validation

when a person/peoples believe in you, it can be pretty powerful.

Validation goes a long way. Especially in these days of instant social gratification (“look at me! I have posted a photo of Gandalf saying something droll! And someone from the cast of Full House ‘liked’ it!!” (this never happened to me)).. you can grow rather lonely waiting for a project or idea to percolate without an “atta boy/girl/naked squirrel” applied at the right place/time.

This can cause havoc with your discipline. But you get to a point where it’s just not PROFESSIONAL anymore to need constant love and coddling from the folks who surround you in order to work. It is this that has finally made me realize The Thing. The Answer to The Big Question.

When is one a professional?

I used to think “when one gets paid.” After a while, this didn’t make a lot of sense to me. It didn’t make sense to me because people are constantly getting paid to do sub-par work. I have done some of my most ridiculous, unrecognized and informal sit-ins with names that would look nice on my résumé, and I didn’t stick around to pursue further work and schmooze time on further opportunities in some of those directions. I seriously don’t talk about the time I played once at a little show with such-and-such because they’d be all “who the hell is she?” And usually at the time I was being professional in other capacities that look spotty and ridiculous now; mostly getting poorly paid at gigs which don’t matter. But I learned a lot at every gig that didn’t matter – sometimes picking up really important skills that translated well. Usually learning something like “don’t do ThIs or That, it doesn’t work.”

I haven’t been consistently paid in a long time. When those days do come, I bet the source/s of income will look very different than I ever imagined they might. I’m going to have to get creative to succeed at being me, and make up being profitable at it; simply because I don’t think that way. I haven’t even gotten the foot out the door of “make really bad ass content available.” Moving out of Thinking time into Doing is scary, particularly when you shut the door because it’s time for your Validating Individuals who Love and Care to do Their Own Things and Not Your Drama. Then it is All You and Oh My God I need cake right now.

And so, what do I think, of Work?

I think I am producing content. I think that I’m busy. Perhaps I am working, even. But I don’t know if I’m getting the job done. I may have to write another job description, and fire my ass. Perhaps I will hire another Me.

I certainly feel like I work all the time. At the moment, most of the things that I do I think of as practice, to justify the unpaid nature of it all. But I have withdrawn a bit because I have things on the back burner that are not items for practice. I “haven’t had time” to do them. I’ve been distracted.

I think it might have something to do with validation, with belief. When I started doing these contests, for instance, they were a mixed blessing. They came with communities. And the communities both held you up and back. When you’re in a group of people, you start feeling like you should do things to fit the mold, even if it hasn’t been communicated that you should. That’s just crowd ethic, perhaps. It’s not law though.

Joining communities that do things recreationally that I’m trying to break into professionally, even if the lines are really blurry, is going to continue to confuse me. It’s silly not to keep it up since I think I’ve made some lifelong relationships; but it’s also dumb to let my whole life continue to be swallowed up by it all.

I played some songs I wrote in the early 2000s. Some even earlier. I was already doing well. I was writing with confidence. I had a style I owned. Lately, I write songs as though I listened to song reviews, tried to insert several other people’s concepts of how to write hooks, and then lost how I put stories down into words to sing against verses. And I need to take what I have been given and remember how I used to flow with it.

I love my work and lately, I haven’t as much. But I think it’s slowly starting to change back.

I keep Almost finding an audience, a niche. Then I pull back, last second, and settle into the warm womb of relationships. Collaboration. I don’t trust my own gut. I don’t sit in my own silence. I’ve always trusted what I had to say before. This fear is a new thing, brought on by too many surrounding voices. Too much need for approval and too much stimuli.

It’s been both good and bad. Mostly good.

I think it’s about balance. And the things that stick, you keep. Hopefully, the rest shakes off okay.

Spaghetti Brained Blog Entry. Read at your Peril.

1. I’ve been Social Nyet-working and calling this blogging and ignoring things here because it has been a reminder that I am not properly set up on my own Situation yet. That being my Website-like-a-normal-person-which-I-own. Computer Situations fill me with dread. I’ve given myself a hard deadline and a Shame Schedule. This is a good thing. Seriously. It’s not bad shame, it’s the motivational kind. I don’t know what that means, so here is a limerick.

By the River there lived a Crude frog
He swam out to sit on a log
he pulled down his pants
and did a Lewd Dance
and he ought to be ashamed of himself…

2. See. That’s Poem shame. That’s just healthy good sense.

3. Haha! As we can air-plane-ly see, reality has deserted me for the evening.
4. I have made several charming videos of myself playing a few of the songs I wrote for songfight recently. I’ll post some when I decide which ones make me look cool and like I regularly comb my hair and do laundry.

5. I am totally professional and really worth looking into and not just Yanking Your Chain (I’m using the royal You. Earlier today I used the royal We. I could get accustomed to that.). By now you have figured out that this is a blog that is a waste of your time and is about nothing.

6. I ate chocolate today and listened to some well recorded jazz. The chocolate had orange in it. They have bacon in the chocolate now. Bacon is the new cupcake, which was the new taco, I suppose. I had a taco as well. There’s peach pie here too. I don’t sound real healthy, do I?

7. I need to listen to music more. It’s probably odd to hear a musician say this because I hear musicians talk lots about how they are always listening to music and I am often overwhelmed by stimuli and would like to live in a silent cave (not really, i fear bats. there used to be bats in college at the music building. one flew at me in a practice room. I’m not lying.). But I guess CaveFishy-ness is Bad Behavior when we are considering the worthy quest to be come a well rounded individual (not just a round individual, which will happen if I eat all of the pie tomorrow yumyumyum).

7.5- also we’re going to brunch tomorrow. Austinites are addicted to brunch.
7.75-Same with reading as with music though. I probably need to go back into another Research and Development phase. I was in one a few years ago and it felt really good. Then I got really overwhelmed by Information and my Filters broke. This turns you into a babbling idiot and it’s hard to make content when you are hiding from the Internet because you feel like if you go outside you will be killed by a flying library. That would be a good way to go, if one had to. But it’s hard to think..

8. I’ve hermitted and made a lot of content. I’ve been pretty strict about what goes in my ears. A lot has to do with proximity, obligation, and my relationships. I think I’d like to start pursuing interests that just reflect things I like. I’m afraid that I will like things that everyone else hates though. I really sometimes like to hear the beginning of a song over and over. Or just the way someone sings one word. What if I like something really “lame?” I fear sometimes I have no taste. But isn’t this one of those things?

I have a lot of questions and am finding things objectionable today. Many things have been highly annoying.

9. This blog is really scattered. I should probably not hit Publish.

I owe a few people some phone calls and I know this.

The Long Awaited…Jim of Seattle

I’d like to talk to you today about a friend of mine whose CD I’m just getting to know. I spacebooked and tweeted about it about a week ago (or more), and I shall probably mention it again (for sure). In addition to this, my pal Tom Giarrosso passed it along on HIS spacebook so that’s a good example of how passing the love along is meant to work. Let that be a lesson to us all, gremlins.

Now … This particular project is the first, brand new release from a musician I know from Song Fight! called Jim of Seattle. You should go look into this, because Jim is an exceptional musician who has created an amazing piece of Art. He is not the only “Jim” in Seattle, but as far as I am concerned after just an inital perusal of this material so I could get started enough to write a bit to you so you could go quickly and get this recording – he might as well be!

Jim is not new to the music industry, as you will no doubt figure out. This is the caliber of work I’d like to feel under my wings when I make a release and finally say “BOOM! Look at this! I have made sticky sound that will last for generations!” So not only is this thing just plain charming and important – Jim is a musician’s musician.

For Jim this has been a real journey. You’ll grok that if you read the interview between Jim of Seattle and Green Monkey Records President Tom Dyer (you can also see a fun photo there of Jim with a bike and a pigeon, and other nifty photos of Jim doing cool stuff. I rather enjoyed these because for a while I remember internalizing Jim’s SongFight avatar photo, even though I KNOW he does not look like the guy in the Earnest movies! I like seeing pictures of people that I know from the internet though. If you read my blog you know that I am creepy.).

Anyway, yes, there’s a special kind of energy hearing a recording from someone who has taken the time to reveal their vision to the world with such deliberate intent after a lifelong trip through many other musical avenues. So this recording IS pretty intense. And it HAS been a long time coming.

You can preview the recording at CD Baby (linked up there too, by that iTunes link); and there is a small sample of it on the Green Monkey Records website where you can hear three tracks in entirety -

{EDIT/1-19-2012: You can hear more than THREE tracks, actually. I went back and checked after my original posting of this blog and saw it! On the player there is a small dragbar to the far right of those first three tracks (like one on a browser). Scroll down with it. Voila! There are several more songs and you can actually hear them all!} -

-one of which is the track that is also featured in the video ‘Laboratory Rat.’

The video is creepy and slightly horrifying (in a compelling and thought-provoking fashion), but … it’s … CUTE …somehow… Because there are drawings of all these “oooOOOOOooo” things (he made the video with Bill Lieren). Icky scary creepy CUTE drawings. And that’s all I’m going to say. No more spoilers.

From what I can tell in initial passes through Jim’s work – there’s a presence of intriguing juxtapositions. Little sonic ironies and pointed statements amidst moments of endearing delight. Really, I would say the listener is very musically well taken care of – Jim does know how to make you a spectator in a performance space. He has the background for this. But you have to hear it for yourself to really FEEL the Whole Thing, because he is just not Like anyone else, even if they are skilled at arranging pop songs into lush arrangements. He is different because HE is different. This doesn’t sound like orchestral showboating, this sounds like a lot of FUN.

I think this is why I like Jim, and why I was so pleased to encounter him at Song Fight in the first place and so happy every time he showed approval of anything I did in MY work. It’s because I GET that feeling of having a broad range of styles and of having just a LOT to say. Really, this should be appealing to most people as creators OR listeners or both … because at your CD collections they are just that – collections. Why would there not be a range of style and feel within one artist? The best sound-stories have an Album’s Entirety in mind, even if they are conceptual and able to be interpreted by the listener. I still feel I need more time alone with this recording from start to uninterrupted finish (mainly because I still do need to finish and hear All of The Bits). But I bet it stacks up through both skimming and deeper sonic inquiry.

Hearing developing cohesive complexity in someone’s work like this gives me hope that perhaps a thing like this is an accomplish-able goal! It’s exciting. It makes me realize that I can grow A Representative sound myself, over time, even if it is Range-y. There need to be more recordings like this, and I think this every time I hear something Quirky and Fun, and Beautiful.

On a personal note, there’s some titles here that I am happy to have heard before while participating in the Song Fight! contest – and I am inspired to see them more fully developed. This makes me want to hear more realized recordings of SF titles from others. But this recording is pretty special and I’ve been waiting for it

DEFINITELY check this out for yourself. Also, the first 100 copies will be signed. Order now!

********************

(this is a first in a series of Promontion-ary “Reviews-that-are-Gushy.” most of them horribly late. i am fortunate to have a few Talented Friends whose work I have really enjoyed, so it has been a time of Great Creativity.)

update-y mcFreak post.

1. I have been selected to participotato in a not really all that secret Thing. It’s like a compilation album. I am sure that my friend Brigitte London, a musician of the Outlaw Country persuasion, selected me because of my cleverness and ninja abilities, and not because of my glittering resume (even though I’m kinda-shiny-sometimes-aly). Nonetheless, I will endeavor to send them a somewhat bitchin’ track (this will be easy because I have been in song contests and especially songfighting – and My New Peers have been growling and insulting my work on a weekly basis so I am not worried about crumbling under professional scrutiny). It has just been a matter of which track. I have asked a few people, not too many, and have narrowed it down and (most likely) chosen one.
2. I am a little worried about my bio, although I sent it to my bud Jules and she said I look fine and gave me helpful hints. I will probably not tell dirty jokes in the bio, for example or mention @suspiciousden’s Dailybooth … so Jules is a good person to ask about these things because she knows how to bottle the creepy factor when need be (I’m sure she is enjoying this blog) … As far as where on earth these extremely well organized and professional people are going to be able to find me on the interwebs, since I am all over it like a bad rash, I may whine a little more:
3. Go to http://www.denisehudson.com. Go ahead. There’s nothing there, is there? Well, that’s pretty sad, isn’t it. This is because I have the internet aptitude of a three year old. This is why you are currently reading this poorly designed wordpress content here and not in a zippier, sexy location of my choosing – with mood lighting and incense and dancing boys and chocolate and internet squirrels bringing you virtual Courvoisier.

my website will be this smooth and fly. like Griffpig. The World’s Coolest Sunglasses.

But I am going to attempt to rectify this situation like RIGHT NOW since I own the place, meaning my name. I refused to Sell to Worthier Denise-s, no indeed – not at Any Price. But sadly, I know NADA-NADA-Enchaladda about such things.
4. But I can do it because I have many, many brain cells. Together they make AN ENTIRE BRAIN. So guess what goblins… I’m going to USE that brain to MAKE WEB HISTORY. And just LOOK OUT!!! Blogathon is NEXT MONTH! You know it!
5. However, I will probably be whining a LOT because we are also MOVING houses during this time when I suddenly have to make it seem like I have been an active member of the music community and not like I have just been sitting on my tuckus producing content.
6. Yes, I know I can use a Psychotics track for this compilation. Duh…..I should have gone as a Psychotic for Nur Ein, and for Halloween. We all know this. Flarg. This is HIGH on my list of consideration, seeing as this is my most Awesomeist of material and will Blend Best. Stay Tuna-ed.

I can’t even think anymore and there is pizza to be had. I will probably make and exciting google plus list later, and stalk the rest of the Honeys maniacally across the internet, becoming ever more intimidated with each passing click. I know that this is not The Point of camaraderie and fellowship and internet collaboration and that living in a tiny cave practicing my scales should come to an end. This will be good for me. I am an Upwardly Mobile Producer of Content and Country Musicians everywhere want me to go to their Barn Dances even though I came from the planet of Xondor. Yee-haw, y’all.

I am Me

very often, I am shaken and afraid.

today I got scared again. So afraid I thought, maybe I won’t survive! Maybe I’m not memorable… maybe when I’m done, I’ll fade into obscurity … nothing I’ve done will matter …

It seems I am often cut down, and unable to explain. It happened for a while in a relationship I once had. I couldn’t explain its difficulties. But in public, I came off looking small and petty and strange and neurotic – and my friend was the “stable, strong, leonine, under-control person.”

It took years to learn and unlearn the lessons of it all…

I hang on, somehow. In May, I learned how to cling tenaciously and my death grip on my sanity only had to get tighter and tighter. The year did NOT improve. But musically…….

the last half of 2011 has kicked more rocking hard core ass than could be even explained… I know this too is even a phase. But that this is a phase I go through honestly. With full respect for my intelligence. My equality.

I have flown so far away from the don’t-touch-the-mixer-babe world I used to know. And yet I feel a femininity and a safety that allows me to mourn an adult-childhood; to do all that past-current-future grieving.

These tiny seahorses I saw in the aquarium in the beach town of Galveston. I grew up thinking that I would share destiny with a man who sang ‘Galveston’ to me, and I don’t know why I thought that. We called it BOI, born on the island. It sounds terribly romantic. But the time for the fuzzy things that are just All Snow … that’s done. I continue to breathe and bleed.

I hear it all the time, and I crave more and more surrounding myself with people who say “how ARE you ..?”

and they’ll mean it. and keep meaning it.

I don’t know much but I know that the music I’ve made is me telling My Story. It is real and it is true and I can feel my blood and my heart and my fluid pulsing through it. It’s my house and seat of power.

My pianos were that. Are that. Should be that. Mine. I am me.

I carve things into my skin to remember. Tattoos. Birds, mostly. So I won’t forget. If I hurt too much, I start erasing my memories. I can feel myself erasing the last two years of my life, committing fully to the future.

There is no truth for me in the past. Nothing that rang of the real.

I’m generalizing a bit. But I know that my past-truth shared with present liars makes for a hollow stomach feeling. I have left important pieces of myself behind in my life with people who do not hold me dearly enough, I think. Leaving rooms with me still there, turning out the lights. And walking back into them, expecting the most ludicrous scenarios to then transpire with no regard for my reality.

The reality of *that* is narcissism. Plain. Simple.

I can see protection for the convenience of others, sometimes, in the fiction that I hid behind, that I allowed myself to write.

But I am becoming real-er now. Grittier.

Less polite, maybe. Perhaps less easy to tie down. To shut up.

I may make more noise, this time around.

The Way I Am

Another Fun List. Yay for Me.

1. things are getting better on Thursdays. They’re better on Thursdays, and they’re better locally – musically. I think that I’m finding my niche in Austin.
2. I still feel very nebulous and homeless and plan-less in general and I need to tighten up about my goals.
3. I’m really addicted to caffeine and I don’t know how I let this happen.
4. My sleep is all karked up.
5. I think I’m losing some of my memories.
6. I’m writing a LOT of songs, so that’s good.
7. I’m not really all that depressed anymore.
8. I think that I’m going to have to live with the fact that I’m sort of a sad, wistful person. Who’s a little off to the side …
9. Playing on Tuesday was a real treat, and the piano was really, really there for me. Everything just kicked in. It did what it was told. It became my instrument again. There was no-one else there and I didn’t care anymore.

I’ll leave it at that.

On Being Careful

1. There is a reason for lists. Lists separate things into biteable chunks and make things easier to digest. You can agree with 1, and then 3-7, but not 2, and 8-10 … only feeling 60% negatively about it. You don’t go away with a bad tinge in your mouth. This seemed like basic math to me.
2. Denise math doesn’t work the same as other math.
3. I’ve been a diarist and an over-sharer for a long time. I thought a long time before typing that word.
4. Writing words like “over-sharer” are risky; just like phrases like “This live recording sounds like ass and I don’t want to release it,” or “This shirt is not flattering” or “This song has a sub-par vocal track so I am surprised it is doing so well in the voting.”

Which are statements of fact.

Typing these sentences is also a risk because standing up for yourself is difficult. And I have been painted with a certain brush my whole life. Don’t know what it is about me … I think that I might have something sticking to me – and I think it fixes it so that I shouldn’t criticize myself. No… not even just criticize – critique, even. Because when I do- I feel nailed for it. This is why having a blog has been so risky for me. When I blog, it feels like a diary that I am tempted to write down every thought in.

I can’t help but feels a little embittered though, when I see a sea of other women, and men who are “down on themselves;” and I seem to be one who often gets called out for a lack of self-confidence up to the point of being very seriously mentally troubled (with labels that would and have been career-stoppers, for me). There definitely is no shame in getting help, but sometimes, there are unfortunate consequences for needing it. And I notice that it is actually true that there ARE people who self-flagellate FAR more often and MUCH more violently than I do. There are turns of phrase I don’t say to myself. The only area I REALLY need to work on this is during practice time, when I can actually be really harsh. This is bad habit more than anything, left over from music school – where I feel I was trained to call myself “stupid” for missing notes. Not helpful (now THAT was a risk, to share that, and I imagine pads of papers and pencils being drawn out and my whole blog being ignored now for THAT statement).

I could give examples of people around us who we all admire a lot who say things about themselves that if I said them, I’d probably be in serious psycho-trouble online AND at home. These people don’t get painted though. Maybe it is because they have bigger careers or are higher up on the pole and obviously have hella self-confidence; wouldn’t need the advice or the boost up; wouldn’t need to be told not to be so hard on themselves; wouldn’t need to be reminded that this thing we do really isn’t that hard core.  I won’t point it out to these really talented people that they too probably should shut their yaps and be more positive or maybe they will get called out like me someday, certainly not in public. We’re all going through it so sometimes if it occurs to me I just say something. Sometimes I don’t. But this doesn’t mean I’m better or worse because I do or don’t say something in a particular way. I appreciate any attention. Even if I have to clean up afterward.

But I will say this once, and only once. This thing we do is and can be hard core. If you’re not on the ball about things, the days pass you by – this is just how it is. If you get less sleep – you have more time to do things. If you get more rest, you are a more quality person during the hours you are awake. You have to do body-math. I will say that I am a professional and have been all my life regardless of whether or not I am currently being paid.

But I should be further along on my road than I am, because the particular things that *I* do and that *I* am good at and that only *I* can do … I’m very good at. Given time and focus, with little distractions, there’s no telling what could really happen. I don’t see anyone that makes me feel bad or jealous. I think I’m on a par or more equipped than everyone I meet in some way, and when I meet someone who is better than me I take what I like from them and add to what I know.  I speak in generalities sometimes, so it’s hard to understand me, but there it is.

Saying I should be a lot further along is not a statement about how I should push myself, it’s a risky statement of fact. I’m not flagellating myself, I’m looking back on a series of setbacks, unfortunate occurences, and sometimes … mistakes that have led me to the point where I’ve been “held back more than a few grades.” In my case, it has proved disastrous more than once to get into explanations. So *I don’t go there.* It’s private. I’ve said too much about it already. Much of this blog and this “sharing” is as close as I come to doing something against myself, if you want to know the truth, because I have extended vulnerability in an attempt to say yes … I know I am okay.

Why this, you wonder? Well, I do overshare. I’ve been talking about my feelings with loose tongue. On here. In chat. I have started trusting. And I have forgotten that for some reason, I don’t necessarily have that luxury. I don’t have a lot of time. I have a job. If I ever DO want to make this a living where I DO something with it, I can’t go around diffusing these sorts of bombs.

Because that is not who I am.

Now later I will fix the link to my nur ein contest song. I don’t think it will win the round, certainly – there are problems. It’s much better than round one though and I think that if I get to round two I can probably get even better with more prep time (which was what I lacked this week.)

DJRD

ps. Comments can be sent to me directly on twitter or wherever else you normally go about finding me directly as an individual.

I’m Denise …

Hi, I’m Denise, and it’s time for another one.

I’m not making light of people with addictions to substances, first of all. This is my disclaimer.

I don’t talk about my problems. This may come as a shock and a surprise, because I can be quite the little whiner. I’m not going to get into root problems today either. I do want to say something though.

I am a perfectionist. I’m a practice addict. I will go-and-go-and-go-and-go until I drop.

Until I’m dead.

I don’t know what it’s like not to work.

I will work until I’m dead. It’s not about the money, because I rarely, if ever, make anything substantial. It’s about a calling. It’s about being professional, getting things done, contributing to society. If we need money at a particular time, I go out and hustle for it so I can continue working. I don’t know if that makes any sense. I work, all the time. All of it is done so that I can KEEP working. I don’t really know any hobbies or pasttimes. It all feeds into the art, for me.

So it’s easy to OVERwork.

There are some tragedies behind this that make me not as good at the work as I want to be. Right now there are some things that are all globbed together that are making certain facts come into play. I won’t talk about the reasons, but here are the facts.

1. Since February, I’ve started to kinda suck.
2. When I say suck, I mean according to my normal skill level.
3. I don’t think like I used to. I’m not as quick. The people who are very close to me know this, and they know that I am talking about musically. They see that I am not as sharp or fast as I used to be. I’m talking about my husband, and people I allow into my circle to be close to me.
4. I’m not reading books anymore. I mean, like … EVER. It’s been almost a year. I don’t have my music organized, and I live in a thick black fog.
5. I don’t play stupid games on my iPhone. I stare into space.
6. I’ve started blogging, Tweeting, checking email (this one’s REALLY bad), and
7. I have become addicted to songwriting contests for their serial due-date value and to making videos.
8. I am not performing live in a consistent fashion. I’m not calling out or pursuing shows at all.
9. I get sick a lot.
10. I’m back in the agoraphobic phase.
11. I’m not eating right.
12. I’m sleeping less that 4-5 hours a night, on average.
13. I’m making ill informed decisions about all kinds of things. They may be the correct decisions, but I’m making them in a haphazard, ill-researched fashion. Not like me.
14. I’ve stopped hanging out with my Austin people. Any of them.
15. I live in a cave.
16. We don’t really even go to brunch anymore.
17. I don’t practice much downstairs (this is veryvery bad)
18. I am addicted to pianoteq
19. I chat WAAAAAYYYY too much. It doesn’t matter than I’m doing other stuff. I’m in my cave. It doesn’t matter.
20. I never go to the humidor anymore. OR RUTA MAYA. This is terrible.
21. Perhaps the biggest doozy of all:

I’m not making organized lists, my desktop is disorganized, and MY LYRICS FOLDERS are not neatly splayed out in organized folders where everything is right there at my fingertips.

One thing I am doing is recording. Lots and lots of recording. Badly. Recording and keeping up with lots and lots of people who seem to be able to do this fast-paced online living in their sleep even when they are falling apart.

I am neither cool, smooth, or zippy. So I’m jealous all the time. It sucks. And jealousy is ugly.

I’m not this way and that is okay. I’ve learned some valuable things. Hey, I’m blogging about this now, aren’t I?

Enigma Variations and Homework

I use music to think. I am quite selective. It’s picky for me. I usually think with very tune-ful things. I think this is because I am a songwriter. Either that or metal, which is also very tune-ful.

I have a bit of a short list. I would of course add an lp which I have of Claudio Arrau playing the Chopin piano concertos.

1. Barber’s Adagio for Strings.
2. Gould plays Beethoven piano concerto
3. Bach pieces make me think of Lord of the Rings and getting over stupid-boy-disappointment to a soundtrack of Brandenburg Concertos (to this day, *I* think of Hobbits and Elves and Orcs and Dwarves and think of the Flute/Harpsichord/Violin of five, with its epic Harpsichord part! And yes … the person who commented in the video is correct. It is an EPIC harpsichord solo. Getting to play it is on my bucket list, and I DO have the music for it and tool around with it every now and then).
4. Nimrod of course (Enigma Variations -below)
5. Albinoni of course, which I’ve probably used since I was about thirteen (this church in Plano, TEXAS has a really stellar recording and performance of this!).

I still don’t know how to explain myself. I’ve always tried, and it’s always gotten me into trouble. I’m even explaining myself less and less well and less and less efficiently with music these days. I’m becoming more and more entrenched in my own style and finding it harder and harder to deal with other people. I’m turning into a solo person and becoming more difficult to work with every day. I don’t know if this is aging, a hermit phase, or some kind of diseased mindset … or if I’m protecting myself from professional ACK-ness. Who knows these things?

I did write a poem, after listening to my 10-15 seconds a few times over and over … For those who are reading this and don’t know, read the blog entry where Jules talks about what I said to her over Twitter about what happens at around 50 seconds in the Elgar – Enigma Variations.

“12 seconds or so”

for you
this flower opens joyfully
(it’s perfuming all the rooms you see)
it always starts this way
each puzzle is a way to halt the disengage
I look around, out of my quivered center
I paint the world with fantasies
my silly notions… complicated schemes of love
and brilliant things envelop me
… society, kitchens, airplanes, picnics, forks, religion
all prevent these things from coming to reality …
my vision spins – then,
I collapse too quickly
rather than sighing naturally in closing with the sundown
I drag my grace behind me retrogressively
and make a classy exit
that I might roll alone again
inside my velvet cave

So … yeah … Jules always makes me think. A lotalot…..

Thinking is complex stuff. There really aren’t lots of words for that are there?

Barton Springs, finally.

This entry has nothing to do with the pool in Austin.