The Troubles of Schwa, Angst in Sound
"Syllabic consonants are always trying to take my place!"
Schwa's got a tough life. She's constantly under appreciated by her fellow phonetics - she's barely even a part of the gang! Mostly she's only allowed to be involved when the less important parts of the story happen.
"Everybody knows I'm unstressed. It's just in my nature. But people seem to think unstressed means unimportant! They don't even notice me."
It turns out, Schwa's actually pretty stressed. People are never quite sure if they need her. It's like being a doctor on call, 24/7. How can schwa remain unstressed when she has to be ready to be thrown in any second?
I think I just made up a teaser trailer for my ten minute COW. Let's call that getting ahead. Go schwa, go! I'm kinda excited for this project, which is excellent, because I had just been speculating about what I might do my COW about, and this idea fell into my lap. Life is being good.
Regina Spektor's new album (okay, so it's not that new anymore), "Far", is definitely excellent. I finally got it today, and listened to it straight through. It's definitely cleaner-sounding than some of her earlier stuff, but it's less timid than some of "Begin to Hope" and I really like it.
Also I'm becoming obsessed with Sam Shepard and Joe Chaikin as collaborators. So good.
Clearly I am ready to be back at school and working my butt off. I'm half-manufacturing it for myself already. (Okay, so a reading list, another reading list, and a couple design projects are helping, but still.) Oh, this is gonna be a good year.
PLUS! Oh, plus! I've been working on campus ministry at NYU, because of course UUism is the other passion in my life, especially right now. I've started communication with the minister of lifespan faith development at the UU church in Brooklyn. His name is Jude Geiger and he went to NYU for grad school and was the president of campus ministry at NYU when he was there, so I'm really looking forward to my relationship with him. I'm really invigorated by the idea of creating something at NYU that might last beyond me, and at any rate will certainly have a positive effect on myself and others while I'm here. I'm also in contact with the YA and Campus Ministry consultant for the MNY district, Claire Sexton, who is a great lady really invested in YA work. Between those two and their experience, my experience, and the people I know and am getting in touch with at NYU, things are looking great. I found a grant to apply for through the UUA that would actually give me a budget and a stipend, which means I could be getting paid to do something I love anyway. I hope I'll be able to create community and strengthen faith in my peers this year. Hopefully, if I can do that with the campus ministry group, I will be able to spread my inner passions and faith and strength to the rest of my friends and life.
I'm so excited about this coming year! There are so many possibilities and opportunities coming to me this year, tons of which I don't even know yet. I do know I get to SM for Colleen on "Tongues" by Sam Shepard and Joe Chaikin, which is all about the voice, so we both love it, and I can't wait to see how it develops. I know I could quite possibly be light designing for a show that deals with a lot of issues that interest me, and I'm looking forward to really getting to work with lights beyond the rudimentary plot in the black box for class. I can't wait to work with color, tone, the transition from one mood to another, the space in between light and dark. My head is swimming with thoughts about the upcoming year.
My thoughts have just returned to the confusion I was experiencing at the beginning of the summer. I keep finding myself thinking more in the mind of a director or designer than as an actor. Perhaps that's because I don't know what my acting opportunities will be yet. I am excited about my acting lab class, because I know it will be intense and hopefully really inspiring. I know I can't know all the answers, but I need to figure some things out this semester to help me decide what I'm doing for the rest of the year and sort of the rest of school.
Time to get back to reading! At least it's a happy end to summer, despite some minor setbacks earlier this week. August is turning out okay after all.
1 comment:
Somehow, I didn't see this until now. Lamesauce. But I'm so excited for next year, and the amounts of amazing spiritual voice fun we're going to have.
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