"Or a dream that will fade and fall apart..."

I found my jazz recordings today. They were shoved away in a box, plastic dusty and liner notes faded, as if they belonged to someone else. I couldn't listen to them until now. The grief was too new.

Growing up as a violinist, you don't get many opportunities to play jazz. The orchestra teacher doubled as the jazz band teacher, since budgets were getting cut every year for arts. Since I couldn't play it, I listened. During college, I started playing in jazz combos. Improvisation unlocked a forgotten floodgate--composition--and my first piece (a little jazz waltz) terrified me. But composing for jazz ensembles--my real love--was frustrating (I didn't want to play it, although I enjoyed it; and jazz musicians can be the epitome of stubborn, when it comes to new ideas--things existing classical music for the past few decades.) I took a chance at a classical composition department--my Master's--and they took a chance on me. I hadn't listened to or written jazz since then.

Constant discouragement and fighting took its toll. Once I left my undergraduate school I was too burned out on the violin to keep playing, and jazz was an unfortunate casualty. Busy in my new world as a "classical" composer, I tucked away my jazz compact discs, instead discovering Lou Harrison, Colin McPhee, Earle Brown, Morton Feldman, Ligeti, Berio...

But these old recordings--their music as familiar to me as my fiancé's face--never left me. Everything I am today as a composer existed then--I learned to orchestrate from Billy Strayhorn and Gil Evans; the serialism in Miles Davis' album, "Aura," was my own because I didn't know the right way to write serial music; the sheer walls of raw ecstasy and timbre of late 'Trane; the displaced canonic metrics of Pat Motian and Bill Frisell, the wordless poetry of Kenny Wheeler's "Music for Large and Small Ensembles, the counterpoint in the microcosm of jazz voicing--these are my roots.

If you truly love something, it's so much a part of you that a little time, dust, or absence isn't permanent, an old friend you run into after decades of silence. After a little awkward silence, you find out they never went away.

(Whoever emails me with the correct standard the title comes from will get a surprise...you may have to bug me to mail it, though.)

You know you're a Catholic gamer geek, when you dye your friar's epic armor colors appropriate to the liturgical season.

So since I'm sick, I'm not even trying to fast for Ash Wednesday, but I believe I'm still bound by the laws of abstinence--no meat products (except fish). I've been experimenting with Korean food lately, since the restaurants near me are expensive and not very good. So lunch is royal rice cake (gungjung ddeokkbboki). I've reproduced it, but her site is excellent, and if you aren't familiar with the ingredients, she's got not only pictures of them, but separate entries as to what they are.

Rice cake (about 20 pieces)
1/2 a carrot (I was out.)
1/2 a small onion
4 button mushrooms
5 shitake mushrooms (you really don't want to use dried ones for this...trust me)
1/4 red and 1/4 yellow pepper (I used one red pepper, since they're expensive, and it was going bad)
1 stalk of a spring onion

sauce (mix all of this in a small bowl):
1 tsp sugar (dark brown, but other works)
1 tsp minced garlic (save yourself some time if you're going to cook Korean food and get yourself a big jar of minced garlic. You'll need it.)
4 tsp soy
1 dash sesame oil

If you aren't using fresh rice cake (most people in this country won't), parboil them first. Note from me: make sure you rinse them after boiling, since they'll stick to anything. Chop the rest of the items finely.

Pre-heat your wok (or a nonstick frypan works), and pour some olive oil in. stir in the onion. Then the carrot. When the carrot is 80% done, add everything else until they're cooked. Eat. (Serves 2 people, or one very hungry one.)

She put one sliced green chili in (they're in big bags in the veggie department of most asian groceries. in a pinch, you can use a serano or thai chili.)

Ddeokkbboki are round, tubes of solidified rice goo in a cake form. Normally you can find them in large vaccuum-sealed packs in the noodle aisle in a good asian grocery. They freeze well. There's another type that's like squashed poker-chip sized rice cakes...they work too, in a pinch.

If you can find fresh shitake mushrooms, and they're not expensive enough to break the bank, splurge. The taste is wonderful, and much better than dried. I think I accidentally bought wood ear mushrooms, and they were great in it, too.

Fair warning, I'm cranky because I'm still sick (but getting better). I'm to the point where I want to be doing things, but I don't yet have the energy to walk to the post office. Baby steps, I know. And as a caveat here's my bias for the rest of this: women and men have choices about their roles, and I'm not just talking about choosing between wife/mother/husband/father and celibate religious. Both very important vocations, but they aren't for everyone. We all have different gifts.

I hate being a woman composer. Don't get me wrong, I don't mind being female (except for one or two days a month), and I love composing. It's the combination of the two that I can't stand. It's as if I'm too delicate to compete on my own, so we need our own category. While I do understand the necessity of looking at early (read: before the advent of Nadia Boulanger) music by women as a special category (since they lacked access to conservatories and thus developed differently than the compositions of their male counterparts), I question the necessity for it now.

A well-meaning individual recommended I study with someone other than who is my Evil Overlord/doctoral chair, because she would have more advice as to what it is to be a woman and a composer. Nevermind that my chair is a much better match, with interests that mesh with mine. Before that comment, I hadn't realized that all my composition teachers had been men. I don't stop to ask for a genotype, when interviewing people. I would feel really horrible if someone wouldn't study with me because I'm female, so why would I discriminate against someone else, just because they had a Y chromosome?

Similarly, I hate concerts of music by only women. Again, is our music so different that it can't hold its own? Putting up with such things and festivals is akin to shoving us back in the ghetto-kitchen.

If women are being discouraged from going into certain fields, I think the problem must be addressed long before college and professional life. What kind of attitude does a girl face, if she wants to study composition, math, or science? How do her parents react? What about her teachers? Are they encouraging, or do they brush her off, instead giving attention to a boy who's writing music? (As what happened to me.) "Smart" girls and boys have it worse--the message is reinforced daily that kids who're too smart don't get boys/girls. Why are people not being equally encouraging of talent, regardless of gender?

1.) Sorry for the silence, but I'm working on music (an update of the dissertation meter is forthcoming), and I've got the Martian Death Flu that's going around. Here's where I give thanks for the inventors of theraflu and jasmine tea.

2.) What's with the outright skepticism and/or fear of academe and other members of the RCC? We started the university system. I'm specifically thinking of a comment just made on my favorite TV station that college is spiritually damaging. What about those of us who rediscovered our faith in it? And perhaps a faith that could be damaged by a philosophy course had other issues to begin with? I've taken a bunch of philosophy and critical theory courses over the past few years, and I don't think I've ever been attacked for being a Roman Catholic. There was a professor not at my current school, who I had a problem with, but I told him off after class for being a bigot. He apologized, and we've been good friends ever since.

I've had times when the two have conflicted--such as last year on the feast of the Immaculate Conception I had an oral presentation as final. But every time I've put my foot down about something--like when a concert was rescheduled on a Sunday--there hasn't been any backlash. I've had students say things I found objectionable, but as my chair reminds me, I always had the right to respond.

I can't change how others are going to view me, and I can't change how others think of my beliefs. All I can do is try to lead the best life I can. What I've been trying to write about on this blog the past year is monastic/academic/artistic life as one of witness, where witness is a kind of sacred attention to the Other. In the end, that's all I've got.

Into Great Silence

I know, lousy translation of "Die Große Stille," but it's a wonderful film. I saw it last year at the Seattle International Film Festival. It's a documentary about the Carthusians at their motherhouse, the Grande Chartreuse. It's also playing in the US at a city near you. If you go and aren't up on all things Benedictine, it would be a good idea to read a bit about Carthusian monasticism, since it's so different from other Benedictine-derived orders.

"I don't even go to Taco Bell anymore, because it sounds too close."

Pretty sure this one's worksafe. But as a recovering violinist, I so agree.

Evening random thoughts

1.) I know it seems weird that I'd be critical of the "traditional" Catholics, yet prefer the old Benedictine Divine Office. For me, it's a personal devotion. Were I under a canonical obligation to it, I'd gladly use the ICEL version. I did for a couple of years, anyway. Secondly, if you hear of a Catholic who likes some things in Latin, the expectation is that they're one of "them." In reality, Latin is still the official language, and I think it needs reclaiming from the groups who're in open schism. It's every bit as much my heritage as theirs.

2.) Something more important: Word on the street is that Doctor Who is coming back for its 29th season in March. (I pretend that the TV movie done in '96 didn't exist.)

3.) Interesting post over at Sr. Susan's blog about Last Supper art, including an interesting fact about Andy Warhol. Apparently he was Catholic, and a devout one, at that. (The fact surprised me, like I was surprised to hear that Kevin Smith is a practicing Catholic, as well.) It's kind of encouraging to hear of people who practice the faith, and work it into their work. (Although I don't know if I'd call Kevin Smith's films art, no matter how much I laughed at "Clerks" and "Dogma.") That's what I'm trying to get at in my dissertation: a Catholic work, but one that doesn't rely upon pure externals. I know. Baby steps.

Deliverance

There are moments when the Divine Office is oddly resonant. Thanks to Rev. Mommy's postings of her morning and evening prayer and finding a copy of the Benedictine office, I've gotten back in the habit. Tonight's psalms at vespers were one of those odd moments, when it seems to leap up and speak to your situation.

"Circumdederunt me dolores mortis:
et pericula inferni invenerunt me.
Tribulationem et dolorem inveni:
et nomen Domini invocavi.
O Domine, libera animam meam:
misericors Dominus, et justus, et Deus noster miseretur.
Custodiens parvulos Dominus:
humiliatus sum, et liberavit me.
Convertere, anima mea, in requiem tuam:
quia Dominus benefecit tibi.
Quia eripuit animam meam de morte:
oculos meos a lacrimis, pedes meos a lapsu.
Placebo Domino in regione vivorum." Psalm 114:3-9

I've been working on the dissertation, and for some reason, I was thinking of how my situation was back in college. For many, college is a time where one flowers and discovers the things which form one's vocation. My time as an undergrad was no exception: I discovered that I could compose music and I discovered the Rule of St. Benedict.

At first I was quiet about both of them. I composed music in middle and high school and was forbidden to do so, since it took time away from the violin. Composing was considered a further waste of time in college. My interest in the Rule of St. Benedict was similarly not something to be encouraged: my parents had left the Catholic Church shortly after my first Communion, and they had an irrational fear of my being alone, that I would crack for being "too cloistered." Getting into CalArts for composition seemed like a miracle come true. I didn't know how things were going to work out, but it felt like someone was looking out for me.

My relationship with the Rule of St. Benedict and my process of becoming an Oblate was another story. To say there was resistance was an understatement. When I was to become an oblate novice, there was no way I could've gotten to the monastery where I would've been affiliated. I was imprisoned at my mom's for that summer, since she refused to let me take the car anywhere (I couldn't afford my own), nor would she take me anywhere. There was no public transit between the towns in south-central Illinois. My interest in Benedictine monasticism was met with ridicule (to the point of cruelty), and whatever I did (Divine Office, lectio) had to be hidden. By the end of that summer, I had memorized most of the psalms. That way if my books were taken from me, I'd have some semblance of the liturgy.

"For He has delivered my soul from death; my eyes from tears; and my feet from failing. I will please God in the land of the living."

Thinking back to how things were, I'm overwhelmed by the fact that I can both compose and recite the Divine Office openly. I don't have to hide my composerly or contemplative dimensions. I don't have to live with the false fear that my mental health will suffer for being who I was called to be.

"Turn, my soul, to your rest; for the Lord has been good to you."

And here's another blog passed to me by the same friend who found the Warcast for Catholics podcast: Street Stories. The minister who runs it is with Operation Nightwatch.

I'm happily watching csound code compile. A sneak peek at the second piece of the first set (the joyful mysteries) can be found here. Please no putting it up on limewire just yet...