Mt. Holyoke Concert et al

So, for lack of something creative to say, I'll give a rundown of what's been going on in my life:

For quite specific reasons, I've been feeling an incredible amount better lately.  That will continue, I believe.

I got into Advanced Neuro Lab 2, which is the lab I really wanted to take, and which has a class size of 8 people.  Happy, happy, happy!  I'm rather surprised by this, because my Adv. Neuro lecture test scores (which were apparently the only metric used to choose people) were nowhere near what I would have hoped them to be, due again to an epoch of malaise.  In any case, that makes my life far easier than it could have been.

I might pass biochemistry... Now that I'm in a better place and lots of glee club stuff is done with, I can probably focus on some hardcore studying.

I'm doing a lot of Internet research into things that personally interest me, which is cool.  I tried doing that to some extent before, but eventually dropped it because I started at a time when I was extremely busy.  Now I actually have a paper to write that depends on doing such research, so I'll probably actually do all of that reading.

I finished Coatzee's Disgrace, and loved it.  Coatzee really resonates with me for some reason, and I love his style.  A breath of fresh air, despite the moroseness of the book's content.

Hosted some women from Mt. Holyoke in my house, and I have to pay much humble respect to my wonderfully thoughtful housemates who cleaned the house beautifully while I was at rehearsal.  The exchange concert was phenomenal:  Biebl's Ave Maria, Sametz' Ein Keloheinu, Spratlan's Rainbow over the Seine, Rachmaninoff's No. 7, Whitacre's Lux Aurumque, and Rahman's Wedding Qawwali comprised the RUGC set.  Then, Mt. Holyoke had their own wonderful pieces, and a beautiful joint performance of Brahm's Nänie.  At the end of that, I got to give a bouquet, picked out by a wonderfully tasteful senior in club, and recordings of our past performances to the other choir's director.  That brought together the weekend for me, and I was happy to learn that the Mt. Holyoke singers had only positive things to say about their stay, especially considering there are usually some small or large issues that come up when you have people from a women's college housing with Rutgers students.  I wonder if that comes, in part, from the efforts we've made this semester to push through the feminism-friendly alma mater lyrics change.  The increased awareness of the importance of gender equality and the positive messages of Dr. Gardner and a trans advocate in our club must have had some small positive impact.  That, and our business manager had a keen eye for the kind of guy who would make a good host.

Now, off to study for a Neuro exam in.  I don't really know what we were supposed to have learned, even though I was more or less completely paying attention to what was going on in class.  Not sure if the focus is going to be on how to read scientific papers, or what the contents of those particular papers were.  Lucky I'm already in Neuro lab, I guess.

Listening to ERAAS, Reflektor, and meditative Mass Effect/Kelly Bailey OST.

Beauty Around Us

I love the feeling that I get when I am listening to the  music on my ipod, and I come across a song that I don't recognize.  Something that I took the care to put on a playlist, but then completely forgot about.  When I run a list on shuffle, I spend the first few seconds of each song trying to put my finger on what the title and artist are, deciding whether I want to listen to the rest of the song or if I'm looking for a different vibe for the moment.

Then I'll hear something, that sounds just like new, I am reminded that my music collection is incomplete.  That there are new things to discover.

Exploration will never outpace creation.  As long as there is life, we will grow, we will conceive other life, and we will morph the nonliving into new shapes.  The dynamo of invention is so important to humans' dual nature as animals and people that I don't believe any individual can say they've lived life to the fullest without investing in creativity.

I so vividly crave exploration.  The vastness of the unknown is a glorious thing.  I wish I wasn't so stuck in this tiny moment of my life, so shortsightedly mired in an inconsequential lifestyle, and that I was brave enough to go explore the abounding frontiers of my world.

Observations of Music; Chaos

I have found the best music player ever.  Foobar2000 officially takes the cake.  It took some time to get used to, but it works so much more effectively than iTunes did in so many ways.  The way the lyrics plugin works, the easy renaming of metadata at the file level, the fact that opening new windows doesn't block out one another's functioning, the volume control, the cool minimalist design... lots of other little details that I really enjoy.  I'm happy iTunes botched everything up, because now I'm left with a much more effective piece of software.

I'm trying to understand what music is and what there is to get out of it.  When I'm in a live performance, I'm focusing all of my attention on the music and the thoughts that the music inspires.  I spend some of the time thinking about the technical aspects of the performance, some of the time trying to understand what the composer was trying to convey, and the rest coming up with ways in which the music is relevant to my personal perspective.  Maybe it's true that language communicates ideas and music communicates emotions.

Chaos is Life.  Really!  Life = Chaos.  I probably wouldn't have made such a stark realization without the mythos proposed by the Fabula Nova Crystalis, but now that I realize how important chaos is to our vivacity, I can appreciate the fact that there's now more chaos in my life than there was before spring break.  It is something that fuels creativity and spurs the mind in all directions.  It encourages nonlinear thinking and invention.  I thrive on it in my spare time, and keeping up with my responsibilities in the face of disarray keeps me energized.

For better or worse, swimming in chaos makes it harder to see what's missing.  If there are things in my life that I desperately need, I don't see them as readily when I don't have order and my mind isn't allowed to pace incessantly up and down the same deleterious paths as if it were having an emotional seizure.  I'm glad that I rid myself of that, but having order did allow me to accomplish more.  Perhaps I've sequestered myself from the brightness of a more structured lifestyle, one where I spend my time going to class and reading the textbooks, for the simple reason that I am frightened to see what is missing in my life--and what is wrong with the world around me.  I think that on some level I realize that I would best be served by striking a balance between Chaos and Order.  But I'm scared to return to Order, as Chaos provides me a shroud to hide what I don't want to look at.

Keening

It's strange, hearing about the death of an artist you've been following.  In this case, he died two years ago, which is a time I can tie to a point in my own life.  I first saw his work long before that, and I had no idea his life had ended.  The few snippets I can find tell me he was an astoundingly peaceful person with only the best intentions, and I feel such a strange, nebulous remorse for him.

Your memory lives on, and through your work you are immortal.

It's different than hearing about or watching the death of a stranger.  It hits closer to home.  And especially when it's somebody who's not all that different than you.

Even if spirituality can only help heal the living, it's important to understand that our transience does not diminish our value.  We are so, so, so important.  The ephemeral spark of our beautiful existence is powerful.    Our tender vulnerabilities may be the greatest component of that strength.  Our inevitable deaths, the dynamos of our living.  Inescapable heartbreaks and the pain that is outside of our control bring into our lives the darkness that

Craving the bitterness of strong tea, I feel as if I've escaped from the heavy darkness only to escape my greatest strengths.  I don't feel like the agent of my will right now.  Is there a way to both be happy and regain that intensity?  I don't think that's the right question, but it's a start.  I'll eventually find the right question.  Before that, probably, I'll find its answer.

Last night, I fell asleep quite late, listening to a playlist I've titled "Death".  As my insides writhed, I spent time wondering who we are.  I didn't come up with any new formulations that I hadn't before, but looking at it as a big whole, a teeny piece of the vastness of the Universe, seeing ourselves as contributors to a consciousness that will live for millennia, creators of immense happiness and wonder... it instills a sense of peace in me.  Peace that I really need.

College.  Youth.  The epoch of finding one's self.  It's going to take a bit longer, but I'm getting there.

Late Night Thoughts on Reading "Late Night Thoughts on Listening to Mahler's Ninth Symphony" and Listening to Mahler's Ninth Symphony

My friend once lent me a book by Lewis Thomas - The Medusa and the Snail.  I can't remember whether I ever finished it, but I did really enjoy it a lot, and I had to eventually return it.  At some point, she gave me another book by him for a birthday present:  Late Night Thoughts on Listening to Mahler's Ninth Symphony.

I never got to it for whatever reason.  Probably just the fact that my life is in perpetual disarray and an ever-changing set of responsibilities that I hate to see unattended (and thus attend).  So the things I want to do... well, I want to do a lot of things and don't really get to all of them.

Anyway, I started reading it a couple weeks ago.  It was largely about the necessity of science, as opposed to technology that's only directed at figuring out the answers to the basic problems of society, which is actually a huge part of what I'm using to further my own goals--which is ironic, because my own goals are in a sense very well defined and could be categorized as more technological than scientific.

It was also about the imminent threat of thermonuclear war with the Russians (I wasn't aware before opening it up that this set of essays was written during the Cold War, in a time when people were actively living in fear of a nuclear winter).  It was about wide-scale death.  This was also a rather nice fit with my recent thoughts and outlooks.  As I have a great interest in ending the systematic torture and murder that permeates the fabric of our society and that is funded by taxes and grocery bills, I always listen to people speak about violence.  It also hurts that I recently saw, for the first time, videos of people actually dying, which honestly had a huge impact on my perception of violence.  An American engineer named Eugene Armstrong, and two Syrian citizens whose identities I haven't been able to find out.  I don't care who the victims are, I don't want there to be any more suffering.

When I was mostly done with the collection of essays, I found out that our very own Rutgers Symphony Orchestra was scheduled to perform Mahler's Ninth Symphony this very month.  So I finished the book, made plans for Friday night, and went on over to watch it in person.  I texted my friend to suggest he come as well, caught the bus, arrived on Douglass campus after it was scheduled to begin, and ran with my flip-flops right into the theater to pick up my student rush ticket and sit down a couple of rows behind my friend moments before the downbeat.

I don't know if it was because I was so winded, or because I haven't been listening to all that much classical music recently, or because I'm mentally exhausted, but I don't feel like I completely understood the music.  I went in knowing nothing about it except the few words Lewis Thomas had to say about it.  Now, I think the Rutgers Symphony played it with a bit more vim than I have found in recordings online, and the director's interpretation might have been idiosyncratic, but I felt that the symphony was really dense.  I walked out having obtained only a glimmer of what it was about, what it meant.  The significance.  I spent the duration shifting between deep thoughts, which had little to do with the music, and listening without stark affect.

 




I really like that.  I can say without hesitation that the symphony was beyond me.  It was more than I could handle, when listening to it being performed live, and when actually focusing on it.  At best, there were moments when I had glimpses of a natural world decaying, which does resonate with Mahler's intention.  And maybe my lack of response is a consequence of the content, as opposed to the form; it has been said that his symphony is written from an impersonal perspective, as music from the beyond, which may be why I didn't feel particularly touched.  Maybe I simply know too little about stepping outside myself, too little about death.  Maybe I'm too young and inexperienced.

Whatever the reason may be, I can say that there is an opportunity in this incomprehension.  I can continue to listen to this symphony and seek understanding.  Or I could choose to leave it a mystery.  I don't really mind whether I ever figure it out, because I at least know that I like it, and the complexity is inspiring as well as stimulating.  I'll have to ask my friend for some good recordings of Mahler.  After hearing this posthumous opus, I know I'm not done with him.