Gorilla Coffee!

"20 20 20 24 hours to go!  I wanna be sedated."  Maybe you shouldn't be in a coffee shop, then.  But this is the music playing at Gorilla Coffee, Brooklyn.

It's one of the first places that stood out on the Google map of Brooklyn.  What a good name!  For the next few days, I talked about wanting to go there.  "It's special, Brooklyn coffee," I said, as if every coffee shop doesn't call their coffee special.

I didn't make it to the grocery to buy milk last night, and since I don't drink black coffee, I had an excuse to go to a café this morning.  I'm so glad I ran out of milk!  This coffee shop is pushing all my buttons at once.

Here I am at last sitting at a red table listening to hard rock music (the kind a gorilla might play) and drinking a delicious cup of dark-roast, special Brooklyn coffee, roasted here, I think.  At any rate, I can take a bag of Gorilla coffee, black bag with a red gorilla face, home with me.  The gorilla's eyes, inner lips, and nostrils are recessed and black, its brow, chin, and wide upper lip stand out in red.  This is the gorilla playing the drums on the radio, I think.

This place really is guaranteed to wake you up:  coffee, rock music, and red Christmas lights.  Plus, the walls are decorated with maps of Southeast Asia, Africa, and South America.  There are no captions explaining which gorillas lived where, but still, cool.

And then a former biology classmate from Oberlin who lives in Brooklyn and is also going to NYU walked in the door.  I hadn't seen her since the summer of 2007.  Could this get better? 

Gorilla Coffee!  Be there!

Serenade

I've never watched Balanchine's "Serenade."  An old friend of mine, then my one and only best friend, danced this ballet at St. Paul's School, a boarding school in New Hampshire with a stellar dance program.  Annie gave me a CD of the music (Tchaikovsky's "Serenade For Strings In C") and the pointe shoes she wore in her big performance, and I've listened to it countless times.  I haven't danced the ballet, but I've danced to the music, countless times.  I wonder how my choreography--full of attitude turns and sudden balances at the ends of fast passages--compares with the real thing.

Though I haven't watched the ballet, I've seen the blue dresses and the women with their hair down in photos.  They look like dancers in their natural state, one so ethereal to people who don't dance or those like me, who dance at an amateur level.  If only wearing pointe shoes were my natural state. 

The slow movement of "Serenade" expresses the reverence I feel for ballet.  It's slow, quiet, lonely, an elegy by its title.  When the music is on, I feel more serious about whatever I'm doing, in this case, writing.  Imagine your ballet teacher knocked on your door right now.  How would you act?  Aside from freaking out and being nervous, you might try to be polite and considerate and do things right.  This music makes me feel reverent even when I am alone. 

I'm sure many of the dancers I know have danced in "Serenade."  I can name three, and there must be more.  I recently took class with one of them, Elizabeth Walker, of the Los Angeles Ballet, when she taking a break from professional ballet to study at Harvard and took the open classes at José Mateo Ballet Theatre.  I didn't realize this "good" (actually amazing) dancer was a professional, and then I saw a photo advertising Los Angeles Ballet's 2010 production of "Serenade," with her in a beautiful arabesque.

(I'm starting to realize that most people who dance like professionals are professionals.  Why not?)

Knowing that Liz danced this ballet makes me think about her differently.  However she behaves in your average social situation, just a friendly, regular person, I know that she is, in fact, part of the other, ethereal realm, or has been there.

Of course I would like to visit that realm through dance, not just through my imagination.  But I won't make light of the ambition with "Serenade" in my head.  No clunking of dropped extensions.  No haphazard arms.  Can't be anything but earnest when you let Tchaikovsky and Balanchine in your bedroom door.

Life as a reality TV show?

You know on the reality show, "Project Runway," when the competing designers have 30 minutes (or something) at the fabric store to buy everything they are going to need for their clothing line?  I have the feeling that my master's program is an equivalent time in my life.  I need to gather up all the knowledge I can during in the next sixteen months.  

Of course, I'll always be learning, but this period of school, unemployment, and bachelorhood is the time when learning will be easiest.  So many things could happen during my twenties:  education, career, love, children, and using my physically mature body for whatever it's capable of before it starts declining (I'm thinking ballet, but yes, 'children' is a related topic, here). 

The risk of elimination from the contest, life, is always there.  But the moment when the British lady in the sky says, "You're out," may well be due to chance, unrelated to success, failure or how well you chose your fabrics at Mood.

New Place, Same Old Me

Deciding what to write about can be difficult.  There are endless possibilities: past, present, future, or imagined situations past, present, and future.  You can sit outside and watch people and write about what you see, like Harriet the Spy, or you can sit with your eyes closed and write about what you think.  My mind is worrying me at the moment, so I prefer to escape by writing about the outside world.  But in times when the outside world is, say, monotonous (like working at a grocery store) or horrifying (being in the hospital or in worse situations, like war), people can escape by being introspective.  Or they can turn something horrifying into art, creating a beautiful version of an ugly reality.

What has this paragraph been?  Introspection, of course.  Enough of that.

I am starting a master's program in science journalism at New York University this fall.  I had my orientation on Thursday, and classes start on Tuesday, after Labor Day. I'm staying in a Brooklyn brownstone with parents of a childhood friend.  My room is on the third floor, and the kitchen is on the first floor, and the intervening stairs are narrow, creaky, steep, and dark unless I bother to turn on a light.  The first floor consists of an austere living room, music room, and dining room with ornate dark wooden molding everywhere.  There are sliding doors separating these rooms, but some of them don't slide.  When the doors are recessed into the wall, there's a little button you push that forces out a hook used for pulling open the door.  So intricate!  Update:  it is possible to close off the stairwell from the living room and kitchen to keep sounds from carrying upstairs.  At the back of the first floor, the kitchen window overlooking the garden is a beacon of light.  I am writing in the kitchen now.   The second floor has the master bedroom, a study, and a bathroom.  The third floor has three bedrooms (for three children, now grown), a bathroom, and a laundry room.  In order to get to the third floor, I have to walk up the creaky stairs, down a creaky hallway adjacent to the parents' bedroom, and either be in the dark or turn on a light in the hall, then up another flight to the third floor, where I'll be the only inhabitant.  As my friend's parents said, we'll hear everyone's comings and goings.

I don't mind the stairs, but it interests me that the layout of this house makes simple things seem worth describing.  For example, no bathroom on the first floor.  If I come down early in the morning before others are awake, I risk waking people up by going to the bathroom.  I can either go to the bathroom next to the bedroom of sleeping parents (fewer stairs, less noise walking to and from the bathroom, more noise in the bathroom) or walk down the creaky hallway to the third floor to use my own bathroom (more noise commuting, less noise tooting, or whatever).

The bathrooms have old, spacious bathtubs/showers.  There are four knobs, two faucets, and one shower head.  The bathroom sinks are unusual in that the faucets don't extend much beyond the back of the sink so that you almost brush your hands against the sink to wash them, and it is hard to drink from the faucet. 

That's about it for introspection and inspection of this house from the inside.  Did I mention the old dumbwaiter, which is now just a closet with its own working doorbell?  I'll let you know when I meet the ghosts. 

Une valse

Cosmin, one of the teachers at José Mateo Ballet Theatre, Cambridge, likes to do “slow waltzes” instead of adagios. A euphemism for trying to stand on one leg to measures of three. But today’s slow waltz was quite lovely because of the music the pianist chose: the pas de deux from Les Sylphides (Chopin).

When I was in middle school, I did very slow waltzes to Les Sylphides as a member of the corps de ballet, slow not just because of the music but because the corps mostly poses and changes positions only during breaks in the soloist action.

This waltz is traditionally a pas de deux between a man and a woman, but our teacher choreographed it on two girls, both of whom I admired.

The ballet Les Sylphides is accompanied by an orchestra, but pianists also play the Les Sylphides pieces as solos. It’s a piece that lends itself to rubato, speeding up and slowing down. So romantic. I found videos of dancers doing the pas de deux, but the orchestra did not seem in love with the music. This piano version is more the way I like to think of the music:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fOSXFXriKdY
I don't know why the video does not just show up.  Sorry!  Please go to the link!

Class today was ridiculously hot, and during barre, I thought to myself, “This was a bad idea. Mom was right. So when am I going to leave?” But I stayed the whole class. I was annoyed at my progress from good singles to bad doubles. I was annoyed that I didn’t try hard enough to turn out as I stood on one leg (waltzing…). Yet after class, as I took the subway home, I had that waltz stuck in my head. I imagined how it could be sped up or slowed down. I imagined how my dancing could follow the music. I wondered if I could put my love for the music into my dancing. Such a strong feeling about that music couldn’t be ignored. I was in love with a love song. And so I went from hot and frustrated to elated. I wanted to dance more, to see if I could do more than just technique, to show that love through my arms and head. I started walking in sets of three steps: BIG small small; BIG small small. And I knew that I wanted to go to class again the next day.

Edith Piaf sings a waltz ("Une Valse," no YouTube video available) in which the she/the singer remembers her youth in Russia, relives it as she sings, then comes out of her reverie to find herself in the bar of a hotel in Pigalle. I hope I don't come out of my reverie to a hot studio and poor turnout. But the waltz lets us escape reality a bit. And maybe it will carry my dancing along, too.

Here's a link to a less moving waltz sung by Piaf, with great rrrrroooobaaaaato. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1w-63eMZcHI

Don't Sweat The Small Stuff--Easier Said Than Done

Figuratively speaking, dancers have to sweat the small stuff. Ballet is all about tiny details, and teachers will tell you that if you don’t think about certain things, like turning out, they will not happen automatically while you smile at the audience. Dance is all about paying attention to small details. Literally speaking, all of those tiny motions make me sweat. So yes, I sweat the small stuff.
I sweat “a lot,” as a younger dancer once pointed out to me, wide-eyed. There are no spots of sweat. By the time we have done three or four barre exercises, my leotard develops dark patches and my back is covered with droplets. Then drops the size of dimes start appearing on the floor next to the barre. Because some of the barres at José Mateo are rusty (they are, after all, iron pipes), some of the drops are brown, making it look as though I’m on a jungle adventure instead of in ballet class. The sweat travels from my hands to the barre to the floor. Eventually, my whole leotard changes to a darker shade.
When I asked the teacher about ways to deal with sweat, Mary suggested I wear socks under my ballet shoes “if I didn’t want to wear tights.” I had been avoiding pink tights (not because I didn’t own many pairs of them) by wearing black footless leggings. Next class, the socks got soaked, as did the pink, footed tights the following class. How about purple tights?
Another person suggested bringing two pairs of shoes to class and changing shoes between barre and center. I brought some brand new shoes to class today and put them on triumphantly after barre, thinking I had outsmarted my enemy. Yet after one combination, the baby-pink shoes were darkening to salmon, and soon after that, they were soaked, too. At that point, afraid of other dancers slipping on the spots I was leaving on the floor, not to mention slipping on my own shoes, I decided to sit out the rest of the class. I moseyed over to the corner and sat down to stretch, leaving sweat everywhere I touched down. It was a relief to no longer worry about wiping it up. I grinned thinking about how it might be a good time to pull out a yellow “Caution: wet floor” sign.
On my way home, I bought some spray-on antiperspirant, thinking that I could spray it on my feet and inside my shoes. Some online research suggested that was a good idea. Though the deodorant says “for underarms only,” I’m going to try it anyway. Now, where, besides “on my feet and under my armpits,” to apply it? I don’t know how others in a crowded dressing room would feel about me using spray deodorant. Perhaps I could do it in an empty corner of the studio or in the bathroom. There, though, I would risk leaving concentrated fumes that might offend the next user. I could spray it at home, then put on my socks and wear the same socks under my shoes. Or I could spray it on outside the dance studio. How romantic: me sitting or standing/hopping around next to the church/ballet studio, its surrounding flower beds, and the bronze statue of a dancer, spraying on deodorant. How about they erect a statue of a dancer spraying on deodorant (as it would be possible to misread that last sentence)?
Tomorrow, I will go to class (under)armed with a spray can of antiperspirant, a spice container filled with baking soda, pink tights (for good luck), two pairs of socks, two pairs of dry ballet shoes, and a towel. We’ll see how it goes.

Time Management

I’ve decided that my feelings of being pressed for time come from not doing the right things with the time I have.

After I play the violin, I feel satisfied and content for the rest of the evening. I wonder if I would feel that way if I played the violin early in the day every day. Maybe using time wisely is like eating nutritious food. Everybody has 24 hours per day, but sometimes, those 24 hours are more satisfying than other times. Maybe wasting time is like eating junk food. In both cases, you’re using up a resource, but it’s not satisfying your needs, and it leaves you wanting for more. Using time well is like eating nutritious foods; it satisfies you. Just like more Twinkies will never satisfy a person who really needs vitamins, more time spent checking e-mail, paying bills, worrying, griping about dirty dishes in the sink, will never satisfy a person who really needs to play their violin. After you eat your veggies, though, your cravings often subside. After I play the violin, I stop caring about the dishes. I’m too busy whistling to care about the dishes.

Ah priorities. People say that you should set priorities and do the most important things first. I think it’s true. Easier said than done. Maybe I should play the violin every day before I go to work (as long as it’s not too early in the morning). I like the idea of praying five times a day, as practicing Muslims are supposed to do. That’s five times a day that you are forced to remember what your priorities are. I am not religious, but I do like rituals.

It’s too bad when one has a feeling, for one reason or another, that what one is supposed to do and what one wants to are misaligned. Right now, for example, I want to play the violin in the hour before I go to work.

On the other hand, I feel like I should spend the time doing something that will help me progress in my writing. I’m annoyed that I spend so much time working as a cashier, plus time to commute to and from work. I think that I should spend at least that much time writing. Alas, I don’t.

And should I spend the whole time dealing with my bodily functions, ie., making lunch, eating it, and packing dinner to take to work, or should I spend money to buy my dinner at Whole Foods to save time?

I guess if you make more money in the time it would take you to make a sandwich than what it would cost you to buy a sandwich, it’s a good investment. That’s why businesspeople eat out. I’ll keep making my sandwiches for now.

I spend a lot of time worrying about how to spend my time. It’s ironic but true.