March 5, 2008
Postcard from home
…listen
…about the musicThere is no citrus at Lime Kiln.
Lime Kiln State Park is one of this island’s living postcards. One of the most photographed spots, it seems impossible to resist snapping one’s own pix of the lighthouse across from B.C.’s Southern Gulf Islands, even though the tourist shops offer plenty of far better ones on the cheap. My inner shutterbug bites often.
My outer loquacious self yaps often, too, and this interview just came out yesterday. Anything but a postcard, it is long enough to put you back to sleep during your morning coffee, I promise. The webzine’s side bar even contains an earlier interview with me from a year and a half ago, plus a review of this blog’s eponymous disc. Plenty of music-related fodder, for those in need of additional reading material the nature of which is not usually found in these kelp-infested pixels.
If a picture is worth a thousand words, whaddya think the going rate is for a thousand words?
Elaine Fine said,
March 5, 2008 @ 6:47 am
What a wonderful interview! If a picture is worth a thousand words, this interview is certainly worth a gazillion smiles.
Alex Shapiro said,
March 5, 2008 @ 11:20 am
You are so sweet, Elaine! Thank you!
Glenn Buttkus said,
March 5, 2008 @ 12:19 pm
Not only is that a wonderful interview, quite illuminating and self-revealing, but it is worthy of promulgating. So besides its publication in TOKAFI, the cyber music zine, I reprinted it on FEEL FREE TO READ. It will help readers to fully appreciate your “poetry” and other reprinted essays on said site.
How grand it is to realize the consistency that you approach your music and your life. So much of what was included in that long interview, has been spoon fed to we Kelphistos, one to two paragraphs at a time. I loved the part about you at 9 years old blowing the socks off your elementary school music teacher. I also really like those references you make to the value of this blog, and our comments and responses to your pics, your music, and you. It makes each of us feel more valued, and more a tiny part of your life.
I have not listened to your musical clip yet. That will happen later. I really appreciate how my visualization imagery, responding to your music, seems to be exactly what you are looking for, creating music for; giving us a visceral and human kind of music, never sterile or still born, and always eager to transport us to every corner of this globe, and several places into the galaxy besides. You reluctance to be pigeon-holed, to be labeled as “one” kind of composer, is so very refreshing. I love that fact that your openness to life was kind of called being like a “hippy”. We old folks remember the 60’s like it was last week, and those years of love and naturalness opened up the consciousness of the entire world. Once that door was opened for us, we have never stepped back into the shadows. Three cheers for us.
Glenn
Alex Shapiro said,
March 5, 2008 @ 12:54 pm
Uh oh, Glenn– with all the words that make up the interview, you might have to start billing me for your server fees due to all the space I’m taking up! Ha ha.
Glenn Buttkus said,
March 6, 2008 @ 6:02 am
I love your shot of Lime Kiln. It is more than a postcard, it is a moment in your life shared with us; something that stirs your blood, which through your pixals, through your prose, you share with us. What is there about lighthouses? We all seem to be fascinated by them. Some people go ga-ga, and collect lighthouse post cards, pix, lithographs, posters, toys, models, and salt and pepper shakers. It has something to do with the lighthouse as sentinal, the ancient mariner in all of us, sail toward the light, but do not get too close.
Lime Kiln Point is a 36-acre day-use park set on the west side of San Juan Island. The park is considered one of the best places in the world to view whales from a land-based facility. Orca whales are common in the waters off Lime Kiln. The park, which features a richly diverse environment, includes the remnants and landscapes of a history filled with change, along the rocky shoreline and through the wooded uplands.
Listening to your music, LongingForYou 1:59, I am reminded of your statements about learning to play piano at such a young age, and that even though you are an accomplished pianist, you would never presume to instruct another pianist as how to interprete your composition. “That would be like Shapiro plays Shapiro,” you stated. Actually that might be a sterling experience; get some of your friends together for a jam session, limber up those fingers, and play your ass off for several sessions; take a chance, put even more of yourself out there. But I guess, as you also mentioned, there is some specific differences in temperment and needs between a composer and a performer. Can you not be both though?
Listening to your music creates visualization, and creates verbage, and creates something akin to poetry:
Longing for You
When we are
apart,
you still reside
deep
within my heart.
So how does one
describe
how much
I miss your
touch,
your smile,
that will always
beguile
and charm me
out of a funk;
transform a fugue
to a jazz trio;
turn melancholy
to just
mellow;
turn my gaze
toward the bright horizon
where gray water meets
gray clouds,
as I send out, and
project my message
in heartspeak,
sans bottle?
Glenn Buttkus 2008
Glenn Buttkus said,
March 6, 2008 @ 7:52 am
There I go again, poking around your lovely archives, sniffing out your past, your feelings, your observations. I did find a couple of nuggets, one I transcribed into verse, and one I did not, but could have.
Sea Hues
There is so much
color and form
here,
everywhere I look!
Dark green kelp
and eel grass
get cycled within
the other-greenly green
of a wave’s last curl.
Blue-ness is followed
by more and deeper
blue-ness
of oncoming tides.
The vibrancy is mirrored
in a clear,
brisk air
that smells like
these colors.
Just think of it.
Ahhhhh
Alex Shapiro 2006
Even while you were living on the mainland, on the coast there at Malibu, the seeds had been sown—for you would stand a look long over to Calalina, and fantasize about being an island girl, a composer surrounded by the sea, secluded, sequestered, warm and tidy and at home not quite afloat, except in your mind.
Big Blue
Some days just look blue, no matter how happy you may be. We had a good thunder and lightning storm late last night, and it blew brisk, clear air across the sea. Even though the buffalo-spotted land on Catalina is actually green and brown, gazing across the ocean to it, everything is pale azure and beckons like a lost, magical place. In fact, it’s a found magical place.
My trips there over the years, by commercial ferry and by my own sailboat, have all been wonderful discoveries that fill me thoughts of what it might be like to live in such a place, so close to a major city, and yet remote in significant ways.
There is a poem in there too. Can you see it? I can.
Glenn
Glenn Buttkus said,
March 6, 2008 @ 11:58 am
After lunch the poem in your prose beckoned to me:
BIG BLUE
Some days
just look blue,
no matter how happy
you may be.
We had a good
thunder and lightning storm
last night,
and it blew brisk
clear air
across the sea.
Even though
the buffalo-spotted land
on Catalina
is actually green
and brown,
gazing across the ocean
to it,
everything is pale azure
and beckons
like a lost
magical place.
In fact
it is a found
magical
place.
My trips there
over the years,
by commercial ferry,
or by
my own sailboat,
have all been wonderful
discoveries
that fill me
with thoughts
of what it might be like
to live
in such a place;
so close
to a major city,
and yet remote
in significant ways.
Alex Shapiro 2006
Could your home on San Juan Island be formulating, and bubbling somewhere in your consciousness?
Glenn
Glenn Buttkus said,
March 6, 2008 @ 12:25 pm
Two years ago, in March 2006, you were excited about the view from your deck in Malibu. Those must have been “good” years there along the sea.
My Vista
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,
or spin
on your heels
and look down
the coast.
I think
days like this
are the most exhilarating
of all;
the air is charged,
and there is
the anticipation
of not knowing
which patio chair
may go flying
in which direction.
There is nothing
between us
and the Pacific.
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.
Alex Shapiro March 2006
Alex Shapiro said,
March 6, 2008 @ 1:57 pm
I swear, Glenn, I’m going to have to start paying you!
Lots of whales, indeed. Not everyone sees them on every visit, though. But the first time my husband and I walked down the path to the sea at Lime Kiln, we passed a sign that succinctly declared: Whale Watching. About ten yards later we reached the edge of the shore, looked up, and were greeted with a large pod of Orcas enjoying the day along side of us. Magical. And, truth in advertising!
Thanks again for the poetry– mine, and yours! Yes, I was certainly thinking of the man in my life at the time (many years pre-Charles) when I wrote that music. And yes, that’s me playing. And yes, I should get off my butt and start playing more. Never enough hours in the day….
I did love my years in Malibu– 14 of them. And the last 5 of those, living right at the beach, were incredible. It was definitely my dream spot. Until the population of Los Angeles grew to such an untenable degree that the roar of Pacific Coast Highway often drowned out the roar of the waves, and getting into town was no longer a simple 45 minute commute, but a 2 hour ordeal. By 2006 I had had enough, and as much as I loved Paradise Cove, I couldn’t tolerate everything else that surrounded it.
Moving here to San Juan Island has been the best decision I’ve ever made. One of those crazy things where both Charles and I immediately felt completely at home, as though we’d lived here for many years. Inexplicable, but wonderful.