oh! there is music here!

Been back from Brazil for a whole 5 days now. I have been zooming around in a blur since I got back - crazy busy prepping for my big job interview, driving up and down from Seattle to Portland. I realized my non-academic friends seemed puzzled that a single job interview was causing me so much stress, so maybe I should explain that an "interview" for a university faculty position involves a full day of up to 8 one-hour interviews in a row, plus you have to give a steller, magnificent 1-hour talk on your research that will totally blow everybody's socks off and convince them that you are the best lecturer in the world, plus go out to dinner with the faculty afterwards. I had to read a 350-page academic book in 1 day just to prep for the talk. (luckily it was a great book)

But - the upshot - score! The interviews were really fun, though cumulatively stressful in that "gotta be peppy and brilliant every single minute!" way. And the talk went wonderfully. As job candidates go, I'm pretty lucky; some people have to talk about fruit flies or mustard-seed genetics, but I have been working on whales, so I get to tell a fascinating story that covers a thousand years of whaling, WWII anti-submarine patrols, mysterious Russians, whales stuck in lobster traps, the discovery of floating whale poop, Fargo the Whale-Poop-Detecting Rottweiler, and wrapping up with my best personal contribution to the advancement of science: the world's first-ever whale pregnancy test.

Anyway, the talk went great, and the upshot is: I got the job! So I'll be teaching biology in Portland from late August to May. Cool!!! I'm so psyched to be teaching again - and it's sure a fantastic bonus that I can be in Portland and play with the Lions, too.

The Lions have rehearsal Sundays and Mondays, which bracketed my huge interview adventure, so I managed to catch half of each rehearsal. It was wonderful to see them all again and they all gave me such a warm welcome. (including a big cheer Monday when I told them I got the job!) But also, oddly, I was suddenly struck sort of shy. There is something about stepping back into the American life that still feels surreal and overwhelming and it is making me act tentative. I could barely even look at everybody at first - even though I was so pleased to see them all. I still feel very disoriented, and jet-lagged.... and worried; it is so hard to tell how I am going to fit in to the American music scene. I haven't been playing in a month and suddenly wondered if I still knew how.

And I have been worried about whether the music here in the US would appeal to me. I just didn't know how it would feel to be in a small group after having played in Rio's massive bands for so long. The last time I played was in the 130-person Monobloco bateria for a crowd of 70,000 on Copacabana beach....

... and here I was in a band of 15 in a little dance studio in quiet, cool Portland.

And... it was really fun! This is sort of a small crew for the Lions (various people are on tour, out of town, etc) but it was a good balance - 4 surdos, 3 caixas, about 3 tambs and a quad bell and a chocalho (my friend Pat!), and Randy on lead repique. I'd forgotten how crisp Randy is on repique; so clean. And damn, they really sounded quite good. hey! there is music here in the US! It was tremendously reassuring to re-discover that a small crew can be a GREAT playing experience. In fact... maybe a better playing experience, because you can actually hear yourself. You gotta take much more responsibility - you have to really be solid and pull your weight, because everything you do is very audible. It has been a long, long time since I've had to take such responsibiity for my playing. Like, uh-oh! they can all hear me - I wonder whether I'm playing well? A weird sensation.

So it was cool.

I was itching to switch on to caixa too, but decided to wait a bit for that and practice a bit at home, to be sure I am up to speed.

Once I settled in and got used to the odd fact that I could actually hear my own playing, I found myself completely unable to stick to the arranged repertoire. They'd start playing a 6/8 and I'd think "This would sound just great with Banga's jongo!" or they'd start playing a coco and I'd think "This would fit just perfect with Monobloco's maculele!" and off I'd go on some total other thing. I wanted to go totally change the caixa section too. Later I was in the middle of fooling with a different Ile Aiye pattern for the Lions' afro-samba, then finally realized I was screwing people up by experimenting too much when they were trying to remember a particular arrangement from camp. I need to just settle down and re-learn the repertoire before I start mucking stuff up.

So anyway... I got the job.... and the Lions were really fun.... and it was great to see them all again... and it was great to play with them. There IS good music here in the US. This is going to work out.