Blogging: What's The Point?

So, it was with a little sadness that I read the final post of little.yellow.different where he says his is putting his blog on indefinite hiatus. I have always loved Ernie's blog as a frank, open and often wrily amusing take on life as a gay Chinese American web programmer with divorced repressed parents and a schizophrenic sister. Some people's lives really are like soap operas, but not eveyone can capture their experiences so lucidly, or so wittily, in the written form.

Anyway, whatever Ernie's motivations, he offers up his twitter and tumblr feeds as an alternative. This Pink Insider has not yet tried out twitter or tumblr, but cannot see the virtue in blogging when one has only 140 words to use, much less 140 characters. The immediacy which comes with twitter, and the brevity of the medium, means that long, well-thought out cogitations no life the universe and everything are really not likely to be found there.

I read that blogs are dying an early death, and the number of active private blogs has dwindled into insignificance. The major succesful ones have all been commercialized. At the end of the day perhaps it appears that it is money which keeps people writing. But I'd like to imagine that is is perhaps something less materialistic.

This blog started out as a wrapper for "my pink bits", just so they would be google searchable if people needed to find them. At the same time it served as a way of increasing the Pink Singers' web presence. But that was at the start. Over time this Pink Insider has grown rather attached to the sporadic updates on the In The Pink(ies) blog, and hopes that you, readers, find it interesting too.

So don't worry, this is one blog which is not likely to go all twitter any time soon!

Summer Concert 2010 - Tickets On Sale Now!

Here's a bit of good news, and some advance warning! Tickets to the Pink Singers' summer concert "A Little Light Music" are already on sale. Pick up yours from the Cadogan Hall website, and stay tuned to us for more information as it comes out.

My top tip: for the best seats, get your tickets ASAP - they go like hotcakes. Consider yourself warned!

A Disastrous Equation

同志 + 妻子 = 同妻

Yet another brilliant article from the Economist about the pressures on gay men to get married, and the disappointment and betrayal the women who marry them feel when they find out. Unfortunaly, the concept of familial duty is so strong in some Chinese families that, in a way, even this burden is worth bearing than the prospect of "losing face".

The comments are enlightening, because if you think that this is a China-only phenomenon, do take a look at the Straight Spouse Network. It is a global issue, for which support is avaialble.

First In, Last Out

James Randi has just come out. At the ripe age of 81, the pseudoscience skeptic and debunker who writes the ever entertaining and informative Swift blog decided that it was time:

I should apologize for having used Swift as the venue to publish this note, an item that is hardly the focus of what we promote and publish here, but I chose the single most public asset I have to make this statement. It’s from here that I have attacked irrationality, stupidity, and irresponsibility, and it is my broadest platform. Here is where I have chosen to stand and fight.

And I think that I have already won this battle by simply publishing this statement.

Bravo!

Barberfellas - Barbershop Meets Jane Fonda?

So, the Barberfellas have had their first rehearsal and already have a schedule planned! The brainchild of Gareth, Hsien, James H and Jules, I guess they are carrying on the the tradition of the Pinkies by challenging stereotypes with music. My impression of barbershop singing is that it is very much white male dominated, probably conservative (with both the large and small 'c's), so the allusion to Jane Fonda at her B-movie best is quite the juxtaposition.

Interestingly, despite all being Pinkies, the Barberfellas are, at the minute, taking some pains to make sure they are not too closely associated with the Pink Singers themselves. A new genre and a new repertoire means the standards aren't quite up to the quality you get from the main choir, but who knows what the future brings? At the moment, the Barberfellas are just a fun musical experiment.

The Pinkies do make a justified deal of the musical variety in our repertoire. This season, for instance, we are covering everything from classical to jazz, from doo-wop to pop. In the past we have done a few SATB numbers which are like barbershop singing, but never barbershop itself. Indeed, barbershop singing has its own codified style. In which other choral genre for instance, is the tenor supposed to sing softly at the very top of his range, and loudly at the bottom? Against the very fibre of being a tenor, he has the quietest voice part of the four, and, to top it off, has to sing in falsetto too. In musical theory as well, the tuning of notes is Pythagorean, and in the chords you are looking for that "ring" in your "tag", amongst other barbershop-specific terminologies.

The Pink Insider wishes them all the best of luck. After all "you got to give a little, take a little, and let your poor heart break a little..."

P.S. Incidentally you can also follow and interact with them on twitter here.

New Balance

No, the shoes don't really have anything to do with this post, so please feel free to ignore them if you think it is misleading. I just wanted to talk about new members joining the Pink Singers, and some of the choir's own growing pains. Like Luke Skywalker, we are always striving to create balance, if not in the Force, then at least in voice parts. When I first joined the choir there were about five tenors and 15 basses, but as time has progressed the numbers have evened out. In fact, now the voice section which I believe has been limiting us is the sopranos. As anyone who has ever sung in a choir knows, balance is important in creating a blended sound which is why we try to keep the numbers in all sections: soprano, contralto, tenor and bass exactly the same.

The second factor which affects our numbers is that the choir aims to keep our total numbers to around 80 or so people (of course this is subject to change, but not on a whim). For me, I like this number as it means that I can get to know all the Pinkies. Singing in a choir is a very social experience, and keeping the numbers at this level gives me a breadth of friends while preventing the choir from breaking up into cliques. This works for the choir too, because a cohesive choir sings better, and we share a real sense of community. From a practical perspective as well, 80 means that we can find decent rehearsal venues. Any larger and it is impossible, not to mention smelly, to rehearse in any space smaller than a football stadium.

The combination of these two things does mean that the demand for places often exceeds supply, and we have some amazing performers auditioning for the choir. It makes me value my place in the Pinkies, because I'm not sure that if I had to go through the ordeal again I'd get in. I certainly don't take my place for granted, but I also do think that people who join the choir don't just bring their voice, they bring their own skills and contributions to our family in different ways. The trouble is that the selection process is by no means perfect, but we are constantly trying to refine it. In this process you are never going to please everyone, and the objective is to be both as fair as possible, while keeping it as friendly and comfortable for would-be newbies. It is a serious dilemma for which I don't think there is an easy solution.

Spam, Spam & More Spam

Bloody hell. I have been rather busy of late, and despite the flurry of activity happening in the Pink Singers at the moment, or more precisely, because of it, haven't really been updating the blog as much as I ought to. As you may be aware if you want to comment on my posts you may certainly do so, but I have to vet any posts first to make sure they are generally laudatory of the choir (hey, editorial priveleges okay?)

Anyway, I logged in thinking I might write a quick post in my coffee break, only to be welcomed by 11 messages. Great I think, more interested readers. Then I realise that every last one of them is trying to sell me chemical enhancements to my sex life. Wow. Is that how I come across?

Yes, I know the real problem is that there are robots out there trawling them web so it is actually very easy to write a program which will fill in these rather straightforward comment boxes. Since CAPTCHA was cracked, even those funny squiggly words are no longer a great hinderance. At least, I am hoping my spam originates from robots. I mean I shudder to think there are armies of poor Chinese people browsing my website entering these comments by hand. And before you say I am racist, half the comments were in Mandarin.

Anyway, back to your regularly scheduled programming. And please, comment only if it doesn't involve something called v1Agr@!