Saraband

I know, that's a super-weird choice as the first role to come to mind -- but her character on Tales of the City was a memorable part of my baby-queer existence. <Sniff>.

I actually do wonder. As @BHopper2 said, the OP hung around for quite awhile before making his spectacular entrance. Taking into account his . . . somewhat ostentatious word choice (along with an incorrectly chosen indefinite article) and the shout-out to Howl, it occurs to me that Mr. Cole may be doing some sort of performance art, and we're all just part of the show. (If that is the case, I would suggest to him that a more effective example of this sort of commentary can be found in Yoko Ono's re-interpretation of Katy Perry's "Firework.")

Oh, webcomics. Truly the best of the worst, some of them . . . (Yeah, it took me more than a couple hours to dig those out of the archive, whatayawant? If you need me, I'll be putting new tennis balls on my walker. . .)

As I'm coming late to this party, the gist of what I would say about signaling has been well covered by @Puppilull in her comment, and in the subsequent conversation. The thing that I would add is, basically, "this is water." There's something that's important here that I'm slightly at a loss to say succinctly and eloquently. @Mikiesboy has his finger on it with the observation that this (idea of gender expression and signalling) isn't hard to understand -- if one wants to. But as Thorn points out in the comment immediately above, often the ignorance comes from "lack of self-insight and critical thinking." All of these things are true: the importance and pervasiveness of signalling; the notion that it isn't a difficult concept to grasp, given a little consideration; the fact that many (if not most) people do not spend the time or effort to do so. There is little need to stop and consider what one is signalling, or why, if the process of doing so is not disruptive to a person's life. (I'll ignore the question of whether there is value for now.) Most folks can swim through the day, signal to the other fishes, and never stop to think about the water. We lucky few in here know about the water. Of course, that's often because, for us, the water has not been comfortable. But when we try to tell the other blithely swimming fish (who are our parents, our siblings, our partners, classmates, colleagues and friends) that the water is fucked up, we are actually asking them to make a pretty significant leap. First they have to see the water. Then they have to realize how they are so well adapted to it (let's ignore the vice-versa argument for now.) Then, IF they begin to realize that this water isn't so great for us, there's a chance they will think that the problem is with us, instead of with the water. So by the time we get to "wearing men's clothes doesn't make you a boy," the good news is that we're about halfway there. Our poor, thick-headed mothers -- and I may be reaching with an assumption, but the reach is not that far -- can see that there is a signal, even if they cannot yet read the message. *The questions of why someone cannot or will not get the message is a whole different fun conversation, and one that I am DEFINITELY not going to get into here, because for starters it ain't my blog . . .

Oh, Stravinsky, my hero. . . As someone who (literally) ran screaming out of piano lessons as a child, and later backed into classical music again by way of jazz, Frank Zappa and Astor Piazzolla -- Rite of Spring is TOTALLY MY JAM (And if anyone wants to hear me swoon and count the ways I think it is amazing, we can do that in another room, I guess.) Thanks for putting this here. Also, fun fact: I have no idea how this happened, but Firebird is the first ballet I ever saw. So, it, too, has a soft space in my heart. My ex in college played the flute, and thus did I come to spend more time with the orchestra woodwind section than I ever expected to do, or even want to. They used to tease the bassoon players about the Rite of Spring opening: "IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII'mm just a poooooor bassoooooooonnn. IIIIIIIIIIIIIIII'mmm not an English Hooooorrrn." Good times.

Thank you so much for this. I haven't really listened to any Couperin since my conservatory days, but this was exactly the music that helped me learn to love the harpsichord. (I mean, I like Scarlatti on the piano. I love Bach on the piano. But it's like the piano has nothing special to offer Couperin -- and Couperin offers his best self through the harpsichord. So I love the two of them together, like couple-friends. ) I was only minimally aware of Mr. Ross -- I knew that he played harpsichord, that he was a weird dude, and that he was dead. So thank you for this, as well. I would never have thought to look up his interpretations specifically, but I certainly will now! Ain't that the truth, though?

From one 'tran' to another, hello and well-met. One of the fun and challenging things about being trans is that we "get" to negotiate how we will engage our trans identity in each and every social interaction, whether that be in person, on the phone, in images, videos or print. One of the things I find disappointing is that (often for reasons of safety or convenience over preference) we frequently adopt a gender presentation that functions for us one way or the other -- but that excludes the transgender aspect of our experience. If one is trans and binary, and one elects to transition, I can see the appeal of just doing the thing and leaving the whole experience behind -- but for the non-binary group, this queer element of gender is a permanent part of our experience, regardless of what choices one makes about transition. It deserves no less acknowledgement than any other aspect of sexual identity. The nonsensical idea that anyone's genderqueer identity originates with a desire for attention is . . . interesting, and probably deserves some academic exploration regarding what it says about the people who profess it -- but it has exactly no bearing on the validity of that identity, or the experience of genderqueer people. If some shithead(s) want to profess that you're somehow fake, I invite them all to take that crap back to elementary school and the 1980s (or '50s) and you can just come hang out with us cool kids. We see you, and we like you fine.

Well, this is interesting. I go away for a month and return to find that the forum threads I follow have had CHANGES, and there are no notifications lingering w/r/t unseen replies on the old threads. Whatever; I figured it out. On the upside, everything so far in Dead Composers 2.0 looks GREAT (although I have not yet spent 2 hours listening to Gardiner's take on the Monteverdi Vespers). I thought I'd share this nutso recording of a little Chopin ditty I recently started with one of my students. Full disclosure: I don't generally like playing Chopin -- for oh so many reasons, including Scriabin-sized hands -- but this Prelude is the *moment* when I really viscerally came to understand the interaction of rubato and melodic gesture, both as a performer and a composer. (I mean, a 10th grade version of such, but still. It also didn't hurt that I went over and played it on the marimba, which had the effect of amplifying the physicality of the gestures -- and that really made a difference back at the piano.) Now, I like plenty of Artur Rubinstein recordings (Brahms, op 118, anyone?) but seriously -- what the ring-tailed rambling hell is up with this? It's not just the tempo. . .the top voicing is surprisingly agitated, too. If you find you love this version, please tell me what/why? I feel a little uneasy hating on Rubinstein this strongly. . . For a contrasting take (significantly more in line with my own performance preference) here is Maurizio Pollini's 1974 version -- B minor prelude #6 starts at around 7:15, in case the time code doesn't work.

At least one of those doco's contains the footage wherein Marsha says the words :). I don't remember which; I've only seen part of each one. (I may be a terrible person -- especially as a historian -- but I really can't watch documentaries for fun.)

I'm loving ALL of this. Especially the Freddie love (although I confess to being a raging Brian May fan, myself, appropos of nothing). I have to add Justin Tranter, formerly of Semi-Precious Weapons and currently one of the top bitches of the songwriting business (accorded the title by RuPaul himself). Tranter's first really big moment from the writing room was his contribution to the Fall Out Boy song "Centuries:" he wrote the chorus. The chorus that goes "you'll remember me for centuries," to the tune of Suzanne Vega's "Tom's Diner" and in the words of Marsha P. Johnson -- who originally said them to a camera. Probably 99.98% of the people who know that song do NOT know of Marsha P. Johnson, let alone the debt the queer world owes her. But Justin Tranter is sly, and is committed to bringing queer thoughts into the mainstream. And I love him for that, even if I don't give a crap about Fall Out Boy.

My favorite thing about that Munich concert is "Montsy"'s humor -- when she introduces one of the encores (O mio babbino caro) she calls it "a little ditty" -- which it is -- and she and Marilyn Horne seem to have such an easy rapport on the stage. Caballe really seems to be struggling physically, though. She looks and sounds (to me, anyway) uncomfortable singing this duet, and I recall seeing somewhere that she had been pretty ill a lot around that time. Her dynamics and control are STILL exceptional, though, especially put right next to Marilyn's less nuanced lines (like, around 4:00). Thanks for posting both versions! I listened to both, and really prefer the staged version. I don't think I ever would have seen it otherwise, since I'd never think to look to Caballe for any sort of acting. (Not that she really did any, here, either -- but now I have a great example of what people meant when they called her singing "limpid.") She may have been a lousy actress, but she was definitely a character -- and thanks to youtube, I don't even have to miss her. I can watch her manhandle students with no breath support in a master class any time I want! And we'll always be able to enjoy her sparkling singing, and charming irreverence (not to say, disrespect ) for the music. Still, it's sad to know she's gone.

Lovely.

Well, hot damn! I go away for a minute (or a month) and return to find that not only has Sasha returned, but given us an absolutely heartwarming -- not to mention smoking-hot -- story! The dynamic presented is really interesting. The guys' relationship is very equitable in some ways, and challengingly asymmetrical in others. With three members of the quartet apparently exclusive tops, Marcus is effectively a keystone of the relationship. But then there's "the Captain". . . and Tiago, who seems to bring the emotional intuition and openness; and Eric, who's always ready to turn up the heat. Everybody really does bring something different. I can't wait to see how this one wraps up. I'm certain we'll all be wanting more -- but I'm equally convinced that this story will appropriately wrap as a novella. Detailed exploration of the relationship complexities within a 4-man poly group can be left as a fun exercise for the reader . . .

In preparation for my 11-year old student's AM lesson which will include the Invention #10, I was poking around on YouTube. (I told the kid to do some listening this week, and come back to me with her thoughts on a best-fit tempo, now that most of the notes are under her fingers. I thought I should see what was out there, myself.) @Tiger 's post from last month reminded me that Valentina is always a good bet when you want to hear a really ballsy take on something, so when I found her Inventions, I couldn't resist. But. . . I have SO MANY QUESTIONS about this: And fresh among them is: "is my G Major invention this batshit when I do it fast?"

Man, this is still going on?