Could We Start Again Please?

I began this blog just short of two years ago, after I had been blogging at Speaklo for the two years prior. At the time, the SpeakLo blog had, somewhat by accident, become a blog about my travels and travails post-Katrina and I was at a place where I wanted to move on.

Perhaps I run in two year cycles, but I am definitely moving around to a new place in this process once more.

Whatever it is... perhaps it's the coming of Spring... the inevitability of return at Easter... but I am once again wanting to ask, Could We Start Again Please?

To that end, I have just begun posting once more at SpeakLo. My intention is to post things there that relate somewhat to my work in audio. That may be a look at music or audio in general, a review or a recommendation on something that I find of particular note, or simple gratuitous promotion of my own projects. It may also be a simple resting place for thoughts about what we listen to and listen for.

My plans are to continue posting here (though I am still evaluating a name change to Amazements instead of Amusements but the jury's still out on that for the moment.

In any case, I am beginning at SpeakLo this morning with the remembrance of an album I worked on nearly 25 years ago which, over the weekend, I had the opportunity to give a new listen... finding a surprising and comforting result.

I think - I hope - you'll enjoy it. Please feel free to let me know.

A Former Acquaintance

There's a guy in my town who (with some assistance from his wife, and lots of capitulation from a "gang that couldn't shouldn't straight" collection of board members) runs the little local lodge like his personal, private domain.

In the opinion of many, Mr. Moose has, virtually single-handedly, saved the little local lodge from construction devolution, but for many folks, his interpersonal destructiveness and ugly and vindictive machinations have done more to destroy the potential for a truly fraternal and caring organization in the midst of this well-intentioned, though not always fully functional community.

During the last few months I have been engaged with Mr. Moose in a battle to save the little local lodge from utter implosion, but recently I gave up the fight. There are better things to do, as far as I can see (at least for me), than fight a battle with a little caesar bent on shoring up his self-indulgent, acrimonious kingdom of obsequious devotees.

In the midst of it all, one thing that has been sticking with me is the vague sense of having encountered this pompous turd on some previous occasion. And then it hit me...

My first encounter with Mr. Moose occurred in the summer of 2005, shortly after I returned to Petaluma, homeless, following forced flight from New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina. I had been living in Petaluma for nearly five years when I decided to move to New Orleans just three weeks before Katrina sent me scurrying back to California.

The encounter was precipitated by the fact that I was sitting at a table in a little westside Petaluma coffee shop in the early morning. I was drinking coffee and reading a book and I was not disturbing anyone. Mr. Moose arrived at the coffee shop, and moved directly to me, towering over me, and glowering with rage in the slight mist of the early morning air.

"You're sitting at our table!" he bellowed.

I looked up in confusion and screwed up my face with consternation. "What?"

As I looked around at the nearly empty coffee shop I couldn't figure out why THIS particular table was such a prime piece of real estate. Little did I realize that the contempt, oafishness, and territoriality Mr. Moose demonstrated on this particular occasion would manifest itself three years later over a different piece of property.

In screenwriting, this kind of incident would be referred to as "foreshadowing."

Ultimately, I gave up my space, despite absolutely NO courtesy, kindness, or even deference to my presence. I was already beaten down by my journeys, the storm, and the process of trying to exist without a place to live on two different coasts.

I moved to another table and composed a poem about the experience. I then put that poem up online at Speaklo.

This afternoon, while digging around in the archives (a little bit like rummaging around in my closet of anxieties) in preparation for restarting that blog, I found the poem.

Here's the poem...

I must acknowledge that I made one mistake. There's a sense in which I imply within the poem that all people in P-town (or at least all those at the coffee shop) are liberals. That would be very much incorrect. It would be equally as incorrect to assume, as I may have to some extent implied, that all Petalumans (whether liberal, conservative, or uncommitted) are unpleasant, ignorant, assholes. In the time I've spent back in this town since the day I wrote the poem, I have become very close with some of the dearest friends I have had in all of my life. They run the gamut of spiritual, political, and personality perspectives and I cherish every one of them.

Beyond that, I stand by my observations of nearly four years ago.

I would also like to point out to Mr. Moose (and those who are like him), what goes around... does in fact seem to come around.

There's a BEVERAGE here!

For the first time in about 17 years (the last time was for my daughter's birthday party), I went bowling in Petaluma this Saturday night. It was a benefit forPetaluma People Services Center, but the only thing that came to my mind was White Russians, and...

According to the "Which Big Lebowski character are you?" quiz:

This is what happens when you meet a stranger in the Alps!

70 Landings!!!

I grew up in South Florida, carefully watching on TV, and then running outside of the house just in time to see it live, so many of the early NASA launches that they are probably embedded into my psyche at the sub-moelcular level.

Since moving away from Florida, and more or less growing up (something that does remain rather debatable) I remain fascinated by space travel and space missions. Thanks to Twitter, I am newly able to keep up with space developments in a way that I previously missed.

That's what happened just now. I got on the computer just to check some email, do a few Saturday based interactions and get on with the day. But I found a series of reports from "Astronautics" that led me to the NASA site, where I could get information on Discovery's landing after the week in space where they've been putting some of the finishing touches on the International Space Station. It was at the NASA site where I discovered that this makes 70 landings at Cape Canaveral and, frankly, that just makes me silly with excitement.

I am thankful for being given a love for space by my dad, and I am delighted to be able to be alive at a time and place where "the last frontier" is still being explored and where, thanks to our new president and his concern for new scientific exploration, we may finally - again - begin exploring the outreaches of our proximate universe.

It is indeed... An Amazement!

What's In A Word?

I had a dream last night... well actually the dream I had was early this morning and it was one of those dreams - not a bad dream actually, it was in fact quite a good dream - that make you feel all out of sorts, like it's trying to tell you something about your life and you may not be ready to receive the communication.

I'm going to keep the dream to myself, at least for now, as I take it apart in my mind and put it back together in my soul, but I have already implemented one change that came out of the experience.

I am - at least for the moment (we will see how it fits me over time) - changing the name of this blog from Quicksilver Amusements to Quicksilver Amazements. Two letters that make for a significant attitude adjustment.

It seems to me that for most folks, despite the fact that a part of the root is muse, a word that describes thoughtfulness and consideration, the central idea behind the word amusement is the idea of entertainment, mindlessness, and relatively thoughtless jocularity. For me, at least right at this moment, the idea of amazement is more dynamic. It describes an experience of enthrallment, the state of being actively engaged with a conundrum. It is, to my mind, a more dynamic and interesting concept. It is a state, far more than amusement, that I am interested in partaking in and introducing to others. At it's root, it also contains the word maze. This word, closely related to labyrinth is in fact a structure that as a metaphor for living seems to bring with it a lot of power; power to move, power to confuse, power to elicit intentionality and interest.

Amazement, it seems to me, is a much more active, interesting and engaging state.

What do you think?