Writing, music, democracy, electric bicycles, moss gardens.
Music
FAVORITE MUSICAL DECOR:
1. Seth Thomas Metronome
2. Bust of Beethoven
3. Carlos Montoya poster, signed & framed
FAVORITE SONG QUOTATION:
"To every heart, love will come
"But like a refugee" -- Leonard Cohen
FAVORITE SHOWER SONG:
"Oh What a Beautiful Morning"
FAVORITE NON-SHOWER SONGS:
1. Whatever I'm writing
2. "Into the West" (Lord of the Rings)
3. "Democracy" (Cohen)
4. "You Are Not Alone" (Sondheim)
5. "Lili Marleen" -- the most loved soldier's song of all time. In WW-2, it was sung by all soldiers in Europe and Africa -- German, Russian, English, Italian, French, American, Greek, Polish, etc. And they all sang German. There are many accounts of artillery units in North Africa that ceased firing when "Lili Marlene" was played on the radio. They resumed firing when the song ended.
FAVORITE MUSICALS:
1. Into the Woods
2. West Side Story
3. I Love You, You're Perfect, Now Change
4. Oklahoma
5. H.M.S. Pinafore (if I can sing along)
SPECIAL MUSICAL INFLUENCES (in chronological order): Chopin, hymns, Broadway, Beatles, Byrds, Paul Simon, Beethoven, John Dowland, Gordon Lightfoot, Joni Mitchell, Cat Stevens, Sean Phillips, Eagles, Carl Orff, Mikis Theodorakis, Angelo Branduardi, Conlon Nancarrow, Michael Hedges, John Barry, Astor Piazzolla, Beth Nielsen Chapman, Hans Zimmer.
FAVORITE MODERN GUITARIST: Michael Hedges
FAVORITE AD JINGLE: Rice Krispies--the long version in which Snap, Crackle, and Pop have their own solos. See below.
FAVORITE CELTIC PLAYER: Niamh Ni Charra. (See Friends.) Main fiddler for Riverdance for 8 years. Notice how nuanced her playing is. She is also a master of the concertina.
FAVORITE CELTIC SINGER: Fiona Wight, a superb sean-nos voice. (See Friends)
FAVORITE CELTIC BAND: Altan
FAVORITE LATIN BAND: Strunz and Farrah
FAVORITE TANGO BAND: Skanstull Tango Trio (See Friends)
FAVORITE TV THEME: Mr. Ed
FAVORITE OPERA: Sweeney Todd
FAVORITE BEETHOVEN SYMPHONY: 6th
FAVORITE BRAHMS SYMPHONY: 3rd
FAVORITE PIANO CONCERTO: Rachmaninov 2nd
FAVORITE FUGUE: 2nd part of the Overture to The Messiah (Handel)
FAVORITE TANGO: La Violetera
FAVORITE BEATLES: The End (Abbey Road)
FAVORITE DYLAN: Tangled Up In Blue
FAVORITE COHEN: Democracy
FAVORITE MUSICAL VIGNETTE: The Hare Who Lost His Spectacles (Jethro Tull, Passion Play)
FAVORITE MALE SINGER-SONGWRITERS: Leonard Cohen, Paul Simon, Bob Dylan, Hank Williams
SOME OTHER FAVORITES: The Secret of Roan Inish, Das Lieben vom Anderen, Pulp Fiction, Amelie, Il Postino, As Good as it Gets, Sex Lies & Video Tape, Being There, Groundhog Day, Out of Africa, Dances with Wolves, The Mighty Aphrodite, Moonstruck, Scent of a Woman, Meet Joe Black, Forrest Gump, Sideways, The Last of the Mohicans, A Bridge Too Far, Casablanca, The Lady Eve, early Marx Brothers.
FAVORITE ACTRESSES: Amanda Plummer, Mira Sorvino, Meryl Streep, Greer Garson
FAVORITE ACTORS: Nicholas Cage, Peter O'Toole, Anthony Hopkins, James Stewart, Gregory Peck.
FAVORITE PRODUCERS/DIRECTORS: Preston Sturgis, Frank Capra, Woody Allen
FAVORITE FILM COMPOSERS: Hans Zimmer, John Barry
FAVORITE WOODY ALLEN: Bullets Over Broadway
FAVORITE FILM QUOTATIONS:
"So excuse me if I don't want to spend the rest of my life explaining stuff to people" (Good Will Hunting).
"Don't piss down my back and tell me it's raining" (The Ballad of Josey Wales)
Television
None.
Books
FAVORITE BOOKS:
Mine!
LAST BOOK I READ:
The Piano Shop on the Left Bank, by Thad Carhart
FAVORITE LIVING AUTHORS: John Irving, Barbara Kingsolver, Karen Armstrong, Noam Chomsky, Charles Simic, Richard Bach, Paul Theroux, Bill Bryson.
FAVORITE DECEASED AUTHORS: Thoreau, Twain, Tennyson, Neruda, Hesse, Walker Percy, Douglas Adams, Kurt Vonnegut, David Foster Wallace, ... Alas, too many Yoricks.
Heroes
My parents, Solon, Aristotle, Boadiccea, Arthur, Espinoza, Thomas Jefferson, and far too many others to list here.
I see heroism everywhere -- in children learning to walk and ride bicycles, in people trying to get and keep mind-numbing jobs, in their being nice to each other when they don't feel like it, in their pursuit of meaning and acceptance of meaninglessness.
In time of war, we should remember the warrior. Having served, I sympathize with all of those whose patriotism is based on propaganda. It's very common, especially in this backward country.
About me: My 1st job was table-to-table requests with 300+ songs, guitar & voice. I played pubs throughout the US & Europe, played classical guitar for 20 years, and taught Renaissance lute at the Academy of Early Music, Verona. Now I've come back home to the steel-string guitar, finger style, in various tunings.
These days, I write more than I play, altho I am building a band. Last year, I finished my 5th novel. I also write poetry, songs, pieces for solo guitar, and bumper stickers like LIBERAL MEANS FREE and MARKETING VICTIMS UNITE. I taught writing & humanities many years in Okla. colleges & universities, military leadership for the Okla. Army National Guard, and English for 4 years in Saudi Arabia.
NEXT PERFORMANCE:
11-12 AM, every day in my kitchen where the sound is good.
Full Circle Books, OKC, last Sunday of every month, 2 PM.
RELIGION:
I believe the shopping mall is the highest level of Hell. On the next floor down, you're married to either Paris Hilton or Ted Turner. Below that level, every day is Super Bowl Sunday. And below that one, you have to watch scripted presidential debates forever. On the lowest level of Hell -- There are only five -- you are a candidate in a scripted presidential debate forever and ever.
I believe in Love. It begins with family and friends. Then romance draws us toward our new home. As we grow, we add loves to increase our pleasure and that of our community. The larger our home/community, the more we care about justice. Love is the foundation of justice. Imagine market based courts or legislature! What kind of country would that be? [Wink wink.]
Religions tend toward fatalism and escapism and to that degree, they are anti-democratic.
PHILOSOPHY:
Homo Sapiens are large primates. Our behavior can be explained from this premise -- including "good" (social) and "evil" (anti-social) behaviors.
Love motivates us to cooperate and sacrifice for the benefit of our community, thereby securing peace and prosperity.
POLITICS:
I believe in the separation of corporation and state.
President Eisenhower
was not "soft on defense" when he said "We must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence ... by the military-industrial complex" (Farewell Address. 17 Jan. 1961). This was his great conclusion. He was a West Point graduate, and Supreme Allied Commander in Europe in WW-2, and a two-term Republican president.
Education administrators should be on the same pay scale as teachers. Let them manage who are dedicated to education, not to over-sized houses, cars, and egos.
The arts should be emphasized in schools. Their benefits have been well documented to increase critical thinking and integrate left and right hemispheres of the brain.
Team sports should be greatly deemphasized in schools. They teach competition as a virtue. We are naturally competitive animals. Children have to be taught to share their toys. Adults need reminders. Team sports are anti-civilizing. This flaw in our schools is responsible for making Americans in general perversely competitive.
We have very few problems getting along. We have many problems being sheep.
ADVICE FOR ARTISTS (in all artforms):
1. You are your own best teacher.
2. Eccentricity is no substitute for competence.
3. Cultivate humor. "Don't take it all so seriously"
(Paul Engle, founder of the Iowa Writers Workshop).
4. Avoid perfectionism. Seek inspiration. Technique will follow. Technicians make boring artists and teachers. Avoid them in your head and your bed.
5. Drones are left brained, airheads are right brained. Artists are more integrated left and right brain.
6. 'Artists' are not the only creative people. Creativity occurs in all fields more or less. Raising children may be the ultimate art form.
7. Art is about ideas. If you learn a trade or get a science education for employment, great. But also, get a liberal-arts education, whether in university or not.
8. The highest art form is each other. Devote yourself to Love, and your life and art will mean something.
Who I'd like to meet: Stephen Sondheim, Leonard Cohen, Hans Zimmer, Paul Simon.
RELIGION:
My religious* views involve no invisible parent figures, playmates, or bogey men.
* In this section, "religious" includes "spiritual". One is more collective and the other more individual, but the thinking is the same.
"God" is the highest conceivable good. For this reason, it is not to be used lightly.
Religious thinking is artistic thinking. Art includes religion, not the other way around.
Religious/spiritual terminology is so ambiguous I try to avoid it. "The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place" (GB Shaw).
Religious institutions tend toward cult. I am a member of the Unitarian-Universalist Church despite its theistic terminology.
Moses' greatest contribution to human thought was the undefinability of God. "I am that which I am" (Genesis). Here Moses shows the influence of Akenaton.
If God is Love as the New Testament suggests, then clearly, Love is God. Which fits my sense of the highest conceivable good. My Christian friends say I've "thrown the baby out with the bathwater". Jesus is not the baby; Love is. Jesus said, "Judge a tree by its fruit".
The problem is literalism.
When I pray, I pray to Love. I sense It at times, but It may very well not exist beyond the mind. Still, It works in me as I allow it. My highest good is to allow Love to work in me as much as possible.
The best evidence suggests that "divinity" is a product of human thinking, not the other way around. Still I wonder. Is my sense of Love an illusion? If so, is it a beneficial one. Is Love a force we generate? If so, then it is the ultimate art medium. Is Love a psychic echo of all living things? Is the Universe Itself sentient and evolving after so many billions of years? I accept that these questions are so far unanswerable.
I know only this: I am happiest and most productive when Love occurs as both subject and objective reality.
“There is no art in turning a goddess into a witch, a virgin into a whore, but the opposite operation, to give dignity to what has been scorned, to make the degraded desireable, that calls for art or for character.”- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Oh Jezebel, oh, Jezebel, They hurled you from a wall, And all the priests and prudes of Israel Gave thanks to see you fall. But I could laugh with Jezebel, And kiss her on the lips, And strip the scarf from off her breasts, The girdle from her hips. For I forswear Elijah, Forget that Adam fell, To press the waist of Lilith And laugh with Jezebel. - Robert E. Howard. "I will always be the virgin-prositute, the perverse angel, the two-faced sinister and saintly woman. - Anais Nin
He was absolutely amazing to see perform last night. Much better then expected. I'm so privilaged, very lucky to have went!! A great week to you♥ ~ ~ ~ Theresa xo
Thanks for the friendship & Support, Much Appreicated, When you get a chance, stop by and comment on what you think of my new releases. There's two dedications---THE RAIN: dedicated to flood victims. ROCKBOTTOM: dedicated to the victims of the failing economy.
Peace, Love & Hope'n for a better economy, Michael
♥
