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.

Paper blathering

Need to beg indulgences, but I've got a paper I need to write that isn't cooperating. Sometimes if I discuss it "out loud" it'll help get things flowing. Right now, I'm not entirely sure what my point is.

The paper began as a discussion of mathematical beauty, how that maps into musical beauty, what the role of music theory is in all of this, and how mathematicians and music theorists really don't mean "beauty," but something more like "enlightenment." This didn't pan out because mathematicians don't do the kind of metatheorizing that music theorists do. Or if they do have metadiscussions, it's not in terminology I can understand.

So I gravitated towards discussing music as experience and either recapturing (music theory) or encapsulating (composition) that. Now people whose writings I like tend to not draw a fine distinction between composition and music theory. I think both have similar goals, but I'm not hugely convinced that the experience of doing one or the other is similar.

Then I happened upon this quote from Benjamin Boretz:

Transcendence, then is not at all restricted to ecstasy, devouring passion, undifferentiated oneness with the universe, all-suffusing peacefulness, blinding sensation--Precise, vivid, specific, as experiential quality, the total replacement of the state of normal consciousness with a distinct state. Terrified of so much significance--that is, so much distinctness of identity in one's own experience as to be utterly isolated from the external world as a consequence of the most vivid act of experiencing it--people seek objectivity in and about their music. They invent an abstract ontology of qualities which are intersubjective--perceivable and denotable--on the order of green--pitch, say--and then talk about music as the composition of these qualities; sometimes they try to teach themselves, or are even taught by others, to actually hear music in this countersubjective flat empirical way, as if it were like discourse in its neutral rhetorical transparency. (("starting now from here,...") three consecutive occasions of sociomusical reflection)

In my mind, the act of "doing" music, whether theorizing or composing, is something similar to contemplation. Elsewhere, I've discussed how composition is more like "infused contemplation," and I'm wondering if music theorizing is more like dark contemplation. What do you have, when the experience is taken away? There's a faint trace of it in re-representation or performance of music, but it's never the same as the experience which produced it. Or the experience of producing it.

I'm the last person on the planet to discount the role of experience and transcendence in art. However, I think there's a very real trap to fall into in the experiential model of music theory. If music is to produce some sort of experience or transcendence, then what's to keep it from becoming some sort of drug? If music becomes a way to program experience, what's to keep it from losing significance and power? It's precisely because of the "so much distinctness of identity in one's own experience" that there needs to be some other thing to balance it.

If infused contemplation is the original event which fuels the contemplative life, dark contemplation is what keeps contemplatives honest. The kind of transcendence Boretz is speaking of certainly isn't infused contemplation. It's a different kind of transcendence that I think is more like dark contemplation. And that's where I am, at the moment.

What I learned this weekend:

• The people who really matter will stand out in difficult times when the proverbial excrement hits the fan.
• There are some things worth fighting for, as cheesy as it sounds.
• As much as I whine, complain, and grouse about academia, it's still a far cry better than the chance of not finishing.
  
• I put entirely too much self-worth into a piece of paper that says "DMA."
• Sometimes it takes something big happening to make one realize what's really important.

Most video games don't make a secret of their politics. America's Army is the most obvious--if not overly clever--example of this. Your average martial-themed strategy game post-9/11 has some sort of terrorist cell, usually Middle Easternish. (Poor Edward Said is probably spinning in his grave.)

Other games have a more hidden political agenda. For instance, a friend quipped that Dark Age of Camelot's latest expansion, "Darkness Rising," should've been called "Jihad Rising." (One is called upon by the king of one's realm to defend against an uprising from a demonic cult.) While I seriously doubt Mythic was thinking about 9/11, the Zeitgeist is there, and it's one which is in the forefront of people's minds. I think video games provide some sort of power over a situation we might not have a lot of control over. As such, they're a way to constructively work out one's feelings and frustrations. In DAoC, I'm sure it's no accident that a truly benevolent king is asking heroes to defend against a present and visible threat; however, the WMD's clearly exist in DAoC in the form of very ugly demons in the Circle of Five dungeons.

I promised myself that I'd purchase the expansion to City of Heroes once my exams were over. I never got around to it, so a friend graciously sent a gift certificate to Amazon for it. So I've been playing City of Villains lately. I must admit. It's fun to be a bad guy. The game is structured almost identically to City of Heroes, except for newspaper missions (a welcome addition.) At first, I didn't know how I would feel playing a villain. City of Heroes fits in with my ethics, and I thought that City of Villains would give people an excuse to run around and be assholes. It turns out I find myself questioning my actions in City of Heroes way more than I do in City of Villains.

First, the setting: Paragon City, Rhode Island. This is the area where the heroes play. It's mostly new, clean (except for the "working class" areas, but they look old, not necessarily skeevy). Part of the newness has to do with the fact that the city was invaded and almost destroyed by a race of aliens called the Rikti. (This happened towards the end of the open beta, I'm told.) The game's "present" takes place after the reconstruction of Paragon City.

And then we have the Rogue Islands. They are older than Paragon City, appear to be untouched by the Rikti wars (there are cobblestone streets and true gothic buildings, unlike neo-gothic skyscrapers in Paragon City). Streets wind, and there's obvious blight and disrepair. Most of the areas I've seen so far are areas with "character," as a Craigslist landlord would put it.

So when I began playing CoV, my character was rescued by a crime syndicate in the Rogue Islands, Arachnos. A comment made by an NPC put an inkling in the back of my head that things might not be as they seem in Paragon City. She said that in the Rogue Islands, one has complete freedom.

Of course, it's complete chaos as far as social order goes. Your missions are assassinations, heists, and the like. (I'm surprised anyone wealthy goes to Larry's Tiki Lounge anymore, with as many heists as I pulled there on Mercy Island while levelling.) There is nothing opaque about one's motivations as a villain: your bottom line and infamy.

So tonight as my chill time, I was playing in Paragon City for a change of pace. My hero entered the server, and I became sick to my stomach. My first sight was a large billboard, proclaiming that Earth was for humans. Another billboard says that "they" are still among us, and to report any strange activity. I've seen these billboards hundreds of times since I started playing the game last summer, but the context had radically shifted.

In CoV, there is no discrimination as to who might be an antagonist. In CoH, the antagonists are those who are different, changed, and not part of mainstream society. One gang, "The Lost," is comprised of homeless people being changed into Rikti. Another gang, "The Trolls," are a Superdyne addicts (the drug of choice in Paragon city) physically altered into a subhuman race. The Tsoo are a vaguely Asian gang. (There goes poor Said again.) In short, anyone "different" is a potential antagonist. That the antagonists' powers resemble the heroes' powers is no accident.

There's something eerily Orwellian and totalitarian about Paragon City, with it's manicured lawns and grid-construction streets. Heroes are kept in check by their service to the State. Sure, the Arachnos billboards in the Rogue Islands provide propaganda, but their messages are couched in potentiality: one has the ability to better one's situation through the organization. Granted, my ninja mastermind is only level 10. But it'll be interesting to see if there are any other context shifts, the further I get.

On another friend's blog, someone remarked, "We would do well to remember that only as a living tradition are we the sacrament of salvation." It was one of those comments that hit me in the gut, in a good way, and made me hopeful. He was speaking of the Catholic Church and tendencies towards unthinking legalism that seem to be popular among the twentysomethings, but it dawned on me that he could be speaking about what it is to be a composer.

All composers are part of a living tradition. The common notion about composers is that they operate in some mythical, romantic past, and that every piece they make is some sort of masterwork. (Whether or not the concept of a "masterwork" exists, is another blog entry for another time.) But popular notion aside, at any given moment, there are people out there (still breathing), who're writing music. The act of composition can be seen as a kind of repetition. And like the earlier post on repetition, there is a danger of being trapped in either slavery or rehearsal.

Since we have almost a thousand years worth of tradition, it's easy to become enslaved to it. The model of music theory is one of rules and empiricisms (think basic theory), and, to an extent, part of the legalistic model of music theory is used to teach composition. In it, a student must learn certain stylistic rules of different historical periods, and then they make music based upon it. Composition becomes like part-writing or counterpoint exercises. They might make some good music this way, but they're trapped to a bunch of rules, which really don't exist. The joy of creation becomes a part-time job.

It would be wrong to say that music theory is only the analytical material one would find in a first or second-year theory text; and it is criminal to teach composition along these ways. Outside of a first or second year theory class, nobody cares whether or not you resolve chords, if you use chords at all, or if you do a perfect sonata form. The only thing that matters is the piece, itself. The degree to which the composer conformed to some stylistic practice is secondary.

The other type of enslavement is when everything is new. In this type of slavery, the composer-to-be is obsessed with only producing "new" things. They are in the process of perfecting their "art," which means obsessing over that which hasn't been done previously. They have little concern for those who came before, and every work they produce must be one which breaks these connections. People in this extreme can also make good music, but there is the danger of becoming imprisoned in one's own ego.

I don't write music in a vaccuum. I studied with various people, who studied with various people. I listen to music. There are sounds all around me, and I can't write in an anechoic chamber. I can't deny that they are a part of me when I write, so there will be elements of other people in my music. Another joy of composition comes when I realize that these people are so a part of me that they flow into what I do unthinkingly.

It's only when I'm aware of my roots and conscious of what possibilities are out there that I'm free to be the composer I'm meant to be. It's the "un-self-ish"ly opening towards some larger and unconfined end that is what it means to be part of a living tradition. If my future were determined by some past tradition, I'd be just as enslaved as if every possibility were open. Without some final cause, which retains some element of mystery, I become trapped in either extreme.

Those of you who know me from elsewhere should know by now that I don't like René Girard. Not him, personally, since I'm sure he's a perfectly nice human being; but his writings annoy me to no end, especially Violence and the Sacred, which has some currency among cultural theorists. In a nutshell, in order to quell violence, a sacrificial victim (surrogate) has to be killed and then contemplated; but in the act of killing the surrogate, violence can be mistaken for the sacrificial act, throwing more violence into the system. And the more the community contemplates the sacrificial victim, the more they desire it, also creating more strife. (Of course, this is an oversimplification.) The reference to the Eucharist is obvious.

His writings have their uses in cultural theory, and he often gets used to describe issues of desire, consumer vs. mass culture, a framework for discussing the sacred without referencing any one particular religion, and the like. In particular, the expression of creativity can be seen as a violent act:

I see every music-doing act by a socialized person as an act having something for or against me; you doing something for or against you. At the very least, I need to articulate my thoughts out loud among you, to put my music sound out there where others are, to disseminate my articulations of word ideas and music ideas, so that there will be some resonance of my reality, or my ontology, for me to hear coming back at me from within the world I inhabit, too, not just the resonances of everyone else's, or some generalized resonance of everyone's. (Benjamin Boretz, "Interface V. The InnerStudio (Strategies for Retrieving Reality in Music Experience and Practice.")

The notion that I'm somehow imposing myself upon an audience is something I wrestle with. Where is your place, if you know you're vocation is in some form of the contemplative life, which is by definition hidden and reserved, but also part of the same vocation is, by necessity, extroverted? Some composers don't have a problem with assaulting the audience with themselves. What Boretz is trying to get at is the relevance of creativity, and how it might be used to reconcile the "me-against-you" danger of composition and creativity. Within his essay, the consideration of the Other is what wards against this danger.

Part of what pisses me off the most (even more than his Paleolithic views on gender role) about Girard's book is his take on the sacrificial act. In his worldview, we don't have a choice--we're compelled by the very thing which brings us peace to use it against other people. In his world, every act of creativity is an act of violence against someone else. It doesn't matter if you're the one being sacrificed, or the one drawing the blade over the victim's throat. But the way out of his feedback cycle of violence is to not play along. From Wednesday's (the Wednesday after Passion Sunday) Office of Readings:

"What does it mean to sit at this table if not to approach it with humility? What does it mean to observe carefully what is set before you if not to meditate devoutly on so great a gift? What does it mean to stretch out one's hand, knowing that one must provide the same kind of meal oneself, if not what I have just said: as Christ laid down his life for us, so we in our turn ought to lay down our lives for our brothers? This is what the apostle Paul said: Christ suffered for us, leaving us an example, that we might follow in his footsteps.
This is what is meant by providing "the same kind of meal." This is what the blessed martyrs did with such burning love. If we are to give true meaning to our celebration of their memorials, to our approaching the Lord's table in the very banquet at which they were fed, we must, like them, provide "the same kind of meal." (From a treatise on John by St. Augustine.)

Girard forgot a four-letter word from his catechism: love. It's not enough to blindly follow along with the herd in the sacrifice. Out of love, by participating in it, it means becoming it. or put another way by a Dominican who would routinely visit my old parish, to participate in the Eucharist is to break the bread of one's own life.

Similarly to Boretz's notion, the Other is my hope. If I exert what might be called "myself" in a piece of music, I'm offering myself, out of love, to the Other. If my life, and everything coming out of it, becomes a reflection of the Eucharist, how can I cause violence to the Other?

There's another line in another article by John Rahn (If you haven't guessed I like his writings):

There is a positive joy in perceiving a flawlessly intricate musical structure, one which leads the mind to startling discoveries as it is unfolded, offering depths upon depths into which we peer, within which we play, but which are never exhausted, never leave us low and dry.
This is not the flash of a Richard Strauss, not the meretricious craftsmanship of the mere technician, unconnected to the wellsprings of his human existence; it is, rather, the kind of craftsmanship that apes the divine, or from which the notion of divine creation is extrapolated. ("What is Valuable in Art, and Can Music Still Achieve it?")

A bit of backstory...I started out my composerly life, as do many others, as a performing musician. My teachers played in the orchestra near where I grew up, they played studio gigs in the area, and when I entered college,it was thought I'd follow in their footsteps. That's all I knew. A high school orchestra director routinely quipped that art and fifty cents would get you a cup of coffee.

I'm not here to debate commercial/entertainment music and "high" art. My inner ethnoid tells me that both have their places (I do write about video game soundtracks, after all). Instead, I'd like to describe something more personal, namely why I'm in the field I am, and why I can't be a part of the commercial musician's world. The last sentence of Rahn's passage sums it up for me. I'm devoted to a kind of creation,"from which the notion of divine creation is extrapolated."

But when I was facing a lifetime of being in the "business" of music, studio gigs, wedding parties, and the like, the feeling of being "stuck" in the situation was oppressive. I was just begining to discover that I could write music, and it was (and is) something I barely understood, but knew that this was something special, which if I chose to accept it would mean a radical repositioning of my life. It also offered the prospect of something else.

I don't know where I'm going. When I started grad school, I had no idea that other people like me--composers--existed. The more I come into contact with it, the less I understand about the ability to write music. But I can't help but be humbled--and a little frightened--of the chance to peer into the kind of creation which Rahn describes. It's a kind of creation which changes me as much as the thing I'm writing.

"A morte perpetua, libera nos, Domine." (from the Litany of Saints)

There's something powerful about art and the aesthetic experience. It's hard to say anything about it at all, without falling into trivializations and banal metaphors. And even the act of translation from pure experience into language can make the experience seem flat and empty. Yet it's one of the most powerful forces we can experience. It's a life-changing and life-saving moment, when it happens. Remembering such experiences, I find they're no less vivid, for the years separating them.

It's an experience which lifts us out of ourselves, as Merton put it, and points to something greater than we could possibly become otherwise. Infused contemplation, when it comes, is a powerful grace. It's a rare thing, and something not everyone encounters. Those who haven't think that they aren't capable or good enough for it, but like any grace, it isn't our choice when it's given.

"In contrast, what I would like here to call "repetition" is repetition within a larger thing whose telos is not given (as in répétition), but is in the process of being formed. Such subglobal repetition is not répétition because the point is not to perfect (τελεω ) the thing repeated, by accomplishing its telos, but to point beyond the thing repeated to the thing being formed. This is lively because it escapes the dead hand of some prefigured order; like life, it is a process of continual transcendence toward who knows what end. The focus is always forward, un-self-ish, opening away from the current entity in the direction of something larger and unconfined." ("Repetition", John Rahn)

It's relatively easy to become trapped in everyday life and routine, whether imposed from outside or within. There's another name for the lowest order of repetition in Rahn's essay, slavery: acedia, the "noonday demon," and the bane of monastics since the early days in the desert. It's a state of being in which life becomes drudgery, one plodding step after another, and the routines and pressures become oppressive.

The second order is répétition, or rehearsal. In it, there's some sort of final cause, or telos, but it's mired in the fact that the telos is fixed and unchanging, another kind of slavery, perhaps less insidious than the first.

The third order, repetition, is a continual transformation towards an unknown end. But this isn't plunging into chaos, rather it's an unfolding into something greater. It's this "opening away from the current entity in the direction of something larger and unconfined" that makes the aesthetic experience what it is.

For some, infused contemplation comes as a result of a period of overwhelming darkness, aceida, or some other "dark night." People have moments where they're awestruck at something, but the difference between these little moments and the life-changing one is one of magnitude. It's not that this experience makes the situation magically better--in the writings of the visionaries and other contemplatives, their lives often get worse afterwards--but rather that one's awareness is expanded out of itself towards some other purpose, one hidden, but larger than the situation one finds oneself mired in.

When it happens, we're faced with a choice: either to accept the gift of infused contemplation, and all the trials which come with it, or to remain in what came before. One kind of death happens with its acceptance: we can't be the same people we were before. The experience is often one which heals us, but leaves us changed in its wake. The other choice leads to another kind of death, far worse than anything physical. But saying "yes" to infused contemplation means accepting the moment with one's whole being. It may lead to darker things than we could imagine, but also the hope for something far more than we could ever conceive.

Flogging dead equines

I've had an ongoing debate with my chair about video game violence. His point is that games, while not causing violence, make it more likely to happen, a kind of rehearsal for it. I've argued the opposite. I think violence and video games is one, big red herring, which takes away time from other, more important discourses. I promise this is the last thing I'm saying on the matter.

I have to believe that we aren't a product of our environments. The fact that I've got a choice in the matter is what gets me out of bed in the morning, and helps me to have normal kinds of human interactions. More on this later after an aside.

Aside: one of the most disconcerting things about the Liturgy of Hours is encountering people who've consecrated their lives to peace and contemplation recite or chant some of the cursing psalms. (35, 69, 109 are the three worst) It's difficult to relate the sheer cognitive dissonance of a group of nuns reciting a line from the psalms discussing dashing children's heads against rocks.

I asked a friend of mine, a Benedictine nun, about this when I was in the process of becoming an oblate. Her response was that the violent imagery helps her understand and pray for those who are affected by it. She had an obligation to not shy away from those lines, no matter how repugnant or distasteful, so she could do her job as a contemplative.

Do I have better things I could be doing than going on shooting rampages throughout Liberty City? You can count on it. Is there a better use of my time than engaging other departments on campus in Quake deathmatches? Most definitely.

There are more insidious forms of violence, which never leave a bruise, nor do they find their virtual expression in a cloud of pixelated gore from being hit with a BFG. It's easy to focus upon physical violence because it leaves the most obvious mark. But emotional, spiritual, verbal, and psychological violence is no less harmful, even if the marks are nebulous and can't be objectively proven.

Literature on video game violence would suggest that violence in games may increase violent tendencies. And it's similar to literature on abuse: those who have been abused are more likely to abuse others. Perhaps I'm tempting fate by playing violent video games, since I've got the double-whammy the literature would like me to have.

But I find there's something healing about violent video games. A few years ago, I wouldn't have been able to play Quake against other people. I'm still not overly comfortable with it, but it won't give me nightmares. I've been exposed to a lot of real-world violence, not all of it physical and thankfully none of it sexual, and it isn't remotely similar to that which is found in video games.

If I hide from violence, thinking that it'll make me do violent things, I'm still controlled by it. Those who perpetrated the violence would still have power over me. My indulgences in Quake and Grand Theft Auto are my erect middle finger at them. But there's another reason from not hiding from violence. Girard was wrong: exposure to violence doesn't beget other acts of violence. It can promote empathy. I feel that which I've experienced helps me to feel what others have endured. In a weird way, it feels as if their burden is shared. If I knew that their burden was eased by my old hurts, I'd relive it again.

I don't think it's by accident that universities sprang up around monasteries. If you look hard enough vestiges of it can be seen in architecture (Most campuses have some sort of "quad," which looks suspiciously like a garth, with rows of buildings surrounding it like a cloister), dress (ever compare a traditional monastic habit with the gowns and hoods Ph.Ds wear?), curriculum (trivium, anyone?), the fact that monasteries were libraries and places of learning, and the attitude of life as a process and formation. No matter how distant the beginnings, academics still need to learn a lot from contemplatives.

On the 16th Sunday in Ordinary Time (the period after Pentecost and until the day after the feast of Christ the King), in Year C (so once every 3 years) we get this reading:

In the course of their journey he came to a village, and a woman named Martha welcomed him into her house. She had a sister called Mary, who sat down at the Lord's feet and listened to him speaking. Now Martha, who was distracted with all the serving came to him and said, 'Lord, do you not care that my sister is leaving me to do the serving all by myself? Please tell her to help me.' but the Lord answered, 'Martha, Martha,' he said, 'you worry and fret about so many things, and yet few are needed, indeed only one. It is Mary who has chosen the better part, and it is not to be taken from her.' (Luke 10:38-42, New Jerusalem Bible)

We all know at least one Martha. They're the ones who have their hands in everything, are "team players," are part of every committee, do five things at once, and have no patience for Maries. In the Ivory tower, they're the ones who make every faculty meeting, are on several committees, have at least three papers going at once, and teach a full load consistently. They have little time for anything that doesn't directly add to their CV. The Ivory Tower needs its Marthas, since they're the do-ers. I think most academics have a Martha hidden somewhere inside of them, and certainly grad school forces one into that mindset.

That having been said, I think many of the problems in academia stem from the fact that we're all running around like Marthas with our heads cut off. Burnout happens--whether student or professor--from having too much to do, most of it unavoidable, especially in the days of budget cuts. Interpersonal conflicts happen when burnt out people get sick of being around each other. And the Martha in us all gets resentful when we find a Mary, who isn't a "team player," and appears to be loafing around, doing nothing, while we're distracted with serving.

'You worry and fret about so many things, and yet few are needed, indeed only one.' It's so easy to get wrapped up in the daily minutiae of the grind. The part Mary took for herself may seem to be selfish and lazy, yet it's the part that we most desperately need in the Ivory Tower. The best definition of the contemplative life that I've heard came from one of the Dominicans at my parish: "resting in the embrace of the Divine."

I think we can be better teachers, students, researchers, and academics if we take time for ourselves. The cloister isn't always a physical space, and it isn't always possible. But it's about reserving a part of ourselves and taking the time to refresh the rest of us, "resting in the embrace of the Divine." On first glance, the contemplative life in western monasticism seems overindulgent and impractical. What good are people who pray all day? Why break up a perfectly productive day with the Liturgy of the Hours? But it's this constant drive for productivity and work which is burning out people and hurting them.

In Benedictine monasticism, one's life becomes a continual prayer, with the Liturgy of Hours and the Eucharist being central. The offices are a time to recenter and publicly connect with the central reason for being there, in the first place, and the Eucharist forms the source of all aspects of life.

I'm not saying that there should be public time for prayer in the Ivory Tower, but if academics are to survive this time we're in (which is by no means favorable to higher ed), then they need to consider Mary. It's only by taking their better part, some time to reconnect with who they are and why they're there in the first place, that they can find the strength to keep going. And administrations need to realize that this better part is our right, and not to be taken from us.

You know, I almost feel sorry for "Ivan Tribble," a pseudonym of a columnist at the "Chronicle of Higher Education." He wrote two rather scathing critiques of blogging, insinuating that one who desires a job in the Ivory Tower shouldn't blog, but then backpedals, saying that they should be careful about supplying the URL to one's website or blog when applying for a job. The backlash was extreme, even though he does have a good point or two in the second essay. Not that he doesn't have it coming, since blogging is one of the hottest topics in digital literature and in most fields, but he's been flogged enough.

But in the second essay, he does have a point. It's far too easy to get information about a person via google. As my computer security boyfriend reminds me, nothing on the internet is secure, and information is notoriously hard to secure. The only privacy we have is that which we create.

Out of curiosity, I plugged my real name into google. My dopplegangers are into various sports, a real estate agent, and a beer executive. And it turned up a bunch of seemingly-benign information about my person. It turned up some posts I made to a programming language mailing list, a few concert listings, and a schedule of liturgical ministries I'm involved with in my parish.

According to Prof. Tribble, I should be concerned about the last one, since it does give identifying information about my personal life, and is, therefore, suspect. Any employer would find out that I'm a practicing Catholic, Eucharistic minister, and altar server. We aren't far removed from the days of "Catholics need not apply," and while I've never encountered anything but respect from my professors, I've heard a lot of anti-Catholic BS from fellow students. In the days where evangelical Christianity--which isn't overly friendly to Catholicism--is dominant and Catholicism is seen as nothing more than rabid anti-abortion platforms, it isn't an easy thing to be a practicing Catholic and academic. My politics are assumed for me, if one should happen to glance the medal of Our Lady of Guadalupe I normally wear.

But the larger question is one of distance: where is the line between public and private? Is there even such a line anymore? How far should one have to bury one's private life to get a job? What about to hold it? Should an employer have the right to delve into one's personal lives?

In memory of me...

I'm thinking I need to start a piece for a former teacher of mine, who recently passed. It's a strange and difficult thing to be thinking about, since a part of me doesn't want to believe he's dead; another part keeps sending off emails, forgetting; and the other part still hurts. Because of my exams and the headspace required for them, I'm just now coming to terms with it. You find someone dear to you, and you think they're going to be around forever.

There's another loss I'm thinking of lately. Since I'm ABD, the formal composition study I had is ending. I know all relationships eventually end, but it's a bit melancholy. I'm more than capable of making my own decisions, but I miss the debate and fellowship that came from private instruction. But this is the natural order of things. People grow to leave home, and every birth contains within it a death.

These people aren't far away, though. Whenever I compose something, it feels like they're with me and are a part of me. Their presence is no less real and strong, even if they aren't around physically. A Benedictine once described ritual as a kind of prayer you do for others when they're not able, and when the time comes, they do the same for you. I don't see composition as being that much different. I know these people were carrying me, when I couldn't work. Now I'm blessed to be able to do the same.

This one is about a cup of tea.

We often go through life not thinking about the effects we have upon others. Sometimes this means taking those around us for granted. It's all too easy to fall into the trap that we mean nothing to those around us, and it's a mindset that's easy to adopt in the Ivory Tower. So much of what we do in grad school is isolated from others, and our colleagues become competitors, especially now, when finances are cut daily for higher education.

I hear and read about other grad students and their relationships to their chairs. Sometimes it's a good one, but it seems like there are so many people out there with broken relationships with their chairs, like so many other relationships.

My chair's someone, with whom I have much in common, but also differences. While there have been metaphorical scrapes and bruises, we tend to get along pretty well. Considering some of the stories out there, I think I'm pretty fortunate to be studying with the person I am.

It would be naive to say that things have been easy. There was a time when we were both pretty burnt out and things were tense. I can't imagine I was too pleasant to be around in the months leading up to my exams, either. Trust doesn't come easily to me, especially when it involves some sort of authority figure, which probably created some tension, as well.

So fast forward to last week. My throat was killing me; my voice was nonexistent; I had the flu; and the soundcard on my computer kept falling out of its PCI slot. I had a bottle of water and hopes that I'd make it through. While I had my head in the bowels of my computer, banging in the soundcard once again, my chair asked if I wanted a cup of tea, since he was getting something. I think it was because of that tea that I made it through the next couple hours of my exams.

On the surface, it seemed like a mundane enough interaction, but when you're sick and nervous as hell, such things take on different proportions. He was doing what anyone with half an ounce of common courtesy would do, but in a larger sense it's also a metaphor of what the student/chair relationship is. It's an unthinking, selfless giving. It doesn't always happen, and it isn't always noticed. But when it does, it becomes a powerful moment.

Out from under the pall...

"Receive me, Lord, as you have promised, and I shall live; do not disappoint me in your hope."

I passed. =)

"Do not grant newcomers to the monastic life an easy entry..." (Rule of St. Benedict, 56:1)

In most monasteries, people entering go through some rite. It varies by community, but at the start of their novitiate, they stand in front of the community and are asked, "What do you seek?" The answer goes something like this, "I seek the mercy of God and fellowship in this community." Then usually the budding monastic takes a version of vows, signs some document stating that promise, and then recites the line, "Receive me, Lord, as you have promised, and I shall live; do not disappoint me in your hope." Then other various things happen according to local custom and order, including a blessing from the other community members, a full prostration before them, and some sort of clothing ceremony, if the community wears a habit.

A friend kindly reminded me last night that one's doctoral exams aren't much different than the contemplative life, and it struck me that this is a rite of profession, of sorts. It's not so much the exam, itself, which terrifies me, but failing, rejection, and the disappointment of others. Yet my chair has reminded me, repeatedly, that they want people to pass, and that he wouldn't let me get to this point, if there were no hope, whatsoever. I've also been told that I'm not a unique snowflake in my freaking out.

Said friend also reminded me that this is the first entrance into life as an academic, and that it's designed as a time for me to shine. Ignoring the voice in the back of my head predicting doom, ruin, and failure, this is my first big appearance before the community. In a sense, like the young monastic, this is a sign of my promise to persevere in this life; and my committee's promise is to support me in it, as the novice would receive the support and blessing of his/her community.

But I'm going to be very glad once this is over with.