Months ago I polished my silver-plated trumpet for the first time since I bought it. I didn't do "seven minutes in heaven" with a new horn at a music store in spring of 2004. Mr. Danny Barber and I arranged a parking lot rendezvous outside of "Lunkers" restaurant in Edwardsburg, MI. He played this 1974… Continue reading The Process of Polishing
...in the second part of my dream, I am working as a lawn-technician. It's already Autumn in Michigan (not Maryland) when I arrive to do a work-order on a property near a state park. The forest is dominated by deep greens but rogue tree-limbs have changed colors. I sense a lake beyond the woodlands abutting the property. A well-worn trail is visible, dammed by fallen-branches full of brick-red leaves. I want to clear the dead-fall along the trail and follow it to the shore...
On Halloween Day I departed from the IHOP in Olney, MD in a daze. To lessen the likelihood of mowing-down trick-or-treaters with our fleet of half-blind utility trucks, our assigned work orders were lighter that day. I had spent the morning disguised as a lawn technician, and employed as one this past Autumn, but never shed… Continue reading Halloween Day: The Costumed Clerk and a Plastic Trumpet
I cried unexpectedly when I read Kamasi Washington’s liner-notes for “Harmony of Difference”. I found the suite while browsing for “Heaven & Earth” on Amazon.com and ordered both sent to my father’s house in Holland, MI. Absconding to a chair in a blind corner, I quieted too fast and my father came looking for me,… Continue reading It’s Like Warm Caramel
I want to unpack this notion of "writing to live", presently. It cannot be a hollow, "just do it", reductionist-species of motivational phrase. This fresh axiom also needs separated from another, superficially-similar suggestion to "write like your life depends upon it." These two sentences come from different poetics. To write as if my entire life… Continue reading Write to Live: Musician’s Intuition
I hit a concrete column as I tried to enter a slot in the underground parking structure at Safeway grocery store. My surprise at my nonchalance did not quite overpower an ambient numbness. I hit the same spot on my bumper's edge (right-side, under the headlight) that struck the stump when I slid off the… Continue reading 1562 Pennies Later…
Since I am having trouble opening-up, let alone writing eloquently, I decided to complain to my sister (the almost-librarian): There isn't much doubt that I have been fretful about my career since I was fifteen or sixteen, back when I could not decide if I wanted to be a biologist or a musician. Many people… Continue reading [A post to “Sibling Share”, copied & pasted]
Reverse Exiled 