Last night Traci and I were up until 4 after having our first sedar meal at a friend's home. Although she only got 2 hours of sleep before her intense day of work, I was sure that after the talking, gnashing of teeth and crying that it was the best 2 hours of sleep ever. Before she dozed she said, "I feel like we're a family." If I have to explain, you wouldn't understand.
Tonight I fixed a dinner of baked chicken, spinach, and deviled eggs and with windows open, we ate and watched "Dog Day Afternoon". We were seeing the film for the first time as residents of Brooklyn. The mounting tension of the film combined with the yelling from the street below unnerved us. I think this is because we could see in the film all the grades of madness that we see transfer from vessel to vessel in these parts. It may also be that we do not yet know what the thawing out from winter will turn our block into and tonight was the first night that the neighborhood was expressing its Spring side.
When the film finished, the voices outside were at their loudest, some cursing, some just shaking winter dust off their throats. Then the music started in the apartment below. Usually a thing of weekends and thereby much more tolerable, I am sure the good weather insisted they start a day early. In place of the usual latino dance mix came thunderous rap/metal basslines and deep voices intoning some pep cheer for misbegotten boys turned men. Through the walls it was as unintelligible as the spanish coming in from the street, but the feeling was intact: the natives are restless. Brooklyn had descended upon us.
Traci told me of the madmen she has encountered in the morning going to the subway. The first stared her down and spit "Morning BITCH!" in her face, while today's dandy encounter had no direct eye contact but violent tendencies. Traci said he nearly flung himself off the platform and onto the tracks.
Tonight I missed Louisville with specific desires for where I would be if I could be. On the porch, with a bourbon, listening to the quiet street of St. Matthews. Or Buckner. Or Shelby Park. A train, please. Not a subway.
Friday, April 14, 2006
Wednesday, April 05, 2006
Baby talk on the Vanguard
Words that look nice
Words that see God
gone in the transcription
A meadow, a medal, a meadow, a medal
The new melody goes ,kasjfcqkwjfeccsuidhfakwenfckjfhlakhfv;mlakwfeemc
Sleep in the fur of the wounded
lose your extra weight
align
Words that see God
gone in the transcription
A meadow, a medal, a meadow, a medal
The new melody goes ,kasjfcqkwjfeccsuidhfakwenfckjfhlakhfv;mlakwfeemc
Sleep in the fur of the wounded
lose your extra weight
align
Monday, March 27, 2006
Tuesday, March 21, 2006
Tuesday, March 14, 2006
Terrible document
What do you mean?
I push against you like another dimension
And harden from the friction
There is no satisfaction
a more elegant hunger
is all
(Carriers upon the rock
Are named Carrie or
Something after birds)
We are not all thieves, we are not all liars
We might put back everything we take
We may abandon, but we do not forsake
(Words of John, Joni and Willy the Shake)
Nothing has changed upon this rock
All the words seek recognize
What is passing - designs of
treelines
windchimes
beelines
lunchlines
What do you mean?
I push against you like another dimension
And harden from the friction
There is no satisfaction
a more elegant hunger
is all
(Carriers upon the rock
Are named Carrie or
Something after birds)
We are not all thieves, we are not all liars
We might put back everything we take
We may abandon, but we do not forsake
(Words of John, Joni and Willy the Shake)
Nothing has changed upon this rock
All the words seek recognize
What is passing - designs of
treelines
windchimes
beelines
lunchlines
The Great Eye Soaking In Fredonia
Norther of here, and close to borders
The signs are less frequent for drivers, divers
Feeding on bread from after hours
The leftover slam: hand, dough, heat, throw
I got these pink boots for free
New-clear crystals of snow
They claim the countryside
For joggers in pink spandex
Their hats pastel. Detuned guitars
Everything coming in the room is a birthday present
Everyone coming in the room is a birthday present
Happy birthday
Where will you land tomorrow?
Detuned traveler, sight of phoenix spinx, venus
Risen and taken like bread from the cupboard,
And edible roots from the fridge
It will be late in the day and you’ll be long away
Before they’ll recognize what’s missing
If anything
If anything you’re my partner. Not a boy or a girl.
You’re my happy birthday
The best I got
Now in the crest of the approach
On what was the forbidden trail
North from northers a pace so funky your eyes blink in cartoon frames
If a child is the best we can do, we can do anything
But if a child is best
If only a child
I may be lost
Upon the crest
Crisis
Christ is
my sis-
ter
like this?
Miss her
likeness
Cries this
psychic
Mister
light chest,
Hold my hand when I’m crossing the street
Hold my hand we’re crossing the street
The signs are less frequent for drivers, divers
Feeding on bread from after hours
The leftover slam: hand, dough, heat, throw
I got these pink boots for free
New-clear crystals of snow
They claim the countryside
For joggers in pink spandex
Their hats pastel. Detuned guitars
Everything coming in the room is a birthday present
Everyone coming in the room is a birthday present
Happy birthday
Where will you land tomorrow?
Detuned traveler, sight of phoenix spinx, venus
Risen and taken like bread from the cupboard,
And edible roots from the fridge
It will be late in the day and you’ll be long away
Before they’ll recognize what’s missing
If anything
If anything you’re my partner. Not a boy or a girl.
You’re my happy birthday
The best I got
Now in the crest of the approach
On what was the forbidden trail
North from northers a pace so funky your eyes blink in cartoon frames
If a child is the best we can do, we can do anything
But if a child is best
If only a child
I may be lost
Upon the crest
Crisis
Christ is
my sis-
ter
like this?
Miss her
likeness
Cries this
psychic
Mister
light chest,
Hold my hand when I’m crossing the street
Hold my hand we’re crossing the street
Wednesday, March 01, 2006
Today LEO Weekly in Louisville KY printed a memorial I wrote for my friend Nathan. Below are some writings that I did in preperation for the piece. Combined, they mark the time I have spent mourning and enjoying my friend after learning of his passing.
Enjoy.
Two words: Come together. A month after his death, Nate Robinson’s friends remember
BY RAY RIZZO
I cannot tell you about Nate in 500 words. I will try to find him in a few haikus printed in a paper that I am pretty sure he never read. Not that he disliked LEO. I think Nathan appreciated LEO because his friends and the musicians he spent his time working with read it, if only to see their names written inside.
Nate Dawg Robinson: “S’up?” Photo by Todd Smith
It is good for the paper — hell, this city — that Nate’s friends are among its community.
It is good of this paper to give 500 words to Nathan Robinson: sound engineer, musician, friend, brother, son, grandson. All over the city this week, many of Louisville’s Most Eccentric Observers can gather upon this memorial, smoke a Red or a Green, toss back some Makers and ask our newest space traveler, “S’up?”
It isn’t good that we’re here and Nate is gone.
For those who didn’t know him, Nate would like you to take these 500 words and rearrange them in any manner you see fit so they may work for someone you know who might leave this world loved but with not as much in print.
Now you know.
For those who did know him, 500 words aren’t enough. And yet — Nathan: one word opens a universe. Nathan, a memory: “Let me eat it!” Nathan, a sign: “Peace!” Nathan, a sound: “The bass tone is the fuunk!” Nathan is reaching beyond his body now. That is some wild shit, Nate. It’s crayyyzy!
You better cut this out and put it on your fridge. Because any place of Nathan’s was a place worth gathering. Dog shit on the floor, ashtray runneth over, fuck it. In Nathan’s home, pizza from last night’s crew was daily bread. You bet your ass I gave thanks to have it. Nathan showed me there was nothing in the loaves, ya dummy. It was the people you broke bread with. He also tried to talk me out of eating stale pizza.
Nathan never sat at a table, a bar or recording studio where he didn’t take you in as a friend. I believe the ledger of Nate Dawg balanced all debts, graces and minor thefts in the currency of essence. Now, Nathan would be first to say that “essentials” like friendship, sonic alchemy and laughter were not as good as cash when you are starting your own recording business, but he was just starting to get calls from people who understood his worth. In his presence I always felt lucky.
I’ve thought about Travis Meeks a lot this week. The day Nathan died, Travis told me he saw Jesus once. In Los Angeles, late into an emotional night. Travis looked upon his couch to see Jesus sitting, smoking a Marlboro Red. When he outed Jesus from his disguise, Travis says Jesus sat back on the couch, got real quiet and grinned a shit-eating grin until the sun rose.
Nathan, the word in Hebrew: “God has given!”
One more thing — I’m sure I’m over my limit, but this is important. I’d like to tell the other driver, on behalf of at least a few of Nathan’s friends gathered here at this memorial: There is nothing you need forgiveness for.
But if it helps, you are forgiven. I mean, I am sure if Nathan could have got up and kicked in your bumper and cursed for a month, you would have heard nothing like it, laughed your ass off, and eventually become cool. If he were here, Nathan would tell you that this is just some fucked up shit that happens. I know you don’t know me, but here it is in Nate’s 500 words.
Or you could take Travis’ mom’s word for it. When she called Travis, she said, “Goddammit, Trav, I know that boy, and when he went into critical condition I knew he’d take one look at the other side, look back at us and say, ‘Fuck y’all!’”
Ray Rizzo is a Louisville writer and musician living in Brooklyn. Contact him at
http//motherlodge.blogspot.com
Enjoy.
Two words: Come together. A month after his death, Nate Robinson’s friends remember
BY RAY RIZZO
I cannot tell you about Nate in 500 words. I will try to find him in a few haikus printed in a paper that I am pretty sure he never read. Not that he disliked LEO. I think Nathan appreciated LEO because his friends and the musicians he spent his time working with read it, if only to see their names written inside.
Nate Dawg Robinson: “S’up?” Photo by Todd Smith
It is good for the paper — hell, this city — that Nate’s friends are among its community.
It is good of this paper to give 500 words to Nathan Robinson: sound engineer, musician, friend, brother, son, grandson. All over the city this week, many of Louisville’s Most Eccentric Observers can gather upon this memorial, smoke a Red or a Green, toss back some Makers and ask our newest space traveler, “S’up?”
It isn’t good that we’re here and Nate is gone.
For those who didn’t know him, Nate would like you to take these 500 words and rearrange them in any manner you see fit so they may work for someone you know who might leave this world loved but with not as much in print.
Now you know.
For those who did know him, 500 words aren’t enough. And yet — Nathan: one word opens a universe. Nathan, a memory: “Let me eat it!” Nathan, a sign: “Peace!” Nathan, a sound: “The bass tone is the fuunk!” Nathan is reaching beyond his body now. That is some wild shit, Nate. It’s crayyyzy!
You better cut this out and put it on your fridge. Because any place of Nathan’s was a place worth gathering. Dog shit on the floor, ashtray runneth over, fuck it. In Nathan’s home, pizza from last night’s crew was daily bread. You bet your ass I gave thanks to have it. Nathan showed me there was nothing in the loaves, ya dummy. It was the people you broke bread with. He also tried to talk me out of eating stale pizza.
Nathan never sat at a table, a bar or recording studio where he didn’t take you in as a friend. I believe the ledger of Nate Dawg balanced all debts, graces and minor thefts in the currency of essence. Now, Nathan would be first to say that “essentials” like friendship, sonic alchemy and laughter were not as good as cash when you are starting your own recording business, but he was just starting to get calls from people who understood his worth. In his presence I always felt lucky.
I’ve thought about Travis Meeks a lot this week. The day Nathan died, Travis told me he saw Jesus once. In Los Angeles, late into an emotional night. Travis looked upon his couch to see Jesus sitting, smoking a Marlboro Red. When he outed Jesus from his disguise, Travis says Jesus sat back on the couch, got real quiet and grinned a shit-eating grin until the sun rose.
Nathan, the word in Hebrew: “God has given!”
One more thing — I’m sure I’m over my limit, but this is important. I’d like to tell the other driver, on behalf of at least a few of Nathan’s friends gathered here at this memorial: There is nothing you need forgiveness for.
But if it helps, you are forgiven. I mean, I am sure if Nathan could have got up and kicked in your bumper and cursed for a month, you would have heard nothing like it, laughed your ass off, and eventually become cool. If he were here, Nathan would tell you that this is just some fucked up shit that happens. I know you don’t know me, but here it is in Nate’s 500 words.
Or you could take Travis’ mom’s word for it. When she called Travis, she said, “Goddammit, Trav, I know that boy, and when he went into critical condition I knew he’d take one look at the other side, look back at us and say, ‘Fuck y’all!’”
Ray Rizzo is a Louisville writer and musician living in Brooklyn. Contact him at
http//motherlodge.blogspot.com
Friday, February 17, 2006
Peter Donald, a New York producer who knew Nathan said that the last time he spoke with Nathan that Nathan was down. Nathan told Peter he was in a bad way. "I feel like something bad is gonna happen," Nathan had said.
I like this story. Because in all the joy there is to remember and keep alive with Nathan, it deserves mentioning that Nate Dawg could easily get down about things. He felt life very deeply and when he felt bad, he felt BAD. But when he felt good, he felt GOOD. I know everyone close to Nathan saw his dark moments, but I honestly don't think that a post-mortem sense of accentuating the positive is responsible for most everyone talking about the good times. The motherfucker knew how to feel GOOOOOOD. Nathan rode manic highs and lows to their fullest. I liked being around him during both. Nathan was great company for my own manic swings. His presence brought me compassion for my own dark moments.
Did Nathan see a car coming full speed at his vehicle? Maybe. He was imaginative like that.
I like this story. Because in all the joy there is to remember and keep alive with Nathan, it deserves mentioning that Nate Dawg could easily get down about things. He felt life very deeply and when he felt bad, he felt BAD. But when he felt good, he felt GOOD. I know everyone close to Nathan saw his dark moments, but I honestly don't think that a post-mortem sense of accentuating the positive is responsible for most everyone talking about the good times. The motherfucker knew how to feel GOOOOOOD. Nathan rode manic highs and lows to their fullest. I liked being around him during both. Nathan was great company for my own manic swings. His presence brought me compassion for my own dark moments.
Did Nathan see a car coming full speed at his vehicle? Maybe. He was imaginative like that.
A computer system called Pro Tools can, in the hands of the right person, become an instrument itself.
Because Pro Tools concerns itself with the recording and engineering of sounds made by many other instruments, the keen operator must be more than an instrumentalist. This person must be a conductor, a conduit. A reciever and administrator of collected energy.
When you walked into Nathan Robinson's basement, certain sights and smells might grab you - the ashtray filled with Marlboro butts, the negative transferred image of the Jimi Hendrix screen saver and the sticker mounted to the screen just below it: Work free Drug place. If you were lucky, the air might be filled with the sweet green scent to which the comic sticker referred.
When the music work started, you knew you were in the presence of a conductor.
There were Metallica posters, the photo of Johnny Cash giving the camera the finger. Bottles of Maker's Mark (usually empty). There was a couch at perfect listening range from the monitors and a cup filled with working pencils and Sharpies.
There were other things in the room - a tie-dyed poster made by Nathan's mother. Above Nathan's head where there was an exposed light bulb, Darrick and Suki (of a.m. Sunday) had made an exotic shade from a carboard box. Everywhere reminders that this freaky lion was loved.
Scattered about were guitars and pieces of equipment that Nathan openly accumulated from his work with many people around town.
Now, music business is littered with stories of mistrust and misappropriation of goods. It stands to reason that looking upon these certain pieces of equipment in the basement someone who didn't know Nathan (or even a few who did) might, under a certain mind, use the word, well, "stolen". This word might come up if you weren't able to grasp the code by which many a living breathing artist lives by, that of transferrence of energy. Some may even say Karma. Whatever term it is, it denotes an arena of ledger-keeping that only those who accept full responsibility for their lives can weigh in on. In this universe, there are, as we know, givers and takers.
Nathan was 100% a giver. I guarantee you that anyone who knew him will agree that he kept the most balanced karmaic ledger of anyone in town. He was a gentlemen to ladies and men alike, he had no hesitation to encounter people from any walk of life and call them friend. When he came to New York, it took less than 10 minutes at a bar before Nathan was having drinks bought for him and New Yorkers were telling him to move to their city.
Nathan left too early, but he chalked up many great moments before checking out. He and Travis sat in producer Rick Rubin's house and cried as Rubin played them the last song Johnny Cash ever recorded. Nathan and the members of Digby treated Billy Bob Thorton and a lady friend to a late night dinner at Waffle House. On another trip with Travis, Nathan experienced his good friend becoming convinced that he, Nathan Robinson, was Jesus Christ.
"The way I see it," Travis recalled recently," if I think you're Jesus, and you think you're Jesus, you're JESUS."
Nathan sat on the couch, grinned, and was silent for the rest of the night.
At an a.m. Sunday mixing session Suki mentioned that she was investigating string theory. Nathan immediately showed that he was versed in the ideas of Quantum realities. He said String Theory was some "fucked up shit". Then his head recessed back on his shoulders and he squinted his eyes. "It's like, you and I could be the tape on the tape machine." He shook his head "Oh yeah. It's crayyzy."
This is the universe I know Nathan. I am tape in the machine, and he is operating the channels. Occasionally, he burned himself onto the surface and changed the pitch - and my nature - forever. I don't ever want it to stop.
Because Pro Tools concerns itself with the recording and engineering of sounds made by many other instruments, the keen operator must be more than an instrumentalist. This person must be a conductor, a conduit. A reciever and administrator of collected energy.
When you walked into Nathan Robinson's basement, certain sights and smells might grab you - the ashtray filled with Marlboro butts, the negative transferred image of the Jimi Hendrix screen saver and the sticker mounted to the screen just below it: Work free Drug place. If you were lucky, the air might be filled with the sweet green scent to which the comic sticker referred.
When the music work started, you knew you were in the presence of a conductor.
There were Metallica posters, the photo of Johnny Cash giving the camera the finger. Bottles of Maker's Mark (usually empty). There was a couch at perfect listening range from the monitors and a cup filled with working pencils and Sharpies.
There were other things in the room - a tie-dyed poster made by Nathan's mother. Above Nathan's head where there was an exposed light bulb, Darrick and Suki (of a.m. Sunday) had made an exotic shade from a carboard box. Everywhere reminders that this freaky lion was loved.
Scattered about were guitars and pieces of equipment that Nathan openly accumulated from his work with many people around town.
Now, music business is littered with stories of mistrust and misappropriation of goods. It stands to reason that looking upon these certain pieces of equipment in the basement someone who didn't know Nathan (or even a few who did) might, under a certain mind, use the word, well, "stolen". This word might come up if you weren't able to grasp the code by which many a living breathing artist lives by, that of transferrence of energy. Some may even say Karma. Whatever term it is, it denotes an arena of ledger-keeping that only those who accept full responsibility for their lives can weigh in on. In this universe, there are, as we know, givers and takers.
Nathan was 100% a giver. I guarantee you that anyone who knew him will agree that he kept the most balanced karmaic ledger of anyone in town. He was a gentlemen to ladies and men alike, he had no hesitation to encounter people from any walk of life and call them friend. When he came to New York, it took less than 10 minutes at a bar before Nathan was having drinks bought for him and New Yorkers were telling him to move to their city.
Nathan left too early, but he chalked up many great moments before checking out. He and Travis sat in producer Rick Rubin's house and cried as Rubin played them the last song Johnny Cash ever recorded. Nathan and the members of Digby treated Billy Bob Thorton and a lady friend to a late night dinner at Waffle House. On another trip with Travis, Nathan experienced his good friend becoming convinced that he, Nathan Robinson, was Jesus Christ.
"The way I see it," Travis recalled recently," if I think you're Jesus, and you think you're Jesus, you're JESUS."
Nathan sat on the couch, grinned, and was silent for the rest of the night.
At an a.m. Sunday mixing session Suki mentioned that she was investigating string theory. Nathan immediately showed that he was versed in the ideas of Quantum realities. He said String Theory was some "fucked up shit". Then his head recessed back on his shoulders and he squinted his eyes. "It's like, you and I could be the tape on the tape machine." He shook his head "Oh yeah. It's crayyzy."
This is the universe I know Nathan. I am tape in the machine, and he is operating the channels. Occasionally, he burned himself onto the surface and changed the pitch - and my nature - forever. I don't ever want it to stop.
Friday, February 10, 2006
Nearly a year and still there is water
I started this blog at the time when my wife and I moved from our home in Louisville to New York City. Under The Flood was a title that inspired by the mystic grip the tital wave of Christmas 2004 had on my psyche as I experienced a life of 20 years endure a transformation that felt as destructive as it was creative. Since my last transmission, New Orleans has flooded, and I find myself in the timeline of things looking at incredible photos of flood wreckage in department stores and kids bedrooms where mud-wracked colorful clothing spills and dangles in primitive, postmodern beauty. This reminds me of a quote from the Village Voice this week: the cities of tomorrow will be build with mud and sticks.
Many moments have ripped new holes in me. The latest is the loss of Nathan. If you didn't know him, you have no idea. Many people in my life have an admirable capacity to appreciate interesting and compelling individuals who are at work on this earth. Nathan was such a person, but in knowing Nathan, you found yourself stepping past the point of admiring to wanting to see the world in the way he did. My walks in Bushwick (where Traci and I have finally have a home) have all week been in the company of Nate Dog. I may, in a free moment, try to share it with you.
For now, in honor of Nathan, who was a genius music engineer and even better human, and in honor of my sad self, who walks with his shadow, I sign off with the words of my neighborhood: develop, do not destroy.
Many moments have ripped new holes in me. The latest is the loss of Nathan. If you didn't know him, you have no idea. Many people in my life have an admirable capacity to appreciate interesting and compelling individuals who are at work on this earth. Nathan was such a person, but in knowing Nathan, you found yourself stepping past the point of admiring to wanting to see the world in the way he did. My walks in Bushwick (where Traci and I have finally have a home) have all week been in the company of Nate Dog. I may, in a free moment, try to share it with you.
For now, in honor of Nathan, who was a genius music engineer and even better human, and in honor of my sad self, who walks with his shadow, I sign off with the words of my neighborhood: develop, do not destroy.
Thursday, April 21, 2005
I signed a petition for Ted Kennedy
I like Ted because he was the Kennedy that couldn't party and get laid as successfully as his brothers and he didn't have the balls they did. And as a result, we still have him here to be a fair and sensible voice in politics. I don't know that anyone is taking him seriously, but whatever. I think he's cute.
The e-mail said "William Myers and the Republican leaders who are trying to seize absolute power by changing the rules of the Senate in order to silence their opposition. Join me in opposing their bausive tactics:
www.tedkennedy.com/NoMyers
I signed my petiton and had nothing to add in the comment portion, but I couldn't pass up the opportunity, right? So I wrote:
"I am a citizen whose only option to speak to powers that be much less inact change in the system is by e-mail. And we know how useless e-mail is. HEll, I don't even know the motivations of the people I'm aligning with here, I just know that in this day any concern for voicelessness is a concern of mine. If anyone reads these comments and has any consciousness about matters that leads you to think we are headed for a horrible horrible rift, consider what you can do to make things better -in your personal life, at work, where ever. Do it now."
I only preach to politicians, and may I say there was a bit of role playing. (I would never say "hell".) Because e-mail is not the only way to make change. It's just what I think the majority of the disenfranchised country is doing: watching the Daily Show, petitioning with Move On. For a country who likes results, this is a start, but I for one am already tired of it and am leery that it will take steam away from people who need to be using their mind power to enact and envision the next step of real change. Somedays I think Move On is a government plot. An opiate for the people.
But I still sign.
The e-mail said "William Myers and the Republican leaders who are trying to seize absolute power by changing the rules of the Senate in order to silence their opposition. Join me in opposing their bausive tactics:
www.tedkennedy.com/NoMyers
I signed my petiton and had nothing to add in the comment portion, but I couldn't pass up the opportunity, right? So I wrote:
"I am a citizen whose only option to speak to powers that be much less inact change in the system is by e-mail. And we know how useless e-mail is. HEll, I don't even know the motivations of the people I'm aligning with here, I just know that in this day any concern for voicelessness is a concern of mine. If anyone reads these comments and has any consciousness about matters that leads you to think we are headed for a horrible horrible rift, consider what you can do to make things better -in your personal life, at work, where ever. Do it now."
I only preach to politicians, and may I say there was a bit of role playing. (I would never say "hell".) Because e-mail is not the only way to make change. It's just what I think the majority of the disenfranchised country is doing: watching the Daily Show, petitioning with Move On. For a country who likes results, this is a start, but I for one am already tired of it and am leery that it will take steam away from people who need to be using their mind power to enact and envision the next step of real change. Somedays I think Move On is a government plot. An opiate for the people.
But I still sign.
Wednesday, April 20, 2005
Segismundo's response
I may be just dreaming,
even though I think I'm awake?
I'm not dreaming because I feel and believe
that which I was and that which I am.
And, even though you regret it now,
there's not much you can do about it:
I know who I am and even if you sigh
and grieve, you won't be able
to undo the fact that I was born
heir to this crown;
and if you saw me formerly
a prisoner of my shackles,
it was because I didn't know who I was;
but now I have been informed
as to who I am, and I know that I'm
a hybrid of man and beast.
(Segismundo (prince) to Basilio (king)*)
*of Poland
even though I think I'm awake?
I'm not dreaming because I feel and believe
that which I was and that which I am.
And, even though you regret it now,
there's not much you can do about it:
I know who I am and even if you sigh
and grieve, you won't be able
to undo the fact that I was born
heir to this crown;
and if you saw me formerly
a prisoner of my shackles,
it was because I didn't know who I was;
but now I have been informed
as to who I am, and I know that I'm
a hybrid of man and beast.
(Segismundo (prince) to Basilio (king)*)
*of Poland
Mad Mission
NYU campus is intoxicating. Today students completing three years of graduate studies begin their thesis presentations. The air in the halls is an electricity I have not yet experienced. (Possibly due to the gathering of a significant number of faculty who are here at the same time to be shown the mind of the students. Role reversal!)
Stacey's thesis is "Life Is A Dream" by Pedro Calderon de la Barca. I open now to a random page (somewhere in act two):
"You're an insolent barbarian: heaven has kept its word;
and so, it is to heaven that I appeal,
you prideful, conceited man!
"And even though you now know who you are,
and the delusion has been lifted from you,
and you find yourself in a place
where you take precedence over all others,
pay close heed to my admonition
to be humble and tractable,
because you may just be dreaming,
even though you think you are awake!"
I spend lunch in Washington Square Park meditating and writing on my life as a prayer, consumed by forces bringing my own new life to me. All around me the women and the men are beautiful, bright colors all, coarsing with energies of new life. Seated in a place to witness and not merely observe, I consider how my awakening has come with such force that it is hard at the moment for me to contextualize humility... I love each of these people and cannot be here without my connection to them, and yet, if I do not focus on myself right now, all is lost to me. They are fragrances floating by.
Am I the soul of the character being spoken to, or am I a new form, teeming with wisdom from such classic works, experience and the whisperings of my blood? In any event, I suspect I remain humble and tractable, and certainly more aware that I may be dreaming an idea of me.
The fact is, I suggest to myself, such great realignment after 34 years won't be handed lightly. And pwimp tho' I may be, I like a good body slam. I am comfortable being run dizzy through the rinse cycle. For now contemplating my own equilibrium is all I can do. I will faith that this doesn't compromise humility. In fact, as I think of it, I have lately been acting upon a much greater capacity for compassion and attention to the lives of those close to me.
I ponder my new health and realize a strange dysfunction with the idea of walking in the ways of the Buddah, the Christ - such actions are as radical and taboo as anything one can contemplate now. I am simply daring myself to do it.
MAd Mission. I got the ambition. Sign me up.
Back to work, I stopped at the cafe in the commons room for water. Three girls were in front of me, giddy and colorful, making everything they observed between them an event. It was a cute and short enough exposure to not be tiring. Then I saw them waiting for the up elevator.
I got on and asked if they would press three. One of them did so, and then another of the girls - the who had been most interested in my reactions to them in line at the cafe said to me, "Third Floor..is that design?"
"Yes," I said.
"What do you design," she asked.
"I sit at my desk and work on a computer and watch the designers walk up and down the hall," I said.
"Fun," she said.
"Yup."
By the end of our exchange I was off the elevator and almost to my desk. As the door closed I could see that she was still interested in what I was up to. Did she suspect? In that slippery second, I rewound to Her question of me.
"What do you design," she says again.
"My life," I reply.
http://chezray.blogspot.com
Stacey's thesis is "Life Is A Dream" by Pedro Calderon de la Barca. I open now to a random page (somewhere in act two):
"You're an insolent barbarian: heaven has kept its word;
and so, it is to heaven that I appeal,
you prideful, conceited man!
"And even though you now know who you are,
and the delusion has been lifted from you,
and you find yourself in a place
where you take precedence over all others,
pay close heed to my admonition
to be humble and tractable,
because you may just be dreaming,
even though you think you are awake!"
I spend lunch in Washington Square Park meditating and writing on my life as a prayer, consumed by forces bringing my own new life to me. All around me the women and the men are beautiful, bright colors all, coarsing with energies of new life. Seated in a place to witness and not merely observe, I consider how my awakening has come with such force that it is hard at the moment for me to contextualize humility... I love each of these people and cannot be here without my connection to them, and yet, if I do not focus on myself right now, all is lost to me. They are fragrances floating by.
Am I the soul of the character being spoken to, or am I a new form, teeming with wisdom from such classic works, experience and the whisperings of my blood? In any event, I suspect I remain humble and tractable, and certainly more aware that I may be dreaming an idea of me.
The fact is, I suggest to myself, such great realignment after 34 years won't be handed lightly. And pwimp tho' I may be, I like a good body slam. I am comfortable being run dizzy through the rinse cycle. For now contemplating my own equilibrium is all I can do. I will faith that this doesn't compromise humility. In fact, as I think of it, I have lately been acting upon a much greater capacity for compassion and attention to the lives of those close to me.
I ponder my new health and realize a strange dysfunction with the idea of walking in the ways of the Buddah, the Christ - such actions are as radical and taboo as anything one can contemplate now. I am simply daring myself to do it.
MAd Mission. I got the ambition. Sign me up.
Back to work, I stopped at the cafe in the commons room for water. Three girls were in front of me, giddy and colorful, making everything they observed between them an event. It was a cute and short enough exposure to not be tiring. Then I saw them waiting for the up elevator.
I got on and asked if they would press three. One of them did so, and then another of the girls - the who had been most interested in my reactions to them in line at the cafe said to me, "Third Floor..is that design?"
"Yes," I said.
"What do you design," she asked.
"I sit at my desk and work on a computer and watch the designers walk up and down the hall," I said.
"Fun," she said.
"Yup."
By the end of our exchange I was off the elevator and almost to my desk. As the door closed I could see that she was still interested in what I was up to. Did she suspect? In that slippery second, I rewound to Her question of me.
"What do you design," she says again.
"My life," I reply.
http://chezray.blogspot.com
Tuesday, April 19, 2005
The Cosmic Mass
From a web site linked to Creation Spirituality...
The "The Cosmic Mass" (TCM) is a conscious effort to reinvigorate Western ritual by deconstructing the forms of worship we have inherited from the modern era.(such as sitting in benches and being read to, preached at or reading from books including song books). We reconstruct these forms of worship by going back to the pre-modern practice of dance. Dance gets us into our first chakras again; dance takes us out of our heads and down again and connecting to the earth again. Joy results. Dance demands breathing and so it fulfills ancient teachings that connect breath with spirit. This connection is found not only in the Biblical story of the Creator breathing the divine breath into the clay to make it a living human but also in the ancient languages of Africa where the word for "dance" is the same as the word for "breath" which is also the word for "spirit." ("Breath" and "Spirit" are the same word (ruah) in Hebrew as well.) The African spiritual teacher, Malidome Some, tells us there is no community without ritual. Thus renewing ritual lies at the heart of bringing community back to our consciousness and experience. The modern era with its emphasis on ruggedly individual atoms, practically destroyed a sense of community. Renewed ritual can and does bring it back. And today's science with its emphasis on interconnectivity lays a groundwork for the return of community. But it needs ritual to make it happen. At our Techno Cosmic Masses people dance to techno music as well as live music; DJ's provide the musical ambience and VJ's or video jockeys provide images through slides and videos that tell the story of the theme celebrated. The theme might be "Gaia our Mother" or "The Return of the Sacred Masculine" or "The Return of the Divine Feminine" or "Kinship with Animals" or any number of themes that unite us spiritually today. In the "Return of the Divine Feminine" Mass we collected 500 slides of the Goddess from all the world's traditions (including the Black Madonna and Mary from the West). And we danced in the presence of these images, bringing in the spirit of the Divine Feminine. At each Mass we have a "via negativa" or grief experience where we grieve and lament together the loss or pain we are feeling in our hearts from abuse about the theme of the occasion. Grieving is such an essential aspect to getting over anger and into our creativity. We also have communion or sharing of the sacred bread and wine that unites all beings in the sacred act of eating and drinking divine food and drink. Early in the Mass is a fifteen minute "via positiva" dance or dance of Joy and Delight and Celebration. At the closing of the service is a fifteen minute "via transformativa" dance or warrior dance which prepares us to go into the world and back to our communities as healerss and strong defenders of compassion. A variety of ages is always represented as well as many kinds of artists and people from diverse religious backgrounds ranging from Christian to Jewish, Hindu, Buddhist, Muslim and Pagan. The worship is so pre-modern in many respects that many find a home there. Beauty is everywhere present. And, one might say, magic.
The "The Cosmic Mass" (TCM) is a conscious effort to reinvigorate Western ritual by deconstructing the forms of worship we have inherited from the modern era.(such as sitting in benches and being read to, preached at or reading from books including song books). We reconstruct these forms of worship by going back to the pre-modern practice of dance. Dance gets us into our first chakras again; dance takes us out of our heads and down again and connecting to the earth again. Joy results. Dance demands breathing and so it fulfills ancient teachings that connect breath with spirit. This connection is found not only in the Biblical story of the Creator breathing the divine breath into the clay to make it a living human but also in the ancient languages of Africa where the word for "dance" is the same as the word for "breath" which is also the word for "spirit." ("Breath" and "Spirit" are the same word (ruah) in Hebrew as well.) The African spiritual teacher, Malidome Some, tells us there is no community without ritual. Thus renewing ritual lies at the heart of bringing community back to our consciousness and experience. The modern era with its emphasis on ruggedly individual atoms, practically destroyed a sense of community. Renewed ritual can and does bring it back. And today's science with its emphasis on interconnectivity lays a groundwork for the return of community. But it needs ritual to make it happen. At our Techno Cosmic Masses people dance to techno music as well as live music; DJ's provide the musical ambience and VJ's or video jockeys provide images through slides and videos that tell the story of the theme celebrated. The theme might be "Gaia our Mother" or "The Return of the Sacred Masculine" or "The Return of the Divine Feminine" or "Kinship with Animals" or any number of themes that unite us spiritually today. In the "Return of the Divine Feminine" Mass we collected 500 slides of the Goddess from all the world's traditions (including the Black Madonna and Mary from the West). And we danced in the presence of these images, bringing in the spirit of the Divine Feminine. At each Mass we have a "via negativa" or grief experience where we grieve and lament together the loss or pain we are feeling in our hearts from abuse about the theme of the occasion. Grieving is such an essential aspect to getting over anger and into our creativity. We also have communion or sharing of the sacred bread and wine that unites all beings in the sacred act of eating and drinking divine food and drink. Early in the Mass is a fifteen minute "via positiva" dance or dance of Joy and Delight and Celebration. At the closing of the service is a fifteen minute "via transformativa" dance or warrior dance which prepares us to go into the world and back to our communities as healerss and strong defenders of compassion. A variety of ages is always represented as well as many kinds of artists and people from diverse religious backgrounds ranging from Christian to Jewish, Hindu, Buddhist, Muslim and Pagan. The worship is so pre-modern in many respects that many find a home there. Beauty is everywhere present. And, one might say, magic.
Friday, April 15, 2005
It starts with a simple question
(THE FIRST E-MAIL FROM ADAM)
ADAM: Can you beleive this?
(FOLLOWED BY A LINK TO A NEWS PAGE)
News in brief from eastern Pennsylvania
4/15/2005, 8:46 a.m. ET
The Associated Press
SHICKSHINNY, Pa. (AP) — A familiar presence is missing from a Luzerne County bed-and-breakfast, leaving the owner and his neighbors to searched the woods for a $400 department store mannequin nicknamed Belle that has decorated the porch for years.
The figure was always dressed for the season and attracted waves from people passing by the Blue Heron Bed and Breakfast on Bethel Hill Road, owner Jesse Turner said.
Belle was wearing a summer dress, hat, scarf and white gloves when she disappeared from the porch late Sunday or early Monday, Turner said.
So far Turner has found only the arms and some of the mannequin's clothing. "It amazes me that someone would do something like that," he said. "It's unbelievable. It's just some malicious thing."
TOWANDA, Pa. (AP) — A woman accused of stealing more than $500,000 from the Canton Borough Water and Sewer Authority pleaded innocent to charges of forgery, theft by unlawful taking and tampering with public records or information....(snip)
ALLENTOWN, Pa. (AP) — The city signed an agreement to lease Earl F. Hunsicker Bicentennial Park to a Gilbertsville company that organizes youth baseball tournaments for $72,000 for three years...(snip)
READING, Pa. (AP) — The Muhlenberg School Board voted unanimously to remove the novel "The Buffalo Tree," by Adam Rapp, from its curriculum, citing explicit sexual references and vulgar language.
The book had been part of the approved 11th-grade curriculum since 2000, but a few parents told the board that its graphic sexual content was inappropriate for high school students.
Muhlenberg junior Brittany L. Hunsicker, who had complained to the board, read excerpts at Wednesday's public meeting, but board members stopped her after a few paragraphs.
"If this type of book is in our school, then why not have Hustler and Penthouse in the school library?" board member Otto W. Voit III said.
Dr. Joseph S. Yarworth, Muhlenberg superintendent, said copies of the novel were removed from school library and classroom shelves Thursday morning.
The author, reached by telephone, said he was shocked that the novel, describing the life of a young man serving a sentence in a juvenile detention center, was banned. "This is a story about friendship, about survival and about kids trying to make it in the world," Rapp said.
Though it deals with difficult subjects, students can often hear about the same matters on television or the Internet, he said. "I am stunned to think it would be banned in 2005 at a school district in America."
(END E-MAIL)
RESPONSE TO ADAM:
You know, last night Traci and I were toasting you after we got word
of this, but this is horrific.
You were four stories down in a column that led with story about a
molested department store mannequin.
ADAM'S NEXT RESPONSE:
I just received this from a teacher from the school where this went down...
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Glen Martin
To: Adam Rapp
Date: Fri, 15 Apr 2005 05:32:29 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: The Buffalo Tree - book banning
Mr. Rapp,
My name is Glen Martin, and I am an English teacher at Governor Mifflin
Senior High School near Reading, PA. We are a neighboring district of
Muhlenberg, whose board voted Wednesday night to ban your book The Buffalo
Tree from its curriculum.
Though I have not read your book (and, admittedly, was not familiar with it
until this furor arose), I am troubled by the events in this case. The
school board of Muhlenberg School District listened to a couple of passages
out of context--the favored m.o. of evangelicals who challenge books--and
immediately voted to ban the book. Though it had been approved several
years ago for inclusion in the 11th grade curriculum--and despite the fact
that a process exists whereby parents can challenge books--the board
professed to be outraged by its content and took this unfortunate action.
Many 11th grade classes were in the middle of reading this book; after the
board's decision, the books were taken from the students and placed in a
vault (I'm not kidding!) to protect the students from the books' purportedly
corrupting elements.
Our department had a similar situation several years ago. Several
conservative Christian parents challenged Maya Angelou's I Know Why the
Caged Bird Sings for a variety of reasons, but mostly because of the scene
in which Maya is sexually assaulted at a young age. They, too, read
passages from the book out of context and tried to play into the board
members' fears and sense of overprotectiveness. But ultimately, and
fortunately, our board followed our procedure for challenging a book, the
English department had a chance to defend the work, and the book was allowed
to remain in the curriculum.
I'm writing for two reasons. First, I want to reassure you that there are
passionate anti-censorship advocates at both Muhlenberg and Governor Mifflin
High Schools who are struggling to ensure that students are exposed to ideas
that may be uncomfortable, but are ultimately essential to developing
critical thinking skills and a broad worldview. Second, I want to ask your
advice: Have you heard of your book being challenged or banned in the past?
What strategies can you recommend to combat this phenomenon--in which a
small, but determined and vocal, group of evangelicals challenges the
slightest "inappropriate" content in a book? How can we continue to
introduce compelling literature dealing with the sometimes discomfiting
themes of sexuality, drug abuse, incarceration, etc., into our curricula?
Thank you for your time.
Glen Martin
Department of English
Governor Mifflin Senior High School
THE LAST WORD BELONGS TO JESSE TURNER:
"It's unbelievable. It's just some malicious thing."
ADAM: Can you beleive this?
(FOLLOWED BY A LINK TO A NEWS PAGE)
News in brief from eastern Pennsylvania
4/15/2005, 8:46 a.m. ET
The Associated Press
SHICKSHINNY, Pa. (AP) — A familiar presence is missing from a Luzerne County bed-and-breakfast, leaving the owner and his neighbors to searched the woods for a $400 department store mannequin nicknamed Belle that has decorated the porch for years.
The figure was always dressed for the season and attracted waves from people passing by the Blue Heron Bed and Breakfast on Bethel Hill Road, owner Jesse Turner said.
Belle was wearing a summer dress, hat, scarf and white gloves when she disappeared from the porch late Sunday or early Monday, Turner said.
So far Turner has found only the arms and some of the mannequin's clothing. "It amazes me that someone would do something like that," he said. "It's unbelievable. It's just some malicious thing."
TOWANDA, Pa. (AP) — A woman accused of stealing more than $500,000 from the Canton Borough Water and Sewer Authority pleaded innocent to charges of forgery, theft by unlawful taking and tampering with public records or information....(snip)
ALLENTOWN, Pa. (AP) — The city signed an agreement to lease Earl F. Hunsicker Bicentennial Park to a Gilbertsville company that organizes youth baseball tournaments for $72,000 for three years...(snip)
READING, Pa. (AP) — The Muhlenberg School Board voted unanimously to remove the novel "The Buffalo Tree," by Adam Rapp, from its curriculum, citing explicit sexual references and vulgar language.
The book had been part of the approved 11th-grade curriculum since 2000, but a few parents told the board that its graphic sexual content was inappropriate for high school students.
Muhlenberg junior Brittany L. Hunsicker, who had complained to the board, read excerpts at Wednesday's public meeting, but board members stopped her after a few paragraphs.
"If this type of book is in our school, then why not have Hustler and Penthouse in the school library?" board member Otto W. Voit III said.
Dr. Joseph S. Yarworth, Muhlenberg superintendent, said copies of the novel were removed from school library and classroom shelves Thursday morning.
The author, reached by telephone, said he was shocked that the novel, describing the life of a young man serving a sentence in a juvenile detention center, was banned. "This is a story about friendship, about survival and about kids trying to make it in the world," Rapp said.
Though it deals with difficult subjects, students can often hear about the same matters on television or the Internet, he said. "I am stunned to think it would be banned in 2005 at a school district in America."
(END E-MAIL)
RESPONSE TO ADAM:
You know, last night Traci and I were toasting you after we got word
of this, but this is horrific.
You were four stories down in a column that led with story about a
molested department store mannequin.
ADAM'S NEXT RESPONSE:
I just received this from a teacher from the school where this went down...
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Glen Martin
To: Adam Rapp
Date: Fri, 15 Apr 2005 05:32:29 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: The Buffalo Tree - book banning
Mr. Rapp,
My name is Glen Martin, and I am an English teacher at Governor Mifflin
Senior High School near Reading, PA. We are a neighboring district of
Muhlenberg, whose board voted Wednesday night to ban your book The Buffalo
Tree from its curriculum.
Though I have not read your book (and, admittedly, was not familiar with it
until this furor arose), I am troubled by the events in this case. The
school board of Muhlenberg School District listened to a couple of passages
out of context--the favored m.o. of evangelicals who challenge books--and
immediately voted to ban the book. Though it had been approved several
years ago for inclusion in the 11th grade curriculum--and despite the fact
that a process exists whereby parents can challenge books--the board
professed to be outraged by its content and took this unfortunate action.
Many 11th grade classes were in the middle of reading this book; after the
board's decision, the books were taken from the students and placed in a
vault (I'm not kidding!) to protect the students from the books' purportedly
corrupting elements.
Our department had a similar situation several years ago. Several
conservative Christian parents challenged Maya Angelou's I Know Why the
Caged Bird Sings for a variety of reasons, but mostly because of the scene
in which Maya is sexually assaulted at a young age. They, too, read
passages from the book out of context and tried to play into the board
members' fears and sense of overprotectiveness. But ultimately, and
fortunately, our board followed our procedure for challenging a book, the
English department had a chance to defend the work, and the book was allowed
to remain in the curriculum.
I'm writing for two reasons. First, I want to reassure you that there are
passionate anti-censorship advocates at both Muhlenberg and Governor Mifflin
High Schools who are struggling to ensure that students are exposed to ideas
that may be uncomfortable, but are ultimately essential to developing
critical thinking skills and a broad worldview. Second, I want to ask your
advice: Have you heard of your book being challenged or banned in the past?
What strategies can you recommend to combat this phenomenon--in which a
small, but determined and vocal, group of evangelicals challenges the
slightest "inappropriate" content in a book? How can we continue to
introduce compelling literature dealing with the sometimes discomfiting
themes of sexuality, drug abuse, incarceration, etc., into our curricula?
Thank you for your time.
Glen Martin
Department of English
Governor Mifflin Senior High School
THE LAST WORD BELONGS TO JESSE TURNER:
"It's unbelievable. It's just some malicious thing."
Thursday, April 14, 2005
Computer Lab
The picture on the monitor across the room from me is of two polar bears in the front yard of a snowed-on lower-income suburb. One bear sprawls on his back against a snowdrift, his legs wide out in front of him and belly high, staring off at something that I can imagine is a ball game. The other bear has a more traditional polar-like stance, also looking on with mild interest. The house behind them is one of a row of post WWII ranch homes, and they are blocking a driveway where sits an early 60s red and white trim corvette-like vehicle.
The copier next to me has been making 23 copies of 8 pages for a while now, the rhythm lulling me into dream states. Traci hits the alarm and returns to the room wet from a shower. The mannequins in the hallway of Tisch School are dressed for Shakespeare. Music that will never be heard by anyone else builds vast archetecture in front of my eyes. Hair creme, cigatettes, autistic aliens. Roast pork and wontons. A curbside on 9th has a crack like Guatemala. Orange.
I rock back and forth to the pulse of the xerox. When I drift further to sleep my head does a free fall and I wake with a jerk with the gentlest awareness of where I am, returning to the bear lounging in the snow.
The copier next to me has been making 23 copies of 8 pages for a while now, the rhythm lulling me into dream states. Traci hits the alarm and returns to the room wet from a shower. The mannequins in the hallway of Tisch School are dressed for Shakespeare. Music that will never be heard by anyone else builds vast archetecture in front of my eyes. Hair creme, cigatettes, autistic aliens. Roast pork and wontons. A curbside on 9th has a crack like Guatemala. Orange.
I rock back and forth to the pulse of the xerox. When I drift further to sleep my head does a free fall and I wake with a jerk with the gentlest awareness of where I am, returning to the bear lounging in the snow.
Wednesday, April 13, 2005
Reading on the job...
I have been working for nearly a month now at NYU. I am the administrative assistant at the Tisch School of Design for Stage and Film. I am a secretary. A receptionist. Both of these roles have taken an excruciatingly long time to adjust to, but now that I am more confident in my duties, I am a sponge.
Recently the students here were honored by a lecture by Jean-Guy Lecat, co author of "The Open Circle" which is a book that chronicles the theater environments of director Peter Brook who has a production going on in Harlem this month.
Some excerpts (quotes from Brook):
"People have said repeatedly that my recent work is 'simple', and this has become a very friendly cliche. The warning I would always attach to such statements is that the road to simplicity is extremely long, and I discourage anybody else from trying to start with the notion of simplicity, because it is something that arises as a result of diverse, sometimes convoluted processes.
"An ethical idea of simplicity as a point of departure can be revealing if it involves discarding everything moot, whether it is a protection or a defensive reflex, and seeing what happens."
" We've never worked to a budget. Micheline used to say, 'Do what you want and we'll find a solution', and we would feel our way, try something, and if it was too expensive cut down on something else and sometimes get into debt...Sometimes newcomers from the outside can't understand our approach: they want to know what their individual budjet is, how they can operate, but the process for us is sort of a jostle, negotiating things as we go along, arguing our priorities, rather like breaking a horse."
Recently the students here were honored by a lecture by Jean-Guy Lecat, co author of "The Open Circle" which is a book that chronicles the theater environments of director Peter Brook who has a production going on in Harlem this month.
Some excerpts (quotes from Brook):
"People have said repeatedly that my recent work is 'simple', and this has become a very friendly cliche. The warning I would always attach to such statements is that the road to simplicity is extremely long, and I discourage anybody else from trying to start with the notion of simplicity, because it is something that arises as a result of diverse, sometimes convoluted processes.
"An ethical idea of simplicity as a point of departure can be revealing if it involves discarding everything moot, whether it is a protection or a defensive reflex, and seeing what happens."
" We've never worked to a budget. Micheline used to say, 'Do what you want and we'll find a solution', and we would feel our way, try something, and if it was too expensive cut down on something else and sometimes get into debt...Sometimes newcomers from the outside can't understand our approach: they want to know what their individual budjet is, how they can operate, but the process for us is sort of a jostle, negotiating things as we go along, arguing our priorities, rather like breaking a horse."
The School of Design
Design students who desire to stitch fantastic clothing and arrange physical space with furniture and light for theater works come to the Tisch School at NYU where they draw and paint their fucking asses off. This is because at every step in reaching their great statements in costume and set design, they have to visualize the end result and more importantly, communicate that vision in a way that everyone involved in the collaboration can understand. I am always awed and astounded by the ways ideas are concieved and developed, and witnessing the energy of it happening here is kicking my ass.
This is one large lesson for me as a music maker because collaboration with a band can suffer from not drawing pictures clear enough to demonstrate what can be. Often what is referred to as "vibe" is the result of having left much to chance and hoping for the magic to just "happen", which is one reason why many records feel half-baked. It takes great skill and the work of a focused group to make doors big enough for God to walk through, which is the kind of collaboration great producers and directors are capable of. The skill rquired, as near as I have found, start with great meditation and preparation, and not a kind always made obvious if its done well. By time a recording has started, all the preparation should be distilled into a gesture as simple as plugging in and rolling.
Of course, in the realization of the art, the results always become something of an odd potato toss, with the best parts never planned, and some disapointments arising from what was expected to be the high points. Always at some stage you find yourself outside the vehicle using a tire iron for a broomstick. At these moments, the objective needs to remain clear and communicable: where are you headed? Visualization is a living thing. Even as it remains connected to the original intent, it has to change as the work comes to life. And as they say in the army: no plan survives first contact. Everyone has to stay connected. I have discovered this to be one of my greatest challenges - how to ride the incoming waves and also communicate direction and changes to let everyone know what is now, at this point in the journey, possible to achieve. Sometimes I want to say, "okay, so this is really what we've been doing all this time" but that would sound like I was masterminding it. As Peter Brook says, the experience of finduing your way to the end is something more akin to breaking a horse.
One thing is for sure, though: when communication stops you are dead in the water, and the worst experience is to feel like you are the only one pulling. Moments like this can inspire great epiphanies of hindsight, realizing that you may have been focusing on things that left you unprepared for the place you now find yourself. Regroup. Move forward.
Demonstrate. Design. More now than ever I seek to learn the tools and languages to make the art of music making happen more fully. Pro-tools and effects and microphones and mic techniques are part of the bag of instruments that I have learned little about up to now, and I at least need to know what I don't know. Records and friends and books and experience are the resource. Nothing can be assumed, I tell myself, at all times speak simple and directly to the matter. Avoid the urge to make grand sweeping statements. Above all, give great attention to the inner voices of everyone as they are communing at all times with the emerging life being created.
Yeah, sure, right? Or so I think anyway. But I finish this post dissapointed at my focus. To begin with, there are far greater collaborations than bands. Wives, family, and friends all deserve at least the same attention. I suspect if I ever absorb the wisdom of these lessons, I will not be so consumed by a need to declare my findings or distinguish the media and discipline entailed. But for now, like the great souls awake in these halls, I am weighted by the sense of all I haven't learned yet. Like them, I yell for an echo. Like them, I advance with ambition and the few tools I have, in every way a student.
And like them I get back to work.
This is one large lesson for me as a music maker because collaboration with a band can suffer from not drawing pictures clear enough to demonstrate what can be. Often what is referred to as "vibe" is the result of having left much to chance and hoping for the magic to just "happen", which is one reason why many records feel half-baked. It takes great skill and the work of a focused group to make doors big enough for God to walk through, which is the kind of collaboration great producers and directors are capable of. The skill rquired, as near as I have found, start with great meditation and preparation, and not a kind always made obvious if its done well. By time a recording has started, all the preparation should be distilled into a gesture as simple as plugging in and rolling.
Of course, in the realization of the art, the results always become something of an odd potato toss, with the best parts never planned, and some disapointments arising from what was expected to be the high points. Always at some stage you find yourself outside the vehicle using a tire iron for a broomstick. At these moments, the objective needs to remain clear and communicable: where are you headed? Visualization is a living thing. Even as it remains connected to the original intent, it has to change as the work comes to life. And as they say in the army: no plan survives first contact. Everyone has to stay connected. I have discovered this to be one of my greatest challenges - how to ride the incoming waves and also communicate direction and changes to let everyone know what is now, at this point in the journey, possible to achieve. Sometimes I want to say, "okay, so this is really what we've been doing all this time" but that would sound like I was masterminding it. As Peter Brook says, the experience of finduing your way to the end is something more akin to breaking a horse.
One thing is for sure, though: when communication stops you are dead in the water, and the worst experience is to feel like you are the only one pulling. Moments like this can inspire great epiphanies of hindsight, realizing that you may have been focusing on things that left you unprepared for the place you now find yourself. Regroup. Move forward.
Demonstrate. Design. More now than ever I seek to learn the tools and languages to make the art of music making happen more fully. Pro-tools and effects and microphones and mic techniques are part of the bag of instruments that I have learned little about up to now, and I at least need to know what I don't know. Records and friends and books and experience are the resource. Nothing can be assumed, I tell myself, at all times speak simple and directly to the matter. Avoid the urge to make grand sweeping statements. Above all, give great attention to the inner voices of everyone as they are communing at all times with the emerging life being created.
Yeah, sure, right? Or so I think anyway. But I finish this post dissapointed at my focus. To begin with, there are far greater collaborations than bands. Wives, family, and friends all deserve at least the same attention. I suspect if I ever absorb the wisdom of these lessons, I will not be so consumed by a need to declare my findings or distinguish the media and discipline entailed. But for now, like the great souls awake in these halls, I am weighted by the sense of all I haven't learned yet. Like them, I yell for an echo. Like them, I advance with ambition and the few tools I have, in every way a student.
And like them I get back to work.
Sunday, April 10, 2005
Hassel between the gutter and the tassles
Tonight Traci and I walked from West 3rd and MacDougal south into Soho, across Little Italy and Chinatown, returning home through the Lower East Side. Spring in New York...being in a new place..... the blood pumps. We have come to New York to be lucky (luckier?) We've come to do something. To begin. It amazes me to think of how much we have been willing to risk so that we may go for a kind of life that pleases and finally get some shit straight. It amazes me that we are willing to be lucky. Stuff is happening, but slowly. We've managed to pay our bills for the second month in a row, but we have about a week of food money right now. I feel anxiety all the time and wait for the ball to drop, but we are eating well, have a drink everyday, and thanks to the kindness of friends have books and some weed to last a while. I am worried, but I don't stay paralyzed in this state. I keep moving, dotting "i"s and crossing "t" s. It is my only saving grace. Being scared for your life is a special kind of motivator.
This town is everything people say - a constant struggle just to stay here. But it's also everything else they say - a place like no other which will, in your darkest moment, give a little nudge to keep you moving. Case in point:
Yesterday Traci and I walked into 10-64 CoffeeShop in Long Island City. When I ordered my drink the Barista said I looked familiar. I said it was probably my Mossy Oak cap. (Mike, you left it in the upstairs bathroom at Dad's - now it's mine.) But then she asked if I was "Rizzo". By time we left, I had a free latte, and had been asked to play drums in the barista's burlesque show that she is putting together. The barista offered Traci free drinks and bagels and pasteries too, but she had just eaten.
Traci called it Serendipity, referencing the pulp books she'd bought me for my birthday and how I had always said I wanted to play a burlesque show. I was all the more pleased that she was pleased and we both agreed it didn't matter if it ever happened - it was just some good Ju Ju to keep us pushing through.
This town is everything people say - a constant struggle just to stay here. But it's also everything else they say - a place like no other which will, in your darkest moment, give a little nudge to keep you moving. Case in point:
Yesterday Traci and I walked into 10-64 CoffeeShop in Long Island City. When I ordered my drink the Barista said I looked familiar. I said it was probably my Mossy Oak cap. (Mike, you left it in the upstairs bathroom at Dad's - now it's mine.) But then she asked if I was "Rizzo". By time we left, I had a free latte, and had been asked to play drums in the barista's burlesque show that she is putting together. The barista offered Traci free drinks and bagels and pasteries too, but she had just eaten.
Traci called it Serendipity, referencing the pulp books she'd bought me for my birthday and how I had always said I wanted to play a burlesque show. I was all the more pleased that she was pleased and we both agreed it didn't matter if it ever happened - it was just some good Ju Ju to keep us pushing through.
Friday, March 25, 2005
Happy Good Friday
In New York City whole businesses are shut down and all the Christian schools are on holiday.
The people at the Design Department for Stage and Film at NYU are surprised to learn that New York observes Good Friday as a holiday more than the midwest, but I tell them that no secular business in Louisville that I know of would close in observance of the day.
I am surprised that a theater school isn't closed in observance. Theater of the Western World has its origin with dramatic enactments of rolling the rock from the tomb and finding Jesus gone.
I think the Passion story is at the center of all great stories.
Good Friday is my favorite holiday next to Thanksgiving. It's as close to Yom Kippur as I ever got from the Catholics, and I motivated myself to atonement by wrapping my Friday The 13th horror skillz around the idea of the final moments of Jesus' mission. I get the good eye from this and every year examining the details yeilds different results. I've only once experienced a Good Friday without rain and I've been paying attention since I was in the single digits.
On the flipside, I think Easter is a powerful moment to be a part of, but theologically speaking it is one of the biggest confoundments the christian man ever gave himself. It's like the great novel put in the hands of a Hollywood producer. The people want a happy ending. Don't leave them on a downnote and for god's sake, don't give them anything to reflect upon! They've got to work in the morning! (Some of them already took Friday off for Chrissake!) Everytime I see an Easter Pageant I think of man's great capacity to be obsessively attentive in meditating on the human predicament and so ready to honor it by injesting helium from bright balloons and show one's tits. Don't get me wrong - I love it. I celebrate this truth every Easter with a community of people who don't think they are insane acting like complete lunatics. We break bread. No one is sure why. It is real.
Pulling Jesus from the cave = rabbit from the hat. Shake in your seat and clap and say YAY because it IS magic.
Happy Easter.
The people at the Design Department for Stage and Film at NYU are surprised to learn that New York observes Good Friday as a holiday more than the midwest, but I tell them that no secular business in Louisville that I know of would close in observance of the day.
I am surprised that a theater school isn't closed in observance. Theater of the Western World has its origin with dramatic enactments of rolling the rock from the tomb and finding Jesus gone.
I think the Passion story is at the center of all great stories.
Good Friday is my favorite holiday next to Thanksgiving. It's as close to Yom Kippur as I ever got from the Catholics, and I motivated myself to atonement by wrapping my Friday The 13th horror skillz around the idea of the final moments of Jesus' mission. I get the good eye from this and every year examining the details yeilds different results. I've only once experienced a Good Friday without rain and I've been paying attention since I was in the single digits.
On the flipside, I think Easter is a powerful moment to be a part of, but theologically speaking it is one of the biggest confoundments the christian man ever gave himself. It's like the great novel put in the hands of a Hollywood producer. The people want a happy ending. Don't leave them on a downnote and for god's sake, don't give them anything to reflect upon! They've got to work in the morning! (Some of them already took Friday off for Chrissake!) Everytime I see an Easter Pageant I think of man's great capacity to be obsessively attentive in meditating on the human predicament and so ready to honor it by injesting helium from bright balloons and show one's tits. Don't get me wrong - I love it. I celebrate this truth every Easter with a community of people who don't think they are insane acting like complete lunatics. We break bread. No one is sure why. It is real.
Pulling Jesus from the cave = rabbit from the hat. Shake in your seat and clap and say YAY because it IS magic.
Happy Easter.
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