Changing the World

 Like everyone, every day I wake and expect the world to be as I want it. I want 15 more people suddenly signed up for my Jazz Course in New Orleans. I want the Warriors to turn around their losing streak, with Steph back on the court. I want the weather to stay in the mid-70’s without a strong Spring wind. I want Ingram book distributors to sign me up and get my books easily available nation-and-world-wide. And my usual Orff book dealers to order 50 of each title at a time instead of 1 or 2 every month. I want all the music teachers I’ve trained over the years to invite me to their schools to read my book Jazz, Joy & Justice to the kids. And all the gods in heaven know I want every single one of the heinous traitors in Washington and the entire Epstein gang to get their just desserts, be removed from power and moved to prisons—and not the posh white-collar kinds. Shall I go on?

And yet. If every one of my little wishes were instantly granted, Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s and cancer would still wreak havoc on those I know and love, another Charlie Kirk might rise up, extreme weather would still wreak its havoc. And I would still be addicted to the world fulfilling my every whim and desire, being disappointed or sad or outraged when it didn’t and spend my precious time left on the planet whining and complaining. 

 

By my side as I write is an anthology titled The Poetry of Impermanence, Mindfulness and Joy, a needed reminder to step off the carousel of desire, to sit and breathe and savor. (Amidst my recent posts refusing to wait for a savior, I notice that one letter changes savior to savor and that letter is I. I feel a poem coming on!) In his introduction to the book, editor John Brehm writes: 

 

“Freedom from craving and from fixed ideas of self lets us experience the world as a friendly place…When we let go of insisting that we are who we think we are and that the world should give us exactly and only what we think we want, all things shine forth.”

 

Of course, I will do everything in my power to try to change the world by “being the change I want to see in the world.” I will keep lobbying for music in the schools, keep training music teachers to make their teaching worthy of the kids, keep voting, keep marching on the streets (this Saturday!), keep reading about what has been so terribly wrong in our history to be sufficiently prepared to steer things toward what has been right. But alongside the deep desire to change the world is the deep wisdom to accept the world. It’s a both/and proposition and not an easy rope to walk across and keep your balance. 

 

This entire post inspired by this simple and thought-provoking poem by a poet named A.R. Ammons. The title Old Geezer attracted my attention and then this surprising poem: 

 

The quickest

way

to change

 

the

world

is to

 

like it

the

way it

 

is. 

 

And sometimes I do. 

 

 

Message from Wordsworth

Yet again, I can’t help but feel that the life I wish us all to lead is not some future fantasy, but happening right here, right now, in so many ways. Another sunny San Francisco day and in the little green patch of park down the street from me, kids and neighbors I know are flying kites and a large group of young folk, men, women, black, brown and white, are playing a hilarious kickball game one-handed with a can of beer in the other hand. As noted in my “A Happy Little Story” blog, so many folks of all ages spending their days together outdoors playing games, viewing the cherry blossoms, eating great food, browsing in the local bookstore, biking to the ocean, gathering on blankets spread out amidst the flowers. It is easy to forget the horrors we’re inflicting upon each other shown in the daily news— and for what? 

 

So it was both depressing and affirming to be reminded that this dynamic has been at play throughout human history. In the midst of savoring the beauty of a day almost three centuries ago, the poet William Wordsworth expressed his confusion that we would choose to create hell in the midst of heaven. 

 

Lines Written in Early Spring

I heard a thousand blended notes,

While in a grove I sate reclined,

In that sweet mood when pleasant thoughts

Bring sad thoughts to the mind.

 

To her fair works did Nature link

The human soul that through me ran;

And much it grieved my heart to think

What man has made of man.

 

Through primrose tufts, in that green bower,

The periwinkle trailed its wreaths;

And ’tis my faith that every flower

Enjoys the air it breathes.

 

The birds around me hopped and played,

Their thoughts I cannot measure:—

But the least motion which they made

It seemed a thrill of pleasure.

 

The budding twigs spread out their fan,

To catch the breezy air;

And I must think, do all I can,

That there was pleasure there.

 

If this belief from heaven be sent,

If such be Nature’s holy plan,

Have I not reason to lament

What man has made of man?

Indeed. 

 

Spring Is Here

Many people I know pay some attention to the Summer Solstice and the Winter Solstice, but does anyone pay any attention to the Vernal and Autumnal Equinox? Well, it just happened on March 20/21 and nobody said boo. Nothing on any of my printed calendars or online calendars, no Facebook posts, no “Happy Spring!” shouted out by passing strangers. And isn’t that a little strange? Except for T.S. Eliot’s nod to April as “the cruelest month,” most people are big fans of Springtime.

 

And why not? The cherry tree and almond trees, the rhododendron and forsythia bushes, the wisteria vines and bougainvillea, the daffodils and tulips, the wildflowers are all a’bloom. The trees are dressing themselves again in green, the robins are returning from warmer climes, the red-wing blackbirds are singing and resurrection and rebirth are in the air, independent of any Easter story or dogma. The animals are mating and the eros puts a little spring in our steps (double meaning) as we're beholding the glory of beautiful bodies in shorts and dresses. 

 

So many English and American poets have sung Spring’s praises. A short list in chronological order:

•  Thomas Nashe’s Spring, The Sweet Spring

• William Shakespeare’s Spring and Sonnet 97 (From you I have been absent in the Spring)

•  William Blake’s To Spring and Spring

•  William Wordsworth’s Lines Written in Early Spring and Daffodils (also titled I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud)

• Robert Browning’s Pippa’s Song

• Emily Dickinson’s A Light Exists in Spring and Dear March…Come in

• AE Housman’s Loveliest of Trees, the Cherry Now. 

• e.e.cummings In Just Spring

• Langston Hughes An Earth Song

• Mary Oliver Spring

 

Then there’s more praise from various songs in The Great American Songbook. How many do you know?

 

• Spring Can Really Hang You Up the Most

• Spring Will Be a Little Late This Year

• Just Spring

• They Say It’s Spring

• It Might As Well Be Spring

• Some Other Spring

• Suddenly It’s Spring

• Younger than Springtime

• You Must Believe in Spring

·      April in Paris

·      April Showers

·      I’ll Remember April

·      One Morning in May

 

May I suggest a little homework for the belatedly celebrate the Vernal Equinox? Check out the above poems—and you don’t have to dig up your old poetry anthologies from high school that you probably threw out anyway. Enter any of the titles online and “Voila!” And for the songs, go to Spotify or Pandora or what have you, and Boom! there they are! Or see them live (some of them) on Youtube.  Performed by many different artists, so I’ll just suggest a few renditions: 

 

• Blossom Dearie singing They Say It’s Spring and It Might As Well Be Spring

• Billie Holiday singing Some Other Spring

• Ella Fitzgerald singing April in Paris

• Frank Sinatra I’ll Remember April

• Tony Bennet singing (accompanied by Bill Evans) You Must Believe in Spring

 

Happy homework! Happy Spring!

 

PS Extra credit if you check out all the Japanese haiku about Spring.

PSS Extra extra credit if you go out for a walk to behold the flowers and write your own poem or compose your own song!

10- Day Birthday

Yesterday was Johann Sebastian Bach’s birthday. Or was it? Look it up and you’ll see some sources name March 21^st and some March 31^st. What’s going on?

 

Back in 45 BC, Julius Caesar changed the Roman lunar calendar to a 12-month solar calendar with 365 days, plus a leap day every four years. It was designed to fix inaccuracies in the Roman lunar calendar but over-corrected the solar year by about 11 minutes. In Bach’s time, Germany used the Julian Calendar (named for Julius) and according to that calendar, he was born on March 21^st. 

 

However, in 1582, Pope Gregory made another calendar reform (the Gregorian Calendar), which corrected the 11-minute-per-year inaccuracy and added 10 days to the Julian Calendar. When Bach was born in 1685, that part of Germany still used the Julian Calendar and then changed in 1700 to the Gregorian one. Suddenly Bach’s birthday was March 31^st. 

 

So take your pick. Or better yet, celebrate Bach’s birthday for 10-days straight. A man of his caliber of genius deserves it. In honor of the occasion, a few choice quotes from fellow composers/ musicians:

 

Bach is like an astronomer who, with the help of ciphers, finds the most wonderful stars.      - Friederick Chopin

 

“Not Brook but Ocean should be his name. ("Bach" is the German word for "brook").        - Ludwig Van Beethoven 

 

Bach is the beginning and end of all music.       - Max Reger

 

 

Bach is thus a terminal point. Nothing comes from him; everything merely leads to him.      - Albert Schweitzer

 

Music owes as much to Bach as religion to its founder.    - Robert Schumann

 

...the most stupendous miracle in all music!      - Richard Wagner

 

 

To strip human nature until its divine attributes are made clear, to inform ordinary activities with spiritual fervor, to give wings of eternity to that which is most ephemeral; to make divine things human and human things divine; such is Bach, the greatest and purest moment in music of all time.      - Pablo Casals

 

Bach’s is the most touchingly human, phenomenally emotional, and at the same time mind-blowingly complex and intricate music I have ever heard. One can be superbly emotional, or have fantastic range, or be mind-blowingly perfect in mathematically precise counterpoint, but he seems to be an impossible combination of all of this - and yet he existed.  -Brad Mehldau: Jazz pianist

 

My advice to young musicians? Listen to Bach for two hours a day. —Coleman Hawkins: Jazz saxophonist

 

Compared to Bach, we all suck. – Pat Metheny: Jazz guitarist

 

 

God owes Bach a lot. – Igor Stravinsky

 

And Bach’s view of his own accomplishments? Humble, but not even close to true!

 

“I was obliged to work hard. Whoever is equally industrious will succeed just as well."  

 

Happy 341^st birthday to Johann Sebastian Bach! You remain a path to restoring hope and faith in the promise of all humanity. 

A Happy Little Story

As an old curmudgeon, I’m fully entitled to join my peers and complain about “this next generation.” They can’t read anything longer than a soundbyte and most haven’t read a book in 10 or 20 years. They walk around with their head buried in their phones, order driverless Waymo cars to take them places they could easily get to by bus or (imagine!) walk. They have no patience for old black-and-white classic films and gorge themselves on super-hero Hollywood shlock. They’re skilled at ordering Door-dash but barely know how to cook for themselves. They work at jobs seated in cubicles looking at screens for most of the day. In short, they’re a sorry mess!

 

And yet. In my experience, almost none of that is true. Consider my day today. 

 

San Francisco has cooled down from at 85-degree heat wave to a 75 degree one—warm enough for my wife Karen and I to eat lunch outside on our deck. While eating, I heard the faint cries of “Dad! Mom!” and thought, “Hmm. Or those the kids next door?” Imagine my shock when I peeked down the hall and saw my daughter at the door with her fabulous boyfriend Matt. (They had been ringing the bell, but it is a quiet one and neither Karen and I had our hearing aids in.) What?!! Why are they here? Could this be an unheard of “drop-in visit?” The kind I knew in my childhood and certainly my college years and then virtually disappeared in the modern urban world of scheduling every visit.

 

Indeed it was! They were in the middle of an 8-mile walk across the city from their home to Baker Beach. They were about halfway through that trip and on the way, so they decided pay us an unexpected visit. In they came dressed in their shorts and joined us on the deck. They shared the plan of walking out their front door to go all the way to the beach to dip their feet in the ocean while it was still warm enough and then take a bus back from there to their house. And (brace yourself!), they purposefully left their phones at home (!!!) to be more wholly present with each other, with the people they passed, with the trees and flowers and ocean waters. 

 

On our deck, I shared some of the delicious tortilla soup I had made last night and thanked them again for the dinner they made for Karen, her brother and I last week and the delicious chicken-with-dates-and farro they had cooked. We got talking about the various books we’re reading. Both Talia and Matt (and Karen and I) are avid lifelong readers and sometimes we discover we’re reading the same books. (Like now, Karen and Tali reading My Friends by Frederik Backman and Matt and I reading The Brothers K by David James Duncan). They shared a few stories from their week of teaching. Matt is a P.E. teacher at a public high school in Oakland and spends his days playing games with kids and getting them to both exercise their bodies and their spirit of cooperation with each other. Talia is the 5^th grade teacher at the same progressive school she went to for 11 years, the same one my wife and I taught at for 42 and 45 years. Here she is in her 16^th year teaching the kids  poetry, good writing, good thinking, good caring and the knowledge needed to work for social justice and I think it’s safe to say these 10 and 11-year-olds know more about all of the above than most of our representatives in Congress. 

 

In short, both Talia and Matt and their friends and my other daughter Kerala and the many, many people I know in their 30’s and 40’s, are the polar opposite of the kind of people I described in that first paragraph. (Except for the black-and-white films— Talia is impatient with them, but she has seen them at least once and I’d like to think they hold some special place in her memory! Also, for the record, I wish she’d go to jazz clubs once-in-a-while. Again, at least if I take her, she knows how to listen and appreciate.). So perhaps statistically the portrait of her generation I opened with may be true, but not in my experience.

 

We walked with Talia and Matt to The Yellow Submarine, the shop in our neighborhood founded in 1971 and pretty much the same woman and now her son working there. They took their lunch to the park, Karen and I went to the On the Run shoe store, founded in 1979 and still going strong. The Brooks Brothers shoes I keep getting when my last pair wears out? Still being made, in the same style (but much higher price!) after 25 years of wearing them. 

Walking back, we passed a newly opened lunch place making Japanese style sandwiches with a line of 20 people waiting outside. People are happy to keep supporting the tried-and-true old-time businesses, while leaving room for new ones and enjoying trying them out. 

 

Then walking back through the park, we paused at Big Rec playing field to watch a Frisbee football game. Mixed groups of men and women and all colors and so beautiful to watch their athletic artistry— almost breathtaking at times. So here they were, this next generation of young people, not hunkered down in dark basements playing video games, but out in the fresh air playing a pick-up game with no official sponsors or big-screen TV’s or exorbitant ticket prices. What was this? The 50’s?!

 

In the recent Singing Time I did in a Portland School, led by questions related to the songs we sang, I was so impressed that many of the 4^th graders knew where some of the names of the months came from, knew the story of Demeter and Persephone, recognized Martin Luther King’s 1963 speech when I quoted it and more. They were well-informed, well-read, curious, enthusiastic, good singers and had such fun with partner-clapping games with motions. Again, the statistics tell a different story, but from where I stand, kids are still kids and many much more knowledgeable, skillful, savvy and kind than I was as a kid. 

 

So there you have it. None of this negates the other news coming in about kids of all ages, but I share it to show that all is not lost. There are plenty of young people who still love to read and cook and ride buses and walk and hike and backpack and exercise and work in community-minded workplaces and teach the next generations what they need to know to lead happy fulfilled lives with great care for others. That’s today’s news and I hope it uplifts you more than the other kind. 

Sweet Honey

 

I like asking directions of live humans before resorting to electronic solutions, but sometimes the technologies manage to combine our human instinct to help each other with reaching the right people. Though I didn’t ask every single person I know in San Francisco, the ones I tend to talk to at least once a week couldn’t help me with my passport dilemma since they hadn’t renewed theirs recently. So for the first time, I put the question out to “hive mind” on Facebook and within a few hours, had some 25 helpful responses, all letting me know that when they renewed, their old passport came back to them in a separate mailing. I got both the needed relief that this would work out, the little dopamine rush of hearing from people I knew (since my Facebook friends are in fact, almost all actual friends and colleagues I know) and yet another affirmation that we are here to be of service. 

 

Like the pleasure the strangers I ask for directions (mostly) feel in being useful and sharing their knowledge to help someone out, we indeed are wired to help. I do an activity in my workshops with 22 instruments in a circle, 11 people seated at them and playing, 11 more in-between each player studying what they’re playing. After playing the piece a few minutes, everyone switches. Those who had observed move to the instrument to their right to play, those who played moved to the right to observe the next instrument in the circle. In this way, by the end, everyone gets to play each of the parts in the piece. 

 

Not only is this musically powerful, experiencing the same piece from 11 different perspectives, but there is a hidden humanitarian message in this structure. Even though all have been prepared in their body and voice to learn each part and studying the next instrument likewise prepares them to play it correctly, still people arrive at the instrument and sometimes struggle with getting the pattern. Invariably, the person who had just played notices and turns back to help them, even though it means they’re losing some observation time.

 

At the end of the activity, I ask: “Who helped somebody?” “Who received help?” Lots of hands go up. And then I ask, “Why did you help them?” The best answer came from a 10-year-old-girl in a guest class I taught: “So we all could enjoy to the maximum the pleasure of music played well.” Yeah!

 

Often people note that if the music doesn’t sound good, nobody is happy, so that’s a big motivation to help. Many just say, “Well, of course I’m going to help someone who’s having a little trouble if I know how to help them.” And so on. Affirmation all around that our first instinct is indeed to help. 

 

Then I ask, “Let’s imagine I was grading you on this activity. As we all know, the game of grading mostly works by someone who gets the answer right being rewarded with a letter or number and someone who is struggling being punished with a lower letter or number. So in this game, when you see your classmate struggling, you should feel happy because that will help your grade. And you’d be a little crazy to help them, because hey, you have to watch out for number one and you want to be number one. So the whole dynamic would change. None of you would also play as well because there’d be stress and anxiety about whether you will play each part correctly, which brings you down to the brain stem where fear and survival live and you can’t access the higher emotional and intellectual skills needed to actually play music well, with a relaxed feeling and joy in the mix."

 

So we should look carefully at the structures and systems we create that promote division, stress, fear, anxiety, that shut down our innate instinct to help each other out. And for what? A report card that no one will ever ask to see again in your entire adult life, that no one will read at your funeral. And replace them with the structures and systems that promote connection, community, comradery, joy and justice. 

 

The hive mind’s generous response to my little dilemma brought such sweet honey into my day. All who responded could easily follow their impulses to help. But what if there was a law akin to the one made in Georgia, the one that set it up so black voters would have to stand in long lines in the hot sun and you could be arrested for bringing them a bottle of water. (I am not making this up! The depths of depravity heartless monsters risen to positions of power is beyond human comprehension.) What if you could get in trouble for answering my passport question? How many would do it now?

 

Luckily, we’re not there yet, but just a reminder to be vigilant about all the systems that reward us for becoming the worst versions of ourselves and punish us for being the best. Meanwhile, think about this little hive mind story to remember that we are essentially good people who are happy and eager to help. And that we all benefit from the good music and sweet honey.

 

And if you work for the Passport Office, I’m especially counting on you to remember that!

  

A Crack in the Bones

 

… Life is short and the world
is at least half terrible, and for every kind
stranger, there is one who would break you,
though I keep this from my children. I am trying
to sell them the world. Any decent realtor,
walking you through a real shithole, chirps on
about good bones: This place could be beautiful,
right? You could make this place beautiful.

 

-       Maggie Smith (not the Dame)

 

Any reader of this Blog may notice that I’m a bit like the realtor walking us through the world with attention to the “good bones” and stories of fixer-uppers that went on to be beautiful and loving homes. This is not slick selling so I can turn a profit. I actually believe down to my bones that the world is at least half beautiful and maybe even more so. But at the moment my meticulously crafted and hard-won optimism is wearing down. The solid bones of my own faith in ultimate goodness is cracking, bending under the osteoporosic weight of the news, both personal and collective.

 

My wise choice to micro-dose on the catastrophe surrounding so as not to be overwhelmed doesn’t mean I don’t feel the storm outside my windows bearing down on my cozy, but fragile house. I don’t want to know the details, but I still have to come to grips with the questions. What the hell ever happened to the Epstein files? Are we still at war with Iran? Is that guy still in the White House (of course he is) and why? Did I really read something about Congress passing bills so only some people (their people) can vote? What country am I living in again?

 

Then in the minutiae of daily life, every simplest thing is magnified to a dysfunctional way of doing business. An hour passed around to voice mails and five different people just to pay my UPS bill. The calamity of trying to keep my Pentatonic Press afloat and needing to join a group that didn’t recognize my password, let me make a new one and then said that didn’t work either and to check back in three business days. An unprecedented number of people not responding to my e-mails that asked for a simple response. Then yesterday my wife got her new passport without her old passport returned. I was a few days behind her in renewing mine but counted 100% on getting my not-yet-expired passport back because it had my needed Visa for my China trip in July. (And in the past, they always mailed back the previous passport.) Can I make a simple phone call to sort this out? Of course not. I need to set aside three hours minimum to wade through voice mails and probably still not talk to a live human being. There’s not enough Valium in the house to get me through this. 

 

Whining posts are the least satisfying to read— unless you get some schadenfreudian pleasure in the misfortune of others or can say to me with some satisfaction “Join the club, buddy! You’re not the only one wading through shit up to your neck.” They’re not the most satisfying to write either, but one hopes for some release of pressure simply from venting. And some challenge that if you’re going to complain, at least try to be mildly poetic about it. 

 

Meanwhile, it’s the 5^th day of a rare San Francisco heat wave. (Should I add global warming to the list of things to be depressed about?) Yesterday I rode my bike to the ocean and dipped my feet in the still artic temperatures. I also realized that when I tried to play along with some recordings, I’ve been playing many of the movements in Bach’s Suites and Partitas too slow. I fell down time and again trying to match the lightning speeds of András Schiff, Richard Goode and Glenn Gould, but actually came a little bit closer. My little ways of decorating the shithole house we’re all living in. 

 

May the bones prove sturdy and the demolition crew sent packing. Have a nice day!