a day in the life of piano monkey

before the last bit of this year runs away from me, i thought i would drag its feet to the table and sit it down to have a proper if short farewell. there are few bits that needs to be taken care of during the day and once i set out, i am afraid that i just wont be able to find the space in my head. it's not that im travelling a great deal or going to a loud show today. but end of the year, like the last bits of the bath water, always seems to go down the drain fast and furious. curious isnt it! with that... swoooop! noise. all that warm water and bubbles gone, until it's filled up again. i have been too concerned about the flow of time and the things that i dont want to let go recently- being too self-conscious perhaps. year 2009 was the year of counting. with many cusp points. like a great balanced sine wave, many curves, here and there, weaving in and out through many different fabrics- myself, others, friends, family, strangers and people who i dont really know but came i...

the uncertainty in life certainly opens many doors. or should i call it being indecisive and not committed? last year this time, i was back in toronto, just finishing up rows of church services and having a little bit of time between starbucks barista days to first day in banff (i think it was the fourth of january). and i did not know what kind of place banff was, never been! it being iconic centre of canadian classical music (among other things), i just never been there- as the summer program tuitions can be quite high and i rather preferred to go to where i wont have to folk up so much. so it may seem hat i am money-conscious, financially paranoid. but it really is the opposite in a sense that the reason i was working at starbucks was to make some petty dollars, instead of taking a grown-man job like teaching posts and such. i was lucky enough to have enough resources to swing starbucks 40hrs/wk job and not have to starve. so it was one of those movie scenes, doctor barista who...

i woke from not unpleasant but a rather surprising dream today. this is quite a notable experience as i dont dream much. well, let's rephrase- i dont get to dream much. since i am a rather helpless insomniac, i am either up most of the time or in haze of very thin veils of sleep- that lets the consciousness to seep through, never quite dark or silent enough for a proper REM state. i had two occasion of dreaming this fall and winter so far and the last one was in banff. and that was a nice surprise- meant that i actually slept and rested. aah the sense of renewal and comfort! that was magic. and now one from last night, from post- christmas. i often hear people complaining about obscene or nonsense dreams; usually im slightly envious, as the ability to dream is one i frequently lack and the very concept of having a free- roaming consciousness in the world of no boundaries appeal a great deal. fantasy land. i was in a house, consisted of couple different places that i have lived,...

it's about 1208 gmt on 25-12-2009. with all kinds of rituals, festivities and businesses around the iconic date- whether it is directly related to it, for/against it, or simply related by proximity, christmas is here. 8 minutes ago. the christianity believes this is the symbolic arrival of the messiah. for the jews,they had their chanuka earlier this month. the muslims will be celebrating the day of ashura very soon. a bit later in january, the hindu festival makar sankrant will be here. the korean families back home will be eating the red bean soup to repel the end of the year bad luck and prepare the rice cakes for the new year's soup. the large percent of population of the world will be celebrating end of the year, and the position of christmas, not even a week from the end of the year, makes it very easy date to celebrate- the statue of it as legal holiday in many places also helps quite a bit i think. and anywhere that has been touched with western culture- however...

greetings from the old world, after much delays and rather shocking discoveries about the 'real' world. after two straight days of sleeping, im semi-conscious and extremely lazy. so i figured perhaps this may be the right time to recollect what kind of impact the 'border control' would have on monkey consciousness. it all came down to the fact that i have not bought a return ticket. this would be the very first time that i am travelling with one way ticket as getting an open ticket would cost even more than buying two separate tickets and with charter airlines, it isnt even an option to get an open ticket! so i figured, great, when march rolls around, i will know exactly i need to get back to toronto for work, so i will just get one way ticket. WRONG. after much delays (3 hours! the british stopped the airport because of some pansy snow! how inconvenient for me! haha) and super chatty ultra-christian formerly mechanical engineer businessman who plays the keyboard for...

It has been three hours and a half since monkey has boarded this artificial coke can ride. With the unexpected however familiar delay at the winter airport in north america of two hours, the journey across the atlantic has been... well, not so fast! Funny isn’t it, because i do know that the speed of the plane at this point is something quite ridiculous, as the general humming of the electricity running through the red and black veins of the machine permeates through the gracious melody of Mozart quartet from my headphone, soaking monkey body with relentless resonance. Rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr, it says. It is hard to believe that i am actually on this flight and im trying to be as neutral as possible about the things to come- you know how silly it gets with expectations. Building a life based on expectation is one of the most dangerous things to do i think. The sweeter you dream, easier it becomes to stay in the dream, and all the sudden you realize that you have not been living, but ...

monkey's not packing. well, not right now anyways. i just finished fiddling around my head with the idea of dadaism. the anti-art. the polar opposite of the good old traditions... rejection, question, contradiction, destruction, consumption. 'da, da-' ('yes, yes' in roumanian), whatever goes. with good sprinkle of sarcasm and cynicism, yes. or it couldve been 'dada,' the great children's favorite, the hobbyhorse! it's the damned kandinsky and miro from the other night, i swear. it's like a flu- viral infection of a sort. i be in the visual arts realm for a bit i suppose. as a child of postmodernism, it's a curse and a halo- the need to digest, contextualize. salvation and damnation. crap. i was in nyc in 2005 (or was it 2006?) for the summer, participating in mannes institute for contemporary music. i made a funny choice of staying in a rather dinky and sketchy hostel for the entire duration of the festival, as i was sort of curious to s...

dearest rabbit lady, i wish i could be there. i am here, as much as i can be, and at least that much is real. as my resonance with you is also real sharp pain, ice pick through the heart. no. hearts. when his heart stopped, yours dropped. when yours dropped, mine bucked. a great chain of arrhythmia. if we listened to the track, it would say 'tempo tragico' in stark dark key of a minor. the news- it was due at certain point, as we tasted it so sharply being so far away from the east coast. the small detail being that it would be devastating, regardless of the timing. i was hoping that it would have been extended just a little further longer, though i dont exactly know what the delay would have provided, except- perhaps just a little more time. your loss is not just yours. but mine. ours. i am a friend of yours, it is a personal loss. as my friendship towards you is unlimited, your loss also resonates in real sense, physically and emotionally. space is only one determinant o...

"When [blue] sinks almost to black, it echoes a grief that is hardly human. When it rises towards white ... its appeal to men grows weaker and more distant." -- Kandinsky, Concerning the Spiritual in Art, 1911. the palette around me have changed quite a bit since i came back to toronto for the brief stunt of a mere week. trying to cram everyone in, get ready to head out again, along with great friend visiting, i simply feel that i cannot afford to sleep- desperately i want some time off to let things sink and settle, at the moment, perhaps the best option is to continue, until sunday, when i would board the plane and head to the lowest point of the year (please, no negative connotation here), to solitude among strangers in big, fast metal tin can. perhaps the ambient noise will nullify much agitations (like the water molecules that wants to break free to be vapours). at the moment, occasional silence inbetween changes of people and space will have to do. a small clusters of ...

short day full of movements, momentum, while the sun barely shines with it pale near-winter-solstice light, i am a lone fish weaving through constellation connections of faraway thoughts and people, icy clear stream of lights against black depthless vast sky. like the lightest smallest snowflake outside, i am hanging, moving, as the wind takes me. the grande pause, just after a big cadence, a small stepping stone before a new movement's start, murky water slowly settling down the finest mud, i am learning to wait, savouring every bits of my thoughts, the whirlwind of love, wishes, wants, of things that i suck on with dry mouth, like real dark cacao. smallest squares, staining not only the tongue, but of the heart, bittersweet, to the ends of my capillaries. feeling each grain of such beauty against my mouth, i am permeated by the stillness of the night, await recall retouch inhale exhale in the midst of festive pub, air saturated joie de vivre, i take the first step, a winterreise...

today i took my mom to the doctors appointments, just like she would have done many times before, the only difference being that i am now leading her in,to the world of curved corridors and endless chains of chairs. fortunately, instead of taking her twice to the hospital,they were able to rebook her later appointment for this morning, so im happy to oblige! just typical routine tests: bone density scan and mammogram. like a good immigrant child, i was happy to be there to make things easier. ive been bringing granny to appts while i was still living in town. just a bit easier as mom's steps are a bit lighter than granny's. it may seem as a nuisance- to follow someone around to translate may be a few minutes of the test while the test and related waiting could take hours and hours. but i cant say anything when i still remember the time i broke my left arm for the first time in canada and was sent to children's hospital. terms and words, garbled sounds, like bad radio ...

im literally starting to burn the last bits of banff life now. 45 hours, from some 5114 hours. 3.75hrs, my body will be hurled across the sky in a small tin can operated by westjet, then saturday at 2140@yyz local time, i will be literally at the end of the year, then from there, 184 hours till the next tin can ride over the big puddle. from that point, approx. 260 hours till the end of the epic year. (i did mention i do like to count things, if somewhat ocd-ish, sorry!) i have this candle i bought couple weeks ago, complete splurge. a real lavender infused glass cup candle. and whenever ive been burning it, i was rather careful about not being frivolous (silly! the whole idea of scented candle in fully wired studio with more than enough lighting itself is already frivolous)... at times, i was able to smell the delicate scent wafting through the hallway, coming back from another studio from rehearsals and such, and instantaneously drop my shoulders and breath in deeper. and now, with...

i live in the time where things can be repeated, spliced and put together, as if the time itself can be managed as a controllable unit. there are much values put into editing processes and re-configuration, as much money and time invested in as well. the idea of performance for instance, is quite a different thing from a recording project. there are the usual expectations for retakes, edits, crossfades, basically a la frankenstein process once you step into the studio. twick till it's just right. then do takes until youve covered it all. then we go back and try to sew together pieces of time and events. and miraculously, it works. flawless record of flawed reality, amazing. well, sometimes, one does not get to enjoy this particular luxury of emancipation from the tyranny of time in a studio session. call it whatever- schedule conflicts, busy places, not enough resources, lack of preparation or perhaps even just lack of ability. i think i should be rather honest and acknowled...

hello world. we are in the listening room of the banff centre with the expensive, complicated, fancy, algorithm-weighted pre-amps, monitors, speakers, even a crazy room calibrating machine that looks like something straight out from the dr. who show. apparently it shoots out huge noise (really, think black/white salt-pepper old vacuum tube tv after the stations has gone to sleep, as sound...), then receives it back into the monitor, into mad calculation to recalibrate the room... into.. a proper. space. amazing. noisy. sounds like shooting shrapnels out to the room space and see how they fall. with the expansive soundscape and expensive ludwig mies van der rohe barcelona chair, 1928 (though it's missing its accomplice, the foot rest! that would add another thousand bucks no problem. oh how i love bauhaus furniture- and how ridiculously expensive they get!), we the three stooges- mr. bearcub, senior audio monkey and piano monkey (who has just been moved out of her spot by.. well, ...

it has been countless chains of counting recently. the end of the year crunch. things wrapping up, things starting, things that are about to start and things that are progressing. and this is the last sunday in banff residency 2009 and i am sitting in my favorite cafe, communitea in canmore, drinking my favorite black tea (it's called market spice tea and i have been mail ordering it all the way from toronto during the spring and summer. like a proper addict, i am very glad that i have acquired some...) and yes, this is it. the winter has came and you can feel that from the air- much sharper and clear. it's going to drop down to -25 'c tomorrow morning, as confirmed by the senior audio monkey. brr. cold. cutting. lovely. the time when you can really feel the warmth of another person near by, the warmth that can be felt from the proximity. in the midst of the still air, occasionally broken by the razor-sharp edged wind. and the flakes of frozen water, all in different ...