Whoa. In two other pieces of news, I got a lot of, like, dismissive and angry email about yesterday’s post in which I talked about a feeling of annoyance about an article in the Times re: surrogate mothers. Some of these comments include: “That’s the problem with blogs: too many opinions and too much prattery. Stick to your day job, Nico. G’bye.” and a kind of great one which is, “You are entirely out of your depth.” It’s interesting, this idea of An Area Where One Is Allowed to Be At and Other Areas Where One Is Out Of One’s Depth So To Be At. I guess my day job would only allow me to post music that I had written? Or maybe I’d be sufficiently above water if I posted music by other people, too? Even though I’m not a critic? Also I’m not entirely sure of what to make of somebody posting a comment on a blog saying that “that” is the problem with blogs: it’s kind of too meta for me. So, in the spirit of not getting into some whole fight here, I’m going to write about other people’s music.

It’s Advent! Here is, traditionally, the first piece of Official Advent Music you get to hear: an adaptation of Palestrina’s adaptation of Aspiciens a longe. This is such exciting music, especially if you imagine it being performed from a distance – like, behind the congregation. Very anticipatory.

I look from afar: And lo, I see the power of God coming,and a cloud covering the whole earth. Go ye out to meet him and say: Tell us, art thou he that should come to reign over thy people Israel?

High and low, rich and poor, one with another, Go ye out to meet him and say: Hear, O thou Shepherd of Israel, thou that leadest Joseph like a sheep, Tell us, art thou he that should come? Stir up thy strength, O Lord, and come to reign over thy people Israel.

Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost. I look from afar: And lo, I see the power of God coming, and a cloud covering the whole earth. Go ye out to meet him and say: Tell us, art thou he that should come to reign over thy people Israel?

I Look from afar (adapted from Palestrina)
A Procession With Carols on Advent Sunday
King’s College, Cambridge

And: did everybody buy the Final Fantasy EP? Do it now! It’s so great. Here is just a wee excerpt:

Final Fantasy The Butcher from Spectrum - 14th Century

Couples often erect a barricade of privacy around the process to avoid the questions from friends and family members, and their ceaseless, useless volley of suggestions: You just need to relax. Did you try acupuncture? Soy milk makes you infertile. You’re in front of your computer too much. What’s the problem with all you career girls? Did this cycle work? Are you pregnant this time? How many shots? Where? A low whistle: Boy, you must really want a child. You must really want a child. As if that were a bad thing.

Well, sugar lumps, you can always just adopt one, like, how hell of gay people aren’t even allowed to do now in Arkansas. In her article, the idea of adoption only comes up as something other people do. Adoptive mothers, as it happens, were the most supportive of her when she was feeling things like: “Would I really be his mother? Was the key to motherhood carrying the baby?” Now, if I were an adoptive mother and this lady called me up talking about, “Would my child grow up and shout, ‘You can’t tell me what to do — you didn’t even give birth to me!’?” I’m sure I would have cussed her out before God, AT&T, and everybody. I was directed to read Dan Savage’s article, in which he writes about Arkansas:

That state’s Proposed Initiative Act No. 1, approved by nearly 57 percent of voters last week, bans people who are “cohabitating outside a valid marriage” from serving as foster parents or adopting children. While the measure bans both gay and straight members of cohabitating couples as foster or adoptive parents, the Arkansas Family Council wrote it expressly to thwart “the gay agenda.” Right now, there are 3,700 other children across Arkansas in state custody; 1,000 of them are available for adoption. The overwhelming majority of these children have been abused, neglected or abandoned by their heterosexual parents.

See, this is where I feel a huge cultural disconnect between these people (Arkansas people + Surrogate Mother People) and me. If there are 3,700 (!) kids in state custody in Arkansas alone, why would you even begin the process of thinking about going through 11 cycles of I.V.F. and dealing with a surrogate and paying her ass $60,000!? It’s a total scam. Then the idea that this whole state is saying, right, well, a child would be better with married parents than with a single parent, OR with unmarried couples both straight and gay? Obviously it’s code for “no gay adoption,” but it’s actually much more sinister than that when you think about it for longer than ten seconds. What is the vision of the world that these people are espousing? If they’re so upstanding, where are the 3,700 wholesome, non-toothless, married couples in Arkansas? Is 2009 going to be like supermarket sweep, with families adopting these Arkönsubörn at high speeds? Good luck with that. Anyway, the thing in the times is pretty wild and well worth reading. I read it once and wasn’t bothered too much, and then the second time started freaking out at paragraphs like:

The bigger Cathy was, the more I realized that I was glad — practically euphoric — I was not pregnant. I was in a daze of anticipation, but I was also secretly, curiously, perpetually relieved, unburdened from the sheer physicality of pregnancy. If I could have carried a child to term, I would have. But I carried my 10-pound dog in a BabyBjörn-like harness on hikes, and after an hour my back ached.

Beg pardon? What 10-pound dog? What hikes? Or how about:

After the second-month checkup, we walked home to my apartment for lunch. We talked about how she had played on her college tennis team. She was an accompanist for a children’s choir and brought her piano sheet music so she could practice. She played our Steinway while I got lunch.

There’s something about that sentence: “She played our Steinway while I got lunch” that reads like Gertrude Stein, first of all, but then when I realized that their little lunch date wasn’t going to descend into an afternoon of foxy boxing and tribadism, I started shouting at the laptop in my mind: “I still don’t know what dog you’re talking about” and “I bet you can’t even PLAY that piano!” and of course, roe and behold:

I stood outside the living room, holding a tray of tuna sandwiches and listening. I was numb. I can hardly play the piano. I never played on my college tennis team. Back in those days, I was smoking and dyeing my hair black. For Pete’s sake, I thought, this woman can do all those things — and have my baby.

And again, it’s like, she can have your baby because her womb goeth, whereas yours goeth not. Shudder. Go to Arkansas and grab one of those babies and write a travel journal. In the department of writing about childbirth, while reading this Alex K. article I couldn’t stop thinking about Daniel Raeburn’s article from a couple of years ago in the New Yorker talking about his stillborn daughter, which contains some of the most heartbreaking and intense writing:

Someone once said that William Carlos Williams was sitting by the bed of one of his patients when she died. He turned to look out the window and saw a red wheelbarrow glazed with rainwater beside white chickens. I saw a salt-stained sidewalk under the funnel of a street lamp, a beige plastic armrest beside a blue blanket, my left foot in a black boot slipping in my wife’s red blood. Irene was in the breech position and she came forth rump first. Our midwife said, “Push,” and Rebekah pushed, and pushed again, pushed so mightily that at the apex of her effort the red hole in the center of Irene’s exposed butt opened and a black turd slithered out. Rebekah expelled Irene in a final burst, and I watched the prunelike baby, embalmed in gore and ichor, flop into the hands of the midwife. The nurse snipped the bobbing umbilical cord and whisked the body out of sight. The nurse who’d induced Rebekah had tried to warn me. “The tone,” she’d said. “After they’ve been dead for a few days, they don’t have the tone. The tone is missing.” What she meant was that my girl would feel lifeless. She had no blood pressure and so her face splayed flat in my hand, like a deliquescent tomato. I placed my thumbs above Irene’s eyelids and eased them upward, intending to look into her eyes, but the milky, unfathomable slivers awed me and I stopped. The unknitted plates of her skull grated and clicked as I cupped my palm and rounded her face to its likeness, which I recognized. It was not like looking into a mirror. Facing a mirror you see merely your own countenance; facing your child you finally understand how everyone else has seen you.

Gah. I remember exactly where I was when I read that, too.

I am right now in Iceland, happily working away on a mini-vacation in Snæfellsness. It’s only three hours away from Reykjavík but it feels like a whole universe away. I am really feeling the severity here:

At a small pub table, a plain white bowl of pea and ham soup is a soft green, like the turf above the cliffs. Slender sweet juliennes of pepper are just right against the smooth texture of the soup. The fresh beer-battered haddock caught off the coast is succulent and chunky, and the leek, salmon, mussel and haddock stew, in its own pot with a lid of Cheddar-smothered mashed potatoes, is as heartwarming as seafood can be.

Mm, I want it.

In the department of Codes, the article references “Saddleback Pigs,” which is a breed I hadn’t heard of before. A little googling yielded this webpage of saddlebacks for sale, including this wonderful advertisement:

In-Pig Belle Gilt + 4 Maidens For Sale, Berkshire
Belle gilt due end Jan-lovely natured,well marked. Dam’s record 9-9,10-10,12-12,11-11,8-8,12-12.£180 Also 4 good six month old Belle gilts £140

Awesome. Damned if I know what that code means, but I like it. It reminds me of the shorthanded code to know how many people are in an orchestra: 2,2,2,2 4,3,2,btr,.1, 4prc hp cel str (min 14.12.10.8.6), meaning “two flutes, two oboes, two clarinets, two bassoons, 4 horns, 3 trumpets, 2 trombones, a bass trombone, a tuba, 4 percussionists, harp, celeste and strings with a minimum number of strings).

There is totally economic drama here:

I got sent this very pleasant and soothing track by a band called Kyte:

Kyte Boundaries from a self-titled album

Who are put out by a label called Erased Tapes who seem to be Consistently Excellent.

It’s almost time to start thinking about Christmas Music! I have been listening obsessively to Benjamin Britten’s arrangement of the traditional carol “The Holly and the Ivy”. Now, this is a very well-known tune and there are a bunch of very famous arrangements of it, but for some reason this Britten really hits the spot for me. When you get a really plummy recording from England, too, they really lean in on the last word of the chorus, that being, “choir,” and somehow compress it into a one-syllable loaf. I just adore the pagan universe described in these lyrics:

The holly bears a berry
As red as any blood
And Mary bore sweet Jesus Christ
To do poor sinners good
O the rising of the sun
And the running of the deer
The playing of the merry organ
Sweet singing of the choir

This particular recording has the MOST PINCHED AND DELIGHTFUL KUMAMOTO OYSTER of a countertenor solo in the third verse, too. Check it out.

The Holly and the Ivy (Traditional, arr. Britten)
King’s College Choir, Cambridge

Curiously, I can’t seem to find a source for Britten’s lyrics. The third verse (the one the kumamoto countertenor sings) seems to go on about Tree and Setting Sinners Free and such. I love these tight little protopagan rhyme schemes! Another good example of that is one of these Rhyming Numerologygasms, called “Joys Seven.”

Joys Seven (arr. Cleobury)
Nine Lessons and Carols from King’s College, Cambridge

This arrangement is perfectly English: efficient and sentimental without being too outrageous. There is, however, a completely over-the-top descant at the end that performs a little trick. The organ rises up the scale, and the trebles sing aah aah aah on the top four notes of an A^b-major scale. Then, when they repeat it immediately afterwards, the G is flatted, followed by the F, and then a G-natural: it’s very subtle, but it lines up perfectly with the text below “…to see her own son Jesus Christ to wear the crown…” — what you expect is, of course, the crown of thorns, but the word that you get is “heav’n” (to rhyme with Seven). That little turn in the trebles is precisely the Tart Joy of Christmas: you have to make sure that you advance the clock to Good Friday, looming just a few months later. See:

There are several little galling moments, specifically in the sixth cycle, at the words:

The next good joy our Mary had,
It was the joy of six;
To see her own son Jesus Christ
Upon the Crucifix.
Upon the crucifix, good man: And blessed may he be,
Both Father, Son, and Holy Ghost,
To all eternity.

Mmm. This is one of my favorite lyrics EVER, because a little digging reveals some alternate words. Check out the first verse the way it’s sung these days:

The first good joy our Mary had,
It was the joy of one:
To see the blessed Jesus Christ
When he was first her son.
When he was first her son, good man…

and now an alternate:

The first good joy our Mary had,
It was the joy of one;
To see her own Son Jesus
To suck at her breast bone;
To suck at her breast bone,
Good man, and blessed may he be…

Ooh, see, isn’t that so much better? Then, dig deeper:

þe forte joye wt out in good fay,
was upon halewÿ þursda,
he stey to hevene in ryche aray,
wt fadr and sone and holy gost.

þe fyfte joye wt outÿ dene,
in hevene he crownyd his modr clene,
þt was wol wil þe eyr a sene,
wt fadr and sone and holy gost.

Now we’re talking! Mm, crownyd his modr clene. I wonder if this is an error (Queene is prolly what is meant, here) or if really we’re talking about “clene” in its Middle English use as a noun, meaning, “(a) Guiltless or excellent person; also, purity; (b) = clene Lenten; (c) clear path,” in which case, she, as a Pure Virgin or whatever, can properly join the “sene,” (here, from the root that brings us Synod - sort of a holy gathering) of the Father, Son and Holy Ghost. Inneresting.

Two final things. I got a comment in my Comment Space saying, “your meat talk is relentless. i find it a bit dull,” to which I respond, “Sorry! I am just a big flessh enthusiast.” Second thing: anybody who wants to witness a particularly ugly argument online about the staging of Opera should check out this website. It’s interesting and nasty: the basic premise here is that Patrice Chéreau directed a production of Wagner’s Ring Cycle a couple years ago that got stuck on DVD and is a kind of mainstream example of a wacky production (the whole thing is set in, like, the industrial revolution). Now, I am somebody who thinks that operas (especially great ones) can bear the weight of totally crazy productions with, you know, elephants and gas masks and gender reversals and piles of syringes or whatever. But I don’t really “care” in that same way that a lot of people do. And some people hate the whole idea of applying a production to an opera (rather than letting the production come from within, if that makes any sense). Anyway, read that nasty argument and feel glad that you don’t have to fight with these people.

Mattel, the company that makes Hot Wheels has offered to donate new toys for Jonathan. His mother called the offer, “equivalent to us winning the lottery.”

Ah, STUFF. I used to sublet an apartment where there was a metal box of keepsakes and treasures dear to the family from whom I rented. In the case of fire, I was to grab their Abyssinian cat, the box, and head for the safety of the park across the street. I wonder what I would take now, given that all my music is stored on a server, my contacts in my phone, my man in his own apartment, and the cats fully able to scurry out of an open window. Maybe my great-grandmother’s duck-shaped pâté terrine? My Hungarian Monopoly™ board, a gift from an old friend? My mother’s paintings? Certain Garments?

Speaking of nomenclature, Gawker totally had my name in its mouth! Excellent. It’s kind of a good idea. I would love to score an episode of Gossip Girl, wouldn’t that be fun? And, it would be a weird homecoming of sorts; Josh Schwartz, who is in some fashion in charge of it, went to my High School, and played Salieri in our production of Amadeus; I was his “piano stunt double” or whatever; I sat backstage and played all those embarrassing little sonatinas.

I watched the election returns at the home of my friend N—, a conductor, who, along with his lovely girlfriend J—, hosted an election party for approximately ten people in their apartment in Muswell Hill. I came with A— and D—, both with me on the film, and we soon realized that we were both the token Americans who could explain the electoral college as well as the entertainment. We played Literal Charades; it’s been a long time since I’ve done that. When put on the spot to name “Five Americans English People Have Heard Of” I ended up with, like, Bruce Springsteen and M’Shell Ndegeocello? I have never seen a more satisfying face than when England Girl picked her name out of the hat.

‘The last four years I’d been watching, incredulous, the screaming gap between the reigning model of investment and what ought to have been the sensible reality. Everything short-term, without taking into account the social consequences; betting on huge profits without seriously evaluating the risks; a shocking excess in the bonus payments to executives; and, shaping everything, a classically masculine way of doing things.’

Women in Iceland, as elsewhere, are generally more practical than men, they have their feet more squarely on the ground and they study the consequences of the risks they take with greater diligence, says Tomasdottir, who on the week I was in Reykjavik gave a speech on the subject that was received with almost evangelical excitement by the 100 influential women present. Among them was Oddny Sturludottir, a Reykjavik city councillor, who emerged from the meeting eyes blazing.

‘We are all furious in Iceland but women especially so,’ she said. ‘We trusted the men at the helm and now we feel fooled, and totally convinced that if it had been women in charge we wouldn’t be owing all these billions right now. They talk about the Viking model! What is the Viking model? Rapists and robbers! That’s no model for the 21st century.’

Now, in case you’re all wondering why you’re not named Oddný Sturludóttir, it’s because your dad’s name isn’t “Sturla.” This is one of those irregular Icelandic proper nouns, where it’s a feminine name that’s given only to boys. I have a friend Sturla; he claims that even his grade school teacher couldn’t decline his name right. He goes by “Mío,” which is great because you don’t have to do much to that. Just a li’l grammatical aside.

So, anyway, what happened is that Gordon Brown declared Iceland to be, like, a terrorist nation so that he could freeze their assets; this is possible under those post September 11th terror laws (hryðjuverkavarnarlögum, shhhh). Icelandic people freaked the fuck on out, and put up this website which shows them holding up signs saying that they Я not a terrorist. What’s gorgeous about this website is the way it shows a lot of family situations, and a lot of the little ice tchotchkes in the living rooms etc. It’s sort of like an accidental Material World or something. Some of my favorites:

1. I can has órþópídic brace?

2. Happý Familý

3. Painting

4. Figureenz

5. Even Happier Family

6. Design Firm

7. Oh my god somebody need to get this heifer a translation job.

8. Mm-hmm. At Tha Beach House.

9. Is that a halo on the left and a frying pan on the right? What are any of those objects in the background? Where are we? Are we in somebody’s mom’s house?

10. This little boy totally has “L.A. Hair”

11. Traditional Sweater

12. Shoemaker

13. Ginger

Anyway, I find the whole thing completely fascinating. I’m not going back there until late November, by which point I think the frenzy will have calmed down and it’ll be more clear what, exactly, is going on and what can be done about it.

If there is any universal and binding compact among military men under fire, it is this: If you are hit, we will come to get you. Among units that endure, it is a pledge more inviolable than law. And it comes with a corollary. You will do the same for me.

There is something inherently offensive to me about the period between the last two sentences, especially if you read it aloud. Try it out. Isn’t it mad awkward? Anyway, read the article. Good story. Now, if you want to talk about something amazing in the Times, please allow me to be the first to refer you to this unbelievably well-written and touching and hilarious article about the potential closing of the venerable lesbian bar Rubyfruit. This article is great because the language bears the traces of insiders to the community it is describing, as well as enough details to keep people who don’t happen to be 50-year old lesbians engaged. My roommate, when she read it, emailed me and was like, “you have to make sure that you read every single word of this shit.” Quite so: by the third internet page of the article, you get paragraphs like:

On a Sunday evening, the night before Rubyfruit shut down for renovations, Ms. Fierro held a party. By early evening, the place was filled with young women dancing and kissing. It was a striking change from the usual mellowness and the spare, slightly older crowd the space usually accommodated. As music pulsed, Ms. Ledwith stood on the bar and poured orange-flavored vodka into the open mouths of young women who, with their necks craned and tilted in expectation, resembled a cluster of chic baby birds.

Or, my personal favorite:

Because no employee was tall enough to turn on the ceiling-mounted projector, a large rainbow flag was retrieved from a corner office, and a worker jabbed the staff of the flag toward the ceiling in search of the “on” button.

I am completely freaked out that I’m going to be in London during the election! I woted early, but ajhfd647khfnä! GríðЯ8357kþþþ! شeyurgurn! Etc. I am looking for a Safe Space in which to watch this thing, which will be at, like, 5 in the morning London Time. Sûfkejrwk3.

I like Halloween because more people are dressed like how I dress normally.