{"id":1867,"date":"2011-11-23T00:01:55","date_gmt":"2011-11-23T08:01:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.alexshapiro.org\/blog\/?p=1867"},"modified":"2011-11-26T09:49:24","modified_gmt":"2011-11-26T17:49:24","slug":"island-grrl","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.alexshapiro.org\/blog\/?p=1867","title":{"rendered":"Island Grrl"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"\/blog\/blogpix\/sanjuans.jpg\" width=\"400\" height=\"208\" alt=\"[IMAGE] San Juan Islands\" \/><\/p>\n<p><font color=#4F4E81>&#8230;click to listen:<\/font><\/a><br \/>\n<a href=\"\/RealAudio\/Archipelago_clip_early.mp3\" style=\"text-decoration:none\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"\/Archipelagopg1.html\" style=\"text-decoration:none\" target=\"_blank\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"\/blog\/blogpix\/moregn.jpg\"\/><font color=#4F4E81>&#8230;about the music<\/font><\/a><\/p>\n<p><i><font color=#346513>I really don&#8217;t mind traveling atoll.<\/font><\/i><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/twitter.com\/share\" class=\"twitter-share-button\" data-count=\"none\" data-via=\"alex_shapiro\">Tweet<\/a><script type=\"text\/javascript\" src=\"http:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>Home, pictured above.<br \/>\nI&#8217;ve just returned from the umpteenth of what seems like umpteen business trips in the past three months. I&#8217;m thrilled to be staying put in my house, surrounded by a big moat for a whopping two weeks in a row, before hurtling myself eastward once again. I&#8217;m curious to find out whether my brain will properly function at sea level rather than at 39,000 feet, an altitude at which I&#8217;ve been quite productive recently. I&#8217;m a Gold Medallion member of the Mile High Composing and Email Correspondence Club. <\/p>\n<p>This past trip was unusual, in that after I returned home, it occurred to me that I&#8217;d just been on six islands in three days. That even outdoes the standard American tourist cruise ship &#8220;a different Caribbean island every day&#8221; jaunt. You know, the vacation that gives folks wearing way too much plaid and polyester a quick brush of delusion with what they&#8217;d like to believe the local culture is on a given island, from fleeting impressions gathered between the exact hours from 8 a.m. and 5 p.m. By 5:30 p.m., Joe and Martha Tchotchke Collector better be back on the vessel, or it&#8217;ll sail away without them and their straw hats, refrigerator magnets and bottles of rum. I know this firsthand, from my amazingly cool gig this past January as composer-in-floatation on the  <a href=\"http:\/\/www.alexshapiro.org\/blog\/?p=630\" style=\"text-decoration:none\" target=\"_blank\"><b>Symphonic Voyages <\/b><\/a>  inaugural classical music cruise, which included five islands in five days and five opportunities for me to get so blissed out snorkeling or sailing or wandering around that I could have easily missed the boat. As it is, I already miss the boat, in the metaphorical sense, often enough. Doing so in front of 2500 people, a few of whom might have seen me emcee concerts with my music the evenings before, could have been more than just a little embarrassing. Phew.<\/p>\n<p>So, my most recent itinerary included:<\/p>\n<p>Manhattan Island (on which various meetings and friends were located)<br \/>\nLong Island (on which the borough of Brooklyn is located, in which the venue for my latest premiere,  <a href=\"http:\/\/www.alexshapiro.org\/Sparkpg1.html\" style=\"text-decoration:none\" target=\"_blank\"><b>Spark <\/b><\/a>was located)<br \/>\nVashon Island (on which a chamber music series performing my <a href=\"http:\/\/www.alexshapiro.org\/IntermezzoforCelloandPnopg1.html\" style=\"text-decoration:none\" target=\"_blank\"><b>Intermezzo <\/b><\/a>was located)<br \/>\nFidalgo Island (on which the town of Anacortes is located, which is where the ferry landing for the San Juans is located)<br \/>\nOrcas Island (on which some wonderful furniture I snagged for a song, and good friends with whom I lunched, are located)<br \/>\nSan Juan Island (on which I am now located for fourteen days until my next temporary dislocation)<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"\/blog\/blogpix\/manhattanandhudson.jpg\" width=\"400\" height=\"401\" alt=\"[IMAGE] Manhattan Island\" \/><br \/>\n<em>Ok, this is not a great photo but it&#8217;s the best I could do early Friday morning. Looking south, the notable body of water is the Hudson River, and since I was lucky to be on a plane that did not need to make an emergency landing on it (go, Sully!), thus leaving my hands free from juggling life preservers, I was able to snap this pic of my original island home, Manhattan, with Brooklyn in view on the other side of the East River, at the foot of Long Island. <\/em><br \/>\n<span style=\"clear: both;\"><br \/><\/span><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"\/blog\/blogpix\/vashon-seattle.jpg\" width=\"400\" height=\"234\" alt=\"[IMAGE] Vashon Island\" \/><br \/>\n<em>Vashon Island is to the immediate south of Seattle, floating quietly and not making a sound on the Puget Sound, except for some of the sounds my music and that of Martinu, Mozart and Schumann made Friday night.<\/em><br \/>\n<span style=\"clear: both;\"><br \/><\/span><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"\/blog\/blogpix\/ferry-fidalgo.jpg\" width=\"400\" height=\"300\" alt=\"[IMAGE] Fidalgo Island\" \/><br \/>\n<em>Here&#8217;s what I see, if I&#8217;m awake (I love sleeping in my car on this ferry), when we dock at Anacortes, on Fidalgo Island, which is the gateway to what we Islanders refer to as &#8220;America.&#8221; <\/em><br \/>\n<span style=\"clear: both;\"><br \/><\/span><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"\/blog\/blogpix\/turtleback.jpg\" width=\"400\" height=\"255\" alt=\"[IMAGE] Turtleback Mountain\" \/><br \/>\n<em>I bet you can&#8217;t imagine why this mountain on the west side of Orcas Island is named, &#8220;Turtleback.&#8221; <\/em><br \/>\n<span style=\"clear: both;\"><br \/><\/span><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"\/blog\/blogpix\/ferryislands.jpg\" width=\"400\" height=\"300\" alt=\"[IMAGE] Orcas Island\" \/><br \/>\n<em>This is a typical scene from the ferry to Orcas and other islands. That&#8217;s my car, in the very front&#8211; woot! Best view, ever! Waking up in the middle of bustling Manhattan and ending the afternoon here is, in a word, surreal. And in two words: friggin&#8217; awesome. <\/em><br \/>\n<span style=\"clear: both;\"><br \/><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8230;click to listen: &#8230;about the music I really don&#8217;t mind traveling atoll. Tweet Home, pictured above. I&#8217;ve just returned from the umpteenth of what seems like umpteen business trips in the past three months. I&#8217;m thrilled to be staying put in my house, surrounded by a big moat for a whopping two weeks in a [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1867","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-musings"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alexshapiro.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1867"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alexshapiro.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alexshapiro.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alexshapiro.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alexshapiro.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1867"}],"version-history":[{"count":20,"href":"https:\/\/www.alexshapiro.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1867\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1897,"href":"https:\/\/www.alexshapiro.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1867\/revisions\/1897"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alexshapiro.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1867"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alexshapiro.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1867"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alexshapiro.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1867"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}