Melissa Ruth: Journal

A Blending of Musical Talents
Duo writes, performs-- Melissa Ruth and Johnny Leal will perform Saturday at the Coffee Cottage
By Amanda Newman
The Newberg Graphic

A husband and wife team will bring their Eugene act to Newberg Saturday with a performance at Coffee Cottage..

Acoustic duo Melissa Ruth and Johnny Leal are in the final leg of their Summer Sass Tour, which is covering the West Coast from San Diego to Tacoma.

Ruth and Leal play a blend of music they dubbed "homegrown folk-sass." Ruth writes the songs, sings and plays guitar; Leal helps with the arrangements and plays guitar, mandolin, ukulele and the occasional kazoo solo.

The two found their musical natures early in life, in their respective country upbringings. Ruth was born and raised in rural British Columbia, Canada. Her parents, both musicians, introduced her to the world of music. Growing up she spent hours listening to the family's old vinyl collection, she said, learning to love artists such as Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, Ricki Lee Jones and Edith Piaf.

Leal grew up on a cattle ranch in the mountains of northern California. At the age of 13, he heard the album "BB King: Live at the Apollo" and fell in love with the blues. Throughout his teens years, he played in numerous bands with styles ranging from country to jazz.

The two met at Humboldt State University, where they were both studying music. "We became friends almost immediately, because of the similarities in our experiences in 'growing up wild,'" Ruth said.

The pair graduated in 2006, married and moved to Oregon. They accepted K-12 music teaching jobs at neighboring school districts in Douglas County and began to arrange some of the songs Ruth had written throughout the years.

In the past few years, Ruth and Leal have toured the West Coast three times. They released an album "Underwater and Other Places," in 2008 and are recording another.

Ruth sums up their music in one word: homegrown. "Although we both studied music in college and I earned a degree in classical flute performance, the music that Johnny and I play as a duo is very much an organic blend of sounds and ideas," she said. "We create music that has firm roots in history and poetry."

Ruth said she and her husband love to make music, and they love to share it with others.

"The songs that I write and the songs that Johnny and I perform are songs for people, about people and the beauty in our daily little wanderings," she said. "Part of growing up rural is being attuned to the process, you know? The cyclical nature of things, the growth before the harvest, the winter before the blossoms... all of these things I think deserve a voice, and that's what Johnny and I try to do. We try to give... a little art to the mundane."

The Coffee Cottage show will begin at 8 p.m. For more information visit www.melissaruthmusic.com

Holy cow! Is it already July? And the middle of July at that? Wow.

Many wonderful things happening all at once, it seems. Johnny and I have been doing a lot of traveling and visiting and playing and it has been, as always, rejuvenating. My dearest friend from high school was married last month in a gorgeous ceremony overlooking the mighty pacific. The San Diego sun is a sight to behold especially as two beautiful people tearfully and joyously murmur sacred vows to the ears of their beloved. After we saw our friends off, we played a show at Lestats, enjoyed the company of old friends, and even though the Padre's lost, we still managed to have fun at that sweet bar on C and 25th that reminds me of The Alibi, only cleaner.

Modesto was our only other stop in the bankrupted Golden State and I'll tell you right now, you won't find better Carne Asada served from a truck than in smoldering Modesto. With a current 30% unemployment rate Modesto is three things: hot, ugly, and kindling for a bright and brilliant future. Ask Earl about the summer here: "yep, we know where the sun is. It's close."

Once back again in Oregon we decided that it was time, right or wrong, like it or not, to retire our old Subaru. Coughing and chugging at 200,000 mi, we finally let the old girl out to pasture. She treated us well. We treated her poorly. Such is the life of the automobile in America.

In the meanwhile we acquired a lovely little album by Ms. Rachel Ries, loved the hell out of Blackhawk's Solar Cookoff (a rootsier version of the High Sierra music festival), enjoyed the stars, enjoyed the lake, enjoyed the mountain air, and came home to a garden fragrant with purple blossoms, wasps, and lettuce three feet tall.

The album is clipping along slowly but surely and it's going so swimmingly well so far that I am already dreaming of the next record. We've been so fortunate to work with such brilliant talent the last few months that I'm grinning ear to ear in the pit of my stomach.

We're about to lauch into the next leg of our tour. It should be a fun journey through the Northwest and no doubt an adventure, banjo strings and all. I love these tidbit days and long, warm nights.



*Footnotes*

Mr. Earl Matthews, friend and Modesto resident is a hellova singer:
http://www.myspace.com/bigearlandthecryinshame

I wrote about her a few times here if you would like to consider a post humus look at our old 4-wheeled friend:


http://blogs.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.ListAllCustom&friendId=182928334&swapped=true&page=34
http://blogs.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.ListAllCustom&friendId=182928334&swapped=true&page=22

I went crazy buying veggie starts this weekend. 5 tomato plants, 3 basil, 1 jalapeno, 2 cilantro, 1 parsley. Already in my garden beds I have peas that are up two feet tall, peas that are 4 inches, 40 onions, a double row of carrots, 6 lettuce heads, green and wrinkly, bushy-topped radishes, tiny beets, their purple and green tops new to the air and light, and marigolds, oh marigolds. I transplanted chives, just planted sunflowers, scootched the rosemary, and clipped the mint that is growing ravenously towards a pale and blue sky. Oregano has spread to almost every corner of our yard through some invisible thoroughfare. Thyme is quiet and consistent in it's pursuit of bushy sage colored tendrils. The wild roses are in full bloom and the domestics are catching up. Pink and purple columbine precede the white daises and the lilac has been relaced by mountains of blossoming lavender. The bees swirl endlessly through these purple flowers, humming all the while, their low, methodical tune- slow and steady like a Marcel Moyse flute etude for improving tone.

The school year is finally winding down (or so I'm told) and we've concluded spring's concert season with the exception of the high school band's graduation obligation. All of the ensembles did well this year particularly the High School Choir who was superb in their showcase last week. They sang through unisons, cannons, a capellas, 4 parts, solos, language, spirituals and even mistakes with ease and confidence. I am so proud of the little garden of song that they created this year. From the roots of posture, poise, and attitude to the burgeoning understanding of notes and rhythms to the blossoming of vibrato, phrasing, and interpretation; this group has come a long way. And me too. The real question is, though, how to become more effective. What of my affect towards music can I imbue in my students? Not just a love and appreciation for the art but rather the type of affect that affects the mobilization of the art: activism.

Unbeknownst to me, I have a great-uncle by marriage, once removed (but for us, family is family) who plays bassoon internationally. He has toured with a multitude of symphony orchestras and as a soloist. Many years ago as a young man he dedicated himself to the music education of children through "Zuckermania"- a tour of rural schools throughout British Columbia. His sole purpose was to turn students on to the great art of classical music. My mother was recently visiting her parents and in one of those "your uncle wants to talk to you" phone hand-offs by her father, my mum spoke for awhile with her uncle Zuckerman. Excited by the fact that his young relatives were music teachers he told my mother "the great challenge for these young educators is to teach music without compromising the masters." Yes. Uncle Zuckerman is right. But how?

It's so easy to blame TV. It's so easy to blame videogames and the internet and society and high fructose corn syrup and MSG. And I often do. But blame leaves us disenfranchised. Passing the buck takes away from us our power to advocate for change and to problem-solve. It leaves us without a spade in the quarry of stone. Nowadays in order to sow the seeds of art one must first cultivate a habitable soil, a neutural places with pockets of air for life to take hold. For my students and I it is a mutual respect that helps create these conditions.

And to introduce the masters? A great challenge lies purely in the fact that so much time has elapsed since many great symphonic works were created. How do I make these works alive and relavent, current, even urgent? For this I rely on the work of contemporary masters of jazz, pop, Americana, soul, folk, rock, funk.... How to convince a fan of hip-hop that Ella Fitzgerald has anything to do with hip-hop? Play a little Mac the Knife LIVE and listen to her shout-outs. (Before the fruit must come the flower.)

I recently read Irene Nemirovsky's Suite Fancaise, an episodic work that is unfinished due to her arrest and murder by the Nazi's during the war. Her clairvoyance throughout the novel, written at wartime, about her country, France, during wartime is striking as she pulls no punches in her discriptions of her fellow-citizens. One of the works cited as a major contributing influence on Suite Francaise is Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Grey. When I started reading this book a few days ago, I became aware immediately of the similarities in prose. Both books are careful to observe the natural world; the lilacs, the pungent air, thick with roses, the fat buzzing bees, the songbirds. Nature as a source of inspiration, perhaps? Nature as an apathetic bystander to the passage of time and human events? Both are plausible, and yet create a dichotomy of sorts.

And yet isn't that just the way? Everything is dichotomous in a way. Ella and hip-hop? The Picture of Dorian Grey and Suite Francaise? Music and the roots of my veggie garden? Seriously, right?

J and I are looking forward to a sweet summer of staying at home, tending our plot. We are looking forward to touring the countryside, guitars and mandolins slung upon our backs. We are looking forward to our time in the studio, completeing our current project, eyes constantly risen towards a higher art. We are looking forward to sleeping in late with not a spell of obligation on our minds, tending only to the needs of the banal, the quotidien.

I'm not really sure what any of it all means, rather just a stitch here, a lifetime there, and on and on....

Early Saturday morning, dreaming of how to spend the day, I suggest to Johnny that we hit the town and take in breakfast. Let's try someplace new, I say. To that end we arrive at a very busy, very tiny cafe chalk full of students, ex-ex-patriots, alien abductees, and artists. We are seated by the window facing a quiet street. I observe the happily blossoming lavender and wonder why ours isn't yet in bloom. Nothing particularly profound happens. I keep accidentally bumping someone who loudly proclaims that I keep bumping him. A couple keep beating us to the punch: the parking spot, the seating, the last newspaper in the stand, the apathetic nonchalance. I observe many variations of the baggy jean epidemic: light blue, no belt; saggy seat, tight ankle; ripped bottom, exposed boxers. I recall one of my former professors saying: "I feel sorry for you girls. Just look at them, it's like hobbitville around here. There's just no one to date, is there?" Peircings of all types are present and serving us breakfast and now and then a smoker walks by, buzzing on caffeine and hunching their shoulders in the chilly spring air. Nostalgia is almost palpable, there in my coffee cup, here next to the salt.

And what am I yearning for? It is hard to put into words exactly because it existed before I was born. And, as a citizen of North America, I too subscribe to this casual, stripped-down version of decency but I think what has been lost is the art of being alive, the effort that went into daily ritual. The collared shirts, the hats, and the heels. It wasn't out of vanity that we dressed this way, not so long ago, it was simple manners. Why should someone have to look at my unkempt hair, my distressingly ill-fitting pants, my sagging jowls? It was simple manners. It was the simple regard for others. It was simply respect that propelled these customs of propriety.

And love was a noble thing. And men and women were noble creatures with dignity and self-respect. Life was good but to live was art. Now it is nothing but living and if indeed one tries to find art, they have to buy it at mark-up. $50 for that polka-dotted dress (it's vintage, you know?) $300 for that well-tailored suit (that cut is very retro, you know?)

And how to reclaim this art? How to recreate Paris? How to rebuild Rome?

Let's start in the cafes where all good revolutions start. Let's tip our hats to strangers and kiss the cheeks of acquaintances. Let's speak of many things, people, and places. And then let's go there and be them and see them and know them. Let's recite verses from the rafters and after lets smoke. And through our cigarettes let's toast and through our cheer, let's cry, and through our tears, let's laugh and let our laughter fill the streets. Let our laughter burst forth and tumble into the streets. Let it cartwheel across the ground and through the alleyways and into our homes. Let it entwine our fingers and the stems of our wine glasses. Let its seed take to the air, let it take wing and then let it descend upon all of the cities in all of the lands and let it grow. Yes, there is magic in the cafes as of yet. It's hidden in the coffee, loitering about the salt shaker. There is a revolution yet to be had, there is art yet to be created.

We first must realize that we need it. Then we must have the courage to want it.

Enfin, we must have the audacity to be it.

Spring is Renewal.

Call it Canada Syndrome; the winter is always within me somewhere, though dormant for the months of blue skies and friendly winds. By the end of January, however, it is infused like a slow burning candle that provides no warmth and no light. And so it goes every year. And every year the same, without so much as a hint of self-awareness, I manage to slip into this unrepentant gloom that only seems to dissipate with the arrival of the new grass, the new buds, and the songbirds. Every winter I am overcome. Every spring I am renewed. Every year, Canada Syndrome. I think that I am a recovering Canadian.

The trees are plump with blossoms, their aplomb is almost palatable. The garden is bursting with color, the pansies, the daffodils, the primroses, the camellia, the chives. The holy days are upon us, the days of humility, the days of reverence, the days of miracles. The air is pregnant, the pollen is potent, the rivers are full.

My pen is not still. Ink on the page is fresh and images in my notebook are sharp. I am growing too, excitedly.

I am about to embark upon another recording project. The record is tentatively titled Last Bird Home. The songs are a collection of recent works mostly dealing with everything I can think of, specifically dealing with birds and home. (How helpful, how enlightening this description. Nonetheless....) So fabulous to have aboard this project wonderful friends to provide artwork, wonderful family to provide soundscape, wonderfully familiar faces to provide a living and breathing workspace. This is the most fertile, alive musical project that I have yet encountered. It is seed. It is germinating. And I continue, in total awe and graciousness, towards a warm and unwavering light.


Concerning Canada: spring is but a final sigh away. Survival is Revival.

However, I still love you.

It's springtime in Oregon
The daffodils are in bloom
The children are in the street playing
I can again see the moon

The wind through the trees is sighing
The way a longing lover might
As a bulb, through the cold depths of winter,
Blossoms overnight.

The skys with their clouds are a-heaving,
The mountains are all but the same;
A candy white laced up parka
Undone reveals a soft palette of grey.

The sundresses are all waving,
They are calling out your name
And with them your heart is awakened.
Oh! Beautiful springtime again!

Right off the bat let me please apologize for the unadulterated rant that took the place of a blog last time around. Sometimes I think that I ought to just stick to singing.... Please forgive the pissed-off activist in me.
And now to put something beautiful back into this world to counter alla the ugliness: As someone who lives for art, I would like to periodically feature the art of some of the most gifted and talented people that I have come across. Happily, thankfully and miraculously there are so many talented artists that I have an ever deepening pool to swim in.

Antje Duvekot.
Antje has the most brilliant song: Long Way
http://www.myspace.com/antjeduvekot
And another favorite of mine: Opium
www.youtube.com/watch?v=dKT-w5ohXDo Enjoy.

yes, my 27th birthday is right around the corner.

i think that i was born old. as a child, i always liked talking with my parents and grandmother and i have always been petrified of roller coasters. as a child i always hated disney movies, candy, and fire crackers. i always loved alan alda. as a teenager, i never really cared much for the mtv and instead spent my time reading the backs of ricki lee jones albums and playing kuhlau flute sonatas. i am only 27 and really like being at home. i like lamp light. i like listening to old records. i like reading about gardening techniques. i write letters and send them. i like going out for an early bagel. i really like watering my houseplants. ok. 27. right.

i played a show in town last weekend. before that i hadn't played a show since november. among others, the reason for this gap-laden performance schedule that i am nursing? i am, at 27, going through an existential crises of identity (or something much less dramatic but no less traumatic). as i grow into this identity of "teacher" and out of my identity of "student" i confront this horrible anxiety regarding "age". oldening, as i like to think of it. not aging, definitely not ripening, just sort of lingering on the vine until i drop into the ground. granted, the oldening process has only just begun as i don't intend to drop anytime soon, but this feeling is persistant and nagging. it's giggling in my ear every time that i go to a bar or coffee house near campus. it's snickering over my shoulder everytime that i enter a buffalo exchange store. it's doing shots in a rubberized black mini-skirt at the back of the club everytime that i attempt to open a show for an "up and comer" who, oddly, is never me. in this college-town of eugene, in this world of up and comers, new to towners, and co-billers, i'm already an old battle-axe, a seasoned old-timer: i'm already a hasbeen! oldening, i tell you, oldening is a wicked, wicked thing.

And now to my grandmother, to whom my thoughts drift with increasing frequency and fortitude. she used to sing this song "red river valley" that i set to learning. my dad and i sang it together at the show last weekend. (aside from being a great bassist and guitarist, my dad rocks harmony lines so amazingly well, by the way.) we also did "don't think twice" and "goodnight irene". as the evening wore on, from the room trickled a steady stream of 20-somethings, and swelled with "grown-ups." (you know, the people with their pants pulled up and their shirts tucked in?) and a better reception i have never recieved at any show. ever. they were kind and we exchanged songs and jokes and love and i realized that we were all in the same boat, we were all oldening and the truth of the matter was that it had nothing to do with age. i am just beginning the process and they had been enjoying it for a little longer was all. yup. i finally found the audience. and here's the best part: they forgive fashion. they don't care much for cds; they'd rather see music in action. they love poetry. they sing along when they can. they smile with their whole mouth and their eyes too.

hmm. oldening... on second thought, i guess that it doesn't sound too bad afterall. maybe 27 will be my oldest year yet.

I keep listening to this song over and over, Vireo by Rachel Taylor Brown, and it keeps reminding me of something but I'm not sure what. A feeling. A snippit of some place, a snatch of some time, a glimpse of something far away yet tangible enough to not be able to put my finger on.

To that end, the song begins with a moody piano outlining a melancholy melody followed by a voice barely above a whisper.

I was on a telephone in a small white room on the other side of the pond wishing Happy New Year to my family from the future. My lips were stained with red wine and theirs with morning coffee. I was cold, I think that it was freezing outside of the shuttered window and when I wasn't dancing around in anticipation of coming days I was sharing a single cot.

Rachel's voice grows, it was doubled in production I think, and there are strings or synths to emphasize and capture the ethereal, floating Portishead quality of the loving noise.

On the other side of the pond I was walking for hours one day. A car stopped to ask directions and from it poured Euro-trance, silver-plated dance beats and shock waves. I told the car que je ne sais rien. I was just walking, after all, just walking. Then there was a sign that said to stay on the road or risk being shot by hunters.

So slowly, this song unveils itself. Self-assured, undistracted, intent, but indistinguishable.

My hair was cut unevenly while I was in the future. Many inches fell to the tiled floor, a tiled floor with a pattern that was self-assured but indistinguishable. My eyes could not make sense of the tiles and colors and why they were as they were. Didn't someone lay them with their hands? Why wasn't that green across from that green? It could have been so perfect, all of it.

The bass line doesn't recognize that it is not the melody.

I took a train from the city to the airport. There was a big dog underneath the seat across from me. It was muzzled and mean. At the airport there was rubber on either side of escalator. I don't know why. But before the airport, I was walking and talking and we had an umbrella and some old people were walking behind us. They thought we couldn't hear them but we barely could and they thought that we were Parisians because only Parisians would carry an umbrella in such a light rain. The old people didn't have an umbrella. But they buttoned their jackets and she wore stockings with her heels. They were undistracted. They didn't know that they were from the future.

The song fades into a gracious noise, an eager and beleaguered murmering. Softer and softer....

After the airport I am flying and in my headphones I watch the North Pole freezing. It is a white room behind my shuttered window-seat window. I see the sun low across the land. It is staining the white with red. Julie Doiron is murming something in my ear, undistracted. It is the same thing as when I flew to the future those few weeks ago. I roll my head over to look at the person sitting next to me. He is a musician and he is asleep.

It's been snowing intermittently since last week which is odd for the Willamette Valley, the part of Oregon that we call our home-for-now..... As a chronic Canadian/Canadienne (to quote my passport) I always get this strange feeling when I look at the calendar and then out my window at a snowless December so this weather a welcome anomoli for me. My garden is just about the saddest sight you've seen though; the plants that I failed to uproot before the snow are all brown and droopy, clinging lazily to their stakes and twine. What do gardeners do in the winter but dream in color? I had plans for two weekends ago. I was going to harvest all of my beautiful molding leaves and beautiful black compost and and beautiful smelly chicken manure. I was going to dump in in my garden and till that sucker up. Oh, I can only imagine my summer bounty, veggies round and ripe, oozing with color and flavor all as a result of my nasty yet nutritious winter time laboring. Isn't that the way, though? The real way of things? You gotta slug through that nasty stuff to reep the fruitful rewards.

My 6th grade beginning band has been effectively driving me crazy for approximately 3.5 months. Don't get me wrong- each and every one of them is the next Charles Mingus in waiting, I believe. But as a group they love to pick at each other. No scab ever heals with that group, I tell ya. In our small school, each grade has one class and so most of the students have known each other since Kindergarten or younger. Hence, among other things, they know how to push each other's buttons. However, slowly, very slowly and painstakingly I have been attempting to sow some seeds with my beginning band students. "We are a group," I tell them. "What hurts one of us hurts all of us." And herein lies that beauty of music education. Those seeds of community ain't no jive; when one tall tomato plant is eaten by a bug, the lettuce no longer gets the tomato plant's shade. If you can believe it, this group of Minguses (personality and all) was ready- playing position-feet flat on the floor-horns up-backs off chairs- READY for their concert last week. They had even suspended their bickering in anticipation of the event. But, leave it to nature to throw a wrench in the mix: the Middle School/High School band and choir concert got cancelled and rescheduled for January as a result of my favorite anomoli. Like the little garden beetle, always looking for a cool place to hide, they were crushed. And me too. I suppose though, that this is the practical application of Zen.

Johnny got his record player fixed by a little old lady, one of the last of the dying breed of little old record-player fixin ladies. Since then my love for vinyl has become exponentially stoaked as our record collection spins it's way back to life. Oh, how many hours did I log away during those long, cold Canadian winters listening to CSNY's So Far and Rickie Lee Jones' Pirates? Holding the cover in my hand, pouring over the pictures and the credits and the long, winding columns of lyrics, listening for every lead and every scratch in that turning thing.... This art is tangible; I could almost taste the whiskey, the cigarettes, feel the crusty strings under my finger tips.... And here in the digital age, what here is left for me? It is all too perfect, too grocery-store glossy, waxed and packaged and hopelessly over-stimulating. Where is the grit, the grime, the filth under the fingernails, the mold on the leaves, the compost under the vine?

I once read that the thing about gardeners is that they believe in miracles. I sorta think that the thing that makes gardens miraculous is that they represent the miracle that is our daily wanderings. And vice versa.


PS-One of the houses around the block has so many glowing, blinking, rotating, shimmering objects on their front lawn that I almost think that I'm chillin on the strip in Vegas when I walk by. Fortunately they redeem themselves by having a plain brown CHRISTMAS JESUS: Remember His Birth sign in the middle of it.

I haven't quite turned that yard into a metaphor yet. But it's pretty funny.

I recently had the opportunity to review a documentary on Dylan's Jesus years. My review is part of a series of reviews written by local musicians for Eugene's Register-Guard newspaper. If you are so inclined, please go have a look:

http://www.blogs.registerguard.com/cms/index.php/ticket-files/comments/melissa-ruth-on-bob-dylan/
PS- it's freeeezing in Oregon today! It must be December or something.

Apples to Apples: the game of hilarious comparisons

The winning comparison in the game:

Adjective card drawn for comparison: Complicated

Noun card played by my mother: My Refrigerator

So true!

"That's good, that's kinda good, that smells funny, I'm saving that for soup, don't open the veggie drawer, no not THAT dressing..."



The winning comparison in real life:

My family and everyone else's.

My mum lost her job, my dad is out of work, my sister is bartending nights at a casino while pursuing athletic endeavors by day, my other sister just dragged her boyfriend's pull behind onto my parents' front lawn and chained her dog up underneath it while she pursues her scholastic endeavors by day, (my dog is petrified of getting flea medication), we ate A LOT of food this weekend, we made A LOT of trailer jokes, we gave A LOT of hugs and we are all very thankful for what we've got. And very thankful for what we ain't got, too.

Does that sound anything like your refrigerator?

Thoughts on Critical Analysis- Familiarity with the artist but not with the particular work at hand:

In Plaster: While hospitalized, Sylvia Plath penned the poem In Plaster inspired by the woman on the other side of the curtain from her. Plath wrote in a fever about duality, that her inner and broken self (Old Yellow) could only exist with the help of her strong outer plaster self (The Saint). From there Plath began to dissect the duality within herself and came to own this understanding that the body is the coffin of the soul. Critical analysis in A Closer Look at Ariel says that Plath was comsumed by two things: Talent and Torment. Outwardly Sylvia was outgoing, nice, sweet, and scholarly. Inwardly we know that she was tortured as evidenced by her poetry and her suicide. Her suicide pieces together the poetry for those of us on the outside of her mind. (Her suicide is the coffin of her poetry?)

I'm Not There: Dylan's unfinished song was used in the movie of the same title in which Dylan is portrayed through a number of actors and actresses through the various phases of his life. I've got a writing project on the horizon, a review of a DVD on Dylan's Jesus years. I've been suspecting of late that Dylan's life is somehow a skeletal outline of human history. Which is not to say that his life is any more significant than anyone else's; I suspect that every person alive represents some piece of the great human mystery. It's just that with Dylan, we have seen his life unfold in front of us, like a reverse oragami crane, that we can analyze. He has been at the eye of a swarming storm of publicity for the last 40 years.

Dylan's Jesus years as they relate to humankind's Jesus years? Gospel Book of Otto III dipicts many images of early Christian art. Herein lie images of alien figures with dilated pupils, elongated features and humbled postures all roght with fearfulness awe. Awesome is His presence, Fearful are His naives.

And so the duality of human nature: a soul and it's slave? (The body the slave with a slave mentality.) So says, at least, Sylvia Plath and so says too Early Christian Ottoman Art. And Dylan? He says everything and yet nothing at all since he is not really there just as less is more and on and on....



PS- We saw Anais Mitchell on Wednesday night in a bar downtown, Ken Kesey's favorite tavern boasts the tavern's website. Singing and playing for a room full of drunken strangers, Anais too was a stranger in the crowd; a most beautiful stranger in a most ugly crowd.

The artist as Old Yellow in a room full of Saints?

To see "Jesus Washing the Feet of Peter" please visit: http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog&Mytoken=7141F686-1C3C-41CD-83784BA0A67F1FB7126501908

Yes we can!

Hope, jubilation, excitement, love and joy. We can feel them all now and we must let ourselves feel them all now.

I loved Hillary and I still adamently admire and respect her. But Obama is truly the only politcal figure that can unite us again as one people; one diverse, complex. and opinionated people, a people that could not afford another term of division.

Obama himself transends those lines of divison. Importantly, historically and identifiably so, Barack Obama is a young black man. But he transcends age, he transcends race, he transcends gender. Obama in turn inspires us to transcend ourselves, to find a higher purpose than ourselves, to believe in ourselves and outside of ourselves. He inspires us to believe in others, in the good of our country and in the good of human kind.

At a time like this words truly do fail me. Our time is a time of transcendence, transformation, and triumph for a people who were on the brink of losing faith in the promise of their country.

Hope, jubilation, excitement, love and joy. That is all I have left.

According to the musicians on Craiglist Eugene, the music scene here sucks and apparently so do the people who try to organize musicians into things like local festivals and events. And I think that some people also said things like "shut up, you probably aren't even a player" and then countered with something like: "I played longer than you with people way better than you." and then THAT was countered with something like: "Yo' mama." Then I think that someone said that one of the event organizers could sue for slander and then someone else corrected her and said she could sue for liable and then someone else said that the organizer wouldn't have a case and would be countersued and would probably be evicted from her shit-hole house that is incapable of growing a front lawn. I think that was the point in the Craigslist Eugene converation where someone chimed in with a "why can't we all just evolve?" to which someone else called that person a hippie to which the hippie responded with a resounding "Yo' Mama." I believe that there was a request somewhere in this chain for everyone to stop their bitching so that we could all go back to reading the Craigslist Eugene usual fair of "crappy metal bands looking for a drummer and the 15 year olds trying to push their presskits." Then, oh my goodness, then we had a real life booking agent from Portland, the big city, say that Eugene has a pathetic music scene, not because it lacks any real talent, but because the real talent lacks any real attention from the citizens of Eugene. This booking agent went on to say that musicians in Eugene are essentially screwed to which end someone else responded with a "Yo' Mama" or something equally douchebag-ish. Just so you know, I got the term douchebag-ish from the Craigslist Eugene website from the comment entitled "Stop the douchebaggery."

Did anyone else realize what an important and valuable tool the internet is? Where the average citizen can expand her vocabulary with the click of the mouse? Douchebaggery. Hmmm. How can I work that into a sentance?

I say, stop yer cryin' Craigslist Eugene! Instead email Merriam-Webster about a New Word submission. And when you're done with that, pack your bags and move to communist Russia where we all might have a better chance of getting a draw....



*As a note to all of you Craislist Eugene people that might read this blog and then cry on Craislist Eugene that I mis-quoted you by paraphrasing and exaggerating for the sake of humor (which I will admit to having done as I do in most everything I write), please know that I don't care. (But also please know that I still find you amusing and adorable!)

I wonder if Bob Dylan has very many friends.

I am beginning to notice that we musicians are an anti-social lot. Truly, deep down, outside of the glare of the lights, the noisy crowd, the beers and the after partys, I believe most musicians to be somewhat solitary figures. I imagine musicians to be observers mostly, and historians. I think that many musicians experience something once and then again and again forever as they turn it over in their minds, mold it into song and tame it into performance- something digestable and relatable. There was this place... there was this time... there was this man.... Every song has been kindled by this feeling, this memory. It's a solitary business this business of song.

I love Portland/I hate Portland.

Portland is beautiful, buzzin, hip, green, liberal, mellow, and many other wonderful things. Most of my experiences in Portland have been anything but wonderful. I'll give you some examples: I was booked to play a show at a wonderful venue, a little womyn's bookstore. Amazing resources. Nice people. As I was playing, the woman who booked me began blogging at the computer. Neat. Soon all of her friends were swarming around her, giggling and whispering back and forth. Cool, must be something worth reading. A few days later my attention was brought to the fact that she had been writing about little ol' me. In her blog she asks: Just how bad is Mellisa Ruth? In her blog she responds: I feel sorry for my friends because I asked them to come to her show. Oh the epic irony! I love it. See why I love Portland? In Portland things like the liberal, garden growin, song-writing, queer grrrl will still act like the popular girl in the locker room with all her friends whispering about the pimply fat girl in the corner struggling with her training bra. (I'm the pimply fat girl!)

Between Johnny and I we have three severly ex-boyfriends and girlfriends living in Portland. (And by sever, I mean whatever you think sever means in terms of boys and girls and love.) How can this be? How can all of these people have moved to this one city in the Great Pacific Northwest? None of us dated each other in Portland. Only one is from that fair city. Portland is currently acting as fly-tape for our ex's, like a great big bear trap, like a KISS concert for bad hair. I don't get it but that's why I love Portland: it's an enigma with inexplicable powers of attraction. Sort of like Johnny and I, apparently....

I never know where I am when I'm in Portland. I am always lost while I am there like: Isn't that the place? Isn't that the park? Isn't that the street? Portland is like the entire state of Oregon crammed into a small space and divided into sections by streets. Most people in Portland are from Oregon to begin with. You got your poor, your rich, your pompous right, your whiny left, your young, your old, your black, your white, your queer, your straight, your artists, your business men, freaks, fucks, ducks, beavs, women, men- everyone! And then there's Johnny and I driving around being confused.

I used to have a lot of friends. Johnny and I used to host BBQs at his '56 trailer, cramming about as many folks as would fit into that little mobile. And then one by one we moved. And then we became musicians. And then things changed. Friends that I was close with grew cold. Friends that I was never close with grew warm. We moved to a state that functions like a giant, spread out Portland, a state in which I can do little more than observe and pass through, confused and a little lost, in love and in loathing all at once. I can look in at this place through the eyes of an historian, recount the days of glory and bare silent witness to the days of waning. And then I will move on, through the fields of amber, on to a more inviting place, one in which I will keep a distance and wonder again if Bob Dylan has very many friends.

Oh Jesus, I am so sick of politics. Ok, that's a total lie. I am a news junkie, an amature political analyst, and one hell of an opinionated girl. (A considerate, informed, and engaged girl, but an opinionated one, nonetheless.) I guess what I meant to say was that I'm just sick of all of the thinking that I have to do, you know what I mean? So, rather than bore you with those murky details, I decided that I'd just write about the stupid dumb stuff that makes me forget to think:

- Polka dots. For crying out loud! Is there anything more adorable in the world of print fabrics than polka dots?

- Bruno when he skids across the kitchen floor to chase the broom or when he growls at the vaccume cleaner.

- Ripe tomatos from the garden. Fresh basil or mint. Lettuce with raindrops on it.

-Listening to two little girls tell each other stories without them realizing that you are listening. Every joke is a new chance for them to try to laugh at the right time.

-When my dad and I talk about how, when he was laid-off for a short while, he would stay home with my little sister Leah. Every morning after he'd sent M and I off to school and set Leah up with some puzzle or coloring book, he'd spend an hour watching Donahue. Like, what the hell ever happened to those days? Drinking light roast, having a mellow morning. Humane. No ticker news. No internet. No 60 hour work weeks. We always joke to each other now:

Dad: How was your day?

Mel: You know, sat around with my hair in curlers, drinking coffee, smoking cigarettes and watching Donahue.

Dad: I did that yesterday.

-Having curly hair on a rainy day. Best ringlets ever!

-Cute girls. Seriously, gay straight, bi, pan, a, whatever your story, no one can deny it: a cute girl is a cute girl. There is something about them that take you away from yourself, even for a second. They make me want to follow them home and smell all of the lotions on their dresser, drink coffee from one of their handmade mugs, water their house plants, and try on their shoes. I especially love cute girls who wear polka dots.

-A couple of months into dating Johnny I was over at his 1956 trailer (affectionately known as The '56) doing some homework while he was outside mowing his lawn. The lawn was a foot high and the manager of the trailer park had put a notice on the door of The '56 earlier that day stating that (even though our neighbors were cooking down meth) and (even though the woman two slots down housed 50 cats), we were about to be evicted because of the lawn. So Johnny was mowing the lawn. Rest assured that this was no easy job for a man with a lawnmover affectionately known as The Piece of Shit. Anyway, he was sweating and grunting and swearing and kicking the mower and I was inside eating a popsicle, you know the kind with the joke on the stick? I was talking to my sister on the phone. I told her that I knew that I'd found my one and only. My prince charming. My knight in shining armor. I still really like eating a popsicle (the kind with the joke on the stick) and watching Johnny mow the lawn.

Sister: How was your day?

Mel: You know, sat around eating popsicles, laughing at the jokes, and watching Johnny mow the lawn.

Sister: I did that yesterday.

-Listening to my mother talk about Sarah Palin.

-Watching Sex and the City.

-Getting emails from my friend Debbie.

-Reading Dostoevsky. WHOA.

-Chili dogs and beer.

-1920s pin-up pictures.

-A bike basket with groceries in it.

-Lit windows in upstairs apartments in foreign cities on rainy nights.

-Laundry hanging on a clothes line.

-Well-read books in veiny hands.

-Someone else's handwriting.

-Other people's thoughts on what makes them forget to think.... (Write me a note, I'd love to hear about it!)

Johnny and I were discussing our get-rich-quick scheme today. I know that most people don't share their get-rich-quick schemes with others, but I'll let you in on our secret: Our scheme was to become school-teachers and rake in the dough. I don't think that it's working. I know, I know, talking about money is so tacky, it creates uncomfortable silences and causes people to clear their throats loudly or change the subject. Well, I'll tell ya, if ya don't like it, I'm sorry. There are other blogs to read and plenty of e'm will keep it simple for you: Girls, political commentary on the latest gaff, some emo kid's latest youtube video. My blog today is about money. Clear your throat if you must but please know that I can't hear you.

Yeah yeah yeah. Teachers don't go into teaching for the money. Teachers are there to empower tomorrow's leaders, they are there to make a difference, children are our future! Martyr yourself like that for one day as a teacher and this is what will happen to you: Your kids will eat you alive and then you'll burn out. Create a charity case out of your school and your students, parents, co-workers and community members will see to it that you don't come back. Schools are not a pity party; they are prideful, energetic, interesting, quirky and special places. Teachers who are worth their salt are doing a job. Do you get my drift? Teachers are in it for the money. It's a job, afterall. But it's a job IN ADDITION TO being the most important and fullfilling life-work one, with the inclination to teach, can do. And so back to the scheme....

We work all year, collect our due income and enjoy our summer camping out on living room floors, playing music, and planting our garden. Sounds awesome right? Hell yeah! To us too. We think: this scheme is killer! But then the end of August comes to pass. And then early September and it's still 3 weeks until the next paycheck. And we are flat, bouncing checks broke. Get-rich-quick?

Now Johnny and I both grew up comfortably lower-middle class. Never starving, never eating out either. Right there where the majority lives. We of the majority are used to poking around in the cupboard until we find two cans that would go well mixed together with some garden veggies on the side, right? That has always been Johnny and I, more so of late. That is until I called the bank today. Pleasantly thrifty became frighteningly screwed. We call up Father-in-law. "So sorry to do this... we're in a bad place right now... we'll pay you back soon...." It was discrete and mellow, just the way that one would like to handle their embarrassing financial stresses. Then my sister-in-law calls back.

"What is your account information. Dad wants to put the money right into your bank account."

I clear my throat. I create an uncomfortable silence. My sister-in-law knows that her brother and I have entered the trap of owing money to family? She knows that we bounced checks and have been eating beans from a can for a few weeks now?

The silence and discomfort and throat clearing persist.

"Melissa. Please. Do you know anything about this family? We're all in that same leaky boat with you. I owe everyone in the family so much money that I can't even keep it straight. And they owe me and we all just act really nice and do favors for each other because we know that we owe each other. But we also love each other and no one cares and when are you and Johnny having a baby? I know that you're still pretty young but he's getting old."

And just like that I realized that, with the exception of a select few (the types that shout "drill baby drill" at the RNC), we really are all in the same damn leaky boat. And we all should just love each other and not care. Fuckin eh. It's just money and I don't have any. And neither do you.

Holy Cow. Even though I have been making music forEVER I am so green to the music business. It's my first review! Please forgive the excitement....

Nancy Dunham of Indie-Music said that my album:

"Shows that this classically trained musician has the skills and creativity to join the ranks of superb folks artists."


She said more stuff too:

http://www.indie-music.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=7593
K.

Go me.

Now back to the salt mines. Detention. "This is a treble clef." "Get your finger out of your nose."

Wish me luck!

II love Click and Clack. I am anti-car and I can't get enough of these guys!

I have bad Carma. (That's car-Karma, just in case you were wondering.) Here's the situation: I acquire a working vehicle. Within days, weeks or months, the vehicle develops some sort of hiccup that turns into a burp, that turns into indigestion, that turns into an ulcer, that turns into a nasty binge drinking habit, that just turns ugly. You get what I'm driving at. Pun intended. The vehicle, once in my possession, begins to die. This has happened so many times over my illustrious driving history that people who know me well often joke "don't let Melissa drive your car for too long or else _____________ (insert car ailment here.)" Now, knock on wood, I have yet to be pulled over, crash, etc. I get regular oil changes. I drive the speed limit. I shift correctly. I turn my lights on for safety. As a matter of fact I can't think of one fucked up thing that I ever did to a vehicle to cause all vehicles the world over to protest my driving of them. (Although I did move to Calgary, Alberta for a year. It's minus 50 there. Even inatimate objects become suicidal in those conditions.)

My first car, Blue Lightning, God bless her, sucked. 1989 Dodge Aries. Wagon. AM radio only. It was stolen from my Uncle, found by the RCMP abandoned, and impounded in a Vancouver lot. My mum acquired her from my Uncle after he bought a new car and had no need for Blue anymore. I drove her all over So-Cal. She quickly deteriorated and became beached in my parents' front yard awaiting her gloriful second coming.

My second car, Brown Lightning, God bless her, rocked! 1988 Toyota Corolla. Wagon. Battery powered tape deck, passenger's seat. 5-speed. My mum and I picked her out from a Vancouver sales lot. There were two of the same brand new car and my mum asked me to pick which of the two I wanted. Cool! I'll never forget it. (It was the first and only time that my mother ever bought a new car.) We shlepped all over the place in that beast. From Alaska to LA. I took her with me to Calgary and she deteriorated so quickly and painfully that I could not repair her for under $1000. So my Israeli uncle (different uncle than stolen-car uncle) and I sold her to a man named Walleed, a used car salesman from Lebanon, for $250 the day before I moved back to SoCal. I cried.

My third car was the reincarnation of Blue Lightning. Literally. My parents and I fixed her up and drove her to Humboldt. My sis and I were sharing her while we were attending college in Northern CA. That sharing thing lasted for about 2 months. (And I SWEAR up and down that it was all her fault that it didn't work out.) Once the vehicle became solely my property, however, it began to rapidly deteriorate leaving me stranded in Eureka any number of times. After being stranded for the last time I limped her back home and let her grow mold in my apartment complex parking lot. Classy.

My fourth car, after months of biking, mass transit, hitch hiking, and bumming rides from my sis (in her Del Sol, sold to her by a kind, loving, take-my-sister's-side, friend of the family), was a 1995 Jeep Cherokee. Tape deck. AM/FM radio. Sweet! January 2004: Day one driving her home from Santa Rosa after travelling in Europe for a few weeks, jet lagged as hell: chicken flies into the front of the car, explosion of feathers, I lose my gas cap. Shit unravels from there. Become stranded in Eureka numerous times. July 2004: Black Lightning is beached in my apartment complex parking lot next to Blue Lightning. Extra Classy.

The city starts ticketing me. I get Blue Lightning towed. I cry a little but know that she is going to a better place.

My fifth and current car. 1996 Subaru Legacy. Wagon. Tape deck. AM/FM radio. I have had this rig for a little over a year. Can you believe it. Nothing is wrong with it. But dudes, I am ON THE CLOCK!! It's only a matter of time now. It's been in for repairs twice. New brakes. New weird thingy. There's a tiny rattle here, a little shimy there. It's like the two innocent snowballs rolling down the hill before the gigantic avalanche.

I really want to call Click and Clack. Maybe they can tell me how to break the cycle. I would do almost anything if only they would agree to rid me of my bad Carma. I'll burn sage. I'll seek an aura cleanser. I'll tell them that I'll discuss my relationship with my father, I'll admit to having acquired bad Carma points for being mean to my sisters and ex-boyfriends, I'll indulge in questions about past indiscressions. I'll tell them that yes, I will ammend my broken ways. Yes. I'll tell them that I will give up potato chips and gossip magazines. I'll tell them that no, I won't buy that Rebecca Pearcy bag until we can afford it. No, I won't tickle my dog's feet while he's sleeping. (Even though it's so funny. Hee hee.) I will give it all up if they would only cure me!

In the meanwhile, seriously, I am selling a 1996 Subaru Legacy. All wheel drive. Good gas miles. Reliable (for everyone but me). For more info see paragraph 7. Interested?

I know that everyone loves Barack but I still love Hillary. She reminds me of every good woman I have ever met. She was in Eugene when I saw her and heard her speak with poise, excitement, intellect, and heart. Yes I know that we're in a climate of change and an age of new politics. I understand the importance of embracing Obama whole-heartedly as a party united. But damn. Hillary is a woman.

And I just can't get past that.

As the breeze russled through the bamboo outside of my kitchen window

As I sat sewing a button back onto my black and white polka dotted dress

As one more lazy summer suns set down behind the mountain

The faint sound of jazz trickled in through the screen door.

A faint piano tinkling

A faint saxophone moaning

A faint bass walking.

The last few moments of summer's splendor drifting through my kicthen, dancing through the mint leaves, lingering in the hallway, and drifting out through the window of the darkened bedroom.

While the rumble of the men's beach vollyball Olympic finals roar on in the background, I type about translation.

After finishing Leon Uris's interesting and amazing novel Exodus I have since started Fyodor Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment. The book came highly recommended to me by my sisters, my mother and my father. They all said the same thing: you know that whole intense Russian thing that Dad's family possesses? You know that thing you can't quite put into words? The looks, the gestures, the way their stories are told? That is Dad. That is Dostoevsky. You must read Dostoevsky. So I went to my mother's bookshelf and took two copies and held them in the air. "Which translation?" I asked. My sister M: "The unabridged, definitely the unabridged. That version leaves in every run-on, grotesquely involved, terribly pessimistic detail. It's very us."

So far I've skipped the intro and Raskolnikov just walked out of his building, thankfully avoiding his landlady.

I wrote a song called Ici Avec Toi years ago after returning from France. Perhaps you are familiar with this tune? Below is a copy of the tranlated lyrics. Whoa. Translations are painful. I promise that the sentiment is much more poetic than all that. It's funny though. How often do we sit across the dinner table from the people we love the most and we can't say what we mean? How often does this happen to them without us knowing it? And upon hearing their words, we get annoyed or mad or sad. They have illicited a reaction that was not intended by uttering words that were also unintentionally unclear. Sentiment is never articulate, though. It cannot be, that's the beauty of it, it lies somehwere beyond our reach. As a writer, it is my muse. As a human, I reach for it through my persuit of happiness.

My father always says that speaking Russian is like speaking the language of the soul. There is a rhyme that he translates for me that says something like: a little bird in a little red hat. In Russian not only is the bird little but the red is little too.

And so my song too is lost in translation. It lies somewhere between the little bird in the little red little hat and my telling my husband "turn down the tv" instead of "I love you very much."

Here With You (Ici Avec Toi)

Paris is so beautiful
Here at the castle of the king
The Eiffle Tower is enchanted
Here with you

The rain is so beautiful
Tonight, I believe
The house is so tranquil
Here with you

North is Montmartre
South, the sea
We should forget the past
That's what we should do

The paintings sing
And my heart sings for the first time
The birds dance to their own tune
Here with you

The bread is warm and soft
The wine drinks itself
In every street, happy people
Happy to be here with you

North is Montmartre
South, the sea
We should forget the past
That's what we should do

Again, back home
The wind is so cold
Against my cheek, against my back
Here without you
Here without you

My two lovely sisters came to visit me last week. Both of them had been busily working their asses off all year and sorely needed a vacation.

L, my youngest sissy lives in a bubble gum pink studio apartment with her peppermint plants and sunflowers in the window. She is studying right now to be a music teacher. (I keep telling her.... She keeps refusing to listen.... This type of willfullness and sticktoitiveness will make her a fantastic teacher.) She also plays the trombone, much to the delight of our senses of humour. (Why aren't there trombones in Star Trek? Because it's the future. Heh heh. Skinny little knuckleheads.) She has a dog named Patches and a sweet blue bike. She is happy and broke and darling.

My middle sissy M is a crazy workaholic. She is a raging, self-disciplined beast on her bike, an animal of athelticism, a road-biking fanatic. She is new to the sport and is already one of the top women cyclists in her region. If you've never spent time around a semi-pro or pro athlete you have to know that they are all psycho; entirely driven to better themselves constantly. They eat all the right things at the right time in the right way. They read. They stay current. They perform. It's sort of like being a musician except, for them, there is a lot less beer and late nights involved. As with all people who can't make a living doing what they love, M works day and night to pay the bills.

M and I are very close in age and growing up we spent all of our time together. It's amazing that all these years later the dynamic that was created by our 3 and 4-year-old selves still rears it's ugly head more often than we'd like to admit. (I get bossy, she gets pissy, we start fighting. A normal, everyday, healthy 3 and 4-year-old type of cycle... 20-some years later....)

In preparation for my sissys' arrival Johnny and I went hogwild cleaning and rearranging our house. (By the way, in the second verse of Jambalaya the line goes "They dress in style and go hogwild." How do you explain what hogwild means to 9 year olds without them insisting that they demonstrate? If anyone knows, please tell me because that would make my life a little easier in the future.) Anyway, our "deadzone" computer room is now cozy and happy with plants and a red couch. Our back room is now a guest bedroom complete with fresh flowers from the yard, and R Gorman art bedecking the bedside. The kitchen has a new bookcase for the recipe books, our living room has new plants to hang from the walls, even our bathroom is looking lovely with freshly painted apple-green shelves. And yet something remains missing. Although I'm not entirely sure, perhaps it is the feeling of security.

We are almost entirely safe in our home. We are free to enjoy the company of our family members, laugh, play Scattegories, drink cool beverages with mint from the overflowing and blooming garden beds. These are truly things to be thankful for: heavenly offerings. And yet. For how long can these offerings last? Living outside of one's means anymore means that you are simply alive in America. We can't really afford our home. We will forever have a debt to pay whether for groceries, student loans, land, vet bills, travel expenses.... The land under our feet is not ours, nor will it ever be. Our money is invisible and lies with invisible hands. Our jobs are available to us only circumstantially, only as the state sees fit. Everything I eat is shipped, everything I wear is shipped, everything shipped is handled by an underpaid, mistreated human being and every underpaid, mistreated human being is my brother or sister, too, worthy of a warm and comfortable home and vacations. And what can I do? I suppose that I can enjoy my sister time while it lasts, play board games 'til last man standing, work with a bent back, behold the security that lies in the bountiful beauty that surrounds me, be helpful, be thankful. Security lies in the eye of the beholder.

My dog Bruno is absolutely over the top. He's big. He's clumsy. He's goofy as hell. He found a companion in little Patches. Patches is quick and wily. He found an easy and forgiving target in Bruno. Last week Bruno and Patches were completely inseparable. They growled. They pissed and moaned. They grinned. They chased. They hugged. They snarled. They bit. They had a blast. When those two play, they fight. When those two fight, they play. Crudely, they really remind me a lot of three girls I know.


Amazing Bruno and Patches action shots taken by L available here:
http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendID=182928334&blogID=422677982

I fell in love with Borodine. I am in deep lust with Poulenc. I long for Schumann.

What a fantastic opportunity I was given as a young woman; I was able to study some of the most brilliant artists to ever live. One of the first pieces that I took to heart was by Kuhlau, a flute sonata. After that piece was Pessard's Andalouse and Bach's Sicilian. I was 13 years old when I was introduced to these pieces and although practicing was essentially a chore for me at that time, I knew that I was being introduced to something that was truly artful, I just wasn't yet capable of interpretting this art. Like a swimmer at sea, while I was submerged, I was only struggling with the surface.

Elapse 6 years. I have been teaching myself how to play guitar. I am 19 years old and I haven't picked up my flute in 2 years. I move to Arcata and declare a music major.

I am 21 and I fear orchestra. The wind section of an orchestra is comprised of the finest wind players available, it has to be. Everything you play as a wind player in an orchestra needs to be soloistic in magnitude. It must speak, it must project, it must move. I arrive at my first rehearsal. I am sandwiched between the best wind players available. I am terrified.

Debussy's Syrinx has got to be the most gorgeous and dreamy piece ever written, heart breakingly, achingly beautiful. It's committed to my memory. It is soaring from my fingertips.

A Midsummer Night's Dream, Mendelssohn, the Scherzo. There is a brilliant and famous flute solo in this section. I had been working and working and working on it. It was so close. I am first chair and I am scared but i am in love. Mendelssohn you complicated and sensitive man, your pain so thinly veiled. What were you thinking as you penned your topsy-turvey lines? "Let's take that section again," says the director. "Melissa, you're making it harder than it needs to be. You're not quite getting it."
(Yeah I am making it harder than it needs to be. Why? It's so damn hard to begin with. What's my problem? Deep breath.)
We take it again.
"No. That's not it."
(C'mon fingers, you've almost got it.)
"One last time. And.... No. Stop. Listen, Melissa, this is a standard section. You should know this. You're not putting in the time. It's in every flute technique book ever written, if you've never seen this excerpt before than you're not doing your job."
(You're right, I'm not.)
"You need to get this section down now. You've had long enough. You should have known it before I even handed out this music. It's really not that difficult you need to just put in the time."
(I promise you that I'm trying. I'm trying with my whole heart. It's just my fingers...)
"You need to practice."
(It's my technique.)
"This is standard rep."
(It's my fingers.)
"It's standard."
(They just don't want to cooperate.)
"You should know this."
(I know.)
"You should know this by now."
(I know I should.)
"You should know this."
(I know.)
"Ok. We need to move on people. Take out the Copland."
(I love Copland.)

I am in my heels and I am in love. Strapless dress, make up, and I am in love. It's Poulenc's second movement and it moves so so slowly. It's ice. It's wintertime and cold and it's ice. The piano is tinkling, twinkling fairy lights and moonbeams on frozen snow. My breath is visible and warm against the pale night, stage lights. The memory of our last embrace, ember and flame, is cooling, quietly cooling. It will be frozen too like the empty shadows and the narrow French alleyways and the bedroom walls made of stone. Footprints in the snow walking away, soundless and weightless. Poulenc's fingers on the piano slowly, slowly, and then gone.

"Melissa we need you for our production of Beauty and the Beast this summer. Can you do it?" It's opening night, I am in the pit armed with my flute, a borrowed Picc, and dressed in black. One line after another, watch, read, rest. The actors are nervous. The musician's are amused. Someone forgets a line and "And measure 230. 3, 4..." The old man, the father with the beer mug, the pub scene, singing, dancing, does he know that his fly is unzipped? Oh my goodness, the beer mug is flying through the air, toward the pit. Whispers: "watch out." "oh my god." "duck!" "careful." The mug lands next to me, in front of the cellos. pick it up? They missed another line. "And 267? ready? 267. 2, 3...."

The bar is noisy. Am I drinking vodka? My old roomate and I are dancing, my man is wailing, wailing on his Tele. Big Earl and the Cryin Shame is in a groove. The tune ends, the crowd yells and whistles and kisses. "Melissa? You wanna sit in on this one?" It's in A. Johnny plays his Black Orpheus quote and I'm in. Shouting: "Yeah! Get it!" Yeah. I got this.

There are almost 300 people onstage and I am in love. There are almost 300 people in the audience and I am in love. Carmina Burana is opening tonight. This first chord is opening louder than anything I have ever heard. It is opening way up. It is opening like a flower in a thunderstorm. It opens and opens and opens and the rain comes in and washes it away, petal by petal. The quintuplets are here and gone. The woodwind soli is here and gone. The brass soli, the percussion soli, the strings soli, to the sea. The tenor solo and the men's chorus is here and gone, it is all washing to the sea. The violins are here and then gone, the timpani and the flute soli is here and gone. It is all to the sea. The three times through repeats, the holy trinity analogies are here and gone, to the sea, to the sea, to the sea. Carmina Burana is here and gone. We are all swimmers now, atop the sea. The music has gone to the sea. And we are but swimmers in the sea, in the sea, in the sea.