Seattle poker night

Taylor and Curt counting the chips before the game.

Tobin helps Kate count her massive winnings.

My first experience of poker in Seattle last night. Tobin hosts an occasional game at his home in Columbus City. Actually, it was my first experience playing poker ever. As the rules began to reveal themselves, I realized I’d folded on several good hands because I’d assumed I’d need all the cards in the same suit. I lost $9.50 over the course of the evening. Halfway through the night, while I sat back after folding on a particular game, I realized I was enjoying myself. I enjoy playing games like this with others. It even brought back a childhood memory of sitting in the warm summer darkness on the front porch with a random selection of relatives, neighbors and friends, playing words games into the night. This wasn’t something we did often, but those evenings were like an oasis in my childhood. Fortunately this particular gang of poker players puts the emphasis on fun. Everyone comes in at $10, and much of the winnings end up going to Tobin anyway to pay for the ribs and drinks.

Travis' Birthday

Dinner at the Fiddler's Inn in Wedgewood last night to celebrate Travis' birthday. It is an honest-to-goodness neighborhood pub not far from where Igor and Travis live. Excellent food. So-so service. Afterwards we went to Travgor's to enjoy the lemon cake I made.

Earlier this week, more venue possibilities. We are getting to be good friends with many realtors & brokers. That is Curt barely visible in the doorway.

Andrew & Curt getting the tour of the Capital Hill Arts Center from Maggie.

Good Shepard Chapel

Several members of the Tuning the Air team visited Good Shepard Chapel in Wallingford today and got to hear how unamplified guitars sounded in that space. The answer - they sound great! The only problem is that the players cannot hear each other.

Richard & Karen

While out walking with David on Sunday, we talked about many things including aikido. Following up on that conversation here's a few images for David of Richard S. H. The first one is with my sister.

Richard outside the dojo at Rancho Strozzi

David's World

The day began with news that my godfather, Richard Chyba, passed away last night. He was 75. He'd been ill for sometime, so this news wasn't a shock. And you could say he lost interest in being alive quite awhile ago, so there is even some relief from this news. Still, just beneath the mundane activities of the day was this awareness that he no longer breathes as I breathe.

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Checked in at Travgor's to water the garden today. The sunflowers are still strong. I noticed two more red oak leaf lettuce plants - which means four have survived.


My friend David is - among other things - a fine street photographer. Today, I joined him on a walk through some of the Seattle streets he has photographed. Though this wasn't the ideal situation, i.e. 'going out to 'do' street photography' isn't really what it is about, it was still informative and fun. And hell too, as I struggled to 'see' what might be possible.








Here he is in action:

One of the things I noticed is how anticipatory his approach is. He can't wait for something to happen, he must see it coming - and he does! Having spent so much time in the studio coaxing materials into an image, this approach was instructive to watch.

I also saw how out of practice I am in 'seeing' in black and white....

Shoemaker & Lopez

I am not sure performance is the right word for what I heard at Good Shepard last night. In both cases, the composers employed computers and other gear to produce sounds. While there were moments one might describe as awesome, I found myself having to endure most of the sounds that were made.

The first composer, Matt Shoemaker, a self-effacing presence (anti-presence?) on the stage seemed barely aware of the audience.
He sat at a simple table with a laptop and an array of other gear with cables draped around him. (There was little consideration to what this may look like to an audience. ) Despite his non-presence on the stage, he produced massive sounds - several times it seemed the entire building was about to lift-off. In moments, it reminded me of something Joseph Campbell speaks about - the sublime - that which is about prodigious power. These moments were surrounded by much that I would have to call 'noise'.

The second composer, Francisco Lopez went a step further and before his set, re-arranged all the seats in circles around him - but all facing outwards. And if I had any doubts that visual input was frowned on, they dissapeared when we were all issued black blindfolds and encouraged to use them. Whether one tied the blindfold on or not didn't matter much as the lights were turned off. (Had there been any light, I would have been sorely tempted to make a photograph of this curious scene.) Perhaps I was fatigued from enduring Shoemaker's set, but Lopez's work sounded like an action-film soundtrack with the dialogue and score removed. By the end of the evening, when the last of the sounds died away, the audience just sat there. I suspect that many were, like me, grateful for the silence we now sat in. None of us moved for a long time. After almost a full minute, the composer shuffled a bit, as if to indicate he was done. Still, none of us moved. Finally, he said, quietly, 'thank you.' And only then, as if prodded to, some of those in the audience began to applaud.

The audience will encircle the compser, facing away.

blindfolds

Poster Drafts

Worked on several ideas for a new poster for Tuning the Air. I like the first one best so far.

The search continues

Yesterday, temperatures rose to nearly 100 degress here. Rather than begin the day with a bike ride, I drove down to Carkeek Park to take a walk on the beach. It was already quite hot even early in the day.







Later, I carpooled with Curt back to the Rainer property for a followup visit with the landlord. We'd asked that anyone who could make it come down with guitars so we could hear what the place sounds like.



Afterwards, we had an impromptu meeting outside the building. No great feeling for this place, so the search continues...

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I've been bringing morning glories home with me to photograph, but they are fading so quickly I'm not getting a change to work with them.

welcome to my daily nightmare

Yesterday, coordinating with Curt via Skype, I typed:

"You know what? It is hitting me (like a brick) that if we don't have a venue (lease signed) within 10 days, we will be in Trinity for at least the first 3 months of the season. Just the timelime for posters (printing and distribution) neccessitates that we have a venue address nailed down in the next 10 days."

Curt's reply:

"welcome to my daily nightmare"

Yesterday we looked at two properties.


Neither were suitable. Both are too narrow and each has other issues as well. I also dragged Curt to the Good Shepard chapel to get him into that space. While he's not exactly enthusiastic, he has begun to see why the space is special.

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More property searching for Tuning the Air today.

This one was fabulous. A really wonderful space. But about $4K a month more than we can afford. The broker did encourage us to make an offer. Andrew wrote up his impressions of the space AND of our situation in the face of it on the private blog I set up for us to use as we look for a space. Andrews notes several important concerns the team faces and gives voice to some of my own concerns.


This is Immaculate Conception Church, which rents space to non-profits. This would be an arrangement similar to the current facility at Trinity.



In between the two property visits, Andrew, Curt and I stopped for coffee and a review of the situation.

Young Sunflowers

Sunflowers planted at Travgor's


Spent an afternoon working in the garden I've borrowed from Travis & Igor.

In the morning, I went looking for possible photoshoot locations for Tuning the Air publicity. This one, near Gasworks Park looks promising.

Stuart Dempster, Tuning the Air & the Simpsons

Taylor, one of the musicians in Tuning the Air, prepared this 'Tuning the Air meets the Simpsons' send up. It can only be fully appreciated by those of you who know members of the team.

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Had the remarkable opportunity to hear Stuart Dempster perform tonight. The performance marked the 07-07-07 convergence as well as the observance of Tanabata ("Seven Evenings"), a Japanese/Chinese star festival. It also happened to be the birthday of both Dennis Rea (his 50th) and Stuart Dempster.

The photos above are from intermissions. (Though these are musicians who would very likely welcome random shutter noise in their performances.) At one point during a piece called Dronabata (all pieces took their names from a pun made from 'Tanabata') Dempster was in the middle aisle in the midst of the audience, whirling like a dervish, except that he was playing a long thin didgeridoo which spun around and around over the heads of the audience.

I went to see this show partly to see Dempster who plays on a favorite album: Deep Listening. The other reason was to scope out the venue. Tuning the Air has been approached by Steve Peters, a composer and the director of the entity that is hosting these performances. This wouldn't work as a permanent home for Tuning the Air, but it would certainly make a great occasional venue for the team to play in, not to mention sub-projects like the Solaris Project.

the Tuning the Air space search continues....

More working with the Behemoth - now that some consistency is possible. Still a few outstanding issues to work out. Managed to squeeze out the minmimum prints Modernbook requested and shipped those out a few days ago.

Visited several Tuning the Air potential facilities in the last few days.




And on the Fourth of July, relaxed over at Travis & Igor's place (Travgor's) with other friends. I didn't even pull my camera out once. As I said, I relaxed! The sunflower fence I'm trying to plant in their yard is slowly coming along. I'll take snaps of those in a few days.

The 100th show

Last night was the final performance of Tuning the Air's Spring 2007 season. Here's Igor with a family that came to see the show.

More snaps of the post-show crowd, including one of me taken by Diana.




This next one includes Barbie-Danielle, the radio producer from KBCS who has been working with us for a special program she hopes to complete about the project.

Afterwards, we all went to Curt's place for pizza.

Canal Park

I discovered Canal Park down in Fremont this morning. Walked partway into Ballard along the bike path down there. This will be a great place to bring my bike - now that I finally retrieved it from Igor and Travis's place. Not sure where I'll keep it in my place. The loft has certainly opened things up - but a bicycle has certain storage requirements I'll have trouble satisfying.