Labor Day Tacos and a Cuban

Preface. I just deleted it. The trite summary of this past weekend that is. The problem: my readership, or potential readership at least, for this blog is so diverse that I end up writing with everyone in mind—my college friends, my family, my fading high school pals, and my current amigos, and perhaps a few renegade co-workers or facebook acquaintances. The result: blogs that are pervasively boring and fumigated with censorship. And as a result of the whole mess, I'm rarely motived to spend thirty minutes typing them up (or two hours as the case usually is).

So tonight I'm going to try something a little more reality based. If that doesn't seem more worth while than what I've been doing, I'll probably abandon the whole venture all together. But I have high hopes.

Here goes. Last night dinner sort of fell together. When I arrived home from work my roommate Anna was cooking up a taco extravaganza. I called up Oscar, and he joined me for the impromptu Labor Day celebration. The kitchen and dinning room were filled with a quirky sample of Portland's thirty-ish nurses and some engineers and some techies. After a funny conversation about randomly seeing neighbors hanging around naked, it turned out that the main voyeur lived on the other side of the river right across from Oscar (who enjoys the perks of living alone).

Following dinner Oscar and I decided to go rent a flick. After our cinema upset over Ghost World on Sunday (how many teen angst movies can you watch until you just get tired of their emotional ridiculousness? Probably one.), I wasn't sure what we'd walk home with. Luckily Oscar found Before Night Falls. Editing that drives the drama, stimulating writing, and realistic acting. A beautiful adaptation of Reinaldo Arenas's autobiographical novel by the same title. Ed, you'd like it. Yes, so would you, Lindsey. Give it a watch when you're feeling adventurous, then call me and we'll chat it up.

My dad's coming out to visit in the middle of next month. I've been trying to prepare for it. Obviously he and I exist in two separate paradigms. I'm familiar with his, but I'm not convinced he really knows mine. Ideally the visit will involve him getting to know me rather than us just recycling our old conversations about the intrinsic value of music and learning how to make... stuff. We'll probably visit the city gardens, ride bikes through the local neighborhoods, and eat lots of great food that most other people in my family wouldn't enjoy. That's something I can definitely count on: Dad liking all the sea food variations I put in front of him.

Happy Father's Day... from the son that looks like the other one

If you've flipped through photographs enough, you've surely had the, "oh, I look just like my brother (or sister) even though I'm quite certain that we look nothing alike in real life" moment. Well, I had one a couple days ago when Oscar was giving me copies of pictures that he took at my birthday bash. I thought I'd share.

Here is David, scratch that. No, here is... well, me... blowing out the candles on my cake. It took me a while to figure out what made the difference. It's the eyes, I discovered. Put your fingers across my eyes. (Click on the picture for a larger image.) I have just become, undeniable, in any court of law by anyone who knows him, my brother. Well the good news is: I look seven years younger. The bad news is: you just put your greasy finger on the computer screen.

Books in Trees

Not much is going on these days. I have my last concert of the season this Saturday and Sunday. The Portland Symphonic Choir is performing Rachmaninov's vespers. I am practicing some Bach Duetto's that I didn't know before last week. They are not duets, but rather like an Invention (a two voice piece where the two voices imitate each other.) There is a lot of amazing invertible counterpoint (where the melody and the bass-line can switch places and still work harmonically.)

I thought I would include a photo of the painting that I made for Oscar. The quality isn't great, but you get the idea. It uses a technique that I hadn't tried before. First I painted the background with acrylic paints mixing iridescent gold and reds and cream directly on the canvas. Then I drew on top with oil pastels. I had to spray the background so that the pastels would stick. It turned out better than I expected. Don't ask me what it "means." I wanted to have a forest of "book" trees and this is what it turned into.

We qualified for State! ... and then I left.

On Friday I took my group to the regional OMEA festival. And slam dunk!! We took first place with a 8 point average lead and qualified for the state competition in May. Yay!! On the down side, it was my last day of substituting so after the triumphal win, I got in my car and returned home. I'll be back to accompany them for their spring concert. On Thursday, two of the girls from the treble choir made me brownies with mint chocolate chips and chocolate drizzle. Talk about heaven.

As an aside, the bus got pulled over on the way back from the competition. Apparently the bus driver forgot to pull over at a train crossing. After twenty minutes of waiting, we were back on our way with a ticket for the driver. As little towns go, some of the passers-by had called the bus barn and the poor driver's phone was ringing off the hook (or as much as a cell phone has a hook) for the rest of the drive back. She never answered it.

Well, I'm back job hunting. In the mean time, I transfered to another Starbucks that can give me more hours. I am still working at the Methodist Church. It has been my most reliable employment since I moved out here. My roommate, Rivka, is the projects manager for the local public access TV station. She's helping me refine my resume. Anyway, on to the next chapter in employment.

Oh, and the sun has been out for the last THREE DAYS!!! Winter is finally drying up.

How does first place sound?

So, as many of you know, I've been long-term substituting for a choir teacher in Scappoose, OR—it's about 25 minutes north of Portland—since the first week in February. Well yesterday I took my chamber choir to the NE Oregon League Festival and walked home (actually rode the two hours back to Scappoose) with first place!! I was very proud of my group. Since I started we have shifted their literature around, learned and memorized two new songs, and refined preexisting ones. Further we were two points away from qualifying for the state competition. We'll have one more chance to qualify a week from Friday. I think we will have no problems.

Here's a picture of my kids.


In other news, I have been performing quite a bit recently. Last week I sang Bach's Cantata BWV 131 with a solo quartet and the Bach Cantata Choir. Tomorrow and Sunday I'm singing the tenor solos in Haydn's Lord Nelson Mass with the Portland's Columbia Symphony Orchestra. The concert celebrates the recently renovated organ in the First United Methodist Church. Tonight was the dress rehearsal. The other soloist are soooo good. I am very lucky to get to sing with them. The conductor, Huw, sweats like a bulbous glass of British Schnapps on a hot humid day. If the choir isn't cutting off together, he twitches his head on beat three as large drops of sweat fly over the bass soloist and onto my score. At first I thought there was a leak in the ceiling. But no. It was just the conductor.

Next week is spring break in Scappoose and at Portland State University where Oscar teaches. Over the last month we've been building an assortment of camping necessities and I'll think we'll use them for the first time next week. I love camping and will be excited to go with Oscar. I think we may have some of the singers from Symphonic Chorus with us (Jim, Lauren, and maybe Bill.) Aside to Jim's stalker: sorry you aren't out here to go with us.



This is a wire and paper sculpture that I made for Cheech for his birthday.

Snowflakes and Paper Koi

So I figured at some point I should update this. And what better way than to post some of the little creations that I'm proud of. So here are a couple of this year's snowflakes. The rest are at Oscar's or Cheech's house.

Concert Review

http://www.crosscut.com/arts-beat/16546/Tallis+in+Seattle/