Wednesday, September 29, 2010
Tuesday, September 28, 2010
beach bum
Sunday, September 26, 2010
roots and rootlessness
...so...in the face of last post....what would my 'roots' be? in which cultural milieu would i find my melodies, dances and participation in an authentic way? i know that 'authentic' is a very slippery slope, indeed---especially for a suburban white guy like myself who inherited a culture of 'no-culture' [or ALL cultures, depending on how one looks at the issue]...on a side note, i just heard an npr interview with robert plant, who claimed the same 'culture-of-no-culture' for himself whilst ignoring and actually denigrating his 'real' native, ancient, well-established anglo-saxon culture...african-american music spoke to him from across the atlantic....and the rest, as they say, is history...
back to me: where i grew up was settled by the dutch and used for farming since the 1600's. before that, i've heard it described as 'prime indian hunting grounds'....so what would that melody sound like? ironically, i've also heard it said, and found it to be true, that the dutch don't really have music of their own, and thus are avid catalogers of the music of others. did the rootlessness of the dutch rub off on new jersey suburbia, literally planting a root of rootlessness? i listen to the amazing dutch radio station, concertzender, as i type this...
recently i received a forward from my mother of an email from my cousin who has been involved more than anyone in the family in plumbing our geneology. three pictures were attached. one is believed to be my great grandmother:
..stern, czech, classical...these seem to be my authentic roots. her brother, named josef franzl, [if she in the photo is indeed my great grandmother] was a well-known, accomplished french horn player with various groups in nyc during the early 1900's; well-known enough for my cousin to have gotten in touch with a horn collector who recently bought a lot of franzl stuff on ebay! this is blowing my mind...i searched the new york times archives for mentions of josef and there are a few concert announcements. supposedly he composed, too. that would be a holy grail for me: find and procure franzl manuscripts!
back to me: where i grew up was settled by the dutch and used for farming since the 1600's. before that, i've heard it described as 'prime indian hunting grounds'....so what would that melody sound like? ironically, i've also heard it said, and found it to be true, that the dutch don't really have music of their own, and thus are avid catalogers of the music of others. did the rootlessness of the dutch rub off on new jersey suburbia, literally planting a root of rootlessness? i listen to the amazing dutch radio station, concertzender, as i type this...
recently i received a forward from my mother of an email from my cousin who has been involved more than anyone in the family in plumbing our geneology. three pictures were attached. one is believed to be my great grandmother:
..stern, czech, classical...these seem to be my authentic roots. her brother, named josef franzl, [if she in the photo is indeed my great grandmother] was a well-known, accomplished french horn player with various groups in nyc during the early 1900's; well-known enough for my cousin to have gotten in touch with a horn collector who recently bought a lot of franzl stuff on ebay! this is blowing my mind...i searched the new york times archives for mentions of josef and there are a few concert announcements. supposedly he composed, too. that would be a holy grail for me: find and procure franzl manuscripts!
Saturday, September 25, 2010
melody/memory
an interesting thing is happening as i'm able to hold a pick and play guitar again, after 10 years of battle with the you-don't-want-it condition, focal dystonia. during the entire past ten years, along with losing control of the fine motor skills in my right hand, another curious neurological wipe occurred: that i was practically incapable of perceiving melody!! melodic continuity was just as scrambled as the kinetic instructions to my right hand! now, however, both activities are sprouting some exciting new growth...i believe the two go 'hand in hand'...
my 'amelodia' was almost the more frightening of the two conditions. picture a sampler with a memory of 4-5 seconds only able to reproduce a clipped mockingbird form of music. however much i tried i couldn't anticipate or perceive music, melody and/or meaning beyond the 4-5 sec. limit! it simply would be processed. i was stuck in a very short loop, indeed. my mind could only collage, rip a few words and paste them on a small surface and was denied the richness of original paragraphs and chapters. an ocd adhd rut.
it feels to me now that my body was experiencing [and still is, though to a much lesser extent] what our culture, especially music, has experienced over the past 30 years. a self-fulfilling rut. imitations of imitations ad infinitum---the effects of total media saturation...the telephone game converting english into unintelligible chinese whispers....ooooh, and how horrible that feeling feels! another notion comes to me: that melody transmission is rooted in identifiable strains of culture [now reduced to 'genres' or 'styles']----not knowing the songs is not knowing the dances is....not knowing and not being able to participate in the culture in a meaningful way...melody is meaning...and losing melody is losing meaning, a huge chunk of language!
i welcome back melody and meaning in my life....and hope they stick around....its been lonely, fragmented and frankly nonsensical without them....
my 'amelodia' was almost the more frightening of the two conditions. picture a sampler with a memory of 4-5 seconds only able to reproduce a clipped mockingbird form of music. however much i tried i couldn't anticipate or perceive music, melody and/or meaning beyond the 4-5 sec. limit! it simply would be processed. i was stuck in a very short loop, indeed. my mind could only collage, rip a few words and paste them on a small surface and was denied the richness of original paragraphs and chapters. an ocd adhd rut.
it feels to me now that my body was experiencing [and still is, though to a much lesser extent] what our culture, especially music, has experienced over the past 30 years. a self-fulfilling rut. imitations of imitations ad infinitum---the effects of total media saturation...the telephone game converting english into unintelligible chinese whispers....ooooh, and how horrible that feeling feels! another notion comes to me: that melody transmission is rooted in identifiable strains of culture [now reduced to 'genres' or 'styles']----not knowing the songs is not knowing the dances is....not knowing and not being able to participate in the culture in a meaningful way...melody is meaning...and losing melody is losing meaning, a huge chunk of language!
i welcome back melody and meaning in my life....and hope they stick around....its been lonely, fragmented and frankly nonsensical without them....
Friday, September 17, 2010
coming up for air and sea
so....since last entry i've relocated to my new temporary boathouse residence in highlands, nj ['where the jersey shore begins' and it does] and started a guitar repair apprenticeship program. any move is difficult even when it's as physically easy as mine was: i moved myself in one car in about 20 mins. [i've moved about 15-20 times over the past 17 years, depending on what one defines as a 'move'] ah, no matter how hard i try, i can't escape my father's business [moving]!
yes, i'm alive and well even if i haven't been able to call you---universal winking irony would have it that i should move to the only [literally] small spot in monmouth county not serviced by my cellphone company!
oh, it feels so good to get into a shop with tools...so many things philosophical and spikey that i can say, but i'll try to sum it up: for years i've felt like an imposter and in certain respects i have been...my roots are blue collar, no matter what heady proclivities i've developed. i'm very far from anti-intellectual, but i've always felt the discrepency between me and the educated/ivy league/intellectual people with whom i've associated over the years. the discrepency comes down to class. yes, that elephant in the american parlor!
Friday, August 27, 2010
mercury retrograde
my girlfriend pointed out to me the astrological fact that the planet responsible for communication and ideas, mercury, has appeared to trail 'backwards' in its orbit across the sky---a condition also known as 'retrograde' by ancient astronomers/astrologers. if the planet ruling communications and other 'mercurial' fiefdoms is appearing to move in the opposite direction, what effect could, almost logically [in a medieval way] be anticipated? that all one's communications can be botched, undone, untied? yes. no wonder my head has felt turned 180 degrees...
i don't know if a small planet very far away is responsible, but i do know that this past week had been a communications DISASTER with my said girlfriend as well as with my attempts to find an apartment at the jersey shore. other co-varying factors most surely are: the fact that i'm using craigslist almost exclusively in my housing search; that i'm searching in new jersey...after two solid months of banging my head against the wall [to make myself feel BETTER], hours of driving, being told off and blown off, this morning i've finally had a moment of closure in my housing search!
dare i share my most interesting housing search snafu?
the listing was modest and no-frills enough: share my beautiful home. large, wi-fi, your own kitchen, yard, friendly black lab, etc. i think the black lab had me sold on it before anything else. the owner was difficult to understand over the phone due to her accent [or was it mercury?] but we talked and worked out a time to see the apartment. i pull up: very nice neighborhood! grand, new house! very promising! i meet the landlady, the kids, the dog...everything great so far. the space is expansive---the whole basement floor, in fact. the landlady tells me she isn't a private person---leaving me to wonder about the significance of having said so...though the comment verged on classic-segues-into-pornography, i didn't dwell too much on it.
next day, i left a voice mail message, informing her of my decision to take the place. then i waited a number of days for a reply. then she leaves me a voice mail message, asking me what my decision is...and that she can only accept the rent in cash, being that she isn't supposed to have tenants in her house. didn't she get my message? cash?! red flags! next, i e-mailed her saying that i wouldn't want to put myself into such a precarious housing situation, in a place where i'm not supposed to be. she writes back: no one can tell me who can or can't live in my home. i want someone to live in as a family member, who i can rely on when i'm not here...[and charge them CASH for the privilege?]
translation: she wants help with her two children since she works so much....er, don't people get paid to do that, not pay to do it? after a sherlock holmes-ian line of questioning, i discover her true motivation! in the same way, my girlfriend and i needed hours of telephonic emotional archaeology to unearth what we really have been trying to say to each other during the past few days...[we're better now, thank you!]
damn you, mercury, moonwalking across the sky!
i don't know if a small planet very far away is responsible, but i do know that this past week had been a communications DISASTER with my said girlfriend as well as with my attempts to find an apartment at the jersey shore. other co-varying factors most surely are: the fact that i'm using craigslist almost exclusively in my housing search; that i'm searching in new jersey...after two solid months of banging my head against the wall [to make myself feel BETTER], hours of driving, being told off and blown off, this morning i've finally had a moment of closure in my housing search!
dare i share my most interesting housing search snafu?
the listing was modest and no-frills enough: share my beautiful home. large, wi-fi, your own kitchen, yard, friendly black lab, etc. i think the black lab had me sold on it before anything else. the owner was difficult to understand over the phone due to her accent [or was it mercury?] but we talked and worked out a time to see the apartment. i pull up: very nice neighborhood! grand, new house! very promising! i meet the landlady, the kids, the dog...everything great so far. the space is expansive---the whole basement floor, in fact. the landlady tells me she isn't a private person---leaving me to wonder about the significance of having said so...though the comment verged on classic-segues-into-pornography, i didn't dwell too much on it.
next day, i left a voice mail message, informing her of my decision to take the place. then i waited a number of days for a reply. then she leaves me a voice mail message, asking me what my decision is...and that she can only accept the rent in cash, being that she isn't supposed to have tenants in her house. didn't she get my message? cash?! red flags! next, i e-mailed her saying that i wouldn't want to put myself into such a precarious housing situation, in a place where i'm not supposed to be. she writes back: no one can tell me who can or can't live in my home. i want someone to live in as a family member, who i can rely on when i'm not here...[and charge them CASH for the privilege?]
translation: she wants help with her two children since she works so much....er, don't people get paid to do that, not pay to do it? after a sherlock holmes-ian line of questioning, i discover her true motivation! in the same way, my girlfriend and i needed hours of telephonic emotional archaeology to unearth what we really have been trying to say to each other during the past few days...[we're better now, thank you!]
damn you, mercury, moonwalking across the sky!
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