random update

Thank you to everyone who still checks back here occasionally in the hope that I might update. I appreciate hearing from you, and I'm glad that even though I update rather infrequently these days, you still consider me worth reading.
At least part of the reason for my infrequent updates is that I now keep up with most of the friends I used to update via this blog on facebook, and just because of the type of network that is I'm finding it more of a satisfyingly two-way street. But that doesn't completely invalidate this blog, as I originally started it as a site for keeping track of my online research, and it's still really useful for that purpose. I often keep research posts private these days, just because they're kind of quickly dashed-off rather than carefully written, thoughtful posts, and the knowledge that people actually read what I write makes me a little more careful about what I put out there. I want to make reading worth your efforts after all.
Another reason this is a little slow these days is because I'm spending so much time writing that when I want to relax, I often want to do it away from my computer. So knitting, sewing and crochet, cooking, walking around New York City and eating my way through the city have taken preference over blogging.
Nonetheless, writing is still my job, and one that I really love, and I have been doing lots of it recently. My dissertation adviser challenged me to turn out a dissertation chapter for lent, and so I'm frantically working on my "Karen Zoid as national icon" chapter. Right now that involves a lot of reading Afrikaans history (lots of it in non-standard late 19th century Afrikaans), and trying very hard to write like someone you might actually want to read, and not like a late 19th century Afrikaans historian, or worse, a critical theorist!!!!
Also, since late last year I have been working on two articles, one of which has been accepted for a special issue of the journal of Soccer and Society that will be coming out later this year. Unfortunately it does read much more like a piece of critical theory than I had originally hoped, but as it's about music at the upcoming soccer world cup, you may find it interesting nonetheless. Check back for updates.

Live Blogging

I just discovered live blogging. It is such fun to follow a news event as it unfolds. Just a pity I was following a complete embarrassment caused by some daft undergrads here at NYU, but at least it's over.

long time - still hanging in there

It has been a long time since I've updated. And while I don't like blog posts that are excuses for why one hasn't posted in ages, I kind of think I have a good excuse: Comprehensive Exams!!!!
I wrote them last weekend (Friday to Monday), and am waiting to hear my results. But they are done, and out of the way, and now I have three pieces of writing to complete in lieu of finals, and then my parents arrive on Saturday next week for a three week visit. It has been so long since I last saw them, and I'm really looking forward to having them here. I'll try to keep this blog regularly updated then with our doings.
In the mean time, though, here is a nice little documentary on the Stonewall Chorale, that gives you a taste of one of the things I've been up to this year.
I cannot believe the academic year is practically over! One more year of course work left. That's a scary thought.

Another great weekend

I'm sounding a bit like a stuck record, but it's because my weekends really are delightful. This past Saturday, NYChoirgirl and I went to the New York Gilbert and Sullivan Players' production of the Pirates of Penzance at the NY City Center, courtesy of Theater Extras, and NYU's Ticket Central. The production was very funny, hammed up to the hilt, but definately great entertainment. And I was delighted to see this production now, as I'm due to teach some Gilbert and Sullivan (probably the Mikado) this coming semester. NYChoirgirl also acted in a production of this work when she was in school, and more recently sang one of the numbers in a Stonewall Chorale choir concert, and so she knew most of the music. I knew less of it, but still left the venue with several ear worms firmly in place. Particular highlights included the major general appearing in his pajamas, including puppy slippers, and an ammusing reference to Pinafore inserted into the dialogue ("'Never!' 'what, never' 'well, hardly ever'"). I also witnessed a most amusing phenomenon right at the start of the performance, when the audience rearranged itself as if on cue when the house lights dimmed, moving to empty seats nearer the stage.
Prior to the performance, we had dinner at Xai Xai, a recently opened South African Wine Bar in the hell's kitchen neighbourhood. In the interests of an authentic South African experience, we ordered Cathedral Cellars (KWV) Shiraz, pap, wors and tomato and onion chow, curried fish, Malva pudding and pumpkin fritters with cinnamon sugar. It was a fabulous meal, not cheap, but more "authentic" (yes, I know that's a very unacademic word, but it works, here) than what I had at that other South African restaurant that shall not be named. I definitely plan to visit again.

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas

And feel like it, too. On Saturday night, NYChoirgirl and I performed our end of year concert with the Stonewall Chorale. It was a super success, with the big Church of the Ascension nearly full, and lots of great feedback from the various audience members I got to talk to afterwards. Thank you so much to everyone who supported us. It was wonderful to see so many smiling faces in the audience, to get such super applause, and to hear your very generous comments afterwards. I'm so glad you were all there, and that you had a good time.
I also put up my Christmas decorations this past week, and now have a string of steady white lights, a string of flashing blue lights, great loops of blue tinsel, and a dozen or so blue and white snowflakes adorning my living room. They blend very well with the blue and white Empire State Building I can see through the window. I haven't got a Christmas tree yet, because live ones make me sad (I hate the idea of cutting a tree down, just to throw it out, dry and sorry-looking, in January), and artificial ones are surprisingly difficult to find in this city. At least, artificial ones under $50. Online shopping has come to my rescue (as it so often does), though, and my little 3 foot pre-lit artificial Christmas tree is on its way. I love putting Christmas decorations up. And now, in the Northern hemisphere, where the sky is dark by the time I get out of class, the lights really brighten things up.
Speaking about getting out of class, I taught my last seminar of the semester today, and now have a large pile of marking waiting for me. It's actually less daunting than I thought it might be, because the student's assignments are so interesting to read. I really like these students, and am going to miss them next semester.
Finally, this is my last evening at home for a while. Tomorrow, Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights I'm attending various Christmas parties, and on Wednesday night, I participate in the NYU tradition of midnight breakfast for dinner. On Wednesday, I also attend my last class of the semester, and a week later, submit my last final. And then, I'm on holiday for just under a month.

Fall, and the bokke

Fall is finally here. The temperature has dropped into the chilly range, and while it isn't quite winter coat time, it was time for me to put a duvet on the bed, and get my warm jerseys out. I really love this time of year, partly because the trees are so breathtakingly beautiful (or will become so, now that the weather has cooled), and partly just because it feels good. It isn't so cold as to be umpleasant yet, but it is distinctly different from a balmy South African fall, and I am still enjoying the novelty.

Oh, and just because I'm excited about this..... GO BOKKE! South Africa is playing England in the Rugby World Cup Final next Sunday.

Street performance, and the Drakensberg Boys' Choir

I had the craziest day today, running around town from one end to the other (literally: Brooklyn, Harlem, NYU, Harlem, Union Square, NYU, and finally, Harlem again), but quite abruptly earlier this evening I was stopped in my tracks by one of the best street performances I have yet seen in NYC. Three guys were playing drums using a combination of two upturned buckets, a barrel lid, and two of the plastic containers that hold newspapers on street corners around NYC. They were doing some pretty elaborate stuff, and it was really nice to have an excuse to stand still and just listen for a bit.

Also, one quick note. I noticed through my blog stats this week that someone has been searching repeatedly for "Drakensberg Boys' Choir lyrics "I wish I were"". This is one of my absolute favourite of their recently programed pieces, and can be heard at their website or via this link (the recording quality isn't great, and doesn't do them justice, but it should at least give you an idea of what they and the piece sound like. The full title of the song is "I Wish I Were a Punkrocker", and the lyrics are available here.

bits and pieces

I'm sitting at my window looking out on the Hudson river. The water is sparkling, lit up by the lights of a thousand New Jersey apartment buildings. The George Washington bridge looks like a string of Christmas lights hung out between two states, and a rather unromantic Fairways grocery store LCD sign informs me that the New York water taxi now goes to Yonkers. How is it possible I'm here? I shouldn't be able to afford it. Not least because I am able to blog from this exact spot because I got a new computer today! My old was is three years old, and still functioning (more as a desktop than a laptop, now), but I was in need of something a little more portable and robust, with wifi. And today it arrived, all shiny and new, in an enourmous box that contained more packaging than computer.
Can you tell I'm excited?
I also attended a very intensive teacher training orientation event at the university today. Have I blogged that I'm teaching this semester yet? In case I haven't, you now know. I'm TAing, along with my good friends Ben and Ivan, for our department's new ethnomusicologist, J. Martin Daughtry. The course is on voice, and I am preparing a lecture on the castrati in choral music, and will be running two tutorial sections. I'm meeting with the professor and my fellow TAs tomorrow to discuss it all.
I am also, following a successful audition earlier this evening, now a member of yet another choir in New York city. This one is 60+ voices, so will make a nice contrast to the chamber choir that I am already singing with.
All in all, a good day!

You know you're in New York when....

A group of close-harmony singers get onto the train with you, and begin performing "The Lion Sleeps Tonight"!
Brief update: I got my missing bag back. It was delivered to my apartment building last night, and I walked right past it on my way out this morning. Luckily, all is safe, and I am very glad to have it back.
My room mate arrived back safely yesterday, and we visited the biggest green grocer I have ever seen! We also spent some time wondering around our new neighbourhood, which is full of lush greenery. The parks are beautiful this time of year, despite (or perhaps because of) the sweltering heat.

end part 1

I'm heading back to South Africa today. The semester is over, the summer has started (it is actually colder in Johannesburg than in New York at present), and my first year as a graduate student has passed. I am tired, but very happy. And I really had the perfect last day, yesterday. Church in the morning, a visit to St Patrick's Cathedral on 5th avenue in the afternoon, lunch at the Rockefeller center, a super piano recital in a down town art gallery in the evening, dinner in china town, and several hours hearing friends of mine play Irish music really splendidly in a pub, to round out the evening. I really have been having the best weekend. I have been staying with a friend, as the university housing closed on Friday, and she and I have had a really relaxing time, which, after the intensely busy past few weeks, was exactly what I needed. She has been so warm and hospitable, even to the point of baking fresh orange buns for breakfast this morning....
I am just generally feeling particularly warm and fuzzy toward all of my colleagues, at the moment, though it is not without very good reason.
Oh, and before I forget, NYU commencement was last week, and I was highly amused to note that, among other things, the Empire State Building was in NYU colours for the event. I wonder what strings had to be pulled to make that happen!
Anyway, tonight I fly to Zurich, tomorrow I spend the day in the city, and then tomorrow night I head back to Johannesburg. And next week I am flying to Durban to visit my parents, and for the real start of my vacation. It will be good to get home.

Seattle, and academic technique.

Wow, New York is beautiful. Summer is really upon us, and I'm loving the warm weather and green things.
Seattle was beautiful, too, though in a rather different way. The natural beauty around the city is spectacular. We spent a little time after the conference sitting on a patch of lush grass near the Pike place market, eating our lunch, and watching the boats in the sound, and the sense of absolute, simple luxury overtaking me was so memorable. And there were several occasions when, walking around the city I caught sight of a sliver of silvery moon hanging in the sky beside the space needle, or the lights of the residential areas on the hillsides around us, and was delighted by the beauty of it. The flowers in the Pike place market, and the carnivalesque atmosphere around the fish stalls were really appealing, too, and I was really happy to see all of that. But there was something about Seattle that didn't sit well with me, and while I can't articulate it very clearly, I think it had something to do with the rather obscene displays of money that abound, not least at the Experience Music Project. I'm afraid the museum did not impress me. Very high-tech, and I'm sure great fun for the children who were milling around most of the weekend, but there is very little real thought about music and the way it works, sociologically, politically, or just in a very mundane practical sense. The conference, however, more than made up for the museum's inadequacies. There were a whole lot of super panels, and I heard some really high-quality papers that made me think in all the right ways, and I met some super people.
Our panel went really well, though I did realize that I have become a little too blaze about conference presentations. It's one thing to write a paper that people will pick through and dissect, and that you know you need to be rigorous with, but it is a whole other to know what you are talking about well enough to do more than simply read it. I tried to talk through this paper, rather than reading it, and I realized rapidly that I have become too reliant on the notes in front of me. I do think that there are some things that are best read, simply because it can be difficult to be concise and artistic with words in a live moment, but in general really being able to present a paper like this means being so deeply engaged with the vocabulary that you can pull it together coherently on the spot. It's a bit like knowing a musical instrument well enough to improvise on it. Doing it well means really knowing it. So I'm applying to a couple of South African conferences at the end of the summer, and I'm going to spend some time over the break getting that in touch with my data again.
In the mean time, the end of the semester looms. Three papers, two abstracts, two presentations and one more conference (at which, thankfully, I am not giving a paper this time) left, and some smaller scale stuff in between, and then I'm back to the airport for that much anticipated trip home. Can you believe my first year of grad school is nearly over? I can't.

Back in NYC

It's quarter to 2 in the morning, and I just got back from a super weekend in Seattle. The conference was really great, and our presentation went nicely. I'll blog in more detail when I have recovered a bit, but for now, my bed, and the book I need to finish for class tomorrow, are both calling to me. I think bed is winning out, though.

Sad thing

I just heard that a colleague of mine from South Africa died yesterday. She had been ill for a long time (since even before I met her), but that doesn't make it less of a shock. We both have chapters coming out in a book that has been several years and several conferences in the making, and the last of those conferences was the last time I saw her. As sad as I am, when I heard the news, I felt suddenly, unexpectedly, calmer than I have felt in a long time. Such a strange thought to have, under the circumstances.

Unbelievable luck

I just may have been offered the most perfect apartment today. I saw it months ago, envied it hugely, and never even vaguely believed that it was possible. And suddenly, it is a distinct possibility. It is two blocks from our department, in the village, with an unbelievable view, sun, space, and rent that I can afford. My roommate is coming with me tomorrow to look at it, but even if she decides against it, I'm going to accept. It is right at the top end of my budget, but not outside of it, and with my roommate it will be even cheaper than where we are currently staying. And infinately nicer. I am so excited, I have been grinning all day, and periodically doing a happy dance when there aren't too many of the people I have to make a good impression on around. There are several mitigating circumstances that may still make it impossible, and so I am holding my breath, but I can't even begin to make myself not excited about it. It is unbelievable. and just so great!

UPDATE:
My roommate loves the apartment, and she and our potential landlady seemed to get along well, which is important in this situation. So lets keep holding thumbs. This could be so great.

In which the six-year-old me comes to the fore again

Wow, I really need to catch up on blogging my recent activities. But first, YAY, it snowed again. The snow is much lighter and more powdery than before, and is so pretty, I can barely contain myself. I walked home in it last night, and it was too beautiful for words! And I got to throw a snowball last night. The recipient was a good sport, but wouldn't be drawn into an all-out snowball fight, so I'm still on the lookout for willing participants. The one person who is most enthusiastic (and who just happens to be one of my professors) had a class when I had a break, so that hasn't worked out yet, but I am determined that we'll make it work. I want to see a music department snow man, and a lot of undignified-looking, pink-faced music scholars in Washington Square before the spring.
Now I promise the next post will be about music.

Good News All Round

Yippee, T and I just got proposals accepted for the MACSEM conference in Williamsburg, Virginia, at the end of March. Congratulations, T, and thank you for turning me on to this one. I wouldn't have even known about it if you hadn't made the suggestion, and followed up with me.

And on top of that bit of good news, I am delighted to report that the Union Square farmers' market is up and running again. It isn't quite full force yet, but I managed to get some gorgeous seasonal vegetables (I am just finishing the stir fry I made for dinner, with said wonderful seasonal veggies. Yum), fresh baked multi-grain bread of the sort you just can't get in the supermarket, and a delicious cup of hot perry (or pear cider). It is so wonderfully fragrant, and just right for this weather. Today was significantly warmer than the rest of the week has been, and beautifully sunny, and so despite the grey slush on the sidewalks, and the blocks of frozen, dirty snow that make the streets look like a war zone where the plows have been, it was a really great day to be out of doors.

Serious snow.

Last night, it was snowing as I walked home. This morning, I awoke to a white world. Seriously white. The snow has gathered in drifts on the sidewalks and in the streets, and the parks are a wonderland. And it's still coming down. This is what I have been waiting for. The flakes are different from what we've had before, too. They are finer and icier than before, and the resulting snow is really slippery, particularly where it has been turned into a pale brown sludge by the passage of cars and feet. I am really grateful for my big boots. The weather report is predicting more of the same all the rest of this week.

snow

I snowed this morning!
I woke up around 05:00, and peaked out the window. Nothing. I turned over and tried to sleep. By 06:00, I had lost the battle, and was wide awake. I switched on my light, and peered through the blinds again. Still nothing. The ground was wet, but there wasn't a snowflake in sight. An hour and a half later, I was ensconsed at my computer, when my roommate got up and came to find me.
"Have you looked outside?" she asked.
I skooted over to the window, stuck my finger through the blinds, and sure enough, it was snowing. And sticking. The scafolding and builders materials outside my window were lightly dusted in white, and there were more soft flakes falling between the buildings. I couldn't get dressed quickly enough, pulling on as many layers as I could manage at top speed, and I was out the door in under ten minutes. The snow is so pretty. It floats down apparently from nowhere, and coats everything, getting in people's hair, and sticking on my eyelashes. The moment it touches my skin, it melts, and leaves little damp spots where it had been.
I walked at top speed down to Union Square, and then, because I was enjoying the walk, to Washington Square Park. By the time I got there, the snow had stopped, but the park was coated in a layer of white that was really pretty thick on the grassy patches. I walked all over the square, leaving footprints in the fresh iciness just for fun. Dogs and little children were hopping around excitedly, playing, just like I was, though less demurely, and I wished just briefly that there was someone nearby I knew well enough to throw a snowball at.

Suddenly the sun rose high enough to peek over the tops of the impossible tall buildings, and the whiteness was bathed in a shiny golden glow. Everything sparkled. It was just too beautiful for words. There are real benefits to being up early.
I kicked around for nearly an hour before I realized that my toes were going numb, even through three layers of socks and my hefty boots, and I headed for the library. The snow was clinging to my boots, clumped underneath and around the sides, and leaving darker patches on the bottoms of my trousers, and I kicked it off carefully before walking into the library building.
The building wasn't quite empty, but very nearly was, and I was glad I didn't have to try to hide the silly grin on my face from too many cool, calm and connected undergrads for whom a little sprinkling of snow in the middle of winter is tedious, and not novel.

Start of the new semester

I'm back in New York! I had the most wonderful holiday, very relaxing, and I had a fabulous time seeing my parents, and a few friends, and in some ways it felt like it came to an end too quickly. But in other ways, I'm glad to be back. I am very excited for the new semester, partly because I have some very exciting classes, and an ensemble and some choir auditions to look forward to, and partly because of some of the exciting activities due to happen this semester. I found out yesterday that my friend Ben Tausig and I have had a joint proposal accepted for a conference at the Experience Music Project in Seattle in April! What a great way to start the semester. We have a lot of work to do before then, but I can't wait to travel to the west coast, and I am very excited about the joint project itself. More details will follow as I have them, so keep an eye on the blog.
It is also nice to be back in New York, despite the cold and grey at the present time. I am very grateful to have had a really warm, sunny (mostly) holiday, because I feel like the cold is less daunting now. And the weather forecast is predicting snow on Friday (there hasn't been any here this season, yet), so I am excited for that. It was also really lovely to see so many of my new friends again. There really are a lot of great people here, and they are such an important part of this whole experience. I cried when I left Johannesburg, and a whole lot on the plane, and when I unpacked my bag this morning, and when I ate a rusk my mom made, and put a map of South Africa on my wall, and found a spot for a mouse (called Alexandra) my friend gave me on Sunday, but a little home-sickness doesn't detract from my enjoyment at being back.
The view from the street outside my res building. The empire state building is all lit up in white