Seventy-Five degrees in the shade an hour into the full moon

Well, actually it's not a full moon but it might as well be, the streets are so active and mad.

This is the first really warm evening we've had this Spring. I don't know quite what to do. There is a new piece waiting on my computer, waiting for me to thin it out and restructure the second section ...

... no, strike that. There is a second section waiting to be written. As usual I've got too many ideas to work with, the road has too many forks, twists and turns in it.

In it's own way this not a bad state of affairs. It only becomes a problem when you think that any piece works best when the seams don't show - maybe on a nicely worn pair of silk stockings, but not much else.

It's a new kind of piece for me and a good challenge.

Maybe if I play my cards right I'll actually manage to meet it.


-- Post From My iPad

Not sure What To Call This

Tuesday - something of a Friday for any normal person, though I must admit I gave up any pretense of being a normal person some time ago.

So now I'll talk about roller derby.

Saturday was an expressive evening, starting with mayhem and finishing with Deering's Oaks and quiet contemplation.

... oh, and lasgana.

Maine Roller Derby has two teams - the Port Authority and the Calamity Janes, the latter being on the court Saturday. Its members are athletic, aggressive women of all sizes and conditions. I had one friend on the team last year, a person doing her psychiatric residency at McGeachy Hall at Maine Medical - she was a graceful tango dancer and a formidable blocker on the Janes.

I can draw a shaky line between this group and the burlesque revival in town. You have to accept them on their own terms, which is rather fun.

So here they were in their skates and temporary tats, the team giving a lot of promotional consideration to the Hallowed Ground Tattoo Parlor.

The Expo, home to the Portland Red Claws semi-pro basketball team, was filled with a raring, roaring crowd; families, yuppies, moon-eyed poets, everyone shouting, cheering and stomping for "their girls".

Come to think of it their were a lot of pre-teen girls watching and screeeeaaammming their heads off.

God, it was magnificent.

The game was flat-track roller derby, contested inside an oval marked in tape on the wooden Expo floor.

Each team had five blockers, one jammer wearing a star on her helmet. The two sets of blockers started as a pack, the jammers following two seconds later.

Jammers had to skate through the entire pack. The one who got through first controlled the jam, having to then lap the entire pack again. After that she got one point for each member of the opposing team she passed. Followed by a mass of eagle-eyed judges she kept passing until two minutes elapsed.

And that, sports fans, was that.

Blockers impede the opposing jammer, help their own. It can get a little hectic, it can get a little personal. Pretty much any kind of limited mayhem is tolerated, except anything that might cause a push in the back. There were a lot of falls, some spectacular, but none face-first into the floor, which could have been potentially deadly.

Medical support was standing by. Fortunately it wasn't needed.

A sin bin was against the wall. That WAS needed.

There was a wonderful energy in the joint. The team members all had amazing personas, bad-girl identities stolen in whole cloth from a 50's women's prison movie. They seemed to be letting their hair down by putting it up in their helmets.

Perhaps it was an act - guys can act badass and you believe them and they seem like jerks.

Women can pull it off, you just accept that their personalities can encompass both behaviors.

Or, maybe more accurately my view of women can allow it. No, on second thought I think I'd do better to give them full credit for it - I'm happy to stand and watch the whole thing, my jaw hanging slacker than the udder of a Guernsey cow.

... and then go walk in the park and look at the light.

Sue me.


-- Post From My iPad

I Walked Out Into the Deepening Twilight

I walked out into the deepening twilight, amazed at the Spring warmth. The buildings around me were tall boxes etched into a deep blue sky, as if wrapped in dark, rich velvet, gently lined with the faintest wash of fading rose.

The sidewalk was mine. Far ahead a panhandler was leaning against my apartment house, far enough past the door to pose no threat to my solitary presence. As always I was alone with my thoughts, wrapped in my own velvet cloak, woven of loneliness, satisfaction, curiosity and passion ...

**************************************

I walked out into the deepening twilight then stopped short - when did that new sandwich shop open? Look, there's a crowd of folks in shorts, looks like a damned running club, all loud voices and baseball caps.

I bet they've been feeding on grass for a year.

The shop windows pour light onto the street, its doors pour people.

Shouts of "woo!", "yo" and "cell me" - that bizarre little pinky/thumb waggy motion by the ear.

The crowd breaks up with the easy joviality born of common sweat and satisfaction of common achievement. I wonder why I don't run more, moving more briskly down the street away from the noise ...

**************************************

I walked out into the deepening twilight and had to dance. No idea where the music was coming from, if it was even really hitting my eardrums or was all mental.

Maybe if you leaned up against my skull really closely you could pick it up and join in ....

**************************************

I walked out into the deepening twilight, saw the sky, slowed my steps.

There is a little patio just before my apartment house; it's bound, chest high, by a fence of wrought-iron pickets, remarkable work.

I stopped to lean on it, to look at the sky, at the final act of the end of the day. In my head I knew there was music to be written, photos to upload, laundry to wash, studying to do.

The grace of quiet, the flow of action; contemplation and participation - the balance seems to come more naturally these days. Perhaps I am getting the hang of living a life based not on how hurt or sad I am but on how well I fit into the world around me.

**************************************

Twilight is the moment celebrating light and dark moving in paralell, dancing together. You only really know something is balanced by watching it move, first one side then the other, giving and taking until the next change comes.

Now I have work to do.


-- Post From My iPad

The Best Bits of Fredrick Law Olmstead

Busy day.

Early to work, home to add cheese to the "chicken whatever" in the crockpot, off to roller derby (and THAT'S a whole post right there ...), visiting the W's and getting tossed a piece of homemade lasagna, then home to continue working on E's Pecha Kucha project ... finally came to some kind of "resolution" (which is very different from being "finished") ....

...and I guess I should not complain. I can remember times that were much less demanding and much more upsetting.

So here I am at Enzo on a Saturday night, which I swore I would avoid ... the best distraction can also serve as the best inspiration.

We are definitely in the arms of a charming stretch of Spring weather. The walk up from the Expo took through Deering Oaks - or Deering's Oaks, to use the traditional posessive, which no one does, except me, of course.

The light in the park, just after twilight, with rich clouds piled in the sky and people walking dogs - and each other - made for an easy change from the excitement and energy of the Roller Derby to the introspection of the evening.

At some point I'm going to start a new piece but I'm not sure what it's going to be like. It's time I began to move out of the strictures that writing for TML imposes ... and how that's going to work is somewhat beyond me.

I have always loved the light through early leaves. There is something magical and reachable about it, like a song I can just sense but not quite hear. Walking through the park, even one with a major street running through it, connects me with the parks and neighborhoods of my childhood, my late-night ramblings to the Rose Garden and its quiet, ethereal beauty.

The Hidden Garden.

Again, it's the space that exists in the transitions, going from place to place, time to time or season to season. An energy that grows from growth.

... or that comes from a glass and a half of wine.

So there. Perhaps Fredrick Law Olmstead had that in mind when he designed the park.

Whatever it is, it seems to work.

-- Post From My iPad

Your Pecha Kucha is Showing

...Or, "What Have I Gone And Done Now?!"

A twenty-first century still life - iPad, beer,candle and a slice of really good pizza. Ambulance roars by in one direction - fire engine in the other.

My friend E met me at Boda to share a pot of tea and talk about the upcoming Pecha Kucha, or "creative conversation" and her part in it.

You see our dear mutual friend Charles has arranged a showing of the documentary "Si Sos Brujo" at One Longfellow Square. The films tells the story of the recovery of knowledge of the great classical performance style of tango, rather like Preservation Hall gives the great old jazzers a place to share the classic old style of New Orleans Jazz.

Well, E is hosting the upcoming Pecha Kucha and since they had an open slot she filled it with what, in effect, will be a six minute commercial for the showing.

....and what, you ask, is my part in this? Well, my job is to mine both my collection of pics and the actual DVD of the movie to find evocative images that will help E tell both the story of our little tango community and flack for the flick.

At some point - and this is E's idea - I should do a presentation of my music, particularly the tango slide shows that I put together using Keynote. Personally I can't see how they would fit into the format these things usually follow - but it wouldn't be the first time I couldn't see an obvious path to personal expression.

Oh boy - another slice of pizza - cauliflower and mushroom. Wow - right out of the oven. Maybe adding some peppers will help cool it down.

Maybe not.

The presentation of the movie will end with a Skype video conversation with the head of the tango schoolin the film and his wife, who is the film maker, both in Buenos Aires.

And I have to tech it. This gets more and more entertaining every day.

So here we go again, being useful behind the scenes.


-- Post From My iPad

Two Kinds Of Light

I have to write about two kinds of light.

Two kinds of day. Two places to be.

The birthday tango is finally done. The parts are edited and links sent to the players. I like the piece and maybe it's a reflection of my own striking inadequacies as a dancer but I like it.

It's been said, by people whose opinions I've been entirely foolish to respect, that all my taste is in my mouth. It's a fair cop.

Still, if I have spend my life in a prison cell decorated entirely with wallpaper of my own device then at least it's a pattern I can live with.

Yesterday and today have been dramatic - both in themselves and between each other.

The Farmer's Market, walking along the bay, looking in the Old Port shops for a new shoulder bag - all were a study in the clarity and warmth of Spring in New England.

I spent the late afternoon at my friend EH's house. A couple years ago I helped Precocious Daughter #2 record a Father's Day greeting on my laptop, arranging it in GarageBand.

So answering a complex and puzzling phone message from this 8-year-old wonder led me over with my recording equipment. We set up in the front yard, top of the steps, where she recorded a new message for Mother's Day.

The brightness of the day - and the company - made it a very special time.

Also, that evening I got to see my friend Torrey's movie, "Fumble". More on that later but for now, it was really good.

Which leads us to today's strange day. Rain-splashed, I got in my car to head to work, for a day that was both basic and very full of interest and humor.


So getting out of work to the accompaniment of a bright burst of sunlight, much like yesterday's, was a joy.

Met a friend for sushi. In the hour it took to get to The King Of the Roll the sky cloaked itself in grey, trimmed in black; wind erupted to hurl leaves down the gutters.

The older gambrels across the street from my new digs were etched against the sky, lights in the windows glowing feeble and lonely.

I liked it.

I liked both of these days, they spoke to both sides of who I am.

Perfectly satisfied, fed and enthralled with either light and warmth or shadow and coolness - I am most engaged by the transition from one to the other.

So, for now I will stop and wait to see what I'm given to work with next.


-- Post From My iPad

Circles Surrounding the Square

Having a cup of coffee at Mousse, on the Square. It's warm, what my British friends would cal "deliciously warm" - call it "upper 60's".

The Farmer's Market has returned to the Square - it started up again on May Day down in the Oaks; today is the first Wednesday for it.

Mostly flowers and small bags of green spices. No real food yet, most is trucked in, but at least there's a start.

Sitting here - they only got the outside chairs deployed just now, I think it's a little too cool in the shade, but I'd be willing to take the chance - I can watch people come out of buildings, out of the parking garage, come by, stop, look at the assembled vendors then smile - secretly or all over the Square.

Ladies in floppy hats, men in khaki pants and blue shirts. A day nursery goes by, all the children linked by a long rope full of looped handholds. People look at the blooming hangers of fuschia and red flowers ( don't ask ME what the damned things are called - if it has colors it's a flower ...) and drink in the colors like water to people parched in the desert.

Cinco de Mayo - don't even get me started on that.

So it's a nice day out. Sometimes just looking at it - accompanied by a cup of strong coffee - is enough.


-- Post From My iPad

Location:Monument Square,Portland,United States

My Town Has A Library That Changes Color

It has been a long, involved, not really average day.

I should be editing my birthday tango, gearing up for the next piece. I wish I could write about all the extraordinary people I work with - it's not really professional, and, frankly, there are just too damned many of them.

Even the people I see every day seem to blossom on occasion: they tell a joke or answer a question - I have a lot of questions - or just have an interesting way of peeling an orange.

So here, at the end, I'm finishing up this post, having walked back from Bard Coffee, stopping at Enzo to chat and generally enjoying a world full of interesting people.


So there is the redone façade of the Portland Library, glowing bright in Monument square. Very lovely, very dramatic and aliteral beacon of literacy in the center of the town.



-- Post From My iPad

Not All Places Are In Pieces

My first dessert of the season in Monument Square, at David's.

I think my waiter - who called me "dear" when I was signing in - is disappointed that I'm not ordering a more expansive dinner - but I'm on rather a budget (who's not, these days?) so coffee and a dessert it is.

Almost 7:30 and still almost 70º out. People are out and about in the Square. Some folks, with a guitar, are grouped on the Monument base, a pretty girl in a flowered dress sits pensively, on the side.

The cheesecake is rich, lemon-laced. The kind of dessert that seems light in flavor and texture - but can overwhelm your mouth if the wrong sized bite is taken.

The sunset paints the sides of the buildings. The white stucco of the library glows, a leftover coal of the day's fire.

I have a tango to edit - the birthday piece. It's ready to go, I've left it fallow for a few days, not even listened to the test performance file. It's rather like this cheesecake: too much of a bite will confuse you.

So I should go to see my Shakespeare friends - instead I'm off to Geno's to watch a really bad movie and listen to people make fun of it.

The cracker that cleanses the palate of my brain from the table of rich dishes that was "Inuk and the Sun".


Goodness. THERE'S a thought!


-- Post From My iPad