This Blog is Moving Back to Blogger
In an effort to not be in too many places at once this blog is moving to Blogger at MorleyChallenged . It is more practical for the other activities I have going, including my first efforts on Google+.
Music, After I Sprained My Thumb In Bed
At first I thought it was broken. 
These pictures, taken moments ago, demonstrate the basic difference between my damaged right-thumb (left), and normal left-thumb (yeah, right) after one month of guitar avoidance. My behavior since the injury has contributed to some local banter about the state of Alberta medicine and my attitude (problem) towards it.
In the past few years my use of public health-care has become somewhat arbitrary. The general-practitioner I had from the time I was fifteen was recently driven into retirement by the grace of It’s Divine Majesty the Real-Estate Market, and my experiences with hospitals and clinics since then have been frustrating, to put it mildly. Therefore, since my familiarity with doctors, nurses and paramedics in my family have kept me somewhat hip, I evaluate medical-crises by comparison to what other crises may prevail at the time. I hope that the eventual result is satisfactory life-management.
Meanwhile, I am still a middle-aged musician, caught between things which are clearly in my past and an ephemeral shared-future in which my vision of a role for myself is equally ephemeral. After leaving my manufacturing occupation in 2009, I spent a brief time returning to show-production, but it has become clear that I won’t be able to sustain that work physically. I have also done some work in publishing and plan to continue, but my role in publishing is not currently based on wages and the wisp of security which comes with them.
Quit everything and become a rock-star? If it were that easy I would have done it a lot sooner. They weren’t lying in the eighties when they said that, “rock is dead.” But I always want to play, and my hands, voice and pen always just do what comes naturally. Which brings me to the archives. Archives?
First, I have an accumulation of the songs from my 2005 recording, “Regulars”, and later songs in various states of remixing. Second, an associate who records the Ship and Anchor Saturday Jams under the handle, “AmbientSound” has provided me a continual stream of CDs which document my performances there over the past few years, as well as those of other performers.
I have recently begun filling a portable drive with them, intending that I will be able to release bootlegs of my own performances, and perhaps others if it turns out that they would like to work with me on it. I’ll do a bit of minimal processing on the recordings with the software I have – volume, noise and trimming, not much else – but let them stand otherwise in the interest of getting them out there. I have little truck with the idea of noise-pop as a genre, but I’m not presenting a case of deliberate sabotage, just expedient release. I’ll keep you in the loop.
Meanwhile, I’m finally able to play again as of this past weekend, one month after the injury. What happened? It took a couple of days to figure out. I woke up screaming “oh, f—, f—, f—,…ahh shut up you’re waking the neighbors, go to sleep,” which is not a tremendously unusual occurrence for me. Waking the next morning, I noticed my swollen thumb, but completely forgot what had happened. The next day I remembered the time and circumstances of the incident, and a few days later I caught myself perilously close to re-enacting it: a posture which created some potentially destructive leverage.
Over time I tested it with various kinds of leverage while striving to keep it straight, but still using it just enough that it would not atrophy and prolong the healing process. There are very few muscles in the hand, and the location of the pain and swelling made it clear that I was still dealing with a problem of ligaments and tendons. Stress and movement testing made it seem unlikely that bone injury was much involved.
I looked around on-line. Something needs to be done about on-line information about hands – we writers and artists can do better than that…, “This looks like a job for…” I might have something to say about that again soon too. Meanwhile, I’m ready to get out playing again.
Shiftlock Posts on Amazon
Shiftlock Posts
A poetry collection I have decided to get published (it was convenient) is now on Amazon. Entitled “Shiftlock Posts,” it is basically a collection of everything I had lying around, although it contains a short series related to the title.
Art Central, here in Calgary once had an exhibit/store focused on art relating to the Alphabet. In that store, I bought the Shiftlock key from a typewriter and attached it to a lapel-pin back, then I wore it for some time before it inevitably fell off. I had one of those obtuse thoughts about a Shiftlock key wandering through this new moment and thinking it’s object-thoughts about the time it had passed from it’s days as part of one of the original mechanical typewriters. That thought eventually resulted in three poems. An excerpt from one:
shiftlock declared the name of the one who spoke,
and what was to be spoken.
shiftlock shone in the eyes of disgruntled drunks,
and said, “you’re waitin’ on nothin’.
you can see the man’s eyes:
he’s callin’ you out.”
It includes the first poem which survived the loss of older ones in a journal stolen by the driver while I was making pizzas for the slice-display at Did’s Pizza on Granville in Vancouver (he took the whole backpack – they can be like that sometimes). Spoken-word was my introduction to the fun which lives in the poetry crowd. When I lived in Vancouver, I often performed an ironically derivative piece about the hubris of writing, ‘I’m a writer, I should know,’ is the only line worth repeating. When I returned to Calgary, ‘Jiz,’ which is included in Shiftlock Posts, brought me into the ramshackle spoken-word scene which migrated through Calgary venues near the turn of the millennium:
I never wanted to come off this haunted
I jiz wanted to sing
And I don’t know what that thing makes me sing
When it winks like it thinks it knows what’s best
And I don’t care
I jiz wanted to sing
And if this whole fucking universe continues
This cold bucking you and me in adversarial venues
Picking our pockets and pointing our rockets and sockets
And calling it poetry
Forget it.
Such was my musicianly angst at the time.
About three years ago, I got a punch on the nose. My ex-girlfriend was with me at the time, and I was way too famous on Facebook. It became a metaphor for so much of my life then, that the result was a piece called ‘Status Update’:
Status update: Here’s some links to work out the kinks, but if it
were my hands…but they stick like the last few minutes of hot
water before the polyester shirt, the courteous flirt, shoes and
shins, shirts and skins…
Status update: I’m on vacation, my occupation a fading
sensation of virtue, leaving raw and sweating smiles fading to
exhaustion and a cigarette, and a question about tomorrow, and
a snarl at the encroaching weakness and the love which fuels it.
Peace, love and loss, dreams, treachery, angels, bicycles, social-networking, apocalypse, even a piece about calgary, the death of the lightbulb…who ever thought that so much can be found in a book called Shiftlock Posts? But then, why would we doubt…
Amazing Breathing Site – Health, Breathing and Voice
I was looking up a few health-related things and happened upon this site, which serves up a buffet of information related to breathing, health, voice and respiratory therapy. Clicking on the “Articles” link in the sidebar leads to an structured list of hundreds of articles. There are no annoying pop-ups soliciting for a subscription, which is a rare treat. Check it out.
Music on the Holidays
By chance I have been playing a couple of “house-concerts”/parties this past week with Maggie Crandlemire and Erin McCullough. Now we are booked for New Years at a local Legion retirement-residence, and we’ve enjoyed the music enough to want to continue performing as a group.
The tell, for me, was during the first gathering (a house full of musicians and guests): Erin began the intro to Orange Blossom Special and I decided to run with it. It’s something I would do in any case, but as it happens Erin is capable of merciless rhythm. I locked eyes with her and we pegged it. If that’s not bragging-rights I don’t know what is. Meanwhile, Maggie and I have been friends for some time, and the process leading up to the release of her CD last Fall allowed us to become familar with each-other’s music. Whatever I may say about improvisation in general, I’ve come to believe that rapport and trust among players is the definitive test of the viability of a musical combo.
The second gathering was in a small industrial shop. I think I subconsciously decided to debut some of my piano playing there, although I still get an impostor complex about it some days. We had a pretty relaxed gathering, found some surprises in our repertoire and some more common ground in our playing styles. We ate great food, chatted about the world and life, and did things the way we wanted to. It is the kind of gig I may develop a preference for, and I have suspected this for a long time. Invited guests and those who accompany them – it’s a natural, friendly atmosphere which accommodates everyone, and we are free to make the show what we want it to be.
So, it’s official: I like playing House-Concerts.
Blog Upgrading
I’ve added a page listing my repertoire of cover songs, and also done some maintenance on the sidebars. There is a new section of links to my favorite Linux media software – audio for now. I have recently discovered a custom-menu widget which can be used to organize my stuff, so I hope to be able to balance out the sidebars better soon. After that I hope to begin posting some regular blog posts – tutorials, commentary on the local scene, and stuff which can either get me in trouble or get me out of it. I’m not used to writing these short things.
I’m Back, After a Hiatus on Blogger and Tumblr
I always need to try something different, so I spent some time hosting my blogs on Blogspot. I thought I had deleted this one, but had merely reduced it to my link-listing and genealogy explorations. Now I find some information is due to be updated. I will be bringing this blog back to life – it’s just more functional. Also it seems some of the barriers to advancing my biz have been lifted or at least relaxed. Hey, if things start to make me some money, I don’t mind sharing the wealth with WordPress.
What else? I went on a trip to BC and came back. I became an editor for Theophania Publishing, and I will soon have a complete version of “Shiftlock Posts” available on Amazon. I’m also schmoozing with musicians and may finally have some success getting a combo started, which is what I have wanted for some time. I’ve deleted myself from Facebook, because I became tired of battling with their interface changes and staring at The Wall. I’ve had a few of the famous Facebook temper-tantrums too, so I have stopped pretending that I can preserve it’s function in my life. I’m working on the fixes now. Don’t believe everything you read for just a little bit, k?
FAMILY TREE OF JOTHAM TUTTLE – HISTORY and GENEALOGY of GOFFSTOWN – Hillsborough County – New Hampshire
Ha! Found some more spellings, and a date I have become somewhat interested in, although might just start looking at this stuff randomly.
Had to know it came from somewhere. I’m kinda fishing for the fun of it now. I’ll have to just do some visiting today, and then I’ll know where to look if I didn’t find what I’m looking for just now.
I think I am starting to get warm.
“Annie Leake Tuttle was born in Nova Scotia in 1839 and died there in 1934, yet her search for education and self-support took her far afield. During her life she filled important positions from Newfoundland to British Columbia, as an educator of teachers and as the matron of a Methodist rescue home for Chinese immigrant women who had worked as prostitutes. Her autobiography paints a vivid picture of the joys and hardships of growing up on a pioneer farm and documents her spiritual and educational quests and conquests. In addition, readers see the independence and strength of character that enable Annie Tuttle to take on family obligations that fall to an unmarried daughter and sister, and to meet the challenges of step-motherhood, the adjustments of aging and ultimately the prospect of death.”
