January 25, 2008
Going to America
…listen
…about the musicBusy busy busy.
Well, it’s off to the big city again for this country bumpkin.There are a slew of contemporary music events in Seattle this weekend and an equally impressive slew of living, breathing composers and musicians taking part in them, many of whom I enjoy seeing, hearing and reading (ah, the newfound blog life. How did we all ever bond before the internet?).
The 8:05 a.m. boat will get me the most scenic part of the way. I’ll put my car in the ferry line by 7:20. Which is about 30 minutes later than when I go to bed most nights. This is how you know my level of commitment: a 12 hour internal clock switch in the name of music. Living music, specifically. I adore Mahler and Brahms and Beethoven, but they wouldn’t get me to make this trip. My far lesser known peers do.
The thrill of the unknown.
The tribal pull of like-minded spirits.
The after-concert hangs that are just too much fun.
And now you know why I don’t suffer from jet lag. I do this sort of thing all too regularly.
I’d nap on the ferry, but as you see in the pix scrolled down this page, it’s too beautiful to sleep through.
Love,
Sleepless in Seattle
Glenn Buttkus said,
January 25, 2008 @ 6:23 am
Love your musical clip, giving us the marimba heart beat of the city, tossing us into the abyss, clicking, rolling, swinging round, walking hard and fast, dodging cars and shoulders. Growing up in Seattle I always felt it was a special seven-hilled city, ala Rome, Istanbul, and San Francisco. I left it in ’75, and when I returned to the Northwest in ’85 it had shoved itself into the sky, and those tall, too tall buildings dwarfed the elders with their shadows. I found employment in the South Sound and now my forays into Seattle are seldom, and it has become less familiar, like cousins one never sees and then does.
I wrote a little something something about it though:
A LADY PREPARES
Seattle,
during twilight,
purrs with soft evening noises;
traffic lights suddenly brilliant,
blinking;
headlights in chrome grills
snapping on;
street lights buzzing
just before they bathe the ground
with amber incandescence;
Superferries
gliding through darkening water
flicking on their deck lights.
Then for a few golden moments
all the western windows catch fire,
and the shimmering orange icons
captured coldly
on the urban faces of glass,
silently lick at the ebony loins
of the night.
A city of shadows,
perching on those seven hills,
turns on,
and the deep saltwater bay at its feet
becomes a vast mirror
reflecting
the garishly-lit steel canyons
of its unique skyline.
Glenn Buttkus 1987
You do have me a bit confused as to which ferry you will be riding. Are you driving down from Anacortes, or is there a boat to Kingston and then you swing into Elliott Bay that way; or is that marvelous shot of Seattle one from one of your seaplane trips? Regardless, Seattle will be richer with your presence. So great that you will attend Doug Palmer’s presentation of his Violin Duet at the Good Shepherd Center there in Wallingford. I am geniunely sad that I will not attend. I would love to hear Doug’s composition done live, and of course it would be grand to meet you in the flesh, as it were. Being cyber pals is grand, kind of spiritual in its way; but there is no substitute for face time when you can get it.
Glenn
Alex Shapiro said,
January 25, 2008 @ 7:04 am
I’ll miss meeting you! Next time, my poetic e-pal.
Glenn Buttkus said,
January 25, 2008 @ 10:39 am
I had forgetten that at 20 years old, when the world was my oyster, fresh into college, I had written another little bit of emerald fluff:
SEATTLE 1964
Seattle,
place of thunder,
place of mist and fog and rain;
crouching, nestling, hugging,
and sprawling large.
Place of secrets,
city with the scarred face;
metropolis, terminus, gateway.
Ancient abode of the whale hunter,
place where the sea bass meets
the rainbow trout,
where salt lies on lily pads.
City with the barrel chest,
gilded queen,
woman with a million lovers,
whore, old maid,
voluptuous, shameless, enchanting, bewitching, mesmerizing trollop.
Home for hobos,
furnace cave of fire-ice darkness.
Place of depravity, sin, debauchery, prostitution, rape, murder, mayhem,
and churches;
tall saintly spires that crop up
like crabgrass.
University den,
cackling hen,
cherishing and nourishing
her eggheads.
Fair hostess to the world,
retainer of toys
and space needles.
City of moss
and mud puddles,
host to cockroaches, silverfish, rats, and men.
Grifter, con artist, tourist trap, sultry siren,
Jessabel, madonna, frivolous flirt,
beautiful bitch.
Boating capitol,
port to a thousand thousand boats,
and hardy fishermen,
wharf for the weary.
Place of great belching factories,
maker of smog,
builder of war machines;
prolific beast.
Rival to all seven-hilled cities.
Place of my birth,
possessor of my soul;
my first love
and mistress.
I embrace you,
my city.
Glenn Buttkus March 1964
In 1955, when I was 11 years old, we lived in the Delridge Way valley, north of Bethleham Steel, south of White Center, east of West Seattle, on any given Saturday I would catch a city bus and head to downtown Seattle. I would get off at 6th and Union, and walk down to third and Union and go to the old Embassy Theater, before it became a porn palace, when it used to show three movies for 50 cents. I would go in and spend the day there, be the first one in for the first screening. One triple bill that I remember was Audie Murphy in a Western, Clark Gable in TEST PILOT, and Rudolph Valentino in the silent epic, SON OF THE SHIEK. It was there, more than anywhere else, that I became a film buff, getting a chance to see films that were already archival and cinema history. We did not get a television until 1953, and there were few films on it in those days. So as a family we went to movies mid-week, and we, as a family, would load up the station wagon and head to the El Rancho Drive-In to see 2 to 4 films. Mother would cook dinner and take it with us like a picnic, so that we did not have to rely on the snack bar crap food.
In 1955 it was safe for an 11 year old to go downtown by himself; perhaps not so quite so much today. Skid Row along First Avenue used to scare me; the bums and derelicts and street people. The Liberty Theater used to be down on Second, until Dave Beck tore it down to make a parking lot.
So presently Seattle is no longer home, but it is an old friend.
Glenn
Doug Palmer said,
January 26, 2008 @ 11:15 am
Thanks for coming to the salon, Alex it was good to meet you.
Thinking further about your question, putting the piece in other voices would require a lot of rethinking. Each instrument has it’s own personality and it’s own karma.
The blending of similar voices has fascinated me since I first heard the Everly brothers. Both together sweet and lovely and, later, separately, not so interesting
Mixing similar colors can be as sublime as a properly placed minor second.
Subtle dissonances can be as rewarding as a pinch of salt in your soup.