On the Importance of Making

This is a piece of paper....

I made it last year with the kindergarten class.  The classroom had procured a basic papermaking mould and deckle and the students learned how old paper is recycled into new paper...by actually doing it.  It was messy (There is a lot of water involved.  And a blender.  You do the math.) and the kids were less than thrilled about the tedious task of meticulously tearing up our old, discarded paper into tiny shreds.  They let me know, vocally and dramatically, how much they did not enjoy this part of the making.

It took a very long time to make a piece of paper.  Between the tearing, the blending, the sifting, the lifting, and the drying, a piece of paper took about 24 hours to make.  Every 15 minutes or so as the school day went on, each child would come ask me in rotation whether or not the paper was dry.  The agony of waiting was even more torturous than the agony of making. 

But 24 hours later, when the papers were dry, something amazing happened.  Each child took their paper and painted on it.  They did this of their own accord; the paper was theirs to use as they wished.  They painted for days on a single piece of paper.  If you've never worked with young children before, this might not seem so amazing, but for a young child to voluntarily toil away at a single project for more than a 20 minutes, much less more than a day, implies a level of maturity and focus which is very rarely found in a 5-year old.

After that papermaking day, I noticed that they took more care with all of their drawings, that they took more care with their paper, that they took more care with their work and their crafts in general.  A piece of paper was no longer a disposable resource; every piece of paper represented hours of work and patience, and it deserved to be treated with due respect.

I could have saved myself a lot of mess and trouble.  I could have made a piece of paper and described the process, shown them videos, and let them touch my homemade paper.  I doubt the effect would be even fractionally as profound;  something transformative happens to a maker when they make a thing.  When you make your own food, your own clothes, your own art, your own furniture--you cherish it.  You grow better because of the making.  It is a part of you and you are a part of it.  In a world where we outsource so much--there is nothing you can't find that isn't already made--why bother?  Why spend 24 hours to make a single piece of paper when I can buy a ream at the local office supply store for five bucks?

Because.  Because that piece of paper is a miracle.  Just as you and I, with our opposable thumbs and our imaginations and our ability to make and grow and become greater than what we were yesterday, are miracles.  And when we make, we take part in something greater than ourselves.

So go make something.  Make a drawing.  Make a hamburger.  Make music.  Make a friend.  Make a garden.  Make a cocktail. Make a fool of yourself on the dance floor.  Make a poem.  Make someone laugh.  Make money.  Make a sweater.  Make a smoothie.  It really doesn't matter what you make, just make.  Because, when you make something, you partake in the magic.  You are part of a sacred, elite, and inclusive group of people who perform miracles.  You become one of the Makers, one of the Creators, and that is the closest a human being can come to the divine.

I, uh, Started a Web Comic...

As if I don't have enough hobbies....

I started a little web comic based on an old universe I dreamed up for some children's musicals.

It's about the faerie folk who live in Amsteryork:  underfoot, out of sight, but very much an active part of the world they inhabit.  Some of you may encounter familiar friends, and some of you may experience Amsteryork for the first time.

I don't know how often I'll post new comics or how long I'll keep this up, but in the mean time I am having just a grand time drawing faeries and dreaming up their adventures.  Meet Stateen, Quinn, Brooke, Broncko, and Hattie.  They are the Faeries of Amsteryork.

http://faeriesofamsteryork.blogspot.com/

My Play's a Thing

Last spring, a friend of ours let slip the secret that Adam and I were at one time writers of children's musicals (also, that we might again be writers of children's musicals were the inspiration to be re-ignited).

He told someone who works for a company that was seeking to expand its children's repertoire.

She called us.

And the rest is history (or future).

Thanks to Evan, Katy, and all the amazing folks at Ritual Theatre Company for being our catalyst to return to the blank page.  

Accidental Songs

No, not songs with accidentals in them (well, maybe...).  Sorry.  Music joke.

What I mean is, sometimes you set out to write a song and really work and work at it and take a year to finish it.

And then sometimes the songs, they seem to write themselves.

This one came to me at about 3 AM a week ago, and I have had to put pedal to the metal to get it recorded and make a video in time for the end of summer vacation.  Talk about down to the wire; the teachers go back for prep tomorrow, which means I have less than 12 hours left, several of which I darn well plan to spend eating tacos on the beach (seriously, this was a requisite for my deadline).

Again, thanks to Adam for his participation--especially the idea to use a cheese grater as a percussion instrument.

Enjoy, and Happy Back to School!

A "Song" About the Five Senses

So, this started out as a funny idea and turned into a really elaborate music video project.

Anyhow, it was meant to simply be a(n honorific!) Daft Punk parody about the five senses, but realizing that I didn't know how to make any kind of synthesized music, I took a page out of my middle school music teacher's book.  Mr. Moody, as those of you who were lucky enough to attend Cutler Middle School in the early 90's know, was the class music and choir teacher there, and I just thought he was the coolest guy ever.  At any rate, he told us the story of how he had to use a synthesizer in college for a music composition class, and at a loss to make the confounded thing work, he instead recorded acoustic sounds (a rubber band stretching, dragging a quarter across the steel string of a bass guitar, etc.) to create kind of synth-y sounds.  He played us the composition, and it was amazing the kind of electric sound that was achieved using entirely acoustic recordings.

So the memory of that story gave me the idea to do a similar creation.  With the exception of the digital metronome (which I left in because it sounded like an old Atari game) everything you hear is either vocals which have been affected with pitch changes and vocoder, or me banging against a coffee cup with an eggbeater (also affected with pitch changes and  vocoder).  At any rate, I don't know if what I made is exactly music, or even pleasant to listen to, but it sure is interesting and it sure was time-consuming to make (as was the video, which is essentially a slide show of heavily edited photos, with the exception of the short video toward the end where I pay homage to 'daft hands').

I hope you enjoy watching it.  I sure had fun making it.

--P.S. --  Props to my longtime colleague, Stephane, for the idea to use an apple.

Sometimes I make music...

I'm a dabbler.  I dabble in music, I dabble in writing, I dabble in writing music.  I dabble in playing ukulele and eggshaker, and using the back of a guitar as a makeshift bongo drum.  I dabble in Audacity and I dabble in Windows Movie Maker.

This is an amateur recording, the first of (what will hopefully become) an album of songs written for teachers, parents, and students.

I give you    The Vowel Song  (youtube link)

(commence potty humor puns....now.)*

*disclaimer:  this song is not intended to instruct youngsters on the depth and breadth of vowels and their applications;  vowel mastery takes years of meditation, study, and practice.  This song is merely meant to be a celebration of vowels and their awesomeness.  I hope this music helps you to discover a greater appreciation and adoration for these under-appreciated letters.

To Think That Jamming Was a Thing of the Past...

I don't eat bread.  Or crackers, or muffins or any of the usual things a person puts jam on.

So most of the jam I make, I give away.  As a teacher, I have more free time in summer than in winter, and I give these away come Christmas, much to the delight of my jam-loving friends.

The best jam is made from local fruit, at the peak of its season.  You capture its flavor and seal it up in little jars and then, come winter, you have a little taste of summer in the the darkest of cold days.  It's a miracle of  food preservation that is sort of made obsolete by modern farming and transit, allowing us to purchase and eat genetically enhanced 'fresh' fruit year round.  But I'm old fashioned and I like old fashioned things.

The sad irony of jamming season is that it heats your kitchen up something awful, what with the boiling of the lids, and the baking of the jars, and the boiling of the jam.  It's hot, sticky business.  And there's nothing like being hot and sticky in the summer.

Sometimes I think I should get a new hobby.

Then I see these beauties at the market:

And then I'm all like, aww, it's not so very hot, right?  Anyway, I missed the rhubarb harvest, but I have found that it is too tart for jam, anyhow.  I prefer not to add loads of sugar, and instead add loads of pectin to ensure a nice texture; these babies were delicious in their raw form (10% of the fruit I jam goes in my mouth) and I'm pretty pleased with the result.

And for those of you who snickered at the Marley reference in the blog title:

Jam's about my pride and truth I cannot hide
Too keep you satisfied.
True love that now exist is the love I can't resist
So jam by my side. 

Keep on jamming, beautiful people.  It aint'nt dead yet.