DanielSonenberg.com

We have visitors for New Years. Here are Alex (duh) and, counterclockwise, Simon, Jeff (one of Argh-a-blog's most devoted readers) and Charlotte. Here we are at Tony's, which is famous for their Molasses donuts (glazed or un). You can see my glazed donut at the bottom of the image, but I'm off taking the shot with Mr. Moto. Seeing the pic, though, makes me think of the superhero comicbook series I've been procrastinating on for several years. It's called Chocolate Donut Man, and it's about a hero who's sort of short, chubby, stubbly, and always trailing a mess of chocolate donut crumbs, I suppose a mix between Pigpen (from Peanuts) and the Greatest American Hero. Alex has even done some preliminary artwork for it, but it hasn't yet gotten off the ground. So many projects.

Anyway, lots to say, but it's a deeply frazzling time of year. My fridge is stocked with herring from an even greater supplier than Zabar's. No time to really sing the multitude of praises they deserve, but here's a shout out to those brilliant herring men and women down at Russ and Daughters, on Houston Street near 1st Ave. They not only sell the city's best herring (cream, wine, mustard, or curry sauce!), but they also assemble it for you on the spot (cut up the herring, add the sauce of your choice, ask if you want onions), AND they sell my favorite Australian red licorice too, which I believe I blogged about at some point in the past.

Truth About Daisies has a big wonderful New Year's gig tonight, with scads of guest artists, so Al and I won't be able to partake in our usual December 31 ritual (get lots of decadent food and movies and stay IN), but a fun time will be had by all all the same. Hope you stay happy, and keep your resolutions!

This flash trip to New York turned out to be all about the miraculous Brooklyn Bridge, which turned up around every corner, no matter what the means of transportation. (reload this page to see different random views from and of). Running across the bridge, with Henry Cowell's "Dynamite Motion" blasting on my ipod, I felt my life take on a particular bigness. The spirit of Walt Whitman coursed through my veins, and I thought of all the possibilities that lay in wait for an ambitious practitioner of this American existence. From the window of the N train, which rumbled across the neighboring Manhattan Bridge hours later on the same day, that sense of possibility still seemed present, though framed by glass and steel and somewhat less tangible. Each time I visit this vast and variable city my love for it grows. It has become my Paris, a wonder at every turn, but a more gruff and moody metropolitan beauty with stiffer and chewier baked goods. Speaking of which, I must take my leave to do some chewing - a borough full of bagel holes awaits me.

It's odd to think that I first experienced James Brown via Eddie Murphy on Saturday Night Live. It was the James Brown Celebrity Hot Tub, and I think you can still find it somewhere on YouTube. It must have been late high school or even early college when I got to know the genuine article, since the two volume "CD of JB" was absolutely huge at some point in my college career. Probably my most vivid James Brown memory was staying up all night with my composition teacher, Daron Hagen, copying parts for my first orchestra piece ("Somniloquy") with JB blaring and diet coke aflowing. And although I shook my booty to this wonderful music numerous times at Bard parties, and even had a chance to dance to the JBs (James's backup band, who played the Old Gym while their bandleader was still in prison), it wasn't until years later that I really sat and dissected the intricacies of the JB way. I loved to use the song Sex Machine in Music Appreciation classes - to talk about how the polyrhythmic texture of the music arose as the sum of each syncopated cog in a glorious funk machine, sometimes having the students clap out the rhythm of the bass line or the twangy offbeat guitar chords. And of course we'd discuss how this music took the sexual revolution of Little Richard to a new level, how now, nothing was left unsaid. But the sexuality was so much more in the rhythmic fabric than in the lyrics, in the thrusting, pumping, and incontestably genius syncopations, the multiple timelines that hearkened straight back to African music in all its staggering complexity. We'd talk about how this man, by sheer force of will and innate musicality, could sit on one chord for 130 measures and bore no-one, or could commandeer the musical form with his deeply felt yet seemingly impulsive order: "Take it to the bridge!" I'm glad that after a late start I came to fully understand how important James Brown was to American music. He was a true original, a Godfather. May he continue to feel good, wherever he may be.

I'm not sure if it's actually codified in the scripture that Jews eat Chinese food and go to the movies on Christmas Eve, but it's become a tradition around here, and I know we're not the only ones. I'm enjoying this first half of the holiday chez Sutherland/Grossman (Alex's mom and step dad), and we always head out for a flick round 8pm, often having much of the multiplex to ourselves. Tonight we watched Matt Damon, who is horribly miscast in Robert DeNiro's The Good Shepherd. I guess I think Matt Damon is miscast a lot. I remember watching some of The Bourne Identity on cable and thinking, this would be a great flick if they had an actor with a bit more gravitas and action cred. Tonight they just needed an actor who can really act - especially since his character has to age about 20 years (and much life experience) during the film. It was odd, there were neither any makeup, nor any acting adjustments, and so the jump cuts back and forth in time became extremely confusing. The film is a big spy epic about the founding of the CIA. It's a hugely ambitious, mostly entertaining, very occasionally riveting, and ultimately hopelessly sprawling mess of a directorial debut. I realized that I don't know why Angelina Jolie is so famous - she doesn't seem to have been in all that many movies of consequence, and she's hot I guess, but not THAT hot. Her part in the Good Shepherd is horribly underwritten, and difficult not to construe as a sexist character formulation. It's one of those movies that automatically makes you feel stupid, since it's basically impossible to keep track of every double cross, and certain characters look so much alike you can't tell them apart. And it also does that thing that other super ambitious failures do (I'm thinking of that terrible, terrible movie, Gods and Monsters here) which is this: late in the film have overwrought scenes with loud, dramatic string music and super melodramatic acting when all of it is completely unearned. They haven't made us care about any of the big reveals or shocked recognitions or sighs of disappointment they're so grandly piling up, so these wannabe poignant and memorable scenes come off as...well...funny. (You really need to have more or less hated Gods and Monsters to be a true friend of mine).Anyway, I still had a good time, though I was cursing the screen after the 2 hour mark.

In other news I decided that Lennon's "Happy Xmas" beats out the Kinks' "Father Christmas" as the best Christmas song ever, if only by a hair. It's true that Lennon stole the melody (from John Herald's tune "Stewball"), but it's got such the perfect mixture of cynicism ("and so this is Christmas/and what have we done," and just Lennon's biting voice in general) and earnest, meaningful sentiment ("war is over if you want it" with Yoko and the kidsies). It is, to my ears, the most un-schlocky holiday tune ever. Hope you're having a joyous Festivus everyone. May the feats of strength begin!

One of the great desserts available in the city of New York is the banana, sticky rice and black bean dumplings that come wrapped in a banana leaf at Sripraphai. What's Sripraphai? Well, only the best Thai restaurant in North America, located in Woodside, Queens. Don't take my word for it. The brilliance of the dessert is how the sticky, chewy texture of the rice dances with the sweet, tangy mush of the banana and the inexplicable otherness of the black beans, all the while electrified by hint of...salt! It is the most unexpected of pleasures, far greater than the sum of its parts, and something worth traveling for (especially since everything else on the menu at Sri is so astounding). You can imagine my skepticism upon discovering, in the Asian food aisle at Hannaford, our local supermarket, "Frozen Banana Dumpling" in a bright red bag from the esteemed company "Foodhut." Actually Alex found them, and I was so disinclined to believe they could be even one quarter as good as the ones we knew that I urged her to put them back. Boy was I mistaken. They're godly. I want to say they're better than Sripraphai's, that must be my memory playing tricks on me. The genuine article, made in Thailand but for export only, these things are tranportative and divine, and require only 3 minutes in the nuker. Oh, and not really for you if you're a boring eater. Sorry. Here's what the bag looks like. Go find some.

So the last finals have come and gone, the last papers have been collected, and now I'm left with a dwindling pile of ungraded artifacts, some the product of intense toil, and some dashed off in the eleventh hour, whenever that was. If this were the Harry Potter-verse, instead of just the regular old world, I imagine I could chant some incantation in order to hear the agonizing moans, the sweat and angst each fugue or paper or little chorale harmonization cost its maker. As it stands the papers are just flat and white with black lines and spots, they reveal little of their gestation and birth history until you shake them upside down to bleed them of their intellectual lava. Even still, some assignments don't wear their hearts on their sleeves, and when it's 130 concert reviews or 17 fugues or 10 ensemble compositions it's an absolute given that these earthbound representatives of so much abstract contemplation and creative exertion will not be given their fair berth beneath a caring instructor's gaze. Still I console myself by saying it's the process, and in actuality it is. I mean life is really so much more about the process than the finished product, no? (The finished product, in most cases, is good only for horror movies and medical schools). Even with freedom round the bend, though, the end of a semester is always bittersweet to me. Especially in the classes where some kind of vibe came into being, some kind of understanding between myself and the students who cared. That last day we all know that it's over, that this same combination of persons and subject matter will never come together under the same lights again, and the laughs or arguments or revelations we shared are already receding into historical tapestry. I always feel a sadness on these days, and I catch myself occasionally glancing wistfully at my classroom full of students too eager to bound out into the halls, on to other finals and then a well-earned holiday, nary a glance back. I really understand the philosophy behind last-day parties, but I generally can't manage time well enough to make room for them. So I just watch the class turn to dust, the room empty out, and then gather up my scattered belongings for the last time, knowing full well that in a few weeks, and then again in a few months, and then even in a few years, or perhaps a whole gaggle of years, I'll be right back in the same spot getting excited about the French augmented sixth chord or Thelonius Monk's love of dissonant seconds all over again. My students, the ones from today, the ones already fading from my grasp, will be out there in the world doing great and terrible and ambivalent things, getting older all the while (like me). I only hope I sent them there with something, but I suppose you never really know.

Here I am all fashionable at a party - we went to two last night. Tis the season and all, and so I trotted out my faux matador dress shoes and my ultra designer jeans and my Target Tootsie Roll shirt (not pictured) and did the rounds alongside Alex, who was all vintage and orange tights. The designer jeans were a Barney's Outlet find - they were reduced from $220 to $37, and there were lots of pairs...I think because the brand, "Loomstate", had the bad idea of making the label this hideous all-white thing that just looks terrible with everything. We sliced that puppy off but quick. The shoes were an 8th street find from quite a few years ago, and they represent a real accomplishment for a bigfoot such as myself. Generally funky shoes are not an option, maybe because all the funky shoe artisans of the world have petite little footsies? I don't know. But when you're a size 14, you either order your shoes custom (something people have been encouraging me to do for years), or accept that in any store you enter you'll be choosing from about three available pairs, if any. In NYC I used to shop for shoes in a store called Rochester Big and Tall (I even wrote a poem about them once). The funny thing was, my feet have always been disproportionate. I mean to say that the rest of me is quite normal - and I hope you're not reading in all kinds of illicit subtext here. All I'm saying is that I'm a normal sized guy, large frame (tee shirt size = L), with ridiculous clown feet. So at Rochester B&T I would walk among the giants of the world, 6'9" basketball players and the like, who would just tower over me and give me odd glances from on high: "what are you doing here, tiny?" But I'd earn some respect by kicking my paws into the air, and then riding the down escalator to the shoe basement where I had a world of overpriced, oversized choices to choose from. You didn't tune in for profound today, did you? Because as you can see we're all out. It may have to do with this, the pile of music appreciation papers I've already graded. Only 20 more to go or so, and then 17 fugues, 10 music theory 3 compositions, finals in both music appre and theory, calculating and submitting grades (to this day a gut wrenching, soul wrecking experience). Can you blame me for steering what few sparks of brain matter I still have working towards material matters?

Look people, I'm trying to run a family oriented blog here (well, sorta kinda), so I can't actually embed the video that has me doubling over with laughter. It's deeply offensive in every possible way, but I can't resist A Charlie Brown Kwanza all the same. So go to You Tube and find it - and then tell me I'm twisted and all that, I can take it. It's apropos, perched as we are on the threshold of the greatest of holidays, the festival of lights. Unfortunately the "War on Christmas" hasn't gotten anywhere near Portland, Maine, and the phrase "happy holidays," which I'll admit is neutered and bland, is nowhere to be heard. I appreciate the Merry Christmas sentiments that come my way so often as expressions of good will, but my darker nature has me busting a sweat working up an appropriately snide response all the same. Until such enlightenment finds me though, I'll have to satisfy myself by echoing the fake Charlie Brown's aching lament: "Could anybody help a brother out and lay down the low on the true meaning of Kwanzaa?" Fake Linus's answer I'll let you discover for yourself, but his monologue begins: "And there were three kings: Martin Luther, Don, and Rodney..." And with that a shout out to all the wandering ethnics, off in corners of the country celebrating their minority holidays, faces full of latkes or raising glasses at karumu, while the main strand of American society greases their chimneys and makes out under the mistletoe. Any way you find it, let's toast the season.

After months of disappointment in her website, Alex J Sax resorted to bringing in a specialist, yours truly (fledgling web design genius...NOT). The Alex Sax/Menagerie Recovery page is now up and running, in a simplified, stripped down and (we hope) elegant manner. (Send complaints right here). What's more, there's still time to BUY A HOLIDAY PRINT before any holidays actually happen (although Hannukah is sneaking up real fast). And - thanks to her crackerjack designer - you can buy the print right on-line, even with a credit card. No muss no fuss, hear?

And so the weekend wound down with some calm domestic adventures. As you can see, I've learned to use Flickr (a product of necessity: I'm stretched to the gills on this particular host, so why not post some pics on someone else's dime?) Alex got the cooking bug today and made cookies, but also this unbelievable cous cous dish from the world's best cookbook, The Political Palate. It's the first "Feminist Vegetarian Cookbook" put out by the Bloodroot Collective, a group of women who run what may be my favorite restaurant in the world down in Bridgeport, Connecticut. But even if you don't consider yourself a feminist vegetarian (as I most certainly do), there are still unending delights to be found within these pages. All the recipes make enough food for about 17 people too, so clear out your freezer. We went coat shopping too, and Al made cookies, and we ate out several times, even saw a movie ("Stranger than Fiction" - it was absolutely delightful) and had mostly a calm time of it all. But now the threat of the week and what comes next, whatever that is, looms heavily. One deadline yields to the next, one sigh of relief reconfigures as an intake of breath for serenity and strength. It's the holiday season and let's be absolutely frank this just knocks everybody on their asses. Cleans out wallets, nets stressful joy or joyful stress. Something. And betwixt and between I promise to be a better worker. To rediscover discipline - the discipline that got worn down by the pounding grind of another semester in a life spent in school. I am ready to resolve - and if I need to tap those inner reservoirs of human warmth and mirth and all that egg noggy goodstuff, I need look no further than that little glass of wine, topped with a tupperware lid, that has sat on our kitchen table for the better part of a week. "What? I'm saving it for later," my unequaled partner in crime proclaimed to me some time yesterday. Could it possibly work?, we both ultimately began to wonder. But when the chips were down tonight, and Alex's amazing Bloodroot meal perched on the table, Battlestar Galactica ablazing in the background, neither of us had the gustatory fortitude to learn the answer. So we moved the glass, lid intact, to the edge of the kitchen sink where it remains to this very moment.

What an endless marathon of a day I enjoyed with the USM Composers Ensemble yesterday. It was, in fact, the first time all semester that the entire 19 member ensemble was in the same place at the same time. And good thing too, since we had a performance scheduled at 8pm. I set up a rigid rehearsal schedule, from 12:30pm until about 7 with only a couple of small breaks mixed in, and we all took our intensity and endurance to the edge (and possibly slightly beyond, especially during act two of the concert!). Miraculously, we pulled it together and launched 8 new pieces into the world before a good sized and appreciative crowd. Here are some photos that document the event (click on one to go to Flickr, or just reload this page and you'll see different ones). I'm still too exhausted to expostulate on all the good feeling that was generated last night, so I'll let images of my brightly-clad little orchestra do the talking.

Hello everyone, it's your webmaster here. And I'm happy to report that since I started keeping a modest eye on the traffic statistics at this site in late June, there has been a marked and steady increase (with only a slight bump off from August to September). In November I achieved almost 900 page loads, and this month we’re on pace to break 1000! The statistics are almost impossible to decipher – and although there are statistics for “unique visitors” they seem to be entirely inaccurate (the true number of actual unique visitors is lower than what’s shown here I think). But in general, there is no doubt that people have been turning out in greater numbers (lately I’ve been noticing between 40 and 75 page loads a day – though I have yet to break 100 even once).

Stash this in the “for what it’s worth” department. But consider yourselves appreciated. Thanks for coming – it’s good to have you. I’ll try to think of some clever, or at least not-entirely-idiotic things to say in the near future. Or maybe another fugue? Whatever it takes, friends. Whatever it takes.

Here I am assuming a typical posture with my beloved, and now three-semesters-old Composers Ensemble. (Can you guess which one’s me?) The ensemble has exploded into a near-orchestra, with about 19 members (not all pictured here) including a beefy brass section, a happening wind section, and even the makings of an actual string section (violin, cello and bass). We also have between 2 and 4 percussionists (if you count the willing and able stand-ins that include yours truly in a couple of compositions). The students have knocked themselves out writing this semester, and our program this coming Friday will sport a mini concerto for electric bass and winds, two settings of texts by Wilfrid Owen for soprano and large ensemble (that’s us!), a mini-opera dealing with homelessness, a brilliant Mexican-inspired “Sfiesta” (on which I play the castanets, a more challenging instrument than I had previously realized), some Eastern-European-inspired nightmare music, an homage to English consort stylings, a moody, coloristic serial work with a French title (“Surgi&rdquo, and a sinister slow “Offering” that explodes into giddy metric madness (with the quarter note weighing in at 160). Yes, we’ve bitten off a lot, and I’ll be conducting and drumming and praying through about 270 minutes of rehearsal time on Friday, along with my co-conductor Marshunda Smith and the able-bodied and adventurous ensemble, to ensure that these vibrant new works are ushered forth into the world with verve. If you’ll be in town, it’s this Friday Night, December 8th (26th anniversary of John Lennon’s death), 8pm, Corthell Concert Hall, University of Southern Maine, Gorham campus. And it’s FREE!

Well, I had an awful lot to do this weekend, so I figured why not write a fugue based on Brittany Spears' "Oops." I actually use that song on the first day of counterpoint class to demonstrate melody (good melody - really), and last year Mark P, a grad student, wrote a nice invention based on the tune. Then yesterday another student clued me into the video I've embedded below. Neat idea, not necessarily the best execution (Glenn Gould did something similar once - Danny Pi's fugue sounds more Bach-like than mine (read on), but it's short, and I prefer Beethoven fugues anyway). So yes, I threw my hat into the ring and here's my strange, more-Beethoven-like than Bach-like Oops Fugue