Fall

Though the pleasures of Spring and Summer have grown on me over the years, Fall is and always has been my favorite season of the year. Winter I enjoy for the spectacle and surreal beauty of snow and the bracing energy I feel walking around, fully bundled, in the cold dry air. Spring I love for the newness of its life and for the cacophonous migrations and dense, complex music of birds. Summer is that lazy break, staring at the sea while hot winds flow and juicy vegetables grow. But Fall I love mostly for itself, its inner spirit and the air that surrounds and seeps, the smell and spooks of October and the knowing maturity of November, the leafy colors that turn, red, orange, yellow, brown, black, with the even pace of my own steps until I'm waiting, ready for that first fall of snow.

These pictures were taken during a camping and hiking trip to the October Mountain State Forest, of the Berkshires in Western Massachusetts, with my friends Anne, Chris, Michelle, Karen and Katy. My apologies to Chris, Michelle, and Katy who are unforgivably not pictured, as my picture taking skills seemed to lack some consistency this weekend, and many of my shots were hopelessly blurred.

Dark Star, Star Trek and Burma

I'm sitting here in my apartment, listening to, of all things, a recording of the Grateful Dead from 1970 that I just downloaded from Itunes. Listening to, specifically, that night's wonderful, slippery, genuinely moving workout of their psychadelic classic 'Dark Star'. This makes me think of my freshman year in college, when I used to wander the basement corridors of Barrett Hall listening to endless renditions of this and of Dead favorites seeping out from underneath doors and through windows, candles lit and smoke drifting til late late in the evening hours.

What is this song about? "Dark star crashes, pouring its light into ashes.Reason tatters, the forces tear loose from the axis. Searchlight casting for faults in the clouds of delusion. Shall we go, you and I while we can Through the transitive nightfall of diamonds? Mirror shatters in formless reflections of matter.Glass hand dissolving to ice petal flowers revolving.Lady in velvet recedes in the nights of good-bye.Shall we go, you and I while we can Through the transitive nightfall of diamonds?" I have no idea, but it's opening imagery, the evocative paradox of the title, and the drifting, empty melodies serve to suspend me in some beautiful, forgotten corner of distant space.

And what about outer space? A nice segueway- with my crazy-busy month earnings I bought myself a present - the complete third season of 'Star Trek: The Next Generation', and was pleasantly surprised to find myself genuinely moved to tears by the first epsiode I chose to watch, 'Who Watches the Watchers?'. In particular, a scene where Captain Picard brings a member of an intelligent, pre-industrial race of people up to his ship. Her people have been accidentally exposed to his crew and begin to believe that they are gods, and he has an interesting, discourse with her explaining who they are and where they came from in order to prevent them from descending into superstitious nonsense. I know it just cements my reputation as a geek, but there's nothing like watching a bunch of good-willed fellows exploring the galaxy and making friends with aliens to make me feel good about my fellow human beings, hopeful for their redemption, their inner beauty and their better instincts.

Which brings me to Burma, Myanmar, which has been much on my mind lately, as my sister Meghan and her husband Todd are over there experiencing, well, what exactly I don't know. Internet service has been largely cut off, and there are few if any foreign journalists there and limited ability for the Burmese to report on exactly what has been happening. Official government reports list nine fatalities, some web sites report probably thousands, a bloodbath. There is no undue reason as of yet to fear for my sister, she is not involved with the protests and she is careful and smart, and the Burmese, aside from their military and their leaders, are a very peaceful (and unarmed) people.

What direction now? What to hope for? A slow, peaceful transition to a democratic process of governence, of course.

May all beings have peace and joy in their lives.

Cheese and Cthulhu

Even though I've been in what I call my 'crazy busy' season for the last two weeks, other things besides work still find their way into my time and thoughts, thank god. In the mornings I've been spending maybe a half-hour to an hour before heading off to work reading the book American Farmstead Cheese by Paul Kindstedt. This is not a consumer's guide but rather a general guide to making and selling what these days we call 'artisanal' or 'farmstead' cheeses. I believe that the work 'artisanal' refers to the individually hand-crafted nature of the cheese, whereas 'farmstead' refers more specifically to cheese produced by the goats, cows or sheep of one single farm, rather than made from a blend of milk purchased from several locations.



I consider this book to be a 'general' guide in that it does not have specific recipes, but it does get quite specific into the chemistry of the ingredients and the process. I was initially somewhat surprised to glance at the book and see many molecular diagrams referring the the ionic structure of things like lactose and casein as well as detailed flow charts referring to enzymatic action and development of peptides, and I was, maybe, not as excited as I had been to plow through it, but it has been an enjoyable and enlightening read so far.

One particular insight has been on the variety and diversity of cheese throughout the world. There are literally thousands of named cheeses, but there are only so many basic steps to be found in the cheesemaking process (according to this book, there are eight), and there are certain basic ways each of these steps can be varied, leading to a much smaller number of basic cheese 'types' - maybe twenty or so. Such as soft-ripened cheese, 'mountain' cheese (swiss types, mainly), cheddar types, etc. The rest of the diversity comes from the individual character of place, terroir if you will, from the livestock used, what they graze, climactic considerations during aging, and the like.

Having cheese on the brain, I went over today to the wonderful Cambridge store The Formaggio Kitchen and purchased, more or less at random, some nice American Cheese (not Kraft singles). A mild but earthy and buttery washed-rind cheese from Vermont called, (ahem), 'Timberdoodle' and a nicely sweet and crunchy cheese with a lovely, lingering taste of caramelized onions called 'Roth Private Reserve Gruyere', which is also made in Vermont, I think.

What else is going on? For those of you with an appreciation for the cosmic horrors of H.P. Lovecraft or just an interest in oddball movies, check out The Call of Cthulhu, produced by the H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society. Clearly a work of love, this is also a fascinating movie. They filmed it as a silent movie, as if it had been made and released in the late twenties (when Lovecraft was writing). A stroke of genius, really. I'm not sure there is really any other viable way to capture the feel of a Lovecraft story or of the elusive madness found in his gods and demons. There's really no way, so why try? The moody, dark black-and-white sets, the surprisingly effective stop-motion animation for the monsters, used sparingly, and best of all the excellent soundtrack worked wonders for this almost untellable, unshowable tale of monstrous, alien horror dreaming in cities beneath the sea. You can get it from Netflix.

Squirrels and black walnuts

Sometimes life gives you neat little coincidences, small convergences that brighten your day or give extra heft to the things you're doing or thinking about, sometimes shedding light on the web of connections we're all a part of. My friend Jeff, who lives in El Paso, told me that the very same Vietnamese Restaurant I visited and lauded in my blog three weeks ago happens to be maybe his favorite restaurant in the world (Nha Trang, Chinatown, Manhattan). A simple thing like that somehow seems to accentuate my sense of community and confirm the emotional experience I had eating there with good friends. Kind of silly, maybe? After all, it's just a coincidence, right?

Then this morning as I was finishing a conversation by phone with my mom, I watched a gray squirrel hop across the small row of potted herbs I have on my back porch with the pale-green fruit of a black walnut tree in its paws . It stopped at the side of my struggling dill plant and quickly and efficiently buried the racquetball-sized fruit in the corner of the pot. After a few more moments checking that the coast was clear, the squirrel scampered away down the porch.

The coincidence here is a little more nebulous, but interesting to me nonethless. I've been reading about permaculture and ecological design lately, which really emphasizes using nature as a guide and resource for creating productive and sustainable agriculture that also encourages (and is itself enhanced by) healthy wildlife populations, and watching this small mammal squirrel away his stash really put a succinct exclamation point on a lot of the ideas and concepts I've been thinking about. Of course, my little herb garden (5 small pots, and unfortunately my tarragon seems to be on the way out) hardly equates with any kind of permaculture system, or even any sort of real garden at all. Plus, squirrels are hardly indicators of good wildlife habitat, as they are everywhere (they do need trees, however, at least the gray squirrels we have here in the East). But it still reminds me of the complex world of life we live in, which is sometimes all I really need to make it through another day without a frown on my face.

I'm glad I was able to create a place that the squirrel was able use; and I hope it comes back to reclaim its tasty nut and fill its belly at a time when food is not so easy to come by (black walnuts, while a royal pain to dehusk, crack and extract, are utterly delicious and very distinct in flavor from the more familiar English walnuts). The chances of a black walnut tree sprouting and thriving in my dill container is nil.

Now to see if I can find the tree that the nut came from...

Permaculture and life-changing epiphanies

I've just started myself on a self-directed course of study into sustainable agriculture. My interests in the subject go all the way back to the beginnings of college, where I participated in the (somewhat chaotically managed) Earlham Farm Program and lived on the associated 'Ag' Hall for a few semesters. During my senior year some friends and I formed a student-run seminar called (something like) 'Topics in Sustainable Agriculture' where we looked at the field from a number of different angles. Some of the things we encountered during this really exploded in my consciousness, particularly the astounding book by Wendell Berry The Unsettling of America.

Over the years, this topic always remained an interest for me, but as is my wont, I drifted into and through many other interests over the years. Over the last few years, however, it has come back to the forefront of my mind, spurred on by my always growing interest in cooking and good foods and various ever-present environmental concerns on the national and world stages, from global warming, 'peak oil' and agri-business consolidation to more prosaic things like soil erosion, pollution and loss of urban and rural biological diversity.

I feel like a few insights and encounters over the last couple years have combined with some lengthy, and not always pleasant, soul-searching to produce a very recent epiphany of sorts. This is that I can't really think of any other field, or subject, that has the potential to combine so many interests and concerns of mine into one field of study or effort. Especially for someone so scattered and easily bored as I am.

One of the deepest revelations came from an article on a bio-dynamic vineyard in France that I read in the New York Times a while ago. I remember being particularly struck where one of the winemakers contrasted their approach with more common forms of contemporary agriculture, even other 'organic' approaches, by revealing that (I'm paraphrasing here) 'if you have a problem with an insect infestation, instead of purchasing insect predators such as lady beetles to take care of it, create an environment where the beetles want to be there in the first place'.

This idea connects deeply with the basic principles of Permaculture and Ecological Design, which I've been reading about lately. I've seen many different definitions of permaculture, but if I was to do a concise summary of its philosophy and intent, I would say the following: Permaculture is the practical application of ecological knowledge to the creation of healthy, sustainable habitats and cultures.

When this crystallized in my head, it really lit a spark in the once-a-scientist-always-a-scientist part of me, that I've often missed over the years. But also the creative side of me. I'm not ready yet (and may never be ready) to say that I'm going to up and become a farmer, but I can't think of a more creatively and intellectually challenging project than to take a piece of land, of this earth, and try to study it and figure out what you can do with it, how you can make it a place that sustains you and others with its bounty while remaining a healthy part of the greater ecosystem, flush with natural diversity and wildlife, a place connected, a place for people yet tied to the greater wilds.

Some revelations come from more modest, unexpected sources. I recently read a book for middle-grade readers by Kate Thompson called The New Policeman which was a very enjoyable book, a quick read, that depicted an Irish family of musicians and cheesmakers (as well as a few gods, demons and fairies). There were a couple of scenes, throwaways really, where the mother would be discussing the upcoming ceili dance that they would be soon holding in their barn while packaging up a round of fresh cheeses made on their land. As I'm a musician myself (and currently somewhat infatuated with Irish fiddle music), these scenes really clicked with me. That somewhat utopian, romantic, yet reachable idea of integrating your life on many levels.

I feel like I'm beginning to drift off topic, maybe. The book I'm studying right now was originally recommended to me by my sister Franny. It's called Gaia's Garden: A Guide to Home-scale Permaculture. I haven't finished it yet, and maybe I'll write a more formal review of the book for this blog soon, but right now I'll just have to briefly recommend it whole-heartedly for anybody interested in these issues I've been discussing or even just anybody who likes to garden. I think the book is worth it just for its chapter on soil, really. Not textbook level, certainly, just one of the most lucid, concise explanations of what soil really is, how soil develops, different properties of soil, and of course how to develop good soil in your own yards and gardens. But the book has much more, and over and over eloquently and accurately bridges the gap between the study of natural ecosystems and how they apply to healthy gardens and landscapes. Certain things are stressed repeatedly, important principles of permaculture (and healthy ecosystems in general) such as encouraging over-all diversity, mixed-species cultures, complementary plantings, using micro-climates, using plants with multiple functions and uses, attracting wildlife (including rich populations of insects), healthy soil, using perennials when possible...

The picture I posted is an illustration from this book, looking at the layout of a small 1/4 acre homestead designed from an approach using ecological design and permaculture.

The next book I plan to study is another book from Chelsea Green Publishers entitled American Farmstead Cheese.

I really like cheese.

My friend, the wren

I think that the carolina wren has become one of the most beloved birds of eastern north america, especially in the small towns and suburbs where you can find them hopping and perching busily about, singing and scolding. They are attractive birds ( like all wrens) and very small, of a lovely dusty rufous brown back with beautifully barred edges, a cream and buff breast, a bold white stripe above their eyes and a delicate, curved beak that they use to snare all manner of insects as they bounce about. Even better, they have miles of character and personality, are endlessly curious and non-stop vocalizers, whether it be their jarringly loud but musical song (tea-ket-tle tea-ket-tle tea-ket-le was how I learned it) or their numerous and diverse warning and scolding calls. They like backyards and open woods, cobwebby garages, sheds and woodpiles.

I've been very pleased to find them a common presence in my new neighborhood, and I never tire of their simple, forthright song, frequently reminding me of the smaller, delicate communities that persevere all around me. They live in conspicous pairs all year and interact with each other and with their human neighbors so consistently and enjoyably that many households virtually adopt them as a second family, watching out for them and busying themselves in the wrens business just as much as they do in ours. I spent the weekend up on the north shore (of Massachusetts) with my good friends the Monnellys and enjoyed not only the presence of the wrens but also Dorothy Monnelly's constant and caring, inquisitive attention that she lavished on the diminutive birds. "I just think she doesn't like that chipmunk nosing around," she'll say as we listen to one of the wrens in an endless series of its musical rasberries.

In my more heavily settled neighborhood, I haven't quite made such close acquaintance with my local wrens, but I hear them daily and have observed them hopping about my tiny little containers of herbs searching for a morsel here or there. I hope they found something, and that they return often! Though I can't really claim such a feat with my tiny garden, planting your yard and garden in such a way that attracts and entertains local wildlife seems like it would be one of the great joys of such an enterprise (and then the deer eat all your tomatoes...).

My Labor Day weekend was overall a very nice one. Apart from the wren, the other pictures were taken at the Appleton Farms Grass Rides, a nice (but confusing) network of trails through the woods and meadows of a small part of Ipswich. We saw peeper frogs, friendly dogs and two dangerous-looking amanita mushrooms that were really quite beautiful, in pristine condition, with wide, snowy white caps and tall, straight stems. I didn't think to get a picture of them. The people on the bench are my friends Michelle and Anne, and I don't know what the flowers are - my botany is rusty.

Anyway, I hope that everybody enjoyed the holiday and that they enjoy their end of summer and entrance to fall. Tomorrow I start on four very, very busy weeks of work delivering violins, violas and cellos to countless hopeful schoolkids all over New England. After a difficult couple of weeks, I really feel I could use a little more time (just a little bit, please), to sort some personal things out and ready myself as best I can, but I am just going to have to muster on. Time waits for no one, as they say. Who they are, I have no idea.

New York New York big city of dreams...

Whomever provides the city of New York with its scaffolding must be a very wealthy person. Somewhere in the Bronx there must be warehouses with miles and miles of the stuff; it seemed there wasn't a block or building facade in all of Manhattan without several tiers of it, either for some construction project or maybe just to provide shade for street pedestrians.

New York City is overwhelming, an immense, neverending stream of spectacle and humanity, noise and color, artifice and resilient pockets (or hordes) of nature, human, other, metaphysical. Coming down by bus from Boston, I was very quickly relieved of all illusions of Boston as any kind of pretender to the urban crown that New York certainly wears - long before we crossed into Manhattan we traveled past endless rows of tall, square brick residential buildings, sprouting air conditioners and hanging clothes from their windows. These were massive compounds, truly reminding me of those science fiction novels of the seventies where all of Earth's surface is covered by mile high buildings (except for the plankton farms of the open ocean) crammed with humanity, utopian or dystopian (which usually amounts to the same thing).

And then to arrive in Manhattan! This city would eat me alive, no doubt; just the pressing weight of the unending corridors of skyscrapers would flatten me in a matter of weeks, I think. Even in a short two days, the memorable sights and encounters were too many to completely list. The sweeping views from halfway across the Brooklyn bridge were a highlight, taking in the relatively modest hills and greenery of Brooklyn, the barges and pleasure boats moving through the swirling, turgid East River, the polyphony of Manhattan to the west, the stalwart edifice of the bridge itself, the many shapes and sizes of tourists (and a few locals certainly) moving with me across the span. A more mysterious encounter also somehow seems indigenous to New York - friends and I were heading back to our hotel through Battery Park late at night when a hunched, shuffling man stepped out of the dark space between to shrubs with a piece of rope from which hung the head and upper torso of a large catfish.

I was there for the wedding of my good friend Jay and his beautiful new bride Aileen, and he had gathered a small assortment of friends from my days at Earlham College, a couple of whom I had not seen in well over a decade. There is something about the bonds you make at that age: though subsequent changes and travels might be severe, though you might not stay in touch with any regularity (I am particularly poor at that), though you might have completely different conceptions of the world and its mechanics - you tend to pick off right where you left off without skipping a beat, quickly moving through the requisite reminiscing and updating into a rhythm of interaction which seems as natural as breathing. This seemed surprising in one way, as most of these people I only really spent significant time with over the course of two to four years, yet not surprising in another, because those are the years that I can remember almost minute to minute twenty years later. There are many, many single days or nights whose events I can recall with greater precision and import than the total history of subsequent years or even half-decades. These are the times where coming across a plain black pipe stretching across a gully as you wander around the woods aimlessly discussing the guitar solos of Jimmy Page can somehow come to symbolize the workings of the universe, when a few hours socializing and playing ping-pong in a basement rec room can somehow form and root the way you look at everything, the way you laugh at things, the way you make sense of things.

Okay, but back to New York - actually, what more can I say? I had a few hours to myself where I wandered and took in some requisite sights and neighborhoods. Chinatown's seafood markets bristled with whole fish of every size and shape, assaulting my senses as they lay on beds of ice in the damp heat and sun. Central Park was thronged with probably three million separate digital cameras. I sometimes wonder how much of the world, what percentage, is contained in photographic images? I'm sure there's not a single inch of Central Park that has escaped notice several times over.

I went to the MoMA, and was suitably impressed and exhausted by their collection there. I spent the most time and was most taken with the Jackson Pollock room. Recently viewing Ed Harris' biographical film about Pollock gave me a new lease on appreciating his work, and I saw more variety of expression and form in his painting than I had ever seen before. Even just sticking with the 'splatter' paintings of his most famous period, I found some that relaxed me, some that jumped out from every corner, exploding just behind and beyond my retinas, some seemed to be tugging at me, trying to tell me something very specific yet unanswerable. One in particular that I don't remember the title of had a series of angular hieroglyphics in red embedded beneath the more naturalistic and arching swirls and drips, pulsing with meaning. How pretentious it all seems, sometimes, yet how essential that it's there to ponder. The world is a silly place, but the silliest things give us the greatest succor sometimes.

For my last night there we were lucky enough to be taken to a humble yet exquisite Vietnamese restaurant in Chinatown for an incredible meal - nothing fancy, just perfectly prepared, delicious food, from sizzling, slightly sweet pork chops to tender chunks of beef infused with lime and scallion. There was also tender shrimp with a light, clear brown sauce that had a toasted, smoky flavor, and plain, unadorned chinese celery, one of my favorite vegetables, the perfect sop for the leavings of all the other dishes. This restaurant was called Nha Trang, at 87 Baxter Street, behind the Manhattan Criminal Court building, and I highly recommend it.

I had other good meals, of course. There was the wedding meal of course, which was superb. For lunch one day I had a remarkable taco from a place on Kenmare Street called La Esquina of chorizo, potato and cactus paddle garnished with lime, crunchy cabbage and salsa verde. Lunch my second day consisted of a hot dog (a New York tradition no doubt but a little disappointing) and later on a perfect little pie of lamb kibbeh (can't remember the name of this place, it was in the financial district). A lot of meat was eaten this weekend! I may have to spend a few days roughing it with roughage to atone (I'm not a vegetarian but I like to keep my intake down).

This is all I'll say for now. Enjoy the rest of your summer, everybody!

-Brian

The horror, the horror

Do you want to hear a tale of woe? Of unreasoning fear and humiliating indignities? Of moments of black comedy that gutted me?

I'm being melodramatic here, and none of you should worry - I'm fine, healthy, nobody has died. However, I have gone through and am continuing to endure a trauma that seems to be affecting me much more than any rational look would indicate, and that is of course one of the reasons it's so interesting (though unfortunately extremely unpleasant).

By way of introduction to this story, an embarrassing admission, which some of you may already be aware of: I am scared of bats. Phobic, really. I thought I might be over it, but after last night and the way I continue to feel, I clearly am not. And it's interesting to see how one can be cruising through a decent patch, healthy, active, and suddenly a minor display of nature's bounty combined with a personal quirk undoes one almost completely.

Last night I was finishing my supper, around 8:30 or so, and I hear a noise in the corner of my living room. This first thing I always think when hearing an unknown rustling in my living space is bat, and might heart started thumping. I went over to the corner, where I have several book cases and CD shelves set up, and after a minute of trying to see back there I heard the unmistakable squeaking of a bat and a moment later it launched out from behind a bookcase and started diving and winging about my living room in it's floppy, terrifying way.

I freaked out. I opened my door frantically, which I was standing next to, leapt out into the hall and slammed the door shut behind me. About five seconds later I realized I had locked myself out without my phone, wallet or shoes (or keys, of course, which I haven't made copies of yet to stash).

That was not a nice moment. I didn't particularly want to get back into my apartment right then, but…For a little while I think I was just in shock with the sudden turn of events that had left me with no options that I could see at that moment. I just couldn't believe that I was actually in that situation.

Not liking to impose on neighbors, and thinking maybe I could figure something out, I spent about 45 minutes or an hour trying to get back into my apartment without breaking a window. No luck, no luck. Meanwhile I watched the bat flitting around and crawling about my blinds.

Finally I broke down and woke up my next door neighbor who lent me the use of his phone and suggested that I call the fire department. God bless the fire department and civil servants everywhere. They came, with a full crew and a truck and an off-duty police officer and got out a ladder and got into my apartment through a bedroom window. The fireman walked through my room and opened my door, dodging the bat, and came back down. I quickly went upstairs, peeked into my apartment, saw the coast was clear for a moment and went in to grab my keys, phone, wallet and some shoes. Then I fled back outside.

One of the fireman recommended that I leave the window open for a while and watch from outside as the bat should quickly find its way back to the great outdoors. My family had tried that before with success, and it's much less traumatic and friendly than trying to capture or kill it, so I thanked him, they drove off, and I settled down to watch my window.

For a half hour or so I watched the bat periodically flit back and forth across my bedroom, willing it unsuccessfully to escape. After a bit it disappeared for a little while, and then to my numb shock I watched a second bat fly into my apartment. Talk about a Homer Simpson Moment. D'oh! It flew around for a while, but did not manage to fly back out. This is a pretty big window, open wide! It's like they wanted to stay in there. Maybe the bug hunting inside was good.

After watching for another few minutes, both bats disappeared for a little bit and I walked up my back steps to peek into my living room and kitchen. I saw one bat hanging from the ceiling, but nothing else. I decided the coast was clear enough for the moment and went back around and through my front entrance and into my room to get a couple things, as I had decided by this point to spend the night somewhere else. I was reaching the limit of my endurance, and stress and anxiety was flooding through my system, making me nearly ill. As I left my apartment I saw both bats, one still hanging from the ceiling and the other flying around my kitchen. I drove to where I work and spent a completely sleepless night there - even if it had been a feather bed I never would have gotten a single wink.

When I finally got up, I left a message with Newton Animal Control, and later in the morning we met at my place. We quickly located the one bat and he neatly snagged it in his net and set it free outside, and then we unsuccessfully searched the apartment for the other.

That's where things stand now. I'm at work, and I know that there is probably still a bat in my apartment that will come out later this evening. I guess the only thing to do is go back and wait for it to show, open a window again and hope it leaves, and hope more bats don't enter. If it doesn't show, that's even worse; I'll never relax again in my apartment, always expecting it to pop up at any moment. Right now I feel like I'll never relax there again anyway, now that I know that this is a bat house (I know that it didn't come in through a window, or at least 90% sure - because of my bat phobia, I'm always very careful about windows and screens).

Am I overreacting? Of course. Is there anything I can do about it? Probably, but it doesn't feel like it at this moment. Right now, I feel like I've lost my apartment, my place of peace and repose - all because of a stupid little bat that I still have to face later on this evening.

With some bit of self-awareness, I can also see that I'm not really afraid of the bat - I'm afraid of being afraid of the bat. We have nothing to fear but fear itself, right? I know that as long as I am careful not to handle the bat it will not hurt me and in fact will go out of its way to avoid hitting me. I am afraid of the fear, of the surprise and shock, of the anxiety. I am afraid!

Aggghhh, please wish me luck.

11 Sunsets

Well, I didn't really do my duty this year in photographing my vacation in Canada. Apologies especially to family - I got no still pictures of people other than myself, only video, which I haven't figured out how to attach or link yet. No doubt it's very easy, but I lack patience.

When I think back on vacations, however, the experience eventually coalesces into a series of snapshots of memory, anyway; vignettes, scenes, set pieces, whatever (Is it possible for something to 'coalesce' into separate elements?). Rather than remembering time spent as the continuous flow of experience and sense it really was, I think on images, brief moments or events, often never thinking of or recalling the connective tissues between them.

A dense, deep purple blueberry cobbler, swimming in a warm perfume of fruit and sugar.

An overactive, bellicose hummingbird chasing a red-breasted nuthatch from limb to limb of a ponderosa pine, as if the confused nuthatch had any interest in the hanging jar of sugarwater that the hummingbird was so keen on.

A tense standoff between a small brown crayfish and an even smaller minnow over a choice spot at the side of a nice rock.

Moving through several Irish reels, myself on fiddle and my cousin Brad on guitar, as the grubby, enticing odors of oil, beer batter and walleye waft around us. 'The Maid Behind the Bar' was particularly successful. Less so 'Jenny's Welcome to Charlie' but what a title!

Playing duets with my sister Esme, violin and cello, and helping her with some practicing tips that came very slowly to me in my musical efforts over the years.
Esme, remember-
1) Before you start: deep breath, fingers in place, bow on string - start cleanly and thoughtfuly.
2) Work on short musical phrases, repeatedly, and listen carefully and correct the mistakes that you hear.
3) Don't practice wrong, practice right! (Sounds like the title of a self-help book, right?) When you start playing a passage well, keep playing it until it comes naturally and automatically.

One day cruising out to the big bay to fish the Gull Island reef, we passed by a mama and baby bear swimming between two islands, a breathtaking sight that I'll never forget.

Listening to the late evening calls and songs of several loons as I lay out on the dock watching the stars appear and brighten in the night sky, brushing the mosquitos away from my legs.

Two cormorants swimming behind an enormous white pelican, just their snaking necks rising from the water, likes remoras following a shark.

A sudden burst of avian activity from a mixed-species flock through a stand of ponderosas, where a moment before there had been nothing but the wind and a gull circling over the reeds and then I marked: yellow warbler, chestnut-sided warbler, black and white warbler, blackburnian warbler, yellow-rumped warbler, nashville warbler, red-breasted nuthatch, black-capped chickadee, red-eyed vireo, and a puzzling couple of sparrows - Savannah or Lincoln? Looked more like a savannah, though no yellow lores, But we're not close to any fields, really.

A sunset for every night, rarely spectacular but always unique - one night just a warm, gentle orange glow arching over the horizon in an otherwise clear, deepening blue sky, another night just three small clouds backlit and outlined in brilliant fire, interior dark and stormy, slowly drifting.

Heavy swells crashing through a wide expanse of reeds, whitecaps cresting from the steady intense wind crossing the open miles of Whitefish bay, closing my eyes and just feeling the day.

The thrill of pulling in my first Northern Pike on a fly-rod. Kudos to a green Clouser minnow (and to dad for choosing it).

Thanks to everybody up there for their hospitality and companionship - Dad, Lisa, Esme, Brad, Eric, Nik, Jim, Sue, Harper, Cambo, Bob, Ellen, Bill and Diana.

I hope everybody is enjoying their summer!
-Brian

The Lives of Harry Potter

Spoiler Alert!!!! If you haven't read the book, and plan on reading the book, and care whether you know juicy details ahead of time, read no further. This means you, Esme! Come back and read this when you're done.

Last night I finished reading Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. I would like, first of all, to say that I enjoyed the book very much and a big thank you to J.K. Rowling and all the working stiffs at Scholastic Publishing and bookstores everywhere for giving me many hours of pleasure over the years. Books have meant a great deal to me throughout my life, and the Harry Potter series struck deeply, extracting what I love best about reading and making me feel like I did when I was growing up, losing myself completely in stories and the ongoing adventures of worlds upon worlds. This stuff mattered, and still matters, thank god. Rowling expresses it exactly, and succinctly, towards the end of the book, as Harry has a final interlude in some sort of dream or half-life with Dumbledore, and he asks "Is this real? Or has this been happening inside my head?" and Dumbledore, always the wise one, replies "Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?" Our thoughts are real, and the way we think about things and what we choose to think about are the first and most basic creative acts we do.

Now that I've gotten my thanks and appreciation out of the way, I can move on to telling you what I really think; you know, all the silly over-analysis and pointless criticism with some 'I loved it when...' 's thrown in for good measure.

I was very pleased to find that Rowling was a good sport and kept all the core younger characters alive - Harry, Ron and Hermione especially, as well as Neville, Ginny and Luna (who has quickly become amongst my favorite characters, along with Snape). I respect this kind of literature as much as anything, really, but I'm not reading it for learning about the bitter truths, disappointments and failures we all must face eventually. We've lived with these characters for a while now and to see them gone and/or unhappy at the end would have been a blow.

I was also pleased to find that Snape was, more or less, a good guy at the end of it all, and not just because I predicted it all along to many doubters (Dad). I personally found it a useful foil to have at least the one main character who was not an obvious hero, who had dark thoughts and wasn't pretty or likeable, who struggled with himself and those around him, yet still found a meaningful moral compass and was somebody we (and Harry) could respect and have compassion for.

I'm still going to say that the third book, Prisoner of Azkaban, is her best in my opinion, although the fourth is right behind. This book suffered from some of the same problems of the fifth and sixth, with episodic plot devices that move somewhat ploddingly. Here, the second quarter of the book was especially slow, with our three heroes (and then two, as Ron takes off in a huff) spending weeks camping in the woods and spending most of their time trying to figure out what to do, often unsuccessfully. Not all of you will get this analogy, though I know my sister Meghan will, but it reminded me a bit of playing the computer text adventures when I was a kid, and I'd kind of hit a block where I couldn't figure out what to do next, trying all sorts of equally useless commands until I hit on the right one, or more rarely had a genuine moment of inspiration, like "Lift Rock. Get Key. Enter castle". But the payoff was always there, then and now. The book really started to get rolling once Ron rejoined them and they saw the Doe patronus and got the sword, and by the time they were rallying the troops at Hogwarts I was as riveted and as excited as I could be.

And then the momentum slowed again, first with an enjoyable and necessary (but maybe misplaced) look back on Snape's younger years and his friendship with Lily Potter, and then with a convoluted conversation with Dumbledore offering a little too much complicated explication, trying to tidy everything up, explain exactly why Harry wasn't already dead and who had whose parts of their souls tucked into their own souls and how that meant this person couldn't die...I think I bought it in the end but I really just wanted to get to the final standoff, which was excellent and as exciting as I could hope for (though maybe it's just a bit of a copout to have Voldemort technically kill himself when his own killing curse ricochets in his face. I think Rowling could have had Harry kill Voldemort at that point, and possibly have a stronger book from it).

I've got a lot more I could say, but I'm going to bed. I hope nobody minds too much that I'm talking about this revered book like this; I enjoy thinking about this kind of stuff and figuring out what works and what doesn't in stories and novels, even ones that I love. Of course, if anybody starts in like this with The Lord of the Rings, I'm liable to punch them.

Swim, Bike, Run

Well, I don't have any news that can really compare to my sister Franny's - she and her husband Nick just had their second child, a little girl who has just been named Sonja Frances Toombs. You can see pictures of her at her sister Gabriella's blog, www.gabriellatoombs.blogspot.com and you can hear a song her father wrote and recorded for her at his blog (or mog?) http://mog.com/Dzendvokh. It's a cool piece. Well done on both counts, Nick.

I completed my first triathlon yesterday, something I wouldn't have expected to ever really participate in, as I often tend to shun organized activities. But I guess that as we grow older we change, and I have a group of friends who were doing it, so I signed up and told myself that at the very least it would be good incentive to keep exercising. And as it turned out, it was fun, though the running leg was definitely something of a slog.

It was what is known as a sprint triathlon, which has no consistent length like a marathon does or the ironman triathlon does, but tends to be something close to what this one was: 1/3 mile swim, 9 mile bike ride, 5k run (3.1 miles). So just to be clear, this is nothing close to any sort of truly long-distance endurance event, nothing like a marathon or a hundred-plus mile bike ride (like they do on the legs of the tour de france). I finished it in one hour, twelve minutes and seven seconds, which was enough to place me 352nd in a field of 600 or so participants. I was very pleased; my only conscious goal was to try and complete all three legs without stopping and taking a break. If I had a will of steel, I believe I could certainly have pushed myself a little harder, but as I said before, I was definitely feeling it during the run portion.

The location was perfect, as was the weather. It took place on Cape Cod, in Falmouth. (For those interested the event was put on by Time Out Productions, and you can learn more about them and the results of their events at www.timeoutproductions.com). The swim portion was in the ocean, looking straight out towards Martha's Vineyard. A lovely stretch of water, clear and lush with eelgrass, and a very comfortable swimming temperature. I would love to head back down there with my mask and snorkle and see what I can see murking about through the beds of eelgrass. During the competition, things are a bit hectic for sightseeing, it's all you can do to get your head up to get your bearings from the giant orange buoys as you find yourself in the middle of a bunch of flailing competitors. I chose to stick to the outside of my group just to keep the collisions down to a minimum.

The swim was over very quickly, having got a nice boost from the current during the middle stretch, and then we were onto our bikes for a very nice ride along the shore for a few miles then through some twisty residential roads of Falmouth. I would easily have gone four times the distance on my bike, especially if that meant avoiding the run.

Have I been uneccessarily negative about the run portion? Sorry. Though I make myself do it with some regularity, as it is the most efficient way (time, cost, space) I know of to get in a good cardiovascular workout, I don't really enjoy running. Occasionally I find myself on a great day on a great path really feeling my legs and arms pumping in easy syncronicity and I feel I could someday become a real runner, but most days I just want it over with. It's hard work. And after a short but hard swim and a similar bike ride, I would prefer not to jog 3 miles. But I did, and as I passed the half-way point I realized that the only reason I would stop would be out of sheer laziness and I pushed myself up another small fraction of a notch for the last mile.

After crossing the finish line I took a celebratory swim through the eelgrass and met up with my friends - Anne, Michelle and Karen - to compare notes. I think everyone was pleased, though Michelle had some difficulties with her calf muscles (but still managed a better time than me) and Karen had shin splints. All during the run portion, of course.

I felt great, though when I arrived home in Newton a few hours later I pretty much collapsed for a long nap, from which I awoke feeling disoriented enough to dissipate some of my store of well-being from the race. I am happy to report I have recovered enough that I even considered going for a run today, but I quickly squelched that idea in favor enjoying the local breeze with a good book followed by a nice meal of grilled bluefish.

Farewell,

-Brian

My herb garden and some culinary doings

I'm very pleased to announce the arrival of my herb garden, such as it is. Nothing in the ground, everything planted in a few smallish containers, thus far. I've gotten a book called The Bountiful Container, and with its help hope to plan for an expansion next Spring, with some bigger containers, some seed purchasing and a more thoughtful approach to placement and soil preparation. In the meantime, I've started using little bits and corners of my herbs. I've got a pot with basil, lemon basil and sage. Another pot with parsley, chives, and struggling dill and cilantro. Another pot with sorrell and rocket, my spicy salad greens. And two pots on my indoor kitchen windowsill, one of rosemary (creeping) and one of tarragon, which seems to be taking its time getting started.

I've only dared to use these herbs once or twice, preferring to let them get settled before I make any heavy demands on them, but I have added sorrell and rocket to a couple of salads and I made a 'pasta with handfuls of fresh herbs' from the gourmet cookbook the other night and I used a little tiny bit from several of my budding plants (basil, lemon basil, chives, parsley and sorrell). For future reference: use only one or two herbs - I think the flavors will be clearer and stronger, and skip the toasted breadcrumbs - they just make the dish too heavy and mask the delicacy of the herbs. In fact, though they are found commonly in many Italian pasta recipes, I don't believe that I am a big fan of the use of breadcrumbs in general, finding them at best unecessary and at worst gritty and unappetizing. Please let me know if you find them an important asset in some dish or another and I'll file the advice away. I've enjoyed them on baked macaroni and cheese before, but even there I'm not sure they've really added much. A browned and bubbly cheesy top seems more than adequate.

I've been trying to do more 'instinctive' improvising in the kitchen lately, largely from reading the Chez Panisse Vegetables cookbook and a new book about Alice Waters and Chez Panisse. I've always done most of my cooking out of cookbooks, except for meals of convenience or dishes I've made many, many times - basic red sauce, pesto, regular salads and vinagrettes, fried egg sandwiches, pasta with garlic and oil, trout amandine, etc. And I enjoy using cookbooks, but I'd like to see what my more creative juices are capable of, out of curiousity and to give myself more flexibility when exploring the contents of my larder or running across good-looking produce at the market, and also out of inspiration from the great creative cooks out there.

Last night I went for it. I was at the market and decided I wanted some seafood, that had some decent looking Florida shrimp in the shell that was priced well, so I got half a pound and decided to do something spicy. I got some jalapenos and a poblano pepper. When I got home I broiled the peppers until they were black and made a salsa of them with some roasted garlic, and marinated the shrimp in lime juice and salt before cooking them on my black iron. Then I made a salad of quartered radishes with shallots, sorrell, lime juice and cayenne pepper. My starch came in the form of a few homemade corn tortillas. If I was writing the menu for Chez Panisse it would look something like this:

Radish Salad with Lime, Sorrell and Cayenne

Griddle-Seared Gulf Coast Shrimp with Relish of Roasted Poblanos, Jalapenos and Garlic

Homemade Corn Tortillas

Store-Bought Chocolate-Chip Cookies

What do you think? As it turned out, the shrimp was very flavorful and I was surprised to find that my poblano and jalapeno relish didn't really stand up to it very well - a traditional salsa with cilantro and tomato would have been better, and serve the poblanos on the side. I enjoyed the radish salad a lot, and I always love fresh tortillas. I'm getting better at them, and can really make a few of them happen pretty quickly without much fuss.

Adios, amoebas! (have I used that before? It's from an old Gary Larson cartoon that still cracks me up).

-Brian

Kayaking the Great Marsh

I had the opportunity to go kayaking in northeastern Massachusetts' Great Marsh on the fourth of July. The Great Marsh is an extensive network of tidal inlets, rivers and tiny channels surrounded by wide open beds of marsh grass, and a kayak is truly the way to explore this incredible landscape. Slipping silently through the soupy gray-green water, brushing past clumps of sharp, fibrous rushes rising from the rich, living mud, watching snowy egrets stalking all manner of small fish and wriggling muddy beasts, pushing easily against the tide as you work your paddles back and forth... Don't get me wrong, I thoroughly enjoy tooling around with small motorboats but for really sinking into a place like this, there's nothing like a kayak. They are so light and maneuverable - there was almost no channel to narrow or shallow to explore, and when we hit a dead end, we just picked the kayaks up and marched over the grass to the nearest navigable waterway.

My friend Glen and I headed out toward an attractive and mysterious island named Hog Island. Hog Island is a drumlin, an island formed by glacial deposits. As we got close, we realized that there wasn't really a clear channel of water surrounding the island, just a confusing network of marsh, smelly landlocked pools and tiny tidal channels that often drifted away and ended in the grass, so we portaged around for a while until we found ourselves in a large inlet that led around the the back side of Crane's beach. Several Willets spooked up from their hiding spots in the grass as we paddled by them, calling their clownish greeting 'we will willet - we will willet - we will willet - we will willet'. Least terns, certainly amongst the most graceful and beautiful flyers that I've ever seen, flew elegantly through and against the stiff wind of the day, often holding steady in one spot, flapping, watching the water below and then suddenly dropping like a rocket, sharp beak first, plunging full into the water with a sudden splash and lifting immediately away with their prize. Swallows also skimmed the water in multitudes, and bullyish Herring and Great Black-backed gulls lorded over all and sundry.

I was hoping to see sharks - not jaws, but Glen's mother has seen the dorsal fins of small dogfish slowly swaying through the main tidal channels here. I would love to see that sight. I've snorkeled here before and seen striped bass, but the water doesn't have nearly the visibility that the open ocean does.

Oh, we saw turkeys, too, meandering through the grass. I'm sure there are lots of bugs and worms in the mud out there, but this was a first time seeing turkeys in salt marsh.

Anyway, I'm going to go now. Love to all,

-Brian

Oh, and I want to recommend that everybody buy Dorothy Monnelly's wonderful book of photography entitled The Great Marsh. It is an exceedingly beautiful portrait of this unique landscape and ecosystem by this very talented artist and courageous advocate for open space and our natural heritage. You can get it from Amazon.com amongst many other places.

Ruminations on learning the Irish fiddle, plus pictures

For all those clamoring for more photos of my new apartment, here are two - an exterior shot of the house (my apartment is on the second floor and on the right side) and a rare shot of me standing in the doorway to my porch. Everything is going well; I am on the cusp of what I call stage three: stage 1 is moving everything in, stage 2 is emptying boxes and putting everything in some semblance of livable order, and stage three is the slow process of rearranging everything to the apartment's 'ideal' state of being.

Meanwhile, there are other things going on in my life as well - the main thing being my newfound and ongoing appreciation of traditional irish music. Last weekend I spent a couple days on the cape attending a few events at the Cape Cod Celtic Festival. If I haven't said it before (and I think I have), Liz Carroll is my hero right now. I went to a workshop she taught, ostensibly "Intermediate Irish Fiddle', and learned a great deal, though the two hours went very quickly. Surprisingly, she taught our little group a reel of her own called 'Ralph's 2-3-5' (the 2-3-5 referring to the number of parts in each section of the tune). It can be found in fine form on her most recent recording with John Doyle called "In Play". It's a sly tune, and as we went over it Liz touched on a number of very helpful points regarding ornamentation, different styles of trebling, little tricks with bow direction, ideas for variation during repeats (especially double-stopping, which I love). Liz is very funny and chatty, very encouraging, and a wonder on the fiddle, even during a five-second demonstration of this point or that.

The other high point of the festival, for me, was the closing session at O'Shea's Inn on Sunday afternoon. It was especially nice as we went around the circle and everybody got a chance to introduce a tune or two, which at least assured me of knowing the tunes that I started. If I remember correctly, I believe I started 'The Banshee' and 'Bonaparte Crossing the Rhine', a particular favorite of mine that I learned from Pete Cooper's 'Complete Guide to Learning the Irish Fiddle'. 'Bonaparte Crossing the Rhine' has one of those particular little things that I love in Irish tunes, a brief phrase in the B section that quickly alternates between a C natural and C sharp that kind of pokes at your ears in an odd yet appealing way, and gives almost a distant, ancient flavor to the melody. This crops up over and over in a lot of tunes, and will probably seem less and less novel the more I learn, but in the meantime I love it.

I also attended a session at the Skellig in Waltham last Tuesday, a weekly session that is very welcoming to newcomers (though they don't necessarily go 'round the horn introducing tunes). A little session etiquette I've learned: if you're new, sit towards the outside of the circle, don't introduce tunes, if you don't know the tune just finger along silently, and don't pester anybody too much for the names of the tunes. Not that anybody will bite your head off, but if you want to build a place for yourself it's good to be polite. Unless your social skills are completely turned off you'll get a feel for when you can start to assert yourself a bit more, and the session leaders will begin to recognize you and give you a chance to start a tune now and then. I think. I've only been to three or four so far, all in the last couple of weeks.

Learning tunes at a session is very challenging. At this stage, I really only know about ten to fifteen tunes pretty well, and can follow along another ten or fifteen pretty well, but there are thousands out there, and most local communities of players will probably have a bag of a couple hundred that they might pull from. So, I really only recognize one tune in ten (or fewer), so I do a lot of silently fingering along, trying to catch the structure of the melody as the group whizzes through it at full speed. My brain gets pretty stretched after doing this for three tunes or so, and then I have to sit back and rest a bit. If you can catch the name of the tune you can try and look it up later, otherwise it'll probably come up again in a future session and you'll hopefully get a handle on it eventually.

If anybody is curious about what I've been listening to and what I really like here's a brief list:

Planxty - one of the first traditional groups of the early 70's resurgence in traditional music, these guys are incredible, mixing stunning, creative arrangements of traditional instrumentals with great songs. Andy Irvine's voice is wonderful. The first album is my favorite so far. Listen to 'Junior Crehan's Favorite' and 'Planxty Irwin'. No fiddles, but the amazing uillean pipes more than make up for it. I think one reason I really like these guys is they speak to me as a former member of a band. They really come across as a real band, not just a collection of great musicians, working together to create something that is more than the sum of its parts. The creativity they bring to their arrangements is virtually unparalleled (in my vast experience with traditional irish music). Wonderful harmonies, complex polyphonic instrumental parts, atmospheric development, stunning transitions.

Brian Conway - 'First Through the Gate' - I just got this album this week and it's a great collection of fiddle tunes in the County Sligo style from a New York-born fiddler. Very warm playing, with fast, elegant ornamentation and great choice of tunes. 'Blackberry Blossom' into 'The Silver Spire' has a stately, infectious joy about it and 'Jennie's Welcome to Charlie' is just an amazing four-part tune that throws me for a loop.

Danu - 'When All is Said and Done' - One of their more recent albums with new vocalist Muireann Nic Amhlaoibh, who has a wonderful, throaty alto voice (in contrast to the more typical bell-like soprano found in much Irish singing). Once again, a great band with stellar arrangements and great choice of tunes and songs. Plus, a surreal yet organic and beautiful cover of Dylan's 'Farewell, Angelina'. Oisín McAuley is a spirited and technically amazing player who lives near me in Brookline, MA. I've had the opportunity to hear him trying out fiddle bows in our showroom at work which was really neat, kind of a brief glance inside the mind of a great fiddler.

That's enough for now, it's a nice day and I've got further chores to do.

A whole new world

These are pictures of my new place, from a week ago when I'd finished moving everything in and had just started arranging things. The place is in much better shape now, but I figured I'd wait until I had it in some approximation of livable completion before I posted more pictures. I'm still stepping around boxes and piles of miscellaneous things I don't know where to put.

In any case, I love my new place. It's twice the apartment I just moved out of, in almost every conceivable way. Much bigger, more rooms, larger kitchen, quieter, friendlier neighborhood, a bit of yard space, wood floors (scarred and pitted, to be sure), cooler yet more natural light. There are any number of things I hope to do with my new space that I never really could before. On my back stoop, which gets a lot of sun from morning through early afternoon, I hope to get some planters and grow herbs for my kitchen (I've already got a small pot of basil, sage and creeping rosemary started thanks to a friend and co-worker). I'm at the library now and have an excellent looking book out called The Bountiful Container. On my porch, I may hang a hammock. With the nicer kitchen and larger space, I hope to have friends over for dinner occasionally, which I really never did before. Maybe even a music party once in a while, fiddling or chamber music. We'll see. My piano is the one thing still in limbo; it's in storage for the time being.

Finally having a nice, spacious apartment, I'm sorely tempted to go out right now and buy a million nice things so that I can live in the grand style. Nice couch, new bookshelves, real pieces of artwork, ice cream machine, meyer lemon tree (75 dollars at Winston Gardens), nice rugs for the floor, end table for the couch, coffee table, reclining chair...It doesn't take a fancy accountant to see that I'll have to go very slowly and learn to appreciate a sparser decorative style. Actually, I'm really enjoying having all this empty space right now, but given my inclinations toward sloth, I have to be very careful. There 's just so much room for piles of stuff that they won't really get in my way for a long time, so I'm working on developing some more orderly habits. Clean clean clean! I even bought a broom.

Well, that's enough for now, it's a nice day and I have lots of chores. I hope to start writing about more interesting things for this blog soon, but it may have to wait until I get an internet connection up and running at home.

Ch- ch - cheers,

-Brian

Nothing to say, too much to say, too much to do...

Well, it's been some time since I wrote in here. My apologies! I know I have a lot of fans who count on my blogging. I have been busy, busy, busy, and will continue to be so for the next three weeks at least...Into the already heady mix of work and music I have thrown in a move. Just a handful of blocks away from where I presently live, but...you know most of the work is the same, there's just less driving. As usual I am somewhat overwhelmed with the number of books I have, even though I have converted about 90 percent of my reading to library copies in the last few years. Somehow I still pack box after box to the brim with all manner of books. And then just when I've packed them, I want them out again. I've become somewhat dependent on my Encyclopedia Brittanica set - I was watching the BBC production of Pride and Prejudice and wanted to read their essay on Jane Austen, but the shelves were bare. I thought about traipsing downstairs to find and raid the appropriate box, but...that would be silly, wouldn't it? Now that I think of it, I can probably find everything I want online. But there's something about holding a volume of the Brittanica open on my lap and learning something about whatever I want, then randomly brousing through it to pick choice nuggets of information on 19th century British Prime Ministers. Fascinating!

I'm upgrading my living situation nicely, I think, going from what has become a cramped studio apartment to a roomier one-bedroom. Quieter neighborhood, just a touch closer to work (I can easily walk or bike), hardwood floors, nice light, eat-in kitchen (in real estate parlance), a small pantry (yes!), three-season porch (that's an enclosed, unheated porch with lots of windows), rear stoop where I can sit in the sun, and a small, quiet yard where I hope to place a grill. I'm especially looking forward to having more room in the kitchen, for cooking and for entertaining. I'll still have to be a little creative about storage (I'll have more room but little of it will be 'storage' space, I'll have to use some of the porch for keeping camping gear, etc) but I'll have room for a couch now. As silly as it sounds, I'm simply looking forward to being able to spend most of my time in the kitchen and living room and then retire to a separate bedroom to sleep. Right now I spend almost all of my time at home on my bed. There are several negatives to this, not least I don't think it's good for my back.

I'll try and post again soon. I have a lot more things to say about Irish music and the process of learning this new music. I'm heading to the Cape Cod Celtic Festival in two and a half weeks, where I'll have a workshop with Liz Carroll and others. As soon as I start actually moving, I'll take a bunch of pictures and post them for those of you who are interested in my new living situation. I'll have room for visitors now!

Adios, amoebas!

Communities, personal and social health

How difficult is it to change a life? In even small, incremental ways? Even when you know, objectively know from previous experience, that the changes will make your life more productive, rewarding and enjoyable? That they will ease that vague feeling of malaise you feel as you drift towards wakefulness waking up in the morning?

It’s not easy. Please forgive me if I’m not talking about you. I guess I’m talking about myself, mostly, but I have a feeling that I’m talking about something that a lot of people feel. Habits are deeply ingrained, and forming new ones can take mountains of motivation, consistent on a daily basis as well as over the years. Fear of change, even positive change, is very real. We are also all greatly aware of how those around us, those who we love, like, dislike or don’t really consciously think about at all think about us, and how they will react to what we do and how we project ourselves. And inertia comes from this, leading us to think “this is who we are, don’t rock the boat”.

You may be wondering what the hell I’m talking about at this point. Or you’ve stopped reading, wishing I’d just post another blurry picture of a local bird or an anecdotal account of another meal I’ve had. Well, I’m not contemplating some huge life change, such as moving to Alaska or joining the merchant marines or anything, though in some ways I wish I was. I’ve just started reading Bill McKibben’s new book, called Deep Economy: The Wealth of Communities and the Durable Future, and it is touching on some things that I’ve been thinking about, for years really but on a new level recently. It’s about many of the global problems our civilization is facing, some relatively objective (yet controversial and far from universally accepted) as global warming, peak oil and economic inequity, some more nebulous and subject but no less real such as dissatisfaction, the loss of social connectivity, unhappiness. It’s about trying to find some way out, or at least through, these problems through rebuilding and reorienting our communities, particularly in a more local direction.

I’ve been going through a small-scale, mostly unstructured, semi-conscious attempt to reorder my own life recently. How recently? I can’t really answer that. Certainly beginning to write my children’s novel over two years ago was some part of this (so what does it mean that my writing is in a bit of a fallow period now?) – but in the last few months I’ve been trying, emphasis on trying, to make some more conscious changes.

My motivation has come from different places. Certainly my environmental consciousness looms large – I want to lessen my impact and live closer to the earth. So I’m driving less. Trying to walk to work sometimes, or ride my bike. I’m also trying to keep my afterwork or weekend chores closer to home, and have even curtailed my birding adventures somewhat, not taking every free day off to drive up to the north shore. What’s interesting about these changes is the positive secondary changes that are effected: more exercise, leading to greater health and mental well-being. Less time spent frustrated and irritated (not to mention bored) in traffic. More inclined to network with friends for daytrips, leading to a more sociable and enjoyable experience (none of my friends really want to bird as much as I do, unfortunately).

I’m trying to be more conscious of what I eat, where it comes from, as well as making sure that I use it all instead of letting it rot in my refrigerator. Buying produce from local (New England, ideally) sources, avoiding frozen foods and foods with excess (or just irritating) packaging, eating less meat, buying organically when available and affordable. Secondary effects, of course, are eating better and enjoying it more. Flip side is it takes more time and effort (but less than you’d think if you shop at the right places), but I love to cook so no big sacrifice there.

One thing that Mr. McKibben touches on that I’ve been thinking about in great detail lately is looking to our local communities, and ourselves, for our entertainment and recreation. This is one of the areas in which modern life has changed the most, with great disruption to the connective tissue of local communities. I recently went to an Irish fiddle workshop led by Tommy Peoples, a very shy, soft-spoken individual who nonetheless was a leading force in the revitalization of traditional music beginning in the early seventies. He and others brought in new ideas yet stayed rooted and connected to a musical heritage that stretched back centuries but was in danger of losing itself to the outside incursions of rock and roll, pop, tin pan alley, etc (not that I want to knock rock’n’roll too much). Ireland was a very poor country until very recently, and when Mr. Peoples was growing up (and before) people made their own entertainment, or found it in their own communities, gathering at houses down the road for music and storytelling, dancing and theater, sporting events. Mr. Peoples used the term organic for this – everything was integrated – food and music, life and love, children and grandparents, family and community.

It’s always important to drop a couple caveats when talking like this lest you fool yourself – we all know that our past histories are full of war and pestilence and unhappiness and poor health, just like our current history is. Ireland suffered crippling poverty and famine that killed millions, as well as civil strife that pitted members of the same communities against each other. But I wonder if we haven’t really lost something as our affluence has grown, if we can’t consciously choose to regain some of this.

It may seem somewhat hypocritical for me to talk like this, as I’m one of the biggest wallflowers I know. But this gets to some of the more conscious changes I’ve been attempted lately. Nothing radical, just an attempt to be more social, to integrate interests of mine with other friends, or to use them to meet new people and make new friends. The main way I’ve been doing this lately is through my new interest in fiddling, particularly Irish fiddling. I’ve done my share of purchasing albums and listening to them at home by myself and playing along with recordings, but I’ve also gone to a couple of workshops and taken friends to see live music and hope soon to be joining in at some local sessions and finding a network of other people to play with here and there. I’ve been playing with my orchestra and my quartet for six years now but I do miss the more spontaneous nature of this kind of music making and its more casually social character.

I’ve also been getting more exercise, going to the gym, jogging, etc., and have even signed up for a spring triathlon in mid-July. I’m not sure anything improves one’s overall state of mind like regular physical activity (not to mention physical health). And I think I’m going to try and start playing tennis again this summer.

But there are no rules about any of this, at least not for me. I’ll never be a dogmatic person. My favorite anecdote from my limited Buddhist education goes like this: Two disciples walk into a monastery’s dining hall early one morning to find their teacher sitting quietly, eating his breakfast and reading the paper. Surprised, they confront him and ask him “But teacher, you always say ‘When eating, just eat! When reading, just read!’ What is this?” He smiles and looks at them and says “When eating and reading, just eat and read!”

Anyway, if you’ve read down to hear, thank you for your attention and letting me get some of these thoughts off of my chest.

Onward, Spring!

This is an Eastern Phoebe. And, I might add, one of the first decent pictures taken through my binoculars. Not exactly Audubon Calendar quality, but oh well.

It seems that every year there’s a new bird that I consider my official harbinger of Spring. More people are using bird feeders. The planet is warming up. Cities are growing, sprawling. And I’ve moved around a bit, myself, since I became a birdwatcher, from Northern Ohio to Southern Ohio to Northern Illinois back to Southern Ohio and east to coastal Massachusetts, and the bird life has changed each time.

Nonetheless, there seems to be a definite progression of birds staying longer, coming back sooner, staying farther north. Once upon a time the American Robin's arrival was a sure sign of Spring (though even that species had a few hardy overwintering individuals when I started birding in college). Then it was the turkey vulture, an easy spot from the highway as soon as they began drifting up with the warmer air. Then, for a number of years it was the Red-winged Blackbird. Their sudden, noisy arrival to any patch of freshwater, large or small, seemed to work like clockwork for mid-March. This year, however, I repeatedly saw a mid-sized flock of them during the depths of winter down at the Daniel Webster Wildlife Sanctuary. So they’re out, now, as my official sign of Spring (though they didn’t start their cacophonous chattering until mid-March as usual).

Last week I went out for a hike at the Broadmoor Audubon Sanctuary in Natick, my first such outing in probably a month, and as it was already late March by then, there were some new birds that hadn’t been around when I'd last been out. The most notable of these were the numerous Eastern Phoebes, singing and flycatching, flicking their tails and chasing each other in rambunctious pair-bonding exercises, lurking about by bridges and branches overhanging the water. They were in the fields, too, clinging to dry, yellowed and stiff stalks of last year's grass, fluttering to and fro as they picked off the early risers of the insect world (speaking of which, there were some beautiful butterflies about already).

Anyway, this year, I have designated the Eastern Phoebe my official harbinger of Spring.

Next year it will probably be the Keel-billed Toucan.

The Ramen Continuum

Mmmm, ramen.

There are many wonderful variations on the ‘noodles and broth’ theme throughout the world, all with their own tastes, textures and presentations. There's Vietnamese Pho, light and fragrant yet full of the rich flavor of beef and the crunch of bean sprouts. And Japanese Udon, thick and slippery, soft yet chewy. There's the classic Italian torellini in brodo, little soft navels of rich meat in egg pasta, gently simmered in an unadorned meat broth. Of course there’s chicken noodle soup, the childhood/sickbed favorite that even the most sophisticated palates rarely outgrow. And there's another Japanese noodle called Soba made from buckwheat flour, grainy and with a serious chew, often dipped in a side bowl of broth just to be different. There's a simple dish of rice noodles and broth that I had for breakfast in Thailand where the fun is in twirling the accompanying tray of condiments and deciding what to spice your breakfast up with (sliced thai chiles in fish sauce, please!)

There are many more still, enough that, if you live in a decent food city like I do (Boston) with a lot of different ethnic restaurants, you might find that you have a different favorite every few weeks or months that you exclusively dedicate yourself to. Vietnamese food was mostly new to me when I moved to Boston in 1999, and so when I discovered the wealth of Vietnamese restaurants in this city Pho duly occupied most of the part of my brain devoted to noodles in broth for a while. And of course I still love it and eat it a few times a year.

But it seems I always return to ramen eventually. What does ramen mean to you? For me, ramen means many things. I see myself sitting at Eli Kurtz’s kitchen table while in high school, eagerly slurping down 25 cent packages of Top Ramen, beef flavor. I remember eating oodles of the same stuff during college as it was cheap and quick. I remember slowly starting to develop myself as a cook during late college and after and experimenting with the basic packaged ramen recipe, adding steamed vegetables, spicy condiments, black mushrooms, eventually substituting my own (not entirely homemade) broths, or even just soy sauce and sesame oil instead of the little packages of caked MSG.

I remember seeing a memorable movie called Tampopo, probably my favorite movie about food . A young woman’s quest for the perfect ramen recipe to serve in her small restaurant is the core of this wonderful movie that mixes many different cinematic metaphors (western, gangster, Godard, slapstick), yet retains an easy and charismatic warmth as it experiments and cuts from one storyline to another.

My current appreciation is largely due to one of my favorite places to eat in all of Boston, Ken’s Ramen. It resides in a small space right next to the asian supermarket Super88 in Allston. It serves a few different styles – soy sauce, clear salt, miso, and a thicker, cloudier broth that I forget the name of. I usually have the soy sauce flavor. I think the different styles mostly refer to how they salt the broth, as all of them except the miso are clearly meat broths.

The broth, of course, is the key to superior ramen, as it is to most soups around the world. Ken’s is light yet rich, with great depth of flavor, never overwhelming the springy texture and eggy taste of the crinkled noodles, the soft greenery of chopped spinach or the butter-soft slices of pork belly that lie atop the carefully swirled noodles. The briny, musty crunch of pickled bamboo shoots provide the requisite sharp contrast to rest of the comforting ingredients.

Still, I feel that there are two places in the ramen continuum that I have yet to visit, two places I need to go to fully understand and appreciate ramen. Number one is to experience ramen in Japan. To see what rises to the top in a culture devoted to this humble noodle of Chinese extraction, and to see the grand spectrum of styles and recipes in a place where every corner has its own humble (or not so humble) shop dishing it out to hungry people. Number two would be, of course, to make the real stuff myself. But how far to really go in this venture? Would I really make the noodles from scratch? Is that even possible in a home kitchen? Would making a real ramen broth from scratch be enough? Is this a stupid idea anyway? I don’t think ramen is made at home in Japan except from the little packages- the real stuff is for eating out. But still, I'm probably influenced by the romance of the movies, but it seems like a great adventure.

Anyway, here’s to ramen!