So true.

If you don't think this is cool, I insist you erase your link to my blog! :)

Uh, I have no idea what these little Japanese people are singing, but that minor annoyance is nothing compared to this AWESOME video. I wish I had time to have my house filled with these kinds of machines...

Progress?

I think so. Plus, I am not jumping around and trying to get into the character more. That should help.

Through the woods...

I guess you're wondering where I am.

Well, I'm right here.

That being said, I cannot help but digress into another fit of self-examination blogger style. That should be a dance. Anyway…

If you read my penultimate blog, you know that in April, I sang for a famous Heldentenor and that he had a lot of positive things to say. A part that I intentionally deleted from that blog was his suggestion that I try to audition for one of the German Young Artist Programs. They have them in Munich, Hamburg, Berlin, and Düsseldorf. I was, to say the least, very turned off by this idea, as I have already gone through so much schooling. It just doesn’t seem in any way palatable to me to continue my schooling in any way especially since this last bit of my doctorate feels practically like a forced bloodletting. So, I put the suggestion out of my mind, still fully intent to take the road that seemed more logical, to sing for agents, and start doing my rep in smaller houses.

Then, one day not long ago, I had another conversation with Allan, the psychic/medium/spiritual leader. I don't know what to call him. He is the Allan. We were talking about remaining positive during this whole process and allowing the things that were meant to happen for me to happen, to focus on what it is that my soul wants, etc. We hadn't yet had the chance to discuss what Alfons has said when Allan interrupted our conversation and said:
"Hold on, I'm getting something. Your Spirit Guide is saying something, and I don't quite get it…He keeps repeating two words and I have no idea what they mean. He keeps saying 'Artist Program' over and over."
"Huh?" I said, completely bowled over that such a strange thing was happening.
"Artist Program."
"Ok. Anything else?"
"He says you should be in an artist program somewhere in the far northeast of the country, and that if you do that your career will not just be the kind of mid-level career you are envisioning for yourself, but an international one. I am seeing faraway places like Japan, and Brazil, all over. He says that the program will last one year, but if I do it this way and start out slow, it will pay off."

Wow.

Ok.

There is only one Young Artist Program in the far northeast of the country and that is Berlin, at the Deutsche Oper Berlin. My friend Stephanie is in that program (she went to school with me at UMKC.) I was still skeptical at this point, knowing full well that those programs are usually ones where you may get to sing one small role a year and take classes and such—exactly what I don't need right now, and they usually have an age cutoff of 30. I am 34. Plus, these kinds of places usually know by February who will be on their roster for September; i.e., the auditions should be long over. But, I called her anyway.

She said that there were still auditions at the end of June, but that all of the spots for the program were gone, that, yes, the age cutoff was 30 but that she was 32 and they were inviting her back… She really didn't know if she could finagle me an audition, but that she would try. She also recommended that I send my info into the Staatsoper, also in Berlin, because they would be starting a program this fall, too.

To make a long story short, I sent my stuff into the Staatsoper, snail mail, on Monday of last week. On Tuesday, I get an email asking me to sing an audition, on their stage on the 27th of June. The Staatsoper. In Berlin. Most of you who read this have no idea what this means. Let's just say it is like being a no one and getting an audition at the Met or Covent Garden. It's that big.

Now you know why I haven't written here. I am too busy getting ma arias learned and ready to sing in a house with more than 1,300 seats after I have sung in a house with a little more than 500 for 3 years.

On a completely different note, Chris and I have filed to become Life Partners here in Germany, affording us several rights that we normally would not have if we remained single. The paperwork was submitted on Monday and we will be having our ceremony on the 27th of July 2007.

Here's a snippet of a coaching I had today, just so that those of you who haven't heard me sing for a long time can hear…Try to pay no attention to my funny body movements and hand gestures. I will try to eliminate those before the audition.

You stab 'em, we slab 'em

It is so infuriating that it is not possible at this time in American history to both be against the war and to be for our troops. It is such a bullshit argument that is thrown at us by the Right that these two principles cannot simultaneously exist. But, in spite of its obvious breaches in logic, it still hits us all where it hurts us the most. Like a dagger, it hits us straight in the heart where our own patriotism resides. How dare someone call me a traitor when warmongering such as what we have seen in this administration is a treachery of the highest possible degree? Sometimes the world is topsy-turvy…sometimes it is made to be that way, devoid of logic, because those in power, those with such outlandish ideas, only have a hope of staying in power when even fundamental truths remain in question.

I was talking to Chris about the way that Republicanss have come up with this extremely effective and crippling conundrum. He said that it reminded him of the Dolchstosslegende—meaning "Dagger in the Back Legend." (You can look this up in Wikipedia spelled just as it is here.) The Dolchstosslegende was a propaganda move by the burgeoning Nazi Party after World War I, used to incite hatred towards the left-leaning government of the Weimar Republic, in power at the time. It was a campaign that accused the people of Germany for having lost the First World War as a result of their own cowardice and lack of support for the German troops. This mass propaganda worked well, drawing to it World War I veterans and conservatives who claimed that those who did not stand with them were against them and the troops. Sound familiar? That's right, it is the very thing of which the conservatives in America are accusing the newly-elected Congress. In fact, judging from the passing of this new toothless $100 billion Iraq spending bill, they have become emasculated by the very idea that they may even appear as unpatriotic.

The war will only end when the money to the war is cut off. But, if the Democrats are so sensitive to their re-electability that they can't do the right thing by shutting off the money spigot, we are, pardon my French, fucked. God, these people have turned out to be a bunch of mealy-mouthed pussies.