Omphalos, Day 1

Posted on by Dale

Today I began construction of the bowl which will form the center of the labyrinth, its omphalos.

Here’s the center as it stands now:

The bowl in the center at the moment was given to me by Ginny for Christmas. I use it for different kinds of almost rituals: washing the granite center pieces, that kind of thing. The bowl I am building will be permanently installed beneath the granite and bricks.

It will have a relatively flat bottom with a hole in it. Thus, water will drain from it (and yes, I’m planning on digging a deepish hole and filling it with gravel to serve as a drain beneath the bowl), but I can plug it to fill it if I wish. If I’d rather have fire than water, I can place a tray with candles in it–or just candles.

If I get really good, I’ll have candles beneath the water.

Anyway, I started work on that today. Andy Cunningham, Jr., the head of our art department, is a patient and effective teacher. I am using the coil method to build this thing. Here are the first three coils:

I include the water bottle for scale.

Ah, but perhaps you’ve spotted a potential gremlin: the rim of the bowl cannot be flat. There are bricks which will cut through the rim and jut out over the bowl.

And lo! I remembered that and did a rubbing of the center before I came down here:

That’s how I knew how big to make the bowl, and where to cut the channels. (The granite was supposed to have been cut at 90° angles, but my eye tells me clearly that it was not.)

Andy let me use the extruder, much to the disgust of the art minors, who were made to roll their own coils. Hence, by the end of the afternoon, I was done with the basic construction:

That sits overnight to dry a bit and firm up. Tomorrow we’ll flip it over and let gravity do the flattening of the bottom.

The floor is now open for discussion of what the inside of the bowl should look like.

24 hour challenge #11

Posted on by Dale

bumped from 6/5/09

Betty sends 4-365-12:

Small birds roost secure in the rhododendron thickets
By the walk to the locked garden

That seems very pretty, although it comes from a poem called “Burning of a House,” by Thomas Henn, ll. 10-11.

[If you’re just joining us, here are the instructions for the 24 hour challenge, as well as previous efforts.]

update: I’m calling a hiatus. The weather is gorgeous, and I need to spend as much time in my back yard as I can in the two days left to me at home. I’ll get back to this piece early next week, maybe.

further update: I ran into Betty Smith on the Square this morning, and she confessed that she was disappointed in her text selection. She was hoping for something serious and dark. So out goes the little I had worked on, and I’ll start over. Serious and dark it shall be!

6/21/09, 10:25 am

OK, you’re just going to have to trust me that I’ve finished this one, only three and a half weeks after I was supposed to post it. I have an excuse: after I got to Valdosta, I simply have had no time to sit down and work on anything like this. You will have noticed that I have blogged only once since getting down here, and that was simply to announce the cancellation of “Milky Way.”

And now it seems that my FTP server is blocking me, since I’m coming from behind VSU’s overzealous firewall. I’m waiting for it to be unblocked, and then I can post the results. It’s in the same vein as “Atlantic Beats,” if that’s any help.

finally:

24 hour challenge #11, “Locked Garden,” for Betty: score [pdf], performance [mp3], bassoon [mp3]

No performance at this point; I’ll have to do that in the morning when no one else is in the dorm.

Confession

Posted on by Dale

I have a confession. I have egregiously sinned against my resolution not to buy anything. Well, in my defense, it is June, not that I have been perfect since January, far from it, actually, but this purchase today was the kind of egregious purchase I had sworn off.

Actually, the table easel-cum-paint-storage was also of the egregious variety. And all the boards to paint on, which I haven’t done yet because I’ve successfully distracted myself with the 24 hour challenge, those fit into that category as well.

But the downloads of Zoe Keating‘s two albums I will defend against all comers, and those who have heard this sorceress, entheogenically or otherwise, will agree.

Anyway. Today we all went to the Renaissance Festival and you can snicker if you like. The people-watching alone was worth it. Should have worn the Utilikilt for real. There was a booth of handmade journals, and we all know how much a sucker I am for journals. I’m not at all convinced these were handmade by the guy in the booth. He had a workstation all set up, and there was leather strewn about and all the tools of the trade, but I am not such a fool as to believe these were the real deal, especially since I have bought identical journals in other locales.

So, I bought this:

I included my hand in the photo for scale, because my first photo of it gave no sense of how large it is.

And it’s large. It’s a whacking great thing. Its size was part of its allure for me, as was the paper, which seemed less fibrous than the other, slightly less expensive journal I was also drawn to. I like writing in these with my fountain pen(s), but the really fibrous paper just sucks up the ink and bleeds.

I also liked this one because the paper is bound in a single signature rather than the four or five in the other one.

You can imagine what this cost. It’s not something I’m proud of, spending that kind of money on something so completely unnecessary in my life at this point, but something told me to buy it. I have learned not to ignore these somethings.

What will I do with it? I don’t know. I already have a journal in which I recorded all my Marriage of Figaro stuff, and another for the continuing adventures of William Blake’s Inn (which I need to drag out and update). I even had one that I started for generic creative endeavors, which does not include a lot.

Those are all of the handmade variety. I have a couple of commercial ones for other purposes, including one for all my Lacuna Group work and one for my sketches for the Epic Licthenbergian Portrait.

But this one? I don’t really know.

That’s a lie. I know what I want to do with it. I want to write a book called A Perfect Life. I want to document my life in general and in particular. I have a phenomenal life, one that by any standard on this planet is enviable. I am materially comfortable, my environment is great, my family and friends are wonderful, and I am intellectually and creatively alive. That’s what I want to do. Whether I will cast it as a journal, or essay, or fiction, I don’t know.

But I do feel compelled to start telling what it was like to live in this time, in this place.

Hey, if nothing else, it will serve as a distraction to both my music and my art.

24 hour challenge #10

Posted on by Dale

from Peter, 2-1025-16:

beneath that unique sun that steadily bled

That’s l. 10 from Pier Paolo Pasolini’s “A Desperate Vitality.”

[If you’re just joining us, here are the instructions for the 24 hour challenge, as well as previous efforts.]

6/4/09, 4:29 pm

24 hour challenge #10, “That Unique Sun,” for Peter: score [pdf], performance [mp3], bassoon [mp3]

In honor of Peter, I’ve included a French horn with the string quartet. However, this one is so pretentious that he may not appreciate it. It makes me laugh. Actually, as these atonal things go, the music isn’t bad. Listen to the bassoon version first, without the voice.

I could probably go back in and do more interesting things with the voice, whisper the words just below hearing/understanding, more fragments. That might make it better. Then again, it might not.

Taking deep breaths

Posted on by Dale

Everybody take a deep breath.

On Sunday, July 26, at 3:00, at the Centre for Performing and Visual Arts, the Hangzhou Youth Orchestra, on tour from China, will give the world premiere performance of “Blake Leads a Walk on the Milky Way.”

This will follow a performance at the Rialto Center for the Arts in Atlanta the day before.

Holy cow.

What makes this really interesting is that it’s on traditional Chinese instruments, so I have no clue as to what it will actually sound like.

Still.

Deep breaths.

Again.

24 hour challenge #9

Posted on by Dale

From Aditya, who may still be in India, comes 4-642-10:

Listen! Where Atlantic beats
Shores of snow and summer heats…

That’s ll. 21-22 from Bret Harte’s “What the Engines Said.”

[If you’re just joining us, here are the instructions for the 24 hour challenge, as well as previous efforts.]

6/03/09, 1:05 pm

24 hour challenge #9, “Atlantic Beats,” for Aditya: score [pdf], performance [mp3], bassoon [mp3]

OK, Adi, we’re even. This is good stuff. Harte’s original poem was about transcontinental trains, but clearly I’ve set this as some kind of sea chanty. I think it has some beautiful harmonies in it, and the recombination of earlier measures once the voice enters is striking.

pre-GHP time

Posted on by Dale

It is now that time of year with me that makes me very anxious: the week before I leave for GHP.

My anxiety is based largely on the idea that time is running out, that I have a limited number of days to “get things done.” A corollary anxiety is the idea that I have to make sure that I know what those “things” are that need to “get done.” A third anxiety is the fear that I will identify a “thing” that I cannot get done before I leave, like a doctor’s appointment or something like that.

I have to think about tidying up my presence here in Newnan, picking up stuff around the house and putting it away. Getting my study in some kind of order. Deciding what stuff I take with me: music? drawing? painting? What do I leave behind?

What needs fixing around here that I need to get to? (For example, yesterday I found our yard guy kneeling over the lawnmower, trying to put a wheel back on. How does he do these things?? I just told him to leave it. So now fixing that is a thing that needs to get done.)

What kind of social items do I need to take care of? I need to go see Lucky Stiff at the theatre this afternoon, plus make a cheesecake to take to the faculty “meeting” tomorrow. How many family meals do I need to plan to cook, which something I love doing and will miss all summer? Is there an evening for the Lichtenbergians to gather one more time? There’s a Shubian shoot on Thursday night.

Haircut? Check. Prescriptions? Semi-check. Laundry? Anything I wear all week has to be laundered before I leave. I have been known to drive into Valdosta with dirty clothes. Things I can wash: have I made time to wash them?

Is there time to go see the Monet waterlilies exhibit at the High on Sunday and still get everything packed? How will the arrival of the child’s girlfriend and her roommate on Saturday impact all of the above?

I have a database that tells me what to pack, so I don’t worry about forgetting something essential. Every year I try to take less. But you can whittle the essentials only so far and you still have a van full of plastic storage tubs. Then you start adding stuff that’s not on the database list, like the books I want to read, or the poetry books for the 24 hour challenge.

I’ve decided not to take my paints, but I will take my sketchbook and pencils. Do I take my drawing books? That’s another small load right there.

Things are a little extra complicated this year. For the first time, I have the labyrinth. I have to make sure that it’s taken care of for the summer. (I’m paying the child to maintain it.)

GHP itself has complicated the run-up period, in that I have to redesign a small sheaf of documents before I get there next week, so that time has to be figured in.

And you can tell how rattled I am by all of this just by looking at how disjointed this post is. I don’t know that writing it all down has assuaged any of my anxiety at all. I need to go make a cheesecake.

24 hour challenge #8

Posted on by Dale

From Jobie, 1-11-18:

The woods shall to me answer, and my Eccho ring.

As stated previously, this is from Spenser’s “Epithalamion.”

[If you’re just joining us, here are the instructions for the 24 hour challenge, as well as previous efforts.]

5/28/09, 8:40 pm

24 hour challenge #8, “My Eccho Ring,” for Jobie: score [pdf], performance [mp3], bassoon [mp3]

This was interesting. I started out with a string quartet doing something completely different, and then when I was getting to the point of figuring out how it was setting the text, I decided to try something different and start over with the piano.

The start is marked ppp, so you may have trouble hearing it.

This is interesting to me, because I’m not sure I’ve set the text, but the music is interesting, and I’m getting a mildly sadistic thrill to throw something up that is so clearly a fragment and so very, very undeveloped. You can just hear the potential just bleeding from the score.

In other news, I went back and recorded the vocal performance for #6 and #7. They are exactly as you expect.

In other other news, I will not be putting up #9 today, because I will be celebrating the end of school tomorrow night and I know I will not be composing anything for the next 24 hours. Perhaps Sunday.

24 hour challenge #7 (and #8)

Posted on by Dale

This is interesting in a problematic kind of way:

Craig, in his never-ending search to crank it all the way up, sent 11-11-11. Since the first range of the first number is 1-5, it cycles back to 1.

So then right on his heels, Jobie sent me 1-11-18. See what they did there? They’ve put me within 10 lines of each other in the same poem.

Even more interestingly, that poem is Edmund Spenser’s “Epithalamion.”

It’s all about choices, innit? Do I treat them both as being from the same piece? Do I set them separately? Do I further explore the wedding song idea, and do I rip off the Renaissance again? It’s a puzzle.

On top of that, my time is actually booked tonight and tomorrow night, although I should have enough to squeeze out something. We’ll see. Midnight tomorrow is a long time away.

One thing at a time:

And teach the woods and waters to lament
Your dolefull dreriment

…which is lines 10-11 of the poem. We’ll think about line 18 another day.

[If you’re just joining us, here are the instructions for the 24 hour challenge, as well as previous efforts.]

5/27/09, 7:36 am

Another early morning post, so no vocal rendition yet. I’ll get this one and #6 this afternoon.

24 hour challenge #7, “Your Dolefull Dreriment,” for Craig: score [pdf], performance [mp3], bassoon [mp3]

This is a prime example of what I like to call “cheating through orchestration.” The accompaniment is so far from interesting that I’m willing to bet my lottery earnings that we can find its exact chord progression in half a dozen Baroque pieces. (Certainly the passacaglia-like structure is Baroque.) But hand it over to a plucked bass and vibraphone, and suddenly it’s self-aware and all cool and stuff. I’m OK with that. One thing I’m learning from this experiment is that it’s perfectly fine to take the easy way out. If these were real pieces, I would go back and tinker with them to make them interesting, but as it is, I’m learning to just spit it out without regard to quality.