notes from the kelp

A few footsteps up the path from our house leads you to the edge of the bluffs, from which you can face up the coast (see the header of this blog for that view), or spin on your heels and look down the coast, as I did a couple of days ago when a storm was getting ready to wander in. This photo is currently spanning the 17 inches of my powerbook desktop, and I wish you could see it that large. Better yet, I wish you could see it in person.

I think days like this are the most exhilarating of all; the air is charged, and there’s the anticipation of not knowing just which patio chair may go flying in which direction (hey, there ain’t nothing between us and the Pacific, so the winds can be fierce). It feels exciting and great and alive and intriguing and dangerous and thrilling and real. The sky is at its most compelling, with constantly shifting balances of dark and light which double their efforts in the colors reflected in the ocean. I will never get over just how stunning this expanse of sky and water is, and how in turn it opens the expanse of something unspeakable within me.11th mp3 hourmp3 fruit 1910 companykeep 1983 mp3 smilingmp3 150 mcsmp3 1108 thugzmp3 120 varkensmp3 1913 massacremp3 1984 incubus Maploans customers amoneamerican tn knoxville loans home dreamsbush budget numbers allan sloan100 ltv wholesale loansnsw housing aboriginal loansstudent acpe loan alaskaalpha loan omega paydaysignature $15k loans Mapmovies slutmovies fucking free hardcorewith movies nuditypretty movies sapphicmovies xxx homemovie corpse brideclips movie free fuckingmovies sex public Map

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Click on the blue music icon above to hear a clip from my flute quartet, “Bioplasm” to accompany this view across the bay.

This is one of the great joys of going to bed at sunrise.
No color correction was used on this photo. Because none was necessary. Unless you don’t like living in Technicolor®.

What is it about humans that we insist on putting weird fuzzy objects in front of our cats and expect them to be impressed? I don’t think Smudge believes for one moment that this is a mouse. Just look at that nonplussed face. Could be the faux-leopard print that just put it over the top.

Meanwhile, a foot and a half away here on the studio floor, Moses is having a nice stretch and snooze. And in a few hours when dawn arrives and my work night ends, so will I. I think I’ll use the bed instead.

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Click on the blue music icon above to hear a movement from “At the Abyss” titled “Reflect,” to accompany this very reflective photo from Australia.

I know, I know: I’ve been a little slow on the blog draw this past week. Apologies. But 1. I figured that the two rainbow pics I offered would be plenty to tide you over for a while (I never tire of looking at them or of thinking about what it was like to sit there and enjoy the spectacle last week), and 2. darn, it’s quiet out there! I actually have no idea if anyone’s been checking into this pixelsonic bloglet recently (other than some creative spammers, whose sales pitches I gleefully delete). Don’t be shy about leaving a comment, if only to encourage more of this posting-happy behavior on my part.

And speaking of encouraging behavior, my percussionist pal Rick Kvistad, responsible for a great photo of the Hayman Island area in the Great Barrier Reef (below, under “Guest Spot”), has sent yet more evidence of the utter beauty of the southern hemisphere. I had dropped him an email to see if he had made it out of the area prior to the devastating cyclone, and he replied that his timing was fortunate and that he’s now in the south in the Melbourne area. Along with the email came this wondrous feast for the eyes and spirit of the bay near Geelong, which I share with thanks once again to Rick. Anyone else hankering for a guest spot on this blog is welcome to email me a photo or two at the contact address on my website. All donations cheerfully accepted; one can never have too much beauty.

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Click on the blue music icon above to hear a movement from my “Evensong Suite” titled “Phos Hilaron,” to accompany this rainbow.

These photos say it all; there’s nothing for me to add. Date: this past Sunday. Location: curled up in a wide-slatted Adirondack chair on the sand in front of the Paradise Cove Beach Cafe, bottle of very good Chardonnay close at hand. View: straight out SSE to the Palos Verdes Peninsula, which is the most southern tip of the Santa Monica Bay. Misc: Charles and I had just returned from our usual walk to the Bay’s most northern tip, Point Dume, and settled in for a late afternoon cocktail just in time for the show.

In the second photo, the setting sun opposite the peninsula reflects its fiery light in the window of a house. And that house happens to be in the center of the rainbow from our vantage point. Poetic. I wonder who lives there, and whether they felt anything different during those moments.

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Click on the blue music icon above to hear some of the second movement from my “Sonata for Piano” to accompany this photo overlooking Paradise Cove on a stormy Saturday.

We’ve been having weather here in L.A., and the sky is filled with the anticipation of negative ions breezing around my skin. As I was leaving late this morning I just had to stop to snap this expansive scene over Paradise Cove (that’s our neighborhood restaurant there on the sand just below our house, where I’m found any time either of us is too lazy to cook). The grey clouds to the left became considerably darker as my trip progressed.

Scheduled to speak on a panel discussion at a new music festival at Cal State Fullerton, I had a long drive ahead to the southeastern edge of Los Angeles. What would have normally been a tedious and dreary journey was quite the opposite. Through the windshield and the sunroof, I could gaze at impossibly black-grey, ominous clouds that threatened to burst open at any moment and yet somehow held their liquid. The drama on all sides was ten-fold what you see here; the hues of the clouds were so dark that I began to search for the beginnings of funnel movement. Had I not been on a stultifying series of unforgiving freeways, I would have stopped to take even more dramatic photographs. It was that beautiful. Today was one of the very few times in a year when I would have been pleased for a long road trip across this bizarre metropolis to have taken even longer than it did.viagra and alpha blockerstramadol inurl acetaminophenviagra wp 11 2006 trackbackviagra 12 trackback 2006 wp2006 viagra trackback 10 wpfeb online daily statistics viagra 2003site com guest tramadol abel booktramadol cod accepted Mappayday 4 about loan apr 6payday loan loan 4 personalloan payday 40 link401 loan k limitlculator 8 loan mortgage 29 faxing loan no 9 paydaypayday loan auto 9 13payday 9 loan payday Map

In breaking with my tradition of brand new snapshots, this photo of me waaaaay up in the air above the Santa Barbara Pacific, was taken over a year ago.
In keeping with my tradition of offering joy and beauty on this little bloglet, there’s a reason I’m posting it.

I’m over halfway through the new quartet for flute, violin, cello and piano (still maddeningly untitled), and it’s at the fun, creative puzzle-solving point that composers experience when they’ve written and largely developed the main material for the piece, and now need to find ways for various composed sections to flow organically and inevitably from one to the next.

Great joy, this part of the process is. I love strong form and motivic development; I must have been Beethoven’s chamber maid in a previous life. 🙂

Often with pieces, I go through varying degrees of “gee, this is pretty ok… wow, this is very nice… yikes, this will be awful… ok, it’s not so bad… yes, it truly is a turd, and I will be shown for the fraud that I am… well, all right, it’s actually ok.” And so on. I know for a fact that I am not alone in this schizophrenic neurosis; the internal love/hate tug of war is a common affliction among composers.

But this blossoming piece, for whatever reason, is truly resonating with me. This of course portends absolutely nothing as to its overall worth and whether the musicians and audience will be enjoying as much as I. But it’s soaring, deeply emotional, unashamedly touching music that I am so happy to be immersed in. There’s a flying, elevating, calmly euphoric quality to it that has caused my mind to wander to past similar experiences, and para-gliding over the stunning coastline pictured here was certainly one of them. From hundreds of feet up I could hear the barking of the sea lions as clearly as when I’m on our sailboat, and the sight of their bodies flowing through the ocean was beautiful. The day was cloudless and the views of the mountains stretched beyond my imagination. These photos of me could not possibly capture the complete ecstasy that raced through my heart.

No music clip for posting today, because the notes that are racing through my head right now are even better than anything I could offer. At least, to me.

Coming in, reluctantly, for the landing….

…and landing, with the grace of a cow dropped from the sky.sex mom story dadgagging fucking throatvoyeur girls pissingartistic photos teen nudegallery pissing photosfucking brother ans sistergallery teen free asianindian pissing Mapcomposing 3210 ringtonedelight afternoon ringtonesnokia ringtone free 2260 monophonictracfone 2285 ringtone free sms nokiaestate accrington agentsatt nokia ringtone 35603585i ringtones nokia alltelringtone sch verizon a650 samsung Map

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Click on the blue music icon above to hear “Dream Vista,” an oh-so-very 80’s new age recording from my past.

Further proof that musicians can indeed live well: this magnificent view of Hayman Island in Australia’s Great Barrier Reef, complete with spiritual streaming of light from on high. Oh, how I wish I could tell you that it was I who just saw this in person and took this picture. But no– it was snapped a couple of days ago by a friend of mine, Rick Kvistad. When he’s not playing principal percussion in the San Francisco Opera, he’s looking for all sorts of ways to have fun, and a trip with his chamber ensemble Adesso to perform down under (do they call us “up top”?) was the perfect excuse to extend his trip into a vacation.

There are so many gorgeous places on this planet, but for each of us, different percentages and combinations of land and water resonate personally. Some people are inland types most awed by standing in the middle of a forest, perhaps with a bucolic lake nearby. Others are moved to tears by the stark beauty of the desert. And tears are a good thing, since they’ll need a little extra water. Then there are us ocean-types, for whom the expanse and mystery of what lies beyond and below is a constant lure. Of all the photos of magnificent places I see, there are very few that I find more compelling than right where I am on the southern and central California coast. What an extraordinarily fortunate thing to be able to declare. When Charles and I ponder where we might next wish to live, we’re hard pressed to come up with any better combination of weather and geology. The exception is that every time I see images of Australia and, even more alluring, New Zealand, my spirit pulses with that personal resonation. I could indeed live in that part of our planet, happily.

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Click on the blue music icon above to hear some of the Scherzo movement from my “Sonata for Piano,” and you’ll wonder how these guys sleep through it all.

If music soothes the savage beast, then I have apparently flogged Smudge and Moses into the depths of complete unconsciousness with my latest offering. I suppose I should take this as a good sign; if they were yowling pitifully every time I hit a note or reworked a passage, I’d know for sure that I should get out of this dot alignment business. As it is, they keep me fine (if not particularly attentive) company as I compose. Hey, any audience is a good audience.

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Click on the blue music icon above to hear “Plasma”.

It’s fun to look straight down from the bluff past the ice plant, and watch as the waves churn the brown, sandy sea floor. I like watching things from the bottom rise to the top. The round designs remind me of when I was a kid, and loved to close my eyes, rub them with my fists, and then– keeping my eyes shut– watch layers and layers of “clouds” appear and disappear against a dark backdrop. I could create an entire, alternate world, any time I wished.

Just like writing music!