Re-creation

Fall is fully here, which in San Francisco means no fog or wind or rain and average temperatures between 65 and 70. My wife and I decided to actually do something a bit different together other than our usual separate and together routines. So off we set on a 5 mile walk to the ocean through our beloved Golden Gate Park. A good deal of our route was on car-free JFK Drive, all set up and designed for human connection and communion. Consider:

 

Ten volleyball games in Robin Williams Meadow, the drummers gathered on Hippy Hill, the tennis and pickleball courts, the yellow Adirondack chairs spread around everywhere filled with people gathering, the Roller Skaters dancing to recorded music, the little live jazz band playing some Monk tunes, the ping-pong tables now multiplied to three and always full, the cornhole game that I almost always play alone, but today someone was there and I had two nice games with a stranger who now wants a re-match next week. 

 

He had just come from the outdoor Lindy Hop classes and further down was one of the three pianos on car-free JFK Drive with a singer and guitars and a crowd listening. Much of this was put together post-pandemic and consciously so, going through the democratic process of a voter’s initiative to close this section of the road in the park. It was a bit of a struggle, but we prevailed and we all are happier for it. So many more people than before are walking, skating, biking, jogging, dancing down the road painted with murals and dotted with sculptures, almost like an ongoing Festival feel. 

 

There’s more of the same as we walked on the new paths by a revived Middle Lake near the fly-fishing pools, a tucked-away Native garden and some older paths alongside the frisbee-golf courses. All this fun and fanciful recreation, which noting the etymology of “re-creation” does indeed go a long way to re-creating our playful, childlike and joyful selves in company with others who we already know or come to know through the activity. I have an upcoming post about “offense and defense,” the conversation between pro-actively creating and living the life we deserve and reacting to all the forces that work against it, doing the work to limit the power of the naysayers and the life-haters and the glum greedy accumulators. Seems like we can’t just do one without the other, tomorrow being a case in point. So much at stake and we’re all waiting to exhale into exultation. 

 

And when the future we deserve gets voted in tomorrow, that’s when the real work begins, building day by day a life a fun and fanciful and fantastically fabulous as a Sunday stroll through Golden Gate Park. Let it be so!!!!

Fall Back, Move Forward

The clocks changed today. We are gifted with an extra hour of the day and the question is, “What will we do with it?” Talk a walk? Strum a guitar? Dig out an old favorite recipe and cook a delicious meal? Call voters?" Me, I might sit on the back deck and read the next chapter of my current book, “The Idiot” by Fyodor Dostoevsky, a book which will probably soon be banned from the Left unless the title is changed to “The Neurodivergent Man (he/his).” 

 

Speaking of banned books and the gift of extra hours, Dostoevsky’s biography is quite remarkable. Back in the 1940’s in Moscow, he joined a literary group called The Petrashevksy Circle and they would meet and sometimes discuss banned books that dared to criticize Tsarist Russia. Tsarist Russia, like Trumpist America, did not like that and arrested Dostoevsky, sentencing him and others to death. The group actually was led out to the firing squad and minutes before being executed, a letter arriving commuting their sentence to four years in a Siberian prison camp instead. Followed by six years of compulsory military service. 

 

Can you imagine those moments before the letter came? In the character of the Prince (the “idiot” in the book who is anything but), Dostoevsky weaves the real story into the fictional one: “To be killed by legal sentence is immeasurably more terrible than to be killed by robbers. A man stabbed by robbers in the forest still hopes he’ll be saved until the very last minute. But when sentenced for execution, all hope is taken away for certain and the whole torment lies in the certainty that there’s no escape. There’s no greater torment in the world than that."

 

He then goes on. “Maybe there’s a man who has had the sentence read to him, has been allowed to suffer and has then been told, ‘Go, you’re forgiven.” That man might be able to tell us something.”

 

That man, as noted, was Dostoevsky and he indeed goes on to use an entire lifetime re-gifted to him to tell us something, in the form of some of the most notable books in all of literature. 

 

The clock is ticking toward Tuesday and there is a hint of that feeling of a date set for either an execution—the death of Democracy— or a reprieve— Kamala wins!! Here’s some Dostoevsky’s quotes that Republicans and non-voters would do well to consider. (The first might be preceded by “You may excuse other’s lies, but…”)

 

• Above all, don’t lie to yourself. 

• The worst sin is that you have destroyed and betrayed yourself for nothing.

• Man has it all in his hands, and it slips through his fingers from sheer cowardice. 

• Tolerance will reach such a level that intelligent people will be banned from thinking so as not to offend the imbeciles. 

 

 And for those needing encouragement if the unthinkable happens:

 

• The soul is healed by being with children.

• If you want to overcome the world, overcome yourself.

• Allow me to give you some advice from the heart. There is a single refuge, a single medicine: art and creative work.

• The deeper the grief, the closer is God. 

• The darker the night, the brighter the stars.

 

The clocks changed today, falling back to grant us an extra hour. Let us use that time to move forward, in whatever way suits our character. 

Say What You Mean, Mean What You Say

 

                        “I said it! I meant it! I’m here to represent it!”  -Rap song

 

I had great hopes for my Jazz, Joy & Justice book to make a big splash in the world. The theme couldn’t have been more timely and no one had ever written anything quite like it. My decades of teaching more than qualified me for knowing how to talk to 5^th grade and above kids and make it readable and interesting for adults as well. The blend of telling “The Stories Every American Should Know” (the subtitle), the fabulous Youtube videos I suggest and the call to action as I ask reflective questions at the end of each chapter seemed destined to make this book a “must read” and qualify it for the YA New York Times Best-Seller List. 

 

Of course, none of this has happened. (At least not yet.) One thing working against it is the fact that jazz is on the bottom of the list of most-listened to musics in America, hovering somewhere around 2% of the listening population, according to various surveys. Another is that I have no literary credentials beyond my little world of Orff music teachers. If John Grisham or Ann Patchett wrote it, I believe it would attract attention. Another is that while I constantly shine the light on black culture and the black musicians who created and sustained this music, I myself am not black. If Isabel Wilkerson or Angela Davis wrote it, more people would be interested. Finally, I have no reputation (deservedly so) as a jazz musician, so I can’t put it out in the public spotlight the way Wynton Marsalis or Esperanza Spalding could. That’s the way the business works and I get it. 

But still I wish this publisher had their act together more. The whole reason I didn’t publish this book myself with my own Pentatonic Press was to try to get a bigger engine behind it to reach a larger audience. It also was attractive that they offered an e-book and an audio book. When I say “offered,” it meant I had to pay a certain amount of the production courses with hopes that I’d eventually be paid back with royalties. Sigh. 

 

Well, they did finally publish the book, with some 10 mistakes that need correcting in a next edition. They’ve done absolutely nothing in terms of publicity, getting the book in libraries, reaching an audience beyond my friends and work colleagues. They did put together an e-book that someone said was terrible, just photos of the pages. And they did send me samples of the audio book that had problem after problem.

 

The first problem was that of the five sample readers, four were from England with British accents in a book about American jazz. I declined, asked them to try again and strongly suggested that they get an African-American person to read it (Morgan Freeman would have been great!) Or else let me read it since I wrote it and knew exactly how say what I meant and how to represent it. But no, that’s not the way they work and yesterday, they sent me the whole book read by a white American guy who starts off pronouncing my grandson Malik’s name wrong in the dedication and goes on to read the book as if he’s just reading a book out loud. It’s clear from the tone that the words don’t mean much, if anything, to him. It seems to me that there’s nothing in his background— not a black man, not a jazz fan, not a teacher, not a crusader for social justice—that qualifies him to read this book. It’s hard for me to imagine a listener convinced, inspired, uplifted by a book that deserves some passion and instead, is read like a someone reading a newspaper article out loud.

 

If this post was only to air my grievances, that would be unfair to you as a reader. The greater point is in the opening quote. We all need to mean what we say and say what we mean and represent it through our very lives and actions. I certainly did all of it in writing the book and it’s a shame that it won’t come across in this audio version. But if you’re intrigued, buy the book and read it yourself. 

 

And imagine Morgan Freeman’s voice. 

Turning the Page

This morning, I turned all the pages on the calendars to November.  For my family, always a big-deal month. My father-in-law Ted’s birthday and now Zadie’s birthday is on Nov. 18^th and my Dad’s was one day later on the 19^th. My nephew Ian’s birthday is the 25^th and my daughter Talia’s one-day later on the 26^th. (Her 40^th!!) One friend’s birthday is November 8^th and another November 9^th. Three sets of such paired birthdays feels unusual! Can’t think of any other month where that happens with people I know.

 

November is also the annual Orff Conference that I’ve attended without pause since 1984 (and two before that in 1976 and 1982). As I believe I’ve shared before, I can recite the order of the cities where they were held and tell you a few stories about each one. But I’ll spare you the list for now. 

 

Then there’s Thanksgiving, mostly always shared with my sister and her family and now a bit more complicated as we’re all spread out. But it looks like we’ll have a small one with daughter Kerala and kids in Portland on the real Thanksgiving and then a larger one the next day with my sister and her husband and nephew Ian’s family (another paired celebration two days in a row!). 

 

And so. The photos on the turned calendar pages include two lovely smiling people in Kenya picking coffee beans as part of a small-business social justice initiative. A temple in a lake in Bali. A beachfront on Lake Michigan. A 5-year-old girl’s painting that looks like a bright water lily in a pond. Happy, hopeful, uplifting images suggesting good news to come. And how we need it.

 

So my friends, as we turn the pages on the calendars, let us turn the page to a new book, discard that same old tired story of greed, hatred, small-mindedness, fear, ignorance, injustice and begin telling the new story, begin living the new story of care and kindness and compassion. The flooding in Spain and typhoon in Taipei are alerting us in the strongest possible terms that business-as-usual cannot continue. The young people are counting on their elders to do the right thing to protect their future and uplift their present. So let us drop the first paragraph of the new needed story into the ballot box and make this November the moment when we chose life, love and laughter, the beginning of the story our kids can tell their grandchildren— “Yes, that was the moment we finally said  ‘Enough!’ and began telling the new story that we’re all enjoying now.”

 

May it be so!

A Story for Our Time

It’s Halloween. Always my favorite holiday, especially when I taught at The San Francisco School. Besides the fun of the costumes and the Middle-School-run booths—the Haunted House, bobbing for apples, fortune-telling, etc.— there was the unique Intery Mintery ritual performance (available for viewing at www.thesecretsongfilm.com). And then at the end of the day, the elementary kids gathered once more and I told them a story. Choosing what stories to tell and when and why is an art form in itself, so besides picking one with a big of magic and at least a little scary, I would always think about what the story would speak to relevant to our particular times. 

 

So today, this storyteller is all dressed up with nowhere to go (no schools have invited me in—waaah!), so I might as well tell one here. It’s a Norse folk tale titled “The Giant Who Had No Heart in His Body.”

 

Once upon a time, once before a time, once inside a time and once for our time, there was a King and a Queen with seven sons. They loved them as parents should and maybe a bit more, as they couldn’t bear to be without at least one by their side at any time. As happens, children grow and keep on growing until they are ready to leave home and set out in the world. And so it came to pass that the six oldest decided it was time to go out and seek their life’s partners. The King and Queen insisted that the youngest stay home to keep them company and bid farewell to the others, giving them the finest clothes and horses. The sons visited many neighboring palaces in search of love and finally came to one where there was another Kind and Queen with five daughters and one son. They set to wooing and each seemed to find the one just right for them. 

On their way home, they passed a giant’s house and there the giant came out and for no other reason than to cause trouble (though some say he was jealous that no one loved him), he turned them all to stone. The King and Queen waited for their six sons, but alas, as time dragged on, they finally had to admit that some great trouble had come upon them.

 

The youngest, whose name was Boots, tried to console his parents and then asked their permission to set out to try to find his brothers. His parents were sick with worry that he, too, would never come home, but finally they relented. The only horse left in the stable was a broken-down old mare, but Boots didn’t mind and off he went on the sorry old steed.

 

Along the way he encountered a Raven on the road who was dying of hunger and begged Boots for a little food, suggesting that if he did, the Raven would one day repay him by coming to his aid in his hour of need. 

 

“No need for that,” said Boots, who secretly doubted a mere Raven could ever be of use to him, “I’m happy to share the little bit of food I have.” And so he did.

 

A little further on, he came upon a Salmon who had washed up on the riverbank and couldn’t get back into the water. The Salmon made the same offer of future help if Boots would only set him back into the stream. “No need for that” said Boots, "I’m happy just to help you."

 

Yet further down the road, he encountered a Wolf who was so famished that he crawled on his belly with his ribs sticking out. The Wolf told how he hadn’t eaten in two years and asked if Boots would sacrifice his horse to feed him. This was too much for Boots, who not only felt sorry for the horse but told the Wolf he needed him to ride on. The Wolf promised that once he was well-fed, Boots could ride upon his back. Truth be told, the horse was near the end of his days so Boots agreed and the deed was done. 

 

Boots told the Wolf of his quest to find his brothers and the Wolf said, “I know where they are.” Boots then mounted the Wolf and they rode off at great speed until they reached the Giant’s house. 

 

The Wolf pointed to the frozen brothers and their new partners and told Boots, “Go into the Giant’s house and there you’ll find a Princess who will tell you how to free your brothers and make an end to the Giant. Do exactly as she says.”

 

With fear and trembling, Boots entered the house and there he saw the loveliest Princess he had ever set eyes on. “Oh, heaven help you!” she exclaimed. “Why are you here? Don’t you know a terrible Giant lives here and no one escapes alive! And he can’t be killed because he has no heart in his body!”

 

“I am here to free my brothers,” said Boots summoning up all his courage ”and if we come up with a plan, perhaps we can free you as well. For I see that you are afraid and are held here against your will.”

 

“That is as true as true can be. Let’s try this. Creep under this bed, be still as a mouse and listen carefully to everything the Giant and I talk about.”

 

Just then the Giant came roaring in, bellowing “Fee! Fi! Foe! Fum! I smell the blood of an Englishmun!” The Princess told him that a magpie had flown over the house with a man’s bone and accidentally dropped it down the chimney and the smell of it lingered all day. She calmed him down and made him dinner and that night in bed, said, 

 

“Dear Giant. There is one thing I’ve always been curious about. I’ve noticed you don’t keep your heart in your body. Pray tell, where is it?”

 

“That’s none of your business!” said the Giant. But after a bit, he said, “If you must know, it lies under the doorsill.”

 

The next morning, after the Giant went out of the house and off to do whatever it is Giants do, Boots and the Princess dug under the doorsill until they finally had to admit they had been tricked and there was nothing there. They picked beautiful flowers and laid them all over the doorsill to hide the fact that they had been digging there and Boots once more crept under the bed. 

 

Once more the Giant came in intoning his "Fee! Fi! Foe! Fum!" chant and once more the Princess said another magpie had dropped a bone. When he asked about the flowers on the doorsill, she sweetly replied, “Why, I love you so that knowing your heart lay under the doorsill, I wanted to make it pretty.”

 

“Ha ha!!" roared the Giant. "You silly girl, that’s not where my heart is. I keep in the cupboard against the wall!”

 

The next day, Boots and the Princess searched there, to no avail and again decorated it with flowers. Again, came the Giant sniffing the air and again came the magpie story and again came asking about the flowers and again came the answer about making his heart’s place pretty. Again the Giant roared with laughter, “How can you be so foolish as to believe my story?!” For the Giant had lied about things all his life and took special pleasure in fooling people. “You’ll never know where my heart lies!”

 

But the Princess put on her sweetest charms and pleaded with him and finally he relented:

 

“Well, you’ll never find it, so I guess there’s no harm in telling you. Far, far way in a lake lies an island and on that island there stands a church and in that church there is a well and in that well there swims a duck and in that duck there is an egg and in that egg—well, that’s where my heart is. Now stop bothering me and let me go to sleep.”

 

The next morning, Boots said farewell to the Princess, vowing he would return, and left the house. There he mounted the Wolf in search of that island. On they went for days, over hedge and field, over hill and dale, until they finally came to the lake. The Wolf jumped into the lake, still with the Prince on his back, and swam over to the island. They stood in front of the church and were discouraged to discover that the door was locked. Then they spotted the keys in a tower up high. Boots was despairing of how to ever get them and then remembered the Raven. He called for him and the Raven appeared on the spot and flew up to retrieve the keys. They entered the church and came to the well and there was the duck, swimming back and forth. The Prince leaned over and grabbed the duck, but just as he lifted him up, the duck dropped the egg deep into the well. Once again, Boots was in despair and then he remembered the Salmon. He called for him and the Salmon appeared and fetched up the egg from the bottom of the well.

 

The Wolf told the Prince to squeeze the egg and when he did, the Giant screamed out in pain. “Squeeze it again” advised the Wolf and when he did, the Giant screamed yet more piteously, so loud he could be heard all the way to where Boots and his friends where. He begged Boots to stop and promised he would do anything he wished if he would not squeeze his heart in two. The Wolf advised:

 

“Tell him to unfreeze your brothers and their new sweethearts and bring them to life again.” That the Giant did. “Now squeeze the egg in two” said the Wolf and that Boots did and the Giant fell down dead. He then rode back to the Giant’s house, rejoicing with his brothers and traveled with them and his own Princess bride back to their parent’s castle. There they held a great celebratory feast and the mirth was so loud and long, I believe they are still at it!

 

And so, a story for our time. The squeezing of the egg will take place Tuesday at the ballot box and this heartless Giant’s lies and hatreds and greed will fall down dead, never to rise again in that particular body. And I for one, plan to be feasting and celebrating for days on end. May it be so!!!

 

Good Karma

I was sitting outside at the Dolores Park Café enjoying my lunch, basking in both the bright sun without and the warm glow within having just helped teach three Middle School classes. This is the school where I have been a mentor to the music teacher and guest teacher of sorts off and on for over three years. Contrary to every public image of 7^th and 8^th graders, these kids are so generous in appreciating what I have to offer, giving me the nickname GOAT. I was confused by it because I’ve yet to play my Bulgarian bagpipe for them, but apparently it stands for the “Greatest of All Time.” Well, I’m not a fan of the rock star mentality, but if that’s how they choose to let me know that my half-century of work has helped me understand how to release their musicality beyond their own expectations, helped me know how to sincerely praise and appreciate their efforts so that they feel respected and valued, heck, I’ll take it! 

 

The day before I took my group gathering singing skills to Golden Gate Park to meet with neighbors and ex-neighbors who moved from my street, but still live close by. This was the group that began singing outdoors a few times a week during the pandemic and though the intervals between gathering are much longer than they were before, still we carry the tradition on. About five families came and the kids who were around 3 and 6 back then are now 7 and 10. A few of the parents wrote to me afterwards thanking me for the time and reporting how their kids were still walking around the house singing the songs. I replied that of course, it was my pleasure and I hoped we’d keep meeting until the kids went off to college. And then probably sing again when they came back to visit! Fates willing, it could be.

At the gathering, I went through my considerable Halloween repertoire and after all those slow, spooky songs in D minor, switched to the major scale and a brisker tempo to my social justice repertoire to buoy us adults up for Election Day coming up. That felt good.

 

The day before that, I went up to the Redwoods Assisted Living and sang with another group of some 30 folks in their 70’s and 80’s. Because of all those years of singing every day at The San Francisco School and playing piano and singing at the Jewish Home for the Aged, I have an engaging varied repertoire, almost all of it at my fingertips without having to read notes in books or look up lyrics on my phone. The happiness in that room was palpable and made even more special by the view out the window looking out at Mt. Tam. 

 

And then the day before that, there I was back at The Jewish Home again with the folks in their 80’s and 90’s and a group that I’ve come to know so I can tailor the song choices to their taste somewhat, making sure to include some of their favorites in every session. I love how some look so startled when they hear “their special song,” as if it was a divine inspiration. I don’t think any of them have Alzheimer’s but it is one of the benefits of diminished memory that they seem surprised by things like that. 

 

So here is my new—well, now in its 4^th year—retired life. All these opportunities to keep making music with the little ones, the budding teenagers, the elders— and of course, all the teachers in their 20’s through 50’s that come to the Orff workshops I’m still teaching. All kinds of music with all kinds of folks at all kinds of ages in all kinds of different places. 

So eating my lunch at The Dolores Park Café, I thought of that line from the “Side by Side” song I had just sung with the 7^th graders: “When they’ve all had their troubles and parted, we’ll be the same as we started.” And then it struck me. 

 

I first set foot in San Francisco in the summer of 1971, having traveled across the country with my sister, her husband and a dancer friend. We traveled in a Volkswagen bug—four of us in that tiny car!— camped along the way, cooked our macrobiotic meals of brown rice and vegetables when we could. Arriving in San Francisco, we treated ourselves to a lunch at a macrobiotic restaurant, the first eating establishment I visited in the city that would be come my home for the next 50 years plus. And where was that restaurant? On the corner of 18^th and Dolores, exactly the same place I was sitting now. “We’ll be the same as we started.” And the name of it back then? The Good Karma Café!

 

I don’t know what I did in past lives to merit the blessing of making joyful music with people as I do, but I deeply appreciate the Good Karma that perhaps made it possible. And so this moment of feeling everything come around full circle, with the fullest measure of gratitude I can offer. 

 

And then I returned to the school to teach another 8^th grade class. 

 

What's Important

Interesting how the likes and comments on Facebook posts have been a kind of thermometer taking the temperature of what people care about and respond to and think is important. If we post something announcing a new book or upcoming concert or award we’ve received, most people are sincerely happy for our small success. But that can be mixed with a touch of envy or a sense of the person tooting their own horn beyond what we’d like to hear. If we post some political piece, even if it’s filled with good insight and might help folks consider another point of view, still it’s in that murky subject area we’re told to avoid at family gatherings. In my experience, both kind of posts above reap a modest number of likes and comments. 

 

But if we post something that reveals our vulnerability or our love for others or our honest confession of what’s either hard for us or delightful, people really respond. Like my recent wedding anniversary post. Not only 378 “likes” in one day, but an off-the-charts percentage of those people commenting—160! So sweet to see all those names and remember how our paths crossed and read their comments, especially from the kids Karen and I both taught at The San Francisco School. (And interestingly, mostly kids we taught back in the 70’s and 80’s! Did our teaching decline after that? :-). )

 

The point? We can’t avoid what passes for politics or religion or issues of social justice. They need to be part of our national discourse and why not use every medium available to put ideas out for consideration? And yes, Facebook is one of many ways to announce concerts, publications, art shows, book readings and so on and also a good medium to post little clips of live music or dance or theater. All of that is fine as far as it goes.

 

But not far enough. For what we really crave is the sense that we’re all in this together. That we delight in being reminded of the bed of roses we all have lain in and equally need to hear that others also are tangled up in the thorns that come with a human incarnation. In short, we are not alone. That’s the place where all the divisions that can come from the list above ( and yes, even art, as folks can be as passionate about what music is good and what is bad, which artist is the cat’s pajamas and which is a feral alleycat rooting around in garbage cans), that’s the place where divisions can be healed.

 

A good honest confession of our vulnerability, for those who need the courage to face their own and to feel that others are with them—well, that above all is what those Facebook numbers show is important. 

 

And it is.