A Child Of My Own Invention

Sorry to have taken so long to write again. The reason why is in the video posted above. Hope you can come join us.

I've been up to my neck in both the heavy weight of retail life and the intense demand of creative focus.

For those of you not following me on Facebook - and the five of you know who you are - I just last night finished the score for Acorn Theatre's production of "The Legend of The Golem".  I watched the final runthrough yesterday evening and though the timing of the scene changes needs to tighten up the show flows well and will be a great evening's entertainment.

Today I took a long walk up "my mountain" - Bradbury Mountain, in Pownal. The mountain is different, the last time I saw it was at the peak of Fall color.

Now it is bare bones - ice underfoot, puckering the mud, hiding under the leaves. You can see the structure of the hills and trees, the air is stark and cold. The light in the late morning was bright and sere.

Since today was a rare Thursday off and I'd seen the end of my active work on The Golem I'd planned on taking the walk after sleeping in....

..... and sleeping in had led to a rich dream - as are many I remember on waking.

There was a mountain, it was Fall and my path led up to a town with engaging people; their homes rustic and sophisticated in how they blended the rocks and trees of the hill into their structure.

The sun was bright and the weather cool.

They heard me singing and rapping on the trees to keep time so, naturally, I was asked to stay to teach the children to create music and movement, to learn to tell stories in more ways than just words.

Strangely the idea of starting a marching band never entered my thoughts.

The classroom was an enclosure easily opened to the outside and we sang and worked. They were very sophisticated children in terms on knowledge and having electronics and toys. But the idea of opening themselves up to movement and singing - to trusting themselves to create - seemed oddly new to them....

....except for one boy, about 7, blond, tousle-haired, glasses, blue eyes in a round, curious, serious face.

Consider Ralphie in "A Christmas Story" and you might come near to what I dreamt.

As we moved to an open amphitheater to be observed by parents and family members I challenged the children to one of the simplest theater games - "mirrors".

If you've not played it it has one goal - to make two people move as one solely by observation and a willingness to let go and trust someone else to lead. Stand about arm's length apart with one person designated as "control" and the other as "follower". Start with one hand, then an arm, adding more of the body as the partners observe and imitate - just like looking in a mirror.

The point of the game is not to "win". The point is to play the game well. You shouldn't tell who is in control and you can switch as you go along.

I love it.

And this young boy was the only one to volunteer to play.  He was good. He followed me through basic moves and then through moving the whole body, on one leg, then the other, down on all fours, crawling, waving. Then I gave control over to him and we moved in delightful, unusual, funny patterns and the amphitheater fell away.

We moved close to each other and I could feel his back against mine as we lay on our sides in the warm sun. I suddenly realized that we had backed into a corner, putting ourselves in a position where we couldn't see each other to initiate the next move.

"Extend your free arm upward and I'll move you out" I whispered.

My arm rose as I felt him against my back ....

..... and I realized that I was reaching for the ceiling of my apartment, my back against a pillow where I'd felt him the moment before.

My walk up the mountain lasted until the music in my head wasn't coming from The Golem. There was a tango, a milonga, thoughts about a possible film score, a waltz ...... and the sound of the mountain, the quiet rumble that I can hear even more clearly as the rest of Nature sleeps.

I played the game of Mirrors as long as I could until it had to break to continue - if that makes any sense.

For better or ill you have to stop a game sometimes to reset and begin again. I don't think there is any "good' or "bad" or "win" or "lose" - there is just "doing it well" and then moving on to the next thing.

Very curious to hear what happens next.

Portland, Maine

Born Under a Thankful Star

There are times I hate Thanksgiving.

Now that I work retail - let's face it, I'm not a professional, not an academic, not self-employed, I work in a mall for dollars per hour - I sometimes begrudge any moment that takes me away from my piano, anything that keeps me from writing, arranging, orchestrating, organizing or thinking about music.

Like today. I've already been to one friend's house for a charming, simple dinner with parents and Chief the Wonderdog in attendance. But I had to leave off orchestrating a tango in order to do it - and this piece is going really well.

So now I'm taking a few minutes to write this before plunging back into my headphones and the complexities of digitally sample bandoneon notes - all this three precious hours before heading out again for a dinner - then straight to another house for dessert and "chatting".

And tomorrow is Black Friday. My call is 5:30 a.m., we open at 6:00 a.m. and I can't stay up late to write and frankly I also can't wait because when I'm not writing music or dancing I'm immersed in a sea of fascinating humanity in the company of engaging, intelligent colleagues and it's fun.

The whole thing strikes me as a bit of a waste.

You see, Native Americans tend to be thankful for everything around them, all the time, every waking moment.

I grew up aware of the connections that are present amongst everything in reality - people, animals, plants, rocks, computers, bar stools - everything is connected and has some purpose and relationship to me and everything else.

When you are aware like this - and it drives me crazy sometimes (almost catatonic as some of my tango friends can attest) - then everything that happens makes some kind of impression. The parts that make up observed, experienced reality have an almost conscious presence and you acknowledge how they make your life better - or that they're just there so their very presence confirms your sense that you're alive.

I am grateful for the sun in the window, the cool of the breeze, the sound of the waves, the touch of my computer keyboard, the food in my belly, the spots on my screen and the screen wipes I use to clean them off.

There is an almost constant low-level hum of gratitude and awareness that I ignore only at my greatest peril.

The idea that you would take a whole day off just to acknowledge what you have now - not necessarily what you've always had - and follow it with a day dedicated to standing in line to seek and buy things you don't have - well, it seems a little silly to me.

So I will eat pumpkin pie (actually have most of one in my 'fridge now) and turkey with folks I know and care about - and fret about wanting to write while I have the time and energy.

The YouTube link above is to the Fort Duchesne, UT Thanksgiving pow wow - the type of dance is a men's straight dance (a traditional type of form as opposed to a "fancy dance" form where it's more improvised) called a "sneak up" - the movements are taken from a hunter tracking prey.

If I seem cranky today - cranky in general - know that I am very grateful for all the moments I'm given and the people and things that fill them.

It just looks really odd on me.

So now if you'll excuse me, I have to get back to work on this milonga so I can then get back to work on the score for "The Golem".

Happy Thanksgiving, blah, blah, blah.......

The Point of Aphelion

If tomorrow all the things were gone
I’d worked for all my life
And I had to start again
with just my children and my wife ...

Tuesday evening was the end of a seemingly long day - though I'd gotten off work at 5 p.m. an hour stole away disguised as a nap in front of my computer.

The evening was cold, clear - pocked with stars.  I have enough curiosity about people to want to see how the elections came out - the last time I'd waited at the door of my polling place three hours before they opened, chair, comforter, table, coffee and laptop all to hand - comfy but alone except for people I met. This time I'd voted a week before. The seeming crushing possibility of President Obama's defeat made me want to find other people of a like mind to share it with.

I’d thank my lucky stars to be livin here today ...

My aimless ramble took me by the Holiday Inn By the Bay. Outside was my friend K - a wonderfully imaginative colleague. She was out smoking a cigarette (her one vice) and I offered her a hit from my hip flask, full of good single-malt whiskey (a Mac Clellan Islay - one of my many vices).

Knowing her orientation confirmed that this was the headquarters of the Yes On 1 watch party (K was helping watch doorways - she's a black belt in karate - you 'effin' DON'T mess with her). Perfect place and company with whom to wait for the apocalypse. 

The crowd in the room was surprisingly sparse but it was barely past 8 p.m. I kept looking for a place to sit but no chairs were available except for sofas in the hallways.

‘ Cause the flag still stands for freedom and they can’t take that away ...

I ran into a lot of gay/lesbian/transgendered friends, a catalog of people going all the way back to the first years of my life here in Maine.

Teachers, Ex-students, Cathedral people, Orchard people, theatre/dance people - all there in solidarity - and comfort - for this most basic of political affirmations - that gay people could be considered people, enough so that they could do really simple things like love, marry, build families, exist.

As the evening progressed my flask was confiscated and its contents emptied into a trash barrel - I love that flask - and I gladly switched to fruit juice. The room was filled with a nervous energy, bravado, a bit of fear, a sense of rightness that bordered more on certainty than arrogance.

No one thought it was in the bag. There was a lot of business at the cash bars - less so at the  cheese/fruit/chip buffets in the middle of the room.

And I’m proud to be an American,where at least I know I’m free.
And I wont forget the men who died, who gave that right to me

Returns came in. Democratic - I prefer to use the proper noun as originally intended rather than the right wing's phrasing as Democrat - Democratic candidates and causes seemed to be slowly pulling ahead in pretty much all the races.

I was most heartened by Elizabeth Warren having trounced Scott Brown. Facebook posts and tweets were coming from friends in Massachusetts, all of them equally heartened.

There are few things in the world that will make me physically angry. The pudgy frat-boy exclusionist racism displayed by Brown's campaign staffers earlier in the Fall had crossed that line. I really wanted to see Brown suffer - and least morally - and it was very satisfying to see it happen.

I suppose I'll return to my usual, inclusive self - but not today.

And I gladly stand up next to you and defend her still today ....

At 11:00 a flight of staffers fanned out through the crowd, telling us that we needed to in the ballroom to hear an announcement. I'd been on a sofa trying to find results online, gave up and went in.

The director of communications for Yes on One, surrounded by campaign staff, started thanking his people - the further he went the bigger the spoiler became, especially when he started crying.

Finally he said what people were dying to hear - the Question had passed. Gays would now be able to marry in the great State of Maine.

The room erupted into a solid wall of ecstatic sound, individual voices lost in a sea of excitement.

It was genuine pandemonium - well, that might be the wrong word because that word means "many demons" and there was no evil the the room. Quite the opposite - a lot of healing and closure was going on, real-time crossing over from fear and anger into acceptance and peace.

And really loud shouting, accompanied by rather enthusiastic behavior.  I almost had my first-ever gay kiss but someone intercepted the guy while he was grabbing my arm. I assume they were friends.

Oh well. Probably better if he kissed a gay guy rather than me. Besides being the only Native American in the room - that I could see - I might be the only straight guy.

I'm used to being the only one in the room.

But only in terms of getting kissed. We were all, finally, equal in actuality of the law and affirmation of society - as well as morally.

Thank you, my gay friends, for giving the rest of Maine a chance to catch up with where you already are.

A knot of us stood in a corner, trading stories, chatting as intimate strangers will, when from the far corner a roar began. It pulled people over like water suddenly freed through an opened drain.

Ohio had been declared for President Obama - it was over.

And I gladly stand up next to you and defend her still today

Now we all exploded. Dance music, present all evening, suddenly doubled in volume and people jumped and screamed. Hugs. Dancing. I'm sure people were kissed but I was too busy standing and smiling.

Then, suddenly, the music switched to a solid country-western beat. Lee Greenwood's redneck anthem rang out - "I'm Proud to Be An American". Of all the choices Chris O'Donnell - the DJ and former drum corps person - could make, why this one?

Then an amazing thing happened. The shouting died down and people began singing along with Lee Greenwood ....

...... and suddenly it all made sense.

The mindless - literally, it seems - irrational conservative agenda had appropriated the idea that they were the "real" America and only they could be "patriotic" - that if you wave the flag you were in favor of George Bush and his disastrous wars, you acknowledged that "white" culture was the best, you were against a woman's right to choose, of committed couples of any gender to marry, that there were "kinds" of rape, that some cultures were better just "because" .....

..... and all of it - every last bit - had been rejected

‘ Cause there ain’t no doubt I love this land
God bless the USA

We were given back our country. Given back our flag.

All of us - gays, straights, African-Americans, Asian-Americans, Latinos, Caucasians, men, women, kids - oh, and one Native American standing alone and smiling - all of us were Americans.

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

After midnight. The air was cold, the sky pocked with brilliant stars. The three block walk back to my apartment was slow, thoughtful.

It was now a new day.

I went to bed, eager to get up to meet it.

And I gladly stand up
next to you and defend her still today
‘ Cause there ain’t no doubt I love this land
God bless the USA

Portland, Maine

Hanging With the October People

I love this time of year.

Many of my friends know that I pretty much love every time of year, same as I love every time of day. But, as I lean toward sunset and early morning as the first amongst my favorite times of the day I hold late Autumn, particularly Hallowe'en as the first amongst my favorite seasons of the year.

I've spent the last week on a farm in South Paris, the site of my vacation last year. This time I spent a good deal of effort taking long hikes on the many trails in the area, culminating in a walk in the White Mountain National Park - or, Grafton's Notch State Park, up Route 302 in New Hampshire.

The magic of this seasons, its changing leaves, cooling evenings, dramatic sunsets and sweet melancholy - all of it, speaks to something deep in my soul.

I like pumpkins and apples and cider as well. The final, hardier fruits of the harvests are taking over the tables of the Farmer's Market - tomatoes, peppers, onions, potatoes - thing that go well into crock pots and wait for you to get home from a good day's work.

I go through so much beef stock I should just boil a cow and have done with it each Columbus Day.

 Wednesday saw me come back into town for young Master Theo's birthday party. The son of my late, best friend Eckart Horn, whose widow, Molly, kindly turned the South Paris farmhouse over to my vacation, was turning 7.

What I thought would be a cake-and-ice-cream sing along turned out to be a joyous mass of 14 children in the backyard, lit by candles, my iPhone and a construction-style stand light, all opening, cleaning, marking and carefully carving what seemed an ocean of pumpkins into jack 'o lanterns of the most amazing designs.

Inside sat about 10 parents and other adults, chatting away over spaghetti and meatballs, waiting for the mayhem to produce workable lanterns, waiting for the birthday boy to preview videos he'd gotten earlier in the day.

There is a great, whirling, giddy excitement to be had in helping a child turn a pumpkin into a personality.  Your hands have a special scent to them, part candle wax, part sweet, squishy pumpkin innards.

I had to make sure I gave them a good scrub before I went to my tango practica.

Eventually we did sing for Theo, a cake was presented - which I had to decline because the spaghetti was sugar load enough. Besides which I had to go to practica and then drive back at under the glowing moon, back up into the hills to South Paris, under clear skies pocked with crystalline stars.

So I was very fortunate to partake of a sacrament of Autumn, hard by the Western Cemetery. A flight of pumpkins guard the house, a family I've placed under the protection of the sprits of my family.

There are rituals that keep us aware of the joy and magic that surrounds us, binds us as friends, as elders and as children - and we are all those things together at once. Perhaps later we will sort them out and learn the lessons each teaches but for now, the winds blows, the leaves turn and fall and swish under our feet and we all hold hands - to keep ourselves safe and to share the certainty of the love we feel.

Portland, Maine

Old Friends on Nob Hill

FaceBook Gallery is here.

1977 was my first visit to Grace Cathedral at the top of Nob Hill in San Francisco. My then very significant other, Nancy, an even greater devoteé of Madeline L'Engle (and her book "A Wrinkle in Time") than I, knew that Madeline's son-in-law was the dean of the Cathedral and I just had to go by to see it and its Einstein window.

I fell in love with the place and still regret that I was such a heel to poor innocent Nancy that she wasn't there to see it with me all the times I've managed to do so.

Such are the echoes of all first loves, I suppose.

Still, my week of training at Apple gave me a chance to visit on Wednesday and Thursday nights.

The first was a single run to the Cathedral Close to walk the labyrinth on the plaza to the facing right of the Great Doors.

A maze is a multicursal path, designed to get you lost. A labyrinth has a unicursal path, and is meant to help you find yourself.

The Cathedral website tells me that walking a labyrinth has three parts:

Purgation - walking in - where you release thoughts, cleansing the mind, opening the heart. Follow the path.

Illumination - at the center - where you stop, stay as long as needed, to receive peace and purpose.

Union - returning along the path that got you there - connecting with the Universe, the world around you - God, if you will.

Oddly I'd had this walk in my mind for a while, since it became clear I'd earned this week of training - it was very sudden and a lot of plans didn't come to fruition but I'm very glad this one did. I'd made a promise to the spirit of my late friend Eckart Horn, that I would do so with his contemplative spirit beside me.

And it was.

The Cathedral labyrinth is a copy of the one in Chartres cathedral - if you can trace the path you'll see it leads you almost directly to the center after only three turns - and then you have to navigate almost the whole thing before you finally arrive. It gives you a taste of success and then you have to trust that if you just continue on the way you will arrive safely.

It's a good lesson, one driven home by my week's work at Apple. I can't talk about process but it confirmed that I made the right choice in switching careers and that there is more that I can do, much more.

The next visit was Thursday, again a quick run in because we needed to get packed to check out early the next day - we were leaving to the airport later on Friday.

My carmate, Steve, from the Rockaway store, had never been to SFO before and we both knew we had to pack to check out. So I copped out and took him back to Nob Hill, parking at the Masonic Temple (another place I'd like to get in to explore) and took him down California Street and over down Pine to Grant and Chinatown.

I was right in later thinking we might have gone to Fisherman's Wharf or ridden the cable car - but time was tight and I didn't know those areas enough to get us in and out in a single commando-style strike.

Needless to say the Dragon Gate and bizarre little shops on Grant Street did not disappoint. The night was comfortable and warm - in fact the whole October week would have qualified as a great August weather spell back in Maine.

Being both photographers - well, I point a camera, he's a photographer - we got a lot of fairly tidy shots of nighttime sights. No vampires (that I could see) but still an atmospheric bit of scenery.

I had first really discovered Chinatown after watching John Carpenter's movie "Big Trouble in Little China". I strongly commend this film to you as it's full of Jackie Chan-style martial arts mayhem and has a strange, meandering, stylish script by W.D Richter (author of "Buckaroo Banzai and his Adventures Across the Eight Dimension" - which also has the coolest end credit sequence ever made).

A friend had joined me to see the movie, in SFO, just outside Chinatown - we had settled in when two hones-to-Confucius tongs showed up to watch too. We hunkered down in our chairs while about 60 really butch looking Chinese guys yelled and cheered at the screen in Mandarin.

Then they started yelling and screaming at each other. That's when we sneaked out the side exit.

Still, it made for an adventurous evening - both then and now. And that seems to be the theme of the entire trip - adventures, discoveries, conclusions and confirmations both interior and exterior. I'm grateful to have had the experience. Now I'm headed off to South Paris for a week of vacation and rest - and thinking about who I am now. Somewhere inside me I think there is something that already knows - I just need to listen to its voice and get organized.

Portland, Maine

Cupertino Tango

Before you ask, no, I don't know if a new iPad is coming out, if the iPhone6 even exists or whether Steve Jobs is cryogenically frozen in the basement of Infinite Loop 1.

I'm only posting photos that can be taken by the public - or starstruck Creatives - nor can I discuss the content of our training in anyway except to say that my sense of how right this job is for me has been joyously confirmed.

I can also say that the food at Caffé Macs is beyond amazing, though I'm sitting here at a patio table at our training site, eating a Subway sandwich and writing this post during lunch.

Sunday night I was taken under the wing of the amazing Joanne Gaskell - DOCTOR Joanne Gaskell - newly minted PHD from Stanford. We went to an amazing place called Alberto's in nearby Mountain View.

It's  a place rather like that my imagination conjures when I think of Buenos Aires - a large, wonderful floor, red-lit bar, well-stocked, a band stand and comfortable chairs surrounding the whole.

Arriving at the advertised time of 7 p.m. found us looking a floor with no-one on it. We had it completely to ourselves for almost 30 minutes and shared some wonderful dances to classic Argentine Tango music, beautifully sounded on the speaker system.

Alberto's is managed by an amiable Geordie lady by the name of Dorcas, possessed of a lilting Northern accent. The front door signs advertised lessons but, she informed me, those were only for bachada and salsa - not my cup of tea. She put me onto a couple teaching beginning tango and salon style tango at a local dance studio.

"Tell them Dorcas sent you". How often can you pass something like that up?

The time difference began to catch up with me and I sat most of the evening out, admiring the atmosphere and the floor craft of the locals. It was great to see the music dictate the end of a phrase of motion, all across the floor - HOW the phrase was danced was deliciously unique - but the consistency of the start/stop was great.

 We then sat at the bar, catching up, her explaining the paper she's presenting at a conference in Canada (her home country) and me explaining what my writing and work were becoming.

The actual real work of my trip began the next day and it went very well.

Last night after a quick tuna-fish sandwich at a local deli I headed back to Mountain View to the Cheryl  Burke Dance studio and a couple of lessons with people who didn't know me from Adam and who would take my dancing totally at face value, for good or ill.

When they advertised "basic tango" they weren't kidding. They showed us some very basic exercises for building the proper control of weight needed for salon-style. The second class was a bit more advanced, using the basics to teach a simple combination of front ocho, parada and cross.

It was pretty clear I had a good grasp of basics - so I found myself the focus of a great deal of arm and foot technique - much beyond simple steps.

Most all of my followers were Russian - Ludmilla, Irina, Katerina - and considered again the mystery of why Russian women, Russians in general, seem to be so facile at Argentine Tango.

Maybe it's the sadness of the music.

So now we're starting to gather back to continue the day's work. Part of me wants to go into San Francisco, part wants to stay at the hotel tonight and just rest. There's a bit of congestion in my chest and I need to relax a bit and rest. Perhaps go for a walk.

But a sense of excitement and verve are under the surface of all that I do here. There is a lot of work to be done and this journey is far from over.

I am glad - and a little surprised - that I took time out to dance and take classes.

I'll keep you posted as to what happens next.

Cupertino, CA

Cirqueface

As my friend C. observed, I am a genuine Cirque Geek.

The Cirque du Soleil has been a template for a lot of my teaching.  There's a reason it resonates with my life.

I've mentioned my DCI Championship performance, winning a gold ring in 1977.

The biggest memory was the view of 34,000 people standing to cheer the end of our performance. I'd not been really focussing on them and they suddenly appeared as we stopped to breathe at the end of "Rocky".

That feeling of accomplishment, of reaching into the hearts of an audience and igniting passion and joy has never left me. The feeling - if not the experience - is what drove my teaching in public school.

So I was thrilled when the Cirque show "Saltimbanco" was scheduled at the Civic Center.

Usually I try to go with C. but budgets and schedules didn't match until too late.

Still I managed to see it last night, again today with my friend A. and her 8 year-old daughter. I love watching children experience the Cirque for the first time.

In the second act, there is a number called "hand to hand" or Vis Versa. I've seen it performed with a mixed couple as well as with two men, as here. Either way it is a dramatic expression of what I get from the Cirque more than anything else.

I started crying during the performance. It suddenly hit me very hard.

While watching it this afternoon I was stunned to see them miss the last skill, an amazing front to back transfer that ends this YouTube video. Friday night they nailed it - Saturday they choked it.

Like every mistake that happens in a Cirque performance they tried it again (last night the juggler had three tries before he got the 10-ball shower - a Russian swing jump onto a suspended Russian board had to be repeated).

But the calf muscles of the porter (the one on the ground - the mover is called the flyer, even in an act like this) just gave out and he couldn't do the final lift. They took a bow and the crowd gave them a huge ovation for being willing to try.

My tears came from a sudden voice in my head. "You decide what you want, you plan it out and then you move". Very simple but suddenly it seemed those words were meant for me - that they were something that I could do.

Sounds absurd - a man in his mid-50's suddenly realizing he had control of how his life could go, but there it was.

The thing about watching the Cirque is the quick realization that those are people up there - dedicated, trained, consumed, disciplined people - who are that good because they are doing something they love - and love bears all trials and questions.

Tomorrow I'm flying out to Cupertino CA for a week of Creative training at Apple headquarters. I have plane flights, rented car, hotel room, expense account, the works. I wanted this to happen since I joined this company four years ago and now it's going to happen. I had to pass tests, work my way from the sales floor (red zone) to Small Device support (Family Room Specialist), set up the Summer camp and Field trip programs - and saw them become strong enough to turn over to others.

This company is as much concerned with excellence as the Cirque - and our success proves the rightness of this approach.

My job may not seem like much compared to my friends who are doctors, lawyers or full-time professional artists. Frankly I don't have time to care.

I look at the detail of my journey to this point, to those tears joyously confirming my small claim to stand on the stage of those who have accomplished what they meant to do by hard work, sacrifice and a belief that not only could they do it but they wanted and deserved to try.

So now, in a few hours, I'm going to see what I can do to start my next move.

I'll keep you posted.

Portland, Maine