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posted a little late, but better late than...
I wasn't prepared for the sight that greeted me when I stepped out onto the roof and swept the New York panorama. It is so beautiful! I love it when I am surprised by the world. The goodness in the world, I mean. I've had a few episodes like this recently. Musical ones.
Why haven't I written about them? Why haven't I talked about how amazing it was to spend time with Shai? Our stay on Whidbey Island? The intense(!) programming I've accomplished over the summer? The incredible Roosevelt Follies, and the profound disappointment I've had with a few of our "friends" and neighbors in our small town?
I dunno. Laziness I think is at the root. I also get to the point where I think "oh I have so much to write/do! I'll wait until I have an appropriate amount of time to do it all!" Of course I never do. The trick is just to start writing or doing again. I'm going to stop now, though, because the view, the feeling, is spectacular.
Time gets so jumbled. We had Shai here for the weekend while Lian and Itay were attending a wedding. Watching his experience of time, oh the feelings! To have the world be so extraordinary, because 'ordinary' has not yet been established. I want to capture some of that again, somehow. Even in the Fall.
Realizing this, thinking of this fragile joy, I could barely function. Over the Labor Day weekend, our Departmental Administrator, Anne Gefell, died suddenly and unexpectedly from a massive heart attack. She was at home in her apartment, alone. It looks as thought it may have happened in her sleep. Her funeral was the day before yesterday.
I haven't written here about this yet, because words... well, yeah. Anne was a very good friend. We had worked together for nearly twenty years. She was also the embodiment of "institutional knowledge" for us all in Music. And she was a great soul.
What can I say? What can I say? I can't. That's why I listen to music over and over again.
So I'm home, and the weekend has been very nice. There's the typical reality-bending aspect of 'going home' again to your childhood abode, but it was great to spend time with Mom and Dad. I also got to see some old friends from middle and high school. Plus Columbus had an interesting exhibition of architectural/sculptural/installation works. What a town. What a childhood. We were all so happy, so lucky!
Two weeks ago I was in Bowling Green Ohio for a reunion of the Klinger Electroacoustic Residency (KEAR) Fellows. And this past Thursday Ethan Edwards and I presented our Unity/RTcmix work at the 2017 NYC Media Lab conference. I've been programming like a manioc, and there has been a real spirit of excitement around the CMC.
The weather has been weirdly hot. Daniel is starting his PhD program at the University of Helsinki. Lian/Itay/Shai travelled to Tel Aviv for the holidays, with Lian taking a side-trip to visit one of her programming teams in Hyderabad, India. Jill's sustainability work is taking off. Roosevelt is Roosevelt. Puerto Rico is in terrible shape. So much, almost too much, but this is life.
It was a gorgeous day for it, too, although our Fall this year has been weirdly warm. It's in the mid-80's right now. Our A/C is on! On the way over, I noticed that the trees had begin to turn their autumn colors in a big way. There's always one weekend where the change seems to really start, and this was that weekend for 2017.
As I was driving, noticing the trees, I also felt a powerful intersection with past times I had made that same very drive, noticing many of the very same tress. Often it was on our way to the Unitarian Church, getting set to teach religious education classes for our kids and friends. There was change, and there was continuity. Being very aware of change in particular during the Fall, it was nice to find that continuity. Life isn't linear (at all!), but it is connected.
I was talking with next-door-neighbor Eric yesterday. His kids are working their way through college, and I was filling him on on the latest fun with grandson Shai, Daniel in Finland, Lian and Itay. It was another beautiful day, like today, and I commented that when things all seemed to be going well, it was easy to imagine that moment extending indefinitely into the future. Yes! We will always be happy and healthy! Nothing will substantively change, except that the colors of the leaves will brighten an deepen!
This has been a particularly exciting term at the CMC. I'm really thrilled by the work we're doing, and our students are amazing. It's been pretty intense, but much of the intensity is good intensity.
Here in Roosevelt things are about as bad as last year. I've hinted, but haven't really posted a whole lot here about our local politics, maybe because they have been so personally painful. I wrote this article a year ago and sent it around to most of our neighbors:
Don't get me wrong -- we still have a lot of wonderful friends and neighbors here in town, but the well has been poisoned (and I'm worried that the present Council and their "what, me worry?" approach to our water/sewer system may make this literally true). Between local politics and our godawful national and international scene, I've turned into an angry old man. There are whole expanses of contemporary life I can't even discuss with my sister because of the monster I will become. What's wrong here?
At some point I'll have to say a lot more about this, mainly for my own sanity. In the meantime, I can take solace in how exciting this term has been for me and for Jill in our academic pursuits. More on this later, too, I hope. Not all is terrible.
And I'm a little overwhelmed. I need to carve out some time to sit down and simply report what has been happening. Roosevelt (I don't think I ever gave a full account, or even semi-account here of what has happened; we are actively pursuing a move to the west coast now, though), Columbia, the CMC (Terry Pender is retiring!), the work with Unity/RTcmix (totally fun stuff, but a lot of work), Jill's involvement with Rutgers, the national and international situation (blearg), so much, so much.
But not now. Here is a photo I took of sunset here in Roosevelt a few days ago:
What a week, what a semester! Classes were really engaging this term, and the work done by our students was absolutely amazing. The energy and excitement level at the CMC is about as high as it has ever been in recent years.
Which is really good, because otherwise it would be an occasion for real melancholy. We hosted Terry Pender's retirement party last night, and it was delightful. What might have been a doleful affair of things ending became a celebration of things accomplished. Doug Geers performed with his wife Maja Cerar and their 5(6?)-yr-old daughter Daria, singing songs like the Beatle's Across the Universe ("Nothing's going to change my world"... oh my!), and it ended with an improvisation by me and Dan Trueman, featuring video processing by Luke Dubois. In between we had video well-wishes sent in by Miya Masaoka, Darwin Grosse, Douglas Repetto and (of course!) Gregory Taylor. Zosha DiCastri spoke at the event, as did Walter Frisch, Fred Lerdahl and me.
Miya works at the CMC (Sound Art Program Director), Darwin and Douglas are long-time collaborator-friends with Terry, and Gregory is, well, Gregory. (see PGT) The fun part about having Dan and Doug play is that they were all in graduate school with Terry at the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music when I showed up for a year to teach. I raided the place! Ha ha! Terry and I have known Luke since he was nineteen years old. The history, the history.
Zosha was Terry's TA for several years, and is now on our faculty in Composition at Columbia. Walter, as Dept. Chair, spoke on behalf of all of us. Fred and I also have a fair chunk of life-history with Terry.
That's the thing that got me last night. Terry and I will be seeing each other a lot -- we have much music still to make -- but the presence of a large contingent of our friends, former students, past and present colleagues, coupled with the feeling in the room, it made me acutely aware of the life we construct. Three decades for me, and over twenty years with Terry at the CMC; what a thing we've done. One of my favorite music-quotes comes from the old Talking Heads song Once in a Lifetime, when David Byrne exclaims: "This is not my beautiful house! This is not my beautiful wife!" Looking around the room last night, I imagined that this was our beautiful house. We built it with a lot of work, a few bad times, but a raft of wonderful times. David Byrne continues: "And you may ask yourself, Well... how did I get here?" In one sense (the fundamental randomness of life) that question is unanswerable. Surveying the CMC, the things we've accomplished and are still doing, the path forward, potential new students, new colleagues, I think we know how we got here. It's a good feeling, and it is helping to keep the obvious sadness at bay.
We had a few 2-3" snows happening in the past week or so. They change the way the lights appear, smoothing them out a little, taking away the hardness. Which is probably a good thing:
The house is decorated, Jill has cookies made, Xenon-the-cat is nestled under the tree, the lights are glowing...
And thirty-one years ago today, Jill and I started on this part of the human adventure: HAPPY BIRTHDAY LIAN!!!!!!!
Oh the holidays this year. Shai arriving at the airport, Lian, Itay, Jill, Daniel laughing at the dinner table. Goodness, goodness!
What do I do now? That's a question. I feel like my good fortune has to be acknowledged by something on my part. I believe I somehow owe the randomness that has skewed in my favor an effort to be one of those "contributing members of society". This past year I've been happy with my work and the CMC, although it has also been fraught with difficulties. But things are working out, or so they seem at this point in time.
I let politics get me down too much. That has to change, but I'm not sure how it can.
While I feel this compulsion to "strive" ("striving" is an inside joke-of-sorts for me and Jill), I also want moments like this, right now as I type this, to go on and on and on. Shai is unbridled joy, Lian/Itay/Daniel are living phenomenal lives, and all is well with my mom and dad, my sister and her family. I think I love Jill even more now than ever, if that is possible. Why does this have to end?
I sit and sip my Amaretto, listening to twelve-century music, marveling at what it is to be alive. This moment, these feelings I'm having, they actually happened. That should be enough.
What a great visit with Lian/Daniel/Itay/Shai! Daniel is here for another week, but the bundle of energy that is our grandson is now bound for Seattle again. Watching him grow, his vocabulary now leaping forward, his sense-making of the world, his unbridled young creativity, it makes me optimistic for the future. We need that hopefulness dearly, right now.
Here's a traditional symbol of that hope, and one that Shai really enjoyed this year (he hung "trucks" on it) -- our Christmas tree:
I shared an article with Mom earlier today, written by Indiana University professor Susan Gruber. She has written movingly about her own battle with ovarian cancer. Her words in this latest installment really resonated with me. She was describing what it was like to walk through her house at night, waking up while others were all asleep. Mom quoted this back to me, an example of her elegant prose:
The term started in sorrow with the death of Anne Gefell, a close friend and valued colleague. The suddenness of it all added to the shock. I wrote a little text/audio application in Anne's memory and have read it several times in public. I need to make it workable for general computers and put it on-line.
Anne's death was sadly book-ended by two deaths at the end of the term. The wife of my friend and former Columbia colleague (he now works at Google) Dan Ellis passed away from cancer, leaving Dan with two young boys (middle school and early high school). A close friend here in Roosevelt, Alana -- we all knew her as 'Cissy' -- Porter died from a metastasized cancer. Cissy was older, but still a vital and vibrant person.
Then there was (is) the on-going awfulness of Prentis Hall, and the realization that no, we are not being scheduled for any sort of renovation. The architects and Facilities people swarming around the building are simply doing an 'assessment'. No plans have been made, no budget has been allocated, no future in sight for the crumbling building. I wonder why it is being 'assessed'. Much involves taking core samples from the floors of the place. Yikes! Perhaps it will be deemed unsafe? We are doing such great work! But the environment is so terrible! I really feel bad for our students. I wish I could force a change, but even with the full-throated backing of my Department colleagues, petitions by students, articles on the decrepit conditions in the school paper/blogs, there is no change to be forced. I am utterly ineffectual.
Added to all this is Terry's departure from the Computer Music Center. Today is his last official day of work at Columbia. He's now heading off into retirement. What a long, amazing ride we've had together! Yes there were ups and downs, but I am immensely proud of what we have achieved during our stewardship of the CMC. There is melancholy, though, knowing that we won't be working together on a daily basis. Along with Gregory and a few others through the course of my life, they have become my brothers. I will miss him.
The local politics of Roosevelt have worked to undermine my sense of our town as a sanctuary, a place where we can retreat, relax, and rejuvenate. A handful of people have essentially ruined this town for us. Don't misunderstand: we still have many wonderful close friends and neighbors here, but the political methodology that has infected our local scene has made it tainted. I described some of it here and here and here. What happened at the end of August is that Jill, along with our friends Jeff Ellentuck (then the mayor of Roosevelt), Stacey Bonna and Michael Ticktin all resigned from the Borough Council. Several Borough employees (hi Kelly!) also resigned. It was that bad. The personal attacks, the unthinking vindictiveness, and, well, the unthinking of it all became too much. Their work for the town was being subverted, undermined, and ultimately counterproductive. So they left.
Our town is in bad shape, and the current idiots-in-charge are not working to address the serious problems that we have. More pointed for me, though, is the political methodology I mentioned above. These people simply lie! I'm not talking about shadings-of-the-truth or relative misinterpretations, I'm talking about BALD-FACED lies! Statements that are directly countervailed within minutes of being uttered by Actual Evidence! And people believe them! How can disagreements about governance, about most anything, be resolved if there is no common understanding? The language-games are disjunct. There is no trust, no shared experience, replaced instead by a horrible demonization of those with whom you disagree. It is sick.
I see this in part as being the local fallout of Trump's presidency, the overarching political-social-cultural gestalt of the last year. A big part of the badness. An article in the New York Times today had the sub-heading: "In ways that were once unimaginable, President Trump has discarded the conventions and norms established by his predecessors." If what is meant by "conventions and norms" is truthfulness, integrity, and common human decency, then indeed they have been discarded. Even here in Roosevelt, among our liberal 'friends' who would be horrified by a comparison to Trump, the world has become smaller and meaner.
I'm due for a sabbatical year starting this summer. Jill and I plan to find property for building or a pre-existing home on Whidbey Island, an hour away from Lian and Itay's home, Shai's home. We had been thinking about this since Shai was born, but now the pull also has a push.
This is what I need to concentrate upon in the coming year: the good stuff. Shai. Lian. Daniel. Itay. Mom and Dad. Brenda, John, nephews Bo and Stefan (now with Alison added). Our friends. My colleagues, students. And of course, always Jill. Our health is good -- so far -- and outside of the stupid political gunk, life is going well. Despite the physical environmental conditions at Columbia, the work we are doing is about as exciting as it has ever been. I've truly enjoyed collaborating with grad students Ethan Edwards and Onur Yildirim. Will this hold? I hope so, for awhile at least. I can imagine fun times ahead. That gives me hope. The end of 2017, and here comes 2018.