The barrier

A very peculiar madness crept in Tuesday about a quarter past noon.  I was standing by the window at the turn in the kitchen stairs when, emerging suddenly from a stifling gloominess uncharacteristic of me in such crisp, beautiful weather, I was sharply aware of the tiny fragment of roof extending over our defunct back door just outside.  I removed the screen, pushed open the glass, and stepped out into a strange yellow light.

I sat.  I read a book: Demian, by Herman Hesse.  I looked over at the garage, a freestanding structure across the narrow driveway from me and a few feet below.  And I knew that I could jump to it.

I pictured jumping.  I didn’t.

And then, in that marvelous yellow light, a misplaced ray of spring filtered through colored leaves, I inspected the space between my thoughts and my actions.  It was not a space.  It was a boundary, a thick, rubbery membrane that I rarely saw but often touched and smelled.

When I was last flat on my belly beside the north rim of the Grand Canyon, I encountered a very powerful fear, one that has probably influenced my life more than I know.  I was afraid that I would imagine jumping, and that as I imagined it I would do it.

Now I asked myself: to what lengths had I gone to insulate my actions from my thoughts?  I could picture the jump so clearly that I felt the rush of adrenaline on every landing.  But I knew I wouldn’t jump.  The thought didn’t have a fighting chance — the only thoughts that would pass the barrier were “reasonable” ones.

This is the barrier that I must circumvent to leave my bed on a cloudy morning.  It reflects back the constant murmur of doubts until they ring in my ears.  I strongly suspect that in its shadow, my spontaneity is curling up and dying.

I thought these things as I stared at the roof of the garage.  And I still didn’t jump.  But every time I thought it, in vivid yellow detail, I squeezed the barrier a little thinner.

Now the jump was deeply meaningful.  To jump would prove to myself that I was ready to loose my thoughts and challenge the barrier.  It would be a turning point.  I would reach the garage a changed man.

But I wasn’t ready.

So instead I climbed down, and practiced thinking and acting together.  I balanced on posts, climbed over railings, jumped over chains.  And in that unreal light, I saw the possibility of action everywhere.  I saw a mound of dirt become a garden.  I saw windows become doors and piles of wood become ladders.  Even more exciting: I saw details.  I looked at things I had never looked at, colors and objects and walls, and very briefly my abstraction-addled mind could see DETAILS.

I biked away from that place with no bag on my back, and rode with no handle bars.  The water was beautiful, and I went as fast as I wanted.

I have a long way to go, and I may not be okay tomorrow.  But I know what is possible for me, and some day I will make that jump.

Free Conversations

Are you bored?  Is the weather nice?  Do you live near a public place?  Are you losing faith in the goodness of humankind?

If you answered yes to any two of these questions, consider: Free Conversations.  It’s easy and fun!

STEP 1:  Get a big piece of paper.  Your local art supply store or elementary school can help.

STEP 2:  Get a permanent marker.  You probably have one in your house.  Maybe it’s in that drawer.  Go find it.

STEP 3:  Write (with the marker, on the paper, in silly block letters), “FREE CONVERSATIONS.”  Maybe you should pencil it in first — “conversations” is longer than you think it’s going to be.

STEP 4:  Roll up your sign and go somewhere where people you don’t know are walking around.  Find a nice bench exposed to foot traffic.  Muster up some courage.

STEP 5:  Unroll your sign and wait.  Whistle a tune.  Make eye contact and smile, but don’t hold it too long.  Look at the clouds.  Laugh at a little bird trying to carry a whole piece of bread.

Popular opening lines may include:

- How’s that “Free Conversations” thing going?

- What does THAT mean?

- So you’re just… TALKING to people?

-  I’ll take a Free Conversation!

- Are you GAY?

Remember, it’s no fun if you discriminate.  All humans welcome!  Whatever happens, it will NOT be what you expect.

Stories to follow…

r******r

the lamp on the night-table bends tentatively to inspect
with its dark-scientific bulb: my purple new device
all crenulated arch — not cinnamon-scented like the last
but still reminiscent (in its wiry curves) of persecuted ancestors:

cinnamon, who, waiting on a sun-baked Wyoming dust-rock
watched twelve sky-minded younglings march into the mountains;
my mother’s, turned napkin-mummy and entombed unthinking
in a pungent sarcophagus with seventh-grade’s greasy secrets;
my father’s, taken to the basement for dark experiments
pliers glinting fiercely beneath a single yellow bulb.

are you afraid? do not be. you will be taken
into a watery womb, and held there in sleep, as
pushing and pulling, gently, we shape each other.

Hook, Line, and John Hodgman

I went on a lovely wander through downtown Boston with my friend Adam White yesterday.  We wandered through a lovely neighborhood and ordered $4.95 lunch specials at a Chinese restaurant.  It was there that he told me a story that set the wheels turning.  Apparently, he and his mother had both gotten each other copies of “Areas Of My Expertise” by John Hodgman for Christmas.  Adam mentioned it in a post on his blog.  Shortly afterwards, John Hodgman himself commented on the post with appreciation.

Apparently, John Hodgman googles himself incessantly.

On a completely unrelated note (which is nonetheless making a beeline to collide with John Hodgman, with potentially disastrous consequences), my father just relayed to me his most recent fishing story.  For three weeks, he had been noticing “telltale signs and sounds” of a largemouth bass near his dock.  He became “mildly obsessed,” and set off in his kayak to bring home his prize.  In the ensuing struggle, he managed to drive a barbed hook deeply into his finger, and the fish was released trailing one of his 3-foot-long stringers.

And somehow, in the Chinese restaurant, the two stories fused into a single strange idea.

If John Hodgman googles himself incessantly, then I can go fishing for John Hodgman.

I shall fish from this very blog.  What shall I use for bait?  I have already strewn his name all over the page, but due to his new status as Famous Minor Television Personality, I doubt it will be sufficient.  What follows is a list of phrases that I hope will catch his eye as he explores the murky expanse of the inter-pond.

———-

John Hodgman’s illegimate son

John Hodgman is in danger

Only John Hodgman can save us

John Hodgman for president

John Hodgman’s TRUE IDENTITY REVEALED

John Hodgman’s surprise birthday party

John “Giant Squid” Hodgman

A plague of John-Hodgman-shaped locusts

All of John Hodgman’s baby teeth

Watermelon-flavored John Hodgman

Petrified eggs of John Hodgman

Origami John Hodgman from a single square

John Hodgman meets The Hamburgler

John Hodgman themed water park

Lost treasure of John Hodgman

John Hodgman, Mexican wrestler extraordinaire

10 interesting facts of which John Hodgman is not aware

John Hodgman limerick collection

Plumage the color of John Hodgman

…there, that should do it.  If I don’t get a bite for a while, I’ll throw in some more phrases and maybe some anchovies and bits of squid.  Feel free to add more bait at the bottom — your comments should be searchable as well.

If I catch him?  Well, I’ll probably throw him back.  It’s for the sport, not for food.  Besides, they’re never as big as they look on TV.

Relative Fitness

Today I spent an hour reading my Subatomic Physics textbook.  On the toilet.

Do you know how important special relativity is in subatomic physics?  EXTREMELY IMPORTANT.  Subatomic particles are routinely traveling fast enough that they decay a thousand times more slowly in the laboratory frame of reference than they would if they were at rest.  Due to TIME DILATION.

In the evening I went to the gym with Lucy after her first day of work.  She told me all about it as we ran on neighboring elliptical machines, each set to a 31 minute workout.  At some point, I looked at my clock… then I looked at hers.

“I think your clock is running faster than mine,” I told her.

Confused: “Running faster?”

“Well, it should be.  I’m running faster than you are, so my seconds should take longer than yours.”

“I don’t think it works like that,” she told me patiently.

“You don’t think Planet Fitness adjusts their machines for special relativity?”

“No.”

“But special relativity is EXTREMELY IMPORTANT!” I explained.  “Otherwise it’s like I’m not running anywhere at all.  It’s like I’m just staying in the same place.”

So, for the greater glory of Planet Fitness, I am now slaving away over the equations for the Relativistic Treadmill.  I am wading through a thick kugel of noodlesome conundrums.  Time itself cannot be measured in isolation — equally important and inextricably linked is spatial displacement.  If the Relativistic Treadmill experience is to be analogous to actual motion, what does it imply when you dismount at the same place that you got on (in the stationary frame of reference)?  Is it a “twin paradox” in which you ran away and then returned to find your clock lagging due to the symmetry-breaking relativistic effects of your change of travel direction?  Or perhaps you have encircled a closed Fitness Universe once and returned to Planet Fitness, trading the relativistic effects of acceleration for the identical effects of spatial curvature!

Actually, Lucy probably managed a greater average speed than I did.  I think she hovered pretty close to 7.2 mph the whole time, whereas I sped up and slowed down unpredictably as the fancy struck me, probably averaging about 6.8 mph.  For all I know, Planet Fitness already DOES have relativity-adjusted equipment and we just weren’t running fast enough to notice the difference.  If there were more overlap between the gym members and the sizable community of Cambridge physicists, I’m sure someone would have resolved this issue by now, but judging by the standard physics physique, I’m currently the principal investigator.  I expect that both the leading scientific journals and those fitness magazines at the supermarket will be eager to publish my results.

Or maybe my scientific curiosity will drag me back to the gym often enough that I fall into the habit of regular exercise and stay in fairly good shape, at least until school starts.

…and if you believe that, I’ve got a baromophone to sell you.

Baromephone

Cory Pesatura stayed over at the Whistlestop Inn, my new place in Boston, on Wednesday night.  Cory is the youngest-ever national accordion champion.  He is also a leading expert on recent hurricane and snowfall records.  Find out more at his wikipedia page!

This got me thinking about other possible collaborations between music and meteorology.

Changing weather is the bane of instrumentalists.  String instruments go all out of tune as they expand with humidity.  Brass, on the other hand, expands with heat.

So…

You attach a string bass standing on its endpin to a trumpet in playing position, and then you attach a needle to the bell.  Eureka!  Two instruments make an instrument of another kind: it measures temperature on the x-axis and humidity on the y-axis!

And then you get a trombone, grease the slide thoroughly, and plug up all the holes…

You guessed it!  Humidity, temperature, and AIR PRESSURE!  All in one convenient jazz combo!

You may place orders for the Baromephone in the form of comments at the bottom of this post.

The Mouse Machine

In this metaphor, our minds are vast, labyrinthine machines, like the engine rooms of lumbering starships.  Levers must be pulled, displays must be read, hatch doors must be cranked open and sealed shut.

There is a mouse in the machine.  What he sees in his machine, you see; what he hears, you hear; he is your Avatar.

Trouble is, mine is an idiot.  When he tries to operate the math machine, it spews a few sentences over and over.  When he tries to move the giant robot feet in the morning, they don’t go.  Instead of a productive inner monologue, he puts “What’s Left Of The Flag” by Flogging Molly on loop for four days at a time.

Thank god for the other mice.  Hard at work in the tunnels, they skillfully handle almost all levels of functioning, from walking to problem-solving to decision-making.  Their masterpiece is talking.  When I am engaged in conversation, the Avatar Mouse has no idea what’s going to come out of my mouth.  To his amazement, it is consistently grammatical, topical, and filtered for content.  He has no idea how they do it.

Avatar Mouse needs to Step Down.  He has a job to do on the ship, alright: it’s keeping everyone in contact with each other and the world outside. Then, when they’re doing their thing, A.M. can kick back and enjoy a mousy cigar.  And maybe crank up some tunes.

“Walk away, me boys… walk away, me boys… and by morning, we’ll be free…”

Reminder

There is a time for writing and a time for silence.

Forgive yourself.

Every door you let swing close leaves room for some other to open.

Forgive yourself.

There is a time for creation and a time for rest.

Forgive yourself.

No life fits on a scale to be weighed.

Forgive yourself.

There is a time to guide and a time to be guided.

Forgive yourself.

THERE WILL BE TIME.

Forgive yourself.

Total Immersion

Last Saturday was indubitably the folkiest day of my entire life.

At 11AM and a bit, Everett picked me up with nothing but the fiddle on my back.  The fiddle on my back was Romavia.  For a long time, I believed that she had belonged to my cousin Sharon, but about a week ago my father determined that Romavia was the same violin my parents had bought me as my first full-sized instrument.  I’ve been packing her with my heavier bow, Eve — I like to switch off between her and her lighter sister from time to time for variety.  Romavia’s a modest girl, and she hardly costs more than either bow, but she can sing when she wants to.  Since my father’s news, I’d been prone to nostalgic reflections on how far we’d come together.  You’ve been warned.

We set off for the Pawtucket Arts Festival at Slater Park, and despite a brief accidental detour to Slater Mill (curse you, father of the American Industrial Revolution, and your many namesakes!), we made it with enough time to set up about fifty microphones before go-time. The mayor of Pawtucket delivered a few choice words (something about art?) and then I took the stage with Barnacle. We played a well-oiled 45-minute set including the much-anticipated first public performance of the fiddle/djembe jam we developed two weeks ago. Then we found out they wanted us to stay on for the full hour, so we pulled tunes out of our butts for fifteen more minutes. They seemed to like us.

The tiny VIP tent was pleasantly full of food. I grabbed some cold slices of pizza and some pineapple, and then took a spin around the artists’ tentground. The highlight was a young lady who had implemented my brilliant (though apparently not original) idea of crocheting a chain shirt out of a single strand of wire. Then it was down to the ol’ IPhone.

The scheduling conundrum at hand: Solas, my favoritest Celtic band, would be playing at 10PM at ICONS Irish music festival in Canton, Mass. Miya was going to be there, and she was bringing her new friend Merryl who I had never met but who would theoretically be playing and singing with us in a folk trio soon.

Complicating factor 1: Sharks Come Cruisin’ would be playing a show at 10PM in New Bedford. I had said I’d play fiddle with them, and I am a man of my word. New Bedford is in the same state as Canton, but certainly not close enough for me to be in both at the same time.

Complicating factor 2: Barnacle’s next show as at Mystic Scrimshanders in Wickford RI from five to seven. At that point, they would probably stay for dinner, leaving me stranded on the wrong side of the wrong state. Besides, even if I could get to Canton, I would be paying for a day-long festival ticket without so many hours left of festival.

Complicating factor 3: Miya had just alerted me via email that she was heading to the festival, but also that her phone was broken.  Even if I went to ICONS, I had no idea whether I’d be able to find her.

…but I’ve never been one to yield to complicating factors.  On the way to Wickford, I called Mark to let him know I couldn’t make the Sharks show, and then had Everett drop me off at my car in Providence and follow him the rest of the way.  If I left the gig a little early, I could make it to ICONS by eight and catch whatever band took the mainstage before Solas as well.  And as for Miya’s phone… well, I’d cross that bridge when I came to it.

For those of you who lost me at “Mystic Scrimshanders” (which would be a really good band name), a scrimshander is one who makes scrimshaws.  A scrimshaw is an inked carving in bone or tusk.  Mystic Scrimshanders sells breathtakingly intricate scrimshaws of ships, naked women, wildlife… more naked women… for anywhere between 800 and 5000 dollars.  We set up in the corner of the shop, which was hosting the prestigious Mystic Scrimshanders National Scrimshaw Competition.  Tim Reilly, the percussionist in the band, is an aspiring scrimshander, and was totally bowled over by the amount of talent in the room at the end of our first set.  Of course, in scrimshandery, talent looks like grizzled fishermen in suits.

The show was more casual than the last, so I had no qualms about leaving the group at 6:40 to get gas and hit the road.  I had no idea how long it would take me to find Miya, so I figured I’d maximize my chances.  It was only a little more than an hour drive to Canton, but the walk from parking to the festival was pretty substantial.  It was just past eight when I reached the festival grounds, fiddle slung on my back as it had been when I left home in the morning.

“Are you playing tonight?” they asked me at the ticket window.

“No, but I take this everywhere just in case.  You never know.”  And, indeed, I didn’t.

I wandered through a sea of tents, peeking briefly into any with live music.  Most seemed to be serving the function of open-air pub.  Hearty, mustached men played accordion and sang about Irish things while everyone enjoyed Guinness and fried food.  After watching a fiddle/guitar duo for a few tunes, I asked a woman where Solas would be playing and she directed me to the front stage.

I tried to walk around in awkwardly visible places.  It worked.  After about ten awkward minutes, Miya grabbed me and introduced me to Merryl and her friend Gred.  Merryl was a sweet, freckly southern girl with no trouble talking to strangers.  Greg was the quiet, confusing type, though he seemed friendly.  He was the banjo player with Crooked Still, a very popular young folk group that had performed earlier that day.  Miya had met him in Ireland — apparently the music scene there is actually quite a small world.

We sat on the lawn right in front of the stage, Miya and Merryl on the grass and me on my violin case.  The band before Solas was solid, but the violin was a little screechy.  We danced.  They finished playing, and we went for a walk and sang.  Then we came back for Solas.  Solas is what they call an Irish all-star band: fiddler Winifred Horan and multi-instrumentalists Seamus Egan and Mick McAuley are all three famous in their own rights.  But Solas is at least the sum of its parts.  They were INCREDIBLE.  Each piece was a well-polished gem, gorgeous and subtle and irresistibly toe-tapping from beginning to end.  The show unfolded flawlessly.

…until Win Horan broke a string.

The band wrapped up the song neatly minus the fiddle.  But one violinist in the audience knew that all was not well.  I had played two shows that day — the moment I saw the broken string I stopped being the audience and started thinking like a performer.

And I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that she had not brought another violin.

She had two options.  She could try to change the string: this would involve finding the set of strings she might or might not have in her case offstage, then sitting out for two songs or holding up the whole show to wind the string and tune.  Or she could go out on a limb and take a fiddle from the audience.

I rose to my feet.  My role in this was clear.  By the time Winifred had collected herself and gone to the mic to say, “I have a very strange request…”, I was at the stage.  I got her attention, set the case at her feet, and opened it up.

The round of applause I got was certainly louder than anything I had heard at my last two shows.  But the real reward was listening to my to favorite Solas reels, The Stride and Bird In The Tree, played on Romavia.  And dancing, of course.  I had never danced to her music before, and I think she appreciated it.

In most of my musical fantasies, I join the band after the show and we play together all through the night.  Of course Solas was going back to their trailor after a long day, so I let them go with just a few hugs and handshakes.  Only Romavia was going to play with Solas on Saturday, not I.

But I think listening to my violin sing from both sides has helped me come to terms a little more with that confusing divide between musician and audience.  After a day of playing her to make my bread, I passed her into more capable hands to enjoy a carefree evening.  If Romavia can cross over the fourth wall without a scratch, so can I.  This is what it means to live a life of music.  She’s better at it than I am, but I’m learning.

Violin shopping

JC has THREE REVOLVING BOOKCASES.

JC played bass in a band. They went to LA to record. Then they broke up.

Now, JC writes apocalyptic fiction and memoirs. He has an editor at Random House.

And he does interior design. Hence the THREE REVOLVING BOOKCASES in his Providence loft apartment.

JC drinks straight whiskey. With ginger ale as a chaser.

Also. JC wants to learn to play violin. Which is where I come in.

We went violin shopping yesterday. At McCarten’s violins, he looked the instruments over and listened to me play.

I chatted up Dennis McCarten and we discussed my possible foray into bow repair.

Then JC made his decision and wrote the check. It was the first place we stopped, but we walked out with a violin.

With an hour to burn, we went back to the loft with THREE REVOLVING BOOKCASES and kicked back with glasses of whiskey.

Yeah.