Tuesday, October 29, 2013
And in this corner....
Weighing in at 1 lb 7 ounces! Our Star Child. And just listen to that strong heartbeat:
Sunday, October 27, 2013
Sing along
You may already be a great opera lover! Then again, maybe the soaring Puccini arias in Madame Butterfly were really bugging you.
Either way, your mother reports that during last night's performance of Madame Butterfly at Chicago's Lyric Opera House you were kicking like crazy.
Perhaps you, like your mother and I noticed for the first time that the famous "Humming Chorus" in the opera sounded an awful lot like the song "Bring Him Home" from Les Miserables. (Doing a little research on this afterwards, I realized that this is not too surprising since Boubill and Natel, the composers of Les Miserables, are also the composers of Miss Saigon which is a complete rip-off of Madame Butterfly!)
Friday, October 25, 2013
Coast-to-Coast
Dear Pint-sized Traveler,
One of the things you'll learn sooner or later is how difficult it becomes as you get older to be Present, not just geographically, but Aware -- or as the cliché has it "In the moment". One of the things that can contribute to this is when you're in constant motion.
On the one hand, you have stayed in one spot for the past four-plus months, but then again, your mother and I have traveled from coast-to-coast: from Los Angeles to New York City.
Perhaps this image is one to keep in mind: that we have to move through the world but keep our gaze and focus like you are now, right where we happen to be.
On the left, taken at the Getty Museum in LA, you can see the road running off into the foggy, haze of downtown LA.
On the right, taken on Manhattan's Highline, you can see the taxis making their way from the Hudson to the east side of the island.
One of the things you'll learn sooner or later is how difficult it becomes as you get older to be Present, not just geographically, but Aware -- or as the cliché has it "In the moment". One of the things that can contribute to this is when you're in constant motion.
On the one hand, you have stayed in one spot for the past four-plus months, but then again, your mother and I have traveled from coast-to-coast: from Los Angeles to New York City.
Perhaps this image is one to keep in mind: that we have to move through the world but keep our gaze and focus like you are now, right where we happen to be.
On the left, taken at the Getty Museum in LA, you can see the road running off into the foggy, haze of downtown LA.
On the right, taken on Manhattan's Highline, you can see the taxis making their way from the Hudson to the east side of the island.
Thursday, October 24, 2013
Genetics 101
Dear Beautiful Dreamer:
If, in the future, you are looking for a career in medicine and need to brush up on Genetics for some medical exam or research grant on your way to a Nobel Prize. Here is a simple way to think about inherited traits:
You get your good looks from the person on the right.
You get your goofy sense-of-humor (and taste for polka dots) from the oddball on the left.
(That's you in the middle.)
Congratulations! And... sorry.
If, in the future, you are looking for a career in medicine and need to brush up on Genetics for some medical exam or research grant on your way to a Nobel Prize. Here is a simple way to think about inherited traits:
You get your good looks from the person on the right.
You get your goofy sense-of-humor (and taste for polka dots) from the oddball on the left.
(That's you in the middle.)
Congratulations! And... sorry.
Looking outward, Looking inward
I'm not ready to leave the images from New York City. The view out to the brilliant October day, where the leaves are changing. Looking out as if those windows were my eyes and the dark chapel was the interior of my body. (I imagine you sleeping in the cathedral of your mother's womb.)
And turning our attention in a different direction: Art is a way to look inward at our own thoughts and perceptions of the world. This is a collage from Robert Motherwell, early in his career, created during the Second World War (1944). He called it: Jeune Fille. Or Young Girl.
Even here in a back gallery at the Guggenheim Museum, you are on my mind.
Even here in a back gallery at the Guggenheim Museum, you are on my mind.
Wednesday, October 23, 2013
Wait a minute!
All of these reflections are sounding so heavy! I think we could all use a break....
I'll let your mom lighten things up.
In a park on New York's biggest isle,
A lovely lady once walked for a mile.
If asked 'bout her child
Her thoughts would run wild.
(And OH! you should just see her smile.)
Earth Angel
"Then the angel said to him, “Put on your clothes and sandals.” And Peter did so. “Wrap your cloak around you and follow me,” the angel told him. Peter followed him out of the prison, but he had no idea that what the angel was doing was really happening; he thought he was seeing a vision."
Acts: 12:8-9
'Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation?
Tell me, if you understand.
Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know!
Who stretched a measuring line across it?
On what were its footings set,
or who laid its cornerstone—
while the morning stars sang together
and all the angels shouted for joy?'
Job 38:4-7
I wonder what happened to us when we stopped believing in angels.
Did they stop believing in us?
Or do they sit waiting for us to eventually (perhaps only at the last minute) to turn our gaze back to them?
There was a time painters captured the image of angels on the vaults of cathedrals. Perhaps that made us too lazy to look for the real ones (when all the painters wanted to do was remind us!)
Sometimes, if you turn your head very quickly, you might still catch a glimpse of one. Look! Quick!
Tuesday, October 22, 2013
One voice
Dear Song of God and Nature,
Let's return to that chapel on the north end of Manhattan and the music of Thomas Tallis.
As I said, I walked around the room, listening to the individual voices that made up the swelling beauty that is Spem in Alium.
I stopped at one speaker in particular and hearing the voice here I imagine a rather timid 11-year old who was part of this larger production. He comes in to the music right around 23 seconds which should give you a sense of the music in the room and then you hear him almost tiptoe into the song.
Every voice makes a difference in this piece and I want you to know the power of your own voice, that becomes more beautiful when you let it rise in harmony with others'....
Let's return to that chapel on the north end of Manhattan and the music of Thomas Tallis.
As I said, I walked around the room, listening to the individual voices that made up the swelling beauty that is Spem in Alium.
I stopped at one speaker in particular and hearing the voice here I imagine a rather timid 11-year old who was part of this larger production. He comes in to the music right around 23 seconds which should give you a sense of the music in the room and then you hear him almost tiptoe into the song.
Every voice makes a difference in this piece and I want you to know the power of your own voice, that becomes more beautiful when you let it rise in harmony with others'....
Monday, October 21, 2013
Spem in alium
Dear Celestial Song,
One of the most beautiful sounds in the world is a mass written for multiple voices, polyphonic music from the Middle Ages. (Perhaps my favorite is William Byrd's Mass for Five Voices.)
The composer Thomas Tallis was writing music during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I. One of his greatest compositions begins:
Spem in alium nunquam habui/Praeter inte.
I have never put my hope in any other but in you.
It is a 40 part motet, created by eight choirs of five voices each singing in harmony and it is one of the most beautiful sounds in the world.
I tell you all of this to tell you about a chapel your mother and I visited in The Cloisters at the north end of Manhattan in the past week. (She went a week earlier than me after a meeting downtown.)
The Cloisters, a convent that was brought to the U.S. stone-by-stone by the Rockefellers and turned into a museum of medieval art.
Here in 2013, as the trees across the Hudson River burst into reds and orange and yellow -- an artist created a sound installation that includes 40 speakers. One speaker for each human voice in the motet that is played in one of the chapels of the Cloisters.
The speakers ring the chapel in an oblong circle. As you enter the chapel in the midst of the music, you hear the voices rising together in a glorified prayer. It is breathtaking.
But here in this installation, you are able to slowly walk the room and as you pause before each speaker, you can hear the one individual voice that is one part of this joyous hymn of praise. Here, at one speaker the deep bass of a man. At another the impossibly high voice of a woman. At still another the voice of a young child, as clear and moving as any adult voice.
The photo below is taken while sitting on a bench letting ALL the voices joined in unison wash over me.
As I sit in my own meditative silence that makes me feel like a boat bobbing on this sea of sound, the voices seem to rise and rise and rise until the very last note.
And then, all day long in that space, it will loop back around again.
But sitting there, I realize that the space between the songs is filled with what the museum guide says is "three minutes of audio". I had expected some introduction, some dry announcer presenting facts about the music.
Instead, what the artist has done is leave each of the microphones open for three minutes, capturing the sounds of each person: one person clearing her throat, another person whispering to a neighbor, in the background the sound of the conductor trying to get them all together.
And there, listening to the all-too-human voices preparing to sing a composition that sounds like the voices of angels coming together in a grand Hallelujah, I have the very profound sense that this too -- these sounds of preparation and anticipation, these adjustments before singing out in prayer, are the Mystical Body of Christ. This collection of humanity, the baritone checking his cellphone, the soprano rustling papers will, at the right moment, come together in a song of astonishing beauty.
This then is what communion is: a coming together of human beings in praise of God. Sometimes it's a little messy, you can hear the imperfections in how we live our lives in preparation for this moment. But when you get a glimpse of it, when you hear -- or see or taste or touch -- what beauty human beings are capable of doing together, you understand what heaven on Earth means, you understand what being together sharing in this Mystical Union can really mean.
And here's one more part of the miracle: you were there, listening. Somewhere off in the distance, you may have heard a voice singing out. And in some ways that voice was singing to something in you -- inviting you to come out, join us at the table, as we bow our heads and say: Amen. In thanks and gratitude.
One of the most beautiful sounds in the world is a mass written for multiple voices, polyphonic music from the Middle Ages. (Perhaps my favorite is William Byrd's Mass for Five Voices.)
The composer Thomas Tallis was writing music during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I. One of his greatest compositions begins:
Spem in alium nunquam habui/Praeter inte.
I have never put my hope in any other but in you.
It is a 40 part motet, created by eight choirs of five voices each singing in harmony and it is one of the most beautiful sounds in the world.
I tell you all of this to tell you about a chapel your mother and I visited in The Cloisters at the north end of Manhattan in the past week. (She went a week earlier than me after a meeting downtown.)
The Cloisters, a convent that was brought to the U.S. stone-by-stone by the Rockefellers and turned into a museum of medieval art.
Here in 2013, as the trees across the Hudson River burst into reds and orange and yellow -- an artist created a sound installation that includes 40 speakers. One speaker for each human voice in the motet that is played in one of the chapels of the Cloisters.
The speakers ring the chapel in an oblong circle. As you enter the chapel in the midst of the music, you hear the voices rising together in a glorified prayer. It is breathtaking.
But here in this installation, you are able to slowly walk the room and as you pause before each speaker, you can hear the one individual voice that is one part of this joyous hymn of praise. Here, at one speaker the deep bass of a man. At another the impossibly high voice of a woman. At still another the voice of a young child, as clear and moving as any adult voice.
The photo below is taken while sitting on a bench letting ALL the voices joined in unison wash over me.
As I sit in my own meditative silence that makes me feel like a boat bobbing on this sea of sound, the voices seem to rise and rise and rise until the very last note.
And then, all day long in that space, it will loop back around again.
But sitting there, I realize that the space between the songs is filled with what the museum guide says is "three minutes of audio". I had expected some introduction, some dry announcer presenting facts about the music.
Instead, what the artist has done is leave each of the microphones open for three minutes, capturing the sounds of each person: one person clearing her throat, another person whispering to a neighbor, in the background the sound of the conductor trying to get them all together.
And there, listening to the all-too-human voices preparing to sing a composition that sounds like the voices of angels coming together in a grand Hallelujah, I have the very profound sense that this too -- these sounds of preparation and anticipation, these adjustments before singing out in prayer, are the Mystical Body of Christ. This collection of humanity, the baritone checking his cellphone, the soprano rustling papers will, at the right moment, come together in a song of astonishing beauty.
This then is what communion is: a coming together of human beings in praise of God. Sometimes it's a little messy, you can hear the imperfections in how we live our lives in preparation for this moment. But when you get a glimpse of it, when you hear -- or see or taste or touch -- what beauty human beings are capable of doing together, you understand what heaven on Earth means, you understand what being together sharing in this Mystical Union can really mean.
And here's one more part of the miracle: you were there, listening. Somewhere off in the distance, you may have heard a voice singing out. And in some ways that voice was singing to something in you -- inviting you to come out, join us at the table, as we bow our heads and say: Amen. In thanks and gratitude.
Sunday, October 13, 2013
Are you Sirius? Part II
Dear Song of God,
This part week you and your mother were in New York City on business and I spent three nights at home with the cat. And since part of this blog is to tell you a little about who I am, who your mother is and how we see the world (at this moment in time), I thought it might be good to let you know that you are on my mind even when you are not near.....
So, on a trip to the Jazz Record Mart (a wonderful place that sells new and used jazz albums and CDs), I happened to find an album by tenor saxophonist, Coleman Hawkins. I know his music only by reputation but once I saw the title and that it was just $4.99, I HAD to get it.
One thing you will learn about me is that when I find these connections -- the title of a blog post I wrote you and then the title of this album, I have to check out these connections.
And there I was Tuesday night, when you and your mother were sitting at the Broadway revival of "Annie", listening to Coleman Hawkins lay down his breathy melody lines that sounds like something like some beautiful sea creature calling for you somewhere out on Lake Michigan.
I wanted to find a link online for the last song on the album: "Sugar". Hawkins had played with jazz greats, like one of my favorites, Django Reinhardt, making a reputation in the 30s and 40s. When he recorded Sirius, he was getting up there in years, but as Benny Green writes in the album's liner notes (something mpegs don't really allow!) "he is not so senile that he cannot adjust that hoary old chord sequence with a series of descending minor seventh chords here and there...."
I don't know enough music to know exactly how to identify those "descending minor seventh chords"but am hoping someday you -- being far smarter than me -- will hear them. And when you're hearing that song, you'll think of me, thinking of you, far away and swimming towards us.
For now, I'll leave you with one of his classic renditions of a jazz standard:
This part week you and your mother were in New York City on business and I spent three nights at home with the cat. And since part of this blog is to tell you a little about who I am, who your mother is and how we see the world (at this moment in time), I thought it might be good to let you know that you are on my mind even when you are not near.....
So, on a trip to the Jazz Record Mart (a wonderful place that sells new and used jazz albums and CDs), I happened to find an album by tenor saxophonist, Coleman Hawkins. I know his music only by reputation but once I saw the title and that it was just $4.99, I HAD to get it.
And there I was Tuesday night, when you and your mother were sitting at the Broadway revival of "Annie", listening to Coleman Hawkins lay down his breathy melody lines that sounds like something like some beautiful sea creature calling for you somewhere out on Lake Michigan.
I wanted to find a link online for the last song on the album: "Sugar". Hawkins had played with jazz greats, like one of my favorites, Django Reinhardt, making a reputation in the 30s and 40s. When he recorded Sirius, he was getting up there in years, but as Benny Green writes in the album's liner notes (something mpegs don't really allow!) "he is not so senile that he cannot adjust that hoary old chord sequence with a series of descending minor seventh chords here and there...."
I don't know enough music to know exactly how to identify those "descending minor seventh chords"but am hoping someday you -- being far smarter than me -- will hear them. And when you're hearing that song, you'll think of me, thinking of you, far away and swimming towards us.
For now, I'll leave you with one of his classic renditions of a jazz standard:
Wednesday, October 9, 2013
Codes and Codebreakers
Greetings, my little cosmic codebreaker.
[My little Harriet (the spy) in her mother's womb. I'll explain later....]
Scientists say that right now your body (in addition to doing the amazing feat of having a heart that beats 160 times a minute) is also decoding DNA. I wish I understood it all, the RNA delivering the signal to create new life and new patterns from the nutrients in your mother's bloodstream. You are literally being built by this unraveling of a genetic code and fed by what she eats day to day.
So, it's probably time to tell you about one little secret your mother and I share, which I was NOT able to share with her this week. But in addition to us both trying to unravel some savory sense of meaning from this world, she and I do the New York Times Crossword together.
We're a team. She finds those unexpected places I've given up on. (A bit of a metaphor for other things in my life) and I usually figure out the corny pun at the heart of the puzzle.
I have this kind of weird image which gets me a bit teary-eyed of the THREE of us solving something together. About you finding some pattern in life, in a puzzle, maybe just in a wonderful knock-knock joke (don't get me STARTED) that the three of us can laugh to and think for just a minute (usually no longer than that!!!) that we got everything figured out.
And sure, I'll admit it... under and hour for this week's crossword.
Pssst... hurry up! I want to solve some puzzles.
[My little Harriet (the spy) in her mother's womb. I'll explain later....]
Scientists say that right now your body (in addition to doing the amazing feat of having a heart that beats 160 times a minute) is also decoding DNA. I wish I understood it all, the RNA delivering the signal to create new life and new patterns from the nutrients in your mother's bloodstream. You are literally being built by this unraveling of a genetic code and fed by what she eats day to day.
So, it's probably time to tell you about one little secret your mother and I share, which I was NOT able to share with her this week. But in addition to us both trying to unravel some savory sense of meaning from this world, she and I do the New York Times Crossword together.
We're a team. She finds those unexpected places I've given up on. (A bit of a metaphor for other things in my life) and I usually figure out the corny pun at the heart of the puzzle.
I have this kind of weird image which gets me a bit teary-eyed of the THREE of us solving something together. About you finding some pattern in life, in a puzzle, maybe just in a wonderful knock-knock joke (don't get me STARTED) that the three of us can laugh to and think for just a minute (usually no longer than that!!!) that we got everything figured out.
And sure, I'll admit it... under and hour for this week's crossword.
Pssst... hurry up! I want to solve some puzzles.
Sunday, October 6, 2013
Are you serious?
Hello, Tiny Dancer.
Every once-in-a-while I wake up or find myself during the course of the day, repeating a phrase. Don’t worry. Sometimes it’s like talking (out loud) to myself or perhaps I’m just thinking about what that particular common phrase really means.
This morning the phrase was: “Are you serious?”
By the time you are a teenager perhaps the phrase “Are you serious?” won’t be used by others teens to express incredulity. As in: “Really? Are you serious? Are you JOKING me?”
For me though, I was thinking of it as a direct question about everything in my life. (One thing I’m sure you’ll learn about me pretty quickly is that I tend to think about these things. A lot.) That is, I was asking myself:
Are you serious about being in better health/shape for your daughter’s sake? (Your grandfather, my dad, died in January of this year and I wish he had been a bit more serious about HIS health.)
Every once-in-a-while I wake up or find myself during the course of the day, repeating a phrase. Don’t worry. Sometimes it’s like talking (out loud) to myself or perhaps I’m just thinking about what that particular common phrase really means.
This morning the phrase was: “Are you serious?”
By the time you are a teenager perhaps the phrase “Are you serious?” won’t be used by others teens to express incredulity. As in: “Really? Are you serious? Are you JOKING me?”
For me though, I was thinking of it as a direct question about everything in my life. (One thing I’m sure you’ll learn about me pretty quickly is that I tend to think about these things. A lot.) That is, I was asking myself:
Are you serious about being in better health/shape for your daughter’s sake? (Your grandfather, my dad, died in January of this year and I wish he had been a bit more serious about HIS health.)
Are you serious about your own writing? Are you going to
spend more time with your scripts and fiction writing?
Are you serious about reconnecting to and deepening your
spiritual life? I’ve gone to mass sporadically and my daily meditation practice
is not what it was a year ago.
Are you serious about taking care of this home we share?
Are you serious about the house you own in Detroit?
Are you serious about the film you spent some much time working on?
Are you serious about your business?
Are you serious about doing everything you can for your wife, your marriage?
A-and if you ARE serious, what are you doing about these
things?
Now questions like this often come from a little Inner Child
we all have that alternates between being puffed up with self-worth and ego and
then terrible insecurity. (Of course, when you’re a child – you and your inner
child will be bosom buddies. Maybe when YOU grow up, you’ll wave goodbye to
that inner one.)
Buddhist talk about a “Middle Way” and Christians have a
wonderfully symbol of balance (and a roadsign for life ahead): the Cross. So, I
know in my heart that “being serious” is not about frowning and nodding very
seriously or putting myself down. It’s
something in-between, just as we live our lives in-between.
“Being serious” is as much about having serious fun or
believing that life itself is deadly serious too.
As I often do when these questions really start bugging me,
I went to find out what “Serious” really MEANS? I mean what are the roots of
the word?
Turns out that it is related to the French “sérieux” or “grave, earnest”, and the
Latin “seriousus” for “weighty,
important, grave”. But YIKES, that’s not really what I meant!
I also don’t want to use the word that is related to the
German “schwer” or “heavy”. (Etymologists (not the people who study bugs
(entomologists) by those who study words like these: say around 1800, “serious”
was also “attended with danger”. Hmmmmm. No, not right either.)
As I think of this (and perhaps it is my own reasonable
adult talking to that Inner Child, I dunno), while I think I was reprimanding
myself for not being more “serious”, I think the real question is: Are you
awake? Are you aware? Are you engaged?
Because it is so easy to fall asleep, to miss the beauty
right in front of us. Sometimes it just makes sense to make FUN of the frowny
face and say that if criticizing OTHERS and giving them grief isn’t kind or
helpful, then it certainly won’t be for oneself.
And after all, people who look TOO serious can look awfully
funny:
Thursday, October 3, 2013
What WAS that?
Dear Deep Sleeper,
That is the question you were probably asking Monday night, the last day of September. Perhaps the music you thought was just noise even woke you up (although with a heartbeat of 160 bpm, I imagine you sleeping for just seconds at a time.)
In addition to the city's we can list you have visited before being born, we can now add Sigur Ros to the list of Bob Dylan (a favorite of mine) and Wilco (a favorite of your mother). We both enjoy this band and here's a shot from the first row of the balcony (which, of course, you could not see but undoubtedly heard because as your mother said (I will not exaggerate, so I'll say...) more than twice: "They are so LOUD!" (And they have beautiful Art Direction!)
One of the things I'm looking forward to is being able to dance with you to Sigur Ros songs.
And Django Reinhart.
Or maybe just relax on the couch with Miles Davis' In A Silent Way.
Or maybe go for a ride with Tom Petty playing on the radio.
Sleep well.
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