Supergood Music Videos
I composed the soundtrack to a trilogy of videos made by my brother-in-law Kevin. Enjoy!
Summer Travels 2011
In a few hours, we bid adieu to Brooklyn and embark on a transcontinental adventure. Our first stop is Sydling St. Nicholas, Dorset, England to spend a week with G and Grand Buckland and the English side of Alaina's family. From there, we continue around the globe to India, where we will travel with Sarah and Eric for four weeks, exploring Kerala and the South first, followed by a trip to the North into the mountains. I have a basic sense of what we will be doing, but almost no idea what sort of experiences await. That is adventure! Unexpected…
Weddings
What a wonderful reason to bring your friends together and have a party: for we are in love forever! Folks will travel great distances to be present for this official declaration and the ensuing celebration can be a transcendent joy. This past weekend featured an unfortunate conflict of lovefests: Dan & Tekela in Wisconsin or Dave & Kelly in Warwick (great place to get married!). Lake Geneva, WI was filled with boats, beaches, beer, blunts and buddies and we gorged ourselves on Chef Daniel's amazing appetizers, complemented by cheese and fried everything. And while we were forced to choose between…
Book of Mormon
I love a spectacle and Book of Mormon delivers. Broadway is all about over-the-top song and dance and this show pays homage to the medium while simultaneously mocking its culture. The ridiculousness of of our obsession with entertainment is one micro-target of this show, and Broadway/Orlando worship is akin to religious worship here, with Mormonism serving as the kebab of this perfectly executed skewering. In a way, bashing this religion is too easy; it seems obvious that it was completely invented by a mortal man with a keen sense of drama who hooked his followers with a tale that makes…
Land 11
Since before I knew her and before her parents knew, Alaina has been hosting parties in Warwick, NY. Six years ago, we were married on that property and The Land Party is one of my biggest annual highlights. It is a chance to relax and party with friends and family in a beautiful setting with woods and a pond. We camp, cook out and play music deep into the night. It provides a sense of freedom that I rarely have in my life and I take full advantage. This year's party was a three-day extravaganza over July 4 weekend and…
Shakespeare In The Park
The man could write. His works are still the standard by which all theatre is judged. Every play is epic; a dense thicket involving love, betrayal, violence and wisdom. The characters are the grandest ideals or darkest corners of our own psyche and play out macrocosms of the subtle moral conflicts we engage daily. Every word he writes carries ten more words' worth of meaning and twist the plot dizzyingly. It is great literature and scintillating theatre. Alaina is hooked up at Central Park's Delacourt Theatre, which means we don't have to queue up beforehand for the always free tickets.…
Boston Bruins: Stanley Cup Champions!
Up until 9th grade, hockey was a huge part of my life. I played on various school teams and attended camps dedicated to improving my ice skills. The Bruins of my middle school years were a solid bunch, led by Ray Borque, Cam Neely and Adam Oates and were tantalizingly good but never achieved the dream of winning a Cup and faded into an afterthought through mismanagement and the end of my playing days. For the past 20 years, I have watched the team collapse year after year, losing painfully to the arch-rival Canadiens several times in the playoffs and…
Casey Allyn Young
I love my job. I am truly blessed to have the opportunity to make music with children. They have the most amazing ability to live passionately and exclusively in the moment. Past and future have no real value to them and so every moment is absolutely vital. True, it means they sometimes cry when you take their drum away, but they are just expressing their love for that instrument without any possible way to rationalize it temporally. They are the best improvisers and demonstrate unbridled joy in all aspects of music. I am always inspired. Casey was in my classes…
Sleep No More
I am still baffled by what I witnessed last night and have been thinking about it constantly since I left the performance; it takes place inside the abandoned McKittrick hotel in Chelsea and audience members are free to explore four floors of exquisitely decorated rooms, each one an art installation of bizarre bric-a-brac that conjures an eerie mystique. Performers move through the spaces and interact with one another and audience members, all of whom are instructed to wear uniform white masks concealing identities and reactions. The piece is based on Macbeth and while the scenes allude to the events of…
What’s New?
In a tree in the Green-Wood Cemetery across from my balcony is a Robin's nest I have been binocularing in on and today I saw three little beaks open above the lip of the nest to be fed from mom. It was beautiful. It is hard to believe its been a month since I last wrote here, but it has been a month full of good entertainment. We saw some great Theatre (Blackwatch, Under Construction, Warhorse, Sister Act and seeing Sleep No More tonight), have experienced some great outdoor Brooklyn events (Fifth Ave Street Fair and Food Truck Rally), started…