As I keep up my maddening work pace this week, I thought I’d share some interesting articles and posts that I’ve enjoyed over the past few days:

- Via Chris Foley’s Collaborative Piano Blog: Chris shares a hilarious video of the singer/comedienne Anna Russell’s take on how to be an opera singer

- As an educator and as a strong believer and advocate for early childhood education, I have always maintained a strong interest in the field of cognitive psychology. This article on Elizabeth Spelke’s fascinating research at Harvard was interesting to me for several reasons. Although babies can develop visual differentiations between races and skin colors by the age of three months, language (that is, sound) and what we hear plays a greater factor in a child’s long-term development.

- Wil Wheaton’s blog is always a very funny, open, and refreshingly honest account of his approach to creativity and life. He recently wrote a post that discusses his thoughts about his creative career and shares some resources for aspiring writers.

- As those of you who follow this blog know, I took some time off this past weekend to do some internal spring cleaning. Going offline and taking some time for myself was wonderful and something that I very much needed to do. Tying in with my interest in education, both Chris Brogan and Chris Pirillo recently dealt with the issue of information overload, and how best to manage and handle our time in our current wired society. What I enjoyed the most about both posts was the idea that in the end (as I realized for myself last week) the solution lies not necessarily with better machines or filtering software, but with our own human selves, and our ability to decide and choose how we each define and take responsibility for our lives.

- Chris Brogan on saying no
- Chris Pirillo: How do you deal with information overload?

After a month of indecision, Spring seems to have finally decided to officially arrive here this week. It is as though something has visibly shifted in the city’s atmosphere, and the natural festiveness of the culture has once again permeated the air.

Meanwhile, this is what I spent this past week doing:



Between the piles of scores that I have to go through, work on, and learn for upcoming concerts, and various administrative and computer related tasks I have to do for different events this summer, I haven’t had any time to enjoy the marvelous seasonal change that is always my favorite time of year. I would much rather be like this little one, and simply rejoice in the sun and warmth outside:



This weekend I plan on doing some spring cleaning, not necessarily of the house (which, actually, does need to get done…), but of myself. I’m taking some time to do the simple things that bring me such pleasure - going to the museum to soak in beautiful art, taking a leisurely walk, reading a book at a cafe, watching a movie, and cooking and trying out new recipes. As someone who tends to be on the workaholic side, I’ve been trying to learn how to take the time that I need for myself. Nourishment of the soul is important in order to sustain continual emotional and mental concentration, and I hope the little quiet time this weekend will help to enrich and renew my inner self.


I recently came across two classical concert musicians who are using their education and skill to express through comedy, much like Victor Borge did in the past.

For more videos of their humor, you can visit their website which has more videos as well as information about their background, their show, and upcoming performances which include a tour with violinist Gidon Kremer in the fall.

This particular video seemed to be an appropriate way to start off the week - enjoy!



I Will Survive

April is National Poetry Month, and as I have mentioned before, I was always horrible at writing poetry. This has always led me to have a profound respect and admiration for those who are able to create works in this most enigmatic and elusive art form.

There are many poets I enjoy, and numerous poems I have held dear to my heart and committed to memory. In honor of this month’s celebration of the world’s poetry past, present, and future, I have chosen to reprint two of my current favorite poems from two very different artists - the hauntingly beautiful and melancholic Portuguese poet, Fernando Pessoa, and the disarmingly bracing and urbane American poet, Frank O’Hara.

Solemn over Fertile Country

Solemn over fertile country passes
The white cloud, ineffectual, fugitive,
Which from among the fields for one black instant
Raises a lukewarm breath.

Flying high in my soul the slow idea
Blackens my mind, but already I am turning
- Like the field’s self to itself - to the daylight
Of imperfect life.

- Fernando Pessoa

—–

Why I Am Not A Painter

I am not a painter, I am a poet.
Why? I think I would rather be
a painter, but I am not. Well,

for instance, Mike Goldberg
is starting a painting. I drop in.
“Sit down and have a drink” he
says. I drink; we drink. I look
up. “You have SARDINES in it.”
“Yes, it needed something there.”
“Oh.” I go and the days go by
and I drop in again. The painting
is going on, and I go, and the days
go by. I drop in. The painting is
finished. “Where’s SARDINES?”
All that’s left is just
letters, “It was too much,” Mike says.

But me? One day I am thinking of
a color: orange. I write a line
about orange. Pretty soon it is a
whole page of words, not lines.
Then another page. There should be
so much more, not of orange, of
words, of how terrible orange is
and life. Days go by. It is even in
prose, I am a real poet. My poem
is finished and I haven’t mentioned
orange yet. It’s twelve poems, I call
it ORANGES. And one day in a gallery
I see Mike’s painting, called SARDINES.

- Frank O’Hara

As you may have ascertained by now, I am a person that tends to take life, work, my personal life and relationships quite seriously, and lean towards an intensively reflective type of existence. But I am also a person that has a hopeless, lifelong addiction to laughing. I love the sound of laughter more than anything else in this world. Unfortunately, I was not gifted with the fine talent of humor, and am incapable of even telling or remembering a joke. Because I know this, I have always tried to surround myself with people who do have this marvelous ability and talent, who have the gift of allowing me to be able to laugh about the absurdities of life and also, perhaps more importantly, to laugh at myself.

This weekend, I immersed myself in conversations with hysterically funny people, reading hilarious blogs and tweets, and spent some time watching movies and shows that make me laugh out loud. I am fortunate to be surrounded in my everyday life by friends and family who possess either witty sarcasm, or physical skills that allow them to produce killer impressions, or interesting quirks that result in a wonderfully charming eccentricity. As I slowly venture into the online social realm, I have also encountered numerous warm and clever souls who, whether they realize it or not, enrich my life daily with their perceptive commentary and droll observations.

Laughing non-stop over the past few days has rejuvenated and re-energized me like nothing else can. It has filled me with immeasurable joy and gratitude. I am very lucky to be surrounded by people both in the real world and online who give me the gift of laughter, because they give me something that I would not have without them - and for that, I thank them.

1. I had eight beautiful journals, each of which was a failed attempt to keep a diary - each notebook had 5 to 10 entries.

2. My mother used to cut apple slices for me in a special way so that each piece looked like a pair of rabbit ears. Somehow this made it easier for me to eat a fruit that was “healthy”.

3. The first time I understood the idea of color in sound and music - I was seven years old.

4. Playing the basketball game, HORSE, with my brother.

5. The first time I read Anne of Green Gables - I obsessively loved that series, and was determined to move to Canada’s Prince Edward Island.

6. Watching the original Star Wars trilogy with my family. I did not imagine myself as Princess Leia, but preferred to envision myself as the female Luke Skywalker, the first female Jedi.