this meal could drive you insane

Yesterday I went to eat at Trattoria Stella in Traverse City. To say that it was good would be completely true. To say that it was also in the basement of a former insane asylum would also be true.





















From what I've been told, the state was going to demolish this place a few years back but some developer guy offered to buy it from them for $1. Since this was exponentially cheaper than the cost of demolishing it (it's massive...a quarter mile of perimeter), they let him have it and it's been in various stages of renovation ever since.

A friend of mine got an impromptu tour of the place a few weeks back and, aside from the art shops, salons, restaurants, wine bars, etc. that are in the converted space, there are also some really creepy remnants of its former occupants that have yet to be remodeled. I asked the waiter if he knew what the dining room used to be and he asked me if I wanted the truth or a good lie. I asked for the lie and, without blinking, he said it had been used for food storage. I was too chicken to ask what it really was but I'm sure it was probably pretty macabre.
















I ordered this amazing vegetarian sandwich. It came with something I'd never tried before: pickled asparagus. Oh so good.
















For dessert we got the raspberry panna cotta. Nurse Ratched would not have approved.

i can hear your crack

Feeling down? I always play this little gem from YouTube to raise my spirits.

taking stock OR indulge me for a moment

The northern Michigan clouds are gathering outside so I'm holed up in the library at Interlochen avoiding work by actually getting some work done (aside from this blog entry, of course). I'm going through the libretto of We, The Boys and figuring out which movements are either a) partially done, b) in the can or c) not touched at all. Surprisingly, I'm a little further along than I initially thought I was when I sat down to take stock. In fact, I think I'm almost half way done which, frankly, isn't that bad since I've only been writing during the summers. It's such a good play and it's been amazing to try and honor the intent.

I went back through some journal entries that I wrote during my writing sabbatical in Iowa last year and a metaphor which seems appropriate stuck out at me. Writing something as big as this is sort of like building a sculpture of a human body (stay with me, here). You start from the ground up and so, as you work, different body parts start to appear as you make them. For the sake of argument, say you start with the foot. You get this thing done really well (toes all in order, tendons, toenails, etc.) and then stand back to look at it. You're like, "Hey, that's a pretty good looking sculpture of a foot" and you're really proud of yourself. The only problem is that, immediately after you feel good about that awesome foot, you realize that it's only a tiny piece that's attached to a body which is huge in comparison. Not only do you have to make another foot to go along with this one but, at some point, you're going to have to make the rest of this thing just as good. Then you're like, "Oh my god, that foot took me forever. This is never going to end. What have I committed myself to? I'm a total failure." And the ensuing existential crisis threatens to topple your already shaky self-confidence and sense of self-worth.

Yikes, right?

So then I guess the only remedy is that you just keep slogging along blindly doing the best you can and hope it amounts to something. I've been at it for over a year now (with a "break" to write actual, money-making commissions and such) and I think I can say, without pride, that I'm feeling pretty good about where I sit with this thing. I think I've got a pair of feet, a brain, circulatory system and, depending on the particular movement, a pair of wings (which is something I did not expect when I set out to sculpt my Opera Body). I've got 9 more days to be here with these thousands of artists and I intend to use them well.

I was searching for some visual inspiration online and found this great picture of a man sitting at a park bench. He reminds me of Howard at the very beginning of the opera; sitting by himself having a conversation with the disembodied voice of Leonardo da Vinci. This aria is the first thing I completed and has a special place in my heart.














I'm currently listening to Jay Brannan's cover of "The Freshmen" by The Verve Pipe (who Wikipedia just informed me are actually from Michigan). It's unbelievably beautiful and, in bringing it way down from the original, is incredibly delicate. Rundon'twalk to iTunes to get his new album, In Living Covers.





















Also of note is my new favorite website, AwkwardFamilyPhotos.com Click on this beauty to get enough detail to see the look on Junior's face here. He loves the Giants.

more pictures from michigan AND i heart guster

I've started doing some poetry research for this season of commissions. We're starting off with some more French stuff for a soprano, piano and harp set for Chapman University. I'm sure I'll write more about that later but, for now, here are some random pictures from Michigan for the week. Represented are:

• a feral cat named Jean Pierre who lives under one of the cabins (he's really nice)
• various shots from around the campus
• pics from a few day trips I took out to some Michigan wineries (check out L. Mawby...they are absolutely amazing)

I happened over to the Guster Road Journal for the first time in a long while and was confronted with yet another reason why I love this band (as well as why Brian Rosenworcel isn't the actual lead singer...but you still gotta love it). I may or may not have just splurged on the original on iTunes (and maybe some Bonnie Tyler and George Michael...maybe).

the virtues of an omnivorous musical diet OR take the money and run OR how i finally enjoyed atonal music

Spending your summer at Interlochen is awesome. There are all kinds of music everywhere on campus to digest and nothing has made this more evident than the last 2 days.

First of all, last night I saw the Steve Miller Band in concert at Interlochen's 4,000-seat auditorium right next to the lake...and it was soooo good. I heard this stuff growing up and watching songs like Take the Money and Run, The Joker and Space Cowboy gain the immediacy of a live performance was awesome. He even invited some Interlochen students up to jam on stage with the band. How cool is that!

My parents decided to take a few days of summer vacation and make the drive from Minnesota to visit so I was able to sit next to them during the proceedings. Papa Shank introduced me to classic rock ("introduced" is probably not the right term, though...more like force fed me the stuff until I head-over-heels fell in love with it) and seeing him have such a great time made my experience at the show even better.





















The show I saw the day before was the preview performance of Chris Thile's mandolin concerto with the World Youth Symphony Orchestra. To say this was an incredible two hours of music making is selling it short completely.

For those of you who don't know CT, he was the mandolin player for the band Nickel Creek (I had never heard of them until I saw this concert) and experiments with pretty much every genre there is. Maestro Jung-Ho Pak called him "a proponent of the mandolin as a virtuostic instrument" and I couldn't agree more (think Béla Fleck but with a mandolin). Interlochen has co-commissioned this concerto and, for this concert, they previewed the first movement, "Is It a Sharp Fourth or a Flat Fifth?"

Now, a couple things need to be noted before I get to the actual performance:

1. The title of that movement suggests--at least to me--that it will be a tonal piece.
2. Immediately preceding the concerto performance, he played a Bach partita on the mandolin (this was so good I almost cried).
3. It's a mandolin! Throwing out your preconceptions about this instrument isn't the first thing that comes to mind.

However, what he wrote was almost completely atonal and incredible and I've never been so riveted by a performance on this instrument. I think the mathematical atonality of what they were playing combined with how we are taught to engage the "usual" music played on that instrument completely threw me off and made me listen in a way I haven't been capable of in a while. My being surprised by music is not something that happens very often (not bragging here...it's just what I went to school for) and I really appreciate it when someone can drag that out of me.




















The concert was bookended by Copland's "Fanfare for the Common Man" (the sturdiest piece I've ever heard built out of such simple material) and "Appalachian Spring" (how 'bout that final chord, right?) and made me realize that going to symphonic concerts really bores me unless it's something innovative like this.

On a side note: I think this is a problem with the repertoire and not the ensembles or conductors. Orchestral pieces are way too long and there is too much "classic" rep to slog through before you get to something that you've never heard. But that's another post...

So, in summation: cheers to Interlochen, Steve Miller, Chris Thile and Jung-Ho Pak with a special commendation to atonal music. I'm going to go listen to some mandolin music that I just procured from iTunes.

kittens!

This is so cute I just barfed...but in a good way. Res ipsa loquitur.

really cool video

Short post: the Ra Ra Riot/Mason Proper show last night was amazing. Watch this MP video for their song "Safe For the Time Being." It's haunting, mesmerizing and beautiful.

It's got one of those rare moments in pop music where the drums suddenly kick in (and it sounds like they're going to usher in a new groove at 4-bar intervals) but then fade out just as quick. They're just amping up the "orchestration" for a second to make a point. I also love the polyphony between all the different vocal things going on at certain points during the verse. Awesome music. So glad I caught them live.

this biography makes me want to look at pictures

So I'm reading this biography of Andrew Jackson by Jon Meacham called American Lion. It's really, really good...like so good that I'm willing to overlook the fact that I'm reading a biography on Andrew Jackson. Why would I ever do that? I am really not that kind of person (or at least what I imagine the type of person who does such a thing to be) but, luckily, it's segmented enough to make it an easy and interesting read. If anyone wants to borrow it if/when I'm done I'm happy to oblige.

In any case, there's this really creepy daguerreotype of Old Hickory on one of the photo pages of this thing. Whenever I read books with a-dozen-or-so pages of pictures I always end up turning to one in particular every time I sit down to read and it becomes something of a companion on the journey towards the end of the book and, for some reason, this is the one my brain has chosen (I think it helps that all the others are drawings).

It just seems so strange that it should even exist in the first place. His face on the $20 bill is so ubiquitous that it just becomes inconsequential but, lo and behold, there's an actual photograph of AJ right there in my book...and he's wearing glasses.




















The thing I keep staring at whenever I look at this thing is that his hair is almost exactly the same as it is on the 20 in my pocket. That is so cool. He was 78 when he died and that's completely incredible.

This sent me on a Google search for other weird photographs from the era. Here's that famous, near-death one of Poe. The guy loved his neckerchiefery.

















The image search also spit out this one of famous interior decorator Dorothy Draper (I think). This one creeps me out and, if it were hanging on my wall, I would be afraid she was going to leap out and eat my soul.





















Then there's Mr. Uniform Elbow Stand Leather Gloves Leaning Sword Man. You gotta love Google for kicking this guy out from the ether.

This could be the espresso talking but why on earth would someone choose to be photographed in this pose? I know that daguerrotypes took forever and all...but this is still just weird. Were there just elbow stands lying around everywhere in these days? Elbow stands! He looks like a semi-pissed-off, mustachioed department store mannequin.

So all these depressed-looking people from the late 1800s make me want to look at something a little more pleasing to the eye. For this I'll mention that I saw the Ahn Trio perform with the World Youth Symphony Orchestra last Sunday. They are both amazing musicians and--at the same time--markedly easier on the eyes. (Their website is way trippy what with the Tim Burton-esque renderings of the sisters flopping around marionette-style on their instruments.)
















They performed Kenji Bunch's Hardware Concerto and, although I've seen them twice before, it just wasn't as good because they were amplified (it was a 3,000+ seat outdoor auditorium so who can blame them). I still remember hearing them go through Eric Ewazen's The Diamond World a few years back. They are so good...and also gorgeous.

I ate a couple of great meals in Traverse City this week. Sushi at Red Ginger. Awesome nigori, terrible decor. (They decided to make Buddha the prevailing thing in their entrance...it's doubtful that it was in the interest of actual Buddhism and is probably, in fact, just something unintentionally-but-really kitschy that they put up to make the place more "Asian".)
















This afternoon I had a great meal at Hanna Bistro: grilled cheese on foccacia. The pasta had the perfect amount of olive oil on it and I liked how they put the onions on the side for you.
















I'm going to see a Ra Ra Riot concert in town tonight. Mason Proper is opening up for them and, having listened to their latest album for the last hour or so, I think it's going to be an awesome show.

The concert is sponsored by Interlochen so there are posters hanging all around the campus. It features a really cool picture of RRR that, for some reason, I can't stop looking at.

I've been listening to their debut album, The Rhumb Line, since I saw them open for Death Cab back in April (you can read my quasi-review of the album here) so I'm excited to see them headline a show of their own.

Despite the fact that this post has been full of what is essentially nonsense, I have been getting some steady work on the opera done since it warmed up a few days ago. I'm nearly finished with the opening aria's piano part. In fact, I just wrote the first quintuplet of my entire life.

currently listening + more pics from MI + currently reading

Still in the Great Lakes State and currently meandering my way through Grizzly Bear's latest album, Veckatimest. It's hard to describe but it's obviously very good. (I suppose it doesn't hurt that Nico Muhly contributed a few bits here and there.) and, you've got a few bucks to throw at iTunes it's completely worth it. I hate to put a this band reminds me of in what is supposed to be a "serious" musician's blog but--for me at least--there's a flavor of The Shins' first album, Oh, Inverted World, here. But whatever. It's still a work of great originality and the swirling climax of "I Live With You" is one of my favorites.
















I ate at the Mackinaw Brewing Company in Traverse City this afternoon and the portabello burger was sufficiently portabello-y. I'm really starting to kind of dig this town. It's very touristy (it's "The Cherry Capital of the United States"...the National Cherry Festival starts on the 4th) but, if you ignore the people on holiday from suburban Detroit wandering around in their loafers and linen shorts, it's actually a nice place to post up for a bit.
















Work on the opera is slow going. In fact, I haven't worked at all for the past 5 days because it's been cold and rainy and my writing space is one of Interlochen's "practice huts" (essentially a tiny shelter in the woods equipped with four walls and a grand piano...there are dozens on the campus). Despite that, I've jumped over a major hurdle and started to write the accompaniment figures into some of the arias.

I took a trip to the shores of Lake Michigan near the "vanished" town of Aral last week that, aside from the lady who informed me that I had just walked through a patch of poison ivy (which I thankfully never showed any symptoms of), was a lot of sunny fun.

I also finished John Adams' autobiography last week (it was sooo good...every musician should read it) and dove straight into a book by Elizabeth Gilbert called Eat, Pray, Love. (Side note: I'm loathe to mention that title without first explaining the book because it sounds quasi-religious and self-helpy. But I'll get to that in a minute.)

Before I left Minneapolis for 7 weeks Mama Shank handed me this book and gave me one of those "you have to read it" speeches (although it should be noted that she phrased it like only a mother could: "I really want you to read this"...you're awesome, by the way, mom). I decided to crack it open because it was obviously important to her and, frankly, I've got nothing but time on my hands here in the woods of western Michigan. (My next book is Jon Meacham's Pulizter Prize-winning biography of Andrew Jackson!) As always, she turned out to be a really good judge of what I might like to read.

It's EG's story of her post-divorce travels through Italy (to seek pleasure), India (to seek devotion) and Indonesia (to find "a balance between worldly enjoyment and divine transcendence"). Let me first say that, if this all sounds like one of those smarmy self-help books, it's because that's exactly what it all sounds like.

However, this book is much, much more than that. Her writing is effervescent, sensual and full of color. It's one of those rare cases where you feel like you're packing right alongside her at every stop on her journey of self-discovery. She is an immensely talented writer and I am really enjoying this book.

By the way, I can't believe I just wrote "journey of self-discovery". It makes me want to throw up but it should be noted that this book is good enough for me--with malice aforethought--to represent myself with a trite phrase like that.

Mahalo.