Elissa's Simulacrum

Back to school...

2009-01-04T18:30:00.000-08:00

Classes start again tomorrow for me after a wonderful Christmas break at home. I had a very enjoyable few weeks of playing games with my family, shopping in the retail Mecca that is Round Rock, driving around (paying gas prices similar to when I was in high school!), opening presents, and playing with the dog. What could be better? I ventured out to Houston, San Antonio, and Georgetown, and thoroughly enjoyed wearing short sleeves and not even a jacket outside. That's the life!

I'm gearing up for school, excited about my classes, and hoping to have a good winter quarter. One of my goals is to spend more time with friends than I did last winter quarter (which was an all-time low for my social life), and hopefully to see more of friends from out of town. Another goal is to continue working on my preliminary dissertation research as my highest spare-time priority, which might actually happen because one of my courses is a history class on the Revolutionary War. It is a lot of fun for me to work on dissertation planning and such, and I'm eager to make progress.

I spent the evening with two friends, one from college and one from here (they knew each other from high school!) It was great to catch up, and reminded me yet again of how much I miss my Lawrence friends.

Only about two weeks until Obama takes office!

Mmmmm vacation!

2008-12-10T11:48:00.001-08:00

I'm all done with the academic quarter! I had a particularly great quarter, and I'm fairly proud of the work I did. Mainly I'm proud that doing the work was not agonizing or frustrating in any way- it was just fun, interesting, and satisfying. It all depends on your mindset, and I've learned in the past year that if I'm not going to be playing music and practicing all the time, I should take as much pleasure in research and writing as I used to in performing. I think my perspective on what a good term paper is has changed quite a bit.

I went to the Chicago Lyric Opera last night to see Porgy and Bess with some friends. That is a fantastic opera, and it was performed extremely well. The singers were also great actors, which makes a big difference. It was definitely worth braving the snow and slush.

I'm finally in Christmas shopping mode, but I haven't decided on anything yet! Mainly I'm looking forward to my winter travels.

School/Stress

2008-11-18T19:39:00.000-08:00

Well hello. School has gotten very busy and demanding, so I'm not doing much fun internet playing lately. Instead, I'm mostly researching, studying, grading papers, and attempting to write papers of my own. I'm impressed with how cool and collected I was most of the quarter up until this week (and part of last week), but now there's no denying it: I've got too much to do and not enough time to do it in. Luckily my professors are being very supportive, and I'm growing quite fond of them.

I'm going to be home (in Texas) in one month, and before then I have to write three research papers, grade a bunch of final exams, research for my professors, and plenty of other random stuff. I really like the various things I'm working on, and I like all of the other tasks, too, but it's nice when they aren't all piled up at the same time and vying for my attention! I'm confident I'll get everything done and (hopefully) be proud of my work when I'm finished. My fear is that I'll hate all the work I did and hide it away forever.

Enough complaining. In better news, Thanksgiving is coming up, and I'm excited about that. I'll probably have to get some work done, but mostly I want to spend some quality time with my parents and some relatives who are also coming to Chicago for the weekend. I love an excuse to be a tourist in Chicago.

And in weather news... When I woke up this morning there was snow on the grass and on top of all the cars!!! SNOW!!! I'm not going to complain about the cold this year... life is better when I don't complain about it, especially since I've been bragging all year that I really do like the cold.

Obama!

2008-11-05T17:51:00.001-08:00

I am so, so happy that Barack Obama is our next president.

Ever since I heard his speech at the DNC four years ago, I've known he was our future, and it's been a true pleasure to watch him succeed time and time again in the past 21 months. I believe he'll lead our country to a better time, and a more responsible character.

Zoo

2008-11-01T19:50:00.001-07:00

I had a really enjoyable Halloween yesterday! I decided to take some time off from working on my papers to go to the Lincoln Park Zoo with a group of my grad school friends. The sun was shining, the weather was phenomenal, and the human beings were crazier than the animals (not my friends, but the hundreds of people we saw in costumes!) It's pretty weird to see a group of people in over-the-top costumes (King Tut, for example) pointing and gawking at a bunch of monkeys just minding their own business.

The most interesting animal behavior we experienced was a roaring session between three lions (two female, one male), who barked and barked for several minutes. It was an incredible sonic experience- I couldn't believe how loud and frightening they were. The cave-woman inside me wanted to turn tail and run! It wasn't the MGM Studios kind of lion roar, more like what you'd expect from a barking sea lion but far louder, deeper, and more resonant. And more ferocious. We couldn't figure out what had set them off, but they certainly set off a bunch of little babies, who probably ruined their Halloween makeup crying.

When it started to get dark and the zoo closed, we walked up to Belmont and had dinner at an Irish pub kind of place, then walked around and saw hundreds of costumed revelers. My favorites included a couple of Waldos, a Pikachu (in a full fluffy yellow body suit!), two girls dressed like cards from the game "Apples to Apples," and a smoking, drunk Sarah Palin. There were some pretty scandalous outfits (don't dress like a hooker to take your young daughters trick-or-treating!), but a lot of clever ones as well. My friends and I did not dress up in the slightest, and I was definitely ok with that! I didn't eat a single bite of candy, either.

Today I wrote half of one of my term papers, which is remarkably productive for one day. I have to make every minute count because I'm going out of town for four days this coming week, and Thanksgiving won't offer much time to work because I'll be touring Chicago with family. I'm determined not to get above a 7 out of 10 on the stressometer, so I'm trying to buckle down. It worked today, let's see what happens tomorrow!

Group projects

2008-10-23T16:27:00.001-07:00

Normally, I hate "group work" in a school setting. I hate being told I'll get the same grade as my group members, and I feel a lot of responsibility to make sure the weakest link either comes up to my standards, or I do their work for them. Today, however, I was impressed when my current group project experience took a surprising turn. Someone else volunteered to lead the paper-writing effort. Everyone else seemed eager to do their part. I was the one who (almost) felt like a slacker. It was a pleasant experience.

In other news, I totally broke down a bought a piece of chocolate-peanut-butter cake tonight. It was kind of worth it, but I'm still kind of mad at myself. I think it's because my friend is coming for a visit this weekend and my brain already kicked into "fun vacation" mode a day early. At least it was an organic vegan cake... because, you know, vegan calories don't count, right?

I just watched the season premiere of 30 Rock on Hulu and it was awe-some. I looooove that show.

I'm beginning to worry about the two-year-long election season coming to a close. It's been such an adrenaline rush, an endlessly interesting news smorgasbord. I'm going to really miss it, although I'm confident I'll be a happy person on November 5th (either that or I'm moving to Australia.) I told a friend my concern and she said I might have "post-partisan depression." Too true.

Long weekends

2008-10-17T20:39:00.000-07:00

Sometimes I just get so overwhelmed with the amount of work I have to do, and it gets to the point that all I can do is crawl into bed and let my head swim. That happened today when I was faced with the task of learning how to read and transcribe medieval notation. I love medieval music, and I wish that I could read the manuscripts, but I've never learned, never even tried. Now I'm thrown into it and have to produce a transcription in a week. I'm leaning towards some chant by Hildegarde. It has to be easier than polyphony, right? I would rather do a good job on a short Gregorian chant than a terrible job on a motet.

For my American Art Song class (which I love, by the way), I've been listening to Aaron Copland's Twelve Emily Dickinson Songs. They are quite melancholy, and when I listen to them my mind shifts its weight between different sad memories.The songs are wonderful, though, and I intend to become very well acquainted with them. I'm ashamed that I hadn't heard them before.

For my Wagner class I have eased my way into a particularly exciting term project in which I will examine the poet Edwin Arlington Robinson's famous epic poem Tristram, and try to get a feel for his obsession with Wagner and how it may have been part of a larger movement of American poets between the World Wars who were admirers of Wagner. Of course, in the thirties the meaning of Wagner changed entirely because of Hitler, but before that an innocent American could simply love Wagner without feeling the guilt that we may feel now. My relationship with Wagner is rather fraught, aesthetic enjoyment versus histo-political disgust. One of my favorite quotes so far is Robinson's letter to a friend in which he writes, "It makes me wish sometimes that I lived in Madagascar. But I shouldn’t like that, either; for then I should have no apples or Tristan and Isolde. I can’t get along much without T. & I. And apples." Believe it or not, but he often mentions Wagner and his love for apples in the same sentence. It reminds me of Berlioz writing so often in his memoirs about music and raisins. In any case, Robinson is an adorable person, and there's nothing like reading a poet's (formerly) private correspondence.

Here's Edwin:

I suppose that will be all for now. I've been relaxing tonight after a day (week? month?) of working constantly, and my saving grace is that I have a four-day weekend every week in which to work work work. It's nice not to have to be anywhere for a few days. I'm incredibly lucky. At the same time, though, you can trust that I don't spend my long weekends lounging or window shopping. At least I get to sleep in.

It's been a while...

2008-10-16T13:06:00.001-07:00

Well, what a surprise, my enthusiasm for blogging fizzled out extremely quickly as soon as the school work of my first year in a PhD program hit me with gale-force winds. It's been over a year, though, and I've learned how to manage my work load, although every week has its own challenges (completing readings and grading papers...)

In any case, I apologize for the very long absence from the blogosphere, but be aware that if you read/subscribe to my blog, I probably subscribe to yours as well, and I have been VERY active in reading blogs! So I haven't really been absent, I've just been lurking.

Life is going well. I'm much more dedicated to working on "school stuff" full time than I was last year, having surrendered any hope of having a private life or hobbies. I basically just work all the time now, when I'm not cooking, eating, walking to and from school, or sleeping. So far it's fine, and I don't feel burnt out or impatient because I'm enjoying the actual work I have to do, for the most part. I miss the amount of free time I had last year, but I like the research assistant responsibilities I have now.

I've also been happy lately because I love autumn, especially midwestern autumn. The leaves are beautiful, the wind is delicious, and evenings and mornings are magical. Plus, it's not cold yet, and so I don't have to arrange my life around being outside for as little time as possible. It's just a good time of year. I've been lighting lots of pumpkin scented candles and eating lots of apples and squash (but not together.) It's just a charming season.

I don't have anything of substance to add, mainly because I don't want anything to come back to haunt me professionally or personally, so I'll just wish you all well and make a soft promise to try to remember to blog more than once a year.

WHOA!

2007-09-15T07:41:00.001-07:00

I just this minute found out that the musicologist I mentioned in my last post, the one who does twentieth century, went to Lawrence! I'm inordinately excited, but I'm definitely going to read her article. I can't wait to meet her (on Wednesday!)

Monday I have orientation with The Graduate School (yes, they capitalize the The and abbreviate it TGS), Tuesday there seems to be nothing I have to do, and then Wednesday through the next Monday I have lots of School of Music (no The) meetings.

Today, a few old friends from Lawrence are coming to visit me! I'm very excited about that, too. I like them.

Time to make breakfast.

Excitement!

2007-09-13T20:10:00.000-07:00

As if I weren't already excited enough about school starting, I just discovered from the webpage that the musicology department has hired a new lecturer- a recent Northwestern alumna who does twentieth-century reception history and film music! I'm so terribly excited about this, since NU didn't have a dedicated twentieth-century person at all, and it has made me a little bit uneasy. Although she might be taking the job of teaching sophomore history survey only, at least she will be there, and I bet she's great!

The department also hired composer Lee Hyla, who I hadn't heard much of other than a cool string quartet piece (played by Kronos, of course) accompanying Ginsberg reading "Howl." There's also a new ethnomusicologist who specializes in Africa (don't know much about him, but NU is famous for its collection of African materials spanning all disciplines, so it makes sense.)

This is all exciting news. Actually, the twentieth-century person excited me so much that I rediscovered my own very strong predilection for twentieth century. All day I've been reading Paul Griffiths' A Concise History of Western Music, reviewing my ancient/Medieval/Renaissance music, areas in which I've always felt very weak and almost no interest for (I do love Medieval music, it's great and interesting... but by Palestrina I start getting bored and by Monteverdi I always can't resist skipping ahead to Mozart.) Anyway, I was almost through the Renaissance unit when I found out about the new faculty, and I literally can't read another word of it. All I want to read is modernism now, so I'm skipping WAAAAY forward in the book because I know I can't resist.

Land of Tinkertoys

2007-09-10T13:55:00.001-07:00

I'm finally in Evanston! As you may have guessed, yes, Evanston is the city in which the great Tinkertoys were invented. Incredibly exciting, I know!

I'm almost completely moved in, but I haven't started shelving my books and DVDs yet, and I haven't gotten my enormous desk in working order. All that will hopefully be finished later tonight, but for now, my feet are too tired to even get up off the bed to get a glass of water. I'm not used to walking everywhere, and based on the last few days, it's going to take my body (especially my poor feet) a while to get acclimated. I love Evanston already, though, and the walking is interesting because of the many little shops and exciting restaurants. There seem to be a million enticing Asian noodle places, and more turn up on each new street I pass. There are also a lot of upscale restaurants, jewelry stores, and furniture/decorating stores where I'll never be able to afford to shop. As my mom said yesterday while walking down the street, "I see rich people."

I think I'll have a rest for a while before I start on the desk and books. This is fun, and so far nothing has come along to make me cry or freak out! Hopefully it'll stay disaster-free.

Soho the Dog's quiz fun!

2007-08-30T19:50:00.000-07:00

1. What's the best quotation of a piece of music within another piece of music?
Definitely all the quotes in Berio's Sinfonietta. It's obvious, but it's also truly excellent.

2. Name the best classical crossover album ever made. I'm thinking Swingle Singers!

3. Great piece with a terrible title.
Beethoven's Egmont Overture... it makes it sound dumpy. Makes me think of eggs, which are not something that blend well with music.

4. If you had to choose: Benjamin Britten or Michael Tippett? Britten, by far!

5. Who's your favorite spouse of a composer/performer? (Besides your own.) Felicia Montealegre Bernstein. She was pretty terrific. I also admire Sylvia Smith, the wife of Stuart Saunders Smith.

6. Terrible piece with a great title. Ravel's Piece en forme de Habanera for oboe. It's nothing like a Habanera, and it's barely even a Piece. Also, sadly, Leonard Bernstein's Whitehouse Cantata.

7. What's the best use of a classical warhorse in a Hollywood movie? I'd say a bit of the old Ludwig Van in A Clockwork Orange. And all the Rossini in there, too.

8. Name the worst classical crossover album ever made. I hate Kiri Te Kawana and Jose Carreras singing West Side Story. It's just disgusting.

9. If you had to choose: Sam Cooke or Marvin Gaye? Marvin Gaye, I guess.

10. Name a creative type in a non-musical medium who would have been a great composer. Ogden Nash, the punny, word-inventing poet

What's a simulacrum?

2007-08-30T18:57:00.001-07:00

I'm happy that my blog is up, and now I feel like writing in it all the time.

In case you are wondering about the (possibly temporary) title of my blog, a "simulacrum" is defined as a "slight, unreal, or superficial likeness or semblance," or as an "effigy, image, or representation." A blog is, when you think about it, a sort of unreal representation of the thoughts and daily activities of the blogger. It's a completely unnatural task, but it is presented as the truth of what the blogger has to say, even though it certainly is not a direct transcription.

I thought of the title because of an essay I read today by Jean Baudrillard, "The Precession of Simulacra." Baudrillard, who died earlier this year, was a French philosopher who was highly critical of America and the rising culture of consumer capitalism. He writes that, in the twentieth century, the signifiers (or names and symbols) of things and concepts have taken over the real things and concepts. The real things are completely absent now, and the artificial symbols have taken their place, covering and disguising the gaping hole that used to be real substance.

In other words, the natural world has been destroyed by culture. Consumer culture has lead to so many manufactured, artificial needs and desires that all natural human needs are covered up or completely forgotten. According to the Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism, Baudrillard believes "we all live our lives as if within quotation marks, as if playing a part in a movie... As 'authentic' experience becomes ever harder to conceive, simulation, willed or not, rules the day." We are told by the media what we want, how we want to be, how we should and do act, and who we think we are. Baudrillard believes this depressing state of things is irreversible, and that all of this artificiality has murdered the real of what used to be. Taking the idea to the extreme, Baudrillard believes our culture has irreparably become a shell of artificiality covering up a complete void of substance. (This is all very similar to the way Adorno believed the world would become, and Baudrillard, writing a decade or so after Adorno's death, seems to think the present situation is even worse than Adorno predicted.)

It's a confusing concept, but here's one of Baudrillard's examples: The historic cloister of St-Michel de Cuxa, which had been moved from its exhibition at the Cloisters in New York, was re-situated back on its original site. Now not only is it there artificially, which it of course was when it was in New York, but it is masquerading as authentic. The real cloister of St-Michel de Cuxa is completely obliterated, no longer real at all. It has been replaced by a simulacrum, or vague semblance, of itself.

I made the title of this blog because the concepts are very interesting to me, and not really to suggest that the real Elissa is gone and my meager blog will simulate me until it completely replaces me in your lives. Obviously, that's not the case at all. But the words I write will be a representation of the actual things I'm doing. Does that make sense?

First Post.. Oh boy!

2007-08-30T13:27:00.001-07:00

I don't know if this is really a good idea, but since it's free and I'm trying to be more interesting, I guess I'll give it a shot. I've become vaguely envious of all the other bloggers out there. It's hard not to when there are simply so many people who all seem to have something to say, even if the vast majority of them are not really all that interesting when you read them through instead of just looking at the post titles. Obviously, my blog will probably only be interesting to the few people who know me and want to know what's going on in my life! You're my target audience.

I'm motivated to start this blog today because I'll be moving in a week and things are going to change so much. Maybe in the future when I look back on all of this I'll be grateful for a few posts before the move. Right now I'm taking a break from packing up my winter clothes, and I'm hungry for autumn and change. It's nice that this time I'm guaranteed an enormous change, because I'm ALWAYS hungry for autumn and change at the end of the summer! I get restless and excited even when I'm just going to continue exactly as usual. When I was a child, September always meant an inextinguishable urge to search my backyard and my neighborhood for lost animals that could become my new pets. When I was in elementary school, every autumn I'd work myself into a frenzy, believing that if I just searched hard enough and ventured far enough through the crunching leaves, I was sure to find a beautiful lost pony with no owners to claim it and who would be so beautiful that my dad would gladly build it an enormously humane stable in our back yard. That was the kind of change and excitement I craved: pony. A dog, rabbit, or even a tiny wild chinchilla would have been more than welcome, too.

In college, autumn meant I'd be looking for a new and exciting person to change my life. In grad school, that urge and wish came true one autumn. Now I'm hungry for a new set of identity characteristics for myself. I'm eager to fall into new categories: city dweller, public transportation user, musicology PhD student (a category I've been craving for years), healthy eater, Mac user, and many more. I love when my labels, public or private, change. Ooh, now I can be "blogger," too.