first things first: i just finished arranging "ten year night" by lucy kaplansky.

finished! arranging! ten year night!

i've been trying to do this for years; finally this semester i felt ready to actually complete it...and actually completed it. plus, jenny is singing the solo, which makes me incredibly happy. for all that i bitch and moan about my lack of real training, it certainly makes me feel accomplished when i get done with a job like this one. i'm sure that if i had the training, i could just pound out an arrangement, and that would be wonderful, too...but to be forced to really think through the chord progressions, to build the harmonies from the ground up, is incredibly satisfying. the chorus i wrote for tyn follows the cd almost not at all, but is filled with lines that are, at least to me, really rich and melodic. can't wait to teach this one...if only we didn't have to rush to get ready for vassar first!

in other news, this campus is fucked up. in a variety of ways. dumb unintentionally racist people and (what seems like--i don't claim to actually know) sorta-mean queer community infighting seem to be major foci around here lately. people keep flinging accusations of "privilege" like there's no tomorrow and i never know how to talk about any of it. gaaaaaak.

as for the halloween party incident(s): whoa. every so often i'm utterly taken aback by the quantity of -isms that remain, even at swat. i think things get better all the time, but certainly the community seems to have hit the slow part of the learning curve on this one. i think it really is about learning, too. i unintentionally insulted a very well-meaning person yesterday when i said, "i can't believe someone would be stupid enough not to know the history surrounding blackface..." he raised his hand a little bit and said, "i'd never heard of it until this week." so it seems that this is not merely a question of privilege in the sense in which that word is usually used (although i think it's definitely that, too). there's also some privilege in having access to the ideas and information that make up progressive thinking about multiculturalism and diversity. you can be incredibly well-intentioned and incredibly smart, but if you don't hear about the history and context attached to a word or an act, or if you don't have any dialogue with someone for whom equal and fair are not necessarily the same, you're going to get in trouble trying to talk about race at swat.

...at least, that's what i've been hearing from people who, like me, grew up the most radical people in their little white towns and are now struggling to catch up to the ideas and facts they missed. it's important for us not to rest on our good intentions, because they don't actually work to solve problems--but likewise, i wish there could be some sort of "there but for the grace of god go i" spirit among the people at the forefront of these conversations.

did i mention i'm applying to go to the winter institute?