Top Gun nickname election

Voting closed yesterday in the election to choose Top Gun nicknames for members of the New World Symphony bass section. Like any good Miami-Dade county election, this one included ample opportunities for fraud and miscreance. Two different and somewhat confusing ballots were used, and completed ballots were kept secure by a swatch of packing tape stuck to a manila envelope on my locker.

The election process was completely unregulated and went on for a couple of weeks, though most people only knew about it the last couple of days. Anyone able to operate a pencil was eligible to vote, and 20 ballots were cast, 2 of which were incomplete or illegible. Despite all this, results were fairly conclusive, as follows:


Viper, Merlin, Maverick, Hollywood, Iceman, Wolfman, Steve, and Goose

Dacy Gillespie - Hollywood
Dacy was chosen as Hollywood by the largest majority of any nickname, 11 votes out of 18 recorded. In the actual movie, Hollywood may have been a big black guy (no one can remember for sure), but Dacy earned his call sign with her sense of style and grace.

Dave DeRiso - Maverick
Eight voters nominated Dave as the short, dark, and handsome hero of Top Gun. As we like to continually remind Dave, "You're dangerous, Maverick - it's not your flying, it's your attitude."

Scott Dixon - Goose
Also with eight votes, Scott was chosen as Maverick's lovable but ill-fated wingman Goose. While the nickname could potentially be pejorative, in Scott's case it seems to reflect an appreciation of him as a great pal rather than a tendency to make squonking noises and bite small children.

Andy Giller - Wolfman
The voters favored Andy decisively with eight votes, possibly reflecting his take-no-prisoners attitude or his nocturnal habits. I don't really know what Andy's nocturnal habits are, it just seems like a Wolfman should have some.

Aaron White - Merlin
Though four voters nominated Aaron as Jester, a majority of six made him our Merlin, based perhaps on his wizened status as our eldest bass player or his magical execution of the finale of Mozart 40.

Matt Heller - Iceman
Matt was likened to the annoying antagonist played by Val Kilmer by a narrow majority of five votes, just one more than voted him as Goose. This would seem to reflect a deeply divided electorate which tilts slightly towards finding Matt a creep.

Sean O'Hara - Viper
In an even closer election, Sean was given this reptilian nickname with five votes, with four each for Jester and Iceman. Perhaps voters were attracted to the silent but deadly connotations, though Sean is not known to be particularly deadly.

Thanks to everyone who voted! Campaigning for cello section Care Bear nicknames will begin soon.

eavesdropping on a French horn god

Yesterday afternoon I went to a masterclass by Philip Myers, principal horn of the New York Philharmonic. Everything about PM is big - his sound, his ideas, his reputation, his sense of humor, his girth. I unfortunately chose to sit about seven feet away with his bell pointed straight at me, so I had to repeatedly cover my hears when he picked up his horn to demonstrate something. I was able to pick up a few things, though, while trying to avoid being deafened.

1. Don't practice screwing up
Too many people spend far too much time practicing things they do badly. You need to fix whatever is not working, but you also need to accustom yourself to nailing things, and build the self-confidence that comes with doing it. If all you ever practice is the stuff you suck at, you're going to feel like you suck. Instead, "you want to leave the practice room feeling like you're Jesus Christ." Meaning a badass with all the answers, not a guy about to get crucified.

2. Know your strengths, then do them better than anyone else
You should have four or five things you know you do really well - and you should do them every day. This ties into the previous point, but it's worth emphasizing. When PM was auditioning for orchestras, he told us, there was a certain excerpt from Richard Strauss' tone poem Don Juan that he knew he could nail. Every time he was asked to play this excerpt, he won the audition - it became so automatic that he already knew when he saw the proctor turn to that page that he would win a job that day.

3. Be offensive
This one is a little difficult, since we're all so indoctrinated to sound pleasant and beautiful. Great playing should sometimes get in your face, though, like talking to someone who is encroaching on your personal space. It should have an intensity that refuses to let you sit back. "To me, there's nothing more offensive than when someone says everything should be beautiful. I hate that shit - it's far too limiting."

4. Have a system
You don't have to stick with your plan all the time, but you do need to have one so you know when you are making an exception. Having a plan also means finding a technique that fits your unique needs, not just adopting principles that work for other people.

5. You're paid to do, not to try
No one is impressed when you try a low percentage move and screw up. In fact, PM told us, he's not really impressed when he hears someone try something risky and pull it off. He would rather hire someone with the experience and savvy to execute a high percentage move well than an idiot who just got lucky. So find what works consistently, and make choices based on what will work that day.

6. Don't take his word for it, horn god or not
If someone tells you to do something a certain way, don't just swallow it whole. Listen to recordings or seek out other sources to find an answer that you believe in. That way you can take ownership of all your decisions.

on being a twin

my twin brother Dan with Gilles

Whenever it comes up in conversation that I have an identical twin brother, I notice people looking at me strangely, like they are trying to fit me into a new mold. Naturally, my twin and I must live in bunk beds and wear matching outfits every day, when we're not pulling off a big switch-o-change-o scheme to ace the math quiz or get our parents back together. Then again, based on our geographical distance and my cell phone records, you might easily conclude that we hate eachother's guts. I spent almost the whole summer living with Dan in LA, and we spent most of the time pretending that the other wasn't there - the summer actually brought me closer to Gilles, who you see in the picture above, than it did to Dan.

The reality of being a twin, for me at least, is pretty complicated. It's a little like having constant access to live video footage and psychological profiles of yourself - interesting sometimes, and a nice resource to have, but a bit much to take all the time. That's why when we're around each other, I think, we can be almost cold to one another. And yet, there are moments when we connect and understand eachother so completely, I feel, that I can tell him anything. And conversely, he's told me stories from his life that I instantly recognized in my own - only the characters were different, it seemed, the situations and emotions were exactly the same!

When we were little kids, one night my sister Zoe had to finish a science project for school, and decided at the last minute she would do a twin study, testing our telekinetic and esp abilities. The result was absolutely ridiculous, which is why we've never let her forget about it - some day we need to post it on the web! She asked one of us to think of a number, and the other one invariably thought of a different number, which she explained by saying their shapes were similar. I'm pretty sure we can't pass numbers back and forth, and I have never felt his pain or anything; still, in a very real sense, Dan is the closest person to me in the world. I'm still learning what it means to have a relationship with my genetic duplicate.

According to mapquest.com, Dan and I live 2,744 miles from one another, which is about 42 hours if you're driving. Bring carrots.

mis quince minutos

My 15 minutes of fame, or maybe more like 3 x 6 inches, are in today's edition of Miami's El Nuevo Herald. You can see the article here, but if you can't read Spanish you might want to scroll down to my original English version, posted below. A lot of what I wrote was cut, and they changed my alma mater to 'Northern University'. Still, I caught one mistake before it went to print - Marc was going to have me listed as a cello player.

uncle, and bluncle

Yesterday I became an uncle for the first time with the birth of my nephew, Isaac; I also became a bluncle, when my twin brother Dan created his own new blog, whisper key. My brother plays the bassoon, and the way I understand it the whisper key allows a bassoonist to produce a delicate, intimate tone quality without the risk of choking his or her sound. Or maybe it's a way of quickly clearing some of the spit out of the instrument without taking the whole thing apart. Either way, it seems like an apt title for a personal blog.

Dan is a fascinating and very funny person, so you should definitely click over and read him in person. I am planning on writing a bit more about him and being a twin, and posting it here later today.

Isaac's first day

Here is the official site for my nephew, Isaac Joseph Zaret. Funny how it took me 27 years and change to get my own website, and this kid has one on his first day.


mother Zoe with baby Isaac

I first heard the news while writing in my blog this afternoon, so it seemed appropriate to post the news, even if I was maybe the last in the family to hear! I tend to turn my phone off for long stretches of time, leaving me more or less unreachable. Still, though, now that I've had the benefit of a few hours to ponder, I wanted to write a little more on the subject.

I've lately been reading this book called The Rural Life by Verlyn Klinkenborg, and I find it's a very difficult book to explain to people. It's one of those books in which the things it talks about - weather, insects, trees, animals, farming, etc. - are not really what it's about at all. I realized today that what it is about, what so many beautiful works of literature and music are about, when I stop and think about it, is time. We think we understand time, we think it behaves as simply and predictably as the gears in our watches, but then a day like this happens, and everything seems to change in an instant.

Would this day have seemed any less life-altering had it come a couple of weeks from now, when we were expecting it? For the past many months, whenever I told anyone I was about to be an uncle, or even thought about it, I always attached that word "April". So when it happened, my first reaction was, "How could this happen? It's not April yet!", as if the number on the calendar was the most amazing thing about this day. Really, though, I'm not sure anything would have prepared me for the idea of calling my sister Zoe "your mother", of calling my own mother "your grandma". I seem to have left the world I woke up in this morning for a different world, in which everyone has a new title and a new identity, all in relation to this new person.

Of course I've been telling everyone I know about Isaac, and looking forward to a chance to visit and see them in person. I'm not sure what it will be like to be in the same room as my new nephew, and I think it might seem just as strange and unfamiliar to see my sister as a mother. I am sure that she and Elliot will be great parents though, and that Isaac will be the new center around which their life orbits.

To extend that celestial metaphor a bit, I feel like I've been a comet that went skimming across my sister's atmosphere every so often, and it makes me a little sad to think that we'll be just as distant for the foreseeable future. Zoe has a very busy career, and I can only imagine how full her life will be now. Still, though, this is a day to celebrate and to marvel at my sister, and at life.

my sister's baby

I just found out that my sister gave birth to a baby boy today, Isaac Joseph Zaret. I heard from both of my parents, who left voicemail messages just a couple of hours ago. The baby came a couple of weeks early - we expected him around the middle of April, so it came as a surprise, but a happy one, since apparently they are both healthy. My brother-in-law Elliot is quite a web programmer and prolific writer, so I'm sure you can read much more about IJZ and see pictures soon at his website, which I will link to here.