Dog on the Dock

Sometimes it's a very strange feeling, riding my undersized bike through the streets of the town.

Portland is basking in magnificent late-Summer days.  I am locked up with indoor training and having two days off has been great.  It's enjoyable because I seem to have lost the instinctive rhythm of time that is dictated by weekends and the start of school days.

Finally, on the very last day that I can call "Summer vacation" I got a bike ready and online.  It's a little undersized but I refuse to buy a new one, having had two stolen from the foyer of my apartment.

I can walk it, of course - this town is such that you can walk pretty much anywhere you want - but the breezy time saved is precious and I love the sense of movement that a bike affords.

So there I was by East End Beach, lying on the grass under a small tree, making up shapes for clouds that weren't up in the sky.  I had a wonderful, refreshing nap, then took time to practice diablo (Chinese Yo-yo) for a while.

It's starting to get easier.  I've spent too much time writing music and something had to go.  Diablo will be fun.

School calendar has been a structure controlling my life for over 45 years.  That also includes DCI FInals and the start of Marching band season.

So here is the start of a new adventure - the time of transition is ending and something new, something fresh, exciting - a little scary, perhaps - but something new that is going to be fantastic.

Strange days, stranger comforts

There is a Chinese saying, in Mandarin, I think, that says "May you live in the most interesting of times".

Being an inflected language you can shape the words to imply either a friendly wish or a malediction.

I'm going with "friendly wish".

As of today I am three days into intensive training for my new job. Professional discretion will lead me to refer to it obliquely, also out of courtesy to the incredible set of new friends I've discovered.  You can tell from my earlier posts, but as of now I have responsibilities and intend to honor them.

We're working in a meeting room at the Embassy Suites near the Jetport - the name "jetport" probably evoked far away places with strange sounding names back when first built - now it just seems tacky and Chamber-of-Commeracy - if that's a word.

Still, all told it's a nice place and since I grew up near airports it's working out fine.

The work is challenging, a lot to learn in order to deliver the level of service expected.  My colleagues in all capacities are smart, engaging and very present.  You can tell there was a concerted effort to build a team both competent and diverse.

A case in point is the fire incident from yesterday.

A strange beeping (and with all the technology present in the room pretty much all beeps are rather strange) broke out.  This had an urgency and tone that demanded attention and our managers popped out the doors, holding them open so we could hear.

At which time a Magic Voice announced a fire alarm.  Instructions were given, asking us to wait for an announcement of the involved floor, which, once named, could be evacuated.

That kind of stopped the lesson.  We were still reaching for our water glasses and candy bars when the manager of the hotel stepped in, informing us that we had to leave.

Leave now.

"The first floor is asked to leave quietly by the nearest available exit," the magic voice intoned  If there had been a nearby unavailable exit I think we would have been screwed.  Oh well.

My friend in the PFD told me years ago (he has retired and lives just "next door" to the hotel) that there are over 6 fire engines at the Jetport, but also that all of those machines were reserved for the Jetport.

This didn't bode well at all.

So it took a little longer than one might be comfortable with to hear the sound of fire trucks wailing their way nearer to the hotel.  We all spilled out into the trees as PFD made their appearance.

I admit to being grateful for the interruption - this is a lot of work and the stakes we play for are high.  

Still, it was kind of fun.  There was some spontaneous entertaining, a song or two - then someone suggested getting a "class picture" of the crew and a hotel staffer was pressed into service.

Besides using one of the ubiquitous cell phones I pulled my digital camera out of my eternal backpack and let it be used to snap some pix.  Sadly I can't post it as it identifies folks - the other shots don't really show faces (and I've blurred them just a touch in Photoshop to help).

I did notice that the ladder had a tennis 

ball attached to it.  The driver informed me it was used in sighting the ladder during use.  

The people I'm working with are a wonderful crowd.  Everyone is very, very smart - we have to be.

Everyone is very, very friendly - again, we have to be. It looks like doing this job is going to need pinpoint co-operation and communication and we're just the types.

This was brought home after we left for the day.  I announced and then headed off to the NorthStar for tango - TML wasn't playing but Prof.B was the DJ and she's got quite a collection.

I was dancing with a lady when someone called my name from the door.  It was one of teams from work - over eighty percent of them.  

Sadly I ran my partner's toes over - not good form.

But I will say that it was the first time in my professional career that some folks from work showed up to one one my suggested events.  Before now it just never occurred to me that people would be willing to share.  It was quite a compliment.

I took a tremendous risk during a tremendously vulnerable time in order to get this job and clear out space in my soul to write music and have a richer life.  Against all odds I am cautiously optimistic about how this is all turning out.

My German friend, E., says that this is just the beginning - that the final iteration of this has not happened yet.  I'm willing to grant him this - I also intend to enjoy these moments and live them fully, with grace and presence.

We shall see.

Rings in your ears, not in your brain

Oh yeah.

This has been a busy weekend, what with balloon festivals, tango lessons, a milonga, a choreographer's showcase, a sushi raid, all sorts of stuff.

And then, Friday night, I snuck out of the Portland Ballet's "Portland Dances" choreographer's showcase, which was sad because there was some really good dancing going on - but good, because two of my friends I came there to see weren't in it - snuck out to attend the Portland appearance of the "Good Cheer Brigade", a honk band from Providence, RI, who were on their way to Machias for some kind of subversive event or other.

Ariel had heard about this and managed to get them to stop off on their way.

She is part of a twenty-something community here in town - not really college students per se, just folks that are around doing cool things and making stuff happen.  

It's really funny to see the differences in approach to life in some people.

I saw a flyer on the board in Congo Square and so made a note on my iPod ("iPod, therefore i Am) to sneak out of the showcase and go hear these guys.

The house was one of those three-story multi-unit houses, right next to the railroad running through Woodford's Corner.  There were a couple of guys from Esperanza there (with whom I'd done the Moxie parade last year) and we caught up while waiting for the band to beam in on their way to Machias.

Finally, comma, they rollled up about 30 minutes late.  I parked myself on the living room floor on the second story.  The windows were all closed, covered with either futons or thick wool tapestries of tigers.  The furniture was all used (actually the owner came by, having moved out a year before and had quite an emotional reunion with the couch - it was quite touching and you wanted to kind of turn away).

There was a big-ass pirate flag on the wall over the couch.  They need a velvet Elvis but it was all good.

It was neat to hang out with a group of people totally in the present.  I don't hang out with twenty-somethings much, I don't know why, it just has worked out that way. 

That may have to change.

So the band trooped upstairs - two tubas, two trumpets, three bones, an alto, two basses, a a triple-tenor player (with a spock added to the set so it was really quads) and a cymbal player.

The band basically sounds like the Dirty Dozen, a kind of balls-to-the-wall, take no prisoners attitude that I found very refreshing - especially in contrast to the ballet showcase I'd just come from.

This is not to denigrate "Portland Dances", of course - it just measures the distance of the differences between the two.

Let's face it - these are the mothers your band director warned you about.  Come to the dark side, my children.

I did try to take some pix with my new phone but they just didn't come out.

I will finish with this - it was fun, and it was something terribly authentic and honest.  I have a lot to think about because of this - and working in the Orchard will be part of it.

I'm posting a YouTube of the band - you have to imagine this level of mayhem - serious mayhem, bedlam, outright 'round the freakin' twist craziness - happening in the space about half the size of a Starbucks. Also, did I mention the twenty-five other sweaty people hopping up and down in the room?

(NOTE - must sent thank you note to building inspectors at City Hall.)

Balloon payment

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One of my favorite movies growing up was an early Irwin Allen effort (pause while I write a quick fugue with that as the text) called "Five Weeks In a Balloon" based on the Jules Verne novel of the same name - though Verne called his "Cinq Semaines en Ballon" (the link is to an English translation).

I grew up with Jules Verne.  At Lee Elementary School we started actual library class with the amazing Mrs. Key - "reading is key" - in second grade.  I jumped immediately to the chapter books - I remember asking her permission and then just dived in.  The first one was "The Voyage of the Luna Two" about two English children who are stowaways on the first British rocket to the moon - and how they got back.

Scientifically it was nonsense but at least the writer was kind enough to at least try to explain how things worked - it wasn't accurate but at least he made the effort.

As you read each book you wrote its name on a card list - when I left Lee at the end of Sixth grade I remember my stack of accumulated cards would have made James Lipton faint dead.

Jules Verne played a great part in that.  It spoke to a deep part of me, reading the lists of fish M. Arronax saw through the windows of the Nautilus, the descriptions of how a howdah functioned in under Passepartout - and the incredible plot twist that ended "Around the World in Eighty Days".

You see, we weren't in a position to go places (much) and there were worlds beckoning on TV as astronauts rode pillars of flame into space - Verne did a lot to keep my eyes off the ground (which is why I occasionally stumble on stones other men see and build into big houses).

All of this backstory makes sitting on the bank of the Androscoggin with C. and Chief the Wonderdog easy to understand.  C. had been talking about going to the festival for a year or more and it turned out the weather and schedules allowed it to happen.

We had tried to get in the front gate but the elf in charge pointed out a sign that said "no animals" - I really wanted to give the kid a hard time because it would have been fun - probably because it would also have been patently unfair - but let that pass.

We wound up on the Auburn side of the river, on the bank (shown in the last of the Facebook pix).  I don't know what it means (I have some guesses) but everything seems, on the surface, anyway, to be nicer and somewhat less hectic on the Auburn side.

There are all sorts of cliches about this kind of thing that I can't really use since I've never been up in a hot air balloon - "peaceful", "floating Christmas ornaments", that kind of thing.  They're just really pretty, I can say that - and they get off the ground with alarming speed.

The last time I'd been to the Great Falls Balloon Festival was three years earlier when I'd taken over the position at LHS.  The Music Boosters run a booth selling water and do really well - Chief's presence meant I couldn't go over and nose around.  

I did see one CRMS student as we crossed back to the car, and one parent of a particularly talented LHS student (J. has graduated and is wisely taking a year off - wish I'd done that, but then I wouldn't be here right now).

So it was a fun afternoon.

Seventy-Five minutes before the mast

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I've been reworking the Children's Theatre of Maine website - it may not be the most complex website but it's better than a lot of them and very easy to use.

I also like the tone of voice it has ... and the info it presents.  This last was one of the holdups - I had to get all the final versions of information straight before deciding how to present it.

This involved a lot of sketching, flowcharting and other mental gymnastics prior to actually coding the site.  I know there are clever piece of software that can do this stuff - but back when I first had  a need to do these things I couldn't afford them - still really can't - so I had to learn to do it on my own.

Fortunately this is much the same kind of layout used when you edit a piece of music for printing - it actually wasn't very had at all, once I learned the grammar.  It was kind of like writing music as you were coming up with something people could share and experience.

But this process takes a certain amount of time and brainpower - and with my thoughts now turning to working in the Orchard my brain got a little soggy.

My Lord Sebastian was none-too-subtly suggesting I get out of the house for a while so he could cat nap in peace and I took myself down to the Casco Bay Lines ferry terminal.

The annual crush of tourists usually insures that riding the boats - hell, even just sitting around waiting to get on the damned things - is about as pleasant as eating Texas dirt.  

And less nourishing.

Still, it was a lovely day, one of the few in a very rainy summer (and the contrast brought up the subject of rain a lot amongst these people - you'd think they'd just talk about how nice it was without bringing up the subject of how bad it had been) and I felt glad to get out and walk down to the terminal.

The boat pulls out with an incredibly loud blast on the horn, backing from the dock and into the bay.

Several boats passed us, heading both in and out of the bay.  Almost all of them in the inner harbor were working boats - and I count tour boats as working - fleecing hard-shelled tourists out of their greenbacks.

Having a sweatshirt in your backpack helps - it can get much, much colder on the water than on the land.

We made three stops going out, four coming back - motoring out as far as Long Island.  A.W. keeps telling me and anyone else who will listen that we need to go out there and check it out.  If there is tie I will.

You need to feed your eyes with beauty on a regular basis - and the inner island of Casco Bay will serve for that.  Things are seen - boats, wakes, patterns of metal on a railing; sounds are heard like the whistles, sea bird, waves, voices of kids asking questions, the occasional dog (almost inevitably a Lab - black or brown) ....

... and it all goes rolling across the water to each small, discreet port of call.

I don't think the crew - or aging members of the supercargo - had any dusky maidens awaiting their arrival - and since this particular boat was coming by every 90 minutes they could rely on homebound company.

So my soul was restored and I could relax for a short while before the hard work of leisure came to an end.

You run into the most interesting people ....

... if you keep your eyes open and aren't afraid to talk.

Facebook album is here.

I ran into my belly-dancer friend Adira - and along with discussions about the dance scene she mentioned dancing at the 10th anniversary celebration for the Museum of African Culture in their new digs on Maple Street.

Maine has the reputation of being lilly-white - and I think only Vermont has  smaller percentage of citizens of color.

From working in Litchfield and Lewiston both - as well as just tooling around the state in the time I've lived here - all of this feels accurate.  This is not a judgement - it's simply the way it's turned out.

However - maybe it's just me, but I've also experienced a vibrant "ethnic" community - strong tastes of international (non-redneck, God help me) cultures.

There are powwows to go to, Greek festivals, Italian festivals, tango dances, lot's of salsa, the Abby museum ... and the Museum of African Culture.

It's run by Oscar Mokeme - a tall man known for his amazing appearances at events in a full shaman's costume - full head mask, straw hair and body, carrying a horsetail scepter, walking gracefully about, blessing all lucky enough to come within his reach.

AS it turns out, Oscar is also an honest-to-God prince in his homeland - one of several and they'd all have to pass away before he'd have to go back.

Still, he brings a living experience of African culture to the city - and his museum.

So it was easy to bookmark the date and show up.  Seeing Adira dance was just another motivating factor.

Several tango pals were there.  It took a while to get to Adira - like most of these things it ran late and Oscar had a very specific pattern he was working, that couldn't be varied for any reason.

Understandable - and it gave us a chance to share the talents of the two guys you see at right.

Adira came on after them, dancing effective and evocative belly dance, both on the stage and through the crowd.

It's easy - and wrong - to simply see belly dance merely in a sexucal way.  The dancing - at least as Adira does it - is intense, emotionally consuming work and I'm very impressed with it.

So was the crowd.  The afternoon pretty much showed how interesting such nooks and crannies are in the dominant cultural (top 40) state of Maine. 

Lime most dancers she was in oxygen debt but before going out for a tea we had to stay to watch a Somali group from Lewiston share a women's dance.  The music was a couple drummers and most of the women singing and waving simple fans.

The dance was so simple that we - Adira, me, some of the tango crew - got invited to join in and we did.

I suppose all of us are ethnic - it just remains to be seen what we're going to do with it.

Love in Iambic Pentameter

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Perhaps this is a summer of recovery - of remembering who I am and what I am supposed to be doing .... at least for the moment.

This weekend the Fenix Theatre Company opened with a well conceived, trimmed and executed production of "The  Two Gentlemen of Verona" at the wading pool in Deering Oaks.

I've seen it twice now - I tend to see such shows over and over, it's like doing tango, or taking an eccentric acting workshop, or writing music - such events completely take me over and I feel like I'm breathing oxygen, safe at home.  Very strange, very intense but there's no help for it - that's how I react.

It's pleasing to hear the world "Milan" pronounced correctly - as "MILL-an" rather than "mi-LAHN".  It's a dumb detail but the kind of thing that gets in the way of the language and freezes my enjoyment of the show.  It has to be almost sung, or at least free of "line reading poetics".

Mostly the actors just freakin' went for it. 

If you look at the Facebook pix you'll see another reason why it was such a great time - there are entranced kids in the backgrounds of almost half the shots.  It's a thing I noticed back in the days of MSDI and CTM - with the possible exception of King Lear (who's enclosed playing space made it impossible for people to "drift by") - there were always kids dropping in to watch - one even got dragged into "Midsummer Night's Dream" as the changling boy - and went on to do theatre in school.

I think Fenix theatre is doing something that I wish CTM would bring itself to do again - take theatre into the spaces where people  - and kids are people too - where people live and play.

CTM has that as part of its legacy, Reba and I have talked about it.  The idea falls into the category of "stuff it would be nice to look at on some distant day but only can be talked about now".  

But it could be done.

You could tell that two of the cast members were Equity players.  Everyone else very much held their own (some voices seemed to need a bit of open throat focussing - no sound system to lean on, and that had a definite effect).  The show was very much "in the round" in the wading pool - just an open space that the actors used as seen fit.  Music cues were simple, on a boombox (not that I'd do much better writing it cold).

All told it was a fun, great experience.  There's a lot more that I can share at some point in the future.  For now, suffice it to say that I heard a voice inside me, answering a voice from outside me, and it's a conversation whose power and beneficence I'd forgot.

Just voice, words, action and a completely honest set of characters.  It was exactly what theatre should be.  I am very curious to see how this plays out.

The Best Damn Soccer Game Ever

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Anyone who's known me a while knows I am not particularly sporty.  I'm more of gentlemen now than I ever thought of being back when I actually played some kind of sports.  

Just like my experience in the 50 yard dash I could develop a head of respectable steam if needed.

Still, this indifference also masks a perverse delight in T.V. shows like "$##!" on the VS channel and "Sports brawls and disasters" on the Learning Channel.

Take that, PBS ...

So, today was the consolation and final championship games for the Latino Championship.  I missed the beans and rice that Adira told me about - she and Mr. Cambalache had done a tango exhibition the week before as part of the entertainment between games.

This whole thing was put on by the City of Portland Health department and one had to pass tables of folks presenting info about health.

Mental health was being tested on the field during the last game.

Teams were based on folk's home countries - in this case, El Salvador and Guatemala.  The crowd was small but partisan.

It was obvious, right from the start, that these were guys with soccer built into their DNA.  They had moves  I didn't even know existed.  Also they went after the ball - it was really hard to know how to shoot pictures since they would clear it out so fast.  They really kept hammering at each other right from the start.

However the bad part was the officiating.  Guatemala had a set of 5 penalty kicks against El Salvador in something like 6 minutes.  A lot of doubtful grabbing went un-noticed right in front of the head ref.

This doesn't take away from the skill of the players - but it did try everyone's patience.  The kicker (pardon the expression) came during the last 6 minutes of the first period.  El Salvador got so honked off they stopped playing, the coach stormed the ref, the players tore off their jerseys and wrapped them around their heads (the ladies in the crowd started getting REALLY rowdy then) and started kicking balls into the stands.

The Guatemalans responded by waving their arms in the air, pulling out a Guatemalan flag and whistling derisively at El Salvador.

It got so intense the announcers broke into English to ask everyone to go back to the benches.

This mishigas kept on through halftime.

Eventually everyone calmed down, especially after the kids finished in the Pinata Zone and came over to watch.  I think knowing they had an impressionable audience made the difference.  I empathize - I like a good argument like anyone else - one of my favorite shows is "TV Sports Fights and Disasters" on the Learning Channel but this little Latino Tantrum was happening a a tournament dedicated to health - it just couldn't keep on.

Can't say it wasn't fun to watch, though.

Guatemala 5 - El Salvador 2.

Good game.

Bailar Folklorico

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The rain has finally caught up with us.  It's falling slowly, I can hear the way the cars driving by change sound, a rising and falling rushing.

A seagull over on Congress Street.  Voices, some not so sober.

The afternoon was cloudy, but it didn't deter me from heading over to Fitzpatrick stadium for the finals of the Latino Soccer Championship.  More on that in a moment.

One of the neat things attached was the Grupo de danzas folkloricas "El Hornero" website here, who danced between the consolation and final matches.

I'd seen them coming out of the costume changing rooms and it was fairly obvious they were going to perform.

All the while doing so the commentary about the area "por los ninos" where kids could paint and destroy genuine pinatas blared over the music of the dancers.

It provided a welcome splash of color, style and grace an otherwise gray day.  The choreography was very good, it used the space well and carried interest at a distance.  I suspect they do a lot of gigs like this one, with the audience set a good ways back from the "stage".

They came up from West Orange New Jersey - I hadn't considered that they might be from "away", it should have been obvious - one, if such a group existed here  in Maine I'm sure I'd know about it - two, the Latino community here is not quite up to fielding such a group, at least - not yet.

I think that may change if enough folks were paying attention.