The Complexity of Thought When Speaking
Standing in front of you, the words begin to form….
The ambiguity of discernment
Looking within the box of paradoxical ideas, I found only my thoughts….
But you listened
and heard….
Lake Greenwood and Shore
Another beautiful afternoon at the lake, on a brisk cool day….
Our day at the lake was very memorable
“I remember a hundred lovely lakes, and recall the fragrant breath of pine and fir and cedar and poplar trees. The trail has strung upon it, as upon a thread of silk, opalescent dawns and saffron sunsets.” – Hamlin Garland
“Let yourself be open and life will be easier. A spoon of salt in a glass of water makes the water undrinkable. A spoon of salt in a lake is almost unnoticed.” – The Buddha
Weekly Photo Challenge: Peaceful 03 – Slow Creek and Trees
A lovely hike of leisure along a creek in the low-country of South Carolina….
During my 2005 artist in residency with the South Carolina State Parks, I had some time to hike and reflect. An important source of inspiration was the beautiful landscape at Barnwell State Park. Here I discovered a trail that meandered by a slow-moving creek. Trees over-hanging, and the glimpse of sunlight flickering on the water made for an exciting contemplative view.
Finding peace in nature and solitude
Life offers some very rewarding peaceful moments….
Weekly Photo Challenge: Peaceful 02 – Mountain and Sky
Just a glimpse of a peaceful moment … fleeting … mountain and sky….
Through the shadows, mountain and sky
A photograph taken while hiking in the mountains of Tennessee….
Weekly Photo Challenge: Peaceful – Lake and Sky
Moments that give us peaceful reflections are all around us….
Giulas over at the blog The Eternal Solitude of the Restless Mind says this is a wonderful prompt for the beginning of the new year. And I agree wholeheartedly. As we move forward—working hard, playing hard, and living life to the fullest, it is important to slow down and find a peaceful moment. A time out is needed. So a visit to a beautiful lake on a lovely day, can be just the ticket. It will rejuvenate the mind and body.
Hope you enjoy my visit to the lake.
Lake and sky on a beautiful day
It was a cold, brisk day but warm in statue….
Music For Backgrounds 02: Jack DeJohnette -Peace time
A beautiful journey into a serene world of meditative bliss. This is perfect music for your meditation, creative process or yoga practice….
– Jack DeJohnette’s Peace time 1:02:08
Throughout late 2009 and most of 2010, Peace time was one of my most played albums. It simply is captivating….
Jack DeJohnette (born 9 August 1942) is an American jazz drummer, pianist, and composer. He is one of the most influential jazz drummers of the 20th century, due to extensive work as leader and sideman for musicians like Miles Davis, Joe Henderson, Freddie Hubbard, Keith Jarrett and Sonny Rollins.
Biography
DeJohnette was born in Chicago, Illinois. Besides the drums, he also studied the piano. He first became known as a member of Charles Lloyd’s band, a group that pianist Keith Jarrett also was a part of at that time. He played with Bill Evans in 1968 on the acclaimed Bill Evans at the Montreux Jazz Festival, and from 1969 to 1972 played with Miles Davis. In the 1970s he recorded for Milestone/Prestige and ECM. He also appeared widely on ECM as a sideman. Since then he has recorded for MCA Records, Blue Note Records, and Kindred Rhythm.
DeJohnette has led several groups since the early-1970s, including Compost, a jazz-rock group that did two albums for Columbia with Bob Moses and Harold Vick; Directions (with John Abercrombie, Alex Foster, Warren Bernhardt, and Mike Richmond); New Directions (with Abercrombie, Lester Bowie, and Eddie Gomez); Gateway (with John Abercrombie and Dave Holland); and Special Edition (with David Murray, Chico Freeman, Arthur Blythe, Peter Warren, and others). Since the 1980s, he has been a member of what has become known as Keith Jarrett’s Standards Trio alongside Jarrett and Gary Peacock.
Since 2003, DeJohnette has been part of Trio Beyond with fellow musicians Larry Goldings (organ) and John Scofield (guitar). The trio was set up in tribute to The Tony Williams Lifetime trio led by Williams with Larry Young (organ) and John McLaughlin (guitar). He also currently appears as a member of the Bruce Hornsby Trio. In February, 2009, DeJohnette received the Grammy Award for Best New Age Album, Peace Time.
DeJohnette’s most current project as of 2010 is Jack DeJohnette Group, featuring Rudresh Mahanthappa on alto saxophone, David Fiuczynski on double-neck guitar, George Colligan on keyboards and piano, and long-time associate Jerome Harris on electric and acoustic bass guitars.
DeJohnette successfully incorporates elements of free jazz and world music, while maintaining the deep grooves of jazz and R&B drummers. His exceptional experience of time and style, combined with astounding improvisational ingenuity, make him one of the most highly regarded and in-demand drummers. He also occasionally appears on piano, on his own recordings.
In 2012, DeJohnette will be awarded an NEA Jazz Masters Fellowship for his “significant lifetime contributions have helped to enrich jazz and further the growth of the art form.”
Maps and Trails (Turning the Page – A Bend In the Curve Remix)
Crossing the bridge of discovery we find ourselves….
Biking to a new place
Some thoughts on ambition and the nature of Self….
How often in life we complete a task that was beyond the capability of the person we were when we started it. – Robert Brault
Ambition is not what man does… but what man would do. – Robert Browning
It is in our nature to discover things and in our will to reach them. – Walter Smith
We Can Say Things That Are Just Shadows Of Ourselves
The city series….
We are at times left behind
A shadow of ourselves
there was a photo of me
here
against the granite wall
falling
to this very day
knowing
not just a shadow now
with little to say
except
time does fly
when saying good-bye….
Music For Backgrounds 01: Dr. Atmo – Samarra (Sad World II)
Music For Backgrounds is my 2012 music reviewer which will explore new music in the electronic / ambient genre. I hope to continue what I began with last year’s 30-Day Song Challenge; introducing my readers to the music of artists from around the world. I am calling this series “Music For Backgrounds” because I want to bring a musical sensibility that supports participation from a distance. This is background music. Music for creating art, working around the house, reading, anything where your attention is needed elsewhere. It is music for repeated listening throughout the day. Most of the tracks will be slightly long in length (up to an hour will be the average), therefore I suggest that you make a copy of the URL and paste it in a folder or on your desktop. Because of the length of the music, I realize that it may be difficult to devote listening time while posting.
First up in the series is Dr. Atmo. In the 1990’s I was very much influenced by the FAX label out of Germany. The label, founded by Pete Namlook, brings together various musicians in the electronic sphere for collaboration and solo projects. Dr. Atmo produced the 2-cd masterpiece entitled Samarra (Sad World) in 1993. The track featured here is just over 40 minutes long. It is a long-flowing, mind-blowing excursion into a wall of sound. It begins with a wash of ocean surf and synths with a vocalization depicting a rather strange, surreal story of Jesus in the upper room. As the piece progresses, the cyclical synths are joined by drums and sequencing beats. Sad World is a beautiful and mysterious work of art. A true masterpiece.
Weekly Movie-Making Moments In Film: Joe Frank Theater
The ongoing work of avant-garde monologist Joe Frank….
Memories
During the 1980’s while listening to NPR Radio, I came across the incredible surrealist work of monologist Joe Frank. His dark story of angst and misplaced reality quickly fascinated me. His work over the years has been a strong influence on my writing and my visual art. I am very pleased to introduce to you, my readers, to the beautiful work of Joe Frank. – Walter Smith
Joe Frank (born August 19, 1938) is an American radio personality, known best for his often philosophical, humorous, surrealist, and sometimes absurd monologues and radio dramas.
Early life
Joe Frank was born Joseph Langermann in August 1938 in Strasbourg, France near the border of Germany to Meier Langermann (then 51) and his wife Friederike (then 27), while in transit from Germany (where they were living, although they were Polish citizens). Being Jewish, his family was fleeing Nazi Germany and moving to New York City, where they arrived on April 12, 1939. Bills to allow the family into the country were passed in the U.S. Congress twice, the first having been vetoed by President Roosevelt. Joe’s father died when he was 5 years old. The next year his mother married Freddy Frank and changed Joe’s last name. In his twenties, Frank studied at Hofstra University in New York and later at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. Frank taught English literature at the Dalton School in Manhattan when he became interested in the power of radio.
Early Career
In 1977 Frank started volunteering at Pacifica Network station WBAI in New York, doing experimental radio involving monologues, improvisational actors, and live music during late night free-form hours. In 1978 he moved to Washington DC to serve as a co-anchor for the weekend edition of National Public Radio’s All Things Considered, his first paying radio job.
During this period he wrote, performed in, and produced 18 dramas for NPR Playhouse, which won several awards. His 1982 monologue “Lies” was used as the inspiration for the Martin Scorsese movie After Hours, without permission.(He later settled out of court for a “handsome” settlement.)
KCRW, 1986–2002
In 1986, on the invitation of Ruth Hirschman [Seymour] the general manager of NPR’s Santa Monica affiliate KCRW, Frank moved to Santa Monica, California where he wrote, produced and performed in his own weekly hour-long radio program, “Joe Frank: Work In Progress.”
While at KCRW, Frank received several awards, including a Peabody Award and two Corporation for Public Broadcasting Awards, one for his acclaimed three-part series “Rent-a-Family.” Frank was also a Guggenheim Fellow.
Joe Frank continued to work at KCRW until 2002, and his work evolved, as evidenced by the diverse series he produced: first Work in Progress, then In The Dark, followed by Somewhere Out There, and finally The Other Side.
Radio programs
Frank’s radio programs are often dark and ironic, and employ a dry sense of humor and the sincere delivery of ideas or stories that are patently absurd. Subject matter often includes religion, life’s meaning, death, and Frank’s relationships with women.
Frank’s voice is distinctive, resonant, authoritative, and—because of his occasional voice-over work—often oddly familiar. At the 2003 Third Coast Festival he explained that he was “recording in Dolby and playing back without it—which created Joe’s now familiar intimate and gritty sound.”
Adding to the atmosphere of Frank’s monologues are edited loops of instrumental music from sources as diverse as Miles Davis, Steve Reich, Tangerine Dream, Can, Air and Antonio Carlos Jobim.
The repetitive music and Frank’s dry, announcer-like delivery are sometimes mixed with recorded phone calls with actor/friends such as Larry Block, Debi Mae West and Arthur Miller, broken into “acts” over the course of each hourlong program.
Frank’s series The Other Side included excerpts from Buddhist teacher Jack Kornfield’s Dharma talks at Spirit Rock Meditation Center. In an interview on KPFA’s the Morning Show, Kornfield was asked about working with Joe Frank. Kornfield explained that although he had never met or talked to Joe Frank or heard his show, he didn’t mind Frank using the lectures and that many of his meditation students had found Kornfield through the show.
Other work
- He can be heard on the song ‘Montok Point’ on William Orbit’s album Strange Cargo Hinterland.
- “The Decline Of Spengler” Stage Play (New Directions 48, New York)
- “A Tour Of The City” Stage Play (Tanam Press, New York) was produced by Theatre Anima at Hangar #9 in the Old Port of Montreal in 1990, and was directed by Jordan Deitcher.
- The Queen of Puerto Rico and Other Stories,, William Morrow and Co, New York, 1993. ISBN 0-688-08765-5 a collection of short stories: Tell me what to do—Fat man—Night—Date—Walter—The queen of Puerto Rico—The decline of Spengler
2002–present
Since 2002, Frank has performed on stage in Chicago at the Art Institute of Chicago and Steppenwolf Theatre, in San Francisco at the Great American Music Hall and in Los Angeles at the Hammer Museum and Largo at the Coronet, as well as other venues.
In 2003, Joe Frank was honored with a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Third Coast International Audio Festival.
His body of work (over 230 hours) continues to be aired on the Pacifica Radio affiliate station KPFA in Berkeley, California and many NPR stations including WNYC New York, KCRW Santa Monica and WBEZ Chicago. The entire archives, Joe Frank film shorts and other extras, are available by subscription to his web site. Show CDs, downloads, and iPods are also available through his website.
Frank’s new web site launch in August 2010 now includes free daily downloads of stories excerpted from his radio shows.
Frank continues to write new work for the stage and his website, and posts frequently on Facebook.
Inspiration to other artists
Frank’s body of work has inspired a variety of other artists including:
- Ira Glass of This American Life: “Ira Glass worked under Frank as one of his first jobs in public radio, and credits him as his greatest inspiration.”
- David Sedaris, writer
- Troy Schulze, a theater artist in Houston who created the show Jerry’s World (2003) for the Houston, Tx.-based theater group Infernal Bridegroom Productions. Utilizing material from several Frank shows, the piece was deemed “Best Original Show” in Houston that year, by the Houston Press.
- Jeff Crouse, artist and technologist, created Interactive Frank, which uses content from the web to dynamically create a Joe Frank Show. “The user types in a sentence, and Interactive Frank takes over, scouring the web for another sentence that follows a sentence with the last three words. Frank can also find streaming audio to accompany the generated narrative based on a word analysis, and it can read the narrative using an online text-to-speech generator.”
- Filmmakers like Francis Ford Coppola, Michael Mann, David Fincher and Ivan Reitman have optioned or bought stories from Joe Frank’s radio shows.
Voiceover and acting work
Joe Frank has done voice over work for commercials including Zima, and Saturn Corporation. He was the voice of the computer in Galaxy Quest and provides voiceover for:
- “Wild Rescues” on Animal Planet
- “Conspiracies” on A&E
- “Ends of the Earth” on the Learning Channel
- “Hurricane X” on the Discovery channel
- “Sexy Beast” film: narrator on trailer. This trailer was nominated for best film trailer in 2004.
He also had a small acting role in The Game.
Awards
- 2003
- Third Coast International Audio Festival Lifetime Achievement Award
During NPR Playhouse
- 1982
- Broadcast Media Award
- 1983
- Radio Program Award from the Corporation For Public Broadcasting
- Gold Award from the International Radio Festival of New York
- 1984
- Gold Award from the International Radio Festival of New York (second)
- American Nomination to the Prix Italia
- 1985
- Special Commendation from the Berlin Prix Futura
During Work In Progress
- 1988
- Major Armstrong Award
- Corporation For Public Broadcasting Program Award
- 1991
- Peabody Award
- 1993
- Guggenheim Fellowship for Radio Art
We Say Good-Bye To Ourselves
For you and I all that is left….
Looking out to what was
we say good-bye to ourselves
before it is too late
when you ask to know why
before the last door is shut
you smell the rose
you see the forest for the trees
lost at sea
we say good-bye to ourselves
before the next day comes
when you know the answer why
the last door can’t be found
no more pie in the sky
no more man in the moon
is it really too soon
to say good-bye
The Silence In Urban Meditation
The silence series….
Towards the inner silence of the city – urban meditation
Urban Meditation 01
Urban Meditation 02
Meditation is not a way of making your mind quiet. It is a way of entering into the quiet that is already there – buried under the 50,000 thoughts the average person thinks every day. – Deepak Chopra
In the city the choices that become attachments lead us into the noise of our thoughts….
Urban Meditation 03t
Urban Meditation 04
My meditation is without hesitation, and the marks left behind are indications of a state of oneness with my environment, my people and the universe. – Ian Factor
Somewhere in the city; in its alleys, playgrounds, parks and abandoned buildings, we find the place to know ourselves….
Urban Meditation 05
Urban Meditation 06
At the museum a troubled woman destroys a sand painting meticulously created over days by Tibetan monks. The monks are not disturbed. The work is a meditation. They simply begin again. – Susan Griffin
In the city we find the process of renewal; we simply find the quiet place….
Urban Meditation 07
Urban Meditation 08
Is there a meditation that is not the ego trying to become? Is meditation conscious if every effort implies time? – Jiddu Krishnamurti
The city offers its timeless darkness and beautiful heaven; our meditation frees us from both….
Urban Meditation 09
To meditate is to observe yourself, for you are totally responsible for your body, mind, thought. – Jiddu Krishnamurti
The city has always been a place where I could lose myself. And at times I have….
With Every Breath A New Dream Is Born (Discovery Remix 2012)
We have all the means of vast exploration and creativity inside of us….
The inward view and the outward dream
“You must not for one instant give up the effort to build new lives for yourselves. Creativity means to push open the heavy, groaning doorway to life. This is not an easy struggle. Indeed, it may be the most difficult task in the world, for opening”. – Daisaku Ikeda
Looking Forward to 2012 – An Artist Shares His Thoughts
Looking forward to a year of art, writing, and contemplative journeys in 2012….
Riding the path to a creative tomorrow
Somewhere in the waking, I will paint with more than one color, write with more than one word, express more than one idea….
This will be my last post of 2011. It is Friday morning, December 30th. I am sitting in front of my computer while listening to Fluid Radio on ITunes. As I begin typing, Fluid Radio is playing a track entitled Shooting Blankets from the band called Two People in a Room. It is a quiet morning. The ambience is meditative. The cats are hanging about; grooming themselves, eating and listening to the sounds. I am preparing lunch; whole grain pasta, and tomato basil sauce with scallops and meatballs. I wanted to go to the gym this morning and do some spinning or weight training, however when the urge to write beckons, expression and creativity governs the day.
I have been thinking for some time now what I wanted to work on and accomplish for the New Year. This past year I feel I have been quite successful. I spoke more in depth about my past achievements in my recent post It Has Been a Year of Blogging – Some Thoughts I Wish to Share. Now it is time to look forward.
The very first thing on my agenda is the opening of my online store n e w d i g i t a l s c a p e s for selling my art. I have completed the design of the site (Imagekind is my site provider) and I am now in the process of uploading, editing and organizing my art galleries. I am very excited. An online store, I believe, is well suited for my digital art, and should provide a high quality venue for the purchasing of my art. Prints in various sizes, high-end photographic paper, canvas, and assortment of frames are all available. Links to the site will be available on my website and on my blog in January.
I am also looking forward to returning to my love of video art. I just got a HD video camera, and will be upgrading to a semi-professional editing system. I hope to investigate a distinct realm of processing which I call “video as chance”. It is a form of video expression that allows for time, space and subject matter to dictate what come into the lens of the camera. In the meantime, I will continue to create 2-dimensional photographic work. As I hope to continue to find new ways to structure my work in a beautiful yet provocative form.
I will continue to blog as often as I can. In the past year, I have come to appreciate blogging as a great tool for finding a consistency that sustains the creative process. The heavy schedule of creating new art, and marketing my online store may mean less posting. But I always let the mood of the moment carry the day, so we will see.
Another important part of my exploratory nature is my connection with the mind and body through challenging physical adventures. Top of the list is finding new mountains to climb on my mountain bike; long road trips on my road bike; rocking climbing and hopefully sky diving. That last one will take a little courage.
I hope to finish out the year with the publishing of an art book that centers on my blogging experience. Art for Posts is the title.
All in all I am looking forward to expressing ideas and concepts, and continuing the communication I have come to appreciate with so many talented writers, photographers, musicians, and artists.
2012 is a year for us. Let’s do it together.
Art rules.
Ideas conquer….
n e w d i g i t a l s c a p e s 