Saturday, January 8, 2011

Correction: Not so bleak afterall

This is one of those magical snowfalls that you remember in your dreams

Out on skis this morning along Mill Creek (Eli Whitney's old stomping grounds). About a foot of pristine snow, easy to glide along in.
The prediction of bleakness for today was ill-advised.
Maybe it's me, feeling kind of bleak myself lately. I've been grappling with the last psalm of my Psalmbook, and it keeps turning into a doxology (it is, in fact "Old Hundred"); now its becoming a Halleluia of sorts. The whole idea of the Psalmbook came from Arvo Paert's "Missa Brevis" wherein the vocal ensemble and string quartet are truly minimal and perfectly so--talk about economy of means! But it's turned into something more akin to Steve Reich's "Tehillim".
The anxiety of Influence! That's the trouble. Well, I have often preached that composition is only the art of discovery. Originality is a construction, a "trope." (Thats a foggy notion!)
I've been thinking about Tucson, remembering the pristine natural beauty of the mountains and desert and the souless suburban sprawl that offsets it; why do these violent acts always seem to happen in places where the weather is good?

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