Month: October 2011

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The Editor's Desk

Editor's Note: October 18

10.18.11 Food is the most direct connection between necessity and art in culture. Whether you are an Oglala who prizes a salted slice of raw kidney from a fresh kill, a Basque with a taste for reconstituted salt cod in pil pil sauce, or a Virginian with specific thoughts about Surry County ham, our cuisines show how we adapt and ultimately exalt the foods that keep us alive, and in the process create a shared identity.

These days food is all over the media, made fetish by people like Guy Fieri and, more intelligently, Anthony Bourdain. Growing up, the options were more limited. I watched Jacques Pepin and Julia Child, Justin Wilson, and Martin Yan on PBS with a passion that confused my contemporaries and family members. I still have crystal clear memories of Wilson, the Cajun chef, tipping his chablis liberally into an etouffee before sighing with pleasure, whooo weee; of Martin Yan showing off his no-look knife skills in staccato bursts before urging, “Any-one-can-do-it,” turning English, somehow, into a tonal language; of an older Julia cooing pigeon-like over her shoulder at Jacques, her arms elbow deep in something fowl.

My fondest memories of childhood are sitting on the step chair in our little kitchen as my mother produced miracle banquets for 20 to satisfy auction-related promises to my expensive private school. Is it because smell and memory are so closely linked? Or because food punctuates both celebration and mourning, that it plays such a powerful role in what we remember, and therefore, what we pass on?

Enjoy the feast this week, and, forgiving Rudyard Kipling’s colonialist ideologies, appreciate his sneaky appreciation of hot food in an ancient land:
“‘Oh yes, it is a good curry,’ said the Mahratta.
‘And cheap,’ said Kim. ‘But what about caste?’
‘Oh, there is no caste where men go to––look for tarkeean,’ the Mahratta replied, in the prescribed cadence.”–Giles Morris
 

Categories
News

A profile of Barbara Taylor Moore

Barbara Taylor Moore—organist, piano teacher, and volunteer firefighter—was born in Charlottesville to a family that goes back several generations in the area. If that makes her a rare bird, it also gives her a trove of ancestors and anecdotes. In true Southern style, she regales me with this oral history for a full hour before we get to her own appearance on the scene, in 1951. To hit two highlights, her great grandmother Taylor was a Lee related to Robert E. Lee, whom she always called “Cousin Bobby”; and the Taylors of Orange County include Zachary Taylor, twelfth president of the United States.

Her father forbade firefighting, saying her hands were too precious, but after his death in 1994, Moore joined the Charlottesville squad.

Slender and elegant, weighing less than a hundred pounds, Moore seems an unlikely firefighter. But she comes by the distinction honestly. Her father Frederick “Jimmy” Taylor was a building contractor and firefighter. He took Barbara as a young child to fires, where she stood just inside the taped-off area, beside the trucks. One of her earliest memories is riding on a ladder truck in the Dogwood Parade, wearing a majorette uniform.

Also from her earliest years, Moore wanted to play piano. She says she is “the oddball in the family,” in which all the men were builders and brick masons, and no one was a musician. At age 7, Moore began piano lessons with Mrs. Georgia Renfro. She practiced first thing in the morning (still her favorite time to practice) before going to school, which meant getting up at 6 o’clock. “My mother always sat beside me at the piano,” Moore says, “which was quite an investment, given all the other things she had to do.”

Moore attended Burnley-Moran Elementary School through seventh grade, then Lane High School for eighth grade. In 1965, when public schools were racially integrated, Moore was assigned to the Jefferson School for ninth grade. Because of crowding, all students were asked to give up one course, and Moore skipped gym class. This happy chance allowed her to take organ lessons at the First Baptist Church, then located at the northeast corner of Lee Park, a short walk from school. Mrs. Renfro, the organist at First Baptist, was again her teacher. Piano and organ lessons continued through high school, and Moore substituted on organ at church.

From 1969 to 1973, Moore attended Mary Washington College, as a music major with a minor in history. “At that time,” Moore says, “there were no auditions. At my first lesson, my college teacher, who knew nothing about me, said: ‘You learned from Renfro.’ It was a distinctive style, clean and precise.”

During those years, Moore decided against a career as a concert pianist. “I was told that my hands were not big enough. The preference, at least in America, was for strength and power.” Instead, she attended Baylor University, in Waco, Texas, and in two years earned a master’s degree in organ in 1975. She chose Baylor in part because she got a job as a teaching assistant. As required for the degree, she gave two recitals. Her parents drove to Texas to hear her play, then brought her back to Charlottesville.

“I wanted to teach in college,” Moore says, “and people suggested that I go for a PhD, but by the end of Baylor, I did not want more school.” Providentially, Donna Renfro, daughter of Georgia, left Charlottesville just as Moore returned. “I took over her piano students, stepped into her place.” Two years later in 1977, the First Baptist Church burned, and the Renfros moved away. In 1978, Moore was hired as organist by the church, which built its current home on Park Street.

In 1983, a young man named Jim Moore showed up in the First Baptist “Singles Class.” Also born and raised here, the son of a University of Virginia professor, Jim came from a musical family and played piano. Six years younger than Barbara, he courted her through a blizzard, a broken foot, and her unshakeable conviction that he was “just a friend.” She saw the light, and they married the next spring. A graduate of UVA in architecture, Jim drew a house, Barbara’s father built it for them, and they live there today, near her mother, Marjorie.

In 1987, Moore moved to University Baptist Church, where she continues to be the organist. She plays for Sunday service, weddings and funerals, and is the accompanist for Jubilate, an auditioned choir of college students. She is one of five piano teachers at the University of Virginia, and she teaches privately as well. Most of her private students are children, and most lessons are on piano. An outstanding student was Oliver Wolcott, who graduated from high school in 2009, and who now studies organ at the Eastman School of Music.

Moore is a founding member of the local chapter of the American Guild of Organists, a cofounder of the Charlottesville Music Teachers Association, and a long-time member of the Wednesday Music Club, which sponsors music scholarships for young people. Her father forbade firefighting, saying her hands were too precious, but after his death in 1994 she joined the Charlottesville squad, and was elected to his long-time office as secretary. While the gear is heavy, she points out that “I can squeeze into places those big, burly men cannot.”

On September 7, Moore performed a rare recital on organ and harpsichord at University Baptist. The program included one piece by her favorite composer, J. S. Bach, seldom heard works by Buxtehude and Bruhns, and a tour-de-force of pedal variations on a theme of Paganini, by George Talban-Ball. “I like the challenge of playing with hands and feet,” she says. “I like the range of color on an organ, and the fact that I have all the strength needed to produce a gorgeous, glorious sound.”

 

Categories
Living

Happy campers: Fancy franks and s'mores

 Charlottesvillians can rest easy in their sleeping bags knowing that they don’t have to leave their locavore scruples or their taste buds behind on the next camping trip. Several area farmers and retailers offer artisanal wieners and wrappers worthy of your best mess kit.
At the Charlottesville City Market, Double H Farm owner Richard Bean puts his butchering experience to delicious use in his franks, which are made from pastured, hormone-free hogs raised on his Nelson County farm. They’re super-juicy and perfectly seasoned.

A few stalls away, Buckingham County beef farmer Sam Goin usually sells an all-beef hot dog, though the kitchen where he pre-cooks them is currently undergoing remodeling. No matter, though, because his spicy, Cajun-style “andouille grillers” and bratwurst—classic or seasoned with cheese, onions and peppers—will sway even a fervent frankfurter purist. Goin’s cows receive no hormones or antibiotics and are finished on corn for rich flavor.

For spur-of-the-moment camping plans, hit up the Organic Butcher in the Main Street Market for all-natural, smoked Big City Reds by the pound or packages of uncured Niman Ranch Fearless Franks.

The charcuterie whizzes at Nelson County’s Rock Barn offer local, handmade dogs through their CSA-style “Porkshare” program and will also sell individual orders if extras are available. E-mail them at info@therockbarn.com.

Thick slices of Albemarle Baking Company’s eggy challah or buttery brioche add flair to your fancy franks, while Alvarado Street Bakery sprouted wheat hot dog buns from Integral Yoga are substantial, perfectly sized and don’t taste like health food at all.—Meredith Barnes

S’more, please!

While it might be tempting to go gourmet with your s’more ingredients, we think this is just one of those times where it’s best to keep it old-school. Remember: You’re camping, and food that falls in the dark stays in the dark, so save your Gearhart’s treats for home.
We recommend Jet-Puffed ’mallows, Honey Maid graham crackers and good ol’ fashioned Hershey’s chocolate bars (Special Dark for added sophistication). Light a fire, grab a stick and have at it.—Christy Baker

HOW TO MAKE ‘EM
For the uninitiated, here’s the play by play. Skewer one or two marshmallows onto a stick. Avoiding flames, aim for an orangey region of toasty coals. Rotate the ’mallows slowly until browned or blackened—it’s all a matter of taste. Have two squares of graham cracker and two squares of chocolate ready and accessible. Remove stick from the coal region and sandwich marshmallows between grahams. Pinch whilst sliding the ’mallow off of the end of the stick. Lift the top graham enough to insert the two chocolate squares and lower the graham back in place on top of the marshmallow. Eat, enjoy, repeat.

BRING YOUR OWN STICKS
In the foolishness of youth, we thought nothing of grabbing any old stick off the forest floor to use as a marshmallow rotisserie. We’re wiser (and more germaphobic now), so it comes as no surprise that marshmallow sticks are made and sold in every shape and finish from forked to chrome-plated. Our stick pick? A set of two wood-handled telescoping forked sticks from Plow & Hearth for $19.99. That’ll keep your s’mores clean. 

Categories
News

At UVA, fewer weapons arrests, but more protests

Neither Michael Gibson nor Philip Van Cleave take chances with a bluff. Gibson, chief of the UVA Police Department he joined in 1982, wrote to the University community last month after a student was robbed at gunpoint on Rugby Road during the early hours of September 28.

“If the suspect claims to have a gun, knife, razor or whatever, never try to force the bluff,” wrote Gibson. Also, he advised, “don’t make any sudden, unexpected moves. A nervous criminal may think you are reaching for a weapon.”

UVA Police Chief Michael Gibson told students in no uncertain terms to comply with anyone who threatens them with fire-arms. Others don’t share his feelings.

Van Cleave, president of the Virginia Civil Defense League (VCDL), responded to Gibson’s advice in an e-mail to his organization, which is “dedicated to advancing the fundamental human right of all Virginians to keep and bear arms.” Where Gibson told students not to force a bluff, Van Cleave said, “I won’t. I will assume he is telling me the truth and will react accordingly.”

What does react accordingly mean to Van Cleave? “I’m going to assume that my life is in grievous danger, and I’m going to protect myself,” he told C-VILLE. “If a guy says he has a gun, I’m not going to wait for him to show me the gun. I’m going to take him at his word.”

How do we prioritize conflicting messages about guns on campus? Four years after Virginia Tech student Seung-Hui Cho carried out the deadliest rampage by a lone gunman in American history, Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli opined that state college policies barring concealed weapons on campus lacked the force of law, so long as carriers were properly permitted.

Now, Van Cleave and VCDL are planning protests at eight state schools, including UVA. Van Cleave says his Charlottesville area protest has a sponsor, and he has testimonials from UVA alums who claim they will not give their money to the school until it drops its stance against concealed carry, whether it’s enforceable or not.

“They’re buildings with people in them. There’s nothing magical. God doesn’t strike somebody dead if there’s a criminal crossing a property with a gun,” said Van Cleave. “No, he can cross right there and, as Cho proved, do whatever he wants.” He added that disarming students, faculty and college visitors “only encourages what happened at Virginia Tech to happen elsewhere.”

C-VILLE could not verify whether the number of guns on the UVA campus had increased since Cho’s Virginia Tech shooting. However, the number of arrests and disciplinary referrals for on-campus weapons violations increased in 2008, the year after the Virginia Tech massacre, then dropped significantly in 2009.

From 2007 to 2009, police arrested only three individuals for weapons violations on the UVA campus—a number that represents 6 percent of all arrests for on-campus weapons violations at Virginia colleges. Additionally, UVA recently released its annual Clery Act report, which documents crime statistics for the University community. Last year, UVA Police made a total of two arrests for weapons violations in the community (which includes campus, student housing, non-campus and public areas), compared to four in 2009.

The UVA police did not return multiple requests for comment, although one official did tell C-VILLE that he had no knowledge of Van Cleave’s protest plans.

Do UVA students carry concealed weapons? For gun questions, the Virginia Rifle and Pistol Club was an easy target. Paul Benneche, supervisor of UVA’s decommissioned nuclear reactor, has volunteered as a coach of the Virginia Rifle and Pistol Club (VRPC) for 36 years. For more than 50 years, VRPC stored its firearms on Grounds, in the basement of the Naval ROTC building —“with no negative firearms-related issues,” said Benneche. When the basement shooting range was closed in 1999, the VRPC moved its practices to the Rivanna Rifle and Pistol Club.

A VRPC officer told C-VILLE that “a number of the club members have concealed carry permits.” However, the group takes no official stance concerning Cuccinelli’s opinion, said Benneche. “We encourage all our members to adhere to all federal, state, local and University firearm regulations,” he added.

Categories
News

Charlottesville Housing Authority director to step down

After three years as the head of the Charlottesville Redevelopment and Housing Authority (CRHA), Randy Bickers has decided to step down. Like his predecessor, Noah Schwartz, Bickers is “worn out.”

“It has taken a toll on me and my health,” he said in an interview. “I knew this coming in, but I have a really difficult time at the end of the day disconnecting from what’s going on. We have 376 units of public housing, 800 individuals living with us, and I found that I couldn’t stop thinking about everything that is going on.”

“We have 376 units of public housing, 800 individuals living with us, and I found that I couldn’t stop thinking about everything that is going on,” said Bickers.

The Housing Authority has seen five different executive directors since 1999, a sign of the organization’s agitated history. Paul Chedda, who preceded Schwartz, was fired after less than a year in the position. Schwartz succeeded Chedda in 2005.

“This is the hardest job I’ve ever done,” Schwartz said during a 2008 exit interview. “I don’t feel like it’s beat me, I don’t feel that I am giving up on it, I don’t feel like I’m running away by any means, but I think it’s time for a new shot of energy, and maybe a subtle, different approach to the work.”

It’s also a big job, according to Hosea Mitchell, chair of the CRHA Board of Commissioners. Bickers oversaw the day-to-day operations of a $6.3 million agency, managed approximately 300 Section 8 housing vouchers and, ultimately, led the efforts to redevelop all the public housing sites, roughly 45 city acres.

However, under Bickers’ watch, the agency was removed from the “troubled” list administered by the U.S. Department of Housing and Development (HUD) and stayed off it for three years.

“We have never been in as good shape with HUD as we are right now. Our properties never looked as good,” said Mitchell, who attributes the success to Bickers’ leadership.

“I think it’s not a stretch to suggest that Randy is probably the best executive director we have ever known,” he said.

Bickers, who formerly served as the agency’s deputy director, hopes his successor will know how to manage stress. “No one seems to last very long here, which is unfortunate, because it’s so important,” he said. “You have to be able to roll with a lot of different things, take a lot of criticism.”

In August 2010, the CRHA Board approved a $100 million redevelopment master plan. The oldest and largest of the city’s seven housing sites, Westhaven, was built in 1965 but never underwent any major renovations; other, newer sites also need updates. However, CRHA has struggled to secure funding.

“I always go back to the money,” said Bickers. “A way to do it, I think, is to hire an expert and let them run the show, but that costs [money], and you have to find a way to pay for that.”

Mitchell said CRHA might need a different organizational structure. “One person can’t do it,” he said. “And hopefully, in the next year or two, we will be able to figure out how to better govern that entity.”

Bickers has not set a firm date for his departure. However, he plans to move to Key West, Florida, and anticipates that he will step down around the winter holidays. He remains confident redevelopment will happen.

“It’s so big and it is, unfortunately, so expensive, but you’ve got to do it,” he said. “It’s the right thing for the city and it is certainly the right thing for the housing authority and for our residents.”

Bickers said his successor needs good operational and interpersonal skills, as well as some understanding of what redevelopment entails.

“We need to move very, very quickly to get a new executive director in the office,” he said. If the CRHA board doesn’t find a candidate by the end of the calendar year, it will begin looking locally for an interim director.

Pulitzer-winning poet Claudia Emerson talks memory, writing and grief

 Guest Post by Sarah Matalone

Everyone writes for a different reason. Wordsworth composed poetry because of a “spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings” that bled out onto his page. Sylvia Plath, in a similar manner, believed that “the blood jet is poetry, and there is no stopping it.” But in a talk by poet Claudia Emerson yesterday, the Pulitzer prize-winning poet conveyed her own, more intentional reason for writing: to save things. 

Claudia Emerson is a Virginia native, born in Chatham and a current professor of English and Arrington Distinguished Chair in Poetry at the University of Mary Washington in Fredericksburg. She is also the winner of the 2006 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry for her collection, Late Wife. At UVA last week, she drew a group of UVA creative writing faculty, MFA students and undergraduates. 

Shoes drenched through by Tuesday’s washout, I was more than happy to escape the puddles and seek refuge on the very dry second floor of Bryan Hall. Emerson, understated but idiosyncratic with slatish hair and subtle eyeglasses, talked to us about the vital role that memory plays in the creation of a poem. 

“Vision is a kind of memory,” she said. Married to a photographer, interested in Susan Sontag’s pivotal work, On Photography and “obsessed” with the 19th century practice of post-mortem photography, Emerson revealed her deep fascination with the visual art, suggesting how “photographs are catalysts for memory,” a portable time-travel device by which we can access people, places and things now gone from the world.

Sure, we all know photographs help us to remember certain moments in our lives. But in a similar way, she emphasized, poetry possesses the same power to lock in memories of our pasts, to temporarily evade “the consistent slippage of ‘is’ into ‘was.’” Emerson helped us understand her “rambles about memory” by discussing the process of revising the poem, “Cold Room” from her latest collection, Secure the Shadow. After the deaths of both her brother and father within a two-year period, Emerson sought to transfigure these familial figures through the act of writing these “memory-driven” poems. 

“Cold Room,” the title of which refers to a room in which the heat is turned off in order to store excess food, is told from the perspective of a sister standing inside a cold room, her brother’s bedroom, with her mother during Christmas. The poem takes on a haunting quality because the brother is not at the house, too ill from cancer to partake in the festivities. After reading over the first draft of the poem, which Emerson realized was too “chatty,” she sought to remove the “I” in the poem, to write herself out.

In doing so, Emerson created an “eerily imminent omniscience” in which the watchful speaker of the poem, the daughter, remains set apart in her grief, holding the door open for her mother who is equally alone. In a poetic instant, grief is petrified. As described by poet Robert Hass, the words in “Cold Room" become “elegies for things they signify,” amounting to a memory of the brother to be stowed away and remembered, just like a photograph. 

 

Categories
Arts

Right turn

Drive is a movie about sexy people and cars. Or maybe not cars, per se, but the experience of being in them, with sexy people. As such, it is ridiculous, but not in the way you’d expect: It’s neither all that fast nor especially furious. Oh sure, there is some grisly gun violence, and a car chase or two, and it does get rather stabby in the end. But the prevailing tone is one of affected composure.

 

Ryan Gosling stars as a steely stunt driver (and getaway driver) in Danish director Nicolas Winging Refin’s Drive. 

 

Now, this is not a film for the Henry James crowd (if there even is such a crowd) and probably no one will see Drive because it was scripted by Hossein Amini, heretofore best known for adapting The Wings of the Dove. Certainly there is an ultraviolence-and-shallow-style crowd, and some people will see Drive because it was directed by Nicolas Winding Refn, heretofore best known for making Bronson. But most people will see Drive to see Ryan Gosling drive.

Gosling’s nameless protagonist chews toothpicks and commands attention. By day, he’s a mechanic and occasional Hollywood stunt driver; by night, a freelance getaway artist. At all hours he is sexy, laconic, self-possessed and movie-hero-like. When you want to try the neat trick of using stillness to keep your movie moving, he’s the guy to call.

At one point the driver’s hapless boss and father figure, played by Bryan Cranston, says, “You put this kid behind the wheel, there’s nothing he can’t do.” And it doesn’t matter that the dialogue is dumb and meaningless because it also seems so true. Later the driver’s neighbor, played by Carey Mulligan, makes eyes at him, and he at her, and they hold the camera’s attention in a way it wants to be held. Soon enough, like some greeting card fantasy of a sensitive beefcake, he’s gently throwing her young son over his shoulder and carrying the sleepy tot to bed, in slow motion. Retro synth-pop swells up on the soundtrack and she’s done for.

Then her husband, played by Oscar Isaac, gets out of prison, and things gets a little tense. But it’s nothing a few well-built movie clichés can’t take care of. These include the One Last Job, and the Heist Gone Wrong, and they involve Albert Brooks and Ron Perlman, thugging it up and enjoying themselves. Eventually “Mad Men”’s Christina Hendricks wanders in, as if expecting not a part in a movie so much as a cross-promotional opportunity for some glossy magazine spread.

This all suits Refn, a Dane, who would like to remind us that he was born with the sort of detachedly Euro-arty sensibility that others might kill for. Especially in the most “Miami Vice”-ish moments, as Drive delves deep into its neon-lit night of the soul, you can imagine Michael Mann stoically seething with envy.

Just look how straight-facedly he lingers on his pink cursive credits; or the embroidered scorpion on the back of Gosling’s jacket; or a musical sendoff from College and Electric Youth, characterizing this deadly dreamboat driver with breathy reverie as “a real human being, and a real hero.” Totally fake, of course. But just look.

Categories
Arts

First fiddle

American violinist Hilary Hahn has been a mainstay of the celebrity-soloist circuit since 1991, when she made her major orchestral debut at the age of 15. Over the last decade, Hahn has twice been awarded the Grammy for Best Instrumental Soloist Performance with Orchestra, and in 2010, a piece she commissioned from composer Jennifer Hidgon won the Pulitzer Prize. 

 
Violin virtuoso Hilary Hahn brings a mixture of classic and contemporary pieces to the Paramount this Wednesday, with Valentina Lisitsa accompanying on piano. 

Hahn’s curriculum vitae may be hard to square with things like her latest YouTube post, in which she interviews a betta fish via Skype—“What made you want to be a fish?” she asks. “Is it what you want always wanted to do?”—but whether she’s performing Tchaikovsky or satirizing dull reporters, Hahn is lucid, self-possessed and sincerely playful.

While you wouldn’t call her a crossover artist, Hahn has toured with the angelic Tom Brousseau and the scruffy Josh Ritter, and played on two albums by …And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead. On October 11, Hahn released a more traditional display of her technical virtuosity in the form of Ives: Four Sanatas, which features frequent collaborator Valentina Lisitsa on piano.

The program for Hahn and Lisitsa’s October 19 performance at the Paramount includes Bach’s “Sonata No. 1,” Beethoven’s “Sonata No. 2” and Brahms’ “Sonatensatz in C Minor,” as well as shorts from In 27 Pieces: The Hilary Hahn Encores, a current project that will culminate in the recording of 27 original works Hahn commissioned from contemporary composers. When I spoke with Hahn over the phone—a month after she interviewed the fish, so no (intended) connection there—she advised all in attendance this Wednesday to “come for the experience of simply hearing what happens, because this sort of old-fashioned program doesn’t occur very often.” 

Are all 27 of the commissioned pieces finished for your upcoming encore album?  

I’m currently working on 13 of the pieces to premiere next month, when the tour begins. It’s really exciting to think about presenting these new pieces to audiences so many times. Most of them are completely finished, but on a few I’m still working with the composers on little tweaks, making sure to get things the way they wanted. I’m going to record them at the end of this tour, and I’ll be getting the other 14 ready for next season. So it’s nice to focus on these pieces, which feel like they have unlimited potential for future performance. 

Did you do a lot of cold calling to get in touch with your composers?

Well, I could’ve had someone call for me but I really didn’t want to do that. I wanted to make contact with the composers so that I knew who they were and could established a rapport. I knew that not everyone I called would be able to do the project because these people have a lot of commissions they’re balancing and whatnot. I was actually forbidden to call a few people, because their publishers said they were too busy, and they didn’t even want to give them the chance to accept. But honestly, I didn’t expect so many of them to be open to the project, which is probably the reason the number of composers is so much larger than I initially anticipated. I knew I wanted to commission the pieces, so I could really feel a personal connection to them from start to finish, and find out what pulls them all together.

At the Paramount you’ll be playing Bach, Beethoven and Brahms alongside contemporary works. What drives a classical musician to play from the canon?

With someone like Tchaikovsky or Bach, a lot of people outside of classical music performance get the impression that it’s the same pieces played over and over again. But the thing is, it’s the same notes, but that’s about the only thing that stays the same. Of course, there are traditions of playing, certain things people tend to do that you can choose to go with or not. But you can interpret the speed of a piece, the loudness, the softness. You can interpret the rhythms. Everything in notation is basically relative, so what you choose to do with those relative proportions is up to you. It’s like giving two painters the same object. Of course, another part of it is simply growing up with a work. You know a song and you want to sing along. It’s a bit selfish, the whole artistic side of interpretation.

What is rigorous practice for, aside from obvious things like technique, fitness and memorization?

For me, preparing as much as possible and getting very comfortable with a piece lets ideas come to me in the moment when I’m playing it. You can’t just think of something and do it if you’re not very familiar with a piece. You need a really solid working knowledge of it in order to know what parameters you’re working with. Whether you really can push this tempo at this point or whether you really should put this emphasis on this note. Making decisions in the moment is what makes it really fun to perform. I just try to be as prepared as possible so the performance can be really spontaneous.

Categories
Arts

Life is not a fairy tale

 Life is not a fairy tale
“Scream Awards”
Tuesday 9pm, Spike
Spike’s “Scream Awards” are somewhat misleading. While the ceremony does honor the horror genre (mainstream horror, at least), it also doles out trophies to sci-fi, fantasy, and comic-book movies. Categories include everything from the mundane (Best Supporting Actor, Best TV Show) to the more specialized (Most Memorable Mutilation, Holy Sh!t Scene of the Year). Dominating this year’s awards are the final insallment of the Harry Potter franchise and X-Men: First Class. Nominees were picked (at least in part) by an advisory board that includes Darren Aronofsky, Tim Burton, John Carpenter, Wes Craven, Neil Gaiman, Robert Rodriguez, George Romero and Rob Zombie.
 
“Boss”
Friday 10pm, Starz
Kelsey Grammer gives TV yet another go after three failed series in a row (2005’s “The Sketch Show,” 2007’s “Back to You,” 2009’s dismal “Hank”). Of course, the man has had plenty of success with his 20-year run playing Dr. Frasier Crane on both “Cheers” and the character’s eponymous sitcom. His newest venture goes in a totally different direction—drama—as he plays Tom Kane, mayor of Chicago whose political success depends on being ambitious and smooth, and operating by a very complicated set of ethics. His web of political and personal wheelings and dealings threatens to collapse after he is diagnosed with a degenerative brain disorder, which he keeps a secret from even his most trusted allies. The solid supporting cast includes Connie Nielsen (Gladiator), Kathleen Robertson (“Tin Man”), and Martin Donovan (“Weeds”).
 
“Once Upon a Time”
Sunday 8pm, ABC
Two TV series this fall blend classic fairy-tale characters with modern settings. NBC’s “Grimm” bows on Friday, but this ABC series is getting the most buzz. Jennifer Morrison (“House”) plays Emma Swan (I know, I know), a down-on-her-luck bail bondswoman who is suddenly confronted by the son she gave up for adoption years ago. The storybook-toting kid has a whopper of a tale: Emma is actually the long-lost daughter of Snow White and Prince Charming, and the Wicked Stepmother from the stories is real and has put a curse on a slew of fairy-tale characters, bringing them into the real world but wiping their memories of who/what they actually are. The cast also includes Ginnifer Goodwin (“Big Love”), Robert Carlyle (Trainspotting, The Full Monty), and relative unknown Lana Parrilla.

President Obama stumps for jobs bill in Asheville

PRESS RELEASE: Office of the Press Secretary, White House–– THE PRESIDENT: Hello, Asheville! (Applause.) It is good to be back in Asheville, North Carolina! (Applause.) I love Asheville. In fact, I think I should be on the tourism promotion bureau of Ashville. (Applause.) Every time I meet somebody I say, have you guys gone down to Asheville? (Applause.) That’s a nice place to be. So it is wonderful to be back in one of my favorite parts of the country. Our family has great memories of staying here, and it’s always nice to get out of Washington — (laughter) — and breathe some of that mountain air. (Applause.) 

I want to recognize a couple people who are here. First of all, one of the outstanding senators in the United States Senate, your Senator, Kay Hagan, is in the house. (Applause.) Kay’s daughter just got married this weekend, so, congratulations to Kay’s daughter. We are so thrilled by that. 

And we also have your lovely and intelligent Mayor of Asheville, Terry Bellamy, is in the house. (Applause.) The last time I was here Terry said she could play basketball. And so we went out — it turned out she was a cheerleader and not a basketball player. (Laughter.) But she’s doing an outstanding job overall. Thank you both for coming.

Now, as you may have noticed, I came here on a plane. It’s a pretty nice plane. But I’m leaving on a bus. (Applause.) The bus is pretty hard to miss. And over the next few days, we are going to take this bus through North Carolina and Virginia and I’m going to get a chance to hear from folks about how they’re doing, what direction they want to take the country in. 

And I’ll be doing a little bit of talking, but mostly I’m going to do a whole lot of listening — because there doesn’t seem to be much listening going on in Washington these days. (Applause.) People don’t seem to be paying much attention to the folks who sent them there in the first place. And that’s a shame. Because once you escape the partisanship and the political point-scoring in Washington, once you start really start listening to the American people, it’s pretty clear what our country and your leaders should be spending their time on.

AUDIENCE: Jobs!

THE PRESIDENT: We should be talking about jobs. When you hear what’s going on out in the country, when you take the time to listen, you understand that a lot of folks are hurting out there. Too many people are looking for work. Too many families are looking for that sense of security that’s been slipping away for the past decade, now. 

Here in North Carolina, you’ve got thousands of construction workers who lost their jobs when the housing bubble burst. Some of those construction workers are here today. They’ve got experience. They’ve got skills. All they want is to be back on the job site doing what they do best. (Applause.)

And there is plenty of work to go around. In this airport right here in Asheville, you’ve got a runway that needs to be widened and repaired. You’ve got a taxiway that’s in the wrong spot –- which means that planes sometimes get too close together. So we could be doing some work right here at the Asheville Airport that would help boost tourism, help to boost the economy here, put people to work right now. (Applause.)

But it’s not just here in Asheville. All across the state, you’ve got highways that need to be built. You’ve got bridges that need to be fixed. You’ve got schools that need to be modernized. (Applause.) And that’s what America used to do best. We used to build things — built the Transcontinental Railroad; built the Golden Gate Bridge; the Hoover Dam; the Grand Central Station. There’s no reason why we should sit here and watch the best highways and the newest airports being built in China. We should be building them right here in the United States of America. (Applause.) Right here in North Carolina. (Applause.)

Now, our problems were a long time in the making –- we’re not going to solve them overnight. But there are things we can do right now to put people back to work — right now. There are things we should do right now to give the economy the jolt that it needs. So that’s why I sent Congress the American Jobs Act. (Applause.)

AUDIENCE: Thank you!

THE PRESIDENT: Keep in mind — keep in mind, Asheville, this is the kind of bill containing the kinds of proposals that in the past have received support from Democrats and Republicans. It’s completely paid for — by asking our wealthiest citizens, folks making more than a million dollars a year, to pay their fair share. (Applause.)

Independent economists — not my economists, but independent economists — have said this jobs bill would create nearly 2 million jobs. That’s not my opinion. It’s not the opinion of folks who work for me. It’s the opinion of people who evaluate these kinds of things for a living. It says this bill will help put people back to work and give our economy a boost right away.

But apparently none of this matters to the Republicans in the Senate — because last week they got together to block this bill. They said no to putting teachers and construction workers back on the job. They said no to rebuilding our roads and our bridges and our airports. They said no to cutting taxes for middle-class families and small businesses when all they’ve been doing is cutting taxes for the wealthiest Americans.

AUDIENCE: Booo —

THE PRESIDENT: They said no to helping veterans find jobs.

Essentially, they said no to you — because it turns out one poll found that 63 percent of Americans support the ideas in this jobs bill. (Applause.) So 63 percent of Americans support the jobs bill that I put forward; 100 percent of Republicans in the Senate voted against it. That doesn’t make any sense, does it?

AUDIENCE: No!

THE PRESIDENT: No, it does not.

Now, it turns out that the Republicans have a plan, too. I want to be fair. They call — they put forward this plan last week. They called it the “Real American Jobs Act.” The "real one" — that’s what they called it — just in case you were wondering. (Laughter.) So let’s take a look at what the Republican American jobs act looks like. It turns out the Republican plan boils down to a few basic ideas: They want to gut regulations; they want to let Wall Street do whatever it wants

AUDIENCE: Booo —

THE PRESIDENT: They want to drill more.

AUDIENCE: Booo —

THE PRESIDENT: And they want to repeal health care reform.

AUDIENCE: Booo —

THE PRESIDENT: That’s their jobs plan.

So let’s do a little comparison here. The Republican plan says that what’s been standing in the way between us and full employment are laws that keep companies from polluting as much as they want. On the other hand, our plan puts teachers, construction workers, firefighters and police officers back on the job. (Applause.)

Their plan says the big problem we have is that we helped to get 30 million Americans health insurance. They figure we should throw those folks off the health insurance rolls; somehow that’s going to help people find jobs.

AUDIENCE: Booo —

THE PRESIDENT: Our plan says we’re better off if every small business and worker in America gets a tax cut, and that’s what’s in my jobs bill. (Applause.) Their plan says we should go back to the good old days before the financial crisis when Wall Street was writing its own rules. They want to roll back all the reforms that we’ve put into place.

AUDIENCE: No!

THE PRESIDENT: Our plan says we need to make it easier for small businesses to grow and hire and push this economy forward. (Applause.)

All right, so you’ve gotten a sense — you got their plan, and then we got my plan. My plan says we’re going to put teachers back in the classroom; construction workers back to work rebuilding America, rebuilding our schools — (applause) — tax cuts for small businesses; tax cuts for hiring veterans; tax cuts if you give your worker a raise. (Applause.) That’s my plan. 

And then you got their plan, which is let’s have dirtier air, dirtier water.

AUDIENCE: Booo –

THE PRESIDENT: Less people with health insurance.

AUDIENCE: Booo —

THE PRESIDENT: All right so, so far at least, I feel better about my plan. (Laughter and applause.) But let’s admit I’m a little biased. So remember those independent economists who said our plan would create jobs, maybe as many as almost 2 million jobs, grow the economy by as much as 2 percent? So one of the same economists that took a look at our plan took a look at the Republican plan, and they said, well, this won’t do much to help the economy in the short term — it could actually cost us jobs. We could actually lose jobs with their plan.

So I’ll let you decide which plan is the real American Jobs Act. (Applause.)

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Obama’s plan!

AUDIENCE: Four more years! Four more years!

THE PRESIDENT: Look, I appreciate the “four more years,” but right now I’m thinking about the next 13 months. (Applause.) Because, yes, we’ve got an election coming up, but that election is a long ways away, and a lot of folks can’t wait. A lot of folks are living paycheck to paycheck. A lot of folks are living week to week. You’ve got kids right now who’ve lost their teachers because at the local level you ended up having layoffs. You’ve got bridges right now that are crumbling and deteriorating. So we don’t have time to wait. And we’ve got a choice right now — right now.

Look, I want to work with Republicans on ways to create jobs right now. And where they’ve got a decent idea I’m happy to work with them. Just last week, we passed a bipartisan trade agreement with Korea that will allow us to sell more goods overseas and support almost 70,000 jobs here at home. Because my attitude is if we’re buying Hyundais and Kias, I want them buying some Fords and Chryslers and Chevys. (Applause.) 

So if they’re serious about creating jobs, I’m ready to go. I don’t think anybody doubts that I have gone out of my way to try to find areas of cooperation with these Republicans. (Applause.) In fact, some of you have been mad at me for trying too hard to cooperate with them, haven’t you? (Applause.) Some of you — I get some of your letters and your emails. You’re all like, why are you cooperating with them all the time? Because it can’t be all about politics. Sometimes we’ve got to try to actually get something done. And so I’m eager to see them stand up with a serious approach to putting people back to work.

It’s time to focus less on satisfying some wing of the party and more on common-sense ideas that we can take to people to work right now and help the middle class — and help people get into the middle class, because there are a whole bunch of folks who are hurting out there and have never gotten the opportunity.

So we’re going to give members of Congress another chance to step up to the plate and do the right thing. Kay and I, we’ve decided let’s go ahead and let them do the right thing one more time. We’re going to give them another chance to do their jobs by looking after your jobs.

AUDIENCE: Right now!

THE PRESIDENT: So this week, I’m asking members of Congress to vote — what we’re going to do is we’re going to break up my jobs bill. Maybe they just couldn’t understand the whole all at once. (Laughter.) So we’re going to break it up into bite-size pieces so they can take a thoughtful approach to this legislation.

So this week I’m going to ask members of Congress to vote on one component of the plan, which is whether we should put hundreds of thousands of teachers back in the classroom, and cops back on the street, and firefighters back to work. (Applause.) So members of Congress will have a chance to decide — what kind of future do our kids deserve? Should we stand up for men and women who are often digging into their own pockets to buy school supplies, when we know that the education of our children is going to determine our future as a nation? (Applause.)

They’re going to have a chance to decide, do we want to make sure that we’re looking after the men and women who protect our communities every day — our first responders, our firefighters, our police officers? (Applause.) And then, after they’ve taken that vote, we’re going to give members of Congress a chance to vote on whether we’re going to put construction workers back to work. Should they be just sitting around while roads and bridges and runways fall apart? Or should we put them back to work doing the work that America needs done? (Applause.)

After that, we’ll give them a chance to decide whether unemployed Americans should continue to struggle, or whether we should give them the experience and support they need to get back in the workforce and build a better life. And we’ll ask them to take a stand on whether we should ask people like me to pay a little more so middle-class families and small businesses can pay a little less, and end up creating the kinds of jobs we need in this economy. (Applause.)

So those are the choices that members of Congress are going to face in the coming weeks. And if they vote against these proposals again — like I said, maybe they just didn’t understand the whole thing, so we’re breaking it up into pieces. If they vote against taking steps that we know will put Americans back to work right now –-

AUDIENCE: Right now!

THE PRESIDENT: — right now —

AUDIENCE: Right now!

THE PRESIDENT: — then they’re not going to have to answer to me. They’re going to have to answer to you. (Applause.) They’re going to have to come down to North Carolina and tell kids why they can’t have their teachers back. They’re going to come down to North Carolina and look those construction workers in the eye and tell them why they can’t get to work doing the work that America needs done. They’re going to have to come down here and explain to working families why their taxes are going up while the richest Americans and largest corporations keep getting sweet deals in the tax code. They’re going to have to come down and explain to you why they don’t have an answer for how we’re putting Americans to work right now. (Applause.)

AUDIENCE: Right now! Right now! Right now!

THE PRESIDENT: And if they support the Republican plan — if they support the Republican plan, they’ll have to explain to you why they’d rather deny health care to millions of Americans and let corporations and banks write their own rules instead of supporting proposals that we know will create jobs right now.

So that’s where all of you come in. Some of these folks just aren’t getting the message, so I need you to send them a message. I need you to make your voices heard. I need you to give Congress a piece of your mind. (Applause.) These members of Congress work for you. If they’re not delivering, it’s time to let them know. It’s time to get on the phone and write a letter, tweet, pay a visit. Tell your elected leaders to do the right thing. Remind them what’s at stake: Putting people back to work, restoring economic security for middle-class families and helping create a ladder for folks who aren’t middle class yet to get into the middle class; rebuilding an economy where hard work is valued and responsibility is rewarded, building an economy that lasts for the future and for our children. (Applause.)

If we want to actually lower the deficit and invest in our future, if we want the best roads and best bridges and best airports here in the United States, if we want to continue to invest in our technology and our basic science and research so that we can continue to invent new drugs and make sure the new cars of the future that are running on electricity are made right here in North Carolina and made right here in America — if we want to do all those things, then we got to step up. (Applause.) We got to get to work. We got to get busy right now. (Applause.)

We can’t do nothing. Too many folks are hurting out there to do nothing. We need to act.

AUDIENCE: Right now!

THE PRESIDENT: Right now. (Applause.) We are not a people who sit by and do nothing when things aren’t right. We’re Americans. If something is not working, we go out there and fix it. We stick with it until the problem is fixed. That’s the spirit we need to muster right now.

AUDIENCE: Right now!

THE PRESIDENT: Let’s meet this moment. Let’s get to work. Let’s show the world once again why the United States is the greatest country on Earth.

God bless you. God bless the United States. And thank you, Asheville. Thank you, North Carolina. (Applause.)

END 11:13 A.M. EDT