Musicspeak: our audience

After my first public recital at college, I wrote home to say how disappointed I was. The audience had been small and it seemed almost meaningless to have spent all those hours in the practice room just to perform to a few people.

In her reply to me, my very wise mother said something that has stayed with me till today.

If even one person has enjoyed or understood my performance, I would have succeeded.

The Chinese has a term for such a person: zhiyin. The first character, "zhi" means "know" and the second, "yin "means "music" or "sound." Someone who is a zhiyin, in its literal sense, is someone who knows your voice, your sound, your music.

As a performer, It is not possible to know how a performance affects anyone. I don't know if, in all my years of performing, I have found any zhiyin, but the notion that such a person could exist has definitely given me a much better attitude toward performing.

An elderly gentleman used to frequent the lunch-time recitals of my conservatory. I didn't know him, but he was almost always at my recitals. As part of my psyche-myself-up-to-perform routine, I would imagine him as a zhiyin.

Initially, the thought helped focus my intentions. As the years went on, as I became increasingly frustrated by the seemingly arbitrary judging by the professors based on obstinate ideas about how certain pieces should be performed--Bach should never be played with the damper pedal, there should be no rubato in Mozart, and the only way to achieve the effect Debussy wanted was by using the sostenuto pedal (the one in the middle on a grand piano) and no other way--that I eventually gave up being the compliant and correct student because, first of all, I couldn't keep straight which professor held which opinion, and I really didn't want to perform within such narrow parameters.

So in my last year at the conservatory, when I employed subtle rubato in Mozart or used the damper pedal in Bach, I would direct the performance toward the gentleman, and imagined that he understood what I was trying to do musically.

Maybe a person should only write for herself. But I have to admit that one of the purposes of my writing is to share something of myself with others. Otherwise I would not seek publication and I would not need this blog. I may never reach a large audience with my writing, but the notion that a zhiyin could exist out there, who will "get" my writing, is a strong motivator.

Banned Books week

To Kill a Mockingbird, The Great Gatsby, Of Mice and Men, Lord of the Flies, The Grapes of Wrath, The Handmaid's Tale, Speak: these are but some of the books that have opened my mind, affected my soul, made me ponder the wonders and abominations of life. To think that I might not have had the opportunity to read them makes me sad. I can only imagine how much poorer I would have been had not been for these books.

The people who want to ban books have one thing right: they know the power of ideas. But they also fear. What do they fear? On a day when I feel charitable, I think they fear the susceptibility of the naive. On a day when I am less so, I think they fear that their own belief system will be challenged.

Harsh? Perhaps. But in a democracy, where some of the most important decisions are made by by individual votes, why are we not given the same courtesy to choose the ideas we want to explore?

As a parent, I am acutely aware of ideas that are not (yet) appropriate for the absorbent and young minds of my children. And I do censor: books, TV shows, movies. But those decisions are borne out of my responsibility as a parent and based not just on the principles/beliefs our family adheres to, but also on my knowledge of my children. The fact that I choose for my children while they are still young doesn't mean I will tell other parents what their children should or should not read.

September 25th till October 2nd is designated Banned Books Week. Here is the American LIbrary Association's page with helpful information and links. Librarians and bloggers everywhere highlighting banned books in the next few weeks and I am going to participate in the Banned Books Challenge hosted by Steph Su Reads. For this challenge, I will read at least one banned book for general audience, and one for children's/YA and post my reviews here between now and October 15th.

Join me, if you're so inclined, and let me know after you sign up at Steph's. And even if you're not participating, do tell me which, among the banned books you have read, is one that you can't imagine not reading.

It's September and I'm back

My sabbatical from blogging has been a good one. It has allowed me distance and given me time to consider some questions about the blog and its place in my writing life. I have not made new discoveries, just affirmed earlier thoughts, such as:

• There are more blogs I want to read than there is time to do so;
• I have not been using my experiences as a musician much; and
  
• I really appreciate the my blogging community.

Making choices is the hardest when the options are not clearly right/wrong, but I have made mine. To pursue a huge online presence, to gain large numbers of followers, to comment on every blog I enjoy: these are no longer top priority.

Not only did these activities take massive amounts of time, they exerted a pressure on my psyche as well. I am not a person who can process all the information and share in all the emotional highs and lows and then be able to put all that aside to focus on writing. I am now choosing to limit how much my mind has to process and my emotions be affected so that I can participate fully in each experience and still have what I need to be a writer.

On a more upbeat note, I realize that I have not focused much on my other love, music. After ignoring my piano for a long while, I am practicing regularly again. There are so many parallels between the writing life and the musical life that I can't believe how little of that has been highlighted in this blog.

The practical outcome of these thoughts?
I will post twice a week, one to focus on music and how it relates to writing, and the other will be on whatever is on my mind. I will still, as I have been during my blogging pause, visit and comment on the blogs in my community, only less frequently as before. I still love you guys!

Oh, and btw, like my new look?

In which the frog jumps out of the pot, or see you in September

I have been thinking about taking a sabbatical from my blog for a while now, and it seems I'm not the only one who is stepping back. Lady Glamis is closing down her blog, Innocent Flower, Miss Rumphius is stepping out for a little while, Lotus girl is going through a purge-a-palooza, and Corey at Thing 1 and Thing 2 has lost her mojo for her blog.

My reasons? Several. First, summer is a time to be with my children, to do spontaneous things like make crepes or go for a bike ride or hang out with the neighbors. It is a time when fresh vegetables and fruits abound, and this year especially, I am looking forward to making wonderful meals from the produce I will receive from a local farm through an CSA program. It is also a time when, if I don't pay attention to the backyard for a few days, it will be overrun by weeds and over-exuberant ground covers.


Here is another reason, one which I'm not even sure I can articulate properly. The best I can do is with the metaphor of the frog in the pot of boiling water.


In my version of the story, I somehow become aware of the water getting hotter than I can handle and I jump out (hopefully not into the fire, but that's another metaphor, isn't it?) before I boil into a lovely frog broth.

Let me explain. I love interacting with writers and people who love the arts on blogosphere. I enjoy participating in different activities: commenting, following, joining Ning groups, entering contests. But without realizing it, I've gone too far.

It's not just that I am spending too much time or energy, it's also that I am doing some things I am not entirely sure about.(This is the part that may get me some flak, but I hope you understand I am describing my struggles, not passing judgment.)

Take contests, for instance. Most of them now offer a point system to reward readers for publicizing the event. This has made me wonder: is this for me? If something is done by the majority and I choose not to do it, does it mean I am intentionally leaving myself/my book behind? When will the saturation point hit, i.e. if and when I do decide to engage in publicity this way, how can I be sure that people will not have become sick of them/blase/overwhelmed by too many people doing the same thing?

I guess the underlying reason, for me at least, is that there is something about those actions that is one step removed from the real motivation--following or blogging because I want to qualify for a contest, or requiring people to follow to qualify for my contest--that makes me ever so slightly squirmy. Lots of things in life are done for extraneous reasons, I realize that. But I still wonder.

Other issues relate to how this blog fits into my writing life. I know many bloggers re-evaluate their decisions periodically and I'll be joining them. Thoughts and arguments will brew in my mind as I fly kites and weed and grill. When I see you again, I hope to have a clearer mind, whether or not I resolve all my questions. I already have an idea of what I can do about my blog when I return.

Hope you'll join me on my journey again. I may even throw in a couple of contests and devise a new point system.


Enjoy your summer, if you're in my hemisphere, or winter, or monsoon season, and see you in September. (Anyone else thinks of this song when they hear this phrase?)

Degrees of separation: Moore, DiCamillo, Adichie, Tropper

Recently I read four books that seem very different from one another, yet when I finished, I realize common themes thread through them.

Christopher Moore's Lamb has a lot of the author's trademark: breezy dialogues, humor, humor, and yes, more humor, often of the crude sort. Even the subtitle tells you this book is likely to contain a good dose of irreverence: The Gospel according to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal. Yet underneath all that sarcasm and sacrilegious poking-fun lurks an authentic truth-seeker. And if the book itself didn't make me think, the author's afterword certainly did. The voice and tone of those pages are so different, I would have sworn they belonged to somebody else . But they don't, and it was truly eye-opening for me to see how sincerity and cynicism, respect and reverence can marry.


The Purple Hibiscus by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie has none of the light-heartedness of Lamb. It is a serious book on serious subjects, yet like Lamb, religion is on every page. As in Lamb, the readers are never told it's bad to do certain things in the name of religion, yet to see how the characters interpret their faith, we can't help but shudder, or at least reconsider our own beliefs and actions as a result of those beliefs.


I got the recommendation of Jonathan Tropper's This Is Where I Leave You from the same place, over at the DGLM blog, when Jim McCarthy recommended books to readers based on the last five books they read. And actually the book he recommended to me is Geek Love, but when I checked out the other recommendations, Adichie's and Tropper's stood out as ones I thought I would enjoy as well.

Religion sets up the backdrop for This is Where I Leave You. A family, who hasn't been very religious, has to sit shiva for a week when the father passed away. Like Lamb, Where I Leave You is filled with wicked wit and a (over)preponderance of sex. And like Purple Hibiscus, it explores dynamics among family members in an honest and raw manner.

Now, how on earth would I link these to Kate DiCamillo, you're thinking? Well, let me try. The book I just finished is The Magician's Elephant. A book that is written in a dreamy, almost surreal manner, where strange people do inexplicable things and where the lives of most of the characters are filled with regrets and sorrow. A book that is about magic. A book that is for middle graders.

What is the one thing that strikes me the most in the book? Not the quirky characters, or the amazing writing. It's hope.

The main event in the story drops into the lives of many who are dejected, tired, and given up. Yet, as it unfolds, every one of them finds hope.

And it is also hope that ties all of these diverse books together for me.

There is hope for the truth-seeker. If you don't buy into organized religion, if you find some of the practice or actions taken by practitioners abhorrent, you don't have to lose hope in your search. You don't even have to give into cynicism. It's fine and good even, to question standard practices; it's essential that you don't allow the sense of right and wrong, good and bad within you to be tainted by what you think the oppressive religious lot are insisting. Truth is not the exclusive property of those who claim they have it. Truth can be sought and found.

There is hope for the one stuck with people they don't know what to do with. People can learn to understand one another, even when the ways are clumsy and stupid, even when most of us prefer to shift blame and hold grudges, even when we will make lots of mistakes. If there is a bond, if there is love, then we will find ways to exist together.

I am not sure why I am in the sort of mood. Or maybe I do. Maybe that's what happens when I open myself to words and ideas and emotions that authors have poured into their books.

Tricia made me do it

Write a haiku, that is.

Tricia is celebrating her one year anniversary at Talespinning. If you have not visited, I hope you will. It is one of my favorite blogs. Not only does she write from her heart, she also has the most gorgeous photographs and touching haiku.

As part of her celebration, Tricia is holding a contest and asking her readers to write haikus. With spring in the air, along with the sense of renewal and quiet excitement, it was easy to find inspiration.

This picture is from my backyard. When we bought the house, we were told the steep slope at the back required a retaining wall, but that seemed so cold and uninviting. Then we found out boulders could do the trick. And I am so glad. And so are our resident monkeys, who got their mountain-goat footing by climbing and jumping on these rocks since they were mere tots. (And in the process, training their mom to deal calmly with heart-attack moments.) Even in the winter time when all is gray and brown, the boulders provide their own brand of stoic beauty.

Right now, the petals from the flowering fruit trees are giving way to the vincas and phlox. Colors are beginning to dot my backyard again. And here is my humble tribute to it:

Petals in the breeze
Phlox brims over stoic rock
Spring and hope collide

Happy spring and renewed hopes to all!

Winner from the GALM retirement party

Thanks for attending my party! Sorry I didn't post this earlier; you know how it is after a party, there's all that cleaning up to do.

Anyway, I've decided to pool all the comments together and award a prize. Those of you who entered in multiple categories got multiple chances. Here's the winner:

Tricia!

Tricia, please send me your address at yatyeechong at g mail dot com and tell me which one of the three books you'd like.

And to all who participated, THANK YOU. I know I will continue to mull over some of the quotes and remember the books you've recommended. And I am so glad to hear some of you have allowed GALM to help you choose your books.

Retirement Party for Grab-A-Line Monday

Welcome to my party! Come in, come in! Enjoy some
confetti.

Have a drink.


Grab something to eat, Remember, virtual foods pack zero calories or stuff that our bodies don't need, so go crazy with the tiramisu and the nutella crepes.











Thanks for dropping by the retirement party for Grab-A-Line-Monday, my weekly blog event that started with this post in September:

Quick, grab a book from your bookshelf and find a memorable sentence. Or if you have one that you carry around in your mind, even better. Here's one that struck me the first time I read it and continued to occupy my mind:

In case of an accident, anyone seeing her dead on the highway would know at once that she was a lady.

Flannery O'Connor
in A Good Man Is Hard To Find

If you've missed my multicolored, super-hyper announcement of a new feature on my blog, here is a recap:

Grab-A-Line Monday is the place to share sentences that stopped you in your tracks, or made you spew coffee or have stayed with you for years for other reasons. The moments when I read those sentences I count among the best in life. Since there are more books than any one of us can finish in a life time, I hope that this will become a place where we can share our treasures.

So I'd love it love it love it if you would grab a line and put it in the comments. And if it turns out you like the idea, please blog about it and share the word. Let's celebrate excellent writing and memorable moments!


Thank you so much to many of you who have come by and offered lines and passages that have caught you. Some of the quotes have so intrigued me that I have sought out out the books or short stories: Leviathan, Wee Free Men, Bernice Bobs Her Hair, The Adoration of Jenna Fox, just to name a few.

Other times, the quotes themselves have given me pause:

"What if man is not really a scoundrel, man in general, I mean, the whole race of mankind-then all the rest is prejudice, simply artificial terrors and there are no barriers and it's all as it should be."

- Fyodor Dostoevsky

(A question asked by Lady Glamis via Crime and Punishment)


or made me sad:

"She had nothing left to say, so she said she loved me. And I stood there grateful for the lie."

(A line from a song by Gin Blossoms brought to GALM by Solving Sherrie)


or made me chuckle:

"Kidnapping children is not a good idea. All the same, sometimes it has to be done."

Eva Ibottson, ISLAND OF THE AUNTS

(From Shelley the story queen.)


And then there was the fast bullock confusion. It started with an innocent quote Nandini offered:

"Greetings, Ancient Uncle," he panted, "you have a very fast bullock."

YOUNG UNCLE COMES TO TOWN by Vandana Singh

But for some reason, I misread it to say "fast buttocks". which disintegrated even further in the comments...


GALM has had a great run and again, thanks to all of you who have supported it.

Now, to the contest (I hope you got the BYOQ--bring your own quote--memo on the party invitation) Please leave me one or more in the following categories:

• your favorite quote from previous GALM posts
  
• books you've read because of the quotes you've found here
• an all-time favorite quote

The contest will be open till midnight Mountain Time tonight. The categories that reach 10 comments will generate one of the following prizes, hard copies of:

How Fiction Works by James Wood
The Maze Runner by James Dashner
If I Stay by Gayle Forman


Added later: forgot to re-iterate that I can only send prizes to addresses within the continental US.

Speech over. Let the party begin.