Alexandersmap

    Category: Music

    • I’ve Loved Them All

      And in the end
      The love you take
      Is equal to the love you make
      – The Beatles, The End

      Which Beatles album is the greatest? The answer is different for most everyone, but it usually comes down to Rubber Soul, Revolver and Sgt. Pepper’s each wrestling for number one, with a couple of votes each for The Beatles (White Album) and Abbey Road. It’s a bit like asking which is your favorite child; you simply love them all as they are.

      The Beatles are always in the background of my life. Always. Born at the height of their popularity, you simply grew up listening to them. For those of us born “too late”, we missed out on the anticipation of a new album being released, for it was all out there when we began listening in earnest. When you’ve heard the later work, your jaw doesn’t drop quite as far to the floor when you listen to Rubber Soul. But you still appreciate the creative leap forward from Help! (a great album itself).

      All these places have their moments
      With lovers and friends I still can recall
      Some are dead and some are living
      In my life I’ve loved them all
      – The Beatles, In My Life

      Which is your favorite Beatle? This tells more about you than you might think. For me it was always George Harrison. The quiet Beatle. And for all the brilliantly prolific work of John Lennon and Paul McCartney, it was George who dropped some of the best songs into the mix of “best Beatles song”, which is close to impossible to determine.

      With every mistake, we must surely be learning
      Still my guitar gently weeps
      – The Beatles, While My Guitar Gently Weeps

      If George has 3-4 songs that ought to be in the mix for the best Beatles song, Lennon and McCartney had even more individually, and collaboratively co-wrote some of the greatest songs ever written on some of the best albums ever released. So how do you choose the best? Look at their solo careers? Here too, the ratio seems about the same.

      We could spend our lifetime debating such things or just agree that it was a brilliant run for the Fab Four. For this business of picking a favorite is nonsense. In the end we love them all.

    • Thinking How I’ll Feel When I Find…

      I deal in dreamers
      And telephone screamers
      Lately I wonder what I do it for
      If l had my way
      I’d just walk out those doors
      And wander
      Down the Champs Elysees
      Going cafe to cabaret
      Thinking how I’ll feel when I find
      That very good friend of mine
      I was a free man in Paris
      I felt unfettered and alive
      Nobody was calling me up for favors
      No one’s future to decide
      You know I’d go back there tomorrow
      But for the work I’ve taken on
      Stoking the star maker machinery
      Behind the popular song.
      – Joni Mitchell, Free Man In Paris

      I hear a big song like this one a bit differently today than I did as a kid. Then I just heard the bigness of the song, the sonic beauty akin to a wall of sound production. Joni at her highest point in her career with one of the great side ones (back when side one mattered a lot). Now my attention locks onto the freedom of going cafe to cabaret and running into friends along the way, which seems like a grand way to spin about in Paris. And so different from the day-to-day grind of making a living and seeing things through. And maybe that’s why it was so popular, more than the inside look at David Geffen from the perspective of one of his biggest stars and closest friends.

      At its root the song is a longing to break free from that daily grind, whatever ours happens to be, and to live that carefree life in lovely places. And that, friends, is the promised land. And doesn’t require a flight to Paris, as lovely as that might be for each of us. Being unfettered and alive is a state of mind achieved just as easily hiking the spine between bald mountain peaks or walking a quiet beach offseason as it is being part of the cafe and cabaret scene in the City of Lights.

      And the question is, how much is enough? When you’ve earned enough to not be homeless or hungry, what more do you need? The restlessness in this song is the thing that’s so identifiable for anyone who climbs those corporate rungs, thinking about how they’ll feel when they find… whatever it is they think is at that next level of accomplishment. That next status symbol that shows everyone that they’ve really arrived this time.

      Last year Geffen posted a controversial Instagram photo of his stunning yacht Rising Sun in the Grenadines with the sun setting behind as COVID raged and he “self-isolated”. You can see the beauty and smugness in that photo, all at once. As I understand it, that yacht takes 70,000 gallons of fuel and who knows how much in provisions. I wonder if he feels like he’s finally found whatever it was he was looking for?

      How much is enough? Most of us will never have a comparable yacht or a private island or a ticket on a luxurious flight into space with a billionaire. I’m not condemning those who chase for more, but I don’t particularly want that for myself. Because being unfettered and alive isn’t about accumulation or status, it’s about being happy with where you are and what you’re doing in this moment.

      Think how that might feel.

    • More to See for You and Me

      “From here to Venezuela
      There’s nothing more to see
      Than a hundred thousand islands
      Flung like jewels upon the sea
      For you and me”
      – Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, The Lee Shore

      I heard about a former coworker, a guy with Israeli good looks and intense blue eyes that no doubt closed many negotiations of the heart, who succumbed to COVID after months of treatment. Younger than me, far more energy with a passion for family, travel and technology, in that order. A whirlwind of energy and intellect and movement. Quietly receding from life in a hospital bed in Miami.

      Which once again reminds me that life is so very brief, and the years of fitness and energy are even shorter. So what do we do with our days? Fritter it all away in spreadsheets and conference calls? Watch other people live their lives on social media? Or do something with our own?

      We miss too many opportunities to dance with the forests and the waves and the sky for this business of living. This busyness of living. But is it really living or just staying busy? The game of deferred living is a tragic and fatal one indeed.

      My friend is a reminder of what the stakes are, what the stakes have been, and why we changed everything. And now? Now we are living in the time of the haves and the have nots. Are you vaccinated or not? If you are, let’s celebrate our faith in science and each other and dance with the world.

      There’s so very much more to do in this short life. A hundred thousand islands are just waiting for you and me. Out there, just beyond the horizon. Waiting for us to weigh anchor and go to them. Let’s go out and meet the world.

    • Forever is Our Today

      But touch my tears with your lips
      Touch my world with your fingertips
      And we can have forever
      And we can love forever
      Forever is our today
      – Queen, Who Wants to Live Forever

      This idea of living forever is tantalizing, isn’t it? It fuels our fascination with vampires and elves and superheroes, but I’m not sure it’s in our best interest to be immortal. We waste so much time already. Maybe time running out is a gift. as Jason Isbell wrote in his magical song I quoted last week. It does tend to focus us on the urgency of the moment, doesn’t it?

      There are advancements in science that offer legitimate hope for extending life 2-3 times longer than our current lifespan. Swap out a bit of DNA code for something better and become almost invincible. To cure all ills and live a healthy vibrant 150-200 years seems like pure fantasy, but there are people like Peter Diamandis with his company Human Longevity actively pursuing this now. Which makes you wonder, to what end?

      Will longevity become like plastic surgery for the truly vain, with constant adjustments and tweaks to our genetic code based on the latest blood work? Probably. Who wants to live forever? Plenty of people. And the wealthy have the means to chase it. If you want to be in the genetic engineering game you’d better be adept at accumulating wealth before the bill comes due.

      Will our pursuit of immortality lead humanity down unethical paths? There’s no doubt. Hostile governments are likely already working on superhuman soldiers with incredible strength and no fear. 60 Minutes recently aired a segment about foreign governments accumulating information about your DNA. We’re really just at the early stages of exponential growth in genetic engineering. Ethical questions abound.

      “It is naïve to imagine that we might simply hit the brakes and stop the scientific projects that are upgrading Homo sapiens into a different kind of being. For these projects are inextricably meshed together with the Gilgamesh Project… since we might soon be able to engineer our desires too, the real question facing us is not ‘What do we want to become?’, but ‘What do we want to want?’ Those who are not spooked by this question probably haven’t given it enough thought… Is there anything more dangerous than dissatisfied and irresponsible gods who don’t know what they want? – Yuval Noah Harari, Sapiens

      Pretty heavy ethical questions right there. But fair to ask. What is the mission anyway? Perfection? Dominance? Immortality? To what end? There are plenty of selfish, irresponsible people who demonstrate every day that we can’t just trust people to do the right thing. If Sapiens detailed anything in fine detail, it’s that humanity has shoved aside questions about ethics and fairness at almost every step in our existence.

      So where does that leave you and me? There’s the shared wealth of knowledge we can lean on as science sifts through what works and what doesn’t. We all know to exercise more and eat more blueberries and kale. Are we really chasing immortality or just a healthier, more vibrant life in the time that we have? Better surpasses longer on the priority list, I should think. Why would anyone want to extend a miserable life indefinitely? To hold out for just one more Fast & Furious movie to see how it all turns out?

      What do we want to want? Yikes. Forever seems pretty attractive, but personally, I’d like to master today. Forego the maddening crush of distractions pulling you towards perfect smiles and perfect abs and the perfect family and just be incrementally better than yesterday. A good start would be to be fitter and sharper through good decisions and a little discipline. String enough good days together and maybe you have just enough life in the end. Immortality is folly. But we can have today.

    • To Be Touched by Everything I’ve Found

      One obvious problem with long drives is that it eats into reading time. You can solve this with audio books, of course, but then what of podcasts? As a heavy consumer of both, what do you choose? And this is where time becomes our enemy.

      Long drives require epic podcast episodes, and there’s nothing more epic than Hardcore History with Dan Carlin. For the last year I’ve been saving long stretches of travel to complete Supernova of the East, which is like all of Carlin’s podcasts: devastating edge of your seat listening. You want a little perspective as you crawl along in traffic over the Tappan Zee Bridge? Listen to the details of the Battle of Okinawa as Carlin spins his magic.

      What do you do when you’ve finished a series like Supernova of the East and you need to step back into the better side of humanity? Music helps. Lately I’ve been mixing classic rock and what today is known as “Americana” music (personally, I just call it music). Specifically, diving into old Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young tunes and new Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit compilations. Looking for poetry set to music? You can’t go wrong with either. As a lover of words piled together just so, Isbell does to your brain cells what a complex Cabernet does to your taste buds.

      The best I can do
      Is to let myself trust that you know
      Who’ll be strong enough to carry your heart
      – Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit, Letting You Go

      When you get to a hotel room in some remote place and you’ve caught up on all those emails and administrative work, what next? Drink? Watch television? Or dive back into the books that have tapping you on the shoulder for attention? There’s a place for every form of entertainment, but in most of my travels the hotel television never gets turned on. But the Kindle app does.

      After some consistent prodding by a friend of mine, I’m finally finishing Sapiens by Yusef Noah Harari. I know, what took me so long? Honestly it just kept slipping down the pile as other books jumped ahead. Regrettable, but life is about tradeoffs. What we choose to dance with in our brief time makes all the difference in how we see the world. Now that I’ve almost wrapped it up, I see what all the fuss is about.

      “Even today, with all our advanced technologies, more than 90 per cent of the calories that feed humanity come from the handful of plants that our ancestors domesticated between 9500 and 3500 BC – wheat, rice, maize (called ‘corn’ in the US), potatoes, millet and barley. No noteworthy plant or animal has been domesticated in the last 2,000 years. If our minds are those of hunter-gatherers, our cuisine is that of ancient farmers.” – Yusef Noah Harari, Sapiens

      Speaking of that stack of books, I put aside a couple of other books to focus on completing Sapiens. One in particular, The Blind Watchmaker, is a heavier lift than Sapiens, but compliments it well. I’ve referenced it before in the blog, and look forward to moving it to the virtual “done” pile. Combined, these two books have shaken my perspective of the world and how we got here.

      “If you have a mental picture of X and you find it implausible that the human eye could have arisen directly from it, this simply means that you have chosen the wrong X.” – Richard Dawkins, The Blind Watchmaker

      Inevitably I need to sprinkle in page-turner fiction, poetry and sharp left turn material to shake off reality until I can catch my breath again. Journey to Ixtlan by Carlos Castaneda was a definite left turn for me, an interesting read that got me thinking about mysticism and craving more time in the desert Southwest.

      “You can do better. There is one simple thing wrong with you—you think you have plenty of time.” – Carlos Castaneda, Journey to Ixtlan

      The Sea in You: Twenty Poems of Requited and Unrequited Love by David Whyte is a lovely collection of poems by one of our living masters. Whyte stirs words together with the best of them and catches my imagination with his alchemy. I’ll surely spend more time with Whyte in this blog in the near future.

      “be weathered by what comes to you, like the way you
      too
      have travelled from so far away to be here, once
      reluctant
      and now as solid and as here and as willing
      to be touched as everything you have found.”
      – David Whyte, The Sea in You: Twenty Poems of Requited and Unrequited Love

      We collect bits of wisdom and memorable nuggets in our consumption. Does this make us better conversationalists or a faster draw on Jeopardy? Most likely, but there’s something more to it than that. To revisit the old cliche, we are the average of the five people we spend the most time with. What we consume either amplifies our biases or challenges them. I choose to be challenged, and find myself slowly stretching and building a better mind, with greater perspective, through what I listen to, watch and read.

      In short, to be touched by everything I’ve found.

    • One Day

      If we were vampires and death was a joke
      We’d go out on the sidewalk and smoke
      And laugh at all the lovers and their plans
      I wouldn’t feel the need to hold your hand
      Maybe time running out is a gift
      I’ll work hard ’til the end of my shift
      And give you every second I can find
      And hope it isn’t me who’s left behind

      It’s knowing that this can’t go on forever
      Likely one of us will have to spend some days alone
      Maybe we’ll get forty years together
      But one day I’ll be gone
      Or one day you’ll be gone
      – Jason Isbell, If We Were Vampires

      A song like this makes you question yourself. Points a finger into your chest and lets you know that you’re too cavalier with moments. Too willing to take it all for granted and dance with the days as if they’ll always be here. Moments stack up like old photos in a shoebox and it’s easy to believe that there will be another. Because there always has been for as long as we can remember.

      We’re fascinated with immortality because we can’t have it. For ourselves, or for those we care about the most in this brief dance. But we cheat the days looking out to the end. The moments are here, staring at us and waiting for us to put the phone down and look us in the eye. Here we are, in this moment so briefly.

      Maybe time running out is a gift. If we might see it running. If we might use it wisely. Not one day, but now.

    • Myths and Pretty Stories

      “Like the elite of ancient Egypt, most people in most cultures dedicate their lives to building pyramids. Only the names, shapes and sizes of these pyramids change from one culture to the other. They may take the form, for example, of a suburban cottage with a swimming pool and an evergreen lawn, or a gleaming penthouse with an enviable view. Few question the myths that cause us to desire the pyramid in the first place.” – Yuval Noah Harari, Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind

      We all build pretty stories, latch on to myths that align us with a currency, political party, and what we chase in our short time on earth. Since I reached “responsible” adulthood I’ve been servant to my pyramid in New Hampshire, my second pyramid, thank you. I’ve done my part to keep both the economy and humankind going by getting married and having two children, a boy and a girl, to keep the party going after I someday check out.

      Sapiens challenges long-standing assumptions we have about our place in the world: how we got here, what we believe, what we’ve destroyed in the process of getting here and what is being destroyed now as a result of the myths and pretty stories we collectively tell ourselves. And that’s the part that I’ve been thinking about lately. We’ve all seen what collective belief in a myth can do on September 11, 2001 and on January 6, 2021. There’s a very dark side of humanity that emerges when subscribing to certain myths. And there’s a swell of resistance that rises up when confronted with myths that don’t fit our own view of the world.

      It may come as no surprise to any reader of this blog that I’m a romanticist, chasing experiences in this short life. And yet like many of my fellow romanticists I’ve also built a pyramid. And keep adding smaller pyramids around it to make this life more… comfortable? Luxurious? Sure. But every myth has a price, and to function in this society your story needs to align with the larger story of paying mortgages and car payments and working to fund it all.

      We humans are complicated, aren’t we? Life is about the pretty stories we tell ourselves. About where we are and where we’re going. We all tell ourselves and others these stories. I tell myself that I’m chasing washboard abs, but still managed to have a third taco last night. Now I’m planning a long walk and yard work to make up for the three tacos. Washboard abs are just another pretty story I tell myself if I don’t align my habits with the larger goal.

      As an American I grew up believing certain things about our Rights as citizens. We buy into the belief that all men and women are created equal. Over time you learn this is a myth, we aren’t at all equal. Some are dealt tougher hands than others. Some drink the Kool-Aid of scarcity and fear and react to that with aggression and hate. In sharp contrast, may of us subscribe to something bigger. A belief in each other and a better future.

      “Well, big wheels roll through fields where sunlight streams
      Oh, meet me in a land of hope and dreams”
      – Bruce Springsteen, Land of Hope and Dreams

      Inevitably there’s friction and chafing when one person’s myths run into another’s opposing myths. We live in a dangerous time, and a lot depends on how the pendulum swings during our watch. Like Springsteen I’m an eternal optimist, but recognize that’s just the way we frame our pretty stories. Like washboard abs and too many tacos, sometimes pretty stories and reality don’t align and you’ve got to recognize that and commit to changing the story.

      We all have to work for the pyramids we are building towards the sky. It’s fair to question whether we’re building the right pyramid in the first place. Isn’t it?

    • Dancing in our Seats

      “To dance is to be out of yourself. Larger, more beautiful, more powerful… This is power, it is glory on earth and it is yours for the taking” – Agnes De Mille

      “It’s the heart afraid of breaking that never learns to dance.” – Xiaolu Guo

      Out for dinner with my bride on a Friday night,
      the place packed like it used to be
      before pandemics
      and not a mask in sight
      Obviously everyone is vaccinated…
      right?

      I know, that poem needs a lot of work, but this isn’t a post about the poem, but the moment. A packed tavern, literally hundreds of people jammed into the building for a wedding down the hall, trickling over to celebrate in the tavern. A mile from our home and looking around we don’t know a soul in there. Even the waitstaff is entirely new. So forget social bubbles, the place was bursting.

      And, it seems, if we are to compare COVID to the Spanish Flu from a century ago, we’ve entered the roaring 20’s phase of our collective story about the pandemic. And honestly, there’s a big part of me that’s ready to dance again. We’ve done our part, socially isolating, getting vaccinated, and trusting the science. At what point do you just get out there and start living again?

      My bride and I are sitting at a hightop table in the back corner of the tavern, having drinks and dinner. Laughter and conversation all around us. And the music pumping through the sound system is the hits of the disco era. One hit wonders and big boogie groove things pulsing through the crowd. And I see my bride transform into the kid I fell in love with, twinkle in her eye and dancing in her seat song after song. And I dance a bit myself, just a bit, and smile in the moment.

      We’re out, and outside ourselves. If this place had a dance floor we’d have been on it. Without one we dance in our seats, waiting for our meals and another round. And life ever so slowly begins to be a celebration of all its possibilities. Glory on earth, once again.

    • Adding Extra to Ordinary

      “A master is in control. A master has a system. A master turns the ordinary into the sacred.”
      – Ryan Holiday

      “The primary math of the real world is one and one equals two. The layman (as, often, do I) swings that every day. He goes to the job, does his work, pays his bills and comes home. One plus one equals two. It keeps the world spinning. But artists, musicians, con men, poets, mystics and such are paid to turn that math on its head, to rub two sticks together and bring forth fire. Everybody performs this alchemy somewhere in their life, but it’s hard to hold on to and easy to forget. People don’t come to rock shows to learn something. They come to be reminded of something they already know and feel deep down in their gut. That when the world is at its best, when we are at our best, when life feels fullest, one and one equals three. It’s the essential equation of love, art, rock ’n’ roll and rock ’n’ roll bands. It’s the reason the universe will never be fully comprehensible, love will continue to be ecstatic, confounding, and true rock ’n’ roll will never die.” – Bruce Springsteen, Born to Run

      I’m beginning to understand the art of weaving magic. I am by no means a master, but each turn in the blog, each tangle with words in other work I’m developing, leads me closer to the sacred. The blog is my apprenticeship, never fully realized because I ship the work daily whether the magic is sprinkled on yet or not. This is a turn of the ordinary, and a march towards something more.

      Routines infer ordinary. We have our habits and generally stick with them, and we feel out of sorts when the routine is broken by happenstance or travel. But routines are where you find the magic, hidden deeply in layers of repetition and persistence. You don’t pull magic out of your ass, you work for it.

      You know it when you see it. Moments crackle with excitement. And one plus one does, for a brief moment, equal three. The greatest artists and performers regularly dance with the extraordinary. But hidden from that brilliant moment of now are the buried hours of falling flat, picking yourself up and trying something else then. You don’t add extra to ordinary without sacrifice.

      I’m well aware of where I am with my own work, and I also know where I’m going. Towards the sacred. Towards three. Towards the incomprehensible and magic and the extraordinary. I hope someday to share that with you.

    • Catching the Wind

      Waking up early I dress straight away and head outside for the Spring performance. Birdsong in spring is like no other time of year, and you must be out there early to catch the peak. Soon the tall pines caught the wind and danced together with it in a song of their own. And the harmonies of birds and breeze and trees sang to me their morning song. April mornings in New Hampshire; playing for a limited time only.

      I thought I might read a favorite Mary Oliver poem, and read ten times the one. Some days every word grabs you and shakes you to the core. Other days the words aren’t for you. I apologized to Ms. Oliver for not having my mind on the lesson and gently put poetry aside for another time.

      And turn to music. Wild Theme, Symphony No. 5, and finally Suite bergamasque: Clare de lune. Like poetry you know when it’s the right moment for a song. And so this morning Debussey and I walked about the quiet house while the world slept. But soon the restlessness returned.

      “The child is in me still… and sometimes not so still.” – Fred Rogers

      Mondays hand us the friction of the weekend meeting the work week. The question of what must be done taps on the shoulder demanding answers. Each passing minute you linger with birds and poets and symphonies amplifies the urgency of the questions. What must be done?

      Listen to the world around you. Accept the day as it comes, but plot your course with clarity of purpose. Find stillness, if you can. If only for just a moment. If you listen, you’ll hear what it’s been telling you all along. Minimize that friction and dance with the world on your own terms. Catch the wind, and fly.

      Of course! the path to heaven
      doesn’t lie down in flat miles.
      It’s in the imagination
      with which you perceive
      this world,
      and the gestures
      with which you honor it.
      – Mary Oliver, The Swan