Laurel Massé

a very good book?

I don't know about The Bible. Is it THE good book? Is it so good that one would want to - or be able to - read no other book for a set period of time? I wonder.

I have met evangelists of various stamps who read nothing but the Bible. Novels are sinful, science is errant, only the Good Book is a...well, a good book. In a less-than-spiritually-evolved way, I have thought they were idiots. Dear idiots, though - anyone willing to pray that a complete stranger will come to see the light has to be held as dear. But they seemed ill-informed and of course poorly-read.

It is rather too late for me to have read only the Bible in my life. Anyone who has ever helped me move knows that. Household effects, 10 boxes. Books, 50 boxes. And I have a pile of books to get to on my bedside table. And I am living in Manhattan. We have lots of books here in Manhattan. Is it possible, would it be possible for me, compulsively hyper-literate me, to read only the BIble for, say 6 months? No, no, I meant 2 months (I scared myself). Starting after I finish what is on the bedside table and the books I ordered from the library?

There are complications - what about the newspaper? That's OK. It's not a book! And it may be irresponsible to be ignorant of current events. And The New Yorker. That's OK too. Probably. And Country Living's fine, because I only look at the pictures. And what about biblical commentary? And what if I get a cold for which the cure is reading English murder mysteries? Ooh. This is like peeling very fresh hard-boiled eggs. Little tiny pieces of shell that do not want to let go.

It's just an idea. I was reading David Plotz's Slate.com series, "Blogging the Bible" several months ago. Mr. Plotz is reading the Old Testament through for the first time, as an adult, and posting his responses to that book. It's fascinating. This week I am reading Julie Powell's book, Julie & Julia. She had an idea... and rose to the challenge of cooking through every recipe in Julia Childs' masterpiece, Mastering the Art of French Cooking, in one year. She kept a running blog, and since has published a sharp-as-Romano-cheese book of her experience, subtitled "365 days, 524 recipes, 1 tiny apartment kitchen". It, too, is fascinating, though I am not likely to duplicate the feat. My tiny kitchen measures 4' x 5' empty. Add appliances, and I am left with 2' x 5' set up pretty well for a right-handed person. I am left-handed.

What I bring to my reading that David Plotz and Julie Powell did not have is prior experience. I have already read the Bible, even Leviticus (!) a couple of times in a different translations, and from different points of view (Congregationalist, Lutheran, Episcopalian, Catholic, Goddess, panentheist, Joseph Campbell devotée). I have read the writings of many a wild saint, and the more copious writings of many a covertly-wild scholar. So I am not exactly innocent and fresh. But I have lived a span of days since those readings, and the Good Book was never the Only Book. What if I take on the task of reading this work that has influenced our western culture more than any other book AS IF it was the only book in town? Would it expand my understanding of the universe?

OK. Perhaps you have decided "she's mad, I tell you, quite mad", or you are thinking, 'well, you own the books on the bedstand, so you can read them later, after, if you still want to", or "do you really think we want to know this about you, or want to read about it?" or something I have not imagined yet. But as a performer, it is part of my job to presume you are thinking about me. And I am thinking about reading a book.

Circle of scent

Sometime in 1979 or 1980 - I think - I moved from Los Angeles back to New York City, leaving the hills and the sea and the vast glorious vistas (there were some clear days then) for a small granite and concrete island. There were many reasons for this move, big adult professioonal reasons, but the real reasons were scent and loss. I had found a perfect apartment in Burbank, a small loft above a garage, full of light, and made application to move into it. It needed work, so it was cheaper than the house I had been living in (which as a now former member of Manhattan Transfer I could no longer afford) and I had recovered just enough from my car accident to handle the stairs. I wanted that apartment. Longed for it. Dreamed of it. I imagined living like a bird at tree-branch level, in the breeze, in the light. It would be my nest.

I lost it to a male renter who had carpentry skills. I was spit out of Eden.

DIsconsolate, I went to NY to visit friends. In Riverside Park, the maples were reaching their summer splendor: the leaves were as big and as green as they could possibly be, and that is how they smelled, too, big and green and full of juice, a wet smell. That wet green scent had perfumed my childhood, and it smelled like home. That noseful made me an Easterner again.So I returned to L.A. to pack and arrange the move.

The Manhattan ground-floor apartment I found and rented was a triumph of form over function. I was seduced by architectural detail into moving to a really bad neighborhood. For the next two years, I was afraid almost all the time. With little money, I was poor, too. My block was only quiet on Sunday, when the huge post office was closed and the tunnel traffic light. Only if it rained did the street smell good. Rain on Sunday was a gift - windows could be opened, and the soul could drink.

Several blocks south of that apartment, on the way to the laundromat, was a flower stand, which I found with my nose, in the spring. As I was walking by, I was suddenly enveloped by a curtain of sweetness in the air that made me gasp. Lilacs. There was a big white plastic 5-gallon bucket full of lilacs, full full full of lilacs. An older man was arranging them, adding even more. I asked the price and bought a single branch. Laundry would wait. He showed me how to lengthen the life of the blossoms by fraying the ends of the woody stems with a hammer blow, and he added another branch without charging me. I took the lilacs back to that apartment, and placed them in beautiful vase I had brought from California. Over the next few hours the scent of those purple flowers gradually unfolded and spread throughout the apartment, and I remember a feeling of deep relief.

Yesterday I smelled lilacs in the city again, at the flower shop down the street. I took them home to my fifth-floor apartment, where my windows open into a treetop. As I hammered on the branch ends, and then put them in that same vase, I felt that past moment of unfurling and relief as if it was happening again, felt the kindness of the long-ago flower seller, felt that same saving sweetness.

Here is why I am writing about this: at the touch of scent doors fly open and  time-travel is simple.  The dogs are right, and they know it: one has only to follow one's nose.

a tear in the fabric

My dear friends, there is shocking and confusing news from Blacksburg, VA, where 33 people died today at Virginia Tech.
I taught there a few years ago, invited by Professor Daniel Schneck to lead a workshop in improvisation for his engineering students.They were shy at first, and then they sang, and danced, and were so inspiring. The university was lovely, idyllic. We were in Norris Hall, the engineering building, the same building that is and forever will be the scene of today's tragedy. Haunted.
I ask you to offer whatever rituals are yours everyone involved: the victims, their families, and the community of Virginia Tech, and Blacksburg. And for the police, and the shooter. Everyone.
We don't know, we don't understand.

Sound of Silence

I hve just finished a week of recording as a background and occasional foreground vocalist. The arrangements were very taxing vocally, and so I decided to put myself on complete voice rest when not actually in the studio. No chatting. No phone. Seems like such a little and yet nearly impossible thing, but I know that Janis Siegel sometimes does this, and it works for her.

This "practice" had the immediate effect of allowing me to sing everything that I was asked to, effortlessly and without strain. Instant benefit. A few days had passed before I realized that I was receiving another and greater benefit. I was happier. Everything that had been overwhelming me became manageable. Or smaller. Or not all that important. My own practices seemed to deepen. The cat seemed happier, too.

I think I begin to see that the silence imposed by some religious orders has a luminous side. Something exists in the quiet that is not there in the noise. Or it is, but I don't notice it. I felt as if I was noticing more. More able to pay attention, less distracted. An article in th NY Times about multi-tasking says: The human brain, with its hundred billion neurons and hundreds of trillions of synaptic connections, is a cognitive powerhouse in many ways. “But a core limitation is an inability to concentrate on two things at once,” said René Marois, a neuroscientist and director of the Human Information Processing Laboratory at Vanderbilt University.

I think being quiet gave me one less thing to juggle, as there was no longer an obligation to comment on everything ... or on anything at all. So now I have a new motto: Sing or Shut Up. Would that be Canta aut Tace in Latin? Help me out, Educated Readers!

Of course, tomorrow night I am singing at the Metropolitan Room, and so will have to hope for the gift of honeyed speech between songs. But the next day...