the mockingbird

I can't quote it from memory, but Tom Robbins refers to the mockingbird as nature's first artist--I think it was in Skinny Legs and All. That's the one with the spoon and the dirty sock and the RV shaped like a giant turkey leg, right? No matter, I got to thinking about the mockingbird earlier tonight when I was thinking about professional chefs--the high end chefs who many consider to be artists. I suspect most of them cook to their own palate because how can you cook to anything else? To translate that to my own experience as an artist (if I really am an artist... but that's a topic for another blog), I have things which I find pleasant to my ear, certain styles and sounds which resonate deeply with me. Sure, I feel more comfortable when I'm working within those sounds, but I really stretch my legs and grow when I step out of that comfort zone and do something different. One of the best ways for me to do that is to imitate someone else; take someone else's style and apply it (to the best of my ability) to the work I'm doing today; be a mockingbird.

Driving me where?

Perhaps this is a case of expectations being too high, because I've been hearing nothing but glowing "you must see" reviews and recommendations for the movie Drive since before it came out and only ended up seeing it the other day. It's hard for any movie to live up to that lengthy a period of increased expectations, and I'm sad to say this one did not succeed completely. I did appreciate the movie very much: the acting is brilliant (Bryan Cranston and his relationship with Albert Brooks struck me as particularly great), the editing was great, the music weird and moody in a perfect kind of way, the sound design and mix downright brilliant--especially in the things we didn't hear and the use of silence. I just couldn't figure out why. In the end, it seemed to me to be a waste of impeccable production values, because the story didn't stand out in any way as being worthy of the polished effort of those involved.

art is a depiction of the gods within us

That title came to me as I was driving this morning. Art shows us god(s) and godly things. It's not always pretty--after all, if you believe the universe was created by some god, you probably believe the same god created the ugly things as well as the beautiful ones. This simple truth about art is why I feel so blessed to work in a creative field and to be able to create art (on the good days) and collaborate with some truly inspirational artists--Kat, Scott, Brooke, Dave, Stuart, Justin, so many others.... I get to spend a lot of my days viewing the divine, both as it exists within me and as others see it. What a treat.

Wise words, Ira.

9/11

I spent a great deal of today contemplating what happened in this country 10 years ago and how those events have changed my life and my outlook on life. I'm certainly not alone in this introspection, far from it. We spent most of our afternoon going to a concert at Cleveland High School (beautiful concert hall, by the way) with a packed house of people who all came to remember the same events and implications. For starters, it's almost an hour drive away from our house, and Kat and I spent a lot of that drive talking about our own perspective on what had changed in our lives. I had been stuck this morning while listening to NPR by really how much had changed, seemingly overnight, 10 years ago. The way we travel, the conversations we have with people from other countries, the way we feel about being an American and what that means.

The concert started with Fanfare for the Common Man, which rarely fails to move me and certainly didn't disappoint today. There were readings and a few other pieces, but the big showpiece was The Armed Man, which is quite an epic piece. It's a very ambitious exploration of war, not written specifically for this occasion, but an interesting exploration on this occasion. I found myself longing for more to discuss, though, than the military and militaristic aspects of this topic. There's so much more to my feelings today than the Global War On Terror or Al-Queda's War On Westernism, or whatever it should be called. I scrawled down the following during the concert:

It's not that I don't respect my brothers and sisters in uniform, because I do, but the memory of 9/11 means so much more to me than armed conflict. Today I remember a brave group of misfit passengers who decided their deaths were going to mean something; the rescue workers, in uniform or not, who looked for survivors, then bodies, then cleaned up the mess--some who gave their lives so the rest of us could continue ours in peace; civil libertarians who have recognized these 10 years as vitally important to keeping what's dear to us; artists who have continued on their lifelong quest for beauty, ignoring the ignorant who told them the search was futile; journalists and documentarians who stood fast in their quest for the truth, no matter how unattainable it has seemed; everyone who continues to hope for a better world despite evidence to the contrary.

I tried to paraphrase and expand on what I'd written at the time, but didn't like it as much as what I was feeling in that moment.

So if you're going to talk about the armed conflict which happened before, on and after September 11, 2001, I'll be happy to talk with you about it. There's a lot of good conversation to be had and a lot of opportunity for us all to grow in that conversation. I highly recommend The Armed Man, and I hope you managed to see one of the many live performances of it today. It's very moving, and a very interesting exploration of all kinds of armed conflict.

I'm still craving more discussion about the other things.

Shrimp Greens Pasta--better recipe than name.

I made an impromptu dinner last night and Kat liked it so well that she requested it again tonight. Tonight she requested that I not forget that one, so I thought what better insurance against forgetting it than to blog about it.

Get the pasta going. Put some cleaned & dried shrimp in a bowl with roasted Hatch (New Mexico) green chile and garlic. Sauté a bunch of fresh greens (rainbow chard and tot soi were the key ingredients but it could work with a lot of them) in olive oil with a splash of apple cider vinegar until barely wilted. Ideally, the pasta should be about al dente at the same time--drain it when it is, drizzle it in olive oil, and set it aside. Put the shrimp mixture in the sauté pan, sear it on both sides, and turn off the heat, mix the pasta in there, toss it all and serve with Parmesiano Regiano.

Yum. I'll try to remember to take a picture next time I make it.

can't focus on any one thing, so why not write?

I can't seem to focus my mind on any one thing right now. I keep hopping from site to site looking for something to occupy my mind, and nothing is really doing it for any length of time. I suppose that probably means I should just go to bed already, but there's this restlessness in me, too, which is keeping me up. So, yeah, can't focus--why not write? I don't know why that made any sense in my head, and furthermore why I'm writing it here in a blog instead of in some kind of journal. I guess there's that fine line between a blog and a journal these days. Well, some people seem to think it's a fine line, I don't so much. There's a big difference. I don't write in either as often as I think I should or as much as I aspire to do, but when I write in the journal, I'm not expecting anyone to ever read it; when I write a blog post, I feel like I'm talking to someone. Not necessarily anyone in particular. Not you, or the other guy who was just here, or his cousin; just talking to someone nondescript.

For some reason, this reminds me of a blog post a friend of mine from high school wrote the other day. She was talking about habits she's trying to get into and ended by asking for the readers aspirational habits. All I could think of was that I'm trying to get in the habit of brushing my teeth twice a day instead of only once. I swear, I don't think I've brushed my teeth more than once any day since I wrote that comment. What is that all about?

I also don't know how I managed to forget that I'm trying to get in the habit of writing. In a journal, a blog, on a project I'm noodling around with, in some way. That's why I started this blog.

So maybe that's why I'm here tonight with this stream of consciousness. Thanks for dropping by.