Don't invite us to all your tedious A-list New Year's Eve parties again this year

because we're already booked to spend New Year's Eve DANCING THROUGH LIFE WITH KRISTIN CHENOWETH AT HANCHER! 

Orchestra Iowa intermission in my beloved Paramount Theatre!

We just heard Mozart’s sprightly, nimble (well, they’re all pretty nimble) Piano Concerto No. 21 (from house left row J on the aisle where I don’t think there’s any better vantage point in the city to watch the pianist’s nimble hands) and now we’re about to wallow in the glorious bombast of Beethoven’s mighty Symphony No. 5. And before the concert we both ATE KALE.

It doesn’t get any more Just Can’t Even than this!

I found my old concert T-shirt from the Cosi fan Tour!

Man, this shirt must be 226 years old, give or take. Good times, yo.

Oh, Alma Mater Washington ...

For over 50 years -- which, according to some sources, is longer than I've been alive -- the choirs of the Washington High School vocal department have assembled for a combined final concert each May that celebrates the year in music, highlights the best of the school-year repertoire and sends the departing seniors out into the world with one triumphant final evening of singing. Literally. At the end of the concert, the alumni join the existing choirs for the time-honored "Warrior Chant" and then the concert closes with the gorgeous "Alma Mater" where -- after the lyric "our classmates will be gone" -- the seniors depart from the choir on the third verse, walk down the aisle AND LITERALLY LEAVE US. It was cool and exciting when I was a senior. But tonight my nephew will be doing it and it's not funny anymore.

It. Will. Be. Heart-wrenching.

I don't cry much. As in ever. I don't cry ever. But I am right now. And the concert hasn't even started.

This is gonna be rough.

Recipe for a lovely evening

2 Jimmy Johns sandwiches (the #10 and the #11 on wheat with no mayo)

2 giant tubs of Diet Coke with very little ice

1 package of Double Stuf Oreos

2 of those portable, collapsible canvas chairs on sale for $9.99 each at Walgreens

1 domestic partner

1 domestic partner-in-law

1 gay couple

1 straight couple

3 blankets

1 beautiful night

1 kick-ass—and totally FREE–concert program in Millennium Park: Arvo Pärt's ethereal "Cantus in Memory of Benjamin Britten" and Jean Sibelius' heroic-provincial First Symphony

2 hours of hand-holding, happy faces, goosebumps and yummy sounds (and the occasional discreet burp) under the stars to a soundtrack of epic tonal dissonance

Christmastime is here

It’s funny how when you head back to work after a long holiday weekend, your bloggable stories dry up … along with your bloggable free time.

But! I did manage to kick off the holiday season on Monday night with my annual pilgrimage to hear Chanticleer sing in Chicago’s gothically fabulous Fourth Presbyterian Church.

Chanticleer—for those of you who are not shameless groupies who have seen them in concert at least 10 times like some people we won’t mention here—is a 12-voice a cappella men’s ensemble that is so awesome if they offered me a job I’d be all outta my way, bitches as I abandoned my current life and rushed the stage to sing with them. The group’s vast repertoire covers everything from early music (the stuff most people lump under the term Gregorian chant) to formal concert literature to modern jazz. And they are quite possibly the most pure, disciplined, beautiful singers you will ever hear.

Chanticleer's annual Christmas concert works through the history of vocal music chronologically, and it's really the only way to put me in the Christmas spirit. After my A Charlie Brown Christmas CD, of course. This year's concert started with 15th century three-part contrapuntal plainsong chants, stopped along the way to pay tribute to the German master composer Michael Praetorius and to explore a study in Russian dissonance, and then ended as always with a medley of Christmas spirituals.

Now, I'm what most people would describe as an atheist. I find atheism to almost be a religion unto itself, though—and not being a fan of any religion, I just tend to think of myself as extremely non-religious. So there is much irony in the fact that I loathe secular Christmas music while I love the sacred stuff ... at least the sacred stuff that would never be recorded by Amy Grant or anyone who has to look up the definition of antiphonal.

And one of my favorite antiphonal sacred choral pieces is Franz Biebl's transcendent Ave Maria. I've sung it a number of times in huge choruses, where I get to wallow in its lush chording and muscular 20th century dissonances. Chanticleer, being only 12 voices, reduces the piece to its bare harmonic essence ... and still sends tears down my cheeks when they sing it for me.

But! They also sang an Ave Maria on Monday night that puts the Biebl in a tight race for the #1 spot in my heart. This one, written by French Renaissance composer Josquin Desprez at the very dawn of the 16th century, is infused with clear, pure harmonies and simple, haunting melodies layered into a gauzy musical tapestry. And as it floated through Fourth Presbyterian's mighty stone sanctuary on Monday night, it stirred me in ways that some people might describe as ... religious.

By my count, this was at least my tenth Chanticleer concert. And at least my tenth Chanticleer closing gospel medley, which is sung in arrangements that rely heavily on the ensemble's male sopranos. While I don't hate gospel music, I don't love it either. And with all those male sopranos wailing on and on about What a Pretty Little Baby and Jerusalem in the Morning, the medley is quite literally the point where the mighty men of Chanticleer devolve into a chorus of screaming queens.

I went with my folks and my friends Matthew and Craig on Monday. Craig is Jewish (An atheist and a Jew walk into a Christmas concert ...) and while he loved the performance, he was thrilled to find a new personal Christmas theme song in the medley: Everywhere I Go, Somebody Talkin' 'Bout Jesus.

And if a borderline atheist and a Jew can find meaning in a sacred Christmas concert, then we should all kick everyone in the balls who tries to whine to the world about the supposed "war on Christmas" that the far right has trotted out in the media yet again this year. Especially if they use male sopranos like Bill O'Reilly to do their whining.

VERY IMPORTANT UPDATE TO THIS POST:
I got a comment from an honest-to-goodness member of Chanticleer! I feel kind of woozy. And fizzy. And funny. And fine. And a little disappointed that the comment didn't include an invitation to come sing the Biebl Ave Maria with them. Even though I know both bass part by heart. And I can totally sing words like tecum and muleribus without giggling inappropriately.

Romantic reverie

When you’re enjoying an outdoor concert at Millennium Park on a lazy Wednesday evening with your fiancé … when he packs blankets and pillows to relax on along with sodas and snacks to enjoy including individual containers of cherry Jell-O that he made with fruit cocktail just the way you like it … when you get a spot on the lawn that’s close enough to the orchestra that you can hear more of the concert live than through the latticework of speakers over your head … when the sun is warm and the audience is enthralled and you’re just happy to be alive … when you lie back with half-closed eyes under the open sky with your fiancé’s hand in yours and Tchaikovsky’s lush Swan Lake suite and Sibelius’ mighty Finlandia washing over you … when some woman wanders by and steps a little too close to your blanket … you can totally see up her skirt.

Harry Potter and the Irrelevant Blog Post

SPOILER ALERT:
There are NO Harry Potter spoilers in this post

So a co-worker spent the weekend devouring the last Harry Potter book. She was being VERY careful around the office not to say anything that could remotely spoil the fun for anyone else who may still be reading the book. But since I haven’t read any of the books and I’ve seen only one movie that I barely remember anyway and I honestly see no future involving me reading any of the books, I followed her into her office, closed the door and asked her in hushed tones to tell me how it all ends.

Which she did. In hushed tones. So now I know. And I am not spoiling anything by saying that the ending is so convoluted (it took her about 15 minutes to explain it all to me) and involves so many characters I’ve never even heard of that I couldn’t possibly explain any of it to you even if I were the sort of asshole who went around deliberately spoiling people’s fun. (Hermione’s a dude!)

Even though I don't plan on reading the books, I’m thrilled that the series has people (especially kids) reading so enthusiastically. And that it has religious wingnuts so apoplectic over its juggernaut-like influence in the spread of witchcraft, child-eating and kitten-spanking. I also love stories about curses and secrets and magic and castles and intrigue and girls named Hermione who turn out to be dudes, so you’d think I’d be eagerly devouring Harry Potter books as fast as they’re written. But as it is, I can barely keep up with my growing piles of Times and Newsweeks and New Yorkers, so I have no interest in piling seven hefty Harry Potter books on my shrine to reading failure.

I have had time, though, to make two date nights in a row with the fiancé. Last night we saw Hairspray, which we adored. I know some homos were wanting to get all boycotty on the movie because of John Travolta and Scientology and homophobia, but we quite frankly couldn’t work up much of a lather over any of that. (Since virtually all religions have underpinnings—or downright foundations—of homophobia, what religious actor isn’t involved in a homophobic religion? And how perfect is “lather” in a paragraph about Hairspray?) In any case, the movie is delightful, the costumes and wigs are fabulous, the choreography (though filmed in a way that makes it hard to watch at times) brings a fresh take to ’60s standards, and James Marsden is positively dreamy. John Travolta doesn’t bother me at all in the movie, and in fact I like the humanity he brings to Edna. I do think Zac Efron is way too young to play Link, though, and Amanda Bynes is kind of dull as Penny. And holy shit is Elijah Kelley charismatic as Seaweed. And even though I’m still bitter I didn’t get cast as Velma, we’ll totally see it again.

Then tonight the fiancé met me at work and we walked to Millennium Park with a blanket and a bag of treats and enjoyed Ravel’s hypnotic Boléro on a program of 20th Century French Orchestral Works That Jake’s Otherwise Never Heard Of on the lawn of the Pritzker Pavilion. It’s all part of Chicago’s free Grant Park Music Festival, and we intend to go back as often as we can this summer. And next time we plan to bring snacks that are a little healthier (but no more refreshingly delicious) than these:

After the concert, we wandered through the Millennium Park grounds and even took an obligatory tourist picture of our reflections in The Bean (officially known as Cloud Gate):
Let the record show, though, that The Bean is a curved surface, so any weird distortions you see here do not reflect the naturally manly shapes of our bodies. Or our names aren’t Hermione.

Happiness is …

Working late, calling your boyfriend to have him meet you at a nearby restaurant, and—when you finally leave the office—finding him waiting outside to walk you there.

I don’t know what I did in my youth or childhood to deserve this, but I’ve snagged myself the most kind, considerate, loving man. And though both our work schedules are sucking at the moment, we’re spending every possible minute together—usually in a nauseating state of happiness.

Then again, he didn’t wear a pageboy wig and bring a backlit gazebo when he waited for me outside my office, so he didn’t exactly create a Sound of Music moment for us. Of course, I’ve never let him think that the crazy old beggar woman down the street is not, in fact, the wife he thought was long-dead just to try to win him for myself, so it’s not like we’re sharing the beautiful kind of love you find in Broadway musicals.

Speaking of things that aren’t exactly Broadway musicals, tonight I’m introducing the boyfriend to Chanticleer, my favorite choral group in the entire known universe. I’ve seen them in concert about ten times, which makes me a bit of a groupie. And since I moved to Chicago in 2000, I’ve never missed their holiday concert at the gloriously acoustic Fourth Presbyterian Church. I’ve already gotten the boyfriend successfully hooked on CSI, too, so it’s probably just a matter of time before we sell all our possessions and follow Chanticleer around the country in our turquoise VW bus.

But first, I just heard that Chicago is about to be buried under ten miles of snow tonight. And I’m parked on a snow route. So I need to figure out how to get home, move my car to a seldom-shoveled street and be back downtown in time for the concert—all without missing any work.

And if I successfully pull it off, you know DAMN well that the snow will bypass us and the snow gods will laugh self-indulgently at my $40 in wasted cab fare. But $40 in lost cab fare is probably good insurance against a $200 all-day adventure retrieving my car from a tow lot.

Even if the boyfriend meets me there to make sure the adventure is romantic.

Ticketmaster lies.

The boyfriend had gotten exclusive early access to seats for last night’s Barbra concert through his AMEX, and the Ticketmaster operator told him our seats were in the “front row”—and given the price he paid for the damn things, he could have reasonably expected they might actually be in Barbra’s lap. Being a Disciple Of Barbra, he was positively giddy with excitement over the promise of at-her-feet proximity. But when we got in the United Center last night and the usher pointed us toward the end of the arena farthest from the stage, we quickly discovered we were merely in the front row of the built-in ring of seats along the arena floor—but thousands of people away from the actual stage. I could almost hear his hopes fall. And it broke my heart. Fuck you, Ticketmaster.

But the concert was fabulous and her voice sounded great and the orchestra was big and impressive and wonderful and Il Divo, who sang with her and on their own, was spectacular. Except for their español version of “Unbreak My Heart,” which has to be one of the most godawful pop songs ever written. Barbra’s costumes were a little iffy—she managed to channel both Liza with a Z and Cleopatra before the evening was over—and the roses all over her stage looked like they had been arranged by a frat boy. But otherwise, I have to say my first diva concert ever—unless you count not-quite-famous Whitney Houston circa 1987 in Iowa City—was thoroughly delightful.

My favorite moments were her powerful “Somewhere” from The Broadway Album and “Music of the Night” (which I’ve always secretly liked even though it’s by Andrew Lloyd Webber) from Back to Broadway—both backed up in wall-of-sound glory by Il Divo—and her more poignant “Children Will Listen” and “Smile (though your Heart is Aching),” which was her final encore.

And even though we sat in front of an ear-splitting whistler, our seats gave us a clear view of the stage—and of a guy a few seats down who jumped up and down like a schoolgirl with a spider in her panties when Barbra launched into what was obviously his favorite song in the entire known universe. And the boyfriend is going to divorce me when he reads this because even though I quizzed him on the name of the song this morning as we walked to the train, I’ve already forgotten what it’s called. It’s something about a rock. Or maybe Iraq.

Our transportation to and from the concert was equally memorable. We took a bus there, and as soon as we sat down, two warm, cuddly grandma-types sitting across from us saw our tickets and asked us where we were sitting in the concert. They swooned repeatedly and loudly when we told them we were in the front row. (Remember: Ticketmaster LIES, and at that point we still thought we were on our way to enjoy the concert in the actual front row.) Then they kept talking to us. One was a retired teacher from Arkansas. The other was one of her former students from Missouri. At one point our conversation turned to the other events that go on in the United Center, and the boyfriend and I found ourselves discussing sports on a bus with people from two different red states. Then they started swooning over how Barbra had stayed at Rosie’s house and how Rosie had reported she’d slept on Kelly’s side of the bed, so we figured our grandma-types weren’t red-state homo-haters after all. Then they swooned over Hillary and Bill and I started wondering if maybe they were red-state lesbians—which could be a pretty cool ornithological term, when you think about it—but then one mentioned her son and once again my gaydar had completely failed me.

After the concert, as we looked for the end of the mega-huge line to get on a bus back to the Loop, we ran into two women I’d done theater with in Iowa for the decade I lived there after college. So we rode in with them and met up with some other Iowa friends who’d come to Chicago with them but didn’t see the concert, and the boyfriend and I took them to the only 24-hour diner we know of in downtown Chicago, where we gorged ourselves on midnight goodness and high-fived over the sweeping defeat of the Republican House.

Note to Bush, Rove, Santorum, et al.: Now you know what a real moral referendum from voters feels like. And at this writing it looks like the Democrats are going to take the Senate as well, albeit by the slimmest of majorities—what you people have historically interpreted as a sweeping statement from the populace, even when you've reached your tipping point via the Supreme Court. But I’m hoping your long, dark, corrupt, self-serving, hateful reign is over. And when you go to sell tickets to your next blame-the-gays fundraiser, I’m hoping you use Ticketmaster.

I’m not voting today

And it’s not because I’m totally repulsed (once again) by this season’s bumper crop of grossly oversimplified, intellectually insulting political ads designed to appeal to the stupidest and most easily manipulated among us—although I have to admit that the ads from the Rob Blagojevich camp that use all the nodding-monkey footage of Judy Baar Topinka are a bit of a guilty pleasure.

My reason for not voting is a whole lot less politically motivated: Amid all my homelessness and temporary housing and layoffs and job hunts, it never occurred to me to change my voter registration. And now it’s too late.

Or not, according to a small handful of friends who assure me I can still vote in my old precinct, as long as I haven’t changed my driver’s license. But that sounds kind of shady and I don’t want to be an Ann Coulter, so for the first time since I turned 18, I’m missing an election.

But I’m kind-of voting tonight, because the boyfriend got us FRONT-ROW SEATS to Barbra “I’m so Jewish I recorded a Christmas album” Streisand, whose concert includes a Dubya impersonator. Her banter with him has kept this tour and her potty mouth and her audience’s thrown drinks in the news since it launched in New York a month ago, and our presence at her feet this evening is nothing short of a vote for economic collapse, anything-goes family values and a complete lack of respect for our troops abroad. Which, when you think about it, just as efficiently describes a vote for the Dubya administration.

As a card-carrying member of the velvet mafia (the ruthless gay cabal responsible, according to our esteemed Republican congress and its theocratic PAC, of destroying traditional marriage and keeping Mark Foley in office), I of course know the relevant songs from Yentl and 99% of the lyrics on The Broadway Album. But my familiarity with the Barbra oeuvre is monumentally eclipsed by the boyfriend’s encyclopedic knowledge of Barbra libretti and composers and films and concert recordings. So as we sit hand-in-hand in our seats of privilege this evening, he will be a true disciple and I will be a mere interloper barely worthy of the fact that Barbra and I could very well make frequent, prolonged, meaningful eye contact for hours on end. And she could easily call me up to join her for a duet of "Enough is Enough." And I could maybe look up her dress if she gets too close to the edge of the stage.

Until we launch into our Barbra reverie, though, I’m still aglow from last night’s mountaintop experience: Sibelius’ lush, full-bodied, triumphant Symphony No. 2 at the CSO.

The Sibelius Second is my favorite symphony of all time, and I’ve practically memorized Mariss Jansons’ definitive recording with the Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra. Imagine my schoolgirl giddiness, then, when I discovered a few months ago that Jansons was conducting the Sibelius live at the CSO this season. Now multiply that by about a billion and try to imagine my giddiness last night as the boyfriend and I ate a fabulous dinner (and shared three desserts!) and then strolled to Orchestra Hall where I could share with him a work of music that has changed me on a cellular level as conducted by the man who introduced me to it in the first place.

And sitting there in the half-dark last night, holding hands with the boyfriend, awash in Sibelius’ sweeping, heroic, mighty lyricism … well, it was almost too much for my little heart to bear.

And now I face today with a cleansed soul. And the earnest hope that by the time the polls close tonight, last night’s beauty and purity will translate to sweeping, heroic, mighty changes in America. Even though I was too absent-minded to make sure I could help make it all happen.

Weekend adventures: heat index edition

PART I:
Saturday
Our training run on Saturday was supposed to be an easy one: just seven miles—which, after last weekend’s 14 miles and last Wednesday’s nine miles, should have been a piece of cake. (Did someone say cake?) But then we got ourselves a heat wave in Chicago. So the run was more like a piece of fried balogna with extra salt.

Here we are pre-run, looking fresh and smelling like flowers. And acting cheesier than a Velveeta factory in Switzerland:


Here we are taking our first walk break, just six minutes into our run. Aside from the goofy faces (OK, face), we still look rather innocent and full of optimism:


Fearless Leader Matthew took his camera along on the run and snapped pictures of us in motion. Some of them turned out kind of cool:


Some of them captured facial expressions we probably don’t want immortalized on the Internets for all time (though check out Matthew’s perfectly centered reflection):


Some of them kind of missed their mark:


And some of them showed just how miserable and sweaty the heat was making us. (’Cause if Jake breaks a sweat, you know it’s hot out; Jake may stink when he exerts himself, but he rarely sweats enough to work up a shine.) NRB, whose savage tan manifests his inherent compatibility with the sun, seems to enjoy being broiled like a slice of garlic cheese bread (did someone say garlic cheese bread?), but I, with my pink-as-an-Easter-ham pallor, am showing an expression of pure struggle here—I've never fared very well running in the heat—and we still had three miles to go:


Unfortunately, Fearless Leader Matthew didn’t send me our traditional finish-line photo, so I can’t show you this week’s tableau of happy, exhausted faces and sweat-streaked bodies. I apologize if this undermines your quality of life in any way.

PART II:
Sunday
By the blue purple yellow red water
On the green purple yellow red grass
Let us pass through our perfect park
Pausing on a Sunday

By the cool blue triangular water
On the soft green elliptical grass
As we pass through arrangements of shadow
Toward the verticals of trees
Forever

Chicago hosted a Sondheim festival this weekend at Millennium Park, complete with Broadway stars, symphony orchestras and an appearance by Stephen himself. The Chicago Gay Men’s Chorus closed the event yesterday, reprising a lot of material from our pride show at an outdoor concert in the park’s magnificent Frank Gehry-designed Jay Pritzker Pavilion.

The pavilion is an explosion of stainless steel ribbons framing a formal concert stage with a whole amphitheater of comfortable seats in front of it for the people who plan ahead for their culture. Then there’s a football field behind the seats with a latticework of speakers overhead so the latecomers and picnickers won’t miss a note, even if they can’t see the stage. We were supposed to stand on the edge of the football field for our concert, but it was so freakin’ hot we were mercifully allowed to stand on the (shaded!) stage (which was easily 20 degrees cooler), and our audience got to sit in the nice (shaded!) seats and enjoy our show:


I even got to sing in a little featured number: the haunting and gorgeously contrapuntal "Pretty Lady" from Pacific Overtures. Here's a pic I'm posting against my better judgment because it makes me look sleepy and red and possibly allergic to Sondheim:


Sneezy McSinger notwithstanding, the show was a smashing success. We got whoops and hollers and a huge, screaming standing ovation after our closing number, “Sunday,” which is so lush and beautiful and poetically flawless that I have yet to get through it without goosebumping and choking back tears of happiness.

And the moment the audience cheers died down, the ugliness started. The Christian Hate Industry, fresh from harassing everyone attending the opening ceremonies of the Gay Games, had assembled at the back of our seating area with huge banners and bullhorns and a whole arsenal of ugly things to scream at us. (Let me tell you, you haven’t lived until you’ve been ridiculed publicly by a mob with bullhorns and professionally made signs. I hope their hostile, make-believe god rewards them richly for the way they treat their fellow human beings on this earth. After I kill them with my bare hands.) Then some of the guys on the stage started chanting stuff back—which is exactly the kind of fight the CHI was hoping to start to feel validated. Which was exactly the kind of small-minded exchange of meaningless platitudes I didn’t have any interest in being caught in. But I was kind of stuck on stage in full view of everyone so I couldn’t exactly change into my cape and tights and fly away without revealing my secret identity.

But then we launched into our gay-themed rendition of “I’m Still Here,” which made the ideal anti-protester song even though in this context it further stooped us to their level, and the crowd ate up. And the CHI kind of shut up after that. But not totally. And as we were packing up our stuff, I saw a lot of gay guys having their pictures taken making out in front of the gay-is-bad signs, which probably just fueled the CHI’s irrational, batshit-crazy hostility, but it was funny nonetheless.

Once I escaped, I met up with some friends from Miami who were in town to compete in the Gay Games. We hung out in the air conditioning and explored a bit of Chicago for a while, and then they invited me to join them and some of their friends for dinner. And they picked Japonais, which is only one of the most popular restaurants in Chicago. Everyone I know has been there and raved about it, and now that I’ve finally gone I can see why. Their sushi is amazing (which is saying a lot coming from someone who had his third taste of sushi—and his first taste of octopus—last night), and the steak I ordered was so tender and so delicious I almost purred as I ate it. I also recommend the kobe beef appetizer, which is more delicious than I can describe, but it’s about as filling as a Tic-Tac. I’m not a fan of Japonais’ table legs, though; they’re thick and solid and so close to the edges of the tables that I got my foot wedged painfully between our table and my seat and I had to make a big clumsy drama scene to extricate myself from my own act of sitting down, which is not the best way to make a good first impression on a table full of charming strangers. But nobody rubbed wasabi in my hair or tried to trick me into asking the waitress to page Mike Hunt, so I think they still liked me.

Being visitors who didn’t have to go to work in the morning, they wanted to go to Sidetrack after dinner. Being a good ambassador to our fair city, I took them there, where we found a half-block-long line to get in—at 11:00 on a Sunday night. But we waited patiently and got ourselves in and had a drink together and watched the boys and started to fade en masse by midnight.

And while the CHI probably slept well secure in the knowledge that they had spent the weekend serving their hostile, make-believe god, I slept better, knowing I’d spent my weekend in the company of decent, kind, loving people who used their powers to improve themselves and the world around them.