Tears,
drop in the rain
I want to lose again,
see what things are really there.
Drop out of reality,
fold
the stars into consciousness
and the sand into the sky
and see what things are really there.
Tomorrow
is another screen
for the projection of today
Go into that sweet sleep,
remember,
remember,
I will carry your wave into the future.
I will carry your wave into the past
two signals
converging on NOW
now bright,
now then,
soon we will remember
to see again.
Salt.
Inside of me
dead like the sea,
better than aphrodisiac or pain
Shiver,
shrivel in sun
water gets between my toes,
salt, in the core of me and surrounding me.
I am an exclamation of Minerality,
I let salt go into the cycle that gives my molecules momentum
let go, let go,
the rivers flow to the sea
and remember salt, the basis of body
and their temporal inheritance.
Soon,
when we're sitting by the TV,
stars explode,
burning solar systems
streaming neutrinos through our skulls
while we, unbeknownst, munch on
peas
Cosmic wind, give the sight
that remembers how to pass
untrammeled through the universe,
stopping only to be born
and to die.
Someone asked if there was a teapot
floating around Mars - well, orbiting,
which is like falling on nothing.
Mr. Teapot:
I am sorry we left you there
There are comforts there -
the dim glow is Sol,
the red sky is a friend,
there will be a beginning,
a return to peace,
an end.
Monday, December 9
Friday, October 11
It's been a bad week. Things have begun piling on top of things, and thoughts on top of thoughts, until whole stretches of time seem to fold in on themselves like layer cake. Moist. Writing is a way of linearising, like extruding play-doh through a pipe. It lets things happen one after the other, which helps me think. Otherwise the parallel processing that makes me so good at almost everything I do starts to turn into voices.
I AM good at everything I do. I am a guitarist and improviser of uncommon clarity and brilliance. I have cultivated a stillness which I consider a healing presence in my music. I hope that it will someday be a healing presence for other people. The problem I have now is things that I cannot begin to do. I cannot convince people to help me. I cannot ask them for help. I cannot "hang out". I cannot become part of a social world. I'm not sure why this is, but believe me when I say I am not one of those people who thinks these skills are somehow uncool. I hope I am never that hip. If I could I would throw every ounce of effort I could muster at fitting in, being in a scene, hanging out, networking, making connections, friends and business associates, marketing, branding, advertising. I have in fact done that, and the only reason my complete and abject failure to achieve anything in this quadrant is surprising is because it stands in such stark contrast to my usual success rate. It irks me because I don't think it should be this difficult.
I usually ignore these problems with some success. Moving to Queens has helped. Grace and I have put up some walls. We make bread. But now that graduate school applications are bearing down on me I am daily face to face with the fact that someone is going to have to evaluate my work who isn't me. I am going to have to convince them that I am worth time and money. I have no idea how to do this.
So it's been a bad week, and my self-confidence is flagging not because I have begun to suspect that I'm not brilliant, which I certainly haven't, but because I'm staring failure of a different sort in the face every day. This constant inability to get with the program isn't just a professional impediment. It is a cause for serious loneliness, even though I have plenty of cause to be otherwise happy. I can't fix it the way I fix everything else.
I AM good at everything I do. I am a guitarist and improviser of uncommon clarity and brilliance. I have cultivated a stillness which I consider a healing presence in my music. I hope that it will someday be a healing presence for other people. The problem I have now is things that I cannot begin to do. I cannot convince people to help me. I cannot ask them for help. I cannot "hang out". I cannot become part of a social world. I'm not sure why this is, but believe me when I say I am not one of those people who thinks these skills are somehow uncool. I hope I am never that hip. If I could I would throw every ounce of effort I could muster at fitting in, being in a scene, hanging out, networking, making connections, friends and business associates, marketing, branding, advertising. I have in fact done that, and the only reason my complete and abject failure to achieve anything in this quadrant is surprising is because it stands in such stark contrast to my usual success rate. It irks me because I don't think it should be this difficult.
I usually ignore these problems with some success. Moving to Queens has helped. Grace and I have put up some walls. We make bread. But now that graduate school applications are bearing down on me I am daily face to face with the fact that someone is going to have to evaluate my work who isn't me. I am going to have to convince them that I am worth time and money. I have no idea how to do this.
So it's been a bad week, and my self-confidence is flagging not because I have begun to suspect that I'm not brilliant, which I certainly haven't, but because I'm staring failure of a different sort in the face every day. This constant inability to get with the program isn't just a professional impediment. It is a cause for serious loneliness, even though I have plenty of cause to be otherwise happy. I can't fix it the way I fix everything else.
Friday, July 19
The Improviser's Workbook
Clearly, I am not an authority on this, and this project in particular is founded on a solid base of skepticism towards any and all authorities.
But I have been thinking about the process of improvisation, and in my effort to become better at it, I have developed a collection of rules, statements, aphorisms, formulas and folk wisdoms. They are not truths but working heuristics for practice. The first principle is that heuristics are good enough for anything, except maybe rocket science. Here are the rest.
A melody exists in all its dimensions.
Improvisation is the rupture of skill.
I don't know if it matters if you know the theory.
But you gotta deal with what you DO know.
Concern with the importance of technique can impede listening.
Discard the illusion of self-contained moments.
All is process. Improvisation does not begin when you start playing and does not end when you finish.
It happens whether you want it to or not.
Discard the notion that it should feel good.
Improvisation is PROCESS. It is not feeling.
It may feel good.
You may dissolve. But if you don't, that is okay.
As long as consciousness does not fill up your senses.
Improvisation is a cyborg mode of being.
What purpose does practice serve?
Learning physical habits?
How have I achieved what I have achieved?
I have not learned to DO.
I have learned not to do.
That is the substance of practice.
Part of it.
Part of it is also learning to DO.
What is that? How does it work? What is learned? (it is peripheral;
we celebrate the peripheral,)
We watched the world torn apart by heroic sentiments, so we invented a music that is incapable of them.
It is small music for small people. There is no place here for greatness.
There is no place for greatness in the future.
But I have been thinking about the process of improvisation, and in my effort to become better at it, I have developed a collection of rules, statements, aphorisms, formulas and folk wisdoms. They are not truths but working heuristics for practice. The first principle is that heuristics are good enough for anything, except maybe rocket science. Here are the rest.
A melody exists in all its dimensions.
Improvisation is the rupture of skill.
I don't know if it matters if you know the theory.
But you gotta deal with what you DO know.
Concern with the importance of technique can impede listening.
Discard the illusion of self-contained moments.
All is process. Improvisation does not begin when you start playing and does not end when you finish.
It happens whether you want it to or not.
Discard the notion that it should feel good.
Improvisation is PROCESS. It is not feeling.
It may feel good.
You may dissolve. But if you don't, that is okay.
As long as consciousness does not fill up your senses.
Improvisation is a cyborg mode of being.
What purpose does practice serve?
Learning physical habits?
How have I achieved what I have achieved?
I have not learned to DO.
I have learned not to do.
That is the substance of practice.
Part of it.
Part of it is also learning to DO.
What is that? How does it work? What is learned? (it is peripheral;
we celebrate the peripheral,)
We watched the world torn apart by heroic sentiments, so we invented a music that is incapable of them.
It is small music for small people. There is no place here for greatness.
There is no place for greatness in the future.
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