Ichi, ni, so-re!

I Did It!

2011-12-08T22:14:00.001-08:00

I've been carrying around a bag of dirt all semester. Well, ok, if you're a soil scientist, then you would say I've been carrying around a bag of soil all semester. This was for my Soils class, which if you've read in a previous post, has been occupying a greater part of my existence. My soil was in a ziplock bag and that ziplock was in one of those plastic grocery bags (because you never know), and on some mornings I wasn't sure if I was carrying around a bag of soil or used kitty litter, because they look, feel and weigh about the same when they're in those grocery bags, and when I leave the house early every morning, well, anything can happen. Some days I'd be lugging it in my backpack, and some days it would be in my lunch bag, but it was an enduring part of my day to day life. During the course of the semester we would all pull out our bags of soil and examine them, run pH tests on them, wet them and roll them up into balls, etc. I discovered that my soil had a pH of 7.4 and was either a sandy loam, or a loamy sand--seriously.

That class was a kicker, and even though I had my reservations, hang-ups, insecurities and doubts, I am writing to say that I have made it. Good golly, hallelujah, I am done with that class. Tonight we had our final exam. It was in three sections, and periodically the teacher would collect our answers and then go over the results, and I feel quite confident that I have passed the class, and maybe even gotten an A.

Did I tell you that the only person who got a 100% on the first exam was, uh, let me check, oh, yes: ME! Yes! Me! My teacher actually had to do a double take and yes, the numbers don't lie: ME!

Ok, I don't want to sound cocky. Because really, if I took that exam again I wouldn't have a snowball's chance in an aridisol (ha!! That's a soils joke! Get it? Snowball? ARIDisol? How about an OXIsol! Ugh. I'm am a geek! And I'm being cocky! Ha ha! Ha ha ha!).

But all joking aside. That class is done. It kicked my ass. I learned a lot.

And so, dear reader, I am taking Plant Nutrition.

Ha ha! Who is the joke on now? Yes, me! I need to take Plant Nutrition, and yes, the it's the same teacher, Mr. Rochester, er, I mean Professor Brennan. But it will be fine. Perhaps I will struggle and despair and the whole nine yards, but I know I will learn a lot. And to balance it all out, I am also going to take Botanical Drawing! What fun! Stay tuned for more adventures!

Chemistry, Literally and Figuratively

2011-09-08T23:28:00.000-07:00

This semester I am enrolled in a class called "Soils." While I can't tell you quite yet whether I love or hate it, I am making some interesting observations.

1) This is a heavy science class. Heavy. I haven't taken any hardcore science since high school. I remember being completely overwhelmed by my physics class back then. The teacher confessed that he was teaching it at a college level. I just remember spending countless hours with my calculator and going through the textbook until it was fuzzy. I also remember that my Dad had gotten me an electric pencil sharpener and a few boxes of Ticonderogas (which I LOVED!) and I wore those babies down to nubs. The teacher kicked our butts but we learned a lot and I do remember that I dedicated more than a usual amount of time to that class. To this day that was my most favorite and memorable class in high school. "Soils," in the meantime, is bringing back an awful lot of flashbacks to that time. Tonight was only the third class but I've whipped out my calculator and am digging deep as we are learning formulas and mass and volume.

2) I am intimidated. Very intimidated. So, after high school I concentrated on the humanities. In college I focused on literature and creative writing. I was interested in the world of words. I read and read and read. I wrote essays with clear (eh, or not so clear) arguments about this or that character and this or that theory. I can string words together or wind them around in knots until I come to any old conclusion that I so desire. But science? The world of hard facts and clear arguments? Black and white? Right or wrong? Answers measured in decimal points and theorems and mathematics? It's not like I could argue my way out of an algebraic mis-calculation and get points for that. And one of the components of the class is chemistry, which I never took in high school. Want to know why? Because I elected for more literature classes! I want to say that I don't regret it, because I don't, but maybe I'm just feeling the buyer's remorse of having spent impressionable, flexible, youthful brain cells of my high school days reading Beloved and writing bad short stories in my first creative writing class. It's not like I'm not capable of learning chemistry, and the teacher is spending a lot time teaching the basics to us, but I am definitely feeling the overwhelm.

3) The influence of women's education. I've been involved in women's education so long that it's really gotten under my skin and taken solid rooting on my soul. I absolutely believe in women's education. I love the idea of women's-centered learning and the idea of women learning in the company of other women. Seems like my Soils class is dominated by a few voices that receive the most attention, even when those voices aren't saying anything particularly insightful. There is this guy (I am ranting now) who responds to every rhetorical question and non-question that my teacher says. I swear, a large proportion of the class is occupied by this guy's non-stop stream-of-consciousness blabbering, which is only encouraged by the teacher himself. It comes down to basic social skills with that guy. Other male voices also dominate the blabbering--one guy, who perhaps because of his own intimidation, throws out his own questions and non-questions, which undoubtedly feel like salvos fueled by a minimal knowledge of soil, meant to intimidate other students. He will ask what sounds like a technical question, using technical language, which, to my secret delight, gets shot down by the teacher himself. "What do you mean by kaolinite clays, exactly??" my teacher may respond, after a facetious question.

But I am determined, and I mean absolutely determined, to see this class through. I don't care if it kills me, I am going to pass this class. Yeah, hand me a box of well-sharpened Ticonderogas and hold on a sec while I replace the batteries in my calculator, and I'm gonna make it!

Summer School, 2011

2011-08-05T08:00:00.000-07:00

I signed up for a great class at Merritt College this summer called "Plants of the Mediterranean." I got the thumbs up from the bosses to take the time off, negotiating use of personal vacation time to make up for the difference, paid my tuition and everything. It's taught by this professor I've been wanting to take a class with for a while now. Only thing is, the class was under-enrolled, and in this economic climate, and in California's community college system in particular, this is a recipe for disaster. The class got cancelled at the last minute. My entire summer schedule got thrown off, and in the end, I was sitting there with a great will and thirst for knowledge, but nothing to show for it. What's a girl to do?

So what I did, and I did without quite knowing it, was create my own class. More of an independent study you might say, overseen by none other than, yep, Me! I didn't start off thinking I'd be taking a class, but now that it is August, it's becoming more and more obvious that I actually am, with my own nebulous syllabus, great texts, and one of the most fantastic classrooms that a novice like myself could hope for. I haven't given my class a name, but since I am blogging about it now, I shall christen it: Plants of the Mills College Campus.

During my first semester at Merritt last fall I did a project for my Horticulture 101 class that tried to document as many plants as I could, given the time-frame, and create herbarium specimens of them. A herbarium is a collection of plants that have been collected and pressed (think: flower petals pressed between the pages of your phone book) with extra documentation and a little bit of scientificism (yes I think I just christened another concept!) thrown in. After the project was turned in, I knew I was nowhere near being satisfied with the amount of plant material I collected. One of my limitations for the original project was in being able to identify the plants I collected. I am such a newbie at plant identification it's not even funny. I could probably tell you what a rose is, and maybe a tree, but identifying and providing scientific names for plants? Uh-uh. No way. This spring I looked at all the new things popping up and not being enrolled in a plant identification class, I despaired at the thought of missing out on documenting all that I saw around me. It didn't take me long to come up with this thought: Oh, to hell with the identification part--just grab whatever you can before they all disappear again! And so.

Spring turned to Summer. Things found their way into my plant press. I bought a pair of small hand-pruners, which I dubbed my stealth-pruners, which I could pull out and to gather plants without being obvious I was pilfering the wildlife (for some reason I feel a great shame in actually being caught--by whom?--I don't know). I began to walk around during my lunch hour with a plastic bag. I carried a notebook. My eyes changed: they began to see things that used to just blend into the landscape. Flashes of color became great shining beacons of discovery. Green wasn't just green anymore--it had new and certain degrees of gradation. The bright, untouched lime green was a sure sign of something new. And there were flashes of color, pinks, oranges, and all shades of blue and purple--all these I would collect for my press, trying to gather parts of the plant that would aid in identification. Every discovery was a joy, new and undiscovered. It didn't matter what it was--if it was new to me and if it was growing on the Mills College campus, then it would be fair game for my herbarium.

True, there were a few places off-limits to me, on a moral level. For instance, it seems very unfair to go to the Botanical Garden to collect things. After all, people are lovingly cultivating the things growing there and there are signs for godsakes, telling you exactly what the plant is. That's cheating. Outright. That's like going to a zoo with a rifle and claiming to bag new species. Wrong. And there are also a few designated demonstration areas--places on campus with fabulous plants growing for the benefit of passerby who care to stop and read the lovely, detailed-filled signs describing them. These I considered clues, not entirely off limits, but shunned upon, for sure. And for the record, dear Botanical Garden Co-Ordinator, I did not collect from your demonstration areas, I merely used your beautifully identified plant species to collect from other areas on campus where the plants were growing in their natural states. Clues. Scout's honor.

Collection requires a few supplies. I am a little, uh, economically challenged by the way. To create an herbarium requires a nominal amount of equipment. I insist on purchasing archival paper to mount my specimens, as well as archival glue (I may be just an imp in the herbarium world, but I must say that these things are absolutely non-negotiable, or rather, non-reversable. I may not be the best plant presser, but at least my specimens will last into perpetuity). I splurged on cute little jewelry tags, pre-punched and strung with neat, white string (oh so tidy and beautiful in their conformity). These I would assign notes on the plants--where-collected, date, habitat information. But to press plants requires "flimsies" (aka 11 1/2" x 16 1/2" paper that the plants are actually contained in during the pressing process--these I pilfered from old copies of the school newspaper):

"Ventilators" (aka, cardboard cut from the same dimensions used in between the flimsies, sandwich style--might I say how hard it is to find cardboard without creases in the allotted area?):

And now that I am in the depths of summer, "coin envelopes" (aka seed/carpel packets). I say necessity is the mother of invention (yes, I am recycling my cliches too), and so portions of my lunch hour were dedicated to also collecting and creating these oh so necessary materials. I pride myself, not on my miserly-ness, but on my green-ness in procuring these supplies. This is recycling to the max. Talk about saving a tree for the sake of scientificism!

Paper used to pad boxes for shipping . . .

. . . invested with a few cuts, folds, and a drop of glue became . . .. . . envelopes for saving seed in!

And then comes the great task of identification. I have to say that when I was collecting, I had no hope of actually identifying any of these plants until I was enrolled in some great plant ID class at some point in the distant future. But since I have been trying to be economical about everything, I have been utilizing a great resource here on campus, available to me as an employee, namely: the Library! What a great place!! They've got all sorts of books there on every topic under the sun, and get this--they let you take them home with you--for FREE! What a concept! True, you do have to give the books back, but they let you extend the due dates over and over--for free! The mystery of this class keeps revealing itself to me. I'm not sure how I am learning how to identify plants, but as I flip through books I realize--hey, I've seen that one before! And hey, I've seen that one too. Maybe it's the freedom of not actually being enrolled in a class, or bearing the pressure of having to absorb certain information, that makes me all the more, uh, absorbent! At first I checked out books about rare wildflowers and native plants. But as I began to understand what I was seeing, I have come to a few conclusions:

1) Some of the plants that are growing so freely and readily and which are capturing my attention now are not rare, botanical jewels--they're weeds. I have to admit at this point in my botanical undertakings that I am a blunt tool. I am seeing the most gaudy, numerous and environmentally obnoxious plants.

2)Being a blunt tool is not such a bad thing. After all, being able to identify what is common in the landscape only hones my skill in what I hope to be able to identify what is uncommon. Hopefully I am just sharpening my skills by using the rougher grit first, seeing first the forest, then the trees.

3) And also, just as importantly, pressing botanical specimens meant to be preserved for all eternity is a skill that ought not to be taken upon using blunt tools. I am learning a craft here. There is technique involved in pressing delicate flowers and collecting plant material. Better to make and learn from my mistakes on common plants and weeds rather than those jewels.

4) After scratching through the weeds and invasive species and common ornamental plants, I have come upon what I consider treasures in themselves, namely, the native plants of California. While the Mills campus may not be a hotbed of plant diversity, there are some really important and interesting plants growing here. I have discovered among our native species: California buckeye, ceanothus, laurel, flannelbush, coyotebush, oaks, redwoods, toyon, elderberry, box elder, Big leaf maple, redbud, mimulus, and manzanita, to name a few. So far most of the native species I've discovered (or rather, identified), have been hardy perennials. Someday I hope to develop my eye to spy on those elusive, ephemeral annuals--those delicate little plants that pop up, flower, and return to the long dormancy that is the trademark of California flora.

But summer is reaching its end--academically anyway. School starts in a few weeks. I still have plants in my press that need to be mounted. I need to label and identify. I am giving myself a deadline: I need to be done with this season's work by the time the new semester begins. This is good. Deadlines are good. Now I just need to do the work.

There are still a few good months of heat, the hottest and most severest kind, and the curling into dormancy. Things will dry, transform into golden hues, die back; the sun will burn through the fog and lay down heavily--clumsy and masculine--upon the grasses, upon the leafed-out canopies of trees, leaving its musky scent behind in the earth. Dust settles on all things. The world sounds different then: it rustles and cracks. Seedpods break open and surrender themselves to the baked, parched earth, falling into deep sleep until the rains return again.

My 4th of July Staycation

2011-07-05T10:57:00.001-07:00

Spent a most heavenly 4th of July weekend enjoying a mini staycation. Couldn't have asked for better weather--even though they kept threatening heat wave it didn't quite materialize and I was happy in a tank top and shorts. With three long days and my dear Coke, we set off to do some of our favorite things.

Saturday Coke dropped me off at Annie's Annuals, which some have described as a mecca for the plant world. Annie's is absolute heaven for anyone who loves plants: acres and acres of rare and unusual plants all set out and just patiently waiting for you to pick one up and take it home. I actually didn't want to go to Annie's. I'd only mentioned to Coke that they were having a massive 20% off everything sale and that my garden was already overflowing with plants and I would only get in trouble if I went there. "Nonsense!" Coke replied, and she threw me into her car, me kicking and screaming the whole way. Right before we got there, she pulled up at Starbucks, got out of the car, and handed me the keys telling me take as long as I wanted. Geeking out with the plants isn't exactly her cup of, uh, coffee, but golly gee!! What could be better than giving someone the time and space to be absolutely indulgent in their nerdihood??? Thanks Coke!

One of the great things about Annie's is that she has little signs that show what the plant will look like when it grows up, as well as other useful information. While I want to take every plant I see home, I can't. These salvia 'Hot Lips' are beautiful and while I didn't buy them, I did remember seeing them on one of my little lunchtime walks throughout the Mills Campus. I hope to grab a cutting of them soon and grow my own. Don't even get me started on my love for plants in the mint family!!This is another plant I didn't buy--the elusive Romneya coulterii. Actually it's not elusive, but they are really difficult to start and establish, but once you get them started, they really put on a show. Apparently they produce the biggest flowers of any native plant in California. I've got one started on my porch and I hope I can make it grow.While there were so many plants I salivated over and did not buy, I actually went home with a whole flat. This was more than I had set out to get, but less than I have gotten in the past. It actually took great restraint to walk out of there with just one flat. But I got some good ones!

Spent the next day in the yard getting my hands dirty, pulling out some of the old, tired plants, making room for new ones, and getting the soil ready. Look how happy the plants are:
Coke helped too, and I totally appreciate her OCD coming out in the weeding process. She must have added a whole foot to the depth of my garden--more room for plants!On the 4th of July, we went to the beach. Coke was sure that we had plenty of ono snacks. Have you ever tried wasabi mayonaise from TJ's? OMG!! Mix it in with some tuna and eat it off triscuits!! And frozen grapes? Is that a brilliant idea or little drops from heaven, or both? Yum! I swear that Coke is a snacking genius.
Here are my feet in the warm water of Alameda:And as the fireworks were blasting off into the night, Coke finished off the weekend with a grand finale of her own: Ramen!!So good! And yes, that's kim chee. Not just any kim chee--Kohala brand. Biting into that brought back a flood of memories from my youth. I was never a big kim chee eater when I was a kid, but we always had it around at dinner time, and I think as I am getting older, my taste buds are evolving. That's some good stuff!

This post has been as lazy as my weekend was. But it was the best kind of lazy. The days lasted forever, nights were long and restful, the food was bountiful and delicious. Not a care in the world. No stresses peeking out from anywhere, no lurking performances or exams or studying to do. Just pure, blissful relaxicating!

Heaven and Earth

2011-04-14T08:00:00.001-07:00

I think that there is a little slice of heaven here on earth for all of us. It's a different place for everyone, all your own, discovered or revealed to each in different ways. It might be a park bench or a mountaintop or a kitchen table, but whatever it is, I hope that everyone finds their own place like that. I know I've found mine and it's called Point Reyes. Point Reyes is a triangular chunk of land that, on a map, appears as if it is being torn off the coast of California by the great San Andreas Fault. It's so other-worldly and beautiful that it seems that the entire weight of a continent can't hold on to it. I think of the word cleave. In one sense, cleave means to separate, to split, but in another sense, cleave may also mean to cling. I think of fingers futilely entwined--in someone's hands, in a handful of fabric of the clothing of someone who can not stay. It's a sad word, a pulling in opposite directions. It is the way the sound of a mournful song sounds beautiful, and the particular way beauty can be mournful. Maybe beauty is a form of mourning, loving that thing that is transient, fleeting, moving away.

But lucky for me, since I am a mere mortal, plate tectonics and geology are slow forces, and that bit of land I love so much will take several millennia to finally rip away and float off into the ocean, lost to the continent but born anew as an island, surrounded by vast black water that glints blindingly in the sun, a lonely place visited only by sea-birds and the occasional seal. The submerged lighthouse will exist only as a trick of light and shadow beneath the crashing waves. The roads that once criss-crossed her soft belly will be faint scars visible only from above, so that, in the slanted sunlight of an afternoon, the sky will caress and trace those faint lines on the naked flesh of the land and ask, how?, and the land may reply, distracted, her eyes looking off in the distance from where she came, Oh that? I couldn't say, it happened so long ago I can't even remember.Saturday morning we awoke early. We dressed in layers to be peeled off one by one and put back on again at the whimsy of the sun. I packed a few simple things I could find in my kitchen: a packet of crackers, cheese, a long forgotten apple that I sliced into quarter moons, a bag of trail mix. Along with dear friend Coke, we got in my car and headed off, out of the city, over the Richmond Bridge, through the small towns that dot the way to the coast.

At Point Reyes, most people stop at the visitor center, a big red barn staffed by people who love what they do. They have a little gift shop that I find completely irresistible. Yes, if heaven had a gift shop, you wouldn't be able to resist either: art prints, guidebooks, patches, bandannas, histories--all on the topic that interested you most. We stopped mainly to get a map, but I couldn't resist a slim volume on the common wildflowers of the area. With our trusty map in hand, we set off, down the road, left at the intersection, another left a little ways further. Our destination: Limantour Beach. If you want to continue with the triangle metaphor, then the base of Point Reyes lies along California's coast, tilts down a bit at a jaunty angle, and the apex reaches out into the Pacific, acrobatically balancing the famed lighthouse on its chin. Limantour lies on the southern side of the triangle. You drive through a brief forest of pine trees. At this time of year the trees were putting out their candles of new growth--one long finger sprouting up, surrounded by a couple of shorter fingers on either side. Coke said all the trees looked like they were flipping us the bird. A whole forest of them.
Limantour beach is a wide swath of sand lapped by the sea and naked save for tufts of grass in the dunes that line the shore. It was a bright day, but the air was cool, and a strong breeze blew in from the sea. Grains of sand hopped and danced, the grasses leaned, reaching and reaching, and whitecaps appeared here and there in the distance. We headed down the beach, the sand making a funny squeaking sound as we walked on it. We stopped to look at the washed up things, the shells of crabs, a glint of half-buried color. Every once in a while the wind would kick up and sting our hands and faces and try to steal our scarves away. Coke ducked into the dunes and found us a nice little spot, protected from the wind, bathed in light. It was like our own little room, grass for walls, heaven for a ceiling.

And it was heavenly, truly. The noon sun ran its fingers through the water, lighting it up all shades of blue and green. We saw something very large and very black rise up and disappear beneath the waves, twice. High above the clouds drifted lazily by, sometimes obscuring the sun long enough to reconsider a sweater that had already been shed, but not quite. We sat for a long time, enjoying the light and the ease. We breathed in the air, watched the shadows of the birds soar across the sand.

After a while, we remembered that we had left our picnic in the car, and our thoughts turned to where we should explore next and how long it would take to get there. I told Coke I didn't want to ever leave, was ready to leave my entire life behind and begin anew right there on the beach. But our bellies betray the best of our intentions, and we returned to the car where we sat in the warmth and devoured our picnic as the wind rattled and shook the car and tossed the seagulls skyward. We pulled the map out again, and I half-heartedly suggested a couple places. Part of me felt that since we had made it all the way out here that we ought to see as much as we could. Point Reyes has so much to offer, so many places to explore, but there was a tugging in my heart that wanted to stay. I suggested as much, and after little deliberation, we decided that staying would be just as nice as going somewhere else.

So, we set out again, more prepared this time, bringing the extra food and a towel and blanket. We found our way back to our little place in the dunes and spent the rest of the afternoon taking in the sunshine and enjoying this little slice of heaven. I can't wait to get back.

Thanksgiving in LA and the Way Back

2010-11-28T23:35:00.000-08:00

I just got back from the annual Thanksgiving trip to LA. It was a good time to see family and contribute to the big Turkey Dinner. As usual I'm photo-blogging.

Here are the things I was in charge of: candied yams, pumpkin pie, mashed potatoes--the mushy stuff. I forgot to add sugar to my pumpkin pie (yuck!). I marketed it as diabetic pie and the the old folks LOVED it. Spread a bit of ice-cream and cool whip on it and it actually didn't taste half bad.

I also got to see my niece, Jellybean, who of course loved Thanksgiving dinner so much she got it all over her face. She's my kind of people!

Here she is with her Dad, my little bro, who I still can't quite grasp as being a Papa, but he's a good one! She has her father's, uh, teeth!

Also found a pic of my Mom in her wedding gown. She's pretty.

And NO trip to LA would be complete without a piping hot bowl of menudo and my Mexican side:

Or biore with the bro(?):

A highlight of the trip was actually making my way back. I caught a flight down, but the trip back up was with dear friend Coke in her car, Meeps. We took our time on the great Highway 101. I usually jet back up the 5, but 101 meanders by the seaside part of the way. We found our own secret beach, after winding through suburban neighborhoods. This place wasn't even on the iphone map, which made it even better!! We spotted an unmarked staircase on the way to getting lost:

It was deliriously beautiful down there.

There was a tree that had fallen off the cliff that we wove our way into for funny pics:

And a rock I did my best to pose mermaid-like upon:

Coke just wanted to see where I came from:

Pretty, light-filled day:

And then long hours in the rain, listening to roadtrip music, and a stop at Starbucks and that M-place for french fries. All to get back to this guy, who I'm sure missed me, but isn't spilling a bean about his adventures. He just wanted to know where I'd been:

OMG! Immi is a Genius!

2010-11-09T09:25:00.000-08:00

OMG! I was able to catch bits of Imogen Heap's webcast from her Royal Albert Hall show this week and I just can't resist the urge to share a video of her showcasing her absolute genius. The way she creates loops and layers is just jaw-dropping. She is so amazing. My electronic music hero!!

PS

2010-11-08T13:58:00.000-08:00

And a postscript to the last post: We got a really great review for the Yoshi's show!! Read about it here.

Hell Week

2010-11-07T22:07:00.000-08:00

Ok, maybe calling it "Hell Week" is a little extreme, especially since what I'm calling "Hell" here wasn't anything particularly hellacious--intense, ghostly and otherworldly--maybe. In the space of one week I played 3 gigs for Ghosts and Jazz, and on the other side of that was an extreme amount of work and studying that needed to be done for my horticulture classes. Two take-home exams + two in-class practicals (exams) + giant flower project all needed to be completed in the space of 3 days. I needed to put off all thoughts of horticulture to practice for the gigs, and the gigs came in between intense study of horticulture. Boy, it makes my brain tired just trying to lay all that out for you.

Preset for Matcha Night at the Asian Art Museum

First off was "Matcha" night at the Asian Art Museum. We were in a particularly large and boomy hall (I think the whole room was composed entirely out of marble or stone), pulling off our first incarnation of the show. I had to learn a batch of new versions of songs and storytelling and put it all together in time for the show with only 3 rehearsals. It was good that I've worked with that team before, but that doesn't mean it was necessarily easy. Plus it's JAZZ, which means enormous amounts of improvisation. You have to know how to just "go with it," or "feel it," which were terms that were thrown around a lot on the musical side of things. Most taiko stuff is entirely pre-conceived and staged and entirely thought out. There's not much room for "going with it" except during solos or when someone drops a bachi. Matcha night was challenging not only with the presentation of this new material, but with sound issues (we used more electricity than they were used to, which meant our monitors and sometimes Brenda's mic kept going out), and I had to rely on visuals. Janet just kept telling me: Watch Mark's foot! Just watch his foot! Which meant that I had to kind of play like a deaf person because I couldn't hear what he was playing. It was good learning experience.

Preset for 142 Throckmorton

Next was 142 Throckmorton in Marin. Did I tell you the theme of the shows was ghosts? While sound was way better at Throckmorton, we encountered technical issues DURING the show, namely, the battery pack that powered Brenda's mic flipped open at the absolute peak of the story, and she she lost power and was scrambling to find her battery and us musicians were left in the lurch. Mark was fabulous and just took a solo, and I tried to hold groove (that's where the improvisation and going with it comes in handy!!), and Janet tried to look in Brenda's costume for the battery, and all the while the rest of us just kinda looked at each other and kept the music going. Afterward Brenda spoke to "The Old Man Who Lives Upstairs" a.k.a. the set designer, and he told her there were spirits on stage who were responsible for those sorts of things. That explains a lot! Ghosts!

Preset for Yoshi's

The next day was our gig at Yoshi's. Yeah, Yoshi's San Francisco!! World-famous jazz club and host to all the greats! That was our best performance. Of course sound was not an issue here. It was just a little tight for space, but otherwise it was the best performance of the series. It was also Halloween, and we passed a yard sale on the way over. Janet couldn't resist the opportunity to get a hat for the gangster-related bingo show coming up at RCW:

Janet hitting the Halloween yard sale on the way to Yoshi's

Janet posing with yard sale treasure and demon mask

And as soon as I got home from Yoshi's, I hit the books. I was actually overwhelmed. I'd been putting it off, but the full brunt of what I had to do kind of knocked me down. At certain points in this whole process there were, yes I admit, tears and a fit of crying on the kitchen floor. (Thank you dear, sweet Coke for being there and offering your compassion and dishpan hands to the process) If cramming for taiko has taught me anything, it's learning how to completely focus and break down what feels like it would be entirely overwhelming and chewing it off into more manageable pieces. Yes, I crammed. Actually I crammed harder and was prepared to answer questions that were even more difficult than were actually asked. But darn, that horticulture is some tricky stuff, and though I did the best that I could, I didn't score any A-plusses or anything. Maybe A-territory, but eh, I did my best. Here is a picture of some fruits I gathered for floral project:

But now that it's over, it feels oh so good to be reading pleasurably and listening to music for enjoyment. Hell weeks, while feeling totally overwhelming and consuming while they are happening, are totally worth it. Can't ask more much more from life.

Ghosts & Jazz 2010 Halloween Weekend

2010-10-26T10:09:00.000-07:00

I'm going to be performing taiko in THREE shows this week! They all feature jazz music and storytelling. Here is a description:

GHOSTS & JAZZ

This Halloween, get spooked by dramatic and haunting Japanese ghost tales performed by Brenda Wong Aoki with Emmy Award-winning Jazz composer Mark Izu, the taiko drums of Janet Koike & Kathryn Cabunoc, Anthony Brown on multiple percussion, Shoko Hikage on Koto, and Mas Koga on Saxophone and Shakuhachi.

In Japanese Noh theatre, the dead are more important than the living because the actions of the dead brought us to where we are today. Ghosts are usually upset females who won't go peacefully into the night. The Japanese believe ghosts are people who have died with an unpaid debt. An unpaid debt is passed down for generations and grows like a snowball into an avalanche. Whole families, villages, countries live under the dark cloud of an unpaid debt, because by then, nobody knows how to fix it.

Storytellers help people remember the past, and ghost stories remind us that what remains after we are dead are the consequences of our actions.

Our first show is this Thursday October 28th for the Asian Art Museum's "Matcha" series. We'll be performing 3 sets beginning at 5:30.

Next we take the show up to Marin on Saturday October 30th to perform at Throckmorton Theatre:

Ghosts and Jazz

Brenda Wong Aoki and Mark Izu & Friends
Dramatic performance with Award-Winning Jazz

Saturday, October 30 8:00pm

$20 General Admission $15 Adult with Child, $5 Children
$23 General Day of Show

Buy tickets or call 415.383.9600

Then we come back to San Francisco to perform at Yoshi's Jazz Club. Yep, I said, Yoshi's! Yee ha, that's quite a gig! Here's the details for that:

Brenda Wong Aoki and Mark Izu present: Ghosts & Jazz

October 31, 2010

7PM Show

$5 kids (not recommended for children under 9)

$15 adults with kids

$20 adults

» BUY TICKETS » SEND TO A FRIEND

Since you're reading my blog, you must be a friend, so you can get a discount for the Throckmorton and Yoshi's performances by using the code word "OHANA" (all caps) when purchasing tickets. I've heard that this isn't working for the Throckmorton online site, so you may want to try calling them.

Ok, and if you're not excited already, here is a video sneak peek of what we'll be doing. It's going to be awesome. Please come!

Intro to Horticulture!

2010-10-07T22:50:00.000-07:00

Ever since I was a kid I've been interested in plants. I liked to grow stuff. When I was in high school I had a really great garden. I'd be in it for hours and hours, all weekend long, every morning before school, every evening after. And it's not like I knew what I was doing. I would just plant everything and anything. It was so alive and everything was wonderous. There was order and then there was chaos and I just remember long afternoons, listening to the radio, digging, weeding, grooming, planting, pruning.

After I left for college, I didn't have a garden any more. I pursued literature and writing. I lived in apartment complexes. I had deadlines and finals and then later a day job, life experiences, all worthwhile and not regrettable. But there's always been this smoldering interest in plants that never went away. And then one day, dear friend Coke enthusiastically approached me with a fistful of printed out course offerings from Merritt College (5 minutes from my day job). Some classes were underlined and others were asterisked and others had little drawings around them. It was thanks to her that I finally said to myself, hey, I should DO this!

So I enrolled in a couple of horticulture classes this semester! Merritt's horticulture program is absolutely amazing, particularly for being a community college. They offer courses that some 4-year universities don't even offer. I originally wanted to take the Intro 101 class and start from the basics, but it was an all-day class, and there was just no way I could swing it with my job. They've got a night version of the class that I managed to get into. I'm also taking Plant Terminology, which teaches us how to identify features about plants so that later when they actually let me touch real live plants, I will be able to know what they're talking about. I haven't really been able to dig in the dirt or prune or whatever it is they do with plants. I've just been filling my brain. It's been feeling really sponge-like lately. I am really interested and curious and still have that wet-behind-the-ears enthusiasm so I'm sure that helps. I keep putting stuff in there, and I seem to be retaining all this info, and it's not like things are getting crowded in my brain, not yet. Just fill, fill, fill. Study, memorize, read.

This whole science field is very peculiar to an English major like me. Writing and critique is so fuzzy and amorphous and perspective-driven. But science? Uh-uh. There's no arguing my way out of the corners in this field. There's a whole lot of black and white and even the grey areas come into sharp focus if you point your microscope hard enough at things. And that's something I love about it. The specificity. My terminology class is really challenging. I just got back my first exam. I scored 98.5% and I'm not happy about it. I know that most of the points and half-points (there was extra credit too) I got docked were for my carelessness. One question was to identify the surface of a leaf. There were many leaves and I just felt one, but I would have gotten the question right if I had felt the others.

But that is learning experience. I think one of the good things about learning all that other life stuff, is that you learn how to learn. Learn where you make mistakes, and to recognize them as mistakes so that you can correct them later. Take lessons from your experience. I may be answer a question incorrectly, but instead of self flagellation, I just realize, oh I was wrong because I need to take the time to observe, or to not repeat a pattern of assumption, or that with patience you'll come to understand something more deeply.

Tonight I was dissecting flowers. I've actually been dreading this. A couple weeks ago we were studying leaves, which are pretty easy compared to the complexity of flowers (not to say that leaves are simple things. Really! Go out and look at all the leaves you come across and pretty soon you will see an amazing diversity of shape and form. I never realized how many different kinds of leaves there were until I actually looked at them). I was actually scared. Yeah, that's it, now that I've said it out loud. I mean, there is so much going on in a flower, what if I can't see all the pieces? What if I come across a great expanse of unknown territory? What if I don't know what I'm looking at? What if I get it wrong? And I dissected my first flower tonight. I just said, eh, what the heck, and started hacking away at it. Our project is to dissect 16 flowers and I wanted to get an early start. When I was done with my first flower, I said to myself, well, I've got these other ones. I wasn't using them for my project, so why not just cut them all up for the heck of it without the pressure of having to document every stamen and ovary? And I did. And it was so much fun. There was flower carnage everywhere:

It was liberating.

Study and focus again. Exams and project due-dates loom. It is so weird to be a student again. But I am having a blast!

Best Birthday Ever Part II

2010-09-12T02:16:00.001-07:00

Ok, so it's mid-September and I'm still trying to blog my best-birthday ever. I've been busy! Oh well, better late than never, right?

The weekend after my birthday, me and KB decided to go to Angel Island, a chunk of land in the San Francisco Bay. We wanted to rent bikes and explore the island. Turned out to be quite an adventure!

The adventure actually began before we got to the island. Since you need to take a ferry to get there, we decided to leave on the one ferry out of Alameda, my town, and incidentally, an island itself (though artificially so, tidal canal, my ass, cheaters). But apparently, and this I learned the hard way, there are TWO ferry stations on Alameda, a seemingly small town. The ferry terminals are on opposite sides of the island, and it was the other one that the ferry we wanted departed from. Eh, live and learn. There is more than one ferry that goes to Angel Island, and in order to catch that one, we had to drive clear up to Tiburon, where we caught the hourly, 10-minute ferry.

Once there, we immediately found the bike place, donned helmets, and were off!

Boy oh, boy were we surrounded by beauty and great weather! I'd assumed that the path would be relatively flat, but it wasn't, and good thing too, because our hard-pedaling was rewarded by breathtaking views. There were views of San Francisco and the East Bay and of the lovely Golden Gate Bridge:

The landscape on the actual island was amazing as well. There is nothing like the Bay Area in the summer. All the natives fall into dormancy, turning all golden and luscious while the trees and the deeply-rooted hold on somehow in the heat:Here I am, hamming it up, looking all bad-ass between panting and nearly dying on the uphills:There were interesting, semi-dilapidated buildings to explore. We weren't paying much attention to much besides beauty, so my facts on island history are vague. Apparently it was a military base as well as an immigration station (but I'm not sure which came first). I love old buildings, especially the falling-down kinds. Here is me thru a hole-in-the-wall:And here is more ham-age on a corroding staircase:

Ultimately, we found our way to the seashore. I wouldn't normally go bathing in the SF Bay, but we just had to stick our aching pigs in the sea:

Especially when it looked all emerald-sparkling like this:And here is a shot with the rest of the world behind me:

And of course, all good things come to an end, and let me tell you, at the end of the world there are CHEESEBURGERS! And beer. Ah, what a great day!

Best Birthday Ever Part 1

2010-08-29T22:36:00.000-07:00

I recently celebrated my 35th birthday. Jeez, writing that out just now made me feel really OLD. I'm halfway through my 30's and if you round up, that makes me practically 40! Plus, that puts me in an entirely new age bracket for online surveys. But to make up for that, I went and celebrated my birthday over 2 weekends and enjoyed what has been the most beautiful birthday ever. I'm just gonna photo-blog. Pictures are worth a thousand words, right?

Woke up on my birthday and went out to breakfast with sweet friend KB and ordered a giganto waffle with strawberries and bananas and whip cream and syrup and a side of--yeah, that's right--bacon! It was decadent, breakfast heaven. Welcome home, diabetes!

Then, my dear friend Coke invited me to join her up at a retreat center in Philo to celebrate the big day. She was finishing up with her retreating, and I got to tag along at the tail end for the beauty and wonder of the unmatched Northern California forest. As soon as I got there we went for a walk along a river. It was a warm day, sun shining down, no one in sight, water all jade-sparkly and oh-so-inviting in that late August heat. I pointed to a swirling pool and said, oh, doesn't that look like a nice place to jump into? And then Coke suggested that since it was my birthday, and since I was practically 40, that I ought to take a dip to baptize myself into middle age. I was reluctant, she was persistent, and my god it was a hot day and I'd driven 3 hours to get there! And, well, to make a long story short, baptisms in Philo are undertaken in the bathing suit you were born in, so we dove in, screaming like little girls and, hallelujah, I'm ready for middle age!

That evening she made us the cutest, most delicious mini-burgers I've ever had. They were actually the first mini-burgers I've ever had, but hands-down belly-up oh my-my were they tasty! You don't get birthday dinners made for you like that very often. Ono-licious!

Since Philo is so close to Mendocino and Fort Bragg, I suggested that for the next day, we cross over to the coast and saunter on over to a place called "Glass Beach." It's been one of those places to see on my bucket list. Apparently the place used to be a public dump. People would just drive up to the edge of the sea and dump all their junk and trash into the ocean. Hard to imagine now, but they did! They cleaned up most of the junk but what got left behind was all the glass. Now, decades later, the glass had been worn down into little jewels. I'm sure that all the best pieces have been picked over but it's still beautiful, in its own way.We spent a long time, searching high and low,

until we found the best ones:

And then we left them on a rock for the sea to reclaim them again:On the way back home, we stopped at one of those inconspicuous pullouts on the side of the road. It was a botanical wonderland. Perched high on a cliff overlooking the sea was a beautiful garden of plants. Mother nature herself must have spent a millenia figuring out how to arrange the most beautiful, wind-swept landscape here. Succulents and grasses and teeny tiny flowers, all in bloom--in late August!! I don't think I've ever seen anything as amazing as this. Not in a botanical garden or a magazine or even on the nature channel. It was truly breathtaking.I didn't want to go home. I didn't. No I don't wanna! I think there was whining and a little bit of temper tantrum rising up in the car. The road was so beautiful though:

And my iphone takes groovy pictures. Here is a gem. Coke never lets me willingly take pics of her, but I caught this one. Kind of sums up the spirit of the whole trip. Thank you Coke for a wonderful birthday!To be continued . . .

Staycation Part 2

2010-08-05T21:42:00.000-07:00

The next leg of my staycation took me far from the reaches of the city, north and westward to a place called Point Reyes. It's a national park in Marin, and I think it's one of the most beautiful places on earth. The San Andreas Fault basically broke off this giant chunk of land and its gentle rolling hills are dotted with farms, surrounded by water and covered here and there in forest. You've got your pick of what sort of beach you like, everything from jagged, rocky, rugged coastline, to miles of sandy big-waved beaches, to gentle, lapping coves with hardly any sort of ripple in the water. I wanted to visit Point Reyes for my staycation, but didn't have anything in mind, and when I went to the website, I saw that they had volunteer activities. The one that caught my eye was their Native Plant Seed Collection Volunteer day. I love plants, and one of my fantasies has always been to go out into the field to gather seeds. Never thought I'd be able to do that for real, but here it was, staring at me in the face. I signed up right away.

The volunteer leader was a young guy named Jamus (sp?) and after a brief orientation he took us out into the field (how awesome is it to be able to say that?), which was a grassy hillside beside an estero, which I later learned are fingers of ocean that reach inland, kind of like the polar opposite of what a peninsula is.

Our job was to identify and collect seeds for DeChampsey grass (I have no idea how that is spelled). Apparently it's one of the native grasses in the area and they use the seeds to restore areas that have been returned by man to nature--places like old farms. He showed us what to look for, and how another grass--I forget what it's called--closely resembled the native stuff we were looking for. Our only gear was a humble paper bag, reused so much it was practically fuzzy. Here is what we were looking for:

Here is me finding some, and looking gosh-darn, geeky-happy about it.To harvest the seed, you just had to run your fingers over the seed stalk and take what came off and put it in your paper bag. I used to do this for fun as a kid. Here is a video:

I think this is one of the funnest things I've ever done on vacation. I could have stayed on that hill all day with my paper bag. Jamus was extremely knowledgeable, throwing around all sorts of botanical terms and explaining the flora and fauna. I totally envied his job. He was actually an intern, finishing up his degree at Chico. Can you imagine a more amazing internship?

At the end of our few hours there, I wound up with about a handful of seed, wet, poison-oaked jeans, and a happy heart. If only I had more Wednesday mornings available for this!

Afterward there was still time in the day to do a little exploring at Point Reyes. Wound up at Heart's Desire Beach. It's the calmest little cove with pretty sand. I had to strip the shoes off my aching pigs and dip them into the sea:

The cockles and mussels (and whatever these things are) were alive-alive-O there:

Ok, well maybe not these guys, but you get the picture.

Point Reyes was yesterday. Today was yet another day of staycation. Today I had nothing in particular I wanted to do, and instead did a bunch of things I'd been putting off, meaning to do, never getting around to it. Don't know where I got all the energy from, but from the moment I awoke I was knocking things off the to-do list left and right. The first thing I did was sew on the patches from places I've been with my Mom's backpack:

Someday it's gonna be covered in patches!

Then I framed a picture I got in Japan. It's an original woodblock print that I thought would look nice in my living room. I knew that professional framing would be $100+ dollars, and I didn't want to pay that. Since it's original art, and maybe because it's Japanese, there was no way I'd find a pre-made mat and frame that would fit it. When I was in LA, my Dad gave me a mat cutter, and before I'd left on vacation, someone was cleaning out their office and left out an old frame that was up for grabs. It was ugly brown and chipped and scuffed. I sanded that thing down and gave it its first coat of some black paint left over from taiko stand projects. The first coat is always kind of streaky and uneven, but my god, it really worked! It turned out to be that pretty brown-black color that Ikea has. The only thing I needed was a mat, so off to the art store I went, and after some experimentation with the mat cutter, I created a mat for the picture. A little windex on the glass and a couple nails in the wall and presto! Seven bucks for the mat, two dollars to park near the mat store (ugh!), and voila--framing for under ten bucks!

Then it was outside for a little garden time. Did some watering and tidying up and also picked some of my precious dahlias. There's lots more where these came from:

Then took advantage of the fact that most people were at work so went to the laundromat and washed my clothes. And since I was on a roll, I ironed a whole closet full, which will hopefully get me through the next week or two:You may ask why I'd do laundry on my vacation. And the simple answer I have is: I love doing laundry, and I especially love ironing, and nothing gives me quite the satisfaction of a closet full of cleaned and ironed clothes. Ironing relaxes me. Oh come on, everyone has their weird thing that gives them their kicks.

And since I was knocking out the to do list, there were those 3 pairs of pants that I love but were all too long. Been meaning to hem them for the longest time, and actually had to resort to rolling them up, or--ack!!--stapling them up so they wouldn't drag. Pulled out the trusty sewing machine and stitched away. Presto!! Three pairs of custom tailored pants!

I'm no seamstress, but it beats staples any day.

And phew! This is on top of dealing with kitty litter, vacuuming the whole house, changing the sheets, doing the dishes, visit with friend, and coffee-and-quiet-time on the beach. And whoa, the day is almost over. Thinking about a hot bath and reading and then bed. I'm sure there's more stuff I could do, but I can sleep soundly knowing how much I got done today. Not sure what's in store for tomorrow (massage maybe? Self-indulgence?), but I like it that way!!

Staycation Part 1

2010-08-03T23:15:00.000-07:00

I'm on staycation. That's when you don't have enough money for a real vacation and stay close to home and take the time to enjoy what you've got all around you. Who needs a trip to Tahiti or Toronto or Tasmania when you've got it all close to home? I spent last weekend in LA, visiting my adorable new niece and, well . . . eating!

My staycation unofficially kicked off at the end of my Maze concerts. All that performing really works up an appetite after the post-concert hangover kicks in. A friend and I went out for Korean food. Actually, we were shooting for Thai, but the place was closed, but the Korean place next door wasn't. Boy oh boy do they know how to do the pickled vegetables right:

Then this past weekend I was off to LA. I wanted to see my niece, since it had been over 6 months since I'd last seen her, and in baby-time, that's like twice the person you saw last time. As soon as I got to LA, my Dad took me to my favorite, Phillipe's, for French dip sandwiches:

See how they cut it into a heart shape? And yeah, that's coleslaw and 10 cent coffee!

The next morning, my Dad made me my other favorite--French toast! No one, and I mean no one, makes French toast like him. He gave me the recipe, which I will have to try one of these days, but I ask myself, why? I don't think it will ever be as good as his':

And here is little Jellybean, the cutest one-year old out there. I'm sorry, but she is. I'm sure your one-year olds are absolutely precious and all, but mine is the cutest. Daddy posed her like that. And she and I have an understanding. I love food, and she loves it too. One day we're gonna travel the world and eat all of it. Grandpa even hand feeds her, just like he does me, practically:Monday morning I went on my usual trip to Marukai, a Japanese market. Stocked up on the good stuff like lau lau and portugease sausage, which I guess isn't exactly Japanese, but whatever. They had violet candy there. I had that once when I was a kid when I visited Lanai. You have to admit that the pretty purple wrapper and the exotic idea of eating candy made out of flowers is appealing. But OMG, that was one of the most disgusting things I've ever put in my mouth. I can still taste it after all these years. Yuck!When I got back from Marukai, my Dad was on the phone, but he pointed to Jellybean, who was in a cage of fishing poles. He said she had just crawled in there and grabbed the smallest pole and held it like she was fishing. Oh, she sure knows how to go after a person's heart! I'm sure my Dad the fisherman will teach her everything he knows! Maybe she'll even bait her own hooks one day like he showed me. And she won't be the first grandchild he's shown how to fish.For dinner, my Dad took me to Diana's, my favorite Mexican restaurant. We brought our own pot and they filled it up with Menudo and we took it home and ate it. Ah heaven!

And they had a wall of spices there. A whole wall! Imagine all the wonderful food you could make with all that!!

After LA, drove back home to the Bay Area, crashed for a few hours, and then got to see dear freind Coke's performance at Interplayce. She does improv performance work there. It's a whole world of creativity going on there, and tonight I was welcomed back home to a wonderful performance. I love watching these folks. There are amazing accompanying musicians (I got goosebumps tonight) and very little is pre-set. They just go. It's so hard to describe, but what they create is magical and fun and funny and touches you on a deep level. The idea of such spontaneous performance is a difficult concept for me to grasp, but so exciting and inspiring and liberating to watch. And they've got a warm and inviting studio space:
So glad I was able to make it.

Tomorrow I'm off to more adventures. North and Westward. To be continued . . .

Down to the Wire

2010-07-21T09:26:00.000-07:00

Only a couple of days before the BIG SHOW! My transition sheets are so worn that they're getting that kind of fuzzy, Brett Favre look to them. I've got my practice post-its set up and that's my practice reko-reko (pronounced "hecko-hecko," as in, what the hecko-hecko is that thing you're playing?). Last night we worked on silliness. Yes, that's something we actually practice, hone and even stress over. Tonight is grooming night. I'd rather be practicing, but since people are actually paying to see this, I feel obligated to make myself look presentable. I'm enjoying my shaggy, wild summer hair, but I gotta get it neatened up for the good folks who are coming to the show. Sometimes I give myself a little pedicure, though more for myself because no one actually sees my toes.

Tomorrow is tech and our last chance to run things before the show. And then, well, it's Showtime. Egads, wish me luck. I'm excited to be doing this, I enjoy putting all the intense energy and focus on this sort of work, but I have to admit I'm going to enjoy the sweet relief when all this is over. I think my cat will be happy it's over too.

(gratuitous kitty photo)

And if you're still on the fence or haven't bought your tickets yet, there are still a limited number of seats available. I'd love to see you there!! Tickets here.

Doing the Freak-Out: Redux

2010-07-16T20:47:00.000-07:00

I've been busy lately gearing up for our annual Maze Daiko Concert. It's going to be a great show. I always say that, but really, it will be great. We're premiering a few new pieces, polished up our tried and true ones, and as an added bonus, we've also been graced with a special guest, Yoko Fujimoto, legendary vocalist and one of the founding members of Kodo. I got to study with Yoko when I went on the KASA/Mix trip to Japan in 2008. Yoko taught us different ways to use our voices and how to just sing with joy and abandon. Personally, her workshop deeply touched me. At the end of the day, I let go of all the anxiety and embarrassment I've felt around my voice and singing. Before her workshop it would have been easier to pull out one of my wisdom teeth with a piece of string tied around a doorknob than it would be to get me to sing anything. True, I can't carry a tune, hold a note, or make my voice do that quivering thing that Stevie Nicks does. But at least I have a voice, and I can sing at the top of my lungs if I want to and if I am expressing joy or having fun, I don't care what the hell I sound like. In Michaelle's class we're learning Brazilian songs, and though I can't pronounce the words to save my life, I sing! It's fun. And no one cares what I sound like!! Oh, and if you're interested in taking a fabulous voice workshop that will change your life, Yoko is offering one on July 29th. Details here. Really, people, I mean it when I say it can change your life.

So. I'm entering the final week before the show. In the past I would be majorly freaking out. Seriously. I would be in panic mode. As I write this, I realize that a year ago I would actually be at RCW, practicing, not blogging. This is not to say that I haven't freaked out, panicked or practiced, but, if I dare say this out loud, I'm feeling a little confident. Just a little, mind you. I don't know if I even like saying that. Feeling any bit of confidence actually scares me. I fear having any feeling that is even a remote-cousin synonym of the word "cocky." Cocky I am not. Overconfident I am not. I worry that overconfidence or cockiness leads to laziness, which shows on stage. But I feel like I've got a few of these under my belt by now. I've already done freak-outs for a lot of the songs I'm playing. Remember those old Emeryville Taiko days and how I was freaking out over Kai and Kanki? I mean, how many times can you freak out over a song you've performed or rehearsed a million times already? And Mo Ichido--last year I had major freak out time over that one. Can that feeling last forever? Doesn't a song get ingrained in the mind and body at some point? But this is not to say that I haven't worked really hard on other songs. I'm still trying to refine Naori. I've been going over my solo on that hourly. And there are the new songs we are learning. And solos are always cause for anxiety. But maybe since I've been through this before, I've learned HOW to freak out better, or rather, how to keep myself from freaking out. There have been days where I say, Ok, today I'm going to focus on this one song and keep at it and be patient with myself and know, trust and believe that I am going to get it and it will be ok. And you know what? It IS ok! I do get it! And everything will be all right! Well, that's what I tell myself anyway.

And, ok, I lied a little. Tonight I actually was at RCW, practicing. I went in for some bonus time with Janet. We worked on songs and sequence and patterns and soloing. I was telling her that I thought the show was going to be great and that I actually felt good about it and that I was worried that I wasn't as worried as I have been in the past. She said that was good and all, but now I could use this as an opportunity to not be totally overwhelmed by everything and obsess about one thing instead. She had me work on my She Goes solo. Yes, this is one of those things I struggle with. I'm not such a great slant-stand player, and I know and accept that. I actually set aside today to work on that solo, and glad I did. She made me play it over and over until I was panting and dripping with sweat and she gave me some really good pointers, and I am so glad and immensely grateful for the time I spent obsessing about it (not that I'm done obsessing about it).

So, one week before the show. We have our transition sheets, and I have made meticulous notes and even made flashcards to test my knowledge on how each song was spiked (I am especially proud of how nerdy that is). This is going to be an intense weekend of rehearsals. We go from 12:30-8:30pm on both Saturday and Sunday. I think I'm ready. I guess all this confidence stuff gets tested then. Wish me luck.

Oh, and if you're interested in seeing the show, here are the details:

Maze Daiko: Big Drums, Big Fun!

With Special Guest Yoko Fujimoto

Friday, July 23, 8:00pm
Saturday, July 24, 8:00pm
$20 in advance, $25 at the door
** space is limited, so purchase tickets early!

To purchase tickets:
https://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/113441

For more info:
http://www.rhythmix.org/content/10events/100723.html

If you can make it, I'd love to see you there!

First Place, Baby!

2010-07-04T16:57:00.001-07:00

Today we played taiko aboard RCW's float in Alameda's annual 4th of July Parade. Last year we got second place, but this year we were in it to win it. Yep, our entry won FIRST PLACE!! It was a team effort, with stilt walkers, belly dancers, hand drummers and other "characters" floating around. Crissy sewed costumes for Maze, and yesterday the team decorated our awesome flatbed truck:

This antique fire engine was also part of our caravan.

We played Mokuyobi nonstop a billion times in a row. Yes, that's billion with a B.
Maze group shot with the coveted trophy. Yay!!

The whole gang back at RCW. What an awesome parade!!

Bay To Breakers, 2010. Or, Some Really Great Tips for Running the Race

2010-05-16T21:25:00.000-07:00

Another year, another Bay to Breakers. I have to admit, I wasn't quite ready for this one. Yes, I trained, but not nearly as hard as past races, and not as hard as I wanted. I always use B2B as my reason to awaken from winter's long night, get myself in shape, and gauge where my body stands in relation to the rest of my life. I am always surprised that I come out on the other side, jubilant, and amazed that my body held it together, that I felt strong and that I had more fun running the race than I thought I would. I finished in 1:12:11, or 4,490th place out of 24,304, or the 1,069th woman out of 12,477, or 341st out of 3,512 out of the females 30-39. Or you can just say I FINISHED! Hallelujah!

So at 8a.m. this morning, I stood with the masses on the streets of San Francisco, contemplating my place in humanity, and the fact that I was standing there for something like the 4th time in the past 5 years. Now that I've run this race several times I've learned a few good tips, which I will share with you:

Tip #1: If you're serious about running the race, go to corral B. There are two overwhelmed volunteers manning the corral gates and if you just walk quickly by and ignore them, then you're in. Or better yet, do like I did and go in when the 2 drunk college boys were wheeling a cooler of beer in and the volunteers were distracted trying to stop them. Forget Corral A--that's for the elites and you know you're not one. Corrals C&D are for the drunk people, the high people, the stroller and float people, and the casual joggers and walkers (too many of whom are so frustratingly clueless to the concept of "walk right, run left." Really, people? You're walking 3 wide shoulder to shoulder in the middle of the street as streams of people are tripping themselves up trying to get around you and you have no idea you're being obnoxious?). Plus it's messy back there in Corrals C&D. Seriously. I go to corral B mainly for the fact that I don't have to dodge through puddles of vomit on the way out the gates.

Tip #2: Keep your jacket on until the last minute. When the race is about to start, people start crowding in and then it's like March of the Penguins in there. Really. Stand next to a man, a big man in a tank top if you can find one, because dudes emit heat. It's totally true. Tie your jacket around your waist. Yes it's cold, but if you jog, you'll warm up in no time and the air will actually feel refreshing. And you're gonna need your jacket for the end of the race because it finishes right there at the end of the continent where the land ends and the great, wide Pacific Ocean begins, and it's its own windy and cold weather system over there. Put the jacket on as soon as you finish the race, even if you're hot and sweaty. You'll never get the heat back until you hop in the shower, hours later (see tip#6).

Tip #3: Ignore any protesting your body is doing and enjoy yourself. Look around. Check out the cool costumes. Take in the music. Marvel in the fact that you're running through one of the most beautiful and diverse cities on the planet. Gawk at the naked people (and really, you won't see anything but their backsides unless you actually make the effort to turn around and run backwards). Appreciate the people who have come to watch and point and cheer and crash the party. This is one of the coolest events San Francisco has to offer. It's legendary, people. And you're taking part! You're making this happen. This year was the 99th B2B, so you can bet next year is going to be even better.

Tip #4: Hayes Street Hill is not that bad. It only looks bad on television. And the people who talk about it on television aren't running the race so they have no f$%king idea what it's like to go up that hill. They're bundled up and drinking coffee in a booth somewhere and making small talk about how steep that hill is. But trust me, it's not as steep as it looks. If you jog it, it only takes a few minutes to get to get to the top. Find someone who looks strong but not out of your league and hop on their coattails. They'll take you to the top. And after you crest that hill, which is somewhere after the 2 mile marker, it's all downhill from there. It is. And as an added bonus, the drunk people and the high people and most of the dumb college frat boys are a thing of the past. It's time to hit cruise control and enjoy the rest of the race (see Tip #3).

Tip #5: Don't eat that crap at the finish line. Free samples are good, but don't go scarfing down the sausage or falafel. It's over-priced and disgusting and it's way too early in the morning for that. Plus your body isn't even ready for it. The average person burns about 100 calories/mile. After you run the race, figure you've burned about 700 calories. Save that post-race meal for your favorite eatery. You SO deserve it. And get whatever you want. It's probably one of the only guilt-free meals you're gonna eat all year so enjoy it.

Tip #6: Just because you've crossed the finish line, it doesn't mean you're finished. Yes, enjoy that complementary bottle of water, get your picture taken, congratulate your friends, grab all the free samples and goody bags you can. But you've got a long walk ahead of you. If you're smart you paid the ridiculous 9 bucks or whatever it was for the shuttle to BART or MUNI. The shuttles are at least a mile away (no exaggeration) and you gotta hoof it, and then there's a line to get on the shuttle, and then there's the ride to your station (which can take up to 45 minutes), and then the ride from the station to your destination. I finished the race at about 9:30 and I didn't get to my car until about 11:30. In that time my muscles got all tight and I was freezing my butt off. Good thing I brought my jacket! Oh, and good thing I put on the post-race t-shirt they give to all the registrants.

Tip #7: Register for the race. Yeah you get a t-shirt. But I bet you also like those port-a-potties, don't you? And those water stations? And the clearly-marked course, the medical stations, and the street closures, and the extra police presence and the hoardes of volunteers and the entertainers, and I bet you especially like the fact that after the race there is an army of people to clean up all the mess that tens of thousands of tortilla-flinging, water-cup-tossing people make. It's a worthy cause. You can even donate extra to charities when you sign up.

If you've never run this race, you oughta give it a try. If you have, run it again, because you have to admit, it's fun. It's raucous and rowdy and profane and it's all in good spirit. And then after you've stuffed your face with a 1,000 calorie extra-value meal and taken a hot bath and a long nap, you can show up to taiko rehearsal and say, "I ran 7 1/2 miles across the City of San Francisco this morning, and boy am I tired!" Yeah, you'll be a badass.

Yay for Dads!

2010-05-03T06:24:00.000-07:00

I've been waiting something like 6 months to buy a couch. It was waiting very patiently at Ikea, just sitting there on the shelf waiting for me to come along and take it home. I had the money saved up and the space eked out (actually, I have no furniture except for one chair and a coffee table). Only problem was, it didn't fit in my faithful jeep, Yaku. I even went to Ikea beforehand just to measure the box. I knew that what I would need was strategy and good knot technique and a little brute force. What I needed was: my Dad!

And then this weekend, out of the blue, he came up for something of a surprise visit. What a great opportunity! So I whisked him away with me to Ikea. We parked directly in the pick-up and loading zone and then took a short cut through the check out lines, totally bypassed that hellish maze of the interior part of Ikea, and walked up straight to aisle 2, bin 52, which is where my couch was waiting. I am my father's daughter. We both know exactly what we want and where to get it and when the best opportunity is, even if we have to wait. And wait I have!

When we got to the loading zone, my Dad was eating one of those Ikea ice-cream cones, and he just walked up to one of the employees who was shorter than me but twice as wide and built like a Sumo wrestler. My Dad asked if he could help us get it on the roof, and was all ready to help him, but he singlehandedly picked up the box and hefted it onto my car! Wow! That guy was unbelievable. My Dad even tried to slip him a tip, but he refused. Kudos to Ikea employees!! They're the best! Or that one was, anyway. Thank you Sumo-guy!

And then it was just a matter of roping the thing down, my Dad's specialty:

The guy knows his knots, that's for sure. Zip, zap, zing and in no time, I was home with my couch. And yes, because it was Ikea it came in about 30 million pieces, but I put it all together and yay! Now I have a couch! Yay for Dads!

9368 is the Magic Number

2010-04-29T06:37:00.001-07:00

Yes, it's official, I'm running Bay to Breakers YET AGAIN. It's in its 99th year and this is my 4th time (I think) running the race. I am so NOT ready for it, but eh, it's nice to have goals. Yesterday morning I ran 3 miles on the treadmill at the gym and nearly collapsed. This was coming after my most recent high mileage mark of 5 miles a couple weeks ago. I think I hate running on the treadmill. All there is to look at is me and that's not so interesting, especially at 7 in the morning. Gotta get serious with my training and get my butt outside.

Obi the Cat

2010-04-26T06:39:00.000-07:00

On Saturday Janet and I headed off to the Dublin SPCA to go kitty shopping. I wanted to be sure to bring Janet with me since I've never adopted a cat before and thought that I needed some trusted and experienced adult supervision. This was my first visit to the pound and I imagined that it would be a hard, cold place with cement floors and pitiful looking animals. Actually what I was imagining was something along the lines of the prison on Alcatraz. How wrong I was! The kitty area consisted of a number of windowed rooms with clean linoleum floors and kitty beds and toys and food and water and well-tended litter boxes. There were a number of staff visiting with the animals and letting people in and out of the rooms. The cats looked happy, or as happy as cats can look I guess.

Janet spotted Obi first. He was in the first stall, chilling on a kitty condo with a sign outside the door that said he had been there for 5 months. Poor guy! We went in a for a visit, and he let us pet him and talk about him in his presence. Janet said he had a skinny butt and that he was a good kitty, but that I should take a look at some of the other cats, just to be sure. But I knew he was my guy. I knew he was my guy since I started looking at his profile on the internet weeks ago and saw his kind, wise eyes peering out at me. It was love then, but after meeting him I knew I'd be taking him home. So reluctantly I went to go look at some of the other cats. They were all beautiful creatures, and I went in to visit with some. There was a teenage kitty room with a couple of black cats. I always thought I was going to get a black cat, but the one that interested me didn't seem interested in ME. There were big cats, small cats, old cats, happy cats, sleepy cats. But none of them were MY cat. Obi was my cat. So I brought him home.

The adoption process was pretty easy. They had me fill out an application, and as Jenna, Obi's caretaker, was looking over it, I felt a twinge of nervousness. What if I had answered a question wrong? What if she thought I wouldn't make a good kitty companion? What if she knew that I was going to let Obi be king of the house and that I didn't really care if he was going to scratching the furniture or not. But after a minute, she said, "Looks good to me!" and that was that. I signed some papers, promised to be a good Mom to Obi, and paid for him on my credit card. It's weird to buy a friend with a credit card.

Then Jenna got one of those cardboard cat carriers and popped Obi in. Janet and I went to my car and she carried him on her lap for the seemingly, endlessly, long ride home. Obi meowed every once in a while, and Janet responded with kind and gentle words. As soon as I got home, I made sure everything in my room was ready for him, and opened the box and voila! Obi! Of course he was frightened and skittish. He walked around my room for a minute, and then promptly planted himself in the corner between my bed and the wall.By evening he was under the bed, but by the next morning I awoke to find him ON the bed, with me! They said this process takes a while. He has his safe place around the bed, and he makes little trips out into the room, and sometimes, if he wants, out of the room. They said he could spend a week or more holed up and freaked out, but I think his progress is faster. I'm letting him do all this at his own speed and at his own pace. Yesterday he came out and said hi to me as I was eating breakfast, but there was a little bump from next door and he ran back in. Small steps. Every once in a while he'll gaze up at the ceiling in wonder as if he's looking at something and when I told a friend about this she said, Cats see things. And I was like, but there's nothing there! And she said, If it were a problem you would know. Yikes! And the thing is, I believe her.

Well I think we're going to be good pals. Never mind that I may or may not be allergic to him, or that he hasn't meowed once since I let him out of the box, or that I'm already tired of having to clean out his litter box. Obi is my guy.

Funniest Thing I've Seen All Week!!

2010-04-23T15:42:00.000-07:00

I found this video while taking a sanity break on Cute Overload this afternoon. I don't know what the hell this is, but it sure is funny! I didn't have the sound on, which probably made it even funnier!

Legend of Morning Glory at CSUMB

2010-04-18T22:20:00.001-07:00

We performed the Legend of Morning Glory with the team at First Voice. It was a great ensemble with Maze Daiko on taiko, Mark on bass and sho, Mas on woodwinds, KK, Emma and Kimi with their beautiful dance, Jael on direction, and of course, Brenda doing the wonderful storytelling. I swear this show gets even better and tighter every time we do it.

It was great that it was in Monterey this time. The folks at Cal State Monterey Bay were wonderful hosts, and this was a journey that I really needed to take--for my soul's sake. I love that part of the world. I spent four years at UC Santa Cruz, so making my way to Monterey felt warmly familiar. I'm fairly certain that the first time I ever saw Brenda perform was at a show at UCSC. I can't remember what the show was about, but I DO remember her hair!

I'm just gonna be lazy and do slide show blogging.

Load out at our beloved RCW:

Two cars, tons of equipment. I joke that the only reason why they let me in Maze is because of my car, which holds a surprising amount since my humble Yaku is a just a Jeep Cherokee.

And this is what unloading looks like:

It turned out that all we needed to do on the first day was unload and spike. Janet and I were pleasantly surprised that we had half an afternoon to explore Monterey on our own after that. So we decided to go sight-seeing. And of course if you hang out with me, you'll end up at the beach one way or another.

And heck. We even made our way to the Monterey Bay Aquarium. We managed to get in in time to see one of my favorite exhibits--the Jellyfish:

Day two was all business. The following are some shots I managed to take during our tech rehearsals. They're pretty self explanatory! These are the guys looking all jazzy:The taiko drums in the fabulously flattering side-lighting:
Mas and Mark jazzing it up:
Brenda working her magic:
More spectacular Brenda:

Bean working the sound effects. I believe that is a plastic grocery bag she is playing. I always said that Bean can play ANYTHING!! I bet if you gave her a bowl of spaghetti and a pair of chopsticks she'd be working out a symphony, or maybe a rock-opera:
All in all it was a great show!! Not sure when we are doing it again, but I don't think this is the last of Ghosts and Girls!!

Kitty Shopping

2010-04-13T09:38:00.000-07:00

That's not my cat, but I so want him. His name is Obi and they describe him as gentle and mellow. I love the way he looks more like he's wise and disheveled. That's my kind of guy. Janet has been after me to go kitty shopping, and I'm totally excited for this. We're supposed to go after Monterey, but I need to get myself to the pet store and buy kitty things--bowls, kitty litter, collar. I don't know, feels like I'm preparing to add a child to my home. Janet wants me to get a kitten or two, and I'm open to whatever, but I think I will need to visit Obi at least once before I decide. Ahh, sweet kittyness!

Ghosts and Girls at CSU Monterey Bay

2010-03-22T09:07:00.000-07:00

We're performing this again with the Mark and Brenda team down at CSU Monterey Bay. I'm debating whether I want to make the commute back and forth for the tech and the show, or whether I should just give myself a break and get myself a hotel down there. It would be nice to indulge myself a little though. But anyway, if you're in town, come check us out!

Brenda Wong Aoki performing in
Legend of Morning Glory

A Kabuki Taiko Oratorio with Jazz Ensemble and Modern Dance

A Girl, A Boy, and A Promise...

The Legend of Morning Glory is a story from the Kabuki about a poor boy and a samurai's daughter. Separated from the boy, the girl wanders the countryside, searching for him. She becomes the Morning Glory, an itinerant storyteller famed for her tale of lost love. Until one day, years later, he returns...

Says the San Francisco Chronicle:

"It's always exciting when San Francisco actor-storyteller-dancer Brenda Wong Aoki presents a new work, blending Kyogen and Noh traditions with Western forms and jazz by her no-less eclectic husband, Mark Izu. Adding to the buzz about the premiere of Aoki's "Ghosts and Girls"...she first heard the story, from - of all people- folk icon Pete Seeger, with whom she was appearing on tour."

- Robert Hurwitt

Visit our website for show information, video clips, and more!

CSU Monterey Bay presents:

Legend of
Morning Glory

A tale from the Kabuki about

a girl, a boy, and a promise

A kabuki taiko oratorio featuring master storyteller Brenda Wong Aoki; Asian jazz pioneer Mark Izu; dynamic women taiko drummers Maze Daiko; shakuhachi- Saxman Mas Koga; and ODC Dance Jam dancers Kai Kane Aoki Izu and Emma Lanier.

Written by Brenda Aoki Wong; directed by Obie-award winning Jael Weisman; choreography by Tony-nominated
Kimi Okada; original music by Mark Izu; Janet Koike. Izzy-award winning lighting and design by Patty Ann Farrel.

Thursday, April 15, 2010 7:30-9:30PM

California State University Monterey Bay 5260 Sixth Ave. Bldg. #28
Seaside, CA, 93955.

For audiences ages 10 and up
$30 General, $15 for Students
Click here for more information

This will be the only show playing in Monterey, so please spread the word about it to your friends and colleagues! Thank you!

Artist Biographies

Brenda Wong Aoki creates monodramas. Her work synthesizes Japanese Noh and Kyogen theater, Commedia Dell'arte, modern dance and everyday experience. She is acclaimed as one of America's foremost soloists, performing in such venues as the Kennedy Center, New Victory Theater on Broadway, Hong Kong Performing Arts Center, the Adelaide Festival in Australia, the Esplanade in Singapore, the Graz Festival Austria and the Apollo. Of Japanese, Chinese, Spanish and Scottish descent, Aoki's bloodlines inspire her work, which include "Obake: Tales of Spirits Past and Present," "The Queen's Garden," "Random Acts," "Mermaid Meat," "Tales of the Pacific Rim," "Skin Privilege," "Kuan Yin: Our Lady of Compassion," and "Uncle Gunjiro's Girlfriend." Brenda has deep roots in San Francisco. Her paternal grandfather was a founder of Japantown in the 1890's, and her maternal grandmother was vice president of the first Chinatown garment union in the 1920's. Brenda's website

Mark Izu's compositions are characterized by his seamless integration of jazz with other music traditions, his mastery of cross-cultural instrumentation, and his ability to compose in many musical disciplines. As the Artistic Director of the Asian American Jazz Festival for 18 years, Izu has gained national and international attention for developing a new musical genre - Asian American Jazz - and has performed with jazz artists such as James Newton, Steve Lacy, Zakir Hussain, George Lewis, Cecil Taylor, Anthony Brown, Jon Jang, and Jin Hi Kim. Izu plays acoustic bass as well as several traditional Asian instruments such as the sheng (Chinese multi-reed instrument) and sho (Japanese multi-reed instrument). Izu has performed his compositions throughout the United States, Canada, Asia and Europe. Izu also composes for film and televison. He received a Northern California Regional EMMY® Award in 2009 for outstanding Musical Composition/Arrangement for his score for Bolinao 52, a film about the Vietnamese Boat People. Mark's website

Janet Koike and Maze Daiko creates an exciting mix of instrumentation and rhythms with the physical elegance and powerful sounds of taiko that fill the stage with energetic choreography and vibrant sound. Maze Daiko's website

Masaru Koga has lived in Japan, the U.S., and Germany. He has been a member of the San Francisco Bay Area musical community for over eleven years. Masaru received a BA degree in Improvised Music Studies from San Jose State University in 1995, where he intensively studied and explored music traditions of different cultures around the world.He has traveled and performed with artists such as Hafez Modirzadeh, Anthony Brown, Mark Izu, Royal Hartigan, and Fred Ho. As a music educator, Masaru directed a youth improvisation workshop at Silicon Valley Youth Conservatory in 1996. Currently he is giving private instructions in the Bay Area and is artistic director of Sambasia. Masaru's goal is to create music that goes beyond styles and idioms, and ultimately help diminish and eliminate boudaries.

Kimi Okada is the ODC Associate Choreographer, ODC School Director, founding member of ODC and has choreographed over 25 works for the company. She was nominated for a Tony award for the Broadway production of Largely New York, and has choreographed for theater, opera, film, television, and circus across the country. As the ODC School Director, Ms. Okada oversees a professional faculty for youth and adults offering 250 dance classes per week.

Jael Weisman plays the role of director for this production and productions for most of Dell'Arte's major works. As a founding member of the Dell'Arte Players Co., Jael pioneered an actor-based theater in which the actors participate directly in the creation of a piece with the director and playwright. He has received many Dramalogue Awards for his work. He has directed and acted with the San Francisco Mime Troupe, and won an Obie for his direction of The Dragon Lady's Revenge.

ODC Dance Jam is a youth company of 14 young performers, ages 14-18. The Jam performs the works of Artistic Directors Kimi Okada and KT Nelson as well as other Bay Area guest choreographers. The teens are challenged with sophisticated choreography, professional performance standards, and the goal to achieve the complexities of diverse dance style. The Jam performs in professional venues, schools, and fundraisers for many social service organizations. ODC Dance Jam website

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Mushrooms!

2010-02-16T19:42:00.000-08:00

During my walks this season, I've been noticing these strange and beautiful things popping up--mushrooms! I haven't actually taken the time to stop and examine a mushroom since my childhood. I just remember those mushrooms appeared suddenly, usually after a rain, and usually sprung out of a stinking pile of the neighbor's dog sh*t on our front lawn. My parents always warned us that mushrooms growing in the wild like that (or as wild as lawns in the LA suburbs can be) were dangerous! and poison! There was always something about the threat of something being poisonous that we took very seriously. But the mushrooms were an irresistible object of curiosity, because they had just popped up overnight after all, and they were wondrous in their marshmallowy texture, in their gentle white perfection and in the fineness of the gills that lined their underbellies that begged touch and dissection. But there were the warnings after all, because we would DIE if we touched them, and we imagined with great deliciousness the horrible writhing deaths we would face if we even thought about putting them in our mouths. Yet the forbidden is always what attracts us, and there were those brave moments when we got close enough with a stick, ready to poke and prod, to pull back the mysterious cloak of their existence--only to be driven off in disgust by the sudden and overwhelming and pungent whiff of fresh dog crap. And so curiosity is trumped. Somehow by the end of the day the mushrooms had either shriveled back brown and black upon themselves, or had been kicked to pieces, thoughts of poisoning and danger as fleeting as the mushrooms.

And so, years later on one of my walks I notice this flash of color. Just a little something out of the ordinary. Turns out it's a mushroom, and though I've seen them before, I hadn't really stopped to SEE one. This one was beautiful. Smooth and creased like an ear, sensuous in its shape, delicate among the sharp dead leaves. I mean, how cool is that? And then I started looking for them, and there is something about the weather that's making them all pop up like little exclamation points in the landscape. And not out of piles of crap either. These mushrooms appear in the piles of rough and rotting and otherwise unremarkable stretches of dead leaves. Places where the spring grasses haven't sprouted yet. The dry spots under trees you ignore. I know absolutely nothing about mushrooms. I still don't touch them (except for that one irresistible one later on), but I have been enjoying discovering them. There are so many different kinds! And different colors and shapes and sizes and groupings. Some grow in gatherings of sloppy ellipses, and some appear singly in lonesome places, and others jump out of the earth one on top of the other, as if it were a race to get there first. Different varieties appear at different times, and the rains call them forth, and the rains melt them away. I'm just gonna post a bunch of pictures and let them speak for themselves, mostly.

Piles of mushrooms. These were some of the first!

This was the one I had to touch. Cool and smooth like a cold ear in the middle of the night.

Last year there was a large cluster of mushrooms that I called "Smurf Village." When we went to go look for it this year, all we found was Azreal, the Smurf's feline nemesis. No sign of the village at all.

This one looks like a tongue!

This weird one sprouted from the earth fully formed just like this!

These were so tiny they were easy to miss! They grew on mossy trees!

This is the same one as the one above, but a few hours later. Gone already.

Is this even a mushroom?

This little mother/daugher pair found us after a walk, just sunning themselves on a log.

And is this a mushroom?

These are really big, about the size and texture of pancakes, all growing out of a tree stump!

This one was the most bizarre of all! What the heck is it?

Back in the Fold

2010-01-19T22:08:00.000-08:00

It's been a while, I know. I needed to take a much needed break from blogging, and from being a part of the big wide world for a while. Needed the time to turn inward and let my world take its turn in the spin cycle, let things soak and let them also agitate and twist and turn, but yo, I'm back--a little dizzy, a little bleary-eyed, but back. It's been a long and slow process, but Janet gave me the greatest gift of all--time and space at RCW to noodle and do whatever I want for hours and hours on Tuesdays. This is truly a gift, given that when I first played with Janet we were in a space where we were forced to cover our drums with old pieces of carpet and most of our playing was limited and largely imaginary. But at RCW I can play all the drums and make all the noise I want. Tonight I brought all my favorite drums and percussion and just played my heart out. Didn't know how much my heart needed that till I did it. I've been learning the pandeiro so I got to practice a little of that. Also have been learning a little zabumba, so I improvised that on my new okedo, and drilled on my beautiful shime and practiced chekere and even noodled a bit on the big drums. It was all good. There is a show on the horizon, a new series of classes to teach, a gig in Monterey in April, lots to learn from Michaelle's class, things I want to work on with new people, new songs, races to run, new space in my life to work on new stuff and also to work on myself.

Life is such a funny journey, with new lessons to learn every day, new things to discover, new challenges and new ch-ch-ch-changes to greet us when least expected. And while my public life is loud, joyful, and, uh, did I say loud (?), there is a part of me that is still and inward and needing of quiet. I feel like I've been there for a while. Not too long, not too short, but maybe it's time to start working again.

Remember when I was in that phase where I just wanted to learn everything? Well, I don't think I'll ever get past that, but I think I'm moving towards a new phase where I want to try to integrate those lessons, and start to take ownership over what I do know, and start applying those things to what I want to be (whatever that is--still gotta figure that out). But there is a feeling of confidence, shaky though it may be. A little bird, jumped, pushed out of the nest a few times already, ready to start learning flight. That leap into the unknown, knowing the wings work, knowing there's a great void down below, a clamoring out, the fear of falling gone, but not knowing where I'll be off to. Hoping there's a branch on some great tree out there, reaching out to me, an act of faith, that leap.

I'm Performing at Yoshi's!!

2009-11-01T00:10:00.000-07:00

An Afternoon of Japanese Ghost Stories and Jazz at Yoshi's Halloween Weekend
Nov. 1, 2009 2PM One Performance Only!

Sunday 2:00 pm Matinee
$5 Kids (10 to 17 years)
$15 Adult (With Kid)
$20 Adult (General)

Please buy tickets in advance at: http://sfyoshis2.inticketing.com/events

The haunting eloquence of Brenda Wong Aoki's ghost stories masterfully performed in concert with Asian Jazz pioneer composer Mark Izu, featuring the thunder drums of Janet Koike & Kathryn Cabunoc of Maze Daiko, Anthony Brown on multiple percussion and Shoko Hikage on Koto. A record release concert for Legend of Morning Glory (a Kabuki Taiko Oratorio).

“Japanese Ghost Stories and Jazz” is a performance of two ancient Japanese ghost stories, re-written and performed from a modern American perspective by acclaimed contemporary solo performance artist and writer Brenda Wong Aoki, in concert with original music from Emmy award-winning jazz composer Mark Izu. This unique contemporary show integrates Japanese theatrical techniques, story, visual motifs and musical instruments like taiko drumming and the koto. Both artists are widely known for their groundbreaking work that combines non-Western theatrical performance jazz and spoken word traditions. This is a one-time only Halloween weekend performance that the whole family (with children ages 10 and up) will enjoy!

" Mark Izu's music is a great gift to the jazz tradition, to its on going transformation and revitalization into energetic and unpredictable new directions" - Downbeat Magazine

"...Aoki's remarkable talents as a performer and storyteller - talents which include an impressive synthesis of modern and traditional Japanese and American theatrical techniques of dance, mime, movement, song and voice placement..." Hollywood Drama-Logue

My Instrument de Jour

2009-10-05T21:05:00.000-07:00

I just got my first lesson on the pandeiro!! What an awesome instrument! It's similar to a tambourine, but I have to admit, people who play the pandeiro look way cooler than tambourine players. In fact, it was seeing Michaelle playing the pandeiro that made me want to take her class! There's a lot of technique involved. Tonight we learned some different right hand hits: heel, toe, slap, muff and tone. There's also the left hand, which doesn't do as much fancy stuff as the right hand. No, the left hand is the poor stepsister. It's got to hold the darn thing up and pivot to give the right hand an easier time. But Michaelle described the role of the left hand as an energy thing. She had first learned to play with the left hand stiff and stable, but once she learned to pivot with the left, the whole energy of the instrument and its relation to her body changed. She said that the energy was free to circulate throughout her body, and playing was way more comfortable. I like that concept. Now I just have to practice it! I'm way totally excited about this class. Hooray!!

Gigs, Gigs, Gigs!

2009-09-07T08:44:00.000-07:00

I have a lot on my plate right now, and a part of me doesn't feel ready for any of it. I have a whole string of performances coming up, one right after another. Next weekend I take my taiko class to perform at a street festival in Alameda. It should be good, no pressure fun. I'm proud of my students--they can really rock out on the taiko, and they put such heartfelt effort into it all. Their spirit just blows me away.

After the street fair (next week already, ack!), I play at the Yerba Buena Gardens with Mark Izu and friends in a new rendition of his "Songs for Sensei," which we did at the DeYoung earlier this year. Performing with him requires a great feeling of the music, a trusting of instinct, and it's a challenge, but I really like it. The other day Janet asked if I wanted to do a second performance of this at Yoshi's in November, and I nearly jumped out of my chair. But gotta be cool, right? And then I was like, oh hell yeah!!! Woo! Yoshi's, people! Legendary jazz venue! OMG! But gotta put my cool jazz face on. Yeah, man, it's cool, I can do that gig.

Then it's off to Dance Mission to perform at the 2nd Annual Meigetsu (Harvest Moon) Taiko Festival. We have the privilege of performing with a number of other great taiko groups. Last night we spent some time rehearsing Naori for that, and afterwards I stayed late and provided groove for one of my Maze-mates, who is working on solo composing (boy, do I know what that's like). I just knelt there with my eyes closed and played bell forever for her--it was therapeutic and meditative and just what my heart needed. I think it was helpful for her too.

And then next we are off to the DeYoung again on November 20th to revive "Ghosts and Girls" with the Mark and Brenda team. This time Brenda is bringing in dancers from ODC who have been working with someone named Kimi Okada, whom I don't know but have heard is an amazing dancer and a really good person to know. I look forward to meeting her, and to see how the dancers contribute to the show. It's really exciting! Maybe we do the show again in April in Monterey. Wow!

So sheesh, I need to hunker down.

Violets

2009-08-15T23:17:00.000-07:00

Today was an African Violet re-potting day. Every time I repot my violets, I end up with exponentially more than I did before I repotted them. These things have a way of reproducing themselves. I am very happy to say that almost all my violets descended down from the violets that my Mom left behind. Sadly, I have lost a couple of her violets to either old age or disease or both. But I am even more thrilled to witness their phoenix-like ways of reproducing themselves. You can literally take a leaf, pluck it from a plant, stick it in soil, and have one or more plants some time later. Patience is key, and they need little else but some sun, water and a little love. I say that's incredibly easy. And woah, that's why I have a zillion plants (the ones in the picture above are just the ones in my home office--I have more at work and in the kitchen--any where there is sunlight!). If you count carefully, there are 21 pots of violets in that picture alone (and one determined Christmas cactus)!!!

I'm going to give one away and hope to find more people to give them to. I gave one to Janet on her birthday a few months ago and she sent me a picture of it in bloom. So yo, if I know you and you know me, let me know if you want a violet and I'll get one to ya!

My Summer Vacation

2009-08-10T22:23:00.000-07:00

I don't even know how to document the last few weeks. I have been on SOooo many adventures, it feels like I've been gone forever. I've packed and unpacked. I've logged, literally, over 8,000 miles. Travelled to FOUR different time zones. And it's all been good times. It really has.

There is no way I can coherently document it all except in lazy slideshow format. Here goes.

Started off by decompressing from the July Maze concerts. That means unpacking. You wouldn't think doing a gig in Alameda would mean luggage, but it does. There are so many minutia involved in a gig for me. Just remembering to pack the right socks, and the bachi, and costume, water bottles, hachimaki. It's all so random, and it all needs to be put away and cared for. I take good care of my equipment--from the stinky tank tops to the too-long obi. Everything has a place, needs it's own special laundering and care.

Then it was on to my Great Canadian Adventure. I've been looking forward to this trip for years. I've always thought of Canada as this wondrous far-off place. I wanted to see urban Canada, so it was off to Toronto. When I was about 14 or so I discovered the Cowboy Junkies, who recorded their landmark and what I think is their best album at the Church of the Holy Trinity. Coming here was kind of a mecca for me:

The hotel I was staying at was actually right beside the church. It was great to visit it. They had a concert series that I attended. It was organ music, and I struggled to maintain consciousness through it, but it was great to actually hear music in the church.

Next was a day trip to the great Niagara Falls. It's just a couple hours away from Toronto. I did the obligatory Maid of the Mist boat ride to the base of the falls. You'd be surprised at how heart-pounding the falls are when you get right up next to them. A friend of mine told me she was performing at about the same time I was down there in all the foam and mist, and I tried to channel some of the Niagara energy her way. She told me later that she felt a great "surge" of energy during her performance. I was worried my channelling from such a great and powerful place would have knocked her off the stage, but she said it was great. Go figure, the universe.

I also heard that a trip to Toronto wasn't complete unless you went up to the CN Tower. It was the tallest structure in the world until those folks in Dubai went and had to build something taller, but the CN Tower still has the distinction of the "Tallest Observation Deck." Whatever. It was WAY up there.

You see that big round thing? That's where everyone goes. It's got great views of the whole world. We spent some time there. They've got a place where the floors are glass and you can look straight down. I sat on the glass floors. It took me two or three tries to muster the courage to walk on them, and my hands were sweating, and I was reaching out for--what, handrails or something? But I managed to plop my butt down and said, Hey take a picture of me--quick, before I pee my pants!

I can't believe I'm smiling! But then there's an observation deck above the big bulbous thing. You have to pay extra to get up there, but I figured since we made it that far, eh, what's seven more bucks!?

Did I tell you that Toronto was in the midst of a messy labor strike? For us tourists, this amounted to a garbage strike, since it was the garbage that most people notice. But there must be something about the Canadian sensibility that makes the citizens proud of their city, their homes, their parks. While piles of garbage here and there were noticeable, it wasn't totally horrible. I was expecting something along the lines of what the San Francisco garbage strike looked like. But these people love their city, yo. I think Americans are willing to live in their mess and garbage because of notions of entitlement, but the Canadians, whoa. Even when we were driving through the neighborhoods after our Niagara tour, the garbage was organized, piled up as it may be, but not disgusting. Not gross. I have respect.

This is me looking all Emo on the subway. Clean, tidy subways--trains arriving on time and often. Easy to navigate.

Went to check out a Korean pastry shop that sold these walnut cakes. Internationally renowned. Great cakes. We ate half a dozen and took another half a dozen to go. Yum!!

Toronto was great. But another great dream of mine was to visit Prince Edward Island. Yes the Prince Edward Island of Anne of Green Gables fame. When I was a kid I would watch the Anne series with my Mom when it came on PBS. We would just laugh and sigh over Anne's adventures and the beautiful landscapes. It would have been great to go with my Mom, but I did the second best thing, which was to just go.

Everything there was a postcard. Everything was beautiful.

The airport was tiny. Smaller than Kona or Hilo:

I stayed at an inn with its own pond. It was beautiful. They had hammocks and a rowboat (which sadly, I didn't take out). But it was tranquil and idyllic. Everything you'd imagine PEI to be.

We did the Anne of Green Gables Thing. Here is me and the Anne House:

Me and Anne at the Anne theme park (Her head is bigger than I'd imagined):

The first thing I did when I got to PEI was get bit by a ravenous mosquito. That thing must have had cooties because the next day I was so sick and feverish, I thought I had West Nile. But a good fever and a hot bath will do wonders. Look at this monster bite. It looks like my knee has an extra knob, but no, that's the bite!!!

Weird Canadian canned meat. I love the "Kam," sitting right next to the more familiar, "Spam."

Then it was off to Greenwich beach, a beautiful spot on the Northeastern shore of the island. They built a boardwalk through the delicate dune ecosystem so that you could enjoy the view without trampling the land or getting your feet wet. None of the pictures did it any justice. It was beautiful, with such depth of the landscape and wondrous colors.

I sat on the beach, Japanese-style, on the Atlantic side of the continent:

The water was full of strange jellyfish, and the water was cold, yo! If the Canadians consider these the "warm" waters, I'd hate to see what cold waters are like!

Our last day was spent in Charlottetown, enjoying good eats (seafood balls and a lobster sandwich and a whole bowl of PEI mussels, not pictured):

And if Canada wasn't enough, I got home, unpacked, and then packed again for a trip home to LA to attend the North American Taiko Conference. It was great to reconnect with old friends, attend a workshop, and perform at Taiko Ten in front of all my peers.

Me and Lis at the opening session:

Me and Crissy right before Taiko Ten:

The whole Maze team (Plus Toni, who made our costumes and who inspires more than one of us) right after Taiko Ten:

Oh, and I saved the best for last. At Conference I adopted the latest baby in my little taiko family: it's an Okedo. Crissy and Janet both said it was a boy, and I got that vibe too. He'll balance out the girl vibe of my shime and josuke. Meet my newest baby:

I have so much I need to do now. Just the day-to-day stuff like balancing my checkbook and getting my car registered and mopping the floor. Hopefully I can start making a dent in that tomorrow, my last day of vacation. Can't wait to get back to teaching my taiko class (it's only been 3 weeks, but it feels like forever!!). Plus Maze has some new shows on the horizon and there's a race I'd like to run, and work beckons. I thought vacation was supposed to be restful, but I look forward to the normalcy of life again, not to mention getting everything unpacked!

See you down the road, yo!

Coming Out of the Haze

2009-07-22T22:46:00.000-07:00

The concerts left me physically and emotionally drained. My mind has been a haze that I am only now coming out of. Usually listening to music on my ipod provides some comfort, but there is a part of me that can't even bear to listen to music. At first all I listened to were my ocean wave and rain soundtracks. Just the push and pull of water, the sound of it falling. And then a little later I could bear the sound of classical music--cello song moving up and down like breath. Couldn't bear the sound of a beat, of rhythm. Today I am listening to Steve Reich's "Drumming." Yes it's got meter and rhythm, but not in a conventional way. The music shifts too much to even tap your foot to. But it's what I need. That slow adjustment into the light.

Recently in China they rescued a small group of mine workers who had been trapped in utter darkness for weeks. They showed pictures of them in a hospital, their eyes covered in black cloth to protect their vision from the light of this above-ground world, their bodies battered and exhausted.

I am trying to unwrap the dark layers of cloth, not from my eyes, not even from my ears, but from my heart maybe.

Maze Daiko in Concert!

2009-07-21T23:04:00.000-07:00

I don't even know how to begin to recap this concert. It was such a journey, it really was. Parts of it started so long ago, and other parts only fell into place as the time drew near. What made it special was all the dedication of the members of Maze. They're all such pro's in their own rights, and coming together in collaboration made for a great show.

I for one, was filled with anxiety the whole time. There were so many goals for me to achieve. The first was composing my own first song, Naori. I must be game for a challenge, since I composed the song in 6/8, which is the meter that has been dogging me for years. On top of that, I had to compose my own solo, in six (!), as well as be the creative go-to person for the song. I'm never that person. But it's like I had to make these creative decisions, and though I had something of a vision, it was a position I was green at being in. I think the song went well. It starts off with the most quiet delicate pattern I could possibly play on a shime. This pattern, played 8 times, gave me no end of grief. A month before the concert I broke my favorite bachi, and that was the bachi I was going to use for the song. So I experimented with different bachi, and settled on heavier bachi, only to drive myself into an anxiety-ridden frenzy, since it's really hard to play something really softly with heavy bachi, and even more impossible if your hands are all nerves and shakes, which only adds again to the nerves. It was awful. Just plain awful. The week before the show I was panicking. So stressed. But I finally allowed myself a compromise with a lighter pair of bachi and a new attitude. And then it was cool.

I worked really hard at composing solos, learning new patterns, new sequences, entire new songs. It was hard work. It's been a long process. Finally a couple days before the show I began to feel solid. The stress eased. The songs were in my body. I began to relax. Began to think about projecting. And then one evening I was like, Oh, I should just review my Kanki solo. I wrote this solo way back in 2005 and have been playing it ever since then, pretty much flawlessly. It's been set and projected so many times that I've ignored it. But then I started thinking about this one part, and then I was like, Hmm, is that how I play it? And then when we were rehearsing I thought way too much about it, and then I couldn't remember how it went at all, and then things just exploded into a horrible downward spiral. For the life of me, I couldn't remember how the solo went. It was really bad. I stayed late to work on it. I reviewed it. I re-wrote it. And in my mind I was like: Oh no! How could this happen? Why am I stressing out about this solo, of all things?

But then I realized that I knew exactly what my mind was doing. My mind was distracting me from all the other things that I could be stressing about! Like there was this one side of me that was totally stressed about new material and new solos, and I had worked so hard to perfect and perform them, and I was finally at the point where I could actually perform them. And then there was the other side of me that was protective of that new vulnerable side, and it was saying, Hey look at me! Over here! Worry about me instead! And it worked. I was so distracted about this solo, I didn't even think about all the other stuff. And yo, I nailed it! The other stuff that is. Mangled my solo. But eh, I can live with that!

The audience was great. My Dad was there. Teachers past and present were there. Old friends and the newer ones met along the way. Maze had a wonderful show. I am proud of us and all the hard work that went into this. There were moments of fear but we worked through it, didn't back down, and I am grateful for that.

Just wanted to end this post with a quote I found on Canadian money (!) of all places:

"Could we ever know each other in the slightest without the arts?"

Burning the Candle

2009-07-11T22:46:00.000-07:00

I've been having some great conversations on creativity with a friend of mine, and we talk about "burning the candle," like in the saying, "burning the candle at both ends." It's when you are working really hard and everything is bright and intense and the light you create shines and shines, but maybe you know you can't keep burning like that forever, but it's good to experience all that light and intensity while you can. That's where I am at. Things are getting intense. Intensity is not a bad thing, but it's a strong thing. Nerves and emotions get amplified, the effort you put in is harder than ever, but the progress you make is greater and the work you do is more fulfilling and meaningful.

We had an all day rehearsal today. Everyone worked really hard and we got a lot done. There is also a lot we need to do. There is a lot that I need to do. My transition sheet is all marked up with notes. Just trying to keep track of where all my bachi need to be is a whole world of memorization in itself, not to mention all the places we need to move the drums and what spikes they go on and in what order it all needs to be done. Oh, and did I mention, we're playing taiko in between all that? But I like working on transitions. I like how they are just pure order and logic--it balances out all that creativity of the rest of the stuff.

Intense, yes.

After we had packed everything back up and and tidied the rehearsal space (they have church there on Sundays) and put all our personal things away, and as people were talking about their dinner plans and heading out the door, Janet looked up and me and said, "You still want to practice, huh?" It wasn't something I had planned on but I was like, "Yeah!" She accused me of being obsessive-compulsive about my practice, and then she said she was too, and it felt really good to be working, to be burning that candle. It was great because she and I had a productive extra-practice time and we worked on some things, and I had a great epiphany about part of a song that I've been majorly stressing over and losing confidence on all week, and I also got some solo-practice time in. It was wonderful, and it felt really good.

When I was on my way home, I was surprised by a rain shower. I think everyone was. It's July! People I passed on the way home kept turning their heads up and looking at the sky in wonder. As the sun set, it slanted through the empty place between the rainclouds and the horizon, and we were rewarded by one of the most brightest rainbows I've ever seen here in California. I got a great picture of it arcing over my apartment. Beautiful, burning sky.

Feeling All Right

2009-07-09T23:40:00.000-07:00

Had a rehearsal tonight. It went well. It was the first time in a while that I've had a rehearsal and felt good about the material we worked on. It was our silly toy-song and also my song.

I've got to tell you, I've been majorly stressing about my song. The process of writing the solo was semi-treacherous, made easier by the muse-cubes, but still a work in progress. I set something for the show, but as I get more comfortable with it, there are parts I don't like, and places I want to add to. But since the show is 10 days away, I have to live with what I set. I need to fill it with energy and project it out into the world. I was telling this to my students the other night. Set it--no matter how you feel about it--get it in stone and be able to really rock it. Now it's a matter of getting it into my body, which for me, means playing it over and over and over. I wake up and play it. I play it on my desk all day at work. I play it before I go to bed and I play it in my sleep. I want to get to the point where I can space out in the middle and my hands and my body will know where I am and what comes next, despite where my brain happens to be.

Tonight, I was given the great gift of time. I had the performance space all to myself, and after our rehearsal it was just me and the drums. It was really a beautiful thing. The sun slanted down in the sky and disappeared, and the air was warm, and the whole atmosphere was blue and I just breathed in the blue light and the blue air, and the room filled with inky shadows and that blue stillness. I played in that dying, vibrating light, filling all the dark places with boom and echo. I've been working on a very delicate pattern. I can't play it if my hands shake. I am terrified of messing it up. I worked and worked that one pattern. As it grew darker, it became easier, and I finally realized that what I needed to do was relax my kata and fall back on all those lessons on sticking and grip and control and technique. Then it was easy. I gained all my confidence back. Yeah, that makes a girl feel all right.

I came home tonight, late, tired but happy, and best of all, feeling confident about things. This is a good feeling. I am starting to feel good about things, and boy am I telling you: that's progress.

On other fronts, I am Maze's equipment-fixer-maker person. I like this job. The way that I know that Janet needs something fixed is that she will tape the HELL out of whatever is broken. Seriously. Tape is her answer to all that ills the world. One of the wheels fell off a stand and that thing was taped up like there was no tomorrow. Today I brought a stand home because I discovered this:

Yep. Needs fixing all right. I dropped some new screws and a zip tie and the thing was all better.

Me too.

Jangled

2009-07-06T06:26:00.001-07:00

I am majorly stressed. I should be practicing instead of blogging, but maybe the venting will do me good. Due to some staffing issues, I got put in the one song I thought I was going to get a break from. A song I haven't played since before I went on Kasa/Mix last year. This puts me in ALL the songs of the show. It's a beautiful and fun song, but just one more layer difficulty to add to this show. I can do this, and I can't complain. I guess you have to be careful for what you wish for, since playing taiko like this is just a dream come true. I'm in all12 songs and many transitional pieces. My nerves are all jangled. We're running out of time. Songs need to be finished and polished. Not to mention all the drum moving, which is a whole thing in itself. Need to memorize where my bachi need to be for each song. My percussion. Work on solos. Song order.

AAAAAAAaaaa!

OMG how am I going to do all this??? How?

Composing, Whooping and Wiggling

2009-06-29T22:29:00.000-07:00

Been so busy lately. Have a lot of work I need to do for the Big Show. One of the main things I need to do is compose and polish solos. I have to make a solo using those toys above. I'm not committed to the accordion though. It came with instructions on how to play 2 or 3 songs but I don't know if I can pull off a convincing My Darlin' Clementine by July 17th. Maybe I'll try something more conservative with the monkey chappa player and the frog thingies.

But writing solos is so hard. That's one of those things that have never come easy for me. I sit down and get up and sit down again and I get one line out at a time--and very laboriously so. I suppose it will get easier someday.

A friend of mine gave me a great gift a week ago. They're called Muse Cubes, and when you find yourself with writer's block, you pull out these babies and give them a roll. One cube has something you do with your body, and the other one has something you do with your voice. The instructions said that we're more creative when we're not standing still. And they've worked! I've howled and bended, sang and wiggled. It's helped! It lets me get out of my head for a minute and then return to work again with a fresh mind. They're one of the most thoughtful gifts I've gotten in a long time.

It's really get down and crunch time. Two rehearsals this week, plus taiko class and then a wild and wacky parade on the 4th. Craziness!

Break a Bachi

2009-06-26T23:12:00.000-07:00

The picture about says it all. Broke my first bachi ever, and of course it was during a performance. I recovered quite nicely, but was aghast a minute later when I see this little girl in the front row playing with one of the dangerously sharp splinters. After the song I ran to pick up my poor little bachi and I exclaimed Abunai! to the girl, and even though she probably didn't understand me, she probably recognized the tone.

Crissy says that in Japan they throw all the broken bachi into a bonfire at the end of the year. Maybe we'll have to get one of those going soon.

Past Exhaustion

2009-06-20T22:12:00.000-07:00

Woke up today at 5:30 am. When my clock radio went off, my eyes popped open and I jumped out of bed. I'd be a great firefighter. I woke up this early so that I could get ready to run my Stadium to Stadium 10k race. The race took us from the Giant's stadium to Candlestick park. It was a nice race, flat and fast for the most part. I wasn't in the mood to be fast this morning. I wasn't in the mood to run 6 miles at all. But I put this race on my calendar a while back, and since I paid for the darn race, I had to run it. It wasn't bad. I started out sluggish, and by the time my body reluctantly agreed to be running at such an early god-awful time on a Saturday morning, the 49'ers stadium was within sight. The only catch was that while, yes, the stadium was right there, they made us run around a gigantic parking lot. When I say gigantic, I mean gigantic in the biblical sense. When I've run my limit, my body starts getting loopy, and I feel like I'm going to pass out unless I lift my head and look towards the horizon. Only problem with this is that the horizon is filled with teeny-tiny runners very far away--a distance that I still have to run. But I hunkered down and finished the race without walking. They had a great after-party--free pasta and sports drinks and other goodies. I also signed up to be a marrow donor--one of those bucket-list to-do items.

Then it was off to a 5 hour rehearsal. Learning completely new stuff--less than a month out from the big show. I'm feeling the stress, believe me. And I am so utterly exhausted today. It's a good exhaustion, but enough to make me wipe my brow and hunker down and work and push harder than I thought. It's like running in a way. You think you can only go so far, but you lift your head, and accept the fact that the finish line is still a ways off, and just keep moving your feet. You see the great coliseum, you hear the immensity of all those gathered there. You think maybe you're going to pass out, you think your feet won't carry you. But they do. And you get there, even if you think you couldn't. Even if you think the chasm you must pass is biblical. This is going to be a great show. New pieces. Fabulous talent. But this 5-hour rehearsal really kicked my butt. When I got home I fell (accidentally?) asleep for 15 minutes, only to jump up out of bed to go to the store to get dinner, and eh, while I was up and at it, I cleaned the house. Picked up my pile of dirty clothes, vacuumed the floors, cleaned the bathroom. I figured if I was so tired, then being even more tired wasn't going to hurt.

I have so much I need to work on! How am I going to do it?

Lift my head. Raise my eyes toward the coliseum.

Stillness

2009-06-12T22:09:00.000-07:00

My body was tired today. I've been busy every night this week, and my mind is sharp and turning and filled with great big plans, but I have neglected listening to my body, this vessel that holds it all. I woke up exhausted this morning, but brushed that aside with cups of coffee. I put in a full day at work, and afterward went on my run. I contemplated skipping the run, but in my mind were all my plans and schedules, and I just had to get this run in. But the whole time my body protested. Protest is not unusual, and I can usually shake it off, but after a while, when my legs wouldn't deliver their usual kick, and my lungs wouldn't pull in enough air, and there was no bounce to my step, and running up a hill was completely out of the question, I finally realized: Hey, I'm kind of tired. I came home and had a dreamless nap, and woke up, my eyes tired and heavy, and reluctantly I have to admit a sort of defeat. I'm tired!

We push ourselves so hard. I want to run. I have a goal, a race, and I want to be prepared. We can do so much with our minds. We can plan. We can reason. Even when we push ourselves past the limits we have created for ourselves, it is a pleasant surprise when our bodies deliver. But I guess I need to listen to my body when it protests. I don't pamper myself. I need to take the time to sit still and breathe. That is hard to do when my mind is so filled with plans and goals. But this is an important part of being busy too, that stillness. I will have to practice that.

Overload

2009-06-10T21:36:00.000-07:00

I am decidedly overloaded. But I'm not complaining. I have a ton of things piling up. The horizon is full. My show is coming up way faster than I want to think about. New songs to learn. Old songs to polish. Equipment to build. I need to make two stands for mokugyo, even though I've never played a mokugyo. I've also got a race 2 weekends from now, and ran my body into the ground the other day preparing for it. A parade. Gigs. Just finished a session of taiko classes, and a new one starts right up again after a week off. I am also a student, and just came back from a class tonight that challenged and thrilled me. I love that class. I love how everything I know gets turned completely upside down and shown to me from a new perspective. I've been given the great gift of time and space to practice my own stuff in--that is a wonderful thing, being able to bang on the drum as loud as I want, work on whatever I want. No noise complaints, no muffles on the drums. I need to really take advantage of that. I've been asked for help to build a drum and I hope I can be useful. I asked a new friend for a little of her time to talk about creativity, and was granted with a wonderful conversation that has me feeling inspired again about writing and reading and thinking about new projects.

And now it's all about cramming all this in. Inhaling it all. A part of me feels absolutely overwhelmed and paralyzed. Another part is rearing to go. But one thing at a time--that's how I get through this.

Show

2009-06-04T08:29:00.000-07:00

I've got a show coming up in six weeks. That seems like a long time, but it really isn't. I have a lot I need to work on. I need to compose a solo and learn a couple of new songs and really get Naori polished. I want to practice and practice, but sometimes I despair because I don't think the group wants to do that. We "rehearse." Which is fine. You get together, go over the parts of the songs, and then go home. Sometimes I feel like I'm the only one who wants to practice on stuff. I sit at home with my practice pad and metronome and review and drill and do it over and over and over again. I feel we really miss out on important dynamics-stuff when we don't do that sort of practice together. And with only one rehearsal a week how much can we really cover? It makes me feel lonely. I go in early before my classes on Tuesdays to drill and practice by myself. And then I go and practice for hours by myself in the chasm. Sigh.

Not that all that practice and alone-time is a bad thing. I've come to accept this thing about myself: I'm a really slow learner. I'm not calling it a learning disablity, but I have learned to accept the fact that I don't pick things up quickly, and I give myself a break about it. Instead of leaving a class feeling slow and overwhelmed, I just record it and then go over the recording later. I have to learn that way. I guess one of the great lessons I've learned about myself is actually learning about HOW I learn, and then finding a way to work with that. It's made things a whole lot easier, believe me.

But now it is getting toward crunch time. I want to put on a good show. My Dad said he'd come up for this. I'm debuting my new song. Ack, so much to learn and work on! It's that exciting and productive time. Need to ride this wave in.

Wonderful Exhaustion

2009-05-30T23:17:00.000-07:00

Had quite the day today. I woke up at 6am and suited up for my See Jane Run 5K run. It's a little hard putting on the short-shorts and facing one of those infamous Bay Area foggy mornings, but it was worth it. The race was in Alameda. The See Jane Run people are really wonderful. They've created this wonderful race geared towards every sort of woman. The whole vibe of the run was about creating this positive space for women to get out and challenge themselves, no matter age or ability, all while having fun. Plus the event was a benefit for Girls Inc, which is a great organization.

After cheering off the half-marathoners, those of us running the 5K warmed up together, gave ourselves a great cheer, and we were off. I put myself about 1/4 of the way into the pack. Not in front, but not in back. Now, I tell myself over and over again that I'm not a competitive runner, and I'm not doing this to compete against others. But there is a side of me that is a competitor, and I think of running as a sport whose only real competition is with yourself. Yes, there are other runners who run the race with you, or maybe even against you, but I really believe that all those other runners are just variations of your own self.

I started the race out kind of fast--maybe a little faster than I would have wanted. But I had to break free of the pack and find a place where I could run at my own speed. I ran clear of the slower paced people, and then it was a matter of picking off people, or being picked off. I actually didn't get picked off too much, but I was impressed when a lady pushing a stroller picked me off. She actually pushed and excuse-me-ed her way through, and I paced her for a bit before picking her off again. Then it was me and another girl. I ran right on her shoulder the last half of the race. There was a part of me that couldn't muster the will to pass her. I just didn't have the inner strength. But then the finish line came into view. It was still a long ways off, and having it in view can be more painful than not knowing where it is at all. She started to tire, and I managed to pass her for a minute, but then she kicked and flew past me, and there was that little competitor in me who reared up and yelled, oh, HELL no!!, and I put my kick in. I ran up and caught her, and we were side by side, but then she didn't have the gas, and I yelled, come on! come on! And she came back, and we were both flying, and my legs were a little numb from the cold, and in the strangest moment of self-doubt I've ever had, I had the oddest sensation that I wasn't wearing any shorts, and I had to look down to confirm that they were there, and, assured that my shorts hadn't dropped down and mysteriously shimmied off my ankles, I continued to kick, and I beat her, or maybe she didn't have it in her, and that made me a little sad, since she carried me the whole way. I finished in 25:24, which is officially my best time for a 5K since high school.

As if that weren't enough for one day, the next item on my agenda was a gig with Maze at the shopping center next to RCW. It was one of those throw-away gigs--you go into it knowing no one will show up, except maybe some of your friends, and any random people who happen to be there. So it was fun and easy. We debuted Naori, which went semi-ok, but not perfect. I also debuted my She Goes solo, which I worked on all week. I played it semi-ok too, but it was enough to make me feel confident and happy.

Then there was a couple hours of rest, and then a well-deserved sushi dinner. I ate 6 plates of sushi-boat goodness, which is a record for me. I have a bottomless stomach.

And then we went to check out Slam Bam Story Jam, for an evening of storytelling. Coke, a student in my class, was in the show, as well as Mark and Brenda from Ghosts and Girls days. Coke was really amazing. It's so wonderful to see people you know in the daily context of their lives transform into new beings when they perform. It was a special thing to see that tonight.

And phew, am I tired! I did more today than I usually do in a month. It's hard to get me out of the house sometimes, but today all those things were totally worth it.

See Kathryn Run!

2009-05-28T19:56:00.000-07:00

I'm participating in See Jane Run's 5K race this weekend. It would be more impressive if I were participating in their half-marathon--but maybe next year. Anyhow. Today I picked up my bib, t-shirt, and timing chip. I still have my timing chip on my shoe from Bay to Breakers. I'm lucky number 6092, baby!

Not quite sure how I'm going to do in this one. I gave myself a week off after Bay to Breakers, and I only was able to get one run in this week. But hey--I'm signed up and I am going to run! That beats being sedentary. If I weren't signed up for this race you can bet I'd be fast asleep on my Saturday morning.

Apparently there is going to be chocolate and champagne at the finish line! Too bad I have a gig right after. Maybe I can have one celebratory glass--you know--to toast with.

Bay to Breakers, 2009

2009-05-18T12:44:00.001-07:00

Bay to Breakers this year was awesome. I trained hard for this race. I think I trained smart this year too. On Monday I ran 5 miles and then did absolutely nothing else for the rest of the week except eat, rest, and eat some more. I wanted to give my body every advantage and opportunity to recover and repair and be fully ready and energized to run on Sunday.

I was actually surprised at how well I ran, especially since the forecast was for a scorching 90 degrees. I ran really strong and I didn't ever feel particularly tired, and I got water at every station. At one point I grabbed two waters, and in a moment of extreme decadence, I poured one of the waters down my back and drank the other one. On the way up the Hayes Street hill, I found a group of high school cross country runners (I could just TELL they were CC girls--there's something about the understated camaraderie and silent but powerful drive to keep moving) and I hopped on with them. They took me all the way up the hill and beyond. I was going to go with them all the way but I got distracted by a samba group and when I looked back my girls were lost in the crowd. But I pushed on, my legs full of juice and it wasn't until a point in mile 5 where I started to wonder how much longer, but then the course started heading on a gentle downslope, which lifted my spirits. The last leg is through Golden Gate park, and in years past it seemed like it took forever to get through the park, but this year, it just flew by. Before I knew it we were heading toward the final turn before you come up on the Pacific Ocean. I could see the finish line, and my legs were still strong under me, and this guy right in front of me starting kicking, and I decided to go right along with him, and it was like flying, and I ran as hard as I could, my body pushing, arms pumping, lungs filling, your feet only touching the ground for the tiniest of moments, the world streaming by, and before I knew it, it was over, and it felt so good. I ran it it 1:11:24, by my watch. My chip says 1:17, but I had to take a shishi break after the first mile. It's a PR just the same.

This one was for me. I did it. All me. All by myself. Flying.

5K in 20 Minutes!

2009-05-09T11:02:00.001-07:00

What? Really? I ran this morning's 5K in 20 minutes?

That's what I was thinking as I hit stop on my watch this morning. I ran See Jane Run's practice 5K. There was a great turn out. Most of the people were there to practice their half marathon, but they also had the 5K course. It's nice and flat, and borders the ocean, which is another great plus. The only thing was the practice starting line must have been 400 meters from the real start, so basically we cut anywhere from 1/2 to 3/4 miles off the real distance, which for a 5K, is quite a bit. So much for trying to time this thing. I'm not complaining though. It was a nice thing they were doing for the half-marathoners.

I also realized that my new running shoes suck. That's what I get for buying shoes off the internet. I am going to See Jane Run today to get better ones. There's no way I'd make it through Bay to Breakers on these ones. See? It was worth it to wake up early and run this thing.

I'm Gonna Run Bay to Breakers

2009-05-07T22:46:00.000-07:00

I've ran close to 90 miles in the last few months. I feel ready for Bay to Breakers. A second ago I wrote that I didn't feel ready, but once I read those words, I had to delete them all. Yes, I feel ready. No, I haven't qualified to get into the elite starting pack, but that's not my goal. My goal is not to compete at all. This is coming from a competitive cross-country runner. Yeah, I used to kick butt in the sport, but now that I am older, or maybe just more tired, I am really just content to finish. Not that I have any intention of walking the race--NO, I am going to run the darn thing. Well, run it as much as I can amongst 60,000 other people (sometimes you have to walk, unwillingly). This race is for me. I'm going to push. I'm going to elbow my way through the throng of drunk people, and weave my way around the floats, and dodge--at all costs--the naked people. Pacific Ocean, here I come!

I also signed up for a See Jane Run 5K race that happens a couple weeks after Bay to Breakers. The Jane people are holding a practice run this Saturday. They're setting up a 5K course in Alameda. I've signed up for this practice run, and boy am I ready. I'm not there to compete, but there is a part of me that still wants to see where I stand amongst my peers. Plus there are mile markers and I've always wanted to see my splits.

I'm liking this running thing. When I run there is nothing else but breath and body. The more you run this time, the farther you can go next time. The more I run, the further my thoughts are left behind, the further every day life, and the future and past, and everything that ails me gets left behind. There is just you and your body. And after a run nothing is as good as feeling the sweat drip off your head and the clarity of your mind and the dull ache in your muscles that let you know that you are alive.

Yeah, bring it on.

This running thing is good.

Paradiddles

2009-04-30T23:23:00.000-07:00

Ok, so I started out on paradiddles FIVE years ago--took on their challenge, their intricacies, their variations, their potential, but tonight, all that just flew out the window and it was like I was learning those diddles all over again. I spent serious time in the chasm with my sticks, a practice pad and a metronome. I have logged countless hours on my desk at work, wearing my fingers to the bone, playing those diddles. I worked on paradiddles the other night with my taiko class. I wrote a whole FREAKIN' song based on paradiddles. And tonight? When I am faced with paradiddles? It's like it was the first time.

Well, ok, it wasn't quite like the first time. But it was like I was facing the one thing that I had thought I had already conquered, only to be shocked that when confronted by it in a new context, all that training had gone out the window. Eye-opening, it was. Just makes me realize that you can't ever rest on your laurels.

Back to the chasm for me. Just got a whole new sheet of diddle exercises I haven't seen before. This should be good.

Productive Day!

2009-04-26T21:13:00.000-07:00

Started the day out by doing the final stretch on the drum. After soaking the head overnight I brought it in and we started cranking. I asked Janet to come help me and my student since I had a feeling she would keep on cranking after the point where I thought we should fold. We did the whole getting on top of the drum thing:

We got some really great tension on that drum. We used a different hide than I've used in the past. I think the hide was thinner. Janet said maybe it was a fatter cow. A happier cow, I replied. It was a good stretch.

We got some major tension on that baby. Janet kept saying one more crank. And we would crank. And in my head I was thinking, ok that's good, but then Janet would say, one more crank, and we'd crank. Gotta keep those risk-takers around! I think it's gonna sound good. The tacks came out nice and straight. We did a good job. Hurrah to my student because this was her first time heading a drum!

After that was rehearsal where we worked on finishing my song. I wrote a quick and dirty ending this past week, and have been studying some solo techniques. I am happy that I don't seem to have a problem soloing in six. It feels really natural. Maze really rocks. This is not an easy song. It's in six, and the patterns are kind of strange and Steve Reich-ish. They have taken it in stride and are really grooving along. This is not the sort of song that I envisioned my first song to be. I think it's really weird, but a little funky and groovy. I am happy.

Creating the End

2009-04-22T22:01:00.000-07:00

Wow that sounds dramatic.

No really, I am making an ending to my song. That's one of the last things that have been nagging me (and Janet too--to finish the song! Ha ha). Today has been all about listening. Listening to my teachers. Listening to songs. Listening to myself. I composed an ending that I can live with, but there is just one more element--my solo section--that I need to face up to. I hate writing solos. Or maybe that's being dramatic too. Let's just say that the process of writing my solos is treacherous. I just make it all too hard for myself. I try to be too fancy and too complicated. I always think great solos are really mysterious and difficult, but when you get right down and listen to people's solos, they're really just simple things. There must be something in their presentation that evokes all that mystery. I have a solid base to work with. I've been working with a wonderful teacher who teaches really great things, but also a lot of her lessons are by example.

When I first learned taiko, my teacher told us to hold back on asking questions during class. She asked us to wait until the end if we had a question, and that we ought to just watch and pay attention and try to figure out the answers for ourselves. I don't insist upon this with my students, but there are moments when I wish I could divide myself; there is one part of me that wants to share and to make everything as accessible as possible, and another side of me that wants them to go through the struggle because I believe that it is in the struggle that our greatest lessons are learned. There is something about being handed an answer that is not quite as gratifying as figuring it out for yourself.

No one is going to hand me this solo. My teacher has taught me phrases, has taught me how to count and divide time, and how to put it all together so the phrases fit in time. There have been innumerable lessons in a single class. It is my job as a student to take those lessons and put them together in my mind so that in the end what I have is not just a line of music to mimic, but a real understanding of the hows and whys of that music. When you understand the how and the why, you can take it and change it and make it your own.

I guess that's what solos are. They express the culmination of all your lessons and are moments that you take all that you have learned and speak it in your own way.

Now I just need to figure out what I am going to say.

Practice Makes Perfect

2009-04-21T23:33:00.001-07:00

It really really does! I wish I would practice more. I wish I had more time to practice. I wish we practiced more, and I wish that everyone would see how important, and how just a little practice every day could do a person wonders. I tell my students just to practice 10 minutes a day. Some of them do, and when they do, it totally shows. Today I had them do some 8 and 8's. Those are simple, simple exercises. I was happy that they didn't seem bored. They are deceptively easy. But really, when it comes down to it, the most important sort of practice for me is just working on my chops. I can play all sorts of patterns, but if I were to play paradiddles with a really experienced player, it would be immediately apparent that my basics are in need of a lot of attention.

Today I snuck in and diddled and rolled and 8 & 8'ed before my classes. I need a lot of work. But on the other hand, it feels really good to just get in there and work on those basics.

Practice, yo.

Are We Rolling?

2009-04-16T22:10:00.000-07:00

. . . and we're back.

Yes, I'm back.

First off, I got roped in to re-heading a drum, (get it? Roped in? get it?). No really. One of my students asked me to show her how to re-head a drum, and of course I am honored and pleased to show someone, especially someone with her enthusiasm, how to re-head. Plus I had told Janet earlier I would re-head one of her drums, so I am killing two birds with one stone. It also inspired me to finally consolidate my notes and thoughts into a clear, concise manual of drum re-heading. Last weekend I put together my notes and photographs and the best of what I can remember into a nice moleskine journal that I loaned my student. These notes are way more clearer than the notes I got, but I cherish the notes I got so much that I never want to let them go, though I guess one of these days I need to return them. I sent my student on a scavenger hunt of sorts, asking her to get the things that we need but that I didn't feel like spending the time searching for. I'm glad she's totally into it. She actually found 100 feet of manila. So this weekend we are going to do the first stretch. I am also happy that I get to pass on what was given to me. When Janet gave me the opportunity to head my own drum I felt like someone was giving me this huge, wonderful gift that I could never repay. But sharing the knowledge I have accumulated along the way with my student makes me feel like I am one step closer to repaying back a debt I can never really repay.

Last Friday Janet and I pulled tacks from one of her drums. It was very cathartic, pulling tacks with her. I think it was a moment that needed to happen for me. Just the two of us quietly working together on something we both enjoy. It just kind of happened. I was like, hey, I'm here, might as well start on this now. And she was like, ok, well I'm here too, let's figure out how to get these tacks out. The last month or two have been something of an internal struggle for me, and I don't want to go into all of that, but I needed that month to mentally check out and not be around much. I was sad and disappointed about things, and I realized that I just want to play taiko and be happy about it, and I had to figure out a way to be happy with it, and I figured it out, after quite a lot of soul searching and agonizing and moping. But I'm ok now.

So cutting and pulling rawhide this weekend. Sharing. Contributing. Passing stuff on. This is a good, positive thing--just the direction I need to be heading in, or re-heading in. (Get it? Re-heading? Get it?)

We're also building toward a new, big show in July. Oh boy, this will be the best one yet. We're going to be doing it solo, just Maze, with original new works. And one of those new works, I am proud to say, will be composed by me. I am so close. I just need to figure out an ending to tie all the loose ends together. Oh, and compose a solo, but, eh, you know me--I can figure that out. Janet was trying to find a way to substitute people in and out of the different pieces, like they do in basketball, but looks like I am in a lot of them. I don't mind, but had to plead my case to be taken out of Mokuyobi. I don't mind playing Mokuyobi, but I've struggled with my solo for the past 5 years, and if I don't have to think about that battle, then this makes my life easier. We'll see.

What else? Had Michaelle's class tonight. It wasn't easy. But in the middle of struggling through one of the patterns she was showing us (I was the only one who totally didn't get it!) I was like, hey, I like this struggle. I am so glad someone is pushing me and giving me things that are so difficult. I feel like as a teacher I am constantly trying to find ways to make sure that people who find things easy, have something that challenge them, and those who feel challenged get the encouragement and positive feedback they need to continue. It's all a balance. Michaelle's class is really great for me because I just get to kick back and let someone else figure it all out, while I have fun and learn things. I totally appreciate all the effort she puts in to make sure that I, as a student, get the most out of her class. And everyone else too. She is a good teacher.

Oh, and Bay to Breakers, yo! I've been training for that. I ran 5 miles yesterday! I had taken a week off because of scheduling conflicts and I am proud that I could just jump right in with a long run without much protest from my body. My mind, on the other hand, tried to come up with all sorts of excuses, but in the end my body won out. I know that if I can just get my running clothes on and run my butt to the end of the block and back again, then I'm good. And once I can run past the 30 minute mark, all the protesting my body does goes away, and either things get numb, or my body and I just get used to the idea that we're gonna sweat and keep pushing until we're done. I need to get to the 70 minute mark before I'm totally happy. I got to 50 yesterday. I have until mid-May to get there. And even if I don't, I know that I will finish that race.

So things are going better for me. Busy, busy though.

2009-04-01T21:10:00.000-07:00

March was for moping. April is for getting my head back on and my heart in the right place. I've been sad, but need to find a way to be happy, or I'll never be happy with myself.

Sigh. It's not as dramatic as it sounds.

OMG, WTF

2009-03-26T23:09:00.000-07:00

Strange thing happened tonight--I totally rocked when it was my turn to solo. Usually when I solo I get all tense and uptight and I can barely improvise, and if I do improvise, it's to save my life. But tonight in my percussion class, it was my turn to take a solo section and my hands were totally rocking, and my brain and emotions were like, OMG, WTF are you doing? And my hands were just playing these fun and totally groovy rhythms. It was tiiiight. And honestly, I can't say where it came from. I've never soloed in that groove, and it was on the conga, which I can barely play, but for some reason, I was right there. I'm a bit surprised with myself. Actually I'm really surprised. I have to credit the teaching and structure, because Michaelle created this definite space in which to solo in, and a space for a tag that you came back to after so many bars. Not that I was counting or anything. It was more of a feel. It was really weird. I felt like I could have kept going and have fun with it.

This is peculiar and strange. But I like it.

I Did It!

2009-03-23T20:13:00.000-07:00

I jumped the fence, YO! Yeah, that's right! I finally got my double stroke roll to actually BE a roll. It's not entirely pretty yet, but it's definitely something new and exciting. I've been in the chasm for weeks working on this. And I did it! Yipee!!!

Jumping the Fence

2009-03-19T22:49:00.000-07:00

Tonight was my percussion class--hooray!!!!!! It was the absolute highlight of my week, believe me. Before we were about to start warmups, Michaelle asked what anyone wanted to work on, and I blurted out doubles!, since I've been working real hard on them on my own. I'm not usually a blurter-outer, but doubles have been a new and interesting challenge to me. In taiko, you don't really have doubles because wine-barrel taiko drums don't lend themselves to doubles. The skins are just too loose and boomy to allow your 1" stick to bounce much. You can get doubles on the shime drums though. They're tighter and more responsive. I see myself as more of a small drum player. I like the sound and dynamics of small drums, and so I've been working a lot on stick technique and, among other things, double-playing. One of the things that Michaelle does a lot when she's thinking is to play a sharp, fast double stroke roll. It is totally awesome. She'll be like, what should we play next, hmm??, and as she's thinking she'll do a roll roll roll roll! Double stroke roll. I'm always amazed.

So I've been working on my double stroke roll a lot. It's simple. You hit with the stick and there is a strike and right after that, a bounce. That's a double stroke. A lot of it is learning how to hold the stick, and then there is the bounce, and there is the control part of the bounce. It's one thing to do it with the right hand, but doing it with the left is another. Getting the left and right side to work in unison is a lifetime challenge in itself. It's all about control, and you don't get that without sitting there with your sticks and a practice pad for hours. I've been putting in those hours, but I just can't get to the point where my rolls go from kinda fast, to Michaelle-fast. I want to get there. She's got these laser-pointer eyes where you can tell that she's looking at your hands and your fingers and wrists and evaluating your sticking--all in just a moment. She had me do the double stroke roll as fast as I could and she said, uh-huh yeah, your ALMOST there, you just need to jump over the fence. I know those fences. I know that I have worked up to the point where if I just figure out that one thing, that one little thing--whatever it is--a lifting of the wrist, the caress of a finger, the push of a pinky--if I can just figure out what that tiny subtle thing is, then I'll get over that fence. I think that a big part of learning percussion goes beyond learning time, and learning patterns, but it's the tiny subtle things that no one can teach. You just need to sit there and practice over and over again until you get it. You can't really teach to someone: after you hit, clench your fingers for a millisecond and then release, and then flick your wrist and put the tension back in your fingers. It's hard. You just have to sit there until you get it.

And I am almost there. When she says you just need to get over the fence I believe it because I have tried to get over that fence many times. I am so close. Just a little bit more.

My New Song

2009-03-15T21:13:00.000-07:00

Just got home from presenting my new song to the rest of Maze. It's not an easy song, but they picked it up really quickly. I've been working on it for so long. It's been a source of excitement, frustration, difficulty, hope, and despair. I have felt every emotion about it, but I am happy I finally figured out things and that I finally just presented it. It's like I can move on with it now that I am mostly done working and reworking it. It's not quite done yet, but well on its way. We are gearing up for a full-length show later this summer, so I am happy that I am able to contribute something to it. Watch out for updates on the big show!!

My New Toy

2009-03-12T23:22:00.000-07:00

I got a new toy today. It's the Edirol R09-HR. It's a gem. It is the most beautiful and functional sound recorder I have ever encountered. It records in WAV and MP3. Now, I was a strong supporter of minidisc, but with the real-time downloading and the extra mic and battery pack, it was a pain. Not that it felt like a pain at the time, but now that the Edirol is in my life, OMG, this thing is godsend. I was going through the manual today and I realized that this thing was created with musicians in mind. All the buttons and extras are tailor-made with the idea that this thing is being used to study sound (and music). They're not just buttons that do neat tricks you'll never use, but they're neat tricks that you absolutely must have. One of those buttons on the front creates loops, so that you can listen to a piece of music, say, your teacher explaining a rhythm that she's about to play, and then she plays it, and you can create a loop so that you hear the rhythm over and over again. Stuff like that. The gadgets on this thing are not extraneous. They're not fluff. They're real-life things that you can apply to your art and career. This thing is a great investment.

I bought a 4Gig SD card ahead of time, which holds a ton of info (the new ipod shuffle that came out today is 4Gig--the whole unit is smaller than an AA battery, can hold 1,000 songs, and talks to you for godsake), and as I was messing around with the 4G card on my Edirol today, I realized that the thing holds 60 hours of recording time (depending on the recording quality). Did I not say that loud enough?? 60 hours!! A minidisc holds a mere fraction of that (I don't even remember anymore--5 or 6 hours?). The Edirol can actually accept an 8Gig card, which, if my math doesn't fail me, is 120 hours. That's days of recording time, yo!! One thing I learned in my digicam research was that while big cards are great, putting all your eggs in one basket is a gamble. But still!

Tonight I brought my Edirol to Michaelle's class, and after tweaking the settings and making some educated guesses, I set the inputs and aimed the thing at our drums and was completely amazed at the results: crystal clear sounds! Both voice and drums! If you've ever tried to record drums, then you know how difficult this is. What I got was a great recording of our class, with the vocal explanations and the drum rhythms all recorded perfectly! Amazing!

I am such a proponent for recording drum classes because I have finally accepted the fact that I am a bit slow in the head about learning new things. You can teach me an easy pattern and I will get it, but if you ask me what it was 5 minutes later I won't be able to remember. I need help. Having something like the Edirol is so essential to my education. Thank you to the folks a Roland for creating such a fabulous learning aid.

Wanna see it for yourself? Go here.

Juana Molina

2009-02-17T16:09:00.000-08:00

Last Friday I went to see Juana Molina. The first time I heard Juana Molina, I completely froze in my tracks and sat there, awestruck. I felt as though I were being hit with a giant tidal wave of sound and I was completely powerless to do anything but let it take me. I was shocked. People were allowed to DO that with music?

Her music is complex and richly textured. Through the use of loops, she builds layer upon layer of sound. She often samples her own voice so that you may find yourself suddenly surrounded by her, the percussive echoes of one phrase swirling back and forth around you, while an airy melody floats overhead. She also plays guitar and keyboard, and it is amazing to witness, live and in concert, how a song is built. Last Friday she performed with a bassist and a really amazing percussionist, and a bunch of electronic equipment. I don't pretend to understand how she makes music, but she'll play a riff into her loop machine and that sound will cycle, then she'll continue on, adding another riff on a different instrument, and in that way the song keeps getting more complex. I don't know quite how she ties it all together, but it works. I am in awe. She is my new favorite performer.

She did a live set on KCRW this morning, which you can listen to here. They'll probably post the video version soon (which is almost as good as seeing her on stage). Check her out!

I'd Rather Be Here:

2009-02-09T11:04:00.001-08:00

That's all.

On Endings and the Golden Ratio

2009-02-05T20:23:00.001-08:00

I am writing a song and the only thing I need to do is create an ending for it. That's the only thing holding me back from sharing it and getting feedback for it. I mean I can ask for input on an ending, but a part of me feels like since I started it, I want to finish it, and asking for help and input means that I wouldn't be the one to see it through from start to finish, which is what I want. I like to finish what I start. There's this line in the movie Spirited Away where the herb-guy tells Sen, the little-girl main character, to finish what she started, even though she is unsure and scared. It's classic--he sneers, "Finish what you started, human!" Almost like it's this insult to be a human, as well as to be scared and unsure. But she does it, she finishes it. It's just a little thing, but she has to summon up courage and will. I need to do that.

I am realizing that I like to start a lot of things, with the best of intentions, but I don't always finish them. This song is one of those things, in a way. When I first started working on this song I was so full of good intentions, but then things got hard and complicated (musically--it's in SIX, after all). Then I didn't want to work on it or even think about it for the longest time. But I kept getting all this pressure to produce something, and I would force myself to work on it, but nothing came. It was hard enough to just sit down and think about it. But recently I found other inspiration, and I started playing with it on my computer, and I became really excited and inspired. I would work on it for hours through the night, and then try to sneak in some time on it before work or other activities. That's quite a change from not wanting to even touch it with a 10-foot pole. I am still excited about it. I am so close. But I can't figure out how to end it.

I am beginning to ask myself if there is some deeper thing going on here. Is there a part of me that is scared of seeing things end? Am I scared of that? I hate goodbyes. Loss is something close to me and informs more of my waking minutes than I care to think about. And although finishing this song wouldn't be a loss to me, the process would be over. The journey of it. But oh I need to finish what I start. I need to summon up the courage and will. I would be so happy to hear it with the full ensemble of players. I'd like to see this thing come to life.

It's cheesy, but there's that saying, one door closing is another one opening. Over the past few years I have been trying to embrace that in my life. I've been trying to see change as not loss, but opportunity. I mean, that's a little bit of why I'm here with this dilemma today. The whole impetus of this song is that I first met Janet when she came to class one day and introduced me to the paradiddle, which I obsessed and tormented myself about. And then later Janet stuck around and created more music which eventually turned into the whole Emeryville-Aiko experiment. I knew that when it was over that there wouldn't be that kind of taiko anymore. I knew I'd miss it. I knew that ensemble would disband and all that work that went into producing that show would be done.

But things move circularly, kind of like the Golden Ratio. Have you heard of that? Go look it up yourself since it takes either a mathematician or a great poet to really explain the relationship between two smaller things to a larger. Basically the Golden Ratio is a recipe for beautiful things, from the curl of a seashell to the proportions of the body to the construction of the great Pyramids. So for me there was that first lesson of the paradiddle, which led into the more complex work of Aiko, and those lessons just built upon themselves until I came to this position of writing my own song out of paradiddles for this new group whose life and scope is much larger than Aiko.

Maybe that's what life is. Continual reference to the smaller things that grow into larger moments. You keep reflecting back on your experience, suddenly realizing that where you are is greater than where you started, but not independent of it. Maybe my problem is not with finishing things, but trying to figure out how they will work themselves out to become greater. A stone is just a stone until it becomes a pyramid.

Bell Pattern

2009-01-29T22:13:00.000-08:00

A few years I learned a rhythm called the bell pattern. It's a rhythm that's heard a lot in Afro-Cuban music. When I first learned it, it was a semi-complicated pattern that over time I became comfortable with. Janet loves to throw it into a lot of her music, and it's a fun and driving rhythm. But I knew that the bell pattern has a lot of importance in Cuban music and is an essential time-keeper for more complicated patterns. I knew it was a part, like clave, that are the shoulders upon which whole worlds of music rest on. The bell is in fact a variation of clave.

In my percussion class, I am finally learning how important bell is, and I am so thankful for the head start I got on learning it. Now that I am learning patterns within the context of bell, I feel that there is a new and gigantic world of rhythm that I am being introduced to. I think it's great and amazing. I am so loving that class. But what I love the most is that things are slowly making connections in my head. I love that I am building upon all the knowledge and experience I already have under my belt, but in a way that makes me feel like I am beginning to really understand things. Yes I have this one factoid down, and this other factoid, but now they are starting to link up and make sense. It's like when you're putting together a jigsaw puzzle from disparate pieces and very slowly a larger image starts to take shape, and all of a sudden you see that different colors and shapes actually have a logic and place. But boy oh boy, is this a big puzzle. I haven't even finished putting all the edges together yet. There is still a whole lot of filling in I need to do.

The F-Word

2009-01-28T23:28:00.000-08:00

No, not that F-word.

FOOD!

So I've started running again and I have to say that one of the drawbacks (or benefits, depending on what side of the fork you're on) is that I am constantly voracious. This is a little surprising to me since I've only been on 3 runs since my winter hiatus. But if you utter the words "tempura udon" around me I will never rest until I get a bowl of that. Same goes for "chili dog" or "hamburger" or "burrito." Heck it's just better if you don't mention any food-words around me at all. I've been a little worried that age and genetics are catching up to me, but I know that if I keep running, I'll end up being that gristly thing I used to be when I was training for Bay to Breakers the first time.

But really, I am trying to improve myself. It is not easy, given the fact that work keeps me chained to my chair all day (but I do go out on daily lunch-hour walks--hey, doesn't that remind you of prison?) and that other things in my life keep me occupied (like taiko, or catching up on all the Oscar-nominated movies, or that other thing I don't get enough of--sleep!). But spring is in the air, thanks to global warming, and my future and humanity are creeping up on me. I don't want to be on medication before I'm 50. I don't want a cane. I don't want to ever, and I mean ever, talk to you about fiber.

So running it is. It doesn't solve everything life throws at you, but it makes you feel good. I was trying to think of reasons not to go running all afternoon, but at 4:45, 15 minutes before work was over, I realized that any excuse I had was just lame, and I begrudgingly changed into my workout clothes, begrudgingly laced up my dorky running shoes (silver! egad!), and plugged the ipod into my head and plodded off into the dying January daylight. That's the one thing I like about running, the ease of it. All you need to do to be a runner is to take that first step, and all the other steps fall into line. You just go left-right-left-right until you've met your goal. The only hard part is occupying your mind in the meantime. Me--I like to listen to music and take in the world around me. At this time of the year, the last rays of the sun hit the treetops straight on, so that they are seemingly lit by an internal fire, and the white, puffy clouds take on a pinkish tinge, and the young undergrads huddle beneath their winter coats rushing off to dinner singly and in pairs before long nights in the library. It sure does feel good afterward, steaming in the winter air, your muscles loose and hot, more miles under your belt, moving closer to the goal you've set out or yourself. But step aside, yo, I'm hungry!

Saying it Out Loud Makes it So

2009-01-24T00:35:00.000-08:00

OK. I am going to run Bay to Breakers again this year.

There, I said it.

Actually, I already signed up for the race and payed the %$@&ing bucks ($9) to have my bib mailed to me. Which means that now I have to train for the darn race. Yes, you are now a witness.

I have no plans of bringing a friend with me (though if my usual B2B partner wants to drive up from LA to join me, she is more than welcome). My training this time is different. The will is more personal. I want to run and finish this race for me. I'm not doing it to prove anything. I'm not doing it to please anyone. I'm doing it for ME.

I want to get into shape again. I want to have that first B2B body I had when I was training so hard for it the first time. Only now the great hurdle is knowing that this race is not as big of a hurdle that I thought it would be the first time I ran it. It's a fun easy race and that hill in the middle is nothing. But I want the physicality of it. I want the sweat and muscle and determination. But I want those things for other things. We've been doing 2-slant stuff in taiko, and I have to admit--I am so winded after playing. That is bad. I want endurance. I want to feel the strength of my body. I want aches and shin splints and time in a hot bathtub and the agony of looking at my watch and realizing I still have 15 more minutes to go and trying to find the mental strength to get through those last 15 minutes. I want the quiet meditative time of running hills, of pushing through walls. The journey is in the struggle.

I'm ready for that. I ran 30 minutes last Wednesday, and for a body that hadn't run for a couple of months, and instead indulged in many holiday meals and was enjoying the deadly sins of gluttony and sloth, I did pretty good. Well, it was pretty good when I was running, but now, 2 days later, my legs are killing me. Muscles that I didn't know I even had are screaming for attention and sympathy. But that's ok. That's actually what I've been craving for.

I'd like to feel alive again. I'd like to feel sweat and accomplishment. It's the third Sunday of May. You should do it too!

A Very Big Tree

2009-01-19T23:32:00.000-08:00

When I went to Hawaii with my mother in 2001, we were standing outside a restaurant in Hilo and we both looked in wonder at that tree back there. The scale of living things in Hawaii is amazing, more so in Hilo, and we'd never seen a tree that big before. We asked my mother's Aunty, whom we had been visiting, how old that tree was, but she didn't know, and in fact, she confessed, she had never noticed that tree before. It's one of those small moments I won't forget. Life can be so monumental sometimes, and we don't even realize it.

I went to that same restaurant, quite by coincidence, while in Hilo a couple of weeks ago. It made me miss Mom horribly.

Songs for Sensei

2009-01-17T20:41:00.000-08:00

I played in Mark Izu's Songs for Sensei show at the De Young Museum last night. It was such an honor. The more he told the stories about his sensei, who is his sho teacher, the more I realized how important this show was to him, and how honored I was to be included in this. The Sho is a reed instrument composed of multiple pipes that is played traditionally in Gagaku music, or traditional Japanese music played for the Imperial Court. Mark, besides being a talented and celebrated jazz bassist, is an experienced sho player. Before I met Mark I didn't even know what a sho was.

It was touching to me to see how a person like Mark, whom I consider a master musician, express his gratefulness and gratitude to his own teacher in a full length show. It made me appreciate the fact that even when you become very accomplished, one doesn't forget their roots and those who taught you your lessons along the way.

As a taiko player I consider myself an amateur, but being involved in this show has made me feel like maybe one day I can attain the experience of someone like Mark. As Janet and I were driving home from the show, I thanked her for including me in this, because I had assumed that Mark had asked her to perform and that she had included me because I am always willing and mostly available to play taiko with her. But she told me that Mark had asked her and I to perform with him, and I told her, Oh! I didn't know that. I sat there in the silence of the car. We were crossing the Bay Bridge, over the water, between here and there, the lights of the city casting their glow in the night. San Francisco was behind us, home was growing closer. We were moving away from one show, and as we passed through time and distance, we were traveling toward new horizons. Our lives reflect upon themselves. It was kind of one of those moments that I know I will never forget, and right now I can't quite explain why that moment was so overwhelming for me. Maybe someday.

It was a great show. Jazz is a new genre for me, and I studied my cues, studied the music. I am proud that I was able to hold down the rhythm in 5. I am happy that we pulled off Threading Time, the most challenging song for me (and the song that included a part of Kai To Ryu. I don't know what we would have done if we couldn't have pulled off the Kai section of the song!). I am totally impressed at our performance of Chikara, which for me, is a song that you can only nail if you have a complete ESP-mind-meld with your fellow player (or if both of you are metronomes, which we are not). I am greatly humbled to have worked with musicians who have been in the business for probably more years than I have been alive.

And for blog's sake, here are a couple of pics. Preset for the show. So many instruments! And it's not even so much that there were so many instruments, but that all the musicians playing those instruments were so darn good on them!

Shoko (the koto player), me and Janet in our fabulous white outfits.

Backstage pass, yo!

I learned a lot. I am very humbled.

Yes, that's the right word.

Humbled.

Take 5

2009-01-14T06:43:00.000-08:00

So, coming back from vacation has been quite a trial. The first thing my boss said to me after asking me about my vacation was if I was willing to work overtime. I looked around at the precarious piles of work and agreed. I stayed late and worked on the weekend. But there were also all the other things I'd been putting on the back burner, unwilling to think about. I need to learn a brand new song that we're going to perform at RCW's Inauguration Party. I still haven't worked on it, and that looms heavily over me. Oh, and I have to do a 2-drum slant solo in it too. I don't have much experience with 2-drum slant solos. Please, come for Obama.

But even more pressing is the performance with Mark Izu at the DeYoung Museum for their Friday Nights at the DeYoung series. I have to say firstly that Mark is such a nice guy. He is sweet and mellow and is such a sharp musician. This guy is brilliant and way out of my musical league--I'm not even sure we're playing the same sport. The fact that I get to tag along with Janet as one of the performers in this project is such an honor. Which means that I have to work extra hard for this gig. First off, it's jazz. I've never performed jazz before. Sure, I appreciate jazz--heck, it was the public radio stations in LA that played jazz that really got me hooked on music in the first place. I had no idea what I was listening to, but I would study it. I would really pay attention and try to understand what jazz was until finally I came to the realization that what jazz was is an appreciation for innovation, for expression, for feel. I mean, I still claim complete ignorance about jazz, but what really draws me in is the journey that the music takes you on. You have to let go of everything about where you think a song will take you, and instead take the hand of the musician and let them lead you to places you've never been. It's the where-we're-going part that is a challenge to me right now.

Yesterday we had rehearsal at Mark's and I got a better picture of what we'd be doing. I took copious notes and have been looking at them all day. I can do this, I know I can. Part of it is learning what we're going to be playing, knowing when (approximately, give or take 3-5 minutes) we are going to be playing it, and letting the idea of "feel" guide the rest. Oh, and then there is the playing with Janet part. I couldn't imagine a better person to lead me on my first jazz gig, and part of this leg is learning to play with her and just feeling and anticipating. I'm totally following her lead, but part of the challenge is knowing when she is going to start, when she is going to stop, and how to work with her in between. I am glad I have worked with her so long because some of it comes natural, but some of it is studying her body language and the phrases and movements she speaks the music with. But I have to admit some it is just hanging on for dear life. It is a good learning experience.

Another new thing for me is learning a song in 5. I think that means the song is in 5/4, but don't quote me on that. There are 5 beats to a bar, or what I imagine a bar to be. There are 5 units to a set. Oh, whatever. I just think back to the struggle learning a song in 6 was, and actually, learning this song in 5 is worlds easier. I don't know if it's experience or just the fact that songs in 5 are fun. I have a suspicion that if Janet hadn't told me the song was in 5 I would have never known something was amiss, but she told me that I probably would have been confused. I'm just curious to know how long it would have taken me to figure out something was weird. Maybe it's just a good groove. But anyhow the stressful part is that at moments I'm the only one holding down the groove, and it may be for a long time, and it will be under other people solo-ing, so I will have to be solid. Today I was at the copy machine, waiting for my endless copies to come out, and I was practicing the 5 groove.

This is gonna be interesting.

New Year in Hawaii

2009-01-10T22:16:00.000-08:00

(I thought geckos were green??)

Spent this past New Year celebrating Hawaiian style. It was SOO nice to get away from everything--work, chores, Oakland. Our time in Hawaii revolved around food. There would be an activity, and then it was time to eat. Activity, eat. Rest, eat. Heck, the first thing they did on the plane was feed us. I love meals in boxes. They're like opening little presents that you put in your belly:Our first task was to pound mochi. I've never actually done that before. The vast majority of mochi I've ever eaten comes in little cellophane packages from Marukai. But this year we pounded it ourselves. Most of us hadn't done that before, but we had adult supervision. Here are some really old mochi pounding hammers being soaked before the pounding--I think they must be 100 years old, no exaggeration:
This is me wielding one of those bad boys (no one lost any fingers):And heck, why not a video:

I also helped with the actual forming of mochi. Think really sticky play dough:We made about 8 batches. The first batch was fun. The second turned out the best, and all the rest got harder and harder. It was raining a beautiful, tropical rain and it was WARM there, compared to the near freezing temperatures we left behind. In order to recover from all our hard work we ate traditional Hawaiian food--handmade lau lau, kalua pork, and poi!The next day was New Year's eve and food prep day. I helped make maki-zushi rolls (sorry no pic) and helped taste test Okinawan sweet potato tempura. I have had tempura all over the world, but no where did it taste as good here (oh, and that's someone making tako--octopus--on the right):That night we said hello to the ancestors, and I attended my first Buddhist service. I'm sure God won't mind. It was interesting, and not particularly different in structure than your usual Catholic service. There was standing and sitting and chanting/singing. It was short and sweet. Afterward we had a sake toast to the New Year as well as soba, which apparantly is some good-luck tradition. They also handed out bouquets of freshly picked mizuna, which we added to the traditional ozoni soup (made with our own mochi!) you eat on New Year's. Everyone gets to ring in the New Year by pounding the bell:In Hawaii, fireworks are not illegal, and one of the funnest parts of New Years was going to the supermarket, buying a bag of fireworks, and throwing it in the communal pile. We spent a good couple of hours putting flames to those babies and lighting up the night. I'm happy with a sparkler or one of those spinning flower things, but we also had fountains and crackling things and really loud things. Here is me enjoying a sparkler:They seemed a lot funner when we were kids.

This one was a crazy idea:
And here is a strand of firecrackers. These things are tres-illegal in California, except maybe on Chinese New Year, but even in Hawaii these things required a permit. We strung them from the roof and lit them. They were quite a sight and created so much smoke it looked like a war zone:

I mean literally, we stopped traffic with that amount of smoke.

After New Year's, the festivities slowed down, which gave us time to take in a little bit of the beach. I thought that the beach in January would be cold and rough, but it wasn't that bad. The waves were a little big, but after a little coaxing I dove in, under the waves, past the breakers, and bobbed up and down in the water with the rest of them. The water is clear and warm there.The sunsets are beautiful, and I didn't want to leave. Ah, but alas, I am back in town. We have a show this Friday at the DeYoung, and I was in rehearsals for that today, but more on that later.

Here is my last view of the islands from the plane. I'll be back!

Adventures in Los Angelandia

2008-12-28T23:54:00.000-08:00

Just got back from LA and am promptly on my way to Hawaii to spend a Hawaiian New Year there. I've heard it's quite a party, and an experience nonetheless for a mainlander like me. It was good to spend time with my family. We had our usual X-mas dinner at my Aunty's and I realize now that I did little else but eat and do the usual chores around the house. What could be better than eating really good food for several days? My Dad tirelessly spent time trying to fix an annoying leak on my car (he is a genius, and devised a fix from junkyard fittings and some hose and clamps). We went to my favorite sandwich joint, Philippe's, and my favorite Mexican restaurant, Diana's for killer Menudo.

I drove in today from LA, and though the drive was pretty much eventless, what with the lack of Tule fog and the sometimes traffic-stopping snow on the Grapevine, I was exhausted nonetheless. I woke up at 3:30 in the morning and coasted the way up Highway 5. I stopped for coffee somewhere in the darkness, and munched on Marukai Musubi somewhere near Harris Ranch, which by the way, can sometimes smell hideously like cows.

I spent this evening unpacking from LA, and then repacking for Hawaii, in between a well-deserved nap that should have gone on and on, but that I forced myself (by the will of my alarm clock) to wake up from.

Sleep now. And then an airplane. And then paradise, where the low promises to be higher than today's high. Hallelujah, people!

It's Jazz, Man

2008-12-18T21:57:00.001-08:00

Had my first session with jazz musicians last night. Not jazz musicians collaborating with taiko players, but as a taiko player collaborating with jazz musicians. This is definitely a learning experience for me. I embrace it, really I do. But there is a part of me, a tiny part really, that had to snicker in the deepest reaches of my soul when Janet asked when we were supposed to come in, and he said, "Oh, maybe five minutes after the end of the sax solo." So ok, that's what I'm in for.

But I don't want to belittle it. I think there is a large part of me that feels very comfortable holding back and waiting for direction. I like being told exactly what to play and when. Then I can be a perfectionist. I can rehearse, obsess, practice--I have control. I know what to play and when to come in. But with jazz, it's different. There is a lot of feeling of things. I think this is something that works for me. I am a feeler. I sense things, intuit things. I trust my gut more than anything, and more often than not it ends up being right. I know that one of the great hurdles I must overcome as a taiko player is letting go of that sense of wanting to control things, and instead trusting my intuition and gut and just let that intuiting side of me shine through. I have to trust all the things I have learned, all the hours I have spent working on patterns and rhythms, and just allow my hands and body to play. I know these things. I can play them. I can use them as a tool to express all the joy and all the emotions that music embodies that no other medium can capture. But there is a part of me that always holds back. There is that part of me that always wants to be in control, rehearsed, practiced, thought out. If I could just let go! If I could just let it all come out of me, then I would gain such tremendous confidence.

Well that's a thought.

I mean, I've been writing for a few years now about how I am trying to approach my whole life with an open, beginner's mind. And though I never want to lose that sensibility, maybe it is time to acknowledge that I have learned things. That there are many people along the way who have instilled knowledge and confidence and spirit. I need to take all those lessons and try to apply it.

This is something to think about. There is always a feeling of stages that I am going through. Like I'm on this journey, and no one is really guiding me, but I always feel like there is something I need to address and work on. The first lesson: learn everything. The second: learn how to learn. Now maybe the next lesson is to learn to trust myself and my experience and learn how to carry my lessons with confidence. It really is like jazz. Take what you know and play with it, innovate, interpret, have fun with it and just let go.

I will have to work on that.

That's a hard thing, but yeah, I think I'm on to something.

Busier Than Ever

2008-12-14T21:06:00.000-08:00

Last Friday we had our student showcase at RCW. My students did awesome. They were all smiles and good energy and the audience wanted more, which is exactly how we like leaving them. They worked hard and kicked butt and I hope they are happy with their great achievement. But now that all of that is over with, I thought I'd have some time and space to breathe, but no, it's not like that at all.

The next pressing performance is a gig with Mark Izu and "friends." Not quite sure who all his friends are, but we go into rehearsal next week for that, and Janet had me go over stuff with her. I have a feeling that it won't be a "play this thing now," kind of thing. The direction may be more nebulous and open to creativity and interpretation. Which is why I'm glad that Janet likes to always be prepared, and I'm glad we had a little session today. I think this will be more nerve wracking to me since I'm not used to this kind of style but it will be good experience for me. They're jazz musicians so I'll just play it cool, man, you know, like jazz.

I'd also like to work on my new song, and we've created a shift and opening up of the piece that leaves it more up to me to figure out what to do with it. This will require some quiet time with my practice pad and my imagination. It's the time part that I'm short on.

Also Michaelle is teaching us cool little things and I want to just go over them all day. I'd also like to work some of the rhythms she's shown us into taiko parts. What's great about her class is that everything we're learning is exactly the opposite of what I've ever been taught about taiko. For one thing we are learning hand drumming, which means you hit the drum with your hand. I remember once we were trying to lug taiko from one place to the next and I got yelled at for touching the head of the drum with my finger. Jeez. Now I have to play the drum with my hands and there's this itty bitty part of me that fears someone is going to jump out of the woodwork and yell at me again. Also we've been working on stick stuff and there are times we play the side of the drum with the stick, which is also a big taiko no-no for me. Some groups hit the side of the drum, but ours didn't (because it makes dents, and somebody has to sand all those dents out eventually). I am really trying hard in this class. I have a hard time remembering patterns, and that is a challenge. I'm a slow learner, and I'm glad Michaelle is always so patient with me, and I'm glad also she pushes me and makes me learn variations. She keeps it interesting, although anything we do is interesting.

And finally I need to come up with syllabi for next session's classes. I'm going to try a new approach to the beginning class. I'd like to make it more fun and less work for them. Less pressure to go home and practice. I'd like to see if I can keep attrition to a minimum if I make it more fun for them. Then if I see that there are more serious minded folks I can eventually ask them to join the intermediates, which is where I'll ask them to work harder. It'll be an experiment. Less stress for me, and for them. Janet warned me that I may not like having a class like that. We'll see.

So back to work for me. But this is good though. Work on skills. Work on my class. Work on performance. Work on creating my own song. I like this. Just wish I had more hours in my day.

Projection

2008-12-10T21:30:00.000-08:00

On Friday my students are going to be in their first RCW Taiko performance, which for the majority of them will be their first taiko performance ever. I resist the urge to project my own feelings upon them, but I can't help but feel them anyway. I don't think I remember what my first performance was, but I certainly remember significant performances--the preparation, the hard work, sore muscles, the stressing, the nervousness. You get there and you hear the crowd before you see them. Your stomach twinges, your palms sweat, your heart flutters. There's that thrill and excitement in the air. You get up there, in front of friends, family, strangers, and do the thing that's been such a long time coming, and then it's over, just like that. And then maybe you realize it's not the performance that was significant, but the actual build-up and anticipation and all the work went in it to get you there. I'm personally not a bit nervous about this Friday's performance, and I feel a little proud saying that. I mean I've been there already. But no way do I take that for granted. There are still performances that make me feel as green as the first day I picked up a pair of bachi, that make me all nerves. During our first Ghosts and Girls show I was standing there behind the curtain that separated us from an auditorium filled with people (we could hear them!) and I didn't know what to do with all my nervous energy so I started doing silly dances and stuff with Crissy. So I hope that this recital means something to my students. I hope they realize how hard they have been working. How all the energy they have expended in class works toward something. How they have contributed to the community that RCW strives to create.

Or maybe I'm just projecting. The experiences that taiko has brought have come to mean a lot to me, so maybe I just remember and process these experiences differently than, say, my first driving lesson, or whatever. But maybe I think that you gain similar significance in your life with whatever it is that means something to you. There are lessons to be learned and taken away and applied to the rest of your life. This recital doesn't have to mean that to my students, and I don't expect it to be, but I hope that if there is anyone in this class who wants to take taiko, or music, or performance, or the arts more seriously, then I hope that all their hard work pays off for them in the long run. They worked hard. They asked for rehearsals every week before their recital when I asked for nothing more than showing up for the requisite classes. But my philosophy is if that if they were willing, then I would be there to encourage it.

So the best of luck to them all. Break a bachi!

I Got a New Hoodie!

2008-12-07T20:31:00.000-08:00

I've been needing a new hoodie and I got a good one today! Check out the new RCW hoodies! You know you want one too! I'm not taking this baby off until it gets warm again--like maybe April or May! You'd have to peel this off my frigid dead body if you ever wanted to get your hands on it. Get your own--really!

We had a good rehearsal today. We worked on the new song I was helping Janet on. Makes me realize I need to get back into taiko shape. Slant stand stuff is hard--there's lots of movement and it's easy to wear yourself out. But it's oh so worth it. The song moves from being in 6 to being in 4. That's a workout for the brain right there. I'm glad we don't have to solo over a 6-groove. There's three of us on slants and two more on sets of small drums. It's sounding really good now even in its cocoon stages.

I also heard our recording of Kai to Ryu today. It's pretty awesome. They did some magic tricks to make it sound good, but you'd never know. They also added a touch of reverb at the end that gave it an extra sense of Oooh! When we recorded I insisted we redo a section that we messed up on. Not something that a regular person might hear, but it was something I'd hear and know and groan about for the rest of eternity. It sounds good, yo. Kai has always been such a struggle for me. Oh, all the blog entries I've written about that piece! Oh, the horror, Oh the struggle and defeat and triumph. That song has haunted all my days, but we've finally made something I'm proud of (although nothing could make me feel more triumphant than when we performed it last at Born to Drum)

Next Friday we have our Taiko Class recital. My students will be performing Mokuyobi to a live audience. We've been working really hard on this--the students have been working really hard. And it shows! At rehearsal last Tuesday they rocked. I had an anxiety dream about the recital last night. I dreamed that we had reworked the whole song and I just couldn't remember the new sequence. It was like those dreams where you show up to class and realize you forgot to study for an exam. I just couldn't get the sequence down no matter how many times I went over it. I was contemplating writing it down on my arm so I could play with them. I also got there late and had forgotten my black tabi. Oh it was horrible! I'm going to pack my costume right now!

But I know it will go great. If I actually showed up in that condition I know my students would just carry the performance on their own. Come check it out:

Rhythmix Student Showcase
Rhythmix Cultural Works
2513 Blanding Avenue
Alameda, CA 9401
510.865.5060
December 12, 2008
7:00 pm
FREE!

Come on by and see what the other classes are up to!

For Mom

2008-12-03T20:06:00.000-08:00

I miss you.

Watching It All Come Together

2008-12-01T23:19:00.000-08:00

I've been helping Janet with a new piece she is composing. It's been interesting seeing the creative process at work. I'm there as an extra set of hands and a second opinion. At the first Taiko Conference I went to, they had breakout sessions and one of them was on the composing process. Janet was on the panel along with other taiko greats, and I thought they would be talking about how to compose music. Like, step one, get out a sheet of paper. Step two, write out a general outline of the song. Step three, get 3 pair of dice and light a candle and say the kuchi shoga backwards in the bathroom mirror. Instead it turned out to be a meandering session on philosophical stuff that just wasn't helpful. Not that they didn't have interesting things to say--it just wasn't as practical and hands-on as I thought it would be.

But these past few weeks with Janet I've gotten to witness her thought process, and the way that she fits ideas and pieces together into actual music. It's all very organic. I've been struggling with composing my own song, and it's been good to see how it's actually done. She uses her bag of tricks and isn't afraid to just throw things together. One of the things she said was that if you just work at it long enough taiko just starts to sound good and come together--and it is! She's going to present it to the rest of the group next Sunday--and I get to help! I'd like to see that part of the process too--the presenting, the collaboration and negotiation and compromise and new ideas and perspectives and opinions. How do you take your baby that you've been nurturing and growing and submit it to the group for input and feedback and re-working? I'd like to see how she handles herself.

I kept smashing my knuckles on the slant drums. I must have a lot of form stuff to work on. This is good though. I mean, it's one thing to be a student and to play what they tell you, but to be a fly on the wall in the creative process is a new step forward. It's like finally getting to sit at the grown-up table at Thanksgiving.

Onsen

2008-11-17T22:27:00.001-08:00

I'll take one of these please. And maybe one of those cold-water dunking tubs too. And maybe the excellent company of the Kasa/mix ladies too.

Ouchie

2008-11-11T21:07:00.000-08:00

I have a neck/shoulder ache from Hell. These things last several days. It's hard to sleep and even harder to look over my shoulder to change lanes.

I am so glad I have a bye week from taiko classes.

I just wish I could spend these days in the onsen. That would fix everything.

Between You and Me

2008-11-09T21:34:00.000-08:00

Here is a video from Fright Night. I'm only showing this to you because you're either a friend, or related to me, or because you took the trouble of coming all the way out here to this corner of the internet universe. This is not something I'd show to just anyone. No way. This is a side of me you'll never see anywhere else and you are free to laugh you're butt off, but just don't remind me of this later and don't ask for an encore. Enjoy. I think Crissy and Janet are hilarious!

Handedness

2008-11-08T22:04:00.000-08:00

I don't think that my left hand is a part of my body.

I don't.

How could a part of my body be so foreign to me? How could a part of my body completely disown me and pretend to not know me altogether? I mean really, my brain is the boss, right? Why then when I ask my right hand to play something it completely agrees with my brain, while my left hand pretends that it hadn't heard the command? Why doesn't it follow orders? Why the adolescent delay? You know how it was when you were a teenager and your parents told you to do something, and you were like, OK, but not because I want to, but then you did it anyway, because you had to. That's my left hand. And it's not like I'm asking it to do anything weird. I'm not asking it to dress up and wear pastel shirts with shoulder pads to their 8th grade picture day or anything (speaking from experience). Mostly I want it to do the same thing the right hand just did, but in rhythmical time. My left hand is such a punk.

I've been working on sticking drills and I just can't get my left to keep up with my right. The only thing that gives me hope is that Michaelle said she still can't get her left hand to do what she wants--and she practices every day. Ok then. And still I bet that her left hand keeps better time than my right, hands down (get it? get it?).

My newest obsession is trying to get my double bounce roll to sound good. What trips me out is switching from those skinny western sticks to bachi. Going from western sticks to bachi is like trying to floss with rope, or trying to eat with a ladle instead of a spoon, or wearing clown shoes to a marathon. Do you see where I'm going? But it's good though, because the skills still carry over. Michaelle said it's the technique that shines through, and no matter what you play, if you don't have the skills, then it doesn't matter.

Which means I need to get busy with my practicing. Every day.

I'm Learning the Conga!

2008-11-06T21:37:00.000-08:00

I'm learning the conga and it is so much fun! I think the funnest part is that my brain is being forced to learn rhythm in a completely new way. Instead of playing with sticks, I'm using my hands, and there is this heel-toe thing that is new to me. I feel like I'm getting two hits for the price of one and it totally throws me off--but in a good way. And we're learning the music in a more methodical, counting fashion. Not that there's anything wrong with kuchi shoga, but I'm actually learning things I already know but from a new perspective. Like tonight I was learning a bell pattern that had been taught to me two different ways before, but now it was this entirely new way, and it made so much more sense. It's refreshing, and I like it. Also when my teacher thinks that I've got a pattern, she likes to push me a little harder, and while the rest of the class is working on a rhythm, she'll reach out and tap me on the arm and motion to her hands, and I'll realize all of a sudden that she is introducing a variation, so I'll have to start playing the same rhythm, but a little more difficult and interesting. I like the way she doesn't have to say anything to teach me new things. I really appreciate that there are people in this world who push me. And Michaelle barely knows me, but she pushes me, and I am thankful for that.

Playing with my hands is a trip. I've been so busy at work shuffling papers, and when you move paper around like that you get hands full of paper cuts. I've got a particularly nasty one that I was afraid was going to pop open tonight, but it didn't, and phew!

I've also been trying to take our notation sheets (So helpful! So un-taiko!) and playing with my new garageband software to get the sounds recorded so I can hear them. I can't read western notation very well, but I'm learning! This class is great! I think I feel my brain growing.

2008-10-30T23:07:00.000-07:00

Learning new kinds of drumming is so awesome! Tonight was my percussion class and we warmed up with some very basic drills. I love drills. If I could I would drill all day long. Michaelle threw in some toe-tapping along to the patterns that made everything completely different and challenging. When I first learned taiko I was taught that if your feet left the ground that you lose your connection with the earth and all its energy. I like that philosophy, but learning to tap helps you understand the music and rhythms on a different level. It's good to get these different perspectives. Neither are wrong.

The focus of the class is conga, and though I originally wasn't interested in learning conga, the things we are learning now are profoundly interesting and informative about rhythm and its roots and its complexities that don't immediately present themselves when you first hear them. It feels so good to challenge the brain and get it out of its usual rut and comfort zone. I look forward to more learning!

Flu Shot Time!

2008-10-29T20:46:00.000-07:00

Time to get your flu shot! I got mine today! It stung like #$%@ but it didn't give me the usual day or two of ick and yuck and blah. I feel fine! Knock on wood. But seriously, the prick was only for a second, and the stinging only lasted an hour. Way better than unexpectedly crashing half-way through your day and then spending the next week in bed in a semi-conscious delirium while half-watching court TV and eating top ramen and leaving behind a trail of kleenex wherever you go.

But you know, whatever. Up to you.

Escucha y Repita

2008-10-28T22:18:00.000-07:00

When I was younger and learning spanish, I remember having to listen to a record of some disembodied spanish speaker (whom I always imagined was wearing bell bottoms and a turtle neck and maybe some clunky jewelry) and she would always preface whatever she was saying with: "Escucha y repita," which means listen and repeat. She nailed the intonation and rolled those r's so that escucha y rrrrepita is like a mantra of mine.

Anyhow I say all this because my taiko journey has been just that. My latest project is making some shime stands, and although I've made a stand once before, I wanted to make the tripod-ish version of the stand. So one night I borrowed a stand and made my own diagram and measurements of this:

And then went to Home Despot and got a bunch of lumber and screws and other hardware, and then flipped through this book that Janet gave me:
. . . and after a little trial and error and a bunch of just jumping in with a handsaw, some clamps, and my trusty drill gun, I came up with this:

I bought those T-shaped metal braces but I don't think I need them. What do you think? I think it's sturdy enough as it is. I used a lot of glue and nice long screws. The other shime stand at RCW doesn't have the braces and I think it's holding up well. Plus that's nice birch hardwood.

I'm thinking of tung oiling that baby. I just need to make the crossbar thingie that connects the bottom sides together, and then it's done! One down, 2 more to go!

Fright Night Wooooo!

2008-10-27T21:04:00.000-07:00

This past Saturday was Fright Night at RCW. It was the only fundraiser of the year for RCW, and based on the crowds, I think we did pretty good. Me and a couple other Maze folks helped Janet out with her Yokai Monster dungeon. We made at least one child cry, so of course it was completely worth it. Yes, I painted myself green, as seen here with Freakishly Tall Girl and Bad Santa (but without my shell. A shame that I didn't get any pics of myself in full kappa regalia):I am never putting on that green make-up ever again. As soon as I slathered it on it felt absolutely disgusting. What made it worse was that I was sweating like a fiend, and my sweat would fly around but it was green. I have green stains on my josuke and shime to permanently remind me of Fright Night. Now, I've said time and time again that I love green and it's my favorite color, but come on people, this is taking that obsession to a completely different level. But it was fun, really.

The other work-live units each hosted their offerings to Fright Night. My favorite was the rendition of Picasso's Guernica. In addition to the visual delight, they were actually a band playing live music. It was cool stuff--I wish I had stayed longer to hear more of it:It was also great to see Rhythmix transformed from modest cultural center, to a deadly house of horror:This is the haunted cabaret. It had a "bonedelier" (think chandelier) and creepy cobwebs and strategically placed ghoulishly dead dummies. Crissy screamed every time she walked in the door and was greeted by one of them. It was lifelike, I have to admit.
That baby is creepy, huh?

Janet preening a fellow Yokai:
Crissy, a.k.a. grudge girl:Fun! Hope you made it, and if not, maybe next year!

Water Water Everywhere . . .

2008-10-23T23:47:00.001-07:00

I've got 40 feet of birch and all I need are a couple of bar clamps. And maybe a mitre box. Just wait, this pile of lumber is going to transform into 3 shime stands, yo!

Ok, Ok, not THAT pile of lumber in the picture. My pile is too lazy to be photographed.

Fright Night Prep

2008-10-18T00:04:00.001-07:00

Today I met up with a whole gang of RCW folks at a place where they were having a huge costume blow-out sale. Janet is totally in the spirit of Fright Night, and she has some of us Maze people featured in her haunted house. There are 6 or 7 work/live units at RCW, and everyone is transforming their spaces into Harrowing Halloween Hostels of Horror! Janet's theme is Japanese Yokai monsters. I once took a test to find out which Japanese demon I was, and it turned out that I was a "kappa," or water/turtle demon that likes to eat children and fart and look up women's kimonos. I did not know that about myself! But it was funny because as Janet was thinking about what sort of creature I should be, she chose the kappa. Weird!

At the costume place today, I found an Oreo costume, which I transformed into the turtle-shell Kappa outfit above. I also found some cool green gloves and that raffia stuff. I've got zombie fingertips, green make-up and green hair color. We'll see how it all turns out. It should be creepy! If I frighten just a few children then I will count this as a success.

Come on out and check out Fright Night for yourself! It's a fundraiser for RCW and it promises to be lots of fun. Oh, and bring the kids too! Bwah ha ha ha!!

Clave and Life and How Things Come Back Again

2008-10-16T21:16:00.000-07:00

Tonight I had my first real lesson about clave. That's hard stuff. I mean, rhythmically the clave pattern isn't hard to play, but understanding how it fits into the rest of the music is another thing. It's not a straight beat--it drifts away from the downbeats and comes back again. It links all the pieces together. It changes from the first bar to the next but always comes back home again. It could take years to really understand all the complex ways clave works, but it does work and when you hear and know what is going on, it's a little like magic.

I've been taking beginning drumming lessons from this wonderful percussionist/teacher named Michaelle. I first met her at drum camp 3 years ago and was instantly in awe of her. I think everyone who sees her play is. She can play everything and she can play it perfect. That's not an exaggeration. Perfect timing is how Janet describes her. Actually what first impressed me about her was this one moment at the first drum camp 3 years ago. A student came up to her during a break between classes and asked her if she was going to teach tamborim. But Michaelle said she wasn't, and the student was disappointed, and half a beat later Michaelle said, "But I can teach you a little something right now," and she sat the student down and started teaching her a pattern. You could see how much the student appreciated it. That drum camp was special for me because it opened my heart up again to the world. I was mourning the loss of my mother then, and I felt lost, and I felt like I had lost my connection to music and people. But then Janet, the last flickering light in a world that had gone dark on me, asked me to come to camp with her and it was as if she had yanked the curtains open and let in the dazzling brilliance of daylight. She brought me to this special place where all these wonderful and inspiring women were making music together--this whole community--and I was invited in without question, and the whole experience brought me back into that world that I missed so much. Seeing Michaelle make that one connection with that one student is something I'll never forget. The spirit of that moment was so completely unselfish and embodied all the best things about sharing knowledge and kindness.

It all comes back full circle, doesn't it? Now I am taking a class from Michaelle, someone I would have never met on my own, who in a moment's time taught me so much about compassion and teaching, and I've taken that moment of kindness and try each week to carry that spirit with me as I teach my own class, and in my class I strive to pass on the lessons that my taiko community have taught me, all in a space created by Janet, who taught me much of what I know about taiko in the first place and who also has her own unique and wonderful vision about how art can create community. It kind of blows my mind a little thinking about all this tonight.

And I think this brings us back to clave again. That's what my journey is like. It's confusing at first. It has its surprises. It takes time to understand. But in the end it all fits together. You don't realize how important it is until you begin listen and see how all the disparate parts of your life come together and reveal themselves. About how each person is a beat that touches your life and makes sense of it, even if it takes years to understand why.