Pretty Pretty: Piano Girl vs. Trump
This is Robin Goldsby’s essay from 2016. Watch for her new book, Piano Girl Playbook: Notes on a Musical Life, scheduled for publication on May 1, 2012 (Backbeat/Rowman Littlefield) *** My hair is big. My dress is too tight. It’s 1986. I’m sitting at a Steinway on a Saturday night in Manhattan. The name of the cocktail […]
Good News Only: Mister Rogers for Adults
What would Mister Rogers say?
I watch the news at six o’clock. Terror, death, chaos, stupidity, racism, extremism, more terror. I hardly recognize the world. I certainly do not recognize my home country. America seems to be swallowing itself whole. It’s depressing. But still, we stay tuned, gorging on enormous bites of hate speech, punch drunk and nauseated by reports of blood and guts and grit and gore, hanging onto the prophesies of ego-bloated politicians and chest-thumping pundits.
The (Euro) Vision
As the US television audience gets ready to watch Eurovision 2016, Robin Meloy Goldsby revisits the 2010 competition to prepare American viewers for a highly entertaining evening. “With a bigger audience than the Super Bowl, Eurovision is the only television event where a tenor can attract a larger crowd than a quarterback. It’s music as sport, even though music has little to do with the outcome.”
Rouge Noir
Alarm rings. B-flat. Fingers tingle; they always tingle on concert days. Wish I could start my morning with meditation. Been awake for an hour, worrying, fretting, betting something horrible will happen in the next twelve hours. Twelve hours. Got to get through half a day before I walk onstage this evening. So much easier if I could hop out of bed, into the shower, and onto the piano bench. Performance isn’t hard—waiting kills me. Playing the Rachmaninoff Concerto No. 3 in D minor this evening with the Pittsburgh Symphony. Performed the Rach 3 at least thirty times over the last decade. Still kicks my butt. Like running a marathon in thirty-five minutes.
The Finish Line
During my NYC years I used to watch, each autumn, as marathon runners of every sort dashed, shuffled, and sauntered across the Queensboro Bridge. Blind runners, wheelchair runners, amputees, world champions with chiselled faces and gangly arms, cancer survivors, friends of cancer victims, men and women hauling children in wagons. The participants in the New York City Marathon seemed like visitors from a distant planet— homo-nautilus super-humans with muscled thighs, dressed in neon tights and puffy shoes. The very idea that anyone could muster enough discipline to run twenty-six miles in a few hours inspired me. Someday, I would think, someday I will do that, too.
Piano del Sol
A fragile sky stretches over the foaming shoreline of Montauk, Long Island. Memories of summer haunt my daydreams, a September wind chills my face, and the future—like the ocean churning in the distance—promises a season of reflection, renewal, and hope.
Picture Perfect: Photo Tips for Real Women
The world is going to hell in a hand basket and I’m worried about how I look in a photo? I’m not the only one. Pretty much every woman I know—skinny, stout, lifted, tattooed, coiffed, buff, chilled, or uptight—thinks about how she looks, probably a little too much. Maybe even a lot too much. Even the deepest of us occasionally wade in shallow water.
September Song
Every September the urge strikes me like a ton of books. I want new binders, new pencils, and a new outfit with matching shoes. In the seventh grade, I leaped over the puberty moat and landed in Miss Padjune’s class at Prospect Junior High. Nothing so dramatic about that, but I was the only kid […]
What to Wear
“What to Wear” is an excerpt from Goldsby’s book, Waltz of the Asparagus People: The Further Adventures of Piano Girl. {Bass Lion Publishing} A middle-aged American woman playing the piano at a castle in Germany has legitimate wardrobe concerns. Most cocktail dresses and evening gowns are designed for chichi events that involve nothing more […]
Up, Up, and Away
I flew for the first time in 1973, the year I turned sixteen. I was headed to New York City to visit Aunt Pinky. The trip, a birthday present from my parents, came on the kitten heels of an unfortunate incident involving a bottle of vodka mixed with Hawaiian Punch, a football player named Mark, and a front closing bra that didn’t close on time. Hung-over, I had green skin and the kind of spiraling nausea that leaves one woozy for days. Grounded? Not me. My parents drove me to the airport and delivered me to the gate of the Allegheny Airlines terminal. I’m guessing Mom and Dad assumed the swoop-dee-doo motion of the flight would be punishment enough. Even when sober, I’ve always suffered from motion sickness.
