Archive for the 'Well-Being' Category
The Spence and the Gib from Jordan Dykstra on Vimeo.
Video documentation of the Matthew and Laura’s wedding on May 17, 2008. Photo documents can be found here.
A few weeks ago in my composition class at PSU, my professor introduced us to a piece called OK FEEL GOOD by a composer named Jonathan Newman. I was instantly taken back by it. The piece was written, as Newman states in the notes of the score, during “a year of somewhat intense personal distress, and I was extremely tired of feeling bad, so I decided to write a very happy piece.”
To me it’s an amazing work, full of lush melodic color and pulsating with rhythmic motion. I specifically state this because the motivic material is written in a somewhat odd meter. It starts with a bar of 7/16, goes into a bar of 3/8, back into another bar of 7/16, and then finishes with two bars of a more common 3/4. But it manages to flow very well. It has many moods, no doubt due to the fact of his intentional transition from dark to light, and it’s easy to her his love of jazz rhythms, percussion, and Gershwin. It’s warm and very tender at times, extremely sexy at others, and it reminds me a lot of a Don Ellis composition. It’s rad.
The seven and a half minute long composition was written for the Aspen Contemporary Ensemble and debuted on July 12, 1996 at the Harris Hall as part of the world renowned Aspen Music Festival. The orchestration is for a small six person chamber group: Flute (doubling Piccolo), B-flat Clarinet (doubling Bass Clarinet), Violin, Cello, Piano, and Percussion (Crotales, Xylophone, Vibraphone, Marimba, Triangle, Suspended Cymbal, Conga).
Finally I would also like to mention that Mr. Newman is part-founder and member of the BCM International, a consortium of four composers: Newman, Jim Bonney, Steven Bryant, and Eric Whitacre, who was the artist in residence at the APU School of Music two years ago. He adapted ideas and themes from Milton’s epic poem to a multimedia opera/dance/stage performance with live and prerecorded music and entitled it Paradise Lost. Interesting idea, sort of trendy output. Anyway I thought it was cool that they all work together and promote each other. Something of a no brainer but refreshing to see for two composers that I had no idea were connected.
Dated news for some, new for others, I moved:
425 se 3rd ave #208
portland, or 97214, usa
and I’m finally making my first Dash! record:
Titled Gets Unrecovered, it’s a collection of some of the new, some of the old. Eleven tracks, also showcasing a kind, bonus element including a Crystal Seth -> Righteous jam and a few selections from a film score that I am excited about/equally proud of. It should be ready for release, via Marriage and The Prescott Family next Wednesday, coincidentally when I fly back to my parent’s house, and my hometown, of Sioux City.
Lots to come in the near future including a The Righteous and Harmonious Fists Tour tour blog as well as some fat videos when I treat myself to a Christmas present of a digital camera, or maybe a cat, I haven’t decided yet1. Also, I’ve been thinking deeply about going into a classical composers bend of in-depth research/background/history alphabetically and vibeing on some shit of their’s when it hits me hardest…we’ll see, maybe a new years resolution, amongst others. Hope you dig it. Also, a top 10 albums/movies of the year vid/pod-cast…on it!
1 Well, actually I kinda have…realistically, a external hd. ya know? shit! that’s the market to be in these dayz, damn.
Part 1
So on my first day of school I wake up, begrudgingly, on time and reach over to grab my glasses and they’re gone.
What the hell?
But then remember that I watched an episode of Peep Show on my computer, lying down on my bed right before I went to sleep.
Well damn-it, they gotta be around here somewhere!
I start searching my floor. Unfortunately my floor, which is wood and covered with a dark brown rug, is the same color as my specs and I have to shuffle my socks so I don’t step on them. Nothing. I get down on my stomach and try to look horizontally at the ground and see them peeking up. Nothing. I tear my bed apart.
Are they folded in the sheets? Stuck in a pillowcase?
Nothing. So now I’m kinda feeling defeated, still really tired, and the brilliant idea came into my head…
What if I reenact the scene, maybe then I’ll get a better idea of where to look deeper.
So I doze pretty quickly, almost sure that they’ll just show up in my hand whenever I decide to wake.
(2 hours later)
Nothing. Things start to get very frustrating for me. I’ve now missed my first class at my new school but I can deal with that, whatever. It’s more that I’m literally quite attached to my glasses, they have been a part of my life — my face — since I was in the 4th grade so naturally I am put in a weird position. I feel totally helpless, lazy, and a huge eye-strain headache coming on.
WTF?!? Why today?
So I decide to take the bus to work, I can’t drive. I adjust the computer monitor to the lowest resolution it’ll go and still scooch my nose up to the screen. But then I start to realize something.…
Without eyesight, I have total freedom. Well at least a sort of freedom…from stares, uncomfortable directness, details.
I know I have to take advantage of the day, this feeling, and I start to enjoy being eyeless in Portland. When evening comes I play a show with Davis and Adrian at Valentines. Quietly content with not trying to make contact with much more than the sounds my heightened ears are awakening my conscious mind to, I listen to Privacy perform one of the most beautiful shows I’ve ever heard her play. Our show is a mixture of me fumbling a bit on an old Casio keyboard and closing my eyes and feeling my way around the electronic drumpads. There’s a unseen energy that comes out when you forget about looking. We were feeling it.
Even if I find those damn frames I think I’m gonna ride this day out sans sight
We go back to NoPo and Davis and I look around my room for a few minutes. I’m checking the bathroom again, just in case, and Davis calls out “Hey, I found them.” I hear his voice as I walk down the hall. “These it?”, he says as he picks up my glasses from a milk crate next to my desk.
Yep, that’s them. But I’m just starting to let go.…I think I’m gonna finish this day on my own.
Part 2
There was a pretty rad event last night on the 4th floor of the Oak Street Building, 16mm film loops by experimental short filmmaker Devon Damonte and music from Michael and Curtis Knapp, Adam Forkner, and Adrian Orange. Co-presented by Marriage Records and our neighbor 40 Frames, it turned out to be, well, a lot like Damonte described it:
“Multiple projectors manipulate handmade cameraless 16mm motion graphics. Imagery is textures and text forms rubbed from beach glass fragments onto variegated grids of engineering plotting papers. Magical contact plastics, photocopies and lots of adhesive tape are also involved.”
Read more about one of the films that was shown, “Radioactive Spider”, in an interview from 2002.
Here is a short video montage of the event:
I’ve been lucky enough to have access to fresh produce from a community supported farmshare my friends Mike and Christy are a part of while they’re gone: The 47th Ave Farm. Last week I received turnips, baby red potatoes, fennel, arugula, mixed salad greens, baby onion, garlic, farm eggs, and a strange goat cheese variety. All fresh, all organic, and all cut the day of pick-up. The farm is local and this is definitely something I look forward to investing in in the near future.
Using the baby red potatoes I was able to make a dish I from a recipe I recently found in The Oregonian FoodDay section from July 10. Written by Leslie Cole, the article was called “A Knack for Gnocchi” and the dish took about 3 full hours to prepare but yielded one of the most satisfyingly light lunches I’ve ever assembled. Surprising since it’s really just potatoes and flour, but as usual it’s all about the process.
Reminiscent of pasta, Wikipedia states that gnocchi, pronounced “no-key”, is the “Italian word for dumplings”. If you decide to try the dish, I recommend working with a partner and using “light flour and a light touch”. The fresh tomato sauce is super easy and delicious, especially with some fresh basil, but don’t forget that it has to simmer for 45 minutes. I didn’t have a food processor and so did not get a chance to make the Arugula Pesto but substituted it for an average powdered pesto mix.
Finally, if I had to do some recommendations they would be as follows,
Music: Don Ellis “Live at Montreux“
Beverage: Guayaki “Magical Mint” Yerba Mate
Day of the Week: Sunday
Time of day: 12:30PM
Accompaniments: Light salad with balsamic vinegar
So for those of you who did not know, today is day 3 of my indefinite “Not Hot Smoke (Ciggy Puffs, Fuck Off!!!) 2007 Full Body Tour”. I’ve thrown in the damp stinky towel of cigarettes. And I didn’t do it for Lent, I didn’t do it for Jesus, I didn’t do it for my Mom, I’m doing it for myself. There are some obvious reasons and some not-so-obvious reasons for my scheduled decision and I’d like to tell you some details.
First of all, Brother Caleb kicked me down with some information about the Georgia Tobacco Quit Line (1–800-NO-BUTTS) which is a government-run program that sets you up with quitting plan (mostly a date), a counselor (not annoying at all, in fact, mine was very comforting to talk to and kept it real), and provides healthy mental and physical alternatives (breathing exercises, beverage switches, etc.) which means…that’s right: free patches or gum — and it’s open to people from every state, they’ll set you up with the right person. The GTQL has been around for three years or so and they’ve helped 35,000 or so people with their addictions. ANYWAY…the patches are working pretty well and, when I chose July 1st for my quit date in early June, I decided to space them out since I only got one box of Step One Nicotine Tranasdermal System Patches (14 patches at 21mg each — that’s a lot of nicotine=1 1/2 packs of Parliament Lights).1 They keep a sort of “deep buzz” going all throughout the day and give your tongue a parched sense that makes water taste like gold.
Secondly, my friend (and, loosely termed, “boss” at Marriage) Curtis gave me some Nature’s Plus Tea Tree Toothpicks that not only pack a powerful punch but also help with keeping my hands busy during those tough cravings. Helps with the onion breath, too!2
And finally, as many of you know I have type 2 diabetes which, with it’s proven links to high-risk heart disease and stoke, puts me in a place where with the build up of “fatty materials” in the lining of my blood cells is akin to me already having had a heart attack (more). I don’t need no tar clogging up my flow, so obviously it’s not a good place for a smoker to be in.
I’m really not trying to advocate quitting (even though the toothpicks are nice treat for even the most smokeless person), I am just ready to stop. If you have thought about quitting, definitely give it some serious thought and pick the right time — that’s very key. I wouldn’t recommend quitting on an impulsive decision.
Alright, ’nuff about all that, time for breakfast.
Love,
Jordan
1. Right on the box, it clearly states that “if you have vivid dreams, you may remove the patch at bedtime and apply a new one in the morning”. Well, fucking hell! Bedtime is when I’m most prone to lightening up cig and so I’ve been putting on new ones before I go to bed. Thus, I have been experiencing some incredible dreams! Such as a) narrowly diverting the explosion that an 80-year-old decrepit Jack Nicholson and I set up in a 5-star hotel elevator shaft where apparently Princess Diana was staying, and b) not only playing Futsal with the Uncle Joey, Uncle Jesse, and Danny Tanner from Full House but rocking the goalie position as well with one assist! Seriously, these dreams are like incredibly lucid, multi-sensory, technicolor-type-of-LSD-trippin’-shit. They are actually turning into one of the most interesting “pluses” of quitting.
2. I had initially bought a large amount of cinnamon sticks, before hearing about the toothpicks, for the same “oral fixation” reason. Cinnamon is a natural neutralizer of blood sugars and the sticks are pretty intoxicating after a couple of minutes when some of that saliva gets soaked in and you get real juicy squirts. On a side-sided note, Isucked my thumb when I was a little to middle-aged kid and have be enticed by similar actions ever since. When I was six or seven the thumb-sucking got so bad my front teeth were starting to come in wrong and my mother had to put a disgusting, rancid nail-polish on my thumb to get me to quit.