Archive for August, 2010

A moment from my day, while sitting at my desk

Monday, August 30th, 2010

[IMAGE] Bald eagle

“Hey you! Cool lookin’ eagle-dude over there! Your fly is open!”

[IMAGE] Bald eagle

[IMAGE] Bald eagle

That was SO not funny.
Dumb human…

…click to listen:

…about the music

Don’t mess with nature. Especially when it has a sharp beak and even sharper talons…

[IMAGE] Bald eagle

[IMAGE] Bald eagle

“Uh oh…. uh, sorry… um… wait! I didn’t mean it… I was just kidding!… ack!… composers really don’t taste that great… all those sour notes… help!… HELP!… aaaaacccckkk!…”

Found art

Wednesday, August 25th, 2010

[IMAGE] beached log

[IMAGE] beached branch

…click to listen:

…about the music

Found, even if lost.

I grew up in Manhattan, and thanks to being plain dumb lucky enough to be born to parents who loved art, I spent more time than most kids you’ve met absorbing the contents of some of the world’s greatest museums. I lived walking distance from most of them, and practically lived in them: The Metropolitan. The Guggenheim. The Museum of Modern Art. The Frick. The Whitney. I had to take the subway down to the then-just burgeoning SoHo district and its mind-bendingly alternative galleries, and I grabbed the crosstown bus to my two Westside favorites, the Museum of Natural History, and the Hayden Planetarium. I’m certain that my deep interest in amateur astronomy stems from all those afternoons I spent enraptured, staring up at the ceiling with its swirling display of little lights that showed me something I never once saw as a city kid: the night sky.

[IMAGE] beached rock

As an art-immersed adult, I still find that my favorite installations come not from the intention and brilliance of a human, but from the random, insouciant forces of nature. If I weren’t a musician, in addition to my fantasy-career of being a marine biologist, I think I’d love to be an artist photographer, out in the elements every day, capturing the stuff that the Universe provides effortlessly, and that humans, no matter how gifted, can only hope to mimic. I’ve been fortunate to experience so, so, so many Things Put in Specific Places (aka, “art”) on the formal, polished floors of Designated Observation Sites (aka, “museums”). And still, always, it’s the serendipity of an unschooled, un-hip, unselfconscious power greater than me or even the coolest person I know, that gets my attention and my heart.

[IMAGE] beached driftwood

Someday, when I’m not so busy scribbling all these musical notes, I’ll learn what to actually do with a lens in front of my nose. For now, I’m shamelessly happy to offer several years’ worth of snapshots on this little, watery blog, because they serve to share with you all the art that I find compelling in my daily life. And hey, like a dog dancing on its hind legs, no one expects me to do this well, and so the fact that I do it at all becomes tolerable, and maybe even amusing. Well, at least, I’m keeping myself amused!

When I am an old woman I shall wear purple

Saturday, August 21st, 2010

[IMAGE] sea star

…click to listen:

…about the music

From the depth.

And perhaps I too shall sleep
spent
happily exhausted from life
my body
splayed atop rocks and memories
of where saltwater ran
and tides crawled
a sprig of kelp
glombed
to my thigh like an eager lover
and you to my psyche
imprinted
washed
ashore by the push of the unseen
restful
and at peace.

Moon shot

Tuesday, August 10th, 2010

[IMAGE] moon jelly

…click to listen:

…about the music

Music from another planet.

This is actually an x-rated photo and should be immediately censored.
We are looking at this moon jelly’s gonads.
And they are oh, so beautiful!

Now, comment-prone readers: behave yourselves.

All wet

Sunday, August 8th, 2010

[IMAGE] dry bald eagle

…click to listen:

…about the music

Proud?

Sometimes the subject in one’s lens is far more wonderful than the technical abilities of the fool behind it, and my posting today is a fine example. If ya want slightly better bald eagle shots, try this earlier entry. Regardless, I offer these pics, taken in a rare moment of ingenuity as I precariously held my camera tight up against the eyepiece of my telescope, only because they made me laugh. To wit: yesterday this island enjoyed, and I do mean enjoyed, the first rain we’ve had in well over a month. Contrary to popular myth, it actually does not rain cats and dogs here, nor even mice and gerbils (shhh! don’t tell anyone!). In fact, no mammals fall from the sky in the San Juans, period (unless you are these folks, who miraculously survived their harrowing experience in the woods, which occurred very close to where I’m typing this).

So when an unexpected mid-summer shower comes along, the dry grasses and the even drier people get a blast of invigorating negative ions that just feels great against the warmish air. Well, great to us. I’m not convinced this fellow shared our glee:

[IMAGE] wet bald eagle

To go from being the nation’s most distinguished and imposing icon, to, well… this kind of indignant embarrassment… sigh… well, we all have bad hair days, don’t we?

Size 6 1/2…

Monday, August 2nd, 2010

[IMAGE] sunset

…click to listen:

…about the music

Jam for toes.

…but actually, one size fits all.
Greetings from this evening, on the Salish Sea.