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I'm being confused by time here, too. The slant of light, the relative warmth/coolness -- one moment it seems like high summer, the next we're in late September. No humidity. Dry sun heat. Plus I'm on sabbatical. Time is like water.
89 years old! Yay!
He was commenting on the predilection of many interviewers to ask "What are your top ten favorite/most-influential/desert-island records?" He calls it out as 'retro-mania' (a Simon Reynolds term), "... the point where we seem more interested in the past than we are in the present."
I wonder if that describes me. I think not, though, because although I feel I'm 'living' in the past a lot -- many memories inform my daily existence -- what I find intriguing is how they intersect with my present situation. For example, this morning when I went out to our back deck to enjoy a morning coffee, there was a slight coolness and dryness to the air that reminded me of lived life in the mountains; Swiss, Rockies, Banff, others. Then it got relatively hot, and it all shifted. It was a heat without a lot of humidity, like the times I've been in Greece and Portugal. But it was different from them, too. The smells, the view. A life connected by almost random intersections.
However, I've become aware of my 'memory artist' existence through a social media connection with Pat Kennedy, my best friend in High School. I ask him: "Remember that time when...?" and he has no recollection of it. I wonder how much of what I remember is true. Certainly it's tinted by my present circumstances, and the chain of circumstance that led me to this moment. I hope I'm not making it *all* up, though. It was a fun life!
Fall is the season of memories for me. Well, actually, they all are, but I feel like I'm now inhabiting the autumn of my life, and the memories flow. Indeed, the recollection of classes starting -- this remembrance stretching back almost to the beginning of my memories. It's the feeling of moving forward, but rooted in that same motion for years, now. Where am I going?
I'm so primed for memory-experiences: On the way back from the dentist two days ago, I put in Terry Riley's Anthem of the Trinity. This had just been released prior to my first trip to Europe, that trip being a 'synthesizer demo in the theater' tour with Rick Thomas. 1980 or 81, I believe. We were traveling from Milano up to Interlaken, and from there we would head up to Frankfurt to meet our contact for the tour. Those names were all so exotic to me at the time! It was utterly amazing!
As we headed towards Brig, the Matterhorn out the windows of the train, I put this piece on my (then-new) Sony Walkman. I was totally jet-lagged, in a very weird and unfamiliar altered state, and it was just magical. What a world of possibility awaited! Those were actual Alps I was seeing! And I was there because of music!
All this came rushing back as I drove through the late morning slant of September light coming through the tall fir trees of Whidbey Island. There I was, layers of layers of memories (I spent ten days in Spital Interlaken twenty years after that initial trip) swirling through my consciousness. Music does this. Life does this.
Her intersection with Jill is obvious: after retiring from the State and Rutgers, Jill has done amazing work pursuing her ceramics creativity. I made my choice to chase music decades ago, so the crossing with Prof. Painter isn't as straightforward. What is woven into her story is her situation with her aging parents. Two weeks ago, Mom fell and fractured her sacrum (bone in her pelvis). Since then, Brenda and I have been scrambling to get the care-packages in place that we thought we had arranged when Dad and Mom were in the hospital last year.
Prof. Painter writes of experiencing an uncommon feeling during the first few weeks of her graduate-school work at the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD): happiness. I felt that, too, about a month ago as I began to engage with my Unity/VR sabbatical project here on Whidbey. I haven't had that feeling since, though. Why aren't things easy?
I say 'hazily' undetermined with good reason. The past month has been, literally, hazy. We've had no rain in western Washington, and the climate-changing-fueled wildfires have generated a huge amount of smoke. I took these photos of the Cascades just outside Seattle from the plane on my flight back from Indiana two weeks ago:
Rain has moved in today, though, and the sky was a little less opaque this morning. Flying over the western half of the US was still an excursion through fog/smog. Even at our 'cruising altitude' of 30,000+ feet, we weren't above the clouds. We were in them.
I had downloaded and was listening to Brian Eno's new CD, FOREVERANDEVERNOMORE. It's ok, but didn't really grab me like the work of his I admired when I was younger. I feel asleep.
But then I woke up. The last song on the CD, Making Gardens Out of Silence was playing, I looked out the window, and the clouds had resolved into darkish strata (we were flying into the dusk), and small, pin-point lights started appearing through fragments in the haze. Magic. The music was perfect. Soon the diamond-hits of light formed larger bands, strings, chaotic-attractor shapes. The music was still perfect. Context, context, context. What it means, how we live, what we experience. I need to remember this as I grapple with what life will be throwing in the future.
What an adventure we've had!
We had a wonderful time with Lian/Itay + family and a bunch of their friends. Itay's Mom and Dad, Ofer and Eti, were also both there. Seventeen people, and seven kids running around. What a feast!
We spoke with Daniel earlier. Oh I miss the days when he was also here for Thanksgiving, but I'm so happy with what he's doing. And of course my Mom and Dad, my sis and her family. We build past memories so the present is bearable, and then we build on that for the future. Thanksgiving.
To be honest, the "holiday music" experiment runs clear through my childhood, when Mom would play A Music Box Christmas almost non-stop through the season. My sister and I would have adventures with her 'dollies' and my Captain Action figure around the Christmas tree, coming in from ice-skating and sledding. I relive those moments while listening to the music, and it installs almost a sadness, a certain kind of nostalgic melancholy. Those days were so precious! However, with Shai and Naomi -- and of course the history with Lian and Daniel -- we can create new ones. A Music Box Christmas is still on my playlist.
And again, I haven't been posting too much here. I've been getting a lot done. Decorations are up, gifts are on the way, and I finished another scene for my VR app. I'm a little behind where I wanted to be at this point in my sabbatical, but not terribly so. I should be able to reach my goal next year.
Things are going (reasonably) well with my Columbia retirement-negotiations. More on this later, probably after I retire. We've pushed the date back slightly from June 30, 2025 to December 31, 2025. Several reasons.
Speaking of going well, all seems great at the CMC. I'm very happy with the job Seth Cluett is doing, and of course Jace Clayton (filling in for Miya Masaoka as Director of the Sound Art program) and all the TAs and students. Outside the Music Department, there's a lot of academic/political turmoil going on at Columbia. I don't particularly want to write about it here.
So instead I'll post some pictures of the outdoor Christmas lights this year. The theme is "dinosaur nest". Hmmm, I wonder where that came from?
HAPPY HAPPY HAPPY HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!!!!!
Remembering that trip to Princeton Hospital...
Peace on earth...
This has been an excellent Christmas season. Yeah, snow and ice; yeah, we really miss Daniel. Maybe it's knowing that my sister and I will face difficult times ahead. It made this year all that more special.
Peace on Earth.
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