House Concerts
John York plays Gelencser House Concert
When I am not working at the art college where I am employed, or reading and riffing about books, I can usually be found playing music or listening to music. I want to mention a wonderful tradition to all of you, for I have learned many people are unaware of it: house concerts.
Many have been so media saturated by the big commercial musicians and artists that you may not be aware of a musical world much more rewarding, democratic, personal and human. House concerts are a part of that musical world. All around the United States, and I am told in many other countries, too, people open their homes to host audiences and an eclectic group of touring musicians. Some of these musicians are famous in the commercial world of music, and simply enjoy the more intimate setting of a house concert from time to time. Some are solo, or duo, or small groups troubadors who spend their lives traveling the country in Chevies and minivans – not big tour busses – sharing their music from the countrified south to the freeway linked west. A few house concert musicians just stick to their own backyards, playing regionally in people’s homes and in small clubs and other venues.
These musicians don’t earn zillions. They often have other “day jobs,” or simply make do with what they earn from the $15 dollar door charge and the $15 CDs they pack with them for sale after they play (why all audience members should reach in their pockets at the end of a concert and find their way to sharing another $15 to support these wonderful talented people who bring so much to our lives and world).
Last night I had the pleasure of seeing and hearing John York at such a house concert. John is probably most known for his playing with the band the Byrds in the late 1960s, but no one should look for him on the house concert circuit for that reason alone. His stories, his own music (and intricate lyrics), and his skill with a twelve string guitar are what should draw you to his music and performances. Last night as I sat listening to him, I was suddenly struck by the impression of a solo musician enacting an entire rock and roll band with his dual strings, the harmonics they emitted in the small room, his musical leg work (I don’t think John is really much conscious of his musical “dance moves”!) and the powerful voice that could just as easily be filling a stadium as someone’s furniture-empty dining room.
It is not surprising that John is a huge fan of the lyrics of Bob Dylan and Tom Wait. His own lyrics stand up handily beside them as he plays a set list that traverses their music as well as his own. What I found most fascinating about his music was the combination of rock and roll flavor with a traditional troubadour’s folk sentiment, style and message.
And his endings. How many music listeners pay all that much attention to endings? You should listen to John’s. There was something very special about them. As if he had spent more time on them than on any other part of the song. They were structured, not haphazard, and he took risks with his vocals at the end that were well worth the effort. Which is how I will wrap this post of mine around to a book context! How many times do we enjoy reading a book, and throw ourselves emotionally into it for hundreds of pages only to be completely disappointed in the end? As if we have been tricked by trusting the author to give us something of substance, something complete, only to have the rug pulled out from under us when we hit that last page or chapter. I’d never thought of it in terms of music before. That the end of music can be just as important as the beginning or the body of it. That care should be taken with the end to insure that it wraps up properly the piece of art one has just shared with an audience. Care to insure that it leaves us feeling sated and complete, not left hanging or sloughed off. And doesn’t a musician owe that to the song, too?
January 22, 2012
Tags: Barry Maguire, Bob Dylan, House Concert, John York, the Byrds, Tom Wait, troubadour Posted in: Book Riffs, Reading Diary, Terry's Reading Travels 
No Comments
A New Year!
My cat Salomé Wishing All a Happy Holiday Season and New Year!
Hi – I’m rushing off to my teaching and web/interactive media department management job, but wanted to check in this morning to let you know that I am back. It would be better to announce my holidays before the holidays, I know. My apologies. This holiday I really needed to take some down time from my over-the-top busy career as a college employee as well as interactive author, digital artist and blogger. It turned out to be one of the best holidays I have ever had, not because of holiday events or downtime, but because I took the time to visit with or talk to almost every good friend I have in the world. It’s important to do that now and then, isn’t it? Especially if you work in this high tech world that I live (and thrive) in. One of my best friends is my new cat, SalomĂ©, so here is a picture of her wishing all of my readers a fun-filled, happy, warm, and book and idea filled holiday and new year.
Not to worry, though. This did not mean I stopped reading or thinking. I have read a whole slew of new books over the last couple of months, and will be riffing about them here. I have also attended some fascinating lectures at Cal Tech (near my home in Pasadena), and will talk about them here, too, over the next weeks.
Although my primary interests continue to be creativity, the mind and science, I would like to refer you to a book I have not read, but will put on my “to read” bookshelf. Does anyone remember the slide guitarist, singer-songwriter Ry Cooder? Read the rest of this post »
January 18, 2012
Tags: new media author Terry Bailey, Ry Cooder, Salome Posted in: Book Riffs, Reading Diary, Terry's Reading Travels No Comments
Brief Interlude to Learn Processing and some other things
First art made with Processing - a graphic and interactive coding language I am learning
I have been away again for a while. The main reason is that I am learning some new software and a new graphic/interactive programming language, Processing, in order to better facilitate this new media blog. It is becoming frustrating that I build my interactive animations in commercial software which has a tendency to out of existence every few years (and gets replaced by something new that renders everything I have built obsolete and unviewable). So, I decided to learn to code them myself, preventing obsolescence. This image links to my first program. Obviously this will take me a while to learn, so I will keep posting Flash and gif animations in the meantime; but I will also post examples of my progress learning Processing.
November 6, 2011
Tags: interactive art programming, new media author Terry Bailey, Processing, programming language time out Posted in: Book Riffs, New Media Writing and Technology Diary No Comments
The Genius who lived to merge technology and art and people – you will be missed
“Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.” – Steve Jobs, 1956-2011
October 6, 2011
Tags: Apple, Steve Jobs Posted in: New Media Writing and Technology Diary, Reading Diary No Comments
art + science Guest Riff 01
Amidst the attention given to the sciences as how they can lead to the cure of all diseases and daily problems of mankind, I believe that the biggest breakthrough will be the realization that the arts, which are conventionally considered "useless," will be recognized as the whole reason why we ever try to live longer or live more prosperously.
—John Maeda via The universe will fly like a bird
September 30, 2011
Tags: art + science, art and science, John Maeda, science and art, science and music Posted in: Book Riffs, New Media Writing and Technology Diary, Reading Diary No Comments
On the subject of “new” writers and wordiness: what author Annie Dillard Had to Say
Here is a riff I wrote in graduate school a few years ago – about author Annie Dillard‘s first book, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek. In an afterward to the version of the book I read, Ms. Dillard herself talks about the tendency of mature writers to be more “conservative with word count.”
Annie Dillard's Pilgrim at Tinker Creek
(written in 2009) First a confession. Pilgrim at Tinker Creek is the last book I am reading for my Master of Fine Arts program in writing at Antioch University. It is a book that probably deserves contemplative quiet reading, and I am in no position to give it either of those forms of attention. I graduate in thirty-eight days, and my mind is way preoccupied with finishing-touch things: preparing my graduate lecture, my graduate reading, making sure that my thesis is properly formatted, worrying if the technology will be there and working when I present the new media book I have begun to create as my thesis project. How ironic that I should pick up this meditation-on-nature during this most hectic month of my life in the last several years. I have read this book thinking throughout: what would my reaction be if this were my first semester, and I had time to devote to this book, could sit on a park bench in Pasadena reading it and thoughtfully digesting its stories and meaning? Instead I read it rushed: annoyed often at all the detail – who cares about all the details of frog mating and starling eradication? Oh, that is so gross anyway, why do I need to know that?
Here is another thing that happens when I read a meditative book in a forced rush: I discover wonderful analogies and metaphors like, “It has always been a happy thought to me that the creek runs on all night, new every minute, whether I wish it or know it or care as a closed book on a shelf continues to whisper to itself in its own exhaustive tale,” (69) but then I wonder why the author waits so long before wonderful thoughts such as this. Fills up pages and pages about the survival ineptitude of fireflies before saying something profound and meaningful. And then I feel pathetic. Would I not be happy to meander with fireflies if I had more time? Would I not be filled with awe and interest if I were not preoccupied with life things that must be done? This book won a Pulitzer Prize, after all. Students and teachers in my writing program could not believe I had not already read it, and said so; I felt pressured not to finish my program until I had.
I discovered Dillard’s story of the blind people who were given sight when cataract surgery was discovered. Pretty cool. It made me want to go read the book about it that she was referencing: Marius von Senden’s Space and Sight. Not so much because of the blind to seeing thing (although that was very interesting) but because I learned a secret about myself just a few years ago (it was something my mother apprised me of in fact), and I remember thinking at the revelation how I felt like I imagined a blind person would feel when suddenly given sight. Read the rest of this post »
September 23, 2011
Tags: Annie Dillard, Antioch University, author maturity, John Updike, Jonathan Safran Foer, Marius von Senden, mature author, Maytrees, nature writing, new authors and words, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, Pulitzer Prize, Space and Sight, wordiness Posted in: Book Riffs, Reading Diary, Terry's Reading Travels No Comments
check out seasoned guitarist Bob Saxton (in the back)
(media illustration for previous post)
Both great players, but if you concentrate on the actual notes being played . . . Bob Saxton by two heads – minimum. Wait for Bob’s (2) solos after Scotty plays his abundance of notes. The brilliance is in Bob’s choice of notes and phrases. It’s not how many notes you play – but which ones. (give Scotty Anderson a few more decades to catch up)
September 16, 2011
Tags: Bob Saxton, Everything is Illuminated, fingerstyle guitar, Jonathan Safran Foer, Scotty Anderson, too many notes Posted in: Book Riffs, Reading Diary No Comments
On being a new (youthful) artist, composer, musician or writer
I’ve just re-read Jonathan Safran Foer’s Everything is Illuminated, and what came to mind this time was a reflection on what it is to be a young artist. I think it was author John Updike whom I saw quoted once remarking about the abundance of words in his first books. Writers seem to take much greater care to be succinct, to get precisely at the thing, as they mature.
I see this reflected in musicians as well. Several times now, I have had the honor to play and sing with guitarist, Bob Saxton, who performed in the 1950s with country legend Patsy Cline. Often preceding Bob on the bill will be some young players who seem to be attempting to play every note on their guitars, one thousand times each, within their 10 minute set time frame. And often young members of the audience hoot and holler and demonstrate all manner of being impressed by the speed and “notiousness” of these young players. Then Bob gets up on stage. Read the rest of this post »
September 11, 2011
Tags: artist maturity, Bob Saxton, Eating Animals, Everything is Illuminated, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, John Updike, Jonathan Safran Foer, Patsy Cline Posted in: Book Riffs, Reading Diary No Comments
Veering off the Modular Mind and the Self for a Bit
I am going to leave the self and neuroscience and the mind for a bit. But I will return to it soon. I have finished the Kurzban book, Why Everyone (else) is a Hypocrite, and have had a pretty strong reaction to it. Although I find his hypothesis about the modularity of the mind fascinating, I have concerns about some science that preceded his ideas that is not referenced in his book, and further concerns about his application of his ideas to the world and human behavior.
While I am passionate about science, I persist in returning to some familiar themes surrounding my thoughts about it: that over-specialization of scientists is inhibiting many from finding the “truth” due to their limited views; that the disembodiment of science from experience by some scientists is wreaking havoc on their ability to find a reality that is either true or useful; that the unchecked belief in scientists simply because they are scientists and/or have prestigious credentials has always been, and continues to be a danger; that the severing of art and science has left our ability to further (or comprehend) some aspects of science (and reality) stranded. Read the rest of this post »
September 5, 2011
Tags: art and creativity, art and science, mind and neuroscience, modular mind, morality, Robert Kurzban, self, self and neuroscience, Virginia Woolf, Why Everyone Else is a Hypocrite Posted in: Book Riffs, Reading Diary No Comments
More Mind Watching and “The Self” – (continued from the previous post)
Bailey_Lehrer_Kurzban_Woolf_Whitman
Writer Virginia Woolf watched her own mind. She had plenty of time to do so as she was sent to bed by doctors who, in the 19th century, prescribed the reverse cure to depression that is more often ordered today: get up and out! be with friends! keep yourself occupied! Woolf, fortunately spent her depression bed rest time following the flight of her thoughts while she lay immobilized in her dark moods. The outcome of those times for her was a superior understanding of how the mind works, and a stream of consciousness modern form of writing for which she is credited in literary history. She also came to know a great deal of the mind – and self – from this experiential personal research of hers that was not looked at by science until much later. Woolf’s self as story.
As Woolf watched the chaotic shifting of her mind, she concluded that there was nothing fixed about her self. She linked “self” with “mind.”
“…now to be found in a dusty road, now in a scrap of newspaper in the street, now in a daffodil in the sun.” (Lehrer 169)
Walt Whitman, as I have talked about in previous posts, also reflected on himself – body and “soul”/mind – and discovered things about the self that were only beginning to be looked at by psychologists and scientists in his day. Where Whitman found contradictions and paradoxes in his self, Kurzban finds Read the rest of this post »
July 23, 2011
Tags: art and science, automatic writing, Caltech, creativity and neuroscience, Jonah Lehrer, new media author Terry Bailey, new media book review, Pasadena, Proust was a Neuroscientist, Robert Kurzban, self, self and neuroscience, self as ensemble, stream of consciousness, the self, Virginia Woolf, Virginia Woolf and self, walt whitman, Walt Whitman and self, Why everyone (else) is a hyocrite Posted in: Book Riffs, Reading Diary No Comments
Listening to my unconscious: a riff inspired by authors R. Kurzban and J. Lehrer and V. Woolf
Terry and Salomé Take a Trip to Monterey on the coast of California
In the previous post I gave an example of listening to my unconscious – or what I might call my “key tracking mind app” in that particular case, if I am to draw upon Robert Kurzban’s multiple minds theory (Why Everyone [Else] is a Hypocrite).
Another interesting incident of unconscious watching occurred last December.
I arrived home one evening and pulled pork chops out of the freezer, defrosted them in the microwave, located a casserole dish, filled it with milk and sliced yellow onions, placed the pork chops on top, sprinkled all with black pepper, baked it, heated peas, opened a can of apple sauce, and sat down a bit later at my kitchen table to eat the meal of scalloped pork chops and green peas.
What was so unusual about this? For one thing, I am pretty much a vegetarian; I can’t remember the last time I cooked pork chops or even had them in my house. For another thing, I seldom make a complete meal when I am by myself, and especially not on a week night when I arrive home exhausted from my job at the college. I am more likely to eat a peanut butter sandwich, or a plateful of fruits and vegetables. And scalloped pork chops are an unusual meal for me.
It was not until I took my first bite of pork and potato that the truth struck me: it was my sister’s birthday. Until that moment, I had not been consciously aware of the date at all. That was relevant because scalloped pork chops was her favorite meal when we were kids. Read the rest of this post »
July 10, 2011
Tags: author Terry Bailey, brain and creativity, brain app, Carmel, dream, Jonah Lehrer, mind and creativity, mind app, Monterey, new media author Terry Bailey, Pacific Grove, Proust was a Neuroscientist, Robert Kurzban, Salome, seals of Monterey Bay, self, unconscious, unconsious and creativity, Virginia Woolf, Why Everyone Else is a Hypocrite Posted in: Book Riffs, Reading Diary, Terry's Reading Travels No Comments
Back to Proust Was a Neuroscientist – with an intro riff to Kurzban’s Why Everyone (else) is a Hypocrite
I’m writing at a Starbucks in Encino today. Outside. Beautiful day. I love L.A.! Just came from a seminar on Neuroscience and Creativity at UCLA. I’ll have a few comments about that in a later post. I seem to be on a theme roll for a while here with those two topics. I gotta admit, too, that I am thinking I should write my own book on the topic (maybe after I finish my Amy Beach and Me one). Scientists are studying this, but they are really missing the creativity and creator perspective, I think. I have made a few mentions of this in previous posts (will look up and link here later). There needs to be more cross-talk between scientists and creative people, too. And the scientists must take care that they talk to actual creators, not imitators – the latter being a descriptor for the majority of people practicing any of the arts. That in itself, is a huge topic of discussion – and I will discuss it, but today we are all about Walt Whitman and Proust and Jonah Lehrer again.
Lehrer focuses attention on poet Walt Whitman’s refusal to separate body/flesh and mind/spirit. He cites contemporary neuroscientist, Damasio, who conducted a card game study in which, over time, the game playing subjects’ fingers appeared to learn the “danger” of selecting from one card stack before the player consciously became aware of the game’s rigged win-lose pattern. The player’s fingers would hesitate, perspire, etc. as they approached the incorrect deck. Damasio calls this the “mind-body loop.” Lehrer raises this example as a modern day concurrence of science with poet Whitman’s apriori understanding of it.
This particular example of Damasio’s mind-body loop theory (hypothesis?) does not have me convinced. Why is it thought that the fingers are thinking and reacting, rather than that some part of the unconscious mind is calculating faster than the conscious mind, and directing the fingers to react (via sweat/perspiration) unbeknownst to the conscious mind? Or, perhaps, Lehrer has slightly misrepresented Damasio’s theory here. Maybe we need to ask him.
Adding author Robert Kurzban’s hypothesis about mind structure (Why Everyone (else) is a Hypocrite) to this mind-body loop idea, I might draw a different picture. Read the rest of this post »
June 25, 2011
Tags: brain and creativity, creativity, creativity and, Jonah Lehrer, Monterey, Proust was a Neu, Robert Kurzban, Salome, unconscious, Virginia Woolf, walt whitman, Why Everyone Else is a Hypocrite Posted in: Book Riffs, Reading Diary, Terry's Reading Travels No Comments