notes from the kelp

…listen
…info about the music

A clip of a piece that’s fun for any bari sax to blow: “Of Wind and Touch.”

I think we’ve had more wind this season than in any other December and January I can recall. It seems as though each week brings another “wind event,” as the meteorologists are fond of calling these dry hurricanes. Birds and debris are launched in erratic circles, and my front yard is a repository for countless tossed palm fronds and mailbox flyers. Indeed, I now realize why they’re called flyers.

Tasks as simple as going outside to put the recycling in the bin become exercises in duck-and-cover techniques with every 50 MPH gust. Planters half my weight lie as fallen soldiers to nature’s invisible cannonballs. I’ve given up trying to keep anything upright.

Of course, being a composer and not a photographer means that you can grasp little or none of this drama via the photo above, snapped in between gusts a few minutes ago from my deck. But really: there are beautiful whitecaps out on the sea today, and the ocean churns and sparkles under a clear, constantly moving sky.

…listen
…info about the music

The composer’s later piano music.

Well, cancelled escrows and imposing infernos not withstanding, I’m in a very celebratory mood on this birthday. Yet another completed rotation around the sun, and still minimal signs of wear and tear on the vehicle. Hip, hip, hooray is always better than hip, hip… replacement!

The photo above, from a slightly earlier birthday, shows me hard at work on one of my earlier compositions. You can see it there, strewn recklessly on the floor in a mad fit of “these enharmonics are wrong and the tempo should be faster!”.
I suppose I’ve always been obsessed.
I love this image because it’s so…. me. When I glance at it I’m reminded of what my passion is, and who I am at my core. No, not a great pianist. But….

jobs movies handhard core moviesmovies hardcore ebonyhardcore movies hentaitrailers porn hardcore moviereviews hentai moviemovie script hitchmovie horror costumes Map

…listen
…info about the music

Music to keep you on edge, too.

Because celebrities are known to live here, it seems that every time a waft of smoke appears over Malibu it makes national news. Well, far beyond waft-ness, for those of us just up the coastline from last night’s sudden inferno, this was indeed a real threat.

My friend and neighbor, the immensely talented writer Veronique de Turenne who can accomplish more with seven words than I can with seventy [and three editors], shot the photo above from our bluff. Click on her link for two reasons: to read about the fire, and to enjoy the many wonderful postings on her aptly named blog, Here in Malibu.

Hearing too many sets of sirens racing down Pacific Coast Highway, I stepped outside and saw smoke billowing ominously over the water. Charles and I stayed put at home, glued to the TV coverage. Post modernism at its weirdest: why watch the event through your own eyes, when you can watch it even more compellingly through a TV screen? Hoping the wild winds we’ve had for days wouldn’t shift north, we agreed that we’d begin packing up the cats and the cars if the fire reached Corral Canyon. I’ve been through this too many times. Embers defy gravity and can fly a mile or more on any rogue gust.

The firefighters did an amazing job creating perimeters to contain the scope of the blaze, and were able to get it under control within three hours. It’s a miracle that the wind didn’t move laterally and cause a catastrophe. Once things calmed down, we had our dinner barefoot outside in this bizarrely hot weather, with an unsettling glow in the sky beyond our toes.

The thing that… uh, fries me (oooh, bad pun), is that given the roadside flash point, the fire could possibly have started by someone flicking a lit cigarette butt out the passenger window as they were heading south on PCH. This is a huge issue for me. One day last year I positively terrified some unsuspecting tourist driver who casually threw a flaming-ember butt out the car window as he headed down the little speed bump-infested road that leads into Paradise Cove. Little did he know what kind of insane maniac was behind him. When he got to the main gate to be buzzed in and rolled down his window, I leapt out of my car and immediately got in his face, shrieking at him about what a thoughtless, dangerous, stupid thing he just did and telling him about the Cove having burned down in the past (ok, well, just the area where my home now stands, but who needs details at a time like this?). His girlfriend in the seat next to him was clearly stunned, and he was polite enough to stutter out an apology. Like the task-mistress I truly am, I sternly thanked him and admonished him to never, ever do that again, anywhere.

Either he’ll remember that moment for all time and be a changed and better citizen, or every time he drives he’ll think of my angry face six inches from his and get lunatic pleasure in lighting up pack after pack only to toss the butts out the window at high speed. Crap shoot, huh?

Exhale, now. We dodged a flaming bullet once again.
against viagra classaction million lawsuit 700adiction to xanaxall about tramadolxanax pharmacy mg 2 onlinemg 200 viagraxanax ambien versusabout overdose tramadol allguest viagra book advanced Map

…listen
…info about the music

Music that rolls, I think.

Life throws curves and the best we can do is roll along, merrily, if possible. Like these incoming winter tides, I’m rolling with the wave of that which is current, and not giving too much attention to that which is not. As Ram Dass suggested, “Be here now.”
And I am!

…listen
…info about the music

This space reserved for YOUR music.

Ok, one more. If I weren’t so busy writing another piece, I’d take the chords below and the scale above and come up with something interesting. But if any of my composerly-inclined readers would like to take a shot at a brief offering that, in their mind at least, reflects these photos, send me an MP3 and I’ll post it!

Kelp as a community-building tool. Gotta love it.

…listen
…info about the music

Some staccato notes to accompany the staccato kelp.

This was my first musical creation of 2007. Two simple chords–staccato eighth notes!– that celebrate a new year.

Ta dah!

…listen
…info about the music

Toot, toot, hooray!

The title says it all. And 12 months ago I decided to say this and more to you, whoever “you” happens to be from week to week out there in the e-world.

I’ll be back shortly with further musings on the other side of 2007, but here’s how all it began exactly one year ago.add to lg ax380 ringtonesheatherington alicesouth yerington 509from warrington adopted 1940swarrington adopted from 1920stelus krzr to adding ringtonesbarrington ride allstate motorcyclecatherington lane a photo of Map

…listen
…info about the music

They’re coming! They’re coming!

Some welcome rain, a bracing cold front and lots of wind teamed together to bring us today’s late afternoon view.

Gazing south across the Santa Monica Bay to Los Angeles, it almost looks as though something unsettling and newsworthy has occurred.

Clouds, fungal and otherwise, fascinate and stir the imagination.movie the doo scoobygrill studio moviesaint movies sylviayoung pussy squirting moviescartoon adult movieshouse the movie animalfree asswatcher moviesgreen door the movie behindmovies sex bitits big movie

…listen
…info about the music

A little ditty for our little host.

C’mon down, take off yer shoes, relax!
Done. I never bother with footwear, anyway.
But…. what? No service??
And I’m STILL standing here, waiting for a table….

…listen
…info about the music

Some groovy music for this pale surfer dude.

Well, one of the upsides to still being in Malibu is that Smudge can get a little more surfing in!

…listen
…info about the music

An old excerpt called “The White Horse,” for this personal rescue.

The stormy skies and mountains above were supposed to have been those of the Pacific Northwest. Due to unforeseen circumstances, they are instead the glorious view yesterday, from our sailboat at dock in the Santa Barbara Harbor. Not quite as far up the coast as we had expected to be this weekend.

Apparently, throwing a big g’bye party for sixty of one’s closest pals and giving away most of your furniture is a sure-fire way to ensure that any flies in the room will zoom right into the ointment. Tuesday morning, a mere three days before Charles, Moses, Smudge and I were to move our multi-pawed lives 1000 miles to the north, we were informed that the buyers decided that they didn’t want the place. The two couples, who were buying our home as a shared weekend beach house, succumbed to some petty inter-friendship bickering, and the result is that Charles and I will be enjoying a lot of unexpected free time this month in a remarkably empty, über-Zen living/dining room! It actually looks great, and we know that we’ll sell the place and get on with things, but this sudden change of plans is… uh… dynamic, to say the least.

So: onward. This deal was not meant to be, and we’re sure that a better one will appear. Soon, we hope, since we’re still glowing with the psychological momentum that such a move inspires. We’re extremely fortunate to have not yet entered into escrow on a house we’ve been negotiating for on San Juan Island. And, now we’re in a calm, streamlined position: all but packed, and every inspection, estimate and repair accomplished. Now all we have to do is add a new buyer, just add water and stir, and voila! Escrow #2.

I realize that after the big party last weekend, and what with everyone assuming that by now we’d be outta town, I could pull a Federal witness relocation number and not tell anyone that we’re still here. The phone would stop ringing, I could catch up on sleep, and steep myself in a slew of new compositions. Maybe I’m missing a golden opportunity by letting anyone know the truth!

…listen
…info about the music

Music to wait by.

I feel like this tennis ball. Staring out to an endless horizon, waiting for the tide to come in and sweep me away across distant waters…