Play and Listen

Today, i vacuumed my dog. as i was cleaning the house, he was following me around and i suppose felt that he was helping. at some point he lay down and the vacuum ran over his foot. (paw) he looked at me with what can only be defined as love. so i thought, well, he seems to enjoy this, maybe i should run it over him and see what he does. much to my surprise, he liked it quite a bit. every time i stopped, he looked at me longingly. i guess if i do this enough, maybe i can limit the amount i need to vacuum the house, as the majority of my work is cleaning up his hair.

i have concluded while staring into his glassy blue eyes, that one can learn much from these creatures. i am somewhat dumbfounded by the fact that there is a soul in this furry body, one that i have come to love. i find myself wondering how it is that we (humans) have (for the most part) become so human-centric. i look at my dog, and question both my existence and his. the fact that we are both here now, and will both one day be gone. in some way it seems so simple, but it somehow serves to make me simultaneously more and less afraid of dying.

if that it possible.

i suppose that is a koan of sorts. but who is this soul running around in a body of white fur i ask? who is this creature sitting on my couch, staring up at me and shaking his butt? what does he dream of? what does he fear? does he know that one day, he too will die?

i just returned yesterday from a trip to montreal where i spoke at a conference on improvised music and text. i'm not quite sure what to say about this, other than the fact the i love montreal and i wish there had been more music and less speaking. there is after all that famous quote (i believe it was elvis costello) who said that writing about music is like dancing about architecture. now in some way, dancing about architecture could be pretty cool, hell i have even done that to be honest, when mike and i were making the winter of the dance, but i don't know. i guess i just think that the best way to have a dialogue about music is to play and listen. Play and listen. funny how i played less music in graduate school than i have in years. something is wrong with that equation. i'm not sure what any of this has to do with my dog.

all said, i spent some time with friends and though i missed hearing more music, i did enjoy some of the lectures at the conference quite a bit. if nothing else, it is encouraging to know that people are getting together and talking about how improvised music might be capable of shifting culture. the simple fact that a research project exists on the topic is beautiful to me. something i am interested in for sure.

maybe i'll talk about vacuuming my dog at the next conference i attend. i suppose part of the absurdity comes in the fact that i should be "schmoozing" and meeting people at these things. for better or worse, i simply don't have a single thread of ability for that in my being. I never have. ah well. we are who we are.

The Price of Babies and Bootlaces

On Monday Keri and I received our “economic stimulus” check from the U.S. government. While I am certainly not well versed in modern economic theory, I can see immediately how this idea seems quite flawed. I understand the logic theoretically, but it just doesn’t make a hell of a lot of sense practically speaking. In our case there is a rich irony. This irony is especially thick, opaque even, for the next piece of mail we opened was a bill from the hospital where our son was born four months past. It turns out that our insurance company paid for my wife’s time and services rendered while at the birthing center, but not my son. What? I cannot seem to find any logic for the unfairness of this, but then these insurance companies are not founded on the principal of fairness and human rights, but instead are just another corporate entity, in a sea of companies for whom the interest of shareholders comes first. Profit. I suppose it doesn’t matter that my son never even left the room, and only once left my wife’s or my arms; he must pay the rent. Alas.

So effectively, my 36 hour old child is indebted to an insurance company in the state of New York to the tune of $1,167.00. So of course we went downtown, deposited our check for $1200.00, and wrote one for $1,167.00. Which left us 33 bucks to “stimulate” the economy. On principal alone, I refuse to buy anything with this money. I think maybe I’ll start a little piggy bank for him. We had intended to start a college fund with the money, but no. Yet another blow to education. I won’t even begin to discuss the ravages of the “no child left behind” nonsense.

There is though, another layer of irony to all of this. I have grown so disgusted with the rampant, dare I say addictive, consumerism in North American (and quickly spreading) culture, that I have vowed to “Buy Nothing” from June of 2008 to June of 2009. I’m not really of a mind this morning to elaborate on why I feel this is important for me personally, and something that our culture needs to look at before we destroy any trace of meaningful existence left. In short, I feel the foundation (earning lots of money) upon which our capitalist society is built, to be fatally flawed. Suffice it to say, that I have written much about this on my site over the years. I may write more in the months to come, but feel free to peruse old posts. Or subscribe to Adbusters as they generally say it all quite well.

There are of course a number of things on the list that I will buy. Food. Medicine. Gasoline. (I wish I lived in a place where I didn’t need a car, but Keri and I are moving to the woods in a few months where the nearest grocery store is ten miles away and it snows like crazy.)

Anyway, you can imagine other things that might be on the list. I have promised myself that I will attempt to redefine what I NEED and what I WANT. There is a difference and I think that we often blur those lines on purpose to satisfy ourselves. I bought packing tape the other day to seal boxes that we will mail. I spent some time contemplating another method of sealing the boxes, but everything else seemed foolish. I considered trying to trade something for some tape on craigslist, but that just seemed absurd. Then again, maybe that isn’t absurd. Maybe ideas like that are what we need to reshape our failing, idealized version of capitalism. I’m not sure, though I’m hoping that this exercise will enlighten me a bit this year.

I also confess now, that I am buying a new guitar. I’m having one custom built and the process took quite a bit longer than I expected. I figured that it would all be done before June, but such is not the case. I am selling one, so in some way there is an exchange. Anyway, this exercise isn’t really about my justifying the idea and the action, but is about altering my understanding of how I exist in a seemingly blind and mindless consumer culture.

I confess that this is not a radical shift for Keri and I, as we have done our best to remain free from the entanglements of the proverbial mall for some time. That said, it is so easy, on a grey and miserable winter day, when you’ve not seen the sun for three weeks, to make your way to Target and buy a shirt. Or….. But does this really make me feel better? No. as a matter of fact, I think it makes me feel worse. Hmmmmm.

So, I will buy what I need. Speaking of which, does anyone have a pair of bootlaces in fairly good shape? Mine are about to snap. I imagine these two rolls of duct tape I have here on my floor may prove invaluable.

Small Population (in the vacuum)

A few days ago I googled myself while writing my one of my last papers for graduate school. This was of course one of the most egregious ways of distracting myself, and fooling around with my ego. I don’t do this very often, but it usually leads to four thoughts:

1. “I wish I was more ‘successful’.”
2. “You know, I’m doing pretty well as an artist.”
3. “I’m not doing very well as an artist. This is hopeless.”
4. “I wonder if anyone from my past ever googles me, and what do they think when they see this stuff?”

After these thoughts this time, I clicked on a link which quite inflated that aforementioned ego of mine. It was a post from a few years ago on someone else’s blog, mentioning how great my blog was. Imagine that. This someone is admittedly a friend of my wife’s but a stranger to me more or less. Summer Pierre. To be honest I can't say whether I enjoy her blog (as I've not really been there before now) and I can't speak about her music as I've not heard it. But Keri likes both, so I figure I would too and should probably take my wife's lead and check them out, as Keri is quite fond of Summer.

Some woman that I have never met writing that my blog is great. The guy I gave a copy of To All Dead Sailors to back in December, sending me a note to say that he loves it, and finds it in heavy rotation in his itunes. Sometimes, these small things are all I need to remind myself that what I am doing is worth my time and valid. That at least someone other than my family and best friends get something from it. Something. That at least the vacuum I live in has a small population.

Leaves and Sons

Yesterday afternoon while raking leaves in the backyard, I was doing what I could to be mindful of every action, every moment. I have been thinking quite a bit lately about mortality, the trajectory of time, and seeking to live more consciously in the present. While the simple tangibility of raking leaves brings me a much enjoyed peacefulness, my task was made more challenging by the incessant honking and whooping coming from around the corner.

Coming home from errands with Keri and Tilden, we saw a group of young fraternity gentlemen sitting on their front lawn holding a sign that read: “you honk, we drink,” with a cooler at their side and large cans in hand. I cannot help but find this terribly annoying. I’m not sure whether I’m more annoyed by the young drunken men, or the passers-by tooting their horns; I very purposely did not honk. I’m not entirely sure why this bothers me so much, but it does. Actually I do know a number of reasons why this bothers me, but I don’t really feel like going into it. As I think about it, I conclude that I am more bothered by the honking as it seems to say something about culture. Or perhaps just Troy, NY. Maybe I’m reading too much into this.

Anyway, I raked the leaves, and tried not to pay too much attention to the youngsters. Perhaps if I had done more (some) of that in college I would understand better. I guess it could be funny for a while, though try as I may, I just cannot imagine myself feeling good about being in that situation. I really only have two stories of drunkenness from that time of my life, and though funny in their way, they are somehow stoic, involving only me and my closest friend; One in a dirty campground parking lot, the other in our rented house, on a rainy spring eve. Something about the lack of sheer numbers.

So I raked the leaves. Having grown up on the west coast, the magnitude of them is rather surprising.

What I should really be writing about though, is that fact that at the top of this post was the name Tilden. Indeed. My wife and I now have a son. Tilden Smith Pitcher. The last time I wrote here incidentally, was a mere three days before his birth. Which perhaps explains why I’ve not written since. (Though I have certainly gone that long in the last few years without words, for no apparent reason.) Needless to say, the last three months have been rather challenging. Beautiful beyond measure, but challenging. I’ve also just finished my MFA and recently conquered the worst flu I’ve had in my adult life. I still cannot hear with my right ear. The flu began nearly a month ago. Ugh. How my wife took care of us both is beyond me.

But school is done aside from a few lingering details, and my plate is nearly clean. I have a few ideas for projects that I would like to begin this summer, not the least of which is spending an inordinate amount of time with my son; which is exciting. I also have three completed records, one of which is due out sometime this summer on Standard Recording Co. (see the front page of this site for more details). The other two are both currently seeking labels, a task I never enjoy. Sure would be great someday if the labels sought me. I recently read a wonderful quote from musician and composer Terry Riley that seems apt:

"The choices I've made have been for the music and my own soul," he concludes. "When I walked away from New York, I knew fame wouldn't have given me any happiness if it weren't based on a musical choice. Pran Nath said, 'Just enough fame to keep doing your work is enough,' and I thought that was good advice. I feel terrifically lucky every day I get up and give thanks for what's happened. What really makes me sad is to see young musicians who are hopeless about their situations. My advice is put it all into the music. That's the only thing you can do, because you don't know what kind of hand fate is going to deal you. At least your own soul is going to be getting some feedback."

The Persistent Dilemma

I have for some time, been in a sort of conundrum regarding this blog. I have written about this before so will not elaborate (too much) today. Suffice it to say, that when this began it was exciting to me. Though arguably driven by my own ego (aren’t most artistic endeavors?) I felt it was an interesting medium. And it still is. The fact is though, that I feel much less compelled to write about the minutiae of my daily life here. Which is also interesting to me, because much of my work and especially my work in graduate school, is about “the art of everyday life.” Hell, that is in large part the topic of my thesis…..which actually begins with this quote from Georges Perec: “What’s needed perhaps is finally to found our own anthropology, one that will speak about us, will look in ourselves for what for so long we’ve been pillaging from others. Not the exotic any more, but the endotic.” But enough of that.

So why do I feel bored with the blog? Perhaps it is that there are so many countless other people doing the same. How sad it would be to stop doing something just because it doesn’t feel unique. I believe we are told constantly by our culture, that to be valid as an artist, one must do something that has never been done before. One of the many problems with this mentality in my opinion, is that it forces on culture an ideal of ‘progress,’ which for its own sake is rarely ever ideal.

Or perhaps it is that I have lost most of my readers. I can’t blame them, for there is so little to read. Maybe it’s just that I would rather spend my time playing guitar, which I have been doing much of these days. I’m not sure. It could also be that I feel self-conscious about my writing (which is certainly true) so I’ve grown tired of it. I just don’t know. But then one of my inspirations for beginning this thing in the first place was Sy Safransky’s autobiographical thoughts and musings, and even his writing sucks sometimes. I think there are few people whose work is great nearly all of the time. Those are the genius’ of any generation; though I will confess to greatly disliking that word and its implications as I grow older.

At the same time, it doesn’t make all that much sense to me to take it down. So I am conflicted. What’s the point if it just sits here quietly. Maybe that is the point. Maybe it is waiting for some other time in my life when I feel driven to write again. And maybe that time will come. And i may write here from time to time. As a matter of fact, I'm nearly certain that I will.

Anyway, the other problem you see, is that I have nearly stopped writing in my “actual, real-life journals” since I began here. I still write in them, but only about 1/4 as much. I figured this would be a problem, but as I grow more and more frustrated with the lack of cultural importance placed on ‘artifacts,’ the journal itself, the journal as an object, becomes increasingly important to me. I will not wax intellectual on this here. Not now anyway. Needless to say, with a son emerging from my wife’s belly any day now, writing in an “actual, real-life journal,” has again taken a great importance in my life. At least if the journals were somehow destroyed someday, there would likely be one hell of a story to accompany that. If these writings were gone, they would just POOF and be gone. And you can’t touch these. Or smell them. What about our other senses?

Anyway, I had an idea. Another way in which the importance of artifact has become clear in my life, is with photography. As many of you well know, I have had a concealed love for photography for many years. I have taken many photos. I have no interest or delusions about becoming a professional photographer, but I do adore the medium. So due to economics I switched from film to digital some years back. I still prefer film. Part of the reason that I still prefer film, is that there is an artifact, something tangible at the end of it all. To some degree, that is part of the magic of photography to me. That and the mystery. So now I have thousands of photos on my computer which just sit there, floating in ‘nowhere-land,’ on the magic box. So I decided that perhaps I should start putting them up here, which would in some way give them life. No sequence, no constructed reasoning, no writing to ‘go with’ them, just photos I have taken that I like. How simple.

So I will try this, and see how I feel about it. I’m not promising anything. Who knows? This first photo was taken in Troy, New York at Emma Willard School for Girls. There was an ice storm last week, and it lingered as the sun came out. A strangely magical experience.

presidential press

so i have been holding out on some information. i don't suppose it has been an intentional "holding out," but more the fact that i am attempting not to speak about things until they are done these days. though that's not entirely true; process is arguably more important to me than it ever was before. maybe my process of making things has just become more insular or private. or quiet. i'm not sure. i'm also feeling rather tired of the word "art" and the concept of "being an artist," so i guess i speak about it in that way less and less.

needless to say, i have been working on a new record for some time now. several new records to be more precise, but as this one received a bit of press the other day, i thought i would spill the beans so to speak. though i could write a great deal about both the process and the forthcoming work, i will leave you dear reader, to ponder this rather short glimpse into the window of one thing i am currently making: presidential press

the radio

it is grey this morning, which somehow seems fitting after the sunny thanksgiving weekend. for a number of reasons (which i won't go into at the moment), i must say that i felt more grateful for my life this thanksgiving than i ever have before. it is a rather amazing feeling to find yourself aware throughout your day, that you are alive and have so much to be wildly excited about. on that note, i awoke this morning both excited and mildly concerned about the fact that i will be playing live on the radio today. excited because, well, it's exciting to float out into the world into people's homes. mildly concerned, as i have been focusing for so long on just playing guitar, (in an avant-garde fashion) that singing some folk songs seems a bit dauting to my confidence. that said, it has felt quite good to feel the vibrating wood of my acoustic guitar against my chest these last days. you can go here and look for the link in the top right corner to listen to me today at 11:30 est.

a quote from Ian Murray on radio (from Alan Licht's book titled sound art: environment and landscapes") : "radio happens in the place that it is heard and not the production studio."