From Beneath the Rubble, A Ray of Hope!

I'm sitting in my room with a bag of doritos and a massive pile of books pertaining to music theory which I have percariously balanced in two "stacks". Between the Doritos and the closest pile of books is an entire stack of notecards with words related to Italian renaissance art and architecture. These are somewhat balanced on an orange marker and a note pad with a friend's email address on it. The view of that is slightly blocked by the cord from my webcam which is balanced on a mug with a smiling, ice-skating gingerbread man. Surprisingly, it is the webcam that bother me most in this situation. I set it up last night to talk to my boyfriend, but I was too lazy to put it away before bed. In fact, I am too lazy to put it away now. I regret to inform the world that I live in a pile of my own filth! Well, maybe less filth and more general disorder and untidiness, but you get the idea.

I won't even begin to describe what my floor looks like. Just take the image of the desk and multiply it by about....oh, I don't know! What's a reasonable number?.....46 billion and 32.

Lucky for me, I will be quitting this diseaster area and heading out west for the upcoming Canadian Thanksgiving. My curly-headed roommate's parents have invited me out to celebrate with them in Ontario, and I am more than delighted to go. I am ecstatic! These people are warm, kind, funny, hospitable, and wonderful cooks. Needless to say, I wish I were leaving now.

Of course, I cannot neglect to say that in the States it is Columbus Day....in some states anyway. Do the states that don't recognize Columbus Day have to go to work on Monday, then?

My Life's Soundtrack (or so they tell me)

In an obviously extremely desperate measure to procrastinate from doing my music theory assignment, I decided to do that stupid life soundtrack game. You know the one - You put your music player on shuffle and record the first number of songs, then they go in that order into the certain categories. Below is my life's soundtrack, apparently. It has a lot more Arrogant Worms , references to Saskatchewan and Yoko Ono than I would have thought.

Opening Credits:

We gotta get outta this place, The Animals

Waking up:

Nunavut, Arrogant Worms

First Day of School:

A Well Respected Man, The Kinks

Falling in Love:

Shiny Happy People, REM

Fight Song:

Pride and Joy, Stevie Ray Vaughn

Breaking Up:

Five Me Away, Badly Drawn Boy

Life is Good:

Feb. 14, Drive by Truckers

Mental Breakdown:

Stranger's Room, Yoko Ono

Driving:

The Pirate Saskatchewan, Arrogant Worms

Flashback:

Highway 61 Revisited, Bob Dylan

Getting Back Together:

Saskatchewan, Les Trois Accords

Wedding:

Why Can't the English?, From My Fair Lady Original London Cast

Final Battle:

Unfinished, Bare Naked Ladies

Death Scene:

The Murder, Psycho

Funeral:

Be My Yoko Ono, Bare Naked Ladies

End Credits:

Girl in the War, Josh Ritter

I see a few problems with this. First of all, why is my fight song "Pride and Joy"? Is it an ironic fight song? Maybe it is music is diagetic. If that is the case, I hope this battle takes place during a live concert.

My second problem is with "Saskatchewan" being my getting back together song. This song is about a woman cheating on her husband. She leaves him for "un gars de Regina"! This doesn't show much hope for the future of my relationship! Is this again perhaps an ironic song?

Also, why is my wedding song "Why Can't the English?" I mean, I get a kick out of this song, but why not a different song from My Fair Lady, or better yet, a song that is not a dialogue. This is just going to make things awkward.

There are a few songs that are just bizarre, like "Feb. 14" for my life is good song or "Unfinished" for my final battle. Did I not finish the battle? Maybe my opponent forfeited.....and left me to die, I guess. Also, why wake up to "Nunavut"?

Oddly appropriate is the Psycho music accompanying my death. Kind of creepy....Before leaving me, my opponent in this death match must have stabbed me repeatedly. I certainly hope my blood was chocolate syrup. Also, the Kinks' song for the first day of school is funny because it's true! oh. haha. I crack myself up. Oh suburbia.

Surely this is entertaining someone as much as it is me, and I wish I could continue, but Schubert's Impromptu in G-flat Major (D899) stubbornly refuses to analyze itself.

Classy Culture with Dick Johnson

A few days ago my lovely curly-headed roommate and I went on a spur of the moment culture field trip. As I was wandering aimlessly through the student society building, I ran into an extremely excited francophone woman who wanted to share with me the joys of the opera. I love the opera - at least what I had seen and heard up to this point. My previous opera experiences included an opera course taught at a castle in England, Rigoletto at The Royal Opera in London, and Don Giovanni at The Royal Opera. Tuesday was student night, which meant we could get tickets for 25$ each, a steal if you ask me. What did we get to see? Puccini's little known opera La Fanciulla del West, or, in English, The Girl of the Golden West.

It was not at all what I expected.

After dining at a favorite spot of ours, Cafe l'etranger, we headed to Place des Arts, still in our school attire and carrying our bags of books. There really wasn't time at all for us to go home and change, plus we thought it was student night, so there would be students there dressed like us. There were some young people in jeans carrying backpacks, but mostly it was older people wearing very nice clothing. Fortunately for them, our tickets were in the Balcon Impair, which meant we had to climb some stairs. Then climb some more stairs. The higher up we got, the surlier the ushers and the unclassier the decor. Eventually the stairway resembled somewhat of a carpeted emergency exit. Still, we had some pretty good seats on the edge of the balcony.

Behind us, however, were two student girls very much unlike us. My roomy and I were trained in the way of performance viewing, perhaps from our musical performance backgrounds. These girls, however, are the people you hate at the movie theatre. EVERYTHING required a comment or a giggle from them. EVERYTHING. While sometimes this was funny, like when the main character was really obviously cheating at cards by pulling them out of her sock and they had a discussion about whether or not she was cheating. Of course there were times when the ongoing not-quit-whispered dialogue was not funny, like when they talked about how they had never been to the opera before and they can't hear what anyone is saying and what's that and who's that and where are they going and when was this written and she looks stupid....etc.

Now you might be thinking, with a climactic card game scene, characters with strong names like Minnie, Jack Rance, and Dick Johnson (actual lines from the opera: "Dick! Forever Dick!" and "I'm tired of looking for your Johnson!"...probably not as funny in Italian) how could this opera go wrong? I admit that it was not at all what I expected and there seem to be some serious plot flaws, but I rather enjoyed it. Was it one of my favorite operas? Not even close. But I am happy that I saw it. In fact, I recommend you go see it right now. I'm sure your library has a recording.

And that was Ivy's night of cultured activities.