Practice, practice, practice.

ginkgo and I went to another concert of the NY Oratoria Society last night at Carnegie Hall. Twas an interesting jaunt - got caught up in the MTA mess heading into the city. (A building spontaneously collapsed in Harlem at 124th, and threw debris on the train tracks.) We got dumped off the MTA train in the wilds of the Bronx at Wakefield, walked a few blocks to the very end of the #2 subway line, went down to 180th, grabbed the #5 from there, and continued on in. Luckily, things were completely cleared up and the irritated crowds were on their way homes by the time we got back to Grand Central at midnight. It was an interesting Petri dish of rumor control - when we were at the train station, before heading to the subway, we heard that 1) a building collapsed at 124th and Park, 2) it was a skyscraper, 3) a building had collapsed *onto* the tracks at 125th, taking them out, 4) the *tracks* had collapsed, 5) a *subway tunnel* had collapsed, and the subways weren't running. The poor MTA folks were doing their best, but it was amazing to watch people instantly trust complete strangers to have Authoritative and Accurate Information(tm), and how it mutated so quickly while being passed through a crowd. Mob craziness, man.

The concert was lovely - I'll have to get the composer info from the program when I get home, but it included a modern 4-part piece titled Love and War, which was choral recitation of four letters during wartime: a soldier to his mother during Vietnam, a woman to her fiancee on the lines in WWII, a soldier writing to a fallen comrade's mother in WWI, and a soldier to his wife in the Civil War. It was very moving... and the Vietnam soldier and the WWII fiancee were in attendance. Quite amazing.

Afterwards, what night would be complete without a run to Carnegie Deli? Then back home, got to bed about 2am. *thud*

Practice, practice, practice.

ginkgo and I went to another concert of the NY Oratoria Society last night at Carnegie Hall. Twas an interesting jaunt - got caught up in the MTA mess heading into the city. (A building spontaneously collapsed in Harlem at 124th, and threw debris on the train tracks.) We got dumped off the MTA train in the wilds of the Bronx at Wakefield, walked a few blocks to the very end of the #2 subway line, went down to 180th, grabbed the #5 from there, and continued on in. Luckily, things were completely cleared up and the irritated crowds were on their way homes by the time we got back to Grand Central at midnight. It was an interesting Petri dish of rumor control - when we were at the train station, before heading to the subway, we heard that 1) a building collapsed at 124th and Park, 2) it was a skyscraper, 3) a building had collapsed *onto* the tracks at 125th, taking them out, 4) the *tracks* had collapsed, 5) a *subway tunnel* had collapsed, and the subways weren't running. The poor MTA folks were doing their best, but it was amazing to watch people instantly trust complete strangers to have Authoritative and Accurate Information(tm), and how it mutated so quickly while being passed through a crowd. Mob craziness, man.

The concert was lovely - I'll have to get the composer info from the program when I get home, but it included a modern 4-part piece titled Love and War, which was choral recitation of four letters during wartime: a soldier to his mother during Vietnam, a woman to her fiancee on the lines in WWII, a soldier writing to a fallen comrade's mother in WWI, and a soldier to his wife in the Civil War. It was very moving... and the Vietnam soldier and the WWII fiancee were in attendance. Quite amazing.

Afterwards, what night would be complete without a run to Carnegie Deli? Then back home, got to bed about 2am. *thud*