Unfinished Books

I have three unfinished books on my bedside table. The bookmarks are still in them, each about halfway through. Which is my way of saying, “This really isn’t working for me anymore. But before I sign the divorce papers, let’s keep the window of possibility open.”

 

One is The Idiot by Doesteyovsky. His writing is compelling enough that I stuck with it, but the story is just so non-compelling. People in closed rooms having endless conversations, mostly about the dance of courting without ever connecting. I just found myself bored by the talk and craving an open window or an interesting event. 

 

The second is The Three Musketeers  by Alexander Dumas. Again, good writing and much more action than The Idiot while sharing the constant pursuit of the woman by the man with some rivalry between Church and State thrown into the mix. But the whole premise of the culture where somebody looks at you cross-eyed and that justifies challenging them to a duel, and yes, killing them for the transgression. Come on, folks, get a life! Enough of this macho crap!

 

Then there’s On the Road by Jack Kerouac. Sometimes I re-read these kind of iconic classics and feel that they hold up. But not this one! How much dysfunctional behavior and drinking can one take? No real character development and where there’s some, not a character you want to hang out with. No plot beyond getting one place to another and getting rip-roaring drunk. What was touted as an anthem of liberation from the square 50’s mentality comes across as just plain hedonistic indulgence. I did relate to the hitchhiking experiences having traveled cross-country some 4 different times in the early 70’s. But hell, my book about it would be so much more interesting. I never once got drunk and instead, could wax poetic about the breathtaking beauty of the American landscape, some intriguing people who picked me up and a couple of situations I found myself in and that feeling of freedom underneath the open skies and utter dependence on the kindness of strangers. 

 

Meanwhile, I’m listening to James, the re-telling of Huckleberry Finn told from the point of view of Jim and there’s a compelling story. The adventure of rafting on the Mississippi, the deep insight into white supremacy told from the other side, the deep shame about what my country has done and deeper shame that it’s doubling down today to keep that horror going, the compelling relationship between Huck and Jim. Here’s a book worth my time.

 

Meanwhile, anyone want to buy three used books?

Accentuate the Positive

                                    “You’ve got to accent-tuate the positive,

                                    E-lim-inate the negative,

                                  Latch on, to the affirmative

                                  Don’t mess with Mister In-Between…”

-       Harold Arlen/ Johnny Mercer

Back in the day, we used to take sixty  3^rd to 5^th graders camping for five days up in Calaveras Big Trees in the foothills of the Sierras. In the last week of school, when report cards were due and we needed to close our classrooms. It was insanely hard work and organization—especially since we slept out in the elements and did all our own cooking with the kids. But it was glorious and memorable and I would not have traded it for the world. And we did it for some twenty years!!

 

I was unofficially the camp head because I knew all the songs and could work the crowd. I remember one year I gave a talk at the beginning that went something like this:

 

“Now pay attention, because I want to warn you about all the things that have happened before. One year a rattlesnake crossed our path. Another time a bear came into camp. Yet another some raccoons came into a kids’ tent at night because he had hidden some candy there. We found some mushrooms once and a kid was about to eat one when we stopped him and found out it was poisonous. Another kid climbed too high in a tree and fell and broke his arm. Sometimes it rains really hard and we have no shelter other than our tents. And one year it snowed! Oh, and then there was the time helicopters were flying overhead and we heard there was an escaped convict in the area. So I just want to prepare you for these dangers. Any questions?" (Note: All of this really happened!)

 

A kid meekly raised his hand and said, “Can you stop scaring us please? Is there anything fun about this trip?” It was a needed reminder to remember to “accentuate the positive.”

I’m enjoying the grand pleasure of re-reading a book by Wynton Marsalis titled To a Young Jazz Musican, Amongst many gems of advice he gives this young man is this:

 

“We’re always thinking about what’s wrong in our practicing. We have to realize: What keeps you play is what’s right. You’re not going to keep pursuing something that tastes nasty; it’s got to have some sweetness somewhere in it. 

 

Always pursue that joy, the sweetness. Don’t work solely out of a negative frame of reference.  Yes, there’s bullshit going on, corruption, people doing bad things. Truth is, all of that is to help you identify a positive frame of reference. That is what will sustain you.”

 

To which I say, “Amen!” Yesterday’s April 5^th rally was a reminder of the joy of people gathering to say “NO!” to what’s going on as a way to say “YES!” to the wonderful things in this life that bring fairness, happiness, health and a positive quality of life. As I knew it would be, the energy was upbeat, uplifting and empowering. I loved the wit and creativity and intelligence and caring and artistry of the hundreds of homemade signs (see photos below). Alone at home reading or watching the news, we are dragged down to the pit of despair, but gathering together, it’s a whole different feeling. Isolated despair paralyzes, collective hope inspires. 

 

Back in the Yippie days of the late 60’s and early 70’s, there was the idea that more people would wake up to justice and peace and love if they realized it was more fun to be “on the bus” than “off the bus.” That mantra from  The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test describing a bus traveling around the country with LSD in the Kool-Aid that (temporarily) expanded consciousness. For some, that led them to a spiritual yearning and brought them to a more sustainable spiritual practice and a life lived with more heart, soul, intelligence and caring.

 

Now the Kool -Aid is laced with fear and lies and ignorance and the 80 million people who drank it, duped by leaders who care nothing about them, keep wearing the “red hat” of “hat-red” (hatred). Not only are they causing immeasurable damage, but they're missing out on the fun of caring and thinking and feeling and living a good life. (Though some are waking up as their jobs disappear and the economy is tanking). 

 

In summary. There is SO MUCH to be negative about but don’t let it grab you by your throat and throw you down. There is also SO MUCH to be positive about, but don’t go there naively, happy because you had a good meal and the suffering masses be damned. Feel the grief and pain and rise to the joy, in company with others by your side. And for goodness sakes, keep getting out to the streets. It feels good, it’s a positive action and it makes a difference. 

 

Over and out. 

 

Me and Charles Ives

Three days since I’ve written here and I feel like I’m betraying my routine. I’ve been happily busy with various pursuits, but none of them an excuse for hanging up a “Gone Fishing” sign. Reviving some sense of daily exercise—a long walk alongside the Embarcadero with the always-refreshing reunion with the waterfront.  A bike ride with my wife battling winds in Golden Gate Park. Another bike ride down Market St. to the Redwood Grove at Transamerica Pyramid and charming stroll around the Jackson Square neighborhood with the Men’s Group enjoying the lovely historic buildings and discovering an enchanting alley. Yet another afternoon in my 17 years of playing piano at the Jewish Home and meeting an old school parent in the audience and her daughter who I taught in the late 70’s. An intimate house concert in Emeryville featuring two horns and three drummers playing classic and newly composed Indian music. Some riveting and deeply moving episodes of This Is Us on Netflix. But again, none of this so busy that I couldn’t write a post as I usually do.

 

But the main reason is that with three weeks ahead of me without much on the calendar, I’ve reached to the back burner of writing projects and moved one of them to the front, with a fire now lit beneath it. It’s time to bring The Humanitarian Musician out into the light of day, to gather the ideas and stories that have been floating around for some ten years and give them a home and a form and a structure. (Sorry, alert writers, a carnival of mixed metaphors here!). 

 

And so I began and I’m back in the satisfying feeling of waking up with the next sentence or idea ready to set down, walking around with my little notebook for when the next needed thought appears, feeling that gratifying sense of connecting the days with the thread of a project that slowly takes shape like a photo in a darkroom (more mixed metaphors!). Such a fine feeling to take the constant free-floating ideas swirling around in my mind and set them down on the electronic paper to eventually be put on real paper in that still satisfying technology of a book with a cover and a spine.

 

Here I’ll share my proposed opening quote that sets the tone for the radical thought that musicians and the training of musicians could be a more humanitarian undertaking than merely learning to play notes well and that the humanitarian impulses in us can be nurtured both by actual music-making and musical metaphors. Before I ever read this quote from the American composer Charles Ives, I had an intuition that these ideas would inform my teaching. And they have.

 

Meanwhile, today’s the April 5^th protests I’ve highlighted in the previous posts and instead of a sign, I’m bringing my ukelele and a tambourine. 

 

“I feel strongly that the great fundamentals should be more discussed in all public meetings, and also in meetings of schools and colleges, not only the students but also the faculty should get down to more thinking and action about the great problems which concern all countries and all people in the world today, and not let the politicians do it all and have the whole say.

 

I have often been told that it is not the function of music to concern itself with matters like these. But I do not by any means agree. I think that it is one of the things that music can do, if it happens to want to…  —I have had some fights about this. “

 

Charles Ives (1874-1954) Letter to Lehman Engel. (p. 72- In Praise of Music)

  

Dancing in the Streets

 

“The job of a citizen is to keep his mouth open.” —Gunter Grass

 

This blog, my Podcast, Facebook, speaking out at the workshops I give, speaking out with the children I teach, talking with friends— wherever there is an opportunity to question incompetence, selfish greed, mean-spiritedness, attempts to shut down free speech and Constitutional rights, I choose to speak out. While I can, without being sent to Siberia. Sometimes it feels like facing Goliath with my little slingshot of words, putting flowers in the barrels of guns, throwing pebbles at tanks. One never knows if any of it makes the slightest bit of difference. 

 

But I do know that masses of people taking to the streets not only makes an impact, but feels more empowering, more effective and certainly more fun that doomscrolling through the screaming headlines and raising my one little voice to protest. And the effective of collective protest may be so much larger than we might ever know.

 

Back in the 1980’s when I worked on the Nuclear Freeze Movement, I had a meeting in someone’s house with about 10 people—and Daniel Ellsberg (of The Pentagon Papers!) was one. He told a memorable story about asking the organizer of the Vietnam War protests in the early 70’s whether he thought his efforts made any difference. The man shook his head sadly and replied, “No.” Then Ellsberg told him this story.

 

Apparently, Nixon was on the verge of using nuclear weapons in Vietnam at the time of the massive protest in D.C.. (In fact, I believe it may have been the one that I attended!) Nixon told the press he didn’t care about it and was going to sit in the Oval Office and watch the football game. Instead, he was looking out the window at the thousands of protestors and decided that in the face of such massive opposition, it was not an opportune time to make such a decision. (As reported later by a Nixon aide). Nobody knew this story—including the protest organizer—but it was a powerful example of how such things can make more of a difference than we imagine. 

 

So with that in mind, I repeat my post on Facebook below and encourage you to get out on the streets wherever you may be. And pass this on to friends, family, relatives, co-workers far and wide. We may never know if it will make a difference, but we do know that staying silent is indeed complicity and allows the power-mongers to steamroll over the democracy we need and love without resistance. And if nothing else, getting out and dancing on the streets will feel so much better than doomscrolling alone in isolation. See you there!

 

“Grandma and Grandpa, what did you do to try to save Democracy?” ask your present or future grandchildren, either whispering in a fascist dystopian state or celebrating in a democratic free nation. I hope you can at least say, “I cancelled all appointments for this Saturday, April 5^th and took to the streets with tens of thousands of others in 600 cities worldwide to protect your future.” If you don’t know where to go, just Google April 5^th and find out where the nearest one to you is. Stand, be counted and let your voice be heard!”

April and the Holy Grail

I turn the calendar page to April and wonder what to expect this time? Will it be the “cruelest month, breeding lilacs out of the dead land, mixing memory and desire…” or will it be “mud-luscious and puddle-wonderful” with the “little lame balloon man whistling far and wee?” or will “April come like an idiot, babbling and strewing flowers?” T.S. Eliot, e.e.cummings and Edna St. Vincent Millay have all had their say. As have jazz songwriters Vernon Duke (April in Paris), Louis Silvers (April Showers) and Gene de Paul (I’ll Remember April). But what will we do with this precious month lying in front of us?

 

The month begins with a reminder that never have we been more fools than to peaceably elect our own demise. So April 5^th invites us to take to the streets to insist that we wisely restore the country we signed up for. Put it on your calendar, people! And show up. 

 

Meanwhile, April most certainly announces Spring and Spring reminds us that lilacs indeed will bloom out of the dead land. In the natural world, this cycle needs no help from human beings. It is simply the constant turning of life, death and re-birth. But in our human folly, we can create a bleak winter landscape in the midst of the most glorious sunny flowery day. And the cruelty of April is the reminder that we have fallen from the grace of Nature. The flowers bloom but we cannot smell them. They enliven the land with their bright hues but we are color-blind to them. They invite the bees to spin honey from their offerings, but we cannot taste them. 

 

Those opening lines, “April is the cruelest month,” come from T.S. Eliot’s epic poem The Wasteland, which in turn has reference to the Medieval tale of Parzival. Parzival is a naïve young knight in search of The Holy Grail who stumbles into the castle where it is hidden. There a king is brought before him on a litter with a wound that bleeds day and night without healing. Because of the bleeding Grail King who was wounded and shows no signs of healing, the land all around has become a Wasteland. (Make the connection here!). Parzival had been brought up not to ask questions, so he fails to ask the King what ails him or how he can help. When he awakes the next morning, the castle has disappeared and he spends many years trying to find it again. During that time, he matures and gains some degree of wisdom and an increased nobility of purpose. When he finally finds the castle again, he now asks the needed questions. “What ails you?” In some versions, the question is “Whom does the Grail serve?” And the answer is “The Grail King who represents a higher purpose and the potential for healing and transformation, rather than serving the individual.”

 

And so. Here we are, with a wounded King who thinks his wounds make him tough, a population trained not to ask why the bleeding wound of white supremacy and patriarchy and uncheck capitalist greed won’t stop bleeding and those who have the intelligence and courage and caring to ask the needed questions and begin the healing and transformation that will turn our desolate wasteland landscape into a joyful riot of Spring flowers. In the old legend, all were waiting for a hero (Parzival) to redeem the land, but now we know that the Hopi prophecy is the myth for our time “We are the ones we have been waiting for.”

 

Welcome to April and see you on the 5^th!

 

Leaving the Lane

Amidst so much that bothers me these days, there’s a mentality from the left side of the equation that suggests that everyone can only play music or write books or plays or teach history from their own ethnic group/ gender/ class/ religion or else you’ll be charged with “cultural appropriation.” Some appropriation is, of course, real and of concern, but it is not in anyone’s interest to deny that a woman can write with insight into a male character and vice-versa, that a Japanese person can play gamelan, a black person study yoga, a Jewish person capoeira and so on. It’s particularly disturbing to me because it goes against the grain of my entire life’s work and point of view. 

 

Today I stumbled into an article I wrote for an Orff journal back in 1994 and I found it held up well in describing that point of view. Some excerpts:

 

A newborn baby comes into this world with the entire history of human potential radiating out of a body/mind of immense possibility. Every human quality is floating freely in seed form. Various factors affect which of those qualities gets watered and nourished—race, gender, genetics, climate, family and human culture. Each society will shine the light on some qualities, thus encouraging growth, and leave others in the dark. Some cultures honor expression of feelings, others choose to ignore them; some reward innovation, others adherence to tradition; some celebrate material wealth, others spiritual wealth and communal sharing; some look to the heavens for inspiration, others to the earth for nourishment. These choices make a distinct difference in the life experience of an individual and the life of a culture. They are at once reflected in, expressed in, shaped by the particular art forms of a culture and their most positive qualities given an artistic shape, form and style to grow in. One can say that the arts in each culture offer a gift to the human psyche in the form of one strand in the greater music of who we might become. 

 

The negative side of the cultural pruning of our vast possibility of human possibility is the wound of unlived qualities. What is offered to us in the music we listen to, the movies we watch, the books we read, the dances we dance, the rituals and ceremonies we attend may not wholly resonate with us. We may feel ourselves as spiritual beings, but not find it in the Catholic Church and discover it in Zen Buddhism. We may feel incompetent as a jazz drummer, but come alive when we play Taiko drums or Indian tabla. We may not find our blues singing voice growing up as a black woman in Mississippi, but discover we were meant for opera. We may think that poetry has nothing to say to us and then discover Rumi or Mary Oliver. By experiencing music and dance (or arts or literature or religions) of another culture, we are opening to the possibility of contacting an undeveloped part of ourself that turns out to be central to our fuller identity. 

 

Written over three decades earlier, it feels like a viable response to today’s “stay in your lane/ back to tribe” movement where your inherited identity defines what's appropriate for you to learn or teach. I stand firm in my conviction that a multicultural perspective helps us to, as I wrote then:

 

 "Learn about ourselves through the eyes of the 'other,' in realization that the other is often an unlived and unloved part of ourselves. Joyful and successful experience in 'other' musics opens up a psychic doorway in the child (and adult) that allows freer passage in the corridors of consciousness. Amidst all the other reasons for including multi-cultural music, this seems to me the most important—that children can learn to move freely in the marvelous dance of their human possibility."

 

That certainly has been true for this guy Jewish by blood, Unitarian by upbringing, Buddhist by choice and practice, musician playing Bach, Beethoven, Brubeck, Bird, banjo, Balinese gamelan, Bulgarian bagpipe, Brazilian samba, cooking tacos, miso soup, stir fry, pasta, falafel, gazpacho, curries, pad Thai, etc. etc., reading Rumi, Hafiz, Basho, Pablo Neruda, Shakespeare, Dickens, Doesteyovsky, James Baldwin, Chimimanda Ngozi Adichie, Amy Tan, etc. Would someone suggest I only read Phillip Roth, eat bagels and listen to Benny Goodman? 

 

I imagine there are many like myself who didn’t find everything I needed in my given lane and had to cross lines to discover who I was meant to be. Let’s keep the roads open, please.

Out of Line

“You’re outta line, young fella!” you might hear in a movie or TV show to reprimand some young person who said or did the wrong thing. And there is a place for adults to remind kids when they go too far. Or anyone, for that matter.

But this profound little story I found on Facebook puts a whole new perspective on things. Especially at a time when the fascists in charge are demanding everyone walk to their goosestep and support their lies and purposeful misinformation—or else! 

 

When we refuse to pass on the inherited and newly-minted lies of toxic narratives, the traumas passed on that thrive on us passing them down to the next generation, we not only begin the first step toward healing ourselves, but also contribute significantly to healing others. And sometimes it takes a 10-year old kid to remind us. 

Here's the post from someone named Katie Ford:

"My 10-year old son just offered me more healing than 15 years of therapy.

I was talking with him about healing and generational cycles of trauma and this is what he said:

' Mama, it's like dominoes, you know? They just keep hitting each other until one gets slightly out of line. The rest stay standing because of one small move.

You moved out of line, Mama.'

You guys, there's hope for this world."

Indeed there is, Katie Ford— especially if more of us move out of line.