I'm working on settling into my new apt, and am beginning to feel comfortable. The living room has the guitars, amp, and computer, the kitchen is filled with green plants and a table for me to eat and work on, and one of the bedrooms is set up for painting.
Yesterday I listened to one of Will Basinski's Disintegration Loops. The piece is 45 minutes long, I love running to it when I am out on the snowy South Farms route – white space in all directions, the wind messing with my balance and resolve – the music makes everything settle into a dream reality. So yesterday I plugged the piece into my amp, and then picked up the strat guitar. I lit a couple of candles and let the piece sink into the room and I began to hit the strings with the pick. I soon found that the notes F, D, G, and A # worked well with it, it was pretty cool to hear the sounds of the guitar mesh with the music in the amp. After 35 minutes of playing along to the ethereal music I discovered that what I was playing was the G pentatonic scale. Once I realized this I was able to play many more notes, and much quicker, as I have the pentatonic scale memorized. When the piece ended I wanted to play it again but my fingers were sore. The month long lay off has made them a bit soft.
The full time job opening at the UPD will soon be decided. I submitted my resume/cover letter, which I feel confident about, and then I was required to take a test at a local employment agency. I ran 4 miles in snow to get there, and then ran back after I completed the 90 minute test. I feel I did well in 3 of the 4 categories, but I messed up the data entry part by reading the wrong list of numbers. Tomorrow is the final step, a group interview with 5 people at 10:30am. I have no illusions about my interviewing skills, I pretty much suck. I plan to run 8-10 miles at dawn tomorrow, that should put me into a favorable state of mind. Regardless of the outcome, I believe I will be happy with the future direction of my life.
I have a project in mind. I want to look back at my old film negatives and interpret them not with chemicals, but with a pencil. I would like to make drawings based on the negatives. I will study the negatives on a light box, and then make digital photos of the ones which interest me. I will work the negative photos in Photoshop, first inverting them and then paring them down using filters so that they resemble a drawing. I will then use the digital study to aid me in my drawing. I would like to make 20-30 drawings from each period of my photography quest.
I am rereading Beachcombing at Miramar by Richard Bode. I came across this last night –
“I left my marriage exactly as I entered it three decades earlier. I had no mortgage, no credit-card balance, no bank loans. What I did have, somewhere in the middle of my mind, was a gyroscope, pointing me in a direction, telling me where I had to go. I set out, driving through snow-covered cornfields and prairie, crossing the Continental Divide, going from one coast to the other in quest of a place that felt like home.
And now I am here, walking the beach, watching the fist-sized shorebirds as they feed. They have no cache, no hoard, no store; like me, they live by their wits, taking what they want from the sea.
How is it, I ask myself, that I have so little money, yet I live so well?”
