strategy and success

I try to focus on the lines of a Hannah Arendt essay, The Concept of History: Ancient and Modern, as the 1 train wobbles from side to side as it bolts from the 42nd street stop towards downtown. I am heading to a free Ashtanga yoga class at Yoga To the People on St. Marks near NYU and I am really starting to enjoy these moments on the subway to sit and think, or read, or just stare at people and make up stories. As I read the Arendt and imagine what the concept of history was like for Herodotus (documenting the Persian wars in order to preserve that which owes its existence to man let it be obliterated by time, documenting actions of people so that they have meaning, greatness over time, and do not just rot and fade, forgotten in one generation, two three) I extract from the jerky train completely, from my life as a pretend trying- to-make-it musician in New York, from my worries about groceries, from Adele. Just humans on my mind, abstractly, and why they do what they do.

And I especially like the extraction, the escape, because it keeps me from getting too absorbed, too consumed, by our project of trying to make it as musicians in New York. Lee Ellen and I came to New York with the intention of playing as many open mics as possible with the end goal of getting at least one full set at a decent venue. Our tactics for achieving this goal were varied and deliberate: solid and impressive performance, strategic Myspace friending, emailing important folks, crazy costumes, cunning coquetry (to say the least...), and just unashamed self-promotion. And after three weeks of piano pounding, guitar schlepping, and diplomatic dealings we have achieved our goal. We are playing an hour set at Bar 4, our now favorite open mic venue in the area, this Thursday at 8.

I know that I will look back on this whole experience when a more analytic eye—probably as I prepare for my Fulbright over the next few months—and see more clearly the patterns of action, intention, strategy that go into making it as a young female rock artist, but for now I will merely outline and sketch what I know went into our very quick and successful initiation into the Brooklyn music scene. Like I said, being talented and having good stage presence and good music is a must. Without this you have nothing to market. Then there is being friendly, number two most important. Talking to the other musicians, audience members, bar tenders, complimenting, questioning, exchanging info. Having business cards and a Myspace page is an absolute must. Flirtation comes into this as well, when appropriate, but you have to be careful here so as to not lead people on and then let them down. You may gain five points, but you lose ten when they think you might be flirting with everyone else in the bar as well. Crazy costumes is a plus, so long as it is timed well and doesn’t turn into a boring gimmick. Then there is getting the venue staff involved...in our case, it was getting the bar tender to beat box on one of our songs...

Jeremy Spangler is excited to join us for our show on Thursday, so we should really be able to rock it out as a three piece—drums, electric, piano. We had a practice today with Jeremy playing hand drum and table (he will have a full kit at the bar tomorrow, but couldn’t haul it up to our apartment), and even without the full ensemble we were sounding pretty tight. Tomorrow Lee Ellen and I are going to try to put together some cool costumes (we want at least two costume changes), hopefully one pair of costumes consisting of a carrot and an onion, run the set a few times, and then head over to Brooklyn to get ready. Hopefully all our city-dwelling friends will come out to support us and it will be a successful show.

Other than musicking and contemplating the nature of human history we have been really milking the city for what it has to offer during these glorious summer months. Last week we saw two free orchestral performances in Prospect Park in Brooklyn—the first night the New York Philharmonic and the second night the Kronos Quartet. Sunday we went to a free show at the Williamsburg Waterfront park and saw a great band called the Dirty Projectors play to a crowd of at least a thousand hypnotized hipsters. Three girls and three guys, crazy time signatures, vocals that can easily be mistaken as horn parts. What more could you want? Our friend Agne from New College visited last weekend after returning from travels in France, England, and Iceland. In France she was living on a monastery, thinking and writing and conversing about the monastery community and focusing specifically on the vows of silence these folks take. Being around Agne is always a joy, and having a third person really freshened up the dynamic between me and Lee Ellen, who for good and bad are starting to get into the same cycles of up and down moods and all the spindly irritability that comes with that. We are working on our relationship like any dedicated romantic couple and are already stronger friends for it. Saturday the three of us went to Brighton Beach and ate Lithuanian food and told each other stories about our fellow sun bathers. Beautiful.

Lauren Edwards has become our trusty third sidekick and is our most dedicated and enthusiastic Thank You Senator Fulbright fan. Right now she is interning with some famous artist who makes large sculptures and installation with taxidermied animals. On Monday the three of us and Dana went to a sketch comedy show at the Upright Citizens Brigade that Chris, Ronan, and their friend Will Callahan were in. Fucking hysterical, brilliant intellectual sketch comedy. I still can’t believe I’m seeing Chris perform, brilliantly, at the Upright Citizen’s Brigade in New York to a full audience when I so clearly remember The Sound of Music at FHS...


It is impossible to capture everything, but I guess that’s the nature of history. Herodotus knew it, Arendt knew it, I know it, but there is still the desire to write it all down. Catch experience, the past, cryogenically preserve it and file it away so that we can pull it out at look at it at family dinners.

Patrick is here with me. He surprised me last night at Bar 4 with silly putty and puzzles and plants in the audience. I am elated.