Month: January 2011

Brian Eno talk

Last night at the Vogue, Eno gave an illustrated talk (with some truly charming and useful on the spot illustrations) about art and his relationship to it.  A number of interesting points came up, most of which will probably lose their sharpness for you because they were filtered through me.

He said that English is missing a word.  We had theatre, and then we had film, and those two disciplines are quite separate.  They have their own words and their own understandings both aesthetic and technical.  When performance music split from recorded music we got no such division in words, which is a loss.   I was immediately thinking about filk, and the emphasis on performance.  Anyway, he believes that they are two different disciplines and should be as distinct as theatre and film in how we speak of them as well.

Another thing he said is that art has been shaped very dramatically by three pivotal changes in the human world view, at least as expressed as an outgrowth of ‘Western thought’.

One was Copernicus; hey guess what, we’re not the center of the universe.  One was Darwin; we are at the top of the food chain because of evolution, not God.  The last was the development of complexity theory, including cellular automata which allow you to see without equivocation how complexity can proceed – in fact, must proceed – from extremely simple rules.

At the end he talked about how his work slides along the Control at one end and Surrender at the other end Axis.  Once again, a good working image.

He talked for two hours and Jeff and I came home.

Fell on my head last night

I walked across a wooden walkway in the dark while helping Katie move some more boxes and wiped out on the frost; I now have a Hollywood Injury â„¢- just large enough to see but not large enough to be serious.  I also have a sore elbow and a bruise on my abdomen as I raised the china boxes above my head to prevent them from being broken.  Which they weren’t.  However they were cushioned by my tummy, so no surprise.  I’m a little sore today.  Wish I had video of it, it probably looked hilarious.

I am never going to believe anything my eyes tell me again

Okay, this is flat out bizarre. I can understand WHY it happens in context of the evolutionary pressures on hoomins, but I still can’t believe it affects me.

Extra bonus.  Bats in blankies.

Extra extra bonus.  Wa wa wa waltzing with bears.

Extra extra extra bonus.  Those crafty people, they get with the meta.

Oh and I’m working on yet more tunes. Brain full now.

Spag with organic beef ‘n tomato sauce for dinner.

Last night was SO wonderful.  Daughter Katie joined us for all the singing and playing and she was so enthusiastic I tossed her the lap snare I got back from Candace’s over New Years and she tapped and brushed along – so there’s me, Paul, Brian C and Katie formed up in a diamond facing each other and playing and singing our little hearts out. I also hauled out the cajon (box drum, which you can sit on), which sounds GREAT in circle.  AWESOMESAUCE.  With beer.  Mmmmmmm beer.  And the wind —– cried —– MARY.  And tonight, it is FRIDAY NIGHT when we catch up on shows and c’lapse.  I was going to go to a poetry reading but it was cancelled.

Just got off the phone with Paul, he’s booking a truck to help Katie move.  Huzzah! 

Not to put too fine a point on it, but I am in a lot better shape than I was two months ago.

Weather SUCKS!  I’m skidding in the wet grass when I get out of my car, but since the snow tires went on Ziva is like a rocket sled on rails.  Brian admired her… he said that was his fave year of that model, and like almost everybody he says the spoiler actually made it look nicer.

He has a Les Paul and a whole bunch of TOYS to go with it which make it sound amazing.  Fuzz, Wahwah, etc.  And that tube amp.  Suck up that drool girl.

Happiness washes over me like a cleansing rain….

practice

For the next little while my poor left hand is going to feel like hamburger as I go back and forth between the guitar and mandolin. And practice. We practiced Jack Frost and Hope Eyrie and Queen Isabella and I debuted something I ought not to have as it isn’t finished. Paul looked at me in astonishment and said “That’s yours?” … Hey, I’ve been trying to write an atheist hymn for ages … That didn’t stop the folks as they were playing along right away and +++OOO did it sound good. mOm you would have loved it.

Brian C – whom I have not seen in yonks – is coming over tonight and we will play + sing some more.

As always Peggy’s bass is astonishing in that room, and the bowed bass even more so. It makes me happy. I dunno why my November burst of creativity decided to come in January this year, but I am not going to complain – I am having a hell of a run.