Pipes

We walked over to the Living Traditions festival last evening, got food from the booths, a gyro for D and some Nepalese curry and sel roti bread for me, sat on the grass and watched people, listened to a Tongan brass band, and waited for the Salt Lake Scots. Thankfully, we both love bagpipes, since the alternative is to loathe them. Never met anyone wishy-washy about bagpipes. They bring tears to my eyes, apparently I have that switch in my brain that would flip if I had to charge to battle urged on by pipers. I would be one to go all Brianblessedbillyconnolly at the sound. It's not about being Scottish, either, since the Burmese have pipe bands for their military as well. Something ancient and either encouraging or enervating, depending on which genetic branch one draws from. The local band is long established and very professional.

Either way, it's the one place and time in this state where I am not in the dark-haired minority - grey notwithstanding. The first time, about 25 years ago, I'd only been in Utah for a year, after growing up as a minority pale person in Detroit. Here, I felt like the dark stuck-out-thumb, until this festival, and all the world turned out. More Pacific Islanders, first generation Africans and Tibetans these days, we plan to eat at the Ethiopian restaurant this week, so it's all a wonderful mix.


Took Moby out this morning on the retract-a-leash, as I got the beans in and watered. Let it play out, and he dragged the handle - which I could hear. Had to untangle him a few times and pull him back once or twice. He was lingering near the back door, when I heard the handle move fast, Moby out of sight. He'd gotten through the porch slats, into the space between the houses. Looking back up at me, "what?"

So I walked around to pick him up, and he darted under the porch. Dragged him out, to his annoyance, and unceremoniously hauled him back. Much mewling and a final hiss. Tried to let him wander again, but he had one goal in mind. Inside goes the cat. Ah, well, adventures. When done, I came in, and he rubbed up my ankles, all is forgiven.

String beans, sorry - bush beans, planted with inoculant - since I have no idea if there have ever been beans out there. Weeding done.

Aqualung

Moby seems to have officially, permanently, become a lap cat. We are adjusting. It's good, if sometimes inconvenient.

Cracked mentioned Jethro Tull in an article this week. On Monday, Jethro Tull was the answer in the crossword in the paper. I mentioned this to one of the young guys at work, he'd never heard the name. Went in to give a break, and S had Jethro Tull on the Pandora station.

When I was small, one of my brothers left behind the album, Aqualung. So of course I listened to it, as I read the liner notes. I felt like I'd stuck my head outside, where the icy winds beat every thought from my mind. At church, the recent themes harped on not tempting one's faith, which was for me a massive weakness that I had no wish to test -sure it would crumble unto dust. And this seemed like taking a sledge hammer to the hull of an already leaky craft - that had to carry me to a far shore. I put it away, and tried to put it out of my mind. I had to be a good Catholic, harboring atheistic, or even agnostic thoughts would have torn me apart in that reality. I struggled enough with the pervasive misogyny.

In the beginning Man created God; and in the image of Man created he him.
And Man gave unto God a multitude of names, that he might be Lord over all the earth when it was suited to Man.
And on the seven millionth day Man rested and did lean heavily on his God and saw that it was good.
And Man formed Aqualung of the dust of the ground, and a host of others likened unto his kind.
And these lesser men Man did cast into the void. And some were burned;
And some were put apart from their kind.
And Man became the God that he had created and with his miracles did rule over all the earth.
But as all these things did come to pass, the Spirit that did cause man to create his God lived on within all men: even within Aqualung.
And man saw it not.

But for Christ's sake he better start looking

- Aqualung liner notes.


I never went back to listen to the whole thing. Perhaps, even now, I'm a little wary. First impressions.

Saints

Watching a documentary about Johnny Cash. At the very end, one of his cohorts says, "maybe he was a saint." The phrase rang with truth. Could it be this is what saints really are? Not paragons of virtue, not religious messengers, but powerfully unique people, incapable of being anything but genuine, who shake the world where they walk? Full of doubts and flaws, but life expresses itself through them lucidly, uses them up to pour grace over all they touch? Bodhisattvas showing us a way forward, exploding our comfortable assumptions? Damned to be misunderstood and copied, when the real message is to find our own, particular, unmappable path?

I remember once asking a nun if any one of us, in our class, could be saints. She equivocated, I don't remember how she answered. But, I think we are all called, the sacred is just the other side of our fears and self delusions. If only we push through, willing to look, courageous enough to struggle to understand.

We are all capable of being saints. No excuses. It just takes everything we are.

Might

Good concert, as per. A bit odder, more experimental segments than usual, even for them, or rather They. Strange set of songs. Possibly because the've brought out two albums in the last six months. I hoped they'd play Judy Is Your Vietnam, which they did on the first encore. No confetti cannon this time. I'd love to see them in a really tiny venue, say 50-100 people, unplugged, guitar and accordion, heavy on the slower songs. Ok, they can bring Dan Miller along.



Their audiences here are always enthusiastic and sing-along-y. Which seemed to take the opener, Jonathan Coulton, a bit by surprize. His own fans were present, vocal, and in good voice, as well. The rest of us picked up and sang along too. One of the best opening acts They Might Be Giants have brought along.



Perhaps a lot of loud music and bright moving lights was not precisely what I needed this week. Chewing ginger gum got me through. I wished I could have stood on the floor in front of the stage and danced along as I used to. Getting too old for this, mostly because of damage. That, and I usually go to bed when they started playing, no night owl me. Still, enjoyed myself.

From 64˚F in the afternoon, it was snowing madly when we came home. Then, the covered parking full last night, we had to take a spot on the street, and move the car by 8 am. Mostly fluffy, salty lake effect snow, not difficult to clean off. Instead of just going around the block to get into the parking, we fetched sausages from the supermarket, me in what I threw on to move the car, hair uncombed. We looked like we'd been up too late and threw on sweats, like everyone else in the aisles. A warm, welcome breakfast.

Air full of snow, cat watching impassively.

Slower

Long week, exacerbated by lost sleep due to reading a good book. Snuff is a nice, tightly plotted story. With every imaginable loose end tied up. Knowing the author is facing the end of his writing ability, eking out every sentence, every book, adds a sad taste, and understanding. He's settling his characters with satisfying endings, like a parent wanting to see each adult offspring in a good job, loved, and more or less on their lifepath. A kind of fierce love, and anticipatory grief, lurks under the surface.

I did not go to the last two (of four) ukulele classes. The instructor is faultless in this, he was nothing but encouraging. But after the second class, when I could not make my hand remember the second chord, and the frustration kept me from picking up the instrument for a week, I feared going back would discourage me completely. The instructor tried, told me to take all the time I needed, not to worry if each chord took ten seconds to do, not his fault at all. But I was the slowest student. And I understand now the fear of being the worst student. So easy to get hopeless, not bother, because it becomes so baffling. When everyone around you gets it, smiling in understanding. And I battle tears of shameful stupidity.

Most of my life, I caught on quickly, impatient of teachers who slowed down to a crawl for the slow ones. I wanted to soar, and I was weighed down by them. This time, I was the dragging stone, and I had to cut the rope. D helped me here, thinks that any but private music lessons are pretty much useless because of this variance.

I can't do B chords. I can do simpler ones. I may one day manage more difficult ones, but not for now, not yet. I am slow and have no natural talent. This will be like solving sudoku at first. Lots of practice to get mediocre, but it's good for my brain. I am better seeing numbers now. Playing music, which I have never really been able to do before, even if I'm never more than so so, forces me to think differently. Staying awake, aware, open. This is the point, really.

And the unexpected lesson of compassion for the slower students who once so irritated me.

Restoration

Woke well after a solid night of sleep, with my humor restored and a clear path before me. The fog inside my head has lifted. Some of my physical symptoms were the usual cyclical/hormonal ones of this phase of my life - exacerbated by all the oldfamily regurgitation. Talking with Eldest Brother (EB) was the right choice, as I had a less emotionally fraught relationship with him, and my bullshit meter always worked better. The needle pegged when he expressed dismay that the other brother hadn't notified me.

"Well, it wasn't for lack of trying!"

I did not say, "Yes, it was." What he would have been correct saying was, "Well it wasn't for lack of a half-assed thinking about trying." This is where D is my sanity salvation, since he immediately laughed when I told him what EB said. "That's crazy." Yup. If our mother was the one who died, would they have done as little, shrugged, said "we tried?" I expect so.

And I thought, again, about talking with my mother, and I still have no desire to hear her take on all of this. And I have nothing I want to say to her. I would not be re-establishing contact, just expressing condolences - once. Which would be misleading. I am not prepared to talk with her regularly, unless we clean up the old lies and evasions - which is way more work than it could ever be worth. There is no satisfaction to be had, I am not going to play that game. It's not fun, and no one ever wins. Rather like Monopoly.

_________________________________________________________________

The ukelele class was excellent. Instructor told us never to practice, only play. By the end of class, got us through Over The Rainbow together, and it sounded pretty good, with three of us singing* the words - rather sweetly if I may say. Couldn't get to the G in time, but I got most of the A chords, and all of the Ds, strummed my way though. The one young Asian woman (Chinese perhaps?) for whom English was obviously a second language, struggled, and he asked her if she knew the song. Well, no, actually. Cultural assumptions will get you every time. Instructor suggested she get it on iTunes, the rest of us chimed in, "Youtube, for free."

It was warm and welcoming, and we sounded lovely. Partly because as we came in, he tuned each uke. D tuned mine up before I left, which was nice. This morning, I remembered less than I hoped, and my hand cramped right up, but I could make it sound good. I'll play more.





*Definitely the Wizard of Oz, Judy Garland version.

Beet

Going to dinner with D's parents. Thankfully, got off early enough. A speedy day.

This mesmerized me. Below is a rant, don't feel you should read it. Just watch this.




Despite our last patient being a squirrelly drama queen nutjob. Not that often we have a young, healthy crazy patient. Older, ill crazy folks are fairly common. These are the people who think the Nothing By Mouth thing is a kind of joke, tell everyone their life story without invitation, take longer for the pre-op nurses to get ready than the elderly, half deaf, mobility impaired patients - who we expect to take a while. The ones who have no impulse to calm themselves, even with clear and calmly repeated prompts to take a deep breath, relax. The ones who go down fighting, but without a known, clinical anxiety diagnosis. Had one when I was in Boston, in recovery room, having a complete freak out about the nerve block for her arm, wanted us to make it go away. Well, that isn't possible, it takes hours to wear off, that's really the point. Admittedly, it is an odd sensation, but most people find it amusing or mildly annoying at worst, not to feel a limb, to sense that it is in a different place than it actually is. This woman was screaming, demanding, squirming off the gurney. Her boyfriend stood and watched, a kind of awakening horror on his face. As though he'd known she was eccentric, but had no idea she was earfuckingly insane, and realization was dawning. He was determined to stand by her, get her home and safe until she was stable. Then, he was going to run away as fast as humanly possible.

These inconsolable people never get just local anesthetic with a whiff of sedation, they cannot be trusted to be still through the case, to tolerate any amount discomfort, not to try to get up and leave. It's a full on general, for simple safety. That we have quiet after is just a plus. I've seen the lighter version tried, and seen it go bad, prolonging the surgery unnecessarily.

We once watched the show Mad About You - for a couple of seasons, until the one where the lead female has surgery. She behaves wholly inappropriately, demanding and ridiculous throughout. I could never see the character as believable after. I know the difference between the abnormal normal of such a stressful situation, and the freakish abnormal of someone broken completely decompensating. Especially for a minor, ten minute, hand procedure, that most people could easily manage with a local or a bier block.

Still, takes all kinds. I just prefer the ones who have some modicum of self control, or a good reason not to be able to.

Repairs

Many years ago, we kept getting a recording of A Few Small Repairs by Shawn Colvin out from the library again and again, until we just gave in and bought it.


(Not sure what the video has to do with anything, feel free to ignore it and just listen.)

Over the last month, I've heard Gillian Welch interviewed at least twice, and I knew it was going to be the same sort of thing. A bit twangy for my usual taste, but with such a compelling intensity and engaging, cascading melodies. I'm hooked, I admit it.

Gillian Welch - The Way It Goes

Chair

There is a, well, thing, over at Lovely Listing, involving this particular kind of Chair. So, I submitted this photo for that site.

I hope Chair isn't jealous of these lovely chairs.

Lots of music.

Including a mobile piano.

We saw the clown before the clown saw us.

Blues

We stopped at the BBQ place for lunch, but instead of the usual blues (and variants) playing, it was the most whiny of black pop. The sort of imitators that are adding the finishing touches for the place Whitney Houston has earned for herself in hell for inspiring same. Random warbling around a three octave scale is not scat, not blues, not jazz, not even singing. And it occurred to me that it is very, very... well, white. So inoffensive that it becomes an insult to taste. Bland and flavorless and ultimately, soulless. I'm not a big fan of jazz or soul, but I respect both forms, because they start from passion. It's not about the color of the musician, but the music should have strong colors, talent, energy, edges, musicality.

So, when we ordered, I added, "And two votes for anything but this," pointing to the screen with an image of the 'singer.' He laughed, and by the time our food arrived, the music was real blues, Junior Kimbrough, followed by a video of a Johnny Cash concert.

Is this the homogenization of black culture? Or the simple greedy cynicism of the recording industry? Or just the mediocracy that becomes the uniform? A reaction to rap? Rap being perhaps the other side of this, so offensive as to be ridiculous? I don't have answers here. Luke-warm music makes me want to spit.


Some are born slick, some achieve slickness, others have slickness thrust upon them.

Niches

Pouring rain, lovely and cool and damping down the dust.

We went to the Hong Kong Tea House last evening, needing a good meal. The music on was piano covers of old pop music. Rather amazes me that a radio station playing such pap still exists. And for me, overexposed to these tunes because I was young and listened to the radio constantly - unaware of the toxic effects - the words I once memorized sing along in my head. Not as if I so loved pop music, I just sponged up any song and learned the words to sing along. Only rarely did I hear music that really reached inside and resonated.

My mother complained of song when "you can't understand the words." As well as paintings when "you can't tell what it is." For me, music and art are not about literal interpretation, that's what literature is for. Music is about how it feels.

The music that appealed to me barely peeked into my life, and usually in the most commercial form, ie Simon & Garfunkel. I remember the first time exposed to the biwa, Japanese tones, while my mother reacted as though it were fingernails on a chalkboard, and for me it was like my first lick of mole negro - magnetic. My tastes run to music with edges, raw and melodious together, indigenous and complex. Not much of that available on the radio of the 60s and 70s.

Although it was through radio I found more and more of the kinds of music that energize me, from They Might Be Giants (first heard on All Things Considered) to Kate McGarrigle (on the local community radio station.) D got me into The Clash and Bob Dylan. Obviously, it took a long time for me to gather the music that resounds in me. I don't claim it's great, only that it gets in my head in a good way. Unlike all the pop songs that turn into ear worms.

I'm glad of the internet that allows access to niche artists, music from all over the world, bands that the big record labels would snub.

Band

Went to hear a band last night. After a long day, I took a nap first. Didn't help much. Just a block away, a quick walk. Started at 9, rather the doors opened at 9, there was an unexpected, and unannounced opening band that began playing at 10. They weren't bad, their sound system was, all muddy and blaring. It's not that I need to "hear the words" as such, but I do like to hear the singer, and the keyboard, not just the drum and bass. By 1030, I was pretty much ready for bed. This is sad, but more related to my work/sleep routine for over a decade than just to my age.

Strange thing, though. Watching the crowd, a strange mix of people in this dive of a lounge, and I did not feel old or frumpy as I used to when I was closer to the median age. The young women seemed to be trying too hard, gawky and self conscious. I sat in my fitting and unremarkable clothes, uncut grey hair, and felt beautiful as I never really have before. Nothing so artificial as pretty, a rock in the stream and content to be so. Still very proud to accompany such a lovely guy as D. Even spotted a local celebrity.

The annoyance of a seedy venue, bad acoustics, obnoxiously drunk crowd, and my body insisting it was well past my bedtime at 11, nearly got us both to walk out. But we decided to at least stay for the band we'd paid to hear, and very glad we did. They were fun, smart, stylish interesting, very professional. On balance, they made the evening worthwhile, so good they cancelled out the irritation, if not by a huge margin. We stayed about an hour, and were in bed shortly after midnight, ears numb and clothes smelling funny. (Not cigarette smoke, much, because that's not allowed inside here, thankfully.)

We will not go back there for any band that would play at a place like that, though. D says, maybe if Pete Townshend* decided to do a solo tour of crappy bars... but that seems unlikely.

Happy Belated Groundhog Day.





*The guitar player D most admires, and wishes he could play like.

Music

M is for Music.

They Might Be Giants once had a T-shirt that said Music Self Played is Happiness Self Made. I can sing, in time, in tune - a good enough choir voice, it mixes well. I dance pretty well, as long as I don't have to obey choreography. But I have never gotten more than a simple melody out of an instrument. Violin, flute, penny whistle, organ keyboard, ukulele, all tried, none accomplished. D is the musician in this home. I love hearing him play. So does Moby.

They Might Be Giants are always worth the effort, although I tend to forget until the moment they start playing. They came to town last Friday, at a club with a dance floor and balcony around. Earnest folk singing duo for an opening band, sadly dull. But TMBG, after all these years being the tallest midgets... excuse me - the biggest independent band, still tear it up with gusto. I like to think they make a good living. Their music is still fresh and raw and full of humor and energy. To the point that I still have to listen to the new stuff for a while to decide I like it, and after a little longer, it's another favorite.

Just listening to their recordings, it's a bit hard to tell that They are a great dance band, rock 'n roll, joyously odd. Memorizing the lyrics appeals strongly to those of us who always go to hear them, making their shows a bit of a sing-a-long. The two Johns have such an easy camaraderie after these couple of decades touring and recording together. Great melodies, still experimental, musically interesting, not just loud. But loud too. With a confetti cannon.

They are geeks who've found a way to keep themselves in gear. High quality sound system, lighting, video screens, especially for a venue that is just a club. They sing about elements and obscure painters and presidents, Mesopotamians, - and the lyrics matter. They put on a puppet show. Avatars of They sock puppets, to a camera, projected large. Educated silliness.

They played all the songs off Flood, their only BIG album, from 25 years ago, each with a fresh approach. Frequently announcing "Escape from Flood!" and playing another song they liked. Real advantage to having just a handful of "hits" and an enormous repertoire. Or a complete inability to Stop Writing Songs. (One tour, they wrote Venue Songs, one per stop.)

Their audience has both aged with them, and picked up stragglers from every year along the way. They do children's shows, since they do excellent kid's albums that do not nauseate adults. Apparently, Utah is They Might Be Giants country, no doubt in part because there is little offensive in their shows, allowing a way in for many. The shows here have always been more intense than the one we saw in Boston. But we stay involved because of the quality, our appreciation brings them back. D and I will always find the time to see They when they come to town.

And they keep current. When they found out that the old song about the sun that they've covered is not up to date with scientific thought, they wrote an addendum. The Sun (Is a Mass of Incandescent Gas), followed by The Sun is a Miasma of Incandescent Plasma. These are cool, smart guys.

They shot off the confetti cannon a second time, making it all the way up to the balcony where we watched. I saved some, they assured us it was biodegradable, if poisonous. (A worry, since some got in their coffee cups.) Threw it in the air for Moby. He seemed to like it. Probably not, actually, poisonous.

Stale

Often, I feel I fell between. Between generations, between countries. Too young for the British Invasion, too old for Punk.

But I always listened to the Beatles. They were, if anything, the soundtrack behind my life. I may have gotten a little tired of the more popular of their songs as played on the radio, but the B-sides emerged, "I'm Only Sleeping." And the solo works continued. Over the past five years or so, I've finally gotten sick of all of them. Nor have I ever really heard covers of their stuff that interested me. Too sappy, too gentle, too muzak, too sucking-up without enough difference. It took me a long time, but I got thoroughgoing tired of John, Paul, George and Ringo - as they were. I suppose it says a lot about how good they were that it took me so long. Ok, I still have a soft spot for George Harrison, who I think is the most-underrated Beatle. (McCartney could have stopped at "I Saw Her Standing There" and I'd never have missed him, long before Wings. The most overrated of the lot.)

This is actually a bit disappointing to me. That no current artists can take those songs and turn them into something new. And the nature of recorded music is that, eventually, it will get tired and old. It really is important to turn new hands to old tunes. And no artist should be enshrined, because art must be freshened and altered, constantly. Dead music goes stale.

And we get Earworms.

Chanukah

First night of Hanukkah. Listening to a program of seasonal music, Kitka and Davka, finding it much more moving than the christmas fare. Cheerfully sad, plaintive joy. I had a fascination with Judaism in high school, the only religion I may have changed to. Eventually, my love of ceremony and history would not overcome my bone deep dismissal of belief that contradicted my experience, and any institution that treated women (or any group) as distinct and inferior. By their works shall you know them, dontcha know. But I love old music that has been nurtured through voice after voice, generation after generation, emerging with a patina, richly nuanced. The mystery holds power for me, when the sounds stay pure, the words become magical incantations, the universal moan.

Album

D recorded his album this month. National Solo Album Month, the musician's answer to Nanowrimo. Feel free to listen or download. D apologizes for the format they are in.

So, I present The Fifth International debut album,

Workers of the World, Untie.

Wedding

Listening to my iTunes this weekend. Which means more dancing. Good low back dancing, belly rolls, lateral pelvic figure eights, and just general low impact movement. Somewhat offsetting all the careless bending of a thorough house cleaning. Just lovely filling up on just my own music, and my own silences.

One day is enough. It's been nearly two.

I miss D. Moby subdued, knows his dude is missing.

But D had a great time at the wedding, and got to laugh at M's navy stories that all start with "No shit, there I was... ." (His version of "Once upon a time... .") Great band. Bride and Groom happy together, love found after a long wait, much treasured. I'd loved to have been there, but at least I sent D to be with his friends. Mine too, but his first. K had to send Dave there by himself as well. Such is life, phases of lives. We do what we can.

Playing Snow Come Down by Lori Carson at the moment. (Thanks again Udge.)

Loving Start Wearing Purple by Gogol Bordello - a bit of gypsy punk. (The album tags this as "explicit", not sure why exactly. It's suggestive and raucous, but nothing too obvious, I thought.)

Guitars

I'm no good writing about music. I know what I love, it's what moves me, to feel, to dance, to sing along. Music that I have not heard so many times I fear it worming into my three am brain willy nilly. I love what I love, outside of genre, outside of categorization. Most of my life, I rarely heard music I could love, a snatch here or there, a living moment, a stray song. I settled for pop, for the rare haunting hymn, and called it good, listened as opposed to not having music at all, leaving a turgid library of sappy lyrics stored in my hoarding memory, ready to fill my consciousness with inanity after exposure to store muzak.

Today, the pain anesthesiologist I scrubbed for brought in his own iPod.

Let me share Rodrigo y Gabriela. Ahhh.

Perfection

I laid awake with a bad song twining and snarling through my brain, and thought about an article, half read, about how quantum is only understandable through numbers, putting it in words is only a poetic interpretation. And suddenly, I imagined all those perfect atoms, as taught in chemistry classes, having dents and scratches, as all life does. And I began to wonder if those molecules and protons and electrons, quarks and sour little smidgens, were really acting as a wave or a particle when we look at them, or if the perfection is simply a matter of looking at them as a mass, but that each, in itself, is just as flawed and unique as individual flowers in a field, and as soon as we get one pinned down, we see the difference.

This is probably wrong, but what do you expect from a middle-of-the-night insight? I love the idea that perfection is not just boring, it's utterly, right down to the smallest detail, impossible and against all that we are. Rather like π, any attempt to simplify our existence into a perfect three, a perfect god, any ideal at all, is doomed to be more wrong than if we just roll with what we see at any given moment.

I had a very hard day, with too many idiots - each of whom thought themselves my boss, all telling me what to do. And I juggled fast and furious to keep it all in the air, not for their sakes, but for the sake of the patients, whose welfare I take very seriously. An armless anesthesiologist (they look like arms, but they don't do nothin'), supply carts massively mis-pulled, complicated clinical-study cases. The study folks were fine, but they added three people to an already overcrowded room. I had a great scrub tech, who sailed through in good humor, and I made sure she felt appreciated. Such a difference from the day before, when- well, I cannot remember laughing so much at work, all day long, in a very long time. Evens out.

I got a note from my Massachusetts cousin. She asked me once if I would consider writing her family story, and it's a good one. I think she should get blogging herself. A sample from her email.

"Retirement is good! Busy - doing what I don't know - but many plans. To string pearls, to mat pictures, to ship a trumpet, to microwave dirt, to rake the yard, to chase the fox, to feed the bluebirds, to ski some more, to wash the paint out of my hair  and on and on..."

Uke-babe.

Making a little progress on Wade Hemsworth's The Blackfly Song.