It's coming. Coming back, I mean. Soon. Reeaaal soon now. Just sit tight.
14 April 2007 at 11:43 PM EDT by David Richmond | TrackBack (0)
This image is a warning. First there was only one . Now there are two. Plus Leslie has one -- endearingly named Frostbite (not Snowbutt as Emily called him).
The moral of this story is: bunnies will be bunnies.
Which gets me, in a roundabout sort of way, to the point: blogs will be blogs, and DRs....well, I'll be me, too. There's been sort of an explosion in Harvard-related blogs this spring, with a mostly amusing Undergraduate Council race and the usual potpourri of campus issues. With the recently-minted Campus Tap aspiring to be the Facebook.com of the blogosphere, the number of voices out here in cyberspace is growing like, well, a population of bunnies, and my usual jokes about the "SymphonicMan.com Media Network" seem even staler than usual. Thanks to thesis-inspired oblivion, this blog has been silent for over two months, and thus the question: what's to come of all of this? Whither SM.com?
An answer: I suppose it will have to grow and change as I do. I started this blog because I enjoyed the sound of my own voice shouting into the perceived chaos of my life. My life is less chaotic now, and I'm inclined to be somewhat more soft-spoken, though I still enjoy my own voice (and some would say too much so). If I am one thing, I think, it is passionate, even if this passion is sometimes indeterminate and often unfocused. I am easily distracted, which only really means easily engrossed.
Rise from the ashes, SymphonicMan.com. Rise up with an update on the status of my life: I am not going to graduate school next fall, because I did not get in, although to be truthful I only wound up auditioning at one school. My thesis is done and I am proud of it, more or less, though there are holes in the scholarship and many, many, so many unanswered questions. I still want to be a bassoonist more than ever, but even more than that I want to be a musician. The dream begins now, because I want it to: and no, it is not exciting, it is terrifying and worrying and anxiety-provoking and every other reason one could give for not jumping off a cliff named desire. So what? As I proved to myself one hot August afternoon in Aspen : once I begin the countdown, I intend to jump, even if it takes me five millennia to scare up -- as it were -- the will.
29 March 2006 at 8:47 PM EST by David Richmond | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)
A few advice questions to catch up on as my electronic pen springs to life once more.
Dear Dr. SymphonicMan,
My brother is a dork. He tries really, really hard, and he even dates cute girls, but deep down I know he is a really big dork. The people would like to present Exhibit A: His blog. Also Exhibit B: His bassoon. Exhibit C: his CD collection (it's mostly classical... I know, maybe it's just to get chicks, but I think he actually likes Mahler more than most chicks).
Please do anything possible to help him. Though I have already been diagnosed with Terminal Dorkitude, and am hoping to use my condition to raise awareness and get a Ph.D., perhaps it is not too late to save him from the same fate.
Sincerely,
Sister of a Seriously Dorky Dude
Note: SM.AC is a series of "advice column" (AC) posts based on actual questions from actual readers, who may or may not be telling the truth, and may or may not be blatantly misrepresenting who they are and what they actually think. Send your questions here .
Your brother's condition sounds serious, but remember: it could be worse. It could be much worse. If it is true that he has a blog, I hope he updates it regularly. The only thing worse than having a blog is having a "blog" upon which the "blogger" never writes. As for playing the bassoon, again, it could be worse: he could be an oboist. And as for his CD collection: well, at least he has good taste. Mahler is, in fact, quite preferable to "most chicks," being altogether more passionate, fulfilling, and beautiful. Have you considered that the reason he only dates cute girls is perhaps because the non-cute ones don't compare to Mahler, Beethoven, Debussy, and Mozart?
20 January 2006 at 8:58 PM EST by David Richmond | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)
Though my readership hates it when I blockquote, I want to present two things side by side, with commentary forthcoming. Eventually.
But what makes music special -- what makes it special for identity -- is that it defines a space without boundaries (a game without frontiers). Music is thus the cultural form best able both to cross borders -- sounds carry across fences and walls and oceans, across classes, races and nations -- and to define places; in clubs, scenes, and raves, listening on headphones, radio and in the concert hall, we are only where the music takes us.
-- Simon Frith, "Music and Identity," in Questions of Cultural Identity ed. Stuart Hall and Paul de Gay (London : Sage, 1996)
For most of us, there is only the unattended
Moment, the moment in and out of time,
The distraction fit, lost in a shaft of sunlight,
The wild thyme unseen, or the winter lightning
Or the waterfall, or music heard so deeply
That it is not heard at all, but you are the music
While the music lasts.....
-- T.S. Eliot, The Four Quartets, "The Dry Salvages," V
( online here )
Interestingly, the Eliot is quoted as the inscription to Douglas Shand-Tucci's biography of Isabella Stewart Gardner, The Art of Scandal. Definitely a nod to intuitions about the relationship between music and identity (or culture and identity). Notice also this idea again about boundaries and games, and their relationship.....something that's come up on this page before . Further development in my senior thesis on Debussy's music in Boston....
02 January 2006 at 3:05 AM EST by David Richmond | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)
On 21 December 2005, my sister Emily and I had two and half hours in the Chicago O'Hare International Airport. We were flying United. We wanted lunch. Nay, we needed lunch. Nay, we needed Chinese food. There are two Panda Express locations listed in the United terminal. Both were closed for renovation. We trekked far and wide in search of an open Panda Express. Like buffalo returning to a familiar watering hole, we wandered for thirty minutes. We found our way all the way over to the American terminal, where smell took over and guided us to our desire.
My need for Chinese food satiated, I then had an orange/strawberry/banana smoothie. The place I got it from called it the "fresh" smoothie. This picture was the result. The bunny is Emily's, and he is presented in the spirit of Mad Magazine's "monkeys are always funny" feature.
I am sure you will agree that this is an epic story.
In other news, Emily and I decided that we will be editing, to be published in 2035, a book series: The Death of the Author on Whose Authority? Competiting Claims of Authenticity in the Twentieth Century. Submissions welcome.
02 January 2006 at 2:48 AM EST by David Richmond | TrackBack (0)