July 21, 2008
Peaceful paddle
…listen
…about the musicVery.
Greetings to all, and here’s to a great week ahead. With this special view, mine started yesterday (for those who think of the week beginning on Sunday. I’m of the Monday camp, myself). I kayaked out to what I gratefully refer to as my front yard, Turn Island, a wildlife refuge just steps and a few paddle strokes from my house. Above is a lovely succession of immersed kelp, a temporarily un-immersed outcropping, and a nearby atoll, as seen from Turn’s northwest shoreline.
The air really smells like… air!… here, and the visuals in all directions are overwhelmingly distracting. Up: island after island, a dormant glacial ice-covered volcano, and a constantly shifting water surface on which some of the strongest currents in the world wreak havoc, stop, and then begin again. Down: clarity so stunning that you can’t help but stare into the depths as you silently glide over rocks and creatures on the sea floor. And for those who think the Pacific Northwest is only about clouds, take a gander at the solid blue. No color correction, folks.
Gilligan would have loved it here.
Headed over to Turn. Mt. Baker is on the right, and in “real life” looms about four times larger and very bright white. I am a mere amateur photog… but remember what you paid to read this blog 🙂
Landed!
Ahhh…. a view out to the southeast and a couple of tiny private islands, with the snow-capped Olympic mountains (which my camera did not manage to capture) in the far distance toward the right.
Groves of treasured Pacific Madrone, aka Arbutus trees, frame the view out to Lopez Island.
If this isn’t enough to inspire more music as I finish my upcoming CD, Alextronica, I don’t know what is. The hardest part is making myself stay indoors in my studio! All those years in sunny So Cal meant taking glorious weather for granted, knowing you could get out any day you wanted. Up here, there’s a definite summer season. My temperament has always been one of seizing the moment and not letting opportunities slip by. So maybe my work will just go a tad slower than I had anticipated for the next couple of months, as I take full advantage of why I moved up here in the first place. Carpe Kayakum!
Glenn Buttkus said,
July 22, 2008 @ 5:02 am
“Carpe Kayakum” indeed. Wow, what a day you had there in your wet front yard–and thanks so much for sharing. The plethora of pics really puts us there with you. That and your wonderful descriptions of your senses. On days like this one, it seems Nature herself is playing you as an instrument, and the colors and vibrations that filter down through you, are you, in totality. Like a writer who sees floating pianos in the clouds, and can feel rapture as the sky cuts its own throat at day’s end, you are the consumate appreciator of your environment, and the intensity of your vibrational energy transfers to your heart first, and then your music.
Peaceful Paddle
I kayaked out
to what I gratefully refer to
as my front yard,
Turn Island;
a wildlife refuge
just steps
and a few paddle strokes
from my house.
The air really smells like…
air!
here,
and the visuals
in all directions
are overwhelmingly distracting.
Up:
island after island,
a dormant glacial ice-covered volcano,
and a constantly shifting
water surface
on which
some of the strongest currents
in the world
wreak havoc,
stop,
and then begin again.
Down:
clarity so stunning
that you can’t help but stare
into the depths
as you silently glide
over rocks and creatures
on the sea floor.
And for those who think
the Pacific Northwest
is only about clouds,
take a gander at the solid blue.
No color correction, folks.
Gilligan would have loved it
here.
Alex Shapiro July 2008
Your musical clip, your tribute to ecology and trageday and alacrity, AbyssReflect@ 2:13 minutes is stunning. The vibraphone interludes set my teeth on edge, as I peer into the darkness that yawns in front of us, and the sad piano tells the tale of woe, of 9/11, of the Bush Wars, or 4 buck gas. This is a gem plucked from your masterpiece AT THE ABYSS, award-winning, lauded, applauded. I adore what Kevin Sutton said, “Well constructed, and full of interesting sounds. The work reminded me of the more creative film scores that I have heard. This is music that conjures images in the mind, and the joy of it all is that those images will vary from listener to listener.” Well said, Kevin. It is probably why I dig your music and philosophy so much. All of your music is “visual”, and most of it sounds like some kind of film score to me–and since my life revolves around films, poetry, writing, and metaphysics–you have established a niche in each of my days that compliments and challenges me supremely.
Glenn
Glenn Buttkus said,
July 23, 2008 @ 6:14 am
I posted some quotes by Friedrich Nietzche this morning on FFTR.
“In music, the passions enjoy themselves.”
“Without music, life would be a mistake.”
“We have art in order not to die of the truth.”
and one of my favorites:
“One must have chaos in oneself to be able to give birth to a dancing star.”
and one for Alex and her view of the Abyss:
“If you gaze long into the abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you.”
And that, kelphistos, concludes the Philosophy lesson for this morning.
Glenn