Concert Videography and the Golden Rule

Last night as I was watching the Punch Brothers show in Birmingham, I suddenly became aware of this little white-haired lady sitting on the front row holding up an iPhone filming the whole thing.  The incongruity of that stunned me for a moment, and then it made me irritated.  There had been, of course, the requisite announcement at the beginning of the performance telling people not to take pictures or record the show in any way.  Now here was this person blatantly sitting there recording away in front of God and country.  Is this where all those videos on YouTube come from?  Somebody's little old Mawmaw?

I don't know why people do that.  I don't know why they just assume it's "okay" unless somebody makes them stop.  It's not.

First of all, I think it's a distraction to the performers if they can see it, and unless that was Thile's sweet little grandma filming her own true bebe up there, they could see her and knew somebody was just as disrespectful to them as could be.  I know as performers they probably develop a thick skin to this sort of thing, but really, does anybody ever get over being shown disrespect?  I am a classroom teacher.  Every day, I stand before an "audience" and deal with varying forms of attention and inattention, respect and disrespect, and I can tell you that even though some of the bad is expected, it never quite gets "okay."

Second, it's a symptom of a larger whole in society to me.  If you're willing to ignore somebody's wishes not to record them in a concert because they've asked you not to but you want to do something differently, what else are you willing to railroad over?  It's a form of selfishness.  It seems we all want what we want when we want it, and we don't really care what it costs the other person, whether it is a photograph taken in the Sistine Chapel or Westminster Abbey (both places they ask you not to photograph, but MY GOD, watch the tourists "sneak" pictures), a "live" film to bootleg on YouTube or something larger, something with more sinister.  It occurred to me as I was thinking about that lady again this morning that it all springs from the same dark root, so maybe we shouldn't treat any of it lightly.

The Golden Rule exists in almost every ethical, moral, and religious system in the world for a reason.  It is stated slightly differently, but it is that bedrock principal for a reason.  Somehow, though, it seems as if we have gotten away from it, started looking down on it as a form of weakness or gullibility.  We've all taken our iPhones out of our pockets and started filming away when the mood strikes us forgetting that this behavior means that there will come a time when that little lens will be turned on us....and we might not like it so much then.

We need to get back to a place where we don't do things simply because somebody asked us not to do them.  Their wishes need to be reason enough.  There should be no need for bulletproof glass, security guards with truncheons, and searches before you go in.  Do to them what you want done to you.  That way, when you have your own moment of weakness or pain and you find yourself in need, you can reach out in confidence or close your door in privacy.  I think this is the world we'd all rather live in.

Punch Brothers in Birmingham, AL

The day finally came.  My little countdown ticker on my computer finally read "Today is Punch Brothers."  Yesterday, my students all were full of questions if I was going to come here to Birmingham and have a good time.  I told them with zero hesitation, "Heck, yes."  One of two of them said,  "You coming back?"  I just grinned and said, "Maybe..."  They laughed.  It's been no secret that I've been looking forward to this concert for a loooong time.

The show opened with Loudon Wainwright.  I hadn't heard him before, but I loved him.  His lyrics were thought-provoking, funny at times (well, usually), and profound.  He had several songs that I really want to get.  On payday, I will be looking for his stuff on Amazon to download.  He had a song about fathers and daughters that made me tear up thinking about my own father.  He had a song called "My Meds" that made me cry for other reasons, laughter.  He also had one about heaven being the place where everything that is forbidden on earth is permitted that was also hilarious.  There was also one commemorating the passing of Mr. Rogers that was very lovely. He was awesome.

Then, after the requisite intermission, there they were.  Last time I saw them, it was in the Riley Center, and I was in my usual seat next to that trusty support pole.  This time, though, I was there in the third row, almost dead center.  Let me tell you, it makes a big difference in the experience.

I love to watch them play. I don't mean I just like to look at them as a group on stage, or watch Chris Thile do his dances on stage; I actually love to watch what's happening with the instruments.  They are all so fabulously talented.  After years of being around this musician and that one, making pitifully fumbling  and failed attempts at a couple of those instruments, I know quality when I see it, and so I was more or less spellbound just watching them do what they do.  They make it look so damn easy when they're doing things that are ridiculously complicated, and I truly believe they're having fun.  I love them for both.

The audience was sort of too well-bred to clap much.  Sigh.  Bunch of professors and doctors.  Sheesh.  Just once, just once, I would like to see them in a crowd full of people who just holler and scream and cut up because the music moves them.  I wonder what IU would be like for them, what the music school crowd would be like for them as an audience?  IU is a good audience for everybody.  (and I am not prejudiced at ALL.)

Anyway.

Noam Pikelny played a song from his new album (which I now own, thankyouverymuch) called "Jim Thompson's Horse."  He started introducing it in that beautifully dry manner he has, and everybody sort of thought he was inventing a fantasy, I guess.  I didn't catch it either until he said the name.  Then I had one of those slap-the-forehead moments.  I knew exactly who he was talking about.  I've been to the Jim Thompson house, have a red Thai silk elephant on my guest room bed that I bought there when I was in Bangkok as a part of Volunteer Education Network.  I just want to know how he took that story and ran with it.  It's the most curious thing to have wound up in banjo land.  However, I suspect banjo land is different when he's the king of it, sort of like tsugaru shamisen grooves a little differently in the hands of Agatsuma.

It was all grand.  All the songs from the upcoming album were terrible teases.  I knew I wanted it before, but to hear them and then to know I can't get them for two or three weeks was just painful.  (Yeah.  I know.  Firstworldproblems.)  It will be a great day-after-my-birthday present.  I just have to keep telling myself that.  It will also help me have SOMETHING to look forward to on That Damn Day.

They finished up with "Rye Whiskey."  I'll have that song stuck in my head for happy weeks.  It and "Missy" are swapping back and forth right now.  I think that's not a bad mix, actually.   After the show, they were going to come out and sign, but I didn't stay for that.  I bought and pocketed my new and slipped away.  You know how I feel about having people write their names on things (nobody but Billy Collins, ever...I fangirl for nobody else but him).  I would like to tell them how great the show was, did tweet to their accounts that I loved it, but I don't think they notice things like that.  I imagine they are inundated with teh Twittah.

Despite the fact that this weekend got a bit expensive what with the gas and the hotel room and everything, I cannot consider one single dime of it ill-spent.  The five of them were just amazing, as they apparently always are. Loudon Wainwright was an unexpected bonus I look forward to learning more about.  In short,  I'd pay the fare to take the ride all over again.  Lately, I haven't been able to say that about much of anything.  Thank you, Punch Brothers and Mr. Wainwright, for a grand evening.

Birmingham Museum of Art

I wasn't really planning to blog until at least after tonight's concert, but I am just so completely blown away by the museum that I went to today, that I have to get this down while it is still fresh in my mind.

I decided to come in to Birmingham early today and do something other than just "see the show."  There were a couple of reasons for that.  Birmingham has only ever been a city I dreaded driving through, a fast blur I cursed my own personal blue streak at as I tried to hit the junction for I-65 N as I headed up to Bloomington or as my parents drove on vacation.  I felt like it deserved to have a little bit more than that or a civic center to define it in my mind.

Then there is the fact that I inevitably get lost at least once every trip.  Since a concert is one of those things they sort of like you to show up on time for, I didn't want to have to fool with getting lost trying to find the auditorium and be stressed out about it.  (For those of you keeping score, I have already taken care of the lost bit and gotten it out of the way as I tried to find my hotel.  Hopefully, I'm done with that.)

Therefore, I came to the museum.  When I entered, I asked the docent at the desk what their entry fee was.  She just smiled and handed me some brochures.  There isn't one.  For a collection that size and that quality, I almost fell over.

The first gallery I toured was their education section, all of which had been done by local students. Two thoughts crossed my mind:  What must it be like to teach at those schools? and Oh, how I wish my darling babies could see this....  We have a strong art program at our school, but some of that work was just incredible.  There was even sumi-e.

Every kind of thing you can think of from Wedgwood to African Art to traditional American pottery to Japanese antiquities to pre-Columbian artifacts is in that one building.  I didn't see it all.  I couldn't.  I spent a considerable amount of time with the Asian collection (surprise, surprise), and stumbled across a small but lovely gallery of 14th - 18th century Italian  pieces in a variety of media, including some of the prizes of the museum, some terracotta studies of saints Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John that were really amazing.

Three pieces from the whole have sort of stuck with me, though, haunting me long after I left the parking lot and got shoved by traffic onto the onramp for the interstate.  (yeah.  this was the beginning of "lost.")  The first was a painting by a French artist.  It was called "The Sorceress."  Something about it just grabbed me and pulled me in.  I've never seen anything like it. The painting was almost life-size.  I am almost certain that woman is going to start showing up in my dreams now.  This is not a good thing since she had a little voodoo doll and was stabbing it through the heart with a giant knife.  The painting was that...I hesitate to use the word captivating, but that's the only one I can come up with now.  It was really strange.  Everybody who saw it was pulled to it that way.  I can't explain.

The second piece was free standing ceramic sculpture by a Bay Area potter whose stuff I saw before at SFMOMA and loved, Robert Arneson.  The piece I saw by him in San Francisco was tremendous, but the one I saw today made him one of my favorite artists ever.  I have to find out all about him now.  It was this fantastic clay self-portrait head which he deliberately disfigured and made a top of a perfectly-formed funerary urn.  Carved into it, both the head and the urn were all types of phrases and reminders that we should not judge because "we are all just dust," and other things.  He had adapted a classical form and turned it personal as he was struggling with cancer.  It was just knock-you-down amazing, especially when you take the time to consider the skill involved in what he did to create it all.

The third piece was also pottery.  I suppose it is inevitable that I am carrying more of it than anything else.  I saw another Jomon vase today.  I have only ever seen one at the Aichi Prefectural pottery museum, I think it was, when I made my very first ever piece of pottery.  Jomon is literally thousands of years old.  When I look at Jomon, I feel amazed that we still do that same thing, we still shape mud and try to make it lovely, fire it so it becomes something else, use it in our daily lives.  Jomon is beautiful, too.  The shapes of the early pieces are lovely and very modern-looking.  I guess the cliche about everything old becoming new again is true, after all.  I stood and peered into that case surrounded by a whole gallery full of Japan for a long time.  It lifted something in my heart, and when I turned away, I felt better than I had in a long, long time.

I'll sit here a while longer, and then I'll go down and find something that will pass for food.  I'm not worried about a meal, really.  Just as long as it will keep body and soul together, that's fine.  I didn't come to eat.  I came to be fed with other things, things I can't really get at home. Part one of the "refueling" is more or less complete.  I guess you can say I've downloaded it and it has to finish the install (ha).  This isn't an easy day trip, but to know there is this much beauty this close might make me come this way again even if it is a heckuva drive home when I'm done.  I think it would be worth it.

Holding On and Letting Go

If I can just make it through today...
If I can just make it through today...

This is my little mantra.

The weekend is going to be chock-full of awesome.  Two days in Birmingham and Punch Brothers again await me, but I have to wade through one more day of ridiculous crap.  I didn't see it coming yesterday; it blindsided me.  All of a sudden, I was awash in something horrid.

I know how to deal with it now, but at the time, it caught me like a riptide and pulled me away from myself.  I've been in the situation before.  The only thing to do is just get away from the attitude that causes it.  It won't be easy, but like I said, I've had lots and lots of practice.

In a way, though, what happened also helps me to let go.  That inexplicable rudeness just makes it easier for me to see things objectively, clears away emotional ties to the situation as a whole.  Until I can make sure of my direction, I will just stay away from that individual altogether.  I can't understand what the problem is there, and to be perfectly honest, I just have too many other things that I need to focus on to untangle it.

I also need to keep telling myself that it is really only one or two people and only one or two little parts of my day.  It isn't that much.  Into everyone's life a little crap must fall, probably.  It was just so unnecessary, so seemingly arbitrary, and, well, so rude.  I hate rudeness.   Anyway.

Holding on and letting go.  It's a paradox, simultaneously contradictory and true.  My life is made up of this right now.  I yearn for the day when there are not so many contradictions in every hour.

Today Had....

• Sweetness after a long day of things that made me sad -- the fragrance of newly-opened daffodils on a cool breeze as I walked the dogs under a stormy night sky. Since they apparently refuse to repair the air in my classroom, it was wonderful to be in a place that wasn't almost eighty degrees.  The scent, one of my favorites in the spring, was just a peaceful bonus.
• A big relief -- Roux was able to walk and prance for the first time in a week thanks to her arthritis medicine and trip to the vet today.  She's been in such pain, and I was afraid her other knee had gone.  One ACL surgery for each one of us is enough, I think.  She's bouncy and back to something much more like herself now.
• Unbearable irony and probable foolishness -- spending time publicly defending someone because it was the right thing to do even though I'm pretty sure that person runs me down on a regular basis and considers me of little to no worth.
• Something that just never gets old -- Elvis singing "I Can't Help Falling In Love With You."  Sometimes there is no chance of anyone ever doing a cover that comes close.  
• The revelation of a Big Difference, apparently -- that "having a man" doesn't define my life.  I was asked by a class if I would give up all my traveling, etc., if I got a man.  (They were looking at my little countdown timers to all my trips, etc. on my computer desktop projected on the screen at the front of the class.) I told them no.  I said that he could go with me, be okay with it, or "get to steppin'."  Some of them were appalled.  Some of them, especially some of the girls looked sort of fascinated....

Haterade

I imagine one of the reasons people cling to their hates so stubbornly is because they sense, once hate is gone, they will be forced to deal with pain. ~James Baldwin

hatred bounces ~e.e. cummings

______________________________

I have had to deal with hatefulness all day long.  It's a mark of teenagers to sling insults at each other as casually as breathing.  This is a form of basic communication, almost like echo-location, I've decided.  Most of the time, there is actually little malice in it.  I still don't like it, and for the most part shut it down as soon as it starts in my room.  I have lost track of the number of times I've actually had to say, "Don't bring 'Yo mama' in my classroom.  We have other things to do."  I have a sign that says "Be Nice or Leave" hanging, and I believe in that policy.  It is sort of the rule of my room.  

Whenever that negativity starts, it seems to escalate and amplify with rabid speed.  The whole nature of a room changes.  I hate it.  There were two separate instances of it today.  Although I kept the students after class and dealt with it privately, I still have the migraine traces of it lingering, and I am tired.  It sucks the joy right out of a whole class for me.  I love these kids, and I want their best, not this other.

I wish I could better show them how their behavior affects others.  I know they are young and they just DON'T think, but there are so many cases when people are hurting and hiding it, and comments made are just daggers cutting away at them.  I am not necessarily referring to the situations at hand today.  I am just thinking now about life in general.  Why can't we be more careful with each other?  Why does it seem that we constantly choose the jeering ridicule when it would be just as easy to give a word of support?  Why can't we lift a hand to support instead of slap down?  It's the same hand, isn't it?  Don't we control it, tell it what to do?  Isn't the gesture equally easy?  Wouldn't it actually feel better not to hurt someone, to help them instead?  To create a friend instead of an enemy?

One of the worst parts of this job at times is feeling like nothing I do is getting through.  When I see them treat each other with such casual contempt and disrespect for the basic humanity in each other, it makes me so very sad.  While part of me hopes they will just "grow out of it," another part of me is afraid that they won't.  What will society lose, what will they lose themselves as individuals, if that is the case?

To Make You Feel My Love

So I got my thing from amazon.  I have been waiting for about a week, ever since I saw it first in a Paste Magazine article, for the Chimes of Freedom:  The Songs of Bob Dylan Honoring 50 Years of Amnesty International compilation to come out.  I haven't even been able to listen to all of it yet.  It's 4 CDs long (I have the digital download, but still), so it's 5 hours of music.  Almost everything I've heard is fantastic.

I'm sitting on the couch, getting ready to read, and iTunes clicks to the next song, and ....Oh Holy Jesus...  It's Adele doing "To Make You Feel My Love."  Now, let me tell you something about this song.  Long before I was "converted" to Dylan, I loved this song.  I have loved every version of it I have ever heard.  It makes something down deep inside me, that thing I hide in the fortress with no doors and routinely kick in the head for being useless and silly, sigh.  The lyrics are perfect in almost every way.

Now put Adele's voice with it.  She's just singing with piano accompaniment.  This is a song that demands simplicity, a focus on the words, and this cover delivers.  It's lovely.

I will probably blog about this whole collection again once I've gotten through it, but this unexpected delight just seemed to demand its own tribute.

Dog Damage and Other Joys

Something I was dreading today didn't happen.  It threatened and worried me for days, and then, inexplicably, it blew away like the last of the bad weather this morning.  I have no idea, and I am not going to worry about the whys.  I'm just going to be grateful for it and go on.  Tomorrow, it may be back....

Some of my students were hilarious today.  I had a "buzzard" impression from a kid with three cups of coffee in him that is still making me laugh.  It was a good day when I wasn't expecting one at all, the best of all possible kinds of good days.  It was the kind of good day that makes certain decisions I've been struggling with recently even more painful.

I finished up a set of papers after school, and I decided that I would, at long last, go get my Strawberry Cheesequake from Dairy Queen.  I have been craving one of those things for over a month, and after all the drama of the past few days, I felt entitled.  It was fantastic.  Not even the massive mobile home blocking the entire interstate could irritate me as I drove home (albeit slowly) with the Cheesequake and some very loud music.

When I got home, I found the remnants of a shredded Amazon envelope in my yard and some pieces of a book cover.  I knew exactly what had happened.  The book had been Chewie-ized.  UPS had not followed my instructions about putting things in a place where he can't get them.  I called them, and they very kindly are going to replace it.  I will, then, get a copy of Tomas Transtromer's The Great Enigma.  It just will be a little later than I had planned on.  Hopefully, the next time it comes to my house, it won't be something Chewie edifies himself with.

Now, I'm watching the restored Metropolis.  I don't know if I'll make it all the way thorough it since it is so long, but it's such a fantastic film, and i'm getting ready to start teaching dystopia, so it just seemed right.  If you've never seen it, it's out there in streaming digital land.  Make sure you get the restored version and watch it at least once.  I think everybody should see it at least once.  It is just so visually amazing if nothing else.  The scene with the "Shift Change" was just on, and I always identify with the people shuffling on and off the elevators, head down...

I may finish tonight up by staying up until midnight so I can download a new album I want.  I know that's a little silly.  It will be there when I wake up tomorrow, but I have been sort of looking forward to it since I found out about it a couple of days ago, and I would like to get it as soon as I can.  Isn't that ridiculous?  It isn't like I can listen to it a hundred times tonight.  However....  I very well may do it anyway.  Sometimes the things that don't make any sense at all are inexplicably the most fun.

Well, Metropolis is getting involved, so I'm turning my eyes to the screen.  I hope tomorrow is as good as today.  That would be wonderful.

Want.

Sam Clark has been making dragons again....  Everything he does is so fabulous.  I want this.  If he lasts just a bit longer, he will be part of my birthday indulgences.  Love, love, love him.  He's small (about 3 inches), so he's a "baby" compared to the other red dragon I have, but the glazes are brilliant and I just adore his detail.  Do Want.  Will Have.  (you know...unless somebody else beats me to him....)

Dragon Year

THE SIGN OF THE DRAGON

The key to the Dragon personality is that Dragons are the free spirits of the Zodiac. Conformation is a Dragon's curse. Rules and regulations are made for other people. Restrictions blow out the creative spark that is ready to flame into life. Dragons must be free and uninhibited. The Dragon is a beautiful creature, colorful and flamboyant. An extroverted bundle of energy, gifted and utterly irrepressible, everything Dragons do is on a grand scale - big ideas, ornate gestures, extreme ambitions. However, this behavior is natural and isn't meant for show. Because they are confident, fearless in the face of challenge, they are almost inevitably successful. Dragons usually make it to the top. However, Dragon people be aware of their natures. Too much enthusiasm can leave them tired and unfulfilled. Even though they are willing to aid when necessary, their pride can often impede them from accepting the same kind of help from others. Dragons' generous personalities give them the ability to attract friends, but they can be rather solitary people at heart. A Dragon's self-sufficiency can mean that he or she has no need for close bonds with other people.

__________________________________________________

There was this painting I wanted but didn't get to buy when I was in Japan going to Nara to the artist shows with one of my friends every year.  It was fantastic.  It showed an oni (a Japanese ogre), a koi (a prized and expensive carp), and a dragon.  The quote said, "Even a small ogre is still an ogre.  Even a dead koi is still a koi.  Even a sick dragon is still a dragon."  It sold before I could purchase it.  I have a work by that artist, which is wonderful, but not that one.  I still wish for it.  I still think of it because frequently I'm a sick dragon.  It might be headaches or foolish outside nonsense or sadness, but these things, they happen.  However, as the painting said, I am still a dragon.

Tomorrow starts my third dragon year on this earth.  I was born in one, passed one in graduate school, and now the third great turning of that wheel is here.  In a short time, too, I will have a birthday.  Many wheels are coming full-circle.

Normally, I wait for February to begin to start what I term my "Month of Senseless Indulgence."  You can find other posts here about that, but more or less, I do lots of little things I enjoy and buy myself a couple of things that I might normally not just because, just to remind myself that life is good.  My birthday usually sucks.  LOTS.  This is my way of ensuring that even if the day itself is horrid and useless, that some sweetness is there to temper it.  

I woke up this morning with something (or a couple of somethings) bothering me, and when I saw a post from a friend on FB reminding me that our year (he's a Dragon, too, born one day after me) was about to begin, I made a decision.  Why wait?  I started my indulgences early.

I took myself clothes shopping, something I don't actually enjoy very much, but I needed to refurbish a couple of things in my wardrobe and I was more or less in the mood for it, so I figured, "Hey, strike while the iron is hot."  While I was in the store, I passed by the racks of lingerie.  Well, yes, that was on my list.  I needed to toss some of mine, and so I headed over, looked at some of the more sensible choices.  And then I remembered the Dragon Year.  My eyes slid across the rack, and it must be admitted that I grinned to myself.

What came home with me was not all sensible.  To hell with it.  Life is not always sensible.  Sometimes one simply needs leopard print undergarments.  (well, maybe not if you are a guy.  I don't know.  maybe if you are a guy, too.... I'll have to ask one sometime, but I'm betting this does not work for them...)  Nobody but me is going to know I have them on (you know, ideally.  barring an emergency circumstance.  in which case my undies are the least of my concern, quite frankly.)  and it's nice to have nice things.  Yeah.  Think that's going to be my motto for this year's indulgences.  What could possibly go wrong with that?

(Oh boy.  Yeah.  Anybody want to sign up to be my full-time keeper until this current little reckless mood passes?  This sounds like something that could end BADLY.)

It Had to Be

it had to be
it had to be until
the end of the year.

~ Basho
_______________

A thought for the Chinese New Year.  The Year of the Dragon (my year. I am a Dragon.) begins tomorrow.  Tomorrow, perhaps, then begins the change of many things.  You know us Dragons......

Suitcase Days

The fog is so thick this morning that even the pecan trees in the front yard are ghostly, misted, hard-to-see.  I had bizarre dreams, so waking to this just continues a trend.

It's a Suitcase Day for me.  That means that more than anything in the universe today, I want to put everything that's important to me in a suitcase and get the hell out of here.  And when I say "out of here," I mean so far away that nobody can ever find me.  I don't even care where.  I just want to run.

I can almost feel the itch between my shoulder blades where the imaginary wings might be, and if I had two nickles to rub together here at the end of the worst month in the already-stupidly-crappy teaching pay year, I would just do it, just get in my car and go.  I feel so claustrophobic this morning, even standing out in the yard with Roux on a leash under the wide sky, that I can hardly breathe.  I can feel things pressing down on me (and no, I won't be specific here.  get over it) like a thick, sopping wet cloth over my face that I can't peel away.

This is not an "oh-how-nice-it-would-be-to-see-the-world" moment.  This is an "oh-how-f'd-up-this-all-is-here" moment.  It started Friday afternoon and has snowballed on me.  Some of it is beyond my control.  Some of it is totally, utterly, and completely my fault, but I can't fix it now.  I need to be away, away, AWAY, in a place where nobody knows me, where I'm just another person, ignored and unknown, totally uninteresting.

Better yet, if I had the power to be somewhere where even the language was not mine, and the sound could flow across me with no meaning and no demand... I am thinking of the Toyokawa Inari shrine for some reason, the oddly peaceful local train ride to get there, the glade of stone foxes in the back.  I have obligations tonight that I must fulfill; I cannot pawn them off on somebody else.  But until it is time for that, I may find a way to disappear.