Happy Birthday Mom!

My 5th grade teacher was a certain Mr. Seidman, who for reasons unknown was obsessed with songs about whaling (a period of 19th century folk music history concerning men on boats, hunting whales.) When it came to my mother’s attention that I had been coming home from school stuttering and that my penmanship was getting smaller and smaller – especially, my signature - she felt it would be a good idea to discuss the situation with Mr. Seidman.

She called the school and left a message in the office requesting that Mr. Seidman call her at his earliest convenience. He called that evening. The conversation began with my mother politely explaining to him that I seemed to be feeling anxious about school - describing the handwriting and stammering issues. What happened next is hard to recount, as I was not only not on the phone, but also, in fact, not even in the room.

Nonetheless, as the story goes, apparently the teacher made the mistake of criticizing me in various ways – using words like lazy, and undisciplined. The next thing I heard was the sound of my mother’s voice shrieking in a deafening pitch into the telephone handset, “YOU BASTARD, YOU DIRTY BASTARD! I’LL RIP YOUR BEARD OUT OF YOUR FACE!” Mr. Seidman had a beard.

By the time Brad and I had rushed into the kitchen to see what was happening, my father had lifted a chair up into the air and was threatening to crash it down upon my mother’s head if she didn’t immediately hand him the phone, which she did.

Happy Birthday Mom, and thanks for sticking up for me!

Danny Pitt Stoller

It is a deep reward
To watch my son
Take care
Of his.

His tenderness
And concern
Drawn up from roots
We nurtured innocent.

Into the sunshine
Of a new life
And the torrid storms
Of another morning.

A sweet heart
A firm grip
A man.

music

Words are figures;
created to refer to something,
or other.

Music has no referents;
is meaningless.

Empty language;
pure form.

too much

Not that there is too much happening;
it's just that there is too much to write.

And, what is too personal?
But, in years to come, any information will be of interest (at least to me,) and will carry messages that are more valuable than I can know from this vantage point.

..like the old lyric says:

"And I see
that I can't see
rooted where I stand.

Reaching out my hand
'cross the sea,
reaching out my hand 'cross the sea."

When I wrote that, in 1972, I was referring to the Atlantic ocean, separating me (in England) from my family and friends back in the USA. But, in the current case, it is the sea of time, and I am reaching out into the future.

My cell phone was taken from my desk yesterday.

Therapy yesterday, too - a very good session:
intimacy/commitment issues and entanglements.

This month, I've been having the students listen to Shed A Little Light, by James Taylor, in honor of MLK. They now ask for it - an amazing work, it is!
I've also been having the younger students learn Hey, Dr. Martin Luther King by Brad (Stoller.) It, too, is a great song.

Three private piano students at GNAC this afternoon;
two young children and an adult. I bought an age appropriate beginner's book for the adult.
I hope she likes it.

Recording tonight:
I have a piano part for Open Your Eyes.
I think it will work.
Also, we need to remix, or re-record, Brad's gorgeous acoustic guitar part.
...maybe some organ.
Geoff and Annie will come by to offer some feedback.
I want to play all the stuff for Geoff. And, Annie has heard it all.
Maybe afterwards we'll get a bite.

no time

There is so much to do, all the time.
I seem to have a life.
But, why do I say seem?

Because, when I examine my lfe or myself, the self-reflection process requires a subject and an object, and the perceived self becomes object.

And, then, as I observe myself, the inevitable epistemological divide infiltrates the scene. .

How beautiful it is, that divide - that gaping self-reflection synapse, across which all perception must leap, which renders impossible any absolute knowledge, and gives birth to sentience, to meaning, to play.

When I express thoughts such as these, one might wonder, "Does that guy have a life?"

But, I do.
At least I seem to.
busy, busy, busy.

kumquats, polyseme, and Happy Birthday Sam

I took a drive to the upper west side last night and had some Indian dinner with Ira, Dorel, and Michael Vivian. Afterwards we went back to Dorel's and had licorice tea with her home made kumquat walnut bread. Ira sang old TV jingles impeccably, and we discussed polyseme. Then I drove back to Great Neck in a gentle rain to pick up Evy at Frankie's. We watched some old SNL sketches on TV, then went to sleep.

Today is Sam's birthday.
But, it was also the day of Ben's first birthday party.

And so after a sweet party at Danny and Wendy's - with Sue, Dahlia and Jonathan, Jamie and Rachel and Sasha, Meredith and Stu and Ryan, Evy and Frankie, Myla, Sam and me - I went to out to Wild Ginger for a Birthday dinner for Sam with Myla and Evy and, of course, Sam. He warned us that if anyone sang Happy Birthday, or if a special cake was brought to the table, he would immediately get up and leave. He wasn't kidding, and it was very tempting.

Then, back at Myla's, we played a game of Scrabble, which Sam won (beating Evelyn 221 to 220) after which Sam improvised a deeply passionate and completely nonsensical Cantorial Hymn.

Happy Birthday to my Grandson

Little Ben became One-Year-Old today.
The family met at The House for dinner,
and for a Placenta ceremony which did not occur.

Danny and I planned to bury Ben/Wendy/Danny's Placenta in the front yard. We were unable to do so because the ground was frozen. (The Placenta also was frozen, as it has been in Danny and Wendy's freezer for a year, to where it will now return.)

Around thirty years ago, Myla and I buried our baby Danny's Placenta in the field behind the converted yellow barns owned by George Mullenhower, where we lived in New Paltz, NY. We had it (the Placenta,) in a tupperware container, in the unheated dance-studio area in our spacious loft.

Then, a few nights after the home-birth, we were wakened by the sound of something bumping and banging in there. I, with some trepidation, went in, took the container outside, and buried the holy shedded Placenta.

The ground was not as frozen those days.

Danny and Iwill try again with Ben's Placenta in a few days, when the temperature rises.

Ben is a happy and beautiful baby boy.
How lucky we are.
Happy Birthday little boy.