums we wanted to see and got ourselves post-haste to the pueblo, where i mostly tried not to direspect the space by talking too loudly or too fast, or by taking too many photos.

our last day we took the fast way back to abq and stopped at this wholesale jewelry place we'd heard about in santa fe. totally worth the stop - i scored a beautiful turquoise ring that is this milky green color that seduced me midway through our trip. after a last meal of green chile loveliness, mom dropped me by malli's house, a friend of topaz's that i met at the wedding, for an evening of rock band with people from the s.c.a. (society of creative anachronism).

i've been a few days in queens, crashing at jake's, and the smell of garlicky kale and israeli couscous is wafting through the house (housemates are cooking) and my left hand aches from erasing parts all day.

will i, oh will i, be able to move to new york?

seen but not quite heard

who: met orchestra, james levine (cond.), lang lang (solo)
what: stravinsky's petroushka and brahms' piano concerto no. 1 (d minor)
where: carnegie hall
when: thursday, may 21, 8 p.m.

sneaking in the back gives me the sensation of being a phantom, a nobody. we stood for the fist scene or so of petroushka, in the center back, behind the press section. the near-silence, neighbors quaking and gaping at extraneous sounds, heightened the already-present reverie (reverence, would you say?). it was as if i was seeing an old familiar cartoon in vibrant technicolor: suddenly folk tunes (trumpet, clarinet, melancholy english horn) sprang from the underlying texture...the brass truly outdid themselves tonight. this orchestra has an absolutely hypnotic way of executing a score. levine is masterful, without a doubt, but what is most magical is that the orchestra leads him. like most collaborative pieces with diaghilev and the ballet russe, there is a certain snicker and wink to the ending, as if stravinsky fell off that particular horse, an ADD, musically collaging folk hero onto his next quest mid-voyage.

after glimpsing the petites luxes of patron life (nuts! free wine! coffee! tea! and idle chatter with the other supremely rich!) during intermission, we assumed our spots in the back (i perched on a stool) for lang lang's performance of brahms' first piano concerto in d minor.

ok-yes, fair readers, i tend to gush with trite praise...lang lang's first movement - all ozawa-esque hair a-flying, big diving arms, stern pedal stopming - all seemed to me a bit superstar contrived. he's famous, brilliant, etc and not for nothing: he puts on a show. before the second movement, as i braced myself for a semi-slaughter, the orchestra took a collective breath and drifted into a dreamscape of bittersweet romance tinged with melancholy - as acknowledged in the program notes, brahms wrote the adagio for clara schumann; both were devestated following robert's suicide attempt, subsequent hospitalization and eventual death. he pined harmonically, waxing contrapuntally poetic, exploiting the enharmonic possibilities of leading tones - a certain method of seduction that would've had me hooked.

still, despite all of the gorgeous playing between soloist and orchestra, i wish that lang lang had tempered the sf accents more; witholding (clearly) takes infinetely more patience and control, akin to masking any possible tell in poker. the third and final movement, a rambunctious rondo, was clean and brilliant, yet somehow left me cold. great playing all around - the orchestra seemed to enjoy a good roll in the hay with symphonic repertoire...

and oh, those acoustics. the winds and brass were spot on, and the timpani magically aligned with lang lang at all the right moments.

brava, tutti.

ahoy!

ever since my days as a dj on wobc, i have engaged in a romance with radio. particularly poignant: from the first of this month, return to the scene of the crime, "this american life" (p.r.i.)

i ate lunch with my ever-hilarious chums at l'escale yesterday - a glass of california pinot noir with an app of warm goat cheese and roasted beet salad, followed by a short rib panini (decadent but delicious!). we shared a dessert of fried bananas, caramel sauce, and banana ice cream (yum yum).

i drove into manhattan for a last lesson with tara before i head out of town for the summer. she's taking two sewing machines plus ample fabric from mood to make funky, loud shirts and gowns on the road to spoleto (south carolina). danny's bringing a bunch of coffee makers- i guess we all have our fixes...

i dropped by tj's to buy some sausages and boysenberry fruit leather and then texted google for the address of ltk in greenwich. oh, green curry...

Jenny Holzer: Protect Protect, including “Red Yellow Looming,” above, is at the Whitney Museum of American Art through May 31. 

carnegie hall orphéeic magic

monday evening i snuck some photos of the stage at carnegie hall (3rd row!) - no musicians or stage lights, just the empty stage. the haydn symphony was dazzlingly clean. seeing orpheus makes me wonder why we all can't conceive of orchestral music as glorified chamber music! the musical ideas for each piece are generated by "core" members of he orchestra, and the act of listening is so intense and intimate that it almost feels selfish to spend money on a ticket. it's not so much about owning the music, but rather about respecting eachother's musical space.

the rorem set was wonderful to see if only for the fact that a singer was leading a small orchestra! a personal favorite was the final song, "alleluia" - jauntily and slyly employing mixed meters reminisent of neo-classical stravinsky with the trasparency of early ives. sitting so close to susan graham was a little unnerving: at the start of the set, she seemed stiff, stoic; by the middle, however, she was completely in character, balls to the wall, unbeatable. after intermission, ravel's pavane for a dead princess, led by cal wiersma, was absolutely gorgeous in a hauntingly effusive way.

todd phillips led a romping rendition of stravinsky's danses concertantes, which explicitly reminded me of the octet and symphony in c.

i met up with my luminous pal clio for hot chocolate made with milk (yumm) and a split piece of cheesecake (though we thought it needed something tart and fruity, not caramel sauce, as a finishing glaze).

new york minute

i left my cell phone in a cab today outside the whitney, and by some miracle a very kind guy was able to meet me at a bar on the upper east side to return it.

New York, like Paris, is conceptualized in terms of one's proximity to a subway stop: take the train to 87th, walk over a few blocks, turn south and walk down some more. at some point i stop taking everything in to focus on my destination. street corners blur together, cabs honk and swerve without identity, random strangers meet eachother's glances - smile, scowl.

i realize what i crave about New York is the sense of utter possibility of having an audience, sharing art, n'importe quand, n'importe où. people, faces drift through the city like singularly unique cirrus clouds, somehow crystallized yet mobile. maybe that's why people stare so openly on the train: they are finally able to focus on a single face, to register the harmonious (or un-) features so artfully combined - the way people comport themselves is endlessly fascinating, from incredibly think eyebrows to a proad emasculating squaring of the shoulders.