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| 7/25/08: Persian Nay
7/23/08: Endless Summer 7/17/08: Retooling 7/14/08: Back to the Blog 7/4/08: Yum |
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July 25, 2008
Persian Nay
I'm sitting here listening to persianradio.com on the 'net, and a selection featuring the Persian nay just played. That is absolutely the wildest and most intriguing flute sound on this insane planet, and I've GOT to learn to appropriate it. An LA friend who does much film and TV work demonstrated the basic embouchure for me several years ago, and I sat there for over an hour trying to get so much as a peep out of the thing: silence. This is the only flute-type at which I've been totally unsuccessful so far: it employs a unique "interdental" embouchure in which the end of the flute is inserted into the player's mouth, resting against the upper teeth. The windway is then formed between the tongue and the roof of the mouth and directed onto the flute's rim... sheesh. So, does anyone out there know of a student-friendly Persian Nay player in the Portland, Oregon area, or perhaps Seattle? Not holding my breath... Links later. --r.
July 23, 2008
Endless Summer
 Funny thing about summer: the days are long and yet seem far too short. That is, there's so much to do that each dusk finds me raging at the sun: Leaving so soon? But I have more WORK to do! NOOOO..... Finally got a new camera and getting familiar with it, so here's a shot of two Walla Walla sweet onions pulled from the garden yesterday. These two weighed three pounds between them, and the others left in the garden are still growing-- yikes! They're the most decadent onions ever: sweet, crunchy, mild... I'm not a huge fan of raw onions in general but you can put half-inch slices of these suckers on a sandwich and they're superbly succulent. Off to pick blueberries and raspberries now... peak of the season! Oh, and here's a quick shot of four flutes currently in the shop. More soon. --r.
July 17, 2008
Retooling
Dust still settling from the midsummer show, and I've almost recovered. Now's the time to attend to a few unresolved obligations that were swept under the tatami mat for the last few weeks, so it shouldn't be long now before your overdue flute/message/CD/?? finally arrives. I'm still agonizing over whether to finally dive into a DSLR or just spring for another cheapish compact digicam... gotta do something very soon since photos are so important 'round here. Got some purty flutes to picture! --r.
July 14, 2008
Back to the Blog
Ahhh, midsummer-- so much to do in this short stretch of long days! We've returned from the Oregon Country Fair and are rarin' to run with more summertime plans: still have a few exceptional flutes on hand, and I'll probably get a grip on the recent photographic dysfunction and post some new pics soon. Our new full-sun community garden is a wonderful thing: several vine-ripened tomatoes were pluck-ready today, and a veritable avalanche of prime seasonal produce will issue over the following weeks and months. Anyway, this is just a brief note to re-engage and I'll catch y'all again tomorrow or so. --r.
July 4, 2008
Yum
For lunch today we had baby Yukon Gold potatoes sauteed with Walla Walla sweet onions and sugar snap peas-- all from the new community garden plot! The early tomatoes are beginning to ripen already, which is great: much faster results than we get from the partially-shaded Swamp Shack garden. At this rate we'll have a good three to four-month season for vine-ripened, homegrown tomatoes. Yowza! This rocks-- it's a lot of work, but worth it on so many levels. I still refuse to grow corn, since it's a high-maintenance crop that requires lots of space per unit of yield. Besides, when fresh corn is in season it can be bought for a song at our numerous farmers' markets and roadside stands -- far as I'm concerned, local peak-season corn on the cob is the only kind worth its salt and butter -- and when it's really good, just a couple minutes' boiling is plenty. All you need to do is heat it up enough to melt the butter... mmmm. But corn is still in the mid-to-late summer future. Lots of other great stuff on the plate already, and I'm looking forward to putting next weekend's flute show in the rearview mirror in order to concentrate more fully on summer's bounty. See y'all again tomorrow! --r.
July 3, 2008
38 flutes
We're getting down to the wire for the latest manic production run, and it appears that around 38 new flutes will be finished at the usual last minute. Unfortunately most of these will be gone -- dust in the wind, dude -- in about ten days, and then what? Well, in the words of Jackson Browne, you get up and do it again. Seriously, it's scary how much work I can do in a short time when whipped into a frenzy of craft-show anticipation. I've always struggled to find a middle ground between these crazed phases and more relaxed periods without a pressing deadline: although I certainly *work* when not pressured, it generally veers into more languidly experimental territory, without much finished and marketable product emerging. I do have a tentative plan to work more seasonally in the future: to do most of the unpleasantly grimy hole grinding from summer into fall, entering wintertime with a large stock of half-completed flutes that can be finished at a relatively sedate pace over the dimmer low-energy months. Perhaps that will work! Anyway, more tomorrow. Happy stoopid explosions day! --r.
July 2, 2008
Late Night
It's just after 1:00 AM, and if I had any sense I'd long since have bedded down. Unfortunately I'm an inveterate night owl, and despite the fact that alarms will ring again in about six hours here we are. Been running on about five or six hours' sleep lately-- maybe it's a midsummer thing, but every morning finds me sluggishly regretting the previous night's length. It'd be great if I could leap briskly from the bed at sunrise, ready to confront the day's toils from moment one-- --Nope. Instead, each morning requires two or three hours of semi-comatose caffeine engorgement and lethargic indifference before anything productive happens, and (with luck) at about ten or eleven AM the cycle begins again. I do try to rise at dawn and Walk Among the People on at least a few midsummer days, and it's always a revelation: there are strange, preternaturally cheerful individuals strolling about, often accompanied by dogs, and they invariably smile and offer chipper greetings such as "Good morning!" So, where are these cheerful people during my usual sentient hours? Must be sleeping in brightly-colored caskets or something... --r. |
