speak to me: lyrical inspiration

This is a new weekly feature I'd like to bring to the blog called "speak to me."  I will highlight lyrics, poetry, a passage from a book, an inspiring quote, etc. that I find particularly striking.  They might be funny, sad, inspirational, whatever.  I'm a lyricist, a poet, and an avid reader so I'd like to document the words that are currently inspiring me and my writing.  Hopefully they'll inspire you too!  Enjoy.

this is my face
i've got a thousand opinions
and half the time i'm trying to explain

and this is my body
and no matter how you try and disable it
yes, i'll still be here

and this is my mind
and though you try to infringe
you cannot confine

and this is my brain

and even if you try and hold me back

there's nothing that you can gain

'cause i use mouthwash

sometimes i floss

i've got a family

and i drink cups of tea

i've got nostalgic pavements

i've got familiar faces

i've got mixed-up memories

and i've got favorite places

- "mouthwash" by kate nash

Lake Placid.

This past weekend Ryan and I drove up to Lake Placid, NY to meet my parents and my brother Nick.  Nick is 12 and a hockey player (you may remember him as co-writer/guitarist of our Harry Potter song) and had spent the previous week in Lake Placid's CAN/AM Hockey camp.  My parents had decided to stay up there for the week and use it as their vacation.  After much begging and pleading Ryan and I decided to take the long drive up and spend the weekend.  Boy am I glad we did.

Crossing the Mohawk River on I-87.

We drove up late on Friday night.

The view of Mirror Lake from my parent's hotel room balcony.  Sigh.

The phrase "purple mountain majesties" comes to mind.

Lake Placid and Mirror Lake are so breathtaking.  I live in a small city right off of a highway, so views like this are few and far between at home.  The air up there was so clear and the water was so clean.  It was definitely a little bit magical.  Plus I got to spend time with my brother Nick, who I missed so much!

Nick and I.  Isn't he handsome?

My brother is growing up so fast and let me tell you he is getting bigger by the day.  He's already got an inch or two on me (not that it's hard) and I think he'll be even taller by 2012.  There is actually a ten year age difference between Nick and I, but the way we get along you'd never know it.  Mostly I chalk it up to the fact that I also behave like a 12 year old boy in most situations.  Seriously though, he's an amazing guitarist and singer and a great hockey player.  The kid is going places fast.

All in all it was a great weekend.  I only wish we could have stayed longer!  So are there any other weekend warriors out there who are making up for a lack of vacation time by making weekend trips?  Got any more tricks up your sleeve before the summer comes to an end?


PS: I'd like to thank all the people who offered such great advice and kind words in response to my last post.  I really appreciated the support.  =)

where is my mind?

Confession time: I kind of feel like I'm running uphill with this blog right now.  There are so many things that I need to do and it seems like I don't have the time or the funds to do them.  I keep having setbacks and I was starting to get really discouraged, until I saw this photo on my friend Kaitlin's tumblr.

"order up." by flikr user danisoul

Sometimes I really just need to remind myself: I started this blog as a fun, creative outlet through which I could share my music and meet people.  I did not start it to add more pressure and stress to my life.  I'm not going for the best blog of the universe award or anything.  Yes, it sucks that I currently cannot find my digital camera, my video camera's battery charger, or any of their connecting wires.  But then I remind myself, I just moved in June.  There are still a few unpacked boxes that are probably hiding these items.  Yes, this means that all the videos and photos that I'd like to be posting here are trapped on their devices or are as of yet unrealized.  But that doesn't mean that I'm "failing" at this blog.  It just means I have to wait a little to post those things and I need to be a little creative with the content in the mean time.  No big deal.  Yes, it would be nice if I could afford a digital SLR camera (like the Nikon D3100 I've had my eye on), so I could take my blog photos to the next level. But I'm living the broke life, and it's better to be realistic and remind myself I have to use my money for things like food and rent and bills.  And isn't this a good incentive to work a little harder at finding paid gigs for the band to play?  Yes, it sucks that my blog's layout isn't as unique and beautiful as I'd like it to be.  But that doesn't mean I can't change it in the future.  Sure, I can't afford a web designer right now.  But that doesn't mean the blog will look like this forever.  I'll figure it out.  That's the thing I really need to remind myself.  I always figure it out.  I may suffer from anxiety.  Sometimes I let it get the best of me.  But then I remind myself, I always resurface on the other side.  Usually with a solution.  So this post is going to be my reminder to be at peace with the state of my blog.  There is no reason for these silly little problems to get me flustered.  It stops today.

This is what's important: I am putting myself out there.  I haven't put myself out there in a while and it can be kind of scary.  But I like myself, so it doesn't matter if other people don't.  I like my music and I have to play it, it's bursting out of me.  If people don't like it, who cares.  I'll play it anyway.

So how about you?  I'm sure you all have a million silly little problems that you let bother you, even when you know better.  How do you remind yourself of what's really important?

Prose-colored glasses.

The show last night was a hit!  If you haven't heard, Spinner's End had our big debut in Sarah Ruhl's Eurydice at the Princeton Public Library last night, as part of their Page to Stage series. It went so well and the audience loved our musical spin on the story!  I'm fairly sure there are some pictures and videos floating around out there, so as soon as I get my hands on them I'll post them to the blog for all of you lovely people out there to see.  It looks like some Important Theater People may have liked the show enough to give us another staging opportunity.. fingers crossed!  If we get to produce the show again, I'd love to expand on the music we wrote and maybe even involve some more musicians in the process.  We shall see!  Either way, a nice relationship has been established between our band and the amazing people that work to bring art programs to Princeton's gorgeous library.  Hopefully more opportunities will follow!

I'm so jazzed by how well things went that I've decided to be a little brave and post some of my prose on here.  I'd like to include some of my writing from time to time as a feature on the blog here, so consider this the first of many.  I don't normally write prose, I'm really more of a haiku poet and lyricist, but in the name of bravery I figured I'd jump right out of my comfort zone with my first post.  However, since I've been working furiously for the past few weeks on Eurydice, I don't exactly have anything new to share.  So this is a piece I wrote about three or four years ago that I'd love to share with you all.  Feel free to let me know what you think, I encourage constructive criticism and would love to discuss the piece in the comments with anyone who has something to say.  I call it "the boy in the car behind me."  Check it out after the jump.

Eurydice.

Hello friends!  Ali here, with a little update on what we've been up to lately...  Ryan and I have spent the past two weeks working on a unique theater project, writing a score for a staged reading of Eurydice by Sarah Ruhl as part of the Princeton Public Library's Page to Stage series.  We were also cast in the play, as the Stones.  Spinner's End is a relatively new band, so being offered this kind of opportunity was a real thrill for both of us.  Now, I am close friends with the amazing director Brandon Monokian, so that may have been part of the reason we got the gig.  However, we are not the type to take an opportunity like this lightly, nepotism be damned.  We dove headfirst into this project and wrote the bulk of the music in three furious writing sessions.  It's been a hell of an experience and we are both so excited for the show tomorrow!

In case you've never heard of this beautiful play, here's the story.  It's a modern twist on the classic Greek myth of Orpheus and Eurydice, this time through tragic heroine Eurydice's eyes.  Eurydice and Orpheus are young and in love - maybe too in love.  They're getting married!  But then, tragedy strikes on their wedding day when the Lord of the Underworld aka A Nasty Interesting Man comes along and decides to make Eurydice his own.  She "trips" down a huge flight of stairs and dies.  In this strange world, when you die you are dipped in the River of Forgetfulness & you shed all memories of your past life.  In the underworld she encounters the Stones.. a group of three strange creatures that serve as the Lord of the Underworld's gatekeepers and welcome committee.  Things get really interesting when Eurydice's father, who died when she was young, appears and somehow remembers his daughter.  Add in Orpheus's unwavering devotion to finding her and bringing her back to life, and you've got a recipe for an emotional, poignant, and sweet tale of what it means to love and be loved.

Usually, the Stones are played by three actors, the Little Stone, the Big Stone, and the Loud Stone.  In our version, the Stones have been consolidated and morphed into me, Ryan, and the piano.  Every line that would normally be spoken (save one sarcastic line that goes to Ryan) is instead sang by me, accompanied by Ryan.  I went to college for Acting, but I haven't actually done a play since I graduated.  Though I love acting, my focus has definitely shifted to music and making Spinner's End my number one priority.  It's been really amazing not only having an opportunity to act again, but also for Ryan and I to take Sarah Ruhl's beautiful and brilliant words and turn them into songs.  The surreal, heightened, poetic quality of the lines translates beautifully as lyrics.  I'm so proud of the work we've done these past two weeks, and I think that the audience tomorrow is in for something really unique, interesting, and honest.  The other actors in the play are giving really strong performances and Brandon's directorial vision is really beautiful.  If any of you internet folk out there are free tomorrow, Wednesday the 27th, and live in the Princeton area, please come check it out!  And if you're not able to come, I still suggest you get your hands on a copy of Sarah Ruhl's Eurydice.  You won't regret reading it.

Details can be found here.

heat death.

I don't know about any of you, but I feel about like my brain has melted into mush and oozed out my ears. Summer is usually my favorite season but this heat is so oppressive it's making me long for cool autumn nights. Ryan and I have spent the past few days holed up in our bedroom, for lo there is the air conditioning, and it is good. However for those moments when you have to go out and face the terrible sauna outside (like going to see Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 in IMAX, like we are tonight!), it's good to have some tricks to keep cool.

My tip for the ladies is milkmaid braids.

They're really cute and surprisingly easy.  Just part your hair, make two long braids on each side of your head, & use bobby pins to stick 'em to your head.  

I'm not too careful when I'm pinning, as I like my hair to look a bit disheveled, but you can make them as tidy as you like.  I also like to wear a floral crown on top, as it hides some of the mess and makes me feel like an elf.  I made this floral crown myself, actually.

It's really the best hairstyle for this weather.  I love my long hair, so it's nice to have an option like this too keep it all off my neck.  It especially helps on those days when the humidity is making me seriously consider shaving my head.

Ryan's tip for the menfolk: mustachio!

He finally caved in the heat and decided to shave off his beard.  His facial hair had gotten really long, so I made him promise me that he'd shave the beard off first and let me take a picture of him with a silly mustache.  I thought it would just be for a laugh, but now I actually really like it.  Ryan's decided to keep it for now, as a mustache is much less sweaty than a beard and therefore still acceptable for the weather.  I think it makes him look like a Spanish Conquistador or Musketeer or George Harrison.  Whichever it is, 'tis yes.

So does anybody else have a silly tip for beating this awful heat?

Ron Weasley (Please Notice Me)

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part Two comes out in the US this Friday.  Ryan and I (and my brother, who helped us out with guitar) are huge Harry Potter fans.  HUGE.  We figured that in honor of the final movie in the series (tear!) being released, we would post this little video.  I, like many awkward girls around the world, identify a lot with Hermione Granger.  I, too, was a mousy little bookworm when I was younger, though my nose was buried in Harry Potter books rather than Hogwarts: A History.  I had an epic crush on my best guy friend in high school (Ryan) who seemed completely oblivious, so the Ron and Hermione story always resonated with me.  The song takes place during Half-Blood Prince, during that awful time for Hermione (and subsequently Harry) when Ron is dating Lavender.  I have always felt a deep connection to this love story, so much so that this song practically wrote itself.  When I was cheering for Hermione, on some level, I was also cheering for myself.  The lessons I learned from those incredible books will be with me for a lifetime.  J.K. Rowling's characters are so vibrant that they seem to take on a life of their own, and I know I'm not alone when I say that I cherished them almost as if they were my friends.  We would like to dedicate this song to J.K. Rowling as a thank you for the beautiful world she created, a world that helped us escape from our own, and the characters that we will carry in our hearts forever.

Lyrics behind the jump: