A pew-sitter's guide to homilies (or sermons, if that's your thing.)

Since I've got some clergy reading my blog, I thought I'd offer a few pointers, since I've heard a lot of homilies in my time.

1.) The Golden Rule still holds--don't rip on other religions, even though your congregation may agree with you. If you're going to make a point about some other denomination, reverse their name for your denomination's. Would you want them saying that about your faith?

2.) If a group is disadvantaged--poor, abused, etc--try not to refer to them as weak. I know it means you're trying to be nice and compassionate--which is appreciated--but it can't not come off as patronizing.

3.) Don't preach to the choir. Odds are if someone's there on a Sunday morning, they agree with you about your denomination's big bugaboos. (I have a rule of not bringing up the "a" word on my blog, but it holds here.) If the "a" word is brought up by one priest, I don't listen, because he sticks it in everywhere he can. If another brings it up, I will, because he rarely talks about it.

4.) Humor is a double-edged sword. Either it can wake people up, or it can make your point frivolous. Same with pop culture references.

5.) Battlestar Galactica is an exception to #4. Especially if you debate the theology of the colonials versus the cylons. With documentation from the early Church fathers. We need more BSG in the Church.

6.) Guys, don't talk about the joys of motherhood. Women, don't talk about the joys of fatherhood.

7.) The best homilies--like the best lectures--are a story. People like to learn something, but they also want to hear a story. The fact that storytelling is an important way culture, philosophy, and religion is transmitted in so many cultures isn't an accident.

8.) Doctor Who and Star Trek are also exceptions to #4. Bonus points for referencing Babylon 5.

Rite of passage

Last weekend I got a squash that needed to be cooked, so I made this. I have to admit it came out well and makes enough to feed a small army. Now I don't drink often. I'm not against it, but when you have parents who're alcoholics, the fun is kind of out of it. That having been said in a sauce like the pasta recipe above, there's no way around it, since a lot of the flavor is coming from it.

Buying alcohol is generally a risky procedure for me. At best, I have to deal with the embarrassment of my legal ID being questioned as a fake (I don't look my 31 years.) At worst, my ID is questioned, and I'm thrown out. (Never try to buy beer for chili with a passport.) Rarely am I buying alcohol for drinking--it's generally going into something, but one shouldn't cook with that which one isn't willing to drink.

So I approached the counter at Trader Joe's with my $3 Chardonnay, a bag of tortellini, and the penne for tonight. The clerk rang me up, handed me the receipt, and I stood there. He asked me if there were something else I needed. I came out of my trance, thanked him, and went home. This would seem unremarkable, except for the fact that it's the first time I haven't been "carded" for alcohol in the ten years since I've been able to purchase it legally.

The first few times I got carded, it was cool--I was suddenly old enough to buy my own alcohol, and I got the shiny blue ID to prove it. (Under 21 ID's/licenses in my former home state are red.) Then once I got older--around 25--it got to be annoying. I'd be out with friends, their ID would never be checked, and the waitperson would come over and ask in hushed tones if he/she could see my ID. The conversation would awkwardly stop as I'd pull the card out.

While I don't miss the hassle, it's oddly wistful to not be carded. Although who knows what will happen the next time a recipe calls for wine.

By the fruit of their labors...

I often feel torn between worlds, as it were. For the academics, I'm too Catholic. For the Catholics, a lot of the time I'm too secular. One of the tactics I picked up from studying gender theory in literature is that some things need to be taken back, whether a thought, language, or an idea. One of these is the rosary.

A lot of Catholics my age think the rosary is something irrelevant, something that doesn't apply to them, and is old-fashioned. With as many groups that are reactionary towards their faith, I can't blame them, which is why I feel it needs to be more visible as a popular devotion. I make mission rosaries--ones given to anyone who wants one, and won't sell it (offer goes for anyone reading this, too. You need some, send me an email.) We need more "normal" Catholics taking back this part of their heritage--ones who don't hang on every word out of EWTN, ones who question, ones who doubt, ones who are obedient to the Church without blindness, but ones who--above all--are as much as a part of the Body of Christ as anyone else.

It's hard to find an online forum for rosary making that isn't taken over by rampant commercialism. If you don't use precious gems and sterling silver while charging four times your material cost, you don't matter, to most of them. They wouldn't consider making wire rosaries for missions, as I do, because it's "too much work" for "too little profit." Frankly, rosary making is like composing music--if you're in it for the money, you're in it for the wrong reasons. So I found the Rosary Army's website. Their podcasts were mundane, but nothing overly questionable. I do object to their militaristic language, but they seemed to be into what they do.

Then other things became apparent--for instance how in a recent thread that they were more concerned with Wal-Mart supporting a homosexual rights group than how the company exploited their workers. (A boycott was called because of a bunch of gays...I guess the fact that someone who can't eat, afford health insurance, or provide for a family while working at WalMart doesn't matter.) Other threads slammed a recent DFL candidate from Minnesota, because he's Muslim ("apostate Catholic"). How is that different than what JFK faced in the 1960's? I was told by one member--and supported by others--that I should try to convert my non-Catholic fiancé. He'd be a lousy Catholic, honestly.

And then, in another recent thread, someone called into question the mods' practice of subjecting any site linked to scrutiny by this website. If it doesn't get a "green," you can't link to it. Guess what? I'm a Benedictine oblate (currently unaffiliated). Because the OSB's site got a "red," I'd be unable to link to any site of theirs, or discuss it.

Problem is, groups like this have multimedia outlets, spots on EWTN, and a lot more capital than your average Catholic does. They become "good" Catholics, while the rest of us who dare to disagree are the "bad" ones. In reality, they pick and choose from the steam table as much as anyone else. I'm sure any of the RA people possibly reading this will make sure I'm banned from their site, and that they'll chalk any opposition up to "spiritual warfare."

Maybe the real reason why they're afraid to look at the OSB website is because of this passage in the Rule of St. Benedict:

We believe that the divine presence is everywhere
and that "the eyes of the Lord
are looking on the good and the evil in every place" (Prov. 15:3).
But we should believe this especially without any doubt
when we are assisting at the Work of God.
To that end let us be mindful always of the Prophet's words,
"Serve the Lord in fear" (Ps. 2:11)
and again "Sing praises wisely" (Ps. 46:8)
and "In the sight of the Angels I will sing praise to You" (Ps. 137:1).
Let us therefore consider how we ought to conduct ourselves
in sight of the Godhead and of His Angels,
and let us take part in the psalmody in such a way
that our mind may be in harmony with our voice.

Apologies for the tone. And if you need rosaries, send me email.

Scattered thoughts before bed

1.) I had a dream last night that I was reading an article written by my dissertation chair. I don't remember what it was about, but it was printed in a book of his essays (not the one that actually was published, a different book.) It was one of the most beautiful things I've read, heartbreakingly beautiful. As I was about to finish the book, my alarm woke me up.

2.) I'm feeling like a fish out of water. I'm too secular for a lot of Catholics, and I'm too Catholic for a lot of the academics. Case in point: I got a paper approved...for a conference that's over Easter. I want to decline, but I know my CV needs it. I know the EWTN crowds would say I'm no Catholic if I go to the conference...but the majority of the EWTNites aren't trying to build an academic career post-Regan. Easter is a big deal. It's a bigger deal than Christmas. And to be stuck in a conference during Holy Week? Bleh. Might as well be stuck in Ordinary Time. That's what purgatory is--a never-ending expanse of OT.

3.) Been thinking about pop culture. I don't necessarily believe that the only thing worthy of serious discussion is "art." However, I don't necessarily believe that all pop culture or all culture, for that matter, should be given equal consideration. It's like what Bruno Nettl wrote in his book, The Study of Ethnomusicology, just because a culture produces it, doesn't mean that it's worthy of preservation or study.

If anything, I think pop culture proves Adorno's point about consumer culture--especially with video games. So long as games are produced according to marketing with an eye to commercial viability, we aren't going to be seeing what the medium is capable of. Case in point? The game Defcon. It's brutal and beautiful aesthetically. It's by far one of the most emotional games I've ever played. It would also never be marketed, or even made, were it not done by an independent company. That's also not to say that art, even of the video game variety, can't be commercially viable. It can, but I think so long as it's enslaved by consumerism, it isn't going to be art.

4.) So what do I mean by "art"? **Heidegger alert** In a work of art, there's something that isn't used up. When I was an instrumental musician, I've played the hell out of Beethoven's third symphony. (Picking something everyone's probably heard.) It's a warhorse. But no matter how many times I've played it in the past, or however many times I've had it referenced in a class, there's something special about it. It's not used up, and it points to some larger ontology, something that can only be described poetically, and even then some of the experience of it is lost.

Hm. I think I got an idea for the lone seminar paper I still owe my chair. I've started that poor paper half a dozen times, so far. Maybe the seventh time is the charm, and it involves a 3-hour work: one of Morton Feldman's string quartets. (More here to jog my memory.)

Voting rant

Apologies in advance for the rant. I try to keep such things on my LJ, and I've had the flu.

I know very well what day today is, between the constant stream of slanderous attack ads and so-called "Catholic" voter's guides that are nothing more than justification for voting for one party over another. Nevermind the bishops who seem to think the only moral way for a Catholic to vote is straight-ticket Republican. Last I checked we had a secret ballot in this country, and that also applies to Catholics.

That, and with an initiative passing tonight, some of my funding for grad school could go the way of the dodo.

All Saints/All Souls

One of the elders then spoke and and asked me, "Who are these people, dressed in white robes, and where have they come from?" I answered him, "You can tell me, sir." Then he said, "These are the people who have been through the great trial; they have washed their robes white again in the blood of the Lamb (NJB, Revelations of St. John 7:13-14)

I have a love-hate relationship with the feasts of All Saints and All Souls. On the one hand, I love All Saints. Who wouldn't? We all need our superheroes, especially when we have the chance to become one, too. All Saints is all golden, after the green expanse of Ordinary Time, and while it's not quite Advent, it's not quite the same as the Ordinary Time that came before it, now pregnant with liminality.

All Souls I would rather live without, although I know it's intimately connected with All Saints. The past year I've had too many people close to me die, and while I feel somewhat happy that if anyone I know is a saint, they probably are, I also still feel the pain of their passing. Although both people had a message, one that was part of their vocations, while they were here.

The first person was the chaplain where I did my undergraduate degree. "Swanie," as he was called, is also the reason why I'm a practicing Catholic, and why I got interested in Benedictine monasticism. (We were in the process of becoming oblates together...another long story for another time.) From him I learned how to breathe and to be. "Am I here?" "Am I now?" We'd take long walks, sometimes never saying anything to each other. We didn't have to. "What one heart says to another in silence," as he wrote once.

While Swanie taught me how to be in a metaphorical desert, Lucky taught me how to leap in, like the tarot's Fool, with abandon, joy, and above all, love. Lucky was my first "real" composition teacher, and I can only imagine what his job was like my first semester of my Master's with a student who was distrustful, distant, scarred and scared. While Swanie's contemplative echoed the Mary who pondered all things in her heart, Lucky's was the one who says, "yes." The same joy in his Magnificat I find reflected in the Mourner's Kaddish, "May His great name be blessed forever and ever. Blessed, praised, glorified, exalted, extolled, mighty, upraised, and lauded be the Name of the Holy One, Blessed is He, beyond any blessing and song."

The further I feel that I am from their lessons, the more I miss both of them. Yet I know in their absence, they're all the closer to me. As I pray for them, they pray for me. And even though their death hurts worse than anything, I can't help crying for joy that I knew both of them.

Thoughts about nanowrimo

I've got exactly 23 hours and 50 minutes until NaNoWriMo starts. Now I know I was under the influence of muscle relaxants (they hit me like a ton of bricks--so do antihistamines and dramamine¹, which I guess is an antihistamine. And we won't get into the really messed up dreams I get off Claritin), and I have no obligation to actually do it. But I've still got absolutely no idea what I'm going to write about.

I'm not overly concerned about the time of it--I've been in college for awhile, and I can write five-page papers (essentially what this is) quickly, not that they'd be any good, though². So I guess I'll give it the old college try (pardon the pun), and see how it goes. If it gets to be too much, I can always ditch it in favor of other things.
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¹ Hey, it works! I'm not being profusely seasick, if I'm dead to the world, asleep.
² The goodness of the final work, I gather, isn't the point.

Scattered before-bed thoughts

So a few years ago, I messed up my back lifting a printer. Every once and awhile (fortunately less and less often) it tweaks out on me. The other night it was being a nuisance, so I took my muscle relaxant and settled down to my evening blog surf. In what seemed like a good idea at the time, I signed up for NaNoWriMo. Now, I know I'm under no obligation to actually do it, and with a dissertation (albeit musical), I probably shouldn't, unless I can make the two relate. But...

...I could do crossover Doctor Who/Battlestar Galactica fanfic. (OK, no I couldn't...think of the children...to illustrate how those muscle relaxants interact with me, I did seriously entertain this idea when I signed up.)

...Or it might be a good way to get my book on video game soundtracks done. One of my goals is to write a book on the aesthetics of music in video games. It's a side research interest--video games fascinate me, especially the way all levels work together--but I've no interest in ever composing music for games. I don't play nicely with others. Corporate culture makes me homicidal. But I've been doing research for the stupid thing over the past so many years. I may as well write it up finally.

...Or I could do something creative. Blogging aside, I so rarely have time to write for the sake of writing anymore. Everything I write is to be evaluated in some form, and it might be kind of fun to write something I intend for nobody to read. (Some thoughts involve a commentary on my dissertation--which would take longer than a month to do--or something involving the liturgy of the hours.)

So I don't know what I'm going to do, if I do anything at all. Suggestions are welcome, and I've got 5 days to figure it out.

New Music and complexity

I'm far from a "complex" composer. I know what I like, I know the sound I'm trying to get, and if I'm lucky, what I wanted actually comes out. I have my bag of tricks--from Balinese music, serial music, jazz, medieval and renaissance polyphony, chant melodic development, and even a few things I picked up from Radiohead and Nine Inch Nails. If you buy me a beer or a bubble tea, odds are I'll tell you about a few of them in any given piece.

This article over at New Music Box has got me thinking, and not in a good way. It seems like every bit of my life lately has been taken over by dichotomies--religion, politics, gaming, now music--and the polarization resulting from them feels like it's tearing life apart some days. In the article and in the comments, there's a disparaging attitude--nothing new, I know--towards "academic" composers and critical theorists. I'd like to know where he's listening to such people who write bad music and theorize about it, because those I know who do both write really beautiful music. Odds are you wouldn't hear them on a high-profile concert, but if you know where to look, you're in for a real treat.

I'm sure a lot of bad music gets written in academe. I'm sure a lot of bad music also gets written outside of it. There's also a lot of good music written in both places, which gets ignored by snark such as that post.

Huzzah! Financial aid fixed! No explanation given, no apologies, but I'm not complaining. Thanks for all the well-wishes and prayers. They meant a lot, even though I was spaz girl. Needless to say I'm still looking into grants, and I'm no longer checking my school email over the weekends. (Y'all who know me know how to get ahold of me, anyway.)

Stress for Art

From Kelly, over at Academia as an Extreme Sport: "Give me your STRESS for my ART." Maybe there's hope for humanity, after all...

Still here

Thanks for all the prayers and well-wishes...I'm still here. I spoke with someone in the financial aid office this morning, and he had no information beyond the fact that it's "under review" and I'll be contacted "at the end of the week" about it.

Needless to say I'm also checking into dissertation grants and the like. Even if this works out, I don't want to have to rely on them and the federal government. (honestly I can't go through this every quarter, like it's shaping up to be. Then again every time in the past I've said "I can't do X," somehow the strength is there.) Ironically on the "Daily Breakfast" podcast, there was a quote from someone discussing creativity, and how it either needs an extremely relaxed state, or an extremely agitated one. Maybe this is what I need to get the code finished...(OK, I'm trying to put a positive spin on things.)

So if anyone hears of a particularly interesting grant for Catholic gamer-geek composers, let me know.

If you're the praying type, I could use them about now. I got dumped by financial aid yet again, and they let me know at 11:30 tonight. So of course I can't do anything about it now until they open up on Monday. Apologies for not confining my whines to my livejournal, like i normally do.

Procrastination from Code-Slinging

But first, an update of the dissertation meter:

300 / 4,500 (6.7%)

I'm getting tired of the current set of functions I use to make music, so I switched to a set of functions (originally coded by my chair) that interface with csound, a powerful but horrible-to-code (an exercise in self-mortification) program for music composition on the computer. Using his code is an oddly intimate thing--there are some functions which fit how I think and program intuitively, making me confront the fact that perhaps we aren't too different, after all.

When I was last on a retreat, one of the other guests made the comment that things made with computers don't have a soul. At the time, it was one of those comments that hurt, and you don't quite know what to say in response out of politeness and not wanting to make trouble. (I think I wandered off to the chapel, instead.) But it's a common complaint I hear about computer music.

While there are people who are into it for the technology, and seem to only consider the shiny thing in front of them, for me computer music is more intimate and exposed than instrumental music ever was. In instrumental music, you've got musicians between you and the audience. It's not a bad thing, and I love the communion that happens when an ensemble just "gets" your piece. But with computer music, there's nobody to hide behind, not even the technology people try to use as a shield.

Lately I've been listening off and on--I find it hard to listen to music when I'm trying to write it--to some of the computer music from the 1960's. We're talking early stuff written on computers that could only dream of the processing speed of my video card. People on my committee speak of "borrowing" CPU time from big mainframes, only to get a few seconds back the next morning. Yet what they managed to do with so little was highly musical. Listening to those pieces is like watching a concert soloist play--you start to think it's something so easy anyone could do it. That's the sign of a great musician--you don't hear the technicalities, but the stuff inside of it. It's also the epitome of taoist thought, that something is so full of effort it becomes effortless.

Eh, I'm nowhere near there yet. I gripe and moan about how slow my computer--a 1.2 ghz athlon thunderbird--is, yet I can compile a stereo piece in less than an hour. It's humbling to think that my teachers needed days.

And as a bit of a sleepy non sequitur, I put a sitemeter up. It's been interesting seeing where everyone is from.

Everybody Dies

I don't like war games. Most of the time they're constructed upon a "let's shoot dem commie/turrist/asian bastards!" platform that doesn't hide their politics. Political themes in games can be interesting, so long as they're presented in a non-propagandistic manner. A little intelligence goes a long way.

Command and Conquer is Starcraft (or Warcraft) with better graphics and modern political alliances (and biases.) America's Army is nothing more than Unreal Tournament with an Army mod. (The politics and propaganda of that game bother me far, far more than any other game I've played--Postal 2, Grand Theft Auto III, and Manhunt included.)

It's almost a shame I don't have my generals now, after the release of Introversion's Defcon. The second question (that of ethics and morals in video games) would've gotten a lot more interesting. It and Call to Duty may very well be the only games on the market, which show the horrors of war. I think if Introversion weren't an independent game company, Defcon would never have been made.

For those of us who remember the Cold War, Defcon's premise is simple: lose the least. It takes place in a command center (represented on one's computer screen) The UI presented to the player is a line-drawing of the world, in the style of the map presented in the movie "War Games." Population centers are dots of varying size and intensity, depending upon population density. Missile silos, air bases, and naval fleets are depicted similarly. At different stages, different types of deployments and movements are possible. Only at Defcon 1 are missiles able to be launched, for instance. In games against other people, alliances can be formed and broken.

If it had only computer blips and bleeps for a soundtrack, the game would be just another strategy game. But the soundtrack is much like Dark Age of Camelot's in that it's made up of segments of musical material with ambient noise layered on top. The musical material is like Samuel Barber's "Agnus Dei" meets Giya Kancheli. If that weren't enough, the ambient sounds are things like rumblings, the hush of wind and fallout, a distorted recitation of the Lord's Prayer, and women crying.

Unlike so many other games, the soundtrack is what makes this game so horrifying. Playing with the sound off is a completely different--and less powerful--experience. It's rare to see real musical irony in a video game. Those who play Defcon only to nuke the crap out of their most hated city are missing the point and the experience.

Day 9

When walking home from a friend's house, all the worries and stresses of the past week seemed to dissolve. I stopped for a moment, taking in the newfound stillness, and was overwhelmed by the honeysuckle bush next to me. "Sit in your cell, and it will teach you everything."

Day 8

Last night involved rantings from mentally unbalanced neighbors, and I'm still on edge. I'm also coming down with a cold. If there's one thing a cold teaches you, it's that you need to take time for yourself.

Day 7

At the end of the summer, I find myself back in the same mindset as I was before my exams--unable to relax, and feeling like I should be working all the time. I've seen this attitude with others, and it's one of the symptoms of burnout. It's easy to forget what "holy leisure" is, when deadlines are looming. May we all find the rest we need.

Day 6

Lately I've been reading the book Five for Sorrow, Ten for Joy by J. Neville Ward. It's a weird book (the author is a Methodist minister--not that Methodist ministers are weirder than anyone else), but while I may disagree with minor details, he's dead on with most of his points about the rosary and his mediations on the mysteries. Here's one passage that struck me (from his discussion of the last of the Glorious mysteries, the Crowning of the Blessed Virgin):

The title "Ever-Virgin" draws on ancient forms of expression in man's long struggle to say what the divine must be and indicates thoughts for which we would use other terms, though they might well be no more effective. It means that, her son being who he is, we see her as one called into a single, exclusive, unrepeatable part of the service of God, as being wholly involved in this spiritually and physically, hearing the word of God and keeping it with all her heart and soul and strength.

Its meaning extends in the thought of an emptiness of self that waits for God alone to fill it, a faith that endures losses and unmet longings and ungranted prayers, without running to compensations and distractions to fill the void, because it believes that God will give himself and his meaning in his own time. The Christian mind in meditation finds the Virgin Mary meaning this absolute openness to God and aspires to it, wants to breathe its free yet dedicated atmosphere.

And most deeply, as the ultimate fulfillment of God's purpose begins in Jesus, there is a sense in which it also begins in Mary, so that she is a sign of the first light of that kingdom of heaven where Jesus said there is neither marrying nor giving in marriage but only the fullness of love that transcends all the limitations and predilections of temporal sexuality(161-162).

Day 5

Tonight in his homily, one of our priests mentioned that the core of ministry should be a path to joy. (Paraphrasing. Unfortunately he doesn't put his homilies up on the web. HINT.)

It's really hard to see myself as a bringer of joy and my path as a joyful one, when increasingly more and more college students care only about the degree and not the knowledge. I know I've been guilty of this, as well, in my impatience to get done with this degree.

I could use a little patience here, Lord. And help me remember the saying of Seung Sahn's, that living in a community is like washing potatoes--they bump into each other in the pot they're in, and everyone comes out clean.

Day 4

Lately I've been wondering if I made the right decision. Did I waste my time going to this school? Am I making the wrong decision to get a doctorate in a field people don't value or care about? I've never questioned my role as a composer (ability, sure, we all do). But I can't help but hear the voices of family and teachers before college, who resoundingly said what a worthless degree I'd be pursuing, if I went into composition.

I know it's normal to doubt one's vocation. When I decided to go into composition, I didn't know how it would work out. All I knew is that this was the path I had to take. "Help my unbelief!"

Day 3

Since it's the second of three Ember Days, there are special antiphons for the Gospel canticles (as are there for all of the canticles, at least in my version of the Divine Office.) Here's the one for today for the Benedictus (same translation as before, to spare you my bad Latin): "A woman who was a sinner in the city, stood at the feet of the Lord behind Him, and with tears began to wash His feet and wipe them with the hairs of hear head; and she kissed His feet, and anointed them with ointment.¹"

I've been blessed to have been spared the horror of an abusive advisor, although I know there are many in graduate programs, who have them. The brokenness of an abusive relationship doesn't go away with time, and it's easy to feel like the woman in the antiphon--broken beyond help, and like "damaged goods." In the account of it in Luke, it's her love which frees her. Today's prayer is for all those in the grad student/advisor relationship, both good and bad--may we all be guided by unconditional love.

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¹ from Luke 7:38, with bits from 37.

Day 2

A co-worker forwarded this link to me. It's a site with the final statements of people executed in Texas. I expected angry statements, and ones lashing out at the system that gave up on them. But what I didn't expect were the majority of statements, which were full of peace, love, and acceptance of their deaths. Some of those people have little more than a few years' of high school education, yet some of their statements are wonderfully profound.

Day 1

I'm late starting, but better late than never.

Today is the day when new TA's have their orientation, most faculty are around, and the new students are having their theory/history tests. After weeks of silence, it's jumping around here, and the halls are less quiet. When normally my mornings are filled with quiet, catching up on my blogs, and sipping coffee, I've been jumping today with a thousand things.

It's also the first of 3 Ember Days (Wednesday, Friday, Saturday), one of four weeks during the liturgical year (all roughly at quarters of the liturgical year) for prayer and fasting. The collect for lauds this morning was, " Misericórdiæ tuæ remediis, quæsumus, Dómine, fragilitas nostra subsistat : ut, quæ sua conditióne atteritur, tua cleméntia reparétur." Or: "We beseech You, O Lord, may the remedies of Your mercy sustain our weakness; and in pity renew our strength which by its nature is ever failing." (Edited...removed my lousy translation I did without a dictionary and replaced it with the one out of the Monastic Diurnal reprint.)

I think it's an appropriate commentary on what I'm after during these nine days.

Odds and ends

First, a video I found linked off newmusicbox.org: How to write a fugue (described recursively) with a subject from a Brittney Spears song. I like recursion.

Second, thinking about pulling a Sr. Susan and doing a sorta-novena the 9 days before the semester starts. Not sure if I'm dumping it here or over on my LJ. Maybe part here, part elsewhere. I like this format for more "serious" things, even though I haven't been overly serious lately.

Thanks to workstudy, I'm stuck in the area until September 26, with the next semester starting September 27. I'm burnt to a crusty little crisp, so I'll probably check in with my advisor and take off somewhere for a week, as long as I've got the laptop set up to do music stuff. I'd love to go back to Our Lady of the Rock, but it's hard for me to get to. Other suggestions are welcome. (I don't drive.)

International viewers: if you wanted to see the BSG webisodes in the last post, you can find them on youtube. (Also good for those of us in linuxland.)

BSG

And now for something really important: Battlestar Galactica webisodes, leading up to the season start in October. If you're in linux and don't have a version of Adobe flashplayer 9 to install, you're screwed. But find a windows or OSX box: they're good so far.

It's tiding me over while I wait for BSG to start back up, the Doctor Who Christmas episode to air, and then season 29 of Doctor Who to start up in the spring.

Summertime blues

I can't remember a summer that actually went well, and this one has been no exception. The things that have gone wrong--little things, in the big scheme--would normally be easily dealt with, and life would continue as usual, but the normal summer for me involves them piling up, one after another. Maybe it's the lack of structure, or perhaps it's the longer light levels--I seem to recall an article in the Chronicle¹ about academics being affected by SAD in reverse. But by the time the end of July rolls around, I'm literally counting the days until the semester starts.

There were minor computer issues. There were issues with one of the lab monitors not recognizing personal and private space. There were family issues. There were arguments with financial aid, still unresolved. There are still issues with neighbors not respecting common courtesy.

Computer drama was mostly resolved: the solution involved wiping the hard drive of the laptop, and reinstalling linux and windows on it. Now, the last time I tried installing linux on a laptop was 1999, and then it was a lesson in futility or an act of self-mortification. Oddly enough, linux was working perfectly, but windows wouldn't install. Finally got it working, got linux all set up...and I couldn't get a version of LISP running.

Now the people in my parents' generation settled on LISP because it was (then) platform-independent. It still is, to some extent. LISP code you write in linux will run in OSX, or Windows (assuming you can find a LISP implementation that doesn't suck). However, LISP implementations vary widely, and the specific set of functions I use to extend LISP to be used in sound synthesis will only run on a few. (Supposedly.) For some strange reason known only to my computer and St. Isidore of Seville, one of them--the one that's commercial and the license of which covers me while I'm a student²--magically started working³. I'm trying to migrate over to CMUCL, but either it or I'm having Issues getting it working⁴. For now I'm happy my old--commercial--standby is working. I've got awhile before the migration becomes critical, and who knows what CLM will become by then.

So normally spending a day composing would leave me feeling warm-happy-sleepy-tired. Today it was a different kind, and I thought it was just latent stress. Nope. Stomach flu hit tonight. So looks like tomorrow's filled with bad daytime TV and warm ginger ale.

----------------------------
¹ http://chronicle.com
² The license, last I checked, started at $600, and for something similar to what I've got would be closer to $2000.
³ Here is where I pause and mention that all computers suck--it's just a matter of how much and in what manner.
⁴ I'm not ruling out PEBCAK--"problem exists between chair and keyboard."

PSA

By the way...for those who can't convert their blogs over to the new version of gmail-blogger and are having trouble logging in...

Go here and log in with your blogger account. When you log in successfully, you'll be popped back to an empty version of that page. This is OK. Then click on the blogger logo, and it should bring you to your dashboard. Happy blogging!

Learning to be alone

A few scattered thoughts, since I've been dealing with windows installs gone wrong. I never thought I'd live to see the day when an install of linux worked perfectly on a laptop, but windows becomes borked beyond repair. Or perhaps I've had incredibly good luck, with as many windows boxes I get to reinstall in one semester.

In my surfing, I came across this article by Belinda Reynolds. She makes a lot of good points, and ones I often fall into myself. She speaks of a quality of time--one in which the mind is allowed to open and not work according to a set (slightly neurotic) schedule. Of course composers need to be aware of things like deadlines in a wider sense, but the actual act of composition is one that needs a quality of time to develop and work. That's something I needed to hear, while having to cram time for composition in the hours I'm not working.

And with her article, at times I wonder if Thomas Merton didn't write New Seeds of Contemplation with composers in mind:

"Yet it is in this loneliness that the deepest activities begin. It is here that you discover act without motion, labor that is profound repose, vision in obscurity, and beyond all desire, a fufillment whose limits extend to infinity." (81)

Living with opposites

At times, I can't help but feel like I'm being ripped apart between poles. I'm a grad student and academic, but I'm also in the arts. I'm a composer (something requiring a degree of extroversion), but I'm also an "urban monastic," (the contemplative life requiring a degree of introversion.) I'm a gamer geek who buys into Adorno's ideas of high art, and I'm a practicing Catholic dating a guy who's mostly Buddhist/pagan. Needless to say, I like the Benedictine ideal of balance in all things.

This blog article got me thinking about living with dichotomy and contradiction. When I realized I wanted to go into composition, my piano teacher (in college) recommended that I "seek help," since it was egotistical (according to her) to want to express myself musically. Granted, her advice was more than a little unbalanced itself, but at the time it stung horribly.

It's articles like Kosman's, which keep me honest. In composing, there is a need for some sort of expression (whether or not it's a self-expression is another post for another time.) But unbridled self-expression, unchecked by one's relation to others, is the danger of egotism, veering into megalomania. Or put more eloquently by John Rahn: "The megalomaniac egomaniac composer creates a world out of himself, complete with others, but the others are the compositions that are his own creation..." Egomania is as much pride as self-abasement (yeah yeah I know).

The other set of polar opposites I wrestle with involves public and private space. On the one hand, I'm a composer--I share my things with other people. I blog. I'm pretty open about a lot of things in my life to those who know me in the analog realm, and if I'm awake, I'm on various instant messenger protocols. On the other hand, I'm a contemplative and need to be somewhat hidden. I have a journal that doesn't get shared with others, and I have a whole routine which requires significant alone-time. I can't imagine publishing my journals, nor could I let others into the contemplative's realm. Yet, for me, each act of composition is some sort of act of contemplation.

Either my life is one big cosmic joke, or it's a koan of sorts. Maybe the conflict only exists in my perception of it. As a friend, a former Benedictine monk, puts it, a contemplative's life is one of witness, a kind of sacred attention to the other. Perhaps being a composer isn't that different.

Swanie's Bread

Putting this here, because I lost the recipe, then found it again. It's printed out on an email from a close friend of mine, who died last year. Swanie was the chaplain of the school where I did my undergrad, and if anyone's a saint, I'm convinced he is. You just knew there was something special about him. Seems like his recipe popped back into view just when I needed it--not the recipe itself, but a reminder of that friendship. This is the bread Swanie always used during Communion. It's not kosher for Catholic use--sadly--but it's really good.

"I am currently doing half-batches, so here's the recipe in half-quantities."

"Combine

• 1.5 C white flour
• 1.5 C whole wheat flour
• .5 C old-fashioned raw oatmeal [not the quick kind]
• .5 C cornmeal
• .33333 C sugar
• .5 t salt
• .5 t baking soda
• .5 t baking powder

"Mix well
"Add

• 1.5 C buttermilk
• .666666 C oil +/- (now using peanut oil)

"Mix well
Chill overnight
Flour a board
Divide dough into balls larger than a golfball
Flatten with fingers or roll with a pin to form disk
Bake on ungreased sheets about 12" at 350 d
Consecrate
Eat"

The Cloister

Mention the word "cloister," and a host of images come to mind, mostly with long hallways and arched ceilings. In most of the monastic communities I've been to, there's some sort of cloister, whether it's a simple walkway, or something more classical. It defines parts of the monastic enclosure, which can still be seen, either symbolic (a pile of rocks, a small fence, a gateway) or functional (an actual wall with signs requesting that guests respect it.) It's also functional, a way to get from one place to another, without worrying about inclement weather. At the heart of it is some kind of garden or fountain, representing paradise.

The term "cloistered" is also used to denigrate people. It's easy to dismiss someone who chooses a cloistered existence as one lacking common sense, one unable to cope, and a misanthrope. The notion that a cloistered person has renounced the world is an easy stereotype, but one not based in reality. Most of the cloistered monastics I know would argue that it allows them to interact with the world in a different way.

The ideal that one aspires to--at least among the Benedictines I know--is a life of continual prayer, one centered in the Eucharist and always open to God's presence. As an oblate--a lay person who lives according to the Rule of St. Benedict as best as he or she can do--one faces a different,and seemingly harder, set of distractions from this ideal. We have to carve out time for our practices (lectio divina, the Divine Office, some form of contemplation), and our lay lives are hardly conducive or easy to reconcile with our contemplative lives. Some days it feels like being ripped in half between both lives, instead of being perfectly balanced.

But then there comes the realization that the cloister isn't a physical place, but a state of being. One's urban monastic tendencies aren't a hobby or a job, but a way of life. It's realizing in the midst of chaos and a million things vying for our attention that we've chosen the better part, one which can't be taken away or desecrated. For a fleeting instant, there's stillness.

not that horror was not, not that the killings did not continue,
not that I thought there was to be no more despair,
but that as if transparent all disclosed
an otherness that was blessèd, that was bliss.
I saw Paradise in the dust of the street. (Denise Levertov, from "City Psalm")

Crux sacra sit mihi lux! Nunquam draco sit mihi dux!

So inspired by another post on Lorna's blog, and a question in a seminar from my chair, "What is evil?"

I grew up with evil being associated with disobedience. It's a convenient definition, and it works for a lot of situations. The problem is, it's rife for exploitation.

If evil is disobedience, whether to human or Divine law, then what is disobedience, or obedience, for that matter? In abusive situations, the notion of obedience gets perverted and twisted into a shadow of what it was. The abuser seeks to hold absolute control and power over the abused, and uses this "obedience" as a chain.

But obedience isn't blind, and it doesn't ever contradict free will. Over and over again in the Rule of St. Benedict, obedience is equated with the ability--lovingly--to listen to another person. It's also a mutual obedience required from everyone to everyone: from the newbie novices to the people who've lived an entire lifetime in that enclosure. The abusive perversion of obedience is only in one direction, and only has the best interests of the abuser at heart. St. Benedict's obedience has the other's best interests in the foreground.

So what is evil? Evil is disobedience, where one knowingly and willingly asserts power over another, in order to subjugate, humiliate, and denigrate that person. I have a hard time believing in some sort of evil entity, because the temptation to do evil is so seductive and enticing, especially if it's been done to you.

New Blog on the block

Cascadia Catholics, which is started by the peace and justice group at my parish. They're a good group of people. So if you've any space on your blogroll, check 'em out!

My Game List

So the Hoopy Frood I'm marrying has a list of games he's playing through over here. I think I need to start something similar, because I'll find games used or on sale, and I'll pick them up. I may start playing them, but I get busy with life and grad school, so they fall by the wayside. Again, I reserve the right to reorder at any time, and I'll establish a beaten condition, like he does. So I give you...my list:

1. "Indigo Prophecy" PS2 (almost done with this one, might as well put it first)
2. "Resident Evil" (PSX)
3. "Resident Evil: Director's Cut" (PSX)
4. "Fatal Frame" (PS2) Better play this one soonish, with the next few...want to do a paper on gender, violence, and survival horror games.
5. "Clocktower 3" (PS2)
6. "Silent Hill 4" (PS2) (Started the PC version and got fed up with the audio not synching in cutscenes. pissed me off and I gave the DVD to the Hoopy Frood.)
7. "Katamari Darmacy" (PS2)
8. FFX (PS2)
9. FF9 (PSX)
10. FF8 (PSX) Almost finished this one, was on the last disc, but I lost the save game.
11. "Galerians" (PSX)
12. GTA: Vice City (PS2)
    
13. GTA: San Andreas (PC) might switch to the PS2 version, because the PC controls are so awkward, and I can't reprogram my gamepad to allow for the two analog joysticks as buttons.
    
14. "The Movies" (PC)
15. "Morrowind" (PC) (although I don't know if you can finish this one...)
16. "Morrowind: Tribunal" (PC)
    
17. "Morrowind: Bloodmoon" (PC)
    
18. "Warlords: Battlecry III" (PC) (love love love this game)
19. "Planescape: Torment" (PC) (If a video game can be art, this one's it.)
    
20. ".hack: Outbreak" (almost done with it, already played the first 2)
21. ".hack: Quarantine"
    
22. "Fatal Frame" (PSX)
23. "FF Tactics" (PSX) (looooove this game, too.)
    
24. "Dragon Warrior VII" (PSX) (got this one as a birthday present from the Hoopy Frood)
25. "Call of Cthulhu" (PC) (need to upgrade my computer...bought it...and found that it won't run with my CPU. Or hope they release a patch. Pretty pissed off about this one, too. May just give it to the Frood.)
26. "Tactics: Ogre" (GBA) May not be able to finish, because the cartridge is going.
27. "Advance Wars" (GBA)
28. "FF Tactics Advance" (GBA)

Dissertation update

180 / 4,500 (4.0%)

Above's in seconds. It may not seem like much, but I wrote a bunch, then cut out a bunch. Kind of a two steps foward, one step back, but it'll make things easier for the future. Need a break to make more iced tea.

Bunch of things going on, not the least of which oppressive heat and no air conditioning. But things, for good or for ill, eventually work out.

Some things aren't very funny

I'd like to think I have a good sense of humor. It's a rather warped and dark sense of humor, as well. But there are some things, which just aren't funny.

A friend from blogging is in the armed forces stationed elsewhere, in a region of the world where it's none too safe. Every once and awhile, he updates his blog, to let us know he's OK and to rant about various and sundry things. Days and weeks go by without updates.

Then one came from someone claiming to be a buddy of his (who did have posting access and was mentioned before), claiming that he'd been injured. A few hours later the same person made a post that he'd been killed as a result of those injuries. Those who read his blog were stunned. This guy was one of those larger-than-life figures who just couldn't be dead.

Then in the next day or so, people who knew him in real life were able to get in touch with him via phone and verify that he was alive and well. Someone with either a grudge or a very un-funny sense of humor decided to hack his blog and put that post up.

For every side in an armed conflict, there are ordinary people stuck in the crossfire. These people have friends and family who love them. If this were just a practical joke, or someone trying to be an asshole, then they got their jollies. But what if my friend's family (or God forbid) his child had seen the post? There are better ways of making one's political views known, that don't involve hurting people who can't do anything about it.The past 24 hours, I got a small taste of what the friends and family of people in life-threatening jobs go through every day of their lives. It's a sick feeling, reading about a friend of yours killed, and one I hope not to repeat in the future, for the sake of my friend's family.

LISP compiler with attitude

My LISP compiler just told me:

mus_header_read: can't open /home/hildegard/mcgill/obC2.aif: No such file or directory mus_header_read: can't open /home/hildegard/mcgill/obC2.aif: No such file or directory Error: cannot find ~/mcgill/obC2.aif

Restart actions (select using :continue):
0: so what?
1: abort current note.
2: close files and return to top-level.
3: jump past remaining notes.
4: retry the load of 3-5.lisp
5: skip loading 3-5.lisp
6: Abort entirely from this process.
[1c] CLM(12):

LISP compiler with attitude. I love it. Kind of fits my mood lately.

(I use LISP and Common LISP Music to do much of my computer music.)

More on the Divine Office

Meh. After looking at the 1963 traslation of the Roman Breviary, among others, and a couple weeks of the Little Office of the BVM, the 1975 ICEL translation really is kind of "bleh." It's not bad, but it's definitely a product of its times. My biggest beef with it is that it expunges any element of the psalms that might be potentially offensive, including the two cursing psalms. If the Divine Office is supposed to be the prayer of the entire Church, I can't understand why these psalms are left out, with as much violence and evil as there is out there. I can see why most of the Benedicitne and Trappist communities I know of do their own.

I'm not sure where I fit anymore. On the one hand, I dislike a lot of the "modern" musical liturgical developments of the 1970's and 1980's. Maybe I've been reading way too much Adorno, but I don't think guitars belong in the Mass. On the other hand, I can't stand the thought of going back to a time, when women just sat there and looked pious in their little chapel veils. I don't mind Latin, but I think liturgy can be beautiful in the vernacular. I like greater lay involvement with the liturgy, and I like the phrase "full and active participation." I can get filled up, with the brief intimacy of being able to hold a consecrated host. (Aside: I have received on the tongue, but it gives me giggle fits. I found this out when I broke my arm and got chicken pox right before my first communion. Oh well. Chicken pox with a cast was worth not having to wear a frilly white dress.)

It seems like those who have the best resources on Latin translations of it, are those who have the most hateful views towards anything that happened post 1965. I'm not talking even in the same league as my grousing about guitar music. I'm talking about outright hatred and vitriol towards EM's, "girls" as altar servers, and the like. I may dislike the music, but I don't hate the musicians. Is it wrong to want an aesthetically pleasing Divine Office?

Knowledge Base

OK. So aside from my dissertation (Yes, Doc Dork, I am working on it), my obsession this summer has been trying to find a copy of the Divine Office with all 150 psalms in Latin, to keep my mediocre Latin skills from going to mush.

The progression of this obsession has been thus: last March I spent a few days at Our Lady of the Rock, where they did the Divine Office in Latin. I thought it was cool, but didn't think that much of it. Fast forward a few months, and I obtained a copy of the LIttle Office of the BVM in parallel translation. It's nifty, although it's not as user-friendly to the gamer geek grad student as the current 1975 version put out by the Catholic Book Publishing Co. The ICEL version I don't mind, aside from some cheesy 1960's hymns I can't stand. (I kinda like the Grail Psalms.) The big thing that I don't like about it is that they've taken out any part of the psalms that could be offensive, including the two cursing psalms.

So I started looking for a copy of the Monastic Diurnal. But geek that I am, I thought it would be cool to get ahold of Matins, as well, since I'm usually up then, anyway. Then I heard that the breviary published by the OSB in 1963 is the Diurnal + Matins. And, lo and behold, my university actually had a copy. (Which I'm scanning. At least the first 1040 pages of each volume are the same...) Then I hear that the version they published isn't really the Benedictine offices, but the Roman Breviary. Does the Diurnal have all 150 psalms? I know St. Michael's Abbey Press in the UK has a reprint of it, but I don't want to shell out money for it, until I know what I need.

Who's right about the 1963 breviary? And should I be concerned about these people? So much of the Latin liturgy has been coopted by weird scismatic groups, I'm not sure who to trust.

Late-night thoughts on a Chronicle column

So I can't sleep--thanks to the party next door--and I'm ignoring my previous comment about not blogging at 1 a.m. There's a column in the Chronicle of Higher Ed that's haunting me. For those who can't access the link, it's the story of a post-doc in the sciences, who had an abusive advisor/research supervisor. The post-doc eventually gets out of the situation, and actually has people believe his story.

But for every one of the columnist who makes it out of a situation like that unscathed, there are dozens more, who have their careers ruined. For those who have the strength to fight back, others are crushed. For as lucky as I am with my advisor, others aren't so lucky.

Abusers were often abused, themselves, and I wonder if the academic family is similar to the biological one, in this respect. Getting a graduate degree is often like hazing, and the institution's dependence upon one's advisor or committee is ripe for abuse of power and abuse of individuals.

But I like the concept of free will. If we are nothing more than objects of our environment or nuturing, then we don't have a choice in our actions. I'd like to think that we do, and that we can make the choice to not treat others badly. It scares me to wonder how I'll be, when faced with a similar situation. How will I treat my advisees? What kind of advisor am I going to be?

Edit: think I figured out that if I don't have a title on a post, my RSS feed doesn't update. Good discipline to make myself give things titles. I hate titles. Most times it's the last thing I come up with on a piece of music, as well.

Odds and Ends

• I need to start a game list like my Hoopy Frood does over at his blog. If you're interested in gaming and one person's quest through his list of 137 games, check him out. He knows where his towel's at.
  
• I did a bit of retail therapy and picked up "Indigo Prophecy." (Europeans will know it as "Fahrenheight.") Great game, feels a bit short. Although I just checked my played time, and I've got 5.5 hours into it. I haven't unlocked everything, and I know there are some bits I glossed over. It's by no means a game for chidren, but there's very little graphic violence. The soundtrack is great, if a bit repetitive at times. Well worth the $20 so far.
• Is it just me, or are there a lot of super-reactionary conservative Catholic blogs out there? (Probably better for my blood pressure and mental health if I stay away.)
• I've been looking for a copy of the Monastic Diurnal, the version in Latin and English. It's the day hours (minus Matins) of the Benedictine office. I've found one version in reprint through St. Michael's Abbey Press, but it's $65 without postage on a good dollar day. I found another copy here, and just looking at their stuff, they seemed on the up-and-up. Digging further, I found they're associated with the SSPX and the Lefebvre crowd. Yay. Like I really want my money going to support them. Not. So here's hoping interlibrary loan comes through...
  

Always check your sources and never blog at 1 a.m.

OK. The demise of guitar masses is not impending. The Daily Breakfast podcast has a great discussion of what was actually said (with reference to the Italian original). Here's another article with the raw facts. A pope, making comments after a concert, is not making an ex cathedra pronouncement.

"An authentic updating of sacred music cannot occur except in line with the great tradition of the past, of Gregorian Chant, and of sacred polyphony. This is why, in the musical field, as well as in that of other artistic forms, the ecclesial community has always promoted and supported those who investigate new expressive ways without rejecting the past, the history of the human spirit, which is also the history of its dialogue with God."

And I can agree with that. It's more or less the point I was trying to make last night.

A few disconnected thoughts, because it's late and I need to get to sleep...

At first, the composer in me thought "thank God" when I read this. I've long hated guitar music in the Mass, especially since most of the hymns played on it are really bad music. What we bring to the Mass and the liturgy should be our best, and frankly much of the music written after 1970 really sucks.

But...it makes me wonder what a modernization of the older polyphonic and chant really is. Granted, it's a crappy news article with a few choice blurbs, but when people mean "classical" music, they don't usually mean that which was written in living memory. Somehow I don't think we'll be hearing Lou Harrison's setting of the Mass anytime soon, either. Or Penderecki's.

If one looks at the early history of music in the Church and advancements in music, up until the rise of secular and instrumental music, they happened in liturgical music. Settings of the Mass, for instance, mimicked what was going on in other areas of western art music. (One can debate whether or not they were concert pieces or liturgical pieces, however.) Then in the early 20th century (around 1903), things got a bit more conservative under Pius X. I see the liturgical reforms of Vatican II as they affected music to be still under this influence. The music itself hasn't kept pace with what's been going on in the western art music scene.

When's the last time you heard of a big-name composer, who had a commission to set the Mass? How often do you hear calls for scores for music with a liturgical theme? Not half as often as for secular ensembles. That's where the money is, and I can't blame composers for wanting to eat and pay rent.

For those who might not be familiar with canon law (and Roman law), the things set down in the GIRM (the General Instruction to the Roman Missal, which provides the rubrics for liturgy), are the best-case scenario, something to aspire to. Even if guitar music was made inappropriate for liturgy tomorrow, odds are not everyone would follow it, or it would take years to phase out.

Even though I hate guitar Masses with a burning passion, if I'm not serving at that particular Mass, I can avoid it. And even when I am an altar server, odds are I'm not focusing on the music. But for the 200 people or so who go to that Mass faithfully, it's music that gives their worship meaning. Rather than ruin their fun, I can go to a different Mass, or offer my discomfort up. (In theory...the ABD doctoral student in me normally grumbles about it first.)

But I think the whole snarking at guitar music is really a symbol of a larger problem: there has been no innovation in liturgical music for the past 100 years. I think that's a more dire problem, than whether or not the current Pope prefers Mozart to Marty Haugen.

Edit: Yes, I realize there have been settings of the Mass from Faure, Stravinsky, Durufle, and others. But if you go to Mass any given Sunday, you won't hear it. That's what I'm talking about, everyday liturgical music--once riddled with good music from composers who did stuff in both sacred and secular realms--is devoid of any innovation. If you're lucky, you might get a Mozart setting on Christmas or Easter.

It's 90 out, and there are heat advisories and stagnant air warnings, so I'm holed up on the laptop in a library. Fortunately the extensive libraries on campus are air-conditioned, and empty, even though it's the start of summer quarter. Thanks to living above the 40th parallel, the hot part of the day hits around 3 p.m., so I've got a few hours until it begins to cool.

Interesting post over on Kyle Gann's blog about encounters and lessons with big-name composers. Given my weird background (I hadn't had any formal composition study until grad school, so I was self-taught and used to being on my own), and the fact that I'm really shy in real life, lessons with guest composers have been less-than-fruitful. (With the exception of Annie Gosfield. Wonderful person, and great composer.)

Most have been merely annoying. But my first such encounter was nightmarish. I wasn't used to how such things worked, and she was from a different generation (and culture), where teachers are more authoritative than they are here. Combine this with a shy Master's student in her first semester, who wasn't used to either being able to compose openly or actually show her works without reprisal, it was a recipe for disaster. Now I'm used to thanking their time, and getting on with my life. But then I took her comments way too personally, and it was at least a semester before I could try showing work to anyone not my teacher.

But the update to the post made me rethink the value of such things: that these meetings might be of more value to the guest composer, not the students. (Of course it's making the Catholic guilt kick in.) It's also the student/teacher relationship at its best--the exchange isn't always one way. The times I've looked at people's compositions, it's been a profoudly humbling moment to be able to share in their development and their music.

I wonder if some of the god-complex in one comment isn't a front for something else. It's a weirdly uncomfortable situation to be the center of attention, with all the focus on your music. Like John Rahn writes (heat-stroke, dazed paraphrase), art is a personal thing. You're already exposed, but moreso with one's music being discussed. It's akin to discussing your beliefs, while being stark naked. Maybe the god-complex is a method of protection?

Show thyself to be a mother...

I'm never sure what to make of Mary. On the one hand, there's a lot of supersition surrounding her that's used to reinforce potentially hurtful gender roles, but those are every bit the misrepresentation of her. They ignore the woman who laughed at an angel and got her son off his backside at the wedding in Cana. They also forget the woman of strength, a refugee in Egypt, and the mother who watched her son die in a way unimaginable to the modern person. But there's also Mary the contemplative, who pondered all that happened to her in her heart.

I'm also not sure what to make of her influence. I wrote her off as superstition, only to come figuratively crashing into her at New Melleray Abbey, where she (among Trappists) is revered as the ideal contemplative. And then the weird coincidences began.

Stuff for a later entry, but my discovery of my vocation as a composer wasn't an easy time. It was frought with uncertainty, doubt, and outright terror. I was alone, and there wasn't anyone to guide me, in the way that I would find in grad school. One winter--in February--my senior year, I was walking home from the music building, wondering what the future would hold, and I smelled roses. It was nothing overpowering, but on the periphery of a scent. Maybe it was someone's perfume, maybe it wasn't. But that evening was a turning point, and I knew things were going to work out. (I got my acceptance letter for my Master's at the end of that month.)

My first piece was performed on May 1, a day associated with Mary. To date, every time I have a piece performed, it's on a Marian feast or within a day or two. Maybe it's just coincidence, since they're spread throughout the calendar.

So at the end of my Master's, I'd sent off my applications to various doctorate programs. And an image of Our Lady of Guadalupe came to my parish out there. I hadn't thought about of that particular instance of Mary, so I went, for the party after, if nothing else. While there, I was confronted with the image of a person who loves unconditionally. Her face wasn't the aristocratic images I'd seen in children's prayer books, but the face of one who knew both joy and sorrow; and, more importantly, shares in our joys and sorrows. At yet another turning point in my life, she was there. (And within a month or two, I'd gotten my acceptance letter at my current school.)

I'm hardly one who takes apparitions and Virgin Marys in moldy grilled cheese sandwiches seriously. I think these say more about the people who see them, than anything else. A part of me thinks that these representations are us wanting to reach out to some tangible form of a benevolent entity, when fear and uncertanty are overwhelming. It's both a desire for comfort, and the reassurance of one who's "been there."

That having been said, it's nice to know that there's someone out there, who tends our metaphysical skinned knees.

So every morning (when I remember), the Liturgy of Hours opens with Psalm 95. Some mornings, it resonates. Others it's just words on a page. Some days, praise comes easily. Others, I have to work hard to suppress the cynicism. Although it seems "cheap" to praise when things are going well. Even though my head (and heart) isn't into it, the days praise comes hardest seem to be the most sincere.

I've been thinking about the second readings the past few days from the Office of Readings. I'm having an almost visceral disgust-reaction to them, I think I know why, but I think they deserve another look. Full text found here. St. Ignatius of Antioch was a doomed man when he wrote it, as a friend suggested. Logically, I know this letter is an insight into one destined for capital punishment, torture, and imprisonment. It didn't help that I only got the middle chunk of it, the second readings being replaced on Sunday (solemnity of the Holy Trinity) and today (feast of St. Antony of Padua). I keep coming back to the line in Romans, that it's harder to live in Christ, than it is to die in him.

The first part of it (1-3) seem normal enough, almost a goodbye letter from a bishop to his churches. I can grasp this, he's being a living example to others. Paragraph 3 I can understand: "Just pray that I may have strength of soul and body so that I may not only talk [about martyrdom], but really want it."

But then from paragraph 4 on, things get weird for me. I can understand he wishes to unite his death with Christ's, and perhaps the joyfulness in tone is he trying to steel himself for it. While I read about suicides at Guantanamo Bay, and I've seen the pictures of Abu Gharaib, I can't understand dying a gruesome, painful death, and knowing it's going to happen beforehand. Maybe this some of my discomfort with the letter. It's pushing me out of my cushy little world, and sticking me in the head of someone who isn't long for this world, people I pray for, but don't ever directly encounter.

metadiscussion

Does anyone know why the RSS bookmark for this blog doesn't always update? The atom feed does (I have a syndication for LJ set up.)

Into Great Silence. Absolutely beautiful film, but if you aren't up on forms of Benedictine monasticism, make sure you learn a thing or two about it first, otherwise you'll be completely lost, since the film assumes you know a thing or two about the rhythm of their life. It's also nearly 3 hours of complete silence, except for the sounds naturally occurring from daily life. I loved it, but other people hated it. It began with images of one monk praying. It's something so intimate, almost voyeuristic, to watch someone in prayer. But over the course of the movie, you're sucked into it. Also, the quotes interspersed over the course of the movie are the best introduction to lectio divina that I've ever seen.

Still working on the other paper. The movie made me wonder, how different my life would've been, had I not met my fiancé and not been accepted into a doctorate program. (I would've investigated a vocation with the Trappists...) Then again, my life isn't much different already.

One of the things that dawned on me earlier from my retreat last March was that I actually have more time for silence and prayer when I'm at home. Like now, I'm in my department's building, and it's the Friday before graduation, so it's empty. My typing and the laptop's hard drive are the loudest noises around. This office is like a cell, an extention of my cloister.

Thing is, people like McClary (and the indignant sighers at the SIFF last Wednesday) aren't ever going to see the craziness that makes us choose this life. It's like the anointing at Bethany--those who are obsessed to the material cost of things can't ever see beyond it.

It's not about gender, it's not about sex, it's not about power, it's not about economic relevance. It's about answering a call from within our very beings. For the monastic or for the composer, there is no other choice which will bring meaning to their lives.

Tomorrow I'm seeing Into Great Silence at the Seattle Film Festival. I'm sure I'll post something about it. I've been looking forward to seeing this since I heard about it last December.

So for Paper Number Two, which I owe my chair, I was thinking of doing something about the Rule of St. Benedict and composition. (Wow, big shocker there, eh?) I wasn't sure what my focus was, until I read an article by Susan McClary, "Terminal Prestige: The Case of Avant-Garde Music Composition."

Initially, my response to the article was, "Who the f*** died and made you queen?" Closely followed on the heels of "How the hell would you know what it's like to be a composer in the 21st century, anyway?"

So trying to educate and not berate (oh so very tempting), I'm trying to describe what led me to the vocation of a composer. I think one of the reasons why I'm attracted to so-called "difficult" music and the Rule of St. Benedict is because both expect us to move out of our comfort zone and grow. With easily-digestible things and a cushy life, there can't be progress.

But I guess I've been brainwashed by elitism and the "serious" composer.

Zeal

For one of the two papers I've got due, I'm discussing acedia, a kind of occupational hazard of monastics, also called "listlessness," or "sloth," if it's something you did to cause it. I came across a quote out of Cassian's Conferences:

From carelessness on our part, when through our own faults, coldness has come upon us, and we have behaved carelessly and hastily, and owing to slothful idleness have fed on bad thoughts, and so make the ground of our heart bring forth thorns and thistles; which spring up in it, and consequently make us sterile, and powerless as regards all spiritual fruit and meditation.

Sloth, being the opposite of zeal, is that which makes "the ground of our heart[s] bring forth thorns and thistles." I'm sure most people have experienced this at least once, a dry time so complete, everything feels like a waste. Burnout, depression, the "noonday demon." But what about its opposite, zeal? The OED definition is "ardent love or affection" or "fervent devotion." Also: "ardent desire or longing."

If sloth is that which makes our hearts into a wasteland, zeal is what makes them fertile. It's having a longing, or some sort of love for our work. I think most of us know a person, or people, who had an infectious desire and love for their discipline. It's one in which you can't help but be inspired by their love. They never bash you over the head with expectations, but lead you to the same kind of devotion and affection that they first had for their work.

In students, it's the person you thought never cared, who winds up at your empty office hour (or so was my experience in my Master's) to discuss some point. They're the people who make all the dry times and bureaucratic hassle worth it.

"And finally, never lose hope in God's mercy." (Rule of St. Benedict 4:74)

Two threads over on Livejournal caught my eye, this one, and this one. Sadly, what was being discussed in them is nothing new. In both threads, the posters were being criticized for their decision to become a music major. Both were advised--in a polite sense of the term--to get "real" majors and "real" jobs.

In some parts of the world, the Roman Catholic clergy is facing a vocational crisis. There are too few priests to go around, and even fewer people entering the seminary. It's fashionable to blame everything from female altar servers, homosexuality, and whatever bugaboo is bothering people at the time. But I think the real crisis is in the perception of a vocation.

The OED and a year's worth of Latin last summer remind me that the word "vocation" is derived from the verb "vocare," or "to call." A vocation is something one is called to, and the choice is ours whether to respond or not. It's not something one can decide on a whim, but a result of careful listening and discernment. It's something that can lead people into wild and uncomfortable places, but it, like anything else in life, is far from certain.

Minor Update and Unity

I'm still planning on doing a "seven cardinal virtues" post for academics, but it's crunch mode here, and I've got two papers I need to get in before the end of the semester.

So another blog post here and this seminar about mind/body/spirit in music got me thinking about unity. Don't get me wrong, it's been a great class, last few weeks aside. On the one hand, I want there to be some sort of unity. On the other, I know that there are some things we all are going to disagree upon.

For instance, there are some things I'm comfortable doing (learning about other religions, observing their practices), and there are others I'm not comfortable with (actually participating in something I don't believe in). I feel I owe it to the other denomination or religion that I refrain from participating, when I can't share their beliefs. For instance, I'd never take communion in a congregation where the presence of Christ was held to be only symbolic.

So one of the student presentations next week involves a participatory event based upon a philosophy and set of beliefs I don't hold. I do respect those beliefs highly, but I, personally, can't share it. (My other objections involve a tight work schedule and the fact that for me meditation--or contemplation as my tradition calls it--is a personal and solitary activity I can't just do around other people. I really wasn't kidding when I mentioned I'd rather have sex in public than meditate around people I don't know.) There's no problem with my being excused from it.

The past couple weeks in the class have made me realize how very different we all are, and wonder if unity is an ideal we can't have here and now. If anything my study of other religions has taught me, it's taught me that I have a home as a Roman Catholic. No matter how irate some of its members may make me, my culture, beliefs, and identity are as a Roman Catholic. This isn't something I can put aside for the sake of half-baked "scholarship," as in the case of the satanism presentation. While I do enjoy learning about other religions, I can't put aside my Catholicity (is that a word?) and become something I'm not.

I'm feeling uneasy about the next class, even though I'm excused from it. I don't think I'd have a problem, were things kept theoretical. But I think I'd be feeling the same, had the class gone to Mass on the day we were discussing some readings on the Eucharist. As an EM, I can't refuse anyone communion (that's the job of the ordinary minister in my diocese), but I would feel weird receiving communion among the majority of the class who couldn't. Extrapolating my hypothetical class situation further to me acting as an EM during that hypothetical Mass, and knowing my diocese's policy of extraordinary ministers of communion (me) not being able to refuse people, I'd hope that people who present themselves for communion are at least able to understand and accept by what we believe in the Eucharist. And I don't know that the Spirit isn't leading them there.

So going back to Lorna's post, I think there's a way out of all this:

Unity does not mean cloning. God forbid! The creator of the universe did not even create two snowflakes the same, so why we Christians would fall into the trap of thinking that being united means being the same I’ll never understand...That which is on our heart (not our mind) is what unites us - if we are willing.

Can we in this class come together from this? Or, rather, can I? Lord knows at the begining of the class I was willing for that kind of meeting of hearts Lorna discusses. I feel rather far from that now.

Fair warning, I'm not feeling overly charitable tonight. It's one of those days, when you wonder if the world is off it's meds. At one time I was considering a vocation with the Trappists, and today is one of those days, when I start wondering if I made the wrong choice to pursue a more apostolic vocation. (Although truth be told, people are people, and annoyances are found everywhere, cloister or no.)

So today in a seminar, I was treated to a presentation by a student. The readings she gave were from the Satanic bible. Now, it could've been handled in a more interesting manner. But clearly from the get-go her intent was to shock. Needless to say, after reading the description of the black Mass, I was mightily pissed off. (Still am, to some extent.) I'm even more pissed off because I had to sit through two hours of vapidity. Granted, she's still learning, and I could've been a bit more charitable; but when that which you hold most sacred in your denomination is trashed for no real reason at all (She could've cut the readings out of her presentation, and it wouldn't have mattered), it tends to get a bit personal.

I'm still too angry to sleep; the rosary (which normally helps insomnia) only served to reinforce my pissed-offed-ness; so I wander over to the veritable Chronicle of Higher Ed, only to read two columns about the seven deadly sins for students and professors. Including one nice little tidbit, also insulting the crap out of one of my research interests:

The students, mostly, have learned not to take responsibility for their actions. If they fail to do assignments and miss a substantial number of classes, it's because they are so busy, even though said busyness-- if the truth be told--consists mostly of playing video games, watching television, attending sporting events, and going to drunken parties.

Yup, you guessed it. Students are lazy because they drink too much and play video games. I wonder what Prof. Benton would think about doctoral students who play video games, write papers on them and hardly drink. Oh, and further on in his column, we all dress like hussies (so much for my geek wear of jeans and a T-shirt or long-sleeved T-shirt). I'd like to see him chase cat-5 cable under someone's desk in a skirt and heels. Or gut a computer wearing chiffon. And I've got two words to say to pantyhose: yeast infection.

So since I'm in the mood to be contrary, I'll be starting on my seven cardinal virtues for academics. Now I think it's finally time for sleep.

Although I'm no longer in the weekly class for composers, I'm still on the class list. An email was distributed Friday in which a "game" will be played next week. Normally, the "game" consists of a bunch of "drop the needle" examples of contemporary pieces, which the students have to guess. It's an interesting diversion, although I have issues with "drop the needle" tests, but that's another blog entry for another time. Next week's version requires students to write a short piece in the style of some contemporary composer, and the rest have to guess who the composer is emulating. I have Issues with this as a pedagogical tool.

There is a tradition of such things in how composition is taught. It used to be that if you wanted to study with a particular person, you were expected to write music like him or her. One of my teachers studied with Berio, and he expected his students to write a certain way. Anything else wasn't even considered. During my Master's, I was to study with another composer of that generation, and it was expected that I would only write the kind of music he produced. Now, the individual in question was not a horrible person--far from it--but old pedagogical habits die hard.

Many poets are not poets for the same reason that many religious men are not saints: they never succeed in being themselves. They never get around to being the particular poet or the particular monk they are intended to be by God. They never become the man or the artist who is called for by all the circumstances of their individual lives.

They waste their years in vain efforts to be some other poet, some other saint. For many absurd reasons, they are convinced that they are obliged to become somebody else who died two hundred years ago and who lived in circumstances utterly alien to their own.

They wear out their minds and bodies in a hopeless endeavor to have somebody else's experiences or write somebody else's poems or possess somebody else's spirituality. (Thomas Merton, New Seeds of Contemplation, 98)

A former teacher, quoting Morton Feldman, said that in teaching composition, there are only two things to keep in mind: that the student knows what he/she wants, and that he/she gets it. One of the hardest things about being a composer is learning to trust your own intuition and voice. It's an instinct, of sorts. It's terrifying and liberating to be confronted with a blank sheet of paper (or blank text editor, as the case may be). Instead of confronting and overcoming this nothingness, writing someone else's music is an easier way to avoid it. People may write good music this way, but they'll never mature into the composer they were called to be.

Perfection is not something you can acquire like a hat--by walking into a place and trying on several and walking out again with one on your head that fits. Yet people sometimes enter monasteries with that idea...

If they do this job thoroughly, their spiritual disguises are apt to be much admired. Like successful artists, they become commercial...

Such "sanctity" may perhaps be the only fruit of mutual flattery. The "perfection" of the holy one is something that reassures his neighbors by comforting them in their own prejudices and by enabling them to forget what is lacking in their own communal mentality. It makes them feel that they are "right," that they are on the right way, and that God is "satisfied" with their collective way of life. Therefore nothing needs to be changed. But anyone who opposes this situation is wrong. The sanctity of the "saint" is there to justify the complete elimination of those who are "unholy"--that is, those who do not conform.

So too in art, or literature. The "best" poets are those who happen to succeed in a way that flatters our current prejudice about what constitutes good poetry. We are very exacting about the standards that they have set up, and we cannot even consider a poet who writes in some other slightly different way, whose idiom is not quite the same. We do not read him. We do not dare to, for if we were discovered to have done so, we would fall from grace. We would be excommunicated." (New Seeds, 101-102)

Although it's nice to have a piece which speaks to another person, it's easy to fall into the trap of writing what other people want to hear. It's also easy to like those who don't challenge us or challenge our notions of what "music" is. There are those who spend their lives forging ahead, without becoming enslaved to newness, yet never get the recognition they deserve. And there are those who write according to the status quo.

Ethically, I don't see how I could require another person to write music like I do, or in some other style. I see those who teach composition as tasked with the nurturing and development of another person's voice. (Thankfully, I had great teachers.) It's a heavy responsibility, and forcing a student to write a particular way won't develop it. (Although short exercises in different styles might be good for getting over "writer's block" or helping the student learn what he/she wants, never as the sole method.)

I'm thanking my Maker I don't have to do that assignment for next week. There is something deeply sacramental about sitting in the presence of a piece from a composer who's in touch with his/her voice. It may or may not be a good piece from him/her; but while listening to it, you can't help but feel as if you're being drawn into the composer's presence. The exposition of a composer's voice is a sacred thing, and would-be critics would do well to respect this.