The Hollosphere

Following is an excerpt from an email I wrote to a friend in Seattle back on July 7th.

It is an overcast, on-and-off raining kind of day in Antwerp. My upstairs neighbor and I are going to have a coffee (tea for me) at the cafe across the street in a few minutes. Such a luxury to me! I’m enjoying the contrast in city living from our country mouse existence at home. There isn’t even a nice cafe in town, let alone across the street! At home, we don’t see anyone for days, unless we seek them out. Here, the sight and sound of humans are all around every minute. I think I like both ways of living, and notice that the experience of one deepens the appreciation of the other for me.

At the moment, a group of school kids are trooping by in two neat lines behind their teacher, their giggles and squeals echoing up and down the square and in through the open windows of the apartment. Cars are swishing past on the wet pavement. Occasionally, and unseen pair of high heels lightly clip-clop-clip-clops down on the sidewalk below the windows, a feminine sounding gait. I wonder if she’s pretty, or what she might be wearing, but instead of checking to see I let her go past and remain a mystery. There are no shortage of opportunities for people-watching here, so I don’t have to be greedy.

Last night, Conal and I had dinner at a lovely Greek restaurant a couple of blocks away. The waiter was charming and chatted with us about America and his first love, who was from New York. There is a huge variety of experience here with people in service positions, everything from haughty to spacey-uncomprehending to absolute charm and graciousness. Our gentlemanly waiter last night certainly fell into the last category. We decided we’d like to go back there, since the food was also excellent. They were out of their vegetarian mousaka, a great reason to go back.

I like remembering life in Antwerp, which is beginning to take on the flavor of a dream. Here is a picture of Oever Street, with our apartment balcony just visible to the left of Jacob Jordaens. Jespers, the little grocery in the white building, and just beyond it the cafe with the red awning, are on the right:

It’s crazy quiet here at Murray Creek. The deers are cute and all, and I have my beloved Conal with me of course, but I guess I’m kind of missing the random company of strangers.

Okay, okay, I know I said I would start blogging again and then once more went virtually silent. Le sigh. In my defense, on top of my technical difficulties with WordPress, my HP laptop gave up the ghost the day we got home from our travels. A venerable machine, scraped and cracked and dented, with screen flopping and speakers crackling, my old lappy was originally purchased in 2004 and has gone through a memory upgrade, a couple hard drives, and I lost count of how many batteries. The poor thing finally did the laptop equivalent of the Blues Brothers car meltdown. Godspeed, my old, familiar-if-not-trusty companion.

So now comes the big question for me: Another Windows machine? Pfft. I’d like to support an alternative to the Behemoth of Redmond.

At the moment, I’m working on an old Acer laptop of Conal’s, which became his Linux experimentation toy after upgrading to a new Windows laptop awhile ago. Although Ubuntu is being pretty friendly with me so far, I suspect I’m not nearly technical enough to be really comfy in a Linux environment for the long term, even sitting next to a computer scientist as I do. If I caved in and bought a Windows machine, I could use all my hard-won knowledge, decades in the accumulation, of how to get anything at all done on a PC. I’d still bug Conal plenty, of course, but Windows is the devil I know best.

But wait. Here’s a thought: how about if I consider a computer that claims to help me spend more time getting things done, being creative, and enjoying myself, rather than investing a significant portion of my life attempting to prevent or recover from breaking, freezing, crashing, becoming overrun by malicious software, and just generally being a pain in the ass? Yes, I am truly considering a Mac. ::GASP:: Steve’s got me all in a froth about his new forged-from-one-piece-of-aluminum notebooks. This in spite of the fact that there is at least one piece of software I’m not sure I’m ready to do without (MS Money), although I understand that Boot Camp can solve that problem by allowing Windows software to run on a Mac.

Ooo, baby, my kingdom for a durable, reliable, robust, fun-to-use lappy. I entertain visions of making art, music, and even movies with ease and pleasure. I would even consider paying the much ouchier Apple prices to gain entrance to this life of joyful productivity. My eyes are tearing up just imagining such a life…

I dunno really, though. I’m vacillating. I could stick with my comfort zone and grab a great deal on a Windows laptop. Or, I could set off into a new, more expensive venture into the world of Mac, which I find tantalizing and also a bit scary. Meantime, I’m getting to learn a little about Linux, so who knows.

Any PC-to-Mac converts out there? How was it? Are you glad? Any regrets? How ’bout proud Linux geeks? Any words of encouragement for a newbie?

Sparkling dew in the trees + hushed forested hills + clear fall sunlight + deer, hawks and other critters + 80 degree weather in late October + Ann next door + my own bed + the smell of warm pine sap on the breeze + other sun-warmed forest scents + home cooked meals + slow satellite wifi (hey, it’s better than nothing!) + my sweetie Conal with me = Awesome.

The morning view from the front porch:

Sparkling sapphire water + emerald hills + clear fall sunlight + Mt. Rainier + seaplanes + sailboats + family + friends + the smell of fresh and salt water on the breeze + other real mountains + fast wifi everywhere + my sweetie Conal with me = Awesome.

The view from lunch:

Oh hai.  Were you holding your breath, in trembling anticipation of a blog post?  For, like, evar????  I sorry.  Blog was broke, but will blog now (also pleez pardon lolcat silleez.  Iz adikshun!!).

But srsly, as many of you know, one of my grand adventures this summer was traveling to Switzerland to record with Michael Stillwater.  The recording was done at a big pro studio called PowerPlay, located in a charming little town outside Zurich called Maur.  That was back in July, and I’ve just gotten word from Michael that the CD, which is called “The Honoring,” has been released online.

The entire album or individual songs can be downloaded from the site.  Song clips are also available for your sampling pleasure.  If you click on individual song titles, you can find out which ones include my vocal tracks.

“The Honoring” is a collection of spontaneous songs created by Michael in his Honoring Ceremony sessions, in some cases embellished with additional instrumentation and/or my vocals.  The original live recordings used as the base tracks for the album were chosen from the hundreds of songs Michael has collected over the years.  In each, Michael is doing his lovely work of improvising a song at the request of a session participant.  Based on what the person asks for and Michael’s intuition and connection to Source, a song is born on the spot, crafted with loving care in the moment for that person.

If you’d like to hear more of my vocals with Michael, check out Feels Like Home, a very cool chant-style song we recorded in 2006.  My vocals are also heard on Michael’s live CD O Great Spirit, which is a recording of a Chantwave concert at The Center for Spiritual Living a couple years ago.

Hope u enjoyz da musik!

My wanderings amongst the twisting lanes and streets of Antwerp yesterday took me once again to the Hendrik Conscienceplein, one of the loveliest squares in Antwerp.  I find myself visiting this lovely spot again and again.  Surrounded entirely by charming facades, including the fabulously ornate Saint Carolus Borromeus Church, and ornamented by one large, lovely shade tree, the square is amazingly insulated from car traffic and the noise of the city.  I imagine the quiet and the startling acoustics, with sound powerfully enclosed in the stone confines of the square and magically free of echoes, thanks perhaps to the softening characteristics of the tree, are why I am so often delighted to find musicians performing there.

This picture is of the tree, which stands in the northwestern corner of the square.  Yesterday’s performer, a lone clarinet player, can be seen on the bench that surrounds its trunk.  He played slow, haunting melodies in rich tones, darkly creamy and sinfully smooth as the chocolate truffles sold nearby.  The collection of jazz ballads, some familiar and some not, suited the overcast day and my mood.  I’ll remember his “Stormy Weather” as one of the saddest and loveliest renditions I’ve ever heard.

Shortly after this photo was taken, three small children came  toddling into the square, darting about and chasing each other.  The two older kids can be seen in this larger photo.  They weren’t rowdy or noisy, just curiously checking out the statues and the fountain together.  It wasn’t long before the sound of the clarinet caught their full attention.  Drawn closer and closer to the player, their paths converged slowly towards him, as though they weren’t sure if it was okay to get near him but unable to resist the shrinking of their orbits, with him as the magnetic force in the center.  Eventually, they all stood a just few feet in front of him and froze there, rapt.  He played and played, swaying and twinkling his smiling eyes at them, encouraging their interest.  When at last the song came gently to an end, the children shook off the spell of their stillness and wiggled and jumped with delight.  Their father (I presumed) beckoned them over to him and gave them each a coin, instructing them to go back and place it in the basket at the player’s feet, which they did shyly before running away to resume their adventures.

I took it as my cue, as well, adding a few coins to the basket as I left to resume adventures of my own under the leaden sky, my ears still haunted by the beautiful, sad notes: “Stormy weather… it’s rainin’ all the time.”

This photo shows a group of bronze 19th century statues at the base of the southern spire of The Cathedral of Our Lady in Antwerp.  The sculpture celebrates the architects who were in charge of construction.  Or some of them, anyway.  The cathedral was built between 1352 and 1551, requiring herds of architects and workers.

Oops, but one of these guys is not like the others.  One of these guys is just not the same… One of these guys is not like the others—Sing it with me!  Okay, you don’t have to sing, but can you tell which statue is not actually made of bronze?

One of the figures is a performance artist with an uncanny costume and hilarious way of holding very still–almost.  Every inch of his clothing, skin, and hair is covered with paint to match the sculpture.  He waits until just the right moment to startle the poop out of someone with a small movement of head or tap with his hammer.  Doh!  There, I gave you a clue.

To view a larger version of this photo, click here.

If you are like me, you don’t particularly enjoy dealing with all the snail mail — much of it crap you didn’t ask for and don’t want — that comes flying your way via the US Postal Service. Perhaps, also like me, you figured dealing with the stuff to be an inevitable and inescapable chore of modern life. Perhaps you, like me, would jump at the chance to significantly reduce the hassle of dealing with your mail.

I don’t mean just rerouting or reducing the amount of mail you get, although that’s great, too. I’ve taken advantage of every “opt-out” and “do not ever mail crap to me on pain of death” option I could lay my hands on, and still I am deluged with crap. There’s no sense getting mad at the USPS, though, they’re just the messenger. What are we, the poor tired masses, to do?

Well, who knew that radical alternatives were being cooked up by some mad geniuses in Seattle. I probably would not have found out about the company at all if it weren’t for our European Romance. Since we’ll be away for the entire summer, I had to find a way to deal with the darn snail mail. As per usual, I started with a Google search, and wonder of wonders, there was Earth Class Mail.

Earth Class Mail proposes to make dealing with snail mail as simple, portable, and easy as dealing with email, while aspiring to make a significant dent in the waste stream by recycling a huge percentage of the crap mail that tends to end up in landfills. From the company’s “about” page:

Earth Class Mail is changing how postal mail is delivered, for the betterment of individuals, businesses, national post offices, and most importantly – the planet. Instead of making physical postal deliveries which are so dependent on fuel for planes and trucks, we deliver postal mail online - where people can deal with it instantly, anywhere in the world.

No matter where our customers are, they simply log-in to view pictures of their mail and decide what they want to do with each piece. For example, they can choose which pieces to have opened and scanned so they can read them online, and which to recycle, archive, or have sent to them in “snail mail” form wherever they are located – all with the click of a mouse.

Wow, this sounded great to me! I love my computer and am happy handling my business tasks online as much as possible. I’ve even been noodling on going paperless entirely. In contrast to many activities in our ever more digitally-enhanced lives, standard mail has remained hooked on physical paper. Even worse, since we moved to a private road in the country, we must get in the car and drive to the post office to retrieve our mail, since the USPS does not deliver to our home. Talk about old tech!

Annoyance factor aside, I dislike the waste of my and everybody else’s time and other resources, both monetary (those advertisers’ dollars are going straight into the trash) and environmental (I have to drive my trash to the collection site in order to dump all that useless paper I never wanted in the first place).

I read as much as I could find online about the company, which was not a whole lot, and not all of it was flattering. I decided to sign up anyway, since if the service actually delivered on its promises it would be the perfect set up for Conal and me. I created an account for both of us, chose a mailing address in Seattle (for no other reason than because it’s my hometown), and went about obtaining and mailing notarized authorization forms to ECM, which are required by USPS in order for the company to receive mail on your behalf. I was all set to receive mail via ECM.

I asked my mom to mail me something as a test. Shortly thereafter, I received an email notification that I had received a piece of mail and voy-oh-lay, there it was in my online inbox, including a scanned image of the front and back of the envelope. Cool! I proceded then to instruct the USPS to forward all our mail to our ECM address.

Now, after about two months of using the service, I can wholeheartedly recommend it.  Automated email notices are sent to alert me of activity on the account.  I can log in to the system anytime and review JPG images of the front and back of new mail, decide what I’d like to have opened and scanned, recycled, shredded, forwarded to another address, or archived.  Conal reviews his mail on the same account, and we can transfer items back and forth, with notes as to what sort of action might be needed.  So far, I’ve not needed to have anything forwarded to me in Europe.  Items that I want to have frequent access to, I download onto my hard drive (the scanned files are in PDF format) for reference as needed.  Even that is usually overkill, as archived mail is always available in the system.

When we get home this fall, I’ll stop the USPS forwarding and our regular service will resume.  However, I will very likely be switching a good deal of our mail to our ECM permanently.

This is technology that reminds me of Skype, which changed how many people (including me) perceive and execute voice communication.  I’m enjoying a similarly seismic shift in how I relate to postal mail.

An appreciative tip of the hat to Earth Class Mail.

Okay, okay, I have been a terribly lax blogger these last weeks, it’s true.  Living in Antwerp has me on total input overload, which has somehow disrupted the output circuits.

All is well, never fear, we are having a marvelous time, Conal is enjoying his work and exploring the city with me, and we are even making some friends in the neighborhood.  I’m over my cold, which I obtained internationally when I traveled to Zurich to record with Michael Stillwater.  Jet-set germs, apparently.  With the help of the powerful antihistamines available over-the-counter here, as well as some cough syrup with codeine to help me rest at night, I’ve pretty much kicked the beggers out.  I think this is the fastest I’ve gotten rid of a serious bout of bronchitis for years.  Usually, the thing will drag on for a month.  I am ever so delighted to be clear headed again.

Within the compact central portion of Antwerp, there are a gazillion restaurants, shops, malls, cafes, cathedrals, museums, lovely squares, statues, fountains, and endless historical architectural masterpieces.  We are living quite a contrast to our San Andreas lifestyle, let me tell ya.  People here, who can hop a train and be in freaking Paris in two hours, are impressed with the idea of having to drive a half an hour just to visit a sizable grocery store, or an hour to reach a city of any size.  When I tell them that a drive from my hometown of Seattle to my new home in California takes about 18 hours, they knit their brows and think about that, then I remind them that San Andreas is only halfway through California on the way to Mexico, and they give up.  Belgians can drive from one end of their country to another in a couple of hours.  I sympathize with the shock, as I have it in reverse.

However, Antwerp is so ridiculously charming I don’t know why anyone would ever want to leave.  Oh, all right, I know why.  There is ridiculously charming stuff everywhere in Europe.  If you live in one ridiculously charming place, then of course you’d like to visit other ridiculously charming places, just for a break.

At the moment, it is after midnight and I’m a little bleary.  I’ll call this one good for now, and direct you to some photos of our wonderfully weird apartment.  Enjoy.  More pics to come, here’s a taste:

The spire of the Cathedral of Our Lady, lit up in the sunset.

The lovely Ester with a house with a moat in Schoten, a town just outside of Antwerp.  More on that story later.

Wednesday I visited the café across the street from our apartment (pictured here from our balcony) for the first time. Our landlord, Frank, invited me to join him and his two friends Jennifer and Sel for a drink. Jennifer is an art dealer from Toronto, and Sel (pronounced sort of like “sill” but more complicated than I’m prepared to explain here) is a local. Both live in Antwerp not far from us. We sat at the bistro tables on the sidewalk and enjoyed our drinks, watching people (which seems to be a well-favored international sport, here in Europe), and chatting. Sel and I each had a Masala Chai, which the server had assured us did not include sugar. Served in a tall glass, the tea was exotically spicy and as promised was not at all sugary, had a lovely layer of foam on top sprinkled with spices, and was absolutely delicious.

As we sat visiting at tables outside on the sidewalk, the noise of an approaching rowdy party began to build. Soon it was enough of a commotion to bring conversation at the café to a halt, with all heads turning to see what on earth was coming up the street. Around the corner came a vehicle that I have to say was completely unique to my experience, although I understand now that it is not an uncommon sight here. I was sorry I did not have my camera with me. I’ll attempt to paint a mental picture for you.

The contraption was about the size of a large van. It was constructed with a surprisingly open framework, so you could see through its gears to the other side. High in the center of the vehicle was a lengthwise bar, with a bartender standing in the middle serving beer to the other passengers, a small counter surrounding him completely, and taps at hand for serving his “customers.” I could see the metal beer kegs mounted at the, er, stern of the vehicle. The passengers alternately crawled all over thing, walked along side, or sat on the built-in bar stools. The stools faced inward, as if one were sitting at any non-mobile bar. Seated at the bar with your elbows resting on the counter whilst nursing your beverage, you’d be facing sideways to the direction of travel. A photo of a similar contraption is shown here, though this is not exactly like the one I saw.

If you look closely at the picture, you can see that each stool (I think there were six to a side on the one I saw also), is equipped with pedals. No engine whatsoever. The whole monstrous thing was pedal powered. Beer powered, one might say, as the group of partying young men looked to be well lubricated and feeling it. Glasses of beer sat on the bar’s counter in receptacles designed to keep them from tipping over as the rig went ambling down the bumpy streets on it’s car-like wheels and tires. An arched canvas canopy shaded the whole affair and added a generally festive look. Imagine a ridiculous vehicle straying from Terry Gilliam’s imagination into your neighborhood, and you’ve pretty much got it.

I stared in amazement at this spectacle while Frank shook his head with a bemused look on his face. Suddenly, just as the party came abreast of our sidewalk tables, one of the young revelers who had dismounted the Pedal Monster staggered into oncoming traffic. A car struck and flipped him in a cartwheel motion, and up and over he went like a rag doll. He landed on the pavement and lay there for a moment, while people screamed and rushed about. He had bent in ways humans should not bend. I stayed put in my seat, figuring I would only offer first aid assistance if no one else could. Amazingly, Rag Doll Man’s mates had him up on his feet, if rather unsteadily, in less than a minute.

The driver of the car had slammed on his brakes immediately but his options were few in that narrow street.  He was hemmed in on one side by parked cars and on the other by the Pedal Monster itself.  Short of vertical take off, I don’t know what else he could have done. To him, it must have looked like Rag Doll Man appeared out of nowhere.  He sure seemed to do his best to stop, tires screeching. I felt bad for him. He seemed shaken, and looked relieved to see the guy get up and walk around under his own steam.

The police were on the scene within five minutes.  They spoke to the driver briefly and let him go, I was glad to see. The revelers milled about for a bit longer, being interviewed in turn by the officers. Somebody gave Rag Doll Man a cloth to clean the cuts on his face. He continued to walk around a bit, smiling while looking dazed and rather gimpy. Eventually the police got the whole gang back aboard, instructing them to follow one of the police vehicles. At least, that’s what I inferred based on how the now subdued Pedal Monster subsequently followed the police van closely around the corner and out of sight like a meek pony on a lead. I’m only inferring, since I did not understand a single word of the speaking and shouting that went on during the entire incident.

We at the tables surmised that Rag Doll Man’s state of inebriation was probably a blessing for the moment, keeping him loose and not too keenly aware that he’d narrowly missed sharing his next beer with the Grim Reaper. He was probably in shock, as well. I said I’d be willing to bet he’d be feeling very, very badly the next day. Frank mentioned that the party bikes, as they’re called, will likely be banned from Belgian streets because of the dangers of drunk people ambling about in traffic.  I thought to myself, you’ve got to be kidding.  There’s more than one of these contraptions? Hosting a beer bash on an open vehicle moving through city rush hour does seem sort of risky to me. No wonder I have never seen or even dreamed of such a thing in the States—I can’t imagine any self-respecting government official allowing citizens to have so much fun endangering themselves and others on American roadways.

After the uproar from the incident died down and peace returned to the neighborhood, I spent a couple more hours visiting with my new friends and enjoying the mild sunshine. Time flies when you are sitting in the sun drinking yummy tea and enjoying some excellent people watching with new friends. And all across the street from your house, no less. Heh.

Sel and Jennifer are both interested in future museum visits and shopping with me, and I’m looking forward to getting together with them again soon.

Next time, hopefully, without pedestrian casualties.