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First of all, I had done a series of pieces in preparation for a presentation to our graduate composition seminar. Here's a link to them in my main "music" page:
and...
Terry's retirement! Here (terry-retirement) is a link to a page about Terry's good-bye party. Here's the piece I performed with Dan Trueman and Luke Dubois:I think 2018 is going to be a good year.
I feel good about our classes, and we have a number of guest speakers coming through that will keep things lively. Jill is facing similar things now that she's enfolded into academia, at least for the time-being. Off we go on another adventure in time. I ask again: how will this all end?
Just to engage in a tiny celebration of the snow, I listened to this piece on the subway ride down to Columbia:
Things are moving forward at Columbia, and I'm cautiously optimistic. I can't write anything at this time, but soon. Classes are rolling, and I'm getting through the many (many!) applications for various things.
But I seriously can NOT watch our godawful 'president'. Even on the comedy shows after his state-of-the-union address, I can't stand to see him. I HATE what he has done, I HATE what he is doing, and I HATE what he will do. He is a despicable man. The Republican party that enables him and his policies is disgusting. Anyone -- and I mean anyone -- who supports that morally and ethically bankrupt organization is guilty of high crimes against our country and the world. This is terrible.
Why is this happening? I think I probably have these recollections most of the time, but now they perhaps seem more precious because I'm more angry than I've ever been during the day. But it's not that I spend the whole day in a kind of rage, because I don't have time for that! It's the big changes that are happening with the CMC. We just made a new hire, and the job search for the Sound Art Program Director is heating up. Classes are taking time, although they are going well.
I've not been able to make time to compose for several months. That's what it is. It makes me feel hollow, and I compensate by dredging up more fulsome periods of my life. I did do a "brainwave" performance last weekend at the Cornelia Street Cafe, and my good friend Karl Fury is coming over tomorrow afternoon for an improv session. That will certainly help, but I need to make some of my own sounds, to capture some of this period if possible. It is intense. Change.
Gregory Taylor send me a set of recent pieces he's completed, and they are gorgeous. I need to do this.
As I've noted in my previous posts, this has been an "insanely busy time", but we're sliding through all kinds of irrationalities. Should I comment about our idiot-in-chief? Nah, that would take over this blog. I think it sort-of has already. Sigh.
Things are progressing, and things are also working out ok. We hired Seth Cluett as the new Assistant Director of the CMC, and he's proving to be a terrific hire. We had an exceptional list of candidates, and any of them would have brought an interesting perspective to the CMC. Seth has had a lot of experience (I've known him for quite awhile), and he is particularly good at negotiating the fluid space between Sound Art and Music. Onward!
Other things have happened. I've given some talks, latest appointments with Roger Pearse have all been good, Jill is going great guns with her sustainability-program work at Rutgers, Brenda and I spent a wonderful weekend with Mom (and Dad!) for her birthday earlier this month, snowstorms keep hitting (I'll get some photos up here sometime), stupid Donald Trump, good Olympics, great students, interesting class work (web audio), it goes and goes. And the Sound Art search is really going. More about that in coming weeks. There is that fabled ancient Chinese blessing/curse: "may you live in interesting times". Oh my.
I did find time to work on music! I had to do it; I was feeling unmoored. Music is how I define my worth (well, that and family too!), and not engaging diminishes me. It's this compulsion, doc, I tell ya...
Here it is, though. I managed to set aside work over break and found time to get together with good friend/guitarist Karl Fury. This was what resulted:
Oh my, oh my. We've been out here (in Seattle) over the weekend, and it has been great. Really great. Fantastically great. Shai is (of course!) an amazing grandson, and the whole weekend was filled with fun and delight. This is life.
Other big things are taking place for us, but I'm not ready to write about them here... yet. Soon, I hope. I don't want to 'jinx' things. It was quite a weekend.
The final Big Thing of the semester is now heating up. Next Monday our first Sound Art Director candidate is coming to Columbia for interviews, presentations, etc. In three weeks our choice will be made. The CMC is doing well, too. Again a part of this Good Weekend: we received a nice bump in our budget. Nice to be recognized for our work by the University! Seth is proving to be a terrific choice, and our students are doing wonderful work. "Wonderful", "terrific", "amazing". Yeah, it's that kind of time. For now. So I plan to enjoy it!
But it's marking quite a time in my life. This has been one of the most intense(!) semesters I've had at Columbia. And there's more... I figure that my birthday, the marker we use as time-passing, might be a good point to try to relate some of what's been going on. I haven't written as much here as I would like (and I've noted this before), but the fact of the matter is that too much has been happening! Here are a few things to report, in no particular order.
We're halfway through the search for the new Director of the Sound Art program. We've had a significant number of excellent candidates, most of whom I know personally. I've already probably managed to make a few sad or angry, and we're down to the final four. They are all amazing, and the choice will be extremely difficult. They are also all different from each other, so the choice is also a choice of the future direction of the program. Will we choose wisely? Fortunately the search committee is very good; I will be relying upon their judgment to make that choice. I feel almost too close to things. And several of the candidates are really good friends, and... well, amazing. It is gratifying that such extraordinary people want to come work at the CMC. I blame our students.
I have a bunch of pieces to put on-line from a trip I did to Ohio State University, thanks to Mark Ainger and Ann Stimson. Ha! I hadn't even mentioned that here! It was a good trip, and we did a lot of improvising. Web page up soon, I promise!
The weather has been bizarre. Fifteen inches of snow in mid-March! Five inches at the beginning of April! Today it was up in the mid-80s, and tomorrow the high will be 40.
Our annoying president. I can't even keep up any longer with the chaos that is the hallmark of his 'administration'. I fear for our future.
But the really BIG news for us, closing down to the personal level, is this:
I talked to Daniel in Helsinki today. What a guy! Things still seem to be going well for him. This makes me very happy.
Here's the biggest: this sign just appeared yesterday outside our house in Roosevelt:
Dealing with the rest of the house has been a huge undertaking. We're still packing away, and in between loading boxes we try to deal as best we can with the vagaries of our mortgage application. They are vague indeed! Too bad we're not Russian oligarchs. I suspect it would be a little easier. I don't know how much to write here, because it gets downright annoying. It's kind of like if I started writing too much about Trump and his "administration", things would spiral out-of-control. This blog, even in the recent spottiness, would become a litany of anger. Believe it or not, I try to temper what I say here.
Columbia has ended the term, and it wound up well, with one big exception (see below). Seth Cluett has proven to be a wonderful hire, and good things are happening at the CMC. We received a modest budget increase, and the work everyone is doing is simply terrific. We've made a choice for the Sound Art Director position, but I still can't officially announce it. The committee was really fine, and I'm happy with the results. There may even be MORE good stuff associated with the search. The future looks excellent, for now.
Our students are the best in the world. The projects done at the end of the term were amazing. One student in Ben Holtzman's "Data Sonification" class had even done an audio mapping of earthquakes in... guess where? The Puget Sound area! I think we're probably ok for the next 500 years or so, though.
The one bad (very bad) thing related to Columbia is a tragedy
that happened to Mary Kouyoumdjian, my teaching assistant for the
computer music seminar this past term. Her fiancé died suddenly
and unexpectedly. I think it was a heart attack, but whatever it
was it was really awful. Mary is such a sweet and optimistic person!
Life. Life.
While we were away, Dianna our realtor did host our first "open house" to try to sell our Roosevelt home. Try to sell... oh my goodness! We have received several offers already, one at our full asking price. We plan to make our decision tonight. So fast! THIS IS REALLY HAPPENING!!!!!!!
And hey -- I'm on sabbatical for the upcoming year!
We started early, driving from Lian and Itay's home to Whidbey Island for our home-closing. We got right on the ferry and met our realtor off the ferry landing. She had other clients to see, and in fact our closing was just Jill and me and the Land Title and Escrow Company agent. Much different from closings we had been to in the past where upwards of ten people were sitting around the table. We spent about a half-hour signing documents, and then we were done.
As we left the office, we decided to stop by a few utilities to start what we assumed would be the long process of setting up our internet, getting the electric service in our name, all that. Our first stop was at Whidbey Telecom to see about our network possibilities. They had a nice store right down the street from the closing office -- complete with internet cafe! -- and we walked up to he front desk.
The young woman who greeted us
Next we went to the Puget Sound Energy offices to get our electrical service switched over to our name. Same story: remarkably efficient and happy service. Fifteen minutes later, we were all set with electricity.
This went on and on. Arranging the locksmith, meeting some of our new neighbors, who are all also thrilled to be living here, even shopping for furniture in Seattle the following day, it was amazingly smooth and easy. We accomplished in a few days what we thought would take weeks to do.
But here is the explanation of the interrupted nature of this blog-post:
The day after we closed on our home, as I was typing this entry, we needed to find the address of our new place. I thought I had it memorized, but I wasn't sure. I recalled that the numbers are on the front of the house, so I walked outside looking for them. I promptly missed a step on the front entry, fell down, and broke my ankle. IDIOT Brad! As I lay in a heap, I didn't feel any real pain, but I looked down at my left foot. It was at a decidedly acute angle, an angle not meant to be given the human musculature. "That's not right," I thought to myself. I reached down and twisted it back into place, hoping that would fix it. Surprisingly, there was still very little pain, but I did hear/feel an ominous 'crackling' sound as I moved the ankle into position.
We then got to explore the Whidbey Island health-care system, traveling about thirty minutes (hey, about the same distance to Princeton Hospital from Roosevelt!) to the main island hospital in Coupeville. Once again we were amazed. From the time we entered the hospital, through taking our information, getting x-rays, seeing a doctor, getting an opinion from their on-call orthopedist, getting splinted and set with crutches, the total was two hours. Two hours! Yikes! That would barely be enough time to get registered back east! Apparently this isn't always the case. Jill's convinced that I absorbed all the bad karma to allow everything to work out so nicely here.
The next few weeks will be interesting. Karen (Dr. Pearse's PA) arranged for an appointment with a good orthopedist Dr. Andrew Elliott) at the Hospital for Special Surgery next Wednesday. I was able to send his office the x-rays from Whidbey, and he went ahead and scheduled me for surgery the day after my appointment with him. I'm not sure what this will mean for our planned visit with Daniel later this month, or for the amount of moving boxes, etc. that I had planned to do in preparation for our Roosevelt closing. Don't ever underestimate the fundamental randomness of life.
I have to include some pictures in this post, though. Here is our upper deck with two of the new (snazzy!) chaise-lounge chairs we picked up in Seattle:
One more: we had been wondering if we would be able to see Mt. Rainier from our place. For several days, we had been looking... "is that it?" "I think it may be that small white area over there..." etc. Then last night we came home to this:
But I really can't do much of anything. I watch Jill pack all our worldly possessions, and I'm able to help with some phone calls and internet-scheduling, but not much else. Fortunately I had done a lot of closet-sorting/packing before we went to Whidbey, but there is still much that Jill is doing.
We've been fairly mercenary about divesting ourselves of all the stuff we've accumulated in the 35 years we've been together. We've also been taking advantage of TECHNOLOGY To preserve some of the memories. I have over 1000 photos of school and art-projects that Lian and Daniel did since nursery school. I'll get them posted on-line soon.
Our Iceland trip, my sixtieth birthday gift from Jill, is still on. We had thought we might have to cancel it, but I'm feeling ok and Karen/Dr. Pearse think it would be fine for me to travel that relatively short distance if I'm up to it. Our friends the Ellentucks are going with us, so lots of support is available if necessary. Obviously, I won't be able to go out and hike along the volcanoes. We'll save that for another time. Good food is planned, though!
The only change to the trip is that I won't be going on to Helsinki with Jill to visit Daniel. Not because of trip-length or inability, but instead because I have to be back to see Dr. Elliott next week to get my sutures out, get checked, etc. I'll fly back with the Ellentucks, Jill will get to visit Helsinki again, and then she and Daniel will return here for the final cleaning of our Roosevelt home. Closing is set for July 12.
Iceland was wonderful. I am so glad I made the trip, even though there was a lot that could have gone wrong. Hey... life! Jeff and Sharlene were really great to have along. Anyhow, I'm back at home (for now) in Roosevelt, and Jill is doing well in Finland with son Daniel. It's been interesting learning how to negotiate Physical Reality with my broken ankle. I met with Dr. Elliott two days ago, and all was well. I know have a 'boot' instead of the fiberglass cast/splint, but I'm still not supposed to put any weight on my left ankle. Trickiness! I'm figuring things out, though.
Much is still happening. Yikes, what a time! It's hard to believe that in four weeks Jill and I will be in a new place. Life, oh my, life.
I'm really looking forward to Daniel being here next week.
We're getting through, but putting your entire life into boxes is a mind-bending experience. We're recycling and donating a lot -- many of my books now grace the shelves, or maybe the storage rooms, of the Princeton Municipal Library -- but there is still a lot of stuff. Figuring out how to negotiate the next couple of weeks will be tricky. Supposedly the movers are coming on July 9, and one of our cars (mine) is also supposed to be loaded for shipping to Seattle about that same time. After that, Jill and I will be living in New York. Daniel is heading back to Finland on July 5.
Daniel was hoping to catch our local 4th of July fireworks, but because the 4th is on a Wednesday they decided to delay the display until July 7. It's always been a family thing for us, but I guess the point is that we have done this. It's a part of our lives.
In the same way, I get sad thinking I can't walk around the yard, or the town, to experience the 'final days' of living here in Roosevelt. But that's what I've been doing for the past three decades. It will always be there, in my memories. We are heading west to form new ones.
And today we sold it.
I should be documenting this more, but everything has been so... wifty! The stress has overflowed a few times, and my stupid broken ankle hasn't helped. Today I had another appointment with Dr. Elliott. All is progressing well, and hopefully within four weeks I'll be walking again.
I did finish a piece today, the day of our closing:
and a belated one to Nephew Stefan! -- at least we got the packages and singing there on time!
Except...
I don't feel like I'm really able to do anything. Mainly because I can't. We're totally in limbo, waiting for the material of our lives to arrive (hopefully within a week). I literally can't do much because I still can't really walk around. I do internetty things until my fingers hurt, then I read, then I hobble around our amazing new dwelling, then I sit back down and imagine that three weeks have passed and I can do basic things like take dishes to the sink without it being a major planning-production. My books, my music gear, my VR laptop, even my piano -- somewhere in New Jersey waiting shipment. Please come soon! I miss my stuff!
This "limbo" stuff isn't all that great. I'm working on things, but they don't seem rooted anywhere. I can't do much around our new home because of the stoopid ankle thing. I'm supposed to start physical therapy here next week, but we're waiting on insurance approval (that we may not get). I haven't written much about the medical insurance fun we've been having as a result of the ankle-break. I'm afraid saying too much will 'jinx' the process. When I login to our Aetna insurance site, I still see a $27,000 charge that is still "in progress" as they evaluate if they will pay for my surgery. Yes, our health-care system is absolutely insane. Oh, I know! Let's do what the Republicans want to do and dismantle it EVEN MORE!
I probably shouldn't write much more here given my "limbo" state of mind. That coupled with the Absolute Insanity of the Trump/Republican administration is really getting to me.
I'll look out at our new view. Bald eagles are flying by. Hummingbirds. And a surfeit of tiger swallowtail butterflies (scroll down in the post) seems to bode well. It really is gorgeous here. Jill and I fell asleep last night to the sound of the surf and Puget Sound buoys down below.
This is our home. This is our life.
My oft-repeated refrain: Don't ever underestimate the fundamental randomness of life! How did we get here? Where will this lead? The dice has rolled once again, and this time I think it came up lucky sevens. Whatever it is, it's pretty magical.
Driving around Whidbey Island, there are many of these places. As we travel to the store, we find ourselves suddenly in Vermont, or back in Brown County, Indiana, or in the lowlands of Switzerland (the mountains in the distance). This is a remarkable place.
The trees are so tall! The huge, Pacific Northwest pines, of course, but even the deciduous trees shoot hundreds of feet into the air. They seem like they've been here forever. I think time has a different meaning here, and Jill and I are just beginning to discover it.
Is today any less remarkable? Are any of them? We had some landscapers out to trim the growth along the edge of our bluff. The view now is amazing. I always worry about the bank-stability, though, but given how we're situated (and the mature trees down below us) that concern is a little bit silly. Plus we're living our life! The view is truly amazing.
And tomorrow all our stuff, including the piano, will be arriving. Maybe not quite like "remission", but it will be a Big Move Day for us. Certainly a kind of end-point for our transition. A new day.