02020-11-19 | Uncategorized
(This is a story I wrote last year. The word was Gallery and I had 25′ to write something. This was the result)
Are you ready, she asked with that determined look I knew so well. I nodded, Google Glass is turned on, I said.
Seeing us walk to a large painting on the wall a gallery associate walked over, how do you like it, he asked.
She smiled at him and said, it says price on request, how much is it?
Ninety-five, I think, he said. It’s wonnerfull, isn’t. The color, the mood… it’s just wonnerfull. Let me check whether I gave you the right price.
How is the light, she asked me. Perfect, I replied, that window next to the painting lights you up nicely, and by turning I can record the full painting as well.
The associate came back. It’s seventy-five, he said with a big smile, full of perfectly spaced and whitened teeth.
That’s perfect, she said and, turning to me, added, pay the man and let’s take it with us.
Without changing the angle of my recording glasses I fished a hundred dollar bill out of my pocket. She took it and said: there you go, keep the change.
What? The associate swallowed visibly. Is this a joke?
You said seventy-five, did you not?
I did, but…
It has to be seventy-five dollars, although I suspect that it only covers the materials. It can’t be seventy-five hundred, because that would be too much for a painting that is not art, merely some kind of pretty craft, and not even very pretty. I only wanted to buy it because it matches the throw pillows on our couch. There is nothing there, just a few color splotches. No brush work to speak of. No real idea or message, just a conman splattering some colors onto a canvas.
The associate looked around for help, but the other gallery employees were moving and hanging canvases and he found that he was on his own.
He cleared his throat… as a matter of fact this painting costs seventy-five thousand dollars… Is this a joke? He looked around like those people on candid camera but, of course, there was no camera in sight. The camera was on my nose. It was becoming difficult to keep a straight face.
Seventy-five thousand dollars? She over emphasized the word dollars and I bit my tongue so I wouldn’t laugh. Are you kidding me right now? I have seen pigs that painted more interesting paintings than this. Take this to a flea market and see whether you can get more than seventy-five dollars for this.
This is not a flea market. It is one of the finest galleries in this city. I think you need to leave now.
Gladly, she replied, this place isn’t a gallery, it is a warehouse for overpriced decorative panels that masquerade as paintings.
She turned around on her heels and stomped out of the gallery. I followed her, but made a slow 360º turn to record the whole scene.
02020-11-18 | Uncategorized
(this is from 2019… the word given was Wood and I had 25′ to write something… this was the result)
“Modern life is making me crazy,” he said apropos of nothing.
She looked up from the book she was reading, and regarded him questioningly, with one eyebrow arched high.
“One day your eyebrow will get stuck in that position and what will you do then, permanently disfigured by that expression.”
“What is making you crazy?” She asked, her eyebrow slowly returning to its neutral setting…
“Well, It’s so hard to navigate even the most simple tasks. I am working on a house for a client and we are looking into which materials to use to make the ecological footprint as small as possible. Concrete is out because it releases tons of carbon, wood is lovely but we need more trees, not less… brick or adobe are very labor intensive and expensive. So we’re looking into recycled materials, like old concrete blocks and wood from torn down buildings, but in some cases those are becoming more expensive than brand new materials because so many people are trying to go this route.”
“And what about deciding between vegetables that are organic, but highly packaged in plastic and bulk vegetables that are not organic?”
“I know!” he said, a little more forceful than necessary, “it is so frustrating! Sometimes I spend way too much time grocery shopping for that very reason.”
“But we have to eat.” Her soft tone calmed him. “I have thought about this quite a bit. For us to eat something always has to suffer, doesn’t it. Whether it is a fish or chicken or cow that was slaughtered, or the insects that were killed during the farming or harvesting of vegetables. Now we have come to that point where we suffer ourselves from eating. Pesticides, plastic, micro plastic, pollution. It’s enough to make one crazy if one thinks about it for too long.”
The room became silent for a while as they both thought about it.
“You know,” he said, breaking the silence and taking her hand, “perhaps it is a sign that too much is on offer when we spend so much time comparing. When you are hungry you don’t care about what you eat, or what materials you build your shelter from. Perhaps it is a good sign that we have the luxury of contemplating these issues. We should be thankful.”
02020-11-16 | Uncategorized
My plan for the rest of the year.
- work on the Full Version of vision 2020: trumpet has been recorded already with percussion + accordion still to be done
- add more of the old SSRI catalog to Bandcamp – where possible in high def., including Up Close in 24/96kHz
- work on four new compositions which will either become part of an album called Bare Wood 2 or will be the start of a entirely new album… restrict instrumentation to Flamenco guitar, upright bass and cajon/djembe
- plan one more Twitch performance or perhaps two performances as before – one in evening + one in late morning
- add Jon Gagan’s version/remix of Dance 4 Me to Bandcamp… it’s beautiful + creative + different + rich + orchestral!
- write a post about the different music file formats and their advantages
- stay home :-)
02020-11-16 | Uncategorized
Watch this interview with a nurse and stay safe. Reality doesn’t care what we believe.
There is an old Zen saying: All beliefs are false, especially this one.
02020-11-11 | Uncategorized
I woke up with the feeling that I was in a spaceship on my way to another galaxy. Flashes of Bruce Dern in Silent Running, which I watched on German TV when I was a teenager, and Dr. David Bowman in A Space Odyssey, jogging around a centrifugal device, which created artificial gravity on the Discovery One spacecraft.
This year I spent more time in my house and studio than ever before. Very early in the morning I leave the house to walk through mostly empty streets – it’s not a big step to imagine that the streets that I know so well could be a projection and that I am actually walking along a narrow path around the circumference of a ship. The bumps in the road, that not only look like bumps but also feel like bumps, are very well engineered. They make this a better exercise for the body because I have to take them into account and step over or around them… eye-to-feet-coordination. I usually wear headphones and listen to music or a podcast or just to binaural beats. The headphones remove the noise of traffic and make my world quiet.
I have several rituals that mark the time. There is my daily meditation, for example, and the daily afternoon celebration that consists of taking an espresso and a small madeleine with my co-pilot, sometimes combined wih a game of cards, usually at 1530 and after a yoga session. Yes, I learned how to make really good madeleines a few months ago. There is the guitar practice and some daily reading. There is the weekly making of bread…
I realize that I could be good at interstellar travel. I am content on this ship, content with my morning walk, and the little things that fill the day.
