Spleen Chronicles

Seraphic Fire recorded an album of Monteverdi’s Vespers of 1610 in a little stone chapel in Kalamazoo, omitting the optional giant Baroque accompaniment the piece is typically performed with. When no record label would take their album, they released it themselves and put it on iTunes.

When it got featured in iTunes, conductor Patrick Dupre Quigley took a screen capture and posted it on facebook, tagging each of the performers in the image. By the end of the day it had moved into the 18 best selling classical albums on iTunes. Within 36 hours it was number six (sandwiched between Yo-Yo Ma and the London Philharmonic Orchestra).

Here’s their album on iTunes,

here’s photos and video of the production of the album,

and here’s the story in NPR.

Brilliant.

And the best part? I have tickets to see Seraphic Fire when they come to Green Bay in January! WOOO HOOO!
If you’re interested, you can get Brown County Civic Music Association season tickets here: http://www.bccivicmusic.org/tickets/ (Individual tickets are available if you call Civic Music or buy at the door.)

I couldn’t find a conference room in SS1400 today because the room numbers lead right up to and down from what I knew to be the Health Center. Every room number existed, except for the number I was looking for. Only after I asked Todd for help, did I realize the Health Center was clearly labeled 1400 and the conference room must be inside. Sometimes we see only what we want to see—sometimes at great expense to ourselves.

Bike rack was an epic failure. I realized I couldn’t put it on last night because my car won’t fit in the garage with it on. I didn’t want to leave it parked outside all night. So I decided I’d do it this morning—probably my first mistake.

I couldn’t find instructions or any information about the Grāber bike rack. So I got dressed. I hadn’t gotten around to doing laundry—no pants, so I put my favorite purple skirt on and went outside to put the rack on my car. I did my best—figured out how to get the rack on my car so that it felt secure.

The trouble began with getting the bike on the rack. I tried 3 times—pinched fingers, hit myself in the face with the f*cking bike, cut my lip up a little. I got it on there, but the little bungees on the rack were loose over the bike. I’d have secured it better, but my bungee cords were inside the damned trunk. So I took the whole works off and tried shoving the bike in the trunk, which didn’t fit. So I secured it with bungee cords only to realize my trunk light would be on all day if I left it in my car like that. By then I was 5 minutes late for my arrival at work, so I gave up on the bike. This is very disappointing because I bought and mounted a new bike seat, a kick stand and bought a bike lock. I put air in my tires. I was really looking forward to biking on the Fox River Trail with my “at work friend” for the first time today…she was even nice enough to loan me this bike rack.

So I hurried inside to grab my crap. On my way out again, slammed my skirt in the f*cking door and ripped it—damn near off my body. Went inside to change.

Having a crappy morning. I also realized this morning a new site I produced had been live for nearly a month with no tracking code, due to my own negligence…I feel really bad about that. I must not let this ever happen again.

I wonder if maybe I could borrow one of my parent’s bikes after work and ride it over to the trail to meet my new biking pals. (I always wanted biking pals.) I could get there in 15 minutes biking from my parent’s house. Maybe next Monday I could make a point of coming in to work early to scoot at 4:15, get to my parent’s house with time to dress and be at the meeting spot by 5pm.

I took a ride down the stairs last night. The previous owners of my home thought it would be a good idea to paint the stairs with high-gloss powder blue paint. This, coupled with my fondness for fuzzy socks, can make a trip downstairs treacherous. Last night’s incident was particular in that I also happened to be wearing my fuzziest pajamas, lending distance to the low-friction slide that would imminently follow, paddling my ample bottom all the way down to the third remaining step.

And really the worst part, I think was the feeling of my posterior meeting the first step, more than the slide. The thing that’s really remarkable is that my left buttock now sports a bruise that bears uncanny resemblance to the band of the Milky Way. Who’d have thought that Milky Way’s really would go straight to my ass.

Don’t be sad when the holiday candies, cookies, and snacks you labored to produce run out. Be happy at the thought of all of the people with whom they were shared.

And if you ate them all yourself, it’s probably best there aren’t any more left.

Like clockwork, my seasonal blemish took up residence on my chin. This pimple pops up magically on Christmas morning and lasts through to the new year. This zit, zeitgeist of the Christmas season, is brought on by a combination of holiday stress and change in diet. It’s magical…like Christmas Snow. It shines brighter than Rudolph’s nose. In holiday photos, it glows redder than the red-eye. Its big, its bad, and its tradition.

I’m sure I’m not the only one who experiences this phenomena, but I’ve come to expect it, and even look forward it. It is, after all, a metaphor for the holiday season: festively colored, filled with fun, a little bit painful, and lasts about a week and a half.

And so, I encourage you to embrace your blemish. Don’t attempt to cover it up, we all know it’s there, anyway. Its just your face is wishing you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. So listen to your face and be merry and happy or you’ll never get rid of that damn pimple.

We all have one individual on our list for whom its troublesome to find a gift. If there’s something they want or need, they just buy it themselves. A gift certificate would be a good solution. However, more often than not, either you or the recipient is encumbered with holiday gift scruples that dictate that gift certificates are not an option. (The unwritten bylaw (Article II Section a1.5) states that gift certificates are lazy, thoughtless, and pretty much unethical gifts that carry about as many well-wishes as a bag of coal.)

In this circumstance, I recommend going to the store in seek of not the ideal gift for this person, instead, the most unlikely gift…to put it plainly, the item you think they’ll hate the most. When you make your purchase, be careful to include a gift receipt. Now you’re off the hook. You went into the store, you picked out an actual gift, and you bought it! Because they hate it, they’ll take the gift receipt and return it for something they really want/need!

And don’t worry about any criticism, Holiday Gift Bylaw Article III Section b.2.5 states that you must receive every gift graciously, no matter how much you hate it.

If you’re any thing like me, the first thing you do at a holiday gathering is sidle up to the smorgasbord of holiday food and commence grazing on calorie-laden goodies for the remainder of the evening. If ritual ruminating is a holiday tradition for you but you’d like to pass on the extra pounds, keep some sugar free gum handy. If your mouth is already occupied with a tasty piece of gum, you’ll be more likely to pass on treats that you’re not really hungry for…or at least have a moment to think twice about it, as you look for a place to spit your gum. My personal favorite is orbits sweet mint–I’ve never tried anything that tastes more like a Shamrock Shake without actually being a Shamrock Shake.

If gum’s not your thing, try moseying over to greener pastures to fill up on veggies before moving on to the more sinful snacks.

Wrap your holiday gifts while barefoot. More often than not, there’s nobody around to lend a finger to prevent the ribbon from slipping as you snug up the knot to the ribbon topping off the world’s most beautifully-wrapped gift. In the event of such an unfortunate incident, a toe will work just as well.

If flexibility is a concern, I recommend adult gymnastics at Tri-County Gymnastics.

I also recommend washing your hands after you’ve opened a gift from me.

Here’s an amusing snippet from the Brown County Sheriff’s Office Allouez Neighborhood Watch News that was shared with me by a co-worker

August 27th 9:12am – Deputies were dispatched to a school on the south side of Allouez for a possible body part found in the bushes. Upon arrival, Deputies collected the item and gave it to University staff for identification. UW staff confirmed it was a mushroom that merely looked like a body part.