The Wonder That Is Daniel

Fans of Stargate SG-1 use the above phrase to describe Dr. Daniel Jackson. I think it's okay to co-opt it, just for this post, to describe Daniel Magazin, deranged ragtime piano player extraordinaire. :)

I'm back from Eugene, where the first round of sessions for Not Made of Stone went extremely well. Dan's piano part, which he contributed to the song "How Now Is Soon", really takes the tune to a new level, along with Violent Femmes-esque drumming provided by Jeff Davis and Jim Carr's bass line.

But back to Dan. We have known each other a long time. We were undergrads together at SF State, when I was a flute performance major and he was a composition, then a piano performance, major. We have a really similar sense of humor and an affinity for all that's twisted and goofy. We have compatible political leanings. We love good food and good coffee and great conversation and astrology. We both wish we could afford tickets to Le Grand Macabre.

I remember the first time I ever wrote a piece, which was back in 1989. I had never considered myself a composer. In the classical world, composers and performers are generally brought up separately and the two fields assumed to be mutually exclusive. (Nowadays, thank Goddess, that's not always the case.) The piece wasn't long. It only took about a minute and a half to play on the flute but I had written it. Given how I'd been trained up to that point, I hadn't thought it was possible, and I wondered why I wasn't struck by lightning on the spot.

So when I realized I'd come up with something original and written it down, and thereby become A Composer, I was kind of stunned and wigging out and I remember Dan was the first person I told, right there in the hallway in the music building. :) It was natural that I should tell him, because he actually was A Composer.

Nowadays Dan pays way too much for a studio apartment in the City, and we meet in the evening sometimes for coffee near Union Square, and he comes to my place to rehearse, and it's just been really cool to work with him. So all hail The Wonder That Is Daniel. :)

Harry Denton's Starlight Room

My brother Will manages the above-referenced establishment so I wanted to go there for an evening out and have the Starlight Room experience. So I went last Friday night.

The Starlight Room is on the 21st floor of the St. Francis Drake Hotel and everyone who offered me an opinion said it is the best nightclub in the City. It's very swanky with chandeliers and low lighting and live music every night. The first thing you encounter as you get off the elevator is a tremendous bouquet of red roses with longer stems than you have ever seen. Will, when asked where Mr. Denton gets his roses, replied that 6 dozen of them arrive every week from Ecuador.

You will hear no free jazz or other contemporary compositions at this club. :) Tunes I can remember the singers and the Starlight Room Orchestra playing were "Deja Vu", "My Cherie Amour", "Just the Two of Us", and the like.

You do not wear jeans to the Starlight Room unless you want to look like a loser. I was forewarned and did not wear jeans. There is a hostess and four cocktail waitresses, all in floor-length black evening gowns. The managers all wear tuxedoes. The busboys wear black tie also, without jackets. Chemine, who waited on my table, explained that Mr. Denton had the floor-length black evening gowns designed for the waitresses. They are not low-cut, which saves them a lot of grief. The skirts are slit all the way up, but the slit has a zipper on it so it's adjustable. There is also a velcro pocket in the skirt for tips, which in the low lighting is invisible.

There are a few vegetarian things on the menu, and what I had was really good, but on a purely personal level I don't know if that makes up for the fact that they have foie gras on the menu as well. It's a personal issue I have. Dessert was really decadent. They've only got one dessert, called Harry's Indulgence, and it involves chocolate mousse, a layer of white mousse on top, a sprig of mint, and a cookie base and raspberry coulis.

So there you have it; I've been to the Starlight Room. It is kind of Dr. Zhivago-esque contrasted with the tsunami devastation. When I look back on 9/11, and the way the American public consciousness seemed to shift deeply in its aftermath, I wonder why something similar hasn't happened now, given the staggering loss of life and the unbelievable suffering that's to come. Mother Earth has just shown how unspeakably powerful she is and how completely we depend on her, but I'm not sure the status quo is going to be shifted by this revelation.

Yesterday pianist Dan Magazin was successfully translated as data. He's been emailed to Eugene for my recording sessions a week and a half from now.

Quantum Darwinism

According to quantum physics, anything anyone can conceive of is happening in its own quantum reality. There are an infinite number of these realities dreamt up by all of us. So why do we all seem to be sharing one particular reality? There's a theory I just heard about that tries to explain why.

Quantum Darwinism is kind of a natural selection, or survival of the fittest, of quantum realities. The more people experience a certain reality, the more real it is. It seems to make a difference, too, whether the circumstances of that reality are recorded -- the recording seems to stand in for another person experiencing it, raising the number of witnesses.

This explains why a hypothetical couple can disagree about how a certain conversation went, even though they were both there and participated in the same conversation. Since there are only two of them, the reality they experienced is fragile and easily warped by each individual's baggage and biases. However if the couple tape-recorded the conversation, they have another "person" (the recording) to shore up the reality they participated in and help them agree on it. If they have this conversation in the presence of several other people, the reality is going to be shored up even further.

So if you are ever trying to switch yourself from your current reality into another one -- perhaps a reality where you are rich and/or famous, or a reality where somebody you have an unrequited crush on returns your affections -- keep in mind that you may be the only person who's supporting that reality. The mass of humanity may be supporting the reality you are currently in, where you're a working stiff, toiling in obscurity, and/or where even by curing cancer or winning a Grammy award, you could never get that person to give a damn.

Believability seems to be the key. After I delve into this theory a bit more, I'll see what else I can come up with.

It's less than a month before my first recording sessions for Not Made of Stone! The train trip up to Eugene is going to be beautiful and I am practicing really hard. I've written a flute solo for "How Now Is Soon" and a bass flute solo for "Ultralite", and I'm working on bass flute and flute parts for "Blood With Salt". Jeff Davis will play drums, Jim Carr will play bass, Dan Magazin will play piano (I'm sending him up to Eugene as a MIDI file), and I'll play flute, bass flute, and guitar and do the vocals.

Sleep Now in the Fire

So where does Rage Against the Machine fit into the Matrix?

I started wondering today at the gym. I was struck by the immense irony of listening to their thunderous call to revolutionary action (The Battle of Los Angeles) while running in place on an elliptical trainer. Somehow I doubt keeping my heart rate in the high end of my target zone (and exceeding it quite often...this is Rage, after all) for a half hour was really what they had in mind when they created that music and those words.

I'm listening to the same music that was played over the sound system at the Counter-Inaugural I marched in four years ago. I'm feeling so lefty and great but I am running in place on a damned piece of gym equipment. This has got to be exactly what the right is counting on. It has also got to be what Sony, the major label Rage was on, counted on when they released their music -- that it would sell, and make them lots of money, but that nothing would happen, and the corporate/governmental fifth estate would be completely unscathed by it because Rage's listeners won't Do Anything as a result of their message.

They've done their research and they've gotta know that I (a representative of my Gen X demographic) put in massive hours every day trying to get the bills paid, create my art, and maintain my sanity. I work from the moment I get up to the moment I go to sleep and there's no time left over to Do Anything -- and I don't even have kids!

And even if I contribute whatever I can to an org whose mission is to Do Something -- the last election proved that money and mobilization isn't necessarily going to win the day. Donations poured into the Dean campaign, and later the Kerry campaign, from people who realized how high the stakes were and who had never given to a political party before in their lives. And the bad guys still won.

What threat could Rage Against the Machine possibly pose if their millions of records were bought by people like me?

The Matrix has me.

The first rule of Fight Club...

...is you don't talk about Fight Club. But I'm going to talk about Fight Club anyway! I think it is a really, really good movie. I got a chance to see it on DVD last night. I'm really impressed. It is dark and fascinating and Gnostic. It is right up there with my other favorite movies, which are The Truman Show, The Matrix (the original), and Donnie Darko.

Speaking of Gnostic, I have been telling a few people lately about my trip to Scotland and how the first place I went was Rosslyn Chapel. They ask me why I went there, and the easiest way to explain it to people who haven't studied Gnosticism and Grail mythology in depth is to reference The Da Vinci Code. It seems a great many people have read it and can grok the Grail references. I haven't read it yet but I know what the gist of it is, and I feel good about how the author has found a way to get that mythos into the public consciousness with a work of fiction.

Monica says that they are going to make a movie of The Da Vinci Code, and that Tom Hanks will star in it. She says he is not dashing enough to play the main character, and that she would prefer Russell Crowe in the main role. He' s certainly dashing.

In other news, I've been asked to contribute a track to an anti-Bush compilation CD upcoming from Pax Recordings. I've submitted one, and I hope it will be included. It's short and to the point (1:23) and I call it "Cold Blood". I wrote the words in one afternoon while hiking Sweeney Ridge. I'll let you all know if it is added to the complilation CD and how to get one if so.

The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire

Not to be overly dramatic or anything, but nobody alive today remembers how the Romans watched the Senate become ineffectual, and the Emperor become a dictator...certainly I don't, but I read about it somewhere. Seems to me there may have been many, many regular Romans who were uncomfortable with the way the Emperor's military campaigns depleted the treasury and left problems unattended to at home, and with the way the Emperor went on and on about Family Values.
I also bet there were many regular Germans who were puzzled and uncomfortable with the Nazi Party's rise to power, and didn't participate in it, but had to live with the consequences. I bet they wondered, at the beginning of it, what the next few years would bring.

A friend of a friend of a friend, named Paul, sent out the following email which was forwarded to me and I offer it for no reason other than I can't come up with anything near as good, in my present state of shock and hurt. (not awe). It's his advice about how to go forward in this time. Even with the San Francisco Bay Area-specific stuff, I think it's relevant enough to post. Here goes:

1. Everybody gets money. Every payday (if you're lucky enough to still have paydays), write a check, even just a small one. Today I started off the next four years by giving money to a local strike fund (hotel workers are striking here in SF). Next payday, I renew my ACLU membership. After that, it's NRDC, Planned Parenthood, NARAL, etc. The great thing is that once you send that first check, you'll get all kinds of convenient postage-paid return envelopes for next payday's check. Do it; you'll feel like you're doing something and that alone will help.

2. If you haven't already, shift your phone service to Working Assets. It's easy, it costs about the same, and they give part of your money to good progressive causes. Better that extra little bit go to the Sierra Club, for instance, than to SBC profits.

3. Nourish the bubble. For those of us fortunate/determined enough to live in the Bay Area bubble, remember how lucky we are. True, it is a bubble, a veritable echo chamber of progressive viewpoints. True, it is cut off from a lot of the country. But it isn't cut off from all of the country (see below), and there are things we get to do in the bubble, things that make life worth living, worth treasuring, things that point the way to a better tomorrow. You have to have laboratories in order to figure out what will work. We live in a left-wing laboratory. Keep the lab clean, make sure the apparatus are in good working order, check to make sure the supply room is well-stocked, and remember that publishing the results is an important part of the process.

4. Remember that we are not alone. There are at least 56 million people here who roughly agree with you. That's a lot. It's a whole lot. It was almost enough. We Are Not Alone. And because we are not alone, despair, cynicism, defeatism, hopelessness, and withdrawal are Not Allowed. You don't abandon the team just because we lost the game. Show up for practice with your cleats on; there are more games on the schedule.

5. Remember that we are, despite everything, fortunate. We were born and/or live in a very rich country, one with an enormous amount of power in all senses of the word. We have a responsibility to each other and to those around the world to do whatever we can to try to ensure that that power is exercized for the good whenever possible. We couldn't quite make it this time; that doesn't relieve us of the responsibility to keep trying. One of the other side's Big Lies is that they have a monopoly on morality; giving up the game lets them continue to believe that.

6. We haven't lost everything, and it isn't all hopeless. 5 isn't 9. 55 isn't 60. If you don't know what those mean, find out; it's important.

7. Take care of yourself, your friends, your family, and your communities. This is closely associated with Nourishing the Bubble, but even closer to home. Keep volunteering with your theater company, your BDSM social organization, your domestic violence hotline, your gay rights organization. Keep doing pro bono work. Keep holding social events. All of this makes a difference, and usually a bigger difference than most things coming out of Washington.

8. Finally, keep thinking of other ways to survive in the darkness and let people know what you come up with.