eight ways of looking at a birthday month

May 02, 2012 in holidays and celebrations, mum, friends, new york, music

1. this month i will turn 23. it will not be my golden birthday, like it was last year. it will not celebrate the first time that i can drink legally, like it was two years ago. no. this month, i will turn michael jordan's chicago bulls number. and i couldn't be more comfortable about being rather tall.

2. this month will be my last living on the upper west side. does moving out of the neighborhood of one's school signify something about becoming a grown-up? let's pretend. and let's pretend for a moment that next year i will actually stick to my plan of biking into manhattan from brooklyn every day. what a good butt i will have. also, i hope that in my new neighborhood i can recreate this comfortable feeling that i get in my current neighborhood that comes from seeing my regular taco truck, my regular corner donut man, churro woman, my regular neighbor evan.

3. jesca hoop is who i've been listening to this morning. she opened for punch brothers. it took me many minutes on google to realize that she is "jesca" and not "jessica," but it was worth it, and in another life i would want to be similar to her.

4. my eating habits have spun out of control. a rob coffee date turns into a rob short rib sandwich date, i nonchalantly had fried green tomatoes during the middle set at dizzy's last night. i haven't been to the grocery store in weeks. in april, this worried me. but now it's my birthday month so i can eat whatever i want, correct?

5. lol @ "birthday week" expanding to "birthday month." life is simply too short for your birthday to just be a week.

6. my body has seen a ridiculous amount of hives in the past week. mum thinks i've tout à coup developed an allergy to something that i'm exposed to regularly. could you imagine if it was an allergy to sugar? or lemons? unfortunately, it's definitely not vegetables since i haven't had them on a regular basis in many days. maybe it's my penguin, or may, or shampoo.

7. the david little opera dog days is something that i can't stop thinking about. it is one of the most ferocious pieces of music that i've ever heard. the story, the lyrics, the use of vibrator on brake drum: it is brilliant. and though i love this month, performing in september's premiere is something that i am very much looking forward to.

8. high-waisted jeans, yo.

-yeh

sunday party

April 30, 2012 in holidays and celebrations, music

juilliard and i, like the city and i, have always love/hated each other

{this is less true now that i'm not a student there}

but when sunday night parties happen that are people running around holding

violins and bassoons, reading ives and stravinsky and poetry and original works,

i love love love love juilliard and the people that it shoots out, projectile-y.

it makes me feel like i'm in the party scene in amadeus.

and i don't want it to end.

unless it involves fried chicken in inwood.

-yeh!

a good apple

April 18, 2012 in midwest, holidays and celebrations, friends, music, family

{the midwest young artists annual gala}

daddy, teresa, stoop, me, johnswik

photo credit: my six-year-old sister. look at that. annie leibovitz, watch out.

stoop does her hairs.

a heavily processed potential for a holiday photo/why daddy should take raw pictures

stoop and johnswik get pouty!

i creep in stoop's room.

daddy get's an award!

dr. niles crane, ladies and germs!

+++

midwest young artists is one big big reason why i play music. i grew up in the mya orchestra and percussion ensemble, and i can't imagine a better way to have spent my saturdays throughout junior high and high school than rehearsing with these ensembles. performing beethoven 9 in orchestra hall, competing in fischoff nearly every year, forming some of my closest friendships, and developing a deep affection for domino's pizza are just a few of the awesome things that became of my time in mya.

on saturday morning, i tagged along with my dad to rehearsal and filled in for the three missing percussionists. and it was by far one of the highlights of my week. more of a highlight than meeting niles crane from frasier {no offense, david}. playing in that beautiful sunny room in the old jail building with dr. d as the conductor, daddy as soloist...
i couldn't shake that feeling of oh, yes, this is why i love playing so much.
that night, we got all fancy schmancy and sipped cocktails and ate devils on horseback and bid in a live auction and enjoyed shostakovich. pops got an award and it was ever so sweet!

it was the loveliest of times, it was one of my favorite of times.

-yeh!