Generative (24.01.25.09.22)
I press record and play.
Creation
I make Art. I have always felt compelled to express myself creatively and it has manifested in many different media at various points in my life. When I was young, I loved to draw, doodling characters and scenes (and especially inventing ski mountains and trail maps!). As I grew older, I liked to write stories and acted in plays, imagining narratives and dialogues reflecting my life and experiences through fictional plots and relationships. When I began learning music, I was drawn to improvised and spontaneous composition, synthesizing whatever skills I could muster on any instrument I could find to create…
Bruins
Growing up in Greater Boston, there was an imperative resident obligation to support the local sports teams and naturally I obliged. Despite the Red Sox, Patriots, Celtics and Bruins distinctive combined haplessness over the 18 years I called Boston home, I was apparently hooked forever. Fortunately they all improved dramatically after I left and have delivered more Championships (12!) than any reasonable sports fan could possibly ask for since I moved to New York 22 years ago. Today is my 46th birthday; Bruins visiting Islanders so I wrangled the whole family to the arena and witnessed an incredible 5-4 shootout…
Stereophonic
I met Alaina in 1999(!) and fell in love. Circumstances forced us into a long-distance relationship soon after and, when I disappeared to West Africa for a few months in 2001, we ended it. In my grieving, I found solace in Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours album; the songs captured so many of the emotions that I was feeling, love, loss, longing despair, hope, resignation and freedom. I knew that the band members had been experiencing intense relationship trauma while recording the album and somehow managed to navigate the emotional minefield to produce one of the greatest records of all-time. It is…
Sleep No More To Be No More
A few weeks ago, hanging out late with friends and discussing the impending closure of one of the most interesting art works I've ever seen, we purchased tickets to see Sleep No More one last time. I went when it opened in 2011 and loved it; the event involves wandering around a hotel in plain white masks watching performers in various scenes referencing Shakespeare's Scottish Play, MacBeth. Each floor of the six story hotel is a maze of installations that periodically come to life as performance venues while the ghostly audience follows the actors, at times sprinting up and down…
Transition and Evolution
I write here fairly infrequently; it's not part of my daily routine so months usually go by between missives. In fact, I neglected the site's maintenance for months and failed to notice that my registration had expired and the site was down for an extended period of time! I'm lucky nobody purchased the available domain (although someone did offer a not-insubstantial amount to buy it from me recently!) and I'm sorry for any inconvenience caused by the disruption, but you will be glad to know that I secured the supergood.org site for the next decade! I may be the only…
Summer 2023
We passed the solstice yesterday and officially crossed into Summer, when my work obligations shift from five days a week to two, and my cherished free time blossoms. I celebrated last night with The Cure at MSG and am eagerly anticipating Dead & Company tonight at Citi Field. I have seen some other great outdoor shows already this season including Taj Mahal at Prospect Park and Dave Matthews Band at Forest Hills and have another MSG jaunt next week with Tears For Fears before returning in August for a couple of Phish shows. I was thoroughly entertained by Shucked and…
Time
I can tell time, but don't know what Time is; it is one of the most obvious and important features of our existence but the more I think about it, the more I realize that my temporal comprehension is just a simplistic and survivalist adaptation for functional life. It's been five months since I last sat down to write here and all that exists of it is memories, accessed by patterns of electrical impulses in the synapses of my brain. Using the present to tap keys on my laptop creates a lettered breadcrumb trail of my past, which might be…
Influence
How lucky are we to be living in a world with so much incredible literature and entertainment unimaginably accessible? Growing up, I had bookstores (Barnes and Noble and Borders in the Chestnut Hill Mall), music stores (Newbury Comics and Tower Records just a short T ride away on Newbury St), walkable video rental (Newton Highlands Video and Blockbuster), movie theaters and some good music venues (Middle East, Ryles, Sanders Theater, The Orpheum, Great Woods). I thought I had it pretty good! Then computers and the internet shifted every paradigm! With the exception of live music, which I now enjoy at…
Back To The Beginning
The annual return to school and work is underway; a transition that lasts several weeks, ramping up to full employment again. It's hard to give up the freedom of Summer for the schedule of Fall but I have been really enjoying my reentry this year; I feel very fortunate to have such a fun job, playing music with enthusiastic kids! I have been teaching for 20 years, but I still strive to do it better every class, learning from my mistakes and always seeking new approaches to stimulating a love of music in my students! After attending a Kodály conference…