Site Santa Fe

Visited Santa Fe’s wonderful modern art museum “Site Santa Fe” on Paseo de Peralta this Morning. Of the three artists shown, one stood out I thought. His name is John F. Simon and you can see a few of his pieces online at:
http://www.numeral.com/

However, seeing them live is much better, because quite a few of the pieces constantly change and evolve. I also enjoyed John Simon’s laser-cut acrylic pieces, which reminded me of old Japanese woodcuts.

Yesterday and today I have been cleaning up our studio which has accumulated a lot of STUFF since opening in 1994. You know what I mean by STUFF – to good to throw away, but hardly ever used and taking up too much space…..
We have sold the Euphonix mixing console, but the Sony 24 track recorder is still taking up space in one of the rooms. Everybody went digital at the same time and there is no market for these wonderful machines. They might become the rage again in another 20 years????
Anyway, I am slowly clearing the big 16 x 4 ft. table in the control room that so many items had accumulated on…..and the studio is starting to look brand new…..

Smoke

Smoke from the big 300,000 acre Arizona fire is filling the sky around Santa Fe. They announced that just breathing the air today is the equivalent of smoking 4-5 packs of cigarettes. The ambient light is so different from the usual brilliance and beauty.

Today I worked on a remix of “2 the Night” and following a whim I patched a cajon performance through a “virtual” Fender Bassman amp with presence and drive cranked up. Wow, it sounded cool!

Listening:
Gotan Project – La Revancha del Tango

New Cover

Idea for Fiesta! cover: Use lots of negative space. Leave a lot of white instead of covering every square inch of the little CD booklet. Possible solution: put Credits and Thank Yous and similar info on our web site…..the only text in the booklet would be the titles of the songs, the author and publishing info and the little legal bit with the copyright information – less than one page of text I would think….Every public library has access to internet and if a person wants to have the information in hand they can always print it out themselves. This might be a cool solution to the dreadfully busy, busy, busy CD booklets…..

Another option might be to encode the info on the CD itself, but then a person would have to insert it into their computer – would that be an advantage or disadvantage? Put info in html form on CD which a person could open with their browser of choice?

New Diary

Started a new diary, of course in the middle of the year – writing longhand into a book of unlined pages. Discovered that I prefer pencil over ballpoint pen, rollerpen or fountain pen. Pencil compares to rollerpen as Flamenco guitar compares to synthesizer, that is character over uniformity!? I found myself writing more and enjoying it more.

The dogs are loosing a lot of hair in this Summer-like heat that has hit Santa Fe. Tibetan Mastiffs only shed once a year, towards the end of spring – otherwise they keep their coat. The dogs look quite small after they loose the big winter coat. The hair is soft and many shades of grey. Would make a great rug or wall hanging…

50% chance of rain on Saturday according to weather.com, which I visit more often than every before.

Massage

While I was given a massage this Morning we listened to “In the Arms of Love”… and the music is everything I had hoped for: it creates a little oasis, an dreamy aural landscape. What a wonderful luxury a massage is. Mind drifting to the music, body relaxing and releasing tight muscles.

It is dry in Northern New Mexico. Deer are coming down from the mountain forests into people’s yards and are eating whatever plants they can find there. We collect the water before the shower gets hot in a bucket- usually about a half gallon. We cook pasta or vegetables in plain water without salt or oil so we can water a tree with the water once it has cooled down.

In the evening the wind started blowing smoke from the Pecos fire towards Santa Fe and it smelled so strong that it seemed that the fire should have been in the neighborhood. Smelling smoke is a strange sensation. It seems like thousands of years of human experience has taught us to be alert and worried when we smell smoke. That might make for some interesting dreams tonight.