How do we keep the experience?

There's a movie I really like called Six Degrees of Separation. It's based on the play by John Guare, and these are his words, spoken by Ouisa Kittredge, played by Stockard Channing (who was Oscar-nominated for the role):

"And we turn him into an anecdote, to dine out on, like we're doing right now. But it was an experience. I will not turn him into an anecdote. How do we keep what happens to us? How do we fit it into life without turning it into an anecdote, with no teeth, and a punch line you'll mouth over and over, years to come: 'Oh, that reminds me of the time that impostor came into our lives. Oh, tell the one about that boy.' And we become these human jukeboxes, spilling out these anecdotes. But it was an experience. How do we keep the experience?"

It occurs to me that whenever any of us suffers a loss, there's a process by which the experience, now over, has to be turned into an anecdote, in order for us to move on from it. Everything that was powerful about that which we've lost, we have to diffuse. We have to lock away the sights, sounds, smells, touches, tastes, laughter, and the charge that's on every place we've been while that experience was going on -- or else the absence of that which we've lost becomes unbearable, and we can't move on.

I've been reassured that "she who dies with the most stories wins." Are the stories experiences or anecdotes? I've certainly got stories to tell. But I don't want them to be anecdotes that I entertain my friends with. I want to be able to revisit them privately in my own soul and relive them...but if I don't put them away, the grief never ends.

I'm sane and happy and productive today because many of my past experiences are now anecdotes. I guess there really is no harvest without sacrifice.

Wednesday night at the Brink

I've got a stamp fading off the back of my hand because last night I heard some electronic music at the latest installment of the Other Minds Brink series. It was at the Hemlock Tavern on Polk Street between Post and Sutter in San Francisco.

Tarantism was the first artist to play. They put up Halloween spiderwebbing like a curtain in front of the stage, eliciting some puzzled comments from us who were waiting for the show to start. It turned out the webbing was a screen for a projected video.

There were two performers in Tarantism, and they each wore white gauzy coveralls so that the video projected on the webbing, on them as they played, and on the stage backdrop which made for a neat effect. The keyboardist also had red lights illuminating her hands so you could see her playing.The video was abstract and moved slowly and gracefully during the first half, then the colors turned red, white, and blue for a little bit coinciding with the sounds of electronic screams and bombardment. After that everything got louder and more agitated. The piece went on for about 20 minutes which was just the right length.

I overheard somebody behind me say that she had seen "the guy from Skinny Puppy" use the same webbing thing as a video screen.

Celeste went next. She played four new laptop pieces that I had not heard before. The first featured samples of Rush Limbaugh edited with electronic music, and the overall effect was ironic and comical. I enjoyed hearing him bark like a dog.Her next piece, "Lock Up Your Children", was not comical at all, and incorporated samples of various voices in the debate about the PBS show "Buster" and his visit to a family headed by a lesbian couple. There were some really offensive anti-gay samples in there, for satirical/political effect, the like of which I never hear and they were > really upsetting. That was doubtless the point. The third piece deconstructed and reconstructed a Goddess litany, and I thought it was really really good. It started out with the woman's voice fragmented and repressed, but gradually came together and became understandable, and ended with the woman's voice strong and completely audible. The last piece was instrumental only layering long notes that beat against one another.

I didn't stay for the final act 'cause it was getting a tiny bit late for me but I enjoyed the show a lot. Next time there is a Brink show you oughta go.

We listened to Celeste's CD in the car on the way home. Her piece "Coulter Shock" is on the CD, and after awhile some of us were vibrating, they were so agitated by Ann Coulter's nails-on-a-chalkboard ranting made even more pronounced by Celeste's deconstruction.

I love Tribe. I hate Tribe.

I've been on Tribe.net nearly a year now. I love it and I hate it. It's the ultimate time-sink. It's the best and most counterculture of the Friendster-type thangs. It can be frivolous and useless. It can be substantive and helpful. Why don't you log on, and see what you think after a year?

In other news Celeste is back in town for the summer! She has returned in triumph from Wesleyan as a Master of Arts. She has a gig coming up at the Hemlock Tavern in San Francisco on June 29th.

She is going to Paris in the fall to do the CCMIX program there. She and her girlfriend Cola are both going. Wouldn't you love to spend a year in Paris with your beloved? Envy all around.

And best of all she is going to sit in on bass in rehearsals of me and the Company. Jim Carr is moving away to Kentucky, which I'm very sad about, as he is a heck of a bass player and I really enjoyed working with him this past year and a half. Celeste is going to join me and Dan later on this month to work on "The Great Highway."

Books on the sidewalk

Lately Divine Wisdom has been sending books to me by leaving them on the sidewalk in areas where I go for my walks.

Back in March, it was Siddhartha by Herman Hesse. I read that book in my junior year in high school, I think, and it prepared me for all the mystical journeying I would take in adult life.

Today City of Quartz by Mike Davis was there for me to find, right in my path as I walked home. I haven't read it yet. But I'm given to understand it's a very important book which most people haven't read. I guess I'm supposed to read it now.

Be sure and check the events page for my upcoming gigs. I just got word that I'll be part of the Ambient Sounds/Ambient Spaces concert series. Organizer Mike Perlmutter has found a tunnel that he wants me to play flute and bass flute in, making use of all the echoes in it. I haven't been to check out the tunnel yet but the whole thing sounds really exciting. The concert will be on Sunday, July 31st in the afternoon. If you're on my mailing list, you will get a reminder about it.

Magic Chicken

Theresa Wong and Philip Greenlief have made an album together called Magic Chicken. It features their woodwind and cello artistry, plus spoken words, which always gets my attention. Gender balance in a new music endeavor also always gets my attention. You can find out more about it at http://www.evandermusic.com/

The recording is stripped down and very much like a live performance, but I was struck while listening to it by how much I wished it actually were a live performance. All their usual expressiveness and dynamic range were there but there's so much to improvised music (and high-complexity new music that isn't improvised) that isn't audible. I wished I could be there to see them making eye contact and see their gestures and their feeling.

And that brings me to the fact that we've got many live performances every week here in the Bay Area, presenting our music, and more often than not only a handful of people will show up. Bottom line, performers need audiences. I'm not the first to say that and I won't be the last. I'm also not just talking about me and my concerts. If there's music you like, and it's not on the radio, griping about it not being on the radio is a waste of time. Guaranteed, somebody is out there, probably in your own home town, making the music you like, and it's hypocritical of you not to support it by being there.

Speaking of improvised/not improvised, I stand corrected by Ferrara, who says the piece I liked so much in his Forms Of Things Unknown show wasn't improvised after all. He says it was all laid out and the bass clarinet solo was written down. :)

Aviation music

I've been awarded a commission by the Hiller Aviation Museum, to write a flute quartet (2 C flutes, alto flute, and bass flute) to be premiered at their upcoming fundraising gala on October 8. The three other flutists (I'll be playing one of the parts) have been signed up and I'm working on the piece, which will be called Remove Before Flight. There will be a slow movement called "The Breeze" and a fast movement called "Takeoff". The American Composers Forum has awarded me a Community Partners grant for this piece.

In other news I heard a set at the Luggage Store Gallery last night by Forms of Things Unknown, the chief architect of which is my friend Ferrara Brain Pan. I like his ambient improvs. The first one was my favorite, with its drones, feedback, bells, percussion, and brooding bass clarinet melodies. It was fun how the traffic sounds and even a siren on Market Street blended beautifully with the music.

Tonight I'm going to the International Festival of Digital Arts in Berkeley where Ronnie Cramer has two short films on the program. Ronnie was in the Droneshift with me back in March. I like his live album, Juno. It's very meditative, asteroidy and atmospheric. I like how it says what it has to say, and then moves on; that doesn't always happen in ambient music.