beautiful, funny, sad & true

I wish I could embed this video, but the link will have to do.  It’s a short animated illustration of an excerpt of one of Alan Watts‘ lectures, and it’s absolutely brilliant.

LIFE AND MUSIC

I’m still on a mini-sabbatical from blogging, but there’s lots to tell you about if I felt so inclined.  Mixing for IrishBand, two gigs in Portland and Seattle (okay, here’s a picture from the Seattle show). . .

. . .opening up for the amazing Cirkestra, a fantastic day of music, dinner and the Oregon Symphony with the lovely and talented JapanesePianist, and for the next few days I’m taking a surprise trip to Northern California.  As soon as I get back, it’s into the studio with MellowBand.

But like I said, I’m still on sabbatical, so I’m not gonna elaborate on any of that stuff.  Sorry.

See you when I get home from NorCal.  Hopefully I’ll be in more of a writing mood by then.

Man, I swear this blog gets more hits when I don’t post for a week than when I post all the time.  I guess it’s a good thing I’m still feeling un-bloggish lately, then, in order to give everybody a chance to soak up a bit of beauty, humor, sadness (although there’s been precious little sadness lately!) and truth.

Times have been good, overall.  Had a great gig on Friday, at which I got the chance to see many friends.  I started mixing the EP for IrishBand (our goal is to finish mixing some time in December), and I had an excellent birthday.  Got some new clothes.  My friend LJ returned from three weeks in the U.K., so we went to brunch and then came back here to my place where she could upload the pictures and explain the stories behind all of them.

I had another excellent day yesterday, which involved a new friend and much random fun.  We met at Powell’s, then watched a bewildering theater performance at Pioneer Square (we left after about ten minutes, scratching our heads with confusion), watched some buskers outside Nordstrom, bounced around between a bunch of closed restaurants (which finally led us to get sushi at Sansai), then we walked clear up to Vivace for coffee and dessert.  Lovely day.

NewFriend is a piano teacher, so we’ve been looking for classical music we’ll be able to play together as a duo.  I found a book of ‘easy to intermediate’ cello solos at Powell’s, which consists of classical pieces arranged for cello, with piano accompaniment.  Perfect!  It’s part of a two-book series; Book One is the piano book, and Book Two is the cello book.  I bought the piano one because A) it was the only one they had, B) it had both the piano AND the cello parts on it, and C) I figured we could track down the complementary book at some point, or just photocopy whichever pieces we intend to learn.

When I pulled up at home, CellistSkip was standing next to his car, and he said hello.  I brought the book over to show him, and he said, “No way. . .I think I used to have that book when I was a kid.”  FlutistSusan came down the steps just then and I showed it to her too.  “That sounds familiar,” she said.  “I think I may actually have the cello book in my files somewhere.”  She ran into her office, rummaged around in a drawer, and after about ten seconds pulled out a tattered copy of the companion cello book.  The cover is gone and about half of the pages are missing, but it’s the same book.  What a crazy coincidence, no?

So here are a few pictures.  I wish I would’ve taken more, but I was too hungry to think of it when we got our sushi.  The sushi was excellent, by the way, but the sunomono salad (with octopus, red onions, bell peppers and daikon radishes) was the hit of the day.

Perhaps I could recruit your help in locating a piece for NewFriend and me?  We’re looking for Antonin Dvorak’s Slavonic Dance #2 in E minor, Opus 72, arranged for piano and cello.  You know, it’s this piece (and what a beautiful performance this is!):

I could watch that all day.  Thanks in advance for your help!

When I arrived, I got out of my car and noticed that my friend Skip’s car had a piece of plastic where the rear passenger window should have been.  I tried to call him to find out what happened, but there was no answer, so I sent him a text asking if anything had been taken.  No response, so I signed onto VisageTome to find that practically everyone I knew had posted an update saying something to the effect of, “Skip’s cello STOLEN!  It looks like [description]. . .please help!”

It happened this afternoon on Northeast 13th Avenue, sometime between 11:00 a.m. and 1:00 p.m.

Here’s Skip’s description of the instrument:

“There’s a coffee stain on the bridge of the instrument.  It’s very dusty and has a large area of finger nail scratches on the right side.  It’s made by Virgilio Cappelini 1982 in Cremona, Italy and the label inside says so. It has a metal tailpiece (all scratched up) and a Shuback bridge.”

If you have this cello (and if you’re not Skip), IT IS NOT YOURS and you should do the right thing and turn it in to the police.  They are looking for it (AND FOR YOU!) and so are hundreds of Skip’s friends.  You’d better pray that the police find you before one of us does.

Last night, my friend Ania invited me to my second concert in as many days, as another early birthday present.  The lineup was of two bands I’d never heard before, Damon & Naomi and A Hawk And A Hacksaw.  I checked them out on MySpace and got very excited by what I heard and saw.  AH&AH’s main instruments are accordion and violin, and I would describe them as an instrumental gypsy klezmer band.  I had no idea what I was in for.

Their sound was fantastic, and you don’t normally hear a lineup like that.  When’s the last time you saw a band with a tuba player?   Add a trumpeter and a clarinetist who also plays the bouzouki, and you know you’re in for a treat.

Occasionally the violinist would play a Stroh violin (we asked her about it after the show) instead, which had a loud, thin, metallic sound.  I commented to Ania that it sounded like a recording from the 1930’s, and just now when I looked up the Stroh, the article said that they were in very common usage on early recordings, up until about the 1920’s or 30’s when microphone technology changed.

They ended their set, and walked offstage to thunderous applause and shouts of “Bravo!” They came out for an encore, but they told the sound person to turn off the PA.  The band walked down the steps to the back of the room, right next to where we were standing.  They launched into a few faster songs in crazy time signatures, and that’s when the dancing and clapping began in earnest.

One girl was whirling particularly fervently (and beautifully), and everyone cleared a space for her to dance.  There were a couple of guys who joined her at various times, and she even grabbed me to join her for a few whirls, which was quite a nice surprise for shy but irrepressible me.  I was more than happy to oblige.

What an excellent and surprising show.  Many, many thanks to Ania, without whom I would have missed out on a completely wonderful evening.  This is turning out to be quite a week.  Saturday I had a fantastic gig at Mississippi Studios, Sunday was the Pogues, last night was this incredible show, tonight is another gig of mine, and on Thursday a few friends are going to the dress rehearsal for a circus in which our friend is performing, and after that I’m heading to the Woods for Classical Revolution and inviting people to celebrate my birthday.

Definitely a great week, all around.

In other news, today I made my very first omelette!  No idea why it took me so long to learn, or why I thought it would be so difficult, but it came out really great.  Roasted bell peppers, tomatoes and cheese on the inside, with spicy guacamole (which I made yesterday!) on the top.   I recommend that combination highly, but I might use green peppers instead, just for the sake of a more interesting color.  Sliced black olives would be nice too.

Anyway.

Time to take a shower and get ready for tonight’s gig.

Last night I had the opportunity to witness the Pogues in concert, in their original lineup.  Though I’ve seen them on TV a time or two, and IrishBand plays a couple of their songs, I have to confess that I’m not terribly familiar with their music.  I’m not stupid enough to pass up an opportunity to see a legendary band, though, especially for free (thanks to IrishBand’s Singer, who gave me a ticket as an early birthday present).

The crowd was surprisingly pushy and rowdy, which I don’t understand, because it’s not as if the Pogues are a rowdy band or anything.  IrishBand’s Singer got himself wedged between two people just as a third guy came and head-butted him repeatedly.  Found out about that afterwards, since our little group got separated by about the fourth song.  I kept getting pushed and squashed between tall people, which made it impossible to see (and hindered my enjoyment of the show), so I made my way to the side by one of the towers of speakers, right near the front.

The band sounded really good, especially since it was only the second night of the tour.  There was only one song (which I don’t know the name of, naturally) in which people were playing chords in the wrong order for a while, but they got back on track without much of a hitch.

I found myself thinking throughout the entire show, What must it be like to be in a band with Shane MacGowan? I can’t even begin to speculate about thinking of imagining it.  He may be the sweetest guy in the world, but the fact of the matter today is that he’s a shell of a person, ravaged by many decades of drinking and hard living.  He doesn’t have a tooth in his head, and we could only understand a handful of words the whole time, one of them being the ubiquitous “fookin’ “.   The tin whistle player appeared a bit embarrassed (or maybe exasperated) by him a couple of times.  At one point, he yelled jokingly, “This isn’t rock and roll, this is patricide!”

My favorite part of the show actually happened after the show was officially over.  The band had just exited the stage, with the exception of Shane, who was standing at the microphone with his wine bottle, basking in the crowd’s adulation and trying to figure out how to get off of the stage.  The house lights hadn’t come up yet, but the sound men had just turned on some exit music for us, which happened to be “Good Times, Bad Times” by Leaden Dirigible.  Shane stayed at the mic and slurred along with the song, and played an air-guitar solo on his wine bottle.  The tin whistle player came back to join him, the microphones were turned back on, and the two guys sang and rocked out to their hearts’ content.  After the song ended, they walked off with a wave, the house lights came up, and we knew we had witnessed a special and spontaneous moment.

All I had with which to capture that special and spontaneous moment was the camera in my phone, and here’s what I got.  Luckily, it came out surprisingly good, all things considered.

I had a good time at the show, but not a great time.  I’m very glad to have had the opportunity to see them, and I’ll certainly give them their due, but I also have to admit that I wasn’t overly impressed.  I’ll be the first to admit, however, that I may be missing the boat on this one.  I’m going to scrounge up a copy of “Rum, Sodomy & the Lash” and give it a listen, or two, or maybe even three.

And I’m still going to enjoy playing their songs with IrishBand, with a whole new appreciation for them.

In other news, my birthday is rapidly approaching.