I am rather surprised at how many TV shows there are that appeal to me. I have always thought that my interests were somewhat on the fringe, but there are several shows I follow.
I have digital cable and DVR -- all hooked up to a 13" TV. When the cable guy came to put it in, he asked me where the TV was -- he was standing 2 feet from it. They would run the cable to a 2nd TV for a reduced price since he was already there, so I had him put a cable in the kitchen -- to hook up to my 7" TV. The kitchen one doesn't have the cable box, though, so above about channel 80, I don't get it in the kitchen -- so no Logo or Reality TV in there.
As far as fairly mainstream, I like Anthony Bourdain's travel/food show, more than I like Andrew Zimmern, because I like the travel aspect more than seeing someone eat insects and things. I used to always watch "What not to wear", "How do I look", and "The dog whisperer", but after a while, it starts to all be about the same, so those are shows that I may watch when nothing else is on, or half-watch while reading the paper or catching up on mending things.
I like "Undercover Boss" -- I had assumed this was some sort of drama since it was on network TV, but fortunately heard what it is. I like reality shows that cover REALITY, not some rigged situation like "Big Brother", "Survivor", or things like that. I like "A day in the life of--" types of shows, or "Behind the scenes at--" I don't like shows where they humiliate people or encourage them to be dishonest, or anything that exploits greed or sexuality, so that rules out a whole lot. At first I really liked "American Idol", but I'm over it. I have no interest in any dancing shows - "Dancing with the Stars", "Best Dance Crew", I just don't care. I did watch when Jerry Springer was on, but that was about it.
I really like "Ruby". Does anyone else watch this on Style? "Taking the Stage", filmed at Cincinnati's School for the Performing Arts, has been disappointing. It is nice to see our town portrayed in a positive way, with scenes at various clubs and out on the street, but the show itself really is not about going to school there.
"Intervention" is interesting, in part because I know some of the background about Candy Finnigan, the main interventionist. But that show as well as "Addicted", they do become just more of the same. I watched a couple episodes of "Hoarders", but that REALLY is all the same -- how many pack-rats do you really want to see? "Clean House" doesn't interest me for the same reason -- I did try to go to the monster yard sale when it was held in Cincinnati, since the sale was right near where I live, but there were hundreds of people there, and when I arrived, the wait to get in was estimated at 3 hours, so I just went home -- I do not need to wait that long to buy someone else's junk. "True Life" and "Made" on MTV have some interesting episodes -- though I realize I am WAY beyond the age of their target audience.
"Be Good Johnny Weir" on the Sundance Channel is fun. They've been promoting a new show about women who are friends with a lot of gay men -- just how large of an audience do they think there will BE for that? I mean, I will watch it, but who else? LOGO, the "gay" channel, has a really good travel show called "Bump", and they air some quite unusual documentaries, such as the life of Keith Haring, and the life of Freddie Mercury. I have eto pass, though, on "RuPaul's drag race."
The BBC channel has "You are what you eat", where they ambush some big tub of lard in Britain and show them how to eat better. I like that show, but I could do without seeing the people getting a colonic. They are very interested in elimination over there. have learned some about foods and nutrition from that show. I do not watch "The biggest loser" -- the way they humiliate the people, and all the yelling -- after seeing that, if I thought trainers generally behaved that way, I would never go to the gym, so I am rather upset with the whole way that show works.
The tattoo shows are disappointing - "L.A. Ink", "Miami Ink" -- they really are interpersonal dramas and just tangentially about tattoooing. So the one-time documentaries on tattooing and body modification are much more interesting to me. I like shows about how you train to do certain things -- being a marine, fire fighter, sniper -- all the kinds of things I could never possibly do.
There are a few medical-related shows that I watch -- the primordial dwarfs and the conjoined twins interested me, for example. Once it gets into anything gross, though, I don't want to see it. I definitely don't want to see surgery, childbirth, people in the E.R., or autopsies. I'm not interested in true crime or investigation shows, or psychics, or haunted places.
I don't watch any sort of dramas, and I don't watch movies. I have never rented a DVD or even taken a movie out from the library. I think the last time I went out to a movie was around 1995, and that was because the outdoor event we had planned on got rained out and we had to do SOMETHING. I don't watch any sitcoms, either. "Seinfeld" was really the only sitcom that was worth the time for me.
I do watch some classical music on PBS, and I wish there was more of that. I was quite upset when the cable company cut some of my PBS stations -- I now can't watch much bluegrass without a lot of searching around in the program guide. I like other concert shows, too.
At this point the only sport I watch is figure skating. Even that isn't what it used to be. The new rules pretty much force everyone to do the same things. The skaters I really liked -- Karen Kwan (Michelle's sister), Laurent Tobel, Paul Wylie, Lucinda Rue (a phenomenal spinner), they would not even make the first cut any more. At one time I really liked gymnastics, but the girls in particular are so young and so underweight now, I don't enjoy watching any more.
Overall I feel like I get my money's worth from cable, especially since I added the DVR. Once I got the hang of the search function, I can look for the shows I want and program them to be recorded, and then I can watch them and fast-forward through all the commercials. I really would much rather stay home and watch something rather than go out to a movie, or usually even to a show -- most of the shows or concerts I attend are either something a friend is in, or something I am in. The prices for the big venues, that just is not in my budget.
So -- what do you watch? I think I've made it easier to leave a comment on here, so I hope you will.
Sunday, March 28, 2010
Wednesday, March 24, 2010
Singing, part I - my singing history
I don’t recall when I started singing, or a time when I didn’t sing. I do recall my first audition, or, rather, the outcome – it was for the 5th-6th grade choir in school, in 5th grade, and I did NOT get in. Not some elite choir, mind you, but just regular kids at public school. I found this hard to believe, since I had been singing in “Junior Congregation” choir at temple for several years already, and my mother even went in and talked to the music teacher, but, no deal, I was not allowed in the choir. Over the years I have heard people tell stories about how something like this caused them to give up music or dance because someone early on told them they were not good enough, and I wonder how many talented people gave up because they didn’t get encouragement at the right time.
Fortunately I didn’t think all that much of the music teacher’s opinion, so I tooted away on the recorder in 5th grade, but in 6th grade I auditioned again for the choir, with the same teacher, and that time I did get in. I even have a recording of one concert, so that would have been about 1969, including those great hits, “The day is now over” and “Haul out the holly.” (Originally on a little reel-to-reel tape, but now on CD.) And incidentally the recorder playing went pretty well, and to this day I occasionally get together with people and play recorder consort music – I have my own set of recorders in 3 sizes.
In junior high, I took up guitar and folk singing. My mother signed up for a guitar class at the local Jewish Community Center and bought a cheap guitar. That lasted a very short time and I don’t recall ever hearing her play, but the result was a guitar in the hall closet. For the most part I taught myself to play, and I was interested enough that I remember we packed it up so I could take it to summer camp in Georgia, where I sang a few songs over the P.A. on the days I did the wake-up radio show.
I sang in choirs all through junior/senior high, which was all one school, but no auditions required until Senior Choir, which was for grades 10-12. Then there was Vocal Ensemble, a quite elite group of 24, grades 11-12, and requiring one year of Sr. Choir first. I was in Sr. Choir in 10th grade and enjoyed that, and in May of that year I did not sign up to audition for Vocal Ensemble, figuring maybe the following year I would be ready. The sign-up list was posted for about a week, and on the last day, the director asked me to come up after class and said he noticed I had not signed up to audition and suggested that I sign up. That seemed to be a pretty good clue that I might get in, so I went ahead and auditioned. Getting into that group was probably the most significant thing that ever happened in terms of singing, and I was somewhat aware of that even then. I was in the group for my final 2 years, and we sang for various local functions as well as in school concerts. It was quite prestigious to be seen in our (dorky) plaid outfits on performance days – almost as good as the drill team getting to wear their uniforms on game days. I think that was the most enjoyable time for me in terms of a performing group.
Up until the end of senior year, I never took any voice lessons. It didn’t occur to me that people took lessons just to SING, and I was taking piano lessons, which I’m sure was sufficient expense for my parents. I finally did take some lessons that summer, AFTER being accepted into the voice program at Heidelberg College. Then when I got there as a freshman and sang for my teacher, he said it would probably take us 6 months to undo the bad vocal habits I had been taught over the summer.
My 4 years of voice at college pretty much went downhill from there. It actually was the worst time for me in terms of singing. I was afraid of my teacher, but he was considered the best teacher for the mezzo voice, and I was supposed to feel very lucky that I got into his studio. I have some recordings from that time period, particularly my junior recital, and while I was not horrible, I was not good, and I sounded old, a lot older than I sound now. My teacher finally put me out at the end of junior year and said he’d be surprised if any other teacher would even take me. I had been singing in a local church choir the whole time I was there, and one of the other choir members was one of the voice professors, a mezzo herself, and she was happy to take me in for my senior year. I made a lot of improvement that year, but not enough to be in any way ready for my grad school audition in March, which went very badly, and I knew it would – I had already enrolled in library school for the following year.
I have a vague memory of singing at some sort of coffeehouse while at library school, and when I took a semester off, I sang and played banjo in a benefit show. Once I started working full-time, I moved to Clifton in the early 1980s and discovered the Queen City Balladeers, and for 5 years or so that was my main music activity, performing at the coffeehouse as well as in 3 of the Edensong concerts in Eden Park, once as a solo act, once as part of Walter Craft’s band, and once with my own bluegrass group, Sheryl’s Front Porch Band.
During the late 1980s/early 1990s I had a managerial job that required evenings and weekends, often on short notice, and I was exhausted most of the time, so I didn’t do very much with music. Then in 1995 I transferred to a desk job, strictly weekdays 8-5, and I started thinking about doing some music again. I was at a “Rise up singing” party, invited as the guitar player, and it was probably about my 3rd one of these when I commented to one of the other women about how bored I was playing “Take me home, country roads” at every party. She said if I wanted to sing a lot of new music, I should come to the Cincinnati shapenote singing group, and she gave me a bookmark with the location and everything. I told her I would go.
Probably if I had not told her I would go, by the time it rolled around I would have chosen not to go, but I generally follow through, so I did go. It was mid-summer, and a very small group, I think 7 people, and one sang so loudly that I literally could not hear myself, and at the end I told my friend I didn’t think this activity was for me. She asked that I give it another try, and told me that the loud person was from out of town and not usually at our group (he is now a friend, but still very loud!) So I did go again and got hooked on it, bought the book, and for several months spent a few hours a week practicing beating time and learning how to lead from the book.
The local group meets monthly and occasionally does extra singings or performances, and there are several conventions nearby, so for a while I was doing that once or twice a month. At a regional singing in Yellow Springs, I happened to meet the director and accompanist for a Cincinnati classical chorale of 20-24 people, the Cincinnati Camerata, and they had put out leaflets about an upcoming concert. I went to that with a friend, and all through it, after each number, he’d say, “You could get into this group!” and then showed me the blurb on the program about auditions coming up in about 3 months. I finally said I would call about an audition if he would not pester me for the rest of the show.
I may write some details of the audition in a later installment about auditions, but the very short version is, I was accepted into the Camerata right at the end of my audition, in part because I can sing a low F and he needed that on a particular piece. This is probably the most elite group I was ever in. The first year was a lot of fun, in part because it was new, and a few of the men were very welcoming. Over time, though the cattiness in the women’s sections got tiresome, and the director was hot-tempered, often justifiably, because people did not learn their music at home like they were supposed to. Also, there were several choir directors in the group, and two of them started to hire or recommend me for choir subbing or special occasions, and once I started doing that, I felt overloaded with rehearsals, so after 2 years with the Camerata, I left the group. I still attend their concerts, and I have no regrets – it was a great experience, but now they are doing mainly very modern repertoire, which is not the kind of music I like to sing.
My contacts from there led to being invited to sing with the Bach Association of Cincinnati, which I do for part of the year, and I continue to do choir subbing, though generally not for pay since the economy tanked. During a summer pick-up choir gig in 2009, I met the person who it ends up was about to become the former director of Women in Song, a west side women’s choir, and while my main interest was to work with him again, he suggested I do it anyway, saying he had heard they had a promising young director taking over.
Women in Song is not anywhere near as demanding as Camerata. It is all just “regular” people, though an audition is required. I did mine by sending the director a couple of MP3s of my singing. We do 2 concerts a year, with big breaks in between, so that allows me to stay with the Bach group and also do a bit of shapenote and other things. The most interesting thing, other than finally singing in an all-women’s group and making some female friends, is that the director is a male SOPRANO, formerly of Chanticleer. I am actually learning a lot from him and finding a few high notes that have eluded me for about 30 years. Also, since I have never sung in a women’s group, and quite a bit has been written for that voicing, I am doing music that is new to me, which I always enjoy.
All of the choir singing has gotten my voice back to a fairly classical sound, and that has made shapenote problematical. While the local group is used to my voice and rather enjoys it, I have been criticized on several occasions (including right to my face) by out-of-towners who say I do not sing it “right”, or who assume that I sing the way I do to be snobby. So I have cut back on that activity. Maybe once I can no longer do the classical singing, I will go back to it on a more regular basis.
That brings you right up to today, preparing for next month’s Women in Song concert. I’ll also be joining the director’s church choir just for that concert, since it is a joint concert and I’ll already be there, so why not sing with them? I will sing with just about any group if given the chance!
Possible future installments : auditions ; how to sing ; shows – the good, the bad, and the extremely weird.
Fortunately I didn’t think all that much of the music teacher’s opinion, so I tooted away on the recorder in 5th grade, but in 6th grade I auditioned again for the choir, with the same teacher, and that time I did get in. I even have a recording of one concert, so that would have been about 1969, including those great hits, “The day is now over” and “Haul out the holly.” (Originally on a little reel-to-reel tape, but now on CD.) And incidentally the recorder playing went pretty well, and to this day I occasionally get together with people and play recorder consort music – I have my own set of recorders in 3 sizes.
In junior high, I took up guitar and folk singing. My mother signed up for a guitar class at the local Jewish Community Center and bought a cheap guitar. That lasted a very short time and I don’t recall ever hearing her play, but the result was a guitar in the hall closet. For the most part I taught myself to play, and I was interested enough that I remember we packed it up so I could take it to summer camp in Georgia, where I sang a few songs over the P.A. on the days I did the wake-up radio show.
I sang in choirs all through junior/senior high, which was all one school, but no auditions required until Senior Choir, which was for grades 10-12. Then there was Vocal Ensemble, a quite elite group of 24, grades 11-12, and requiring one year of Sr. Choir first. I was in Sr. Choir in 10th grade and enjoyed that, and in May of that year I did not sign up to audition for Vocal Ensemble, figuring maybe the following year I would be ready. The sign-up list was posted for about a week, and on the last day, the director asked me to come up after class and said he noticed I had not signed up to audition and suggested that I sign up. That seemed to be a pretty good clue that I might get in, so I went ahead and auditioned. Getting into that group was probably the most significant thing that ever happened in terms of singing, and I was somewhat aware of that even then. I was in the group for my final 2 years, and we sang for various local functions as well as in school concerts. It was quite prestigious to be seen in our (dorky) plaid outfits on performance days – almost as good as the drill team getting to wear their uniforms on game days. I think that was the most enjoyable time for me in terms of a performing group.
Up until the end of senior year, I never took any voice lessons. It didn’t occur to me that people took lessons just to SING, and I was taking piano lessons, which I’m sure was sufficient expense for my parents. I finally did take some lessons that summer, AFTER being accepted into the voice program at Heidelberg College. Then when I got there as a freshman and sang for my teacher, he said it would probably take us 6 months to undo the bad vocal habits I had been taught over the summer.
My 4 years of voice at college pretty much went downhill from there. It actually was the worst time for me in terms of singing. I was afraid of my teacher, but he was considered the best teacher for the mezzo voice, and I was supposed to feel very lucky that I got into his studio. I have some recordings from that time period, particularly my junior recital, and while I was not horrible, I was not good, and I sounded old, a lot older than I sound now. My teacher finally put me out at the end of junior year and said he’d be surprised if any other teacher would even take me. I had been singing in a local church choir the whole time I was there, and one of the other choir members was one of the voice professors, a mezzo herself, and she was happy to take me in for my senior year. I made a lot of improvement that year, but not enough to be in any way ready for my grad school audition in March, which went very badly, and I knew it would – I had already enrolled in library school for the following year.
I have a vague memory of singing at some sort of coffeehouse while at library school, and when I took a semester off, I sang and played banjo in a benefit show. Once I started working full-time, I moved to Clifton in the early 1980s and discovered the Queen City Balladeers, and for 5 years or so that was my main music activity, performing at the coffeehouse as well as in 3 of the Edensong concerts in Eden Park, once as a solo act, once as part of Walter Craft’s band, and once with my own bluegrass group, Sheryl’s Front Porch Band.
During the late 1980s/early 1990s I had a managerial job that required evenings and weekends, often on short notice, and I was exhausted most of the time, so I didn’t do very much with music. Then in 1995 I transferred to a desk job, strictly weekdays 8-5, and I started thinking about doing some music again. I was at a “Rise up singing” party, invited as the guitar player, and it was probably about my 3rd one of these when I commented to one of the other women about how bored I was playing “Take me home, country roads” at every party. She said if I wanted to sing a lot of new music, I should come to the Cincinnati shapenote singing group, and she gave me a bookmark with the location and everything. I told her I would go.
Probably if I had not told her I would go, by the time it rolled around I would have chosen not to go, but I generally follow through, so I did go. It was mid-summer, and a very small group, I think 7 people, and one sang so loudly that I literally could not hear myself, and at the end I told my friend I didn’t think this activity was for me. She asked that I give it another try, and told me that the loud person was from out of town and not usually at our group (he is now a friend, but still very loud!) So I did go again and got hooked on it, bought the book, and for several months spent a few hours a week practicing beating time and learning how to lead from the book.
The local group meets monthly and occasionally does extra singings or performances, and there are several conventions nearby, so for a while I was doing that once or twice a month. At a regional singing in Yellow Springs, I happened to meet the director and accompanist for a Cincinnati classical chorale of 20-24 people, the Cincinnati Camerata, and they had put out leaflets about an upcoming concert. I went to that with a friend, and all through it, after each number, he’d say, “You could get into this group!” and then showed me the blurb on the program about auditions coming up in about 3 months. I finally said I would call about an audition if he would not pester me for the rest of the show.
I may write some details of the audition in a later installment about auditions, but the very short version is, I was accepted into the Camerata right at the end of my audition, in part because I can sing a low F and he needed that on a particular piece. This is probably the most elite group I was ever in. The first year was a lot of fun, in part because it was new, and a few of the men were very welcoming. Over time, though the cattiness in the women’s sections got tiresome, and the director was hot-tempered, often justifiably, because people did not learn their music at home like they were supposed to. Also, there were several choir directors in the group, and two of them started to hire or recommend me for choir subbing or special occasions, and once I started doing that, I felt overloaded with rehearsals, so after 2 years with the Camerata, I left the group. I still attend their concerts, and I have no regrets – it was a great experience, but now they are doing mainly very modern repertoire, which is not the kind of music I like to sing.
My contacts from there led to being invited to sing with the Bach Association of Cincinnati, which I do for part of the year, and I continue to do choir subbing, though generally not for pay since the economy tanked. During a summer pick-up choir gig in 2009, I met the person who it ends up was about to become the former director of Women in Song, a west side women’s choir, and while my main interest was to work with him again, he suggested I do it anyway, saying he had heard they had a promising young director taking over.
Women in Song is not anywhere near as demanding as Camerata. It is all just “regular” people, though an audition is required. I did mine by sending the director a couple of MP3s of my singing. We do 2 concerts a year, with big breaks in between, so that allows me to stay with the Bach group and also do a bit of shapenote and other things. The most interesting thing, other than finally singing in an all-women’s group and making some female friends, is that the director is a male SOPRANO, formerly of Chanticleer. I am actually learning a lot from him and finding a few high notes that have eluded me for about 30 years. Also, since I have never sung in a women’s group, and quite a bit has been written for that voicing, I am doing music that is new to me, which I always enjoy.
All of the choir singing has gotten my voice back to a fairly classical sound, and that has made shapenote problematical. While the local group is used to my voice and rather enjoys it, I have been criticized on several occasions (including right to my face) by out-of-towners who say I do not sing it “right”, or who assume that I sing the way I do to be snobby. So I have cut back on that activity. Maybe once I can no longer do the classical singing, I will go back to it on a more regular basis.
That brings you right up to today, preparing for next month’s Women in Song concert. I’ll also be joining the director’s church choir just for that concert, since it is a joint concert and I’ll already be there, so why not sing with them? I will sing with just about any group if given the chance!
Possible future installments : auditions ; how to sing ; shows – the good, the bad, and the extremely weird.
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
Stage fright
I have some good news and some bad news about stage fright -- which do you want first? Actually they're both the same -- either you have stage fright or you don't. After 40+ years of performing, that is my conclusion. Some people, including some very famous people, have it and learn to control it, but I think if you have "it", you are stuck with it.
I do not have stage fright. That is not to say that I don't have concerns on occasion about a performance, or that I am never anxious about some particular aspect of a show, but as far as the throwing up backstage/hands shaking/can't remember the words, no, I never have that. One time, MANY years ago, I had a feeling during rehearsals that one person was going to be too scared to perform, so I learned her whole song, and sure enough, on the night of the show (actually a youth temple service), she would NOT go out, and since this was a featured song written by one of the participants, that was quite a problem, so I said, "Well, if you REALLY don't want to do it, I can do it" -- which I did.
I think I have to give some credit to my parents for this. Neither one of them has ever been a musician, so they were never "stage parents." Whenever I would perform or practice, they were complimentary -- no critical remarks, or exhortations that I should be better, or that someone else was better. Also, both of my parents have done a fair amount of public speaking -- my father for his job, and my mother at temple, and neither one got all bent out of shape about doing it. So I had good examples to model.
I have had several performances ruined by the stage fright of others. In every case, the person did fine during numerous rehearsals, but once we got in front of the audience, forget it. One was a man whose daily job included public speaking, and I had seen him do this, always very natural and not even using notes most of the time, but sing a couple of folk songs with me? He was such a wreck, he brought the lyrics out on little pieces of paper, but then his hands were shaking so much that he dropped them all over the stage. Someone else who sang harmony just fine during rehearsals suddenly could not find her notes and sang totally off-key for the whole song.
I am a little bit sympathetic, because there ARE things that make me very anxious, such as highway driving (therefore I don't do it -- ever), and situations that may result in extreme pain and injury. Like anyone approaching me with a needle. So I DO know the feeling. I wonder, though, why people who have extreme stage fright don't just -- stay off the stage!
I will not do something if I think I'll be really bad at it -- that would include any type of dancing, and I've turned down solos where the high note was questionable as to whether I could hit it every time. I can memorize tons of lyrics in various languages, but I can't memorize dialogue, so I don't try to do that. When I do public speaking, I have notes, but I never try to write out or memorize word-for-word what I am going to say. I don't worry that I will blank out and not be able to say anything, because that has never happened.
What DO I worry about? Tripping, dropping something, lighting someone's hair on fire during candlelight service. Tripping or falling off the risers is my biggie, and I have refused to stand on the back riser -- I'm not that great on my feet, so I don't want to be in the back row where I might fall off. Processionals are not my favorite, either, though I've learned to walk and hold a hymnal, but I may not be singing if I have to negotiate any steps. My voice is prone to cracking in a certain part of my range, especially late at night, such as midnight Christmas eve service, and sometimes that does happen, and I just don't care all that much -- really, who is going to remember? I ALWAYS hit the high note -- the problems are in the forgettable low range areas.
I guess part of my lack of stage fright is that over the years, almost everything has happened to me, and yet I survive. I've had a guitar string break the moment before I walked out on stage (I played the whole set without that string), had the scenery fall down during an opera (we continued to sing while holding it up with one hand), had the music blow off the piano outdoors (I improvised and an audience member brought the music back), and the lights or the sound system have gone out several times (depending on the situation, you keep going, or stop til they fix it).
Underneath it all, I just don't CARE all that much. So often I want to say, "Hey, people, it's just a SHOW!" Will anyone remember this a year from now, or even next week? Probably not. I want to do well, but if I don't, well, you didn't pay much to get in to see me. Some of what has happened to me and close friends just in the past decade -- standing on stage and singing a little ditty definitely is not that big a deal in comparison.
So what is my advice if you have really bad stage fright? Don't go on stage. And, if this makes you mad enough that you DO go on stage and are successful, just to prove me wrong, then we've both accomplished something.
I do not have stage fright. That is not to say that I don't have concerns on occasion about a performance, or that I am never anxious about some particular aspect of a show, but as far as the throwing up backstage/hands shaking/can't remember the words, no, I never have that. One time, MANY years ago, I had a feeling during rehearsals that one person was going to be too scared to perform, so I learned her whole song, and sure enough, on the night of the show (actually a youth temple service), she would NOT go out, and since this was a featured song written by one of the participants, that was quite a problem, so I said, "Well, if you REALLY don't want to do it, I can do it" -- which I did.
I think I have to give some credit to my parents for this. Neither one of them has ever been a musician, so they were never "stage parents." Whenever I would perform or practice, they were complimentary -- no critical remarks, or exhortations that I should be better, or that someone else was better. Also, both of my parents have done a fair amount of public speaking -- my father for his job, and my mother at temple, and neither one got all bent out of shape about doing it. So I had good examples to model.
I have had several performances ruined by the stage fright of others. In every case, the person did fine during numerous rehearsals, but once we got in front of the audience, forget it. One was a man whose daily job included public speaking, and I had seen him do this, always very natural and not even using notes most of the time, but sing a couple of folk songs with me? He was such a wreck, he brought the lyrics out on little pieces of paper, but then his hands were shaking so much that he dropped them all over the stage. Someone else who sang harmony just fine during rehearsals suddenly could not find her notes and sang totally off-key for the whole song.
I am a little bit sympathetic, because there ARE things that make me very anxious, such as highway driving (therefore I don't do it -- ever), and situations that may result in extreme pain and injury. Like anyone approaching me with a needle. So I DO know the feeling. I wonder, though, why people who have extreme stage fright don't just -- stay off the stage!
I will not do something if I think I'll be really bad at it -- that would include any type of dancing, and I've turned down solos where the high note was questionable as to whether I could hit it every time. I can memorize tons of lyrics in various languages, but I can't memorize dialogue, so I don't try to do that. When I do public speaking, I have notes, but I never try to write out or memorize word-for-word what I am going to say. I don't worry that I will blank out and not be able to say anything, because that has never happened.
What DO I worry about? Tripping, dropping something, lighting someone's hair on fire during candlelight service. Tripping or falling off the risers is my biggie, and I have refused to stand on the back riser -- I'm not that great on my feet, so I don't want to be in the back row where I might fall off. Processionals are not my favorite, either, though I've learned to walk and hold a hymnal, but I may not be singing if I have to negotiate any steps. My voice is prone to cracking in a certain part of my range, especially late at night, such as midnight Christmas eve service, and sometimes that does happen, and I just don't care all that much -- really, who is going to remember? I ALWAYS hit the high note -- the problems are in the forgettable low range areas.
I guess part of my lack of stage fright is that over the years, almost everything has happened to me, and yet I survive. I've had a guitar string break the moment before I walked out on stage (I played the whole set without that string), had the scenery fall down during an opera (we continued to sing while holding it up with one hand), had the music blow off the piano outdoors (I improvised and an audience member brought the music back), and the lights or the sound system have gone out several times (depending on the situation, you keep going, or stop til they fix it).
Underneath it all, I just don't CARE all that much. So often I want to say, "Hey, people, it's just a SHOW!" Will anyone remember this a year from now, or even next week? Probably not. I want to do well, but if I don't, well, you didn't pay much to get in to see me. Some of what has happened to me and close friends just in the past decade -- standing on stage and singing a little ditty definitely is not that big a deal in comparison.
So what is my advice if you have really bad stage fright? Don't go on stage. And, if this makes you mad enough that you DO go on stage and are successful, just to prove me wrong, then we've both accomplished something.
Thursday, March 18, 2010
What does a cataloger DO all day?
In case you are wondering just what I do as a cataloging librarian, here’s part of today, just a random day. I don’t actually sit at my desk and catalog non-stop, which is a good thing, because I don’t think I could have done that for the past 15 years. All of us who have our master’s in library science do a lot of advising and helping with our clerical staff, and while I didn’t go to a meeting or need to confer with someone in a subject department today, we all do some of that as well. It’s lunchtime now, and here is what I have done so far.
Searched the national database for 6 new CDs. Found records for 2, exported the records into our system, cataloged the items, and wheeled them over to the processing dept. The other 4 are not in the database yet, so we will give them a day or two before we would start from scratch and catalog them, so those go on a special “holding” cart in our dept.
Helped one of the clerical people who had never typed up any contents notes in German and didn’t know how to make the diacritic markings. (This falls under two of my responsibilities, assisting with computer issues and foreign language cataloging).
Recataloged 15 music scores. This is an ongoing project to get all of the music scores that are on the public floor for browsing into the correct Dewey Decimal 22nd edition call number. We started getting music scores around Dewey ed. 17, so there are thousands of scores in old numbers. Even limiting the project to the browsing collection, it is probably a couple thousand. So I bring down one small cartful at a time. I just mark the new information on a paper slip (known around libraries as a p-slip), and 2 of our clerical people do the editing and put the new labels on the books. Then I get the p-slips back and I look online and make sure there are no errors, and also bring the punctuation up to Anglo-American Cataloging Rules ed. 2, if they were originally done per ed. 1, which many old ones are, and I add the designation “scores and parts” if the content area shows it has parts but the subject headings don’t.
Checked with a supervisor as to whether a particular book should go in the “Easy” call number or juvenile non-fiction, since it looked borderline to me, and with 25 copies going to branches, we don’t want to get it wrong and have to relabel them all later. Her judgment call was juv non-fic, so in the private note area that the public can’t see, there is a note saying “juv non-fic per CAH” so that if a branch librarian questions it, we will know it was already looked at by a supervisor, thus saving us a lot of time.
Called computer services for one of the clerical people who needs to be able to route label printing to a shared printer. (As the dept. ACE, more or less computer services liaison, I generally make these calls for the clerical people if they need something that requires administrator permission, since I don’t have that. This limits the number of calls and number of different people calling over there.)
Searched for a particular novel on Playaway, a fairly new media player device. I found the novel as a book, CD, cassette, and downloadable book, but not as a Playaway, so I created a new record in the national database for it (cloning one of the similar records to save a lot of time), then exported it to our system, then cataloged it and put it on a cart of other completed Playaways.
While cataloging the Playaway and checking a call number, I found a typo that someone else made in a call number label on Monday that will affect about 30 copies of something. Since they still show as “on order”, they may still be in the building and they could be corrected if we catch them in time. I printed this out and took it to a supervisor, since I am not supposed to go over routing around in the on order AV materials. (Security is quite high in Processing, with a special lock-up room for AV).
My boss was hosting a group of about 8 librarians from a small library system that is going to migrate to the same software that we have, so they were here for an overview of how we do all of our procedures. Their cataloger (she does ALL of it) had a lot of questions about how we interface with the Connexion Client, which is how we edit in the national database, and since I do more of that than anyone else, I met with her for about 15 minutes to show her some shortcuts and procedures.
Next on my agenda, search the national database for about 25 items related to inland river development and navigation. Which will lead to more exporting records, cataloging items, creating new records, and building new call numbers. And so it goes!
Searched the national database for 6 new CDs. Found records for 2, exported the records into our system, cataloged the items, and wheeled them over to the processing dept. The other 4 are not in the database yet, so we will give them a day or two before we would start from scratch and catalog them, so those go on a special “holding” cart in our dept.
Helped one of the clerical people who had never typed up any contents notes in German and didn’t know how to make the diacritic markings. (This falls under two of my responsibilities, assisting with computer issues and foreign language cataloging).
Recataloged 15 music scores. This is an ongoing project to get all of the music scores that are on the public floor for browsing into the correct Dewey Decimal 22nd edition call number. We started getting music scores around Dewey ed. 17, so there are thousands of scores in old numbers. Even limiting the project to the browsing collection, it is probably a couple thousand. So I bring down one small cartful at a time. I just mark the new information on a paper slip (known around libraries as a p-slip), and 2 of our clerical people do the editing and put the new labels on the books. Then I get the p-slips back and I look online and make sure there are no errors, and also bring the punctuation up to Anglo-American Cataloging Rules ed. 2, if they were originally done per ed. 1, which many old ones are, and I add the designation “scores and parts” if the content area shows it has parts but the subject headings don’t.
Checked with a supervisor as to whether a particular book should go in the “Easy” call number or juvenile non-fiction, since it looked borderline to me, and with 25 copies going to branches, we don’t want to get it wrong and have to relabel them all later. Her judgment call was juv non-fic, so in the private note area that the public can’t see, there is a note saying “juv non-fic per CAH” so that if a branch librarian questions it, we will know it was already looked at by a supervisor, thus saving us a lot of time.
Called computer services for one of the clerical people who needs to be able to route label printing to a shared printer. (As the dept. ACE, more or less computer services liaison, I generally make these calls for the clerical people if they need something that requires administrator permission, since I don’t have that. This limits the number of calls and number of different people calling over there.)
Searched for a particular novel on Playaway, a fairly new media player device. I found the novel as a book, CD, cassette, and downloadable book, but not as a Playaway, so I created a new record in the national database for it (cloning one of the similar records to save a lot of time), then exported it to our system, then cataloged it and put it on a cart of other completed Playaways.
While cataloging the Playaway and checking a call number, I found a typo that someone else made in a call number label on Monday that will affect about 30 copies of something. Since they still show as “on order”, they may still be in the building and they could be corrected if we catch them in time. I printed this out and took it to a supervisor, since I am not supposed to go over routing around in the on order AV materials. (Security is quite high in Processing, with a special lock-up room for AV).
My boss was hosting a group of about 8 librarians from a small library system that is going to migrate to the same software that we have, so they were here for an overview of how we do all of our procedures. Their cataloger (she does ALL of it) had a lot of questions about how we interface with the Connexion Client, which is how we edit in the national database, and since I do more of that than anyone else, I met with her for about 15 minutes to show her some shortcuts and procedures.
Next on my agenda, search the national database for about 25 items related to inland river development and navigation. Which will lead to more exporting records, cataloging items, creating new records, and building new call numbers. And so it goes!
Wednesday, March 17, 2010
A cat person who used to be a dog person
I have a lot of friends who are dedicated “dog people.” Some of them really think that all cats are the same! Of course we cat people know that this is not true. We always had a pug dog when I was growing up, so I could easily be a dog person, but living alone, a cat is more practical.
Here is a summary of my two cats – you might want to do this for fun with your pets.
My situation: previous cat, Harley (H), current cat, Cleopatra (C).
Species and gender: H: Neutered male American shorthair cat (Tan and white)
C: Neutered female American shorthair cat (Tortie)
Official name: H: Harley Honerkamp Pockrose
C: Cleopatra Pelley Pockrose
Source of name: H: Former owners, the Honerkamps, named him Harley.
C: Former caretaker, Linda Pelley, named her Cleo. I lengthened to Cleopatra due to her black eyeliner.
Nicknames: H: Harley D. Boy ; The Boy ; Hairy Boy ; Squeaky Beast ; Mr.
Hiss
C: Ms. Cleo ; I'm sure she'll get more the longer I have her
How I got them: H: Belonged to neighbors who were moving away and I asked if I
could have him. He was 3 years old.
C: Was a stray, sleeping on a friend's porch. She already had 3 pets
and was trying to find a home for Cleo, who was about 8
months old.
First meeting: H: In my yard while gardening. I started chatting with him, and
within a month or so he would wait on my porch almost every
day for me to come home from work.
C: Was following my friend Linda when she was walking her dog
and started making eyes at me while we were chatting. I gave
her a "trial visit" over a holiday weekend, and when she didn't
spray at all where my old cat had, she became a permanent
resident.
Best trick: H: Would almost always come when I would whistle, even from
across the street or down in the basement. His former owners
had 3 dogs, so he probably learned it from them.
C: She retrieves cloth mice, often 20 times in a row if I'll keep
throwing it.
Favorite dry food: H: Friskies Dental Diet.
C: Friskies Dental Diet. I don't know what they put in there, but if I
would mix two kinds, which I generally do, both would pick out
the pieces of Dental Diet and eat them first.
Interest in people food: H: Very high. He was quite malnourished when I took him in, so I was very generous with tastes of my food, and he developed a liking for things like refried beans, spaghetti, and chicken livers.
C: Moderate. If it smells like fish or meat, she's interested, but she doesn't beg like The Boy did.
Favorite people food: H: Those rectangular fruitcakes they sell at the bank. I left a piece unattended once, and 15 minutes later I came back to a plate with just 2 green cherries on it, and he was licking his whiskers in a very satisfied manner. After that he's sit and stare me down til I shared if I had any. He also loved toast crust and crumbs.
C: Sardines. If I don't want her little nose right in my face while eating, she has to be locked in the kitchen while I eat sardines. I gave her some toast crumbs, but she sniffed one up her nose and had a sneezing fit, so she doesn't approach a plate with crumbs on it.
Interest in cooking: H: Very high if meat was involved. He'd sit at my feet and beg non-stop while I cut up meat or chicken, and of course he always got a few bits. It never made him sick, so I figured it was OK, especially since he supplemented his diet with insects anyway.
C: Fairly low. It still surprises me not to have a begging cat as soon as I unwrap meat. If it's fish, she'll come running, but she doesn't seem to care much about raw meat.
Interest in catnip: H: Very high until about age 15. I put it in an old stocking and he would hold it up to his nose and sniff it, and it was just about impossible to take it away from him. Eventually he'd more or less pass out with his head resting on it, and then I'd take it away.
C: Moderate. She'll sniff it and bat it around for a while, but she loses interest fairly quickly.
Habitat: H: Totally a yard cat when I got him, so I continued to let him go out until he was 10 and developed a skin problem. While he lived to be 18, he never quite got over being made into a house cat and would lament quite loudly about it.
C: Totally a house cat, and generally fairly content about it, although I have to make sure she's not near the door when I open it.
Conversation: H. His meow was always more of a squeak. He liked for us to "meow" back and forth. Various situations required hissing, including ear cleaning, nail clipping, and seeing other cats through the window. Once I started keeping him in, he would lament his sorry state just about daily by howling in the basement stairwell.
C. She has a more standard meow, but so far doesn't meow back to me. When the alarm goes off, she starts meowing and generally keeps it up until I come downstairs. She doesn't hiss or howl (so far). She does chatter a lot at the window if there are birds outside, which Harley never did.
Cuteness factor: H: Moderate. Harley was a scrappy street boy who would only sit in my lap if he could be facing the door. He was very particular about being petted, and his feet and tummy areas were off-limits.
C: Very high, which is good, because she misbehaves quite a bit! She knows she's cute and makes eyes at people. She is very much a lap kitty and has learned to fit herself over on one side so I can use my laptop without having to remove her.
Worst habits: H. Spraying. I found this out within a couple of days, but he was my buddy, so for 10 years the bottom 2 feet of all my furniture was wrapped in foil, and I bought that anti-stink stuff in a gallon jug. Fortunately most of my furniture is on the wood floor and not on carpeting, or probably he would have had to go. He stopped spraying when he was about 15. His other bad habit was scratching - usually guests who didn't realize that petting his cute little white feet was not allowed.
C: Maniacal flying leaps resulting in broken glassware. I've had to put my rather extensive glassware collection away or on lower shelves. Crashing right into a wall doesn't deter her from trying the same move again. She also likes to run around on top of the basement air ducts, which can be heard throughout the house and is rather disconcerting in the middle of the night.
Fraidycattiness: H: For all his street sense, Harley was quite a fraidy boy. Thunder was the biggy, and he'd hide way under the guest bed as soon as he heard any. If I'd try to hold him in my lap and reassure him, he'd whine until I let him go hide. He also ran straight to the basement as soon as I turned on the vacuum cleaner, and eventually as soon as he even SAW the vacuum cleaner.
C: Pretty fearless so far. Thunder and lightning, no problem. I actually have to lock her in the other room to prevent vacuuming up her tail because she likes to chase the vacuum cleaner around the room.
Final days: H: At age 17 he started to have renal failure, and lost about half of his 14 lb. in a year. I took him in at age 18 – by then he couldn’t walk the steps and could barely get into the litter box. When he lost interest in sardines, I knew it was time, and he had one hiss left in him for the technician, which was a relief, actually – still the Old Boy to the end.
C: Hard to imagine that if she lives to 18 like the Old Boy, I will be 68 at that time. So I’m more concerned about MY age than about hers.
Here is a summary of my two cats – you might want to do this for fun with your pets.
My situation: previous cat, Harley (H), current cat, Cleopatra (C).
Species and gender: H: Neutered male American shorthair cat (Tan and white)
C: Neutered female American shorthair cat (Tortie)
Official name: H: Harley Honerkamp Pockrose
C: Cleopatra Pelley Pockrose
Source of name: H: Former owners, the Honerkamps, named him Harley.
C: Former caretaker, Linda Pelley, named her Cleo. I lengthened to Cleopatra due to her black eyeliner.
Nicknames: H: Harley D. Boy ; The Boy ; Hairy Boy ; Squeaky Beast ; Mr.
Hiss
C: Ms. Cleo ; I'm sure she'll get more the longer I have her
How I got them: H: Belonged to neighbors who were moving away and I asked if I
could have him. He was 3 years old.
C: Was a stray, sleeping on a friend's porch. She already had 3 pets
and was trying to find a home for Cleo, who was about 8
months old.
First meeting: H: In my yard while gardening. I started chatting with him, and
within a month or so he would wait on my porch almost every
day for me to come home from work.
C: Was following my friend Linda when she was walking her dog
and started making eyes at me while we were chatting. I gave
her a "trial visit" over a holiday weekend, and when she didn't
spray at all where my old cat had, she became a permanent
resident.
Best trick: H: Would almost always come when I would whistle, even from
across the street or down in the basement. His former owners
had 3 dogs, so he probably learned it from them.
C: She retrieves cloth mice, often 20 times in a row if I'll keep
throwing it.
Favorite dry food: H: Friskies Dental Diet.
C: Friskies Dental Diet. I don't know what they put in there, but if I
would mix two kinds, which I generally do, both would pick out
the pieces of Dental Diet and eat them first.
Interest in people food: H: Very high. He was quite malnourished when I took him in, so I was very generous with tastes of my food, and he developed a liking for things like refried beans, spaghetti, and chicken livers.
C: Moderate. If it smells like fish or meat, she's interested, but she doesn't beg like The Boy did.
Favorite people food: H: Those rectangular fruitcakes they sell at the bank. I left a piece unattended once, and 15 minutes later I came back to a plate with just 2 green cherries on it, and he was licking his whiskers in a very satisfied manner. After that he's sit and stare me down til I shared if I had any. He also loved toast crust and crumbs.
C: Sardines. If I don't want her little nose right in my face while eating, she has to be locked in the kitchen while I eat sardines. I gave her some toast crumbs, but she sniffed one up her nose and had a sneezing fit, so she doesn't approach a plate with crumbs on it.
Interest in cooking: H: Very high if meat was involved. He'd sit at my feet and beg non-stop while I cut up meat or chicken, and of course he always got a few bits. It never made him sick, so I figured it was OK, especially since he supplemented his diet with insects anyway.
C: Fairly low. It still surprises me not to have a begging cat as soon as I unwrap meat. If it's fish, she'll come running, but she doesn't seem to care much about raw meat.
Interest in catnip: H: Very high until about age 15. I put it in an old stocking and he would hold it up to his nose and sniff it, and it was just about impossible to take it away from him. Eventually he'd more or less pass out with his head resting on it, and then I'd take it away.
C: Moderate. She'll sniff it and bat it around for a while, but she loses interest fairly quickly.
Habitat: H: Totally a yard cat when I got him, so I continued to let him go out until he was 10 and developed a skin problem. While he lived to be 18, he never quite got over being made into a house cat and would lament quite loudly about it.
C: Totally a house cat, and generally fairly content about it, although I have to make sure she's not near the door when I open it.
Conversation: H. His meow was always more of a squeak. He liked for us to "meow" back and forth. Various situations required hissing, including ear cleaning, nail clipping, and seeing other cats through the window. Once I started keeping him in, he would lament his sorry state just about daily by howling in the basement stairwell.
C. She has a more standard meow, but so far doesn't meow back to me. When the alarm goes off, she starts meowing and generally keeps it up until I come downstairs. She doesn't hiss or howl (so far). She does chatter a lot at the window if there are birds outside, which Harley never did.
Cuteness factor: H: Moderate. Harley was a scrappy street boy who would only sit in my lap if he could be facing the door. He was very particular about being petted, and his feet and tummy areas were off-limits.
C: Very high, which is good, because she misbehaves quite a bit! She knows she's cute and makes eyes at people. She is very much a lap kitty and has learned to fit herself over on one side so I can use my laptop without having to remove her.
Worst habits: H. Spraying. I found this out within a couple of days, but he was my buddy, so for 10 years the bottom 2 feet of all my furniture was wrapped in foil, and I bought that anti-stink stuff in a gallon jug. Fortunately most of my furniture is on the wood floor and not on carpeting, or probably he would have had to go. He stopped spraying when he was about 15. His other bad habit was scratching - usually guests who didn't realize that petting his cute little white feet was not allowed.
C: Maniacal flying leaps resulting in broken glassware. I've had to put my rather extensive glassware collection away or on lower shelves. Crashing right into a wall doesn't deter her from trying the same move again. She also likes to run around on top of the basement air ducts, which can be heard throughout the house and is rather disconcerting in the middle of the night.
Fraidycattiness: H: For all his street sense, Harley was quite a fraidy boy. Thunder was the biggy, and he'd hide way under the guest bed as soon as he heard any. If I'd try to hold him in my lap and reassure him, he'd whine until I let him go hide. He also ran straight to the basement as soon as I turned on the vacuum cleaner, and eventually as soon as he even SAW the vacuum cleaner.
C: Pretty fearless so far. Thunder and lightning, no problem. I actually have to lock her in the other room to prevent vacuuming up her tail because she likes to chase the vacuum cleaner around the room.
Final days: H: At age 17 he started to have renal failure, and lost about half of his 14 lb. in a year. I took him in at age 18 – by then he couldn’t walk the steps and could barely get into the litter box. When he lost interest in sardines, I knew it was time, and he had one hiss left in him for the technician, which was a relief, actually – still the Old Boy to the end.
C: Hard to imagine that if she lives to 18 like the Old Boy, I will be 68 at that time. So I’m more concerned about MY age than about hers.
First posting
After considering a variety of places to put my blog, I decided to go with this. So far I've been pretty pleased with my various Google services, and I notice a lot of other friends here on blogspot.
Life in the semi-fast lane is my catch-all description of my life in general. While I have a desk job, after work I'm often off to a rehearsal, or working in the yard, and on weekends I generally visit my parents, sometimes attend a meet-up or workshop, and try to squeeze in all the chores I didn't get to during the week.
I'm not sure what exactly I'll write about here. Probably not my family, since they are a pretty private bunch and would not like to be featured online. My opinions about various things are a good bet, since I have a LOT of opinions. If you want to suggest a (g-rated) topic, feel free.
Life in the semi-fast lane is my catch-all description of my life in general. While I have a desk job, after work I'm often off to a rehearsal, or working in the yard, and on weekends I generally visit my parents, sometimes attend a meet-up or workshop, and try to squeeze in all the chores I didn't get to during the week.
I'm not sure what exactly I'll write about here. Probably not my family, since they are a pretty private bunch and would not like to be featured online. My opinions about various things are a good bet, since I have a LOT of opinions. If you want to suggest a (g-rated) topic, feel free.
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