Yes Friends,
A thrilling dance experience can be yours this weekend! I’ve written a bunch of new music for the Kozmik Keyboard to accompany YOU, while Jacob Larmour speaks inspirationally, and you, of course, dance.
Rain or shine 2-6 pm @ Davie and Bute st. You know, the rainbow walk! Jacob Larmour and I will be on from 3:30 – 4:30 for a fascinating guided experience of the human story. Not to be missed!
Here I am playing a new tune called ‘Reunion.’ I just discovered the bass function on my Kozmik Keyboard – super fun. I may have overdone it though, ‘cos the arpeggiator broke shortly after making this little video. hmm…
Please enjoy!
Every Monday night for a while now, I’ve been taking my little Portatone keyboard three blocks to the Denman St. Community Centre for QiGong class. Sometimes Bill carries it, otherwise I dump it in my laundry cart and bash and clatter down the lumpy sidewalk, lurching over the paving stones lifted by slow moving tree roots, or a pet python someone forgot about? The first time, I felt quite self conscious about all the racket I was creating and worried how I might be perceived as a shopping cart lady, or worse, a musician. Now I really don’t give a rats ass.
Playing for the class has given me a great opportunity to explore the many previously unused buttons on my Portatone…over four hundred delicious sounds, the “God” button, the arpeggiator! Oh…it’s like squeezing raspberry jello through your fingers…but better.
Like the movie“The Blob” or Dr. Seuss’ green Ooblek...Kozmik Keyboards has grown a life of its own and will be oozing away next Saturday @ 2 – 2:45pm in Alexandra Park
FEATURING: Bill Runge (wind instruments) ZZ Wonder (spoken word) and Jacob Larmour – performing “Cosmic Traveller” (I’ll be in the back, pumping the sustain pedal a lot, and pushing various buttons)
Whatever you do, do not come (unless you love raspberry jello) Just cover your ears. Walk to other side of the street, and keep moving…
As I sit around here twiddling my thumbs still waiting to be over the whole concussion thing…I came across an interesting envelope in my desk. “Hols Costa Rica memories,” in my mother’s handwriting no less. Bless her dear heart! I wrote and played a lot while I was living up in that incredible location, on the Continental divide, Monteverde, C.R.
“I wasn’t sure if I should really mention anything…but a large ape has been coming to me out of the forest, almost nightly, and for some time now. What I like so much about him is not having to deal with the whole Spanish thing. What is Spanish anyway? you put an ‘ito’ or an ‘a’ or an ‘o,’ or sometimes a ‘dad’ at the end of English word, and that’s Spanish, pretty much. True there are occasional surprises, like the word “banano.” But think about it, of course a banana is male. Frank and I (he’s so wonderfully direct) often enjoy a kilo or two of bananos together, all in good fun. The locals here prefer them nice and ripe and even feed bananos to their horses.
Then there’s the pig farm down in the valley. I had to go down there to check it out. It’s actually more like a concentration camp. Barbed wire, large grey windowless buildings, dour looking men in gumboots and the cries of the damned, that’s what. I’m so glad I stopped eating bacon. I’ll occasionally get a good whiff of pig shit up here but I still tell myself it’s paradise.”
here’s a video of a horse eating a banana
A warbling we go! Here by Stanley Park I am surrounded by blossoms…all the shades and varieties of cherries, magnolias, and the early purple azaleas. This year, for some reason, I’m really getting the fragrance of the blossoms more than usual. Even if they are lying on the ground. But the best experience is standing under an old cherry tree with a great canopy of blossoms overhead and standing or sitting or simply *being* – and simply breathing it in – heaven on earth? And birdsong fills the air! I find myself running out to the balcony, zoom recorder in hand, trying to capture the fleeting notes.
There was a sudden bash against my window – alas a little bird had flown into it… putting my hands around it, I gave it a little qi treatment. I thought it was a goner, but amazingly twenty minutes later it flew away!
According to the Stokes Guide to Birds, the orange crowned warbler is “very drab” and the Peterson Field Guide Series is equally unimpressed talking about its “lack of wing bars” and saying its song is a “weak colourless trill, dropping in energy at the end.” I wonder if we’re talking about the same bird! Bill and I have been talking about notating bird song and I’ll let you know how that goes! My ever resourceful scribe, Mike, has brought the following to my attention. Dear readers, how about you give these a try and let me know how they sound! oh…there’s a cow in there too 🙂
I will leave you with one last thought on birds from one of my favourite musical works (can you guess which one?):
One day, Peter goes out into the clearing, leaving the garden gate open, and the duck that lives in the yard takes the opportunity to go swimming in a pond nearby. The duck starts arguing with a little bird.
The bird says, “what kind of bird are you if you can’t fly?”
To which the duck replies, “what kind of bird are you if you can’t swim?”
If I were a blogger
I’d blo-og in the morning
I’d bl-og in the evening
All over this land,
I’d blog out danger
I’d blog out warning,
I’d blog out love between,
My brothers and my sisters,
All over this land.
If I had a bell…
respectful thanks to Pete Seeger
Holly Burke Music 