V Is for…

Perhaps I’ve confessed this before, but one of my little literary vices is reading the complete works of Sue Grafton. Almost finished with her alphabetic series and last night began V Is for Vengeance.  Love her quote on the back cover:

“I’m all for forgiveness, as long as I’m given the opportunity to get even first…”

I hate it when the bad guys win. I still believe in fairy tale endings where evil gets its just desserts. But it takes a lot of patience when elected officials in the Senate put their weird notion of winning— our party beats your party by any means necessary without the least trace of shame when we cheat by not counting votes, suppressing votes, gerrymandering votes, not hearing evidence in a trial, publicly proclaiming the verdict before the trial begins, etc. etc. and yet again etc.—over their actual job to defend and uphold the Constitution and put the health of the country over simply winning elections. That’s treason. These are cowardly traitors who need to be held accountable for their shameless choices of towing the party line even when it’s corrupt, mean-spirited and clearly violates the oath of office. So in the face of every reason to despair, here’s a few V’s to consider: 

Vice: Stop it. Bring the bad guys to justice. They are vicious. 

Virus: Contain it. Quarantine those infected, both with the physical virus and the immoral virus, and keep them away from the healthy. Build a wall around Mar-a- Lago and throw them all together there.

Vision: Stay true to it in spite of everything trying to trample it down.

Vengeance: Get even. Then forgive.

Vote: Get vengeance by convincing the 42% who opted out last election to get their butts to the polls, armed with information and real knowledge about what’s at stake.

My friends, let's be vigilant, not veer off course, step up our valor.

And of course, play the vibraphone.

Dis-appointment

I’ve been hit by a volley of disappointment and never has that word been so literal. I had appointments in Hong Kong, Bangkok and Macau to teach workshops, appointments I worked hours to negotiate and prepare, plane flights that had to be calibrated just so to meet all obligations, financial contracts I was counting on, friends I looked forward to seeing. And yesterday, all three of them cancelled. My appointments were “dissed” and I was indeed, “dis-appointed.” 

Of course, it’s all understandable and yet another reminder of the uncertainty that is part and parcel of every human life. You prepare, you plan, you dream, but you also come to grips with preparing to see your plan abandoned and your dream shattered. It’s remarkable how smooth my decades of travel and workshops have been in the light of everything that could go wrong. But though it was edgy sometimes (as recently as last October going to Ohio), planes mostly arrived on time and more importantly, they all arrived. Participants who signed up mostly showed up, money promised was paid, things proceeded as planned, always with some unplanned moments on the delightfully surprising side of things.

The scariest near abandonment came last summer in New Orleans with the threatening storm that almost had me cancelling the course and fleeing on the first day! It thankfully all worked out and remarkably so. And I did have some hope that such a miracle would again happen here in virus-scared Asia. But alas, it was not to be. 

Do I care? Yes, I do and I’m not going to pretend otherwise. And yet, simply the fact of stepping out yet from another satisfying workshop into warm air and the call of a distant bird, simply the privilege of being alive, helped soften the blows, which after all, are more like friendly playful punches from Fate given the range of possible more catastrophic blows. 6 more scheduled days of teaching here in Singapore and hope that they will survive the closures. If not, time to re-arrange my appointment book yet again.

Full Circle

I’ve worked 4 days a week just about my whole teaching life, with Monday as a sacred time to do as I will. In the early days, I’d stick a book of poetry in my pocket, set out the door and just started walking where my legs would take me, following my nose and exploring one neighborhood after another in San Francisco. It was a glorious way to get to know the city and just the right way to get exercise, savor some solitude and balance the busy workaday life.

Later, Mondays would be the time I’d write an article about teaching, develop a rigorous habit of reflection that explored the why behind the what of my chosen path. Some of these articles found their way into music education journals, many sat unread on my desk and at some point, I made a few Kinko’s spiral-bound books of collected articles that maybe ten people would read if I passed them on. Still later, many of those articles were reborn in a new life in my books, especially Play, Sing and Dance, The ABC’s of Education and Teach Like It’s Music, my most recent one.

In the latter part of my career, Monday was simply catch-up time—answering e-mails, planning workshop travel, doing errands, sprinkled with some piano playing. 

So last night, amidst the rich assortment of jet-lagged dreams (still with me 3 days later), I dreamt of my upcoming retirement and said out loud a plan to return to the beginning, to earmark one day a week (Monday?) to once again take off with no particular plan other than chose a neighborhood and walk through it noticing the details never noticed while biking or driving or on the way to an errand. It was a lovely feeling in the dream and the first sign from my deep-down psyche that leaving school was real and it was the time for a new life and gloriously so. Isn’t that interesting?

Meanwhile, off to teach here a full, long day, driven by taxi to the school site, no time to wander through Singapore as I did on Sunday. And that’s just fine too. 

Banana Leaf Bliss

The news was not good today. The still stinging blow of betrayal in the Senate, the SF 49’ers lost the Super Bowl and then the blow that my two courses in Hong Kong are cancelled, which means a significant financial loss and confusion as to where I’ll be and what I’ll do next week. I had every reason in the world to succumb to despair and its hand was on my shoulder ready to press me down to the ground and get its foot on my neck.

Then I went out to dinner at the local Kerala restaurant. Ordered more food than I needed and paid a total of 6 Singapore dollars—about $4 U.S. And there I sat, once again eating dhosa and rice and papadums from a banana leaf with my fingers, sipping ginger tea with milk, listening to Indian old-style pop-music, feeling the breeze from the ceiling fans above and the open non-wall to the street, listening to the buzz of conversation with barely a cell phone in sight and the strangest thing happened. I felt happy!

Perhaps it was the instant throwback to 1979 when I lived like this for three glorious months in the state of Kerala and loved every day of it. A place where there were two cars, bikes, oxen, elephants and a few buses, no telephones (I mean, not even landlines!), ceiling fans, packaging was newspaper or banana leaves (which were also plates), very little garbage that the goats wouldn’t eat, so much made from local rice and coconut, visible, tangible, understandable, no TV, a rich festival life, no buildings over two stories. In short, the way human beings mostly have lived on this planet. How I loved it!

And here in my Hilton Hotel, locked away in my Rapunzel prison (with no hair to let down!) on the 16^thfloor, a damn air conditioner that I can’t easily control, no windows I can open, a silence void of human chatter or bird calls, the beckoning distraction of Netflix which occasionally offers elevating art, but mostly distracting entertainment, the despairing news-of-the-day a few computer clicks away, the pool with the pop music from hell (not the Indian variety) and yes, I’m used to it, but let’s face it. None of it makes me as happy as those 20 minutes in the Kerala restaurant. 

I believe I’ll go back tomorrow.

Letter to the U.S. Senate

@)$(%^*&#$!!!!)%(^*#&$*%%## TREASON!!! #%$^& TRAITOR!!!! #$%^@ ROT IN HELL!!??????? YOU !!#$WILL$%@!* PAY!!!????? $%!!!! HAVE??$%#%^YOU*($%^*)$&&

NO *$()%^*&#$%^#!!DECENCY?!!

Sincerely yours,

A patriotic U.S. citizen

Bad Music

I’m back at the Hilton Garden Inn in Singapore’s Little India and it’s mostly a nice place to be. But I had forgotten about the swimming pool. It’s a bit weird that it’s right outside the dining hall so people eating are watching half-naked people swimming. Or not, as I actually haven’t seen anyone in the pool yet except me. 

But far worse is the fact that they pump out non-stop insipid American pop music. No problem when I’m swimming, but part of the package is to relax in the lounge chair with a good book and with this sonic nightmare, relaxing is simply impossible. I started to try to analyze what makes this music (don’t ask me what it is or who’s singing it) so unbearable to listen to. Weirdly, I’ve been pushing the notion that music brings you into a world where everything is connected, everything makes sense, its rhythms tone the body, its melodies pluck the heart’s strings, its form awakens our mathematical mind. But now I take it all back. Certain rhythms can deplete the body’s energy, certain melodies shut down the heart instead of open it, certain forms put the mind to sleep. And the poolside music was three for three. 

After a few moments trying to describe the maddening thumping disco beat, what makes the vocal timbres and pseudo-melodies so insufferable, what predictable formulas and banal lyrics bypass the thinking mind, I gave up and decided it was a fruitless task. When you open a carton of rotten eggs, analysis of why they smell bad is the last thing on your mind. Throw the damn things out and get away from it as fast as you can!

After an evening swim, I raced indoors to have dinner, though the agony was still audible. Suddenly, the Byrds came on singing Mr. Tambourine Man and it was as if the runaway car bound for Hell was suddenly diverted to the Elysian Fields. For 3 brief minutes, life was good again. And then back it came. 

Don't get me wrong—the issue is not Pop music vs. classical or folk—after all, Ella and Billie were the popular singers singing the popular songs of their time and how happy do those songs make me? And the era of the Byrds and Bob Dylan and—oh, around 75 other fabulous groups—churned out some pretty listenable and endurable music. 

So I imagined some genie emerging from a bottle and offering this deal: 

“Okay, you have two choices here. 

1.    For every minute you spend listening to Bach or Billie or the blues, you have to spend a comparable amount of time listening to Singapore swimming pool music. 

Or:  

2.    All music will vanish from the world.”

Right now, I’m leaning toward 2. 

Just Asking

What can I say that I already haven’t said? 

What I can say that someone needs to hear? 

What can I say that I need to remember? 

When can I do that I already haven’t done? 

What can I do that someone needs done? 

What can I do that I need to do?

Who can I be that I haven’t already been? 

Who can I be that gives some hope and happiness to another? 

Who can I be that is truly the me I’ve always hoped to become?

What can I dream that I haven’t dreamed before?

What can I dream that brings a sliver of light into an ever-darkening world?

What can I dream that illuminates the dark corners of my own soul?

Just asking.