Archive for the 'travels' Category
Getting a 90 minute professional massage at a 5-star spa and hotel as the first professional massage of my life was not entirely like my first experience of going to a strip club almost exactly a year ago.
It’s interesting, involves a lot of nudity, feeling quite out of place – though intrigued – and I’ll probably never do it again.
Paper: 1/3: Article for the Music Educators Journal
Progress: optimistic only out of context with the other papers
Theme?: the lyrics kill me at some point or other; hi, December.winter
Tracks: (all files uploaded onto zshare.net. Music is rightful property of the artists. I don’t own any of these…Please buy their music and support them.)
+ [Last Night] – Justin Timberlake
+ [I'll Never Smile Again] – Priscilla Ahn (Frank Sinatra cover)
+ [Winter Song] – Sara Bareilles and Ingrid Michaelson
December 13 2009 | music and musings and travels | 1 Comment »
Upcoming show:
January 1-4, 2010.
Hilton Marks Center
Alexandria, VA
[Select Start] is returning to [MAGFest]!! I’ll also be sitting in a few songs with [The Oneups.] Look at the guest list ([Sid Meier] anyone?) and the band list ([Armcannon]! [The Megas]!)! Everyone should go!
More information to come soon. I’m very very excited.
November 21 2009 | games and music and performances and travels | No Comments »
the deducted:
- Subway
~~~~~~~~~~~
Part II: Titanic Brewery
+ [Titanic] is this cheeky little brewery and restaurant on the edge of campus. They sometimes serve lovely seasonal ales on tap that likewise sometimes get me in troubles of sorts. Back in April, they celebrated an anniversary, complete with specials, one of which included a beer and veggie wrap and some other lovely provision or two. This was my order. It was delicious and that was actually one of the nicest dinners I had ever had the privilege of participating in.
Months later, after a fairly trying day, the thought of a veggie wrap and beer was highly appealing. I was too late: They had changed the menu and the vegetable wrap no longer existed. After an awkward second or two standing around wondering whether or not to pull a Subway and stay regardless, I decided the beers on tap that month weren’t tantalizing enough and probably forgot all about eating after that.
Part III: Whole Foods
+ The exact night of the Titanic failure that I realized I had a lifeboat after all: my friend Jenny, a bona fide vegetarian. Surely she would know a place with good vegetable wraps.
Alas – from having lived on campus for her entire college career so far, she did not know of any one specific place where the wraps were lovely beyond belief. But she did suggest a few places to try. The first was Whole Foods, which I kicked myself for not having thought of, given that I frequent the store for groceries. The second was a Publix (a grocery chain in mostly the Southern United States), but she warned against the one closest to school.
Within a few days, upon inspection, somewhat shockingly, most of the Whole Foods wraps contained meat, unless it was the $8 sliced up caprese wrap that, as delicious as it probably would have been, was not what I had in mind. There were no custom made wraps, though in hindsight, maybe I should have asked the guy behind the deli panel – but I had a sneaking suspicion with Whole Food’s reputation the way it is that this wrap would have probably run me up much higher than a wrap needed to be. I would save that for true desperation. Perhaps this visit was simply at the wrong time of day.
As it is a grocery store, I wondered if maybe I had made this elusive wrap myself once upon some day. After picking up the appropriate materials, dinner was settled with a spinach and feta croissant, some tea, and Nick Hornby.
November 16 2009 | food and travels | No Comments »
About a month back (or perhaps a little more close to present than that), for some inexplicable reason, I desired a vegetable wrap (heretofore referred to by its layman’s term “veggie wrap.”) Not just any wrap. And absolutely incredible one. One I knew I’d had somewhere before but had forgotten where. It’s probably a good thing I’ve started noting particularly fantastic cuisine when I travel.
Why exactly a vegetable wrap is also unclear. I am not a vegetarian. But this most definitely did not involve meat.
For as long as it takes, pocket universe will be documenting this increasingly desperate attempt to re-discover what was once known. These accounts are fairly chronological, with anywhere from one to eight days between ventures.
BASIC INGREDIENTS:
- assorted vegetables (but definitely involving spinach)
- a tortilla.wrap (probably that spinach or sun-dried tomato variety.)
- provolone cheese
- some spread that was most likely basil pesto mayonnaise (plain mayonnaise will substitute just fine for the purpose of this quest)
- additional seasonings may or may not have included oregano, olive oil, ground black pepper
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
PART I: Subway
+ There is a Subway situated in the law school right across from the main auditorium of the music school, or home. (I’d like to point out that by some miracle, I have not made a single typo up to this point in this post. I almost feel credible. Moving on…) In the past, I have paid, literally, many visits to this little station mostly because it’s open until midnight, which is later than all but two other places on campus to grab that dinner I forgot to eat again.
I recalled they had wraps, and their possession of vegetables is as common knowledge as Harry Potter. So by the super-powers of deduction granted upon me by grade-school education, as this memory of The Best Vegetable Wrap Ever strikes, I go.
The lady behind the counter pluckily informs that they haven’t had wraps “…in a while! But we have the flatbread!” (Hey – flatbread’s a typo, Google Chrome?) In her defense, I had never ordered a wrap from this particular Subway before. She was just the messenger, and though dejected in my mild hunger, I surrendered and conceded to her enthusiasm. I haven’t checked any off-campus Subways – The idea has never truly occurred ever since discovering there’s one right at home. – but my faith was about as toasted as the flatbread vegetable sandwich gnawed to bits that night anyway.
November 16 2009 | food and travels | No Comments »
Upcoming show:
Friday, July 31, 2009 – 10pm
Smoke and Barrel Tavern
Fayetteville, AR
performing with The Oneups.
more information [here]
Back to practice…
July 28 2009 | games and music and performances and travels | No Comments »
[image to be added]
I didn’t mean to miss this little site’s birthday two days ago. I didn’t forget! However, my own computer died of what I suspect is exhaustion after all this traveling (and the parts still ahead) so now I rely on my sister’s until warranty things settle. If not, then I shall just have to finally get a Mac.
So happy three year birthday to pocket universe! We are becoming much more consistent with the postings! But again, as I do every year, I promise again to be better to you than the previous year. Whatever that entails, I’ll let you decide.
In travel, I write from Houston by way of various adorable small towns in Michigan, Chicago, and New Orleans. Everything has been incredible. When I have a stable connection, I’ll be posting accordingly about the journeys. But for now let’s just that say that food has been a very surprising and unexpectedly significant, though accordingly lovely, part of every major stop.
Now for an amaretto (with ice cream?) in honor of dear pocket universe and many more years to come.
July 22 2009 | food and travels | 2 Comments »
[image to be added]
I just wrote up a beautiful post with links and everything to my upcoming schedule performing with my quartet (formally known as the Clarke String Quartet, but we’re not even sure sometimes) as part of the [Pine Mountain Music Festival], but somehow, between here and the “publish” button, it disappeared entirely.
Thus, just know these few things: greetings from St. Louis! We embark on our long drive from here to Michigan tomorrow. St. Louis is my first stop in a series of travels this summer for me, incidentally, all around Mid-America. (I’m not complaining.) The timing just worked out beautifully as such.
I’ll try to keep this blog updated and get that schedule here again, though you can also go to the website’s [calendar] and just look for “Resident Chamber Musicians” anywhere on it.
June 23 2009 | music and travels | 2 Comments »
Classical music is tremendously distracting. Lately, nothing has helped me procrastinate as much. I’m on Spring Break, by the way. I have a lot of music to catch up on in my field, embarrassingly enough (Next endeavor is violoncello works? The Mozart violin sonatas? Beethoven string quartets? String trios?…probably trios…I really don’t know trios.) but these three in particular keep getting in the way of progress…and to some extent – dangerously – eating and/or practicing (Which is essentially the same thing, right?) (Just kidding.) (Maybe.):
+ Johann Sebastian Bach: Brandenburg Concerto No. 2 in F, BWV 1047 (with Brandenburg 3 in G coming in close…)
- Allow me yet another suspension of belief in stating that while simultaneously listening to these concertos and reading over numerous reviews and recaps of the Battlestar Galactica series finale that have popped online since its airing, somehow all the elegant yet simple complexities and details of both these compositions went hand in hand. Douglas Adams once wrote that he was convinced that Bach wrote the Brandenburgs when he was happy and I completely agree.
+ Gustav Mahler: Symphony No. 5
- A few weeks ago, the university orchestra stumbled rather hilariously through the symphony as the conductor’s way of stressing how unforgivingly difficult this piece is (We perform it next month…I use the term “perform” loosely right now.) Last night, the Miami Symphony Orchestra put on a rather nice performance of the Mahler 4. Even more so than Brahms, Mahler is an interesting fellow indeed. There are so many ways to go about the guy. But he does write a mean melody, and I’m prepared to experience a lot of headaches and bright lights, or vice versa.
+ Robert Schumann: Piano Quintet in E Minor (aka the ~30 minute piece that I have been listening to for the last hour and a half)
- A successful quintet performance is a truly definitive marker of achievement. Five is a hefty number. Getting two people to cooperate and agree on the same page of thought for any period of time is already a difficult task. Any more with no mediation is asking for trouble. This is probably why I avoid playing quintets these days, though they may be my favourite ensemble setting. That could be another discussion sometime.
Last semester I accidentally stumbled across Lin-Cho Liang, Joseph Kalichstein, William de Rosa, Adele Anthony, and Roberto Diaz rehearsing this piece and the Brahms Quintet in f minor (another perennial favourite) for their Festival Miami concert. Watching them work (in stealth, as no lowly graduate student/stalker skipping work should dare disturb actual musicians) was addicting, but I am still stunned, after all these months, by the resulting pure, uninhibited music at the next night’s concert. After the performance, Mrs. Anthony commented to me that they had only worked on both pieces together for a day. I almost gave up on music right there and then, if she hadn’t also been very encouraging. Thank you.
And now time to actually let that fourth movement end…
Also, as a side maintenance note, I’m going backwards again soon to re-editing lots of old posts. My writing should evolve, but you readers shouldn’t have to suffer with all the old awfulness. Or reading this at all. Shoo.
March 23 2009 | BSG (and such) and music and travels | No Comments »
The two foremost things I have learned so far from selling a large part of my soul to Miami traffic over the course of three months:
1) If you park at a meter that has more time than you need already paid for, use up only the time you need, and then leave the rest for the next poor soul looking for a parking spot on a Saturday afternoon in a highly commercial area. Everyone will feel better.
2) It’s not your fault that some other people are just jerks.
(These thoughts are brought to you by a long morning discussion on personal karma – the kind you feel happens regardless of actual supernatural existence or not; the kind you feel that you just should act in favour of as a decent human being and member of society.)
November 23 2008 | musings and travels | 1 Comment »
Well, it’s been officially a month or so since I returned from Taiwan. I have one last leg of “Fallback” to cover before I can move on to my Taiwan travels, but I seem to have lost all the schtick I typed up in Taiwan to catch myself up.
Lovely.
So while I am searching, I’m going to leave these three songs for you all to enjoy in the time being. I haven’t written a music post in over a year anyway. Shame on me, really. All three are of of Japanese origin but I promise you that they were randomly selected by my music player. Hope you enjoy!
All files uploaded onto savefile.com. All music is respective property of the artists’ and their company. I don’t any of these. Don’t sue me, please… Buy their CDs and support them!!
——————————————–
+ [Niji] – Kazunari Ninomiya
- While Japanese boy band pop is not exactly my favourite genre of music, I’ve slowly come to admire the group [Arashi]. Unlike many other groups, the members of Arashi seem to have concrete personalities and multiple talents, making them somewhat less easy to toss aside than other groups that have been produced by the ever-entertaining and amusing (though exemplary business empire) [Johnny's Entertainment]. If I had to blame one person for my descent into the fangirl universe, it would be Arashi’s [Kazunari Ninomiya] (affectionately called “Nino.”) A fair actor well known outside of Arashi for his drama roles and even in Hollywood as a soldier in Clint Eastwood’s Letters to Iwo Jima, Nino’s singing has greatly improved over the years. His dancing on the other hand – well, we’ll see. The lyrics for “Niji” were written by Nino himself and in concert performances of the song, he sometimes plays piano. This particular song is one of my personal favourites for its emotional range…and violin solo…
There are many songs I want to recommend by Arashi, but I think I’m just going to make an entirely Arashi post someday instead.
+ [Kane wo Narashite] – Bonnie Pink
- [Bonnie Pink] (original name Asada Kaori) is less famous than she should be. Though she has a successful career, from singing anime songs to multiple collaborations with the insanely popular hip-hop duo [m-flo], there is not much glory or celebrity surrounding her and her unique, talented voice. This song was used as the opening music for the recent video game [Tales of Vesperia] and I can’t stop listening to it.
+ [Brand New Breeze] – Stella Quartet (from La Corda d’Oro)
- This song introduced me to that element of life known as “obsession.” I fell in love with this quintet arrangement of the anime [La Corda d'Oro] opening song “Brand New Breeze” (by [Kanon]) on the airplane en route back from Taiwan, but could not find it anywhere when I got an Internet connection back up. In fact, the CD on which it was originally released (a special St. White’s Day edition OST) seemed to be all sold out too. I can’t recall how I finally found it, but I must have listened to it about twenty times in a row after that – and then started to arrange for myself. This arrangement is a true example of how to arrange music from a standard pop song into a beautiful chamber piece.
A few side notes: The original “Brand New Breeze” was based around Edward Elgar’s “Salut d’Amor,” a ridiculously famous violin solo piece. The fashion in which this piece is integrated into both the pop song and the quintet arrangement is just adorable. Also, I have never seen or played La Corda d’Oro. The first book of the manga was cute, but I’m too busy to keep with it for now…
August 16 2008 | games and music and travels | 2 Comments »
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