#Rehearsing my Choir

[comme-des-chatons]

In Chicago for the very first time, riding the blue line towards Forest Park, listening to this life changing album that I haven’t listened to in too long

[trek-tracks]

Space, the final frontier.

That is the question:

Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to explore

The strange new worlds of our outrageous fortune,

Or to take arms against a five-year mission

And, by opposing, end it. To go—to seek,

Once more; and by “to seek” to say we find

The new life and new civilizations

Where man has gone not: 'tis a consummation

Devoutly to be wish'd. To go, to seek;

To seek, perchance to find—ay, there's the rub:

For in these voyages what dreams may come,

When we have boldly gone whence we have not,

Must give us pause—there's the respect

That makes a mission of so long a life.

For who would bear the Enterprise of time,

The starship’s wrong, admirals’ contumely,

The pangs of dispriz'd love, the law's delay,

The insolence of office, and the spurns

That patient merit of th'unworthy treks,

When he himself might make his voyage on

With a bare warp core? Who would tribbles bear,

To grunt and sweat under a weary life,

But that the hope of something to be found,

The undiscover'd country, from whose bourn

We travel and return, puzzling our will,

And makes us wish to solve those ills we have

And fly to others that we know not of?

Thus conscience makes explorers of us all,

And thus the native hue of resolution

Is glistened o'er with the stars of thought,

And Enterprises of great pith and moment

With this regard their currents warp ahead

And seize the name of action.

[malwarewolf404]

He said “people are going to be without purpose in a post-scarcity world!”

[oxymoronicdumbass]

god, i love theater kids

[practically-an-x-man]

might have found a choir group to sing in :D

[kingofthewilderwest]

Hey did you know quasi-sight-reading four part choral harmonies on piano with only one hours' heads up before rehearsal while a fan keeps automatically turning your pages doesn't go well

[forerussake]

just clipped my hair myself for the first time and. i think it’s okay? i didn’t do horribly? it’s not perfect but it’s okay????

[phantomrose96]

I've got some specific and extremely strong aversions to certain repetitive motions/noises, and I've noticed the uniting factor among all of them is that the thing happening is going to go on indefinitely.

People talking in the office doesn't bug me, but someone using a mechanical keyboard is torturous. I don't mind the noises of cars/people passing by in the street, but hearing my neighbor's tv from below kills me. I don't mind being around people who are eating, but being around someone chewing gum is utter hell.

The other part about this which is hell is these extreme aversions aren't common, so I know I'm not being the reasonable one to expect no one to ever use a mechanical keyboard around me, or ever chew gum around me, or put on the tv around me. And I think that adds to it because I know I'm not in the right to ask these things to stop (I do, sometimes, if I'm friendly with the person and I try to make it clear this is a huge favor to me but still.)

Anyway I'm just kinda musing out loud but also wondering if this is maybe a thing in like... some capacity. Being stuck in the vicinity of some noise/visual motion which is repetitive, will continue indefinitely, and which I have no say in making stop. The ongoing-ness and the I-don't-control-when-or-how-it-stops-ness. Like is that a neurosis with a name? Chinese water torture would unravel me at the molecular level.

[questwithambition]

Front row seat to a conversation with Emily Wilson about the Illiad, with some readings that transported me. Was absorbed for every second

[alaskan-wallflower]

you ever just rly want a hug so you wrap yourself in a blanket burrito while drawing and pretending you’re being hugged or is it just me

[sacrificialcrisis]

sore throat oh my god

[comme-des-chatons]

Another landmark from Rehearsing My Choir, which I randomly spotted on my way to lunch at Native Foods Cafe (highly recommended if you like vegan nachos and oatmeal cream pies). And, as the tallest load-bearing brick building in the world, it’s a landmark in its own right.

This is the north-facing entrance, but there was no evidence of any shoe shine boys, nor any thermometers.

[autumnwhistles]

For everyone asking about results — I have decided the vast majority of them (though these won’t be a casting, I need to work more closely with those who have gotten through to the second round before I decide that). They are coming out, some have gotten then already, but at a slow pace because I’m extremely busy this week with real life things. It’ll clear up next week but know I haven’t forgotten or something, I just don’t have the time or energy to spare right now.

[crescentmoonrider]

Karaoke

Maybe in the future, Yuuta would be able to joke about the events of that day and the chain-reaction they created in his life. At the time though, he was simply too scared of the strange yakuza dragging him off to a karaoke to think about any of that. For the prompt : Catatonia [ @badthingshappenbingo ]

read on AO3

or under the Read More, I’m not your boss

.

Thinking back on it years later, Yuuta would end up saying that the unease he felt throughout that day was the result of many things – the humid summer air, heavy and charged with static from the upcoming storm ; the mounting anxiety from the concert and the knowledge that his voice wouldn’t stay the same for much longer, and the fear that when it finally changed he would lose his only place in the world.

In that moment though, the one thing keeping Yuuta frozen in place was the feeling of being watched. Not – not the normal way, like any member of the choir standing in front of the audience and the jury. No, those eyes were for him and him alone.

He felt like a fly trapped in a spider’s web.

So long as he sang, he managed to keep the fear at bay, but the moment the concert ended and he found himself carried out of the stage by the stream of the choir, his legs started locking up. His mouth was dry and full of lead, his body heavy and both too hot and too cold.

He stumbled, fell out of step, and simply watched as the rest of the kids hurried to the refreshments and the fruits prepared for the singers.

They would wait for the results with the teacher and the other schools, and Yuuta would stay in the hallway, unable to move, until someone remembered his existence and went looking for him.

Thankfully, none of his bullies were in the choir – at that time, this was the only coherent thought Yuuta could manage, and in truth it barely helped at all.

He breathed through lungs that felt like they were filled with thick smoke, sweat running down his spine, so still that the automatic lights went out and the hallway turned fully dark. And still he couldn’t move.

He couldn’t – couldn’t –

The lights turned back on.

“There you are !” said the spider to the fly.

The stranger talked like an old friend, or like Tanaka-senpai liked to do when he wanted Yuuta to buy him and his real friends something that they could definitely afford.

He said something about Yuuta singing well, congratulated Yuuta on the second place – oh, was it really so long that the results already came in ? – and when Yuuta didn’t move to take his business card, slid it himself inside of Yuuta’s shirt pocket.

Then he put his arm around Yuuta’s shoulders and started walking, dragging Yuuta along, saying : “We’re going to the karaoke.”

Yuuta’s legs were still so, so heavy, and yet he was like a plastic bag in a typhoon, unable to do anything but spin aimlessly in the wind with no hope of resisting.

All he could do was walk and stumble, carried away by a force of nature.

In the corner of his eye, the tattooed hand on his shoulder looked like a large bug, as dark as the storm clouds above his head.

Surprisingly enough, in a stroke of miraculous luck, Yuuta did not end up being taken to some seedy alleyway, or to an even seedier hotel room – the stranger said he wanted to go karaoke, and so to the karaoke they went. Only then did he let go of Yuuta, sitting down to pick his songs while Yuuta… Yuuta just stayed.

At that point, it wasn’t just fear and anxiety that kept him locked in place, but also confusion. His brain had just – just given up.

And so he stayed, standing near the door, watching the stranger talk about karaoke and tattoos, hearing words that definitely formed sentences, but that Yuuta found himself unable to understand.

“I’m gonna sing my battle song, so sit down,” the stranger said.

That, Yuuta understood, kind of. Although – what did he mean by battle song ?

Just because Yuuta managed to make out the meaning of the words didn’t mean he could do anything about it, though. He watched the stranger frown, heard him click his tongue, then finally saw him get up and grab Yuuta’s arm to drag him to the couch.

“Sit.”

Yuuta did, pushed down as he was by the strong, tattooed hands of a strong, tattooed man. The ink showed even high up on the stranger’s neck, and in the open collar of his floral shirt, peppered with white scars like the one on the corner of the stranger’s mouth.

He didn’t even try to look like a half-decent person, or like some sort of shady businessman.

For the 42 seconds of the intro to the stranger’s battle song, Yuuta contemplated the meaninglessness of his own life. The only place he belonged was the choir, but that was a house built on nothing but borrowed time.

Ever since Rika-chan had died, ever since his body had locked up for the first time, like he was the one lying in a pool of blood with his head crushed under the wheels of a truck, it was as if what little control he was allowed to have on his life just… slipped between his fingers at all times.

He had stopped bothering to even try.

In some twisted way, he felt envious of the stranger’s tattoos, not because he wanted to give a try to this kind of dirty business, but because in a way, they meant what Yuuta imagined to be freedom.

This man who sang with abandon in front of a middle-schooler just did what he wanted to do, no matter how nonsensical it looked to just about anyone else.

Yuuta could have said this, when the stranger asked what he thought and Yuuta found that his mouth was working again. He could have given technical advice, or explained that the song choice didn’t fit the man’s natural voice and that it was a real shame because it was a deep, handsome voice. He could have asked to hear another song that suited the man’s bass better before giving any definitive advice. All good options that wouldn’t make Yuuta feel like dying, or like he was going to get killed.

Instead, the first thing that came out of his mouth was –

“Please never sing this again.”

[infinitelytheheartexpands]

another day, another audition in about a week, another coaching

[transkholins]

jazz chords are. how can i put this. sexy as hell.