PART I: night
I'm developing musical habits. I guess that could mean that I'm developing a style.
And, actually, come to think of it, I rather like it. I always tend to start with all the possibilities, but I keep choosing this particular set over and over. And there's still plenty of room for variety and improvisation.

The most recent video I made does not fit this style. It's more representative of me reaching beyond myself, pulling in more atonality, experimenting. And I like to listen to it, but it's not really *me*. I am not my preferences; I don't want to express my preferences. But likes and dislikes are a treasure map to what's buried on a desert island.

I don't want to give away all my good ideas before they're ready.

PART II: morning
I had the feeling last night that I had an important realization that I wanted to write about, but I could not remember what it was. Turns out, it's memory. I listened to a podcast on the way up here that described what researchers at Stanford are learning about how we learn, and the most salient detail that remains with me is how different parts of the brain remember different things. We like to forget (or ignore) that there are different types of learning, but there are several: factual memory (hippocampus), emotional memory (amygdala), habit memory (basal ganglia), perception (cerebral cortex), and motor memory (cerebellum).

So, as if I didn't know this about myself, our ability to remember emotions is different than our ability to remember facts; we can remember the emotion but forget the details surrounding those emotions. The story of my life. And probably everyone's. Because those two functions are in separate regions, an event can trigger an emotion even when the original event and the emotion are no longer associated together.

Even more amusing: our motor abilities are controlled by a different region than our higher brain functions. That's why we can ride a bike even when we're stupid drunk. Not that anyone would ever do that.


So, we're carrying around all these memories that we don't even consider part of our memory. I guess they would be our subconsciousness. But there are at least three different brain parts that seem to correspond to subconscious memories: amygdala, basal ganglia, and cerebellum. The emotional memories in the amygdala are probably the most exciting/powerful/frightening: lodes of data to mine.

All for now. I'm headed back to Chicago for NYE this afternoon. I have some resolutions to make before then.

navel-gazing

Sometimes you have to close your eyes while you type so you can see your thoughts more clearly.

Sometimes you have to close your eyes while you listen to hear the music better.

from ballou to you

I'm in the city, anxiously avoiding doing any real work. The work is not the fun kind but the kind that inspires the best procrastinations: moving and sorting the material remains of a former self.

I wanted to add another commitment to my list: finish a piano piece for a contest and an application. Hopefully by the middle of next week.

I had a great idea in the shower today involving another piano piece, Ableton Live and looping. You'll see what I mean when I realize it.

Now time to go home and sift for gold in a sea of crap.

in pursuit of lost time

I'm almost at the end of a period of time that didn't exist. Like a blip on the radar, it came, saw, and conquered and is now on its way out the door. The holidays are a weird period of stasis that occur between moments of activity. And in those periods, I'm never sure how to be. They come around so rarely, and each one tainted by the real-life time that came before, that it's hard to practice. I almost always feel blind-sided and confused. Until it's over, and then it starts to make sense but it's too late.

Christmas is especially difficult for those of us who aren't really sure what we're celebrating. Christmas used to be full of magic and wonder, but now the soul seems to have been sucked out through the nose hole and there is only the shell of obligatory gift-giving and togetherness. Both of which are grand but there's ceasing to be anything really unique or particular about Christmas compared to other holidays.

I spent Christmas in France once where the traditions are much older and deeper, aided by the homogeneity of both religion and denomination. It started with Midnight Mass in which the people of a small village in Normandy willingly participated even though the majority were highly secularized and hardly religious. Then the family I was visiting (with all of its various extensions) returned to the farm house and got to the eating and drinking - la Réveillon.

What a great feast! For me, clearly, the mystique was in the novelty of the various oysters, foie gras, champagne (the real stuff), and other delicacies that I couldn't even name or remember. After midnight, we went to the Christmas Tree room and our shoes had been filled with gifts. Magic! Turns out, it wasn't really magic; while we were eating, Père Noël had done the deed.

This Christmas, going through the motions continues to feel more like routine than ritual. Having forgotten the "reason" for the season, I am still looking for a way to root myself, some tradition or belief that gives the holiday depth and purpose. As far as the routine goes, I did a decent job getting thoughtful presents, even planning ahead and using the hunter method of shopping--much less stressful than my usual meandering and gathering. For me learning to be a good shopper is to embrace my inner hunter--much more enjoyable, much better results, and then I can go home and drink the blood of my enemies.

And the echoes of the past seem louder and heavier this year than before. Maybe that's because I'm finally listening. So maybe soon I'll understand.

I'm in the burbs right now, headed back to the city to clean up and pack up the rest of my stuff. Then after a few days in the Chi-area, back to Michigan for the end of the week. My parents will be up there too, so it won't be quite the same as the last two weeks. Still good though. And then New Year's. I don't have any definite plans, so if you know of exciting things going on in the city, let me know. I'll also be in need of a place to stay that weekend: wink, wink.

a day in the life

I talked to my mom today. Turns out Christmas is Friday and I should go home tomorrow. I would be content to stay one more day and make it a full week up here; I'm building momentum.

My mom requested that I talk less about philosophy and more about my life. To be fair, I didn't really say anything specific; I was really just padding the post with content, for I didn't have much in the way of excitement yesterday. So, just quickly, I think it's interesting how Kant, Baudrillard, Richard Bach, The Secret, and the Matrix all have the same thing in common: reality exists in your mind. I think therefore reality exists.

I especially like the way the woman in the video flinches when she says "simulacrum".

So my life today: set an alarm, got up early, planned on planning but took a spontaneous constitutional to the lake, wanted to stop in at the corner market, didn't, coffee, got right to work, focused, intense, curried oatmeal at 11, more coffee (caffeine doesn't affect me as much as it used to), started a new atonal piano piece, improvised a fantastic ending, finished a project (finally!), recorded an improvisation (see below), dinner.

I did make the following plans: apply (again) to Bang on a Can Festival, apply for a CAAP to make a website, finish this new piano piece for a competition in January. Really soon, I need to look at other festivals.

Tomorrow I leave the cottage for the weekend and won't return until the middle of next week, possibly not until after New Years.

I had wanted to give you (and the world) some sort of music from time to time, but that hasn't materialized in a real way. So I did a little improvisation and took video with the Mac. For some reason the video stopped partway through, so I had to fudge it. The sound I was recording in Ableton Live using some shmancy Steinway. I usually use the Bechstein; the Steinway is a little bright. Now if only my keyboard had a better feel and sensitivity.

developing variations

Sometimes you have to surprise yourself, change things up. I got up early, walked to the beach. You know me, I'm always varying the structure--before you could even call it a structure. Keep it interesting. Almost incoherent.

adornable

I've been mentally bathing in the sea of the early 20th century for the last month. It started through a confluence of three rivers of circumstance: we started covering the 20th century in music appreciation, I brushed up on Schoenberg's Pierrot Lunaire for an interview and video, and I started reading Alex Ross's The Rest is Noise. I find that period fascinating for its instability and change, a time of opposition between violently creative and destructive forces ultimately leading to the Great War and it's illegitimate offspring, WWII.

And so I'm studying up on Adorno. But thanks to the teleological nature of Western civilization leading up to the last century, it's hard to jump into the river mid-stream; by then the water is flowing too fast. But the roots of Adorno are in Marx, rooted in Hegel, rooted in Kant, reacting to Hume, and so on all the way back. Which is to say to the Greeks: all Western philosophy is just footnotes to Plato, right?

Fortunately, the early 20th century also saw the end of a single (Germanic) teleology and a disillusionment with progress. But though there's more diversity in philosophy, it's still ultimately about the Germans and the Greeks.


Aside from drowning in philosophy, I felt motivated and inspired today and worked on music all day. Had to get out of the house to enjoy the snow. It's so white! Tomorrow my plan is to plan more in the morning--not just for the rest of the week, but for the next 3 months. There's a lot to do but there's a limitless future in which to do it. Time to get down with some cartography and chart a course.

Montag

I came up last night. The weekend was packed with socializing, plotting Christmas purchases, and even just packing. In retrospect, it was a bit wearing.

Which solves the riddle I was asking this morning: "Why am I so tired and unmotivated?"

I realized that the remote, undisclosed location is not a magic bullet (go, go, go!) but is just part of the overall solution. I still have to show up and be present. Which is exactly what I was having trouble with this morning. Even after coffee.

So I threw the ingredients in the bread machine and took a walk down to the beach. I suspected that part of the problem was also the gorging I did the night before at a party. But whatever it was, it was my brain that was foggy. I couldn't find my motivation on the beach either, although I had a nice sit on a log on the snow. On the way back, I felt a strong desire to go buy something at the corner store--happiness through consumption--but I couldn't think of a thing I needed.

Finally, after a second cup of coffee, at about 11am Chicago time, I got down to work. I came to understand the procrastination is really the act of distracting your brain from what you should be doing in hopes that the motivation to do that will magically appear. In the creative process, that can sometimes work. All this talk of procrastination...off to make some hot chocolate.

That brings up the second form of procrastination: interruptive procrastination. When you're doing a task that is either not the easiest or is just not that exciting, you're more prone to have tangential (or non-sequitur) thoughts and are more likely to give into them. At least I am. I have such thoughts a lot. It's one of my superpowers, but I've got to keep it in czech.

[Like writing this blog: how many random references is too many.]

I managed to work a good 5 or 6 hours today. Today just proves my 3rd favorite maxim: tomorrow begins tonight. That is, whatever you do tonight will affect your tomorrow. I got up around 11 last night after a hectic day. How could I expect to hit the ground running this morning? I think I first discovered this maxim when I was drinking more.

Here's a video that I happened upon today. It's pretty much about what I'm doing, and he even calls it a sabbatical. My friend and former CSU colleague rolled his eyes when I called it that. If you don't have 17 minutes, at least watch the first 5 or so. And if you don't have time for that, here's the shortest summary: We need time off. Whether you work for 7 months and have 5 off, or work for 7 years and have 1 off, a sabbatical refuels our fire and refocuses our vision.

every week's end is another's beginning

Today, Sunday, is the end of the weekend and thus approaching the next beginning. Just like I would tell my music appreciation students, it's these moments of punctuation, cadences, that define the form. This weekend has felt like a deceptive cadence, an anticlimax--not that I was expecting anything much. In fact, I had steeled myself for the reentry to the city, not unlike reentry from space, but was still somewhat jarred by the multitude of possibility that the city possesses.

Friday evening, I came back to the city from the cottage, which is in a part of Michigan that I have a little trouble describing. It's not quite rural, nor is it urban or suburban or even exurban. There are, indeed, farms not too far away, but there's also vacation homes, rentals, a casino, and the beach. I'm going to stick with rural, although there's always a bag of Intelligentsia coffee beans is only a short walk away.

As I got closer to the city, I started to notice myself feeling a subtle unease. It could have been the traffic or the very act of driving, but by the time I got back to the apartment, I had lost most of the peace-of-mind that I thought I had found. Turns out, it's ephemeral.

Not to worry, I steadily recuperated all day Saturday (aided by an accidental overcaffeination) and some biking around the cold, snow-drizzled city in pursuit of good conversation. I spent the caffeination time, at the cafe, sorting through the night before trying to figure out what caused me to crash. I started using the word "oppressive" to describe the energy of the city: too many distractions, too many possibilities, too many people. The wave hit me, knocked me down, and then it took me a night to surface. By Saturday afternoon, I felt like my old self--the Chicago self--but maybe a little more focused and wiser. Progress, not perfection.

Saturday evening, I saw people I knew: some friends, colleagues, and even some students from CSU. One was disappointed that I wouldn't be her theory teacher next semester: alas. But I noticed that, after a week of limited human exposure, I actually liked talking to people (and telling them about my new life). Before leaving, it had seemed such a chore to explain what I was doing; now it's kind of fun!

Still dumb things to do. The old apartment, itself, is oppressive in its disorder. There are still some piles destined for storage or things I just don't know what to do with yet. And I keep procrastinating thinking there's a better last minute than this one.

Today, Sunday, I've got to try to make a little more order, forage for provisions, and then I'm off to a Christmas Tea party that I thought was yesterday. Turns out, it's today. It made me wonder, in this day of facebook events and calendars in sync, how I can get the day of a party a whole day off. Then headed back to the wild this pm.

Day 4: End of Act I

It's time to leave for the week. I had another productive day working on "Perfume" by Corbett. If you don't know that song by now, you should really listen on his site. In fact, you should do that now while you're reading. I'm almost done with the arrangement, so for now you can whet your appetite on the unadorned version.

I don't have time to say much, but I wanted to leave you with the final piece of the blog title puzzle. A quotation from the introduction of Jens Peter Jacobsen's Mogens:

His characters are not studied tissue by tissue as under a scientist's microscope, rather they are built up living cell by living cell out of the author's experience and imagination. He shows how they are conditioned and modified by their physical being, their inheritance and environment. Through each of his senses he lets impressions from without pour into him. He harmonizes them with a passionate desire for beauty into marvelously plastic figures and moods. A style which grows thus organically from within is style out of richness; the other is style out of poverty.

In a letter he once stated his belief that every book to be of real value must embody the struggle of one or more persons against all those things which try to keep one from existing in one's own way. That is the fundamental ethos which runs through all of Jacobsen's work. It is in Marie Grubbe, Niels Lyhne, Mogens, and the infinitely tender Mrs. Fonss.

Day 3: Simplified

This will be short, because I just spent all my word-writing time on my other blog. I take on blogs like Chirac took on mistresses.

Draguer is the French verb for flirt; bloguer is the French verb for blog. And here in Michigan, with a limited array of options, I can focus on the latter.

That's one thing I've noticed while up here. In the city, with seemingly infinite possibilities, there is stress involved in making those decisions. Every decision is an act of violence, killing off all unwanted possibilities in favor of the one. My mom told me a story about some friends who were in Saudi Arabia for a couple years. Going to the supermarket was a breeze because there's only one store, one brand, one choice. Here, in the land of unending possibility, I find grocery shopping incredibly taxing, because I'm always thinking about price, quality, value, etc. i have since committed to some decisions that limit my choice and so free me from that burden. Same store, same products, a few impulsive buys.

Here, in Michigan, I don't really know anyone and don't really feel the need to. So far. There's no question about what I'll be doing with my time: I've made that decision already and now just have to follow through with it.

The den in which I compose (or arrange like today) is a forgotten corner of the house that no one could figure out how to use. It had been mostly used for storage until I came along. Now we are finding our purposes intertwining.

Tomorrow, back to the city for the weekend. I don't quite feel like I've worked enough to deserve it, but I'm just starting to build momentum.

A quick note on the blog title. The first two options were already taken. One, "into the void", I liked because that was my stock answer to people asking where I was moving to. The other, "noise and haste", was once the name of a stillborn website project. So I searched around a bit, found nothing, and then remembered Rilke. I have read his "Letters to a Young Poet", but it didn't seem perfectly applicable at the time. It seems more so now, so I started to read the first letter. In it, he cites Jens Peter Jacobsen, a Danish author, as being one of the authors whose books he keeps with him--along with the Bible. So I downloaded a free e-book (project Gutenberg) called "Mogens and Other Stories". More later.

Day 2: Dust Settles

I've been here two full days, but it seems like much longer. I'm digging new grooves in the soft clay and yet they seem so familiar. Soon they'll become ruts but of my own doing.

The new morning routine is: make bed, do some yoga or push ups, breakfast and coffee, free write. Then to music. I've never been one to feel a strong need to make my bed, but I'm trying to keep a more orderly existence; it seems like a good place to start. I figure I've already got chaos down pat, so let's give order a try.

So today I worked on an arrangement of Perfume by Mysteriam. You can hear their version on their website. I'd been playing with it for a while off and on but still hadn't found the right combination of instruments. Until today. It's by no means done, but I at least know where to begin: clarinets and strings all on middle D.

That took me up to lunch. And continued after lunch. At about 3 Laura came over.

I tried to finish the piano piece I started yesterday, but I'm being too perfectionistic. I'll have something for you all to hear by the end of the week.

The night is so beautiful here, especially when it's clear like tonight. I forget what a rich tapestry of stars the night sky can be. Laura and I went to Cafe Gulistan partially because it was the only thing open. And as it turns out, we were the only customers. There was another couple there but were on assignment from a local news magazine and were taking lots of pictures. They even photographed our food, making us wait an extra 5 minutes. It was an interesting exercise in desire and anticipation, something I don't usually experience with food. I was hungry and ate the whole thing, even taking the hock of lamb home "to make soup." I'm assuming you just boil it in some water.

I still have yet to explain the blog title. It'll have to wait till tomorrow.

Day 1: the back story

I made it through the escape hatch and am now drifting in space. The bright lights and sirens gives way to the inky blackness and silence of southwest Michigan.

For those of you who don't know, I quit everything. It felt good to say that in the weeks leading up to now. People at parties would cock their head to one side and ask: "everything?" And so I would explain that I've got things to do, but they are constantly getting put on the back burner by quotidian tedium. They would look even more confused when I would tell them that I've got to go pack because I'm moving. "Where?" Out. I'm leaving, moving, out. I'm setting myself adrift, so I can't be weighed down.

Up until last week, I had been teaching at Chicago State University, a university most famous for being where Kanye's mom taught before his wealth unburdened her of working for a living. I taught music theory and appreciation--two classes, although one could argue that all music theory should include appreciation.

"The trouble with music appreciation in general is that people are taught to have too much respect for music; they should be taught to love it instead." - Stravinsky

Stravinsky couldn't anticipate today's youth who have no respect for anything. Not that I'm much better.

I generally enjoyed teaching, although it's a lot of work. And, not having a Phd, I wasn't tenurable, or even full-timeable, so I ended up working a lot for a little. Granted, it was more than I was used to making teaching piano a couple of days a week, and since I was living so well within my means, I built up some reserves. Which now allows me to spend some quality time in a cabin in Michigan thinking, writing, and organizing sounds in time.

My last final was last Wednesday, my roommate left on Thursday, and I spent the whole weekend packing and sorting. There needs to be a list of clever adjectives that describe tasks. For that task, I would choose the adjective that means: "tedious sifting through items belonging to the past deciding what to keep at hand, store, sell, recycle, trash, or throw into the middle of the street at 3am." I wanted to call it sisyphean, but that's only because I like that story (it makes me think of Mercerism in Blade Runner).

And it's not quite done, but at least the big decisions are made. I hate not knowing the proper way of disposing of things that are potentially useful but not valuable. I've been donating a lot of these items to my mom's resale shop.

But on Monday, I decided that I'd done just about as much as I could. I had a piano lesson to teach at 5--which involved dinner--and then improvised with a sax-playing friend. Finally, at 9, I could start packing. Finishing about 11:30, I was off with a brief stop for a burger and fries, which I ate in the car. The government should really make it illegal to eat certain foods in the car. Fries, ok. Burger, maybe not. Lobster, no. Anything involving chopsticks, no. But I made it, safe and sound to my new sometimes home at ~1am Chicago time, 2am Michigan time. I unloaded as much as I could and collapsed into an overstuffed...um...chair. [Is there a word for a recliner that doesn't recline?]

So today, Tuesday, I set up my life. Here's a picture of my Mac on my desk. I have come to believe what a former girlfriend once told me: "clean space, clean mind."

After a trip to a cafe-cum-general-store called "Milda's" and a walk to the beach, I sat down and worked on a piece for piano. I wanted to finish it and just put it up on the net, but that'll have to wait till tomorrow.

In part, I'm writing this for friends and family so they can check in on me, but I'm also writing this as an ersatz journal. It's hard for me, sometimes, to hold myself accountable. I make no small plans, but no good are big plans left unfinished.

Time for bed. Tomorrow begins tonight.