Oh, Lorie Line...

Oh, Lorie Line.

Sigh.

Some would say she’s a staple of the Twin Cities.  She has been here FOREVER.  And I don’t get it.

Call me critical, call me a snob…the fact is, I am mystified by the apparent phenomenon she generates.  Ms. Line plays piano covers of popular songs, putting what’s often described as “her own unique twist” on them.  She has cut 36 records over the course of her career.  I had the opportunity to see her perform recently, and the show was… odd. 

The high point was her dress (pictured below), which is never really a good sign.  When she sat down at the piano, she looked like a satin cupcake.  When her violinist played her arrangement of “O Holy Night” I was shocked at how out of tune it was – at least a quarter-step sharp up until the end.  Line and her instrumentalists (The Fab 5?  Really - she couldn’t come up with a more creative name for her backup musicians?) went through more costume changes than a Kardashian on her wedding day.  The pageantry was clearly the focus – and don’t get me wrong, that is fine.  Far be it from me to disparage the beloved Christmas kitsch of devoted Midwesterners if that’s what they’re into.  Thing is, Line doesn’t fully own up to being anything other than a Very Serious Musician – even though her hair and makeup approach drag queen territory and her questionable arranging decisions make a hot mess of “Hedwig’s Theme” from the Harry Potter movies.  Yes, you read that right.  In Line’s mind, this piece somehow fit into a concert titled “Christmas Bells Are Ringing!” (apostrophe hers).  

In her bio, she seems to feel a need to barb her fellow music performance majors.  “I’m probably the only performance major out there who is actually performing,” she says in an interview published on her website.  Really?  I went to school with about 40 other music majors, many of whom have begun exciting performance careers involving music that is, perhaps, a bit more challenging than the repertoire Line chooses.

For me, the most disappointing thing about Lorie Line’s performance was the fact that she really is talented.  Her facility at the piano is easy to see, and she has a Bachelor's in piano performance, so she must understand the technique and mechanics necessary to get that degree.  For whatever reason, this talented pianist left the classics behind in favor of bubblegum pop music and easily recognizable shreds of movie scores overshadowed by a distracting visual spectacle.  Your guess is as good as mine.

For all her tackiness, she has amassed a veritable empire.  On her website she claims to have the largest woman-owned independent record label in the United States, which I somehow doubt…I mean, surely Righteous Babe outranks her?  Please God?  Either way, at the end of the day it makes me wonder who is to blame: the talented classical pianist who opted for schmaltzy ear candy, or the audience who made that kind of music profitable in the first place.

Oh, and merry Christmas.

My So-Called '90s Nostalgia

Lately, I have been pretty obsessed with the TV show “My So-Called Life.”  I always knew it had a cult following, but now I understand why.

What is it about all those shows from the ‘90s?  I find myself yearning for the “good ol’ days” of TV.  I love this show because it’s supposed to be about an average American teenager dealing with the trevails of adolescence, except she’s not an average teenager - she’s Claire Danes.  She lives in a giant house in a happy nuclear family in the burbs.  Unlike Anne of Green Gables (who REALLY struggled with adolescence), Danes’ character Angela colors her hair red and looks ridiculously beautiful.  Her version of a bad day is that she gets a zit.  ONE ZIT.  Angela, being an angst-ridden but basically good person, thinks this may be the end of her life.  No fooling.  The episode is called “The Zit."  She gets to make out with Jared Leto (the first in what many would consider an illustrious career of onscreen face-sucking partners, including but not limited to Leonardo DiCaprio – not too shabby) instead of an actually normal high school boy.  Though there are close calls with illicit substances (one of her friends attempts to drink one beer at her house after school) and brushes with functional illiteracy, nothing bad ever really happens.  The gay kid gets bullied but finds laughter and acceptance in the girls’ bathroom; the dad almost has an affair but then realizes that his family is too important to him.  Everybody has problems, but they never reach critical mass, and are generally solved with hugs.  This show is the television equivalent of a fuzzy blanket and a cup of hot cocoa. 

Contrast this with today’s programming.  Have you SEEN Breaking Bad?  Holy shitballs!  Critics are calling this the best show that is currently on TV.  I get it, the show is really well done...and incredibly horrifying and disturbing.  Breaking Bad is like a skydiving accident you need to keep staring at, or a nasty scab you just can’t help picking.  I am addicted to Breaking Bad, but it’s not a pleasant feeling.  In fact, I imagine it’s similar to the relationships that are commonly depicted on the show between people and their meth.  I know it’s awful but JUST ONE MORE EPISODE AND THEN I’LL STOP, I SWEAR.  Of course I don’t want to watch a junkie get his head crushed by an ATM.  Of COURSE I don’t want to see a very unlikable main character make a hobby and a giant profit of lying to his pregnant wife and disabled child.  Yet, I keep watching.  Sometimes I have to take breaks.

I miss the '90s.

Like a boss.

Last night after work, the significant other and I went to a concert at the Minnesota Orchestra.  We saw the violin soloist Nadja Solerno-Sonnenberg, and I cannot say enough good things about her.

When she walked out onstage, I leaned over to Cliff and whispered, "What a badass."  Girlfriend was wearing RED VELVET PANTS and a black sequined tank top.  She had this air about her - like the honey badger, she didn't give a shiiiit.  When the conductor started the Piazzolla piece, "The Four Seasons of Buenos Aires," she looked at him intently and then gave him this flip little smile, as if she were issuing a challenge.  Bring it on.  And the orchestra certainly did.  I can't remember the last time I enjoyed listening to the orchestra as much as I did last night.  That Piazzolla piece is SO freaking cool!  It's got a lot of tango elements and definitely gives you a sense of place.  Maybe the best part is that the arranger put a few direct quotes from Vivaldi's Four Seasons right into the music, and he put the quote from "Winter" into Buenos Aires' "Summer," since Buenos Aires is in the southern hemisphere.  Loved it.

The way this woman played her violin was unreal.  Every note was perfectly tuned.  She moved her hips and stomped her feet.  She laughed while she played.  When she wasn't playing, she practically danced along to the orchestra, tapping her toes and moving to the music.  When the key was minor and the music felt a bit sadder, she looked as if she might start to cry.  Her low notes were as velvety as the pants.  Her high notes were perfect - she could even dash off cute little harmonics without bothering to look at where she was placing her finger.  We were in the third row, so I could see her fingers dancing across the fingerboard - and it was crazy how fast she was playing.  My eye couldn't keep up with my ear - my brain needed to catch up with her.

Suffice it to say, it was a very memorable night. 

And now, in case you didn't get the honey badger reference...

Getting to know you...

So, here is my life in a nutshell.  I work for a major Minnesota arts non-profit in a very entry-level, foot-in-the-door capacity.  I love it.  One of my coworkers is the actress who is on the box of Marie Callendar's (seriously!).  The office printer is named Stravinsky.  And people discuss composers and politics around the water cooler, not TV.  How refreshing!

I’m also doing 2 fall internships with smaller arts organizations here in the Twin Cities.  One is an after-school program for impoverished/at-risk youth that focuses on the arts; the other is a nonprofit that connects artists with opportunities such as artist-in-residence, performing opportunities, and teaching/workshopping gigs.  They bring art into the classroom, and also into healthcare facilities to positively impact populations who may be art-deprived.  Art deprivation is a preventable condition!

On the side, I’m planning my wedding.  My finace is the coolest person ever and we are pretty excited to make it official.  Our goal is for the wedding to be classy, unique, and CHEAP… we’ll see how that goes.  I was never much of a wedding fantasizer, so now that it’s upon us I’m starting to realize that I don’t really know what I want.  It’s not even what I want, because I don’t care about most of the minutae – it’s just supposed to be a party, right?  A really good party.  So imagine the shocked expression on my face when the wedding coordinator at our venue told us just how many decisions we will be required to make – down to which way our napkins are to be folded (really?).  It reminded me of this interesting research on decision fatigue – I bet betrothed couples the world over suffer from it.  But seriously, I know it’s a nice problem to have, and it’s already been fun to get all girly and think about flowers and ribbons and color palettes, oh my...

Post the first

Hello, world! 

Just so you know… this time will be different.  I promise.  You see, this is approximately my 1000th attempt at blogging.  I tried to blog several times in the past, mostly while I was working nasty temp jobs and feeling very bitter about it all.  It never worked.  I just wrote horror stories of the "customer service representative" variety and spiraled ever deeper into self-pity.  But nevermore!  Why, you ask?  Because I have given my career a total makeover (not an easy feat in this economy, and oh don’t worry, I’m really poor, but more on that later) and now I like what I do.  And I have aspirations, and goals, and I get excited to go to work in the morning – which is weird for me, but a welcome change.

My background… long story long.  (Feel free to skim or skip around as this part is more therapeutic for me than interesting for you.)  I was an idealistic music major, and realized suddenly and unfortunately that that is a great way to ruin a perfectly good hobby.  Graduated with a Bachelor’s and decided I was DONE WITH MUSIC FOREVER.  (It was in all caps in my brain.)  Hence the temp jobs and the 3-year period of aimless floating around, making decent money, but feeling completely directionless.  I have learned that I cannot be done with music, not even for five minutes, so it was pointless for me to try to turn my back on it.  For a long time after graduation, though, my metric for success was a complete mess.  I studied voice in college, in a very intensive program where a career as an opera singer was the assumed goal for most of the students.  I loved (and love) to sing, but had told myself that the only way I could be successful would be to sing for money and do what all my friends were doing – working terrible jobs and then spending all disposable income on audition fees, headshots, voice lessons, and coachings.  Assuming the role of Starving Artist and wearing it like a badge, with great pride and a wry smile.  Problem was, I didn’t go on auditions.  Ever.  I kept telling myself I’d go to the next one – that I wasn’t ready yet – that I needed to learn a new aria.  But the aria was a long time coming, or, if I’d learned it, I was convinced it would never be good enough to even try out on an audition panel.  The extreme level of judginess I experienced in undergrad had done too good a job, and auditions became horrible looming things that it was easier to just ignore.

Fast forward to December 2010.  I was taking voice lessons with a teacher who was long on tough and short on love.  Hating myself for never singing outside my lessons – even practicing became a chore that I began to dread.  And working in MORTGAGE.  Yes.  A young, idealistic, artsy kid had found herself suddenly 25 with a horrifyingly awful job at a major American bank.  I drowned daily in a sea of beige cubicles.  It was my job to call people and tell them that the bank’s paltry attempt at “foreclosure prevention” had failed, and that the bank would be taking their house, and no they couldn’t speak to my supervisor, and no there wasn’t anything I could do.  I would sit on my bed and cry when I woke up every morning, because I hated my job so much.  It was a period during which I drank a LOT of wine.  And then, on December 1, my boss gave me the greatest Christmas present ever – she fired me.

It has taken me a long time to get to where I currently am.  Which is, being able to say that I am a musician, and that I love music, but that it is no longer my goal to make my living as an opera singer.  I have a serious and profound admiration for people whose aim that is.  It is a hard life, filled with uncertainty, rejection, and for most, relative poverty.  Obviously the upside is that you get to be an opera singer.  But there was a teacher at my college who gave some of the best advice I have ever received: being a singer is HARD.  It is so hard that most people will discover that it’s not worth it.  So if there is anything, ANYTHING else you can do for a living and be happy, do that instead.  It will save you years of heartache and probably lots of money.  After months - years, really - of searching, I have found something I can do and be excited about – and it’s liberating not to have to hate myself all the time for failing at “being a singer.”  Now I can just be a singer – in the car, in the shower, at karaoke, a person with an educated ear, a person who works in the arts and makes a difference in her community.  I now work for 3 different arts organizations in the Twin Cities, and I feel so different, and so much better, than before.  Best of all, the more I learn, the more excited I become about all the different opportunities in the arts community.  There’s so much more to come!