On disappointment and photoshoots
When I shared with a friend my utter bewilderment that This American Life has a much bigger audience than I anticipated, she texted, patiently and with amusement, "Yes, This American Life is a big deal, and you're about to be a big deal."
Well I'm sorry to inform everyone that I am not about to be a big deal, because This American Life called last week to tell me that they are no longer going to run the episode.
I've already gone through the five stages of grief:
- Blaming myself for failing at This American Life
- Vowing never to listen to This American Life again
- Realizing that I've never actually listened to This American Life
- Wondering how else I can enact revenge on This American Life (gutting funding for the arts and radio, maybe? I dunno, seems like plenty of politicians are already doing that for me)
- Realizing that I am thinking a lot about This American Life for someone who up until December 2023 barely knew of its existence and should maybe move on to other things
It didn't fully hit me how much the episode's scrapping stung until I sat down to practice the Price Fantasie Nègre and Chopin Ballade, the two pieces I'd recorded and spoken about; both pieces are now suffused with memories of myself talking through certain passages, sharing my thoughts and feelings about them with, I thought, the public radio listeners of America. Here is where I compared a passage by Price to Debussy and spoke lovingly of it evoking pictures of water droplets in icy air; here is where I shaped the swoop of Chopin's melody, tucking the inner notes inside the harmony just as my teacher taught me, hoping that he would hear my message: look, I'm doing exactly what you told me to do, all these years later!
The feeling of performing for an audience and then having that audience yanked retroactively from you is a strange one and I'm still parsing that bitterness. That being said, I still enjoyed the journey (panic and all), and the experience taught me that I do have the ability to perform and deliver on short notice without crumbling under pressure, which is knowledge about myself that no one, not even Ira Glass, can take from me.*
*I actually have no idea if production/editing of the episode even got to the point that Ira Glass was involved.
While trying to claw myself out of the disappointment bog I happened to catch up on the latest season of Netflix's Drive to Survive and found Episode 9 oddly relatable (or, at least, as relatable as reality TV about motorsports can be). Episode 9 covers the story of rookie Liam Lawson stepping in mid-season for Daniel Ricciardo after Ricciardo broke his hand, and having to deliver for the team on the world stage despite never having raced in a Formula 1 car before. Lawson rose to the occasion (I remember watching those races and marveling at how he outperformed seasoned drivers on track) but ultimately was not chosen for the team lineup—this season, he remains a backup driver. On the show, Lawson talks about the bitterness and disappointment of proving himself capable and still being denied his chance. Dude, samesies!
Liam Lawson, wanna be besties?
Interestingly, Formula 1 continued to soothe my soul in the most unexpected way: Kate Wagner wrote one of the most sublime pieces I've read in a long time, a piece called "Behind F1's Velvet Curtain", which was briefly (more on that in a moment) on Road and Track.
The piece is ostensibly meant to be a journalist's-eye-view of a Formula 1 race weekend; it ends up being so much more than that, and is a gorgeous read even if you know nothing about racing. Wagner (note: I once asked her how her surname is pronounced, and she confirmed that it's "Wag-ner," phonetically pronounced as it's spelled, and not pronounced "Vahg-nur" as in the virulently anti-Semitic composer) brings her full self as a former musician, acoustics and architecture expert, and sports journalist to the piece and her writing is so good that I momentarily despaired that I will never write this well. I barely consider myself a professional writer—if anything, I'm just a dabbler—but what experience I've had seeing how essays are written and edited has made me so much more appreciative of pieces like this. It reads as intellectually effortless, with the clarity of consommé, but I now know all the skillful work that goes into the structure of a piece like this, which makes it all the more impressive.
Ironically, I had a hard time articulating exactly what makes this piece so beautiful, and didn't have the words until I sent this article to a friend, explaining that I couldn't write this well if I tried. He responded "I feel the same way about your work, for what it's worth. You have in common with this writer a musical tonality and a rhythmic sense of timing."
Musical tonality and a rhythmic sense of timing! That's exactly what it is. No joke, after I read the piece for the first time, I was genuinely inspired to sit down at the piano and work on music because it genuinely had triggered some kind of musical instinct in me.
The ultra-meta kicker to all of this? Shortly after publication, Wagner's article was pulled for no publicly stated reason. It's so blackly funny that a piece that soothed me in the wake of my own piece being yanked ended up getting yanked itself. Such is the way of the world, eh?
Photographers are sadists
It's kind of a running joke that no one in classical music looks like their headshots because everyone gets their photos taken once and then uses them for the rest of their lives, and it's totally true. The last time I had a major photoshoot was 2016, which doesn't seem that long ago, but I'm running out of good photos for album covers and realized that it's been eight years (!) since a photographer did what I'm sure you all want to do when this newsletter drags on and threw me in a river.
Photo credit Diane Villadsen
I don't necessarily recommend preening on a set for promotional photos you plan on using for the next eight years when you're feeling exhausted, drained, and stung by disappointment, but I booked this shoot months ago and couldn't afford to reschedule it, so this week I grabbed a friend for moral support, got my hair done, and headed into an elaborate set in a warehouse loft. (Welcome to LA.)
I'd forgotten what sadists photographers are. I figured I'd show up, stand around looking like someone who has her life together, and leave, but I found myself doing way more physically taxing work than I ever expect to do given that I chose a profession in which I'm always sitting down. I spent hours balancing precariously on ledges in four-inch heels with my upper body straining forward "for the light," using every ounce of my core strength to hold my body up while I sat in a slippery circle only a few inches deep, and draping myself on a set of steps while trying to keep my back straight. Look, I'm no Derek Zoolander.
This is a candid "behind-the-scenes" photo my friend shot while I was clearly questioning all my life choices, and is not one of the actual photos by the professional photographer.
It reminded me of the time in 2020 when the LA Times did a profile of me and booked a Pulitzer-winning photographer to take my photo for the story. I thought it was a "show up, have a headshot taken, peace out" situation so I put a lot of effort into curling my hair and doing my makeup, wore a sweater with a flattering color and neckline, and threw on the only clean jeans I had as an afterthought.
I suggested that we meet at a park overlooking the beach, figuring that would make for a decent backdrop since I couldn't haul my instrument out for the photo. The photographer met me, looked me up and down—a confused pianist in a cashmere sweater and skinny jeans, clutching her sheet music—and said "Let's put you in the ocean."
WHAT is it about me that makes photographers want to toss me into the nearest body of water???
I dutifully trotted after her, peeled off my socks and ankle boots, and obeyed her instructions to sit down in the wet sand while the waves washed in around me, soaking my jeans. I valiantly tried to project an air of studied nonchalance as curious beachgoers in the distance judged me and the salt air blew out the hair I had so carefully curled at home.
Photo credit Gina Ferazzi
I tried making small talk with the photographer as we left the beach, my cold, sand-encrusted feet being violently exfoliated in my damp socks, wet denim chafing my legs. "What interesting things have you shot lately?" I ventured, trying to make a connection, one creative to another.
"Well," she said dispassionately, "there was that highway accident yesterday where a truck overturned and thirteen people died, so I was on the scene documenting that."
I...still don't know what you're supposed to say in that situation. We walked back to the street in silence, I awkwardly thanked her, and the next week I opened the newspaper to see a full-body photo of me inexplicably wearing a sweater and holding sheet music while standing in the ocean.
Basically, every single photoshoot I've ever had has been An Experience and I now realize why we just don't ever bother getting new photos taken. 🎹
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