DanielSonenberg.com

Even after a day in bed, a night in transit, and a late night on a deflating air mattress, freezing and swatting at a mosquito in a Hell's Kitchen apartment, it feels good to breathe these city rhythms once again - been too long. So here I am, heavy of throat, sitting in Bryant Park engraving musical examiples for the New York Philharmonic's Playbill. I'll be able to send them too, since wireless at this particular spot is free. I'm in town for a meeting and a rehearsal - almost canceled the trip due to ill health, but soldier on we must (especially when bagels are involved). More dispatches soon, hopefully.

This little gem comes from my USM theory colleague Alan Kaschub. When his class of freshman theoreticians were feeling down about things, perhaps questioning the long, trying life in music that lay ahead of them, he gave them these encouraging words:

You know those students in other disciplines who party all the time, never have class on Friday or even Thursday afternoon, who drink constantly on the weekend, sleep all day Monday, and maybe stumble in hungover for a late Tuesday class as the cycle begins again? They're gonna make more money than you.

Been too long since I've attempted the shameless self promotion in this space. (Okay, not really - maybe a day?) But this concert is just around the bend and I'm pretty pumped about it. And if you happen to be around NYC on Columbus Day Weekend, why not come by? More info, you say? Click here.

Well, technically the "Wall of Sound" at the Maine Common Ground Fair was meant for children. But you gotta understand - the kids were out of control. OUT of control I tell you. They were banging on the trash can lids and pots and platters with reckless abandon, with motives that seemed more violent than musical. I just had to jump in to straighten things out a bit. At another moment during the day, Truth About Daisies found themselves playing a gig at the Spotlight Stage. It was going swimmingly until we lost power, but it came back. And boy did I do a lot of eating.

Beth Wiemann, who I met at at the Virginia Center of the Creative Arts, came to USM at my invitation to give a workshop and a performance yesterday. What a great pair of events. Beth is clarinet and composition faculty at the University of Maine (formerly known as the University of Maine at Orono), and her work involves combining electronic sound, video, and live performance. Her compositions are deeply narrative, often deriving their influence from literary sources, and dreamlike in their overall effect. One piece, Dodge at Mann Gulch, recounts the story of a Montana wildfire in 1949. Wagner Dodge led a team of smoke jumpers who attempted to do battle with the blaze, but almost immediately realized they were outmatched. With no way to outrun the fire, Wag Dodge, as he was known, created an "escape fire," which worked to deter the approaching inferno and secure his escape. He was unsuccessful in getting his charges to adopt the seemingly insane plan, however, and many of them were lost. Wiemann tells the tale with beautiful imagery, pensive clarinet rumbles, and text from Norman MacLean's account of the event, Young Men and Fire. The end product is haunting. But my favorite piece was "For He is Good to Think on," written for flute, clarinet and DVD. Beth was joined on stage by flautist Liz Downing in playing a simple yet mesmerizing, almost-folk like score that coincided with processed videos of Beth and her husband's (composer David Rakowsky) two cats and percussive and sitar-like electronics. Tying the work together is the very wonderful poem "For I Will Consider My Cat Jeoffrey" by Christopher Smart (also used by Britten in his "Rejoice in the Lamb"). The piece had that quality, shared by only the best time-based works of art, of making you wish it would last forever. I just let the sounds and words and images wash over me - a perfect confluence of sensory stimulation.

We had a pretty nice turnout at both the workshop - where Beth displayed some of her techniques and software - and the concert, where the classical reviewer from the Portland Press Herald also turned up. We'll see what he had to say, but all and all I'm glad to have gotten the USM concert season off to a start with some 21st century music (something that's sometimes in too short supply around here.)

There's been a bit of an uproar of late in these parts over the a certain prisoner-turned artist named Tom Manning. Mr. Manning is currently serving life+ in a West Virginia prison, after having been convicted of the murder of a New Jersey State Trooper (which he claimed was in self defense) as well as numerous bombings and bank robberies. Mr Manning's crimes were committed in the 70s and 80s in protest to such evils as apartheid, and both he and his supporters consider him to be a "political prisoner." He also happens to hail from Maine, and recently the University of Southern Maine (in whose employ I so gratefully am) mounted a controversial art show featuring Manning's paintings entitled "Can't Jail the Spirit: Are by 'political prisoner' Tom Manning and Others." It should be noted that those quotation marks around 'political prisoner' were added after controversy began to mount, fueled by angry police organizations reacting to what they perceived to be the glorification of a cop killer. The controversy reached a fever pitch, with the slain police officer's wife planning to make a special trip to Portland to protest the exhibit, and scant days into its run the exhibit was taken down by USM president Rich Pattenaude. This sparked an intense outcry among some segment of the population - it's unclear how large - that free speech was being violated in the university's hallowed halls. The protesters staged a rally, and condemned the censorship of the university, while the administration lamented not having done their homework (by which they meant not having fully grasped the strength of the emotions that still lie smoldering beneath this sensitive history) and stood by their decision. The local cool and free paper, The Phoenix, is outraged.

There's a brief background, anyway. You can read about it until you're blue in the face by googling any of the buzz words in that there first paragraph. A lot of ink's been spilled, but I've been meaning to comment about it here for a few days and so here I go. It should be clear that my views are mine alone, and do not represent those of the University that so graciously hosts this website and pays my salary. As it turns out, however, I agree with the University's decision and here's why. Mr. Manning's art, while charming and competent in an undergraduate sort of way, is by no means startlingly original or accomplished, either in content or in technique. His paintings depict political prisoners, children killed by police, iconic revolutionaries such as Fidel Castro and Che Gueverra, and also, of course, Tom Manning. And because the art is not transcendent, it never rises to the level of being about itself, and is instead more about its creator and the context of its creation. Now there are those that might claim that no art ever truly transcends its context, but I think we could all agree that there are at least degrees of context transcendence (compare, say, Beethoven's Seventh to a Bumble Bee tuna jingle). It's that partial or total transcendence that makes Beethoven or Dahl's boorishness, or Wagner's anti-semitism irrelevant. The works take on a life of their own, like children, and the authorial umbilical cord is severed, leaving the entities at either end to fend for themselves in the world. Tom Manning's art will never be about art, and it will always be about Tom Manning. It will not have a life of its own in art history texts or in the collections of connoisseurs, although it may be a footnote to someone's historical text. And by choosing to portray in paint revolutionaries and victims, some of whom could be considered political prisoners, alongside himself, Manning's ultimate goal cannot be understood otherwise than as an attempt to rehabilitate his own legacy. The exhibit was, in short, self-serving for Manning and his supporters - a chance for Manning to place himself, in every viewer's consciousness, alongside the great men and women in whose shadows Manning would walk. He certainly has a right to express himself in this way, and good for him that he's honing his painting skills, but he has no more right to a university art show, as a convicted felon and amateur artist, than he has to host his own public radio show proclaiming his innocence and wholesomeness. His show was a post-facto bid for exculpation, and nothing more. If the art were spectacular - if there were some chance for the discussion to ever be at least in part about the art and not wholly about the man - I would have a different opinion. If Manning were a creator in the unique realm of, say, a Darger, the controversy would ultimately one day fade, but the art would remain. Here, the opposite is true. Great art, born of any circumstance and wrought by any hand, demands to be reckoned with. But in the absence of greatness, political art becomes just politics, and not every candidate is entitled to a forum.

I have thus far studiously avoided passing judgment on Manning's criminal actions. Of course that's not really for me to do - he was convicted in a court, not for crimes of thought or political activity, but for murder. And no matter how noble his cause, and how evil the corporations or governments he protested, I don't support the "by any means necessary" mentality that justifies violence against innocents in the name of justice. I applaud the art gallery's willingness to address controversial issues, and hope that this experience won't put an end to that tendency. But I also applaud the administration's decision to revoke what turned out to be more a soapbox than an exhibition.

I like Air America Radio, and yes, because basically when they preach to the converted they're preaching to me. I like Al Franken's biting wit and generally moderate stance on things, and I like Randi Rhodes' more radical and ranting approach. But over the last year and a half or so I've grown particularly fond of Jerry Springer. It's odd, given his television show, that he would emerge as the most reasonable of radio talk show hosts, but that's exactly who he is. Not a particularly great debater, or blessed with an acerbic wit or incontestable command of the facts, Jerry's great asset is that he really listens, and he is actually capable of entering into a dialogue with his callers. He seeks out alternative perspectives, even conservative ones, and treats people with respect. He'll change his mind on the air, and he has a completely endearing kind of self-deprecating humor. He's a mensch, basically, and I like having him on in the car or if I'm having a late run around the bay. (He's also a Yankee fan.) So imagine my surprise when yesterday I tune in the radio and Springer on the Radio is completely gone - wiped clean from the face of the earth. It seems to have been replaced by a show hosted by Sam Seder, a guy with a typically caustic and abrasive radio voice who's always indignant, and always right. And yet on Air America's website there's no mention of the change. None of the local affiliates indicate that anything is different. I called 870 the Voice here in Portland and they didn't return my call. Are we just not supposed to notice? Isn't it a bit inappropriate for a radio station that's been carping - and rightly so - about the current administration's obsessive secrecy and totalitarian tendencies to be so non-forthcoming? Truth be told, they actually did this when they put Jerry Springer on the radio too. There used to be a show hosted by Liz Winstead and Rachel Madow, and I seem to recall I was equally alarmed at Air America's technique when they made that shift too. Please people, give me some advance notice. Or mention it on the web. Something. Don't just try to rewrite history like in some Milan Kundera novel, you know?

Yeah, I'll admit it looks like a pretty enjoyable mid-September Sunday in Maine. But lest you think this was even a majority portion of my day, I'll give you the whole agenda, in retrospect.
6:30am - get up, turn off cell phone alarm (forgot to deactivate)
8:30am - saunter out of bed, super decadently, check email and surf a bit (the web, that is)
9:30-10:30am - run - my usual route, 5.5 miles including the back cove and poopy factory
11:15am - out to Wild Oats and Hannaford for the week's grocery shopping
12:30pm - Lunch with Al - tomatoes, mozzarella, basil, olive oil - can you say Italian holdover?
1:30-3:20pm - Grading theory and counterpoint papers
3:20-4pm - prepare bulgar salad for evening picnic, also skewer shrimp that Alex had marinating...
4:15pm - leave house with Alex for Higgins Beach, where I've not yet been this summer
4:40pm - Arrive at the beach and park illegally. The surfers are out in abundance and I feel like a child with my boogie board. The water is cool, but entirely tolerable, and the waves are enormous and crashing. I boogie board for about half an hour and am in paradise, my earthly troubles melted away.
5:20pm - Leave for Two Lights State Park.
5:30pm - Get to the park - the sign says they close at 6:30pm, so this barbecue better be quick. Al and I work fast, find a choice table, and grill away. I wish I could say it was entirely relaxing, but with the time pressure, not so much. We have corn and veggie burgers and shrimp and green peppers, and my bulgar, tomato, feta and basel salad (w/ lemon and olive oil dressing). Then we roast a few marshmallows and have a cookie. We're out only 5 minutes past closing time.
7pm - Stop off at Videoport to return videos and pick up The Sound of Music, which I'll use in Music Appreciation tomorrow night.
7:20pm - unpack, clean up.
8-9:30pm - Work on revising the libretto to the second act of my opera.
9:30pm-10:30pm - Send school-related emails
10:44pm - Think about the three classes I'm teaching tomorrow.
11pm - Blog
11:15 pm (forthcoming) go to bed.
So now you know.

Oh and P.S. - The Sea Dogs won it all today! I'll blog about the parade, if there is one.

A second night at Hadlock Field, and I'm beginning to pick up the rhythms and traditions of the park, and what's more, the essence, the DNA if you will, of the team. The Sea Dogs are a classic American League type ensemble. They swing for the fences, and tend to hit the ball hard if they hit it at all. Brandon Moss, on the occasion of his 23rd birthday, hit two moon shots, and earned himself some fireworks and 3 RBIs. But he also struck out chasing balls that were feet, not inches, out of the strike zone. Fielding is always an adventure, and tonight, as last night, there were some ugly, ugly defensive moments. In contrast, the visiting Akron Aeros, farm team of the Cleveland Indians and wearers of black bar-league softball uniforms, are slick like butter on the green and brown, scooping up hotshots and snaring liners with major league grace and agility. They also know how to shorten up on the stick and dunk a flare into short left field...play one base at a time without trying to solve all the world's ills with one rotation of the lumber. And still the Aeros found themselves 3 outs away from the long dismal season of...I don't know...parking cars? Waiting tables? What do these boys do when double- or triple-A ball comes to an end? Well, they were about to remember, because it was 5-4 Sea Dogs and the top of the ninth, and there was an out but two on, and everyone was ready to party. Yet there was something else in the air too, and that's when I realized that deep down, all the thousands of eager and oral rooters that surrounded me had as their shared point of reference a lifetime of baseball failure, of near misses, stunning turnarounds, defeats snagged from the clutches of victory in every Dentian, Buckenrian, Boonian way imaginable. And I, in my Yankee blue Johnny Damon shirt, my weathered smudgy NY cap, and my big-as-a-heart Portland Sea Dogs button, affixed to my chest to ward off those who would do me harm, I was accessing a different database. It was one replete with dazzling comebacks, with improbable pennants and trophies and rings and hungover or half-drunk perfect games, an inherited memory of Ruth and Gehrig and DiMaggio and Mantle and Berra and Ford and Stengel and Maris and Nettles and Munson and Jackson and Gossage and Chamblis and Mattingly and Jeter and Rivera and '27, '49, '61,'78, '96 and dozens more. So I felt confident, certain that the team I was busting a lung hollering for would step up, leave some sweat and some guts on the playing field and make the pitches, catch the balls. Well, I'll let you guess whose history, whose interpretation of the zeitgeist, prevailed. But I'll let you know there was no party, I did not find myself dancing among thousands through the green blades of grass towards the dusty mound and into the pile of sweating Sea Dogs, nor did I spend the night in jail. The P.A. blared "Tomorrow" and "Don't Stop Thinking About Tomorrow," and I bet a dozen other of the golden oldies of loserdom. Into the night I swam amidst the throngs, past the prison and the Greyhound bus terminal and the St. John's Street shopping center. Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow...and yet I tell myself it's not my tragedy.

When it comes right down to it, Portland is a minor league town. Tonight, the day of game 3 of the Eastern League Championship, a day on which the local Portland Seadogs (who I try to forget is the double AA farm team for the Red Sox) had a chance to win their first ever Eastern League pennant, Alex and I sauntered up to the box office at game time, and for $8 each bought two second-row box seats behind the visitors' dugout. It was a near sell-out, so I'm not quite sure how we worked that out, but the ticket man said our timing was excellent. The game itself was pure delight. We were surrounded by kids, and I even sat next to probably the only other Yankee fan in the whole building (who proudly wore a Seadogs cap). Initially I felt some guilt about rooting for Red Sox affiliated ballplayers, but by the second half of the game I was completely drawn in, and it was a great game indeed. These double A players aren't nearly as perfect as their major league counterparts. Errors abound, which gives the game a wonderful unpredictability. There's also such a wholesome vibe to the whole affair, and you don't feel like you're being robbed and raped each trip to the concession stand (a local microbrew cost $4.50). In the bottom of the ninth, the Seadogs were down 6-4, one out, and Luis Jiminez, their bopper, strode to the plate with two men on. He jacked a 94 mile per hour fastball deep into the heart of the Portland night, and we all gasped collectively and grabbed the arms of our neighbors. Dead center field, it hung in the air forever, and the centerfielder backpedaled and made what, at the time, seemed a futile last ditch leap, his back to the wall. And somehow, he came down with the ball, and the air sizzled right out of the 6,500 or so wide-eyed fanatics in the stands. So close to a walk-off, championship-winning tater, but just another long out. And Alex, in her newly purchased Seadogs sweatshirt, was forced to acknowledge that yes, there are aspects of this game - particularly during playoff time - that simply can't be touched by any other sport. So now I think I have to go back tomorrow night...I've got the fever.

Turns out Lonelygirl is most definitely a hoax! Yay for them - had me fooled. I feel in no way betrayed.

I'm sorry everyone...the long, languorous days of summer, when there was time to blog thoughtfully and intelligently, feel like ancient history. The end of each day finds me a puddle of tangled and useless neurons firing lamely in every direction. Scattered....so I'm digging back into last weekend's glory. Here we are at Bisby's farm, playing our short little set. This drummer's eye view comes courtesy of Kevin,the hunk-like song writing and bass playing genius who came along for the ride. If only I weren't a puddle I could really tell you what it all was like.

Hi there - been traveling yet again, and hence I haven't written. Truth About Daisies had a teency weency itsy bitsy tour this weekend, traveling through some lovely small towns in the middle of this vast state of ours. We played the Village Fair in Orono (see pic of us on flatbed truck), and then hightailed it (NOT - we were lost for hours!!) over to East Dixfield, where the Maine Songwriters Association was having its annual meeting and festival on the property of the amazingly generous and engaging cowboy poet, Larry Bisby. THAT's a story for another day - suffice to say that we played a hopping but rather short set this morning, and made it back to Portland sometime in the early evening. Oh, and I learned to pitch a tent. But must run now. Please note, this photo is NOT by Mr. Moto, but by our new Canon Powershot 610, which they sent us when they realized that the old camera was, as advertised, beyond repair.

Can you believe the word on the street now is that Lonelygirl15 is a fraud? A hoax, that is. I mean, she's clearly a 16 or 17 or 18 year old girl, so I don't think people think that part's fake, but the whole off-the-cuff spontaneous home-editing thing and the slowly emerging love story between Daniel and Bree - most people, including The New York Times, think it's not real, but rather the scripted deviousness of some corporate slime waiting to drop the boom. I really don't follow the argument, or know what that boom might be, but it's delightful to watch it all unfold. Here's the latest:

It looks better than it was. I mean, actually, it was pretty okay. This was a portion, or rather two portions, but two SMALL portions, of the journey home. We sat on the American Airlines plane for 4 hours after an aborted attempt at takeoff. Then they canceled the flight, and we waited for two more hours at the baggage claim, and then for yet another hour outside in the hot Fiumicino sun for the busses. The buses took us out of the airport, and to the town of Ostia, which I think nobody realized was a seaside resort with astounding ruins to boot (we passed them on the bus). So at 7 and at 10 I swam in the sea, and there was gelato, and I hooked up with a group of Americans heading back from Positano and we went out dancing and drinking. Back to the hotel at 2, and up for the next round of buses and plains at 5am. And then the endless trek to Portland continued, those little glimmers of sun and moonlight fading into memory. And from the vantage of the first day of classes, which is now similarly fading, I have to wonder if it was all just a woozy jetlagged dream.

It's all catching up to me. The 44 hour journey, nights and nights of no sleep. Partying in the seaside town of Ostia (where they deposited us after our New York flight was canceled)...I have no brain. Here's just a photo then. Alex and me, all existential by the Pantheon on our solitary night in Rome.

Somehow my password got messed up and I wasn't able to post to the blog. This prompted me to stop blogging entirely for a little while, but you can go back and review some of the final posts I made in Italy and the adventure of my lost luggage. My flight home was an even bigger adventure (44 hours), but I'll have to go into that a little later.

Here's my bag! Only 2 hours and 14 minutes later and my emotion couldn't be more different. The Kafka stuff did proceed for a while. I managed to get to a lost and found line, which for British Airways was surprisingly short. The woman behind the counter then made numerous phone calls for me, and ultimately walked me to the threshold of Terminal B, explaining that my bag was most likely in Terminal A, but since she couldn't reach her colleague by phone, I should just go and pick it up myself. Of course when I got to the lost and found in Terminal A there was an enormous, unmoving line. I don't think Americans can generally appreciate just how slow and long a line in Italy can be. I waited in this line for fifteen minutes, before I freaked, went back to the first, still unbusy counter in Terminal B, and begged for some more intensive help. Before I knew it, a nice young man was accompanying me back to Terminal A, and took me into the hidden depths of the place, an endless array of back closets and anterooms filled with unclaimed luggage. And in the third or fourth of these rooms, there was my bag - sitting where it had sat for the last two or three days, and none the worse for the wear. It was a joyous reunion, and so what if my afternoon has been entirely and thoroughly killed. There's still the evening, and a city that houses both a waiting wife and limitless Campari. And still time for one Last Supper in this emporium of culinary delights!

The Kafkaesque saga of my lost luggage continues, and takes me to yet another airport to which I had no intention of visiting. You cannot call British Airway's lost luggage service from within Italy. From an American cell phone, the call is not allowed. With a prepaid calling card? No such number. With an Italian phone, you get through, and sometimes get into the holding queue (other times you just get disconnected). After waiting for a while on the holding queue, you get an Italian announcement that says "we're sorry, all of our operators are busy, please leave a message after the beep." Then it's beeeeep, and "La memoria è piena." (The memory is full.) So I called the American 1-800 number for British Airways lost luggage, and Skip at the Florida call center was good enough to inform me that my luggage was indeed found, and put on Alitalia flight 1038 from Rome to Milan on August 30. That's two days ago, if you're keeping track. I asked Skip if, seeing as British Airways had entirely ruined my trip, he might be able to be of a little more service to me. You know, like maybe track down my bag and get it to my hotel? Or tell me where to find it? Or give me a working number in Italy? But no, neither these options, nor a touch of sympathy or even civility, were on offer today. I was instead instructed to call Alitallia or Malpensa airport. Did Skip have a number? "No. I'm not in Italy, am I?" So I looked up the lost luggage number for Malpensa, but it's been disconnected. I tried calling Alitalia, but their number is permanently busy. So what am I doing at 3pm on a gorgeous sunny afternoon - my last in Milan? Yes, I'm on the Malpensa Express (scenic photo attached), heading straight for the airport like John Wayne, planning to track down my errant bag and maybe leave some unhappy inefficient baggage handlers in my wake. Because I know you're on pins and needles, I'll keep you posted. (But by the time I'm actually able to post this, I'll probably be back in the good old U S of A.)