New Mexico, Part I: The Land of Enchantment

Okay. I'm finally doing this. New Mexico, the Land of Enchantment! (Seriously, is that not the greatest state nickname?) We flew into Albuquerque on Sunday the 11th and decided to walk around. Side note: the flight in was one of the more beautiful ones I've taken. New Mexico was exactly how I had pictured it - soaring over the Rockies in Colorado, then suddenly everything was craggy, then flat, and all brown, brown, brown.

Anyway, we walked around Old Town for a while. This is San Felipe de Neri, the oldest church in Albuquerque (1706).

Obviously we had to go to the chocolate shop. Also the sign (like everything in NM that isn't beige) was turquoise.

I washed down my delicious chocolate with some delicious...chocolate soda.


Dinner that night was yummy (and spicy!) huevos rancheros, as well as a free cup of coffee given to me by the very odd cashier at the restaurant. I think he was lonely, or maybe bored. While we ate, we (Habitat-ers) got to know each other a bit better - and I could already tell that I was going to love the energy of the group. They're all friendly, very genuine people.

Somewhere along the way, these pictures switch to Santa Fe. I'm not sure where to draw the line. In any case, one of our fellow travelers was actually from Santa Fe - and since we were all so worn out from getting in at different times, she graciously let us all crash at her house on Sunday night. It couldn't have worked out better! Then on Monday we spent the morning exploring the capital city.

Seriously, everything looked like this - beige, fake adobe, rectangular. I felt as though I were on the set of a movie. Can you imagine seeing a building like this in New England?

A line of people, mostly (if not all) Native American, out selling their wares - beautiful handmade jewelry.

A fajita cart!

Inside the church of St. Francis (the outside was being worked on, unfortunately).

The chapel of Our Lady of Guadalupe - the little doll in the middle is taken down and paraded around during an annual festival.

We then walked down a road that was solely populated by art galleries. Apparently the northern NM area has the third largest art scene in the world, after Paris and New York! Following this we drove a little ways to Tesuque, where we encountered a sculpture garden and glass-blowing place (workshop? studio?).

If you liked it then you should've put a ring on it.

The whole group! Minus Sean, who was the only guy (bless him) and didn't like to be in photos.

Glass-blowing is probably the form of (visual) art that leaves me most in awe. Even though I can see how they do it, I'm still thinking...how'd they do that?!

Finally we piled in the cars and drove up to Taos, on a long highway under a big sky. Pictures taken from a car window really can't capture the beauty or the scope, or the joyous atmosphere of that car ride. We were all just...giddy, overwhelmed by the majesty of it all. The landscape was just so different from anywhere else I'd ever been - the desert, the flatness, the scrubby trees, the canyons, and then the towering mountains in the distance. Nothing short of breathaking.

We arrived that afternoon in Questa, population approx. 2,000. It had one main road and was about an hour drive to Taos, the nearest city. This is the Baptist church in which we stayed.

This is the view from the front of the church. I know that three pictures of the same view is a bit excessive, but I couldn't decide on just one angle - by the end of the week, I felt so familiar with those mountains. Now, looking at the pictures, I feel that I would recognize them anytime, anywhere.

Shopping that night was pretty hilarious. Coordinating what food to buy for the week was...well, inefficient and borderline chaotic with ten people. Then we couldn't find milk anywhere in Questa. Anywhere! All was well that ended well, of course.

Coming up next: the building begins!

M.I.A. no longer (I neither fly like paper nor get high like planes)

Argh. I apologize (mostly to myself) for not posting in such a long time. Stories/pictures from New Mexico are forthcoming, I promise - for now I'll summarize and say that it was a fantastic trip.

I'm back at school and, as always, shopping period is driving me into the cliffs of insanity. And we've only had a day of classes. Oy vey. And the inauguration! I haven't even talked about that. Maybe I'll come back to that and reflect a bit later. For now I'll leave you with Alex Ross's take on the music, with which I essentially agree.

Ross's final point: "I liked most of all the diverse picture of the classical world that the performers presented: an Israeli-born violinist, a Chinese-American cellist, a Venezuelan-born pianist, and an African-American clarinetist from the South Side of Chicago."

I mean, John Williams was kind of a lame choice - as some other critic said, they should have just played Copland - but it fit in well nonetheless. Other than that, I nearly cried several times, including during the swearing in when he said his full name. And also, you know, everything he said. I keep on pinching myself to find out if this really happened. Now, at some point in the months and years to come, people are going to inevitably be unhappy with him because there is no way he can live up to the expectations of every single person who has entrusted their hope and faith in his vision. But I'm an anthropologist, and I believe that symbolic events can carry a lot of weight. This one, I think, has the power to inspire the world. It's been fascinating to read the accounts of my friends who watched the inauguration from abroad.

I promise that I'll write at least the first installment of my New Mexico stories tomorrow. But now to bed, because I'm worn out already. Looking forward to this weekend, when I'll be seeing Kenny Garrett in Boston! He has such a gorgeous sound. Can't wait.

And now, your moment of Zen (courtesy of my brother):

New Mexico, here I come!

Tomorrow at 7:50 a.m. I will be on my way to Questa, New Mexico (near Taos) for the week, buildin' stuff with Habitat for Humanity. I'm a bit anxious right now, because packing does that to me - since we're going to be working in the cold, I'm attempting to stuff an obscene amount of warm clothing (that can get ruined if necessary!) into my suitcase. But I'm sure that once I get on the plane, I'll relax (probably to the point of falling asleep).

Overall I'm really looking forward to the trip. Building is my favorite form of service, because it is so tangible. I am creating something right here, right now, that will have a positive effect on people's lives, and at the end of the week I can see my progress. In my opinion, it's also the best way to get to know people - physically working together on a common goal. While I've done week-long service trips like this (four, actually), it'll be my first time working with Habitat and my first time traveling with a group of Brown students (as opposed to TELOS, my church youth group), so it will definitely be a unique experience. Add to this the fact that it's further west than I've ever been, and that I'll be turning 21 on the third day of the trip, and it may even be an adventure.

So au revoir for the week, and expect lots of stories and pretty pictures upon my return. Bisous à tous!

DMA in NYC

Last Sunday, my friends from Drum Major Academy, some of whom I hadn't seen in years, FINALLY FINALLY had a reunion in New York. We're all about equidistant from the City in different directions, so it worked out perfectly. Seeing old friends and having the rapport be exactly the same as you remembered it being is one of the most wonderful feelings in the world.

L-R: Becca, Katy, me, Christine

Being goofy at Toys 'R' Us.

Drum Major Barbie?

Christine's friend Mike was our amazingly good-humored photographer.

They're all such beautiful women, and it's funny to think that not only did we all go through the shared, intense experience of DMA (two years in a row), but that we then went on to be leaders of our respective bands. Seriously, you get four former drum majors together, and we could probably take over the world if we wanted to. I'm the only one who's still doing something similar (in that I'm head conductor of the Brown Band), but Katy is a music ed./voice major, Becca still plays her trumpet, and Christine dances (Bhangra, I believe) - so we all kept on "doing" music in some way or another. I hope it won't be another three years before we're able to do this again.

Playlist for a Penpal

Here is the playlist from a mix CD I made for Lene, my penpal from Norway. I love making mixes like no other - figuring out the perfect order so that there aren't too many fast songs, or songs with female singers, or songs with "sex" in the title, in a row. Also on the mix is "Adam of Eden" by Suzanne Elizabeth Marron (it goes in between Imogen and the Roots), but iLike only had a couple of her songs and that wasn't one of them (credit to Masumi for supplying me with obscure music).

• Here It Goes Again by OK Go
• Take It from Me by The Weepies
• Grace Kelly by Mika
• Heartbeats by José González
• Sexy Mistake by The Chalets
• The Funeral by Band of Horses

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Oscar Grant

I know this is my third post today, but this is absolutely horrifying. A 22-year-old black man was shot in the back and killed for absolutely no reason (he and his friends were putting up no resistence) by a police officer in San Francisco - and it was all caught on cell phone camera.

Warning: the video is pretty graphic.



This site lists several ways you can help, including spreading the word so that the story is picked up by the national media.

Quick Hit

The distinguished Adrienne Langlois on Obama's brand of humor and why it's good for America.

On a personal note, I wish I could write like she does...

I wrote this a while ago, but it bears revisiting.

My heart rate has been increasing proportionally to the closing gap of time before the song. Finally, the jazz band director announces proudly that the next piece, a Charles Mingus tune called “Goodbye Pork Pie Hat,” will feature me as a tenor saxophone soloist. Rising from the chair with quavering smile, I’m not certain that my knees will hold. The sax dangles leadenly from my neck strap, which I compulsively tug, adjust. Lick the reed, slurp the mouthpiece, finger the keys rapidly. No turning back now.

It takes all my willpower to put my mouth to the plastic mouthpiece, tighten my lips, and blow the first little phrase. The piece starts right in with improvisation; not only am I the only one playing, but I am also making it up. At first I think too hard about each note and the sound is unconfident. My racing, panicked mind has gone slightly into shock by the time I get into the blessedly written-down melody of the piece, my fingers numbly pressing buttons in familiar patterns. But then the moaning ache of the low notes stirs something, some feeling of sadness and longing, the word my subconscious has already detected as love. Love for the beauty of the song, the smooth pearl of the keys I press, the air hissing past my teeth and sliding through the length of the horn to erupt out of the bell. All at once I know what I am doing here: I have to share this with the audience. I have to convey a glimpse of what I am feeling right now, of my love affair with this music and this emotion and this instrument.

When I reach the second page, the notes have fallen away. Improvisation, my greatest musical fear, involving both creativity and confidence. I face a sheet of music that is blank but for chord changes, a page that under normal circumstances would have caused fear to paralyze my fingers and tighten my throat. I would have stopped, simply stopped right in the middle, tears springing to my eyes. I would have allowed self-consciousness to plant itself firmly between my mouth and the mouthpiece, stumbling and stammering to produce a single note. A legit player knows only written music, sonatas and concertos of carefully pre-meditated notes. In this classical world, intricate sixteenth-note runs call to be practiced over and over, and I am safe in comforting, concrete, written notes.

But tonight—tonight I am in love, so I stop worrying about mistakes, un-focus my eyes, and allow my fingertips to melt into the golden gleam they grasp. Tongue taps on rough reed, hot breath pushes and fingers dance. A straining wail erupts from my core out into the air, transformed into to some beautiful noise by a piece of brass, notes hanging for an instant before fading away smokily. There is nothing to decide, no physical body over which I have control, just this vessel through which I am sharing this song of beautiful mourning. I am no more aware of the passage of time than I am of the actual notes emerging; my body leans forward slightly to ground itself. Wide, breathy vibrato quivers and calms to a purr, and I savor the buzz of air that passes by my lips sounding only as a soft staccato sigh. A deep inhale, a twitch of fingers, and I gliss up the range of the horn before tumbling slowly down again to a long blue note. This is the first time I have ever been able to let go, to channel the melancholy and desire the song inspires in me through the melodies I create. The sax reveals every secret in me as I lose myself in the heartbreaking movement of the chords.

On the release of the last, high, long note, I blink for a moment until applause sets in. The spell is broken, zinging off into corners of the dark auditorium, and I am suddenly acutely aware of my dizzy panting. As the unfamiliar sensation of real satisfaction creeps up into me, I grin and take a bow.

Let's make a resolution! Let's always stay friends!

Happy New Year, one and all! My eve was certainly epic. Here's to 2009 being...a better year than 2008.

Resolutions:

1. To blog semi-regularly. (Ten points for being off to a good start!)

2. To take waaaaay more pictures.

3. To exercise twice a week - yoga on Sunday and one day at the gym. Between that and conducting I should be getting a full-body workout (enough of one for me, anyway). It's not that I want to get in shape - I hate the fact that so much of the whole "New Year's Resolution" concept is based on weight-loss etc. - but that I know my mental/emotional state is just so much more chill when I exercise regularly. Makes me feel good all over.

4. To eat healthy cereal for breakfast instead of Lucky Charms. I'm off to a good start - found this really tasty cereal called Puffins or something, and it's peanut butter-flavored (yes please) but not sugary, so I feel like that's a good in-between sort of thing to wean me off of straight up marshmallows for breakfast.

5. To do something awesome this summer. Details TBA.

6. To spend less time brooding/procrastinating by doing nothing, and more time being positive/procrastinating by doing something. It's not that I'll ever stop procrastinating, but I'll certainly feel better about myself if I waste time, say, doing pleasure reading or playing sax than if I waste time, say, checking my email fifty times in a row.

7. To stop picking my skin. (To dream the impossible dream...)

8. To relax my shoulders, rather than sitting with them hunched up. Also my hands - I need a looser grip on my pencil and my saxophone. A person can get some serious problems walking around with too much tension.

Challenges of the coming year include: picking a topic for my thesis, making money (or at least breaking even) this summer while still doing something worthwhile, starting to write my thesis, paying rent.

Excitements of the coming year include: my 21st birthday, my trip to New Mexico with Habitat, Becky's wedding, my second and final year as head conductor of the band, my Sarah-filled off-campus apartment.

We're all going to be okay. Here's to a happy and healthy year with love in abundance.