Musical Happenings

September 27 - Sydeboob Duo performed the heck out of my Self-portrait as a hackberry tree at the DiMenna Center for Classical Music!

October 17 - KC VITAs recorded the finale of my feeld songs for their debut album when we arrive at home. This finale is so delicate, and they’ve absolutely floored me with their treatment of it.

November 15 - I sang in Jeanine Tesori and Tazewell Thompson’s Blue, to a sold-out house. This was the first time this opera had a choir, and it was my Lincoln Center debut!

December 7 - I sang music by Ēriks Ešenvalds, Shawn Kirchner, and Dan Forrest in Behold New Joy—a Vespers service at First Presbyterian

December 12, 14, 21, 24- You can find me in midtown singing Glow: Light and Miracles with Ember Choral Arts (free livestream!), as well as at First Pres, in both their Lessons and Carols and Xmas Eve services

*

1
What do I
become laying
horizontal as possible

no light
      songs
        smell
          taste

        no touch

black mask, eye patch
hearing I become
windowside, what's left of
a dawn chorus

I become the bird
I become the wind
I become the leaves that the wind runs through
the twig snapping under a foot
I become the tree

I become the metal of that plane
       always flying by in D-flat
the 30,000-foot frost, metal belly full of sun
I become the parkway’s coasting cars
       I become the car alarm
              (((minor second, [[[minor third]]], { { {
half-diminished7 chord in 2nd inversion}}})))

I yearn for a becoming less constructed
      the construction two houses down
        the staple gun, the buzz saw
               the developer,      far      far away
I become the cop car
their impatient faux-emergencies
       approaching that
       same red
              light

I become the facade
the abstractions behind my eyelids
the purifier whir≈% the bathroom fan the hot
little razors
in my throat

I become a cancellation
I become a string of text messages 
the colleague who says “you'll be fine!” — I
become fine
the student’s parent who says “no worries!”
and I say nothing
The only person masking with me at work is
       the only one who
                                   says “I’m
                                   sorry”

———)———

2
I become everywhere
I went for two weeks
a coughing volunteer>
<the packed train at 28th Street
15<>blonde><white<>women><wearing<
>similar>*<black<>dresses><with<
similar><black<>purses
one man eyeing my pink mask><>*<><a
coughing opera audience
the unimaginative infrastructure<><*>no
filtration<*><>*no precaution
*your safety is important to—
       <*the us<*>the*>*<parts<**>the*>
<**p*er<*>**m*il*li*on*>***//

I become what everybody thinks
feeling good means

I become a dark line running through it
       / a social web – on a test strip =
the /sunbeam/
the  bed linen 
the | election | hall

I become what upends lives
I become a problem
I become all the times I’m made to feel foolish for taking care of myself
I become what is gaslit

I become the first year this all started__
       its comforting undeniability________
oh I become undeniable______________
I become relief  _   _   _   _   _   _  *  _   _

I become a level of still that I have wanted for a long, long, long time

I become all of the foliage I haven’t watered
the aching wood
the predisposed
       a collection of letters
              the liver,
              kidney damage

I become the cobalt in my phone during the telehealth consult
the artificial intelligence taking
notes in my last doctor’s appointment
       the space where the doctor's mask should have been

I become the therapy speak
[[the bulldozing
       —[[I become what is bulldozed
                 ]]—…what builds myself back up

I become antibody grateful
I become all of those who understand
I become all of the misunderstandings

I become the
silence
between a reality I cannot accept 
                                  and a nicety I
must uphold

I become a five-year memory trove of
personal precautions
       the nation insisting I forget them
the slant maintained
       by the floor

 ———\\*//———

3
I become the neighbor’s children, the crowded play date
       the little ones who we demand
              be infected with this*
{“it’s—}
 over*and*{}over*and*{}over*and*{}
over*and*{}over*
I become their retroactive sense of betrayal,
distrust, two decades from now
              I become the seeds waiting for
anything other than a drought

I become the blue jay watching them
       his muted nose dive out of the tree
before he spreads his wings `
I become what so many say is
not there

I become everybody’s individual =comforts=
I become what =I= =imagine= it would be
=like=
       to ≠no≠t =be=
       at =*peace*=
       with your ==*own*==
thoughts
a =*convenient*=ly reductive =kind= of *=optimism=*
=like=
wringing a hand
to ≠refuse≠ its lending
a puppet
for *something*
=I= ≠do≠n’t even *=believe=* in

({({I become the strobe lights behind my
eyes when I lay back down)})}
({({I become the empty turtle shell)})}
       ({({I become the empty)})}

——}——)——

4
I become a lost week of work before
rent is due
I become a care package
the gestures that hold me together
a beneficiary of the help I once gave 

I become thankful to know whether I have it*
or not          {“it’s—}
what used to drive by every eight minutes
\/\/\/\/\*\*\*\*\
I become a waterfall of question marks
ham-fistedly thrown from a slingshot 
         \/  ` ‘ ,          I become
         the gròund I hoped to land on ]]—…

 I become a log of
         gentle inhales
         forced  e x h a l e s  through a mask
I become the =niceties=
I become the =delusions=
I become =easy= to work with
I become all that my body is trying to tell me

I become a revelation that would be
better placed in a softer world

I become the desire to change paths
I become the desire to forge a new one
                  I become the questions etched
                                   around my failures
                  I become the amnesia looming
                                   around my victories

——/=*=/——

5
the quietest spring I’ve ever known
the loudest summer I’ve ever known
all I’ll have to sanitize later

I become what was crossed
what is so preventable
the abandonment of care
disguised as reason,
a moral s{t}uper
         the “learning to”
         the “living with”*
a recipient of access and lack of access
an unmeasurable amount
         of fluid

the hours until and since a pill
how long I can tolerate this lying
         the soft sweet unconscious breaching
         my neck, asking
to change sides (§(
I become the fear of becoming

I become the sparrow call,  `  ,  
   a glitter fleck thrown skyward `
     flicked paintbrush water ’ ,  , ’   ’ ,
       `’`dust in the /sunb’e`a’m`/’`’`*’
         `’`’`mic,ro’pla,st’i’cs iń u’s` ‘`’`

I become a spectrograph of all I have not made

I become what I dare not point to between us
 one of the many things I dare not point to between us
I become all [that] american[s]
killed {“its—}
         all they could’ve solved
         creatively, passionately, comprehensively

I become the heaps of sabotage
ohh I become thankful for what I can face
         the suffering
                  is where what
                  we call god
                                             is

——]——}——]——

6 
I become an invasive seed-head
the list of things I will hopefully do in 20 minutes
a collection of empty plastic bottles
I become whatever a dog thinks this must be

I become the urge to tap a screen•
that•••
I never• asked• for
I become• the pain• behind my
•eyes when• I
••I  g••ive•• •• •• •• •• ••
•in

I become a flare gun for those doing
exactly what
I’m doing right =*now*=
all who done it
         who
         ‘ll do it?

I become the warm and loving
         light, radiating
                                                        from all I did
           to try and stop this
                                                               from happening

I become the fog between my intuition and my suspicion

all that my courage could and could
not accomplish 

——— ≈ ———

7
an empty shell
of all the recordings I wish I had

I become texture
                                             •“I becľum—”
*cough*•
I become the glissando

I become the space where everybody thinks I’m afraid
I become the space where everybody says

I become text,u’re?
I become the sand where the line crossed you—„”—
         where your —>baseline>—„shifted”—
the place the world—moved—and
         you—„stayed”—put
and where the world—removed—and
         —I—stayed—„put”

I become the unviability of dozens of rooms
I once wanted to be in
I become =your choice=
—[[ I become a choice ]]—…

I become a tone set
a cross section of a piece I will never write
         “music brings people ≠together=”
how /bright/
it is when I
open m • y • eyes

———§———

8
I become all the mindlessness
a point in a series of points
truth at its post•
       my honorary doctorate* in revisiting

I become what’s underneath
the projections cast onto my body
I become the ankle-cutting fatigue
heavy with obligation
       I become a countdown

I become whichever plant out there would surely
help me, right now

I become a pinball among pinballs:::::::::::::
:::::::::::::::jostled to and fro through this city
:::a swarm more of wasps than of wishes:::

hot-orange-like Bittersweet root
Thistle-we-pulled-like-serrated
chalked-up-talked-up-like Paper Mulberry
shoveled^-bulby-like Star of Bethlehem

red as choked-out Virginia Creeper
puffy as Bishop's Elder in /summer/ 
sprawling as Himalayan Blackberry
just as infamous, as prized 
       as the /sunlight/-fed
       /English Ivy/, feeding
       Starlings with its berries

as thoughtful as any stone
      I become all that I cannot
      accept
I become what trillions worth of propaganda
cannot brainwash•••
what so many have become
 heavy with obligation
       a lighthouse like them /*\

I become the space between our
comprehension} _ ≈ %***% ≈ _ {and our
courage

I become a fly
                            that
                                   taps•
                                            the
                                                  window
                                                               [ * ]

Today’s Minor 9th

When it hurt to listen to music or look at screens, my body stuck songs into my head without prompting. One of them was OHYUNG’s yes my weeping frame!, from one of my favorite albums, imagine naked! (2022).

This repeating sequence of leaps culminates with a gut-punching minor 9th (A4 to G#3). Minor 3rds then clumsily bump into each other like ripples left on the surface, before the sequence shoots back up into the air, and repeats again.

(The title is fittingly taken from a poem: “vegetalscape” by t. tran le. Album art by aldrin valdez)

Small Interventions

Plug into censored information:
-The People’s CDC
-Pandemic Accountability Index
-The Covid Zine - Hazel Newlevant
-Michael Hoerger (PhD, MSCR, MBA)
-Covid Safe(r) NYC - (read: live-updating spreadsheet of outdoor dining spots with heat!)

Precautions:
-Mask Sampler - for just $5, find out which mask actually fits you well
—Singing Masks - no jaw tension! <3
-Portable Purifier - small piece of mind on the train, in crowds, rehearsal
-Nasal Spray - reduces your chance of infection by 80% (and can work retroactively!)
—Oral Spray - ships internationally (beware the tariffs…)
-CO2 Monitor - Measures how ventilated a space is by CO2 parts per million

Events / Lending Library:
-Sick Music Center - on view til Jan. 10, 2026!
-A.I.R. NYC - Free air purifiers for your rehearsals/events, list of covid-safe events, and more. Join me in become a sustaining member