Soup

One of the homework assignments for my online class was to read a short piece called "Soup" from the New Yorker.  Now that I have a real job with a cafeteria that sometimes has 4 different soups a day, I am coming to appreciate soup more.  It is warm.  November in my state is not.  It has more than one food group and is much healthier than the other options.  It is cheap.  It is fun to say.  "Sooooooooooooup."  What is not to love about soup?

I found myself in a bathroom washing my hands before lunch one day, and I accidentally burst into song.  (I was, thank goodness, alone.)  "Who would not give all else for two/ pennyworth only of beautiful soup?" 

This past spring, my choir was performing with the school's orchestra, and we premiered a few pieces based on Lewis Carroll poems from the Alice books.  One of them was a supremely ridiculous choral and orchestral rendition of his poem about soup.  It had a rather high tenor solo, and none of the tenors wanted it, so, with a couple weeks to go before the performance, the director asked me if I would take it.  I am flexible and dependable and sympathetic to people in authority when no one else is volunteering.  That is how I came to premier a duet about Soup. 

It was gloriously ridiculous.  I had fun, though I was hardly stunning (having been violently ill and without a voice for more than a week before the performance [I actually had to keep cough drops in my mouth during the entire performance and a bottle of water with me on the stage, for shame]). 

The side effects are with me still.  How many people do you know who have to suppress their desire to sing about soup?  Besides me, I mean?