Just for the record, I am not naked.

In the photos Daniel took of me, that is, which are on my web site and in my Tribe profile.

(I'm sure some of you smart-alecs and smart-alexas are responding to my subject line either with "Damn!" or "Thank God!")

I'm having to ramble on about this because of the owner of the Luggage Store Gallery, Laurie Lazer. She was there when I arrived at the LSG last night to have dinner with Matt Davignon and help with the concert. I came in the front door and saw her and she asked me, "What were you wearing in the photos on your web site?" And I said, "Pieces of fabric!"

Matt told me as we were headed for the Vietnamese place around the corner that when he told Laurie I was coming over, Laurie said, "Oh, is she the naked one? Will she be wearing clothes this time?"

So I offer congratulations to Daniel Malone. It looks like his photos made a big impression.

I normally work with the following definitions:
1. naked = wearing nothing
2. nude = wearing nothing for artistic or naturist purposes.
3. skyclad = wearing nothing for ritual purposes.
4. nekkid = wearing nothing, AND you're up to something. :)

I'm left to amuse myself with a new definition of "naked" though. I guess Laurie thinks it means, "not wearing clothes", and pieces of fabric, like Daniel gave me to cover myself with, don't count as clothes, and therefore she considers me naked, even though I'm covered up?

It seems like skin really is a blank canvas and pretty much anything can be projected on it. Even showing just a certain amount of skin creates a place where the viewer can read something into what is being shown.

I'm not complaining about Laurie's remarks at all -- I think they're fascinating. It's almost as though, with Daniel's photographs, I've succeeded in doing with my body what I consciously try to do with my lyrics, which is make them abstract enough for the listener to project themselves and their experiences into them.

Perhaps even before any given person has a chance to hear one of my recordings or come to one of my shows, they're already a part of my performance art.

It was a dark and stormy night...

...but people still came out to hear an unusual music concert at an art gallery in a gritty part of San Francisco. This was very gratifying for the performers! Ferrara started things off with his haunting , evocative, and menacing ambient music. My set with Jon and Jim went very well. We had no technical difficulties with my headset mic (at last!) and the new instrumentation for the older material went over really well.

Paul was our able road manager and sound engineer. He is always so on top of things, so motivated, and so together. I have been spoiled for going on ten years having him in my corner at performances.

All you other musicians out there -- if you got him to help you with road management and sound, you would reduce your stress level immensely.

I got to meet and talk to Jim Ryan, who is the presenter of the Art Performance Lab series. We have a spot on this series coming up on May 12. Jim and I talked a bit about my planned set, the Subjects of Desire set, and how we might put together an intersecting piece for in between them. It should be a really interesting show.

Jim Carr has flown back to Kentucky but he will be back for our gig on May 12. It was really great to see him and work with him and hear stories of his busy musical life.

In other news, the piece I co-created for the Fling exhibit -- called "Sex, Love, & Expectations" -- has made the cut for a long-term exhibition of pieces from the show, at 180 Capp Street in San Francisco. I'll post more details when I know them.

A section of a poem by Galway Kinnell

I read many blogs and on one of them, its author posted a very moving poem she liked. I thought I would do the same with a different poem. It's meant a lot to me. I first read it posted on the wall at Escape from New York Pizza in the Financial District in San Francisco.

If one day it happens
you find yourself with someone you love
in a café at one end
of the Pont Mirabeau, at the zinc bar
where white wine stands in upward opening glasses,

and if you commit then, as we did, the error
of thinking,
one day all this will only be memory,

learn,
as you stand
at this end of the bridge which arcs,
from love, you think, into enduring love,
learn to reach deeper
into the sorrows
to come – to touch
the almost imaginary bones
under the face, to hear under the laughter
the wind crying across the black stones. Kiss
the mouth
which tells you, here,
here is the world. This mouth. This laughter. These temple bones.

The still undanced cadence of vanishing.

-- Galway Kinnell

ACF Encore grant!

Today I received my copy of an award letter that went out to the Cayenne Flute Quartet, in residence at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge.

The grant is from the American Composers Forum Encore Program, which supports repeat performances of new music. The quartet is planning to play my piece, Remove Before Flight, three times this April, and the grant will cover some associated costs.

What would we do without the American Composers Forum? I would rather not think too hard about that one.

Check them out:

http://www.composersforum.org

60 x 60 - what's it really like?

The 60 x 60 Project had its West Coast premiere this evening at Mills College. I made my way over there and found a parking space and a seat in the Ensemble Room. Agnes Szelak, one of the contributors, was hosting it and she had an analog clock with a sweep second hand projected on the wall by means of a digital camera and a projector. The clock was awfully cute. It involved the anime character Pucca.

I met my fellow 60 x 60 contributor Katrina Wreede. She'd brought with her three of the smallest and best-behaved audience members ever -- Chan, Anh, and Hoa. All of whom are aspiring violinists! So it was appropriate that the show opened up with "Study" by Travis Ellrott which sounded like stringed instruments drag racing.

Eight pieces in, the digital camera started in with a self-test menu with text and graphics that obscured the Pucca clock. So Agnes turned it off and we listened to the show in darkness.

I think Rob Voisey has done a great job selecting the pieces. I say this naturally not just because he selected one of mine. The pieces are grouped by vibe and instrumentation and it is a really diverse set. There were instrumental pieces to start with, including a menacing cello drone and a clarinet and flute piece. Rene Veron's "I'm Not" seemed to depict a dreamlike struggle to speak and it ushered in a set of pieces all involving text. There was even a piece with somebody speaking French that mentioned the name Celeste!

A lot of the pieces were playful and fun and groovy and had me neck-working and chair-dancing. Others were haunting, which is one of my favorite qualities to hear in contemporary music. I got to hear a piece by Alex Shapiro whom I met at Composers Inc. It sounded like a jazzy seductive Los Angeles underbelly song. Harlem Lullaby gone wrong type thing. There were some pieces for piano and harpsichord whose common adjective would have to be "thunderous". Later on there was a set of love pieces. My piece, "Cold Blood", has been moved to #59 in the lineup. It was paired with another anti-war piece in the #60 slot. I really liked that.

I think you'll like 60 x 60 if it comes to your town. There's a wide range of styles and quite a lot of humor in it.

Wonderful weekend at PantheaCon.

Every great once in a while, I need to stop spending every weekend working so damn hard. :) Every year, an opportunity presents itself over the long Presidents' Day weekend, and it's called PantheaCon.

http://www.pantheacon.com

I had a wonderful time. It was my ninth PantheaCon and here are some of the highlights...

- Don Frew, Anna Korn, and Glenn Turner's presentation "Hekate in Turkey: Past Meets Present". The festival of Hekatesia has been revived at her oldest known temple at Lagina, Turkey, and it was exciting to hear all about it.
- Sabina Magliocco's presentation "In Search of the Roots of Stregheria".
- Squadrons of handsome men wearing Utilikilts. :)
- My shopping mission accomplished in the dealer room.
- Sarah Winter's presentation "Hellenismos".
- Hugs from and re-connections with old friends.
- Todd Jackson's presentation "Apollo: The God and his Cultus".
- Dromena ho Asklepios (the Asclepius healing ritual).
- Don Frew, Anna Korn, and Glenn Turner's presentation "Recent Discoveries in Pagan Mesopotamia". WOW. The oldest known ritual center (11,000 B.C.E.) has been found at Navel Hill in Turkey. And this is just one of the great finds these explorers got to visit on their trip to Turkey.
- Philip Heselton's "Gardnerian History". It's wonderful to hear about historical research done by someone who doesn't have an anti-Gardnerian axe to grind. :)

It was all completely fabulous. Now, I can get back to work, rejuvenated and re-centered.