Toronto in March

Last weekend, John and I traveled to Toronto for the graduate student conference at the University of Toronto: Sounding Bodies. Our friend Emily (below) was one of the conference chairs. She and John know each other through ethno and they go way back. In this photo she's standing next to Chris, our friend at U. Buffalo. The two of them each presented at our student conference last summer, and it was fun to get to see them again.

Also, at some point during the day on Saturday, they realized that they were dressed alike.

As someone who has endured many a grad conference, I have to say, the U of T did a class job. They provided breakfast, lunch, and then apps and beer at the bar afterward. And they had a great keynote: Tomie Hahn. Her presentation was partly what drew us to the conference. Tomie is an ethnomusicologist who studies Japanese dance and the bodily transmission of knowledge. And, you know, monster truck rallies. Apparently she is also quite the performance artist. The videos she showed us of herself dressed as a robot made me and John think of Björk. Tomie embodied (!) everything I love about a great keynote for a grad conference. She was friendly and enthusiastic about each student's work, she participated in every Q&A, and spent a lot of time socializing with the students. Her keynote itself was, understandably, more physical than most. At one point, she brought out a bunch of industrial sized rubber bands and showed us an exercise that involved banding about 20 of us together. 

Here she is demonstrating this on one conference participant.

I was on the other side of the room, banded to about 4 other people (including the dean, lol), so you can't see me in this picture. But here's my friend Matthew with his back to us. The exercise involved slowly moving and understanding what the people around you were doing by sensing their movement. 

Besides the conference, we got a chance to explore a bit of Toronto. I took a picture of this TD Canada Trust sign in China Town, like the country mouse I am. 

We had great soup in Korea Town. 

John and I stopped for a short breakfast at the By the Way Cafe on Bloor just before heading to the bus station. I'm sure he wouldn't want me to post this photo, but he doesn't read this blog, so it's ok.

Delicious fruit, yogurt, and granola bowl.

We took a long walk from the cafe to the bus station, through the U of T campus. Sunday was St. Patrick's Day and we stumbled upon several groups getting ready for some kind of parade. We saw the old timey fire trucks. 

And the Philippine Heritage Band. 

Somehow this marching band in a St. Patrick's Day parade seemed very Canadian to me - in a good way. Canadians have told us often that while America is a melting pot, Canada is a "cultural mosaic" (or tossed salad, depending on who you ask). Immigrants who move here aren't expected to give up their cultural traditions in the same way immigrants in America are expected to conform, or so the narrative goes. For me, this parade exemplified that idea, in that, a parade celebrating Irish heritage featured multiple marching bands from local Asian communities. The attitude seemed to be, "Let's have an Irish party! Everyone's invited!"

Conference Bingo

Just as we arrived at our hotel in New Orleans a couple of weeks ago, a (nameless) graduate student I know handed each of us a copy of the "AMS/SEM/SMT NEW ORLEANS 2012 BINGO" card. At the bottom it reads, "Remember to shout 'BINGO!' when you complete a row or column. The louder, the better, especially if you are in a business meeting or plenary session. There are no prizes to be won, and the creator takes no responsibility for any personal or professional consequences of shouting 'BINGO!' in the middle of a session."

Y'all, I came so close to getting Bingo. So close. 

Things I got: 

• "My question is more of a comment..."
• Conference attendee circling book exhibit with no purpose (I did this myself before seeing it on the card). 
• Any discussion of the US presidential election (the conference ended on Nov. 4th, so this happened over and over and over). 
• Speaker gets drowned out by musical example playing from adjoining room. 
• Anyone with a flight departing Sunday before 7AM. 
• Audience member on Facebook or Twitter during a session.
• Senior scholar overly drunk at a reception. 
• Conference attendee still wearing name badge while out on Bourbon Street. 
• Standing room only at a senior scholar's paper (saw this when Thomas Christensen spoke, but I like to think they were mostly there to see my friend Anna who was on the same panel). 
• Technical difficulties with PowerPoint or musical example. 

Things I was missing: 

• Theorists criticizing presenter's Schenker graph. 
• "Seeing as I'm running out of time..."
• Junior faculty gets mistaken for graduate student (this did happen to a friend of mine, but not while I was around). 
• Any reference to "musicking."
• Any reference to "the performing body."
• Conference attending completely overdressed for New Orleans weather (I was especially surprised that I did not see this). 
• Senior scholar criticizing the New Musicology. 
• Three or more office ribbons on a name badge (John and I debated whether this is even possible, I say no - at most, anyone could have two. But I didn't see anyone with two, so it's blank either way). 
• Grad student gets burned by senior scholar during question period (I have seen this before, and it's pretty demoralizing, again not naming names. But I was grateful not to see it happen again). 
• Any reference to an on-going debate on [society listserves] AMS-L, SEM-L or SMT-talk.
• Audience member hijacks question period to talk about his/her own project (I saw someone hijack a Q&A to talk about the work of one of their dept. colleagues, but I was trying to ruthlessly adhere to the game, so I didn't count this. Otherwise it would have given me a BINGO!). 
• Presenter clearly does not understand the theory she/he is citing. 
• "That's beyond the scope of this project."

More than once, a graduate student or faculty member would see this Bingo card in my lap as I took real notes during a session, muffled their laughter, and asked me where they could get one of their own.  I won't name names, but one of my professors thinks it came from some fairly recent Harvard musicology grads. We may never know. 

I also never saw anyone get a BINGO. But maybe next year, in Charlotte, NC...

AMS/SEM/SMT New Orleans 2012

Last week, John and I traveled down to New Orleans for the academic conferences we normally attend, except this year, all three of them happened at once: AMS/SMT/SEM, aka 

THE TRIUMVIRATE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

We had a pretty good time and saw a lot of interesting papers. I think my absolute favorite was an SEM panel on women who play guitar in various pop/rock music settings, and the gender implications. It turns out, if you are a black woman playing guitar, people feel free to come up to you and say racist/sexist things while you're playing, or otherwise insult you, or put money into your jean pockets as though you are a stripper. The panel included three smart women talking about their field work, one of whom is from Toronto. After speaking with her, I decided we have to try to get her to come to UWO to speak. 

My second favorite (though in some ways better than my favorite, it's hard to say) was another SEM panel on music in prisons. Unfortunately, one of the presenters was unable to attend, but the two who were there did an excellent job. The first spoke on music as a way for women in a Louisiana prison to create private spaces and maintain relationships with other prisoners while incarcerated. The author was simultaneously working on a documentary about the same topic, so he played some clips of the women who he spoke with, and it made his paper very moving. The second presenter spoke on his own experience as an inmate in a prison in NY state. Once he started talking, I immediately wanted to ask him a million personal questions, but shied away. Somehow this guy ended up serving a 6 month sentence after earning a PhD at NYU, so there must be an interesting story there. His paper focused on the way men used the special music room available at the prison, and it was also a very personal, moving story. I almost didn't make it to this panel because of the CSW 7 AM breakfast, after which I'm almost always exhausted. But I'm so glad I stayed up and went to it. 

I also went to the Committee for the Status of Women breakfast and lunch meetings, and had productive discussions at both. I have high hopes for a good session at the 2013 meeting in Charlotte. I think I've mentioned before that SMT has a pretty awful gender discrepancy, and the CSW always has a thoughtful discussion about it at our lunch meeting every year. For next year, I'm hoping for us to extend that discussion to the actual paper session that we get on the program, so that the relatively private lunch isn't the only place where that conversation happens. 

Saturday night of the conference usually involves a bunch of parties hosted by different universities. Before we started party hopping, though, we went with our friend Anna (who also delivered a pretty great paper!) to a reception/sing-along hosted by the North American British Music Studies Association Reception and Musicale, where they had free finger food (alligator sausage), beer, wine, and a booklet of part songs. This was one of the most fun and memorable parts of the weekend, especially getting to see so many academics trying to sight read after 2-3 glasses of wine.  

                       

Especially these academics:

                                  

Of course, we spent a lot of time wandering around New Orleans, especially on the first night we got there: Halloween.

We traveled with our new friend Ian, a masters student at Western. He and John eventually settled on drinking "hand grenades" while we were walking around Bourbon street. I think it was at this point that another colleague, who shall remain nameless, shouted, "What makes a conference better? Street drinking!!!"

We ate a bunch of different good restaurants. For lunch: Remoulade's, not far from the hotel. Dinner: Bourbon House, actually attached to our hotel. Ian tried a sampler flight, and after dinner we both had "bourbon milk punch," basically a bourbon milk shake. John also had raw oysters basically every chance he got.

(Milk punch, above, John with oysters, below)

We also made our way to Cafe du Monde twice for beignets, coffee, and hot chocolate. 

(Here's a half-eaten beignet, below...I think I will try to recreate this at home at some point)

Also dinner, somehow not pictured: El Gato Negro, for Mexican food. They made guacamole at our table and served us tasty margaritas in to-go cups. I also had a pretty sweet veggie taco there with squash and tomatoes. 

John and I stopped in to Cafe Beignet so that he could get espresso at one point. Even though the pastries looked amazing, it was the near the end of our trip and I was starting to feel kind of gross from so many days of really heavy food.

On Sunday morning, we were able to eat at the Green Goddess, a great place for vegetarians and omnivores alike. I had some amazing grits and sweet potatoes biscuits (yes, carbs only for me, thanks). It started pouring while we were there, so they moved us inside to a very small courtyard. I took a picture, looking up:

Sunday afternoon, John and I went to the Audubon Aquarium for a mental break from music.
They have a big, scaley fountain in the lobby.

We spent some time in the Amazon rainforest section, which also had some big catfish. 

They also had a lot of beautiful sea horses. We watched them swim and wrap their tails around these stems, then lick the algae off of them (I guess? Who knows what they eat?).

They also have a big "Carribbean" tank with a lot of rays, giant fish, and a bunch of sharks.

Oh yeah, and this awesome sea turtle.

Sunday night, we walked along the street a final time and saw the gallery belonging to this artist, whose dog painting is all over town:

I think my only real regret is not seeing inside St. Louis cathedral. Another time, I guess. Here's part of the back at night. My other regret would also be not completing a conference Bingo, but that's my next post...

Music Theory Midwest 2012 -- Ann Arbor, MI

 Last weekend John and I traveled to Ann Arbor for this year's Music Theory Midwest. Unlike the previous two years (2010 post here) that I've attended, I was actually giving a paper. Luckily my anxiety about presenting in front of people whose opinions really matter to me didn't take away from the fun of the conference.

John and I shared a room at the Holiday Inn with Djillian and Bryn, and their two delighful pugs. I didn't get any pictures of the pugs during the trip, but you can see them sitting on John during their visit to our house earlier this year. The brown one in front is Vernon, and the little lady sitting behind him is Prudence.

I always say that MTMW 2009 in Bowling Green was the conference where I learned to open a beer bottle in a door jam - I won't say who taught me, but his/her name rhymes with Jim Vest.  This year the hotel had an actual bottle opener installed just outside the shower (not exactly sure why). Someone must have tipped them off. 

Ann Arbor's restaurants and breweries really blew me away. I was expecting something similar to Bloomington, which is, of course, amazing. But Ann Arbor is bigger, and closer to a major metropolitan area. I would say it was slightly more upscale than Bloomington, and I mean that as a neutral statement, since upscale isn't always better.
I loved every thing I ate for the three days we were there. On Thursday, John, Djillian and I hit the town while Bryn went to a pre-conference workshop on schema theory.  First stop: The Jolly Pumpkin, a brew pub that specializes in sour beer. We ordered a flight, and I thought most of it was so-so (note: you can find out detailed info on all the beers I tried by clicking here). I took some notes on our coaster about each one.


















Left to right: Noire ("ok, or meh"), Blanca ("ok"), Oro ("really interesting! tastes oddly like white wine, and is delicious and unusual"), Wheat Grass IPA ("John liked, Abby didn't, tasted like...grass"), Cider ("ok, refreshing").


Next we headed to the Arbor Brewing Co, where we ate dinner twice. The first night, we had a waiter named Don that all three of us instantly wanted to befriend. He accomodated all our weird behavior, even when I asked,
"Can I order the mac n' cheese without bacon?"
"Of course."
"Ok, great, but I was just curious. I don't really want to order it."

My dining companions looked at me like I was nuts. Don was completely nice about it. Over the course of the evening, we learned that the following day was his 28th birthday, and so we vowed to return and ask for his section. But when we arrived, it was already full. Apparently Don is nice to other people, too.

 

Djillian, photobombing the fight from Arbor Brewing Co. 

John and I both liked this flight a lot more than the one from Jolly Pumpkin. My favorite was the Heffeweizen, though they also had a great Double Bock and several others we liked.

My other comment about that place is that every thing on the menu made me drool. I had vegetarian jambalaya the first night, with faux-sausage, and the mac n' cheese the second night. Djillian had some great looking nachos, and John swore that the beer battered tempeh was outstanding - it came to him in his dreams the night he ate it, and not in a bad way. I would go back there now if John handed me the car keys.


We wandered around Ann Arbor pretty much every night we were there, mostly having dessert and drinks, though John did climb into a display window at one point. No one was irritated or harmed.

On Friday night I had a fantastic vegan chocolate-peanut butter cupcake from the Cupcake Station, while John bought a few pieces of candy at Kilwin's. Someone from my past can correct me on this, but I think Kilwin's is the same ice cream/sweet shop where we used to go in Traverse City, MI when I was at Interlochen.
Saturday night was Bryn and Djillian's fifth wedding anniversary, and after a great veg-friendly dinner at Seva, we walked to La Dolce Vita for dessert and after-dinner drinks. I combined the two and had a chocolate-butterscotch martini, but others had desserts that I coveted, including a couple bites of John's tiramisu. We noticed that a couple seated nearby was also celebrating a wedding anniversary, and that the waitress brought them a special treat. After we informed our extremely enthusiastic waitress about Bryn and Djill, she did the same thing: a chocolate raspberry plate scrawled, with two oreo-crumb truffles. La Dolce Vita was a bit fancier than the other places we went, and even had a cigar bar/lounge downstairs that reminded both me and Djillian of our grandfathers.

John made the rounds to a couple of stores with great beer selection, so we had a few drinks in the room, too. I took home a Harpoon UFO (their orange-infused Heffe), which I've had before and loved. We're planning a little beer tasting for next week.*

I don't usually discuss the actual theory of any theory conference when I post here. But I'll close this with a couple fun anecdotes from the weekend that I wrote on my program.

"And here we get a wonderfully continental whiff of Karl Marx." -- Bill Guerin, winner of the 2012 Komar Student Paper Award!! I was so happy to see him win. His paper was excellent.

Abby: Everyone's laughing is irritating me.
John: Your anger brings me great joy.

Bryn: [University of Miami, FL, my new employer] is building a new music building.
Our new friend, Greg: Will they have a pool in the center courtyard, with manatees swimming around?
Side note: getting to meet and hang out with Greg was a highlight of the trip, for sure. He's funny and awesome. 

Also, I included a joke in my short bio that Andrew Mead, the session chair, read to introduce me. It said:

Abigail ________ received a bachelor's degree in composition and a master's degree in music theory from Indiana University. She is currently a PhD student at the University of Western Ontario. Her dissertation applies Foucault's theories of power to the writings of Rameau. In her spare time, she enjoys writing about lighter topics, like George Crumb and death.

Andrew Mead said it was the best bio he'd ever heard, and it got a lot of laughs from the larger-than-I-expected group in the room.  Afterward, John said, "Wow, if that bio got such a big laugh, then you guys need more jokes."







*Because that's when OMG Dave and Carla are coming OMG!

Books for Fall 2011

Instead of a list of foods I made this week (mostly grilled cheese) or a list of random events that happened to me, I thought I could confirm my nerd status by making a list of things that have been going on in my brain parts. Here are some books I've been reading. As you'll see, they obviously relate to each other in a logical and inevitable way.*

1. Dialectic of Enlightenment, Max Horkheimer and T. W. Adorno (originally published 1944).
























Adorno and Horkheimer (or "Hork," as I call him in my notes) were 20th-century critical theorists. My advisor put the first chapter, "The Concept of Enlightenment," on my fall reading list, since I'm studying Rameau, the 18th-century music theorist (and the two obviously go together...*sarcasm*). In a way it was a really obvious thing for me to read in regards to Rameau, since they deal with the Enlightenment values that effected his theories - and I'd argue, as others would, that we still practice and teach music theory in a very Rameauian way. He's stuck with us like not many else have. So I've decided to take a social/cultural angle and study him, specifically the idea of Nature as something Enlightenment scholars wanted to master through rationalism. Dialectic of Enlightenment deals more with the idea that Enlightenment is a totalitarian phenomenon that commodifies our thoughts and our sense of self, and that enlightenment culture eventually led to the Holocaust. The more radical aspects of their theory aren't what interest me so much, but I am intrigued by their idea (similar to Foucault's) that when we "know" a thing, such as Nature, we dominate it. You could say Rameau did something similar, since he was obsessed with finding a natural source for tonality as we know it - the corps sonore.
The Dialectic is among the hardest things I've ever tried to read, but I would say that this translation by Edmund Jephcott is more readable than others. I'd recommend it, if this is the kind of thing that floats your boat.

Enough. I'm sure you're thinking, "Save it for the diss."

2. The Nutcraker and the Mouse King, E. T. A. Hoffman (1819-21).

























After I looked into the Nutcracker performances in Toronto, I learned that E. T. A. Hoffman wrote the original story. That kind of blew me away, since most of what I know about him I learned from IU's trippy production of Tales of Hoffman a few years ago (could you do a non-trippy version of that opera? Maybe, but it'd be boring). But then I realized that it makes total sense for him to written the Nutcracker, since it's plenty weird itself.
If you're into reading Christmassy things this time of year (as I'm wont to do), I would recommend this story. It's not very long, maybe 10 short chapters, and it was readily available to me through the UWO catalogue. The story is stranger than the ballet, though the book jacket and wiki tell me that the ballet is actually based on Alexander Dumas's "watered down" version of the story. Clara in the original story is named Marie and she's only 7 - which I know doesn't conflict with every production, since sometimes Clara is pretty young and not en pointe. But the story is really a coming of age, and little Marie definitely has some adult feelings for the Nutcracker doll when she realizes there's a prince trapped in there. I won't give everything away, but some highlights:

• there are actually multiple battles, and Marie cuts the bejeezus out of her arm in the first one, so everyone thinks her fever made her hallucinate the whole thing.
• there's a crazy story-in-the-story that explains how a princess is the one who originally gets turned into a nutcracker by the Mouse Queen; Drosselmeier and an astrologer travel all over trying to find a cure for her condition. Then they meet his cousin, whose son is involved in breaking the curse. Through a series of events, we learn that the younger Drosselmeier (son of his cousin) is the one trapped inside the little Nutcracker that Marie wants to save. Eventually, as in the ballet, they do make it to a land of sweets even more elaborate than any ballet production (obviously), including a sea of rosewater that has sparkly gold dolphins in it. Crazy.
• All the romantic weirdness between Marie and the Nutcracker/Prince does explain the way some productions portray their weird relationship, since he's her Godfather, but he's sometimes in an awkward competition with the Prince for her affection.
  

Short and sweet, and I'd definitely recommend reading it if you've only ever seen the ballet, like I had.

3. Christmas Customs and Traditions, Frank Muir (1975).















I'm one of those obnoxious people who have to restrain their Christmas spirit until it's almost seasonally appropriate. This year I decided to temper my outward enthusiasm for Christmas by by reading a book about its history, and a brief search on the UWO catalog led me to this one. I don't know much about Frank Muir, but in preparation for this post I stumbled onto a blog dedicated to Muir fandom, so check that out if you'd like to know more.
I realized recently that this book combines a lot of my favorite topics: history, early Christian rituals, the Church's appropriation/adaptation of pagan rituals, all combined to be Christmas-specific. Muir covers a lot of the figures that you may associate with Christmas, like St. Nicholas and St. Stephen (you know him from the Good King Wenceslas carol), as well as Wenceslas, traditions like wassail, the boar's head, and the Yule log. He also describes lesser-known traditions like the Lord of Misrule, whose job it was in the Middle Ages to keep the party going from Halloween to New Year's, lest winter depress everyone, or the Mummer's Play that involved Santa Claus narrating a dual between a Knight and a Turk during the Crusades. I'm only about half way through it so far, but it's great for bedtime reading.

I'll spare you the other stuff I'm reading, since it's mostly for my proposal preparation and not for fun. These three are the most memorable of the semester so far.
What about you? Anything you'd like to suggest for my reading list? Or anything that shocked you when you read it? Or was wildly different than your expectations?




*spoiler - they don't.

SMT 2011 - Minneapolis

This weekend was the 2011 conference of the Society for Music Theory. You can read about the previous two years' conferences here: 2009 parts one and two, 2010.

I didn't take a single picture this year, but I thought I'd share this old one from Nashville/2008, along with some non-academic highlights of the conference.





















1. Minneapolis seems pretty cool. It was sunny and about 50 degrees, and there was a farmers market right outside the hotel on our first day. You can walk forever in the skyways without having to go outside - a useful plan, given their winters. Like always, I wish I'd seen a little more of the city, but there are only so many hours.

2. Here's my favorite line from conversation that two anonymous theorists had over dinner:
Theorist A: I went to ______ a while back and it lasted forever, like 2 hours.
Theorist B: Two hours for that?! You could have watched all of Jurassic Park!*

3. I went to the Yale reception to hang out with my friend Tim, who gave a great Schubert-related paper. In some kind of ninja moment, he moved to shake hands with a person across the table and the blade of his hand virtually sliced through the stem of a wine glass, knocking a total of two wine glasses in opposite directions, and spilling wine all over both of our pants. By then I'd had enough wine not to care, and they were dark jeans, so no harm done. Just a lot of laughing.

4. I got to hang out with a lot of my favorite people, a lot of IU folks (like Jason and Victoria), and my new UWO friend Katie, a masters student in my program. Now I'm twice as excited for next year when the conference is in New Orleans, jointly with American Musicological Society (AMS) and the Society for Ethnomusicology (SEM. John is calling it AMSMTEM, and the rest of us are calling it the Trifecta (though the Holy Trinity would be more regionally appropriate). I'm hoping my good friend Mark will be able to attend that one, since this conference was a little lonely without him - even though Tim tried to make up for it by putting candy corn in my water glass during the keynote.

5. I got to spend a lot of time with the thoughtful and enthusiastic Committee for the Status of Women and its associates. I'm the student rep for that committee now, and I think the CSW discussions are some of the most useful parts of the conference for me. Thank God, too, because the meeting is usually from 7-9:00AM.



*Also funny because one of the theorists looks so much like Sam Niel.

Happy Dance

Around mid-July I found out that I passed my comps! From what I can tell, the handful of people who read this probably knew a long time ago that I passed, but I wanted to post here about it anyways because HOT DAMN I PASSED THE COMPS!!!























John found out that he passed in the morning, and I didn't find out for about 5 more hours. I was a complete, nervous wreck after that. The thing is, we have different committees, so the fact that he heard didn't mean anything about when I might hear or whether I passed. I thought it might take another couple of months for my results to come in, and I tried to make peace with the idea of not knowing until September.


We ran a few errands (I finally got a new hamper! It completes the big furniture-rearrangment we did in the middle of July - more on that later), and then decided to go to Springbank Park for a long walk. Before we left the house, I obsessively checked my email one last time, and there it was!
"I've just sent a message to the Associate Dean informing her that your Advisory Committee has read and passed all three parts of your comprehensive exam. Congratulations!"


So we went to the park and John practiced using fast shutter speed while I jumped up and down.
Then we went out for ice cream that night to celebrate.





John's kindly holding my cup while I take a photo.































It's so hard to get John to take a normal picture.






































OhthankGod. Wepassedthecomps. Whew! On to the directed studies and the proposal.

A Tale of Three 'Villes - Knoxville

Our final stop in TN was Knoxville where we visited John's master's thesis advisor and her partner, who is also a musicology professor at UT Knoxville (you can read both their bios here).




Talking to Les in their spacious study. I loved their house!













They also made us a wonderful dinner of curried chicken, grilled corn on the cob, and cucumber salad. The next day, Rachel got up and made us all omelettes. As John said, they gave us the real executive treatment.
Here's Rachel with Frou Frou, their poodle.


























The weather cooperated and we had both meals outside on their porch.






















Frou Frou is really well behaved, and milled around the yard while we ate.






















After several hours of musicology talk, we got on the road and drove up to Bloomington. We passed several of our favorite TN landmarks, like this one:
A a combination porn/adult bookstore, as-seen-on-TV outlet, fireworks store, and fudge store, presided over by this giant white cross.

















Always my favorite place to stop on I-75.