Moomaw

27 happened to me this past weekend. I had grown so accustomed to 26. As it was the title of my musical project for the year I rarely had that moment so common to people after the age of 5 1/2, when the number of years that one has lived on this earth escapes the mind for a moment too long. For this small reason, if not more, I felt privileged. 26 was also the arbitrary age which, for about the past 14 years, I’ve had an eerie premonition that I would not see past. So for the privilege of 27, I am truly grateful.

26 was quite a year. A year as majestic and loving, as lined with tiny aluminum sparkles yet as sorrowful as any year could hope to be. I sang what I saw, as the bird said. Each new month brought a fresh canvas, ready to be soiled with my rough recordings and childlike artwork. But how to capture and re-project the reflections of a month, within that month, still remains at least a minor mystery to me.

It is not that I have any regrets or that I am proud of my finished product. In fact, not only do I think that I produced some of my best work, but I also know that I learned in so many ways, and that’s even more important to me. It’s a simple point, but an artist should need nothing more than to entertain his/herself. And if I could only listen to the words that spill out of my mouth it would always be smiling.

During 26 I learned that restricting myself to work within the month was less than an organic process. Months are supposed to be schedules of days driven by the tide of the moon, but because our society wishes to form these schedules to our imaginary number system, months fall short of the true cycles of our world. And, even if they did follow the true schedule of the moon (another trivial pattern), it would hardly guarantee this cycle would fall in sync with the rest in my, or anyone else’s, life. Yet, I kept my word to myself. I did what I could to sing what I saw. And in that, there must be merit, even if only for myself.

So I begin 27 with new promises. For one, my new project will not be called 27. I have been there and I have, to the best of my ability, done that. And months may pass between each new chapter, but the chapters will come as they come. Also, I am happy to say that I know too many brilliant and inspirational people to not include them in this, my next project. So what is this organic, new project that I mention? Mostly, you’ll just have to wait and see what the first installment brings. Glance your eyes in my direction near the end of April and you may (or may not) get a glimpse of will be driving me through (at least) the next year.

I want to thank everyone who followed my 26 project and all the people that inspired and helped me. I anticipate a formal release of the project later this year. Here are some pics of my toys and my wee home studio where 26 was created:

Most of my instuments in their little corner
(in a much tidier fashion than usual)

These 2 usually hog a good deal of my attention.

My very modest studio.

My other playspace.

There’s another little guitar that lives across town and I just got a baritone ukulele and a dulcimer for my birthday, but that’s about it.

This entry was posted on Monday, April 9th, 2007 at 11:03 pm and is filed under 26, Babble. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.