There's been a change of plans, with two vigils merging into one:
We will now be meeting at the corner of Myrtle Ave. and Grove St. (Take the L to Myrtle-Wyckoff) at 2PM. We will then walk to the scene of the crime at Bushwick Ave. and Kossuth Pl. for a vigil at 4PM.
I've created a facebook page for the event here.
(Candles won't be much use at 4PM, since sunset Sunday won't be till 4:29, but I can't edit the title of the event. Lame.)
Thursday, December 11, 2008
Quote Book, 12/11 Edition
"This will be our reply to violence: to make music more intensely, more beautifully, more devotedly than ever before."
Leonard Bernstein
If the AIDS quilt sang, it would sound like...
... John Corigliano's Symphony No. 1, "Of Rage and Remembrance," which will be performed by the Juilliard Orchestra under James DePriest at Carnegie Hall: Friday December 12 (tomorrow) at 8PM. Tickets are $10 and $25, half price for students.
Written in 1990 as a personal response to the AIDS crisis, and Cleve Jones's AIDS quilt in particular--Corigliano has said that he lost count of friends who had died after a hundred--the Symphony is a perfect illustration of what I want to talk about here: music that grapples with the world as we live it. It sings, but it also shrieks and cackles. I don't think I've ever heard scarier music.
Stay tuned after the concert for a proper write-up. It's truly a masterpiece, and I hope some of you get to see it.
Written in 1990 as a personal response to the AIDS crisis, and Cleve Jones's AIDS quilt in particular--Corigliano has said that he lost count of friends who had died after a hundred--the Symphony is a perfect illustration of what I want to talk about here: music that grapples with the world as we live it. It sings, but it also shrieks and cackles. I don't think I've ever heard scarier music.
Stay tuned after the concert for a proper write-up. It's truly a masterpiece, and I hope some of you get to see it.
Wednesday, December 10, 2008
Candlelight Vigil in Honor of Jose Sucuzhanay: Info
CANDLELIGHT VIGIL FOR A BUSHWICK HATE CRIME
Below, information for the upcoming candlelight vigil in honor of Jose Sucuzhanay. The primary organizer for the event is Meg Hitchcock, and a special thank-you goes out to the writer Nathan James for helping to put this together.
Sunday, December 14th
Dear Everyone, Early Sunday morning 2 brothers from Ecuador were walking to their homes in Bushwick arm in arm. They were attacked by 3 men who shouted anti-gay and anti-Hispanic insults as they beat the brothers with an aluminum baseball bat and a broken bottle. Jose Sucuzhanay died Tuesday morning from extensive brain damage and skull fractures. He co-owned a real estate business in Bushwick. A vigil has been organized by a Bushwick community member, Meg Hitchcock. Note, this event is not organized by Arts In Bushwick, but we will be there and we hope you'll come show your support in protesting this horrible attack on a member of our community. Sunday, December 14th Meet in front of The Archive café at 49 Bogart Street (at Seigel and Bogart) at 7pm. We will walk to the scene of the crime at Bushwick Ave. and Kossuth Place and have a few moments of silence at 8pm. Please bring extra candles. And, spread the word!
Random Thoughts, 12/10/08 Edition
My beard itches.
Mixed-meter motets are hard at 160 beats per minute. No, soprano clef does not make them easier.
If I trim the beard now, it will be less itchy but also less majestic.
Re: Sir Michael Tippett's King Priam, composers who are not trained librettists/playwrights should generally not write their own libretti. "How, Helen, after such love with me, can you now go lie with Menelaus?" Yeah, Helen, what the f*@k? Pwned.
If a big, hairy, middle-aged gay man is a bear, and a young bear is a cub, and a skinny, hairy middle-aged gay man is an otter, and a second train leaves Chicago heading east at 65 miles per hour, then what am I (a 20-something, skinny, hairy gay man)? A baby otter? Isn't that like a pup or something?
If I wait and let the beard grow out, will it get both less itchy and more majestic? If you could graph this itchiness vs. majesty relationship (X = majesty, Y = itchiness), would it look like this beautiful bell curve?:
My friend A--, who just finished 25 minutes of a 45-minute film score in four days, by his sheer awesomeness makes me feel like a wuss for complaining about the two minutes of composing I have to do by tomorrow. Thanks, A--, thanks a lot. Also congratulations.
This motet is actually kind of pretty.
Mixed-meter motets are hard at 160 beats per minute. No, soprano clef does not make them easier.
If I trim the beard now, it will be less itchy but also less majestic.
Re: Sir Michael Tippett's King Priam, composers who are not trained librettists/playwrights should generally not write their own libretti. "How, Helen, after such love with me, can you now go lie with Menelaus?" Yeah, Helen, what the f*@k? Pwned.
If a big, hairy, middle-aged gay man is a bear, and a young bear is a cub, and a skinny, hairy middle-aged gay man is an otter, and a second train leaves Chicago heading east at 65 miles per hour, then what am I (a 20-something, skinny, hairy gay man)? A baby otter? Isn't that like a pup or something?
If I wait and let the beard grow out, will it get both less itchy and more majestic? If you could graph this itchiness vs. majesty relationship (X = majesty, Y = itchiness), would it look like this beautiful bell curve?:
My friend A--, who just finished 25 minutes of a 45-minute film score in four days, by his sheer awesomeness makes me feel like a wuss for complaining about the two minutes of composing I have to do by tomorrow. Thanks, A--, thanks a lot. Also congratulations.
This motet is actually kind of pretty.
Tuesday, December 9, 2008
Gay Activism Round-Up: Upcoming Events
Just a quick note tonight on some upcoming LGBT-related action events:
There will be a meeting for the NYC chapter of Join the Impact (the people who organized, from practically nothing, a massive nationwide day of protest against Proposition 8 on November 15th that drew hundreds of thousands of people) at the LGBT Community Center (W. 13th Street, between 6th and 7th). If you're interested in helping plan and carry out upcoming actions, this meeting will be a great place to be.
Also--and I'm waiting for specifics on this one--there will be a candlelight vigil held by New York's Latino, immigrant, and LGBT communities to mourn the brutal, anti-Latino and anti-gay murder of Jose Sucuzhanay, a straight man who was beaten to death with an aluminum baseball bat by four men who merely thought he was gay (the PDA that led to his death was, according to various reports, an arm around his brother's shoulder, a coat put on his brother because it was late and cold). I will of course keep you posted on specifics when I find them out.
There will be a meeting for the NYC chapter of Join the Impact (the people who organized, from practically nothing, a massive nationwide day of protest against Proposition 8 on November 15th that drew hundreds of thousands of people) at the LGBT Community Center (W. 13th Street, between 6th and 7th). If you're interested in helping plan and carry out upcoming actions, this meeting will be a great place to be.
Also--and I'm waiting for specifics on this one--there will be a candlelight vigil held by New York's Latino, immigrant, and LGBT communities to mourn the brutal, anti-Latino and anti-gay murder of Jose Sucuzhanay, a straight man who was beaten to death with an aluminum baseball bat by four men who merely thought he was gay (the PDA that led to his death was, according to various reports, an arm around his brother's shoulder, a coat put on his brother because it was late and cold). I will of course keep you posted on specifics when I find them out.
Monday, December 8, 2008
The Story Behind the Banner: #1
I took the photo that became this banner at the first NYC protest against the passage of Proposition 8 (November 12, 2008). We gathered at the Mormon Temple on 65th and Columbus, but there were so many thousands of people that it became a march down to Columbus Circle, which is where I got this shot. There was a kind of buzz and positive energy in the air that night; it was the first time in my life that I got to participate in a mass gay protest, and I'll never forget that feeling. Vive la resistance.
¡Ay, qué día tan triste en Granada!
Stay tuned for a review of Sunday's concert performance, by Dawn Upshaw, Kelley O'Connor, Robert Spano, and the Orchestra of St. Luke's (and many, many amazing others), of Osvaldo Golijov's supremely awesome one-act opera AINADAMAR at Carnegie Hall. It was a searing, heartbreaking performance, and you'll hear all about it as soon as I find a few more creative ways of saying that it rocked the f*@#ing house.
Welcome (Back)
Welcome to A Wall of Sound! It's taken me a long time to figure out what I want this blog to be about--first it was a travelblog-a-logue, then it was, well, nothing--so consider this A Wall of Sound 2.0.
I originally wanted this post to codify what the blog was going to be about, in a sort of angsty high-Germanic sturm und drang way ("If you STAHT in ze C, you must END in ze C!"), but I think it'll be much more fun to just write about whatever the hell I want.
I originally wanted this post to codify what the blog was going to be about, in a sort of angsty high-Germanic sturm und drang way ("If you STAHT in ze C, you must END in ze C!"), but I think it'll be much more fun to just write about whatever the hell I want.
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