This was an outdoor concert for the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra, and while clouds loomed and then broke, patrons remained in place and ushers handed them plastic panchos. We sold CDs in a merchandise tent but first made them into houses.
Thursday, June 30, 2011
Shelter
This was an outdoor concert for the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra, and while clouds loomed and then broke, patrons remained in place and ushers handed them plastic panchos. We sold CDs in a merchandise tent but first made them into houses.
Wednesday, June 29, 2011
Levitation
Edmonton, AB, Canada to Arvada, CO.
Carlos Henriquez teaches me how to levitate in the airport.
Carlos Henriquez teaches me how to levitate in the airport.
Tuesday, June 28, 2011
"Made a Way Where There Was No Way"
Vancouver, BC to Edmonton, AB, Canada.
That morning we discover that Walter Blanding's passport is inside the equipment truck, which typically makes its way to the next destination via ground, while we humans prepare to fly. It's hours away from us by now, and we're three hours from flight time. With some paper obstacles and through the kindness of airport strangers, we make it through.
That morning we discover that Walter Blanding's passport is inside the equipment truck, which typically makes its way to the next destination via ground, while we humans prepare to fly. It's hours away from us by now, and we're three hours from flight time. With some paper obstacles and through the kindness of airport strangers, we make it through.
Monday, June 27, 2011
Krishna and Other Rogues
There's a passage I love in Suketu Mehta's book Maximum City:
"Bombay is the biggest, fastest, richest city in India. It is Bombay that Krishna could have been describing in the Tenth Canto of the Bhagavad Gita, when the god manifests himself in all his fullness:
I am all-destroying death
And the origin of things that are yet to be . . .
I am the gambling of rogues;
the splendour of the splendid.
So Liz Wesik takes me up a Vancouver mountaintop and with my head out of the car window, I inhale trees and remember that there are cities outside of New York and that all of them deserve homage. And so we fashion a makeshift a shrine to Krishna.
Sunday, June 26, 2011
Saturday, June 25, 2011
Q+A
Ferry to Victoria, BC, Canada.
Carlos Henriquez and Elliot Mason were to be featured in a question-and-answer session for the jazz festival audience, with me moderating. We sat in the ferry cafeteria and thought of questions that ranged from "what's up with Anthony Weiner?" (Elliot) to "Carlos, discuss your adventures in music directing" to creating a structure where Carlos and Elliot would rate the audience's questions on a scale of 1-10. None of these things ended up happening.
Carlos Henriquez and Elliot Mason were to be featured in a question-and-answer session for the jazz festival audience, with me moderating. We sat in the ferry cafeteria and thought of questions that ranged from "what's up with Anthony Weiner?" (Elliot) to "Carlos, discuss your adventures in music directing" to creating a structure where Carlos and Elliot would rate the audience's questions on a scale of 1-10. None of these things ended up happening.
Friday, June 24, 2011
Bling
Carlos Henriquez, teacher and muse, shows me how to make dollar bills into rings.
Thursday, June 23, 2011
I'm in Los Angeles, Are You in Helsinki?
Los Angeles, California.
Anita Shah, on tour with a dance troupe, asked me where I was in a Facebook post -- "what city are you in? greetings from finland..." she asked. "I'm in Los Angeles, are you in Helsinki?" I replied. And it seemed like the title for a self-help book for those of us who tour. So I wrote an intro and an outline for this imaginary book.
I'm in Los Angeles, Are You in Helsinki?
a guide to life on the road
(for)
Dancers, musicians, actors, filmmakers, filmmeasurers, wardrobe directors, gaffers, administrators, facilitators and the like, those who travel for business for stretches of time (and) understand the peaks and chasms of life on the road.
Anita Shah, on tour with a dance troupe, asked me where I was in a Facebook post -- "what city are you in? greetings from finland..." she asked. "I'm in Los Angeles, are you in Helsinki?" I replied. And it seemed like the title for a self-help book for those of us who tour. So I wrote an intro and an outline for this imaginary book.
I'm in Los Angeles, Are You in Helsinki?
a guide to life on the road
(for)
Dancers, musicians, actors, filmmakers, filmmeasurers, wardrobe directors, gaffers, administrators, facilitators and the like, those who travel for business for stretches of time (and) understand the peaks and chasms of life on the road.
Wednesday, June 22, 2011
Where the Wild Things Are
Los Angeles, California.
Another night, midnight looms and I have not created anything. Ted Nash and I have just left a post-concert hang along with others (student musicians lovingly and earnestly playing jazz), so I know he's up. I call him and ask if he wants to join me in the lobby so we can interview someone, videotape something, anything to make the creation deadline. Ted is a natural cinematographer; we convene downstairs. The lobby is filled with overdressed and underdressed Angelenos parading into the hotel's nightclub. Ted and I are rejected as we're not on the list, so we sneak into a side door. Men are dressed as animals, Paris Hilton is dressed as herself, and with a deftly positioned camera, Ted caught it all. More decadent than the demure settings we're usually in, but interesting in small, small doses.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bCUg8Aca2Y4
Another night, midnight looms and I have not created anything. Ted Nash and I have just left a post-concert hang along with others (student musicians lovingly and earnestly playing jazz), so I know he's up. I call him and ask if he wants to join me in the lobby so we can interview someone, videotape something, anything to make the creation deadline. Ted is a natural cinematographer; we convene downstairs. The lobby is filled with overdressed and underdressed Angelenos parading into the hotel's nightclub. Ted and I are rejected as we're not on the list, so we sneak into a side door. Men are dressed as animals, Paris Hilton is dressed as herself, and with a deftly positioned camera, Ted caught it all. More decadent than the demure settings we're usually in, but interesting in small, small doses.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bCUg8Aca2Y4
Tuesday, June 21, 2011
Good News
Los Angeles, California.
It's the first day of summer, and after 11pm, I remembered my intent and I wondered if I had committed myself to a summer of deflation, of over-obligation. No. In my hotel room was a suitcase full of clothes, books, and scant electronics. On my bed, the New York Times, flung aside since it seemed gloomier than usual. I decided to manufacture my own headlines. I called the front desk for tape and scissors, which never came, so I ripped and arranged and tucked away.
It's the first day of summer, and after 11pm, I remembered my intent and I wondered if I had committed myself to a summer of deflation, of over-obligation. No. In my hotel room was a suitcase full of clothes, books, and scant electronics. On my bed, the New York Times, flung aside since it seemed gloomier than usual. I decided to manufacture my own headlines. I called the front desk for tape and scissors, which never came, so I ripped and arranged and tucked away.
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