Audition: what songs?

I may be auditioning for OmniCircus, which would be awesome. When I did my year of private lessons with Eleanor, my initial goal was to get together an audition tape for Cirque du Soleil. I got pregnant early on in the lessons, and never got the demo tape together.

So now I've been asked to prepare three one minute excerpts from songs to demonstrate versatility. So much music, what should I do?

After examining my library, here is my initial picks. Although I'm already having second thoughts.

Song #1
Dead Can Dance: Song for the dispossessed, last verse:

The earth is our mother
She taught us to embrace the light
Now the lord is master
She suffers an eternal night

You blocked up my ears
You plucked out my eyes
You cut out my tongue
You fed me with lies

Oh lord
Oh lord


Song #2
Tori Amos: Leather (:05 - 1:10)

Song #3
Sheila Chandra: waiting (2:16 - 3:16)
- start with low chant (one time)
blood red lullabye is rocking my throat
my whole being trembles in dumb mimicry
in dumb mimicry
to echo and to savor every sound that you utter
to echo and to savor every sound that you utter
to echo (one tone, trail off)

2.57 miles

That's the distance between self assuredness and doubt. Between the time when I felt secure in my singlehood and when I felt a lurch in my mind.

Why did he have to have so many ties to my past? Is that what I have been feeling?

And what am I going to do now, steal him from someone else?

Damn it.

my garden

As promised, pictures:

see how my garden grows

I spent most of today digging through receipts (paper and digital) to prep for 2007 taxes. Definitely feeling like I am clearing out dead energy, like fallen leaves. Good, but tedious!

I took a break in the middle to go to Home Depot to get a new pump for the stone water fountain I bought from Gilman Salvage. I also bought a carved wooden bench there, it looks like a snake with legs. Very appropos for the Snake House ;)

Now I have a little garden all to myself, in what was once a hill of dirt. I even have a little secret alcove among the bamboo for a laughing buddha and some small plants that surround him. Today I cleaned, assembled and finished the fountain (it has tiers that look like flowers) and planted all the plants around it. It looks so lovely!

Tomorrow I'll try to take some pictures before work to add to this post.

another good mix

That ipod, its pretty good sometimes :) Here is a mix I heard Friday on the way to acupuncture, been meaning to post it. If I get around to it, I'll actually post a ZIP of the songs. Perhaps someone could request it? :)

Long Goodbye - The Thompson Twins
What Does Your Sould Look Like (Part 2)
Tomorrow - Theivery Corporation
Undertow - Suzanne Vega
Too Soon - eastmountainsouth
Look What You've Done - JET
Morning Song - Zero7
Mother Nature's Son - The Beatles
Penitent - Suzanne Vega
Understand - Radio Iodine
Look Up - Zero7

refigerator poetry from another era

I'm going through old records today, doing taxes. The last time I will do taxes for the two of us.
I found a paper plate upon which I had scrawled poetry. I remember that I was cleaning the magnetic poetry set off the refrigerator in preparation for selling our house. It is interesting to look back at it now:

she will cry delicately but ask no less of you
as the sad dreams hit her

wind blows and she sings madly faster into the storm
let the cool rain lick her raw
here is her essential power

then there rose a vision of a still sky
of their luscious moments together
of languid days and sweet sunlight
the ugliness was behind you and me.

I don't know you

I'm just now getting around to listening to Kate Havnevik's Melankton album. I had heard one track, "Nowhere Warm" courtesy of Hype Machine. Over a year later, I picked up the CD at Amoeba. Nowhere Warm is still my favorite track so far (hard to beat a song with emotional ties) but I just heard this one, which is also very good:


I Don't Know You
by Kate Havnevik
(mp3)

There are no guarantees in life
Not for the present,
Nor for the future.
All I know is
That I'm here;
Don't know for how long.
I love the way
You live so intensely
Enjoy every minute of life
With space to swing
Your arms around
Laughing loudly

Unlike me
Unlike me
Do you think I'm strange?
Unlike you
Unlike you
I am not pretending

There is no time,
There is no time,
There is no time,
Time doesn't really exist.

The past, the present,
And the future,
Are all side by side,
Hand in hand.
You move and change,
Yet you go nowhere:
Everything stays the same.
You stare at me,
And ask me questions,
Makes me nervous,
This room it keeps a constant tone
While I'm on a roller coaster

Unlike me
Unlike me
Do you think I'm strange
Unlike you
Unlike you
I am not pretending

There is no time
There is no time
There is no time
Time doesn't really exist

There is no time
There is no time
There is no time
Time doesn't really exist

A movie within a dream

i had a dream about a man I had a relationship with, who chose not to continue that relationship. I'll refer to him as the Man or M.

In the dream, M and I were walking down a road, we came to a fork. i was going to move across country, i think. and so we parted ways. then i remembered that he had given me a movie that he had had made. i decided to watch it, and my family was there watching it with me. it was an animated movie, very beautifully drawn, well edited (i remember thinking that he had done a really good job of editing it).

The movie was a thinly disguised retelling of our relationship, only he was a dark haired girl. I remember feeling suspicious, but as soon as i saw the red haired man, I knew it was us. i blushed and hoped no one in my family knew. in the movie i watched, the girl told the man how she had regretted not being with him, how she still loved him and wanted to be with him. I wrote down some questions i wanted to ask M about the dream.

then later on, I saw M. I felt very guarded, wary of opening up this conversation again. I told him I saw the movie and his whole face lit up as if to say "oh! you finally got it!" He had given it to me a while ago and i never said anything. and then he said "and...?" waiting for me to make the first move again. i was irritated and said "so what was up with the main characters?" and asked a question pretty much like "what are you trying to tell me?" i felt i deserved an answer, once and for all.

and the dream ended with that. me not knowing, looking into his brown eyes and smiling face, revealing nothing.

I miss kissing

I am well aware of the benefits of single life. But I have to say that the one thing I miss most right now is kissing. I long for the thrill of the first kiss, unbidden and so uncertain. The initial soft slow brushing of lips, becoming the urgent merging of mouths, insistent and strong, the playful licks, breathing in another's breath...

Just thinking about it makes me shiver.

All you need is love

My son and I had a last minute argument trying to get out the door for school. We can both be stubborn at times! So I put on the Beatles as a peace offering and asked him which song he wanted. He chose "When I'm Sixty Four" (one of his current favorites). Then as we came down the hill, I put on "All You Need Is Love". We were a little late for school, but sat in the car for the end of the song. As the notes faded, I said "I love you" and he nodded sagely and said "Love is all you need."

All you want

Interesting how things change... you have different experiences and the strings a song touches change, but somehow the emotional connection is still there.

That is true of this song. When I first fell for it, I was in NYC, obsessed with a man I had no business dating. That was my second year of living dangerously.

Now when I hear it, I think of someone else entirely.

All You Want
by Dido (one of my guilty pleasures)

I'd like to watch you sleep at night
to hear you breathe by my side
And though sleep leaves me behind
there's nowhere I'd rather be
And now our bed is oh so cold
my hands feel empty
no one to hold
I can sleep what side I want
It's not the same with you gone
Oh if you'd come home
I'll let you know that
All you want
Is right here in this room
All you need
Is sitting here with you
All you want

It's been three years
One night apart
but in that night you tore my heart
If only you had slept alone
If those seeds had not been sown

Oh you could come home and you would know that
All you want
Is right here in this room
All you need
Is sitting here with you
All you want

I hear your key turning in the door
I won't be hearing that sound anymore
And you and your sin
can leave the way you just came in
send my regards to her

I hope you've found that
All you want
Is right there in that room
All you need
Is sitting there with you
All you want

I'd like to watch you sleep at night
to hear you breathe by my side

Life is beautiful

I was listening to an Indigo Girls song, and there came up a lyric about "I should have taken that road trip with you". I can honestly say there have been no missed opportunities in my life. I have loved fiercely and with an open heart. I don't look back on my life and think there was something I should have done. I have done things that were not good for me, but nothing left undone.

I feel pretty good about that.

I also feel good about being single right now. Had a conversation with C and another with E and both of them exclaimed "well you can do all that stuff you are doing because you are not married!" (legally, I still am, but hey, who's keeping track?)

There were many times last year where coming home to an empty bed or house made my heart and body ache. Now, I have too much going on to dwell: full time work, freelancing on the side, working on music, planning and planting a garden in my front yard (my newest project!), taking cello lessons, working with a personal trainer/going to the gym, oh yeah and taking care of my son!

Its gotten to the point where its relaxing to come home to my house alone. I am excited to finish the garden and post pics!

A good lyric...

can evoke meaning in your brain, particular to you. It has to have just enough vagueness to connect to a myriad of memories, and specific enough to tug at the string tied to your emotions. Like this one:

from Hide and Seek
by Imogen Heap

...
Mmmm whacha say,
Mmmm that you only meant well?
well of course you did
Mmmm whacha say,
Mmmm that its all for the best?
Because it is
Mmmm whacha say?
Mmmm that it's just what we need
you decided this
whacha say?
Mmmm what did she say?
...

Getting back in the game

I answered an ad on craigslist, one of about twenty or thirty I have answered in the last year. This one was pretty straightforward: male singer/songwriter looking for female singer for one of his tracks. He emailed back and it looks like its a go for me to record one track next Sunday.

http://www.myspace.com/craigzaretsky

I will be singing the track Evil Eyes. I should be getting lyrics soon. I think my voice is very similar to his, so it should be a good fit.

It will be good to get back in the studio (as my home studio is on hold until I can get some assistance setting it up). Perhaps it will kick my butt in gear to start seriously writing again. Not that I haven't been writing, but its been more bits and pieces. I haven't forced myself to sit down and work out a song in what feels like a long time.

Have You Got it In You

Another GREAT track from Imogen Heap. I bought her second album and have been listening to it over and over and over...

Best part:

All at once, not a whisper, nor word.
Then all at once...
Let me have it all, let me have a battle on,
Easy target,
Look can we just...just get it over with.
It's getting worse, against all the odds...
It's getting worse.
(Guard down, floor's yours, last man standing can we, just get it over with.)


That woman can see into my brain, I tell you. She inspires me to get writing again.

Pretty Perfect Day

Oh the joys of full time work: paid time off! health care! stimulating conversations with coworkers nearly every day! bonuses!

I got a bonus and decided to buy my son a bike. I love my bicycle, but it usually stays at work so I can commute to the gym in the middle of the day. Thursday I trekked it home on BART, so that today (Saturday) I could bring it to the bike store to get toe clips put on, while I pick out a bike for my dear boy.

Now he and I have matching blue bikes and blue helmets. I swear I didn't do it on purpose! :) We went to Alameda Bicycle, where I got my bike last spring. Once the transactions were done, we loaded the bikes on my rack and drove a short hop down to the Alameda shoreline.

It was bright and breezy, perfect biking weather. We biked for several blocks, then my son decided he wanted to play in the waves. We locked up our bikes, took off our shoes, rolled up our pants, and dashed out to the water. It was cool at first, but after a while of running up and down the shoreline, it got warmer (or at least we did). Laughing, jogging, smiling, stopping, splashing. It was a perfect moment, one I will treasure always.

By the time we were done, he was covered in water and sand. We had to clean up to make the ride back to our car.




If you read Harry Potter, you know there is a spell called the Patronus Charm. In order for it to work, you have to think of your happiest memory, strong enough to overpower the darkness that tries to suck out all your joy. This day was my most happiest memory to date.