Aural dreams

Tonight was the first reading of this year's Webster series, the series that features all the second-year MFA students, a coming-out party, if you will. Mark Webster was an MFA student here in 1989, a poet. He died at age 29 in the middle of the program, leaving behind a wife who was five months pregnant with their daughter. It was something to do with his heart. The series lives on in his name.

My friend Joel was reading tonight. Everyone admired him for being noble enough to go first. He'll be introducing me when I read in three weeks' time. When I asked him how he felt, he said it was fun to read. Now he's done and can enjoy the party. The party that's after tonight's reading, but I didn't feel like doing any partying. I'd rather come to the Media Union, mess around with the Ipod, complete my lesson plan for next week, brood about my reading, and maybe try and work on some critiques.

I have a life, but it just doesn't get very interesting past ten o'clock on a Friday night. And it's because of my own doing. Well, that's okay. I just learned that Pink Martini is finally releasing their sophomore album which is called Hang On Little Tomato.

In the fall of 2000, I was in Paris roaming the aisles of Virgin Records. I came across Pink Martini and thought they were a French jazz band. They're actually based in the Oregon, though the members come from all parts of the world. I thought purchasing Sympathique would be a nice souvenir of Paris, only to learn that they actually have the cd in Singapore, and the Singapore version even has an extra track, as my father pointed out to me. Still, the cover has the Eiffel Tower, and I thought it was pretty cool to be buying the cd within so many kilometers of the structure. Even though most of the songs are in languages other than French, I'll never hear Amando Mio, for example, without remembering how I was lying on my creaky bed in the hostel and watching the wind blow the cheap, white curtains while I dreamed up my next walk on another bridge on the Seine (I also imagined all the Tintin figures I would find in the quirky comic stores near the hostel; I actually left Paris with Asterix figures).

Their first cd is fun, bright, and boasts tunes so catchy I always feel like getting up to dance. And this is coming from someone who's become more of the wallflower type in recent years. I certainly hope their second album tops the first; it has, after all, taken four years reach the market. Most of the members from the first Pink Martini have left, but China Forbes, the female vocalist, is still around. October 19th is the release date. And three days after that, I take the stand and read before an audience, who I hope, won't fall asleep in front of me.

Posted by Monoceros at October 1, 2004 10:44 PM