Les said, the better II

The reality is people will pay whatever we charge them. There’s no end to what people will pay. In fact, the more you charge, the more they like it. People look around and say, “If they charge a lot, it must be good”

– Wesleyan Vice President of Finance and Aministration Marcia Bromberg on tutuion, New York Times, Spet. 26, 2004, by way of handbill I picked up at homecoming

Apparently the current undergrad tuition is $39k per YEAR. So there’s really no question as to which “people” will pay to no end. It’s not a school for the middle classes. So what’s the purpose of chasing away the middle class? Well, the endowment grows, which, um allows the school to buy more stuff and pay more for graduate stipends and hold on to valuable graduate housing like India House. But they’re not spending it on grads. And they’re not spending it on undergrads either. They’re increasing their endowment. A large endowment increases the prestige of the school and allows them to attract more prestigius trustees, a student explained to me. Then she said that the two newest trustees were from Colt weapons and Bechtel. If they make the school out of reach to all but the elite, they will be able to attract arms manufacturers and war profiteers. woot.
But something very strange is going on at Wesleyan. It used to be a boys school. There are a lot of boys around. I feel like, culturally, male issues are more evident, although maybe that’s just a mirror of the larger society or maybe it’s because I have more experience with undergrad women from my own undergrad days. In any case, the school colors are red and black, but instead of red, it really ought to be pink. Many, many of the boys here really like pink. I’m not saying that most of them are gay. I’m saying most of them like pink. They are radically deconstructing gender. What it means to be a boy at Wesleyan is different than what it means to be a boy in most other places. It does stick with them when they leave. The environment here molds their personalities and their thinking and they are embracing a radically different view of masculinity.
So the upper class is sending their progeny off to an exceedingly epensive school where their sons are deconstructing gender, wearing pink, wearing dresses, expressing masculinity through sincerity and sensitivity and striving towards a non-gendered or multi-gendered ideal.
What does this mean?
I recorded a concert today, which was almost a church service. A bunch of people singing hymns while a pastor talked about them. They were all protestant, some written by Wesley’s brother (the school was named for Wesley), so I only recognized a couple of them. There was also organ music. The very first hymn that the choirs and everyone in attendance (except me – I was running the tape recorder) sang was “Lift Every Voice and Sing”, the hymn of the NAACP since the 1920’s. It was sung boldly and with great heart. The people there were proud to be singing it. I leaned way over the balcony to get a good view of the choir and the congregation. There was not one person in the entire building who appeared to be African American that I could see.
There are black students at Wesleyan, but not many. And there are black professors. Anthony Braxton and a few others. I didn’t see any of them at the hymnody concert.
There are black people in the community. Public safety just put out an APB for a tall black male. Somebody saw him in the Rehersal Hall around the time there were a bunch of thefts. I accidentally set off an alarm today in that building, but the public safety officer who came by saw me walking off and didn’t stop me. Cuz I didn’t match the APB? Cuz I turned off the alarm and nothing was actually stolen? A lot of the public safety announcements mention african americans. The public safety guy who spoke at my orientation last year talked a lot about the local criminal element. The large fight down the street from my house last august involved mostly african american teens.
I sense that something is going on when an entirely non-black population proudly sings “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” but it’s relationship with the black folks living next door mostly involves thefts and fights.
This school has some very complex dynamics to deconstruct. What does it all mean?

and on a personal note

I’ve been recording concerts and playing in concerts and tuba practicing and music listening and thesis writing and getting hassled by the local criminal element and pot luck attending and movie watching and blogging all in the last week but mostly trying like hell not to think about my mom.
current mood: stressed

So I was just walking home with my lap tuba in it’s backpack case, loaded down, tired, etc. Some local teen boys were walking down the street, doing a “cool” walk, I guess to impress each other or I dunno who, it’s not like they had an audience.

Me: Hey
Them: Hey
pause
Them: Are you a man?
Me: Fuck off
Them: What’s that thing he/she is carrying? It’s carrying?
a small rock thumps off my tuba
Me: (Turning, making eye contact) You kids better knock it the fuck off, ok
The back off a little bit
One of them: (in sing song) You kids better knock it the fuck off, ok
Me: (deadly glare, reaching towards pocket unconsciously)
Them: (actually alarmed) She’s got a gun! It’s got a gun! (then, from a distance as i go into my house: more sing songing, etc)

I need a better way to handle this. I’ve been getting gender harassment as long as I can remember and I’ve never learned how to diffuse the situation. There was four of them and only one of me and I was carrying my tuba, which is dear to me and quite heavy. Wesleyan kids get periodically fagbashed, and my dressing in Wesleyan colors (for pep band) clearly marked me as a student. Normally, I look more like just a regular person, although, you know, carrying a tuba.
I’m going to start carrying my knife again. This town is so fucked up. Those kids have reason to hate the University. I don’t want to be in the middle of it.
So, I’m thinking that I should not swear at them or show anger when my gender is questioned. And although my tone of voice was strong, there should have been no “ok” at the end of my “knock it off.” I need to present some sort of credible deterrent or threat. I don’t know their parents, so anything on that front is not credible. Also, I dunno if they really thought I had a gun or not, but it’s not necessarily in my best interest to weild a fake threat. If you’re going to have a weapon as a deterrent, you need to be prepared to use it. You don’t pull a gun, if you’re not willing to shoot. I don’t even have one.
I need to walk to the library. I don’t want to walk to the library. I want to move to a place where I can walk around without people calling me “it.”

Let’s look at the factors: the economy sucks. Many folks don’t have extra money to throw at good causes. Those who do are freaked out by the election. This election is the most expensive ever. Four billion dollars, more than a quarter of that spent in the presidential campiagn. So donations to non-profits are down. This means that many worthy organizations, like say, in the arts are in trouble.

The arts are important. Feeding hungry people, saving the rainforest and a bunch fo other causes are importnat too, maybe more important. But we as a people need a culture. We need music. We need the arts. Fudning the arts is vital to us as a cosiety. And arts funding has been slashed by government. California is not finding the arts right now.
what this means is that worthy organizations like Other Minds are having a massive cash shortage. Other Minds, which I am on the board of, has had to take out an amergency loan. Cash flow is going to recover late in the year, but in the mean time, they need some help.
Giving money to chartiable organizations is tax deductable. This means that if you’re paying income taxes, the money you give to, say, Other Minds, counts towrds your taxes, so you get money back after you file your taxes. You’re going to pay the tax money anyway, but if you give it to a non-profit, you get to decide how your tax money gets spent. Instead of spending it on bombs, no bid contracts for Haliburton and corporate give-aways, you can send your tax money to the arts.
If you want to donate, there is a secure, on-line form that you can use. This money is tax deductable and they will send you a reciept. You can just give a little if you can give a little. If you don’t have money to give away, but have a budget to buy stuff, you can also order a CD. I’m fond of Antheil Plays Antheil which features a recording of “Ballet Mechanique” and I also dig Amy X Neuburg’s new record Residue.
If you do decide to donate, you can get free stuff (this makes your gift less deductible) and a good feeling of smugness. Even if you don’t give money, you can get free stuff from Other Minds, like their on line radio station.
I’m listening to the American Maveriks PBS series on the web right now. And one thing they’re talking about is forging an American musical identity. Are we different from Europe or should we (musically) just follow where Europe goes? Is an American music a worthwhile goal? I think it is. I think it’s one real strength of the US. It’s something to be patriotic about. All of these issues of creating an American Music are doubly so for California Composers. New Yorkers whine about being the in the shadow of Europe. California is culturally dominated by New York and by Europe. Our composers are not taken seriously. If we’re so great, why aren’t we in New York? Then New Yorkers want to know, and then, if we’re so great, why aren’t we in Europe? Certain composers, like Aaron Copland have created an American Music and hae helped fight this tendency. These composers, like John Cage, Lou Harrison, etc had the help of organizations designed to promote their music. Other Minds is one such organization. Other Minds helps define an American Music and also a West Coast Music. Unbeleivably, many east coasters still diss Lou Harrison for beign too tonal and too Californian and unorthodox. For serious. We need Other Minds to combat this. Other Minds raises the prestige of West Coast Music and of American Music. If you think there’s something to love about art music in the Us or in California, then there’s something to love about Other Minds.

Coulter pied. heh heh heh.

I’ve decided my piece about her should be titled “Coulter Shock”

UPDATE!!

Ann Coulter Pie Video [ifilm]

Performance

I’m playing sousaphone in a piece by Neely Bruce called Convergence, which is a large, Ivesian, multi-marching band piece. It will involve several bands, two large choruses, a fife and drum corps, a carilon, a pipe organ and even more stuff. This piece is huge and not performed often. The special occasion is Wesleyan’s homecoming football game. We’re making a big deal out of football, despite being division 3 or 4 or hell, 5, I dunno, we can’t give sport scholarships. The alums love it though and give too much money, so yay jocks. And maybe thru football or extortion or just really great fundraising, the school just raised several million dollars in a capital campaign. So they want to have a very snappy half time show. And proving that they really are a worthwhile cause and a venerable institution, they decided to do Neely’s piece. This piece will be so awesome, I can’t believe it. And it was the administration’s idea. They came to Neely and asked him to do it instead of vice versa.

Even better, the insane, huge, fantastic, fine arts half time show will be broadcast on national TV. Some sports network that covers college sports will be broadcasting the Wesleyan homecoming and the half time show, says Neely. You will have to check your local listings. Kickoff is at noon. The halftime show will be around 1:30. All of this EDT, of course. Somebody must TIVO this.

Composition

I’ve been invited to submit a tape of my Ann Coulter piece to a festival next weekend in Toronto. The Red Festival will be having a “sound bar” where folks can listen to stuff via headphones, so if you happen to be in Toronto next weekend (or maybe if you have an email buddy up north, you can tell ’em), you can hear me at the sound bar. Hopefully. They haven’t heard the piece yet.

many of you are nerds, so you have opinions on fonts. nonono, this is a good thing. What font should I use for my thesis? I was thinking something serriffed would be easier to read when printed out. What is this important now? It’s not. but cast a ballot early. and speaking of ballots, wtf is with all these propositions?

my laptop hard drive has the click of death. no immediate death, but eventual hard rrive failer, wich is disenheratening, seeing as i’ve only had it since december.
I am listening to a box set from Ou, a poetry magazine. They got into speech art / spoken word stuff. Some of it sounds just like music. I want to listen to other people working with words so I can say something intelligent about such work. I think I’m going to get some of Steve Reich’s tape loops out of the library tomorrow. I tried something like Come Out with Rush Limbuagh and it just wasn’t working for me. Also, I want to read the program ntoes. What the heck was the point of those pieces? Look, you can get a nifty rythm if you loop folks talking about being beaten by the police? I mean, there’s political content, for sure, but especially in the case of Come Out, it seems sort of exploitative. That’s a major claim to make, so I want to read what he wrote about it before I say anything. But to my ignorant self, it seems like he’s using the words of African Americans and then slowly degenerating their meaning until it’s unintelligible. What does it mean when a white guy does that? I mean, I specifically tweak the words of people I don’t like as a form of disrespect. Furthermore, the piece Come Out: from the title you’d expect it to be gay. It’s not. It’s a snippet of speech by a preacher in a park, maybe Golden Gate park? I can’t remember. The preacher does not deliberately seem to be invoking a gay phrase. To what extent was Rech aware of the gay meaning of said phrase? If he was aware of it, why was he highlighing it? I’m reading a book The Queer Composition of America’s Sound, which talks about queerness and sexual otherness and a bit how that’s tied into race. African Americans can stand in for queers and vice versa in our cultural language, which is why “black” music, like jazz, stands for sexual experience, fludity, queerness, etc. For instance, Four Saints in three Acts had many African American cast members. So is Reich invoking this? Must find out.

What has been going on the last couple of weeks? Well two weeks ago, I went home for the weeknd and played a gig at 21 Grand. A few folks came out to see me, wich was nice. I played some works in progress, including my Ann Coulter piece. Because most of the friendly experiencers who came were from my list, I got some of the door. I then blew all of the door money by going to Trio, a wonderful French place, where I got cheese and noodles and Sangria. I started eating cheese again for Trio and for Spettros and for brie and for good cheese. Yet, somehoe, I keep eating dairy products which are scary and bad. Can I be some sort of snob-an, where I only eat good cheese?

Officially, I was in town for the Other Minds Board Retreat. I think as a result of this retreat, we’re going to re-write our mission statement.
Then I went back to Connecticut, where I attened classes and played at a House Concert on Wednesday night. I played my Ann Coulter piece (again), right before the presidential debate. Then I flew again to California for fall break. I did not take a week of classes off because I am a dedicated sudent.
In California again, I did only fun things and no school work. I bought some books and music. I went to the Famer’s Market on Saturday, then went to a theme park. Matthryn, Cola and I spent six + hours at Great America. We rode threeo rollercoasters and did one thing where you drive cars in little circles. IT was oodles of fun. Then we went to Sue’s in Mountain View for dinner. Sue died a couple of years ago, I just found out. Alas. Then we went to Lucy’s Tea House. I love Lucy’s tea house. Then we went back to Oakland to a place called the Mile High Club and saw Ratty’s band The Cold War play. It was awesome. Ratty is such a rock star! The band reminded me of Bikini Kill. I want them to put out a record so that I can buy it.
Sunday, I woke up tired, no surprise. My mom died October 18th 2002. What do these dates mean? Her birthday? The day she had brain surgery? The day she died? I was unhappy. I skipped brunch and went back to bed. Then I got up at noon and went to Mitch’s birthday party. The party started at noon. Cola and I walked to BART (20 minutes), then rode BART to Milbrae (1 hour), then rode Caltrain to Hillsdale (40 minute wait + half hour ride) then walked up the hill to Mitch’s house (lost track of time) to get there at 4:30. oy. Ate cake. Drank beer. Got a ride from Sarah Dotie back to Bart. I wish I got to see Mitch more often.
Monday, went clothes shopping. Was ok. Then spent the afternoon with my dad. We ate food and drank coffee and hung out and then had dinner with Cola. Then all of us went to Mills to see Amelia Cuni play in the SongLines concert series. she is a wonderful singer. Part of the event was also pedagological. She gave out tons of information about her singing style. My dad mentioned that Seymore died last spring. I had no idea. My Dad told me that if I want to know who has died, I should ask Brother Bob.
Tuesday I got on a plane. Today, I went to class.

IRL concert is at India House. Quicktime stream will be at rtsp://129.133.2.23/gradconcert.sdp. Concert starts at 8:00 EDT, breaks for debates and then continues. Some performers are planning on incorporating the debates into their material.

I went to grad school in order to learn to write new kinds of music, to be part of a music community, to have access to the resources of an academic institution, to spend some time away from CA hoping I could solve my (personal) problems by getting some distance.

I feel really happy. All these terrible things happened in the last 2.5 years, but there’s a sense of inevitability that I have about them. And the “if it doesn’t kill you, it makes you stronger” thing . . . I can see how many of the good thigns that are happeneing now would not have happened without the bad events happening first.

So, given that my grad school goals are working out so fabulously well so far (ask me about this again the week that my thesis is due), I’m wondering what I should do afterwards. More school? It would help me get an academic job (god help me). An academic job is good because it means a steady pay check, health insurance, access to the resources of an academic institution (I’m talking equipment, concert hall, library, etc) and the chance to warp young minds. There is also the possibility of doing exchange programs. I could go to Germany next fall. Then I could apply for a Dutch thing after that. Bouncing around Europe is cool because it enables travel, would expose me to other ideas about music and is just generally cool. It’s a bit more uncertain and bohemian. If I spend two years in euopre and then three years in a doctoral program, I’ll be 34 when I start looking to be a professor or a lecturer. If I want to have a kid, well, that would be a good time to have one, I guess. Timing, desire to be a bohemian all at odds. My mom started trying to have kids at 36, had a lot of health issues related to that and was 38 when I was born and 40 when my brother was born. That’s kinda too old.
I’m thinking about this stuff now because I want to have a plan. I don’t want to think “i should have done more bohemian stuff when I had the chance” or “gosh, I wanted a kid, but now it’s too late.” I mean, I know you can adopt forever, but there’s other age issues that I definitely saw in my childhood. Also, when people say “where do you see yourself in five years?” I can say, “well, hopefully, I’ll be finishing up my DMA/PhD and applying for professorships.”
Of course, nothing ever goes according to plan, but it’s nice to have one.

the irony of these things is that when interesting things are going on, there is no time to post.

I will be in California Oct 14th at 10:47 pm. I will leave california on October 19th at 12:30 pm. I was planning on riding the bus, but for some reason, i thought my plane was getting in much earlier.