Beauty in the Breakdown

I've been meaning to blog this for the past few days, ever since I finished (more or less) my HCH promo for Open House on Wednesday. (Been an utterly crazy week, with the end result that I didn't see my kids for an entire week. Hrumph.) Anywho, the promo was basically a music video of the various shows that my HCH kids have been involved with in some significant way or another (which left out the first French Butler, Salome, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, and Pirates of Penzance - which was unfortunate but not unworkaroundable). Consequently, it also acts as a sort of video diary for my work with these particular kids - which means it seems to distill my style into four minutes - which means that I've been attempting to discern threads to my style so that I can add one more neurosis to my ever expanding list. ;P



What I realized was this: in the words of Jill, I'm not happy unless I've put my characters through Hell and back. Or, to put in the Tolkienesque Catholic language, I find beauty in the "long defeat." Or, as Frou-Frou writes, "There's beauty in the breakdown." That moment of freefalling is utterly beautiful, that uncertainty, that necessary nakedness, that moment when one must face the truth or perish beyond all hope of salvation - yes - THAT is beautiful. It's the awful beauty of the cross.

So, all this to encourage me to revise "Thrushbeard" - aherm - King of Fools. Howsomever, if this is the best poetry I can conjure up, I'm in a poor state to revise! Ah ca! Quick random otherness:

Went to Boston on Thursday for Archdiocese thingy. Not bad at all. Went afterwards (in heels - oh, my poor aching ankles!) to St. Anthony's Shrine near the common. Loverly place. Saw Father Jonathan there (in his civvies) on his day off. Got to mass just in time. Torturous walk back due to aforementioned heels. Ah ca.

Received latest orchestrations. Am just settling down to put my brain to work on them, but I love the quintet. Now, here's to hoping I get the voices....

Oh, I was utterly punch drunk (one too many hits with the snake!) silly at rehearsal the other day. The combination of too many late nights trying to get the open house video together, too many futile days out of school, and general emotional fatigue - and no little odd lunch hunger - led to a very silly me at rehearsal. Worsened by the fact that I always forget how stinking COMPLICATED my music seems to be for other people. But I am muchly proud of my students who are picking it up well enough and sound very well indeed. My hopes for the musical (casting, anyway) continue to rise.

Speaking (continuously) of the musical, I'm working one just one more song for Frederick to sing in the marketplace in order to get back at Cassandra for being a jerk. It's an Irish pub-y type song, with a rousing chorus, that goes something like this (thus far):

Oh, I'll sing a song of a husband true -
A saint, if it be known -
Who had the bad taste to marry a shrew
(He'd be better off alone).
But the deed's been done,
So what's there to do?
(Especially when you're poor.)
The bed's for one
But now there are two...
So he's sleeping on the floor!

And it's up, down, spin him around,
She left him on the floor!
Up, down, spin him around,
She left him on the floor!
They might just fit
If she squeezed a bit
Or if they were not poor
But it's up, down, spin him around,
She left him on the floor!

Mood: Sleepyish
Music: My mix CD Flannel Collage
Curiosity it: Julie cajoling me to get material for her to make me a dress a la Ever After! I could only affor the material for the over-dress, though. The underdress will have to be made on another paycheck.