Daily recordings now on Soundcloud

To celebrate my reunion with my piano, for a limited time I'm posting short selections of improvisations. On the right navigation bar, scroll down to "More where that came from" and hit "SoundCloud Recordings." They are all simply titled "Pianon," where n is the number in the series.

The first one is probably more typical of what I do, the second a poke at A major tonality, the third a splash in the octatonic. If you have comments or suggestions for future improvs, this is probably the only instance where I welcome them; write below or in the comments option on SoundCloud.

Marina Abramovic's Reddit "Ask me anything"

Reddit showed up well after I'd lost my fascination with crowd forums. I stumbled into this "Ask me anything" thread while researching this month's action on Congressional representatives. (They are home; please call and visit them.)

I read all her responses. The more I read, the more they reflected a profound, non-denominational stillness and wisdom that resonated with what I find in Buddhist meditation practice. It was so inspiring to connect radical performance art with my spiritual journey of the past five years.

poiein: You said that “The hardest thing is to do something which is close to nothing, because it’s demanding all of you.” What is the closest thing to nothing you have ever done?

Abramovic: Completely surrendering to my migraine attack when I could not move or open my eyes, just let pain take over. 

I continue to believe my experience in the sadism/masochism community gave me initial access to so much that I value: courage, trust in myself, willingness to use the control I have, ability to discern control that was mine or not. It was my initial experience of controlled deviation from my own mental habits and conventions. Although I now choose meditation and mindful daily practice with abstinence from BDSM and sexual relationships, I accept those past experiences with pride.

saintdada: Marina, when you are having a bad day what do you tell yourself/ what keeps you going?

Abramovic: I'm not attached to bad day or good day. We always know after the rain the sun will come. It is a law of nature. When it is really, really bad day, I take a long bath full of Kosher salt and baking soda, soak for 30 minutes, and I feel better. 

Classic! We accept that sometimes reality is painful, and practice discernment where it's so painful that we care for ourselves and each other to recover. We have confidence that the pain was real and that recovery is possible because the capacity for wellness remains within each of us, without exception.

zoebokany: Have you ever doubted yourself? 

Abramovic: In my emotional life. Never in my artistic.

walmartsushi: How do you come up with an idea for a performance piece? How do you flesh it out? How do you think about communicating the meaning of a piece? 

Abramovic: I only pick up the ideas who I am afraid of or who are disturbing or who I have never been in that territory before. Ideas who are nice, friendly, or I like them I do not choose because they are too easy. It's very important to create high standards for yourself, no matter what. My ideas come from life not from studio. 

McCrea's piano moving: a composer's review

I've never reviewed a piano moving before.

This was the first one I've ever watched. Despite having had this piano moved three times since I bought it in 2007, I've managed to avoid being present for any of it until today.

On moving day, I waited for the phone call. And waited. Noticing caffeine jitters at 11:30am, I microwaved meal food and started on a bowl. Then the phone rang. They would be at the starting place in 20 minutes; I covered the bowl, hopped on my bike, and zipped to Rockridge.

My friend, the house owner who has been keeping my piano since I started traveling, had left his affectionate black lab in a harness, but it was easy to entice him into the closed yard. I sat nervously with him moment after moment, getting up to look every time I heard truck engines or doors slam. On the fifth or sixth trip into the house I saw the boldly marked Piano Mover truck in the driveway and awkwardly stepped onto the stoop to greet the movers. I felt small, flimsy, on borrowed property.

Two of the three men worked quickly and with the quiet grace I'm used to seeing in rehearsal. Greg, the maestro, communicated in piano-moving code, single words and brief phrases to coordinate lifts, tilts, and props like dollies and carpeting pieces. In a single breath he noted and dismissed the thickness of the piano. Then, the piano was in the air, resting on a roll of carpet on its smallest edge.

Then it was on a dolly and down the steps in a blink. My breaths were long in wonderment and terror. My body felt exactly as it does during dissections, when I cut and when I witness cutting.

The dog never barked. I thought I heard his steps on the other side of the wooden gate after the piano was already out of the house. I let him back in, bid him farewell, and biked home. I had barely caught my breath and finished my lunch back in the house when Greg knocked.

The front steps were steep. A side entrance had too many narrow turns.

Once they crossed the bottom concrete steps, it was shoulder strength. They used a roller like an upside-down dolly to smooth each lift, step by step. That smallest edge had to land squarely on each step or risked spilling. Every tilt that wobbled sent air rushing into my lungs, my heart clenching. My attention frequently returned to my face: mouth gaping, then smiling, then gritting teeth; eyes wide.

At the top step they popped it onto a dolly and prepared for the easy part. I complimented them for the impact the  performance had on me. My room is immediately adjacent the front door, but there was another series of hiccups fitting the cups under the wheels. If it wasn't perfectly centered it would pop out from under the piano's weight, sometimes shooting some distance from underneath. After many lifts, the mover on his belly popped it under the trouble wheel.

Greg tried a few of the keys while I was recovering from the nerves of the whole experience.

Before today I honestly had paranoid images of the stairs splintering under the weight and even my floor giving way. After they brought up my bench and were on their way I tried the middle movement from Mozart's a-minor sonata K310. I feel solid now.

Zero-cost light shelf

All that orchid repotting left me with a few too many pots and plates so I salvaged some more wood and sawed, drilled, and screwed:

The sandwich panel was pre-printed with lovely goldfish. I didn't bother cutting or drilling into either panel, so they're both resting on cross beams. It has the potential to be a heavier duty shelf with the addition of braces or extra crossbeams. I like how short and open it is so as not to obstruct natural light.

The orchids seem happy enough and some of them got a watering. It's a bit cumbersome soaking them in a bucket one by one, but I suppose not much different from care of one or two plants.

I used a large needle, thimble, and screw to open holes in the bottoms of the soda bottle pots. More wildflower sprouts:

I'm allotting a sizeable chunk of my last paycheck to move my piano back in. Everyone seems shy to play the one in the hallway... Also I enjoyed a dual video monitor for engraving One Journey, so I'm on the lookout for a discarded computer monitor, which would fit nicely on the laptop bench.

Vertical garden with orchids

I'm still prototyping vertical garden pockets. In the last post, you saw the apparently empty pockets. One set of Napa Valley poppy/Evening Primrose/Wild Blue Flax seeds are sprouting:

I installed a new row, this time with two pairs of screws in drywall, and outfitted them with orchids from a friend's personal collection and rescued from other friends.

I removed the bamboo and plastic rods that give orchid flower spikes their artificial erect position; they're epiphytes so they don't need to be tulip-shaped. This way they can expand across and out from the wall.

Most Americans I know have trouble keeping orchids in bloom. This is part personality mismatch, part misinformation, and part poor commercial design. One of the orchids was seated in the typical plastic root cup inside a sealed pot full of extra mulch and moss. There was an inch of stagnant water at the bottom when I got it. No wonder it had lost its flower spikes and the leaves were starting to turn!

I think orchids will be perfect for pocket gardens because they require the occasional minute-soak, drain quickly, and spread over vertical surfaces.

Thoughts?

Sustainable materials bedroom, a diy adventure

An artist's home studio is both refuge and inspiration. Since moving into my new home I've busied myself suiting it out. I loathe buying new things and love tinkering with my hands, so I've scavenged materials and prototyped for hours. 

Here's my favorite so far, inspired by this amazing outdoor vertical garden project in San Paulo. I found a torn couch cover in our free box. I had already gromited webbing to the wall, no easy task on the old angled drywalls. I cut and sewed pouches, keeping the original seams on the lip, and sewed them to the webbing with a found spool of fishing line.

I'm still experimenting with the sag that pulls the webbing toward the center -- the couch cover had some straps attached so I might add another row using those. I'm thinking about adding one more on the bottom for a heavy pot. For now, I'm waiting for wildflowers to sprout from seed. Friends will be contributing more plants and I'll be scavenging fir bark for orchids next!

At first I made pouches too deep to monitor the pots easily, then too shallow except for the narrowest water bottles. 

Finally I settled on this 1/3 fold, still using the original seams for the long edges. 

I know garden soil isn't the best for indoor potting, but I'm experimenting with drainage and minimal watering for the moment.

Next is the "closet" rod corner. I literally picked up the telescoping white metal rod from the curb after a house cleaning. I'm banking on the molding holding most of the weight, with a few screws in studs to keep it from rolling away from the walls. The lower wood rod was much more difficult. Without studs anywhere near the work area I had to use L-braces and plan on hanging only small, light things there.

By the way, molly anchors did not play nice with this wall. It's entirely possible I estimated wrong on the wall thickness, but it was not smooth tinkering. In the end I stuck with wood screws. 

Speaking of which, I scavenged wood scraps and learned to use the saw angle tool to assemble (unassemble, adjust, and reassemble) this pedestal table. It's a bit wobbly, but the perfect height for me to work on the laptop without discomfort! Whew, it was a challenge and now I check out every piece of wood furniture with interest.

Next update: acoustic panels and piano homecoming.

Zimmerman acquittal and action for an end to racism

Helicopters cut over Oakland's downtown from Saturday night protests to a rally yesterday afternoon. But shout as we may in unison or on bullhorn, truth and reconciliation arrive on stealthy feet, in homes and schools, tapping individual by individual.

The trial was not enough. It revealed offensive flaws in law and in our criminal justice system. It revealed an even more urgent need for a national dialogue about the state of racism. We can't keep pretending we're not afraid, that we don't stereotype, or that our actions place one another at deadly risk every day.

Before President Obama was inaugurated in 2009, his team orchestrated a nationwide grassroots action to measure and activate community concerns. As a health care worker I spoke up in a town hall meeting about health care. It was a powerful act of vertical civic engagement we need to extend now to address racism and the disrespectful treatment of firearms in America.

I am writing my representatives requesting this action. I urge you to do the same: lwv.org