IMPACT 2011: Exploring Slices of Time

Urban Jungles (All Photos by Dr. Chianan Yen, All Rights Reserved.)

IMPACT 2011 at New York University was an exciting panorama of collaborative invention from July 25 through August 12. The production of "works in process" was performed in Frederick Loewe Theatre August 11 and was streamed live on the Internet. Interdisciplinary production teams collaborated and collected their work under the title Creating New Worlds. A breakdown of the scenes may be seen at IMPACT 2011: Creating New Worlds.
The opening Urban Jungles was derived from daily movement and visual arts activities, beginning with texting, and reflecting the process by which many individuals intersected to form interlocking groups working together.

The focus of IMPACT (Interactive Multimedia Performing Arts Collaborative Technology) is about collaborative process. Interdisciplinary production teams of international participants explore ideas in various media which are shaped into structures of media, theatre, with elements of all the arts permeating each scene conceptually powered by some paradigm or theme developed through interactive process. For convenience, eight interdisciplinary production teams were established to create and shape time and scene as a collaborative artistic entity.  Material was derived from daily experiences, including warm ups, focused or specialized workshops, and combined arts workshops.

The striking images here are from the camera and artistry of Dr. Chianan Yen.  These are "snapshots" of dynamic moments in scenes of movement and media interaction.  This documenting of moments transforms the essence of the content. What emerges from this is an essay in visual content with description and explanation that creates new material from the old content. We begin to realize from these images how multimedia can transform the scale of the experience.

 Suddenly performers are the content of the eye peering out from the screen. We glimpse them in an unexpected moment. Unexpected because they are in the flow of the moment, in the transformative action that segues into successive moments in a steady flow, but the camera enables us to trap time, to freeze it for our scrutiny. We gain insight into the moment.  The moment is performed again in a transfixed texture where we can see each detail. Structure and form leap out at us because we are not distracted by the motion.

The power of camera is to slice Time at a particular moment. The fixed image often contains dynamic kinesthetic power like a spring tightly wound about to be released. We sense the energy and imagine what the release will unleash. Proportion changes the relationship of objects and we can experience parallel movement in different dimensions and different scales. The still image releases the imagination to speculate on what will unfold in the next few instances. The still image communicates the power inherent in the juxtaposition of contrasting ideas and images. In the differences we discover the similarities. It doesn't matter if you have actually witnessed the movement inherent in the single frame. Still images engage the imagination in ways quite different than moving images. Still images allow us to look at the details embedded in that single instance. We submerge ourselves in the details of the moment, the isolation and implied connections.
Although the photographer has chosen a fixed position to snap the action in quick succession, the actual moments captured are a random guess that something significant is happening or about to happen. In some ways it doesn't matter which particular instance of time is captured, we have the luxury to review the results and to edit by selecting or discarding specific instances of Time. That editing goes on at very subtle levels, often not consciously derived, but with an instinctive perception that something significant is revealed about the whole in this particular session.  

Even as we concentrate on the visual elements, each image is a window into the moment with implications of what happened before and what is about to happen.  In video terminology it is a frame that we have chosen to isolate and its very existence defines it and gives it shape and meaning, an inadvertent relationship to the whole, and at some point might be viewed as an embodiment of the process. 

We are mistaken if we consider that the images are merely the visual representations of the moment. They are a window into time, a window for the imagination to build a context of all that is implied. The visual content contains context, but it

is also highly mysterious, evocative, and kinesthetic.  This remains true even if we have viewed the work performed or have access to a video representation.  It is possible to consider the still image as more powerful than the video record. Even the video is an edited instance of the event captured by specific lenses and camera operators.  Video is less evocative than the still image because it is controlling the our view of the context. Still images release us from the confinement of the succession of moments to focus on a particular moment where energy is compressed and imagination is challenged to create the context.

There is a natural tendency of the mind to insert meaning and context, even where none is intended.  Perhaps this is why still images are so profoundly interesting and arresting.  We seize the moment to enter into the context, to shape what we see and to make meaning, to experience a revelation that leads us to creating something new. So we celebrate these not so random moments from the camera of Dr. Yen. Embedded in these images is his years of experience capturing live moments and his countless hours of processing, where he is editing and refining each single image into an instrument for the imagination. In some ways the moments he captures are accidents, but if they are, they are happy accidents, and we are all the better for his efforts. But there is a point of view that nothing is accidental, which helps us distinguish that Dr. Yen provides a sense of excellence and meaning to the moments he has chosen to share with us.

But we also need to honor those participants creating content in time, of unraveling the essence of an idea into an iteration that is packed with so much meaning and information that we will never decipher it completely.  That is the wonder and mystery of it all, with still images providing us glimpses of that infinite continuum. Bravo to the IMPACTORS of 2011 for creating such moments of artistic discovery, and Bravo to Chianan Yen for his experience and practiced eye, and his instinctive sense of capturing the moment as it is about to happen.

A Walk on The Street of Dreams

It is so delicious to be utterly vacant. To have no thought that you should be any particular place at any particular moment...to be severed from schedules, time, and appointments...to wander freely.  So I permitted myself to wander down one of my streets of dreams... to mingle with so many walking along the street and to indulge myself in the fantasies of the past and the moment. To take snapshots of the mind and explore without any sense of accountability.

So I started toward Houston Street.  On the way, I came upon one of my favorite haunts, The Mercer Street Bookstore. It is a haven of quiet discovery. There is always something that catches my eye. On the shelves are so many possibilities that beckon like beacons.  Currently the most attractive section for me is the poetry section.  Here I discover poets with rich imagination... I stumble upon them in a much more meaningful search than Google could ever hope to deliver. I touch the covers,  leaf through pages, my eyes wandering over words and lines in random paths.

Today, as I walked into the store, sitting on a prominent display shelf was a book on American minimal music that I had never known. It was an electrifying moment of discovery.  Then I explored the books of poems and found many gems, but two caught my eye and ear right away. Celia Gilbert's voice in Bonfire was strong and sensuous with a clear sense of poetic rhythm and shaping metaphors that were inspired and insightful. I often like to read the poems aloud, and these seemed so so rich with possibilities.

In addition there was classic rough news, a profoundly erudite poetic voice of Kenneth Fields, who seemed to echo the tone and sensibility of Robert Graves. I always have loved Graves, and here I thought was a new found friend.
Both of these volumes reached out to me. I had gone in with the intention of just securing one new book to keep me occupied for an afternoon, but I left with three books. Even so, the cost for these is minimal compared to buying as new books, but they are usually mint condition, for the fate of poetry is that many poets publish, but few of us really listen to our poets. So these books have never been opened, never been read. Somehow poetry was something we learned to avoid in our classroom encounters in public school. I never understood this since so many of my high school friends "secretly" wrote poems that were expressive of the anguish that most of us go through as teenagers.


 I left with three books that are always a rich resource for my thinking and planning, for dreaming about the realities that lay ahead, for hoping to discover something of myself in these new voices, these new singers for a 21st century. How can one not succumb to the mystery of a a used bookstore, the filled shelves of books that have already taken a journey to end up on those shelves, lying like explosives ready to be ignited by the some incandescent insight triggered by the power of language.

My journey had barely begun and already so much was discovered and uncovered. I headed east on Houston Street, crossing Broadway and migrating to haunts that were once part of my younger days... most of them gone now, and most of the friends that inhabited these east village streets are gone. Crossing Mott street, the Rodgers and Hart tune of We'll Have Manhattan sounded in my head and I found myself singing "and tell me what street... compares with Mott Street..."

Not far from Mott street, on Elizabeth street, a dear friend had a serious struggle with drugs that removed her from my life for a while. We finally renewed contact and she had developed a promising career as a site specific composer... and then she disappeared and I have not heard from her again.

Crossing Chystie Street, I see the Sarah Delano Roosevelt Park which connects with Canal Street at the other end, an oasis amidst the brick and cement.  The trees are verdant green and the afternoon is punctuated by basketball players and people strolling almost aimlessly. The afternoon sun is bright, but the air is fresh and pleasant from the rainstorm the night before.

I continue east and soon I come to a poster for Another World, a film about Earth II possibly from a parallel dimension.  The film is about synchronicity and dual existences, a subject that has caught my attention and imagination.  It even figured into the idea of Creating New Worlds recently performed by 2011 IMPACTORS. As I look at the poster, I begin to realize that maybe there was a subconscious destination of the Landmark Sunshine Theatre, an Indie House that I haven't visited in a long while.  It really isn't so far away, but psychologically, across the great divide of Broadway, it seems remote and inaccessible.

I check the time and the film will start in about ten minutes, so I decide this will be a deviation from the journey.  Another World is metaphoric, for it is clear as the film begins that this is an investigation of alternative paths, of parallel lives where something creates a rift and a new possibility.  The film is focused on the narrative.  All though the film, I couldn't help wondering why such a large planet so near to us would not create extensive flooding and earthquakes, but that would be more the sci-fi element and not an examination of parallel possibilities.

The sun is starting to slant toward the western horizon as I emerge from the Sunshine Movie House.  I start back west along the the same path, now reversed, eerily aware through the movie that this route has been altered by Time.  I come upon the Puck Building, which once figured prominently in fundraising efforts for the Nordoff Robbins Music Therapy Center. It also was to be  a major asset in the plans for creating a new commuter university, The East West University of Art, Science and Culture. It was to be the second acquisition of a bold new venture in higher education, a venture of the spirit of Donghwa, the blooming and exchange between East and West.

A few yards further is the building that would be the first building acquired for the new university, a perfect location where subways converge.  The Addidas Building would lend itself to conversion with classrooms, a technology center, and the beginnings of the library. It would be the primary building that would become a first class commuting university where students would find an alternative through collaboration to the current competitive paradigm of higher education.  But it would also offer the world's best collection of Asian culture, literature, art, and science in the midst of the mecca of the West.  It would be a true meeting of East and West defined in new terms for a new era.

I found myself at the Angelika, another Indie film house.  I realized my journey of dreams  had film palaces at each end like book ends.  Not long ago, Woody Allen's Paris at Midnight opened in this theatre and helped me understand how the past erupts in the present and always colors our experience.  We all long for the greatness of times past, to be part of it. But I realized that today my journey was a mixture of past and future.

Inside the crowd was intent on the latest openings, and Paris at Midnight had no line. I could have walked right in to that showing.  But I was busy watching people and feeling the rhythm of the universe in the random collisions of people vying for position in the lobby. Over the entrance to the theatres, Angelika loomed as radiant as ever, a harbinger of dreams created with light and shadow on the screen... a dim reflection of reality like Plato's shadows in the cave in The Republic. Plato's allegory of watching the shadows in the cave has become a reality in our universe. We go into our caves and watch the shadows on the wall, more convincing and commanding than whatever we once understood as reality.

As I left the Angelika and continued toward the falling night, I passed Picasso's Bust of Sylvette as cryptic and alluring as ever.  She had sprung from the imagination of Picasso and had been rendered and enlarged, executed by Norwegian sculptor Carl Nesjär from a smaller original sculpture by Picasso. I realized that we seek to create permanence as best we can.  Stone survives the ages much better than film in canisters. Picasso's Sylvette is poised to survive wind and weather, even earthquakes. But we have outwitted the physical world through our reduction of the world to binary code. Films now exist as code transferable to various media until the end of time. Somewhere in the dreams of this afternoon's journey, reality flirts with imagination within the structure of awareness.  It is a Donghwa, a flowering of the essence of a new spirit, with new generations uncovering a world that has been waiting for us beyond our dreams.

Crises: Our Co-Existence with Dark Energy and Dark Matter

Almost everyone I know is going through some personal crisis.  And we are all aware that culturally and metaphysically we are engaged in a global crisis that has prompted visions of Mayan doom in 2012.  The basis for these crises is our perception of our lives, the universe, and experience as undergoing immense acceleration.  Newton had prophesied that everything would gradually slow down until the universe was out of energy. This was the so-called dismal law of thermodynamics.  Now the Hubble eye on the universe has detected that indeed, everything is speeding up. We also have become aware that there must be matter and energy that cannot be seen, and that this mass accounts for almost 95% of the substance of the universe (dark energy or dark matter).  It is this accelerating gravitational force that appears to be pulling the universe apart and our lives as well.  We are not immune from the force that created us.  You and I are part of the Big Bang or whatever it was that ignited conscious awareness.

Several of my friends are depressed after their great achievements and success. I know that feeling well.  I know what it is to ride the roller coaster of highs and lows as you engage in creating new work.  It is a cycle of success where the intensity of the moment is suddenly extinguished and you are left lost and empty, feeling that everyone has deserted you.  And they have.  No one can continue that intensity indefinitely. Inevitably the super nova burns out, and space is dark and empty. But the emptiness is an illusion. In riding the wave, you must inevitably pass through zero, to the silence. We all come from the silence.

In the silence is the birth of everything new. It all comes from the nothingness between the zenith and the nadir...that moment between the plus and minus, that nothingness that always precedes the "Big Bang." Probably these eruptions are continuous and infinite.  That is why we are beginning to perceive that there are parallel universes that completely redefine our concepts of dimension and time.  It is a reality that is both singular and plural. Gradually we have come to understand that what we call Space is just another word for Time.  For the moment we appear to be trapped in Time, irreversibly caught in the endless expansion whose only direction is outward or forward,  Even when we seemingly reverse directions, it is never the same space.  Einstein glimpsed the reality for a moment, but never really understood it. Perhaps that is why his attempts to unify two opposing theories failed.  Some think they have solved the riddle, shredded the Gordian Knot, since finally experts concluded it could not be untied because it wasn't really a knot.

Some imagine that the dark energy is consuming matter and storing it as dark matter.  Although Black Holes have been thought of as the creator of new stars and solar systems, they are also being studied as converters of substance into the hidden dimension of existence. Somewhere in this equation is the secret of ourselves, is the secret of conscious awareness.  Without the awareness, the universe is an empty charade.

IMPACT 2011: Creating New Worlds

 What is IMPACT?  It is an acronym for Interactive Multimedia Performing Arts Collaborative Technology that describes a workshop designed to promote collaboration and creative expression among international participants. It originated in the Steinhardt School of New York University and has now completed its fifth year.  Every year the workshop changes, grows, and develops, and IMPACT has come to mean a process of collaborative experience that is evolving. Each year the faculty, staff, and participants come away with an understanding that has built upon the past but added new layers of meaning and interaction. Most recently IMPACT has added the layer of social networking, using FaceBook as a means of communicating all aspects of the workshop as it evolves pragmatically and conceptually.

The posters above represent three planning stages for 2011. The first poster represents the collaborative and international nature of the workshop through the hands of different cultural backgrounds working together through technology, artistic expression, and multimedia to change our perceptions of the world and bring us closer together. The second stage represents a thematic process by which the participants agree upon a theme to explore for a realization on stage combining technologies and expressive artistry in collaborative production teams. Each production team took the name of a planet and the organization of each team had as its goal to establish an interdisciplinary group that worked together to develop concepts and materials that would eventually be expressed through media and stage craft. The final poster was designed by 2011 participants giving credit and reflecting on the nature of collaboration with a focus on collaborative process.

Though the description above attempts to answer the question of "What is IMPACT?" on a basic, descriptive level, it is clear that its meaning is deeper and continues to resonate long after the workshop is completed. Many new energies and visions interlocked and worked together intensely.  New personal insights came from this collaborative process, and the embryos of new ideas are still emerging and growing.  We continue to interrogate the process, because at the heart of this process is the idea of artist as researcher and collaborator. At the heart of this work is how we generate new ideas and new content. Ultimately the mentors are reciprocally mentored by the participants creating a cycle of interaction where the meaning deepens with each new coming together as collaborateurs. Activity becomes active engagement generating material through documenting the action and transforming it into various iterations across media. Documenting becomes a way of capturing process and gives meaning and structure to activity as a means of exploring and developing content.

On August 11, the participants collaborated on the "works in process" for an audience in NYU's Frederick Loewe Theatre while also streaming their work on the Internet as a live performance.The material was generated through actions designed to explore movement, images, moving images, sounds, and music using digital and stage craft techniques as well as exploring visual arts as expressive performance. Emerging was a spontaneous process of collaboration and interaction. This interactive energy enabled these young participants to engage the moment as dynamic, emergent content.

CREATING NEW WORLDS

Multimedia Works in Process

Prelude: URBAN JUNGLES

Every day, we create and recreate our environments through technology, architecture and human interaction.

FULL COMPANY

Scene 1: Inner Voice
 VENUS
       (Ji Eun Kim, Yeji Kim, Hsuanyu I, Yoo Jeong Nam)
 

Freedom is neither white nor black, but the possibility of painting our canvas of whatever color we choose. No matter our origins or upbringing, we are free to know and to experience, to mingle and to party, to expand ourselves and to forge who we really want to be.

Music and Movie: Ji Eun Kim Cello: Hsuanyu I         Dancers: Yoo Jeong Nam, Yeji Kim,

Scene 2: IMPACT around US

EARTH

(Sun-Mi Kim, Hyun Mi Jung, Chae-Won Song)

Having a trouble with artistic expression? Searching for something creative? Our video might suggest the answer for your concerns to just look around and fulfill your needs.

Music: Sun-Mi Kim, Chae-Won Song, Hyun Mi Jung     Video: Chae-Won Song

Dancers: Hyun Mi Jung, Kyung-In Kim, Su Min Jung, Seo Youn Lee, YooJeong Nam, Yeji Kim

Scene 3: Exploring Myself

JUPITER

HyeYeun Lee, Kyung-In Kim, Perla Vargas)

Where am I? I am a stranger. Everything is going different and makes me confused. But I try not to lose myself and stick with the strange path. Then I finally meet someone else familiar. Is that an alter ego?

Background Music: "Klavierwerke" & "I Mind" by James Blake

Art Directing & Video: HyeYeun Lee Choreography & Dance: Kyung-In Kim

Actors & Dancers: YooJeong Nam, Seo Youn Lee, Su Min Jung, YeJi Kim, Hyun Mi Jung, Hwan Soo Ok Lyrics & Singing: Perla Vargas

Scene 4: Birthday Girl

SATURN

(Yulimer Almonte, Eunsong Noh, YooJin Choi)

This comedy will make you laugh and have a nice time together with the birthday girl and her friends. The Birthday girl is at a restaurant to celebrate her birthday, but nothing goes out as planned. What will happen?

Video: Yulimer Almonte, Eunsong Noh Costume: YooJin Choi Music: Yulimer Almonte

Actors & Dancers: Yulimer Almonte, Eunsong Noh, Youngmi Ha, Seo Yeon Lee, Hwan Soo Ok, Youngin Ko, Heejung Nam, YooJin Choi, Mariam Chebly

Scene 5:  S.O.S. (Side-Effect Of Social-Network)

URANUS

(Kahyun Lee, Yunjin Cho, Jeemin Ha)

We can express our feelings and happenings without restriction of space by social network. However, it sometimes make people exposed to others unintendedly too much. Also people feel the sense of inferiority and isolation by watching other's privacy. "S.O.S" sheds new light on the effect of social network!

Video: Kahyun Lee, Yunjin Cho Actors: Kahyun Lee, Yunjin Cho, Jeemin Ha

Costume: Kahyun Lee, Yunjin Cho, Jeemin Ha

INTERLUDE

(YoungMi Ha, Perla Vargas, Deanna Jackson, Hsuanyu I)

Title: Pingu, Bouncy Fun

Music Making Penguins

Scene 6: A Chat with Cunningham

 GUEST ARTISTS: SPACETIME

(Chingwen Yeh, Yea-Chen Wu, Sunyoung Park)

Touching your spirit I move. Watching your work I touch. Feeling your aura surround me.

Art Direction & Video: Chingwen Yeh, Yea-Chen Wu, Sunyoung Park

Choreography & Dance: Chingwen Yeh Live Music & Composer: Sunyoung Park

Scene 7: Dream Your Reality

MARS

(Deanna Jackson, Yoo Jung Shin, Hwan Soo Ok)

Imagine, you’ re who you want to be; doing what you want to do. Believe in the impossible and explore the incredible potential. Take one step and hold on to your dream.

Performed by: Deanna Jackson, Yoo Jung Shin, Hwan Soo Ok, Jee Yun Hung, Yeji Kim, Seo Youn Lee, Su Min Jung           Music: Hwan Soo Ok        Video and Lyrics: Deanna Jackson

Scene 8: Neptune Avenue

NEPTUNE

(Ebru Yetiskin, Seo Yeon Lee, Youngin Ko)

One flees and creates a path to become a part of a different world. We will show aquarium video. Enjoy our beautiful blue scene!

Video: Ebru Yetiskin, Youngin Ko        Dancers: Seoyoun Lee, Youngin Ko, Yeji Kim, Sumin Jung, Kyung-In Kim, Hyun Mi Jung, YooJeong Nam

Scene 9: One World

MERCURY

(Whanee Choi, Su Min Jung, Mariam Chebly, Yea-Chen Wu)

The end of society as we know it has arrived. After a nuclear warfare a few survivors from different cultures take shelter in the last "Eden". How will they interact and communicate with each other?

Video: Yea-Chen Wu    Audio: Mariam Chebly, Whanee Choi      Choreography: Su Min Jung

Actors & Dancers: Perla Vargas, Deana Jackson, Yulimer Almonte, Mariam Chebly, Whanee Choi, Su Min Jung, Sharon I, Hyun Mi Jung, Kyung-In Kim, Yeji Kim, Seo Yeon Lee, YooJeong Nam, Yoo Jung Shin, Hwan Soo Ok, Jeemin Ha, Kahyun Lee    

Music: Mozart Requiem Lacrimosa          Original Music : Mariam Chebly, Whanee Choi

BOWS

FULL COMPANY

IMPACT 2011 Faculty, Staff, Guest Artists

Dr. John V. Gilbert, Director

Dr. Youngmi Ha, Music Director

Tom Beyer, Tech Director

Dr. Chianan Yen, Digital Imaging & Photography Director

Julie Song, Administrative Director

Dr. Carleton Palmer, Visual Arts Director

Jee Yun Hong, Dance Director

Kevin Pease, Theatre & Stage Director

Joellen Dolan, Assistant Tech Director

Yea-Chen Wu, Lighting Designer

Sunmin Kim, Stage Manager, Researcher

Nicholas Marchese, Tech Assistant

Yeejung Nam, Production and Administrative Assistant

Dr. Chingwen Yeh, Impact Guest Artist, Educator

Ebru Yetiskin, Guest Researcher In Sociology & Media

Sunyoung Park, Guest Artist

 

Restless Nights

So I have struggled to rest this weekend, and I am still waiting for sleep which somehow eludes me. Thoughts of the summer, of IMPACT, of Prayer, of Korea, of A Song for Second Avenue,  urgent business, of classes, of friends, of music and beauty, all flood my mind at once...  Images and sounds... Thoughts of Blogs and Logs... and songs and poems... And .... all the dilemmas secret and public that tease the human spirit ... All the temptations and fantasies... all that confounds us and conspires to sleepless nights...

But even so ... I will go in and try to transform this desperate state into something productive. There are those in my life that inspire me to transcend the way of all flesh...

Summer has been an avalanche of ideas and activity... all of it positive and promising.  I have been buried in the debris of summer, a rich composite of lives and conscious awareness that now call for a reflective production of new material... some of it waiting... urgently in need of expression. 

I have been absent from myself for so long... and there are thoughts and ideas waiting for words... these words started as an email and started to take on a larger life... one can get so busy that he stumbles through the night forgetting all that really matters, caught up in the dancing trivialities of virtual realities.

The Past is Present

Woody got it right, but the past doesn't only erupt at midnight.  The past is a seething tsunami overrunning the seamless present. I have tried to avoid the vapors that seep through the crusting surface of moments as they become the shimmering crystals of reality, facets that glisten in the light of a shifting awareness. But the present is just as unavoidable as it is inevitable. It is all we have, even though the future seems irresistible and relentless.

I realize how much I have tried to avoid the contradictions of myself. The long intervals of silence where I let the present pass unnoticed... the sad marking of time with obituaries of restaurant reviews and other irrelevant nonsense... our FaceBook sensibility where all that matters is "hello and goodbye" and" see where I am now" or "where I was a few moments ago"... my ephemeral pathway through the present which disappears in the nondescript passing of inglorious, insignificant moments. All that matters is to twitter the present.

Yet the richness of the present is the past, if we embrace it or allow it to engage us. The new social technologies are basically tools of avoidance. We are isolated by clicks and metal surfaces that are meant for tapping and texting. Images are meant to be captured and substituted for tasting and and touching. Everything is for the eye filtered through screens meant to seduce through the illusions of imaginary worlds.

Yet the only moments that seem filled with the luster of reality, with a tangible essence of something that will last through memory and linger in the fine filters of the mind, are those vividly present through engagement in the nowness of awareness alone, or in the presence of others so engaged in the moment. This conscious engagement is the poetics of making ourselves.

So it is with deep regret that I note the passing of Now unnoticed. Such moments are undistinguished because they are unnoticed. I am saddened by my neglect of Now so often that many of my past moments are vast deserts filled with nothingness or the blurred mirages of wishful thinking. I regret those moments of absence with no tangible presence of those who have noticed me and the emptiness of my failure to seek them out, to relish the reality of their being.

Our simple joy is the noticing of Time passing and to relish how it passes, and to add to its passing. Our simple joy is to notice each other, to appreciate the unique qualities each adds to our passing moments. Within that singular appreciation is the quality of loving and hating, of regretting and celebrating... appreciating those who have touched us profoundly, loved us, changed us, and made us become someone and something different.

Everything's Organic

Everything's organic at Bareburger.  It has been open on LaGuardia place for awhile, but somehow I thought the angle was more of a gimmick than substance, so I passed it by, always lingering for a moment or two and scanning the menu, but then going on my way.

Recently I decided to give it a try and went in on a Friday night. I was surprised by the lively friendly atmosphere and the the apparent enthusiasm of the customers for the fare. It is mostly burgers, beer, and milkshakes, but these categories defy conventional description.  Not only is everything organic, but Bareburger has redefined these categories in a comprehensive context.  I had the Jalapeno Express burger for which Barebuger recommended Elk. I thought I knew about burgers, but this beat everything I've had in the past. The Elk has a great texture and the taste was beyond beef or bison, a deep rich meaty taste and mellow, which made it perfect for the jalapeno touch. I ordered an organic raspberry milkshake that was the thickest and richest I gave ever tasted. Once again, Bareburger has redefined the genre.  The burger arrived at the table impaled on an elegant metal shaft, almost suggesting that it had been hunted down in the wild and speared. The condiments and spices are all organic as are the sweeteners for the organic coffee.  Maybe we should not be so impressed by organic, which is returning to the natural state of our habitat. But in a world that is laden with additives and over processing, Bareburger has successfully provided the staples of simplicity with a sense of elegant naturalness.

I went there thinking I would try it out as a novelty, but this is a serious venture and a place to come back to again and again. The variety of burgers and selection of meat will astound you. It is enough to make a vegetarian reconsider a chosen lifestyle.  Next time I'll try the organic beer and the coffee, just to see if the same excellence prevails. The only puzzling aspect to the evening were the large monitors tuned to the Flintstones. Maybe the message was a return to primitive times before civilization managed to isolate us from nature. But it didn't work for me. This restaurant is not a place for the eyes, anyway. It is something of an art form for taste, a gallery of organic inventiveness.

Choga: A Cozy Haven

Choga is a cozy friendly haven at the end of the Bleecker Street business district in the West Village. It is a place where the atmosphere is warm and friendly and the food and drink is served with excellent attention to detail. In addition to authentic Korean food, there is a fine sushi bar where the combinations are fresh and inventive. BimBimBap in their new hotpots come out sizzling, and when several are ordered the dishes are popping around the tables like a stereo rhythm section. When the owner is there, her Seafood Pajun is unrivaled in this hemisphere. I would go there just for that.  The restaurant reflects the warmth and graciousness of an owner who has transformed Choga into a memorable experience. Go there more than once, and you begin to feel like you are at the kind of establishment where "everybody knows your name."

I go there to catch up on things and relax. With my iPhone I can bother all my friends or check out FB, while I often use the notepad to write a poem or two, or just sit long hours and listen to the music tapes put together by singer/composer C. J. from Korea who performed at The Bitter End while he waited tables at Choga. He has a great ear for music, and if you sit there long enough, you are bound to hear some of your favorites. I like the Soju, O.B., and the side dishes. Every entree is tempting and all ranges of spicy and non-spicy treats can make every visit distinctive. I often bring along some book of poems to enjoy at a quiet table in the corner. Sometimes, if I'm lucky, a friend will pop in and we have a go at it... almost instant partying...  Truth be known, I get lots of work done while there, generating lyrics, ideas for music, researching... all of it in the end is research...

Choga is especially great when it is snowing, and you can sit in the quiet warmth and look at the snow through the window.

One of my most recent visits was populated by visitors from Korea where one of them sang a version of Arirang on the spot that almost made me feel like I was in Korea. This was in counterpoint to the music playing up at the front of Choga... yet at the end, the owner and staff applauded the impromptu charming performance.  Choga changes with the seasons, there are seasonal dishes, and in summer it serves as a refuge from the heat with cool air, cold noodle treats, and icy drinks.  For now, it is winter and usually we are greeted with hot tea to warm our hands on the cups.

          CHOGA
Winter evening settling
Outside Choga
Speaks of snow
Dotting the dusk
As I sit with my Nabe Udon,
Reluctantly approaching
My inevitable departure
As a dreaded return
To some awesome emptiness
That has plagued me for days.
Sounds of music hover
Near the front window,
A vacant drone
As evening dissolves
Into night.
I cannot delay
Any longer...
Still unsure of a destination,
I descend the steps
To Bleecker
And look up
Into the swirling snow
Of night.

The Architecture of Snow

The "architecture of snow" seems to be first iterated by Emerson in a poem called "The Snow-Storm." I later ran into this imagery in a set of poems by Chris Banks, The Cold Panes of Surfaces. He quotes a line from a Wallace Stevens' poem:

"... Can all men, together, avenge
One of the leaves that have fallen in autumn?
But the wise man avenges by building his city in snow.''
Wallace Stevens (1879-1955)

For Chris Banks, city in snow becomes the foundation for his poem "Winter Is The Only Afterlife" as he borrows Emerson 's line in "The Snow-Storm" to begin his own elaborate metaphor.

Chris Banks : Winter is the Only Afterlife
The wise man avenges by building his city in snow.
-Wallace Stevens

The architecture of snow was quietly rebuilding January
when a young woman arrived, seeming to float down
the white sidewalks while the rest of us huddled inside
our mortgaged houses. I had been staring out my windows
watching snow fall from the invisible eaves. Passing cars
were churning up a slurry in the streets, a wet papier mâché
of burnt-out stars. She wore a red scarf and had carefully
cinched her wings beneath a cashmere navy waistcoat.
When she turned to look at me, the world was all whirlwind
and white ash, and the words, Winter is the only afterlife.
It gives back everything it takes from us, blazed for a moment
across my brain, like a lantern shining out in all directions,
which is when I knew for certain it was her, and only
for that moment, the white light of snow falling across
her shoulders, itself, a kind of blessing, as she stepped
lightly between this world and the hereafter, one minute
smiling at me and the next vanishing into an apocalypse
of snow, each flake's white galaxy, her grace her own.

Anyone who has spent any time with me knows that snow is almost an obsession with me, which is why this poem bears so much meaning for me. This is a complex poem, full of a richness that explores the universal metaphor as winter as the end of life, and snow as the apocalypse that is an exquisite and grand demise of the beauty we have known and celebrated throughout life, dissolving into the flakes of snow swirling like some distant galaxy of oblivion.

Nabeyaki Udon at Zen on 31 St. Mark's Place

What many of my friends don't realize is that I am something of a connoisseur of Nabeyaki Udon. There is one other area in which my culinary connoisseurship shines and that is the Peach Melba. For years I would sample and keep notes on Peach Melbas around the world. I noted the cultural variances in the presentation and savored every object of my research of this dessert art-form. Actually I became very well-known for this research in an informal way and was consulted by many friends. I notice that this delicacy is really rare these days, and I have wondered if my dwindling interest in Peach Melbas contributed to the demise of its popularity.

About 20 years ago I was introduced to Nabeyaki Udon by a Korean friend. Although the dish has Japanese origins, I was told that the addition of a raw egg into the mix was a Korean variation which apparently became popular. In the area that I lived in at that time, I could find Nabeyaki Udon in a number of Asian restaurants, and I began to compare the texture, the ingredients, the care of preparation, the taste, the longevity (the amount of time the brew can last on the table and continue to accrue deliciousness and spicy presence), and the serving utensil, essential in maintaining a good temperature and allowing the mixture to continue to mature in taste and texture after it is served. A really good Nabeyaki Udon is consumed as though you are performing a musical work. There is an introduction, thematic ideas, and adding of nuances (dynamics) through the ground red pepper, which melds with the dish to create incredible variations of taste as you perform the act of consuming the various items. A good serving bowl extends the life of this dish so that you as the performer of this consumptive act can have an extended coda. This is an especially appropriate dish for the winter... really great in a major storm as you watch the blizzard rage outside and bask in the aroma of your Nabeyaki Udon.

But as the years progressed, I noticed fewer restaurants carrying this dish. Worse still, I would find instead Nabe Udon (often without the egg!) as I find at Choga, or a misplaced zeal for all sorts of Ramen, which although I like, I find do not deserved to be mentioned in the same sentence with a masterpiece like Nabeyaki Udon.

On some Saturdays I am given to exploring and was wandering around the East Village researching aspects as I prepare my new MoviOp, A Song for Second Avenue. I was checking all the little restaurants on St. Marks Place that are nested beneath the stairs of almost every building. This time I was reading their menus and trying to decide which one I might try. The menus were all pretty much the same. I was moving from Third Avenue toward Second Avenue on the north side of the street. Then, a little past midway, I came upon Zen Restaurant, and the first thing that caught my eye was Nabeyaki Udon.

The Nabeyaki Udon more than lived up to my expectations. It was a masterful concoction that was in the best of settings. The atmosphere inside was friendly, convivial, and outside, a light snow was punctuating the afternoon. Before me was the main attraction in a beautiful bowl that was also functional, designed to keep the broth nice and hot for quite some time. I began with a light sprinkling of the ground red pepper which is not spicy but adds several layers of taste as the broth marinates. Let it marinate and savor the moment.

Some day, I know there is a poem that will come of this rendezvous with Nabeyaki Udon. In the meantime, if food be the music of love, eat on!

Favela Cubana

Out the window
Last week's snow
Sleeps a fitful winter nap
As leafless trees watch and wait.
Inside, infectious Brazilian rhythms
Punctuate Latin brass and vocals
From another world.
In spite of this,
There is a quietness in my mind
Listening for another song.
Words sound and then fall silent,
Waiting for the enchantment
Of discovery...
Life is too beautiful
To ever let a moment
Go unnoticed...
And yet, we do.
Slivers of Time
Slip into forgotten corridors
In the relentless push of the present...
Even when we pause
In the envelop of Now,
The past eludes us.
But this moment resonates
Because of all that was
And all that might have been.

Glenn Gould and My Own Retreat

In a recent recording session at NYU Dolan Studio, one of the artists brought up a description of Glenn Gould "playing" the recorded sound at the mixing console with the same detail that he brought to his performance at the keyboard. This was the first time I had thought about Glenn Gould for quite some time. By chance, I had picked up a book of poems, Everything Else in the World, by Stephen Dunn. To my surprise, I came upon a poem about Gould, "The Unrecorded Conversation" in this wonderful volume of poems. Surprising, because it came on the heels of our discussion about Gould and made me realize that elements of Gould's temperament resonated with my own experience. At the beginning of the poem, as an epitaph of sorts, Gould is quoted: "Isolation is the indispensable component of human happiness." Having made it this far in life as a loner, I find it something of a revelation to discover that my loneliness is the source of my satisfaction.

Of course I do not possess the genius of Gould, but I do understand the self imposed quarantine that may be necessary for contemplation and sustained fulfillment. Stephen Dunn creates a golden glimpse of Glenn Gould who disappeared into his private world of art and thrived in that secret, sequestered habitat:

Maybe genius is its own nourishment,
I wouldn't know.
Gould didn't need much more than Bach
whom he devoured
and so beautifully gave back
we forgave him his withdrawal from us.

...Gould retreated to his studio
at thirty-one, keeping his distance
from microphones and their germs.
He needed to control sound, edit out
imperfection. His were the only hands
that touched the keys, turned the dials.
(Stephen Dunn, "The Unrecorded Conversation" from Everything Else in the World)

The studio inside my head seems connected to some interior world that illuminates my muse. Retreating to my studio has been a refuge in time of doubt and when I have needed inspiration and spiritual sustenance. Somehow things have changed from the journey begun this past year that has taken me to this new place. There was no reason to believe things would continue on the same miraculous trajectory that launched this new adventure. Sometimes retreat represents a falling back. But a retreat is also a place of solitude for working through a dilemma. Somewhere in the isolation of this personal pause, is the spark of renewal.

An Astonishing Poet: Stephen Dunn

In a bookstore of forgotten books, I came across a book of poems, Everything Else in the World by Stephen Dunn, a poet that I didn't recognize but who has won a Pulitzer prize. I feel that in general we don't read enough poems. Poets have a way of noticing the world that enables us to calibrate our awareness of reality. Sometimes when I feel things spinning out of control I like to enter the world of some poet, preferably someone I have never read. I picked up Dunn's book with about five other volumes of poems.

I finally submersed myself in his poems this weekend and was astonished to discover that this poet was someone who seemed in tune with my own work. The very first poem was something I have thought and written about, but done with such elegance that I was energized and inspired. The first poem struck home:

A SMALL PART

The summer I discovered my heart
is at best an instrument of approximation
And the mind is asked to ratify
every blood rush sent its way

was the same summer I stared
at the slate gray sea well beyond dusk,
learning how exquisitely
I could feel sorry for myself.

It was personal---the receding tide,
the absent, arbitrary wind.
I had a small part in the great comedy,
and hardly knew it. No excuse,

but I was so young I believed
Ayn Rand had a handle on truth---
secular, heroically severe. Be a man
of unwavering principle, I told others,

and what happens to the poor
is entirely their fault. No wonder
that girl left me in August, a stillness
in the air. I was one of those lunatics

of a single idea, or maybe even worse---
I kissed wrong, or wasn't brave enough
to admit I was confused
Many summers later I learned to love

the shadows illumination creates.
But experience always occurs too late
to undo what's been done. The hint
of moon above an unperturbable sea,

and that young man, that poor me,
staring ahead---everything is as it was.
And of course has been changed.
I got over it. I've never been the same.

The only difference is that I never got over it.