30 Day Song Challenge: Your Favorite Song

The "30 Day Song Challenge" is a Facebook meme going around that all the kids are doing. Basically, you post a song a day according to these rules. I saw it and thought: Oh, what the hell?

1) Your Favorite Song

The idea that we're supposed to scour through the whole catalog of all music--all sounds for that matter? What makes a song different from a sound, or set of sounds?--and cull down to one "favorite" is, well, mind-boggling and gives me agita. I think here of Donna Tartt saying in this 2002 interview, that "My favorite color is different for different things. Depends on what it is....For flowers, it's one thing, for clothes it's another."

So, favorite, how? How about "most meaningful at a meaningful nexus in my life?" Does that make sense? That seems like a long way from "favorite," but if we're talking about the stages of aesthetic development--and why shouldn't we--I'm definitely feeling a level five on this one. (Feel free to read up and then get back to me.)

Well, in this case, it's a song that gave me--at least this is my memory, plus 20 years reflection--a first inkling of how my sexuality was more than just who you sleep with. That my queerness would encompass, or rather that it could encompass, an entire set of values different from the ones I saw the status quo culture embracing. Beauty, fashion, grandeur, elegance, camp. A refinement in which the style was the substance. At the time, I wasn't very sophisticated--but I knew, I could sense, that this was sophisticated. (I can't believe I'm waxing on how Madonna is sophisticated...but hey.) Or, if it wasn't sophisticated, it was beyond my realm of understanding in a way that made me drawn to it. It was like watching a version of myself that I had never known, revealed. I saw a version of me in black and white, too. I saw a version of me moving like that, too. I saw that me as beautiful, refined, a success.

Madonna's "Blonde Ambition Tour" was broadcast on HBO that same year, and I set the VCR to record it. It's mechanism was such that it wouldn't stop during recording unless it was completely unplugged. So, in the break between "Open Your Heart" and "Causin' A Commotion" Madonna let fly a stream of "fucks" so long and punchy that my mother, either hearing this from the other room, or getting up from the couch while watching with me, I can't remember--ripped the cord from the wall!!! "You do not need to hear that," she said, sealing the deal. I was 12. I was heartbroken.

So, for the next several months, I watched the opening three songs over and over, until the tape turned fuzzy and refused to play. Eventually, I taught myself the choreography from the below video which I periodically performed both alone in the rec room and at Roller Coaster Skate World for scores of cheering girlfriends. Wow, what a queerbait, huh? I can still do most of it.

Here's a question: How does "1990 Madonna" stealing and popularizing New York ball culture reveal the inner life of a blossoming queen from the suburbs of Chattanooga, Tennessee? And the answer: That's the power of music.

So, having said all that, I give you, my favorite song, Vogue:

Covers 2010

I'm taking a vacation from the blog, returning in mid-January. So, in the meantime, here's a new bunch of covers to enjoy when the radio only wants to play Christmas Music.

DOWNLOAD HERE.

Includes:

-Another Day in Paradise, by Copeland
-Fall on Me, by Cry Cry Cry
-Folsom Prison Blues, by Brandi Carlisle
-Lovestoned, by Kaki King
-Walking in Memphis, by Cher
-Angel from Montgomery, by Ani Difranco
-All is Full of Love, by Death Cab for Cutie
-Anyone Who Had a Heart, by Shelby Lynne
-Black Star, by Gillian Welch & David Rawlings
-What You Are, by Joan Osborne
-Crying, by k.d. Lang
-Stairway to Heaven, by Dolly Parton
-Sea Lion Woman (piano), by Feist

Joanna Newsom at Carnegie Hall

Few of us know anyone who plays the harp; basically none of us have been near enough to touch one. Part of the success of Joanna Newsom's show last night at Carnegie Hall has to do with the kind of magic that an instrument like that creates. The posture in the player--this kind of open, holding, wide elbowed stance--combined with the mystery of the dozens (and from the balcony it seemed there could be hundreds) of strings, and finally the strange fact that its difficult to determine when the player is actually touching the harp, and when the sound is simply vibrating out of it. Only in close up, does any of it make any sense.

Less successful, and ultimately what made the evening feel a bit like a deflated exercise, was Newsom's ambiguous relationship to her audience, and the awkward moments of harp-tuning, which left enough blank space that, upon Newsom's suggestion, the audience began shouting out "questions." "Brooklyn loves you," someone said. This is interesting to me, because I have a feeling that most of the people in the audience had traveled from Brooklyn. Was he sending a collective message? Sent from the "better" borough? (There is a feeling among young hip people that Brooklyn rocks and Manhattan is square.) Was this person unconsciously indicating a kind of sentimental otherness?

This went on twice for not long, three or four minutes perhaps, but the energy lagged, and I wished that the band, or Newsom herself, had prepared some kind of other business for this moment--comedy, a story, talking, banter, anything. If anyone has seen Alison Krauss and Union Station perform, you will know that they are always tuning, but they have created many "bits" to do during this boring, and stagnant tuning sections, which bring the audience back into the show. Sure, it feels casual when they do it, never calculated, but AKUS would never, ever, allow their audience to set, or shift, the mood of those moments. Maybe this comes with having performed on stage together for 20 years--a luxury Newsom and her band does not have--a kind of seasoned, professional ease.

"Can I play Ryan's banjo?" one audience member yelled, during this tuning/question section. "No," said, Neal Morgan, on percussion. He then asked the audience to have a kind of meta-moment where we imagine her playing while she actually didn't, and then he counted out 5 seconds of quiet, while we all listened. Ultimately, this is kind of asshole-ish, taking the, yes, stupid question "Can I play Ryan's banjo" and then making the extra large point of showing the audience how stupid the question is, by extrapolating its stupidity by making us all engage in a similarly stupid interaction. More stupid does not counteract stupid.

Early in the evening, Newsom spoke of her nervousness, how it wasn't until she got on stage for the sound check that she realized, okay, Carnegie Hall may be Carnegie Hall, but it's just a room with the most incredible acoustics. Joanna, hello, it's not just a room. Tell that to Sissieretta Jones, or Marian Anderson. Or Judy Garland. Or any of the thousands of amateur musicians who would kill to get on that stage. At the same time, however, her fans do not see her as the girl at the party: "What does it feel like to be a goddess?" screamed one fan from a few rows away from where I was sitting. Morgan responded: "Trick question, Joanna actually isn't a goddess." This was too clear.

I think she could be. Her music, as beautiful, ethereal, strange, unstructured, long, wandering, so different from anything else you hear--where was all that in the show? It was there in the songs, sure, but something else seemed missing. Even the long-winded biography printed in the playbill was reductionist, made to seem as if, ho hum, Joanna was playing harp in her basement and then, oh wow, people liked it, and thanks to a lot of illegal downloading and enough actual sales, now here she is.

Do young musicians in this new-folk scene refuse to take themselves that seriously? Does a kind of formal live presentation reduce your hipster street cred? These were the questions I wanted to ask.

Ms. Difranco at Town Hall, 2009

Ani Difranco played the Town Hall last Saturday night, and I was there. My friend Robert Maril, who later asked that in this blog post I describe his hair as "shiny" and "with body," joined me for this, my 37th Ani show. This indicates some kind of insanity, surely. (That's approximately $1700 in tickets, if you're quick at math.) But here's what I think I have finally discovered--after so many performances in so many cities across this country, even a show in Paris: I think more clearly, more crisply and thoroughly, at an Ani Difranco show than anywhere else.

My first show was in Knoxville, back in 1996. That night's recording of Dilate made it onto her 1997 record "Living in Clip," minus the part in the middle of the song where she stopped, and proceeded to have a quite valid, fussy, frustrated and yet especially articulate in a way that only Ani can be, scolding of the audience for singing at the top of their lungs. As I recall, she said something along the lines of "This song is not a soccer chant." She would never do that now, as far as I can tell--and the way she keeps playing Both Hands as the first encore song over and over starts to push her, and the song, into Closer to Fine territory. (Some of you will know what that means.) The birth of her child, her second marriage, and I think the election of Barak Obama, all of this has made her more relaxed. She seems to really be enjoying herself again.

It was dark back in 1997. Things started to get more exciting in the early 2000s, but by 2003 she had seemed to wind herself down into another period of, well, Ani-inwardness. The songs from that period are lonely and cold. She toured solo for a while, and then when band members started showing up again--her sound changed dramatically. Most recently, with the incarnation of the previous two years--Todd Sickafoose on bass, Allison Miller on drums, and Mike Dillon on percussion--have made her music sound more robust, more textured, more grounded than ever before.

Because this show was on a Saturday night, there were lots of younger people in the audience. It might be unfair of me to presume--but lots of them seemed to be teenage girls perhaps dropped off by their parents in cars. (I went to my first Indigo Girls concert in 1992 at the Fox Theater in Atlanta this way--we sat in the very last row.) Two rows in front of us, were a gaggle of young ladies who insisted on dancing and swaying and singing to every song they knew. That they knew the songs is the important part. It makes me think that the experience, for these kind of concert-goers, is not about the music or the moment, but about recreating the private experience they've had in their living rooms and bedrooms and iPods.

If you feel one thing at home alone listening to Ani, you want to feel the same thing in concert--such is the logic, I guess. And because the swaying and dancing doesn't extend to the new songs--that is to say the songs that Ani hasn't released yet, and therefore only the savvy, and increasingly numerous, internet traders know them--to my eye, it's even less about the show. A few times, the dancing girls attempted to get the people sitting around them to join in, standing and dancing and singing and generally annoying everyone around and behind them. As if their own experience would be made better if they were not so alone in their revelry. As Joan Didion might write: "The narrative is already in place."

So, back to the way I think. I've seen her so many times that it feels like a family ritual--some of the same notes are struck here and there, like a favorite dish at a holiday meal, and then some new things appear and disappear, changing as the seasons do, but staying the same. Something about sitting there, in the dark, watching the lights change and watching Ani sing, listening to those songs I've been listening to for almost twenty years, some of them, it just feels comfortable. My brain shifts into a happy neutral.

I'm glad she's delving into her back catalog more these days. She Says, a song from her 1991 record "Not So Soft," has been appearing in the middle space of sets lately--a revised guitar riff and slightly shifted melody makes the song even more lonely, even more beautiful. I almost write "if that's possible." But clearly, with Ani, it is.

Here's the setlist:
Anticipate
Providence
Coming Up
Alla This
November 5th, 2008
Albacore
Splinter
She Says
Which Side Are You On?
Overlap
Unworry
Lifeboat
Fuel
New Bible
Mariachi
If You're Not
Untouchable Face
--
Both Hands
Hypnotized

This Week

Part One:
One of the (many) benefits of living in the great City of New York is that cultural events happen here on a very large scale. The downside of this is that everyone wants to attend these events, and when something comes around like Lady Gaga at Radio City Music Hall for two nights only, way more than 12,000 people clamor for tickets at 10:00am on that fateful Friday only to discover that, surprise, you are too, too late. Even the presale tickets were gone at 12:00 noon the day before. But somehow, StubHub was selling tickets throughout each section, orchestra and all three mezzanines, days and days before even the date of sale was announced. People on Craig's List were selling Orchestra pit tickets weeks ago. This speaks volumes about the terrible truth of how the music industry and its cronies and friends-of ruin the music business for fans. But then, after it became clear to me that I was not getting tickets, and no one I knew was able to get tickets, I realized that maybe this wasn't such a big deal after all. Everything Lady Gaga does is about visibility, about being seen. So, I figure, whatever she does those two nights, I'll see it. It will be on YouTube, or all over the blogs, she'll Twitter her thanks to all her fantastic gay fans, and perhaps this monopolizing of the imagery and webwaves, maybe this is what Gaga is all about.

Part Two:
Tonight's dinner turned out terribly. Does rice expire? Even when you have it in the fridge? I guess it does--it sort of fell apart, like puffed rice does in leftover cereal milk. I was trying to re-create this leek and white truffle risotto that I made a few weeks ago when some friends were over to watch the Emmys. That night is was spectacular. I was actually surprised it came out so beautifully. But, like other things, and like a lot of people, I need a little reason to shine. So, when it came time to make this big pot of dinner this evening, I felt half-assed about it, and the results are hideous. If I weren't alone, I'd throw it out.

Part Three:
The new Margaret Atwood novel is intriguing, as one might expect. I'm having a weird reaction to it--I'm loving the writing, the specific sentences. But the overall narrative isn't that compelling to me. And this is odd, considering that this one, The Year of the Flood, is kind of a continuation of a thought, a sort-of sequel to one of her books that I loved, Oryx and Crake. I sit on the B61 and read and read, and I keep wondering when the story is going to start. In fact, today I skipped ahead and read the first two pages of a later part of the book to see if there was something maybe I wanted to get to. The good news is: There was. So, I continue on.

Part Four:
I just finished the new Dan Chaon novel, Await Your Reply. This was a totally different experience. The story itself is so exciting, so twisty and slow-to-reveal itself, that I couldn't wait to get to the end. I felt really torn about it. The writing is so beautiful, and so concentrated and thoughtful, that I wanted to take my time. But the what-is-going-to-happen was pressing on me so much that I wanted to stay up all night and read and read and read.

Part Five:
The madness of the holidaze has begun. What to do for a holiday card this year? When to schedule the tree-trimming party, in which people don't actually tree-trim but admire the tree-trimming that you have done earlier in the day? What to buy people? Whether to buy for people? How long do marshmallows keep if you ship them?

Part Six:
Can we see Levi Johnston naked already?

Mindy / Oleanna

On Tuesday night, I went with my friend June, a photographer and fabulous chef, to see Mindy Smith play the City Winery. I'd never seen her live, though I've had her latest record, Stupid Love, in constant rotation since it came out. She's a kind of folky-country artist that has an incredible, textured and girlish voice that writes incredible, potent, simple and beautiful songs. Alison Krauss put a song of hers on her last record. Okay!

The show was wonderful--except that Mindy's in-between banter was, to put it mildly, sometimes a bit awkward. It was as if she wasn't used to being in her body, or being in front of people, or being applauded for her incredible talent. At times I kept thinking, please get back to the songs. But when she did, they were ethereal, floating things, which held everyone's attention and made everything feel more beautiful.

The venue is very nice, with a huge selection of wine, glasses and bottles, and a lovely menu, though I didn't have anything to eat. And the best thing about the place is that when you buy tickets, you can pick your exact seat from their seat map online. YES!

I have a feeling that the new Tegan & Sara, called Sainthood, out Oct 27, will overtake Mindy. Just a hunch.

--

Tonight, I was at the Golden Theater where Bill Pullman and Julia Stiles were in "Oleanna," David Mamet's old play about...sexual harassment? Higher education? Self-aggrandizing political correctness? I liked it, but I think I liked the evening out, in the theater, seeing a stage set, seeing actors act, seeing Times Square and all the theatergoers, more than the play itself.

Oleana is a hard play to like; it is not very fun to watch. It's talky, difficult to listen to, and I often found myself distracted--but that's me in general, so... John, the accused professor, is always answering on the phone, which I found annoying and empty--is that the point? I've always wondered whether Mamet wants more equilibrium on stage--or, perhaps he doesn't. Every time I see the play, I think Carol comes of as a loose, desperate joiner. We've seen their interaction, so we, I'm going to assume this here, are generally siding with John. Maybe Mamet doesn't care about ambiguity?

Actually, it's all still swirling around in my head and I don't know what I think about it right now. The acting was good, though I often think that actors can never really get their mouths around Mamet, since it's so unnatural, and makes for, if you ask me, very little poetry on stage. Directors always want to give his language a certain speed, which isn't helpful in making theatrical moments. If you ask me.

--

On my walk home, I stopped in the Baskin-Robbins and got a scoop of Mint Chocolate Chip on a sugar cone. Perfection!

Letter from Greece, Part 8 of 10

Day Six: Santorini

“We have one,” the woman says, when we inquire as to whether the rental car agency has a vehicle with automatic transmission, “and we will bring it to the hotel.” We pack bottles of water, sunscreen, sunglasses, reading materials, and bananas—which have never looked more out of place than they do in the Greek Islands. Minutes later, we’re off, headed down to the southern end of the island, to see the ruins at Akrotiri. They are closed for the year, some kind of archeological work that is too sensitive for roving tourists. So, we sit under an umbrella and stare out at the ocean. I commit a grave sin, and strike up a brief, lively friendship with one of the street dogs—everyone stares. The local bus arrives, and people pour out of it, carrying beach towels, bags, chairs. We watch them walk over the rocks, along the shore, and over the hill in the distance, to the beach.

Red Beach is so-called because of the volcanic mud that makes up the high cliffs. The beach is short, and not crowded, all tourists from around Europe. We stretch out on our towels. I plug my headphones into my ears, and crank up a Kaki King bootleg. A while later, it’s hot, and I get up go dip myself into the salty sea. The water is cold, but soon I’m comfortable, waving back to Kip on the beach. There is some kind of feathery, papery stuff in the water, maybe some kind of seaweed, and later I find my pockets filled with it. We lay there a while longer, baking, sweating, feeling good.

A pack of Australians, fifteen or so, perhaps two or three families, come walking down the beach, headed back to the parking area. Among them, is a shirtless young man, maybe twenty or twenty-one years old, barefoot, the hair on his arms and head bleached by the long hours in the sun. He finds something interesting in the cliffs above me, and standing only about six feet away, pulls his camera out of his pocket to take a picture. He lifts his arms up, stretching the full length of his body upward, the slope of his hipbone slips out of the top of his wet shorts, the patch of hair in his armpits darker, a tuft of fur dipping down from his navel, disappearing into his waistband. For a moment I’m dizzy, lost in the body of this gorgeous, splendid creature.

We drive through the winding roads of the island, never quite getting lost as much as re-thinking the route—you can basically see every in every direction at any time, so the map quickly becomes unnecessary. At Kamari, we eat lunch, peeking into more souvenir shops, watching couples cuddling each other on the beach. Then we drive the full length of the island, along a stretch of slightly treacherous-feeling road, to the northern tip, to the town of Oia. There, we park, take pictures, stroll down the walkways. I decide that my parents should take a vacation here, and pick out the hotel I think I’ll make them choose.

A few weeks prior, my friend Josh told me that we had to eat and stay at the Windmills in Oia. “It was one of the most romantic places I’ve ever been,” he said. He implored me, begged me to go, with a kind of serious desperation, holding onto me when he said it. I felt charged with whatever had happened to him there, whatever deep and meaningful things he encountered, as if my ability to re-create those same encounters was crucial to confirming that Josh’s experience had been real.

We didn’t find them, and I haven’t told him.

Some Traumas

--On Monday, I went to jury duty, and was selected for questioning by the judge. The experience was not one that I would like to repeat, and not in that ho-hum-jury-duty-is-so-boring-let-me-get-out-of-it kind of way. I'm going to write the entire experience up in the coming week or so. But for now, I'll only say that I've never felt so powerless.

--Then Ed McMahon died. And I felt sad for the whole world of entertainment, even though I don't know anything about Ed McMahon, not really. He hosted the blooper show with Dick Clark that we watched seemingly every Saturday night at my grandparents house, the one with the little cartoon sweeping men.

--Then Farah Fawcett died of cancer. Gail, who sells jam at the Greenmarket, told me about watching Farah's video documentary on television on Thursday night. Gail was shaken by it, and I felt sad for both of them. I felt sad for all the striving, the work, the courage, the hope, and then, turns out, it's not enough.

--Then I had to go to South Williamsburg to deliver some dumb paperwork, and the person I was there to meet got into an argument with someone he worked with, and fired him right on the spot. In front of me. Without apologizing. This was after he said that, "We should hire a temp, pay him nothing, and treat him like dirt because I don't think anyone has the balls these days to sue" and "Mushroom clouds are beautiful, don't you think?"

--Then Michael died. I felt nothing, really, except vague loss. And, of course, the curious tinge of not knowing the whole story, wondering how long it would take for all the details to emerge. But then that's how everything was with Michael--mysterious and unsettling. Even his music, the extraordinary transcendence of those eternal songs, seem to be made out of genius, soul and light.

--Last night, I took to watching great Tony, Emmy, and Oscar acceptance speeches on YouTube until 2:30 in the morning. Then I cried, and felt happy.

Indigo Girls at Summerstage

On Tuesday night, I went with friends to Central Park's Summerstage to see the Indigo Girls. Their record "Hammer and a Nail" was the first CD that I bought, when CDs still came in long cardboard boxes, after having seen them play a few songs on a special "songwriter's" episode of Austin City Limits. They have grown into astute, focused songwriters, and the new record, released independently last March, is one of their best. It was a wonderful show.

I am seriously dumbfounded by Amy & Emliy's sheer lack of pretension and cynicism. So often, after their nearly twenty-five years playing music together, bands can't seem to figure it out, they break-up, they get too interested in things they're not good at, or they let the whole fame/success/riches/fandom thing turn them into caricatures. The Indigo Girls have simply avoided all of this, and remained, perhaps by sheer force of their personalities alone, open, hopeful and, oh yeah, extremely adept guitar players.

For those of you interested, the setlist:
-Love of Our Lives
-Sugar Tongue
-Fill It Up Again
-Yield
-Power of Two
-Driver Education
-What Are You Like
-Fugitive
-Pendulum Swinger
-Ozilline
-Fleet of Hope
-Faye Tucker
-Deconstruction
-Ghost of the Gang
-Get Out the Map
-Shame on You
-Digging for Your Dream
-Romeo & Juliet
-I'll Change
-Kid Fears (with Matt Nathanson)
-Closer to Fine (with Matt Nathanson)
==
-Prince of Darkness
-Second Time Around
-Galileo

Indigo Boys

My friend Alex created an entry for "Indigo Boy" in the Urban Dictionary. WOOT!

Back in the days of AOL--this was in my early teens, back when they actually charged something like $2.95 per hour to be connected to the internet, and I kept a tin of money near the computer, like a piggy bank of sorts--my email was "indigoboy6," though I don't remember there being 5 before me.

Indigo Boys:
Gay men who are emotionally connected to their sexuality, or basically, lesbians in men's bodies---political, Birkenstock-wearing, anti gym-culture, often vegetarian. Sensitive enough to listen to the Indigo Girls song "Closer to Fine" and maybe cry. As in: I went to the KD Lang show and it was all lesbians and Indigo Boys.

New Favorite Music!

-Hurricane, by Grace Jones
-Broken Hearts & Maladies, by The Aeroplanes
-Rearrange Beds, by An Horse
-Shop of Wild Dreams, by Jessica Lurie Ensemble
-Shake Away, by Lila Downs
-Todo Cambia, by Slovo
-Three Flights from Alto Nido, by Greg Laswell

Town Hall, Twice.

Ani Difranco played The Town Hall on Friday and Saturday nights, and I was there. Of course. Because I'm a huge fan and I have to go to as many shows as I can. I tallied them up, and turns out, these two were shows #29 and #30. This is not that absurd--some people who are fans of, say, the Broadway musical "Rent," saw it more than 150 times.

Her band is simply astounding: relaxed but energetic, textural, goofy looking. And the new songs, although a bit on the obvious side when it comes to lyrics, are still spotted with those trademark Ani-isms that somehow break it all down.

Take this:

Promiscuity is nothing more than traveling
There's more than one way to see the world
And some of us like to stay close to home
And some of us are Columbus, what can i say

Both shows were so fantastic. Setlists are here, for those of you who also get it:

11/21:
-LPC
-Paradigm
-Fuel
-Present/Infant
-Smiling Underneath
-Here for now
-Red Letter Year
-Napoleon
-Nicotine
-The Atom
-Promiscuity
-Everest
-Splinter
-Alla This
-November 4
-Landing Gear
-Gravel
==
-Every state line
-Overlap


11/22:
-God's Country
-Paradigm
-Swan Dive
-Smiling Underneath
-Back, Back, Back
-Untouchable Face
-'Round a Pole
-Emancipated Minor
-As Is
-The Atom
-Present/Infant
-Promiscuity
-Way Tight
-Alla This
-November 4
-Splinter
-Shameless
==
-Both hands
-Hypnotized

Partitas, etc.

Some part of me always wonders if, when I step into a church, I'll burst into flames. So I was a bit surprised on Tuesday night, when, at St. Peter's Church in Midtown, I didn't. I had gone to see a friend of a friend play one of Bach's solo partitas for violin, (Partita No. 2 in D minor, BWV 1004, to be exact) which was described by the program notes as the "Mount Everest" of solo violin. Wikipedia says that the piece is: "a pinnacle of the solo violin repertoire in that it covers practically every aspect of violin-playing known during Bach's time and thus it is among the most difficult pieces to play for that instrument." Truly, it was amazing. Beautiful, deep, moving, athletic.

And because I am the kind of person--and the kind of writer--who is as intrigued by the almost-missed details as the main event, I was as impressed by her playing as I was her moment of reflection before starting. She took a breath, closed her eyes, focused her thoughts toward something outside of herself, or perhaps inside. It was, I think, as important for her as it was for those of us in the audience. It said to us: I am about to try to do something very difficult. It's important, and I need your help. Should you have the chance to hear someone tackle this--do.

My friend (and downstairs neighbor) Mary was accompanying on piano for the other pieces on the evening's program. Mary has a grand piano in her living room, which is the same size as my living room, which is to say it takes up most of the space. I suppose it could be a nuisance, living above a professional pianist, having to listen to the hours and hours of practice and learning, of rote exercises and strange inconsistent blips of sound. But I like it. Years ago, I asked her if she knew Manuel de Falla's "Ritual Fire Dance," which is my favorite piece of music for piano. She said she didn't, but that she knew of it, and would learn it. I get to hear it now periodically, floating up through the floor while I'm cooking, or working, or sorting the mail.

I realized, while I was sitting in the aisles of the church, that there is a certain kind of older lady that I like--there were several of them seated around me. They've raised their children, and they color their hair, and they wear clothes that are a very specific kind of older lady. A vest with a busy print, maybe metallic, over a basic turtleneck and a long skirt. Large jewelry--big pendants on chains, brooches and big rings. It's desexualized, like a lot of older lady looks, but its kept a certain kind of style. Maybe in trying desperately hard not to look like what they think an old lady looks like, they've created their very own subset of old-lady looks. Dark, rich colors are definitely in.

Yesterday, I had to take the train up to Mt. Sinai hospital to make a hand off for one of my too many jobs, and I took the opportunity to walk across the park at about 98th Street, and take the train on the West side back down to the office. It was very cold, but also very bright. The park is a different place way up there, with bigger spaces, and practically empty. I buried my hands in my pockets and took my time.

Material World

I read this afternoon that Liz Rosenberg confirmed that Madonna and Guy Richie are planning a divorce. The first thing I thought of was a poem by Sharon Olds, "Summer Solstice, New York City." This is how the poem begins:

By the end of the longest day of the year he could not stand it,
he went up the iron stairs through the roof of the building
and over the soft, tarry surface
to the edge, put one leg over the complex green tin cornice
and said if they came a step closer that was it.

I pictured Madonna in her English castle, surrounded by telephones and assistants and stylists and hairstylists and makeup artists and emails and photos to approve or not approve, five or six syringes full of liquid pink B12 rubber-banded together on the side table. I saw her surrounded by her estimated $400 million net worth, by her three children, each born to a different father, by her rows upon rows of Givenchy and Gautier couture. I saw her there, now at the end of her longest day of the year, and saw that she could not stand it.

I don't know if it seems shallow, or naive, or melodramatic, but I feel really sad for her. I'm sure it sucks for him, too--but I don't know him very well. I've known her my whole life--or whatever her she has constructed for us to know in the last twenty-five years--but so what? What, in the end, is the difference? She was there when my my mother pulled the VCR's plug out of the wall after she heard Madonna say 'Fuck' ten times in the Blonde Ambition Tour. She was there when I realized that I was maybe moving a little too gayish in my gym class when 'Open Your Heart' came on the radio. She was there when I was walking across the Christopher Street Pier, 'Express Yourself' on my iPod--the sunset and the moon and I felt like anything was possible.

I thought of Ms. Olds' poem because it speaks to the subtext of suicide--and also of divorce--which is the fundamental question we, humanity, always carry around, and that is: "If she can't do it, how can I?"

Oh, Madonna, we love you, get up.

Ani Difranco at the United Palace Theater

Ani Difranco played the United Palace Theater on Wednesday night, and I was there. The poet Aaron Smith came with me, and blogged about it here. Nick and his girlfriend Jamie joined, as well as my friend Peter, (not this Peter,) who started off as a maple candy customer and then became a syrup stand hanger-on, and now we hang out sometimes--he's moving to Florida in a couple of weeks to teach Women's Studies at Florida Atlantic University. Marianne, who I also know from the Greenmarket, and who hadn't seen Ms. Difranco in many, many years, was able to even got to hear her favorite, 32 Flavors. It was a veritable cavalcade of people who don't know each other, but are united in Ani-dom.

The acoustics at the United Palace are really phenomenal. I think it also helped that we were sitting in the 11th row, which is somehow in front of the sound of the thousand or so Ani fans who insist on screaming along, singing every word as loud as they can, as a sign of their devotion. Ani's band really shines when you can hear them--last summer in Prospect Park, as amazing as the show was, the small details were lost in the expanse of the outdoors, the huge crowd. However, at the United Palace, every texture was beautifully balanced, and tiny things like egg shakers become a real part of the music.

The setlist was a bit odd, and in that way we were lucky. Some of the old warhorses she skipped--which I appreciate--and some of them, like Napoleon and Evolve, I'm glad she left in. I wonder if at this point her career a song like Shameless, which she has played surely more than 1000 times, if it lives somewhere outside of her, if it has grown into something else, something that lives in the air in front of the stage. Or something like that.

Ani's fans have been listening to her for more than 15 years now, some of them, me included. The newness of the experience has worn off a bit--this is not to downplay the brilliance of her stage shows, or the respect and love that I have for her music. But I'm glad that people don't feel the need, as much anymore, to stand in middle of the rows, dancing, to the annoyance of everyone around them.

But there comes a moment. The moment comes when certain pockets of fans decide that they no longer care if they are annoying the people around them, and they just go right ahead and stand in the rows and dance. What interests me about this moment is that it always happens during Shameless, or whatever number falls at the end of the show, before the encore. Perhaps more interestingly, they only do it during songs that they know. The moment becomes about their experience at the concert, and not necessarily about the concert itself.

I'm always interested in how people write narratives for themselves, and then play them out. Whenever you see a Broadway musical these days, the show gets a standing ovation, regardless of whether or not the show is any good. They've paid $100, sometimes $120, to see this show, and goddammit, they are going to have a good time--the standing O is the way of re-affirming their experience, of crystallizing it as a meaningful one, and a way of finishing the story for their friends back home: "Oh, Helen, we saw the best show, and it got a standing ovation."

Something similar goes on at the Ani shows. I began really thinking about this when I noticed that the fans who do this don't dance in the aisles during the upbeat, danceable, rocking-out songs, if the songs are new to them. Ani is always playing new songs that don't appear on any studio record, sometimes she plays songs that never end up on a studio record. And so the actual experience becomes alien, and the planned experience is played out in moments.

What it all boils down to is people trying to have an experience. People just want a taste of that intimacy that they feel when they're sitting in their tiny bedrooms, spinning the records over and over. I understand it.

Here's the setlist from 7/16, it it means anything to any of you:

Anticipate
Present/Infant
Subdivision
Angry Anymore
Red Letter Year
Napoleon
Rain Check
Welcome To:
Sunday Morning
Animal
Garden of Simple
Imagine That
The Atom
Alla This
As Is
Shameless
---
Evolve
Everest
32 Flavors

True Colors Tour

Kip and I went to see the gayest show on earth last night--the True Colors Tour at Radio City Music Hall. Interestingly, the show actually felt less gay than the Dolly Parton show we attended only a month ago at the same venue. The lineup was stellar: The Cliks, Indigo Girls, Regina Spektor, The B-52s, and Cyndi Lauper. Between-set banter was provided by Carson Kressley, Rosie O'Donnell, Kate Clinton and Margaret Cho. Also a special appearance by John Cameron Mitchell. How the stars collide!

Unfortunately, the show all felt a bit lame to me. With so many artists on the bill, and from such wildly different musical spheres, everyone around us felt compelled to blab to their neighbor through the whole show. And since no one felt the need to experience everything each artist had to offer, the aisles were a constant flow of people, everyone getting up to get another drink, squeezing through the rows of seats, texting their top five, or whatever. All the short sets gave the impression that the show never really began. Everyone was distracted.

The Indigo Girls, whom I have been loyal and loving fans of ever since I can remember--the first CD I ever bought was one of theirs--seemed a bit crammed into their too-short set, maybe 30 minutes or so. Most of the people in the audience were not hardcore Indigo fans, and to my dismay and utter heartbreak, during the song Kid Fears, when any other Indigo audience would be singing their hearts out during the Michael Stipe part, there was barely a peep from the crowd of 6,000.

Rosie O'Donnell--whatever her off-stage personality--was rather extraordinary, managing to harness the energy of the whole room during her short talk about her mother and her family, and, hilariously and poignantly, the first time she met Madonna. Perhaps I'm a curmudgeon--okay, I am a curmudgeon--but I don't think that gay marriage is the most important thing in the universe. I'm disinterested in the assimilationist leanings of the Human Rights Campaign, who is the major sponsor of the tour. Their track record of transgendered issues is simply repugnant.

When the B-52s finally hit the stage, everyone seemed a bit exhausted, though we all rallied and sang along. I'm glad Cindy Wilson has returned--her energy is amazing, and balances Kate Pierson's looseness nicely. When she hollered out "Tin roof, rusted!" everybody went bat shit. Cyndi Lauper is flawless, an exploding flash of joy and talent and love, all extremely heartfelt and genuine. We saw her a couple of years ago in the miserable production of Threepenny Opera, and she was the only redeeming note. A few times she ran out into the crowd, leaping onto the seats and singing from the audience. I understood what she was going for.

Upcoming Excitement

Here's what's on the horizon that excites me:

--Cyndi Lauper, B-52s and the Indigo Girls at Radio City Music Hall
--Circus AMOK! planning and stuff.
--New AMOK! executive director.
--A friend says Amy Ray has a new record on the horizon.
--I'm taking a day off to see August: Osage County.
--Jeff Koons on the roof at the Met.
--Memorial Day picnic in the park with all the peeps.
--4th of July in Chattanooga with my family, and Kip!, and Nephews.
--I'm gonna be in two more queer anthologies in the fall. (Maybe that first novel does actually get published, only one chapter at a time, in 30 different volumes.)

Morning Observations

--What Not to Do: Tilt your head back and lift the bag of Cinnamon Pita Chips (which by this point contains only tiny shards and broken bits, which is why you're lifting the bag in this way in the first place,) so quickly as to slide the sugary-cinnamony goodness not only into your mouth, but into your eye, where the sharp pita pieces stab you and cause you to wonder why you made all the choices that you did.

--Charlie Vazquez has a way with language.

--What is it with sports teams buying players here and there for millions of dollars? What happened to your loyalty? One minute you're a Bronco and then thirty-five million later and you're a Patriot and who cares? In this way, sports are like theater: a job is a job.

--Why is it that whenever people are listening to their iPods so loud that the sound comes blaring out of their ears and into the space, one more bit of noise pollution, they are always listening to the most tedious music?

--Speaking of music, I can't stop listening to Foreigner.

Eight Things About Me

I was tagged by the thoughtful blogger over at Leaf-Stitch-Word with this strange, boundless meme, in which you are supposed to write eight things about yourself. As far as I can tell, those are the only rules. Usually these things come with a set of constrictions--and thus you get to work within the form to find something interesting. This, however, is so freeing as to be impossible. So--here's my stab at it:

1) The first CD I bought was the Indigo Girls record "Nomads. Indians. Saints." It came in a long box, and I picked it out after having seen them on the Austin City Limits songwriter's special. This would have been 1990. The opening chords of "Hammer and a Nail" sounded so right, as if I'd never heard music so perfect before. They were from the South, they were out, they wrote about themselves with folky-abandonment. I still buy their records, nearly 20 years later.

2) If you ask my what my favorite movie is, I will tell you "Farewell My Concubine." This is not my favorite movie, but who has just one favorite movie? It is an important movie for me. What I want to say when someone asks about my favorite movie is: "Ask the question that you really want the answer to."

3) I don't like to eat apples without cutting them into pieces, and if then: Mutsu, Braeburn and Ginger Gold varieties.

4) I started writing a novel in the 6th grade called "Thomas and Herman's Incredible Adventure at the Bottom of the Sea." A turtle and a hermit crab go to the bottom of the sea and have incredible adventures. I was saving it on a black floppy disk, back when you did that sort of thing, and hiding the disk in the broken wall of the computer lab. When I moved on to the 7th grade, I abandoned it.

5) I love The Suze Orman Show. "Oh, Barbara, you are so denied, you do not have the money to buy this car, what are you thinking...?"

6) My kitchen looks clean, but it is not. Trust me.

7) I don't think there is such thing as good music or bad music. There is only music that you like and music that you don't.

8) Every day I fantasize about winning the lottery and having millions of dollars. With the money, I buy a huge building and create a center for artists and writers to work and live together rent-free. I support a small number of non-profit organizations. I hire my friend Keith to decorate my loft. I go to Iceland once a year, by myself. I buy a Prius and spend 6 months driving around the United States, visiting all my friends. I write a book about the travels. Trouble with all this is: I don't even play the lottery.

I'll tag: Aaron, Mario, How History Feels, and Amanda.

New Music Ensemble

My current obsession is the new recording of Steve Reich's "Music for 18 Musicians" by Grand Valley State University's New Music Ensemble. This version of Reich's masterpiece is the most beautiful piece of music I have heard in some time--and it's the first time the work has been recorded in 5.1 surround sound....so. CRANK. IT. UP.

Tight, full of space, airy, direct. Overtones on overtones, it's simply glorious. Visit the New Music Ensemble at their website, listen to some excerpts of the work or see the trailer for this remarkable album here.