For me, eloquence is born out of silence.
Everything emanates from the point of nothingness, a dot of infinity, an infinite void... out of which time and being emerge in continuous streaming. We have created a metaphor of this streaming with our electronic media flowing across cyberspace, light and shadow flickering on screens around the world, performing their magic as fast as our connectedness can download successive moments.
For many today, inspiration comes out of the multisensory overload, a kind of Ivesian collage of competing, even conflicting elements vying for dominance among the senses. Out of this pandemonium some grab handfuls of meaning, reshaping experience by remixing the sources. This is the age of remixing. Art has become the sampling of moments. Our process now culminates in the layering of images and sounds, often thick and dense, with a compelling driving rhythm that melds the diversity into a cohesive whole. Rhythm has become a visceral link to a fundamental essence.
Yet, I still listen for the silence.
I have often wondered about the idea of creation being the suddenness of light. Perhaps before the darkness, there was silence, and out of the infinite emptiness came the sounds of beingness, sounds so profound that they shaped order from chaos, modulating the debris of constellations into patterns of delight.
Friday, April 07, 2006
Monday, April 03, 2006
Rain
The rain falls like a mist over everything, an April rain, artful and deceiving.
I walk through the mist of April and look at people hurrying by, shielding themselves from the rain with whatever is handy. Some have umbrellas.
Night is coming with the rain, and the lights of the Village blend and blur with the lights of cars going by. The lamppost through the rain seems almost as though it has been sketched by someone. The wind blows, and gusts shake the trees and street lamps. The trees are leafless, but tiny buds are starting to open. Here and there are cherry and dogwood trees with a certain splendor against a grey and dimming night.
I dreamed of such rainswept nights long ago and far away, when the city gleamed in my consciousness like a distant dream about to happen. I dreamed of the rain. The rain was always the beginning, setting the stage. A story would unfold, slipping from the mystery of the rain like a phantom. The rain is like a curtain opening, and we can see the characters dimly. There they are, waiting for some destiny to tap them on the shoulder.
Now I dream of other cities. The world beckons and I know there are other cities waiting for me in the rain, perhaps in other lifetimes.
I walk through the mist of April and look at people hurrying by, shielding themselves from the rain with whatever is handy. Some have umbrellas.
Night is coming with the rain, and the lights of the Village blend and blur with the lights of cars going by. The lamppost through the rain seems almost as though it has been sketched by someone. The wind blows, and gusts shake the trees and street lamps. The trees are leafless, but tiny buds are starting to open. Here and there are cherry and dogwood trees with a certain splendor against a grey and dimming night.
I dreamed of such rainswept nights long ago and far away, when the city gleamed in my consciousness like a distant dream about to happen. I dreamed of the rain. The rain was always the beginning, setting the stage. A story would unfold, slipping from the mystery of the rain like a phantom. The rain is like a curtain opening, and we can see the characters dimly. There they are, waiting for some destiny to tap them on the shoulder.
Now I dream of other cities. The world beckons and I know there are other cities waiting for me in the rain, perhaps in other lifetimes.
Thursday, March 30, 2006
Being Wildered
Maybe it is just the approach of Daylight Savings Time, which is always more traumatic for me than any of the solstices. Maybe it is the intrusion of the light of dawn and the light of dusk into the thick of night. Maybe it's the rush of things that always accompany the beginning of spring, when there seems to be so much to do, but your instincts are quietly urging you to celebrate life in ways that depart from your daily routine.
Whatever it is, I find I am bewildered. I wonder what this means, actually. In some way it must mean that I have become wildered. And what is it to be wildered, because wildered is certainly what I am. Answer.com suggests that I am "baffled, befuddled, bemused, confounded, confused, lost, mazed, mixed-up, and at sea." Elsewhere, I discovered it is archaic and wilder once meant to lead astray, and elsewhere bewilder means "to confuse or befuddle, especially with numerous conflicting situations." No wonder this archaic word has persisted into the modern day. Nothing could fit more appropriately with our accelerated times.
Yes, I know the song Bewitched, Bothered, and Bewildered brought the word back into modern parlance. Yet no one has really parsed the meaning of bewildered in terms of our times and mindset. I have heard the party discussions that suggest that the word means to be "wild," which means to be "out of control." Maybe there is an element of wild in being wildered, but certainly not to the extent of "a walk on the wild side" ---which might be an excursion into the darker side of our being.
Whatever it means, I recognize when I am wildered, and I don't need the dictionary to know that I seem to be wildering more and more as time goes by. My theory is that the older we become, the harder it is to be fully in sync with Now, because the past becomes such heavy baggage that is harder and harder to pull into the present. In sync with Now allows us to filter the barrage of the present, while an enlarged domain that encompasses the past with Now interferes with those filters, since experience brings a deeper set of values to the same incident. We just keep getting wilder and wildered the deeper we go into the infinity of ourselves.
Whatever it is, I find I am bewildered. I wonder what this means, actually. In some way it must mean that I have become wildered. And what is it to be wildered, because wildered is certainly what I am. Answer.com suggests that I am "baffled, befuddled, bemused, confounded, confused, lost, mazed, mixed-up, and at sea." Elsewhere, I discovered it is archaic and wilder once meant to lead astray, and elsewhere bewilder means "to confuse or befuddle, especially with numerous conflicting situations." No wonder this archaic word has persisted into the modern day. Nothing could fit more appropriately with our accelerated times.
Yes, I know the song Bewitched, Bothered, and Bewildered brought the word back into modern parlance. Yet no one has really parsed the meaning of bewildered in terms of our times and mindset. I have heard the party discussions that suggest that the word means to be "wild," which means to be "out of control." Maybe there is an element of wild in being wildered, but certainly not to the extent of "a walk on the wild side" ---which might be an excursion into the darker side of our being.
Whatever it means, I recognize when I am wildered, and I don't need the dictionary to know that I seem to be wildering more and more as time goes by. My theory is that the older we become, the harder it is to be fully in sync with Now, because the past becomes such heavy baggage that is harder and harder to pull into the present. In sync with Now allows us to filter the barrage of the present, while an enlarged domain that encompasses the past with Now interferes with those filters, since experience brings a deeper set of values to the same incident. We just keep getting wilder and wildered the deeper we go into the infinity of ourselves.
Monday, March 27, 2006
A Wash of Light
i visited what I think of as my singapore muse and found this provocative entry by ismene:
if the earth didn't spin creating the cycles of day and night, we would have to invent the night and morning, for we require the renaissance of recurring days... we must "wrap and unwrap ourselves" in a festival of renewal... a wash of light that cleanses the soul and renews the spirit....
i don't want to be cool.her images are breathtaking... and i find myself in the midst of this wash of light from the east... like a brushstroke of early morning wakening me to the newness of another day unfolding... imagine a shaft of light diffusing and bathing the world in the substance of dawn... imagine the fresh scent of morning bursting into consciousness like a delicious aroma of some exotic condiment of beauty...
i want to be a wash of light.
we wrap and unwrap ourselves many times over.
if the earth didn't spin creating the cycles of day and night, we would have to invent the night and morning, for we require the renaissance of recurring days... we must "wrap and unwrap ourselves" in a festival of renewal... a wash of light that cleanses the soul and renews the spirit....
Wednesday, March 22, 2006
Magnificent Sound
The first moment he heard her sing, he was astonished.
Her singing filled the space so completely that there was no sense of location, no voice coming from the direction of a person...just the full, mystifying presence of singing sounding in the fullness of the room. In fact the area was actually a sanctuary, and although it was spacious, the deep contralto voice filling the space seemed to resonate beyond the walls and spill outward.
He had never heard such richness of tone, or smoothness of texture. He thought at first he must be bewitched. He was certain that he must be under some spell, such perfection could only be a magical manifestation.
It was his nature to idolize her because of her singing. He developed his obsession through all the newness that her presence brought to his life. He researched everything he could regarding repertoire for contraltos, great recordings of contraltos, and used these findings to add to her aura.
She had one other irresistible feature that fired his imagination and obsession: she was unattainable---or at least unavailable.
So he began to compose music for her, songs, solos, and cycles. Some of his best work came from that time when he was under the spell of her remarkable voice. They would go through many difficulties, and they were destined to enter forbidden territory. But through all of the turmoil, and hanging on the outskirts of Time itself, the integrity of his discovery remained untouched.
Her musical pervasiveness that had captured his imagination, totally invaded his very existence at a time when he was most vulernable. Ultimately their mutual fragility would doom them. But in the meantime, they would endure and survive in the essence of her magnificent sound, which somehow inextricably bound them in a shared journey of discovery.
Her singing filled the space so completely that there was no sense of location, no voice coming from the direction of a person...just the full, mystifying presence of singing sounding in the fullness of the room. In fact the area was actually a sanctuary, and although it was spacious, the deep contralto voice filling the space seemed to resonate beyond the walls and spill outward.
He had never heard such richness of tone, or smoothness of texture. He thought at first he must be bewitched. He was certain that he must be under some spell, such perfection could only be a magical manifestation.
It was his nature to idolize her because of her singing. He developed his obsession through all the newness that her presence brought to his life. He researched everything he could regarding repertoire for contraltos, great recordings of contraltos, and used these findings to add to her aura.
She had one other irresistible feature that fired his imagination and obsession: she was unattainable---or at least unavailable.
So he began to compose music for her, songs, solos, and cycles. Some of his best work came from that time when he was under the spell of her remarkable voice. They would go through many difficulties, and they were destined to enter forbidden territory. But through all of the turmoil, and hanging on the outskirts of Time itself, the integrity of his discovery remained untouched.
Her musical pervasiveness that had captured his imagination, totally invaded his very existence at a time when he was most vulernable. Ultimately their mutual fragility would doom them. But in the meantime, they would endure and survive in the essence of her magnificent sound, which somehow inextricably bound them in a shared journey of discovery.
Monday, March 20, 2006
Spring is Here
Why doesn't my heart go dancing?
Spring arrived masquerading as winter.
But in my heart, I hear grass greening, see trees leafing, smell shimmering spring showers, taste tanging strawberry tarts , and feel the sunning of the sun. Spring is like the contagion of hope, infecting us with delight and expectation. But winter betrays our trust, and spring delayed paralyzes our reawakening to life renewed, rendering us immobile, ineloquent, and impatient.
But I still remember the countless solstices of spring restoring the cycle of being alive, urging me to explore life and love with greater passion and commitment. I still remember the music spilling from the soul in a festival of song. I still remember the feast of fantasies that fueled my imagination with the celebration of spring.
Spring might be a little late this year.
Spring arrived masquerading as winter.
But in my heart, I hear grass greening, see trees leafing, smell shimmering spring showers, taste tanging strawberry tarts , and feel the sunning of the sun. Spring is like the contagion of hope, infecting us with delight and expectation. But winter betrays our trust, and spring delayed paralyzes our reawakening to life renewed, rendering us immobile, ineloquent, and impatient.
But I still remember the countless solstices of spring restoring the cycle of being alive, urging me to explore life and love with greater passion and commitment. I still remember the music spilling from the soul in a festival of song. I still remember the feast of fantasies that fueled my imagination with the celebration of spring.
Spring might be a little late this year.
Saturday, March 18, 2006
I Do Not Know
Whose footprint is that paulonia leaf
That drops softly, rousing ripples in the windless air?
whose face is that blue sky
Glimpsed between the threatening, dark clouds
Blown by the west wind after a long rain?
Whose breath is that fragrance in the sky
Over the flowerless tree, over the old tower?
Whose song is that bickering stream
That quietly flows, starting from nowhere
And making the stones weep?
Whose poem is that evening glow
That adorns the fading day,
Its lotus feet standing on the endless sea,
And its jade hands patting the sky?
Burnt ashes become fuel again.
My endlessly burning heart,
Whose night does this
Flickering lamp illumine?
That drops softly, rousing ripples in the windless air?
whose face is that blue sky
Glimpsed between the threatening, dark clouds
Blown by the west wind after a long rain?
Whose breath is that fragrance in the sky
Over the flowerless tree, over the old tower?
Whose song is that bickering stream
That quietly flows, starting from nowhere
And making the stones weep?
Whose poem is that evening glow
That adorns the fading day,
Its lotus feet standing on the endless sea,
And its jade hands patting the sky?
Burnt ashes become fuel again.
My endlessly burning heart,
Whose night does this
Flickering lamp illumine?
...Yong-Woon Han (1879-1944)
(translated by Chi-Hwan Yu)
(translated by Chi-Hwan Yu)
Two additional translations of I Don't Know can be found at Pilgrim Priest, an attractive blog about the journey of life.
This poem was the catalyst for a major dance work by Kim Myung-sook which premiered in Seoul, October 2005, and has been officially recognized for its contribution to Korean cultural life. Kim's dance company, Nulhui, has explored Korean cultural values and aesthetic ideas with stunning success in the past and has projected its work through performances incorporating ancient practices and modern technology. Kim's new work will be described in a later blog, but for now, the poem speaks from its time to ours. Han was a Korean Zen Buddhist whose poetry provides a legacy in the context of the resistance to Japan's occupation of Korea.
The poem's shifting images raise questions of identity, ownership, and belonging. At first we might think we are being led into meditation that awakes us to the source of Being. But there are disturbing images "threatening, dark clouds...the flowerless tree...the old tower...the stones weep...burnt ashes..." This is much more than meditation. There is a confrontation that emerges from the stillness. The past is recycled and renewed, and a core of being burns endlessly, while a flickering lamp illumines the night, but just whose night is this? This emergence of the underlying Korean spirit denying the subjugation of foreign occupation is an eloquent image. Inside is the "endlessly burning heart," the passion and identity of the Korean psyche, while outwardly the lamp may illumine, but its light is flickering... perhaps ebbing ... perhaps yielding to the spiritual intensity within.
The poem celebrates the timeless Korean environment: the "paulonia leaf...the blue sky...the dark clouds...the west wind...the long rain...the stream...the stones...the evening glow...the lotus...the endless sea...the night..." the quiet and awesome wonder anticipated by the title, I Do Not Know.
Who owns this night? Whose footprint...whose face...whose breath...whose song...whose poem...whose night...? these images silently tear the soul...
Underneath the text, the poet seems to be asking Have we forgotten who we are? The underlying answer to each question is that these all belong to and emanate from the Korean Spirit.
This poem was the catalyst for a major dance work by Kim Myung-sook which premiered in Seoul, October 2005, and has been officially recognized for its contribution to Korean cultural life. Kim's dance company, Nulhui, has explored Korean cultural values and aesthetic ideas with stunning success in the past and has projected its work through performances incorporating ancient practices and modern technology. Kim's new work will be described in a later blog, but for now, the poem speaks from its time to ours. Han was a Korean Zen Buddhist whose poetry provides a legacy in the context of the resistance to Japan's occupation of Korea.
The poem's shifting images raise questions of identity, ownership, and belonging. At first we might think we are being led into meditation that awakes us to the source of Being. But there are disturbing images "threatening, dark clouds...the flowerless tree...the old tower...the stones weep...burnt ashes..." This is much more than meditation. There is a confrontation that emerges from the stillness. The past is recycled and renewed, and a core of being burns endlessly, while a flickering lamp illumines the night, but just whose night is this? This emergence of the underlying Korean spirit denying the subjugation of foreign occupation is an eloquent image. Inside is the "endlessly burning heart," the passion and identity of the Korean psyche, while outwardly the lamp may illumine, but its light is flickering... perhaps ebbing ... perhaps yielding to the spiritual intensity within.
The poem celebrates the timeless Korean environment: the "paulonia leaf...the blue sky...the dark clouds...the west wind...the long rain...the stream...the stones...the evening glow...the lotus...the endless sea...the night..." the quiet and awesome wonder anticipated by the title, I Do Not Know.
Who owns this night? Whose footprint...whose face...whose breath...whose song...whose poem...whose night...? these images silently tear the soul...
Underneath the text, the poet seems to be asking Have we forgotten who we are? The underlying answer to each question is that these all belong to and emanate from the Korean Spirit.
Thursday, March 16, 2006
No Accidents
There are many that argue that the universe is a chaotic chance generator, that the creation of life itself was simply an accident, and that accidents drive the sequence of events despite all the "best laid plans."
They may be confusing the element of surprise with accidents. Surprise can be part of the joy of living, when the unexpected erupts into the moment catching us unawares. The present may be the leading edge of existence, and yet, my sense of accidents is that they "happen" for a reason, and if that is true, they are not accidents at all.
People come into our lives seemingly by chance, simply sharing proximity, or mistaken identity, or colliding physically or mentally, and as time unfolds, we make meaning from such aleatoric encounters, often suddenly understanding that our lives have been immensely transformed in ways that are meaningful and decisive. Chance was the catalyst for change.
Was this predetermined? Pre-ordained? Events in motion, like filaments in an infinite tapestry shape the present in extraodinary ways. However, this is much different than cosmic events in which comets may collide with planets whether or not we are witness to the event. The difference of accidents within the domain of human experience is the conscious awareness of humanity experiencing and interpreting Time as emerging reality, a reality that is necessarily ambigious. The ambiguity provides a point of departure, so that our knowledge of the moment and truth is personal.
In one sense it is simultaneously "accident/no accident" and our experience and consciousness shapes this balanced yin and yang into some interpretation of the moment according to our predisposition. Since accident always includes its opposite, the debate of a universe governed by chance or structure is an inexhaustible discourse whose rhetoric may influence us in vacillating directions over time--never reaching a final resolution.
They may be confusing the element of surprise with accidents. Surprise can be part of the joy of living, when the unexpected erupts into the moment catching us unawares. The present may be the leading edge of existence, and yet, my sense of accidents is that they "happen" for a reason, and if that is true, they are not accidents at all.
People come into our lives seemingly by chance, simply sharing proximity, or mistaken identity, or colliding physically or mentally, and as time unfolds, we make meaning from such aleatoric encounters, often suddenly understanding that our lives have been immensely transformed in ways that are meaningful and decisive. Chance was the catalyst for change.
Was this predetermined? Pre-ordained? Events in motion, like filaments in an infinite tapestry shape the present in extraodinary ways. However, this is much different than cosmic events in which comets may collide with planets whether or not we are witness to the event. The difference of accidents within the domain of human experience is the conscious awareness of humanity experiencing and interpreting Time as emerging reality, a reality that is necessarily ambigious. The ambiguity provides a point of departure, so that our knowledge of the moment and truth is personal.
In one sense it is simultaneously "accident/no accident" and our experience and consciousness shapes this balanced yin and yang into some interpretation of the moment according to our predisposition. Since accident always includes its opposite, the debate of a universe governed by chance or structure is an inexhaustible discourse whose rhetoric may influence us in vacillating directions over time--never reaching a final resolution.
Tuesday, March 14, 2006
Yakitori Taisho & St. Marks Place
Walking in NYC's Greenwich Village from west to east on 8th street, you pass into the east village as you cross Broadway. You enter a kind of no-man's land called Astor Place with Cooper Union, street vendors and musicians and a curious cube near the subway. As you continue east you enter the twilight zone, a stretch of 8th street so bizaare that it is given a different name: St. Marks Place (named for St. Marks-in-the-Bowery, two blocks north).
The moment you enter St. Marks Place you sense a different vibe. It has been that way for decades, even though the vibes have changed as times have changed. There is enormous energy that infuses you, a heightened awareness as though you somehow were on some substance that once and always flows freely everywhere. But you don't have to be high to experience high. You are sped along a vivid sensitivity just by the surge of people who have keen perception and a zest for living in the moment.
Yakitori Taisho is not exactly a restaurant...it is more like a happening that is spilling over into available crevices and spaces along St. Marks Place. Inside, the chefs are spirited and appear to be having the time of their life. Yakitori seems to be like tempura exploded inside out with every conceivable way of preparing a vast array of vegetables, meat, and creatures from the sea on skewars, in pancakes, and free form assemblages that exist like new edible art forms.
But while the food is the excuse for going to this establishment...the real attraction is the people. People start to arrive early, waiting outside for an available table, sometimes for hours, despite the expansion of Taisho into several spaces. And why not? You could be in the middle of a scene from a new novel...a new F. Scott Fitzgerald or a John Updike capturing a new time and a new culture, or a new movie from Tarantino, who might have already invented such a place in a script written and forgotten long ago. Overnight these blocks have quickly adopted a brash Japanese style, and the absorption of the west by the east is now re-introduced like a cultural isotope slowly dwindling in half-life stages as it morphs into yet something else new and different. The catalyst is the people, the individuals whose energies and dispositions clash in a fusion of hiphop, rock, jazz, heavy metal, and folk genres.
Wildly cataclysmic...
The moment you enter St. Marks Place you sense a different vibe. It has been that way for decades, even though the vibes have changed as times have changed. There is enormous energy that infuses you, a heightened awareness as though you somehow were on some substance that once and always flows freely everywhere. But you don't have to be high to experience high. You are sped along a vivid sensitivity just by the surge of people who have keen perception and a zest for living in the moment.
Yakitori Taisho is not exactly a restaurant...it is more like a happening that is spilling over into available crevices and spaces along St. Marks Place. Inside, the chefs are spirited and appear to be having the time of their life. Yakitori seems to be like tempura exploded inside out with every conceivable way of preparing a vast array of vegetables, meat, and creatures from the sea on skewars, in pancakes, and free form assemblages that exist like new edible art forms.
But while the food is the excuse for going to this establishment...the real attraction is the people. People start to arrive early, waiting outside for an available table, sometimes for hours, despite the expansion of Taisho into several spaces. And why not? You could be in the middle of a scene from a new novel...a new F. Scott Fitzgerald or a John Updike capturing a new time and a new culture, or a new movie from Tarantino, who might have already invented such a place in a script written and forgotten long ago. Overnight these blocks have quickly adopted a brash Japanese style, and the absorption of the west by the east is now re-introduced like a cultural isotope slowly dwindling in half-life stages as it morphs into yet something else new and different. The catalyst is the people, the individuals whose energies and dispositions clash in a fusion of hiphop, rock, jazz, heavy metal, and folk genres.
Wildly cataclysmic...
Sunday, March 12, 2006
An American in Topeka
As I moved into middle school, my interests seemed to shift more toward journalism. I had abandoned my musical development and composition, stopping my improvisation activities for about three years. I had always had a romance with the fifth estate, starting a neighborhood paper when I was about nine, and then a newspaper for my scout troop, and then a homeroom newspaper in junior high school known as the 205 Home Rumor. This newspaper created such a scandal that the school was disrupted by students at homeroom period massing around room 205 trying to get the latest copy. This reached crisis proportions in that the homeroom paper was in greater demand than the official newpaper of the school.
The faculty sponsor threatened to resign unless I agreed to stop publishing the Home Rumor and serve as editor of school paper. This added to my background as a journalist, which I continued to develop through high school. It was quite an education. We would collect and write the news, type and edit the copy, and deliver the edition to a town about twenty minutes away where a printer specialized in school papers.
There was to be a journalism convention in Topeka Kansas, and my faculty sponsor made arrangements for us to attend over the Thanksgiving weekend, leaving Friday by train and returning Monday. At the last minute, a family emergency made it impossible for the faculty spnsor to attend, and so I struck out for Topeka alone.
The train ride was magical. The rhythm of the wheels against the tracks was intoxicating, and as a fifteen year old journalist, I was living a Gershwin fantasy in real life. Fascinating rhythm!
The conference was terrific, and I was dazzled by the lights of the "big city." On Sunday I went to a film that had opened that weekend called An American in Paris, and suddenly my life was changed. I drifted out of the movie house in a haze, dazzled by the flim and the lights of Topeka. Returning to the hotel, I strolled to the elevator, and once in, I impulsively pushed the button for the Penthouse.
The elevator door opened on a darkened deserted ballroom. Across the floor was an opened grand piano silhouetted against the lights of the city. I hadn't touched a piano for more than three years, but I took my place at the keyboard and began to play. I improvised throughout the night, recreating the music of the film and then delving into new ideas and new regions of sounds I had never known before. I played for hours, fueled by Gershwin, the film, Gene Kelly, Oscar Levant, the city lights and my fantasies.
Although I continued to pursue journalism, music resumed as the major driving force in my life, and I felt as though I had discovered my true identity...at last in touch with a part of me that had been in denial... an American in Topeka launched on a new trajectory...
The faculty sponsor threatened to resign unless I agreed to stop publishing the Home Rumor and serve as editor of school paper. This added to my background as a journalist, which I continued to develop through high school. It was quite an education. We would collect and write the news, type and edit the copy, and deliver the edition to a town about twenty minutes away where a printer specialized in school papers.
There was to be a journalism convention in Topeka Kansas, and my faculty sponsor made arrangements for us to attend over the Thanksgiving weekend, leaving Friday by train and returning Monday. At the last minute, a family emergency made it impossible for the faculty spnsor to attend, and so I struck out for Topeka alone.
The train ride was magical. The rhythm of the wheels against the tracks was intoxicating, and as a fifteen year old journalist, I was living a Gershwin fantasy in real life. Fascinating rhythm!
The conference was terrific, and I was dazzled by the lights of the "big city." On Sunday I went to a film that had opened that weekend called An American in Paris, and suddenly my life was changed. I drifted out of the movie house in a haze, dazzled by the flim and the lights of Topeka. Returning to the hotel, I strolled to the elevator, and once in, I impulsively pushed the button for the Penthouse.
The elevator door opened on a darkened deserted ballroom. Across the floor was an opened grand piano silhouetted against the lights of the city. I hadn't touched a piano for more than three years, but I took my place at the keyboard and began to play. I improvised throughout the night, recreating the music of the film and then delving into new ideas and new regions of sounds I had never known before. I played for hours, fueled by Gershwin, the film, Gene Kelly, Oscar Levant, the city lights and my fantasies.
Although I continued to pursue journalism, music resumed as the major driving force in my life, and I felt as though I had discovered my true identity...at last in touch with a part of me that had been in denial... an American in Topeka launched on a new trajectory...
Friday, March 10, 2006
Chasing Reflections in the Window
He sat at a counter in a coffee shop. He was in a hurry, and focused on trying to cool the liquid in the cup so he could drink it. He sipped slowly at the surface of the coffee and as he did he noticed an image in the shimmer of the coffee reflected from the plate glass window next to his seat. He turned to look at the reflection in the window...
She was ravishingly beautiful with long, black, flowing hair framing a pale, expressive face, finely shaped eyebrows arching over dark blue eyes...a wistful look, almost on the verge of a smile. He could take in this detail without embarrassment because these facets were captured by the image reflected in the window...
As long as he focused on the reflection he could see her every expression in rich detail, and he marvelled that the mind could separate the layers of visual stimulation so successfully. If he relaxed his focus, her image fused with the surroundings outside the window, people walking by, cars parked a long the curb, and traffic pulsing along the street. It was like two totally different dimensions, two worlds alien to each other existing side by side.
Actually three worlds. He turned to steal a direct glance at her beauty. He could catch the edge of her profile. He could see her better in the reflection. She had ordered coffee and was waiting for it to cool as she added some milk. She started to turn toward him.
He quickly averted his gaze and focused on sipping his coffee. The coffee shop was crowded, and though you could hear the buzz of conversations, it seemed strangely quiet. He glanced at her reflection and marvelled at her presence. She had a regal essence that seemed sharply etched in the glass. He savored the charisma of her aura in the window.
Too soon, she arose to go, and when he finally turned to see her for a final glimpse, she was gone.
He paid his bill and ran out of the shop. The street was crowded and busy. He looked up and down the street, and suddenly found her flowing black hair and black coat in a large mirror outside a barbershop. He ran toward her reflection, but she had vanished.
He walked through the streets seeking some echo of her, hopeful and inspired. He felt certain she might appear if he kept searching,
She was ravishingly beautiful with long, black, flowing hair framing a pale, expressive face, finely shaped eyebrows arching over dark blue eyes...a wistful look, almost on the verge of a smile. He could take in this detail without embarrassment because these facets were captured by the image reflected in the window...
As long as he focused on the reflection he could see her every expression in rich detail, and he marvelled that the mind could separate the layers of visual stimulation so successfully. If he relaxed his focus, her image fused with the surroundings outside the window, people walking by, cars parked a long the curb, and traffic pulsing along the street. It was like two totally different dimensions, two worlds alien to each other existing side by side.
Actually three worlds. He turned to steal a direct glance at her beauty. He could catch the edge of her profile. He could see her better in the reflection. She had ordered coffee and was waiting for it to cool as she added some milk. She started to turn toward him.
He quickly averted his gaze and focused on sipping his coffee. The coffee shop was crowded, and though you could hear the buzz of conversations, it seemed strangely quiet. He glanced at her reflection and marvelled at her presence. She had a regal essence that seemed sharply etched in the glass. He savored the charisma of her aura in the window.
Too soon, she arose to go, and when he finally turned to see her for a final glimpse, she was gone.
He paid his bill and ran out of the shop. The street was crowded and busy. He looked up and down the street, and suddenly found her flowing black hair and black coat in a large mirror outside a barbershop. He ran toward her reflection, but she had vanished.
He walked through the streets seeking some echo of her, hopeful and inspired. He felt certain she might appear if he kept searching,
Tuesday, March 07, 2006
the identities of jack, jerome and oscar
even before there was the possibity of assuming different identities on the internet, i recognized the freedom released if we might be more than one person...
what makes identity? are we what we do?
once i met a very insightful woman who was entering her fifth decade. somehow in her twenties she had made up her mind to change her profession every ten years. at the time, i was mystified by her courage and determination. it also seemed a remarkable way to think of one's self... not anchored by some decision early in life, but free to pursue new treasures through new pathways. at the time i met her, she was launching a new career as a film director, having been a teacher in the previous decade, and a writer before that. i think career choices touch on issues of identity, but i have always thought that identity was something more than what we do.
the woman was engaged in a linear transformation every decade, a new journey following an earlier engagement. and somehow i sensed that she did not regard these adventures as new identities but rather a deepening of the spirit through a wide range of exploration and achievement.
i am somehow refreshed by the thought that our lives can be more flexible and spontaneous by allowing ourselves to be more than what we may choose for a career... to understand that we can carry on many pursuits without surrendering the integrity of our humanity or betraying some notion of a value system that comfortably tucks us away in the pigeon holes we dig for ourselves.
not too long ago, i knew someone who was not only himself as jack, but also existed as jerome and oscar. the individuals in this trio had distinctive personalities, unique handwriting, and differing perspectives on life. they each loved the same girl and competed for her affection through letters and poems. she was very flattered by the attention, and wondered why she never had the chance to meet these suitors who seemed to know so much about her and celebrated her virtues through daily letters and notes left for her in curious places. far from being schizoidal, this was a playful vignette that unfolded as daily adventures and intrigue.
that was at a time when the world was more naive and innocent. now we live in a world full of menace and peril... many individuals are in the business of stealing identities... and fraud lurks as a lingering possibility in almost every encounter...
yet each of us may have multiple layers of existence stretching back to the beginning of the cosmos, many identities reflecting the infinity of being... expressed in the moment of becoming whoever we are or really may be in the next instant...
what makes identity? are we what we do?
once i met a very insightful woman who was entering her fifth decade. somehow in her twenties she had made up her mind to change her profession every ten years. at the time, i was mystified by her courage and determination. it also seemed a remarkable way to think of one's self... not anchored by some decision early in life, but free to pursue new treasures through new pathways. at the time i met her, she was launching a new career as a film director, having been a teacher in the previous decade, and a writer before that. i think career choices touch on issues of identity, but i have always thought that identity was something more than what we do.
the woman was engaged in a linear transformation every decade, a new journey following an earlier engagement. and somehow i sensed that she did not regard these adventures as new identities but rather a deepening of the spirit through a wide range of exploration and achievement.
i am somehow refreshed by the thought that our lives can be more flexible and spontaneous by allowing ourselves to be more than what we may choose for a career... to understand that we can carry on many pursuits without surrendering the integrity of our humanity or betraying some notion of a value system that comfortably tucks us away in the pigeon holes we dig for ourselves.
not too long ago, i knew someone who was not only himself as jack, but also existed as jerome and oscar. the individuals in this trio had distinctive personalities, unique handwriting, and differing perspectives on life. they each loved the same girl and competed for her affection through letters and poems. she was very flattered by the attention, and wondered why she never had the chance to meet these suitors who seemed to know so much about her and celebrated her virtues through daily letters and notes left for her in curious places. far from being schizoidal, this was a playful vignette that unfolded as daily adventures and intrigue.
that was at a time when the world was more naive and innocent. now we live in a world full of menace and peril... many individuals are in the business of stealing identities... and fraud lurks as a lingering possibility in almost every encounter...
yet each of us may have multiple layers of existence stretching back to the beginning of the cosmos, many identities reflecting the infinity of being... expressed in the moment of becoming whoever we are or really may be in the next instant...
Sunday, March 05, 2006
Gregory Haimovsky's Dream
Anyone who has heard Gregory Haimovsky in piano performamce knows that he is a brilliant colorist who extracts an infinite array of dynamic nuances and tone colors. He is a poet at the piano, an exactimg artist and original interpreter intent on exploring new regions of expression. His performances inspire wonder, delight, and a passionate commitment to the poetry of musical expression.
He has not had an easy life. Once a respected music critic in Moscow and on the verge of being awarded a doctorate in music, as well as enjoying an outstanding career as a performing artist, Haimovsky was inexplicably and suddenly a victim of political exile in Siberia. His career was interrupted for 16 years, and yet in spite of this travesty, he has managed to transcend this adversity emerging with a new career as a performer and mentor of young artists. During his exile, he continued to nurture the artistic sensibility that flourished in an inner world of vision and determination.
Haimovsky has now translated this artistry to literature with the publication of his book of prose poetry White Buffalo, the title inspired by Irving Stone's The Passionate Journey. The white buffalo appeared between two warring tribes and was accidentally killed by the arrows meant for the warriors. Stunned by the miracle of his appearance, both tribes lay down their arms and shared in a ceremony of sacrifice that united the tribes as one. At daylight, his white skin disappeared in the mist of morning: the white buffalo existed only as a DREAM.
Haimovsky sent this book to me some time ago, but I set it aside, sensing that there would be an appropriate time to enter this special world. There is an "Afterward" by Marissa Silverman, once mentored by Haimovsky, who charts a course through the Dream and the fantasies that fuel the energy of White Buffalo. She brings the perspective of a participant who is inextricably involved and thus able to share personal insights into the fantasies while maintaining a degree of scholarly distance.
It is a distinctive volume, slim, but intense and richly packed with the essence that underlies beauty and greatness in art: the Dream. Dream is the driving force that inspires the tales and fables that are written as musical structures, words forming the tones, the harmonies, the rhythms and structures that inhabit the pages. Music is always sounding on every page, and the creators and appreciators are celebrated as an ongoing presence and manifestation of the Dream force.
Haimovsky takes us through a journey powered by the Dream and achieves a different kind of work of endless invention and variation. He continues to be a master of nuance.
He has not had an easy life. Once a respected music critic in Moscow and on the verge of being awarded a doctorate in music, as well as enjoying an outstanding career as a performing artist, Haimovsky was inexplicably and suddenly a victim of political exile in Siberia. His career was interrupted for 16 years, and yet in spite of this travesty, he has managed to transcend this adversity emerging with a new career as a performer and mentor of young artists. During his exile, he continued to nurture the artistic sensibility that flourished in an inner world of vision and determination.
Haimovsky has now translated this artistry to literature with the publication of his book of prose poetry White Buffalo, the title inspired by Irving Stone's The Passionate Journey. The white buffalo appeared between two warring tribes and was accidentally killed by the arrows meant for the warriors. Stunned by the miracle of his appearance, both tribes lay down their arms and shared in a ceremony of sacrifice that united the tribes as one. At daylight, his white skin disappeared in the mist of morning: the white buffalo existed only as a DREAM.
Haimovsky sent this book to me some time ago, but I set it aside, sensing that there would be an appropriate time to enter this special world. There is an "Afterward" by Marissa Silverman, once mentored by Haimovsky, who charts a course through the Dream and the fantasies that fuel the energy of White Buffalo. She brings the perspective of a participant who is inextricably involved and thus able to share personal insights into the fantasies while maintaining a degree of scholarly distance.
It is a distinctive volume, slim, but intense and richly packed with the essence that underlies beauty and greatness in art: the Dream. Dream is the driving force that inspires the tales and fables that are written as musical structures, words forming the tones, the harmonies, the rhythms and structures that inhabit the pages. Music is always sounding on every page, and the creators and appreciators are celebrated as an ongoing presence and manifestation of the Dream force.
Haimovsky takes us through a journey powered by the Dream and achieves a different kind of work of endless invention and variation. He continues to be a master of nuance.
Songs, either screaming at night seeing love or fighting for their lives, whether breaking into bloom or drooping down in the season's flowers and grasses; whether leaves springing up on the branches of trees to later pave the soil: all this, apart from our will, intrude into us, affects us, and reverberates inside us sending back reflections. Our bond with every living thing in this world is totally mysterious. It waits intently for us, every moment spotting us, following each emergence and exodus.We encounter a new performance of the Dream populated by greatness from the past and creatures of a rich fantasia where the anatomy of genius and excellence is explored with genuine affection, imagination, and inspiration.
Friday, March 03, 2006
Dear John: "Goodbye to All That"
A couple of years ago in Bucharest, I heard an extraordinary premiere of an orchestral work that included prepared piano, and voice. The work was performed by the symphony orchestra of the Bucharest University of music, a stellar conservatory with outstanding performers.
The work was entitled Dear John by New York composer Tom Beyer, and it was a poignant letter of love and farewell to the composer John Cage whose musical experiments stretched our perceptions of music for at least four decades. His pieces for prepared piano were among the classics of 20th century repertoire and opened our ears to extract the extraordinary from those practices in music that had become more or less routine. John Cage challenged our assmptions about music and provided a strong alternative voice to the twelve tone serialists that dominated academia.
I remember the first time I heard John Cage was at a concert in the late 1950s in Texas where he performed with David Tudor, pianist and composer, playing music involving indeterminancy and aleatory. The audience was made up of somewhat conservative students and faculty who had piled into the auditorium to see this cuiosity who had already become something of a legend.
As the music began to unfold, the audience was clearly not sympathetic, a number left in noisy disgust, and the trumpet instructor ran back to the music studios and returned with his trumpet to play Irving Berlin's Anything You Can Do, I Can Do Better, in the midst of Cage's masterwork. The theory/composition instructor was more open, and after the concert she went on stage to look at the scores, remarking that "either this is very profound, or we've all been had."
Such was the impact of Cage, who was more deeply appreciated and revered in Europe than in his own country. However, his later association with Merce Cunningham brought a new aura of respectability and credibility to Cage, and eventually he had become an institution around the world.
The piece premiered in Bucharest, Dear John, incorporated two important features used by Cage in the past: prepared piano, and vocalise sung into the piano soundboard and strings which would create resonance on selected notes according to specific depressed keys on the keyboard or while holding down the sustain pedal. The composer of the piece, Tom Beyer, prepared the piano and performed at the keyboard, while Christine Ghezzo, the ethnic singer, perfomed improvised vocals into the piano.
Dear John was a haunting work that had the air of an elegy, having for me a similar expressive effect as Samuel Barber's Adagio for Strings. The prepared piano, couched in the string sonorities, had an almost archaic quality, sounds breaking apart and falling into the past in shattered fragments. The voice followed a melancholy path, a beautiful utterance, lyrical, sustained, and faintly echoed in the strings and soundboard of the piano. There was a deep yearning and sense of remembrance that gave special meaning to the moment. It seemed to say to John Cage "John, we loved you deeply. We thank you for opening us up to new sensibilities and possibilities. But now that time is past. It's time to say 'goodbye to all that.'" The double meaning of Dear John became apparent as the work sounded in time, coming to a joyful, regretful and reluctant, quiet closing.
The work was entitled Dear John by New York composer Tom Beyer, and it was a poignant letter of love and farewell to the composer John Cage whose musical experiments stretched our perceptions of music for at least four decades. His pieces for prepared piano were among the classics of 20th century repertoire and opened our ears to extract the extraordinary from those practices in music that had become more or less routine. John Cage challenged our assmptions about music and provided a strong alternative voice to the twelve tone serialists that dominated academia.
I remember the first time I heard John Cage was at a concert in the late 1950s in Texas where he performed with David Tudor, pianist and composer, playing music involving indeterminancy and aleatory. The audience was made up of somewhat conservative students and faculty who had piled into the auditorium to see this cuiosity who had already become something of a legend.
As the music began to unfold, the audience was clearly not sympathetic, a number left in noisy disgust, and the trumpet instructor ran back to the music studios and returned with his trumpet to play Irving Berlin's Anything You Can Do, I Can Do Better, in the midst of Cage's masterwork. The theory/composition instructor was more open, and after the concert she went on stage to look at the scores, remarking that "either this is very profound, or we've all been had."
Such was the impact of Cage, who was more deeply appreciated and revered in Europe than in his own country. However, his later association with Merce Cunningham brought a new aura of respectability and credibility to Cage, and eventually he had become an institution around the world.
The piece premiered in Bucharest, Dear John, incorporated two important features used by Cage in the past: prepared piano, and vocalise sung into the piano soundboard and strings which would create resonance on selected notes according to specific depressed keys on the keyboard or while holding down the sustain pedal. The composer of the piece, Tom Beyer, prepared the piano and performed at the keyboard, while Christine Ghezzo, the ethnic singer, perfomed improvised vocals into the piano.
Dear John was a haunting work that had the air of an elegy, having for me a similar expressive effect as Samuel Barber's Adagio for Strings. The prepared piano, couched in the string sonorities, had an almost archaic quality, sounds breaking apart and falling into the past in shattered fragments. The voice followed a melancholy path, a beautiful utterance, lyrical, sustained, and faintly echoed in the strings and soundboard of the piano. There was a deep yearning and sense of remembrance that gave special meaning to the moment. It seemed to say to John Cage "John, we loved you deeply. We thank you for opening us up to new sensibilities and possibilities. But now that time is past. It's time to say 'goodbye to all that.'" The double meaning of Dear John became apparent as the work sounded in time, coming to a joyful, regretful and reluctant, quiet closing.
Thursday, March 02, 2006
An Aborted Adventure Fulfilled
Slipping back into that ubiquitous past, I see this booming oil town in the 1930s with cars and horses, and wild eyed buckeroos who came to this tiny burgh in north Texas looking for a stake to a fortune. The town was snuggled in among the breaks of the caprock that characterized this panhandle area. This caprock is a vast elevated landscape that once may have been part of the rocky mountains until a glacier of a distant ice age sliced off the mountains and left a vast flat area of plains stretching north to the Canadian border and ending just south of Amarillo, Texas.
Somehow I was born in that town where the sky was filled with smoke from freshly drilled burning wells not yet flamed out, with black geysers popping off many times during the day. We were at the beginning of our romance with oil, an affair that now has become somewhat jaded and perverse. But then oil was king. Oil was liquid gold, and people rushed to it for the promise that anyone with the right divination might become a millionaire overnight. Striking oil was a kind of cataclysmic orgasm, hot, turgid, and explosive, an event to be celebrated... bubbly, overflowing, black champagne.
My first years were full and eventful, and I still remember vividly lying on my father's lap and looking up into his blue eyes. I also began to crawl and walk somewhat precociously, and thus was a constant problem fo my parents, particularly for my mother and my sister. My sister was almost ten years older than I, and I had invaded her space. Months passed and soon I was upright and ready for adventure.
My space existed as a backyard of a building where we rented an apartment. By the side of the building was a gate, and beyond the gate lay the world which seemed to call to me as seductively as any of the sirens in Homer's Odyssey. On one hot summer day, as I played alone in the yard, I discovered the gate was open, and in an instant I was off to see the world.
The story my father tells is that he learned of my adventure from the state highway troopers. My sister and mother never have spoken of this episode as far as I know, although they have heard my father's version many times.
According to him, the troopers, after some considerable trouble and inquiry, finally determined that I belonged to my father who worked at the local electric power and light company.
On that summer afternoon near the end of the workday, two troopers brought me into my Dad's office.
"You better keep an eye on your son..." they warned.
"Where on earth did you find him?" my father asked increduously. He hadn't known until that moment that I had been missing. My mother and sister had been scouring the neighborhood looking for me and hadn't yet reported it to the police.
"He was walking east along the highway outside of town in his barefeet."
"Yeah," said the other trooper, "and we asked him where he was headed..."
"...and...?" my father looked at me and the troopers.
"Well, he said he was going to New York City! Like I said, you better keep this tyke on a tight leash..."
So it is on record that at the age of three I was determined to get to New York. Now in those days of no television, no access to movies, and little interest in radio (for me), how did I ever get the notion of New York City in my head? My Dad insisted that no one in the family ever mentioned New York, but it was clear at that time that I knew that was where I wanted to be. That energy and vision persisted throughout my youth in Texas, and when I finally made it to New York, I felt like I had returned to a familiar place, a home I had always inhabited in my heart and mind.
Somehow I was born in that town where the sky was filled with smoke from freshly drilled burning wells not yet flamed out, with black geysers popping off many times during the day. We were at the beginning of our romance with oil, an affair that now has become somewhat jaded and perverse. But then oil was king. Oil was liquid gold, and people rushed to it for the promise that anyone with the right divination might become a millionaire overnight. Striking oil was a kind of cataclysmic orgasm, hot, turgid, and explosive, an event to be celebrated... bubbly, overflowing, black champagne.
My first years were full and eventful, and I still remember vividly lying on my father's lap and looking up into his blue eyes. I also began to crawl and walk somewhat precociously, and thus was a constant problem fo my parents, particularly for my mother and my sister. My sister was almost ten years older than I, and I had invaded her space. Months passed and soon I was upright and ready for adventure.
My space existed as a backyard of a building where we rented an apartment. By the side of the building was a gate, and beyond the gate lay the world which seemed to call to me as seductively as any of the sirens in Homer's Odyssey. On one hot summer day, as I played alone in the yard, I discovered the gate was open, and in an instant I was off to see the world.
The story my father tells is that he learned of my adventure from the state highway troopers. My sister and mother never have spoken of this episode as far as I know, although they have heard my father's version many times.
According to him, the troopers, after some considerable trouble and inquiry, finally determined that I belonged to my father who worked at the local electric power and light company.
On that summer afternoon near the end of the workday, two troopers brought me into my Dad's office.
"You better keep an eye on your son..." they warned.
"Where on earth did you find him?" my father asked increduously. He hadn't known until that moment that I had been missing. My mother and sister had been scouring the neighborhood looking for me and hadn't yet reported it to the police.
"He was walking east along the highway outside of town in his barefeet."
"Yeah," said the other trooper, "and we asked him where he was headed..."
"...and...?" my father looked at me and the troopers.
"Well, he said he was going to New York City! Like I said, you better keep this tyke on a tight leash..."
So it is on record that at the age of three I was determined to get to New York. Now in those days of no television, no access to movies, and little interest in radio (for me), how did I ever get the notion of New York City in my head? My Dad insisted that no one in the family ever mentioned New York, but it was clear at that time that I knew that was where I wanted to be. That energy and vision persisted throughout my youth in Texas, and when I finally made it to New York, I felt like I had returned to a familiar place, a home I had always inhabited in my heart and mind.
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