The Closing

I'll miss the Olympics.  The Winter Games are far more interesting to me than the Summer Games.  For some reason I'd much rather watch someone in a leotard barrel headfirst down an ice track at 90 miles per hour than someone in a leotard heaving a giant, heavy ball from the palm of his/her/its hand.

Despite NBC's star-focused American-centric coverage, these games provided plenty of drama, if tape-delayed.  Had to avoid Facebook for two weeks because some crazies on the East Coast found it necessary to post medal results as their status updates.  (I think I'll get back at them by posting Lost spoilers for a while.)

I think my favorite thing was watching the ends of the cross-country ski races.  After interminably boring races, you have this furious sprint and then they crumple in a heap just over the finish line.  Then the guys who are more even winded than the winners have to stumble around the pile of bodies to find a place where they can collapse.

I also love the chaos of short track speed skating and the snowboard cross.  (Ski cross doesn't do it for me.)  Any event with tightly packed bodies careening around at high speeds, to me, is brilliant.

Loved Measha Brueggergosman's hair in the opening ceremony.  Was just as awesome at the Hollywood Bowl last October when she sang at the LA Phil's Dudamel coronation.  (Got to see that up close--she handed me her lipstick/makeup just before walking on stage.  But I digress...)

Totally impressed with Scott Hamilton as a broadcaster.  I realize he's not new to the broadcast booth, but he's really quite excellent.  He doesn't say too much, is sensitive to the performance, and his tone always seems to match the moment.

I watched my first hockey game ever.  And got to sing the words to Deck the Halls to the Norwegian national anthem.  (My people are awesome!)

Now it's over...and we go back to The Office.  I wonder what Jim and Pam will be up to in 2014.

The Punch

Perhaps you've seen this commercial:



Is it just me or is this totally inappropriate?  Call me a purist, but you can't play Punch Buggy with just any old Volkswagen.  It's vintage Beetles and vintage Beetles only that count.  (I know the "official rules" say the new Beetles count, but I'm sorry, they don't.)  You see one, you yell "Punch Buggy: ___color___!", and then whack the person next to you.  (Verbal variants such as "Punch Bug" or "Slug Bug" are acceptable, though, for consistency's sake, it's best to agree upon nomenclature prior to commencement of  the game.)  But you just can't start wailing on everyone for Jettas, Passats, and Touaregs.  Unacceptable.

I remember the first time I visited Europe my sister and I tried to include the Citroen 2CV in our Punch Buggy game, but even that didn't feel right.

Also troubling is a slightly different version of this commercial that actually takes place on a Volkswagen dealership lot.  Everyone knows that VW lots are off limits.  It's the "zone of disallowance."  (Also part of said zone: a truck full of Beetles.)  Once a Beetle leaves the lot, it's fair game.  (The transition from truck to lot, albeit brief, is also fair game.)

Punch Buggy is as sacrosanct a game as I Spy or The License Plate Game--you just don't mess with it.

The Bite

There’s nothing quite as personal as a baked good. That’s why we give our culinary creations such high status among life events: we cut cake at wedding and birthday celebrations; we send bread (of all varieties: wheat, sourdough, banana, pumpkin, zucchini) to friends and family to let them know we’re thinking about them.

Even something as simple as a chocolate chip cookie is imbued with the essence of its creator. Everyone does it just a little bit differently. A pinch more salt here; a dash of vanilla there. Oats? Sure! All brown sugar? Why not! Some make them thick and gooey; others prefer thin and crispy.

And this human touch is the singular source of chocolate chip cookie joy for me. Give five people the exact same recipe and you’ll still end up with five different tasting specimens. That’s because five different pairs of hands have shaped each batch of dough; five different ovens have baked them; five different cooling racks on five different countertops.

I love how a homemade chocolate chip cookie has a faint taste of the house it was made in! (In a good way, of course…) What an amazing microcosm of life.

This is why mass-produced cookies just don’t work. Chips Ahoy make me want to walk the plank. Mrs. Fields put me out to pasture. Otis Spunkmeyer? Umm…spunky: need I say more?

The Breeze, part 2

Now with video!  So, the performance last night of Mauricio Kagel's "Eine Brise (A Breeze): Transient Action for 111 Cyclists" was a blast.  Around 5:00, I loaded up my borrowed bike (thanks, Bill Salvador) into my NOT bike friendly car and headed off to rehearsal.

Everyone gathered on lower Grand Ave (at the unpronounceable cross street Kosciuszko Way) in Downtown LA to practice the sounds Kagel's score indicates.  First, the bike bells: one forte ring, followed by a fortissimo tremolo, followed by a triple-forte tremelo.  This was to be performed as we first caught sight of the audience.



Then, whistling: three different pitches, each one higher and louder than the last.



Singing was next.  Like the whistling it was three pitches, each one higher and louder than the last...on the vowels Ah, Eee, and Oh.



The whistling and singing was to be combined in the performance.  At a predetermined landmark (in this case, the colorful MOCA sign), we would switch from bike bells to whistling/singing.



As soon as we started to pass the audience, the score instructed us to alternate between a whooshing sound (crescendo from piano to fortissimo, decrescendo back to piano) and flutter tongue (fortissimo at two pitches: the second higher than the first).



Put it all together and the performance goes something like this.  (Okay, it was super dark and the camera I stealthily attached to my handlebars isn't so hot, but you get the idea.)



It was a little lighter at rehearsal.

The Breeze, part 1

I'm super excited to be a part of a bicycle ensemble this evening.  It's part of the Monday Evening Concerts' performance of Eine Brise: Transient Action for 111 Bicyclists.  This music/conceptual art piece, by composer Mauricio Kagel, is entirely written out on sheet music.  A performance lasts about 60-90 seconds and looks/sounds like this:

The Monday Evening Concerts performance will be the Los Angeles premiere of this work.  I've been watching this training video and am heading to the rehearsal in about half an hour.

Hopefully, I'll have some pics or video from tonight's performance.  Thanks to Bill Salvador for letting me borrow his bike and helmet!

The Forecast

It was supposed to rain yesterday.  Instead, it looked like this:

(Okay, the crappy Blackberry camera doesn't do it justice.)  I think that's one of my favorite things about calling California home.  I've lived places where a 30% chance of rain means it'll definitely rain.  Here, a 70% chance of rain means it'll probably be sunny.

Walking along the cliffs in the bright sunshine when it was supposed to be raining got Lennox Fleary's song "Days of Rain" stuck in my head.  Which is a good thing, because four hours later I was playing "Days of Rain" and a dozen other tunes in concert with Lennox and an amazing cadre of voracious musical animals: Daniel Estay (guitarist, singer, songwriter); Isaac Sturtevant (guitarist, keyboardist, singer, songwriter, and one-half of the Oregon-based indie band In My Opinion); Anthony DiRocco (drummer, songwriter, and the other half of In My Opinion); Keaver Brenai (singer, songwriter); and Marika Papazoglu (singer, songwriter).

Fell in love with Lennox's music from the moment I heard it.  He was playing the Saturday morning I walked into the Purple Church for the first time.  His music was the reason I went back the following Saturday.  Pretty amazing for me: a guy who HATES Christian music.  Just goes to show that good music is good music...and as "positive" and "encouraging" as K-Love can be, bad music is bad.  Okay, tangential rant over.

Speaking of opinions: in my opinion, In My Opinion rocks!  These guys have a wonderfully organic feel to their tunes...creative, poignant, bitter, fun.  Playing with them was a highlight of 2010.  We're hoping to arrange a few gigs together here in LA and up in Portland.  And if those shows work out, I hope we can have as many post-concert dinners like we did last night.  Though, it's tough to choke down food while being regaled with tales about poultry in trees at a gas station ("yeah, we've got a chicken problem"), torching furniture in the back yard, the Sheridan Mud Drags (the city's fire dept turns the hoses on a pile of dirt and the locals race trucks),  and turning the bed of a pickup truck into a swimming pool.  Abs hurt lots from laughing so hard.

Finally headed home around 1:00a.  Figured that would be a safe time to brave the 5 fwy traffic through East LA.  Irvine to Eagle Rock: 35 minutes.  I should say so.

The Addiction

It's amazing to me how dependent we become on routine.  How certain facets of our everyday lives morph from being insignificant to being indispensable.  And how so often, if we try to change things up, it completely knocks us off our game.  I know it's not just me.  Please let it not be just me.  I swear I'm not obsessive-compulsive.

For my wife and me, nowhere is this more evident than at bedtime.  I've gotten hooked on those Breathe Right nasal strips.  (Actually, the generic brand from Target is better.)  I don't snore--they just make my nose feel more open and me more relaxed overnight.

 

The last thing my wife does every night as she climbs into bed is lotion her feet.  She says she can't sleep otherwise.

Silence is also deafening for both of us.  If we don't have a fan, or some kind of constant white noise source, we go absolutely nuts.  No fan, no sleep.

 

I have to start the night on my left side--no exceptions.  If I don't, I feel unbalanced the entire night.  (I also have to--throughout the course of the night--sleep on each side equally.  This is done through groggy approximation: if I feel like I've been on one side too long, I must flip.)

We both have to have water nearby.  She sips.  I gulp.

I read somewhere that if we drive the exact same route to and from work every day, our brains actually age faster.  But the minute we introduce the slightest variation into that route, it stimulates brain function, literally keeping us younger.  (And I was so proud to have found the perfect back way to work...)

Do these habits, eccentricities, neuroses affect us similarly?  Should we be actively trying to banish all of this micro-order from our lives?  Are we addicted to routine?

Or does strict adherence to routine in these minor areas of our lives allow us greater spontaneity in the big things?

The Return

Two years since I last blogged? That's what it says.

Well, I'm back. Because I gave up e-silence for Lent. Not really. I've never really observed Lent at all. And I actually don't really believe in giving up stuff for Lent. Such a negative emphasis...and also gives folks way too many opportunities to brag about what they're depriving themselves of. Why not, instead of focusing on the negative things, take up new challenges instead? Like writing.

A couple of years ago playwright Suzan-Lori Parks embarked upon an ambitious project called 365 days/365 plays, in which she wrote a play a day for a year. "It's about embracing the spirit of the text instead of noodling some idea about things," she told The New Yorker magazine.

Okay. I like word hugs. I'm game. I'll write every day throughout Lent. Maybe it'll help me be more observant. Maybe it'll help me discover new joys in my everyday life. We'll see. Read it, if you like. I won't be hurt if you find this incredibly boring, though.