projects
Trying to finish all the end-of-the-semester stuff. In some ways I did not procrastinate: my Bibliographic Methods project is over halfway finished, and it isn’t due until Wednesday. Also I already gave my presentation for American Music History seminar. On the other hand, I have also done my fair share of putting things off til nearly the last minute (finding enough sources for the Bibliography project, actually WRITING my AMH paper (due Monday). Ah well. Doesn’t really feel like the end of a semester, though, and I’m not sure that what I did this semester was productive. It sort of was, I guess. Winning over two useful professors who are gateways to doctoral admissions and gainful employment must count for something.
Nick and I are both beginning to take our adult selves more seriously-me in money management and curing my procrastination, and Nick in being a more resourceful composer (applying for grants and that sort of thing) and actually turning in all of his required materials for his doctoral applications. Part of me really does think that things are only going to get better from here, though there will be always be pitfalls along the way.
I must tell you about my trek up to the Performing Arts Library this afternoon. As you may or may not know, the NYPAL is located in Lincoln Plaza, which is also where Alice Tully and Avery Fisher Halls are located, as well as the Met and Julliard. Anyway: I was walking across the plaza (the PAL is sort of tucked behind the Met, and from forty feet away, was confronted with the most beautiful and breathtaking sight:
Two Chagall paintings flanking the entrance. Some of you have been around long enough to remember when the Green Violinist (Rebbe Mort) was my diary background. I’m at a loss to explain why his work matters so much to me, but the sight of these magnificent paintings stopped me in my tracks. At last I understood why, all those years ago in Austria, my friends cried at the sight of Klimt’s painting, The Kiss, which was considerably smaller than the Chagalls at the Met, though it still resided upon its own wall in the museum.
It was so unexpected, there in the middle of the day. The plaza has been under construction nearly the entire time I’ve lived in New York, you see, and I didn’t know and there I was gawking in the middle of the plaza, walking dazedly back and forth in front of the building, with tears in my eyes. Reprints do not do justice to magnificent art, and I had never seen a life-size original work by an artist who means so much to me.
It was like a present.
Hurrah for random beauty! -Philo
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