More of the same Jibba Jabba
I have been really lazy here. You probably think I'm busy, right? Oh, she has a kid and a job and a house that needs work and all kinds of fascinating extracurricular activities, so she must be busy. Nah. If I spent the time making up nice blog stories that I do playing stupid Scrabulous on Facebook, then I would still have a few readers out there.
So I just came back from rehearsal for Carmina Burana, which I'm singing with a group at out neighborhood Universitas. It's a weirdly mixed group - plenty of undergrads, but a lot of older people as well that must be faculty, staff, and local alumni. I sat down on the first day next to a girl who cheerfully asked me what year I was. I said, "I'm an alumna..." and she said, "Oh. I'm a freshman." Then she proceeded to tell me how she was freaking out because her friend just got "promised" to a guy, and they had only been going out for five months. I was like, "What's promised? Is that a religious thing?" and she said, "No, like, promised to be engaged later. This is terrible! She's only a freshman! Pardon me while I freak out, I mean, this is big..." Then she went back to texting madly on her phone.
It's a little tricky to describe the average choral singer. There are about 40-50% normal-looking people. The rest fit into various other categories.
1. math grad student, probably goes to Renn Faire a lot
2. classic band geek girl or girl who did a lot of musical theater in high school; laughs a lot and makes gestures
3. some geeky combination of both of the above, except, strangely, a student of the humanities; can be overheard talking about "Model Congress"
4. frizzy-haired middle-aged ladies who would probably wear a boxy blazer with a cat brooch on it, or perhaps a sweatshirt that says, "Too Many Books, Too Little Time!"
5. that one person with the facial piercing
6. serious musicians who coincidently happen to be really attractive - these are the minority
I have also noticed that more sopranos than altos are blond. Also, more are tall. If I seem to be leaving out stereotyping the men, it's because they sit behind me so I don't get to give them the once-over as much.
While I'm reducing everyone to categories as usual, I'll add some more categories based on actual singing:
a. awesome singer, nothing wrong with them
b. nice voice, but sings way too loud and doesn't even seem to notice it
c. person who is sitting right next to you and you can't even tell she's singing - this is either because she sings really softly, she blends beautifully, or because she's surreptitiously studying some psychology textbook under her score and not singing at all
d. nice voice, but is pronouncing all the Latin, Italian, German or French wrong... this is the WORST kind, because the director usually reviews all the pronunciation so there's no excuse other than having NO EAR for language, which is weird, right, because you have an ear for music...
Today this girl was sitting next to me and I was staring at her toes the whole time because she was wearing flipflops and it's still like 45 degrees outside at night. She has bright fuchsia toenail polish and an unfortunate Disney sweatshirt on. She's not rolling any of the 'r's and keeps pronouncing all the 'o's and 'u's with a Philly (or Valley?) accent, making all the pure vowels sound like diphthongs. This is a disaster, but what can I do? Club her?
Now's the point where you tell me to relax and that I am an overly-critical crazyperson who would enjoy life more if I wasn't so intolerant. Well, you'd be right but it's my dag blog.
I'm going to bed now. Night night!
So I just came back from rehearsal for Carmina Burana, which I'm singing with a group at out neighborhood Universitas. It's a weirdly mixed group - plenty of undergrads, but a lot of older people as well that must be faculty, staff, and local alumni. I sat down on the first day next to a girl who cheerfully asked me what year I was. I said, "I'm an alumna..." and she said, "Oh. I'm a freshman." Then she proceeded to tell me how she was freaking out because her friend just got "promised" to a guy, and they had only been going out for five months. I was like, "What's promised? Is that a religious thing?" and she said, "No, like, promised to be engaged later. This is terrible! She's only a freshman! Pardon me while I freak out, I mean, this is big..." Then she went back to texting madly on her phone.
It's a little tricky to describe the average choral singer. There are about 40-50% normal-looking people. The rest fit into various other categories.
1. math grad student, probably goes to Renn Faire a lot
2. classic band geek girl or girl who did a lot of musical theater in high school; laughs a lot and makes gestures
3. some geeky combination of both of the above, except, strangely, a student of the humanities; can be overheard talking about "Model Congress"
4. frizzy-haired middle-aged ladies who would probably wear a boxy blazer with a cat brooch on it, or perhaps a sweatshirt that says, "Too Many Books, Too Little Time!"
5. that one person with the facial piercing
6. serious musicians who coincidently happen to be really attractive - these are the minority
I have also noticed that more sopranos than altos are blond. Also, more are tall. If I seem to be leaving out stereotyping the men, it's because they sit behind me so I don't get to give them the once-over as much.
While I'm reducing everyone to categories as usual, I'll add some more categories based on actual singing:
a. awesome singer, nothing wrong with them
b. nice voice, but sings way too loud and doesn't even seem to notice it
c. person who is sitting right next to you and you can't even tell she's singing - this is either because she sings really softly, she blends beautifully, or because she's surreptitiously studying some psychology textbook under her score and not singing at all
d. nice voice, but is pronouncing all the Latin, Italian, German or French wrong... this is the WORST kind, because the director usually reviews all the pronunciation so there's no excuse other than having NO EAR for language, which is weird, right, because you have an ear for music...
Today this girl was sitting next to me and I was staring at her toes the whole time because she was wearing flipflops and it's still like 45 degrees outside at night. She has bright fuchsia toenail polish and an unfortunate Disney sweatshirt on. She's not rolling any of the 'r's and keeps pronouncing all the 'o's and 'u's with a Philly (or Valley?) accent, making all the pure vowels sound like diphthongs. This is a disaster, but what can I do? Club her?
Now's the point where you tell me to relax and that I am an overly-critical crazyperson who would enjoy life more if I wasn't so intolerant. Well, you'd be right but it's my dag blog.
I'm going to bed now. Night night!
posted by Dubin at 9:15 PM
11 Comments:
"promised" to a guy
I think this makes a lot of sense actually. Why not have a word that means "planning on getting engaged"? I think there is clearly a need for it in part because of the prevalence of casual relationships. I think many couples talk about getting engaged long before they ever do. So what do you call that?
It is funny to hear the first time though.
Are you alarmed because promise rings exist, or because eighteen-year-olds are wearing them? Remember, childhood is so last century, and eighteen is the new twenty-five.
frizzy-haired middle-aged ladies who would probably wear a boxy blazer with a cat brooch on it, or perhaps a sweatshirt that says, "Too Many Books, Too Little Time!"
Um. I think I have a t-shirt like that.
Oh, there's a ring for it too?
Also, I thought 25 was the new 18. This might just be terminology though. Did childhood get replaced, or did it get extended into one's 30s?
Can you commit to promising to betroth someone later? And swear on that?
Wikipedia makes it sound like promising is a private thing. Like your friends aren't supposed to go around texting everyone they know about who needs to start working out now if she doesn't want to look fat in a bridesmaids dress.
It is no secret that I am behind the times, though. Shit. B-Nice is getting married on the first anniversary of his first date with his intended. Is that just what happens when you start to notice the beginnings of crows feet in certain light? You just dive into things?
Okay, speaking of being behind the times and off topic (it's my dag comment.) I just learned about rickrolling.
Did everyone else already know about this?
Childhood and adulthood have both been replaced by an endless adolescence.
Dude. I only found out about rickrolling through wikipedia after everyone had been talking about it a various places. I had yet to ever be rickrolled until April 1, when youtube made all of its featured videos link to the song. I clicked on those on purpose though knowing it would go to the song, so arguably, I wasn't really rickrolled.
Hmm. My point in telling the "promise" story was just to give this atmospheric narrative of the type of people in the room - the freshman I was talking about made me feel like an actual adult. Not because I felt OLD, but because I had forgotten what 18-year-olds think about. Actually, when I was 18 no one was running around getting promised, at least my friends weren't. More interestingly she asked me (I'm 33) what YEAR I was. I was sorta flattered. Anyway, her reaction was the part I was trying to paint - like, she was FREAKING OUT and texting madly, as if this promise thing had to be dealt with immediately by all sorts of troops with cell phones.
Recently, Sara found some old notes that we wrote back and forth in high school. She emailed me about it, saying, "We were kind of lame."
Rickrolling?! Are you kidding me? I am going to start assigning tasks at my work to people who have time to do that crap.
I like that this entry sounds like an anthropologist recording observations from the outside of a group of subjects. It has a certain neutral quality, despite the use of judgmental descriptors, at least until the end where you contemplate clubbing a subject.
Incidentally, I have also forgotten about the teenage mind and whenever I take a jaunt back into an old diary, I always find myself snapping it shut in short order because I can't stand to be reminded that I was in fact pretty lame. At least, in a different way than I am lame now. Because I totally don't know what rickrolling is.
I will add "blond alto" to my long list of other weirdnesses.
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