Friday, Sept. 24, 2004 | 9:02 a.m.
She's in line at Staples waiting to purchase a few office supplies, asking for batteries and leaving a rushed voice mail message that includes her next day's schedule: a moveon.org/Kerry fund-raiser at a private residence, followed by a political cabaret at Symphony Space.
Later that week she'll perform in Berkeley, Calif., then San Diego, Santa Cruz and Pasadena -- a mini West Coast tour that ultimately brings her to Las Vegas on Saturday, where she'll perform at the Highland Office Center for an Acoustic Routes special event.
Normally, Lavin is not so busy traveling, as she explained via cellphone from the Oakland International Airport, where she was waiting last week to catch a flight. Normally, she performs only a few nights a week or travels on weekends.
But even when Lavin is on the go, there's an ironic tranquility in the air, an idea given credence when she says over the airport loudspeaker, "I'm just sitting here knitting."
Now in her 50s, Lavin is a venerable contemporary folk singer who broke out in the 1980s and is still touring 52 weeks a year. Her recent release, "Sometimes Mother Really Does Know Best," recorded live at the Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center, is her 17th solo album.
She's a regular guest host on New York's public radio station WFUV-FM, the same station that asked her to write a song welcoming the Republican National Convention. The song, "Like Father, Like Son," was co-written by Ervin Drake, and Lavin encourages on her Web site to send it to "every right-wing nut you know."
"I'm not really known as a political performer, but we're living in desperate times," Lavin said.
Though Lavin admits to being shy offstage, it's hard to decipher between the witty performer who is "on" when she hits the stage and the woman who journals everything from cooking to relationships to life's little details in song: "Making Friends with My Grey Hair," a cheeky journey into self acceptance; "Sunday Breakfast with Christine," a recipe-driven ditty about making a perfect Sunday breakfast; "Wind Chimes," an ode to wind chimes that move from soothing to grating.
Other songs capture encounters with strangers, such as "Jack and Wanda," which pays homage to a couple she meets on an airplane who are celebrating the 172-month anniversary of the day they met.
Her song, "The Tacobel Canon," is sung to the tune of Pachelbel's "Canon in D" but includes the lyrics, "guacamole," "taco salad" and "fajita," as the different voices.
In between these clever songs that use a technical gadgetry to turn Lavin into a one-woman chorus with a Laurie Anderson tone, Lavin weaves stories, then ends her shows with a baton-twirling finale.
There's little she won't talk or sing about. Even Lavin's knitting has become part of her show. Audience members are invited to arrive an hour beforehand to knit with the performer.
"Weeks ago I was at an airport and a man approached me and asked, 'Are you Christine Lavin?' It turned out he had read an article about my knitting.
"He said, 'I saw the guitar, I saw the knitting. I thought, 'Who else could it be?' "
Lavin, who at age 32 traded her day job and nursing ambitions for folk singing, is also a founding member of the Four Bitchin' Babes, a comedic folk-singing troupe of women. Her song "Sensitive New Age Guys" was featured in the off-Broadway musical, "A ... My Name is Alice," and "Good Thing He Can't Read My Mind" is in "Sex: the Musical."
"When I'm performing I tend to do more funny songs," Lavin said. "But I try to throw in a serious song."
Of songwriting, she added, "It's a very mysterious process. When songs want to be written, they just appear on your doorstep and they don't let you go.
"When I read Pluto is not a planet in USA Today, I knew instantly there was a song."
On Mondays, Lavin is at her practical philosophy class at the School of Practical Philosophy in Manhattan. But her performance schedule keeps her on the go.
"One time I was waiting for Chinese food. A guy leaned over and said, 'Hello Christine.' Not wanting to be rude, I said, 'Hi. Where did I see you? Was it at my show at the Bottom Line?'
"He said, 'Christine, I'm your next door neighbor.' "
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