"I'm a concert pianist--that's a pretentious way of saying I'm unemployed at the moment."--Oscar Levant

Modernism, Post-Modernism, and the yet-to-come.

Do you fear or embrace the new era that looks at Modernism as an antiquated throwback to a traditionalist regime? For years, we study "isms" - minimalism, neo-Dada (yes, that is an ism), abstractionism, expressionism, existentialism, symbolism, process art...whatever.

I study at an institution dominated by uncurious students who insist on unintellectualizing post-Modernism through the technique-only-based dissassociation of thought from art/music; why do that? Mark Rothko's exprimentation with abstract expressionism and his divorce from surrealism, Sylvia Plath's modernist experimentation with confessional poetry, or John Cage's break through the advent of chance-music. Is it bullshit? Really?

I wish I would stop hearing the phrase, "I could do that", directed at various modern or post-modern artists and composers. Pioneers in advents of art without whom we would be lost, culturally and societally in a continually divided community that has a particularly difficult time separating and combining tonality/traditionalism with a fast-paced technology-oriented 21st century.

You could do that, but you don't. And you didn't.

So shut the fuck up.

Today was a day of ups and downs, but despite the downs, in five years I will only remember this day for one thing.

This is the day that my Amy Lee won associate-concertmaster of the Cleveland Orchestra. That's it.

You are in my heart of hearts, girl. And I will miss you.

Without exaggeration and all truth be told, the amount of cigarettes I give to people vs. the amount of cigarettes I take from people is literally 200 : 1.

Literally.

Music.

If you really stop and think about it (if for nothing better than futile analysis), music is inherently ephemeral at its organic core, akin to some hedonistic irrepressibility like say, Pink Berry to a Korean girl (or maybe even a Korean girl to a white boy..ha...). Art encapsulates the "now" via a medium like music and renders the past before it and the future after it inconsequentially irrelevant; even if it leaves the performers in some nightmarish chasm of shame or some ecstatic vastness of pleasure, the former for the humble and the latter for the cocky.

Could this then possibly be a reason why all our lives are filled with insanity? Glorification of the erratically unreal and the stuttering eccentric flow through the norm of a musician's psyche like a drug addicted murderer might in a federal penitentiary. The unhealthy emphasis on the "now" is at the organic core of musical thought...and it also ensures that our lives are distraught with depressives, alcoholics, cheaters, pedophiles, the immoral and the like. I refuse to jump on the bandwagon; I'm enlightened, even if the bandwagon is an institutionalized madhouse of international speakers and homosexuals like Juilliard.

"How long does love last? people ask, meaning the romantic love of passion and heartbreak. Answer: three years. Yet all love is eternal, for love exists outside of time, and is obsessive and selfish. The French call it l'egoisme a deux." -Ned Rorem, 2005

"How do you say, "How do you say 'how do you say' in German?" in Spanish?" -Ned Rorem, 2000

Como se dice "como se dice" en Aleman?

East Coast Chamber Orchestra concert:

An inspiring display of showcase energy; probably one of the best concerts I've seen in years. It's inspiring to watch an oasis of over-talented musicians, making music in one of the last ensembles dedicated to the primary intent of making music - as a friend put it, one of the last bastions of making music for the sake of making music.

I can practice now. Happily.

Resolutions for 2008:

It's 2008, and it just dawned on me that I've been writing in this thing since October of 2002 - what has happened since then? Dreams of Berkeley faded into a dung-heap contaminating an image of Yale, clearly out of tangible focus like a camera lens dropped in a rabble of mud. Art evolved (or devolved) from a philosophical paradigm into a series of academic failures polluted by beaurocracy prohibiting any organic reality from lucid contact. And now I'm in New York, where the cultural Mecca grabs art and forces metropolitan-giggers to constantly revive our emotional enjoyment of impalpable philosophy; and make money at the same time. Does this work? I'm ready to starve. So what are my resolutions for 2008? Nothing drastic.

1. GRADUATE.
2. Exercise and eat healthy. For the amount that I smoke, this one is a necessary prevention of death at the age of 35.
3. Get the vote out. This election is too important.
4. Work harder.

I've had a rough month; most of you know that. Most of you also know of my new enlightenment, whether you believe it or not. Oddly enough, my month and my enlightenment seem to contradict each other.

It's time to get to work. I'm still working on my new year's resolutions. I'll update all of you as soon as I have them.

In the meantime, I'll be practicing.

Reactions to my new reborn enlightenment:

Gabby: YEAH RIGHT
Jessica: enlightened. all i can say is good luck and let's talk in february.
Earl: enlightment...I don't know what to say...
Katie: FULL OF SHIT FULL OF SHIT FULL OF SHIT FULL OF SHIT FULL OF SHIT FULL OF SHIT FULL OF SHIT FULL OF SHIT FULL OF SHIT