Throughout grad school I sang in a choir that performed Siberian folk songs that were basically impossible to describe without using the word “shouty.” We worked hard on the songs, and there was a kind of precision that was important to them, but at the end of phrases, the idiomatic delivery was for everyone to do a sort of glissando into a grunt, and for that not to be synchronized, and that was secretly everyone’s favorite part.

[Here’s an example but it’s from years and years later and I feel like kids these days have taken the edge out of Siberian folk music]

To my delight, there was such a choir here in the Bay Area, but it turned out to be 1) terribly inconveniently located and 2) filled with people enough older than me that it didn’t feel much like a social thing. I mean yeah from here it’s basically one undifferentiated slide into the grave and all, but like they were retired and stuff.

So I talked Dave into going to a Sacred Harp Singing. If you’re not familiar, it’s an American protestant vocal tradition now enthusiastically taken up by a set of dorks who are about my speed. It has its own folkways, to say the least. And the performance aesthetic is one of loudness, also to say the least. Actually the director of the Siberian choir use to tell us that Sacred Harp alto parts sounded much like what we were doing. It’s shouty.

The title of the posting is of course wildly overstated. I don’t think any of this stuff is ugly. But it hits the same pleasurable nerve for me as some singing that verges further into the realm of the more undeniably ugly. Oh here’s a thing.

I can seriously watch that over and over. That is million-year-old Slovak soprano Edita Gruberova singing with the remains of a once rock solid but, to my ear, always ugly voice. The great thing about opera from this period is that it’s written as a showcase for beautiful singing (“bel canto” is the name of the style) but the only way to make it truly enjoyable is to gild it with ugliness. Callas, who had a hand in bringing these operas back from obscurity, had an undeniable curdle in her voice that made these roles tragic and real instead of sounding like conservatory exercises.

It would be easy to do a million more operatic examples, but also dull.

I don’t need to speak to you people of Dylan.

Running: I feel like starting out with some grumpy denials.

Foremost, I am not running because I like it, nor do I have any plans to like it, which is childish and self-defeating, but there you are. I will not spend a small fortune on shoes. Also no matter what else happens, even if it goes improbably well, I am never, ever going to run a marathon or half a marathon. (I don’t know if they come in other denominations.)

It’s pretty evenly 5K around Lake Merritt. This is a thing people know in Oakland, and it’s not important because I’m ever going to run a 5K as such but because it seems to be some reasonable distance to expect to be able to run without falling over in a heap.

Why I am running: I’m 40 and my metabolism quit and it’s too early to look like my dad. Also I’m a little nervous about what 40 years of not exercising has done to my health. I’m not kidding about this, by the way: I have never consistently exercised. I’ve started a couple of times, and it lasted three weeks. Not to jinx anything, it’s lasted longer than that this time, though I’m sporadic about it, and taking it very slowly.

I’m doing Couch to 5K, which everyone recommends, I think for good reason. It has an app, where a stewardessy voice tells you to run or walk in a tone of voice that sounds like she’s encouraging you, and would be a little disappointed if you didn’t, but she’s not going to make a big thing of it.

The first week, you will feel like quitting constantly, which is hard to explain to fit people. It’s not laziness. It feels terrible in a way your brain interprets as a threat to your health. The first time you run 90 seconds without stopping, it actually hurts your lungs. You feel like Sandra Bullock with nothing in her oxygen tank. It seems possible you will pass out or barf or hurtle off into space.

The second week is less bad. Less. Maybe you watch some videos on how to stretch before running. Maybe you realize how many things are going on when you run and get stressed out about them and watch videos on how to breathe when running that turn out to exist but not be very helpful. It should be natural, this breathing thing, but you give up and try to listen to your body, and then it turns out your body doesn’t know, and you and your body get into this whole “I thought YOU brought the map” routine.

Lake Merritt is pretty, and this helps. There are charming waterfowl. Also it almost always feels warmer outside than in the house, though I assume this is not the actual situation. You will hear snatches of interesting conversation and very definitely, at some point, smell marijuana and think about college. There are tiny distractions.

The right music helps, but it’s hard to guess what will be the right music. “Judy is a Punk” is a pretty good running song, but sometimes so are certain Scarlatti sonatas. It’s not worth making playlists, because novelty is especially important when the physical surround is the same each time.

There’s a process of getting out of your head, that helps, but the ideal state is neither being in your head, which is saying “we are running. What the fuck?” and your body, which is in pain, because running isn’t that great for you in some ways. I try to inhabit a place in the middle of my ribcage. That sentence doesn’t make any sense, but that’s what I try to do.

I try to keep a posture as if I were being pulled forward by a string tied to my solar plexus, which is something I think I read about in a book on Alexander Technique. Anyway I keep my shoulders up. And then during the walks, I try to do none of this. Just out for a casual stroll, I tell myself! I know it’s good to maintain a high heart rate but it feels like if I can pretend I wasn’t running by the time I have to start again, it will be easier.

Sometimes if I have gone too fast and my legs are hurting, I say to myself “FUCK YOUR PAIN” which is what they say in the Marines or maybe in improv comedy. I can never remember which. I think I may be repeating myself with that joke. I thought of this entry the other day while I was running, so it’s disjointed, because it’s impossible to have linear thoughts when you are running, because it is so awful.