From the June 18 Post-performance photo session

A little late in posting these. Not many good images from the session - for a variety of reasons. First and foremost, I was unprepared. I'd forgotten we were going to do this until Curt turned to me at the end of rehearsal and said, 'Performance photos?' Yikes! The second reason is that the cushions were set out by someone unaccustomed to the task and they'd clustered them too tightly in the center of the carpet. This makes the audience look even more crowded than usual. A third reason is that there was someone in the audience who was not happy that evening - very possibly with me - and nearly every image that person is visible in is unusable because their state so dominates the photograph. A fourth reason is that Curt tried something different with the team. Rather than just play through some pieces, he did some demonstrations with the team - breaking down circulations, zithers and cascades for the benefit of the audience. This means there was as much explaining/figuring out notes as there was playing. So, for much of my photo time, the team is just sitting there on their stools. Not very photogenic. I write this out so that I can be reminded of them for the next opportunity.

Is it possible?

Is it possible that the most recent problems (reported on June 6) with the Behemoth or over? And that now I can return to troubleshooting the problem I reported back in May? It appears so.

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My mom recently asked for an photo of the loft, so I decided to take a new photo of the setup as it looks today. The ladder has been updated and my work table has been pushed up next to the loft giving me much more living space.

The continuing saga of the behemoth

On Monday, during the pre-show rehearsal, I made nearly 500 images of Diana's dance movements . Later I imported these into Keynote and made a 'movie' from them.

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Still working on resolving Behemoth troubles with HP.
Having replaced all the printheads on the behemoth (at HP's suggestion) I am still experiencing the curious phenemena of successively printed prints turning out quite differently. The image above is a scan of two prints side by side one printed right after the other with no changes in the interim. HP is tossing me over to the hardware team now.

Tonight's dinner was a tasty vegetarian posole made with butternut squash, hominy & pumpkin seeds.

The Ballard Playhouse

After today's rehearsal, we (the Tuning the Air team) finally got a chance to visit the infamous Ballard Playhouse. There are more pictures here.

Imagine this as a home for Tuning the Air

Can you imagine a Tuning the Air graphic on this building? I can.

An interesting Tuning the Air venue possibility has come up. It is a long shot, a very long shot. This property is slated for development, but still has to complete a design review and an environmental impact study. Wouldn't it be great if in the interim it was used for music?



The now-doomed window treatments. I'll spare you the details.

Sunflower seedlings

More sunflower seedlings.

From the garden I started over at Travgor's (that's Igor and Travis' house.) I was happy to see the birds didn't eat all the sunflowers I'd planted.

The Prius gets new glass.

During the drive back from SF to Seattle a pebble hit my windshield and left a crack. Yesterday, a good natured and competent repair fellow came to fix tthe damage. A car looks very strange without it's windshield.

First order of business today: a walk that would take me past the (potential Tuning the Air venue) 310 NW 85th St. property. (Oh, and get some excersize too.) The property had much going for it - alas the supporting beams every 15 or so feet make it unusable for our purposes. On the walk back, just a block from home, I remembered a question Curt asked me about the property on the corner. At the time I thought it was strange question to ask, since I have only just moved here and don't know anything about the history of the neighborhood. Approaching the property this morning, I saw its possibilities as a venue. Not sure if that is why he posed the question, but it provoked me to swing into action to investigate. That and a few other TTA follow up calls and email deflected me a bit from the plan for the day.

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Beau Brummels ‘Laugh, Laugh’ playing in the background with that fabulous quivering vocal. What is it about that era of music?

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Nothing yet from the Sacramento dealer, so a terse email composed and sent. My patience is now wearing very thin. Preparing correspondence to the Palo Alto gallery about a pending print shipment.

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Rehearsal tonight with a stop at Travgor’s to check on the garden….

A short post

Exhausted and impossibly busy today - a combination that means I am cheating and posting this image of adorable tiger cubs from this article on the 84 recent Siberian tiger births in China.

Still working on tonight's Tuning the Air program and new window treatments.

Just accepted a a delivery from HP that I've not yet opened. Much printing to do in the next two days followed by shipping many of these prints.

The Loft

Today, the loft came into being. It will still require a few refinements, but the foundation of the structure is in place. The crew I asked to help work on the project turned out to be the perfect configuration for a task like this. Repeatedly I found myself in awe of a kind of alchemy that was taking place.

Before

Curt & Taylor &...

Igor & Frank

...did an amazing job of pulling this all together.

After the job, we had pizza and relaxed a bit. Then I started trying to make it into liveable space...



I have an Ikea table - and in trying to move it into place under the loft and resetting the leg height, something went wrong and the leg refuses to lock into place now. So I went to the Ikea website and tried to ask my question about these legs in various ways, but all it's online customer support tool would do is bring up product pages that provided no detailed information. Finally - in exasperation, I typed:

"This tool is useless!"

It replied, "My design prevents me from empathizing with this sentiment. What would you like to know about IKEA?"

I tried again with another question, and again found myself typing:

"Like I said, this tool is useless."

It replied, "I can see that. Well, as long as you keep talking, I'll keep responding."


Weird!

Making movies

Having learned a tiny bit about making movies using Keynote (back when Scott and I put the Apple store presentation together,) I decided to try my hand at a movie showing off the new Tuning the Air set design Ingrid and Jaxie installed at the center. Meleah, as always is doing the lights. This movie shows a very small circle as we were missing many players at Wednesday's rehearsal.

To my surprise, I received an email from the Sacramento dealer. It isn't a perfect honoring of his commitment. We had agreed to a reply in four weeks, he replied in one month. We had agreed he would let me know when I would receive payment, his email is imprecise about this. I have drafted a reply, acknowledging the degree to which he has met the commitment, and pointing out where he has not.

The Loft About To Be Becoming

Yesterday I visited Lowe's and a very nice man named Tom helped review the plans for the loft. He made a few simplifying suggestions and then prepared a quote for the project. I wish I'd done this weeks ago as I was fearing the total price tag - and it came out to be about $50 less than I anticipated. Today Frank helped me pick up the materials for the loft. Now to actually build it!

Photo :Ingrid Pape-Sheldon

Last Saturday, Ingrid made some photos at rehearsal. Here's one she made of me listening to the team.

Selling the Martin and other updates

Spied on my walk yesterday - just an overgrown front yard. But I like the way it recedes in this image.

Still unpacking boxes, I came across several strands of Christmas lights. Since I have no storage space in this place, I have a 'use it or toss it' rule. On a whim, I decided to hang the lights from the temporary bedroom 'wall' (photo tension bars and muslin) I made while awaiting the loft. As silly as it seems, it does make my 'bedroom' a cheerier place than it was before.


And the long awaited garden gets started at Travgor's. This is a 'before' picture of the salad bed. I also dropped a few sunflowers seeds to make the beginnings of a fence of sunflowers. Got the mildest sunburn despite 2 1/2 hours in the sun without sunscreen.



And last, but not least, I have decided to sell my Martin. I am keeping the Ovation. Igor did a fabulous job setting the Ovation up recently - and it plays wonderfully.

500 Years of Female Portraits in Western Art

My friend Marc sent this to me today.

Uh oh. Signs of activity in the building across the street where the bowling alley used to be. I have been dreading the inevitable demolition/construction on this site as it will both take away my parking space and make for a lot of noise and disruption. My building manager says the team I saw there represents a company that is bidding on the demolition.


Today is my birthday and I am having dinner with a friend at Roti Cuisine of India down in Queen Anne. Perfect.

The Jonah

Met Frank S. for breakfast this morning. That box in front of him holds the manuscript of The Jonah. It is ready for the proofreader/editor.

Now to find a publisher.



A new - very subtle - set design for the Tuning the Air project was unveiled recently. Fine, sheer panels hang on two sides of the performance space. Colored lights are placed at the base of each. Meleah can control each of them - and she now has her hands quite full.

Lupine

Some visual experiments from the weekend.




After washing away the film of dead bugs and road dust, it is finally time to adhere a Tuning the Air bumpersticker on my car.

Before Friday's reception at Modernbook, several of us had dinner a few blocks from the gallery. (Panoramas courtesy of Scott.)




The reception was fun this time. I think sharing thelimelight is easier on me. There is time to breathe.

Just home after the long drive back. Almost fourteen hours on the road with three short breaks. Detailed reminiscing will have to wait.

The theater at the far end of the SF Apple store's second floor.

Last night’s talk went better than I expected. Scott had visited the store ahead of time to scope out the place and learned that we would essentially be one of the rings of a three-ring circus within the store, employing a small ‘theater’ at one end of the store’s second floor. With no barrier between us and the retail areas, all the bustle and noises would be a part of our presentation. We must have managed to overcome this because afterwards a young man came up to me and said, ‘I’m sure this always happens to you, but I just want you to know that there were two photographs that you showed that brought me to tears.’ That response made all the work we put into this presentation worth it.

Scott during his portion of the talk.

Back tracking a bit to last Sunday's Art Salon where the regular's were joined by several guests, Helen Wallis, and Kate & Geir Jordahl.

And on Wednesday, I caught up with Mani, Rummy and Paul over lunch. Indian food, of course. Good to hear that the workplace may improve. May it be so!


Having Skyped with Paul so much in the development of my website, it was a pleasant shock to hear his voice come directly from his body.