Halloween 2012 official count

Well, between 5PM and 9:15 PM on Halloween, we handed out candy to 1,045 trick or treaters--a new record for us!  Sometimes when the holiday falls midweek, as it did this year, we have had fewer goblins visiting, but clearly that didn't happen this year.  It was chilly but not daunting, and a bottle of 20 year-old Graham's Port helped us pass the hours without too much distress.

I was too busy to take any photographs but the best costume was a kid in a Romney mask, suit and tie, with a nametag that said, "Hi!  I tell lies all the time!  I'm Mitt Romney, and I approved this message."  He got double treats for that! 

Lots of Captain Americas and Mario Brothers this year, I noticed.  Far fewer Disney princesses, Harry Potter characters, and Pirate lads and lassies.  Seemed to be a lot of ninja warriors, too.

Getting ready for......Halloween!

Halloween is a big event in our neighborhood.  No, I mean, REALLY BIG.  We have had over 1000 trick-or-treaters at our house in previous years.  Yes, you read that number correctly: over one thousand.  It's quite the parade of goblins, super heroes, famous personalities, princesses, axe murderers, and zombies of all sizes.  I purchase candy in bulk online and I'm not even going to write how much I spend because it's embarrassing.

There are lots of reasons our neighborhood gets so many kids.  There's a great density of houses.  There are sidewalks.  The houses fairly close to the street.  There's lots of parking on the street.  Many of us decorate and make our houses visible and welcoming.  And of course, the folks here generally have enough money to give out candy to all the visitors.  We're not talking full-size Snickers bars or anything extravagant, but it's not single sticks of gum, either.

My husband and I sit on the front porch from about 5-9 PM.  I have a crock pot of soup or stew for us to nosh on as needed.  We open a bottle of port to keep spirits high.  We invite neighbors & friends to hang out with us--the price of admission being a bag of candy.  It's just a great time, unique in my experience.  A huge percentage of the kids who come by are not from around here---I've seen buses pull up and discharge dozens of little ones, mostly black or hispanic.  This drives many of the folks around here crazy; they moan and complain about how they end up providing candy for what seems like the entire city of Durham.  Doesn't bother me in the least.  It's one night a year, and if these kids don't have a safe/convenient/prosperous place to trick-or-treat, I welcome them here.

Besides, I've gotten some great photos over the years!  Let me share a few with you.

This container is about 8" deep.

My daughter in her Lady Gaga Getup:

Betty and Don Draper came by, too:

Like I said, it's a great, fun night!  Wish YOU were here to share it with us!

Let me know about Halloween in your part of the country.......however you celebrate, hope it's fun, safe, and good weather!

Word of the Week

I've happily reconnected with one of the folks I met when I attended The Cabaret Conference at Yale in 2006, and I've been following her blog: wendylanebailey.com/pages/blog/

She's started a "word of the day" thread and I like that idea, especially since I'm such a wordy person.  I'm definitely not organized enough to highlight a new one every day, though, so this will be a "word of the week" venture.  But how to decide?  I could open the dictionary and randomly pick a word, I suppose.  But that seems like cheating, somehow.  Should it be a word I know and love?  One I don't know?  Technical?  Poetic?  Archaic?  Funny?  English has something like a million words from which to choose.....the possibilities are daunting.

For today, though, I will go with a ridiculously simple word, one which encompasses what both you and I are doing right now.  Ready, set..........READ.

To read.  Such a simple verb.  The object of many hours of labor to learn; the gift of a lifetime.  Everything we do, every day, requires reading.  You can't drive, or cook, or do your job, or effectively manage your life, without reading.  Reading takes you from the mundane to the heavenly.  I don't know what I'd do if I didn't have the incredible luxury of losing myself in some kind of writing, be it in a book or a magazine article or a recipe.  To read is to open up yourself to EVERYTHING.

It makes me sad when I talk to people and they say, "Oh, I'm not a reader."  How much richness they must miss!

So, let's hear it for books, for newspapers, for magazines, for Kindles, for libraries, and even for blogs!  Read something wonderful today, and revel in where it leads you.

Post-concert nightmare?

So, my concert, "The Songs of Fashion", was on Sunday night.  I think it went fairly well--still have to listen to the recording--but there were 9 people there.  Honestly, I don't know why I die the thousand deaths I die making everything happen for every concert, and then I get a turnout in the single digits.  Between me, Holly (the venue owner), and Preservation Durham (the nonprofit), I'm sure we notified 1000+ people of the event.  I know the return on invitations is traditionally low, but 1% seems ridiculous.  I have to say I was pretty bummed, despite my determination (see previous post) to not let it bother me.  Came home, dropped everything on the kitchen table, took an Ambien, put on my pjs, and went to sleep.  Didn't take off my makeup or brush my hair.  Then the next day I had a complete meltdown at work when I read my sweet husband's note on Facebook, which read:

My wife, Ellen, sang her heart out last night in a Cabaret concert supporting Preservation Durham--a cause that is self-explanatory. Songs all about fashion--plus a heart-melting encore--Jerome Kern/Dorothy Fields "The Way You Look Tonight." Thanks, dear one!

Well.

He's definitely a keeper.

Anyway, then I toiled all day at work, came home, couldn't sleep, finally fell into a fitful doze, and had THIS wicked nightmare: I was taking a house tour which, somehow, was being conducted by a man with a horse.  The abode we were wandering through was a mansion, with multiple rooms, all decorated in a very stark, modern fashion.  I was afraid of the horse at first but it was very friendly and the tour guide kept giving me treats like apples to feed the horse.  We got to the bedroom and I said I was really tired, so the man, the horse, and I all got into this ENORMOUS bed, so big that nobody was touching each other, and took a nap.  I got up to go to the bathroom and when I looked in the mirror, my head had changed into half me and half horse........then I woke up, screaming. 

Any amateur Freuds out there who would like to analyze that charmer?

Wicked headache today since my sleep was so interrupted.  I may go take a nap now.

BEST. SHOES. EVER.

I paid more for these shoes than I have ever paid for a pair of shoes in my entire life, but they give me SO much sheer pleasure I think they were worth every cent.  Here's another view:

That's 4-1/2" of height enhancement!  Really bad for my knees but really good for my soul!

Trying, always, to be fashionable........even in black & white

A few thoughts pre-concert

Well, my next cabaret concert is this Sunday, Sept. 30th.  I had what passes for the dress rehearsal today.  I say "passes for" because it was just the music, none of the patter.  I would have liked to run the whole thing but Glenn was pressed for time.  Arturo listened and gave lots of good feedback--he's such a perceptive coach.  Still, I'm feeling underprepared, since I haven't had a chance to really run through the whole thing, with piano, with talk. 

I get a lot of adrenaline from doing these things, and I always try to do my best--better than my best, really.  I feel I have a lot to share, and that I make the sharing entertaining.  Even if I just (just!) sat on a stool in front of an audience and sang songs, it would still be a fun evening, because Glenn and I work hard, the music is great, and my voice is good.  The context and the talking--the whole "cabaret ethic" takes it to a more important level.  It's more like performance art.

So why is it so hard to get an audience?  Is it really all attributable to this being NC and not NYC?  I've heard that anatomy is destiny, but does location have to be destiny, too?  Somehow, I get the feeling that even if I spent $1000 rehearsing and taking out ads and papering the usual spots with full color flyers and anything else, I'd still get the same turnout: 20 people minimum, 40 maximum.  Last time, it wasn't even that many: I think there were 12 people in the audience, and two were Arturo and Laura (husband and daughter).  It's very discouraging.  But when I think of NOT doing this again, that isn't tenable, either.  Yes, it's a bottomless pit of money and time, and it's frustrating.  But singing and presenting concerts also gives me great highs.  I've had such good rehearsals with Glenn!  We finally seem to understand each other, and are able to communicate without someone getting prickly about it.  He makes me think in new and exciting ways about music, and he finally respects my talent and insights, too.  Gosh, it's SUCH a wondrous thing---really, if I'm honest, what I was born to do.  This nurse stuff just pays the bills.  Singing is my soul.

So, I'm hoping with all my might that I'll look out at a packed room on Sunday, because that's a lot better than the alternative.  But no matter how many show up, I'll do my damnedest to please you, to make you laugh, to make you think, to entertain you and to show you my love.  I'll remember all those invigorating rehearsals, the laughs, the sense of wonder and discovery when an arrangement or interpretation "clicks".  I'll be "in the moment", as they say, and I will give EVERYTHING to my performance, my audience, and my art.  Swear to God, cross my heart, scout's honor!

Writing for fun and profit

About 2 months ago, we stopped taking the local paper, the Durham Herald.  This was actually a big decision for me and my husband, since we had been regular subscribers for 30 years.  So, we ignored the last bill.  After delivering the paper for a couple of weeks past our "subscription renew" date, one morning the front walk was empty.  About a week later, we got a bill for $12 for those last weeks of unpaid delivery.  Then, today, we got a letter with an offer to resubscribe at a new, improved rate, plus a questionnaire asking why we had let our subscription lapse.

Hallelujah, a chance at last to articulate what has been making me crazy for the past few years. 

I understand that newspapers, especially and specifically local ones, have really suffered with the change to electronic media.  They've been swallowed up by large corporations.  They've lost the local staff, folks who actually knew something about the city and the region.  They've lost advertising because of the economic downturn and because they can no longer brag about their wonderful subscriber base.  There's a generation of people to whom an actual daily newspaper is fast becoming a quaint relic of "olden times", right up there with paying bills by writing a check and sending it through the US Mail.  With a stamp.

Fighting these tentacles of change is, I'm certain, really hard, really disheartening, and probably destined to not turn out well.  But gosh, if I were in the newspaper business, I would die trying to save my honorable profession.  I'd use every trick I could possibly conjure to lure new subscribers and keep old ones happy.  I'd have a live person answering the telephone, and not one of those heinous computerized "press 1, press 2" option trees.  I'd make sure the folks delivering my papers to customers got an education in little things like actually putting the paper within reach of the front door, and making sure it was properly protected from the elements.  I'd give subscribers perks that were not available to others.  I'd do everything I could to make a subscription seem attractive, affordable, and absolutely essential in order to get one's fingers on Durham's pulse.

But most of all, I'd respect my customers--who are, after all, READERS--by making sure my newspaper was the best edited daily record I could possibly produce.  And oh, how the Durham Herald has woefully, miserably failed in that respect.  I can forgive a lot of things but not poor writing.  Over the last year, breakfast with the Herald has become a sport for my husband and me.  We each used to take a section of the paper and use a red Sharpie to circle grammatical errors, misspellings, or just plain big old mistakes.  (Whoever identified the fewest mistakes was the one who had to get up and refill both coffee cups.)  Not one day ever went by when the marker was not wielded. 

My all-time least favorite trick, though was the "Disappearing Article".  These were articles which were purchased from the wire services and reprinted in the Herald.  I have no problem with this as a concept; it keeps reporters, somewhere, writing, and it affords local readers information on national and international affairs that would be otherwise unavailable to them if they had to depend on the resources of the local press.  Almost every day, though, I used to find a good article about, say, the war in Afghanistan, or some explanation of one of the finer points of economics, I would get all settled in, and the article would JUST STOP.  As in, the editors just printed what they had room for, and to hell with the rest of the article.  Often I would end up going to the computer and looking up the article on the Associated Press website, just so I could read the rest of it.

How insulting to readers!  Did someone think nobody would notice?  Or that we don't care?  What could possibly be the justification for such a ridiculous decision?  I imagine access to reprints of AP articles is not free, that papers pay a subscription or membership fee.  So why bother to pay the fee and print only half, or a third, or a tenth of the article?  As many times as this particular scenario happened, it left me with the indelible impression that the Herald was basically using the AP stories as filler, to take up the space left over after all the advertisements were laid out.  And I just couldn't stand it another day. 

If the management of the Herald can convince me that they've really changed, I'll try again, because in fact I miss the daily local newspaper.  We subscribe to The Wall St. Journal even though I find their right-leaning editorial opinions offensive.  Skipping the op-ed page keeps my blood pressure under control.  But it's an incredibly well-written paper, which never insults the intelligence of its readers with misspellings, mislabeled photographs, or truncated articles.  And somehow they manage to get it to my door six days a week for $100/year.  Of course the owner, Rupert Murdoch, is subsidizing the paper to make sure it stays important and viable, and I get it that the Herald can't afford to lose millions of dollars a year.  Really, I'm not asking them to compete with The Wall St. Journal.  I'm just asking them to be the best local paper they can be.....but apparently, that's too much to ask.

September 18, 1981

It's my anniversary today: thirty-one years married!  Just an unbelievable number.  Not in terms of events, not in terms of experiences, not in terms of the ups and downs of life.  But where did the time go?  In some ways it feels like seven lifetimes ago that I was taking a long, hot bath in my parent's house, hoping the rain would stop before the ceremony at 5PM (it did).  Certainly I'm a far different person now than I was then.  But in some ways it feels like last week that Arturo and I started down the road of our lives together.  It's been full of bumps and detours, that's for sure.  But we're still here, a duo, holding hands, dealing with problems, laughing, sharing music and wine and movies and wonderful conversation and dear friends.  I'm humble, immensely grateful, and very, very happy today..........and I'm still hoping the rain will stop by the time we go out to dinner tonight.  Somehow, I think it will.

concert prep--Next Concert on Sept. 30th!

I've been working long and hard on preparation for my next concert.  I've probably spent a hundred hours or more not only actively rehearsing, but also just THINKING about the subject matter and the songs.  I often say in my shows that the "problem" with cabaret is that the more you look, the more you find.  No matter how few songs I initially come up with when I start preparing, ridiculously soon I have far more possibilities than I could ever imagine.

The show is called "The Songs of Fashion", but really it's turned into more a rumination on how fashion impacts everyone's life.  Even if you're a fashion hater and your idea of getting dressed every day runs to a t-shirt and jeans.  Even if you're a Tibetan monk and wear only red robes.  Even if you're a corporate guy who chooses which navy blue, black, or gray suit to pair with which pastel shirt and which diagonally striped tie.  Even if no matter what, you're still choosing to wear something which conforms or doesn't conform.  Heck, even if you're a nudist, it's still a fashion choice!

On the most elementary level, I suppose, clothing exists to shield us from the elements and to speak of our place in society.  (And by "clothing" I mean not only the actual garments but also all the accoutrements: shoes, hairstyles, makeup, eyeglasses, jewelry, tattoos......whatever is on you before you go out the door.)  People are trained from an early age to make certain choices about clothing.  It should be clean.  If there are two of them (like shoes, socks, gloves) they should match.  It should be seasonally appropriate if you'd like to stay warm in the winter and cool in the summer.  In many ways it is gender specific, although there seems to be less and less of that nowadays.  Then, there's the economics.  Thrift shop?  Walmart?  Penney's?  Nordstrom?  Ralph Lauren?  Every item from hair ribbons to insoles exists in multiple incarnations for every pocketbook.   Heck, there's even an app, or seventy, to help you with your sartorial skills, or lack thereof.

And then, after you're all put together to your own satisfaction, what happens?  Someone else expresses an opinion.  "Where did you get that shirt?", of course, is a question whose intent depends absolutely upon the inflection of the inquirer.   Kids learn pretty early to distinguish designer duds in their peer group, and are abetted in this by wily creative types who make sure their logo and/or name is emblazoned somewhere on each garment.  And don't even get me started about the athletic apparel markets......

So everyone is touched by fashion, whether they like it, accept it, or not.  The choices each of us makes broadcast something very elemental about us.  Do you prefer classic or trendy?  Designer or no-name?  Hairy or clean-shaven?  Functional?  Haute couture?  Hippie?  Debutante?  Nerd?  Artist?  People all around us are drawing conclusions about us every minute, without ever talking with us or even making eye contact, all based on what we are wearing.  They infer intelligence, economic status, likability, political leanings, sexuality, and a myriad of other characteristics.  Naturally these conclusions can be right or wrong, and those folks will never know.  They happen, nonetheless.

That's a lot of introduction for a 70 minute cabaret show!  I'd never use all that on the stage, because after all this is entertainment and not a lecture.  But it's the kind of stuff I've been thinking about for months now, and trying to distill into 15 songs and associated patter.  Who ever said art was easy?  HAH!

As a teaser, here are the lyrics for the opening number, "Style", by Jimmy Van Heusen and Sammy Cahn.  (Van Heusen, by the way, was born with the name of Edward Babcock.  He decided that wasn't a good name for a composer and picked a new one, taking the name of the famous shirt maker--talk about STYLE!!)   Go to my website, www.ellenciompi.com, for information about my concert, "The Songs of Fashion", and watch this space for more musings!         Love, Ellen

Oh, and PS: be sure to comment if you come visit.  I LOOOOOOVE comments!
  -->

Some people dress 'cause they dress when they dress,
But some get dressed to get dressed.
Always be sure when you walk out the door
Your sartorial taste is expressed
From the tip of your toes to your head,
Don’t look like an unmade bed.

You've either got or you haven't got style.
If you’ve got it, you stand out a mile.
A flower's not a flower if it's wilted,
A hat's not a hat till it's tilted.
You either got or you haven't got class.
How it draws the applause of the masses.

When you wear lapels like the swellest of swells

You can pass any mirror and smile
You’ve either got, or you haven't got,
Style!

You've either got or you haven't got charm,
Style and charm sort of go arm in arm,
With mother of pearl kind of buttons,
You’ll look like the Astors and Huttons.
You’ve either got or you haven't got flair

Here’s the plot: flair is what keeps them staring

Your coat must have scads, scads of wide Scottish plaids

And your shoes must be real crocodile

You've either got or you haven't got,
Style!

You’ve either got or you haven’t got taste

It’s an art, so be smart and don’t waste it

If you flaunt a skirt like the flirtiest flirt

You can pass any mirror and smile

You've either got or you haven't got,
Got or you haven't got,
Style!