iceland-2018

Anyhow, here are photos from our woods-walk yesterday, and Jill with our New Year's Eve dinner:

   

I thought that the circumstances would lead to a heavy nostalgia, a feeling that Sis and I were both back in High School. But this wasn't really the case; I think because both of our lives are still undergoing fast and furious changes. My nephews both graduated last year, Stefan is set to get married to a wonderful woman in September, Bo is in his first year of law school, Brenda was making plans for her three weeks in Sorrento again this coming summer, John was dealing with his mom and dad (and his sister has now retired, yay Elsa and Brian!).

And of course all the stuff happening in our lives -- move to Whidbey, Jill's work and retirement happening at Rutgers, Daniel in Helsinki, Lian/Itay/Shai -- what times we live! So the nostalgia and youthful-regression-possibility was swamped by the on-going circumstances of real life. That's probably good.

I did have a semi-youthful remembrance/reliving last night, though. I was looking at some books on my bookshelf here, and I remembered some math books that made a difference in my life. I recalled one in particular, a 9th-grade math textbook from mom (I think). I recalled that I found it when I was in fourth grade. I was totally entranced by it. From my 60-year vantage point, I think I was able to figure out what made the book so interesting to me. At the time, 'new' math was being taught in elementary schools across the land, a pedagogy based on set-theoretical concepts. Which is fine, except that the basics of set-theory are almost mind-numbingly dull. Years later I would appreciate the subtlety and creative fun of set theory (like Russell's Paradox -- the set of all sets that don't contain themselves as members of the set), but defining basic arithmetic operations through set manipulations wasn't really inspiring to a 9-year-old brain.

The textbook I found had formulas for finding the area of various Platonic solids along with nuggets like the Pythagorean theorem. I thought this seemingly arcane knowledge was akin to the ancient mysteries! What was the coolest thing, though, was the diagrams in the book of the figures and their mathematical construction. Looking at them, (I now realize that) I became aware of what mathematics could do. I'm not a mathematician. But I love how I can use math to create music. I'm a dilettante, a true 'user' only. It's such fun, though!

I return for a day, then I'm off to New York for the harvest of my stem cells, and my colleague Seth Cluett has arranged for me to do a similar-to-BYU thing at Lincoln Center in conjunction with the New York Public Library. That Seth, he's one connected dude!

I stopped by Lian's home to drop off my car on the way to the airport. Itay's mother and father were visiting -- I really enjoy seeing them. I'm hoping they can get back in the summer when the weather is nice (and Jill's here), and we can have them out for a gathering on Whidbey. Plus I always love seeing Shai. We played 'hockey' with a broom and a soccer ball while everyone else helped get all set for the Super Bowl party they're planning later today. I'll be in the air by then.

Snow is actually predicted for Whidbey this evening. I'm a little sad to miss it. Today is appropriately grey, wet and cold. It's the kind of day that I thought winter would be like around Puget Sound. The ferry ride seemed taken directly from my prior imagination. The wind was blowing, water droplets were sort-of hanging in the air, the ferry was swaying slightly over the swells. I even snapped a photo to document it:

I'm at Weill-Cornell now, undergoing the stem-cell harvest. More on this later. Last week I managed to catch up with some friends, but the event for that span was the Lincoln Center book-reading/presentation I did. My publicity-agent mom did quite a job of getting an article about it in The Republic, my Columbus home-town newspaper. Here is the link to the event itself. As mentioned in that link, this was done as part of the Lincoln Center/New York Public Library exhibition Sounding Circuits: Audible Histories that was set up by Seth Cluett. Walking into the exhibit was quite something. I've been a part of that history. It was a strange feeling to see it on display, especially since I've been away on sabbatical. I had that Talking Heads quote "And you may ask yourself, Well... how did I get here?" running in my head.

The reading went very well, and afterwards we drove down to Roosevelt to celebrate Bert Ellentuck's (Jeff's dad) 90th(!) birthday. Bert reminisced about his life, answering his own "how did I get here?" question. It was fascinating to hear how another life has unfolded. Sometimes I'm just overwhelmed by the scale and scope of existence.

We had our graduate composition admissions meeting the next day. Continuing this "get here" thread, Georg Haas and I were commenting to each other about the impact that our decisions will have on specific lives. This is how it goes, though. Opportunities arise or close, choices are made, and then you find yourself at a particular "here" that was previously unimaginable.

Then on Tuesday Jill and I joined Jeff and Sharlene in cruising around New York City, ending up with an amazing steak dinner at Peter Luger's, the famous Brooklyn restaurant. The occasion was Jeff's 65th(!) birthday. It's been a week of time-marking!

I was able to join them only intermittently. I started the heavy stem-cell-release drugs the day before, and I had to return to Weill-Cornell periodically to check my 'counts' to see if I'm ready for the harvest.

The bigger issue about my body not responding is that I barely collected enough stem cells for one transplant. They like to collect enough for two, but my "counts" for the collection started low and got lower each day. The apheresis team consulted with Dr. Pearse, and he said at the end of the third day that enough had been taken. I hope so! Echoing what I wrote at the time of my first stem cell harvest, I hope I don't have to use these. If I do, I hope I have enough. I'll talk with Roger next week about this.

I was told that low yields aren't uncommon in multiple myeloma cases, especially given that I've been on chemotherapy for twelve years. I've been feeling good lately, and the whole myeloma fun had begun to recede in the background, as evidenced by the spotty and random blogging job I've been doing lately. There is nothing like a healthy dose of reality to bring me back to reality again. My body is still, well, what it is. I need to be sure to remember how valuable our time is, and to remember to make the most of all the grace I've been given. Shai! Lian! Daniel! Itay! and (of course!) Jill! I need to work more on my big VR project; it's important for me. These are the constructions I want to make.

My family, Mom and Dad, Brenda and the clan, my friends. We had a wonderful surprise birthday gathering on Friday night for Jeff Ellentuck with Roosevelt friends. Pepperoni pizza at Albivi's, almost a week of celebration for Jeff, and us too. This is the real dose of healthy reality that I want to grasp.

I was then able to spend the bulk of the day working on my project. The last few days I've made a lot of progress. I think the time I had to spend in New York with the stem-cell fun got my fire kindled again. Whatever the reason, I feel I'm semi-back-on-track, although I wish I were a little farther along. All in all, though, a very good day.

Changing the subject, we changed the time this past weekend. I'm still somewhat confused about the seasons here in the Northwest. My mind keeps trying to map what I experience onto my past knowledge. For example, this morning I woke up to this:

It's been quite a 'wild' time here on Whidbey the last two days. Spring is here, for sure, and all the attendant memories that come with the sun and the relative warmth. At night there's a regular hoot-owl festival happening outside. It drives Xenon crazy, even though I patiently explain to him that those birds are about three-times his size.

But the 'wildness' (i.e. nature in all her glory): The night before last I had our new neighbors Jeanne and Alex over for dinner [thanks to Jill for making additional beef stew over the holidays that I could serve!].

I drove into town to get some groceries, and as I was leaving our lane I spotted a Stellar's Jay. Beautiful, brilliant-dark blue. I've also been walking down on our beach at sunset. I'm pretty much all alone.

Other minor annoyances happening, too, and they all seem larger when on overarching sense of futility is in place. I'm feeling the burn on my sabbatical, over half-way done now! Fortunately I was able to lose myself in work again today and made more progress. It's a long, slow slog. This is one of the trickier things I've tried to do. I just managed to build a standalone Windows version of the app with several scenes, I'm going to do work on the OSX version now. The VR gear follows from the Windows version, and it's looking/sounding pretty good right now. I'm going to add the latest two scenes I've built to the existing ones and get it out to a few friends for alpha-testing.

Although rain was predicted, it turned out to be another gorgeous day. I've got some pictures to put up here again -- wildlife! I think I saw a golden eagle on a walk two days ago, and saw some more Stellar's jays and a goldfinch. The hummingbirds are back, too.

Lian/Itay/Shai just returned from their annual family ski trip to Austria. Shai is skiing! What a guy! And Daniel took a wonderful trip with his friend Jussi up to the border between Norway and Finland. Noooor-veeey! He was hoping to see the northern lights, but they didn't show. He did get a reindeer ride in a Sami sleigh, though! One of Jussi's cousins(?) is Sami. Daniel had picked up a rare book on Sami-English translations and was applying his linguistic skills.

Happy third birthday to my amazing grandson!

Goodness, my son is one-quarter-century old. He and Lian, they have grown into such remarkable adults. What Daniel is doing is amazing. And life seems good for them. This is the greatest thing Jill and I have done. For sure.

The Easter Sundays I remember featured the lovely song "Morning has Broken" by Cat Stevens. I loved that music. The evolving hormonic modulations, the rolling 6/8 time, it made me happy. Breathing in the spring, imagining rebirth, forgiveness, an open future... this was the best that religious belief can do.

Cat Stevens embraced Islam and changed his name to Yusuf Islam. That's fine. But then he endorsed the Ayatollah Khomeini's fatwa to kill Salman Rushdie for his critical writings. That is the worst that religious belief can do.

I'm heading to New York tomorrow for some stuff, back here on Whidbey again in a week. And then a week after that Jill comes out for good! Time for the trade-off. Oh well, I have until late August to enjoy the peace of the island.

My sabbatical project is going well again, after the week of debug-hell. I think I finally exorcised the code (it was tricky). I haven't had any big runs of significant crashes for awhile now. The new scene has come together well. I'm much more skilled with the various tools, and it allows me to do things I wasn't so sure of doing in the earlier two scenes. Not that they're bad, but the worlds are evolving. This is good, I think.

Brother-in-law John's mother died. Jill visited the graves of her parents yesterday as she prepares for moving out here to Whidbey full-time. I told John the story of Daniel's view of the afterlife. We make our history, and it exists, somehow.

However, I'm still not used to the seasonal markers here. Two days ago it seemed like October. Last week it was April. Then August. Then a place in the mountains, but it shifted to my Indiana youth. So much is built on the foundation of my life memories, and they shift about and rearrange. What now is new?

The car shipment was absolutely terrible, as we expected. When we shipped my car here last year, we learned just how 'fun' the Mafia Industry from Hell can be with this nonsense. Cash only? Calls after 8 PM at night? Give me a break. If anyone reading this has cause to ship a vehicle, find out if the shipper that the broker is using is "Fast Freight Trucking". If it is (and likely it is -- they seem to have the industry sewn up, ha!), run screaming away. "Double the length of time we said to ship Trucking" or "we will not communicate with you at all Trucking" is a more appropriate name for this godforsaken company. Oh I could go on and on, but what the heck. We have Jill's car, we live here now.

Friday I'm heading back to New York for the International Computer Music Conference/New York Electroacoustic Music Festival. I've been asked to be the keynote speaker this year, oh my. I haven't been to an ICMC on over 20 years, and I've never attended the NYC-EMF. I guess absence makes the heart grow fond? To be sure, there are many good friends who will be there, and I'm happy about that. But I seriously don't know what to say. I'll play some music and tell some stories, hopefully that will be 'keynotey' enough.

I'd embed a link here to the web site about the conference, but it's just pathetic. The last time it was updated was last March, and whoever did the HTML should learn a bit about web-page loading. Jeez, and this is the computer music conference? Seriously, if you google it and go to the link, it will bring your browser to its knees. No mention on the web site of my involvement, too (oh! Ego brad! Bad, bad bad!).

If you download this document you can see more about the conference, including my keynote thang. Supposedly I'm doing a piece on the Friday night concert, June 21. I wonder. (NOTE: Be sure to download the program, instructions on the web site. Trying to read it on the web is painful.)

We've got people coming to visit over the next month, and then it's back to NYC for me. In the meantime, I'll hopefully get the four project scenes finished and enjoy my last month on Whidbey for awhile.

Yesterday was the fiftieth anniversary of the moon landing. We watched a good show about it last night with lots of historical footage. It's at the edge of my 'linear' memory. I think I was in sixth grade, and I can form sets of memories from that time. Beginning in seventh grade the memories form a more coherent narrative, but prior to that they are groups of images/feelings/sounds/sensations. Seeing it all on TV reawakened many of them.