Holiday Blues

Tomorrow is New Years' Eve. Yet another holiday I just don't get. What is it that makes people feel the need to get dressed up, stay up really late and get drunk and loud? I suppose that question is relevant to any weekend of the year, but devoting a whole holiday to the practice is nuts.
Our species has rather arbitrarily chosen various dates throughout the year to take a day off work and celebrate stuff, largely to give a little excitement to an otherwise routine existence. The Christmas holiday is particularly out of control, thanks to capitalism. Opportunities to make a buck supersede any real meaning in the holiday, and do more to reverse the whole point than anything.
No matter how many sappy, well-meaning t.v. specials pop up to remind us that Christmas isn't about selfishness and presents, the retail machine grinds on unabated. Even the Pope is having to remind his cardinals and the church bank that the money is supposed to be helping the poor, not used for buying luxurious robes and fancy digs.
Coming from a working-class poor family, I used to resent the fact that I almost never got the cool presents that I wanted. All I ever heard was, "we can't afford it". As a kid, that didn't mean anything when we got the big Sears Wish Book in the mail. I would spend time every day looking through the pages of toys and neat clothes, circling the stuff that I really liked and hoping that some of it would show up under the tree.
All of the kids we went to church with seemed to have everything, and I couldn't understand why I didn't. My folks never sat us kids down to teach us about money, how to manage it or where it comes from. All I can figure is, since we were all girls, they thought we'd be taken care of by whoever we ended up marrying.
There have been 13 husbands amongst the five of us, and so far only one sibling even knows what a 401K is............
I am having to learn about finances very late in life by doing things the hard way. Making a lot of mistakes and paying a pretty penny for them. The businesses I've been trying to run for the last couple of decades are unfortunately in classical music and art. The market for such things isn't profitable for any but the superstars. Perhaps I haven't worked as hard as I should to get somewhere, but when it seems that the public appreciates electronics manufactured cheaply by third-world labor more than the hours of hand work you put into your original creations, or the years of music lessons spent honing those fine motor skills, often making the effort seems pointless.
I finally started charging my music students a month's worth of lessons in advance (to recoup losses from unannounced cancellations), but in doing so, have lost  some students. One step forward, two backwards.
To save on a number of expenses (gross receipts tax, self-employment taxes, etc) I am debating an effort to have employment status in one of my orchestras changed from independent contractor to employee, but have to take the rest of my colleagues into consideration before doing so. Nothing is ever simple.
My car has over 350,000 miles on it, so the question of driving anywhere for music gigs for much longer may be pointless as well.
In short (well, maybe not so short), I am feeling sorry for myself at the moment. I am not one for making New Years resolutions, but if I did it would be to quit everything I am currently involved in and start completely from scratch. I am looking into starting a part-time baking business, and if it happens and manages to do well enough, maybe I can eventually keep that resolution. We shall see.........................      
 

Stress

Mmmmmmmmh......What time is it? Ummmhhhhh...  That late? Jeez, gotta get going.      Maybe in five minutes....no, gotta get up....Got to....Come on.....Leg out, foot on the floor....That's it, you can do it.....Still so dark out....I can have five more minutes...

Why's the dog barking so much, dammit? It's only....oh crap, it's way past walkies already! Hurry..ouch! Who moved the #@**!! dresser?   

 Such is the usual beginning. The remainder of the day can be productive, or it can be a complete waste of time. Today was the latter.
After a breakfast of blueberries and vanilla yogurt (the new, healthy breakfast) the dog went for her very late walk. Just in time to go through an unfortunately not unusual, maniacal tug-of-war in pursuit of the garbage truck. And a neighbor's cat. There is physics involved for a sixty pound dog to be able to drag a one hundred twenty five pound human, and my dog apparently knows more about it than I do.
Symphony weeks, particularly when there are more than one at a time can be brutal. Just when all of the little muscle groups in your back, shoulders, wrists and fingers have managed to loosen up after the last round of late nights, it begins anew. Break out the aspirin... 
My less favorite orchestra performed a long concert of Copland, Bruch, Gershwin and Kalinnikov with a violinist who seems to struggle with the same problem that I have....She is an artsy woman with a guy's sense of humor. She tried lightening the concert hall mood with a couple of humorous phrases, but they went over like a lead balloon. I felt like taking her aside to say, "sweetie, people just don't expect women to even have a sense of humor, let alone a woman in a glittery gown with a violin in her hands.....They don't know how to react".
We did an extra concert during the week, in a town that is a 3 1/2 hour drive from my home. Got back at 1:30 a.m., then got up at 8 a.m. to start the 2 hour commute to my next job of listening to students all day long (who had obviously not practiced since their last lesson), only to find out that four of them would cancel.
After that, another 45 minute drive to get to the next lengthy concert, and finally the 1 1/2 hour drive home, arriving at midnight. The next day, Sunday is shot, because we do an afternoon performance. Not enough time either before or after to accomplish much of anything at home, because of the commute.
Next day, begin round two with my favorite orchestra. We worked through two contemporary pieces, "The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad" by Karim Al-Zand and a world-premiere of a theme and variations for violin, "The Transit of Venus" by Tomasz Golka.  Rimsky-Korsakov's "Scheherazade" on top of all that....See any correlation? Hmmmm?
When you are trying to learn your own part of a symphonic piece, you rely a lot on an understanding of standard compositional structure from the 19th century and earlier. You most often already mentally know the piece, at least from hearing it  many times, even if you have never played it.
Twentieth century works and newer are a different story. Composers began trying to break out of the same-old same-old, and began using sound effects, lots of accidentals (notes not common to the given key) and crazy, compound meters to elude any potential monotony. This means that musicians have to be alert and counting beats like crazy, every second of the piece. Attempts at musicality tend to be halfhearted, due to the intense focus on simply staying together.
 You have no idea how your part fits in relation to any others until you get to your first group rehearsal. The availability of YouTube videos can help a little, but often your own part will be buried in a wash of sound, making it impossible to figure out where you are in the score. And, for a world premiere, of course there is no available recording to listen to. 
This creates stress.
The composer of "Transit" was there to provide guidance, and apparently has a great sense of humor about the process involved. Written on one portion of the conductor's score are instructions for him to: "Continue to improvise....Ignore orchestra......Go ape shit".....
Did I mention that this composer is also a conductor? He definitely gets it.
The "Scheherazade" was on the second half of the program, and while a welcome respite from the previous musical maze, it is still a physically demanding piece with concerto-like interludes for the concertmaster to play. Our concertmaster is in his seventies, and even in his prime never really played very gracefully. It was painful to listen to. OMG kind of painful. Conductor needs to do something about it kind of painful.
More stress.
I was popping pain meds every night over the last half of the week, and after finally having a day off, it sort of feels weird to not have a throbbing pain in my back or my head. I don't want to get too used to this, because our next gig is in less than two weeks. Verdi's "Requiem". The "Dies Irae" is a killer..........

Movie Review: COMA

   I remember having read the book when I was 15 or so, but couldn't remember most of the details. Not because it wasn't a good book, but because outside of all the embarrassing stuff you did, you don't remember too much from your teens if it didn't involve whoever you had a crush on.
   I also keep forgetting that Michael Crichton was a physician as well as a writer and director, which makes this story quite believable. You like to think that the relationship with your doctors is one of reliability and trust, but "Coma" will make you wonder....
   The tension and mistrust is set up from the very beginning, using the difficulties of being a woman in a male-dominated field to kick off a sense of paranoia. The opening scene has me a little confused though....     
   The lead characters, lovers played by Genevieve Bujold and Michael Douglas are both surgeons, and come home together after a long rotation only to argue about who should cook dinner and who gets to shower first, with Douglas wanting to be served a beer, whining about how difficult his day was and Bujold arguing exactly the same thing. Seems like a point is being made about women working just as hard as men, and shouldn't we all be served a beer?
    But this conversation is immediately followed with lingering, gratuitous Bujold-in-the-shower nudity, sort of cancelling out the support for feminism token with obviously intentional boobsploitation. Given that this film was made in the 70's, I suppose it implies that back then men thought, if she's going to burn her bra, then what's underneath it must be fair game! Still so much to learn...........
   The question as to whether the lead character is delusional and paranoid or justifiably afraid is well played, and carried far enough into the story to keep you guessing. We were kept on the edge of our seats until the very end.
   Besides the above-mentioned issue, the only other complaints that I have are with props and editing. Bujold ditches her shoes and panty hose in one scene, climbing up a utility ladder. Next scene, she is wearing the same shoes, but her panty hose are found on the ladder by someone else much later in the movie. What... was she waiting for them to drip-dry? And Michael Douglas (surgeon, remember) drives around in what looks like a Datsun 4-door sedan. I can accept the very small apartment he supposedly lives in, for a single guy in Boston, but a Datsun?
   My rating: !#*
! (quite suspenseful), # (you see enough of our star and a few comatose female body parts), * I would recommend this film unless you are already afraid of hospitals.
   Keep the remote handy!

  

Movie Review: Westworld

   In keeping with my gripes about Hollywood in a previous post, I have decided to periodically write movie reviews. Not reviews about brand new, still-in-the-theaters-movies (because we never, ever go to the theater anymore), but old movies. The stuff you browse for on Netflix or down the aisle of your favorite book/music/video store where the dvd cases are jammed so tightly together that it takes knocking half of them off the shelf to get one out, and you have to walk with your head turned at a rather painful, sideways angle and squint really hard to read the spines. Where "Pan's Labyrinth" is labeled a family film, movies from the 80's with Burt Reynolds in them are filed under "classics" and store clerks don't know that the word "The" in a title doesn't usually count when you are alphabetizing.
   I will use my own ratings symbols in lieu of stars, partly because everyone else already uses stars, and partly because there are no stars on this keyboard (no, sweetie, *'s an asterisk, and while we can argue for eternity over the word's prefix meaning star, IT ISN'T A STAR).

! = Isn't that symbol obvious?
@ = At what point in this film are we going to see any sort of plot?
# = The pound of flesh given by a superb cast member
$ = Lots of product placement and/or special effects substituting for content
-$ = Dim lighting throughout substituting for special effects and content
% = Ridiculously high percentage of film obviously shot in a location other than where it is pretending to be
  (doesn't apply to studio lot films ...the background cheesiness is to be expected in pre-1990's movies)
^ = Make a point of seeing this film, if you have any taste at all
& = Sequel available
* = Recommended, but with following qualifiers or reservations
? = What the hell?

   First up is Michael Crichton's cinematic debut, "Westworld". Yul Brynner stars as a realistic android gunslinger in a town populated by android humans and animals, created for vacationers seeking to experience life in a past period of history.
   True to nearly every sci-fi story involving computer technology, things start to go wrong....Very wrong. Heroes played by Richard Benjamin and James Brolin discover the trouble and try to stop the ensuing madness.
   While the film seems somewhat campy when compared to sci-fi movies of today, one can see where ideas for later movies and television shows came from. It's essentially "Fantasy Island" meets "The Terminator".
A number of cast members have familiar, 70's and 80's-era  faces (remember Dick Van Patten, from "Eight is Enough"?), and certain scenes definitely date the picture (people smoking while working at their boxy, pre-Atari-style computers).
   "Westworld" definitely has some of the "Captain Kirk fighting the Alien dude" suspenseful action, and I've always thought Yul Brynner was sexy. Something about bald guys with an attitude....The fact of Richard Benjamin's disappearance from the cinema has been confirmed as a "Well, no wonder" kinda thing.
   All in all, I'm glad to have seen it. I've noticed the box on video shelves for years, and always wondered about it. If you are someone who can appreciate the campiness, allowing for the time frame of the movie, I think you might enjoy it. My scores:  **&       *(don't expect much for special effects) *(Yul Brynner does more stalking than talking) & (Futureworld is out there somewhere).

   Next in line, coincidentally will be Michael Crichton's second film, "Coma". Didn't plan for a Crichton bingefest, but what the heck...Perhaps we will eventually revisit "Jurassic Park" as the most recent sequel to "Westworld"............................Keep the remote handy!

The Art of Entertainment

Just watched the 21st century remake of "Godzilla", and the conversation early into the film went like this.........
"Did you see what just happened?"
"No, did you?"
"No...I couldn't see anything."
"Yeah, just a couple flashes of light. So what just DID happen, anyways?"
"I dunno, but we've been mispronouncing "Gojira" for about sixty years."
"What, Bryan Cranston is dead already?? I thought he would be in a lot more of the movie."
"Are we ever going to actually see the monsters, or are they afraid of the light?"
"Oh look, there it is....Blurry, but there it is....The producers found an investor! Yeah!!"
"Oops, back to blackness...Something's going on, with all the screaming, but......Okay, how did Godzilla die? When did that happen?"
"Must have been when you blinked..." 
   Most of what Hollywood is cranking out these days is repetitive, unimaginative drivel. If it's an action film, the more bullets and explosions the better. If sci-fi, either you dazzle the eye with the most advanced special effects, or if on a budget, you create mostly very dimly lit scenes in which viewers can't see any of what is going on. Either way, the story line is nothing new. Romance? Guy gets girl, guy loses girl, guy does something selfless, guy gets girl back.
   This complaint all by itself is nothing new either, which means the same old stories have been plaguing the screen for far too long. Heck, out of the nearly 200 movies that John Wayne made, how many of them are the same western with a different villain? He even wore the same clothes and rode the same horse in most of them. Not that I would disparage the Duke, because we all watch John Wayne movies to see John Wayne be John Wayne, regardless of the plot.......
   Maybe the good ole USA is too safe and secure a place to have many interesting and different stories to tell. It seems that more creative views of the human condition are coming out of parts of the world where we didn't even know there was a film industry. Perhaps it is true that one cannot create truly meaningful art until one has seen enough suffering. The most suffering Hollywood exec's have ever faced is being unable to find a really good dry cleaner. 
   In watching the premieres of this television season's newest offerings, even the most promising shows are hybrids of other shows. Take, for example "Scorpion"....A show about a group of socially outcast geniuses enlisted by the government to save the world on a weekly basis. Nicely made, but at it's core, basically "The Big Bang Theory" as a drama.
   "Forever" is about a guy who is immortal, made to repeatedly suffer the experiences of death and resurrection. On the surface it sounds original....He works currently as a medical examiner (recall "Quincy", and that other show from a season or two ago), helping a local female police detective solve murders (The typical sexual tension side story, the resolution to which will sign the death certificate for the series).  In watching for a short while, one is reminded of "Bones," "Sleepy Hollow" and "Castle" all at once.
    Remember "Groundhog Day"? The newest Tom Cruise movie, with shades of the invasion of Normandy.
We have blended-family sitcoms, lawyer shows, shows about creepy serial killer types, blatant copies of BBC t.v. series, and the ever-present reality t.v. show pitting neighbor against neighbor. Everything I relate to, and more.
   Storytelling is an art, and most movie makers have yet to figure out how to translate the story into a visual that is filled with all of the subtleties and complex nuances of life...instead of hitting us over the head with the obvious. Too often the dialogue assumes that the audience is too dumb to understand any meaning in a character's body language (assuming there is any body language to read).
   The funniest film I think I have ever seen is "Mr. Bean's Holiday". British actor Rowan Atkinson, who created the character of Mr. Bean for a BBC sitcom gives a brilliant performance of purely physical comedy in a film with hardly any dialogue at all. In the same vein as Peter Sellers' Clouseau, the physicality is just subtle enough to be believable, and makes for a joyful ride from beginning to end.
  I enjoy all of Stephen King's novels, but the movies that have been made from them have absolutely none of the suspense of the books. The film version of "Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy", despite having a stellar cast turned out to be a lesson in how utterly boring the lives of international spies can be.
    "Wait Until Dark" with Audrey Hepburn is one of a handful of examples of artfully suspenseful film making. If you have never seen it, treat yourself! Hepburn is so fragile and vulnerable in her role as a blind woman fending off an intruder in her home, and keeping the majority of the scenes inside her apartment lends to the feeling of being trapped.
  "Argo", Ben Affleck's presentation of the side story behind the Iranian hostage crisis is another well-done film. Even though you know how it will end, you are still kept on the edge of your seat until the very last scene. Mr. Affleck was a Middle-Eastern Studies major in college, and this film is a prime example of the first rule of artistic endeavour.....Create from what you know. I would love to see him delve further into this same story line, regarding the Dulles brothers' responsibility for the whole middle-eastern crisis which we currently face. Now, THERE'S a story!
   Star Wars, although a well-told story is guilty of ushering in the special effects genre which has been a few-decades-long distraction for revenue-hungry studios. Too many movies have relied on effects to the exclusion of a decent story line or plausible acting, or both. The recent advent of new 3-D technology has renewed some excitement in the realm of effects-as-replacements-for content, but I don't think it will continue to be such a big deal. Beyond a certain point, your audience still needs an engaging story to fill in the spot between their eyes.
   From one decade to the next, our film studios cling to the notion that profitability is more important than quality while forgetting that profitability is directly affected by quality or the lack thereof...either that, or they equate quality with "more visual commotion, less substance". I guess too much cocaine does that to your brain.

 

My eyes are too close together......Somewhere in folklore, close-set eyes are a sign of a lack of trustworthiness. Well, the Prime Minister of Syria's eyes are too close together, but I have personally known a lot of untrustworthy individuals whose eyes look perfectly placed. I am going to discount that folklore as pure garbage.
I wonder though, how much does the placement of one's eyes have to do with visual perception? I can't ever seem to find the center of an object, even a small one, without careful measuring. My handwriting likes to angle precipitously when writing a paragraph or more on unlined paper (if you are younger than twenty five, handwriting means making words on a piece of paper using your fingers and this thing called a pen). I also have to read printed material several times over before my brain is willing to absorb all of the words. My eyes like to skip over the right-hand side of the sentences, for whatever reason.
I've said on occasion that Leopold, conductor of my least favorite orchestra should just give in and come out of the closet, owing to frequent questionable fashion choices and many ill-chosen promotional photographs, but knowledgeable colleagues have assured me that what I see is just poor taste. My apologies to a certain community for wrongly stereotyping........Gentlemen, you have far superior fashion sense than that! But, I digress....
Clothing aside, I perceive excessive bodily movement in Leopold's case (okay, I know that sounds like I am imagining him naked, but that is the absolute farthest thing from my mind) . Picture if you will, one of those vertical, compressor-powered windsocks with arms and a goofy smile. You know, the ones used by retail stores to attract attention in front of their outlet. That is what I see, only holding a baton. And sweating profusely. He should have a compressor blowing air up his pants just to dry himself off.
I have trouble seeing solutions to problems until it's too late to have avoided putting my foot in my mouth, or having bothered someone else with lots of stupid questions I could have answered myself if I had only looked a little closer. I eventually figure out when that is the case, but only after the last six or seven of my emails don't get replies.
I also can't see what virtue the media apparently does see in constantly mentioning the name Kardashian. I am not the only one though..... I googled the words "stop the Kardashians" and was directed to a blog which complained about the very same issue, saying if we all took a stand, the barrage of images and sound bytes filled with that name would eventually disappear. That blog post was from three years ago. Obviously written by someone else with distorted vision. 

Saying Goodbye

   My Baby Girl, a Jack Russell Terrier had the biggest personality I have ever seen in a dog. She was full of boundless energy for most of her life. When I first went to the breeder's home to choose a puppy, I saw a ball of fur rolling furiously across the floor...Baby Girl and two of her siblings.
   We got her on Christmas day, and took her with us to my folks' house for dinner. My Mom laughed at her hugely muscled hindquarters, as she worked hard at climbing up our legs while we sat on the sofa. She jumped and ran madly around the whole afternoon, until finally wearing herself and everyone else out. Somewhere there is a post-dinner photo of my Dad napping with her asleep on his chest. 
   Baby Girl was definitely a dominant, type-A personality. She would leap from the ground up into my arms and climb up onto my shoulders like they were Mount Everest, but only in the presence of company. She had to show newcomers that she was on top....literally. In hindsight, it probably wasn't a good thing to let her have her way (I am just not the pack-leader type), but I thought it was too cute.
   She never was a ratter though, as terriers are bred to be. We have enough lizards and mice in our backyard which she could have chased, but the only things she was interested in catching were the broom and the vacuum cleaner. She would follow our big dogs into the dens which they had dug, but never bothered to do any digging herself.
   As with most small breeds of dog, she was pretty fearless in the face of any other dog in the neighborhood, regardless of size. The only time we ever witnessed her back away from something was the night a Great Horned Owl made an appearance on our porch roof. Smart cookie.
   We have learned that howling is something that is reserved for grown-up dogs. She and one of our other dogs had seemed frightened of howling sounds as pups, and so the day she learned to howl on her own was quite fun. She was sitting in my lap one evening while watching "Cops" on t.v. A siren began to wail, and kept going for a time. She slowly sat up with a scared look on her face, while a growly whine began in her belly and gradually escaped her lips. She looked at us as if to say, "What is that sound coming from me???" We howled back, and she decided to wholeheartedly join in, realizing that the experience was as natural as sniffing someone's butt.
  Baby Girl went through her share of difficulties. A number of surgeries to remove tumors, bouts of seizures in her younger years and a lick sore on her paw that she just wouldn't leave alone. It stayed with her for probably four or five years, despite bitter apple sprays, ointments and a battery powered anti-licking bandage (we couldn't put an Elizabethan collar on her, because the Big Dog thinks it is quite fun to play "Yank-The-Lampshade-Off-The-Little-Dog"). Probably my fault for not clearly establishing pack order, she was very OCD. I won't go into the rest of her habits.....
   A couple of years ago, she eventually fell victim to lens luxation, a condition (apparently to which Jack Russells are prone) in which the lens of the eye detaches from the fibers that hold it in its' place and it floats around freely inside the eyeball. Losing her vision so suddenly was a shock, but she actually seemed to handle it better than we did early on. She was insecure at first, about moving around much at all. But we worked to teach her new voice commands which helped her negotiate around the house and on our daily walks. She could easily manage a step up or down fairly quickly, and mapped out our kitchen and living room by walking in concentric circles. She continued to bump into things, but learned to move forward a bit more cautiously. All things considered, she did quite well for herself.
   Baby Girl took a bad turn two days ago, and I knew that she was dying. Our resilient, tough-as-nails little cutie pie finally decided it was time to stop. She was almost 16 years old when, with our vet's kind help we had to let her go. Saying goodbye, especially after so many years is difficult. She made the most of her life though, and I know she is somewhere out there running happily with her pack. We will miss her.

Patterns

Life is pretty much a series of patterns.
   Behavior patterns, economic patterns, political patterns, demographic and social patterns...Not to mention all of the varied and wonderful patterns in nature. Even chaos seems to have some pattern to it.
I have always loved jazz, but was trained as a classical musician. This means that I depend on having printed music from which to learn all the notes of a piece of music. Jazz musicians mainly depend on their ears, and the ability to recognize patterns of sound in order to improvise on a given tune (which is committed to memory, as well as the chords which should accompany it).
   I recently met a jazz guitarist who actually lives within a 45 minute drive of my home, and have been getting together with him to learn some music. Reading chord symbols off of a lead sheet is a new experience for me, and the difficulty is reminiscent of my trouble learning algebra (what the heck are those letters in my math problem???) .......It is terrifying! I am beginning to hear some of the patterns though, which is good.
   In attempting to learn the tune for " 'round Midnight"  by Thelonius Monk, I searched online for as many recordings as I could find. Each one was so different from the others that it seemed I was not even listening to the same piece. Not helpful.........The lead sheet that I have is probably a transcription by someone other than Monk (his own performances of this tune sound nothing like what I have written), but it hit me that what I see is essentially a creative arpeggiation of the chord symbols. Improvising on that pattern of notes is simple, and keeps me within the chord structure.
   On the other hand, a tune like "Icarus" by Ralph Towner presents other challenges. The chord structure is much simpler that anything Monk ever created (I am sure that someone will dispute me on that), which actually seems to make improvising on the supporting line much harder. The tune is definitive, and the ostinato pattern underneath it is so strong that attempting to vary it will be a challenge. The various recordings of Icarus which I have found sound quite similar to one another, and I have yet to find one which has any sort of bass line. It is a beautiful piece, and I want to play it, but I'd like to make it sound at least somewhat different.
   I am not leaving my classical world behind just yet, but the ability to reinvent a whole tune every time you play it is exciting. In performing Beethoven's 5th for the fiftieth time, the most a symphony orchestra can hope for is an energetic conductor with fresh ideas about tempi and stylistic variation. Don't get me wrong, Beethoven's symphonies are all brilliant works of art and deserve to be performed over and over. It just gets dull sometimes, being restricted by all those black spots on the page. I don't know how Broadway musicians who play seven or eight shows a week over the course of months manage to stay mentally stimulated. The term "repetitive stress" comes to mind.
   Patterns can be very subtle, until one leaps out and hits you on the head. Then, you can't escape seeing it. Those 'magic eye' posters that used to be popular a couple decades ago are a prime example. You had to allow your vision to overcome your brain's desire to see the obvious wavy line pattern, and once accomplished, the hidden pattern wouldn't stop jumping off the page at you. After playing the lead sheet tune for 'round Midnight several times through, I had one of those hit-on-the-head moments. The possible variations keep running through my head, and now I have to convince my fingers to cooperate in realizing them! I am hoping for more experiences like that with other jazz tunes. If I can make sense out of Monk, I think I am going to manage just fine.....................   

Resentment and Forgiveness

[Due to probable copyright issues, you will just have to imagine a big photo of "Grumpy Cat" here]
 
I can't sleep. Was awakened before two this morning, and just couldn't fall back into it, so here I am. Being a person who has always needed nine or ten hours of sleep per night, this is a first. Interesting.................
If I say anything strange, chalk it up to the lack of.

Resentment is a word with which I am becoming intimately acquainted, most likely as a natural part of the aging process. The more you experience in life, the less patience you have for anyone who hasn't yet. You also have dwindling tolerance for others in your own age bracket who are also losing patience with the world. You and your peers begin to ferment, and not in the "aged like a fine wine" way, but like vinegar. Aging gracefully is an urban legend........ We all just pickle.
I am approaching mid-century, and when I hear news stories about how much money one should have saved for retirement, I cringe to think of the $24 in my savings account. I am an artist and a musician, and a child of poor missionaries. Triple threat, financially speaking.
I use those things as an excuse for my lack of business sense, direction, and an inability to balance a checkbook. Most of the other musicians I know at least had the foresight to get a degree which qualified them for gainful employment, and although my parents never had such a thing as "disposable income", they have always met their financial obligations with dignity. I resent never having been taught how to budget my allowance as a kid, but if my folks had tried, I doubt that I would have actually paid attention ( I blame that on ADHD or Aspergers'.....Something must be misaligned in this brain of mine).  I did pay attention, however when my Mom taught me how to make a mean apple pie...I must forgive them for being too kind to me.
I resent most of my private music students, who come from well-to-do-ish families, but who don't understand the courtesy of calling before the day of their scheduled lesson to say they will not be there because of a most important basketball game. I also resent that most of them don't practice at all, but they still expect to make All-State Orchestra and will blame me if they don't. And if it weren't for the ones who do show up, I wouldn't have any grocery money.
I resent the people who didn't show up to my last craft fair because of a little rain . I managed to sit through two long days of cold, cloudy, wet weather with my wares.....How is sitting at home, warm and dry any fun? Where is the sense of adventure? Where is the romance? Doesn't anyone realize that I have a $1700  blown head gasket to pay for???  How selfish can you be...............
Putting 350,000 miles on a vehicle by having to drive two hours one way in order to get to my symphony orchestra rehearsals is the most aggravating thing of all. My ensembles are among the lowest-paid orchestras in the country, and I deeply resent a Board of Trustees who have been unwilling to even attempt to increase the budget at all in the last, oh.......ten or fifteen years. An executive director who is adamantly opposed to listening to any suggestions about fund raising from a lowly musician is the icing on the cake (especially when, six years later this musician's same fund raising idea magically occurs to said exec to whom all of the credit goes when the event is a smashing success).
The fact that I chose to move to a community so far away from art and civilization occurs to me every now and then, but if I hadn't moved here, I never would have met the man I love. It is much more convenient for me to pass judgment on other peoples' insufficient efforts on my behalf. The older I get, the more I will do just that. Eventually I will reach the age when, apparently you are entitled to be resentful of everything and everybody, and it's considered endearing. At least in public.
All in all, everyone has things which drive them nuts, usually with regards to how other people are SO inconsiderate and incompetent. It boils down to displaced disappointment with our own failures. We want to be perfect, but there is no such thing. Pretending to be more perfect than everyone else doesn't make it so. It only gives them something to resent.  
 
 

Stormy Weather

We have had quite a lot of rain in the last two weeks. Well, a lot for the desert. Our monsoon season is not remotely on a par with the rains which deluge India, but we know how quickly the dry land becomes saturated with water, to the point that it has nowhere to go. Property damage is not unexpected, and everyone  complains that the city is not doing what it should about flood control.
I suppose it is not something which lands onto the council agenda during times of drought, and considering we normally only have two or three weeks of rainy season per summer, the question becomes, "Is it financially feasible?" Neighbors of ours who had sandbags piled in front of their homes would argue, "YES!!" The day when a City Council member's home is filled with mud brought by runoff from the mountains, we will see action. Until then, there is FEMA.
For a very Right Wing town, the idea of leaving something in the hands of the federal government seems ridiculous, yet that is what the procedure has been to date. Let the taxpayer pick it up at the federal level instead of the local level, where we have more control. Do just the opposite of what everyone preaches come election time, and wash your hands of any responsibility! Passing the buck is not dead.............
On the positive side, the clouds have brought some beautiful sunsets. The photo above was taken from our balcony. I think I will try to reproduce it in enamel, which I should get back to working on.... so please excuse me!

Life Is Good

This is Ike. Ike and his brother Spike are baby pigeons I rescued from our masonry heater flue, after they tumbled two stories from the nest in the top of the chimney.
We have had a number of baby pigeon rescues from the same locale, and are debating the best way to remedy the birds' access into the chimney.
While most folks tend to think of pigeons as flying rats, we have come to enjoy keeping track of the small population which makes its' home on our rooftop (and in the rain gutters and the chimney, etc.).
These guys don't seem to have a very good handle on safe nesting practices, and are very stubborn about continuing to lay eggs in the same place regardless of fledgling success (I am amazed that pigeons are so prolific, given their habits....I guess the same could be said for humans). Their nests are....well, if they were houses they would be condemned by the city as unsafe. Loose piles of sticks with nothing holding the mess together aside from a bit of poop. There is one pair which continues to lay eggs in a gutter which hangs right over our doghouse, which turns out to not be a good spot to try one's wings, and there have periodically been eggs rolling off of the roof elsewhere,  from nests built on an angle.
Regardless of ignorance in basic structural engineering, pigeons seem to be diligent caretakers otherwise. The babies we've pulled from the flue (some nine or ten, last count) have all been found by their parents in our front yard and cared for on the ground until maturity. There is a little cave of sorts underneath a large yucca which provides a relatively cat-safe place to hang out in between feedings, and most of the little squirts have found it instinctively.

     Here,  I am trying to encourage Ike to head for the safehouse, but he had become so comfortable in my hands that I didn't worry him enough to scoot away. Eventually he found his brother, and they lived comfortably under the spines of the cactus until they finally learned to fly.

Life is hard, and there are often difficulties which seem insurmountable. Not all of us are equipped with enough common sense to make it through the world without lots of stupid mistakes, errors in judgment and plain old carelessness. Crap happens that we are not prepared for, and each of us has a different way of dealing with it. However we get there, if we can make it through with a minimal amount of damage to the world around us, then life is good.

                                                                                        

Playing With Fire....Again

Okay, this is going to be a long scroll......I have included the process from start to finish of three enamel pieces I just did, minus three or four firing steps.
I was recently inspired by photos taken by the Hubble Space Telescope, in particular the various Nebulae.
I wanted to try and reproduce the depth of space and the complex colors present in so many images. I have a long way to go to achieve what I want, but  

these first attempts look rather interesting anyway.

Check out hubblesite.org to see the photos to which I refer (the Crab Nebula, the Orion Nebula, the Omega Nebula, etc.).
So, I began with a white ground on two pieces and black on the third, but added a white center to ultimately highlight a transparent blue. The round piece was to represent the Crab Nebula, which has a brilliant turquoise center surrounded by strands of something (gases, probably) white, red and green...I suppose I should do my research if I am to go on about  the subject!                         

I added thin lines of a hard-firing white to represent the gases, hoping that it would stay rather in shape while firing several layers of transparents over top, and for the most part, it worked.  I had to reapply some towards the end to sharpen the detail a little, as the later, hotter firings allowed the thick glass to start sliding towards the edges.

On the other two pieces, I went through two different blues, two purples, yellow and bronze after adding  silver leaf.
I was hoping to create the illusion of edges of clouds, but it didn't quite work. Both pieces ended up looking more like opals (which is okay with me, I like opals!)

Next came some pink, and more light purple and sky blue. The photos I was looking at had such extraordinary combinations of color, and it will take some time to sort out in what order to layer them.

I used a little of the hard-firing white here too, to add to the cloudy effect. The (I am assuming) gas clouds looked a lot like a beautiful sunset, with pink and purple and gold all floating over a bright blue ground...Gorgeous stuff!

I could have stopped layering at any time, as nearly all of the various stages looked nice to me, but I wanted to see how far I could take the process.

I think I reached the limit with ten or eleven firings. The double layer of counter enamel and the top side kept merging at the edges and dripping over the firing trivet towards the end, meaning a lot of stoning down to smooth them out.

From here to

here, I added another layer of silver and gold leaf to  two, and some red and orange to the third.

Here, you can see the edges dripping over the trivet a little. I think I pushed it a bit too far, but I do like the result!

This one definitely went too far, and I had to re-do the white bits. The firings had to continually get hotter, as the thickness of the glass grew. I don't think I could have done much more without a larger torch.

This one was good, color-wise, but I didn't get the last firing completed. You can see a little rippling (sugar-fired) texture in the upper right corner, which I had to re-fire to get rid of.

Of course, when I did, the glass began to slide toward the sides and drip over the edges. Dang it! More grinding down......

This is the last firing of the Crab Nebula....Not too bad, but not quite the way I wanted it.
I definitely learned a lot from these pieces, so next round should be better!

Having Courage

I just recently decided to try asking some enameling questions on a website dedicated to the jewelry arts (www.ganoksin.com). I wasn't quite sure how these forum things worked, but I signed up and jumped in with both feet.
To my surprise, my first question received a reply from the gentleman who made a torch-fired enameling video which I had purchased awhile back, and I have since been generously supplied with more information from him. He directed me to yet another fabulous website (grainsofglass.com) dedicated specifically to enameling.
When I was a kid, I never learned how to ask questions when I didn't understand something, and it has taken some courage to start doing so as an adult. These two forums have opened up a whole world of helpfulness from folks who are truly professionals, to those like myself who are hoping to learn from others' trial and error. If you don't ask, you probably won't find out!

Here are a pair of "cabochons" for earrings, showing a layer of black with silver foil, and another with a wet-packed layer of transparent color over top.

The next photo is of the finished cabs. Now, I just have to set them in bezels.

  I want to buy lots more colors to work with, but perhaps I should do more experimenting with what I've got before I go nuts with the checkbook.....It is difficult to be patient!

Fight or Flight

9:30 a.m.....Leaving for the auditions. Weekend Edition is on the radio, giving me something else to obsess over besides my performance. The Puzzlemaster's new challenge: Take the two-syllable name of an actress from the past, reverse the syllables to come up with a kind of illness. Okay, should be easy.....Bergman, Hepburn, Taylor, Fonda, Swanson, Fontaine, Loren, Andrews, Garbo....(okay, past could mean as recent as yesterday!).....
11:15 a.m.....Garland, Reynolds, Hennie, Davis, Crawford, Rogers, Evans....   

11:30 a.m....Here I am, signing in to the audition. I feel good, no stress, no worry. The dressing rooms downstairs are all taken, so I will go upstairs to the chorus room to warm up. I'd rather be away from everyone anyway.
Going through every note slowly and quietly, just getting the muscles moving a bit. Make sure everything is perfectly in tune...
12:45 p.m....Fifteen minutes to go before the cello portion of the auditions begin, and I drew the next-to-last number. I feel warmed and comfortable, so I won't push it. I have some time to relax and wander around. I feel more prepared for this than for anything else I've ever played, and am not worried in the least.
1 p.m......I can hear some really good players warming up as I walk past the other dressing rooms. Definitely competition! As long as I play well, I don't really care how the results end up.
1:45 p.m......My turn....Here we go!

The stage is unlit except for one spotlight shining directly down onto a lone chair. There is a desk at one corner of the stage  (why, I can't figure out), and the audition panel is behind a screen out in the house.
I sit down, set my music on the stand and my bow on the strings. All is well, until.........The first two chords of my Elgar concerto sound.....well..... fine I think, although the acoustics on this part of the stage are so very deadening. My breathing comes very near to a stop and my heart is thudding so loud that I am having trouble hearing my notes over the pounding in my ears.   
I manage to get to the high note at the end of the fingerboard in tune, but with shaky vibrato. That is where I am asked to stop. Excerpts are next...Only three have been selected for this first round, and the hardest one has to be first....Damn!
I begin okay, but have taken the tempo a little too fast. My shoulders and hands begin to tighten, and I am finding it harder and harder to get any reasonable sound out of the instrument. I stumble over one measure as my left hand cramps completely. I am trying to play musically, but my strings are not responding to the increasing stiffness of my right hand.
I finish the first excerpt, and wait a moment to try and catch my breath. The next one is easy, but I start it with a scrape on the first note and my bow arm loses all strength. The sound is not good....
I manage to play the last excerpt relatively well, with one wobble towards the end. I grab my stuff and exit the stage as quickly as I can without tripping.......
I know that I won't make the next round, so I pack up and wait for the announcement. I'm right.............

I am not disappointed in the lack of advancement, but I am disappointed in my own inability to overcome nerves. Adrenaline is not my friend, even when I feel utterly prepared for a challenge. I had hoped it would be otherwise, but to no avail. I sounded pretty horrible, even though I know that I can play everything on that audition list perfectly.
I am relieved that the process is over now, as I have been thinking about it for over a year. I can get on with the rest of my life, and maybe focus more intently on something that nerves won't ruin. My business!

Summer Squash

'Tis the time of year that vegetable gardens are getting started. For anyone growing summer squash, soon you will be looking for ways to get rid of the unbelievably prolific fruits of your labor.
Neighbors will quickly adopt "duck-and-cover" techniques to avoid you, as you wander the streets trying to give away the armloads of zucchini and crookneck, some the size of small missiles because they stayed hidden for too long.
Freezing summer squash is possible, but not recommended. When it is thawed, it is very mushy and unappealing. Living in the desert Southwest, recipes abound for making use of these buggers, and I have come up with my own casserole......The recipe follows!

Summer Squash Surprise

3 small crookneck (yellow) squash,  sliced into 1/2 inch pieces and parboiled for about 3 minutes (drain with slotted spoon...save water)

1/2 pkg spaghetti noodles, broken in half and boiled in water used to parboil squash, until almost al dente...drain (the noodles will continue to soften in the oven, mixed with the liquids so don't fully cook them now)

3/4 to 1 whole chub hot Italian sausage,  cooked  (cook a patty and chop it, or crumble while frying) and drained

1 medium onion, diced and sauteed in the grease from cooking the sausage

chopped garlic (amount to taste) added to sauteeing onions during the last minute or two

Chopped green chile to taste (we like alot of it, if it is freshly roasted rather than canned)

1 can diced tomatoes, or 1 large diced fresh (or a large handful of cherry tomatoes, halved)

1 to 1-1/2 cans tomato soup (depends on how sloppy you like it)

1/2 soup can water

1 to 1 1/2 cups shredded cheddar cheese

Mix together all ingredients except cheese and fill a 9 x 13ish-sized baking dish.
Top with cheese and bake in preheated 350 degree oven for about 1/2 hour or until bubbly and cheese is beginning to brown a little.

***Canned green chile tends to not be hot, if you are looking for mild flavor (and aren't chile-heads like we are)
***The idea of adding some batter-fried onions (think green bean casserole) mixed in with the cheese on top was suggested to me....I think I will try it next time!  *I did try it...turned out yummy!

The surprise part of "Squash Surprise" is in how much of each ingredient you choose to use, and in what else you can think of to add to it. Leftover corn works just fine....

  Enjoy!
 

Hasta la Septiembre

    Ahhhhh.................The symphony season is essentially over, for both of my orchestras. While I wouldn't  at all mind a couple more major concerts with my favorite group, I am relieved to say adios to the other for now. I am not the only musician to express disappointment in that particular orchestra being our last big show of the season, for any one of the reasons griped about in previous blog posts. Shall I refresh your memory?
     Don't get me wrong, it is always a pleasure to perform for the lovely audiences which we have in both venues. It just feels like we are shortchanging one audience in particular by not doing justice to so many wonderful compositions, and that bothers me. It also bothers me that these concerts are less about the music and more about "Leopold the Incorrigible".
   A couple of years ago, the brochures advertising an upcoming season were most definitely vehicles for the Leopold Show, rather than for a symphony orchestra. His countenance was omnipresent throughout. Literally, every page had some goofy, contrived image of our fearless leader.....One even had him "playing" a giant chile pepper. This year, he's dressed in a disco outfit on one page, and on another he has his arms outstretched in a "Here I am!! Look at Me!!" sort of pose. This isn't remotely about music.
   So, back to our last concerts of the season. We performed an orchestrated version of the Liszt Hungarian Dance #2, to cover the loud and fast portion of the show. No big deal...the piece sort of plays itself. We probably could have done it without him except for the few tempo changes. Typical of at least one piece in every concert, the last couple of notes of a phrase were cut off in order to proceed quickly to the next section, although in this case, Leopold said it was intentional....because it "interfered" with the clarinet's little cadenza right after it (even though those notes were leading tones which guide the listeners' ears into the clarinet cadenza). Who needs to play what's written, anyways? In condescending fashion, during our first rehearsal he felt the need to explain that this piece was originally for piano and asked if anyone was familiar with it. One smart-ass raised his hand and said, "Yeah! It's from Tom and Jerry!".
    The Mendelssohn Violin Concerto was next, with a young soloist who had little experience performing the piece (or, so it felt). She wasn't quite comfortable with a couple of spots, note-wise, and there wasn't a shred of musicality in the whole work. It was at the "I've got the notes learned, but not the music" juncture. During our two rehearsals with her, she consistently left out a beat right before an orchestra entrance, throwing everything off. Our conductor, true to form, had no clue that she was screwing up and blamed us for not being able to count. Thankfully, she got it right during the performances.
   Prior to our rehearsals with the soloist, the phrase "She's gonna go like the wind, I just know it" was uttered (as is usual with regards to any soloist we are going to play with), and the only part of the piece which ultimately went like the wind was the slow movement.
    Last on the program was a Brahms symphony, and I have to say that I was dreading it the whole season. I love Brahms, when it is done right. This guy has no idea where to find "right". For him, conducting is about waving his arms furiously, making intensely constipated faces, shouting "............TWO!!!!"  (as in, "this is beat two, you idiots!"), sweating all over his string players and making sure that we play exactly at his desired metronome markings whether musically appropriate or not.
   Brahms needs thoughtfulness and gravity, not sweat.
 Leopold decided to push the tempo of one movement a lot faster during our dress rehearsal (in front of an audience, no less), causing  sloppiness and many missing notes. A much-respected member of the group apparently spoke to him about it, and as punishment, the entire symphony was taken slower during the concerts. A forty-five minute piece ended up being over an hour long, and unendingly boring. Along those lines, another orchestra member tried to get him to not schedule our concert weeks back-to-back with our other orchestra as is the way it tends to happen. She used the rationale that he was getting "sloppy seconds" whenever we had concerts the very next week after the other venue. Instead of giving us the break between concert weeks that she had hoped to accomplish, he instead ensured that all of next seasons' concerts would be set the week before the other orchestra's. He can't ever be reasonable, only belligerent.
    In the end, our concerts are all about Leopold putting on a show of astounding upper-body stiffness, an impressive command of beating on something  and an intense display of obvious virility. He apparently wants to resemble a walking hard-on (and doing a damn fine job of it). I am hoping that our audiences respond as well as they do because they truly are enjoying the music, and not because they get a kick out of the pointless gyrations on the podium. I will give them the benefit of the doubt......................

Fair Play

My favorite orchestra has, of late been embroiled in a battle over whether or not certain individuals should have to formally audition for vacant positions in the ensemble. Most of said positions are for principal players, and (due to our two year-long conductor search) for the last three or four years, most have been temporarily filled by musicians from within the current ranks.
The argument on one side is that these temporary  principals have served faithfully and competently, and should be awarded the job without further ado. The other side of the argument is that in order to be fair to all parties and to our musical community as a whole, contractually-stipulated formal auditions (including a concerto and orchestral excerpts) are required in order to fill vacancies.
In decades past, positions in this group were pretty regularly filled by being given to whoever had been there the longest, which was peachy for the awardees. The ramifications for the remainder of the orchestra however, were varied and not necessarily in the best interests of quality performance.
This particular community has its' own little musical ecosystem made up of a symphony orchestra, a university music department and many public school music programs and private teachers. Each component both feeds off of and sustains the others. The university employs highly qualified music professors who educate the next generations of public school music teachers. The university and public school teachers play in the symphony, and openings in the symphony help attract quality music professors to the university and public schools.
Like any gene pool, if you do nothing but interbreed, the system will develop critical defects and eventually collapse. Looking outward and advertising job openings in other cities besides your own is essential to ensuring the strongest body of talent.
Local talent need not be afraid of the process, if they are truly committed to having the best orchestra possible. The audition should give them an opportunity to take a fresh look at their own skills, to discover what areas they might want to brush up on, as well as an opportunity to display their strengths as an individual musician. The notion that, once inside an organization you should be able to sit back and relax for the rest of your career without any desire to continually improve is sadly common.
There was a survey done (by whom, I don't remember) which asked what was the most unpleasant part of people's lives.....The answer? Overwhelmingly, it was going to work. Humans are an inherently lazy species, and seem to refuse to accept that if one wishes to achieve certain things in life, one must work at it (no matter how old one is). If we were still somewhere in the middle of the food chain, I don't think we would be so inclined to think that way...
      A friend and colleague has expressed concerns about my own chances in the audition process, owing to the fact that I refuse to speak to four individuals who are in "positions of influence". The reasons are varied and all have to do with differences in defining the words "respect" and "integrity", and I have told said friend that I will not compromise my integrity by associating with these folks. I have faith that our conductor is smart enough to put musicianship and experience ahead of personality clashes. Not speaking to four people is hardly a disruption in an orchestra, and has absolutely no bearing on how I play my instrument!
   If we were talking about my less-favorite orchestra, my chances might be different. Leopold the Egocentric is highly influenced by whoever cozies up to him, and considering it is a non-union pick-up orchestra, he can do pretty much whatever he wants with personnel.
   If, somehow I am wrong about Slava and he does take advice from certain nemeses, then I think our band is truly in trouble. If a position as a musician is going to be dictated by interpersonal relationships, then I don't think I want the job. I think that he is wiser than that, and I am giving him the benefit of the doubt until proven otherwise.

A Dog's Life, Chapter Two-"Quoth the Raven"

 
Living in the desert gives us a pretty clear view of many species of birds, large and small. As our house is very close to open desert, we have the opportunity to see varieties which ordinarily stay away from populated areas, and we can also observe the distinctions which our dogs make between birds of prey and birds that are prey.
 One evening some years ago, we heard our big dog barking quite furiously in the back yard, but found it curious that our little terrier was not.  Of the two, the big dog was generally the quiet one and so we hurried to the back, a bit concerned. At first, her barking seemed to be indiscriminate but after looking around
awhile, we finally realized that she was aiming her protests up towards the rooftop. There sat a very large Great Horned owl.
 The terrier was uncharacteristically silent, sheltered underneath the big dog as though pretending she couldn't be seen. This is a dog who usually behaves as though she were 100 pounds, standing up to any other neighborhood dog, regardless of it's size. How does a domesticated animal with no prior exposure to such a bird know that it is a danger? A rattlesnake's rattle is clearly an alarm, but how did she know that this particular creature was to be avoided? Can an animal sense intent?
  The big dog is fascinated by ravens. On our walks we will occasionally see one sitting atop a light pole, cackling and clicking away, and she will stare up at it intently. No barking, no raised hackles, but there is a definite curiosity.  Last week we were relaxing in front of the t.v. with the dogs on the floor at our feet, watching a program about the Tower of London. The story turned to the ravens which are kept at the Tower, and suddenly, the big dog's head lifted from her sleep, ears forward. She watched the birds on the screen through the entire segment, as if she were listening to the narrator's words. Afterward, she became quite excited when  I imitated the raven's call....
  Roadrunners are fairly large birds, and she will respond with similar interest if we happen to see one on our walks, although she seems to be conflicted as to whether or not she should chase it. As a largely ground-dwelling bird, I would think she'd want to, although she has never been too interested in the flocks of quail which scatter across our path. I guess rabbits and squirrels smell much more promising! The ravens, though......I can imagine her dreaming about them. If she were an artist, she would most assuredly paint them!
 

Playing With Fire Part 3

Black, White, Silver and Gold leaf

Amethyst, Red, Yellow and Bronze Transparent

Here are more enameling samples that I have done in the last couple of weeks. I didn't care too much for the selection of transparent colors on this first one...It looked better with just the black and white with metal leaf! The red color once again looks pink. I'll have to try that color on bare copper next.

Silver leaf over White

Sky Blue and Mauve over top

This is an attempt at using cloisonne wires...The wires were a little too short, I think. The white enamel bubbled up through the leaf and the transparent colors enough to obscure some of the detail.

Black over Bare Copper

Silver Leaf added

Wet-Packed Blue over Cloisonne

 This was an experiment with a soldered-together piece. I used eutectic solder to apply the second set of wings, and after counter enameling the back it appeared that the solder flowed beyond the intended solder joint (meaning that it could have affected the color of any enamels  fired over it if it had been in a visible spot).
I proceeded with the usual black base color, then a layer of silver leaf. I then fired on cloisonne wire, although this time the height was too much to be so close to the edges of the piece. Live and learn.....
Next, I applied transparent blues over the top. The photo at left shows a wet-packing technique, in which a small amount of water is added to the enamel powder and applied to the surface with a paintbrush, rather like clumps of wet sand. You can see that the color of the enamel powder is vastly different from its' fired state, which is why a lot of experimenting is needed. Hard to know exactly what a color will look like from one application to the next. The iridescent effect on the dragonfly is more or less as I expected, just not very refined.

After firing

Clear over Copper

Silver and Gold Leaf before firing

After firing

 I have to apologize for the jumble of photos...I can't seem to control where they are placed on the screen. Clicking and dragging them around only seems to work occasionally ( and I don't have the patience to figure out why ).
This last piece has copper cloisonne wire instead of silver. I have since added some red ( a different red from the other samples) and purple, but didn't like the way it looked enough to even show it to anyone! I prefer the initial clear over copper, as the cloisonne lines create enough busy-ness that adding other colors just makes it look cluttered.
So, that is what I have been up to this last month, besides practicing for my audition. Took my cello to the repair shop and had the fingerboard planed and a bow re-haired. New strings are next on the list, when I have the $200 to spend!
There's always something....................................

A Dog's Life

Dogs are a big part of my life, and always have been. I relate to animals much better than to people, probably because there is no ego to deal with.
The daily walks taken with our companions are always enjoyed, particularly because we live just blocks from open desert. We explore a dry arroyo over and over, each season bringing new things to investigate. Big tree roots uncovered by the last monsoon rains, a new batch of baby hawks, and occasionally a rattlesnake hiding in the shade (we stay out of the arroyo during their migration periods, to avoid any confrontations).
When winter brings a little moisture, the colorful fallen leaves and grasses are sometimes artfully outlined with frost. No big deal when you live in a colder climate, but for us it is a rare experience.
Even the simplest things like a pile of coyote poo generate fascination. In the scatological realm however, nothing beats  fresh horse manure! The first time we encountered some, I nearly fell over laughing as both dogs gleefully dropped and rolled in it. They proceeded to try and eat it as well, as they find the fragrance to be somewhere near ambrosia. However similar we are to animals, our sense of smell has very different ideas. 
Our younger dog has a very strong predatory instinct, which was discovered after the first of many dirt-surfing incidents (being knocked over and dragged face-first through rocks and cacti in pursuit of a jackrabbit). Despite being quite obedient around the house, her penchant for chasing anything that moves necessitated help from the Dog Whisperer. We have since achieved greater control over our walks, much to our relief.
Still, she remains adept at keeping our neighborhood pigeon population under control. Our home is the tallest house in the area, and as such attracts the birds during nesting season. Unfortunately for the fledglings nearest our backyard, she keeps a sharp eye on them. I had to laugh at her keen interest in even the shadows of pigeons, as a kabuki presentation of a pair building a nest caught her eye through the back door of the house one day.
She is also much more aware of her surroundings than I would have given her credit for. As our home is continually under construction, the interior landscape changes a bit from month to month. There was a space into which the dogs had not been allowed for some time, until subfloors were laid and walls were in place. When they were finally allowed in, our pup  entered with a look of awe on her face, as she slowly eyed the new structures. She looked the walls up and down, moving from one side of the room to the other, seemingly to piece together what had transpired here in her absence. She appeared as a visitor to a grand museum, studying the contents thoughtfully. Never in my life have I witnessed such attention to static objects by an animal. Perhaps, in a former life she was an architect.................