chicken boo

so far, i've told two people about my new year's resolution. yes, that's right. resolution, singular. those that know me know how much i love a good list. lists impose order on my self-made chaos. i'm the one in my little band of friendly mischief makers that is forever asking, "but do we have a plan?!" i like point-form lists. numbered lists put me over the moon. when i found out that one can colour code different calendars in iCal, i squealed with delight. type a? nah.

thus it seems strange (perhaps only to myself) that i have only one resolution. traditionally, i have a listfull that i coddle for the first part of the new year and eventually end up throwing away in disgust. it frustrates me and discourages me that i never am able to cross everything off. this year, i've decided to take a different tack.

here it is. my only new year's resolution: i'm not going to let fear be the biggest influence in decisions i make.

sounds pretty cheesy, non? formulating it, though, was actually quite revelatory. until recently, i hadn't been aware how often i let fear (of circumstances, consequences, myself, others) dictate the choices i make. keeping a little island of "me" squared away safe somewhere off the official map is a defense mechanism that i think does more harm than good. it certainly makes for a life that has the potential to be filled with "what ifs" -- something i've always told myself i'd never live. please don't worry that i'm going to go out and do something foolish (like the PhD candidate i read about recently that went over niagara falls in something called a plunge-o-sphere! he survived). as i explained to the princess the other night, it isn't about being fearless. that would be stupid. sometimes it's good to be afraid and to let that fear keep you from doing something ridiculous. i think, and i've been mulling it over quite a bit lately, it's more about acknowledging i'm scared, letting myself be scared, but not letting that fear be the only reason i do (or don't do) something.

how will i make out? it's difficult to tell. parring down my list of resolutions in and of itself engendered a certain, uhm, chickenshited-ness in yours truly. i'm taking the fact that i was able to reduce it all to one resolution and leave behind my security blanket embroidered with bullet points as a promising sign.

it don't mean a thing if it ain't got that swing

come the second week in january, i start what is, in some senses, my first steady lecturing gig. a friend of mine who plays in a local, full-on celtic band has a steady gig every other wednesday at a local pub. in many ways, my upcoming teaching fellowship seems eerily similar -- without the free beer that annie and her friends get from ted the bartender for coming out. as january inches closer, i've been giving a lot of thought to my classroom persona. who am i going to be in front of a room full of 80+ students twice a week for four months? my teaching experience, up to this point, has mainly been comprised of seminars, and i'm at my most comfortable (and, as one friend kindly said, "my teaching best") when i'm working at cultivating that intimate, "let's talk ideas over coffee" kind of vibe. i like curling up and getting cozy with ideas, and i like my students to feel comfortable and safe enough to do the same.

before i left for the holidays, i poked my head into the room i've been allocated for next term and i was shocked to find that it is an old-style lecture hall, complete with descending stairs that resolve themselves in a puddle of podium at the bottom. i walked on to the main level, looked up and had the most startling sense of déja vu. i'd been here before.

a part of my life i don't talk about much is the five years i spent in training to be a classical singer. through a series of happy accidents, shortly after starting my undergraduate degree in english, i discovered i had "a voice" -- or rather someone discovered it for me. in the years that followed, as i tried to recover from a repetitive strain injury that prevented me from playing my beloved flute, i worked with a succession of vocal coaches who peeled away my layers of toe-scuffing, awww-shucksing, and who worked at breaking my many bad vocal habits. i eventually prepared, but alas, never fully performed, the role of zerlina from mozart's le nozze di figaro. i also did my share of master classes and recital performances, having the most fun when i was able to push musical boundaries (i don't know that my vocal coach ever forgave me for a particularly *ahem* mischievous performance of a number from kurt weill's musical one touch of venus!) i never had a clear idea of where i was headed with the singing gig. the language-loving part of me was attracted to the textual side of opera -- i was forever close reading a libretto or basing my interpretation of fauré on the cultural context of 19th-century french poetry -- so much so that in the end i knew, even with all of its shiny, sparkling appeal, singing wasn't my first love.

one thing i did take away from my five years as a mezzo soprano (who could still pop a high C when necessary) was an understanding of performance. when a singer walks on to a stage, there's a lot going on that the audience isn't aware of. choices have been made far in advance, strategies determined and practiced -- the stage persona is not something that springs forth from the performer like poetry from the pen of a Romantic overwhelmed by a spontaneous overflow of powerful feeling. no, it's as carefully rehearsed as the particularly nasty riff that comes between bars 19 and 22 (not unlike your most Romantic of poetry). knowing this, and faced with my very first teaching gig as a seminar instructor, i knew i had to make conscious choices about the climate i wanted to create for my students' intellectual growth -- my demeanor in a seminar is meant to allow the students to feel as though this is a safe space for them to get down and dirty with the text, and thus take control of their own learning.

walking into that lecture hall the other day made me wonder if my seminar persona (not to mention my voice, "flabby" after years away from the intense rigor of daily scales, arpeggios, and sit-ups -- yes, sit-ups) would carry. as i try to think about viable alternative models (spurred on by G's recent post that, among other things, talks about the erotics of the lecture!) two names come to mind: frederica von stade and renée fleming. please keep in mind that as i am discussing these two famed folk, i'm not talking about their voices -- voices that i've never felt i could match. i'm more interested in who audiences believe them to be when they are on stage. i'm thinking about what, if i can borrow a phrase from richard dyer, their "star personas" are, and how they might possibly influence who i am in the classroom next term.

von stade's was one of the first female classically trained voices i think i ever heard, hunkered down with the family watching a pbs broadcast of a carnegie hall christmas concert with wynton marsalis and kathleen battle. she was my earliest female operatic crush, the first i ever saw live, and the first to give me kind words of encouragement and her autograph.on stage she embodies a certain blend of old-world elegance, tinged with mischievousness. she reminds me, in many ways, of my most serious female film crush, katharine hepburn. i admire her intellectual rigor, her willingness to push boundaries, and her ability to revel in what she loves, all while demanding of the audience full engagement with the material with which she presents them. these are all qualities that come across the minute she sets foot on stage. attending one of her performances, even when she's playing lehar's merry widow, is akin to settling in for a lovely evening of wrestling with your most abstruse french literary theorist; it's a serious commitment. i don't know that i can carry the burden of that model into the lecture hall with me, though it sits before me, an ideal performance that one day, maybe if i'm a really good girl and i practice my scales devotedly, i'll be blessed enough to give.

fleming is a performer more in my usual style (have i been doing this job long enough to have a usual style? i can't help wondering ...). there's an element of the "awww-shucks" in even her most obscure recital pieces with which i clearly identify. don't get me wrong, she's no appalachian songbird, but her performances are always ringed with a sort of halo of human-ness, carefully crafted and strategically deployed as it is. she drops the barriers when the audience least expects it (she always looks stunning doing so!) and thus quickly wins the hearts and musical minds of hundreds of eager listeners. during her first performance in toronto, amid the rush of over twelve (!!!) encores, and after begging the crowd to "let a poor girl get some rest", she squatted down on her haunches, spilling hand-sewn silk dress all over the stage, and leaned forward and said, "okay, whaddaya wanna hear?". she followed the answer with an impromptu scat-filled rendition of "it don't mean a thing if it ain't got that swing". like von stade, fleming's persona is more an ideal hanging before me like a motivational carrot, forever just a little out of reach, than anything close to what i imagine myself achieving on a day to day basis.

after all this pondering do i have a clearer idea of who i'm going to be in the classroom? not on your life. i do, however, get the feeling that with a little careful rehearsal (and how one rehearses this, i haven't quite figured out yet), the instructor i've been for the past three years will carry well in a larger hall. selecting the repertoire (read: finishing my syllabus), that's another story.

things one should NOT say to one's mother while driving down lakeshore blvd.

daughter: mom? why are you making car noises while you're driving?

mother: i'm humming christmas carols.

silence.

daughter: oh.

i swear it sounded as if she was vrrrrroooming under her breath. i don't think she has forgiven me yet ... and it has been 4 hours.

a timely word of advice to all my friends who inhabit the blogsphere

CM has posted the warning label that new (and old) owners of blogs should read. excellent advice, that.

oh, and try not to be too freaked out by the man ray pic. i was.

dear tuneless fiddler on princess street

this spring, when the ice on the lake begins to thaw and the crocuses peep through the banks of melting snow, you will meet your busking nemesis. be forewarned -- my little accordion and i are going to polish up our repertoire of polka music and east coast sea shanties and your seat outside the scotiabank will be mine (as will all the random change that passers-by are throwing into your fiddle case). this april, the good folks of ktown will hear the dulcet tones of my accordion and will daydream about being on the left bank in paris. dude, you're goin' down.

*the pic is of lydie auvray, the great german accordion player and one of my new idols. i say again, walter ostenak, eat your heart out.

"but we didn't mean to go to sea!"

what with my nose to the grindstone, i guess i'm a little out of the loop of rowing gossip that usually circulates around boathouses following regattas. i didn't find out until yesterday (when my copy of rowing news arrived in the mail) that during the 42nd running of the head of the charles a crew from peking university sank as they came under the eliot bridge. i've seen boats collide at regattas before -- perhaps the u of t men's 8+ t-boning the brock men's 8+ as both boats came out of the chute at the 2005 head of the trent is my most vivid memory; the brock boat all but sank and the rowers had to be to picked up by launches -- but i've never seen an 8+ sink completely in such shallow water as that on the head of the charles course. i've heard and read different versions of what happened and the consensus seems to be that after bumping a boat earlier in the race, the peking u boat continued rowing with a damaged bow until, when taking a turn, the bow opened, and the boat quickly flooded with water. here's some choppy youtube footage shot from the bridge above:

the title of this post comes from my own memorable bang-up rowing experience. one cold, dark and blustery morning toward the end of the fall season of 2005, our crew went out on the water in the bay by the boathouse. the water looked choppy so we decided to stay off the course proper and keep within the confines of the bay where there weren't quite as many whitecaps. in retrospect (ah, hindsight!) we shouldn't have gone out at all.

very shortly after pushing off the dock, our boat got caught up in the wind and waves and, with water splashing in alarming amounts over the gunwhales, we were blown under the causeway bridge and onto lake ontario. flipping was quite possible. the lights of the ferry that was making its early morning crossing (i think it was about 5:45 am or so) seemed to be bearing down on us. i am not ashamed to say that i was very scared. rowers do not wear life jackets; a coaching launch, that according to federal boating regulations has to be out when crews are on the water, usually carries enough for a rescue. little did we know, all of the other crews had gone in and docked and no one back at the rowing club was aware we were in danger. there was a coaching launch making circles of the bay, looking for errant crews, but we were no longer within the bay and had no way of signalling from our position. and the water in lake ontario in october is cold ... very, very cold.

with some rather sharp tongued prompting from our coxie, we managed to get our heads in the boat and the boat back under the causeway. immediately, the wind picked us up and threw us against the rocks that sit at the base of the causeway. we had damaged our stern, and in the dark, it was difficult to tell how much water we were taking on, if any. the boat already had a large lake in the bottom from the blowing spray and crashing waves. swearing, spitting, cursing everyone and, i'm sorry to say, each other, we drove our heels into the foot stretchers and hauled on our blades like madwomen. we docked, shaking, wet and cold several minutes later.

as our coach saw us come in, he ran down on to the dock, and after ascertaining that we were all alive and unhurt, began to scold us. one of my crewmates looked up with a rather too-innocent look on her face and in response to a question from our coach wryly quoted the title of one of her favourite childhood books from the swallows and amazons series: "but we didn't mean to go to sea!"

okay ... you know you miss being on the water when your rowing disaster stories are retold, both at parties and over the internet, with a certain degree of warm, fuzzy nostalgia. is it may yet?

marking is an endurance sport

i've often wondered if, in another life, i was a truck driver. i'll regret admitting this, i know, but i have to confess i really enjoy long-distance driving. this year, i made a considerable number of long-distance treks: to philadelphia, washington, dc/virginia (for a weekend! read about that here), princeton, nj and countless trips to TO, ottawa and st. catharines. there's still a trip to ithaca in the works -- olin library and miles of microfiche filled with 19c sports journalism, here i come! admittedly, i didn't do all the driving on every trip, but i feel as though i've built up some serious road endurance. along with my dreams of paris, i also have fantasies about driving route 66 -- in a 1970 red chevelle -- don't ask.

i logged many miles of a different sort in my boat this summer. training for the FISA World Masters Regatta among other things, our crew spent countless hours on the water both building our sprinting ability (fast-twitch!fast-twitch!) for those 1000m races, and cultivating a solid cardio base (slooooowwww-twitch) for the longer head races of the fall season. by the end of the season, i was in possibly the best shape of my life. 1 hour+ runs that used to leave me spent, left me feeling vibrant. now that i've settled into training for the national indoor erging championships in TO in february of 2007, i'm slowly working my way back, testing my endurance and my sprints with a training plan graciously given to me by ed mcneely, the strength coach for the canadian national team.

i'm realizing, however, that physical endurance isn't just about driving or racing. as i'm slowly dragging my academic feet through this last bout of marking, i find myself drawing on all of those mental tricks and breathing patterns (yes! essays mark easier when you remember to breathe! leslie, i know this wouldn't surprise you!) that kept me pulling and driving hard all spring, summer and fall. i'm also finding that the music of the country-rock-blues band the roadhammers, has a certain resonance. there's something about hauling a load to fla and seeing your way through to the end of 35+ papers on masculinity in the short story that is eeirly similar.

"it's going to be easy -- like peeling a turtle."

every year, at christmas, a couple of debates are reignited as we gather round the tree at my mom's house. the first, oldest, and least likely to ever be resolved, is that of one's preference among operatic tenors -- domingo? pavarotti? pick your poison. choose unwisely and you may never see another of my mother's (in)famous cookie baskets ever again. i know you're dying for the "right" answer (i.e. the one that will ensure your place on my mother's cookie basket list -- a list so exclusive, with a selection process so arbitrary, it has been compared by academic friends of mine to a certain federal research grant program *ahem*). i don't really want to tread over old debate ground, so i'll keep it short. one summer, while my mom and i were wandering aimlessly through the streets of vienna, she literally ran into domingo, who was singing at the staatsöper. she stopped on the street outside st. stephen's, turned around to look for me (i had been lured away by a shoe sale at a neighbouring store) and she smacked right into his chest. she apologized profusely, and was taken aback when she realized who it was. without fawning over him too much ("oh shannon, he had such spanish eyes!"), she said something about his gig at the staatsöper and sheepishly backed away. i saw the whole exchange from the wrong side of a shoe sale bin. forget tone, colour, range, roles, and repertoire. we all know who is my mom's fav. my grandmother used to make up the pavarotti contingent and has passed on that tradition to others in my family.

the second debate, perhaps the more lively one of the two, concerns the better of two christmas musicals, each starring bing crosby -- holiday inn (1942) and white christmas (1954). we don't talk about bing's run in those "going my way" films, though i do like to resurrect risë stevens every so often just to make the debate more fun. as a child, i used to defend my love for the vistavision spectacle with vibrant red costumes, mary wicks as the nosey housekeeper and that strange blend of holiday spirit and american patriotism that could only come from the touch of director michael curtiz. in recent years, however, i have begun to awaken to the merits of bing's earlier offering -- if only for the number where fred astaire dances with firecrackers. the dialogue, from which the title of this post is taken, is far superior. for example, this exchange, between danny reed (fred's manager) and a waiter at a nightclub, gets me every time:

Danny Reed: François! Have you seen Mr. Hanover?
François: Twice, sir. The first time he came from his dressing room he had a telegram in his hand. He ordered scotch and soda. A bottle of each.
Danny Reed: I know! I know!
François: The second time he came from his dressing room he asked which way is Connecticut.
Danny Reed: Connecticut?
François: Connecticut. He said he had a friend there who knows about women too.
Danny Reed: Why didn't you stop him?
François: How can I stop him sir when I don't know which way is Connecticut

and how can you not love bing and his exploding jars of peach preserves, that, he confesses to fred, he put up before he went into the insane asylum?

as i sit here, drowning slowly in piles of marking and other end of term tasks, i can't help but get a little homesick -- for cookie baskets, inane family debates and all those other holiday joys about which i am usually so cynical (driving to see the blinding christmas light extravaganza on rio drive, anyone?). alas, before i can hop a train (with the furry beasts in tow) and effect my exodus from ktown, i must make it to the end of my mammoth to-do list. "it's going to be easy", i keep telling myself, "like peeling a turtle."

*slap* that's the sound of my bitch card hitting the table top

it was one of those days at the gym -- you know those days? those days when the fixit man is repairing your favourite erg (i.e. the only one at the campus gym with an accurate load setting!) so you have to do an alternate workout? those days when the fixit man brings his little rat of a dog into the cardio room with him (think elle woods's bruiser in legally blonde) and proceeds to feign ignorance while it barks through your entire hour on the bike? even bif naked cranked up to full volume didn't drown it out.

those days when the girl running on the treadmill that's directly in your line of vision is wearing not only a top that shows more cleavage than some girls do at a bar, but also very low-cut running shorts that leave the football team behind you on the bikes anxiously anticipating the moment when they should slip just a centimetre lower?

those days when, as you are peacefully shampooing your hair in the communal shower, which last time you checked was completely empty, you are startled to hear the voice of one of your students very close by asking you questions about the upcoming exam (i know that this is not the first time this has happened, and that perhaps i should use one of the showers with curtains, but still ... oh... and a hint to my students: there are good times and bad times to ask me questions. you'll be able to tell the bad times quite easily. i'll be in the shower ... naked ... WASHING MY HAIR!)?

those days when there are 4 little jfs-s all in a row at the mirror in the changeroom, doing their make-up before they go downstairs to work out,thus leaving you no place to apply that extra-strength moisturizer you bought the other day because you discovered the beginnings of a possible smile line? yeah, one of those days at the gym.

*bitch card played*

"what do you do in your spare time?" the handsome man asked ...

okay, so i wasn't asked by a handsome man, but maybe i will be some day *sigh* (george? are you listening, george?).

i haven't talked much about rowing and training lately, caught up as i am in the grips of the ol' dissertation, but i have been meeting with S twice a week for tough erging workouts and doing lots of distance/basebuilding stuff on my own on the other days. my überhot and überfit friend meg has changed the layout of her blog and i'm so flattered that she added me to her list of links that i feel i should disclose some training stats.

so here you are -- what i do in my spare time, dedicated to meg:

out of the total # of my training hours in a year 60% are dedicated to cardio, 10% to peak power training (more on that below) 15% to strength training and 15% to stretching -- i will not lose my place in the boat as the lululemon devotee! *smirk*

60% of the cardio (so 60% of the 60%) is category 6 workouts -- 1 hour long pieces where my split time is my 6k average time + 15-18 seconds. so for me that would be about 2:30/500 m. it sounds too easy, but it builds a cardio base that will help with recovery. up to half of these category 6 workouts are cross-training like biking or running. the other 40% (of the 60%) of the cardio should be 1000m race pieces, done in sets of 5 -- basically, for me, one workout a week is made up of practice 1000m race pieces.

the 10% peak power training is painful, but makes me fast(er). at this point in training i do it once a week or once every week and a half. i set the drag factor on the erg to 10 and pull the following after a 15-20 minute warm up. i keep the drag factor low during the warm up.

6x 10 sec bursts with 45 sec rest between each burst
4x 15 s w 75 s rest between
12 x 5 s w 25 s rest between

for each burst i try to be at 90% of my peak power. ouch.

the 15% strength training is weight lifing 2xs a week and the stretching i try to do every night before bed.

so, if the handsome man ever ask you what i do in my spare time, you know what to tell him. (and don't forget to give him my phone number, especially if it's george.)

procrastination presents the soundtrack of my life

CM has provided a wonderful respite from editing paragraphs of my diss chapter. see her post about procrastination (you can get to that all-important, life-saving, career-advancing thing you have to do in a minute).

as per the instructions on her blog, here is the soundtrack to my life, brought you by the shuffle function in iTunes:

Opening Credits: I Surrender Dear – Louis Armstrong
Waking up: L’Automne (Hahn) – Susan Graham
First Day at Highschool: Come Here Boy – Imogen Heap
Falling In Love: L’Hymne Au Printemps – Felix Leclerc
Fight Song: One Girl Revolution – Superchic[k]
Breaking Up: Rambling On My Mind – Robert Johnson
Prom: Where Did You Go? – Peter Murray
Life: I’ve Been Fooled – Eleni Mandell
Mental Breakdown: Discotraxx -- Ladytron
Driving: Around This Corner – Sarah Harmer
Flashback: The Art of Living – Denzal Sinclaire
Getting Back Together: You Musn’t Kick It Around – Erin McKeown
Wedding: Speak Softly Love – Harry Connick Jr.
Birth of Child: Alone Down There – Modest Mouse
Final Battle: This Town Ain't Big Enough for the Both of Us – Siouxsie & the Banshees
Death Scene: Mack the Knife – Ella Fitzgerald (from Ella in Berlin)
Funeral Song: Where Tear Drops Fall – Bob Dylan
End Credits: La Foule –Edith Piaf

for all of the randomness of iTunes some of the songs seem eerily fitting (i.e. "Life: I've Been Fooled -- Eleni Mandell"), and some just plain funny (i.e. "Prom: Where Did You Go? -- Peter Murray").

according to this site, the title of the women's TV network movie of my life, of which the above soundtrack is a part, would be titled: It's My Scurvy Damn It: Shannon's Story.

'k, back to work!

throwing it down

after a friend's aunt brought her back a pair from paris last year, i've decided to knit gauntlets for several of my friends for xmas gifts. trés chic, non? and also (surprise, surprise) very victorian.

zucchini

i need to start adding sautéed zucchini to my (in)famous chili recipe. this is difficult for such a self-proclaimed chili snob as myself to admit, but apparently *ahem* magical things happen when you do -- for example, it snows. and lord knows, i'm a girl that could use some magic.


parenthetical observation that should really be a footnote: this is my second post about produce in a very short period of time. to quote k: "random".

oooompah

as i stood at dr katetacular's door last night, clutching my luggage and the stash of holiday cookies that my mom sent me back to k-town with, little did i think, that in under 10 minutes, i'd be giving the good doctor the scare of her thirtysomething life. i wanted to thank her for watching the furry beasts while i was away doing holiday/daughterly duty ("and", to quote maxwell smart, "llllllovvving it"), and show her the priceless family heirloom that my mom saw fit to pass on to me during this festive season of my 28th year. she called for me to come in and i carefully manoeuvred my baggage-laden self through the doorway and in to the living room.

"hey, wanna see something cool?" i asked, after we'd exchanged greetings and i'd delivered my thanks.

"sure." she didn't sound enthused, but cut her some slack. it was after 10 pm on a sunday night.

i carefully divested myself of my duffle, backpack and assorted other baggage, and walked around to the couch to place on the seat a beat up, square, black, leather case.

"you have to close your eyes and promise not to peek", i said with my back to her.

"eyes closed ... can i look yet? what is it? a sewing machine? a bra?" (blogger's note: i don't pretend to be privy to dr k's idiosyncratic thought processes)

as i spun around on my heel, fingers poised over the keys and buttons, opening the bellows to their full stretch and relishing the sound of a good, solid, C+ chord (with bass), dr katetacular's face blanched, and she held her hands to her cheeks and screeched in horror: "AN ACCORDION!"

yes, folks. my mother has passed on to me my grandmother's c.1925 "lady's accordion" with mother of pearl finish and ivory keys. walter ostanek, st. catharines' son and grammy award-winning polka king, eat your heart out.