And then a miracle occurred

My blogging pace has certainly slowed down. That is mostly because my tongue-in-cheek blogging attitude doesn't mesh well with the things that have been happening around me this fall--mainly, other people's stories that aren't really mine to tell.

Happily, one of the things I've been working on is now public: Claymakers is becoming a nonprofit. If you value chickarinas and twinkly votive holders, if you value Klein Bottles and spheres within spheres and anything else wheel-thrown and altered, if you value stories about wood firings and gas firings and oxidation firings, then you should also value Claymakers, as I wouldn't have been able to do or blog about any of those things without the fantastic community and creative incubator that Claymakers is. Consider making a donation today (and hey, check out this spiffy gift card!).

Positive change at Claymakers aside, this fall has been pretty tough, largely due to other people's stories. E's story has included hours of physical and occupational therapy, the legacy of his doubly-broken elbow. My dad's story has included a hospitalization and increasing discomfort; I wish him glorious weather and no ice or snow for his walks.

Then there are the extra-familial stories. As a professional church musician, I play for a modest number of funerals every year, and usually the deceased are acquaintances more than friends. But this fall we lost two former choir members within a few weeks of one another. One lived far away and had an unexpected death following a long and rich life; the other was close to home, a long expected death following too short a life. The latter friend was part of the inspiration for chickens for the cure. Consider making a donation today (designation "breast cancer").

In the midst of people deaths, there have been kitty deaths. Sweet Miss Maggie B developed idiopathic chylothorax and began wasting away until we made the difficult decision to euthanize her, yet she remained purrful, affectionate, and loyal to the very end. Shortly before Maggie's death, a friend's beloved cat was mauled by her neighbor's dogs. Both Maggie and Ralphie were a credit to their species and are greatly missed.

I was briefly tempted during all of this to blog about my persistent allergies and consequent lingering cough, and how a Hall's cough drop wrapper that advised "Be resilient!" made me want to throttle the wrapper designers for trying to thrust their oblivious chipperness into situations about which they know nothing, but I went to bed instead. However, the gods of suckiness never sleep.

This past Friday, the dogs came back for my friend's pet chickens. If I believed in Hell, I'd believe a special place is reserved for dog owners who think leash laws only apply to other people's dogs. Five chickens, mauled; only four survivors found, all seriously injured. My friend cleaned and dressed their awful gaping wounds and kept watch to see whether the chickens would survive past the weekend.

Or maybe the gods of suckiness do sleep. So far, the chickens are holding their own, and today, in the midst of all of this fall's illness and death, a miracle occurred--the great Week-Before-Solstice Miracle: the missing fifth chicken suddenly reappeared in the coop, mauled but not infected. Naturally, my friend is rededicating the coop this week; I quite expect that any food or straw that's down to a one-day supply will, incredibly, last the eight days between tonight and Solstice. May this season of distress end on the 21st with the return of the Sun's light.

More ooh ahh

Introducing the Chickarina

E learned how to play this tune on his trumpet earlier this fall, and he struggled mightily with the syncopations. Attempting it on the chickarina gives me a new appreciation for its rhythmic challenges.

This is the first chickarina I've gotten around to glazing. Hey, it's been a busy fall. The instrument has seven finger holes. It has an octave range with a little wiggle room at the top and bottom if you over- or under-blow. I've been playing mostly diatonic pieces with occasional chromatic inflections; I'm pretty sure I could get a complete 12-tone (and then some) chromatic scale out of it, but I haven't figured out the fingering yet. This suggests that far fewer finger holes are necessary to produce a diatonic octave. A project for this winter, perhaps.

If you too would like to make an ocarina but don't have access to clay or kilns, try the handy method demonstrated in the video below. Once you have your materials assembled, you'll need only about 15 minutes to make your ocarina from start to finish. Yum!

Ooh ahh

Artists' statements

I am visiting my parents in Urbana, Illinois, where, this afternoon, I spent some time reading through writings by my brilliant grandmother, Lorraine Passovoy, a.k.a.. Woozy. An accomplished artist (among other things), Woozy had a keen understanding of the international arts scene, as demonstrated by her prose in the two biographical artists' statements transcribed below. For all of you artists who think modern artists' statements have become too academic, think again: Woozy penned these two in 1964.

Alas, the only evidence we have of A. Pauling Walter's expansive canvasses is their depiction on the cover of a New Yorker magazine; however, my family owns the original oil painting (also depicted on the cover) by Finessa Foosy.

VILLKOR-MACH II*

A. Pauling Walter

This major work symbolizing the internal nature of the external, is typical of the eternal yet transitory divarication of limited infinity. The limited palette of black and brown subtly suggests the total range of tonality from infra-red through x-rays.

The artist is well known as the folk hero whom Jack and Jill went up the hill to fetch.

[*"Villkor" is Swedish for "Conditions." Woozy was a polyglot before the days of Google Translate. --Ed.]

L'IMAGE
Finessa Foosy

Miss Foosy, or Miz Finesse, as she is known to her kinfolk in Langerhans County, is famous throughout her native state for having won 185 consecutive blue ribbons for her fancy work at the highly competetive Beaver's Pancreas township fair. Since her eyesight began to fail, she has taken up painting and, as her mother says, "she shore do mess up the kitchen."

Bailing

Hey y'all. It's been awhile. I could try to explain how, during my long absence, I've been wrangling with my convictions about the Greater Good and the Rightness of participating in the public education system, and about how putting kids in private schools doesn't do anything to improve public schools (indeed, probably makes them worse); and then about how, with much distress, we bailed at the last minute on our local public school system in order to see whether $10K can buy a more stimulating and well-rounded education for our child. I could write about the good (if not good enough) job his former school was doing, given the circumstances of a state legislature that has screwed children and teachers by slashing the education budget year after year, and of state and federally mandated testing that has made adequacy the new standard of excellence, and of the flawed philosophies of No Child Left Behind. I could try to unpack my expectations about what constitutes an "education" in the first place, and ask how the government expects children to get good ones when classrooms are ridiculously overcrowded. But goodness, I'm just all wrangled out.

So instead, I'll show you some photos of a bunch of greenware full-octave chickarinas waiting to be bisque fired. They seem a little trivial in the context of a school crisis, but life must go on, and nothing soothes the nerves quite like music and anthropomorphizing. This is a flock interrupted, as chicken whistles take waaaay more time to make than chicken rattles (have you ever tried tuning a chicken?), and lately every time I've gotten started on a subflock, some unrelated event has destroyed the momentum.

When these birds are done, I expect they will sound something like this green polka dot ocarina, but more in tune and without all the white noise.

Name that composer

My dad emailed me a nudge last week, noting I've been a slacker blogger of late. It's been 100^oF in the shade here the past few weeks, which diminishes blogging energy. But here's a lovely tidbit that motivates getting back into the swing of things.

Last week during E's trumpet lesson, S and I went across the parking lot and browsed the clearance shelf at a local crafts store. There we found some spiffy card stock intended for printing wedding programs. Having recently blogged about the unfortunate ubiquity of a certain canon, I was hardly surprised that the sample text showing through the plastic wrapper--the sample text that lets you imagine how fabulous your own wedding program could be--listed Pachelbel Canon in D as a processional.

The manufacturers of this wonderful item appreciate that even thrifty couples who roll up their sleeves and print their own programs at home might still want their weddings to be elegant occasions--and what better way to say "elegant" than to be fussy about including not only composition titles but also composer names? This raises some issues for layout, because it would look a little odd to write "Pachelbel Canon in D by Johann Pachelbel." Perhaps "Canon in D / Johann Pachelbel" or "Pachelbel, Canon in D"? So many choices! Fortunately, the authoritative sample text solves the conundrum for us*:

*If I were advising the happy couple about musical selections, I would suggest that if they really wanted it, Pachelbel's Pachelbel Canon in D is way better than Mozart's Pachelbel Canon in D; and also that a wedding march by the antisemitic Wagner is maybe not the best choice for a Jewish wedding. Just saying.