{"id":1981,"date":"2012-01-22T21:40:50","date_gmt":"2012-01-23T05:40:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.alexshapiro.org\/blog\/?p=1981"},"modified":"2012-01-29T17:52:59","modified_gmt":"2012-01-30T01:52:59","slug":"anti-climatic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.alexshapiro.org\/blog\/?p=1981","title":{"rendered":"Anti-climatic"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"\/blog\/blogpix\/napilishore.jpg\" width=\"400\" height=\"300\" alt=\"[IMAGE] Maui horizon\" \/><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"\/blog\/blogpix\/snowycove.jpg\" width=\"400\" height=\"281\" alt=\"[IMAGE] San Juan Island horizon\" \/><\/p>\n<p><font color=#4F4E81>&#8230;click to listen:<\/font><\/a><br \/>\n<a href=\"\/RealAudio\/Beneath-excerpt1.mp3\" style=\"text-decoration:none\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"\/Immersionpg1.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>Maui in the sunshine, San Juan Island in the snow.<\/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>Well, since New Year&#8217;s I&#8217;ve been in two equally gorgeous, and very climatically contrasting island environments. I giddily celebrated the completion of my 50th dizzying rotation around our Sun on the sunny isle of Maui, and returned a week later to the unusual experience of inches of cold white stuff on the otherwise often-sunny isle of San Juan. One of the many reasons I love living here is that the winter temps mostly hover in the mid-40&#8217;s. So it&#8217;s a big deal when snow arrives&#8211; especially many inches of it that stick around for two or three days before being melted away by the return to temperate normalcy.<\/p>\n<p> It&#8217;s hard to decide which climate to feature first, so I think I&#8217;ll juxtapose some recent photos in a weird, blog-of-consciousness stream of pixels. Some of these pix have appeared <a href=\"http:\/\/www.facebook.com\/alexshapiro\" target=\"_blank\"><b>elsewhere,  <\/b><\/a>but that &#8220;elsewhere&#8221; reaches a slightly different crowd, the majority of whom are also music-makers.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"\/blog\/blogpix\/gecko2.jpg\" width=\"400\" height=\"452\" alt=\"[IMAGE] bathroom gecko\" \/><br \/>\n<span style=\"clear: both;\"><br \/><\/span><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"\/blog\/blogpix\/redwinterfox.jpg\" width=\"400\" height=\"341\" alt=\"[IMAGE] winter fox\" \/><br \/>\n<span style=\"clear: both;\"><br \/><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Indeed, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.facebook.com\/alexshapiro\" target=\"_blank\"><b>my Facebook page <\/b><\/a> gets a lot of the attention from me these days, for short-form offerings. Longer than a 140-character tweet (where the heck did they come up with THAT number?), but shorter than a blog post, it&#8217;s a handy dandy communication tool for the attention-starved, multimedia-inclined (yep, that&#8217;s me). Photos, links and videos are a quick and effective way to say two things: 1. <em>I have a pulse<\/em> (yes, Facebook is a Narcissist&#8217;s dream come true) and 2. <em>I actually think you&#8217;ll like something I like<\/em> (ok, there are lots of Narcissists on Facebook who don&#8217;t really seem to care about #2, but I don&#8217;t include myself among them, of course. I mean, really: doesn&#8217;t <em>everyone<\/em> like what I like??). <\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"\/blog\/blogpix\/mauireef.jpg\" width=\"400\" height=\"300\" alt=\"[IMAGE] Maui coral reef\" \/><br \/>\n<em>Clustering under the Maui ocean<\/em><br \/>\n<span style=\"clear: both;\"><br \/><\/span><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"\/blog\/blogpix\/gullduo.jpg\" width=\"400\" height=\"275\" alt=\"[IMAGE] SJI gulls in the snow\" \/><br \/>\n<em>Hovering beside the [temporarily snowy] Salish Sea.<\/em><br \/>\n<span style=\"clear: both;\"><br \/><\/span><\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;ve rarely got anything lengthy to say within the cocktail-party e-walls of social media. The format is geared far more toward &#8220;immediate gratification tribal interaction,&#8221; rather than intellectual pithiness and emotional gravitas. But with more than just a few handfuls of e-friends (my last count was nearing 2500; I better send out for more wine and hors d&#8217;oeuvres)&#8211; many hundreds of whom I actually know in &#8220;real&#8221; life (this is a delightful-but-shocking realization)&#8211; that instant, happy feedback is an addictive drug. I&#8217;m the gerbil who keeps hitting the sugar water bar in the cage, delighted when my tapping results in what I crave. Connection. So sweet.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"\/blog\/blogpix\/maui_breakfast.jpg\" width=\"400\" height=\"265\" alt=\"[IMAGE] breakfast\" \/><br \/>\n<em>Sweet indeed: fresh papaya, pineapple, apple bananas and yogurt&#8230; plus coffee and connectivity. Absolute perfection in front of the crashing waves of Hana Beach.<\/em><br \/>\n<span style=\"clear: both;\"><br \/><\/span><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"\/blog\/blogpix\/asphotoginginsnow400.jpg\" width=\"400\" height=\"346\" alt=\"[IMAGE] snow-photo safari\" \/><br \/>\n<em>Cold, indeed: fresh snow, and not a piece of fruit in sight&#8230; plus coat and camera. Absolute contrasting perfection, just a day later, on the slope of San Juan Island&#8217;s Mt. Dallas. <\/em><br \/>\n<span style=\"clear: both;\"><br \/><\/span><\/p>\n<p>So I use the stickiness&#8230;<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"\/blog\/blogpix\/geckotile.jpg\" width=\"400\" height=\"264\" alt=\"[IMAGE] gecko\" \/><br \/>\n<em>I was disappointed that he didn&#8217;t have a Cockney accent. But, we were in Hawaii, after all.<\/em><br \/>\n<span style=\"clear: both;\"><br \/><\/span><\/p>\n<p> of the web&#8230;<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"\/blog\/blogpix\/mauispider.jpg\" width=\"400\" height=\"337\" alt=\"[IMAGE] Maui argiope\" \/><br \/>\n<em>This beauty was about four inches long!<\/em><br \/>\n<span style=\"clear: both;\"><br \/><\/span><\/p>\n<p>&#8230;to get others to stick to me. At least for a moment, as I share instances, usually non-musical:<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"\/blog\/blogpix\/alexsnorkelingmaui400.jpg\" width=\"400\" height=\"300\" alt=\"[IMAGE] snorkeling\" \/><br \/>\n<em>Ah, to be immersed in warm water!<\/em><br \/>\n<span style=\"clear: both;\"><br \/><\/span><\/p>\n<p>&#8230;that matter to me, and perhaps even entertain others:<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"\/blog\/blogpix\/mauieel.jpg\" width=\"400\" height=\"277\" alt=\"[IMAGE] whitemouth moray eel\" \/><br \/>\n<em>A whitemouth moray eel! Kewl!<\/em><br \/>\n<span style=\"clear: both;\"><br \/><\/span><\/p>\n<p>And this, in turn, shows others where my music actually comes from.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"\/blog\/blogpix\/snowfog_above_sea.jpg\" width=\"400\" height=\"266\" alt=\"[IMAGE] snow fog on the sea\" \/><br \/>\n<em>As seen from my desk upon return: sea temperature: 46 degrees. Air temperature: 21 degrees. The result: a magical, unusual sea fog.<\/em><br \/>\n<span style=\"clear: both;\"><br \/><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Leaving an exquisitely beautiful place&#8230;<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"\/blog\/blogpix\/leavingmaui.jpg\" width=\"400\" height=\"323\" alt=\"[IMAGE] leaving Maui\" \/><br \/>\n<span style=\"clear: both;\"><br \/><\/span><\/p>\n<p>&#8230;only made me appreciate the one in which  I live even more. <\/p>\n<p>Here&#8217;s to another 50 years of precious awe.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"\/blog\/blogpix\/eagleflightcove.jpg\" width=\"400\" height=\"229\" alt=\"[IMAGE] flying home\" \/><br \/>\n<span style=\"clear: both;\"><br \/><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8230;click to listen: &#8230;about the music Maui in the sunshine, San Juan Island in the snow. Tweet Well, since New Year&#8217;s I&#8217;ve been in two equally gorgeous, and very climatically contrasting island environments. I giddily celebrated the completion of my 50th dizzying rotation around our Sun on the sunny isle of Maui, and returned 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-1981","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\/1981"}],"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=1981"}],"version-history":[{"count":40,"href":"https:\/\/www.alexshapiro.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1981\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2018,"href":"https:\/\/www.alexshapiro.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1981\/revisions\/2018"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alexshapiro.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1981"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alexshapiro.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1981"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alexshapiro.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1981"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}