Barner at the PMH

MobileMe gallery is here.

I am resolved - which is really rather easy, except for the part where you have to admit to yourself you've let yourself down - to post more often here.

The current location is Market House Coffee, on the floor above the Portland Market House and above the shop of my favorite cheesemonger (and tall, leggy, lovely redheaded entrepreneur) K. Horton.

Both floors are under her stewardship. She had a stall in the late, lamented Public Market. I can see the Market's shell from where I sit, straight down Preble Street. It's being redone as offices for a phone banking company that makes calls for collection agencies - at least recessions favor some industries.

Still, my friend W.'s architecture firm got the redesign contract, so it's not all bad.

The room here on the second floor of the Market House is bright and warm; large windows on both ends of the room let rich light shine on the exposed brickwork.

The far wall from the couch I'm currently draped over has a triptych by my colleague from the Orchard - James Barner, by name.

He's a blond, bearded man, strong of build and possessed of a wiry intelligence. An engaging observational mind drives his unique humor - I think he'd be a formidable creator of risqué French knock-knock jokes.

I do know he makes interesting art - my eye keeps wandering across the room to look at the faces he's chosen.

Any art that makes you take time to be engaged is worth supporting - damned shame, then, that I can't afford to buy any of it.

Oh well - it's enough to know the possibilities are there.

Waiting for the Download to Finish

It seems my vaunted RoadRunner internet access slows down, dramatically slows down, after 5 p.m. so while I'm waiting for Countdown With Keith Olbermann to download I thought I'd post some general randomness during the wait.

**********

The Polar Express is up and running.

MobileMe Gallery is here.

I'm supposed to be helping out as an actor but getting to practices while trying to meet all my obligations at the Orchard has not gone well - in fact, it's not gone at all.

I did get down there to shoot pics of the first weekend - they actually came out quite nicely.

I remember watching the Summer Children's Theatre put on by the Tulsa Arts Council, back when I was in Fifth and Sixth Grade - it was "the Wonderful Village of Vim" and I still remember the "Dancing Dragon" song ("You've got to love that dancing dragon, till you reach the top...").

I also remember the pain of wanting to be on stage so much, wanting to be a part of all those cute (very, obnoxiously cute and pretty) kids - I think all of them came from the Soc schools in Tulsa ("Sosh", long "O" - if you've ever read "The Outsiders" you know what I'm talking about - set in Tulsa, no less). I followed the show as its portable stage went from park to park, biking into areas I didn't even knew existed, just to see it.

Today such a child might well get dragged up on stage - I'm pretty sure Reba Short, our Artistic Director, would see to it - back in the Sixties a Native American kid, even a starstruck one, was a non-person.

Now, I help run a theatre and a Children's Museum. What goes around comes around.

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There is a team of people, police mostly, who do nothing but check the streets on cold nights like tonight - it's 23º out - and get homeless people into the shelters. It's not all that bitterly cold but those nights are on the way. I saw them outside my window tonight, over in Bosnia, trying to talk a ragged man into the back of a cop car, trying to get him out of the cold.

It's very dark out and the wind is fast and cutting. I hope they talked him into it.

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Looks like the download is finished. Part of me wants to hear what the latest outrage is, part wants to go our for a walk in the bitter cold. Part wants to just go to bed. Tomorrow I'm working from 1 to 10 p.m. and it should be a hoot - more and more it becomes "all hands on deck" as the Holiday Season rumbles gamely on.

Strange to be a part of it.

Two slices of pizza, a hot dog

This is what I'm thankful for:

There has been a new homeless person, a woman, wrapped in layers of plastic and often seen leaning up against news boxes belonging to the new daily free newspaper in town.

Portland does not have a large, visible population of homeless people.

At least, not so you can see.

There are the usual suspects, mostly men called the “Park Street Social Club” by a local television station. I’ve seen them over the years, getting a little more shaky, a little grayer, dirtier - and then noted their absence. It’s a rotation of need and despair that you sometimes see - and sometimes gloss over too easily.

But women, for physical and social reasons, are rare.

So she has appeared on Congress Street. She’s part of the scene now, someone easy to see, easy to notice and therefore easy to ignore.

An extra slice of pizza fell into my hands the other night. Otto Pizza, a new addition to the line of small eateries on Congress Street, was closing when I dropped by on my way home from the Old Port. They are a simple business, selling good pizza at reasonable prices, staying open at convenient hours for those of us out and about.

I’ve gotten to know the owner - he has a MacBook Pro, 17” and doesn’t know how to use it. I can’t give him lessons (well, maybe if he paid me in pizza. Maybe.) but I did set him up with resources at the store he could use.

So coming in just as they closed got me a second, free piece of pizza - hot off the oven, crispy and well-made.

And there she was, sitting just across the street, in a maddeningly convenient place on my path back home.

So, the second piece just went to her. I had no use for a piece of pizza that came into my hands by accident.

Same thing for a hot dog. I’ve posted pictures of the Monument Square hot dog stand and it’s affable owner, John. He’s friendly and supportive on sunny days, making basic, quality dogs.

He’s even a more welcome sight on gray days like today.

So last week I broke my own rules and bought a second hot dog - with mustard, ketchup and kraut.

Again, it wasn’t the distance of a dozen steps before I saw her again. Suddenly the second hot dog seemed to weigh a ton, it was covered in sugar and yellow cheese, it was frosted and pointless ...

... until it left my hand - suddenly it was the most lovely hot dog in the world.

I suppose I’m being unfair and clueless, as usual. It’s only a hot dog and a piece of pizza and there isn’t a great deal I can do about a homeless person, at least not right now.

But, right at this moment I’m grateful that I can afford a second hot dog, that a second slice of pizza came into my hands and that I really didn’t think about the impulse to give it away until right this minute, sitting here at Mousse, writing, looking at what is the last Farmer’s Market of the official season.

The day before Thanksgiving.

I’m the luckiest man in the world. We, all of us, all over the world, can be the luckiest, most thankful people in the world.

Once we see what is obvious - and then act.

Caught Between the Full Moon and Blowing Leaves

I should be writing music. There's a perfectly good set of intervals in my head and they're starting to swim in patterns I can see - or at least what I call "see". It sounds a visual thing, I know, but if it could be easily put into words I'd be a novelist or some other kind of wordsmith, rather than a composer, an explainer.

Just got in from a walk to the local smoke shop - which also serves as a very overpriced grocery store, full of items obtainable much more cheaply elsewhere. Milk and cookies (well, Fig Newtons) for more than eight dollars.

The moon is clear and bright, high above, almost directly overhead. Its glow is aggressive and full, a rich vanilla disk floating in a dark velvet cloak, the lining pocked with stars.

I wish I could go back out - I probably will when I 'm done with this.

The difference between where I was one year ago: the start of my Orchard experience - and two years ago: my first realization that LField wasn't the heaven I thought it was - and three years ago: when the motor of my fear and loathing first began to spin - all of those differences define the distance I have moved, the places I have seen and left behind.

Four years ago? Arguing with superintendents and band parents.

Five years ago? Opening a new school and not even aware that I could do and feel so much more than I was.

The moon has always been there. It circles the Earth, it circles the Sun, the aspect of its face grows and wanes and grows again. It changes, it is the same.

I am the same way. I change by becoming more what I have always been, deep down inside.

Hiatus - day three

Having lunch at 2 Cats - very nice eggs and bacon, lot's of toast - more than I should have, probably.

It's turned grey and cloudy out - yesterday was partly cloudy - partly clear? and very bright.

Sat in a chair by the water and gave my best imitation of the mushroom in this picture.

Reading Dan Brown's latest, "The Missing Symbol" - actually read it in two sittings - yesterday and this morning.

Sleep was fitful until I got used to the soughing of the wind through trees directly overhead - combined with the sound of waves I couldn't help but hear rain everywhere - hard to sleep with the implied discomfort.

I'm sure others of my acquaintance - Matthew comes to mind - would be more carefully kitted and prepared. I borrowed a tent from the W's and headed north, buying the simplest of food and a ton of wood. Last time C and I were here - I'm at the same campground - it seemed impossible to get a fire going and then we ran out of wood. This time I want a roaring fire as long as I can.

There is something mystical and entrancing about sitting with a burning fire and the ocean waves breaking about 10 feet from your chair. A lot of very useful thoughts going through my head.

I'd share some but the lunch serving is done here at the "2 Cats" and my chair is being meaningfully swept under. I'll be on the road early - early - tomorrow - so I'd better get back to my "camp" and study.

Hiatus - day one

The Orchard is closed for the next four days - we're being rebuilt, with some new space added and other nice taradiddles.

There is a part of me that really wants to sit at home in front of a screen and write/edit - and I suppose at some point I'll have to.

The major part of me - and that part has won the day - is going to hare off to Bar Harbor, where C. and I spent last Labor Day camping.

It should be a lot of fun. I borrowed my traditional loaner tent from the W's - I should just buy the damned thing, as their kids have already outgrown it. Still, it's perfect for one or adults.

Meanwhile, today has been just a day to breathe. Slept late - or slept as much as time allowed. The day has been bright and once galleries from last night's Quarterly Meeting had been uploaded I grabbed my shoulder bag, complete with camera, and headed out into the town.

It was immediately apparent that a cruise ship was here in town. There were groups of somewhat over-tanned people scanning maps while standing on street corners, looking at buildings, taking videos of traffic.

Having lived here as long as I have I've gotten so I can tell the signs.

The group I chatted up seemed to come from the Midwest but not as far South as Oklahoma - Nebraska, I'd say - strangely we didn't get to the point. "What do you think of DiMillo's".

"What do I think of DiMillo's?"

It's hard to answer that. My first answer was that it's not the kind of place the locals go to ... when pressed, I wanted to say "because we all think it sucks" but that wouldn't be a gracious answer - so I improvised (which is always a terrifying prospect to those who know me well ...) that it felt much like any other mid-range restaurant in any mid-range town.

So I armed them with some other locations.

The numbers of the lost increased as I went closer to the waterside. A couple of the young larvae were sneaking up on the Guy-In-A-Lobster-Suit down by Brothers Lobster Company.

It gave me great pleasure to call them out. The one causing the trouble was pissed at me for spoiling his fun. I might have felt bad except he used the one phrase guaranteed to lose my sympathy, namely "I was only ..."

After that I walked away and let him splutter. "Jesus, kid, it's just a guy in a lobster suit". Not I like stole your lollipop - though I suppose, in a way, I did.

What a twink.

The roofs of a pair of parking garages gave me some new views of the town. The one next to the State dock gave me a next-door view of the ship. Farther away was the one next to the Residence Inn - very nice.

Shopping for spaghetti fixings at Miccuci's Market - how Italian is that - even in that rather run-down section there were isolated clumps of lost tourists trying to find the local brewery.

It was on the way home through Post Office Park - the scene of last week's "Fireflies" performance - that two distinguished men in prayer shawls were blowing a shofar and talking to the media.

Turns out it is Rosh Hoshanna - who knew?

David Bergman, president of Shaarey Tsphiloh Temple - the "Little Shul in Woodfords" - is shown with the shofar.

Once he warms up he gets a good tone.

Rabbi Akiva Herzfeld is not shown, as he was talking to the media. We all had a nice cross-cultural chat and I walked away with honey to celebrate the New Year.

So now I'm at the NorthStar for our bi-weekly (kind of) tango evening. The lesson is going on and the regulars are starting to drift in. I'm going to take the W.'s tent and spend the next couple of days camping on the edge of the ocean in Bar Harbor. More then.

Actually, kind of a nice day.

Flying Chickens in Food Sauce

As I've said so many times before "you see the strangest things on the streets of Portland".

...and I'm sure you'd see strange things both on the streets of New York and Kankakee for that matter. It's just that these are the strangenesses I'm looking at right now.

Still, it's kind of nice to know I live in a town where I can get food sauce if I need to. A lot of people go through life with just the regular sauce. Being able to put sauce made of out food - even specially processed food - makes a big difference.

On the (pause for modest cough) serious side of things - or at least things that are less semantically tortured - the Orchard is going to be shutting down for 4 days next weeks while we are remodeled. I can guess that this is a fairly unusual occurrence - at least it seemed to catch all of us on the hop.

This means that besides the two days off I was having this week already I've got the possibility of 4 days off next week. This might be a financial hit, but I will say that it might give me a chance to head out of town, if I can borrow a tent.

It might be nice to study for my qualifying quizzes sitting by the side of an estuary next to Bar Harbor - at the very least it will get me away from town.

If I can get someone to look after Sebastian then maybe it will happen. Stranger things have...

Speaking of which I've already been out to the Orchard, only to find out my hours have changed. This let me hare back into town to have blood drawn and thence to hit the Farmer's Market.

There was a juggler on the sward that was really good to watch. He had a nice patter and anyone who works with rubber chickens is OK in my book.

The fun part was watching a nursery school crew of kids being entertained. It's always a great thing to contemplate - or better still, actually watch - little kids experience something, anything, but especially the performing arts, for the first time.

The kids had to be shown how to applaud - when and how. It was really cute and the juggler worked the crowd very effectively. He told jokes, running a patter that caught the kids' imagination.

I very much remember the feeling of connecting with a performance. I could easily show you the place on Boston Avenue where I sat watching the Will Rogers High School Marching Band during the Tulsa Christmas Parade and heard the big bass drum go by. They were playing the "Manhattan Beach" march, by Sousa. I can still remember the sound of the bass line in the Trio's second part.

A very famous line.

A little later I'm going to help a friend out - again - and go in to cover a couple of lessons. This should be fun. Then two more actually scheduled days off.

So now I'm going to go out and poke around ... probably wind up in some kind of trouble. It's a lovely, almost too-warm, day and I intend to make the most of it.

Final First Friday of Summer 09

If there is any image that says to me "First Friday", especially in Summer = it's of this young man, whom C. and I dubbed "Mothman" - though at times he's also "Ribbon Man" and sometimes "No Props At All Man" - who is a totally free spirit who dances at almost all public music events.

First Friday tonight was especially fruitful.

At first there was the PanFried steel drum band from Yarmouth.

MobileMe Gallery is here.

They held forth in Congo Square - earlier scene of the Flamenco Affair - starting about 5 p.m. They played pretty well - I think they were associated with the Pan band attached to North Yarmouth Academy - a nice mix of ages, genders and abilities. I wish I could see - and hear - more group artistic performances. They hark back to the old Town Band movement - rather like the Chandler's Band that used to hold forth on Thursday mights in the Summer at the Eastern Prom Gazebo.

There used to be Gazebos used for such community-building purposes in town squares in every town in the U.S. - I wonder what happened to our sense of community art?

Anyway - they sounded great.

Next I wound up down at Post Office Park - my steps just led down there - I was looking for a hot dog or something similar.

What I found was Betsy Dunphy, an extraordinary local choreographer. She had erected large muslin cages in the park, lit them from the inside to eerie effect. She used this as the backdrop for 10 or so dancers, girls she trained in expressive movements.

MobileMe Gallery is here.

The piece was called "Fireflies" and was put on by the Elm Street Arts group. I've never heard of the Elm Street Arts group but I'll have to look them up as they did great work.

FInally, back down to the Monument, where my friends in the Goth community were presenting the last Dark Follies of the season.

Belly dancers, a devil-stick juggler (quite a good one) and fire dancers - it was quite the event and seemed to draw all sorts of people. Everyone likes belly dancers, I guess.

MobileMe Gallery is here.

By that time of the evening it's kind of hard to get the pics to come out right - not all of them do, but it's fun to try and I kind of like belly dancers too.

Diablo jugglers are also cool.

Wednesday with Scone and Fresh Grapefruit Juice

For the moment ... for this one wonderful moment - I'm back here at Mousse, on the edge of Monument Square, enjoying the crowds, the noise of trucks backing up, children and parents exploring the stands of the Farmer's Market - in short, another perfect Wednesday in August, here in Portland, Maine.

President Obama was down - up? - in Portsmouth yesterday ... I wish I'd had a chance to go be a part of the crowd. Work intervened, though it was an enjoyable intervention.

I'm getting fed up with all of the lies and manipulation - and inherent stupidity - of the current national "debate" (giving it more grace than it deserves) on healthcare. I don't have health insurance right now and am working out of pocket. The years since last I was in the position have seen a lot of compensatory mechanisms in place - generic drugs, special "$4" lists of medicines, things like that - but there's a lot more to be done.

So I guess the beauty of the day has a deeper emotional context. Which is what makes it so beautiful, as opposed to being merely "pretty".

Well. The scone, as shown, is lemon-cranberry. The juice was fresh-squeeezed - "squozen"? - as I placed my order. Grapefruit. My new favorite for today.

I'm going to rescue a pair of reading glasses from the Orchard, go visit a marching band in rehearsal (just to kind of gloat and to enjoy the ride) - then I have to sit down and really give the writing for "Inuk" a bash.

More on this later.

Tri For a Cure

It was a fine, fine summer morning - the kind that is so bright, warm, breezy and rich that folks living here in Maine are willing to forgive a whole Winter of misery.

We have to have days like that. It's almost an expectation, a demand; payment, if you will, for the real struggle that life can sometimes be.

On a day like that, Sunday, two days ago, seeing 770 women push themselves to raise a reported $440,000 to support the Maine Cancer Foundation, well, that is something that offsets what can seem like a lifetime of misery.

We're not talking the weather, we're talking about cancer. I suppose it's inevitable and maybe it's a foolish Native American attitude to think that there should not be a cure for everything. Some things just kill people and how we see the balance of life and death can be a measure of our maturity.

Doesn't mean you can't try to kick it's ass anyway. The Seminoles have never signed a peace treaty with the U.S. government - I don't see why we need to sign one with cancer.

So there is Cathy, Chief the Wonderdog's Mom, in a floral-topped triathalon suit, a little nervous but already a veteran of two races down in Orlando. Of course, Casco Bay and the Florida coast are different critters when it comes to hitting the water for a third of a mile, but Cathy, she's a gamer, she is, and off she went.

Her parents were there to see her as well. Next time they're not brining the chairs because A) they want to be moving to watch the various transitions and B) they're not going to have time to sit to wait for the transitions if Cathy has anything to say about it.

If you have to have a hero for something like this, Cathy is about as good as you're going to find.

One of the reasons I left teaching is the false dichotomy between "process" and "product", between "Feel good" and "grades/test". My experieince has been that working to build your grade point average strengthens you and that both are equal parts of the equation. The Universe is big enough for both.

Call it a foolish Native American Attitude.

The Tri for a Cure is proof enough. It's partly what you've done, it's partly who you had to become in order to do it.

I like that. People should go out of their way more to do wonderful things for each other - and themselves.

Well done - as if my opinion mattered ...

Check out the video I shot.

Preparing for the Back End of Beyond

Facebook gallery is here.

Well, so Dan Franek, tall of build, blond of hair and fast of foot, is moving back out West for family reasons and we're all sorry to see him go. He has a gracious, affable air and is a formidable tanguero ... and a very nice guy.

So saying Matt Duvenick, his roomy (shown left) threw a little "affair" for him. A small crowd showed up, friends, well-wishers, camp followers, the like.

It turn out to be surprisingly pleasant. Ordinarily such events tax my ability to stay socially focussed - but for a while this seemed entirely pleasant and fun.

More fun came when Matt demonstrated his technique - almost one could say "passion" - for using a vacuum pump to prep toilet paper for his trip. It was observed that it might be the first time such necessities were vacuum packed inthe hsitory of SoPo.

The paper in question is a physical requirement, though why one couldn't just use the Snake River as one of the largest bidet in the world is beyond me. Maybe I'm just slow.

If you click on the Facebook link you can see the whole progression from start to finish. It was really fascinating and led to all sorts of comments.

Hmmmm.

Flamenco Tuesday

MobileMe Gallery is here.

Well alright, people.

Flamenco in the hot July sun. Very welcome, I must say - both the flamenco and the sun.

This is the first of two days off. I've been working in the Orchard pretty much full on since the new iPhone came out. I don't think I've had two contiguous days off in a month.

I will admit that work has been fun.

Apple Camp was a riot. I had the best colleagues and the format came off brilliantly.

And today?

Today there was flamenco in Congo Square, just around the corner from Doctor's Row. I had seen a Facebook posting about it - Facebook is occasionally good for SOMEthing - and wandered by just in time to catch the activity.

Three string players - one playing oud and flute. One percussionist. Three singer/dancers helping keep the beat.

Each dancer would take a turn on the plywood sheets laid on the concrete of the platform. Either that or help add to the energy of the performance by sitting and keeping time with her hands.

There was a very spotty crowd. I suspect the heat was discouraging folks from being out and about. For myself I need to be a little overheated as a way to stave of bronchitis which is my annual summertime bane.

I love the energy, the seriousness and the sheer presence that flamenco presents.

There is a grace and focus to the relationship between music and dance. There is not a single wasted movement, not a gesture out of place. Same with the notes - both guitar and percussion interleave, mix, each driving the other, each musician almost daring the his/her partners to drive the energy along.

So now I have something to use when I finish the tango I'm currently working on. Now it almost seems de riguer to do a slideshow of somekind so I can upload it along with the music. Not sure which is wagging which.

Oh well.

I think the air conditioning here at JavaNet is messing me up - back to Doctor's Row so I can get this tango scored and recorded: then I can use the pics to some really dramatic effect.

I love this town ....

Wheels Within Wheels with Cat

And here we have My Lord Sebastian surveying his kingdom.

Anyone else would probably have incredibly cute pics - or even video - of him playing with the ring/ball toy - maybe even write a song.

Sadly I was too involved with eating breakfast - and getting the camera out took too long.

Oh well.

And here we have Jim, living his life.

C. and I went over to Manchester NH to watch the arena version of Cirque du Soliel's "Alegria". The chapiteau that used to house it is now being used for the new show, "Ovo" - at some point I'll h have to go see that one, but "Alegria" serves in the meantime.

The acts themselves were wonderful - I always love aerial acts, both strap acts and trapeze. When I was a boy my Dad took me to the American Airlines Christmas party, where the Engineering Center would hire a damn circus and take over the Fairgrounds Pavilion to host it.

It was at one of those where I saw a young single-bar trapeze artist blow a turnaround an fall 30 feet to the chairs below - it had been rigged right up against the seats (with the ones directly below being cleared out).

Needless to say I didn't go to a circus again until I was in my 30's. Now I have recovered my love of them and hope someday to audition to the Cirque as a counter-tenor (which is the only way I can possibly think of a somewhat physically thick 50-year-old man could have a shot a joining).

The show - separate from the acts - made more sense after we had looked up the wiki on my iPhone and got a handle on what the characters meant. Even the set had a relationship to the meaning of the show. My only problem was with my inability to figure it out just by looking.

Oh well.

Yesterday was another hoop event. I biked over to the Farmer's Market - the strawberries, of course, were all gone by the time I got my act together - but there was Adira and a couple of friends just hooping.

Well, I did get some good new potatoes so with business done I got a chance to practice.

It's all starting to make more sense and I have to take my calendar and try something new - namely to plan out every minute of the next week.

By which I mean providing my days with enough structure - outside of work, like the imminent Apple Camp - to write, practice tango, hooping, write, bike, maybe do some Pilates.

Oh, and write.

Today, Eckardt and I - and, apparently, some of his German visitors - are going up to Lisbon Falls to check out the Pow Wow there. I've not been to one in over a year.

It's been quite a year and I'm not really sure the man who enters the ring to dance will be the same one who did so last year.

The synchronicity - the ring of Sebastian's toy, the hula hoop, the Cirque (even the word "cirque") is very moving. I'm supported by it, affirmed by it, I see my beginning and present and future in one moment.

I've said before that Cherokees have a fifth verb tense, an eternal tense. This is how I experience my Mother now - no one, nothing is ever truly lost.

Go beyond that - everything is always old and new, raw and comfortable, sad and joyous, fresh and nostalgic.

Everything is a circle.

FridayCirque

MobileMe Gallery is here.

It didn't take much.

It didn't take much at all.

The sun came out for about an hour - maybe two, depending on where you were at.

But that was enough.

There was a palpable lifting of spirits throughout the town - starting at the Orchard where we could see light streaming from the skylights in the ceiling in the Mall.

I got home and promptly fell asleep - we've been going like mad for a solid two weeks - the new phones hit and then the cloudy weather insured the entire Eastern Seaboard hit the Orchard. It's been fun (pretty much) but starting to get a little wearing.

The return of some semblance of Summer was a great release. You can see where everyone's Facebook page catches the moment.

So, once up from my nap - and an impromptu counting of blessings for the day - I grabbed my camera and wandered down Doctor's Row to the Eastland, where another applet, James, was having some charcoal pieces on display. They were in an intricate triptych, rich and detailed. I hope he sells them - I wish I could afford them.

Ian was next, one of the famous pair of DJ's from the late lamented Party More. He's got work across the street, an ironic triptych of drawings the skewered contemporary media and thought. Quick work, a rapier thrust of commentary.

There were other folks from the Orchard out as well - I saw or heard of at least 6 - I'm sure more were out - we're a pretty artsy/craftsy bunch.

Still, my attention was caught by a crowd in front of the Portland Museum of Art intersection, by Starbucks. A show was in progress, the kind of street performance that brings so much fun and community interest to the city.

The group called itself the "Excuse me SirCus" and they were street performers of a particularly daring bent.

Anyone that can successfully pull off a flea circus in this day and age has an audacity sorely missed in contemporary entertainment.

It was a home-grown mix of fire-juggling, the aforementioned flea circus, pie throwing, glass walking, concrete block breaking and other feats. The Blue Man Group has a mantra - always try to open with something the audience just can't (or won't be bothered to learn to) do - no matter what, such a approach immediately sets you apart as a performer and it's easier to get an audience to go with you.

I can say for a fact that the percentage of folks on the street watching who regularly have cinder blocks sledgehammered to pieces on their chests is probably quite low.

All told it was a hoot - even more so when my friend and concierge Melissa took my camera to shoot pics of me as I answered a call for volunteers to hula-hoop (see last post).

I actually got applause.

This was followed by more fire juggling and conversation after the performance.

I heard about another show in Monument Square. This provided a good excuse to head down and have dessert at David's - though it was obvious the lowering clouds might close in again.

The Monument Show was put on by the local Goth community, a cheerful crowd of belly dancers and fire-twirlers. A story-teller/performance artist was shut down by the Fire Department over confusion as to how his fire would be handled - no need to have the course of true art go smoothly, after all.

Still the belly dancers were nice and the fire-twirler was first rate.

The organizer and I had a chance to chat about the provenance of this show - we shared a coffee at David's, she parked her fire extinguisher, billy clubs, megaphone and fire pikes in a chair. Apparently the local Goths had been sharing impromptu performances for some time. First Fridays this Summer had been invested with a commitment to share these performances with the City at large.

So it was a very pleasant evening. Of course the fog has closed back in and God only knows what the rest of the day will bring.

Still, after all is said and done First Friday was full of incident and fun. Things could have been a lot more boring - and how often do I get a chance to hula-hoop and share with the town?

Hmmm?

The World is a Circle

Well, I seem to have found something else to enjoy doing.

It's not like working at the Orchard, writing tangos, dancing tangos, relating to my friends is too much.

Now I have to find room to add hula hooping.

Took a workshop - two hours - Saturday, with Jennie Carr, an instructor my friend Adira asked down. I had to miss the first workshop because of work and managed to get a Jim-sized hoop out of it.

This was a hooping hoot.

As usual whenever I walk into such a situation I was pathetically over-dressed. I was also the only male.

One of my tango friends present made the comment that "it's nice to have some male energy here". I (kind of) appreciate it but I think all I had to contribute was sweat.

It's funny - practically all the other participants (did I mention they were all female) had yoga pants or comfortable workout clothes. I'd bet that if I looked in the back seats of their cars I'd find rubber yoga mats, probably in handmade cases with shoulder straps.

It's at moments - moments only, mind you - that I feel the tremendous gap between so many of my friends and myself, a gap defined by how comfortable they are in their bodies and how hatefully I look at mine. I understand the reasons and causes, sink into the feelings until that understanding - and acceptance - come into my heart and then freakin' get back to having fun.

Sometimes, though, it's a heavy lift.

I had come to the class by way of the Oaks, where the strange, humorous synchronicity of Portland presented me with another example of itself. There by the strawberry vendors, above the fountain, was a team of folks teaching kids to hoop - and some adults were learning as well.

I'm told there is a group of hoopers on Fridays in the Rose Garden. If I get off work in time I might grab my hoop and head down - because having fun is more fun than being scared.

Who knew?

Oh - just for fun ...

Ouzo 2.0

I don't know if you've ever been in a play.

I have been fortunate over the years to do a goodly number of plays by Shakespeare. When I was a child it was required that we recite poems by the Bard, most memorably "the Seven Ages of Man" from "As You Like It".

It made quite an impression. I kept returning to Shakespeare over the years, both as an actor, definitely as a composer and as a (gentle)man - Sonnet 116 ("Let me not to the marriage of true minds admit impediments") has served me well on a couple of occasions....

Still, as an actor - not a professionally trained, Equity-level actor, but as a competent amateur I am aware of the idea of doing "a clean show". We have the same concept in drum and bugle corps as well - hitting every mark, note, move, line, accent and emotion - then clearly making them come alive for the audience.

Today I had much the same experience at the Orchard. Several lessons were tossed to me, some activations had to be talked out with service reps - now I consider it the day was actually quite complex.

Still, it went well. There were no drops, no fracks, no corpse-ing, no going up, no falling down. It was a clean day.

Which made going to this year's Greek Food Festival even more interesting.

The weather for the last week has been a morose study in watercolor - rain, clammy clouds and wind. The damp finally broke this evening and a lovely sunset - an even lovelier twilight - claimed the sky.

After getting home and checking email I donned a classy vest, grabbed my camera and set out. It's a deliciously temperate evening, the threat of fog only being found in the generous pouring of ouzo into plastic, iced tumblers.

A taste of loukamathes, spannikopita and rice - persuaded down with a generous glass of crystal ouzo (at least until the ice chilled and turned it milky white - these were my reward for having such a great day.

The crowd was breaking into dancing - the wonderful, pulsing odd time signatures of Greek, Eastern Mediterranean music. I'd first become aware of it when on tour of Romania when I was just out of high school and it still catches my heart and possesses my feet.

Rich, weaving, pulsing circles of people, young, old, men, women - all caught up in the graceful and primal steps of the dances.

I sat and watched. The energy was palpable and old spirits of joy and community walked between the tables, danced in the circles.

Perhaps I was ready to see them, feel them - a rich feeling of comfort, grace, happiness, has been with me since work ended. Tomorrow is another day, I know, but tonight ...?

... tonight I'm where I should be.

A Pond FIlled With Odd Ducks

It's been very rainy for the last week or so. Summer in Maine can be very, very lovely and the lack of it is starting to tell on people around here, people who otherwise can handle the worst kind of Winter oppression.

However, the ducks in Deering Oaks pond are happy.

We've been screamingly - literally, in a couple of cases - busy at the Orchard. The new iPhone 3G(s) - which sounds rather like a tax code section now that I think of it - launched last Friday and starting about week ago the state of Maine began to become actively cognizant of the existence of the store.

This meant that we had progressively larger crowds as Friday's launch approached - and I heard the phrase "I didn't know you were here, I just walked by and saw the store" became less and less apparent.

Friday was doable because of the addition of two very affable security guards that let us keep the crowd down to a level we could handle. Basically if you weren't getting a phone or a CPU you didn't get in, but if you did you got someone assigned personally to you.

The guards went away on Saturday and since then it's been a freefall test of our professionalism.

I admit it - it's been fun. Exhausting, but fun.

It's also been a confirmation of the rightness leaving public school teaching. Despite the frustration of making foolish mistakes in activating phones I'm struck over and over again with just how sad - really, existentially sad - the experience of teaching in school made me.

A year has gone by - I look back at my posts - very early in my blogging output - and it went from this to this - and the latter is very close to who I am.

I know that I don't fit in in many ways - socially, financially, emotionally - and I'm continually surprised (if one can be that way) by the friends I have who have the same experience of life. We all fit together by the fact we don't fit together.

I live in a pond full of very odd ducks.

I like it.

No I love it.

A Walk Between Raindrops

I figured that I had to do something with all this tango music I've written and this little essay is as good as anything else and better than some.

We'll see ...

A Civilized Savage

When I was a child the "Museum of the Five Civilized Tribes" opened in Muskogee, OK. My Father's side of the family are all mostly "Okies from Muskogee".

"... A place where even squares can have a ball".

This was drummed into my poor skull - the Cherokees, Creeks, Choctaws, Chickashaws and the Seminoles, all five were the Five Civilized Tribes.

Whether this meant we either had good table manners or adopted slave-holding like da White Folks - well, jury's out.

Sadly, my money is on the latter.

It didn't help of course - we were all packed up in the middle of winter and frog marched to Oklahoma. All except the Seminoles, who high-tailed it into the Everglades and have never signed a peace treaty with the U.S. even to this day.

Good for them.

Still, this meant we have a standard to live up to and I'm trying to do my part by having a coffee and mixed-berry cobbler at David's in Monument Square.

It's a lovely warm night, I could have worn shorts but that's not really the style for David's.

It was supposed to be an Irish Coffee - which their bartender tried to fake by pouring Glenfiddich into a glass with the house Columbian brew. The coffee is actually pretty good but just having half-and-half on the side isn't an Irish Coffee. I think I did write a post about the worst Irish Coffee in Portland, at the Empire Dine and Dance - the best is at the Bar of Chocolate down on Wharf Street in the Old Port - but you couldn't pay me enough to go down there on a Friday night like tonight.

So, it was sitting grandly in the Square watching an interesting parade of people pass by.

This is Gay Pride weekend and a lot of unmixed couples were parading through the Square by Our Lady of Victories. The band "They Might Be Giants" is playing at the Port City Music Hall, there's a palaver outside my windows in the dooryard, fueled by cheap beer and good friends.

I have to be at work tomorrow at 8 - I hope they don't get rowdy.

This is the first time in several years I've missed the Gay Pride Parade - I love the favors they throw from the crowd and there's always a great party in Deering Oaks afterwards.

So with the needs of tribal honor met I'm going to listen to Countdown and thence to bed.

Apres Moi, le Deluge

There is no particular meaning to this pic. I took it the other day when biking around the city - and I've not had time to do it since.

Actually it's rather a rainy evening at the of a more than rather rainy day. I woke up with a funny tune/harmony running in my head and staggered to the computer to write it down - this, even before my morning coffee, which is saying something.

And now the darn thing is pretty much finished.

Orchestrated (roughly) and ready to edit. It has a very plaintive quality.

I've told my friends in TML that most all of my pieces are autobiographical in nature - either the titles or the music - both, most of the time - have some kind of deep connection to me. I suppose I could take time to really be clever and write clever detached music, but that takes time and I'm afraid I'm too impatient these days.

Obviously not all this stuff gets played - I think they've played maybe three of them and I'm well into the twenties by now. Not all of them are really good enough to be played - they may not make structural sense a lot of the time, or they'd just be boring to dance to. But as my friend Hank Beebe says, you have to have thousands of pole-vaults before you're allowed to compete - even if you can jump higher than anyone else there's more to it than just muscular (or musical) cleverness.

So I just write and try to get better with each one. Hopefully they're getting better as I go.

Hopefully I'm getting better as I go.

GingerGlass

A bit cooler than one might like and the music here in JavaNet is a bit louder than one would like (especially if one is trying to edit a brand new tango) but all in all I think it's rather a pretty day.

As pretty as one might like it to be.

This new piece just kind of erupted into my head as I was listening to last night's Rachel Maddow show. I wanted to write something that was more direct, that would lay its rhythm out right from the first bar.

For once I actually started with crafting the melody rather than searching for patterns that sustained a general mood - or pattern of moods.

Patterns that make patterns of moods. I like that.

Anyway, I'm nothing if not flexible. It came together in about an hour. I don't think I'm going to try for a huge artistic statement - just for a little dance tune.

So, with the basic outlines done I'm here at JavaNet, having an Italian Cream Soda with more Gingerbread syrup in it than is probably good for me. And a hot dog from the guy in Monument Square.

A hot dog with kraut - you need to have some kind of vegetable with lunch.

A Litre of Kitty Litter

So, it really has been a busy stretch of time.

Taking a couple of days for writing and various other methods of rethinking thing has been very worthwhile.  

One of those methods involved redoing some of the bits and pieces of the apartment that aren't often dealt with.  This includes getting rid of kitty litter boxes.

The City of Portland provides, for a nominal fee, big blue recycling tubbies that are set out for pickup every Thursday. I rather like the idea of recycling as much of my trash as possible, rather than just adding to a landfill.

Sadly though we have pickup, we don't always have putout so taking 30 minutes to pack all the litter and kitty food boxes has been a good exercise.

Now I have to get rid of an old T.V set - my first color one - and a DVD player.  Seems kind of odd to wax nostalgic over a T.V. set but this one has kept me company for a long time.

The DVD player?  Not so much.

So out they go.

At some point.

Sweet Rides, Candles and Long, Long Teeth

And so, without any further ado I give you Summer of 2009.

We popped out into this with the most shocking of transitions.  On Memorial Day, Zoe Sarnacki, a young lady who lived just around the corner from me - directly across from the W's - was murdered - decapitated, stabbed, necrophilized and then her body set afire.

The young man suspected was caught shortly thereafter.

"Shocking" doesn't come anywhere near describing how this felt and I'll have more to say about it soon.  Two nights ago, Monday, there was a candlelight vigil to mark her loss.  Very intense.  Very healing.

But that's how it started, like it or not.

Since then - only a week ago - I've been working pretty much every day for the last 12 days at the Orchard.  This has been a lot of fun and very useful - career and knowledge-wise.

Still, taking a couple of days off is a good idea.  I have a new tango to orchestrate (still have to resolve an accordion problem) but for this moment I'm at my usual Wednesday post at Mousse, chillin' and a little chill as it's just a little cool here in the shade.

I dropped my annual pledge at the Museum - not anywhere near as large as suggested but a very sincere donation nonetheless.

The bike pictured above was across the street.  It looked brand new - "cherry" is the word the kids use today, I think - and it was fun to play with the camera and experiment with shots.

The Market is in full swing today.   People are out and about - the great Cubano-Afro drummer Micheal Wingfield biked by, playing hooky from domesticity as I was, looking at the crowds and checking out the scene.

And, of course, there is a man making balloon animals (as well as the usual jazz band and chalumeau clarinetist).

I like it.  There is the usual mix of people, children in strollers, schoolkids on field trips (since a lot of districts can't send kids to Boston they're substituting Portland).

And then there are my two new friends, Gina and Matteux (long "U").

I always notice long legs in black hose - even if they're on both partners in a straight couple - sue me - but these two, walking across the square, inured to the gawks of less enlightened shoppers, caught my eye when they suddenly raced across the bricks to the man making balloon hats, barking with delighted laughs.

THAT was cool.

So when they walked by my station on the plaza of Mousse I asked them to stop and let me snap their picks.

You can't tell - probably shouldn't have taken Gina's suggestion to stand in the Sun - but Matteux has very, very sharp canines.

God, I love this town.

So here we are again.  For the first time in four dozen years I don't have an official Summer vacation.  I can't say, right now, that I miss it.  Perhaps if I wasn't doing such interesting work or if I didn't know such interesting people I might not be so content.

But I don't seem to miss it.

And I am content.

From the hot dog man to the friends of poor Zoe, for good or ill I'm a part of this community.

"Shakespeare In the Park" will be firing up in the next day or so.  Fenix Theatre is carrying on the tradition set more than a decade ago - and all of Portland will come rolling up.

Meanwhile we'll keep meeting, dancing, singing, thinking, crying and living together, connected and blended into each other's lives.

Sometimes that thought - a connected sense of feeling,  feeling a sense of connection - scares the screaming fantods out of me but sometimes that can't be helped.

We can only do or be what we are given to do or be.  The rest is revealed as the game is played out.