A series of events, which were all actually mouse clicks, lead me to this news item.
The book I am reading called "Awaken The Genius," starts with kind of a preface, in which the author describes an "amazing coincidence" that occurred in his life, whereby he came across a definition of "genius" from out of Greek mythology.
He had been exploring some kind of online encyclopedia with his mind a million miles away from his writing project which would eventually output the book, when, after a click upon another random topic of interest to him, he found himself staring a the definition of "genius" from out of Greek Mythology.
The Greeks believed that every individual has a "genius" inside of him, as sort of a guide, and that it is the work of this entity and not the individuals' which produced manifestations of greatness in this world, out of the individual.
This seemed to illustrate just what the author was getting at in his teachings about the workings of the "other than conscious mind," which, when allowed to do so, will lead a person to just what they need, without their having consciously sought it.
How this relates to this blog post is as follows:
Yesterday's post had 2 comments upon it, one by Alex in California -San Jose area of California- who mentioned art, and drawing specifically.
The second was from Craig Nelson, who is either a new reader, or a reader who has recently begun commenting.
I have seen the deterioration of my facial recognition skills go from "terrible with faces," to having to meet someone 2 or 3 times before I would recognize them on the street, in the past decade.
This was exacerbated during the years when I was habitually drunk enough so that I would black out and wind up doing things like, only remembering something that happened the night before after finding a stuffed animal in my backpack the next morning, or someone walking up to me and asking me if I was still thinking about going to Atlanta, as per our conversation? the night before?
This reached a crescendo on the morning of January 4th, 2016, which is notable also for being the first day of a sobriety that is at about 2 and a half years in length now.
On that morning, I had only remembered having been hit by a car and knocked to the pavement of Canal Street after I woke up in the morning, and put weight on my left leg, intending to walk, only to have the leg buckle under me a bit, causing me to lose my balance, and then to make my laptop crash into the floor by stepping on its cord in my effort to regain my balance
I had made a New Years resolution to stop drinking that year, but had failed.
There it was, 4 days into the new year, and the message that I got was that I stood to destroy everything of value in my life (as evidenced by the laptop which had smashed pretty hard against the floor, having not just fallen to it but been yanked there) and that I indeed might have even come close to being killed by a car (as evidenced by the bruise around my left knee) because of alcohol.
The crowning touch, which sealed my decision to stop drinking was that most of what was left of the Tequila had spilled out onto the hardwood floor.
If I was to start my day off, yet again, with a stiff drink, it would have to come off of the floor, through a straw. That visual made me decide that I had had enough.
Even sober, though, I have noticed that, when I am meeting someone and talking to them for the first time, I am so focused upon the dialogue and, perhaps, how they might be seeing me that, after they walk off, I truly wonder if I would recognize them if I saw them again.
This has lead to some embarrassment, and some regrets after certain people have deemed that they must not have made much of an impression upon, or meant much, to me if I didn't even "remember them."
So, I looked at the picture of "Craig Nelson" for clues.
I am pretty sure I recognize the trumpet -the color of an old penny, it was. I think I rode past him maybe a month ago, on my way to the Lilly Pad when he was playing (well) alongside another musician.
His Google Plus+ picture shows American flags, which seems to indicate that it was taken around Veteran's Day, somewhere. This would be around November 11th. The trees being barren of leaves by that date places it above a certain latitude -the Mason Dixon line, as an estimate.
The coniferous trees and evergreens indicate a region where it snows, and where the soil is relatively acidic. The cracks in the sidewalk show that the ground sometimes freezes to a depth of more than a couple inches.
The vehicles parked on the street are all winter-ready types -no low sitting Corvettes that are terrible in the snow, but things like front wheel drive Suburus.
The light jackets being worn in early November, combined with the shadows under the cars indicating that it is mid-day, and the fact that Craig is playing at all make it seem like the temperature was at least in the lower sixties.
But, the biggest clue would be the mountain-sized one in the background.
The steepness of the slope and the rockiness of it, combined with the thinness of the road, which would indicate that it was made only as wide as having to blast through mountains with dynamite in its construction would make feasible, combined with the thinness of the vegetation, which would indicate an altitude of at least 2 thousand feet, has made me think that Craig is in probably in the Allegheny Mountains.
It would be reasonable to think that a busker would play right on Main Street in a given town, in the center of all the bustle of a town that, in this case, appears to be small.
I think I see some coal in them thar hills.
The Harley Davidson insignia on the lady's jacket certainly doesn't scream "This is not coal country!"
The Educated Guess
So, I'm going to make the educated guess that (I could always just send him a message asking him, but this is more fun) Craig Nelson, new blog reader, reads this in Williamsburg, West Virginia!
The license plate on the nearest vehicle is too blurred to be much help, but is the right color, at least, to be West Virginia. And the town is close enough to Tennessee that it could be an out-of-stater from there. And there is an 8% Latino population in Williamsburg, hence, perhaps the "El (something) Painting" company name on the back of the pickup.
To tie this in with the story of my having had a similar experience to the author of the genius book:
In my first attempt to try to guess his location, I Googled "El" and then used an apostrophe for a wildcard character before "Painting," to see if I could find that there is only one so named painting firm and see where they are located, noting also that it seems to be a place where Latinos and whites live and work hard (as evidenced by so many pickup trucks) together.
No, luck on that, but, the first thing that popped up was the article on the mural in San Jose.
So, in searching for one blog reader, I was lead to the backyard of another one. And, so, my genius is hard at work, I guess.
That's too bad about the mural, and that wall now has "gentrification" sprayed all over it, in my opinion.
And, yeah, there is a good chance that Craig doesn't actually live where he is shown playing. If he was in NOLA then he might move around.
The book I am reading called "Awaken The Genius," starts with kind of a preface, in which the author describes an "amazing coincidence" that occurred in his life, whereby he came across a definition of "genius" from out of Greek mythology.
He had been exploring some kind of online encyclopedia with his mind a million miles away from his writing project which would eventually output the book, when, after a click upon another random topic of interest to him, he found himself staring a the definition of "genius" from out of Greek Mythology.
The Greeks believed that every individual has a "genius" inside of him, as sort of a guide, and that it is the work of this entity and not the individuals' which produced manifestations of greatness in this world, out of the individual.
This seemed to illustrate just what the author was getting at in his teachings about the workings of the "other than conscious mind," which, when allowed to do so, will lead a person to just what they need, without their having consciously sought it.
How this relates to this blog post is as follows:
The second was from Craig Nelson, who is either a new reader, or a reader who has recently begun commenting.
I have seen the deterioration of my facial recognition skills go from "terrible with faces," to having to meet someone 2 or 3 times before I would recognize them on the street, in the past decade.
This was exacerbated during the years when I was habitually drunk enough so that I would black out and wind up doing things like, only remembering something that happened the night before after finding a stuffed animal in my backpack the next morning, or someone walking up to me and asking me if I was still thinking about going to Atlanta, as per our conversation? the night before?
This reached a crescendo on the morning of January 4th, 2016, which is notable also for being the first day of a sobriety that is at about 2 and a half years in length now.
On that morning, I had only remembered having been hit by a car and knocked to the pavement of Canal Street after I woke up in the morning, and put weight on my left leg, intending to walk, only to have the leg buckle under me a bit, causing me to lose my balance, and then to make my laptop crash into the floor by stepping on its cord in my effort to regain my balance
I had made a New Years resolution to stop drinking that year, but had failed.
There it was, 4 days into the new year, and the message that I got was that I stood to destroy everything of value in my life (as evidenced by the laptop which had smashed pretty hard against the floor, having not just fallen to it but been yanked there) and that I indeed might have even come close to being killed by a car (as evidenced by the bruise around my left knee) because of alcohol.
The crowning touch, which sealed my decision to stop drinking was that most of what was left of the Tequila had spilled out onto the hardwood floor.
If I was to start my day off, yet again, with a stiff drink, it would have to come off of the floor, through a straw. That visual made me decide that I had had enough.
Even sober, though, I have noticed that, when I am meeting someone and talking to them for the first time, I am so focused upon the dialogue and, perhaps, how they might be seeing me that, after they walk off, I truly wonder if I would recognize them if I saw them again.
This has lead to some embarrassment, and some regrets after certain people have deemed that they must not have made much of an impression upon, or meant much, to me if I didn't even "remember them."
So, I looked at the picture of "Craig Nelson" for clues.
I am pretty sure I recognize the trumpet -the color of an old penny, it was. I think I rode past him maybe a month ago, on my way to the Lilly Pad when he was playing (well) alongside another musician.
His Google Plus+ picture shows American flags, which seems to indicate that it was taken around Veteran's Day, somewhere. This would be around November 11th. The trees being barren of leaves by that date places it above a certain latitude -the Mason Dixon line, as an estimate.
The coniferous trees and evergreens indicate a region where it snows, and where the soil is relatively acidic. The cracks in the sidewalk show that the ground sometimes freezes to a depth of more than a couple inches.
The vehicles parked on the street are all winter-ready types -no low sitting Corvettes that are terrible in the snow, but things like front wheel drive Suburus.
The light jackets being worn in early November, combined with the shadows under the cars indicating that it is mid-day, and the fact that Craig is playing at all make it seem like the temperature was at least in the lower sixties.
But, the biggest clue would be the mountain-sized one in the background.
The steepness of the slope and the rockiness of it, combined with the thinness of the road, which would indicate that it was made only as wide as having to blast through mountains with dynamite in its construction would make feasible, combined with the thinness of the vegetation, which would indicate an altitude of at least 2 thousand feet, has made me think that Craig is in probably in the Allegheny Mountains.
It would be reasonable to think that a busker would play right on Main Street in a given town, in the center of all the bustle of a town that, in this case, appears to be small.
I think I see some coal in them thar hills.
The Harley Davidson insignia on the lady's jacket certainly doesn't scream "This is not coal country!"
The Educated Guess
So, I'm going to make the educated guess that (I could always just send him a message asking him, but this is more fun) Craig Nelson, new blog reader, reads this in Williamsburg, West Virginia!
The license plate on the nearest vehicle is too blurred to be much help, but is the right color, at least, to be West Virginia. And the town is close enough to Tennessee that it could be an out-of-stater from there. And there is an 8% Latino population in Williamsburg, hence, perhaps the "El (something) Painting" company name on the back of the pickup.
To tie this in with the story of my having had a similar experience to the author of the genius book:
In my first attempt to try to guess his location, I Googled "El" and then used an apostrophe for a wildcard character before "Painting," to see if I could find that there is only one so named painting firm and see where they are located, noting also that it seems to be a place where Latinos and whites live and work hard (as evidenced by so many pickup trucks) together.
No, luck on that, but, the first thing that popped up was the article on the mural in San Jose.
So, in searching for one blog reader, I was lead to the backyard of another one. And, so, my genius is hard at work, I guess.
That's too bad about the mural, and that wall now has "gentrification" sprayed all over it, in my opinion.
And, yeah, there is a good chance that Craig doesn't actually live where he is shown playing. If he was in NOLA then he might move around.
That's some pretty amazing sleuthing.
ReplyDeleteThat that guy's trumpet was "the color of a penny" tells me he's probably a serious player. The serious guys these days like to strip the lacquer off for some stupid goddamn reason.
I was actually going to use the cornet I had that I gave to Matthew, the guy who practices trumpet in the parking lot behind Dahl's Equipment Rentals, to experiment with stripping the rest of the varnish off, but I was happy to let it go to him, as it's not a super-duper horn. (I want to run into him again because I want to get the name of the cheapo trumpet he got off of the case it's in, because the damn thing has as nice valves as my expensive Getzen, and sounds good too, all for a little over $100.)
Excellent sleuthing! Pretty accurate other than you're only about 2400 miles off. I've actually heard it uttered, by a casual passer-through; "It's as if they took a town from West virginia and plopped it right here in western Montana!"
ReplyDeleteI've been reading you blog for a while, like your writing and find your descriptions of your busking and experience of NOLA life interesting. I'll get there myself one day, it's a bucket list item!
Not coal but once a "bustling" railroad town. Otherwise, Alberton is probably not unlike any small dying west virginia coal town. Montana in general suffers rampant generational alcoholism, always coming in first or second for highest consumption per capita, highest alcohol related traffic fatalities, as well as highest suicide rate.
I don't drink myself, and I salute you for quitting the stuff. Alcohol is a bain of our society.
The girl who owns the truck and painting company would be incensed that you would somehow associate her company logo with Mexicans! I can't remember the name of her company, or her name even, for that matter. She is a frothing Trump-ette when it comes to Immigrants, mexicans, middle eastern, any people of color really. And there are plenty here just like her. I don't remember their names either. Who cares to remember them, not me. ( By the way, my first girlfriend was Mexican. I love latina women, and really like most Mexicans I've met in general.)
I'm only living here in Alberton temporarily, my folks needed help with their property and I needed an isolated place to work on some music and stuff. I'm from Denver and at first I wasn't prepared for the culture shock, but despite being seemingly caught in this depressing vortex of a town, I managed to hook up with a girl almost half my age who inadvertently convinced me that at 58 yrs, I still have some 'circus' left in me! We started doing acro-yoga together and through the physical trust that we built was able to convince her to get on my shoulders on a borrowed unicycle ( avatar pic), the likes of which I hadn't ridden since I was a kid. ( She eventually came to her senses and went back to her husband, ha ha)
So if you ever see me on the streets in NOLA ( never been, bucket list), it could be with a trumpet, on a unicycle, or even a girl riding on my shoulders!
Alex: I know it's chic to have a raw brass horn, and I do like the look of raw brass but I have very acidic sweat and raw brass not only turns my hands black, I etch fingerprints into the horn that are really hard to wipe off.
Acoustically the idea is, an unlaquered horn has better response ( which is actually just feedback from the vibrating metal to the players ears, it has negligible impact on what the audience hears coming out of the bell) without the damping factor of the laquer (or epoxy, in my case) Guys like Winton who can order a 10,000$ raw brass Monette? Yeah, for guys like him maybe theres a difference.
The informed and experienced serious player consensus on stripping horns is; you might like the results, you might not.
You can't tell in the BW image of course, but my horn is actually metallic blue with brass/gold bell and fittings. On top of that it has a logo on the bell "LA"... how ostentatious is that? lol. It's my first real pro quality horn, but it is just a rebadged ( by LA Sax) korean made trumpet. I know there is an amateur stigma attached to a painted horn and Korean horns in general but for the most part I don't care what people 'in the know' about trumpets think. What matters is I can make a good sound on this horn and I don't have to struggle too much with intonation. Korea can make good horns just like the Japanese,( Yamaha), but the good ones aren't cheap in price.
Sorry, a bit rambly. I don't write much so
Cheers Y'all
Craig - Yeah I know, better response yadda yadda ... I know about some people having "poison hands" so yeah, modern lacquers on good horns I think are expoxy based and quite tough.
ReplyDeleteKorea, China, anyone can make a good horn these days, really.
58, you're 2-3 years older than me and no doubt much, much better at trumpet playing, if I were you I'd hit New Orleans with horn in hand, because it's small and easy to carry (or run away with for self preservation) and it's a horn-loving town.
You could do really well there!
As for flyover country ... yeah, I grew up in Hawaii and being a hated minority there isn't fun (white). So I come to the Mainland and well, here on the coast, the only white people I know are homeless or the guy I work for, everyone else I interact with is non-white and except for having no friends (you're supposed to just work work work then die or work work work become sick/injured then homeless then die here) it's fairly pleasant.
But I've lived in flyover country and wowwwww.... the white people there are more foreign to me than the Asians who own and run the place I grew up in. At least I understand the Asian culture; it just comes with the stipulation that I will always be at or near the bottom of society. But at least they're not complete shitheads.
Not so for flyover whites. Scariest motherfuckers this side of ISIS.
I heard that about Hawaii.
ReplyDeleteI can tell from reading some of your blog you are probably already in love with the trumpet, ha! Once you've reached that stage where you can see that long hard road to "trumpet mastery" and feel you may never be very good but decide to keep playing anyway, you're hooked, man!
Craig - I recently got the book "Embouchure Builder", the one with the circles on the cover, that's just lots and lots and lots of lip slurs (it's a good thing I like lip slurs) starting out from the low end ... the book eventually gets the student to a high C, and a confident one at that. I'm trying to put in at least an hour a day and ideally more, like a couple of hours.
ReplyDeleteI dunno about "love" more like, well, all the various things about trumpet seem to line up right for me. And I do like it - it's great when everything's working right.