Sledgehammer

Perhaps the most tragic thing about warfare at such close quarters is that the soldiers, no matter how rational they may try to be, inevitably are overcome with seething hatred for their enemies. Warfare quickly becomes personal and very very ugly.

The Enigma Code

Sibelius’s Sixth Symphony seems, at least form a formal point of view, like a work whose materials are packed into a the template of a four-movement design but that are in fact struggling to find a more radical means of organization, the solution to which wasn’t found until the Seventh.

Hum me a few bars

Stravinsky’s phrases and harmonic cadences at first signal to us that we’re comfortably located in the rational universe of Bach or Pergolesi. But then he trips us up by adding an extra fraction of a beat or by arbitrarily extending a phrase beyond its expected length. They are like Harpo Marx misbehaving at a dinner party.

A Noble and Sentimental Guy

The audience was scandalized by the Ravel waltzes— they were greeted with “howls of protest and derision.” (What premiere in 1911 was NOT greeted with howls of protest and derision?)

Marcel Proost: back from the dead

Let’s call it ‘Tahiti of the Mind.’ I’ve been home since December. But I started a new piece, and that just sorta sucked the air out of Hellmouth.”

The Turn of Several Screws

“Got a problem, Marcel?” I say, although truth to tell, I wouldn’t know what to do to fix a forty year-old chopper.

“Naw, just tightening the cap on the carb. Only takes a couple turns of the screw here. Just call me Peter Quint.”

Listening to Walt Whitman

Seeing the big, slow-moving bearded figure of Whitman walking quietly down the long rows of cots to say hello, perhaps have a chat or change a bandage, must have been like an apparition of heaven-sent kindness.

Offline and off the grid

“You know, John, I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve been in a room or a public place and noticed that more than half of the people there are not there.”

“Not sure what you mean, Marcel,” I say. “How can you ‘be there’ and yet not be there.”

North Coast Idyl

We go through the deep, soggy woods, scouting for fungi. Thinking of John Cage, I realize I am a poor forager. My eyes are not sharp. Or rather, my concentration wanders (nothing wrong with my eyes). Nonetheless I spy the season’s first sprouting of black chanterelles.

Christmas Eve with Nuria Schoenberg

“So Marcel,” I say, “you got a new pin-up crush, I see. Who’s that, the young Ingrid Bergman?”

“Naw, John. Don’t you recognize her? It’s Nuria Schoenberg.”

The Thumbprints of "El Niño"

Marcel has recently gone online, cobbling together a computer from scavenged parts he pulls out of recycle bins and signing up for the Mendocino Community Network. His service is dial-up and really slow, but he tells me he likes it because he is now Facebook friends with Sarah Palin. He also reads reviews of my concerts in far away places like New York and Los Angeles, a fact that makes me mildly uncomfortable.

The Amazing Ms. J

To this day Leila still ramps up her concentration in the moments before going onstage with an outburst of noises: “brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr, OK, Johnnie, let’s go doooooooooooo it!!!!!”