3/17 The construction work in Newburgh is all done, we now need to figure out when and how to paint all the walls, and when and how to get rid of the dust, little by little. The beams are now covered, the nerves are beginning to show.
3/17 The construction work in Newburgh is all done, we now need to figure out when and how to paint all the walls, and when and how to get rid of the dust, little by little. The beams are now covered, the nerves are beginning to show.
3/16 MUC – LHR – JFK. The wing of our British Airways triple-seven is covered in greyish patterns that look like shadows of random vegetation, yet there is nothing between us and pure space above, except the receding atmosphere. I’m spending a long time looking at the control surface close to the fuselage, seeing it move up and down by tiniest amounts in irregular timing, smoothing out the randomness of the air to make, as our flight path, one of the straight lines we are known for.
3/15 Bavaria. It is not that my father’s behavior is always too much for me, and only sometimes too much for my mother. It is exactly as annoying to her as it is to me, in every single interaction, and it’s been that for decades, by far the largest part of her life.
I will be here for thirty-six hours. I only need to survive these thirty-six hours. I’m not sure if I can do it, but I’ll do what I can.
3/14 Also, birds in the morning. Rarely felt with such clarity how my world is contracting and the most valuable effort is to work to stop and reverse that contraction.
3/13 Hamburg. My son introduces me to one of his girl-friends. Vegan restaurant offering vegan beef. Belligerent soccer fans intimidating the woman at hotel reception. A room with surprisingly panoramic windows, silhouettes of trees, an organic jumble of backyard buildings.
3/12 Leaving America in bright daylight and arriving in Amsterdam while it is still pitch dark in the morning gives the illusion that it is indeed just midnight yet. I booked a space pod inside the airport for up to some nine hours of sleep.
3/11 Chris’ answers are so simple that I almost feel stupid paying so much money for them, but that of course is exactly the point. When I ask, for example, how I can create chord progressions not just by trial and error, but steer them spontaneously while improvising, he just says: It takes time to develop your own harmonic vocabulary.
Crossing an ocean has never been anything but being squeezed into a vessel that feels too small for the task, similar to how space travel basically requires turning yourself into a mole.
3/10 What more spectacular news could there be than the warmth of this day, lunch outside on Amsterdam Avenue, a warm day with all trees completely skeletal, not a single trace of green.
Temperatures climbed to 70 yesterday, first run along the Hudson in several weeks, a clear sky dome from which the light receded in a monumental way, turning into the intense ochre and purple behind the already dark silhouettes of the buildings. A grand evening, who could not want to build a city here.
3/9 Of course we do our part, go to protests and donate money. Heroes however are those in Minneapolis with their whistles and cameras. Apart from that, lethargic about the news every day, it is hard to see anything but an inevitable repeat of history unfolding.
3/8 Electric Violin Workshop in J’s music school in East Brunswick. The seven kids were eager and busy, some chaotic and some disciplined, even ambitious. Three multi-effect units, three amps in the same room. I wonder in which of them a session like this might light a spark that never goes out for the rest of their life. Maybe in each, or maybe, in a hundred workshops, in one.