Zwarte Pieten and Other Adventures

There comes a moment
in this grey and sober place
when the overcast night's sky glows faint purple
and the stillness of this aging town
becomes a soundscape upon which a moment's rainfall plays upon my eardrums, then slowly recedes to the night's sleepy winds.

My tower stands guard with the night
as drizzles and clearing pass overhead like idle thoughts in the northern reaches of consciousness.
The moon shines bright, then not at all
And I will sleep
And let this moment pass on its way.



A day or two after the last entry, everything sort of coalesced. I decided to let the mega-to-do list go. I was here on a fellowship to study carillon and I could pour my energy into that. That would be my job. The rest could come in, time permitting, as leisure to counterbalance my carillon life.
I practiced vigorously in 4-hour bouts, getting up from the bench only to take a quick sip of tea and then return. And it felt great. At least at first. But then I guess I sort of burned myself out, and to make it worse, a week later at lessons I felt like it didn't even pay off all that much. Despair set in.
I met with Luc Michiels about getting workshop space for my engineering stuff, but across the language barrier, all I got was 'why don't you make some design drawings and we'll get together then and see where we are'. I got intimidated by the whole design drawing thing (I'm not a 'real engineer' like him, and felt like I was being asked to prove that I had good ideas up front, where really I had vague notions that needed to be fleshed out by working with my hands). I sat down to do a couple of drawings and was really disappointed by what came out and frightened that I wouldn't have anything to show Luc, that the project would get stopped dead in its tracks by my horrible drawing.
I was eventually rescued by a trip to Brussels for a thanksgiving dinner party, and a BAEF fellowship dinner honoring our director. By the end of that I felt able, even excited to return to my work. Things were up and down for a bit, but I feel better about my playing, I AM moving forward on the European carillon tour, the thesis designs and plans are going in a good direction, and I'm making progress on figuring out a good balance of how to use my time out here. Not quite there, but making progress. For a couple days I was able to stick to putting myself off-task at 10pm and that was really helpful. Its funny, left to my own devices I'll just keep going with to-do list items straight until (and past) bedtime trying to get it all in.

Today I'm starting to think in terms of 2 hr/day practicing, to see how that rhythm works for me. I also realized, during a visit to Geert in Antwerp, that I have fallen out of the habit of creating music. So much of my time and energy in the last few weeks has focused on technical execution and so little on the performance act, the intense attention and intention demanded by it, the focused listening, relaxing, the dedication to a high quality musical product. Lately I've just been in practice mindset -- lets get up there and work on getting the notes, work on the technical, premeditated musicality, faster here, louder here, pause here, but without much attention to how it sounds. And I'm starting to think that such a focus isn't really good. Before I thought of it as setting aside that aspect of things to focus on technique for a bit. Now I see it as regressing and building bad habits by not playing regularly in a performance frame of mind. So I'm going to try to give more attention to that in my practice as well.
And my thesis, well loads of ideas are flowing, I've been learning a lot and doing a lot of internet research on sensors, acoustics, etc, trying to figure out whats out there and what makes sense for my design. That said, I really have no idea if my plans are feasible or what will happen once I start actually building and that's adding a bit of nerves to the whole process.
And I'm (still) finding that keeping balance in the way I use time is tricky out here. I'm not used to working on year-long projects without the steps nicely broken down for me, and I'm not sure how well I can break down the steps of "become as much of a better carillonneur as I can with the time I'm given" other than trying to set a sustainable practice schedule and keep working on the right things.
Well, that's the basic journey from then 'till now, but there were some interesting stops along the way:


Lier: I went to Lier (about 15-20 minutes away by train) to play at Geert's carillon there. My wanderings around the city were mostly fruitless, but I did eventually find my way to a carnival with a beautiful view of the historic cathedral. Just another example of old meets new.




BAEF Dinner: This was a banquet honoring Dr. Boulpaep, the director of the BAEF organization which is supporting me in my studies. It was loads of fun and I got to learn more about the organization, the fellowship and its history, and meet other fellows. Plus, cocktail hour and 3 course dinner with wine flowing the whole way through. And before the meal, a concert from Liebrecht Vanbeckefort, a Belgian BAEF alum and winner of the Queen Elisabeth piano competition. This guy was really amazing. I mean REALLY amazing. And I was front row left, in the perfect spot to see his hands. He reminded me just how well people can make music -- technical limitations are no excuse. He had clearly blasted through loads of those and was doing things on the piano (tastefully) that I hadn't imagine humans to be capable of.
During dinner one of the speeches was given in 4 languages. I don't mean that the content was repeated 4 times, I mean that the speaker divided his speech into 4 parts and gave each one in a different language. And it seemed like the majority of the audience was parsing and reacting to the entire speech. I could follow 2 1/4 of those languages. Definitely not in the US anymore.


Handbell class: This is getting better and funner all the time. I don't think Elena actually stumbled onto my blog, but for whatever reason, it seems she's has a bit more of a human touch lately and we're all enjoying it. Its our one shot at social music and so its a really nice part of the week in that sense. And I feel like I even get some ideas / techniques out of it that I can apply to my music in the tower.


Hang-gliding: I had my second hang-gliding lesson, though by now thats 2 weeks ago! Well, it was really great. Because I'm heavier than the average student, I end up using the tandem glider. The plus is that I get to fly much more often than everybody else, since its the gliders, not the people which take turns. The downside is that it weighs about 90 pounds, and just like sledding, you have to carry it back up the hill before the next ride (and sometimes the wind fights you the whole way up). I was sore for days after this lesson. Also, I'm actually a bit too light for the tandem glider so I get a bit of an out of control ride. It takes a few seconds for my actions to affect the course of the thing, something I learned the hard way with my first crash landing (over-corrected to the right). My second crash landing happened when I let the nose tip up, thereby trading all my speed for altitude. Bad trade. But initially you don't really have any kinesthetic awareness of the glider because its above you and you're looking down. All your info comes from subtle changes of position of the bars you're holding.
Mid day I felt completely out of control -- every takeoff felt like diving headfirst into a raging river of death. The bottom of the training hill is full of puddles and big mudpits, so my shoes and my jeans up to my knees were completely mud-saturated. Its probably the only hill in all of Belgium though, so you take what you can get. But by the end of the day I was flying pretty solidly. Mind you, these are flights that take you 10-15 feet off the ground max. But trying to land on your feet when you're strapped to a 90 lb piece of metal that's designed to follows every whim of the wind is no piece of cake. And I haven't yet been able to really enjoy the feeling of flight because I've been too busy trying to hold things together. I hope as I get better at controlling the thing, and as I start taking longer flights, that I'll be able to breathe a bit and enjoy the view.


Sinterklaas: They have Christmas on Dec 25, but on on Dec 6th they have a festival built around someone called Sinterklaas (Saint Nicholas?). Jean, my waffle guy, gave me the rundown. He lives in Spain and comes to Belgium via boat with his assistant Zwarte Piet. You could translate his name literally as Black Pete, but since 'Piet' is a name with certain extra connotations in Dutch, a more accurate rendering would be "Black Dick". Zwarte Piete is responsible for stuffing the bad children into his sack. Zwarte Piet's isn't actually black (at least according to more modern explanations), but his face is because he comes in through the chimneys. Still, somehow his clothing is spotless. And its only this clothing, reminiscent of flamboyant old European dress, that helped me distinguish the Sinterklaas pageant that I saw a week ago from a old school American minstrel show. Well, you can read more about Sinterklaas and the dubious racial origins of Zwarte Piet here. Or just watch the videos of the dancing Zwarte Piets from the pageant I saw.

Clock Museum: We took a tour of a clock museum last Saturday. The clock museum appears to be somebody's house, but there are 3-4 big rooms completely filled wall to wall with hundreds of different historical pieces, the most intriguing mechanically inventive clocks you've ever seen. The tour took way to long, like 2.5 hours, and it was mostly in Dutch. The guy occasionally translated snippets, but there was no time to give a full translation. So it was a bit of a bust except that a) it convinced me that you can do almost anything with mechanical systems if you put your mind to finding a clever way to do it (a good reminder), and b) it gave me plenty of time and inspiration with which to gaze off and think up design ideas for my thesis work.


Eddy's Birthday: On Wednesday, Mariko whispered to me -- its Eddy's birthday tomorrow... I got him some chocolates. Are you in? I was in. I rode quickly to the store and got a couple bottles of wine and we concocted a last minute surprise party for him in the school. The next day, Eddy, me Paolo, and Patrick, a financial guy and a friend of Eddy's from elementary school, went out for drinks. We ended up back at Patrick's place, a beautiful, swanky place, where we drank champagne, and played foozball. Somehow, we didn't end up leaving until 2:30 am. Not a bad way to spend a birthday.


Antwerp and Reubens: I finally made it out to Antwerp. It took my 2.5 bloody months to do it (its like 20 minutes away by train), but I did it. I met Geert at the cathedral and we went up to have a play on the carillon. It was my first Hemony carillon this year. The Hemony brothers were to the carillon what Stradivarius was to the violin. They discovered the secret to the complex tuning process of bells, made about 50 or 60 instruments, then died with their secret. It wasn't discovered again for another 300 years. Their carillons are only found in Europe, and their instruments are mean-tone tuned. This basically means they sound funky if you play in keys with lots of sharps or flats, but they sound more beautiful than modern instruments when you play in simple keys. The keyboard makes a lot of clattering noise which domiates what you hear in the playing cabin, but I went to have a walk around the belfry while Geert was playing Greensleeves, and the sound of it was just a complete wonder. I didn't get my camera out in time to record it, but I recorded him improvising on Danny Boy (not as nice a sound cause its in a major key and the bells have minor third overtones -- but it'll at least give you a feel for the place).

Then I visited the home of Peter Paul Reubens and got to take in his personal art collection. All I can say is wow. You should definitely check it out. But since not all of you can check it out, I snapped a few illegal photos for your benefit while the guards weren't looking. Don't worry, I didn't use a flash or anything :)




Well, that's about it -- Sorry both about the length of this post, and about the long radio silence. I'm going to try to write smaller entries more frequently from now on.

New Photos on: http://www.flickr.com/gp/59706944@N00/7P4qTk

Wednesday Wednesday

Surgeon General's Warning: If you are the sort of person who gets nauseous from listening to people who have it great complain about their problems, read this entry at your own risk. For those of you who remain: consider it a glance into 'that which is', usually more interesting than 'that which should be'. Consider it my catharsis, or consider it a foil for your own thoughts, or consider it a call for new ideas and ways of living. Take what you will and leave the rest. If there is a way for us to help each other, help to make it so.

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Belgian weather has been doing this strange thing lately. One minute its partly cloudy w/ chunks of blue sky. Next minute its overcast and raining hard with loads of wind. A few minutes later it stops. Then it'll get drizzly for a while. Then back to the blue skies for a little bit. Repeat.
Today felt sort of like that. Lots of ups and downs and all things in between.
My confidence as a musician has been low lately. I went to Leuven with Eddy yesterday, expecting to perform well, as I had been doing (in my opinion) on St. Rombouts. When we arrived, we discovered we were taking up a tour group of about 15 people with us. The tour group had champagne and snacks, which was a nice plus, but the big minus of the evening was discovering that I was significantly handicapped on this different instrument.
OK, I was getting a bit haughty. While Eddy played I prepared myself to sit down at the keyboard and blow them away with my American musical charm, make them get "all quiet inside" as the Belgian journalism student said a few weeks ago. It didn't go that way. Sometimes you go to a new carillon and the keys are spaced differently or slightly in the wrong place. Not here. This was perfectly aligned for me, and it was lighter than St. Rombouts by far, but somehow, I just couldn't control it. People have since confirmed that I wasn't crazy, that there's something deceptively difficult about that instrument, but as far as I could tell at the time, I had fallen into the trap of getting good at a single instrument (St. Rombouts) while losing my ability to adapt to new instruments. In the carillon world, that simply doesn't cut it. I felt like my playing had regressed a good 3 years and the crowd kept talking right through my playing. I had been planning to do concert touring this upcoming summer in Europe, but the Leuven experience made me seriously question whether I'd be able to do that without burning every bridge on the continent for future playing opportunities.
Today I had lessons on St. Rombouts carillon with Eddy. I had been studying the Jos Lerinckx Passacaglia pretty hard the past week, and felt like it had come together pretty well on the practice carillon. I hadn't had a chance to try it out on the real instrument though. The lesson was to be my first time. The Passacaglia, for info's sake, is an amazing work of art, it was written by a priest when his father died, its really dark and intense (I've heard that most of his other work is a bit too light and happy), and it does an amazing job of capturing all the different emotions of mourning, from dull aching grief to glimmers of hope to overwhelming walls-caving-in washes of anger and fear, etc. Its over 8 minutes long and really really technically challenging. Like triplets all over the pedal-board at 120 beats per measure challenging. OK, I guess it went pretty well considering, but I got loads and loads of corrections and some of them are going to be pretty hard to implement. Its going to push the limits of my technical abilities. Which is good. But after a whole hour's lesson full of stopping and correcting and frustration, an hour of being told what needed to happen to make the piece musical and being unable to execute it, set to the soundtrack of the overwhelming emotions of death, I was pretty exhausted. Yesterday I felt like I could play St. Rombouts but not other carillons... now it felt like I couldn't even cut it on St. Rombouts!
I was exhausted all throughout lunch. Piano lessons with Eddy came afterwards. There were ups and downs. Chopin's Fantasie-Impromptu may be too much for my current technical abilities on the piano. That remains to be seen. But the music was at least happier, and Eddy actually had praise for the middle section (OK, he said that the middle section was the stronger than the rest of the piece, but its something to go on).
I'm starting to observe a trend at the school, I don't know if its a conservatory thing or a Belgian thing, or a European thing, or just in this school, but people here seem oriented towards teaching music, not towards teaching people. Maybe its just my particular needs. But I think that fleshy, emotional human beings need more than musical correction to develop. They need encouragement, reassurance, etc. Something to go on to give a basic sense that, even though the focus is on what needs improving, there are a wealth of things that HAVE IMPROVED, things are on the right track... something.
I saw this happen from the outside during my hand-bell class on Monday. Elena, the teacher, has supernatural hearing. We'll reach the end of a 2 minute passage and she'll tell you exactly which notes were missing, too loud, early, etc. and who was responsible. Even subtle things, like one note missing from a big chord, she can hear and describe succinctly. She amazes me, and that sort of clear perception is an invaluable when it comes to helping musicians develop. But her approach to correction is more suited towards computers than people. We stop, she tells us what went wrong, and asks us to try again. As far as I can tell, we will repeat the process until the piece is perfect.
Now I've taken pretty well to the hand-bells, and while I still make mistakes, I spend less time being corrected and more time watching others get corrected. So I get to float above the process and see it for what it is. She's never abusive, she even likes to say that we're a team, and we can make mistakes, its not a concert. But the sheer volume of faults named, combined with her businesslike haste to list them off and try again, and the dearth of praise (beyond 'good, you've fixed that problem, on to the next one') seems violently detrimental to one's creative and artistic health.
I remember being amazed by Jeffrey Douma, director of the Yale Glee club, who had an incredible sense of how to nurture creative artistry from fleshy beings. His corrections were great, but the emotional intelligence he brought to bear when giving them, his ability to be in tune with what the choir needed at that moment, whether it was encouragement, technical correction, or liberation from the rigors of technical awareness, seemed just as superhuman as Elena's ear. They don't seem to have that out here. Well, maybe there's one exception. I think Geert has a bit of a sense for it.

My last class of the day is composition with Geert. We played through my composition; the one I had worked so hard on; the one I had shown to Eddy who sort of gasped and said that it was too hard to play right on a carillon; the one I partially tried on St Rombouts and found, to my horror, that the minor 3rd overtones perverted the sound of the suspensions that I had developed on the xylophonesque practice carillon; the one that felt like it might've just been 20-30 hours wasted. Geert might've shuddered a little bit at the looks of it too, but we played it through.
"It looks harder than it actually is," said Geert. "I can see why Eddy saw it and got worried. But its easier than my 4-hands stuff and I think once you get it scored out neatly in Sibelius and we study it, it'll work. And you've got to realize that if these parts are played pianissimo like you want, the minor 3rd overtones only show up in the cabin. The audience can't hear that." It didn't relieve all my worries, but it got me back in the game.
The other order of business was my summer tour. Geert had been encouraging about touring before, so I decided to consult with him about who to ask, how to ask, all of that other stuff. I showed him the list of carillons and he said, "well, first off I'd strongly encourage you to enter the Dutch carillon guild's performance competition, they have one every year." Huh? "Do I stand a chance?" "Oh yeah." He went down the list of Belgian carillons that I had printed off, ticked off ones that had summer series that I should try for, etc. And then offered me my first concert, in the summer series at his carillon in Lier. At this point I didn't really care if was hollow praise or genuine. I needed something.
There's the classic story of bands making it big and then cracking under the pressure and I guess I'm starting to understand what that might be like. Some days I feel like one of America's next carillon superstars, other days I feel like a phony who somehow survived an American tour and is about the get a severe reality check this side of the pond. I really can't tell. There's got to be something to the sort of praise I've gotten, but at the same time I really do feel inexperienced, and unprepared for the sort of standards that I'm imagining to exist in the world. The messages I get about my playing are really conflicting -- sometimes they're the sort of praise that seems too good to be true. Other times its error after error after error after error. And I worry that that divide will only grow greater the further into 'success' one gets -- I know that I would never be overly critical of a student in the midst of development, but still take a guilty pleasure in critiquing the playing of the folks with the bigger names (hah, is that how you interpret that passage? I could do better than that!).
OK, Ideally its not about being good or bad or anything. Its about making music, and holding on that aspect of things so that, people's evaluations of you become beside the point. You get to play and that's all you need. In that sense, too much praise can be as deadly as too little. I shouldn't be so wrapped up in figuring out how I'm doing, but I guess I'm sort of entangled because I've already taken the praise. Taken it and used it to get me places that I wouldn't have gone otherwise. A concert tour of the US, for example. Plans for a European counterpart. Building things on the praise, you start to get attached to it, because without it, things seem to collapse. "Yes I did an American tour, but I got the gigs on the basis of a lucky GCNA performance. I probably played poorly on the tour and didn't realize and now that's the end of it. If I don't stop myself now I'll burn my European bridges too." Writing it helps to understand it and get some distance. The goal now is to disentangle myself from good / bad and reattach myself to music. That way, my lessons will return to adventures in learning how to create bigger and better things, and cease being the evaluation ground where I am told my value as a musician or a person.

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I quit trapeze a week or two ago because I realized it was an extra direction that I was getting pulled in, and that I didn't really have the energy for it, especially on my busy Wednesdays. But still things seem full.
We hear about life-threatening addictions -- to drugs, alcohol, etc. Its finally become clear what my problem is: I have a life-threatening addiction to life. By that I mean that there are so many things that I want to experience and do, that the process of trying to get it all in threatens to suck the life out of the whole bundle. For example -- right now, I want to do the following things: Finish this blog entry; Plan my trip to Lier tomorrow, including a visit to Geert's carillon and general sight-seeing around the town; get in touch with Luc Michiels, who is willing to give me workshop space to try and design and build (cross your fingers) a cheap, semi-portable practice instrument; get moving on that work, as its going to be my thesis work for the year and I've barely started; do some serious practice to get on top of the Passacaglia for next week, including getting up into St Rombouts a couple times; spend some good time on the piano as well (I've been neglecting this); broaden my repertoire to include more baroque music, contemporary / atonal compositions, and popular / familiar music; get a move on exploring Europe while its in my backyard; e-mail out for summer concerts and put together a summer tour; decide if I want to compete in carillon competitions; be there for folks back home; actually get a good strong tai chi practice going; consider carefully adding a once-a-month hebrew school teaching gig in January (only 6 times total, and I'm really curious to try some teaching / mentoring / working with kids to see if I might like that / want that to be part of my work in the future); make plans for christmas break, possibly involving a trip to Israel?; spend time with people; read; relax, watch a movie from time to time; look after Treasa and Paolo who are also swimming in the emotionally challenging waters of the school; put together some social carillon events (like group-rings) to try to get a bit more of a collegial feel to the place;.... not to mention the waiting list: figure out what to do next year; do more writing; leave time for introspection; keep blogging; continue with composition; try out new activities / skills to get a sense for what I might want to do next year; get back on top of a regular exercise regimen;..... and of course the long-term waiting list: write a novel, become a famous professor, travel the world, spend a few years in monastic life, make lots of clever inventions, help put simplicity, health, and sufficiency back into American culture (irony anyone?), narrow the income gap, produce all sorts of art and music, work with and inspire wide swaths of the next generation, achieve inter-religious peace and co-operation, come up with a coherent philosophical and/or social and economic treatise/theory and publish it, have children, be a great parent, a great partner, one with lots of time and patience, keep reading and learning, keep having adventures, get involved in meditation, achieve a widespread practical de-construction of the oppressive aspects of our society's constructions of gender, stay fit and able well into old age, make enough money to enable me to travel, sample all the good culinary concoctions the world has to offer, and oh yes, teach myself to relax and live slowly.
Its an amazing set of things I get to do this year, even this week. Really amazing. Reading it lightens the load a bit. But it becomes really easy for me to take on the emotional load of trying to get it all in, feeling like this year, this one little shimmering window of time, is really my best and possibly only chance to do it all, to really develop deeply as a carillonneur, to travel Europe and have adventures, to be free to leisurely spend time with people, to have the time and space to try small doses of new things (like teaching) that might give me a sense for what I'd like to do next year, to have the opportunity to do an engineering project that excites me, even though nobody's going to pay to have it done, to really get a good tai chi practice going, etc. This period was supposed to give me the time and space to do the things that a full-time job crowded out. Now all of those things are crowding each other out. And its that frenetic plate-spinning dance of desperation, that feeling of need to make sure that I get everything in during this brief window of opportunity, that makes it possible for me to write a list of the things that fill my life, each and every one of them a jewel, and still feel heavy-hearted. This is a high-class problem. This is a life-threatening addiction to life. Any recovered addicts out there to point the way?

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"Its the American way. We start trying to change who we are before 'who we are' has even started to develop. -- Paraphrase from Mike Mills talking about his movie "Thumbsucker"

British Isles Part VI

The rest of my time in Ireland was spend in Tiperary, Treasa's small hometown. The house was just about the perfect place to experience Irish culture, close to the center of town but still out in the middle of nowhere, buried amidst winding country roads, open grassy hills, and farmland. There's a cross and a miniature holy-water fount hanging mezzuzah-style on the inside of the front door, and a framed portrait of the good lord jesus upon their kitchen wall, overlooking the dinner table.
Treasa's parents were wonderful, and really good at conveying their religion and discussing interfaith issues from a cultural and historical perspective. Treasa's Aunt seemed to by much more into the straight theology, and Treasa's dad seemed interested in sparing me the trouble, which made for a couple of funny exchanges:

Sean (father): You know 20 years back we would hear a lot more preaching about sin and damnation, but the focus has shifted away from that
Peggy (aunt): But that's not to say that there isn't still a purgatory and a hell...
Sean: Yes I know Peggy, every time i see you!

For me, Ireland will be remembered as drinking cup after cup of tea in that quaint pink kitchen, sharing whiskey and Poteen (potato moonshine) with Treasa's father, talking religion, culture, politics, and daily life to the sound of the thick Tiperary accent.

Once again, the night before my flight arrived, and I prepared to say goodbye to this green little country. I sat in the rocking chairs with Sean, listening to a story of his. It moved through different settings and ideas and but at some point he mentioned ending up at a pub with live traditional Irish jam. "Sean, are there any jams like that on in town tonight?" "Oh, I think there would be". Ireland, it seems, also intended to get in a final round before last call.

This may have been the king of all the traditional jams that I had seen, and by the end of it, the crowd thinned out, the doors were closed to keep new customers out, and it was just the musicians and the dedicated music enthusiasts. I sang along in harmony and the woman next to me said, "now after that I'd hope we get a song out of you", and so back I was in the jam, on a borrowed guitar, trying my best to remember one of the 3-4 songs I knew. And it was 3-4 songs sung, 3-4 rounds of drinks, and about 3-4am when I returned to the homestead. Treasa was still up with her friends from home, trying to squeeze in the last little bit of Ireland, knowing she could sleep later in Mechelen. I for one was happy to collapse in bed, till the morning light called me back to Belgium.



Epilogue:
The clouds on my flight home were particularly stunning. Glowing, sunset-pink wisps on high, and the most solid, rippled, unbroken surface filling my view below. Under those clouds, home or the closest thing to it right now. Pink faded upon the horizon as the sun set on a wonderful adventure in the British Isles.
My first bit of culture shock came standing on line for the plane. The Belgian attendant walked up to me and flipped through my passport. "You cannot travel on this." Shock. Adrenaline. Recollection. She means I can't priority-board without European ID. "I have a Belgian Identity Card", I say, handing it to her. She looks at it. "Ah. I think this is not valid". Shock. Fear Panic. "No, it says 'till 2008". "Ah". She hands it back and walks away.
I think back to my Scottish passport agent saying "two ticks, love," making sure I was taken care of and knew what was going on. There was a kindness there, a desire to put me at ease amidst lots of scary regulations that might strand me, cost me loads, or otherwise ruin my holiday. I think of the openness and friendliness of the pubs, all the kind strangers I met who wanted to know who I was, and of the invisible walls of privacy that divide me from the Belgians I live amongst, even whilst we sit beside each other in our civilized cafes. Back in Mechelen I made my way to a jazz performance in a bar, hoping to recapture a bit of that Irish spirit. There were rows of wooden bar chairs facing the stage and everyone in attendance sat still, watching as though they were in a concert hall. I had to go upstairs to listen, where I could look around the room as I pleased and imagine that down below, people were shouting each other drinks and chatting away.
My first go on St. Rombouts carillon was spectacular and I was excited to see my composition piece come together in time for class, but disappointed to find Geert out with a bad back and unable to talk about it. Classes were rough today, and overall I find myself caught between excitement to deepen and reinvest in my studies, frustration and loss of passion at the lack of active encouragement for my creative goals from the faculty (Geert will be more encouraging once he's back), and a strong desire to both return to a good rhythm at home and get back out on the road, knowing full well that Christmas-time, the half-way marker of the program, is only 6 weeks away.

British Isles Part V

I'll tell you from the start. My Irish experience makes for less of a story than my Scottish one. It too was nice, and while I suppose adventure is always around the corner, being in the flow has a tendency to interfere with a good night's sleep and by the time I hit Ireland I was ready to do some catching up.
There was still an adventure or two to be had first, though.
After a brief nap at the house of my classmate Treasa (rhymes with NASA), we took off for Cork. Cork is the second largest city of Ireland, home to Treasa's old college and her current friends, and the site for our Halloween festivities. To be fair, I had had a warm up Halloween party in Edinburgh with Harry, but it didn't prepare me for this.
The town was roaring that night, thousands of people out in costume, parties all over the place, and a few too many eggs flying through the air for my tastes (no casualties in our party, save for a bit of liquid shrapnel on Treasa's pant leg). I've never been to in to Halloween parties, but seeing the entire big city abuzz and in costume, like an ordinary day in some strange bizarre alternate universe, made for a pretty great atmosphere.
Treasa was a wood-nymph, her best friend Claire was Sally from Nightmare before Christmas. I had brought along the wire that I used to make myself into Pipi Longstocking at Harry's party, but couldn't be bothered and opted instead for the spare cat-costume we found at our home base in Cork. It wasn't purr-fect, but I knew it would suffmice. We drank, we danced, we took it all in, and it was around 3 when we all returned to the student house where Treasa used to live and made out way to bed. I took my assigned spot on the living room couch and dozed off.
Treasa warned me that there would be folks coming home later. So I didn't think much of it when I awoke to a group of folks introducing themselves to me, until I realized that they were there asking me to leave -- apparently the couch had been double booked, and though I had been arranged for first, the hadn't gotten the memo and were somewhat suspicious that I might've wandered in on my own without any connection to people living in the house. Sleeping loads of people is usually not a big issue in a college town, but with no one in the house away to vouch for me, and no knowledge of the facilities on which to base a recommendation for alternate sleeping arrangements, I didn't have much to work with. It took a few minutes of tense and disputive conversation before we got anywhere, and it was largely due to the brilliance and cool-headedness of John the neighbor that we got the matter sorted out.
By this point I was in no state to fall asleep, so I joined Treasa (now awake again) and Efa (former member of the opposition turned friend) for one of those great ultra-late-night college conversations over a cup of tea, went to bed again an hour or two later, and slept until folks started coming down for breakfast, eventually joining the lazy masses in the kitchen for a slow day of lounging about. Treasa and I left Cork around 4 or 5 that day and I have to say i look quite fondly on the experience, especially all that came after the initial couch difficulties. Treasa's friends were some of the most wonderful people and I felt quite close to and at ease with them by the end, even after less than 24 hours of knowing each other, even after what could've been a relationship-damning late-night couch power-struggle. When I transfered trains in Cork the next day, part of me longed, though I knew I didn't have the mandate, to trot up the hill, join the gang and pour myself another cup of tea in that mad, messy, and loving household that had been Treasa's home for the past two years.

Instead, I switched tracks and boarded the train to Cobh, my intended destination for the day. Treasa was feeling a bit sick and rundown, so I was on my own.
Cobh (an Irish word, meaning, and pronounced the same as 'our' word "cove") is a little seaport village with a grand cathedral overlooking the water. There are several things that make Cobh noteworthy. Firstly, Cobh was the most important port of departure for Irish immigrants to the new world. The first immigrant to be processed at Ellis Island departed from Cobh and today there are identical statues of her and her brothers on either shore of the Atlantic. Secondly, Cobh was the last port of call of the Titanic before she set sail on her fateful journey towards America. But most importantly, Cobh is home to Ireland's one and only carillon, and that is the reason brought me out on this very fine day.
The beautiful Gothic-styled Cathedral of Cobh was built between 1868-1916 (Catholicism was illegal for a long period until the early 1800s in Ireland. Before then only Protestant religion could be practiced in public). The carillon was cast by Taylor Bellfoundries in 1916, which is significant because 1916 is the year that Taylor rediscovered the complex secrets of tuning sets of bells to each other and to themselves, a secret which was first discovered by the Hemony brothers in the 16th century, but which followed them into the grave, leaving 3 centuries of bell-founders in the dark. The carillon was one of the first modernly tuned carillons and one of the earliest pieces from the golden age of Taylor. And the sound? The moment I tapped the middle C I knew I was in for a treat. The tone was smooth and silky, dark, deep, and endlessly resonant. A rare specimen indeed. The clavier was also top-notch, beautifully polished soft wood, smooth and utterly frictionless movement, with a nice medium-heavy weighting. It reminded me in feel of Princeton's carillon 5 years back, before the most recent renovation took away most of its wonderful heft. My hands and feet moved through it like a hot knife through butter.
Adrian Gebruers the carillonneur of Cobh, gave me the usual spectacular cathedral tour, historical tales, and generous allotment of playing time. He told me that his grandfather was one of the postman loading last-minute shipment of overseas mail onto the Titanic, and as such, may very well have been the last person to leave the Titanic "without getting his feet wet". Ah, tip of the Irish.

One last bit of trivia before I wrap up. We all know the shamrock (3-leaf clover) as the symbol of Ireland, but what I only learned recently is that it all started with St. Patrick, the man who brought Christianity to Ireland, using it as a visual aid to explain the 3-in-1 nature of the Trinity. Go fig :)

British Isles Part IV

I woke up in Caputh, which is even smaller than Dunkeld. No main street, just a bus stop and scattered houses. Walking through the countryside on the way to the bus stop, I felt very complete with my trip. I had had my own personal Scotland adventure. If nothing else of note happened, I could still return to Belgium satisfied.
I took the bus back into Perth, and watched an accordian busker playing some irish-styled music for a few minutes before heading to St John's Kirk. Roddy, my host for the afternoon, gave me the tour of the church, caught me up on Scottish religious history, and took me up to play the carillon. There's something amazing about carillon tourism. You get to see the innards of random churches (and usually the one's that can afford a carillon can also afford a good interior decorator), learn about history and architecture, and then shower the town with whatever music you want. Total VIP experience.
Back in Edinburgh I went to a live story-telling open-mic event that I had heard about a few days before. I was expecting a DC speak-easy and it was the same principle, but not nearly as high quality in the story-telling. Still, there were a couple of good acts, and I got to be part of another local scene and appreciate that sort of graceful imperfection of ordinary people brightening the night by spinning a good yarn for their friends. I checked into a nearby hostel, and with an early morning flight to Ireland the next day, slowly went about getting ready for bed. I must've thought that was the end of my Scotland experience.
In the hostel kitchen I immediately fell into conversation with a couple of older women (Aussie and American). One thing led to another the next thing I knew we were back out in the streets, looking for a pub, and talking to a toothless 70 year old man who was clearly drunk off his arse. The toothless man ended up being a famous scholar of Gallic language and culture (this was repeatedly vouched for by others). He took us to the best pub in town. "They Royal Oak", it was called, a wonderful place, jam packed overflowing on the weekends but on this Tuesday night it was a hopping but manageable place. Everyone was really nice, the whiskey and lager flowed freely, and the air was filled with the sound of happy chatter, and amateur musicians playing traditional (and not so traditional) music together. There was a piano and I joined in for a few songs. Mind you the piano had its quirks. Some keys didn't sound at all, and the middle g was actually tuned to a g#, which made for an interesting task of taking a solo break on a g-blues tune. But it all worked out just fine (after all, there are 87 other notes to choose from), and I earned myself a few drinks in the process. I got back to the hostel, figuring it was 12:30 or 1 or something. It was 3:30am. Not a bad night :)
OK, so Scotland squeezed in one last great experience, one for the road. I went to bed, once again, a happy man.

I woke up a tired man. But I was on time and all I needed to do was follow the transit stream to my plane. Leaving the hostel and turning to face uphill, I walked the slow walk of a pack-laden traveler who had been drinking amongst these very streets a mere 5 hours ago.
A few blocks into my trek, a small sign for Old St Paul's church reminded me that I had one bit of unfinished business left in this city that I might be able to undertake before my flight. At the choral concert 3 days back, a piece called "Still" was performed, a setting of a poem describing a painting, with all three going by the same name. "Still". The director recommended going to see it, and a chorister at the reception echoed the recommendation. All I knew was a) that it was a painting of white hanging fabric, b) that it was "cooler than it sounds", and c) that, assuming it hadn't been moved, it was hung somewhere in the old St Paul's Church.
I checked my watch. Still ahead of schedule. I turned off the main street into a narrow and steeply descending alley, and happily found the church door open. I wandered through hallways, and doors, past a huge stone figure of Jesus on the cross, and up some stairs into the dimly lit cathedral-esque space within. As far as I could tell, I was the only one in the entire building. I set down my pack and started wandering around the room, looking for something that fit the vague description that I had. Nothing seemed to. I peeked into the little shrines off the main room, but still no luck. I had made it almost all the way around the huge space when, through slits in the side screen at the main altar, my eyes caught a corner of white. I worked my way through to a little door into a side-chapel dedicated to those who had fallen in wartime, and at the front of the chapel stood the object of my quest.
This was no simple painting, but a huge 12'x12' work that filled most of the front chapel wall. It was made up of 4 6'x6' canvases, arranged in a 2x2 grid with about an inch between each panel. The painting portrayed the intricate folds, shadows, and highlights of hung white fabric, and in its exquisitely detailed rendering, performed the amazing act of focusing your attention of the sort of profound and transcendent beauty that can exist in simple objects. The sheet became a stage upon which form light, flow and movement played softly together in stillness. In a balancing contrast, the dark gaps between the canvasses suggested the form of a cross, and the more you looked at it, the stronger and more present that image grew, as though the cross itself were the subject, as though the painstakingly rendered canvases were only created to more effectively sculpt form out of nothingness.
Those of you who have been reading so far know that I value the setting of a piece of art and the journey required to see it as a part of the artistic experience itself. I love art and music but feel no particular passion towards museums or concert-halls. The art I love is in being alone with this painting in the sacred silence of the war memorial chapel of a giant church with no-one inside but me, led here by twisting alleys and echoing church hallways, an entire busy city on hold while I look and contemplate. The music I love is buskers on the street, players in a pub adding their music to the bustling sounds of conversation. Perhaps that's also why I've been enjoying Scotland so much. And perhaps that's why I like the carillon as an instrument. Its a concert instrument that doesn't come with a sterile concert-hall environment. You experience it whilst still in the world, with all the sights and sounds that are offered up by that particular day.
I left St Paul's Church to find that Scotland had one last gift to give. My detour to St. Paul's was also a brilliant shortcut to the train station and I got spit out almost directly in front of the back entrance to the station.
As with art, its become clear to me that travel is all in the framing. You could've taken me on a bus to every spot that I loved in Scotland and I would've felt unsatisfied. You could've put me in an auditorium and brought all the buskers and pub sessions on stage and I would've been bored. You could've shown me "Still" amidst 100 other paintings in a stodgy art gallery. It wouldn't have been the same. Its in the discovery, in the search, in the flow of the world and event-leading-to-event, treasure-hunt-like adventure that these beautiful sights and sounds start to shimmer and sing.

British Isles Part III

The current continued to flow in Dunkeld.
Getting off the bus, I was greeted by village-esque glory. One block of shops, like a little western town, beautiful trees all around. Jackpot. I stashed my pack in the first hotel I saw (think western saloon type hotel) and went for a beautiful hike in the countryside.
Trails through forest, views of the valley, and loads of deer gallop-hopping across my path. The hike ended at the ruins of an old cathedral, and though the gates had just closed I hopped the fence to take a look. Did I get caught in this mischief, you ask? Depends how you look at it. A guy spotted me and came back into the grounds. I ran over and thanked him, told him I was worried I wouldn't be able to get out. He apologized, and said he must've missed me in his final sweep.
Back in town I saw a restaurant sign advertising haggis, and figured it was time to take the plunge. And the funny thing? It was really good. Still ahead was a live traditional jam at the local pub. I called the guy who was putting me up for the night and asked if it was OK for me to come back later than planned. He said sure and recommended a second pub over the river in Birnam that also has live music. So with an hour to kill, I decided to have a cup of tea at the hotel where I stowed my bag.
Here's where all the pieces come together. I went to that hotel bar, planning to sit and do some writing, and who should be there, but two of the bar staff, off duty, and Nathan, my waiter from the Haggis place. Suddenly I had a posse for the evening. Nathan bought a round and the evening started to roll. It was just a crazy enough group to work. None of us were real locals -- one was from Wales, one from Australia, and one from Minnesota. And me. All in the middle of nowhere, Scotland. I talked them into checking out the live music that night, and after a couple of good hours in the hotel bar, we set off into the cold night across the bridge into Birnam. Birnam is the town that sits on the opposite side of the river Tay, though its effectively the same place as Dunkeld. Nathan had mentioned earlier that there was a 1000 year old tree that is likely the only tree left in Birnam woods from the days of Shakespeare. Shakespeare? Shakespeare. Birnam Wood. MacBeth. None shall kill MacBeth 'till Birnam wood come to Dunsinane'? The very same Birnam woods. I suggested that we should visit it on the way to the pub and it was agreed. On the Birnam side of the bridge, we doubled back down a dark set of stairs to an unlit trail right by the side of the river. We walked amongst the shadowy trees, the moon lighting our way, wispy clouds hanging amidst the starts, the Tay rushing swiftly but softly beside us. After 5-10 minutes we arrived at the side of a huge knarled monstrosity. I was expecting the redwood experience: "yep, that's a big tree." This was different. This tree actually looked its age, like it was a relic from another time, an age of magic and mystery and weird sisters casting their spells in the hidden heart of the forest. It was knarled and knotted, with crooked branches shooting out in all directions, like creaky fingers reaching out into the night.
We made our way to the warmth of the pub, where a fiddler, guitarist, and several other musicians serenaded us. But to be honest, it was all background to me. We were having fun on our own, and when the pub closed (at the late hour of 11pm), I took my taxi out to Caputh a happy man.

British Isles Part II

(Written 10/29)

Its Monday morning and I'm on a bus out of Edinburgh.

I think it takes some time in a place before the current picks up and starts carrying you along. For the first few days in Edinburgh, I was decidedly stuck on the vanilla tourist trail. I went on a bus tour of the highlands (very pretty, but a bit rained out. Plus you lose something when you put the world inside a tour-bus style frame). I did a whiskey tasting. I walked around the city, learned some history, saw some sights. It wasn't unpleasant, but it wasn't very special and by day 3 I was believing that this whole 'travel' thing is overrated and not really worth putting much time into.

The current picked up on Sunday.
I ran into an Australian busker playing the harp singer-songwriter style, and she had the touch, made the musical lines so alive. Not everybody does that, even amongst professionals, but I've been told that I do it too, and hearing that performance, being on the receiving end of something so beautiful, re-inspired me to my craft, made me realize its value and how lucky I've been to have playing opportunities and audiences and the freedom to go from tower to tower and play.

I set off for Arthur's Seat, a hike up an extinct volcano, but got side tracked as I passed a church with a sign saying "Concert Today". I didn't mean to actually stay, but when I saw that it was a program of early choral works and organ works, and when I heard a few bars of the rehearsing choir, I decided to put off my prior plans.
The choir was good and reminiscent of glee club, stylistically, and ability-wise, though they were a bit smaller. The organist was apparently one of the best in Scotland, though its hard for me to tell w/ organ. I've decided that I don't like organ concerts. I love hearing organ music while I'm walking around a church, but to sit still in the pews as though a concert were happening on stage, but have nothing to look at, no contact with the performer, it just feels weird. With a choir you have something to look at. With the carillon, you can wander or look around the world and take it in. With a formal organ concert its the worst of both worlds.
The highlight of the concert was a quintet of 5 women. Not the pieces so much as the actual sound that they produced. Koen was talking about overtones at the last lesson; how when you produce one sound you actually produce an infinite number of sounds at ever rising frequencies. And when you produce multiple sounds in perfect tuning, all the overtones harmonize with each other, reinforce each other, combine to create even more pitches, induce vibration in objects throughout the concert hall, and produce a glowing symphony of sound much greater than the sum of its parts... if the tuning is true. Listening to the immensity and beauty of sound coming from just 5 singers, I could only assume that they hit the tuning spot on the nose. It was really amazing to listen to.
At the reception I spoke the the throngs of senior citizens in attendance (I was by far the youngest unaffiliated audience-member). I told them that I intended to visit Perth to see the carillon there, and that I'd like to see more of the countryside. Bit by bit I pieced together that there were a handful of towns, accessible by bus from Perth, that might do the trick. One of them, Dunkeld, was described as a village, a small settlement by the banks of a river. That sounded promising, but this was all still resting on me hearing whether I could go play the carillon in Perth. I had contacted the carillon guy several days ago and still no response.

I left the reception, the hero of a handful of retirees, and accepted a final plastic cup of wine for the road from the wine server who was trying to drain off the last of his supply. I got back to Harry's, called the carillon guy, confirmed for Tuesday (it was Sunday evening), and resolved to go to Dunkeld on Monday, now a mere 12 hours away. We topped off the evening with a lovely home-cooked dinner at Harry's friend Lindsey's place.

And so here I am, on a public bus to Perth, with another one waiting there to whisk me off into the unknown. I've got 2 days left in Scotland and a hot tip I picked up at a choir reception. We'll see where it takes me.

Meeting the Locals

British Isles Part 1

(Written 10/26)

Walking to the train in the pre-dawn dark amidst a whole new group of early morning movers, I see my town anew. The sudden shock of a man smoking as he rides his bicycle with the other hand jars me into awareness of the simpler differences around me -- the cobblestones, the chocolate shops, the Dutch, and all the other traits that, at some point in the last two months, penetrated my sense of home, and in so doing, made themselves invisible. My travellers eyes are returning and and I feel a wash of familiar feelings that I haven't felt in some time. Its strange that the place I feel most at home right now is not a home at all, strange that part of me, the pack-a-little-extra, expert train-finder, airport-floor napper, that friend who knows far better than I how to slow down and be, seems only willing to meet on the go as we share a styrofoam cup of tea on this 2-hr flight. The mist and fog of the morning make for a dramatic takeoff. The landscape appears clearly for just long enough to establish the setting, then fades speedily into a liminal nothingness. I am travelling again.


The first stages of this trip are shaping up nicely. After dealing again with the linguistic disorientation of French-speaking Belgium (now I can't seem to speak French without switching into Dutch), I made my way to the gate and discovered that I had just barely averted disaster. You see I thought my Belgian Identity Card (which I had just gotten the day before) was all I needed to travel within the EU. Not so. Fortunately I had decided at the last minute to bring along my passport just in case. From there it was smooth sailing. I met a Scottish singer / songwriter on the bus who has been travelling around for 23 years and he would've been able to point me in the right direction on the other side had we not gotten split up in customs. The RyanAir inflight magazine had a 10 page article on Edinburgh, my main destination in Scotland so that more than made up for the loss. Ryanair planes look like the planes that Walmart would build, everything's cheap plastic (well, the interior at least) and tacky colors. But you can't argue with the price (as low as $20-30 including taxes).

First impressions off the plane:
Its incredibly pretty here. You see rolling hills as you land. The spaces between the runways are covered with a rich rugged wild sort of grass. The air smells like horses and musty meadows, even from the tarmac. Everything in the airport is smaller and cuter than the US. The customs security agent told me to wait "two ticks, love" The police walk around in uniform with dogs, but the dogs are frumpy and shaggy and barely come up to your knee. There are clouds, yes, but not like in Belgium. Its like someone took that grey sober sky and lifted it up a few hundred feet where it dried out enough to form cracks through which blue skies and sunbeams can stream down through. This land is the inspiration of Mists of Avalon, the stomping grounds of Oberon and Queen Maab.

I'm in Glasgow for the day. Harry has some work responsibilities there, so we'll meet at the train station later and head back to Edinburgh where he lives. From then on its 5 more days in Scotland and then 5 days in Ireland before returning back to Belgium.

I'll keep you posted.